Recently received

What Darkness Brings (A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery) by C.S. Harris (Obsidian hardcover, 5 March 2013).

Regency England, September 1812: After a long night spent dealing with the tragic death of a former military comrade, a heart-sick Sebastian learns of a new calamity: Russell Yates, the dashing, one-time privateer who married Kat a year ago, has been found standing over the corpse of Benjamin Eisler, a wealthy gem dealer. Yates insists he is innocent, but he will surely hang unless Sebastian can unmask the real killer.

 

For the sake of Kat, the woman he once loved and lost, Sebastian plunges into a treacherous circle of intrigue. Although Eisler’s clients included the Prince Regent and the Emperor Napoleon, he was a despicable man with many enemies and a number of dangerous, well-kept secrets—including a passion for arcane texts and black magic. Central to the case is a magnificent blue diamond, believed to have once formed part of the French crown jewels, which disappeared on the night of Eisler’s death. As Sebastian traces the diamond’s ownership, he uncovers links that implicate an eccentric, powerful financier named Hope and stretch back into the darkest days of the French Revolution.

 

When the killer grows ever more desperate and vicious, Sebastian finds his new marriage to Hero tested by the shadows of his first love, especially when he begins to suspect that Kat is keeping secrets of her own. And as matters rise to a crisis, Sebastian must face a bitter truth--that he has been less than open with the fearless woman who is now his wife.

 

 

Breaking Points (Kate Reilly Mystery #2) by Tammy Kaehler (Poisoned Pen Press, 2 April 2013).

Kate Reilly can’t remember a worse time in her life, on-track or off. She wrecks her race car at Road America in Wisconsin, sending a visiting NASCAR star to the hospital, and loses her cool on-camera, only to end the day by discovering her boyfriend with a friend of hers. A dead friend.
With little time to grieve, Kate finds herself the pariah of the racing world, the target of vicious e-mail messages, death threats, and a frenzy of blame on racing sites and blogs, including an influential, anonymous blogger who’s trying to get her fired. But nothing is as bad as knowing her friend’s killer is still out there—and aiming at Kate.
 
She’s riding a roller coaster of emotion, juggling an exciting new sponsor, a boyfriend she’s not sure she can trust, and new-found family she doesn’t want to claim. Dodging unfavorable media attention and a pit reporter with a bias against women in racing, Kate redeems herself by delivering stunning performances behind the wheel at the next race: Petit Le Mans, the ten-hour endurance classic. 

 

The championship race weekend and an undercurrent of threats on all sides rev Kate’s nerves to their limits. From on-track action, to sponsor parties, to the Series awards banquet, she’s part of the action, uncovering motives, secrets, and powerful ambitions. Ultimately she learns no one can escape the past—but only a murderer is driven by it.


The Memory of Love by Linda Olsson (Penguin trade paperback, 26 February 2013).

Marion Flint, in her early fifties, has spent fifteen years living a quiet life on the rugged coast of New Zealand, a life that allows the door to her past to remain firmly shut. But a chance meeting with a young boy, Ika, and her desire to help him force Marion to open the Pandora’s box of her memory.

Seized by a sudden urgency to make sense of her past, she examines each image one-by-one: her grandfather, her mother, her brother, her lover. Perhaps if she can create order from the chaos, her memories will be easier to carry. Perhaps she’ll be able to find forgiveness for the little girl that was her. For the young woman she had been. For the people she left behind.


The Sound of One Hand Killing (Barcelona Murder Mystery #3) by Teresa Solana (Bitter Lemon Press trade paperback, 7 May 2013).

Two detectives, brothers Borja and Eduard, are contracted by best-selling author Teresa Solana to research the world of so-called alternative therapies. They enrol for a course at Zen Moments, an exclusive meditation centre in the ritziest part of Barcelona, only to discover the director murdered, whacked in the head with a statuette of the Buddha. The violent death of a neighbour - who happens to be a CIA agent - simultaneously drags them into an international conspiracy complicated by Borja's attempt to smuggle a priceless Assyrian figurine, the “Lioness of Baghdad”.

Catalan ‘noir' novelist Teresa Solana mercilessly punctures the pretensions of New Age quacks who promote pseudo-science and pseudo-spirituality. At the same time, Solana draws compassionate portraits of characters trying to live ‘ordinary' lives in circumstances that have ceased to be normal, yet still cope with such every day issues as adultery, the menopause and simply surviving to the end of the month.