Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Murder Mystery

EVER AFTER by Barbara Francesca Murphy – Murder Thrillers, Women’s Friendship Fiction, Mystery

Ever After by Barbara Murphy reveals the treachery, fear, love, and emotion woven throughout a tenuous friendship.

Imogen Armstrong Brown can’t wait to be interviewed by a local newspaper. She holds the well-hidden secret of her sworn enemies, four women who rebuked her from their close group friendship. A tragic event around Horseshoe Bay featuring this scrupulous group had shown Imogen that the group was neither sincere nor innocent, but deeply pretentious, ruthless, and defiant even to the law.

Over the course of this story, readers will learn of all the dark corners that Nora, Tiffany, Lydia, and Reeva try to hide.

Each character’s background and upbringing paint their aspirations and fears in the present. Even the strengths in their personalities, such as being hardworking and loving, are hampered by challenges from mental disorders to trauma from bad parenting, and sometimes a simple lack of contentment. Murphy showcases the coping strategies that each of the four employs in a desperate bid to maintain sanity, closeness, and unity despite a harsh reality.

The pains of the past will demand resilience from the four women if they want any chance to turn fateful challenges into opportunities for change and progress.

Readers will find all the women linked together by Justin, an intriguing character whose admirable nature and willingness to help others is overshadowed by his flirtatious and proud behavior. A breathtaking reveal is just around the corner as these relationships are teased apart.

Murphy’s easy choice of words gives this text a flow that welcomes readers of all ages. Engaging dialogue shows the depth of her characters as they play off of each other.

Ever After sparkles with breathtaking twists and turns that will hold readers in suspense from beginning to end, particularly after a hypnotic prologue that promises an unforgettable and extraordinary adventure. With each secret revealed, the story offers a deeper look inside the world of its perfect-looking people. For thriller lovers and supporters of women’s friendships, this will be an exciting and highly inspirational read.

Overall, Ever After is a composition whose words will pull at the heartstrings of its readers. The brilliant uses of elements such as tragic flow, dramatic irony, anxiety, denouement, and catharsis, combine to produce an unforgettable read. Murphy’s magisterial work shines a probing light into the nature of friendship, the life-altering impact of infidelity, and the ultimate cost of a truly poor decision.

“Some paths lead us into the light, but others take us down an ever-dimming pathway into darkness.” – Wofford Lee Jones

May 15, 2023
THE OUTLAW GILLIS KERG: A Tale of Physics, Lust and Greed by Mike Murphey – Time Travel, Murder Mystery, Sci-fi Thriller

Be careful what you wish for, because it may turn on you in The Outlaw Killis Kerg by Mike Murphey.

It’s midway through the 21^st century, and time travel is spreading. Who doesn’t want to travel back in time to change their present? However, the best plans can often bring dire consequences. When those in the present invent time travel, then people in the future also have the same ability. What might the future impose on the past to change the course of humanity?

Marta Hamilton and Marshall Grissom believe their time-traveling days are soon coming to an end. But while vacationing on their boat, they’re attacked by a group of intruders; they leap into action to defend themselves, and after defeating their attackers they recognize one of them from the time travel office. Someone ordered this attack. The intrigue begins, energizing Marta and Marshall on a journey to overturn the political machinations of a powerful partnership between government and corporate power. Their search leads to the ultimate confrontation against the cult of vengeance and The Outlaw Gillis Kerg.

Despite the high stakes, Marta and Marshall keep their biting sense of humor.

When they discover a federal judge murdered, the clues indicate what they most feared. This murder was committed by an agent from the future, but how do you prove something like that? Marta and Marshall must find a way to do so, and catch the killer.

They are pushed, as a team, to risk their lives for the truth. Even when they realize they’re walking into a trap, they must move forward, with creative precautions. Marta and Marshall are a thrilling pair, diving into the storm, defying the forces against them, including those powerful opponents who sometimes act in unfamiliar, futuristic ways. Their challenging confrontations are an exciting read.

Author Mike Murphey has continued his epic Physics, Lust and Greed series with this fourth book that treats his readers to the same high level of action.

The author’s witty humor is laced throughout the dialogue, with pointed political satire. Readers will cheer for Marta and Marshall from the beginning, and find the other characters, including the US President, unique and entertaining. Some of these other characters may seem outrageous, but each follows their own motives.

Writing about all the past, present, and future actors invading different times could become overwhelming, but Murphey is very clear in his plotting and makes the action easy to follow.

Will Marta and Marshall prove the killer of the judge, come from the future? Can they catch that killer? How will they confront The Outlaw Gillis Kerg?

Mike Murphey’s series Physics, Lust and Greed was a Finalist in the Chanticleer 2021 Series Book Awards.

