When iZombie was first announced, I was reluctant to get onboard. I am not ordinarily a fan of Zombies. I have proudly never watched an episode of The Walking Dead. But the brains, so to speak, behind the series belonged to Rob Thomas, creator of the late, lamented series Veronica Mars. For that reason alone…
Truth Be Told by Hank Phillippi Ryan is the third novel featuring Jane Ryland and Jake Brogan, a Boston journalist and cop, whose new investigations of murder amid shady foreclosures and the cold case of the Lilac Sunday murder become as complicatedly intertwined as their relationship (available October 7, 2014). The novel begins on an unseasonably…
India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy by Carol K. Carr is the latest Madam of Espionage mystery set in Victorian London (available February 5, 2013). In Victorian London, India Black has all the attributes a high-class madam needs to run a successful brothel—wit, beauty, and an ability to lie with a smile. Luckily for…
Death on Telegraph Hill by Shirley Tallman is the fifth historical mystery featuring Sarah Woolson, an attorney in 19th-century San Francisco (available October 16, 2012). For a man who has been dead for over 112 years, Oscar Wilde certainly gets around! Not only is he the star of his own mystery series by Gyles Brandreth,…
Spy in a Little Black Dress by Maxine Kenneth is the second book in the spy cozy series featuring Jacqueline Kennedy in her career as a spy before becoming first lady (available October 2, 2012). When I first heard that there was a mystery series by Maxine Kenneth (the duo of Maxine Schnall and Ken…
Murder Most Austen by Tracy Kiely is the fourth book in the Elizabeth Parker cozy mystery series (available September 4, 2012). “If I had known that someone was going to kill the man sitting in 4B three days hence, I probably wouldn’t have fantasized about doing the deed myself.” An ardent Anglophile, Elizabeth Parker can’t…
The IRS scares me. Even Al Capone, who eluded the ATF and the FBI, finally couldn’t escape the IRS. Though I file my taxes on time, and only take the necessary deductions that I can claim as a writer (is my Entertainment Weekly subscription a legitimate expense?), I live in fear that one day I’m…
As a voracious pre-teen reader, I cut my teeth on Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, The Dana Sisters and Encyclopedia Brown mystery series. I loved the idea of someone who was close to being my age solving a mystery that had the adults in the story stumped. I loved them so much that I actually…
I was dancing while he burned, but I had no way of knowing that, not then, while spinning on the tips of my toes, my husband’s grip firm around my waist as he led me around the ballroom again and again, glistening beads of sweat forming on his forehead. My heart was light; my head…
While perusing the bookshelves in the mystery section of my local Barnes and Noble, I noticed an interesting trend, that of the Literary Sleuth. Mystery novels featuring Jane Austen, Dorothy Parker, Daphne du Maurier, Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Bronte, to name just a few. Well besides being real life literary icons whose books are…
