Agent 6 is the conclusion to Tom Rob Smith’s trilogy about Leo Demidov, my favorite officer of the KGB.  I have been waiting tirelessly for this book to come out having read Child 44 (2008) and The Secret Speech (2009) and absolutely loving them both.  I am actually very sad that we will not be hearing anything more from Leo but Smith does a fantastic job of wrapping the series up and not leaving us with any questions.

At the beginning of Agent 6 we are taken back in time to 1950 where we learn how Leo and his wife, Raisa met and learn about Jesse Austin, an American singer and member of the Communist party and his role in Leo and Raisa getting together.  We soon are back where The Secret Speech left off and Leo has left the secret police and is concentrating on his family. Raisa, Zoya and Elena are about to travel to New York City for the “Peace Tour”, which both countries are hoping will ease relations between the two.  Leo is not allowed to travel with them and is immediately suspicious of the real reason behind the trip and why his wife and daughters were invited.  Of course, something happens on the trip and Leo’s reaction to this tragedy is to enact revenge on the person at fault.

I am stopping there because anymore and I will spoil the thrill of the story!  I will say that I am glad that this is my first read of 2012 and I hope that the rest can live up to Agent 6!

I fell in love with Alan Bradley and his precocious 11 year old sleuth main character, Flavia de Luce, when I first read The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie in 2009.  I know that you are thinking, “Maggie, you like slice and dice mysteries…why are you reading these Nancy Drew’s for adults?” My answer is they are so much fun!  Sometimes I just need to trip over the body in the cucumber patch!

In I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, we find Flavia up to her old tricks in the chemistry lab (built by her Uncle) but this time she is trying to make a concoction of very sticky birdlime to coat the chimney of Buckshaw mansion.  The reason behind this is to prove once and for all to her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, that Father Christmas is not a hoax.  She intends to then free him from the chimney and invite Father Christmas to stay for the glorious fireworks display that she has also been working on in the the laboratory.

Flavia’s father, due to his increasing debt, has agreed to let a movie production company use the family estate as a movie set which means that Buckshaw will not be decorated for Christmas, which is disappointing,but Flavia soon learns she will have all sorts of mischief to get into with the stars and film crew roaming around.

The vicar arranges for the entire town of Bishop’s Lacey to come to Buckshaw for a special performance of the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet to raise money to repair the church roof.  In true English mystery fashion, a blizzard ensues snowing everyone in and setting the scene for MURDER!  Flavia, of course, has found the body and even after several warnings not to meddle with the investigation just cannot help herself.  A grand “who dunnit” begins and soon concludes on Christmas Eve.

I recommend this as a fun and uproarious holiday read whether you have read the others in the series or not and guarantee you will be asking Father Christmas for the entire collection!

Labor Day Weekend is upon us…for many it is the last weekend of summer which means the last time to sit by the pool or on the beach just reading.  I was thinking about what end of summer reads that I would be suggesting  to folks and then I thought about football season.  College football starts this weekend which means also this weekend I will also be suggesting to non-football fans what books to read while the game is on in the other room of their house.  (I happen to love football but I do read while I’m watching the game.)  I wonder what the difference in the type titles the customers will choose if there is a difference at all.

Here is a new title by a debut author that I think will work for Labor Day weekend either at the pool or while the game is on or maybe both!

The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams

The Wishbone Killer is terrorizing Atlanta, Georgia.  Keye Street’s career in the FBI ended as her battle against addiction began.  She has started a new life working as a a private detective taking jobs when she can find them from tracking down bail jumpers and adulterers to finding people who have stolen company secrets.  The last thing she wants is to become involved in a case involving a serial killer but then the Atlanta Police Department comes calling but how can she say no since Lt. Aaron Rauser, her best friend, is doing the asking.  As she uses her skills acquired in the FBI as a profiler, Keye begins to realize that the Wishbone Killer just might be someone she knows and all those close to her could be the killers next target.

I really loved this thriller.  It was really fun to read especially if you are familiar with Atlanta and that the protagonist is a female detective.  It is nice to have a ‘southern belle’ saving the day instead of just getting the vapors!

The problem with trying to write and sell a thriller is that you must be careful with what you say so you do not give the plot away.  I will do my best here.

“As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today.  I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning.  Thinking I”m still a child.  Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me…”

This is Christine’s life or some might say lack of a life.  Every night when she goes to sleep her memory is erased and she wakes up not knowing the who, what, when, where and how of her existence.  Her husband, Ben, has to explain that they have been married for over twenty years and there are pictures taped to the bathroom mirror to help her start her day.

Later in the morning, she receives a phone call from a Dr. Nash, who explains he is treating her and to prove it he tells her to read her journal.  The purpose of the journal is for Christine to write everything that happens to her in a day and any memories that she has down.  As this experiment goes on Christine begins to realize that Ben’s story, Dr. Nash’s story and her brief memories of her life are not the same.  Are things being kept from her or is she just inventing stories to make her own life seem complete?

Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson is a fantastic debut that really gives a whole new spin on the ‘amnesiac thriller’.  Dennis Lehane calls it “Memento on crystal meth” and I just have to agree with him.  I will be looking for more page turning thrillers from S. J. Watson in the future.

I was just sitting here this morning ringing up a customer…my usual banter–thanks for coming in, come back to see us!  Have a great holiday weekend!  Holiday weekend? Wait a minute what is that?

Ah yes, Memorial Day, the beginning of summer.  I decided that this weekend will be the perfect time to make sure that you all know about Harry Hole.  Harry is someone that y’all can get acquainted with this weekend and hang out with him all summer long.   Jo Nesbo is the creator of the Harry Hole series and while all his books have gotten rave reviews, his newest novel, The Snowman, is going to be the book that takes him out into the public eye.  So far four of Nesbo’s novels have been translated into English and we are so happy about that and the great thing is that Nesbo’s three previous books are all in paperback so you can take them to the beach!

The Redbreast

This novel takes the reader between the last days of WWII and modern day Oslo while recovering alcoholic, Inspector Harry Hole, chases a neo-Nazi who has escaped prison on a technicality.  After overhearing something on surveillance Harry Hole is drawn into a twisted mystery with roots in Norway’s dark past of collaborating with Nazi Germany and now 60 years later disgraced old soldiers are being murdered one by one.

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Nemesis

Harry awakens with a serious headache, no cell phone and brief memories of a drunken night with Anna, an ex girlfriend who called out of the blue.  He and a young detective have been investigating  a string of bank robberies one of which ended with a bank teller being shot.  Harry is dealing with his relapse while trying to solve one murder when he himself becomes a suspect in the mysterious death of Anna.  After tying the bank robberies to a notorious bank robber (who is in jail) he soon begins to wonder if Anna’s demise is connected some how.

The Devil’s Star

Harry has been assigned to solve the murder of a woman with one of her fingers cut off and a tiny red star-shaped diamond placed under her eyelid.  He also has a new partner, Tom Waaler, whom Harry hates and thinks is responsible for the murder of his partner.  When another woman is found murdered in the same circumstances Harry realizes that they have a serial killer on their hands and his determination to catch the killer and expose Waller’s crimes will lead him down paths that he never expected.  He will be forced to make difficult decisions about his future while both cases merge together in the shadows.

The Snowman

The first snow has fallen in Oslo and a young boy awakens in the night calling for his mother.  Where is she?  Out on the lawn a mysterious snowman appeared earlier in the day and now Jonas sees that his mothers pink scarf adorns it’s neck.  Harry suspects a link between the disappearance of Jonas’s mother, at least a dozen other women and a letter which he received all on the day of the first snow fall that November.  As the case goes on Harry is pulled into a ‘game’ where the rules are devised and constantly revised by the killer.

I hate making comparisons of authors because frankly, I’m not very good at it. But if you have liked the other Scandinavian authors, i.e., Henning Mankell and Steig Larsson and Michael Connelly’s character, Harry Bosch, then I know that you will be thrilled to be introduced to Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole.

I am much looking forward to bringing my 17-year-old son on the US book tour for An Evil Eye in April – he’s never been to America, but he plays guitar and the name Robert Johnson means something very good to him.

We’ll be visiting a range of fantastic independent bookstores across the south and west, with Lemuria as my very first gig, talking about the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, crime thrillers and food, I hope.

Now, the Telegraph newspaper in the UK has asked me to keep a travel blog on its pages, kicking off with a print piece on detectives and travel, and I’d really appreciate the help of you blog readers here.

Back in the mists of time, I wrote travel books – one, in fact, about walking across Europe to Istanbul – but I believe that it’s in crime novels that some of the best ‘travel’ writing is being done these days. I mean, a trip to Venice is much enhanced by following Donna Leon’s Brunetti through the watery streets, just as London will remain, for generations to come, the city of fogs and rattling horse-drawn cabs depicted in Sherlock Holmes. And when James Lee Burke gets going on Louisiana, I smell the swamp – don’t you?

So I want some tips from you guys – who, in your opinion, really captures the scents and sights, not to mention the seamy underbelly, of some of the places I’m set to visit on this compendious book tour? Let’s see: Jackson? Alabama. New Orleans. Austin, Texas – does Austin have a fictional crime fighter I should know about? Houston?

And who’s the go-to crime writer for Arizona? I can do Raymond Chandler for LA, obviously; less obvious to me is San Diego. Give me a few top tips for San Francisco, too: who really puts the Bay Area on the page? We wind up in Portland, Oregon. Is there a murder mystery I don’t know of, set in the city, or the state?