October 5, 2022
UNTIL DEAD: A Cold Case Suspense by Donnell Ann Bell – Murder Mystery, Suspense, Police Procedural

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does anyone care? If the tree has connections to the rich and powerful, they just might. In Until Dead, Donnell Ann Bell suggests the many ways “elites” – those with seemingly limitless wealth and power – can manipulate the world to their wishes.

Events that might otherwise go unnoticed take on great importance when they affect the powerful elites. With subtlety and skill, Bell reveals this as she takes the reader from an odd encounter in 2017 to an assassination attempt in Colorado two years later.

Until Dead begins when Mark Rafferty, an up-and-comer in a general practice Denver law firm, well on his way to full equity, dies in a one-car accident at the beginning of rush hour in the fall of 2017. He leaves behind several open cases and his widow, Theresa O’Neil, an Assistant United States Attorney. Theresa has a lot of support behind her, including her boss, the Colorado U.S. Attorney, and an aunt who is a U.S. Senator.

After Theresa survives an assassination attempt clearly set up by a knowledgeable killer, law enforcement realizes that she has a target on her back. Someone wants her dead, but who, and why?

The Senator’s powerful connections push the issue until a multi-agency task force forms to investigate—the same multi-agency that brought the Black Pearl Killer to justice. Everett Pope, a Denver police investigator, works with agents from the FBI and ATF to bring the would-be-killer to justice and learn who hired him for the hit.

Pride, greed, envy, and perhaps even a smattering of lust make for a tantalizing set of motives. The story is told from multiple points of view, even getting into the hit man’s head. The reader can develop rapport with these relatable, multi-dimensional characters.

Bell’s familiarity with the city of Denver and the mountainous regions of Colorado shines in her imagery. Her knowledge of the structures and workings of U.S. government agencies is impressive, suggesting a lot of research went into this story. Until Dead is a deep dive into a complex web of government hierarchies, power brokers, cybercriminals, and cyber security combined with drones and C-4. It will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The specificity of government structures works for and against the narrative, as the numerous acronyms attached to those government entities. But such is the nature of bureaucracies. Aside from this, the complex plot maintains its suspense, with an ending that hits like a destructive Colorado derecho.

The second book in the Cold Case Suspense Series has launched Donnell Ann Bell into a spot as one of our favorite authors. Highly Recommended!

August 29, 2022
The GREEN REMAINS: Book 2 of the Nora Tierney English Mysteries by M.K. Graff – British Cozy Mysteries, Women Sleuths, Romance

American editor and author Nora Tierney has a lot going on, from a book deal and pregnancy to stumbling on the site of a high-profile murder, in M.K. Graff’s mystery novel, The Green Remains.

After winning a contest for a three-book deal, Nora and her artist are proofreading her first novel while she is researching for the next installment. Add to this that Nora is also almost nine months pregnant with her dead boyfriend’s baby, and she should have enough to keep her busy.

As a temporary resident of Ramsey Lodge, the ancestral home of her novel’s artist Simon Ramsey, Nora enjoys the beautiful scenery of Bowness-on-Windermere, a Cumbrian village on the shore of England’s largest lake while attempting to find a name for her son. It doesn’t hurt that Simon and his sister Kate pamper her and want her to live with them at least as long as she and Simon are collaborating and by all means, until the baby is born.

However, Nora’s idyllic rest is interrupted when she stumbles upon the dead body of Keith Clarendon, the only son of prominent citizens Sommer and Antonia. When the medical examiner deems Keith’s death murder via rare poison, Detective Ian Travers, Kate’s fiancé, finds himself in the awkward position of questioning Simon’s possible involvement. However, the small community is again rocked by murder when two local drunkards are also found dead with signs of the same poison. Nora is determined to prove Simon’s innocence, but each day she draws closer to her due date and as she conducts her clandestine investigation, each clue takes her closer to the killer.

The romantic relationships in the novel present an interesting contrast.

In the first book in the series, Nora loses her fiancé, Paul, in a plane crash, but she had already “lost” him. She had allowed herself to ignore the negativity in their relationship. In hindsight, she knows she refused to see who her fiancé had truly been. When Kate suggests naming the child after Paul, the true feelings Nora had suppressed rise to the surface. She knows with certainty she could never name the child after his father. She suspects Paul himself had fallen out of love with her, but like her, couldn’t bring himself to break off their engagement.

Nora and Simon are another contrasting couple. In the previous novel, Simon saved Nora from certain death in Oxford while she investigated the accusations of murder made again her friend Val. They also shared a brief physical interlude there as well, and he is the artist for her children’s novels. Her need to clear Simon’s name is both obligatory and emotional. He and Kate have helped Nora in numerous ways, providing support and comfort. They attend birthing classes with her and give her a home at Ramsey Lodge. They paint her future son’s room and put together his crib.

Simon loves Nora and desires more than she is willing to provide.

