Tracking Game by Margaret Mizushima

Tracking Game by Margaret Mizushima-280 pages

This is the fifth installment in the Timber Cree K-9 Mystery series.  I enjoy following Mattie and her K-9 police dog Robo in their mysteries because they seem to move as one.  Mattie has had a tough life and through the series you watch her learning to deal with her past and allowing herself to love and be loved.  The murders usually always take place in the mountains, so there is always rugged terrain to deal with.  And then there is the harsh weather.  And in this particular installment there is also an uncommon predator running loose in the mountains.  Its a hard one to put down with all the different characters and plots.  I recommend the entire series.

The Reckoning by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

The Reckoning: a Thriller by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir; translated from the icelandic by Victoria Cribb --- 375 paes including Pronunciation Guide; Book 2 in The Children's House Series.

Yrsa Sigurdardottir, winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for best Scandinavian Crime Novel, delivers another mesmerizing crime thriller in her new Children's House Series, which pairs the socially inept Huldar, a detective in the Reykjavík CID with Freyja, a psychologist who treats traumatized children at The Children's House, investigating crimes involving children. 

This partnership is fraught with tensions because  Huldar and Freyja have an awkward personal history that makes it difficult for them to work together at critical moments in the investigation. The story picks up shortly after the conclusion of the first book in the series, The Legacy. Reading the books in order isn't necessary to understand the plot, but is necessary to fully grasp the relationship between Huldar and Freyja.

Ten years ago a local school had a time capsule project, and the students all wrote letters predicting the future and put them into the capsule.  Now the school has dug up the capsule, and one of the  letters predicts six people will die. The problem is, the letter is unsigned, and the six people are listed only by initials. 

It's probably just some kind of adolescent prank, but Huldar is assigned to evaluate the potential threat. Huldar suspects he's been given the job just to keep him busy so he can't screw up another major case like he did the last one. But it's an excuse to call Freyja, and try again to ingratiate himself with her. 

However the case takes a sudden dark turn when a series of horrifying events culminate in the savage murder of a retired prosecutor whose initials match one set of initials in the time capsule note. And this is just the start of a series of attacks that seem to be triggered by the release from prison of a paedophile who raped and murdered a young girl from that same school twelve years ago.

Huldar and Freyja realize they only have a short time to discover what links all of these events together in order to find the killers and stop them.

This is an expertly plotted and paced psychological thriller, and a furious indictment of any society that tolerates those who use their privilege and power to abuse the innocent. 

Click HERE to read the * review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Crime by the Book blog.

The Fire Pit by Chris Ould

The Fire Pit by Chris Ould --- 461 pages

Faroese detective Hjalti Hentze is initially called out  to deal with an apparent suicide at Muli on the island of Eysturoy, but his case morphs into something far more serious when the skeleton of a woman is discovered half dug up from under a stone walled sheepfold nearby. Hentze finds old records indicating that a Norwegian woman and her young daughter had been  reported missing 40 years ago from a notorious commune at Muli, run by a Danish man, Rasmus Matzen, on land owned by the dead man, Boas Justesen.

Nobody mourns Justesen's death, but some still remember his fascination with the Danish hippies who briefly occupied Muli in the 1970s, so Hentze decides to do some digging into the past, even though the local force is short on manpower and money after recent events (related in a previous book, The Killing Bay).

Meanwhile British homicide investigator Jan Reyna is still looking for answers for his mother’s suicide in 1976. Lydia Reyna had taken Jan and run away from her husband and her life on the Faroes, to Denmark. And there she had committed suicide, leaving four-year-old Jan alone in the flat. Although he has no recollection of what happened, and even though he was rescued and adopted by his mother's sister and her husband in England, it's clear that this early trauma has cast a profound shadow over Jan's life.

These two major subplots of the novel intertwine until the reader realizes that Reyna's personal quest and Hentze's investigation into the past are coalescing into a a single arc of horrific crimes spanning forty years. 