It’s a parlor game, really: try it, and drop me a line if you can. You can find me at jsn.goodwin@gmail.com and all suggestions are welcome. I also blog at thebellinicard.wordpress.com

If the writer you propose is published in the UK, so much the better – but let’s leave no stone unturned here!

Maybe we can blast somebody really good across the Atlantic…

Lemuria is where the US Magic Carpet Tour for April 2011 is kicking off.
I’ll be there on Wednesday, April 6th at 5:00 pm for reading and talking and signing. Come along – and send your friends, too!

-Jason Goodwin

Here are a few thrillers for my murder and mayhem lovers to check out for spring.

Love You More by Lisa Gardner

Who Do You Love?  And How Far Would You Go…..To Save Her?

In a split second state police trooper, Tessa Leoni had to decide to shoot her husband, Brian Darby.  When Det. D.D. Warren arrives on the scene to what should be an open and shut case since Tessa claims to have shot her husband in self defense and she has the bruises to confirm the story Det. Warren learns that the six-year old daughter is missing.  Det. Warren knows that Tessa is not telling the full truth about what happened that day in the kitchen but just cannot put her finger on it.  “Would a trained police officer really shoot her own husband? And would a mother harm her own child?’

For Tessa the nightmare is just beginning….she has one goal and that is find her daughter but who can she trust to help her?  She knows she must use all of her training and every trick in the book to do what she has to do, no sacrifice to great and no action unthinkable.  She, as a mother, knows who she loves and will stop at nothing to save her daughter and make those who destroyed her family pay for what they have done.

The Informationist by Taylor Stevens

Corporations Need Her. Governments Pay Her. Criminals Fear Her. But Nobody Sees Her Coming.

Move over Lisbeth here is Vanessa Michael Munroe….If you need to find out well basically anything the person to hire is Michael Munroe.  She has her own unique brand of expertise, she deals with information.  She grew up in central Africa with missionary parents where she soon rebelled and took up with gunrunners and mercenaries at age 14 where she gained the respect of some of the jungles most notorious criminals until a violent incident made her go on the run.  After a decade of building a new life and very lucrative career in Dallas she gets an offer that she just cannot refuse.  Four years ago a Texas oil billionaire’s daughter disappeared in Africa and has never been heard from since.  After years of searching and coming up with nothing Munroe is his last hope for closure but for her it is more than just another job.  Munroe will need to return to the land of her childhood and the people she turned her back on when she ‘ran away’. As she becomes more and more caught up in the mystery of the missing girl she begins to wonder if she herself will be able to make it out of the jungle again.

The Night Season helsea Cain

As we know from Cain’s third novel, female serial killer, Gretchen Lowell, has been caught (again) and is spending her time in jail.  Police detective, Archie Sheridan is recovering from his physical and mental wounds and trying to basically get his life back in order.  Reporter, Susan Ward, has just written a story about a flood that happened in Portland over 60 years ago, because the Willamette River is currently threatening the city again.  So far three people have drowned but the most recent victim  (who was found propped up on a merry go round ostrich in the amusement park) is discovered to have been poisoned before she went in the water.  After checking the other ‘drowning victims’ it is soon realized that Portland has a new serial killer on its hands and Archie and his task force are following the very strange clues with Susan hot on the trail of the story and of course finding herself too close to the danger.

This time last year I picked up a book by a new mystery author, Noah Boyd.  He is a former FBI agent who spent more than 20 years with the Bureau where he worked on the Green River Killer case and the Highland Park Strangler case.  When I read that in his bio it really peaked my interest in The Bricklayer.  Well I was certainly not disappointed. Now here we are at the end of 2010 and I have to say that The Bricklayer is one of my favorite books that I read this year.  Needless to say, when I received my ARC of Boyd’s new novel, Agent X,  I was thrilled.  I almost put down everything else and jumped in but I used a little self-control and put it in my suitcase.  You see I actually had a little Christmas holiday this year and was trying to save some books to read on my break.  I packed by carry one bag with Agent X on the top, and let me tell you I hadn’t even gotten on the plane before I was reading it!

I really like the main characters, Steve Vail–who has been fired from the FBI for insubordination but always seems to get caught back up in some really messy cases and Kate Bannon–deputy assistant director in the FBI who seems to be the only one that Steve trusts and will work with. Vail comes to Washington, D.C. to have what he thinks is going to be a New Years date with Kate (she has other ideas) and of course spies never take a holiday and this case is one that only Steve Vail can solve.  An officer at the Russian embassy, known only as Calculus, has contacted the FBI and he has a list of Americans who are selling information to the Russian SVR.  He will give up the names for a small price–$250,000 each.  The FBI really wants to keep this quiet but anything that involves Steve Vail is going to be a wild ride with lots of casualties.  Another reason I love these books is that they are jammed packed with action.

Agent X will be out on February 8 but don’t worry if you come by the store I will make sure that you all know it is out and ready to be read!  The Bricklayer is out in paperback now so come on by and get to know Steve Vail.