Happy New Year! If you didn't get any new books for Christmas, these fresh titles should fill the gap and keep your adrenaline pumping. Every New Year starts with promise and mystery. We know what we hope to do, but how we accomplish these goals remains unknown. Select one or two of the featured titles for a thrilling start to 2011.
Alys Clare continues her medieval mystery series in Music of the Distant Stars. Apprentice healer, Lassair, discovers another body sharing her grandmother's grave and Norman knight, Sir Alain, the justiciar or sheriff, seeks the killer. This mystery is wrapped in the history of the Normans and the Saxons, so the flavor is unique and the setting provocative.
The Girl in the Green Raincoat is a small gem by Laura Lippman. When private investigator Tess Monaghan is placed on bed rest, her world shrinks to what can be seen from her bedroom window. Every day, she witnesses the same people doing the same things at the same times until the day the sameness is interrupted by a dog off its leash. Tess is frustrated by her passive abilities to locate its owner, the girl in the green raincoat and the questions she asks are bringing danger closer to home.
If a letter goes undelivered for five decades, what are the consequences? Kate Morton combines romance and suspense in her newest, The Distant Hours. Edie Burchill is with her mother Meredith when the fifty-year old letter arrives and provokes a shocking reaction from Edie's mother. As a child, Meredith was evacuated to Milderhurst Castle and into the strange family dynamics of the Blythe sisters. The long delayed letter was from Juniper Blythe and may contain information on her missing fiancé. Edie is familiar with her mother's reticence to talk about the past, but the Blythe sisters may provide more than she wants to know.
Last year we met author Elly Griffiths and her character Ruth Galloway in The Crossing Places, and this year Griffiths presents Ruth and Detective Harry Nelson in The Janus Stone. Archaeologist Ruth again is called on to use her professional skills in determining the age of a long buried body. Is it the product of a Roman-era sacrifice or something more current? Detective Nelson discovers that the site was once a children's home and before that a private residence with missing children in the histories of both. Ruth and Harry have their moments and their relationship is puzzling. The mystery is intriguing and the characters personable.
May your New Year be interesting and full of promise.
Janet
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