Chris Ould combines the psychological suspense of British thrillers with the spare narrative and atmospheric style of Nordic Noir. Reyna and Hentze are very different  in their approach to investigation, but those very differences make them better and stronger as partners in the search for truth and justice for the victims.

Ould has thoroughly researched the geography and history of the Faroes Islands All the locations, both Danish and Faroese, are vivid and tangible, grounding the novels with an authentic sense of place.  This would make a great series for Masterpiece Mystery.

The three books of the Faroes trilogy --- The Blood Strand, The Killing Bay, and The Fire Pit --- are best read in sequence as the story lines all overlap.  Ould says he is moving on to other projects now but hints that he may return to the Faroes at some future date.  May that time come soon!

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Crimefictionlover.com

Click HERE to read a review from The Crime Review.com

The Killing Bay by Chris Ould

The Killing Bay: A Faroes Novel by Chris Ould --- 461 pages

The Killing Bay is the second book in a trilogy set in the Faroe Islands and picks up just a few weeks after the conclusion of  The Blood Strand, with British detective Jan Reyna recuperating from his injuries., and attending the funeral of his long-estranged father. His mother, who ran away from her husband taking young Jan with her, committed suicide when Jan was a child. He is visiting the islands for the first time --- an outsider attempting to reconnect with his family because he wants to know what really happened between his parents.

There are two main plot lines in this book.  One is Reyna’s search for information about the death of his mother.  He was always told it was a suicide, but has begun to question this.  Even though most people are unwilling to talk, he’s managed to pry loose a few bits and pieces of information that don't quite add up.

While Reyna is looking to the past, another story is unfolding in the present.  Activists have come to the Faroes to protest the traditional whale grind (hunt). Danish security forces descend on the islands. Shortly after a clash between the activists and the locals, one of the activists turns up dead.  Local detective Hjalti Hentze is called to the scene.  At first glance, it looks like the crime is linked to the whale protests. But Hentze is not convinced. The scene looks staged to him.

When a member of his own family becomes a suspect, Hentze is taken off the case.  At every turn it seems the murder investigation is being hindered by the security forces. Then some crucial evidence goes missing. Hentze is convinced that someone is trying to subvert the murder investigation – but why? He asks Reyna to help him find out what's really going on.

Another highly atmospheric police procedural and crime thriller.  Looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy in The Fire Pit.

Click HERE to read the *review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from The Crime Review.com

Click HERE to read an interview with Chris Ould from Crime Fiction Lover.com

The Blood Strand by Chris Ould

The Blood Strand: A Faroes Novel by Chris Ould --- 435 pages

The first in a trio of crime novels by British author Chris Ould set in the Faroes Islands, an archipelago located about 200 miles north/northwest of Scotland, between Norway and Iceland. The Faroes today are part of Denmark. The population of about 80,000 people speak Faroese, a language descended from Old Norse. The islands are spectacularly scenic, and provide a brooding atmosphere for Ould's tale.

His mother took Jan Reyna away from his home in the Faroe Islands as a very young child, and then committed suicide, leaving Jan to be raised by her sister and her sister's husband in England.  Not surprisingly then Reyna thinks of himself as British, not Faroese. He doesn't speak the language, even though his aunt and uncle speak it.  Now a grown man and a homicide detective, Reyna knows almost nothing about his father, but has many unanswered questions about his mother. When he finally decides to return to the islands Reyna discovers that his estranged father has just suffered a major stroke under suspicious circumstances. He meets the Faroese police inspector investigating the case, Hjalti Hentze, and gradually becomes involved, only to finds himself learning more about his long-lost family’s secrets than he may want to know.

For fans of Nordic Noir and police procedurals, this is the start of a great series.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read the review from blogcritics.org

Children of the Revolution: An Inspector Banks Novel by Peter Robinson --- 336 pages

A former teacher at a local college is found dead on an abandoned railway right of way near his cottage one cold winter morning. Since being fired from his job for sexual misconduct four years ago, Gavin Miller has been eking out a hermit-like existence in this isolated spot. Everyone agrees he was down on his luck and at the end of his resources, but this doesn't look like suicide --- especially since Miller was found with £5,000 in his pocket.

When Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his team begin their investigation they soon find several suspects, ranging from former students at the college to Lady Veronica Chalmers, a wealthy and influential woman who received a phone call from Miller just a week before he died. Lady Veronica claims Miller called her to solicit a donation to Essex University, the university they both attended in the early 1970s. She also says she didn't know Miller during their student days and never met him in more recent times, even though they both lived in the same area. But when Banks is warned by his superiors to keep away from Lady Chalmers, he realizes her story just doesn't add up. True to form, Banks stubbornly pursues the inconsistencies in Lady Chalmers' statement and discovers there are many secrets lurking in her past, and Gavin Miller was in a position to know them all.

It's an interesting story although it might have benefited from some judicious editing. It's a long-playing series and Robinson spends a lot of time dwelling on the relationships between Banks and his team. And after the generally melancholy tone of the book overall, the "happy ending" tacked on the end, as one critic has pointed out, seems out of sync with the rest of the book and a bit sappy. Of course if you've read enough of the series or watched the television adaptations, you know that "happy ending" isn't likely to last long.

Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and now divides his time between the UK and Canada. There are twenty-two books in the bestselling DCI Banks crime series and a number of the stories have been filmed by ITV television in Great Britain and shown on PBS "Mystery!" in the U.S.

Click HERE to check out the author's web site.

Click HERE to read a review of Children of the Revolution.

Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason

Black Skies: An Inspector Erlendur Novel by Arnaldur Indridason; translated from the Iclandic by Victoria Cribb --- 330 pages

To oblige an old school friend, Detective Sigurdur Oli agrees to make an "unofficial" visit to dissuade a blackmailer who is trying to extort money with sexually explicit photographs. But when Oli arrives on the blackmailer's doorstep he finds her critically injured and surprises her assailant, who runs from the scene.

Oli's investigation is further complicated by his own feelings of bitterness and resentment, as his personal life is falling apart and his career seems to have hit a dead end, while so many of his contemporaries are rocketing to success in the wild financial boom Iceland is experiencing. When the victim dies in hospital, Sigurdur Oli is faced with investigating the murder without revealing his own reasons for being present at the murder scene.

This is the ninth entry in the Inspector Erlendur series; interestingly, it is written in parallel to the eighth novel, Outrage, in which Erlendur is also absent under increasingly mysterious circumstances. In these two novels, Erledur's two subordinates, Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli, are working on their own, without Erlendur's guidance. Elinborg must learn to trust her instincts and assert herself; Sigurdur Oli must learn question his assumptions and take responsibility for his mistakes.

Moving between the brazen greed of Reykjavik's nouveau riche and the self-destructive dispair of lives lost to poverty, drugs and squalor, Black Skies is another gripping story from Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger winner, Arnaldur Indridason.

Deadly Harvest by Michael Stanley

Deadly Harvest: A Detective Kubu Mystery, Introducing  Detective Samantha Khama by Michael Stanley --- 477 pages

The fourth in an intriguing series of police thrillers set in contemporary Botswana. Assistant Superintendent David "Kubu" Bengu of the Botswana CID is investigating the murder of a young and charismatic politician. Detective Samantha Khama, newly assigned as the first female CID officer, is looking into two "cold" cases involving the disappearance of young girls walking home from school. The two investigations intersect when evidence suggests the father of one of the missing girls may be the killer who attacked the politician. But why? Samantha is convinced the girls were abducted and murdered for muti --- powerful talismans prepared and sold by
witch doctors feared for their dark magic, trading on ancient superstitions still lingering at the roots of modern Botswanan society. As Kubu and Samantha follow the leads in their cases, they realize that a dangerous and malevolent witch doctor is operating in Botswana, and his fell influence has penetrated the upper echelons of the national police.

This is a grittier picture of Botswana than that found in Alexander McCall Smith's Number One Ladies Detective Agency books, but at least some fans of that cozy series may also enjoy these murder mysteries, particularly the good-natured Kubu with his fondness for opera, good food, and family.

