Le Carré's very first novel, Call for the Dead introduces his most famous character, George Smiley. After a harmonious meeting with Smiley to review his security clearance, Samuel Fennan goes home, writes a letter com­plain­ing of har­rass­ment, and commits suicide. But little things don't add up and Smiley starts in­ves­ti­gat­ing, only to be nearly murdered himself.

A strong debut, and amazingly short at 160 pages. Call provides some background about Smiley's very bad war, undercover in Nazi ter­ri­to­ries, and his rocky marriage.

The first Irene Adler novel by Douglas, im­me­di­ate­ly preceding Good Morning, Irene, which retells Conan Doyle's A Scandal in Bohemia from Irene and Nell's per­spec­tive.

We learn how the narrator Nell Huxleigh met Irene; of Irene's early years in London when she struggles with her singing career and develops a sideline as an in­ves­ti­ga­tor; how she meets Godfrey Norton, her future husband; how they despise each other at first, in the best rom-com tradition; her operatic triumphs in Warsaw that draw her to the attention of the …continue.

Sequel to Murder at the Mendel. Teenage pros­ti­tutes are being mutilated and murdered in Regina. Joanne Kilbourn and her family become entangled with some of these “dis­pos­able” girls, in a case that touches too closely to home.

In the previous novels, her children were important secondary characters. Here they become central to the story, each in their own way.

Joanne Kilbourn has moved to Saskatoon after the events of Deadly Ap­pear­ances, and renewed her childhood friendship with Sally Love. Sally is now a famous artist and the focus of con­tro­ver­sy: a huge fresco that she painted for the Mendel museum of the penises and vaginas of her former lovers is being picketed. As events turn ugly, Joanne will learn more than she ever wanted to know about Sally's and her own history.

Bowen writes knowl­edge­ably about art and artists and frustrated ambitions. Joanne's long, entangled history …continue.

Andy Boychuk has just become the leader of the opposition party in Saskatchewan when he is murdered. His advisor, Joanne Kilbourn, sees him drink the poison. Her own husband was sense­less­ly murdered a few years earlier, and Andy was not only her boss but an old friend, so it's difficult for her. When she decides to write a biography of Andy and learns unexpected things about him, her health mys­te­ri­ous­ly begins to fail.

Joanne is a middle-aged widow with children, who has spent her life working behind the scenes in …continue.

Inspector Çetin İkmen is called to a remote village in Cappadocia when a 20-year-old mummified body is found. The case is tearing the village apart. Back in İstanbul, Inspector Mehmet Süleyman in­ves­ti­gates an in­creas­ing­ly violent series of male-on-male rapes.

Nadel clearly knows Turkey well, bringing to life characters from different social classes without pa­tron­iz­ing them, showing Turkey in its complexity. The story was well crafted, weaving the two strands together to highlight tension. Pace a pet peeve of mine, the two cases did not suddenly, magically become related by the end of …continue.

An Irene Adler book; earlier than Spider Dance.

Suicidal sailors with ornate tattoos, an odd sealing wax, and lost treasure. All these lead Irene, her husband Godfrey Norton, and Nell Huxleigh to Monte Carlo. Irene, with a little help from Sarah Bernhardt and the Crown Prince's betrothed, takes Monaco by storm. Sherlock Holmes finds part of the trail, but completely misses the bigger case.

Fluff, but en­ter­tain­ing fluff.

A conman publisher visits a writing circle in Chichester and gets their hopes up. Soon, he is burned to death in his cottage. Other arson-murders follow.

In the first half of the book, the story is primarily told from the viewpoint of the newest member of the writers' circle, Bob Naylor, who starts in­ves­ti­gat­ing, egged on by some of the others. In the second half, it becomes a police procedural, as seen by Detective Chief Inspector Henrietta Mallin, who takes over the case.

The Circle is a whodunnit in the classic vein, with …continue.

The district nurse is murdered in a Danish seaside resort. The police arrest the local peeping tom, a dimwitted young man. Detective-Inspector Jonas Morck has his doubts. Morck and his partner, Einarsen, are locked in a permanent good cop–bad cop routine. Eventually, Morck in his quiet, methodical, yet insightful way, will find the real killer.

Séamus Joyce, a former senior civil servant, returns to Dublin from self-imposed exile in Germany. He has been engaged as a consultant by Finer Small Campuses to evaluate his alma mater, King's College Dublin, a third-rate, third-level in­sti­tu­tion.

Millar, himself an Irish academic, satirizes both Irish higher-level education and the brave new world wrought by the Celtic Tiger economy. It's a different world from the depressed, inward-looking Dublin that Joyce moved to as a student. The plot moves ef­fi­cient­ly and some of the characters are, well, characters. Not Joyce though: he's insecure and in­tro­vert­ed, still …continue.