9 minute read
ROMANCE
SECRETS TYPED IN BLOOD
Spotswood, Stephen Doubleday (384 pp.) $27.00 | Dec. 13, 2022 978-0-385-54926-4
Early 1947 provides Lillian Pentecost and Willowjean Parker with a baffling new case and a continuation of an old one that just won’t go away. Someone has been copying prolific pulp magazine writer Holly Quick’s stories. And it’s not just an ordinary plagiarist, but someone who’s bringing them to sanguinary life and death. The job Holly offers the one-eyed private eye and her hand-picked sidekick— to identify and decommission the copycat killer—should be straightforward, but it comes with a raft of restrictions. Holly won’t permit Lillian and Willow to go to the police or reveal her identity as the person behind all her male pseudonyms. She hides important information from them that they really need to know. Lillian is determined to start the investigation during the same two-week period when Willow is already unhappily undercover as secretary Jean Palmer at the law firm of Shirley & Wise, where her predecessor as Kenneth Shirley’s secretary was criminal mastermind Olivia Waterhouse, an old adversary of Lillian’s whose motives for her masquerade are a lot less clear than Willow’s. As if these aren’t enough difficulties, Darryl Klinghorn, the bedroom-peeping shamus Lillian hires to gather information on the three victims murdered in homages to Holly’s fiction, ends up getting killed himself, running his inquiries into an emphatic dead end. Both cases have their high points (lots of curveballs and some smartly retro feminism) and their low (the copycat is eventually unmasked as an entirely marginal figure, and the windup of the Waterhouse case is at once melodramatic, anticlimactic, and inconclusive).
Untidy but undeniably engaging.
BLOWN BY THE SAME WIND
Straley, John Soho Crime (216 pp.) $27.95 | Dec. 6, 2022 978-1-641-29381-5
Think nothing could possibly make Cold Storage, Alaska, any goofier? Think again. The summer of 1968 brings five new arrivals to the little fishing village. The first is a rash of burglaries—nothing too serious but more than a nuisance and well outside the competence of George Hanson, the Seattle cop who followed barkeeper Ellie Hobbes and boat keeper Slippery Wilson to Cold Storage and settled there as an unofficial lawman. The second is Brother Louis, a Trappist monk sent forth from Gethsemane, Kentucky, to dim the publicity his Cistercian monastery has gained from the books he’s published as Thomas Merton. The third is FBI agent, or maybe ex-agent, Boston Corbett, who’s traveled there to have a word with Brother Louis about his possible Communist sympathies. The fourth and fifth are George Atzerodt and Ed Spangler, a pair of racist agitators bent on recruiting equally weak-minded souls to their visionary cause and acquiring the Old General, a mummy Ellie grew up with back in the Haywood Saloon. Word on the streets is that the Old General’s remains are actually those of actor/assassin John Wilkes Booth, and the insurrectionists think they’d be an inspiration to the followers they hope to enlist. It’s hard for the Cold Storage natives to keep up with this many star-crossed arrivals, but Straley assigns a memorable role to Venus Myrtle, a 16-yearold who inspires mystical dreams in Brother Louis and straightup lust in the sons of the Confederacy. Fans of this loopy series, licking their lips in anticipation of the ensuing complications, won’t expect everything to be tied up in a neat bundle, and it isn’t.
Resonant 1968 memories, racist conspiracies, Zen-like mysticism, and the reliably off-kilter takes of the regulars. Perfect.
romance
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Abrams, Stacey wrinting as Selena Montgomery Berkley (336 pp.) $27.00 | Sept. 6, 2022 978-0-593-43939-5
Two spies are forced to work together despite their mutual mistrust in the latest pseudonymous novel from Stacey Abrams. Dr. Raleigh Foster is a brilliant chemist who was recruited to work as an operative for the International Security Agency when she was only 20. The mysterious agency is a joint effort of more than 75 countries, undertaking top-secret missions to ensure peace and security around the globe. Adam Grayson and his best friend, Phillip Turman, were recruited to work for the ISA after graduating from Harvard Law School. The three worked together on a mission that went disastrously wrong three years earlier. Phillip died in action, and Adam blamed Raleigh for his death. Adam quit working with the ISA and returned to running his wealthy family’s network of companies, while Raleigh continued to work as a highly decorated agent. Now, Raleigh is given the job of recruiting Adam to go undercover and stop a terrorist organization from converting one of his company’s inventions into a chemical weapon. On the mission, Adam and Raleigh must pose as lovers, which makes it hard for them to ignore the sizzling attraction between them. As they spend more time undercover, they find a
well traveled
series of puzzling clues indicating that there’s a mole inside the ISA. Adam is convinced that Raleigh’s friend and mentor is the mole, while she suspects that Phillip might have faked his own death. The beginning of the novel is overburdened with exposition, but once Raleigh and Adam go undercover on the fictional Mediterranean island of Jafir, the plot picks up speed. The novel deftly explores loyalty and the perils of trusting in “the rules of engagement” in a world of intrigue and secrets.
