The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly. Harry Bosch, now a reserve officer with the San Fernando PD, is investigating a serial rapist. He also has an 85-year-old billionnaire client who wants Harry to find out if he has a living heir from a short relationship he had 60+ years ago. Mickey Haller plays a small part.

Bone Deep by David Wiltse. FBI Agent Becker and his friend Chief "Tee" Terhune investigate a serial killer who calls himself Cap'n Luv. 

Just started The Fitzgerald Ruse by Marc de Castrique. Sam Blackman, who lost a leg in Iraq, and his girlfriend Nakayla Robertson have just received their P.I. licenses. Their eccentric first client, Ethel Barkley, wants them to retrieve a lockbox she claims contains a purloined F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscript. 

I gave The Fitzgerald Ruse was 4 stars. Good plot, characters and writing. However, it would be best to read the 1st book in the series - Blackman's Coffin, which I read 5 or 6 years ago.

To Die For by David Champion got 3 stars. It was interesting, the main likable was likable, and the writing was okay. The author put a couple twists at the end, but it just didn't hang together due to a partial lack of motive.

Dog Day by Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett is set in Barcelona. Inspector Delicado and her Sergeant Garzon are assigned to investigate the assault of an unidentified man who is in a coma. The cast of characters is rounded out by canines Freaky, Nelly, Morgana and Pompey.

False Impression by Jeffrey Archer has an unscrupulous banker providing loans that are likely to default so that he can acquire the Impressionist art pieces used as collateral. The book starts on September 10, 2001, with the banker in his office in the North Tower of the WTC. Very well plotted. 

Too Far Gone by John Ramsey Miller is set in NOLA in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. FBI Agent Alexa Keen is drawn into investigating a possible abduction. The case involves corruption, murder and insanity. The plot has a couple unexpected twists in the last 100 pages. 

Dying Light by Stuart MacBride. Detective Sergeant Logan has been assigned to the Screw-up Squad in Aberdeen, Scotland. Along with a bitchy Inspector he's investigating a string of murders of prostitutes. He'd rather be investigating a string of arsons and murders with his old boss. And then there's the disappearance of a black labrador and a husband.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. The context is an alternative history in which, prior to and following WWII, a large number of Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe were settled in the Sitka District of Alaska, where they have been given temporary self-autonomy. However, more than a generation later that is due to end in a few months, and the Jews of Sitka are not US citizens, nor do most of them even have green cards. Police detective Landsman is called to investigate the death of a junkie Jew who was going by the assumed name of a former chess champion, Emanuel Lasker. But who really was this latter-day Lasker and why was he executed? 

The Shining Skull by Kate Ellis - Two kidnappings 25 years apart. What links them? Who were the Shining Ones? And why is someone impersonating a taxi driver and chopping off the hair of his blonde passengers?

Dark of the Moon by P.J. Parrish - Louis Kincaid, a black investigator for the sheriff's department in a small Mississippi town in 1985 is called to the skeletal remains of a man found by a hunter in the forest. The M.E. determines that the bones belonged to a black man, age 15-20, and the bones are at least 20 years old. Who was he and why was he murdered? And who is it that doesn't want the case investigated, much less solved?

People Die by Kevin Wignall - Interesting. JJ is a contractual hitman who works for the British government. He's not hired to spy or gather information, just to kill. He does a very good, clean job, and has no remorse. One drawback to his profession is that it's hard to have any meaningful relationships when you can't tell anyone what you do. But beyond that it seems that now someone wants him dead, and he needs to find out who and why to stay alive.

Finished Anna's Book by Ruth Rendell, a rather interesting tale about a murder, a missing child and another child that finds its place in different family.  Anna wrote diaries for many years of her life.  Married to a man who cared only for machines, she longs for a daughter and for love.  At last it appears that she will bear the daughter she wishes to hold lin her arms.  Meanwhile a woman is brutally murdered and her husband is believed to have committed the deed and is prosecuted.  Interestingly, neither is as it appears and the truth becomes elusive.  Most interesting read.

Snowbound by Blake Crouch focuses on human trafficing.  Women disappear without a trace.  The kidnappings are carefully orchestrated.  A nail inserted in a tire halts them in isolated areas where a man breaks the drivers side window and abducts them.  Will is a lawyer whose wife disappears.  He and his daughter, Devlin, can find no trace of Rachel,  A woman offering help appears with FBI identification and a terror filled experience leads them across the country and into Alaskan wilderness.  

