A year after Sir Edward Grey's sudden collapse and death, his widow Lady Julia realizes the truth in what Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent, had told her: Sir Edward had received threat­en­ing letters. She engages Brisbane to in­ves­ti­gate the possible murder and starts asking questions herself.

The most re­spectable member of her large, eccentric family, Julia starts to shed her Victorian con­ven­tion­al­i­ty as she is drawn to the enigmatic Brisbane.

The Northern English city of Newcastle is on edge as racial tensions have been whipped up. Joe Donovan's team are asked to in­ves­ti­gate a seemingly unrelated case where a one-time radical is getting threat­en­ing calls.

The main char­ac­ter­s—­Dono­van's team and some teenaged no-hopers way out of their depth in a white su­prema­cist or­ga­ni­za­tion—are credible and well-drawn. The plot however relies overly on co­in­ci­dence after co­in­ci­dence.

Inspector John Madden, like so many of his generation, came back from the Great War a changed man. When a par­tic­u­lar­ly savage and senseless murder takes place, he must persuade his superiors at Scotland Yard to adopt some new and unwelcome practices, such as psy­cho­log­i­cal profiling.

This well-done thriller is as much about the aftermath of World War I as it is a police procedural.

Honey West is a “private eyeful”, a kick-ass statuesque private in­ves­ti­ga­tor tough enough to take on the guys at their own game and sexy enough to dazzle them. Somehow she manages to lose her top all the time, but it never goes further than that. The plot is lu­di­crous­ly com­pli­cat­ed, switching gears on every page, with snappy Mike Ham­meresque dialog.

The books inspired a mid-sixties TV show that Emma remembers with great fondness. The sex was excised from the show, of course.

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.

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.

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.