Finished your latest thrill and need another? I have three books of mystery and suspense to get you through the week.
LADY JOKER by Kaoru Takamura
LADY JOKER is the first of two volumes. Takamura is a renowned Japanese author who had never been translated despite over three decades of award winning publications. Enter the Soho Crime imprint of Soho Press, with their mandate to publish fiction from around the world, and voila! Well, not quite that easily. Translating from Japanese into English, while retaining the quality and character of Takamura’s style, was not easy. The task was accomplished through the combined effort of a traditional translator and a simultaneous translator, whose two separate skills blended to make an excellent book. The result is a is multi-layered, beautifully told, authentically Japanese crime story . . . deeply rooted in history and culture. You won’t want to miss this one.
SUNDAY SILENCE by Nicci French
For your next pick, any of the Freida Klein series by British husband and wife writing team Nicci French (she is Nicci Gerrard and he is Sean French). Seriously, any of them! I recently finished SUNDAY SILENCE, where frequent police consultant Freida Klein is implicated in a murder when the body is found beneath the floorboards of her house. This book is the 7th in the series (the most recent one is THE DAY OF THE DEAD) however it can be easily read as a stand alone. Fair warning, start anywhere in the series and you will want to read them all. Nicci French also writes actual stand alone books, chilling and thrilling, all.
HIDE IN PLACE by Emilya Naymark
If you haven’t read Emilya Naymark‘s debut novel, HIDE IN PLACE, you should. It centers around Laney Bird, who left the NYPD in the aftermath of a high-profile case gone terribly wrong. Three years later, settled in an idyllic town in upstate New York, the unimaginable happens. Her son vanishes. Start reading early in the day, because you won’t be able to put this one down! (She’s a fellow blogger on this website, so come back to MissDemeanors and hear more from her, but don’t forget to read the book!)
Enjoy! And share your recent favorite books with us on Facebook or Twitter . . . we are always looking for the next good book!