The Postscript Murders

This book by Elly Griffiths is sort of a sequel to The Stranger Diaries, which I read a couple months ago for my mystery book group. The gay east Indian DS Harbinder Kaur plays a key role here and refers back to some of the events from that previous book. Griffiths has written two other series of books and I have also read the first in her "Ruth Galloway" series (The Crossing Places), which I really enjoyed. 

This book begins with the observations of an elderly woman, Peggy Smith, who lives in a sheltered care facility that faces the ocean in Shoreham-by-Sea. Peggy spends hours looking out her big picture window and jotting down everyone who comes and goes along the boardwalk. When her carer, Natalka, arrives one day to find Peggy sitting in her chair, quite dead, she notifies her boss at Care4You, Patricia. But she also goes to the police and this is where DS Kaur enters the picture. It doesn't seem so suspicious that a 90 year old woman died, but Natalka is convinced something is off and Harbinder hears her out with an open mind. Peggy's good friend across the hall, Edwin, is devastated by Peggy's unexpected death. Natalka also shares her concerns with friend Benedict who runs the coffee shack on the beach across the street. Peggy's son, Nigel, seems anxious to clear out Peggy's flat, so Natalka and Benedict decide to sneak in and go through Peggy's books before Nigel gets rid of them. Peggy is an ardent mystery fan and has collected books from the Golden Age up to the present time. In fact, it turns out that several recent authors have acknowledged Peggy's help in their books; apparently she is good with imagining unusual ways to murder their characters. She even has a business card that says "Murder Consultant." While they are doing this, a person with a gun breaks into Peggy's apartment and points a gun at them, grabs a book from the pile on the floor and leaves. This convinces Harbinder that something is not as it appears in Peggy's death. And when one of the authors who frequently consulted Peggy is murdered, Harbinder is convinced there is a connection. Eventually Natalka convinces Edwin and Benedict to join into her amateur sleuthing around Peggy's death, and they take a road trip to  the Aberdeen literary festival where they plan to interview other authors who knew Peggy. 

The book is really a delight to read. The characters are a wild mix of personalities and you get a good sense of their individual quirks. Harbinder's relationship with her colleague, Neil, for example is endlessly amusing. "Her new tactic with Neil is to imagine him as a woodland creature, sly, slightly stupid but ultimately lovable." Her mental translations of his irritating behaviors are creative. Neil asks "Why?" and Harbinder imagines, "Nibble, nibble, washes whiskers." There are several small sub-plots that keep you guessing and I was surprised to find out who the was culprit(s) was/were.

The Mt. Bachelor Murders

Local author, Ted Haynes, has written two previous books in his "Northwest Murder Mystery" series. How could I live in Bend and not read this, right? So I will start with my conclusion: the writing is less than elegant--even felt very pedestrian at times--but most interesting plot! Not strong on character development but adequate....maybe reading the two previous books would help since several of the same characters are involved. Local setting makes it interesting though wouldn't compel me if I didn't live here.

A highly skilled skier, Erik Peterson, takes his daughter (Lisbeth) and her friend ( Sally Paulsen) to Mt. Bachelor for Lisbeth's 16th birthday. The girls ski together while Erik goes off to ski alone. When the weather deteriorates, the girls wait and wait for Erik but he never turns up. A search finds him buried in a tree well--a situation that Erik would never have let himself get into. The investigating sheriff's detective, after consulting with local ski experts, concludes it was murder and not an accident. The girls had seen Erik getting on the lift with another man and that was the last time anyone saw him. Efforts to locate the other skier fail and the murder goes cold for 50 years. But detective Forest Connor does collect enough clues about the man to get a good forensic artist's sketch and some telling physical anomalies that would identify the man if he was ever found. There is only one other clue found at the scene--ski wax with a warning carved into it.

In 2018, a chance encounter leads Leon Martinez, who is married to Lisbeth Peterson, to believe the man has come back to Oregon. He contacts Sally (now Sarah) who is an attorney and the hunt is on. The entire back story about Peterson's personal history and how he crossed paths with his murderer is not revealed until fairly late in the book, but it changes your perception of Peterson and an intriguing bit of history about the Norwegian resistance movement during WWII.

I only found one review and that was in the local Bend Magazine.

