Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner
An addictive, page-turning suspenseful mystery about a couple trying to escape their haunted past when a mysterious woman suddenly befriends them. Set in London, see if you can figure out who the true villain, or villains, are!
- L.Q.
Last Seen Wearing (Library of Congress Crime Classic
The Library of Congress Crime Classics is an ongoing series of reprints of critically hailed American crime writing from the 1860s to the 1960s. A true gem in this series is Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh. The tale concerns the disappearance of a college student who walks out of her dormitory unseen and unheard and the efforts of the local police department to find out what happened. Led by a sharp and energetic veteran chief, the local police take up the twisting case. The reader experiences a fast-paced police procedural (supposedly one of the first) loaded with gown vs town, character, and the local color of an early postwar America middle-class community, with its social concerns but no diversity.
- M.W.
The Vanished Bride - Bella Ellis (Berkeley 2019)
The Vanished Bride is a very enjoyable historical mystery set in Yorkshire and features the Bronte family; yes, the whole clan is involved in one way or another with a strange disappearance. Ms. Ellis’ knowledge of the famous family shines through as the sisters and brother figure out how to be “detectors” in a place and era when everyone was effectively isolated. Combine this tension with the stress of novice authors, hostility to women, overfondness for drink, and a semi-benign intruding father, all in a well-researched and written narrative, and you will be reading a fine debut novel.
– M.W.