Monday, September 26, 2022

Published 19-26 September 2022

I've expanded on my monthly listing. Here are 11 books published between 19 and 26 September 2022.
Blurbs and covers taken from Amazon. 

Adenle, Leye - Unfinished Business #3 Amaka 

Funke’s assignation with her pastor lover is cut short when he is assassinated in their hotel room, as she hides naked and terrified inside a sofa. Desperate for help, she calls on Amaka, who has moved to London. One frantic phone call later and Amaka is headed back to Lagos, where she is thrust into a world of private jets, money-laundering and mega-churches. With the trustworthy Police Inspector Ibrahim out of the country, Amaka has to use all the resources at her disposal, with the hostile Inspector Musa breathing down her neck, and a ticking clock bearing down on her, as she works to rescue Funke and get to the bottom of this tangled web of missing money, dead pastors and corrupt government officials.


Davies, Emma - Death on the Menu (ebook only) #3 Francesca Eve, Shropshire
 
Francesca Eve has planned a showstopping funeral supper to say goodbye in style, but the last thing she expects is a murder on the menu…


When elderly millionaire and
eccentric entrepreneur Clarence Lightman dies, his nearest and dearest gather one final time at Justice House, Clarence’s beautiful country estate, for the reading of his will. But the day ends in uproar when it is revealed that whoever solves a series of complex clues will inherit everything. Will one of Clarence’s disagreeable children outwit everyone else for the fortune, or could his devoted housekeeper or even Francesca herself win the day?

Francesca
knows she should stick to the kitchen and stay out of this lethal game, but she is unwillingly drawn into the mystery when she finds one of Clarence’s sons, blood pooling from a deadly thwack to the head, shoved into the larder. Somebody is clearly not playing fair, and Francesca feels sure that they won’t stop until all of the competition has been eliminated.

Trapped in the game until all the riddles are solved, Francesca must solve the clues and find the ruthless killer to protect herself and her fellow innocent guests. But she can’t trust anyone. Fran must use all her wits, not only to hunt down the truth, but to stay alive…

 
Engman, Pascal - Femicide #1 Detective Vanessa Frank, Stockholm tr. ???
  
When 25-year-old Emelie is found murdered in her Stockholm apartment the same week her ex-partner is released from prison, it feels like an open and shut case for Detective Vanessa Frank. Who else would launch such a frenzied attack on the young woman?

But Frank suspects there is something they’re missing. Could the killing be linked to the rising online movement of men who want to punish women, the so-called ‘incels’? When a survivor of brutal sexual assault comes forward, Frank uncovers more about this shadowy group who, in their own words, have weaponised the gender war and will stop at nothing to make themselves heard.

Desperate to stop any further attacks, Frank escalates the investigation when a music festival intended to be a safe space for women becomes a potential target.


Finnegan, Trish - Blue Sky #2 PC Samantha Barrie
 
No longer the fresh-faced new cop in the station, life should be getting easier for WPC Samantha Barrie. She is settled into her job at the station, is well liked on her beats, and is on track to pass her probation and become a fully-fledged police constable.

However, when her colleague and best friend, Steve, is arrested for apparently trying to smuggle drugs into the Isle of Man, Sam is determined to prove his innocence.

As headstrong as ever, Sam soon finds herself deep undercover and embroiled in a mystery which spans decades and has ruined countless lives.

Who framed Steve, and why?

Who is the mysterious Vincent Boyle, and what is his connection to the murky past at Hornthorpe Dell airfield?

Can Sam save not just her friend’s life and career – but her own as well?
 

Gardner, Ashley - Murder in the Eternal City #16 Captain Lacey, Regency Era
 
When I agree to visit Grenville in his villa near Rome, I scarcely imagine that I immediately will become embroiled in mystery and mayhem. James Denis has requested that I purchase an antique from a collector, one Conte de Luca. Before I can approach this count, I am recruited by a Roman a man to help rescue his daughter from a cool aristocrat, and then asked to solve the murder of an Englishman—by a man who is already dead.

These tasks do not keep me from traveling to the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum and exploring to my heart’s content, but trouble follows me in the form of a man bent on killing me—for what reason I cannot fathom.

All this is compounded by another murder back in Rome, and I am commanded by James Denis, as well as the aristocrat who stole my new Roman friend’s daughter, to find out who committed the deed and the secret of the man’s astonishing collection of rare and fine art.

Probing these puzzles lead me to the past, present, and future troubles of the Italian peninsula, a beautiful but deadly place in the spring of 1820.



Gatland, Jack - A Quiver of Sorrows #12 DI Declan Walsh
 
When legendary TV actor Montgomery Pryce is shot in the chest by an arrow and killed while on stage during a Robin Hood convention, Detective Inspector Declan Walsh and the team of the Last Chance Saloon are brought in to solve the murder, only to find that nearly everyone there holds a bow capable of loosing the arrow.

