Happiness Is A Book: A Reader’s Guide to the Classic British Mystery by Susan Oleksiw
Showing posts with label Aubrey Nye Hamilton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aubrey Nye Hamilton. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Monday, November 09, 2026
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Taken Ones: A J.P. Beaumont Novel by J. A. Jance
The prolific
Judy Jance, who has four distinct crime fiction series to her credit, started
with a book about Seattle homicide detective J. P. Beaumont in 1985. The 27th
case of the retired detective turned private investigator is due to be released
on 10 November 2026.
In The
Taken Ones (Morrow, 2026) Beau’s network of former colleagues and
associates gets a workout in this story of disappearing women kidnapped from
various parts of the United States. The police do not take the missing persons
reports from their families seriously, since all of them are responsible adults
and there were no indications of violence. Beau is first contacted by a grandmother
who is also an excellent vehicle mechanic in Alaska who had helped Beau when he
was in the area on a missing person case years earlier. She had known Gina
Holt, the granddaughter of close friends, since she was a child. The news that
Gina had disappeared after traveling to Seattle for a summer internship at a
prestigious architectural engineering firm stunned her. Then she thought to
call Beau for help. On vacation in Calgary, Beau can still make a few phone
calls to Seattle to jumpstart a search and to find someone in law enforcement
to take the grandparents’ concerns seriously. He learns that the airport camera
footage showed the young woman in the terminal after landing. What happened
after that required more work to discover.
A
knowledgeable IT friend sorted the thousands of missing persons reports filed
across the nation, identifying all of the victims who were about Gina’s age.
More filtering winnowed out a group of young women who disappeared in much the
same way as Gina, giving Beau and his active law enforcement buddies the
distinct impression some sort of mass kidnapping or trafficking ring was at
work.
The revolving
changes in narrative perspective from Beau to the kidnapped young women to one
of the kidnappers to the Alaska vehicle mechanic who first alerted Beau and
back again is a little distracting but the various points of view help fill in
the background leading up to the kidnappings. A fast-moving story with a
satisfying ending. A good addition to the series.
·
Publisher: William Morrow
·
Publication date: November 10, 2026
·
Language: English
·
Print length: 368 pages
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ISBN-10: 0063413124
·
ISBN-13: 978-0063413122
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://link.amazon/B08DcObvH
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal
It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Saturday, November 07, 2026
Friday, November 06, 2026
Wednesday, November 04, 2026
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Monday, October 26, 2026
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Midnight in the House of Commons: A Charles Lenox Mystery by Charles Finch
I was lucky
enough to receive an early copy of the newest book in one of my favorite series
via NetGalley. Charles Finch writes a wonderful historical series set in
Victorian London, nicely balancing credible characters with a clear portrayal
of a transitional time in English history. Midnight in the House of Commons,
the 16th case of Charles Lenox, a member of the aristocracy turned
amateur sleuth who now owns a detective agency, is set for release by Minotaur
in a couple of weeks on 3 November 2026. I am happy to report it is up to the
standard of its predecessors, maybe even a little better.
Charles
juggles multiple cases, including a shocking murder in the House of Commons,
where a womanizing conservative MP is found poisoned. The death has
far-reaching political consequences, as a hard-fought bill for relief of the
poor is tied in the House. With the loss of the dead member’s vote, the bill
will pass. One of the members known to favor the bill could not confirm an
alibi and is charged with the murder, even though a number of people had cause
to object to the victim’s personal life.
In addition,
Sari, one of the new members of the Lenox household introduced in the last
book, has incurred a romantic disappointment. The man she hoped to marry has
older relatives who object to her dark skin and she is devastated. Angela, on
the other hand, Lenox’s cousin and ward, is blooming happily with an
appropriate engagement and her study of government economics. The visitor to
the Lenox menage in this book is a cousin on Jane’s side of the family, an odd
young man whom the Lenox daughters tease unmercifully. And Lenox is approached
by another young lady whose fiancé has disappeared with no explanation, and
Lenox searches for him while he tries to sort out Sari’s romance.
The English
social structure is examined closely here, how various placements on the
invisible ladder affect life in particular for women, most clearly demonstrated
by the two young ladies who were not considered good enough for their
prospective husbands. The hotly contested bill for poor relief is a window into
the wide gap between the wealthy and the destitute, highlighted by the novels
of Charles Dickens. Then there is Laura Runcible, a newly wed matron with great
social ambitions, anxious to capture the Lenox couple as guests in her home, as
their status would enhance her own.
All in all,
this is a lively story with multiple plot threads and a considerable number of
characters. Followers of the series will enjoy it immensely. Readers new to the
Lenox saga will find enough back story to understand the narrative but will
miss the finer detail that has built up over the course of 16 books. An
excellent addition to a reliably good mystery series.