A Venetian Reckoning (aka Death and Judgment) (Guido Brunetti, Bk 4) by Donna Leon is a complex mystery investigated by Commisario Brunetti that involves lawyers, the mafia and international dealings.  Two lawyers of the same firm are murdered in the same manner.  A truck hauling lumber crashes leaving bodies of several women along with the driver strewn across the landscape.  In a separate but possibly related death an accountant dies.

Call for the Dead by John Le Carre is a classic mystery by this outstanding British author.  It features George Smiley investigating a man who may be a spy and is murdered.  Who did it and why?  Fascinating plot that weaves around theory after theory and more die in the interim.  Good read.

The Ethical Assassin by David Liss is a mystery with many twists.  A young man, Lem, wants to go to Columbia University but his stepfather and mother cannot afford to send him so he is selling encyclopedias door to door.  All goes well until while he is giving his pitch to a couple in a trailer house when there is a knock on the door.  When it  opens the individual standing there shoots the couple with him.  However, the assassin doesn't want to kill him.  The story weaves here and there and Lem discovers that the selling is a cover for drug distribution.  He runs afowl of a crooked sheriff who is also the mayor.  Miss is $40,000 which the sheriff believes he has but he doesn't and the assassin keepls showing up to get him out of his various scrapes.  Interesting plot that speeds up as the books moves to a close.  Good, good read.

I finished Holmes, Miss Marple & Poe Investigations by James Patterson, Brian Sitts. It was actually pretty good. Enteraining

A Night Too Dark by Dana Stabenow. This one seemed more upbeat than the last few. A lot of humor in how she describes the various Park Rats.

Milwaukee Summers Can Be Deadly by Kathleen Ann Barrett. Written by a lawyer with a lawyer for a main character. Barrett's writing style tends to be mostly short, declarative sentences with subject-predicate-object. Reads almost like geared for a 5th grader. However, as a former resident of Milwaukee I enjoyed the trip down memory lane of streets, neighborhoods, sights and events.

Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin. Lot of Rebus's back story and psychology. The title has to do with clues that Rebus is sent by the serial killer, clues he is almost too late to figure out.

Skeleton Hill by Peter Lovesy. A femur is found buried amid the roots of a fallen tree. Was it the bone of a Cavalier who fell in the English Civil War or from someone killed more recently, and if so whose. Hard to tell without a skull to go with the other bones.

Death of a Thousand Cuts by Barbara D'Amato. One of the most interesting books I've read in quite a while. A psychiatrist who developed an early method of treating autistic children is murdered at the reunion of therapists, counselors, parents and their adult autistic children treated by the "great man." Gives a lot of insight into the frustration felt by those on the spectrum, their families and the detectives who have to interview them. 

Sharpe's Revenge by Bernard Cornwell. Historical novel rather than a mystery. It's 1814 and Major Sharpe is looking forward to the end of the Napoleonic Wars and settling down with his young wife in Dorset. But he's accused of stealing Napoleon's treasure, which now that Bonapart has abdicated, is claimed by the new French King Louis XVIII. But the treasure is in the hands of Sharpe's nemeis Ducos and Sharpe will have to prove it to clear his name.

I have always been fascinated with Lizzie Borden.  Just finished reading  Sherlock Holmes:The Maplecroft Connection by Joe DeSantis.  Lizzie contacts Sherlock Holmes who is visiting the United States because she's been accused of murder again.  Interspersed with this fictional account are real tidbits from the original murder of her parents.  I enjoyed it.

Also finished The First Time I Knocked by Jo McGregor.  This is the fourth book in the series.  In the first book, the MC drowned in a pond and when she came back to life, she had psychic abilities and her dead boyfriend's spirit comes back with her. This book finds her in New Orleans investigating the murder of a family of three in their restaurant.

If anyone is interested in a thriller that keeps  you on the edge of your chair pick up Dear Child.  It's about abduction of women and what can happen to them.  The young author did a remarkable job weaving weaving this tale.  

No entry since a month ago when I posted a read that fits this area.  Now I've finished The Saint of Wolves and Butchers by Alex Grecian, 4 stars, by an author I enjoy.  This novel features a young highway patrolperson who has moved to her childhood home with her daughter to travel the highways of Kansas.  She meets a stranger who is seeking a Nazi who may have fled to the state to avoid prosecutrion for war crimes.  The two team to search for the man and the action begins.  Good, good read.  If you haven't checked this author's work, do so.  His plots and characters have depth and passion.

Just finished reading The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel. The story revolves around a man who is a Hitchcock fanatic. He buys the Bates house, turns it into an inn and invites his old college classmates for a free weekend visit.  Holding a grudge from college days, he plans a big surprise for them.  He and all the guests are harboring secrets which lead to some interesting twists and turns in the plot.  Sprinkled throughout with Hitchcock tidbits.