fiction

When a polygamist leader and his bodyguard are murdered, the anti-polygamy squad of the Salt Lake Police Department faces the mixed messages which come from the police, the politicians, and powerful polygamous leaders. Art Oveson, deputy sheriff, is caught in the middle of these forces.  He has strong feelings about the evils of the polygamous sects and takes it upon himself to care for a young mute girl found at the scene of the crime. She seems to be at the center of the conflict. Oveson attempts to solve the crime and thwart the dealings of the various sects who are now moving down to the Utah-Arizona border. He is passionately opposed to plural marriage and the illegal actions of the groups. His passion puts him into danger along with his friends and the young people he tries to protect. Andrew Hunt may live in Canada but his knowledge of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Mormon history makes the mystery come alive.  Those who live in Utah will enjoy the picture of the state in 1934 and those who know nothing about Utah will read this as a picture of a curious place and curious people. An action novel, it is also a discerning look at the violence that can result from religious extremism and a warning to those who ignore that violence. – Wendy Foster Leigh

Solomon Creed just walked away from a plane crash and only knows his name because it is sewn into the jacket he’s wearing. His past is clouded and his future could be very uncertain indeed because the town he’s walking towards, Redemption, Arizona, holds many secrets—secrets he must uncover to save a man named James Coronado, someone he has never met. While Solomon may have some unusual skills, time travel isn’t one of them, which is a shame because James Coronado was buried that morning. All Solomon has to help him is a book by the Reverend Jack Cassidy, Redemption’s founder, and Coronado’s widow, Holly. The plane had been carrying a precious cargo and the man that cargo was destined for will raze the town to the ground himself to get it. Toyne, author of the Sanctus series, gives us the start of another taut page turning trilogy. – Paula Longhurst

Lovers of black and white noir films will identify with the tone and plot of The Reflection, set in 1948 New York. Psychiatrist David Manne rents an upscale office simply for show and is satisfied picking up jobs from the police—during one of which he is convinced that something is not quite right with the suspect he is to interview. His curiosity gets the better of him, and he attempts to aid the suspect and investigate the strange hospital to which he has been sent.  Through a series of twists and turns Manne ends up with the man’s ID, trapped in the hospital and in the role of the patient, involved in a case of mistaken identity or amnesia or, perhaps, paranoia. The book caters to the human fear of losing a personal identity—one where the psychiatrist as the patient is unable to convince others of his sanity. Hugo Wilcken has created a sympathetic character in this well-written thriller. – Wendy Foster Leigh

A collection of ghost stories perfect for dark winter nights, Ghostly features haunted houses, haunted cottages, paintings that move, magic and cats—to name just a few ghastly details, all told by masters of the genre including Poe, M.R James, Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman, P.G. Wodehouse, Saki and Niffenegger herself. Whether you want that sense of creeping unease, full-on scares or a laugh or two there’s something for everyone here. – Paula Longhurst

Detective Sargent Barbara Havers has been forced to sign a transfer request to Berwick-upon-Tweed which Detective Superintendent Isabelle Ardery keeps on her desk waiting for Havers’ next wrong move. Havers, on the other hand, is frantic to get back into the game of solving murders and is willing to risk the horrors of a transfer to do so. When a prominent feminist dies of an apparent heart attack, Havers is drawn into examining the death, which is more complicated than it appears. Lynley does his best to guide her in a prudent direction during the investigation, but, as usual, she goes her own way. In the process, she uncovers more than enough motives to incriminate a cast of murderers. Once again, George has given us, the reader, ample opportunity to escape into the world of Lynley and Havers as well as to delve into murder most vile. Terrific. – Barbara Hoagland

Brief, ecstatic, searing, The 7th Man is an interior prose poem from the heart of a man who has helped to perform 131 executions, part of the team who take turns rehearsing and then escorts, straps down its victims. His interior monologue takes us from pride in his team to the reality of bearing witness, an act that eventually brings the executions to life, cracking open the executioner’s life and giving him another in the process. Thon, like no one else alive, captures the pain and the ecstasy of our existence, its harrowing, too-often brutal nature, and the transcendent joy of soil and of souls, making sense of the urge to hurt and the will to rescue, the unbearable loneliness and the solace that makes life bearable. Her slender volumes speak volumes about humanity in all its agony and its undying glory. – Betsy Burton

Hope in the face of despair. A single fragment of line in the prose poem connecting the two ecstatic, shattering pieces that are Silence and Song, a book that takes us into the hearts and souls of the dispossessed and of those who try to save them. In “Vanishings” a thief tears up the Saguaro cactus, killing what he can’t steal; a car careens off the road, bodies flying out. Brothers struggle across hot sand, bodies blistered; a good Samaritan brings water into the desert, wanting to help; a boy with a gun, filled with the pain of thorns, bad drugs, cruelty; a mother playing Chopin; a teacher in love with her students, children for whom pain is the fabric of life, nightmares their memories. Then “Translation,” the poem at the book’s heart. Again children. And “Requiem”: a brother and a sister living the poetry of urban violence, of scorched earth, of a home where nothing is safe, except the insistence of the garden. This braided with the poetry of Chernobyl, of scorched earth now safe harbor to what is wild.  Hope braided with despair. – Betsy Burton

In this delightful sequel to Me Before You, Lou finds herself drifting in the wake of Will’s death, unable to move on, unable to live the life he charged her with at his death. After an extraordinary accident she wakes to discover she must return to more judgments from her family, her friends and everyone who knows her. Lou has been resigned to her grief support meetings, her dreadful job and her barely lived-in apartment until her complacency is disturbed by a knock on her door. A young woman inserts herself into Lou’s sloppy existence; forced back into the Traynors' lives, she must once again find a way to carve an identity for herself. Surprises abound as we sail along on this funny, affecting ride as Lou tries to find her happy-ever-after. – Anne Stewart Mark

Annie, an aspiring chef, finds the perfect gift for her former lover. It is a small painting found in a dusty junk shop. The painting, in the style of Watteau, eventually becomes the center of a major sale at a London auction house and attracts the attention of the international rich who are prepared to fight for it. As a chef Annie is an artist and is hired by the rich and famous to create themed dinners, but her knowledge of art is limited. She doesn’t realize that others are looking at her not as a cook but as the owner of an important art work and are plotting devious means of acquiring the piece. In the course of verifying the work, she meets a young guide at the Wallace Collection who falls in love with her and leads her through the maze of art scholars and greedy dealers who compete for ownership with whatever means available. The painting itself is also a narrator within the book and reveals its travels from France to Russia and into the world of Nazi Germany and stolen art. Author Hannah Rothschild offers a fictional look behind the curtains of the art world which can be read as a piece of crime fiction or a comment on the business of art. – Wendy Foster Leigh

Mitchell does it again in this compact thriller that may or may not be a sequel to The Bone Clocks. Companion piece or spin-off is perhaps a better description. Slade House is tucked away down an alley behind a pub with a small, mysterious iron door that only appears every nine years. Invited in by a strange brother and sister, the unique and unfortunate souls who enter that door are never heard from or seen again. Spanning 50 years from the late 70s to the present, this little novel will make you feel as if you have dropped inside an Escher drawing and will keep you up at night as you hurtle to the conclusion discovering the secrets of this haunted-house story as only Mitchell can reveal them. – Anne Stewart Mark