After the events of The Truelove, Aubrey and Maturin set sail for Peru to undertake the in­tel­li­gence mission originally begun four books ago in The Letter of Marque. O’Brian packs more than usual into this book: multiple sea battles, the Reverend Martin’s descent into madness, Stephen inciting a revolution of in­de­pen­dence against the Spanish, naturalism high in the Andes, Jack almost being lost at sea in a small boat, and a nerve-wracking encounter with an American frigate amongst the ice floes of Cape Horn.

Highly rec­om­mend­ed.

Twenty years ago, three twelve-year-olds went into their local woods in Knocknaree near Dublin. Hours later, only one was found, catatonic. Now, under a different name, Rob Ryan is a detective in the Irish Murder Squad and another twelve-year-old has been murdered in Knocknaree.

Tana French’s debut is subtle and gripping. The story unfolds in unexpected ways. Ryan’s re­la­tion­ship with his partner in detection, Cassie Maddox, is tested to the breaking point while he tries to conceal his past and stay on the case.

Highly rec­om­mend­ed.

Leaving Sydney after the events of The Nutmeg of Con­so­la­tion, Aubrey and Maturin sail for Moahu, a fictional British island near Hawaii. Jack Aubrey is out of sorts for various reasons; most notably a young female convict, Clarissa Harvill, has been smuggled aboard by Midshipman Oakes. Like many sailors, he is su­per­sti­tious about women on board his ship. Not without reason: even after her shipboard marriage to Oakes, men vie for her attention and factions form aboard the ship.

Few battles in this one. Most of the conflict arises from in­di­vid­u­als.

Highly rec­om­mend­ed.

In an alternate world where the Laws of Magic have been codified, a master sorcerer has been murdered in a locked room at a convention of sorcerers. Lord Darcy must resolve the mystery.

The puzzle is first-rate, well con­struct­ed, yet plausible on its own terms. The characters, alas, are per­func­to­ry.

Ian Rankin’s first novel is a coming-of-age tale. Mary Miller is a single mother, with a reputation as a witch since childhood. Her son, Sandy, is fifteen, and as lost and confused as you’d expect. They live in Carsden, a small, dying Scottish town in the 1980s.

A creditable first novel.

Gideon Oliver, the “Skeleton Detective”, is on vacation again; this time he’s staying on a family cattle ranch in Hawaii. The bones of the Torkelsson pa­ter­fa­mil­ias who dis­ap­peared ten years ago have just been found. When Gideon formally identifies them, the Torkelsson survivors get more than they bargained for.

Elkins works in the cozy mystery vein and, despite the anatomical detail, the deaths and murders in his books always feel detached and un­threat­en­ing.

Princep’s Fury is the fifth book in Jim Butcher’s fantasy series, Codex Alera, and the sequel to Captain’s Fury.

Tavi, now recognized as the princeps (heir apparent to the Crown), has been sent on a diplomatic mission to the distant Canim homeland. There he finds that they have been overrun by the Vord hivemind. Back at home in Alera, the Vord have returned too, killing and enslaving huge numbers of humans. Desperate rearguard actions follow.

Butcher knows how to spin a yarn that moves quickly from one cliffhang­er to the next. Grim in places, …continue.

A married couple die in a bizarre murder in an archaic Venetian glass foundry. Three exiled Roman cops are asked to in­ves­ti­gate by the Venice au­thor­i­ties but are given to understand that their work should be pro forma. Of course, they don’t listen and find far more than was wanted.

The cops and their visiting girl­friends are in­ter­est­ing characters. Their stubborn insistence on digging for the truth has real con­se­quences for their own lives, and the case scars most of them. Venice itself is also a character, a …continue.

Paige is a modern young witch. Her boyfriend, Lucas, despite being the heir apparent to the Cortez Cabal of sorcerers, wants nothing to do with the family business. But they get sucked in when the teenaged children of the various cabals are being murdered.

An en­ter­tain­ing urban fantasy that’s ridicu­lous­ly fast-paced.

Sequel to Old Man’s War.

Jared Dirac is a superhuman clone in the elite Colonial Defense Forces. A backup of the brain patterns of the traitor Charles Boutin have been implanted in his head so that his superiors can learn what happened. He can’t access those memories so he’s sent out on missions. Then the memories start trickling in.

Scalzi has con­struct­ed a scary but credible universe, where the clones can be more human than the “Realborn”.