And when the cast of Pryce's show bring to light terrible jealousies and secrets from their past, and
Ryan Gates, one of the co-stars is discovered to have a valid reason for wanting to silence Pryce, Declan finds himself facing paparazzi, managers and brutal personal appearance agents, as the organisers of the convention refuse to cancel it, and the bodycount rises.

Running against the clock, and with a suspect list longer than the roll call of
Robin Hood's merry men, Declan must find out not only who killed Robin Hood, but also whether he was the actual target in the first place.

Because, for the first time...
could Robin Hood have been the villain?
 
 
Kirk, JD - Here Lie the Dead #15 DCI Logan 
 
Six months ago, a girl vanished. Now, it’s happening again.


When the body of a teenager is discovered near Eilean Donan Castle several months after she disappeared, DCI Jack Logan and his team journey across the Highlands to investigate.

As they start to unpick the young woman’s life, the secrets and lies they expose soon threaten to tear the small, rural community apart.

But, when a second girl goes missing in similar circumstances, it isn’t just a murder investigation that Jack finds himself running.

It’s a race against time.
 

Louth, Nick - The Body in the Stairwell #10 DCI Craig Gillard 
 

Jonathan Hale is terrified. The wealthy property lawyer and money launderer is back home in Surrey after a nightmare experience in a U.S. jail. The police have him under secret surveillance.

But Hales's fears lie elsewhere. His plea bargain has earned him the enmity of The Reptile, a notoriously cold-hearted gangster, now confined for life in a maximum-security jail in Arizona thanks to Hale. He's taken precautions, moved house, hidden his identity and installed security for his wife and family. But still... what if The Reptile escapes?

For DCI Gillard it should be just another week at work. But before long he is involved in a desperate manhunt that will test him to his very limits.

Be prepared.

 
Parker, Kate - Deadly Rescue #9 Olivia Denis, 1930s London
 
As the Phony War morphs into the Blitzkrieg, two British intelligence officers risk getting trapped behind enemy lines in the ninth Deadly mystery from USA Today Bestselling author Kate Parker


April, 1940. Hitler is invading Denmark on Tuesday. Olivia Redmond has only a weekend to bring a Nobel Prize winning chemist and his war-altering research to Britain. The scientist and his wife want to leave, but their troublesome daughter will do anything to stop her parents from departing.

The scientist’s wife was close friends with Olivia’s long dead mother and wants to talk about her, in stark contrast to Olivia’s father who won’t mention his wife. Olivia feels protective toward the invalid woman with her photos and details of Olivia’s mother’s life and wants to get her to safety.

When the daughter’s German fiancé is murdered, the police refuse to let anyone depart until they find the killer. If Olivia wants to escape Denmark with the chemist and his breakthroughs, she will have to unmask the killer before the Nazis stop her forever.
 

Skelton, Douglas - An Honourable Thief #1 Jonas Flynt, C18 
 

1715. Jonas Flynt, ex-soldier and reluctant member of the Company of Rogues, a shady intelligence group run by ruthless spymaster Nathaniel Charters, is ordered to recover a missing document. Its contents could prove devastating in the wrong hands.

On her deathbed, the late Queen Anne may have promised the nation to her half-brother James, the Old Pretender, rather than the new king, George I. But the will has been lost. It may decide the fate of the nation.

The crown must recover it at all costs.

The trail takes Jonas from the dark and dangerous streets of London to an Edinburgh in chaos. He soon realises there are others on the hunt, and becomes embroiled in a long overdue family reunion, a jail break and a brutal street riot.

When secrets finally come to light, about the crown and about his own past, Jonas will learn that some truths, once discovered, can never be untold…


Starr Mel - Suppression and Suspicion #15 Hugh de Singleton, Surgeon, 14thC England 
 

Edmund Harkins has gone missing.

Few in Bampton liked him, knowing him to be a wife-beater and distinctly unsavoury character, so when some hungry pigs unearth his corpse from a shallow grave, there is hardly an outpouring of grief.

As bailiff, it is Hugh de Singleton’s duty to bring Edmund’s killer to justice. But where is he to start investigating when almost everyone in the village has a motive? And when everyone is pleased to see the scoundrel dead, who knows how far they might go to help someone get away with murder?

To further complicate Hugh's life, the Bishop of Exeter has appointed his nephew as Bampton’s new vicar. But as well as an obsession with discovering any heretical views Hugh might hold, he could not be more unpriestly – he not only acts appallingly with Lady Katherine’s maid, but is contributing to the unhealthy atmosphere of suppression and suspicion that has come to pervade the village . . .

Fast paced and full of twists and turns, Suppression and Suspicion is a brilliant medieval murder mystery perfect for fans of Susanna Gregory and Peter Ellis. Mel Starr paints an immersive and atmospheric picture of fourteenth-century England, and weaves a compelling mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page.

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