What We're Reading by Writers Who Kill

 "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that."--Stephen King

As we wrap up August and move from summer to fall, we thought it would be fun to share what we’re reading.

Debra H. Goldstein: Mysteries to Die For: Things That Go Jack in the Night which is the book that
goes with the podcast, Mysteries to Die For. The fun thing is that the first story (and of course season podcast), “A Package of Pepper Jack Cheese,” was written by our own KM Rockwood.

KM Rockwood: A Man with One of Those Faces, a Bunny McGarry mystery by Caimh McDonnell, set in Dublin. I like to read novels with a strong sense of place and the people who inhabit it. Bunny himself is a garda detective, but despite his frequent close brushes with disciplinary action for his disregard of norms and regulations, his heart remains in the right place. There's a strong streak of the humorous and the ridiculous running through the stories, and the conclusion, while never a "happily ever after" ending, tends to be satisfying and hopeful.

Korina Moss: I just finished reading an ARC of a debut cozy mystery by Callie Carpenter titled DEATH BY DEMO, A Home Renovation Mystery, releasing December 5th. I enjoyed it very much. Next up is an ARC of Daphne Silver’s first Rare Books cozy mystery titled CRIME AND PARCHMENT, which I'm excited to read. It releases this November. 

E.B. Davis: The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson. Sisterhood and racism are the
themes of The Almost Sisters. It is a story of an Alabama town’s founding family a few progenies past the originators. In the newest adult generation living in Norfolk, VA, main character Leia Birch Brigg’s is a single pregnant thirty-eight-year-old cartoonist, who has done financially very well for herself. Rachel, Leia’s younger half-sister, has led a conventional life with a perfect husband and daughter and has a delusion of superiority. Unfortunately, Rachel is insensitive to the fact that her husband was Leia’s bestie and first love in high school. Rachel is quite upset when she learns her husband has had an affair and her marriage breaks up. Leia isn’t surprised.

Meanwhile, in a small Alabama town, Leia’s grandmother Birchie is losing touch with reality due to dementia. She still has her clarity at times. Leia is comforted knowing that Birchie’s best friend from childhood, a former minister’s wife, Hattie, lives in Birchie’s founder’s house with her. Although Hattie is black, it was her mother who was in service to the Brigg’s family. But since Hattie now tends to her friend, the townspeople think of Hattie as Birchie’s servant.

When Leia comes to visit Birchie and Hattie, Rachel and her niece trail her while trying to get over the trauma of their family’s breakup. When attending a church service, Birchie, in her reduced mental state, outs two church members who are having an affair, all hell breaks loose. Some of the congregation stand behind Birchie and support her. Others, who have come to resent Birchie’s oligarchic manner, act with hostility to the family. When Hattie and Birchie then try and smuggle out an old body that’s been hidden in the founding house attic for over sixty years, they are caught. Leia fears that Birchie will be arrested for murdering her father, as the bones prove to be his.

This is an intricate story with more twists and turns than you can anticipate. But keep in mind that sisters, whether biological or not, can still be sisters of the heart.  

Grace Topping: Covert in Cairo by Kelly Oliver. It’s a historical mystery set in Egypt during the first half of the 20th century. It’s full of  intrigue and intelligence operatives. Although I’m enjoying it, I’ve discovered it is from the middle of Kelly’s series and reveals outcomes from the previous books. So I’m putting it aside so I can read her earlier books first. I can’t wait to get back to it. 

Mary Dutta: I'm listening to the audiobook of Everyone in My Family Has Killed
Someone by Benjamin Stevenson, which is a terribly clever meta-mystery. I'm also rereading Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress, the first in his Easy Rawlins series and a sort of foundational text of diverse crime fiction. I teach on it every year and it never fails to impress.

Heather Weidner: This summer, I went back and caught up on all the Michael Connelly novels that I’ve missed. I’m reading The Night Fire, and then I’ll be caught up on the Bosch, Haller, and Ballard (for now).

I’m also reading A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie. This is an amazing resource and a great study of Dame Christie’s mysteries.

Sarah E. Burr: Mayhem in Circulation By Leah Dobrinska. After loving my first visit to Larkspur, Wisconsin, and getting to know amateur sleuth Greta Plank in Death Checked Out, I snagged an advance review copy of Leah Dobrinska's latest cozy mystery as soon as it hit NetGalley.

Description: Librarian Greta Plank is hard at work planning and preparing for Larkspur’s Fall Festival and regional tourism showcase which, if successful, will be a boon to the local economy. But disaster strikes and chances of a positive review look slimmer than a periodical’s spine when a series of pranks escalates and one of Larkspur’s own is found dead the same day the reporter is set to arrive.

Desperate to defend her town’s character and get to the bottom of the circulating mayhem, Greta begins indexing suspects. Could the crimes be an outside job, undertaken by someone intent on harming the town’s reputation? Or is someone closer to home trying to ruin Larkspur from the inside?

With destruction of property, sabotage, and strange animal mishaps piling up on top of murder, Greta wouldn’t recommend this ‘choose your own (disastrous) adventure’ to anyone. In the end, she must decide who she can trust so she can close the book on these crimes before the shadowy vandal authors another kill. 

Susan Van Kirk: I just finished reading In the Hands of Women by Jane Loeb Rubin. It's historical fiction and follows the life of Hannah Isaacson, an obstetrician-in-training in 1900s Baltimore and New York City hospitals. She devotes her life to making pregnant women safer during their pregnancies and delivery. When she's called to the scene of a dying woman who had a botched abortion at the hands of a midwife, she is accused of murder and sent to Blackwell's Prison to await trial. I loved this story, and it had so many thoughtful moments that could cause readers to ask questions about what's going on in our world today.

Lori Roberts Herbst: Murder in Second Position by Lori Robbins. My current audiobook is Death in a Strange Land by Donna Leon. In anticipation of the upcoming movie, I just finished reading The Color Purple by Alice Walker (surprised I hadn't read it before). My favorite August read: Olive Again, by Elizabeth Strout.

Annette Dashofy: I stayed up way too late last night finishing What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline. This book could be a master class in pacing, suspense, and emotion. It's going to stick with me for quite a while. 

Margaret S. Hamilton: I read Jacqueline Winspear's A Sunlit Weapon, set in rural Kent during World War 2, and then her childhood and coming of age memoir, This time Next Year We’ll be Laughing. Only the author of the Maisie Dobbs series could have written the memoir, which includes exquisite sensory details of her rural life in Kent--picking hops and fruit, and her father's nature walks. People she knew popped up in several of her books, including the 1947 White Lady in her standalone novel of the same name encompassing two world wars.

Readers, what are you reading?