"Michael Stanley" is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip

Mad River by John Sandford

Mad River: A Virgil Flowers Novel by John Sandford --- 387 pages

Virgil Flowers first appeared as a supporting character in Sandford's Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport, but soon proved interesting and popular enough in his own right to get his own spin off series of murder mysteries in addition to continuing appearances in the original series.

In this novel, Flowers is sent to assist the sheriff's department in rural Bare County when three bored teenagers with dead end lives and a lot of anger get their hands on some guns and go on a killing spree. The hard part is knowing that sooner or later this is going to end badly, Virgil thinks, and the longer it goes on, the more people will die along the way. He knows the sheriff and his deputies have no intention of taking these kids alive. But Virgil objects to that kind of vigilante justice, so he's made up his mind to bring in the kids himself, make sure they get a trial before they get locked up for the rest of their lives. He manages to get one of them into custody, and that boy tells a very troubling tale that makes  Virgil begin to wonder if maybe somebody just saw some advantage for himself in setting these kids up with guns and pointing them in a particular direction. Maybe at least one of these murders wasn't just random, aimless violence. But the only way he can get proof of what he suspects is if he can get at least one if not both of the other two kids into custody and talking to him. Which appears to be less and less likely to happen.

Outrage by Arnaldur Indridason

Outrage: An Inspector Erlendur Novel by Arnaldur Indridason; translated from the Icelandic by Anna Yates --- 281 pages

This is the eighth and latest mystery in the series about an Icelandic homicide detective. However in this book Inspector Erlendur is offstage. He's taken a leave of absence to travel to the East Fjords, leaving his assistant, Elinborg, in charge. Elinborg suspects he is dealing with some old personal business; she hasn't inquired too closely because she knows Erlendur to be close-mouthed in the old Icelandic fashion about such things, and she respects that.

In his absence, Elinborg is handed a difficult and disturbing case, involving the murder of a man whom she quickly comes to suspect was a serial rapist who stalked single women, drugged them so they could neither resist nor remember their attacker, and then brutally raped them. With patience and persistence, Elinborg manages to develop evidence that confirms the murdered man's nasty proclivities; but tragically, it appears that he was killed by one of his victims. All that remains is to gain a confession from the suspect, and Elinborg will get all the credit for solving the case.

But in the course of her investigation, Elinborg visited the rapist's childhood home in an isolated rural village, and discovered an old unsolved case of a young girl who went missing from that village. She's convinced there's a connection. The villagers are sullen and uncooperative; they try to discourage Elinborg but that just makes her even more persistent. In the end she uncovers the truth and learns there are some wrongs that can never be righted. Indridason, like Stieg Larsson, Karin Fossum and others, writes in the popular thriller genre called Nordic Noir.    

Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason

Silence of the Grave: A Thriller by Arnuldur Indridason; translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder --- 279 pages

This is the second book in Icelandic author Indridason"s series of gritty crime thrillers featuring Detective Inspector Erlandur Sveinsson. Erlandur and his team are called out to the scene of a grisly discovery: the bones of a corpse found by children playing on a construction site where a new housing estate is being built on the outskirts of Reykjavik.

Already in this second book it seems well established that Erlandur and his team deal in cold cases --- old murders long unsolved. In this instance, Erlandur must first determine whether this is a murder at all, and if so, how to identify the victim. Only by slowly gathering and assembling bits and pieces from old records and fading memories does Erlandur uncover the dreadful family history hidden in this silent grave. What he learns also forces him to confront the reason for his own failed relationships, especially with his defiant and self-destructive daughter.  With its jaundiced view of human nature and brooding Icelandic setting, this is another example of the "crime nordique."

Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason

Jar City: A Reykjavik Thriller by Arnaldur Indridason; translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder --- 275 pages

The first of Indridason's police thrillers to be translated and published in English, this novel was made into a film in Iceland in 2006 under its original title, Myrin.  The author worked for many years as a journalist before becoming a crime fiction writer.
His detective, Erlendur, and his team, are responsible for investigating the murder of an elderly man in his basement apartment. The old man turns out to be an unsavory character with a murky past and a number of sordid habits, but there seems to be no reason why someone should now be targeting him for murder. Then Erlendur happens to find an old photograph hidden under a desk drawer: it shows a grave marker for a four year old child. The photograph leads Erlendur on a journey into the past: the inexplicable deaths of children, old crimes ignored and unreported, a man missing for 25 years, a violent and sadistic bully locked in solitary confinement, and new state of the art technology brought to bear on incurable diseases all figure into a story of unintended consequences come home to roost.

Working in the tradition of the crime nordique, this author will appeal to fans of Per Wahloo, Maj Sjowall and Henning Mankell.

Kingdom of Strangers by Zoe Ferraris

Kingdom of Strangers: A Novel  by Zoe Ferraris --- 359 pages

I found this an intriguing offbeat take on the police procedural murder mystery: a serial killer is targeting women in Saudi Arabia, and the Jeddah murder squad investigating the crimes is stymied by the repressive "virtue" laws that make it almost impossible for male police officers to have any kind of contact with women, not even the dead bodies of the victims.

According to the jacket blurb, the author spent some time in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War, living there with her then husband and his large extended family of Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins. She gives us some fascinating insights into the mostly hidden world of women, and the insidious effect such an orchestrated imbalance of power has, warping even the most mundane details of ordinary life.

Ferraris has written two previous novels, City of Veils and Finding Nouf, and I'll definitely be looking for both of them.

Don't Cry, Tai Lake by Qiu Xiaolong

Don't Cry, Tai Lake: An Inspector Chen Novel by Qiu Xiaolong --- 262 pages

Chief Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police is a rising star in the new China, which means that politics has a major influence on every aspect of his professional and (mostly nonexistent) personal life.  He is renowned as an investigator who has handled a number of "sensitive" cases. Somehow he has managed to walk the very thin line between solving crimes and exposing corruption without antagonizing powerful interests or embarrassing the Party hierarchy. He is also a poet, translator and scholar of some repute. Over his career he has built up a wide array of "connections" whom he can call on for favors, inside information, assistance and political cover.

When one of his most important connections in Beijing calls and offers him an all expenses paid vacation in an exclusive resort that caters to the Party elite, Chen understands this is an invitation he cannot refuse. Comrade Secretary Zhou mentioned, casually, in passing, that Chen also should take this opportunity to look around Wuxi and report his impressions back to Zhou.

The first thing Chen learns about Wuxi is that the city has become a major area of industrial development, and the new factories are causing environmental havoc by discharging untreated toxic waste into Tai Lake, once famous for its clear waters and abundant fish. His informant is a young woman named Shanshan who works as a (token) environmental engineer at Wuxi Number One Chemical Company. The company has been very successful and is on the verge of converting from a state-run enterprise to a private company when its chief executive, Liu Deming, is found murdered in his private apartment near the plant. Shanshan becomes a suspect in the murder because of her connection to Jiang, an environmental activist who has drawn the ire of the Party and the attention of Internal Security by sharing his findings with Western media. Internal Security would like to see Jiang convicted of attenpted blackmail and murder, in order to discredit his accusations.

But Shanshan is sure Jiang is innocent, and Chen agrees that the evidence is unconvincing. Who else had motive and opportunity to kill Liu? Chen uses another of his connections to intervene as discreetly as possible in the local police investigation. He quickly uncovers several much more likely suspects: Liu's estranged wife, his "little secretary" who provides more than business assistance, the deputy manager who looks to take over the company now Liu is dead. As Chen becomes more involved in the matter, and more involved with Shanshan, he begins to wonder about his own motivations, whether his growing attraction to Shanshan is reciprocated, and if there is any possibility of a future for the two of them.

Author Qui Xiaolong was born and raised in Shanghai. He is himself a poet and translator, and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis where he and his family now live. This is the seventh volume in his critically acclaimed Inspector Chen series, set in Shanghai and providing a fascinating inside view of the tensions and contradictions in modern Chinese society.