·
Publisher: Minotaur Books
·
Publication date: November 3, 2026
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Language: English
·
Print length: 272 pages
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ISBN-10: 1250433940
·
ISBN-13: 978-1250433947
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://link.amazon/B0b6DFvyu
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Friday, October 23, 2026
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Monday, October 19, 2026
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Foreign Correspondent's Wife: A Novel by Jenna Helwig
Cookbook
author and Real Simple magazine food editor Jenna Helwig has combined
her love of food and her love of mysteries in this fiction debut set in
post-war Paris of 1949. Life is slowly coming back to something approaching
normal in the City of Lights. Rationing has finally come to an end but an
influx of U.S. expatriates has contributed to the changes in the city’s
culture. And the war is not so long ago that French citizens have forgotten who
collaborated with the Germans and who was part of the Resistance Movement. The
tension between the two groups is still strong if covert. Being outed as a
collaborator has real consequences in every way.
Committed
journalist Kat Kelley lost her job when the men began coming back from the
front and claimed their pre-war careers. Pushed out of her chosen field, she’s
looking around for something to do while her husband continues as a hotshot
news reporter. She decides to take a French cooking class in order to teach
cooking to the American wives in Paris. About a month into the course, she
finds the bloody body of her classmate in the pantry of the school building.
The French
police do not strike her as capable or dedicated so Kat exercises her
investigative journalistic skills to look into Toby’s death. Then a second
death occurs, seemingly related to the first but maybe not, and the French
police are convinced someone close to her is the killer. Kat’s journalist
husband thinks the two deaths are somehow linked to an unsolved crime ten years
old. He’s being pressured to drop his investigation which only encourages him
and his editor to move forward with the story.
Well researched and written, this book captures the sense of the time. The post-war rebuilding of Europe was an intriguing period full of plot potential. The actual mystery is convoluted and takes awhile to unravel. It would move faster if the text were tightened. As usual with amateur sleuths, a certain amount of happenstance plays a part. Fans of culinary mysteries will want to take a look at this one, as the characters are forever dining out in sidewalk bistros and elegant restaurants.
·
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
·
Publication date: October 20, 2026
·
Language: English
·
Print length: 336 pages
·
ISBN-13: 979-8892427050
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4jrXL82
Aubrey Nye
Hamilton ©2026
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Friday, October 16, 2026
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Monday, October 12, 2026
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The 10:12 by Anna Maloney
The 10:12
by BAFTA winner Anna Maloney is scheduled for release in the US on 20 October
2026. It was released in January 2026 in the UK. An original and
thought-provoking story, it relates the hijacking of a train near Manchester
and its aftermath in chilling and realistic detail.
Art
instructor Claire Fitzroy is one of the passengers who fought back against the
hijackers. While many hailed her as a hero, others objected to a gray-haired
woman taking an aggressive stand against a group of men who threatened harm to
her and the rest of the travelers on the train. After the trial, she decides to
document her experience to set the record straight. The book purports to be her
working final draft with notes from her editor, text messages, emails, quotes
from testimony transcripts, and snips from newspaper articles.
In the second
half of the book Claire became obsessed with the ideological and political
beliefs driving the hijackers, seeking to understand how those philosophies
radicalized the young men into acting as they did, which worried the Secret
Service agents assigned to the case. They feared Claire was attracting an
element of danger she did not fully understand.
Inevitably
perhaps in reading something terrifying but entirely believable like this, I
asked myself if I could have stepped up the way Claire and other passengers did
to prevent a wholesale loss of life. We never know what we are capable of but I
suspect in my case the answer is no.
The structure
of the book is impressively creative and the portrayal of the hijacking is
frighteningly convincing, as is the unhinged social media response to Claire
and the misogynistic expectations of older women. Anyone would find an
experience like that traumatic and I found her need to process the event
through knowledge of the drivers behind it credible.
Starred
reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Reader reactions
vary widely, many who listened to the audio version found the narrative hard to
follow, which is understandable considering the way the story is presented in
multiple forms.
·
Publisher: Harper Perennial
·
Date: October 2026
·
Pages: 320
·
ISBN-10: 1526689162
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ISBN-13: 978-1526689160
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Uk04zN
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal
It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Friday, October 09, 2026
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Monday, October 05, 2026
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Murder on 34th Street: A Novel by Mariah Fredericks
The newest historical mystery
from Mariah Fredericks will be released in early October by Minotaur. Murder
on 34th Street is a holiday story that is set in the flagship
Macy’s Department Store on 34th Street in New York City and narrated
by the personable Grace Verlander, assistant to the Human Resources Manager who
hides in his office all day while Grace does his job for him. it is a fine
period piece, not overloaded with obvious historical research but nonetheless
true to its time, which is November 1932, the depths of the Great Depression.