She chooses to keep their current relationship platonic but often questions that choice. In short, Nora’s torn between her feelings for Simon and for the Oxford detective, Declan Barnes, who worked closely with her on a previous investigation.

Whenever she thinks about Declan, she experiences all of the “new-love” emotions, excitement, trepidation, and uncertainty. However, she simultaneously cannot stop the surge of jealousy she feels when Maeve, a manager at the hotel, flirts with Simon. Nora knows she has no right to these emotions but still cannot stop herself. Simon means security, a real family, while Declan represents passion and desire.

A theme many readers will find familiar is the anxiety of parenthood.

After learning of Paul’s death, Nora soon discovers she’s pregnant. She chose to keep her child and raise him on her own, a gutsy decision that she often questions. Her mind often fills with uncertainty. Nora’s mother lives in Connecticut, and her father drowned years ago when she was a teenager. She carries the burden of guilt over his death because she had turned down his invitation to join him.

The ghost of parenting haunts Nora because she wants to live up to the memory of what a wonderful parent her father truly was. She understands that saying you are going to be a good parent doesn’t really deliver the proof of actually being one. In the meantime, she must face the tragedy of Keith’s death and the grief of his loving parents. The strength of their loss, in a strange way, highlights her desire to be a loving parent.

Facing the death of her only child, Antonia mentally implodes. The loss feels monumental to Nora, and she questions her involvement in the investigation since death seems to surround her pregnancy. She sees how fragile life truly is and how having a partner makes that life more bearable, which in turn makes her wonder how she’ll ever be parent enough for her son when she can’t even choose a name or keep herself out of trouble.

The Green Remains by M.K. Graff won 1st Place in the 2014 CIBA M&M Book Awards for Cozy Mysteries.

June 27, 2022
CITY Of PEACE by Henry G. Brinton – Murder Mystery, Religious Tension, Multicultural

Religions and personalities collide, mix, and meld in this vibrant multicultural, multinational mystery by author Henry G. Brinton, set in the engaging town of Occoquan, Virginia.

Harley Camden never heard of Occoquan before he is assigned there by his bishop. She insists on a change of venue for him because both his sermons and his management of church affairs have lost their flavor – understandably – after his wife and daughter were killed in Brussels, by Islamic terrorists who used nail bombs to make their horrifying statement.

Camden realizes that he needs the change, and soon finds that, despite his inner pain, Occoquan has many charms, and many charming residents who go out of their way to make him feel at home.

Tim, who lays claim to no religion, introduces him to the remarkable history of the region, staunchly abolitionist during the Civil War. Tim also tells him about the Bayatis, an Iraqi family who operate the local bakery. Not long after Camden’s arrival, the complacent riverside town is rocked by sudden tragedy when Norah, the baker’s daughter, is murdered; the presumption made by law enforcement is that her father Muhammad is guilty of a ritualistic killing because Norah had consorted with a man, thus dishonoring her family.

To preach the Christian gospel, find forgiveness in his enraged anti-Islamic mind, and to find a way to bring together the many strands of spirituality in the town – Christian, Jewish, Muslim – will be a task that Camden never expected to take on.

Tormented by strange, seemingly prophetic dreams, and guided to meet a Coptic Christian couple and a Jewish woman about whom he receives psychic “messages,” Camden will also befriend the Bayatis and begin, almost without meaning to, to investigate Norah’s murder. In doing so he will uncover obscure but meaningful lore with a bearing on the town’s dilemma, providing regenerative fodder for his emotive sermons. In seeking Norah’s actual killer, he will also imperil himself, and ultimately uncover a terrifying danger hovering over Occoquan.

Brinton knows whereof he writes, as a Presbyterian minister and well-known journalist whose articles often encompass the themes of multiculturalism, religious understanding, and tolerance.

Examining as he does the thorny religious and political issues gripping the nation and our world today, Brinton makes Camden a spokesperson for those crucial themes. Mining materials from the history of the Galilean city of Sepphoris as the “city of peace” brings his story into broader focus, while the real-life town of Occoquan is almost a character in the book’s plot, so deeply does Brinton delve into its unique and admirable qualities.

The first in a series of Harley Camden sagas, City of Peace is a tale of disruption and chaos – followed by reconciliation and interfaith resolve – that will fascinate readers of intelligent mystery fiction and make them seek more offerings from this talented wordsmith.

City of Peace by Henry G. Brinton won 1st Place in the 2019 CIBA Mystery & Mayhem awards for Cozy & Not-So-Cozy Mysteries.

May 14, 2022
WRITING IS MURDER: An Emlyn Goode Mystery by Susan Lynn Solomon – Cozy Mystery, Paranormal Mystery Series, Women Sleuth

A perfect seasonal read, Susan L. Solomon’s mystery, Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery delivers a witty, intuitive red-headed writer who has many connections in her community, a handsome police detective-maybe-lover, a mouthy cat who keeps her grounded, and a Wiccan BFF whom she can trust with her most profound concerns. And, of course, magical abilities inherited from her ancestor, Salem’s legendary accused witch Sarah Goode, adds layers of mystique.

