Perfect Little Children: A Novel (Hardcover)

By Sophie Hannah

$27.99
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ISBN: 9780062978202

Published: William Morrow - February 4th, 2020

Jeffrey Mannix 2/04/2020 Family dynamics
'Perfect Little Children' by Sophie Hannah a wild ride

Sophie Hannah is a name you’ve seen in “Murder Ink” before. She lives, writes and noodles along a variety of creative projects in Cambridge, England, and is one of my favorite, unglamorous young writers of long-form fiction. She’s also the author you can’t help but love for writing the self-help book How to Hold a Grudge.

Hannah’s new book, Perfect Little Children, would not have made it to my reading pile on the dust jacket alone. There are so many mysteries shoehorning their way into publication these last few years to satiate the seemingly unquenchable appetite for crime fiction that plot cribbing is clearly manifest....MORE.

The Fragility of Bodies (Paperback)

By Sergio Olguín, Miranda France (Translator)

$14.95

ISBN: 9781912242191

Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days

Published: Bitter Lemon Press - October 22nd, 2019

Jeffrey Mannix 11/07/2019

Ah ... the alluring, venal Argentine; the salacious Buenos Aires. This history, the infamy of the most diverse ecosystem in the world, with its turbulent politics, revolutions, dictators, and the tango, like raw meat hanging at the bottom of South America. It’s the home of Juan Pero?n, with a whole political movement his namesake: Peronism and Peronists, uniforms and warships, militants and guerrillas, the villainous wife Eva, and a chicken in every pot – everybody works, everybody dances. Where else would novelists be sure to find the grift, and where else besides insatiate Paris would social dumpster divers find good stuff? And where would “noir” find the antiheroic and become a genre if not in Buenos Aires?...MORE

Throw Me to the Wolves (Hardcover)

By Patrick McGuinness

$27.00
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ISBN: 9781620401514

Published: Bloomsbury Publishing - April 23rd, 2019

Today I’d like to introduce a book of crime fiction that really has no equal and that blindsided me into a literary-induced coma from sunset to sunrise. Throw Me to the Wolves, by Patrick McGuinness, was released last April and circulated down my stack of forthcoming releases because of its hideous cover and the books already queued for reading. Serious readers like myself are loathe to admit that a book’s dust-cover has any influence on us (it’s even cliche? that you can’t tell a book by its cover), but with a gun at our temple, we’d all admit that we have chosen and avoided books because of their covers. So, in my process of screening new books to bring real artistry to “Murder Ink,” I picked up Throw Me to the Wolves to give it the compulsory dozen pages before it followed its cover onto my donation pile with the other books that don’t live up to the hype. MORE...

The Chain (Hardcover)

By Adrian McKinty

$28.00
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ISBN: 9780316531269

Published: Mulholland Books - July 9th, 2019

Adrian McKinty is one of those rare writers who creates characters and dreams up stories that are consistently real and sizzling. He was born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles, and the viciousness of those times informs his noir procedurals. MORE...

Girl Gone Missing (Paperback)

By Marcie R. Rendon

$15.95
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ISBN: 9781947627116

Published: Cinco Puntos Press - June 18th, 2019

We’ll be under the radar with today’s “Murder Ink” book. But I’m counting on loyal readers to delight in finding the undiscovered treasure all adventurers know is waiting in plain sight, where few find themselves or are too snow-blind to see. MORE...

Article 353: A Novel (Paperback)

By Tanguy Viel, William Rodarmor (Translated by)

$15.99
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ISBN: 9781590519332

Published: Other Press - March 12th, 2019

“Even the laughing terns perched on the sharp ridges of the few distant rocks jutting above the horizon seemed to think that what had just happened was normal, I mean a guy falling into cold water and trying to swim fully dressed, gasping and yelling to me for help ... I could already sense that even the seagulls, looking as white and cold as nurses because they never blink, even the seagulls approved.” MORE...

The Burglar (Hardcover)

By Thomas Perry

$26.00
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ISBN: 9780802129000

Published: Mysterious Press - January 8th, 2019

Thomas Perry’s new fiction, The Burglar, will be released next Tues., Jan. 8, and you should stop reading right now and call Maria’s Bookshop to hold a copy or get on the list at the library. Do it now, before you have to wait three months to read one of the most exciting books for which you will skip meals, showers, sex and call in sick to finish reading. MORE...

The Ruin: A Novel (A Cormac Reilly Mystery #1) (Paperback)

By Dervla McTiernan

$17.00

ISBN: 9780143133124

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Penguin Books - July 3rd, 2018

There’s nothing yelling to be heard in November crime fiction, and that gives me a chance to feature a few titles that should have been called to your attention these past few months but were eclipsed by other exceptional books. It’s always chancy for even the best of writers to come up with another book worthy of their reputation. Joe Ide, for instance, blew us all away with his debut IQ back in March 2017 but then did a face plant trying to keep with his next two hurry-up books, Righteous and Wrecked, the latter released a few
weeks ago. MORE...

Under a Dark Sky: A Novel (Paperback)

By Lori Rader-Day

$15.99

ISBN: 9780062560308

Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days

Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - August 7th, 2018

Under a Dark Sky is what the sloganeers refer to as a “locked-room” murder mystery. It’s the type made famous by Agatha Christie, Anne Holt, Peter Lovesey, most of the French noir writers, and even Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes. The setting is inescapable for any number of characters, a murder occurs, and after frightened disbelief, everybody is suspect. A locked-room mystery is a puzzle, and with every puzzle, one false or imprecise clue is unforgivable and ruinous of the entire effort. It’s a risky venture and takes great confidence to attempt a locked-room mystery. Most mystery writers borrow some of the claustrophobic elements to create suspense, but few can make a locked-room mystery more engaging than tedious and predictable. And ultimately, most are boring. MORE...

A Perfect Shot (Paperback)

By Robin Yocum

$15.95
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ISBN: 9781633884175

Published: Seventh Street Books - April 17th, 2018

“Murder Ink” has had a remarkable history of picking the meteoric mysteries – the advance reader copies sent to book reviewers months before publication – but most of the good reading comes from the midlist novels in between. These are the bench players, with all the skills to make the big leagues, and the go-to position players who hold the team together and, on occasion, show a talent worthy of celebrity. Robin Yocum is such a midlist author of very finely crafted crime fiction for Seventh Street Books in Amherst, N.Y., one of the top crime fiction publishers with perhaps the best midlist in the business. Yocum’s A Brilliant Death was an Edgar Award finalist in 2017, and he has a host of notable mentions from various publications and organizations in his native Ohio. There he was a crime and investigative reporter for the Columbus Dispatch for a decade before opening his own public relations firm in his hometown of Westerville, Ohio. He’s not schmoozing the literati crowd in New York or working the cadre of literary agents for better position and bigger advances. He’s home in Ohio working a day job and writing at night and on the weekends, and apologizing for being a part-time husband and father. But he’s producing excellent work, and A Perfect Shot is yet another gem of a story well told. MORE...