Fall Mysteries

There are quite a few mysteries coming out in the fall. There are so many of them in fact, that I can't possibly cover them in one try. Not all of these will be in the catalog right away but I guarantee that the records will be coming within the next month.

Marcia Muller continues her Sharon McCone series in November with Looking for Yesterday. A woman who was accused and acquitted of her best friends murder is beaten badly and shows up on McCone's doorstep. Can McCone find the real killer before someone else dies?

I have lived in that area of North Carolina where Margaret Maron places her Judge Deborah Knott series. Maron's sense of place is outstanding. Every time I read one of her books, I think I am back there. Also in November, she continues the series with The Buzzard Table. A long lost nephew of an elderly wealthy woman arrives to study southern vultures. Something about the man tickles Knott's memory. A murder surfaces and Knott is off on the case working with the usual suspects.

Sandra Parshall writes a series with a Virginia based veterinarian Rachel Goddard and the local Sheriff Tom Bridger. The 5th in the series, Bleeding Through, is coming in September. Goddard and Bridger take on 2 cases at once. While taking a group of teens to clean up trash, the body of the sister of one of the teens is found wrapped in plastic. Also, Rachel's sister comes to visit claiming she is being stalked and the stalker turns his attention to Rachel. This is an exciting series and all of them will be added to the catalog within the next few weeks.

Max Allan Collins writes a sort of classic Spillane, hard boiled detective series starring Nathan Heller. Heller becomes involved in some historic cases: the death of Marilyn Monroe; the Lindbergh kidnapping; with characters like Huey Long; Clarence Darrow and Amelia Earhart. In Target Lancer, coming in November, he takes on the Kennedy assassination.

Tim O'Mara debuts with Sacrifice Fly in October with a former Brooklyn police office, Raymond Donne,  whose bad knees lead him to change professions. He becomes a teacher at a local Brooklyn high school. When one of his students, a star baseball player, stops showing up for class, Donne goes looking for him only to find the student's father beaten to death and the student and his sister missing.

Finally, one of my favorite mystery authors, Louise Penny gives us another Chief Inspector Gamache title, The Beautiful Mystery, in September. Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir investigate a murder at a monastery in the Quebec wilderness. OK - there is a murder and there are villains but something about this series is very peaceful. Penny's description of the countryside is idyllic.