Macy’s is gearing up for the
holiday shopping season, which the store owners have every reason to believe
will not be especially successful, while preparing the floats for the annual
Thanksgiving Parade. One of the floats will carry the Macy’s Santa Claus in a
bid to bring children and their parents (with money) into the store. Grace is
alarmed to learn that Santa Claus, actually Harry Gardner of children’s shoes,
has received a threatening letter promising that he will not live to see
Christmas. Grace cannot imagine who would find the quiet older gentleman
offensive but she alerts store security in the person of former police officer
Frank Halsey. Halsey agrees that Santa is likely safe within the store but vulnerable
in his perch on the Macy’s float in full view of thousands and he decides to
ride on the float with Santa.
While Gardner survives the
parade, others do not, and Grace has a mystery to solve while dealing with
dozens of personnel crises that become more urgent daily as Christmas draws
near. She is also devoting more attention than perhaps absolutely necessary to
the window display section where the new creative manager has captured her imagination.
Absorbing story with
believable characters from the major to the folks with a single throw-away scene.
The operational details of the enormous store that occupied an entire block are
fascinating and worth the read alone. And the mystery is not forgotten. It
steadily unfolds bit by bit, ending with an entirely unexpected revelation.
Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review &
Editor's Pick):
“Fredericks’ dialogue is sharp
as a box cutter and her cast of characters as lively and colorful as Christmas
itself. Grace is a marvel: witty, perceptive, and kind, yet not so perfect that
there’s no room for moments of self-reflection . . . Fredericks’ latest
adventure should be in everyone’s Christmas stocking this year, tied with a big
red bow.”
Expect to see this one on the
short list for major 2026 awards. I will be nominating it for a Lefty. Highly
recommended.
·
Publisher:
Minotaur Books
·
Publication
date: October 6, 2026
·
Language: English
·
Print
length: 288 pages
·
ISBN-10:
1250367549
·
ISBN-13:
978-1250367549
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4xZDSc3
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal
It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Friday, October 02, 2026
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Monday, September 28, 2026
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: London Station: A Novel by David McCloskey
The fifth
book about CIA agent Artemis Aphrodite Procter, London Station (Norton,
September 2026) by David McCloskey is plainly inspired by recent events in the
United States. There’s a new president in the White House, who it was rumored
intended to lower the boom on the CIA. His pick for CIA director was an
unconventional one. Bobby Jerome started a home building company with three
employees and now it has more than 15,000 personnel. He has vowed to bring a
business perspective to the running of the agency, despite his complete lack of
knowledge or experience in the field, and reduce the budget which he considered
bloated. To do so, he brought several of the senior managers of his corporation
to fill the upper level slots, all as clueless as he is.
One of
Jerome’s first acts is to examine how much money the CIA is spending to support
its fellow agencies in other countries and sees the balance is heavily weighted
on the U.S. side. He unfortunately decides to withdraw support from the British
Secret Intelligence Service to better balance the relationship financially,
leaving some of their agents dead as a result. The SIS is in an uproar and, after
Jerome offends the chief of SIS in a meeting, he fires the CIA’s head of London
Station because he is too supportive of the British. In his place Jerome
appoints Artemis, despite her disinterest, and tells her she is in charge of
rebalancing the relationship.
Artemis is an
espionage agent to the core and she knows that all intelligence agencies work
together to assess threat and defend against it. After a few more demented
instructions from Jerome and his buddies, she decides she has to find a way to aggressively
protect the U.S.-British relationship and its agents while she protects
herself.
In the
meantime the abruptly terminated former head of London Station, whose pension
is being threatened by Jerome, has gone to work for a private intelligence
agency run by an eccentric billionaire for a purpose as yet unclear. The former
CIA chief of station still has an active Rolodex and he can draw on internal
sources to help him in his new work.
Artemis has
her work cut out for her in this galloping story of boots-on-the-ground
tradecraft and political maneuvers punctuated with wisecracks. One of Jerome’s
henchmen annoys her so severely she establishes a swear jar every time she’s
tempted to smack him. By the time the book ends, she’s graduated to a large
wastebasket that is overflowing with cash. McCloskey’s background in the agency
and his first-hand knowledge of the work show in every scene. A very good read.
Especially for fans of espionage thrillers.
·
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
·
Publication date: September 29, 2026
·
Language: English
·
Print length: 432 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1324123214
·
ISBN-13: 978-1324123217
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4iRyofB
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night
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