A slow-burn romantic suspense story eventually finds its footing.
WELL TRAVELED
DeLuca, Jen Berkley (336 pp.) $15.99 paper | Dec. 6, 2022 978-0-593-20046-9
An overworked attorney decides to give up law life and join a Renaissance Faire. Louisa “Lulu” Malone isn’t happy working long, thankless hours as a corporate attorney. While on a business trip, she decides to take a break and visit a local Renaissance Faire, and while she’s there she gets a phone call that confirms what she already knows—she’s never going to make partner at her firm. In a fit of anger and desperation, she tells her boss she’s quitting and throws her phone into a tub of water the “laundry wenches” are using for their show. Luckily, she makes a new friend at the Faire, a woman named Stacey who works with a band called the Dueling Kilts. Stacey also happens to
know Lulu’s Ren Faire–loving cousin, Mitch, and the two of them convince Lulu to take some time away from the law world. Instead of rushing into another job, why not travel with the band…or, as Lulu puts it, “run away and join the Renaissance Faire”? Soon, Lulu’s wearing a lace-up bodice, selling turkey legs, and meeting the “bad boy” of the Dueling Kilts, Dex. Dex has a reputation for hooking up with any acrobat or belly dancer who will have him, and Lulu has no intention of falling for his charms, his over-the-top flirting, or his man bun. As she gets to know Dex, she realizes there may be a depth to him that no one else sees. But he lives for the Faire and his band, and Lulu has to figure out if there’s a future for the two of them. DeLuca returns to the Renaissance Faire world of her previous three books, bringing back many familiar characters. The Faire is a unique setting, and Lulu and Dex’s relationship feels both realistic and fun, making this an easy and perfectly charming read.
A comforting, low-angst romance that will make readers want to attend a Renaissance Faire.
NEVER RESCUE A ROGUE
Heath, Virginia St. Martin’s Griffin (368 pp.) $16.99 paper | Nov. 8, 2022 978-1-2507-8778-1
A lady journalist chases a story—and a duke. Diana Merriwell has a secret. No, it’s not that she’s a journalist; everyone knows that, and she has her family’s support. It’s that her career is a front for her undercover job as the Sentinel, an anonymous writer who unearths and exposes damaging gossip about prominent and problematic noblemen. Unfortunately, that job comes with conflicts of interest, and never is that truer than now, when the hottest story in London concerns her family friend Giles Sinclair, who is suddenly the Duke of Harpenden. He learned before his father’s sudden death that he was actually a bastard and fears it’s only a matter of time before the truth comes out and he’s cast
from society. When he accidentally stumbles across Diana’s Sentinel secret, he admits his own secret to her, and she’s pulled into his mission to repair the damage his ostensible father did before the truth comes out. She agrees to help even though it means she has to avoid the temptation of exposing him publicly—not to mention the long-simmering chemistry between them. The more they explore his family’s history, the closer they become, especially after their lives are put in danger. It’s not a shock when they finally do connect intimately and the book takes a welcome, steamy turn, balanced with their hunt for the truth about Harpenden. The second book in the Merriwell Sisters series combines romance and intrigue well and can be read as a stand-alone. Giles and Diana’s banter is charming, and while it’s hard to believe they don’t understand why everyone in their families thinks they’re secretly in love, they’re so sweet that it’s hard not to root for them anyway. A pleasant historical romance with a touch of mystery.
A slow burn of a Regency that will please lovers of the subgenre.
A DASH OF SALT AND PEPPER
Jackson, Kosoko Berkley (384 pp.) $15.99 paper | Dec. 6, 2022 978-0-593-33446-1
Sparks fly in and out of the kitchen in this age-gap contemporary romance. Following a disastrous two months in which Xavier Reynolds loses his job, his fellowship opportunity with the Carey Foundation, and his boyfriend, he moves back into his childhood bedroom in Harper’s Cove, Maine. While his parents and longtime best friend, Mya, are happy to have him around, that doesn’t stop them from meddling in both his professional and personal life. Xavier has already made a disastrous first impression on Logan O’Hare, an older local restaurateur who’s a friend of his parents’, and word travels fast in such a small town. When the Carey Foundation calls to offer Xavier another spot in their program, he agrees, knowing that the cost to attend is pretty steep. He needs a job, fast. The Wharf, Logan’s restaurant, is in desperate need of a sous chef, and Xavier’s family legacy in the kitchen seems like a perfect match for a temporary solution. The two stubborn men dance around their attraction, their banter over delectable New England fare serving as foreplay. Xavier’s point of view is charming and snappy; it’s a delight to be in his head. But unfortunately, Logan falls short. With his smarmy attitude and frequent undermining, Logan often treats Xavier more like his preteen child than a grown man with his own wants and needs. Sadly, the romance element of the book feels unnecessary and even, at times, detrimental to Xavier’s growth. Logan and Xavier eventually resolve their communication issues, but this is a romance in which the main character deserves so much better.
