Fall Fiction

God is in His heaven
And we all want what's His
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is ~ Bob Dylan

With the return of hot weather I’ve been on a bit of a late-summer mysteries jag. Here are four books that I recently enjoyed (each with themes of corruption), good bets for the fall reading season:

The Corpse Flower

A novel by
Anne Matte Hancock

Danish journalist Heloise Kaldan is the protagonist of this Scandi-Noir crime novel.She has recently been under fire for a poorly-sourced feature article when she begins to get mysterious lettters from Anna Kiel, a fugitive murderer who has been on the run for several years. Homicide detective Erik Scháfer comes up with a lead when another journalist (who covered the the Kiel murder) come up murdered. The book has a straight-forward plot and comes to tidy conclusion. Dark and pessimistic, this is not a feel-good book. Well-written, Hancock is big in Denmark.

Marginal recommendation for fans of the genre.

Knife Skills for Beginners

A novel
By Orlando Murrin

On a much lighter note is this comic culinary caper.
Paul Delamare is a talented but under-employed chef who is asked to step in for Christian, a cult chef who is slated to lead a class in basic gourmet cooking but has recently suffered a broken arm. A variation of the classic Agatha Christie set-up finds 12 disparate people thrown together when, after the first day, Christian is murdered (found by Paul) and the police confine everyone to the cooking school (located in a grand Clue-style house with numerous rooms available for all sorts of skulduggery.) Paul is witty and glib, with trenchant observations on the action, both criminal and culinary. I laughed out loud many times. The large cast can be difficult to follow (write yourself a character sheet) but the story comes together in a dramatic finish at the end. Recommended.

The Frozen People

A Mystery by
Elly Griffiths

This is the start of a new series by Griffiths. A mix of historical fiction and police procedural. Ali Dawson is an cold case detective working in modern London. Her team is asked to investigate an MP's great-grandfather and rumors about him. Via a secret government time-travel device she goes back to the 1850s and Victorian London where she finds herself stuck in an era where things are very different. Modern politics, plot twists, a beloved son and a cat all figure in the action.

I was a big fan of the Ruth Galloway series and this book is similar in its attention to detail and characters. It is different in that the whole premise is bonkers—you have to suspend your disbelief in a very big way.

Big recommendation for fans of Griffiths or for anyone looking for a wild yarn.

You Can Trust Me

A novel by
Wendy Heard

Summer and Leo are two independent and rootless young women who prowl southern California in search of easy marks to fleece. Summer is a pickpocket while Leo is love ’em and leave ’em kind of gal. When Leo meets Michael Forrester, a billionaire capitalist, she goes with him to his private island. Summer thinks it will be an overnighter, but when Leo doesn't return her calls she manages to finagle her way to the island where all is not as it seems.

Summer and Leo both have backstories which play out in flashbacks. They are great characters and Summer’s search for Leo and Leo’s efforts to escape are exciting. A female buddy story with a pointed critique of capitalist excess.

Recommended.