“A married couple with a dangerous past struggles in vain to keep a low profile.” the not quite perfect murderer
the Amish that added new enemies to the ones she’d made with her wild ways, but it’s still hard to imagine who could hate her enough to batter her to death. Kate visits Rachael’s childhood friend Loretta, who still kept in touch with her and whose horsecrazy daughter reminds Kate of Rachael. Even though Loretta always seemed too shy to make a good friend for Rachael, their youthful bond still endures, and Loretta’s reluctant to talk about Rachael and their shared past. Kate enlists the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for help in processing the scene and checking out all the leads. Rachael had done well for herself but seemed to be living above her means and certainly hadn’t mellowed with age. Kate, who’s fallen from Amish grace herself, identifies with Rachael in a visceral way that makes the case special for her. Acknowledging that someone from her present life may be the killer, she still believes the answer lies in the past, and her hunch is borne out when shocking secrets come to light that roil the community and put her own life in danger. Another dive into the past to solve crimes among the Amish that explores the group’s tense relationship to the modern world.
THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP PRESENTS THE BEST MYSTERY STORIES OF THE YEAR 2021
Ed. by Child, Lee Mysterious Press (451 pp.) $16.95 | Sep. 14, 2021 978-1-61316-238-5
Editor Child, series editor Otto Penzler, and their colleague Michele Slung team up to offer 20 gems from 2021 in the first volume of a new series. Many of this year’s best follow a familiar road: pitting a rugged male hero, often with military street cred, against the bad guys. Doug Allyn’s “30 and Out” features an Afghan War vet who hunts a colleague’s killer; Jim Allyn’s ex-Army police veteran worries about being teamed with an unreliable partner in “Things That Follow.” But a surprising number include less traditional crime busters. A young man entranced with the Irish language is the gentle hero of Andrew Welsh-Huggins’ “The Path I Took.” Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski, a familiar female gumshoe, makes a welcome appearance in “Love & Other Crimes” along with the female proprietor of Wilde Investigations in Janice Law’s “The Client.” Moms get into the act in Alison Gaylin’s “The Gift” and Tom Mead’s “Heatwave.” So do new friends, in Martin Edwards’ “The Locked Cabin,” and frenemies, in Jacqueline Freimor’s “That Which Is True.” And in a startling tribute to the power of sisterhood, Joseph S. Walker shows how quickly female strangers can bond if the need is urgent in “Etta at the End of the World.” Women take starring roles on the wrong side of the law in John Floyd’s “Biloxi Bound” and Joyce Carol Oates’ “Parole Hearing, California Institution for Women, Chino, CA.” Child’s selections seem especially appropriate for 2021, a year 32
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that promises change on so many fronts. The only exception is the unexplained bonus reprint, Ambrose Bierce’s “My Favorite Murder,” a bitter tale of a man who revels in the sadistic murder of his uncle. That one belongs to 2020. Diverse and diverting.
SAMMY TWO SHOES
DePoy, Phillip Severn House (192 pp.) $28.99 | Oct. 5, 2021 978-0-7278-5066-9
A quick trip to New York turns deadly for a good-hearted former car thief who’s now a valued agent of the Florida Child Protective Service. Foggy Moscowitz can’t resist the allure of seeing two of his favorite singers in a New York club. His reputation as a mensch causes the news of his arrival to spread, and he’s soon greeted by his childhood friend Sammy Two Shoes. Sammy begs Foggy to help his girlfriend, Phoebe, who’s getting death threats, possibly from an actress named Emory, a crazy cast member of a show she’s managing. Soon after Emory’s found stabbed with a pencil, the cops arrest Phoebe. Sammy’s so desperate to get her out of jail that Foggy calls on his Aunt Shayna, whose brisket is the best and who’s still connected to the mob. Since everyone feared and hated Emory, Foggy keeps looking for other suspects, working with Helen Baker, Phoebe’s public defender, even after Sammy claims that he stabbed Emory himself. Hired by Helen to investigate, Foggy soon turns up another childhood acquaintance, Tanner Brookmeyer, a stone killer with a finger in every dirty pot in the city who’d like nothing better than to see both Foggy and Sammy dead. Sammy helps Foggy pull off a raid on Brookmeyer’s apartment, where the discovery of damning evidence may help clear the case—unless the hail of flying bullets kills them all first. An amusing caper that takes the sting out of its brutality by emphasizing the hero’s good points.
THE NOT QUITE PERFECT MURDERER
Duffy, Margaret Severn House (224 pp.) $28.99 | Oct. 5, 2021 978-0-7278-5061-4
A married couple with a dangerous past struggles in vain to keep a low profile. Patrick Gillard and his wife, Ingrid, are leading a quiet life in a small English village while Patrick investigates insurance claims and Ingrid writes crime novels. Their friend DCI James Carrick of the Bath Criminal Investigation Department