Murder in Chianti

This is my mystery book group's pick for the April 2021 meeting and it was a great read. Written by Camilla Trinchieri, who has published eight previous mysteries under the pen name Camilla Crespi. Trinchieri is Italian, although she came to the U.S. in 1980 and earned an MFA from Columbia University.  The publisher's summary is as follows: "Set in the heart of Tuscan wine country, Camilla Trinchieri's new mystery introduces Nico Doyle, a former NYPD homicide detective who's just looking for space to grieve when he finds himself pulled into a local muder investigation. Mourning the loss of his wife, Rita, former NYPD homicide detective Nico Doyle moves to her hometown of Gravigna in the wine-soaked region of Chianti. Half-Italian and half-Irish, Nico finds himself able to get by in the region with the help of Rita's relatives, but he still feels alone and out of place. He isn't sure if it's peace he's seeking, but it isn't what he finds. Early one morning, he hears a gunshot near his cabin and walks out to discover a dead body in the woods, flashily dressed in gold tennis shoes. A small white dog at the scene won't leave Nico alone, so he lies to the police and claims to be its owner. Salvatore Perillo, the local maresciallo, enlists Nico's help with the murder case. It turns out more than one person in this idyllic corner of Italy knew the victim, and with a very small pool of suspects, including his own in-laws, Nico must dig up Gravigna's every last painful secret to get to the truth."

Publishers Weekly says, "Enticing descriptions of food and wines, an introspective protagonist with an unusual background, and an intricate plot that weaves its way amid past peccadillos combine to make this a winner." Kirkus praises it as "An engaging procedural that introduces a delightful cast readers will want to spend more time with." I did indeed like Nico and would happily read her next book, The Bitter Taste of Murder, when it comes out later this year.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

This disturbing non-fiction account by David Gann of the systematic murders of members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma is a book I have been wanting to read for a long time, and my book group selected it for our April 2021 read.  Interesting coincidence is that I am currently editing a book about the Covid pandemic that also touches on many of the issues raised in this book, such as the cancel culture of Native Americans traditions embodied in the Dawes Act. The Osage, like many other tribes were forcibly removed from their homeland and put on a piece of land in Oklahoma that the U.S. government figured wasn't of interest to settlers. What a surprise when that piece of land turned out to sit atop a significant source of oil. So many things were done to the Osage to rob them of the benefits that should have accrued from that discovery...declaring them incompetent to handle the money that came from their mineral rights, assigning them guardians who controlled how they spent the money (and usually embezzling much of it in the process). A series of murders of Osage individuals in the early 1900's were investigated but were never resolved; "more than two dozen people — not just Osage Indians but also white investigators sent to look into the crimes — killed between 1920 and 1924. It became known as the Osage Reign of Terror" (New York Times). Finally, Hoover sent in an agent to figure out why so many people were dying and no one was being held accountable. 

"Grann ...centers this true-crime mystery on Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman who lost several family members as the death tally grew, and Tom White, the former Texas Ranger whom J. Edgar Hoover sent to solve the slippery, attention-grabbing case once and for all. A secondary tale of Hoover's single-minded rise to power as the director of what would become the FBI, his reshaping of the bureau's practices, and his goal to gain prestige for federal investigators provides invaluable historical context. Grann employs you-are-there narrative effects to set readers right in the action, and he relays the humanity, evil, and heroism of the people involved. His riveting reckoning of a devastating episode in American history deservedly captivates." (A. Bostrom, 2017, Booklist).

Library Journal calls it "A spellbinding book about the largest serial murder investigation you've never heard of." The New York Times concludes their detailed review by saying, "...Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true. As a reporter he is dogged and exacting, with a singular ability to uncover and incorporate obscure journals, depositions and ledgers without ever letting the plot sag. As a writer he is generous of spirit, willing to give even the most scurrilous of characters the benefit of the doubt.

Thus, when Tom White and his men solve the crime, and the mastermind behind the murders is revealed, you will not see it coming. You will feel that familiar thrill at having been successfully misdirected, but then there are about 70 pages left in the book. And in these last pages, Grann takes what was already a fascinating and disciplined recording of a forgotten chapter in American history, and with the help of contemporary Osage tribe members, he illuminates a sickening conspiracy that goes far deeper than those four years of horror. It will sear your soul. Among the towering thefts and crimes visited upon the native peoples of the continent, what was done to the Osage must rank among the most depraved and ignoble. 'This land is saturated with blood,' says Mary Jo Webb, an Osage Indian alive today and still trying to understand the crimes of the past. 'History,' Grann writes in this shattering book, 'is a merciless judge.'"

