Category: Mysteries

Dana Stabenow is well known for her Kate Shugak mystery series, but this title is first in a series set in Alexandria, Egypt in 45 BC, during Cleopatra VII’s reign. Her Eye, or agent, has just been murdered while tracking a lost shipment of new bronze coins commissioned by the Queen. Cleopatra chooses her childhood friend, Tetisheri, to become the new Eye, and tasks her with finding both the murderer and the lost shipment of coin. Tetisheri is aided by Apolloduros, the queen’s personal bodyguard. Stabenow paints a vivid portrait of the indignities suffered by women during that time, especially slave women. I found both this title and its sequel, Disappearance of a Scribe, to be very satisfying reads. Recommended especially for fans of historical fiction.

Alyssa Maxwell has written quite a few titles in the Gilded Newport Mystery series; this title is # 6. Emma Cross is a society news reporter in 1898 Newport, and a good example of the difficulties faced by women in the work force at the early 20th century. It was hard to be taken seriously as a professional woman. Men felt that women were too fragile to report hard news, thus Emma was reduced to covering the society pages. But she does manage to solve murders quite well. In this novel she has a few to figure out… Recommended for historical mystery fans.

Lacy Stoltz is back in John Grisham’s latest novel, which is a follow-up to The Whistler. She is still an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, and this time, Lacy is approached by a client in fear for her life, if she reveals what she knows about a corrupt judge. Spoiler alert: this time it involves murder. I’d rather not read about serial killers, but was too far into the novel to stop reading. It’s fast-paced, well-written, and definitely one of those books you can’t put down…

If you like suspense novels, this book’s for you. What happens when two women switch plane tickets at an airport? Can they successfully escape the threats in their lives? Claire wants to escape from her abusive, powerful husband and Eva is caught between jail time and fingering a hardened criminal. They decide to switch lives, and can’t imagine the journeys ahead of them. This title definitely earns five stars from me, unfortunately it is the author Julie Clark’s only novel in our library system to date…