When Roger Frey interrupts Emlyn Goode battling her recalcitrant muse, she can’t be upset. Roger, aka Police Detective Roger Frey, her next-door neighbor and sometimes sleep-over boyfriend, stumbles on the hunt for coffee, a good-morning kiss, and a sympathetic ear, in that order. He’s bored at work and wants to complain.

She’s heard it all before. But soon, she sees something remarkable.

When Emlyn goes to her writers group, she experiences an out-of-body experience that takes her back in time. She travels across to the Crystal Beach amusement park, across the lake in Canada, where modern-day condominiums grow. There, she glimpses two couples, one unfamiliar to her, the other, her parents. Before she can process what she sees, one of Em’s writing cohorts jerks her away from the action, asking her a question.

The group takes a break, and Emlyn has a curious talk with Daniel Bennett, the newest writer in the group. Daniel shares with her a copy of an old document he found in his deceased grandfather’s possessions. She catches only a glimpse of it before Daniel gets spooked and puts it away – but she won’t forget.

The mystery sparks to life.

A few days later, on Halloween night, Em joins her writing cohorts for a ghost hunt. Their good fun turns to horror when they discover Daniel’s murdered body in an empty, historic home. Emlyn, to her dismay, might be implicated.

Susan Solomon skillfully uses a prologue to set Writing is Murder’s theme and mood. She introduces the reader to “perhaps one of the most haunted areas in the country,” relates the legend of an ancient Tuscarora curse and seemingly related murders, and includes accurate descriptions of historical places and events in western New York State. All this pulls the reader into the story and keeps them there.

As the story progresses, Emlyn realizes that the past and present must somehow converge before solving the murder. Thanks to Emlyn’s unique gifts, along with her friend Rebecca Nurse’s witchy knowledge and advice, she might do just that.

Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery will entertain readers who love their mysteries with a bit of paranormal in the mix. The plot twists and turns to satisfy even the most ardent sleuths. In addition, the burgeoning romance coupled with sometimes glib banter, and the notion that potions and spells may really work, highlight the characters’ charm.

Susan Lynn Solomon’s Writing is Murder: An Emlyn Goode Mystery won 1st Place in the 2019 CIBA Mystery & Mayhem Book Awards for Cozy and Not So Cozy reads.

October 25, 2021
MURDER AT THE LEOPARD by R.M. Vassari and Lucia Olivia Lampe, a historical mystery novel

Many times, collaborative efforts by authors—especially with regard to their debut novel—suffer from fledgling attempts to master both the craft and the melding of two writing styles. Not so for this stunningly well-written, debut historical mystery.

Murder at The Leopard, the first book in the Vespers Series set in Palermo, Italy during the thirteenth century, brings to life a fascinating time in European history. Vassari and Lampe have captured the essence of this era, providing a wonderfully complex tale of greed, past betrayals, revenge, and murder.

With a deft hand and a talent for storytelling, the authors introduce you to a rich cast of characters, from local tavern owners to spies under the employ of a despot ruler. A simple farmer and his very pregnant wife travel to Palermo, hoping that God will grant their wish for a boy.

A long-lost brother, an old crusader who has returned home after decades and harbors old secrets, accompanies them. A wealthy merchant sends his ne’er-do-well nephew to guide them on their journey whilst placing him under orders to spy on King Charles’ preparations for war. Local tavern and inn owners hope for good commerce during the upcoming Holy Week celebrations. Against this backdrop, an engaging and entertaining murder mystery unfolds.

The main heroes of the Vespers Series are the tavern owners Ysabella de Rogerio and her charming husband Amodeus. In this first novel, they’ve timed the opening night of their new neighborhood tavern with Holy Week, to take advantage of the pilgrims who are flooding into Palermo. Unfortunately, the religious holiday also brings together old enemies, and the celebrations at The Leopard quickly turn serious when a wealthy merchant, Ludovico, is murdered. The sheriff arrives, and after a brief investigation, wrongfully arrests Amodeus for the crime.

Soon after, a second murder occurs, further jeopardizing the reputation of The Leopard and the life savings Ysabella and Amodeus have poured into their tavern.

It’s up to Ysabella to prove Amodeus is innocent, find the real killer, and save their business. As she begins to dig deeper into the lives of those involved, she uncovers past betrayals, greed, a thirst for revenge that hasn’t faded in the forty years since the Crusades, and even the dirty deeds of spies working to topple the current king.

Vassari and Lampe have employed accurate historical detail—along with likable and complex characters that quickly become old friends—to give readers an entertaining and engaging read from the very first page. Highly recommended for those who love historical fiction or a good rousing mystery!

September 23, 2015