New (to me) Mystery Authors, January - March

Today I am joining in on the meme for the best new-to-me crime fiction authors at Mysteries in Paradise. This meme runs at the end of each quarter. Check out other posts for this quarter.

In the first quarter of 2013, I read ten books by authors I had never read  before. That is a lot of new authors. Twice as many as in the last quarter. So, even if I am not getting through series that I have started, I have read some new authors that have been in my TBR pile a long time.

This is my list of books by new (to me) authors:

1. Publish or Perish by Margot Kinberg
2. The Smoke by Tony Broadbent
3. The Case of the Angry Actress by E. V. Cunningham
4. Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
5. Amuse Bouche by Anthony Bidulka
6. Detective by Parnell Hall 
7. The Loyal Servant by Eva Hudson
8. Forty Words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt
9. Deadly Appearances by Gail Bowen
10. A Stone of the Heart by John Brady

All of the books on this list were well-written and entertaining. I plan to read more books in each of the series.

Forty Words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt was a serial killer novel with too much graphic violence for my tastes. However, the characterization was so strong in that book, and the plotting and setting are so vivid, that I have to try the next in the series.

Margot Kinberg's Publish or Perish is an entertaining mystery that combines elements of amateur detective, police procedural and takes place in an academic setting. What more can you ask for?

It is hard to believe that it took me so long to read the first book in Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series, Devil in a Blue Dress, which was published in 1990. It has an interesting setting:... 1948, post WWII, a black neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins is a black man who moves to Los Angeles, California from Houston, Texas to look for a better life after serving in the military during World War II.




There were two books in this group that did not fit in my usual guidelines. Both were light, humorous private detective stories. Detective by Parnell Hall is set in New York City. Amuse Bouche by Anthony Bidulka is set in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Normally I shy away from humor in mysteries, but I am discovering that it really depends on the writer, and both of these writers won me over.

A Stone of the Heart by John Brady is another winner. I am really into police procedurals at the moment. This one is set in Dublin, Ireland during the 1980's. I know very little about Ireland or Northern Ireland during this time and I want to know more.

Forty Words for Sorrow: Giles Blunt

Description from the back cover of my paperback edition:

In the quiet Canadian town of Algonquin Bay, a frozen body has been found in an abandoned mine shaft. She is quickly identified as Katie Pine, a teenager who had disappeared months ago. At the time, Detective John Cardinal insisted that Katie was no ordinary runaway. His relentless pursuit and refusal to give up on the case got him demoted from Homicide. But now the Canadian police force wants Cardinal back on the case -- with a new associate by his side. And as these two untrusting partners gather evidence of a serial murder spree, a pair of sociopaths are closing in on their next victim...

There are two quotes on the front cover: "One of the finest crime novels I've ever read." (Jonathan Kellerman) and "The most horrifying story since The Silence of the Lambs" (Los Angeles Time). Both of these quotes are true (in my opinion) and they illustrate my problems with the novel. It was a compelling read but I often wanted to put it down and give up on it, due to the explicit nature of the descriptions of the crimes.

Likes:
All the characters were well-defined, not just the main characters. A lot of police procedurals is visiting people for interviews, and all of those people seemed real, with their own problems and lives.

I enjoyed the setting. I read this book for the Canadian Book Challenge 6. The book is set in a small community in northern Canada. The author was raised in a similar town. Per the Wikipedia article about the author:

Blunt grew up in North Bay, and Algonquin Bay is North Bay very thinly disguised — for example, Blunt retains the names of major streets and the two lakes (Trout Lake and Lake Nipissing) that the town sits between, the physical layout of the two places is the same, and he describes Algonquin Bay as being in the same geographical location as North Bay.

Dislikes:
For me, this book was much too graphic. The story is the hunt for a serial killer, and the descriptions of the crimes went into too much detail for my taste. There was one section on torture devices that I had to skip over.

Neutrals:
Here we have another policeman with angst and family issues. The portrait of John Cardinal is so good that I really did not mind. He is not really damaged, he just has made mistakes and has a lot on his mind. I actually sympathized with his family issues, and felt they made the story stronger.

I have read criticisms that this is not really a whodunnit but a "whydunnit". To a certain extent this is true, although for at least the first third of the book we do not know the identity of the culprit. However, I like whydunnit style of mystery, so that worked fine for me.

Overall:
I found this to be a very well-written novel with interesting characters, and I enjoyed most aspects of the book. I recommend it to any reader who likes serial killer thrillers and doesn't mind the graphic violence. And even if you don't usually go for that kind of book, I would give it a try. This book won the Silver Dagger awarded by the Crime Writers Association in 2001.