Murder in the Marais

This book by Cara Black is the first (1999) in her Aimée Leduc series; there are now 19 books featuring Aimée.  It was recommended by one of the members in my mystery book group (thanks Joy Morris) and I thoroughly enjoyed the main characters as well as the setting in Paris. Here is the summary from the author's website: "Aimée Leduc has always sworn she would stick to tech investigation—no criminal cases for her. Especially since her father, the late police detective, was killed in the line of duty. But when an old Jewish man approaches Aimée with a top-secret decoding job on behalf of a woman in his synagogue, Aimée unwittingly takes on more than she was expecting. When she goes to drop off her findings at her client’s house in the Marais, Paris’s historic Jewish quarter, she finds the old woman strangled, a swastika carved on her forehead. With the help of her partner, René, Aimée sets out to solve this horrendous crime, but finds herself in an increasingly dangerous web of ancient secrets and buried war crimes." 

"Although set in Paris in the early 1990s, Black's new series start harks back to World War II crimes. ...Aimée's subsequent investigation exposes the connection between a war-time romance gone wrong and the modern-day murder. Literate prose, intricate plotting, and multifaceted and unusual characters mark this excellent first mystery." (Library Journal)

Publishers Weekly says of this "standout" novel, "a thrilling, quick-paced chase involving neo-Nazis, corrupt government officials and fierce anti-Semitism. With the help of her partner, René, a computer hacking expert, Aim e uncovers tantalizing clues relating to German war veteran Hartmuth Griffe, the Jewish girl he saved from Auschwitz, a French trade minister and other enigmatic figures. But the data Aimée and René come up with only takes them so far. In order to understand the true motive behind the killing, Aimée must delve into history, confronting older residents of the quarter--who'd prefer she leave the past alone--and doing some undercover work. The suspense is high as she fraternizes dangerously with the enemy, even becoming briefly involved with an Aryan supremacist. Black knows Paris well, and in her first-rate debut she deftly combines fascinating anecdotes from the city's war years with classic images of the City of Lights."

Read the back story for this plot in an intervivew with NPR. Black likes to explore and use the particular neighborhoods of Paris for her stories. "She says her goal is to capture the living, vibrant city that meshes with its history and the ghosts of its past." Next in the series, Murder in Belleville.

 

Wolf Winter

This was Cecilia Ekbäck's debut novel which I was keen to read after having read her The Historians.  This book is set in Lappland--the northern part of the Scandinavian countries--in the early 1700's. A small family, parents Paavo and Maija, and two daughters, Frederika and Dorotea, aged 14 and 6, respectively. They have apparently traded their fishing boat in a coastal Finland village for an uncle's homestead in Sweden. Paavo, once a successful fisherman, has developed a morbid fear of the water. The rundown homestead is near Blackåsen mountain, which locals consider to be a place infused with evil; supposedly the devil got trapped in a mountain crevice and hasn't been able to get back home to hell. 

One day, while daughters Frederika and Dorotea are herding the goats in a mountain meadow, they come across the mutilated body of a neighboring man. The few settlers who live in the area quickly explain the death away as a wolf attack. But Maija, who has some training in the healing arts, recognizes the clean slash from belly to chin as what it is--murder by a human, probably one of their neighbors. Maija's determination to get to the truth of the matter is energized when the dead man's widow kills herself and her four children. Everyone Maija tries to talk to seems to be hiding something and respond with reticence or outright anger at Maija for her persistence. If something is amiss, the settlers want to blame the nomadic Lapp herders who come down to the valley every winter. But the Lapps have been the victims of loss, too, and Maija is adamant that she will not let fear, rumors, and prejudice ruin their lives again. There are hints of a backstory in their former home and Maija's grandmother's ghost is a constant mental companion to her. However, when Frederika seeks help from her mother because the dead man's spirit has become a constant and threatening presence, Maija sternly warns Frederika to stay away from such indulgent and dangerous fantasies. There is a significant element of the supernatural--"a dose of…Scandinavian magical realism" (Historial Novels Society)--woven throughout this absorbing entry into the Scandinavian noir genre of thrillers. And Ekbäck's evocation of the beautiful but often unforgiving landscape and life-threatening weather are absolutely compelling. 

The Guardian offers a more detailed plot summary, and, in spite of some reservations about the book, concludes with effusive praise "for the beauty of its prose, its strange, compelling atmosphere and its tremendous evocation of the stark, dangerous, threatening place, which exits in the far north and in the hearts of all of us." Kirkus calls the tale "irresistible."