Five Great Mystery Reading Suggestions

Year end lists can be a great place to find reading suggestions. Library Journal has recently published it’s list of Best Books of 2010.

Listed below are five mystery titles that esteemed LJ reviewer Jo Ann Vicarel has selected as being among the best published in 2010:

The Killing Storm, by Kathryn Casey

“On a quiet afternoon in the park, four-year-old Joey plays in the sandbox, when a stranger approaches looking for his puppy. While Joey’s mom, Crystal, talks on her cell phone, the stranger convinces the child to help search. By the time Crystal turns around, her son has disappeared. Yet her reaction is odd, not what one would expect from a distraught mother. Is Crystal somehow involved in her son’s abduction?

Meanwhile, on a ranch outside Houston, Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong assesses a symbol left on the hide of a slaughtered longhorn, a figure that dates back to a forgotten era of sugarcane plantations and slavery. Soon other prizewinning bulls are butchered on the outskirts of the city, each bearing a similar drawing. The investigations converge at the same time a catastrophic hurricane looms in the Gulf. Finally, as dangerous winds and torrential rains pummel the city, Sarah is forced to risk her life to save Joey.”- publisher

Danse Macabre, by Gerald Elias

“Daniel Jacobus, reclusive blind concert master and amateur sleuth, returns to solve a most despicable crime and to clear an innocent man. Just after his Carnegie Hall swansong and before his imminent departure for retirement in France, beloved violinist and humanitarian Rene Allard is brutally murdered with a mysterious weapon. His young African American rival, crossover artist BTower, is spotted at the scene of the crime hovering over the contorted body of Allard with blood on his hands.

In short order the aloof and arrogant BTower is convicted and sentenced to death, in part the result of the testimony of blind and curmudgeonly violin pedagogue Daniel Jacobus, like millions of others, an ardent admirer of Allard. Justice has been served or has it? Jacobus is dragged back into the case kicking and screaming, and reluctantly follows a trail of broken violins and broken lives as it leads inexorably to the truth, and to his own mortal peril.” – publisher

Hazard,
by Gardiner Harris

“When a block of coal the size of a stove shoots out of the wall, miner Amos Blevins barely has time to react before the entire area is flooded with water. He frantically tries to rescue his crewmates, but in an underground space that is pitch black and too cramped to even stand up, he can barely crawl to safety himself. Inspector Will Murphy is sent to investigate, ordered by his superiors to clear things up quickly so the mine can reopen. After all, if the mine closes, then miners lose their jobs, and so do mine inspectors.

It seems to be a straight forward accident, but Will senses something suspicious about this case or maybe he’s just lashing out at his older brother, who has usurped his place as heir to the largest mining company in Eastern Kentucky and owner of the flooded mine but Will has decided he won’t let this one go, whatever it might cost him.”- publisher

Liar, Liar: a Cat Deluca mystery,
by K.J. Larsen

“Burned by her run-around ex-husband Johnnie Ricco, Caterina DeLuca took the skills she mastered during marriage and opened her own private eye agency. Now she’s a second-story woman, armed with a camera, ready to print 8×10 glossies for use in divorce court. The men in her big, whacko family, all Chicago cops–one a crook–aren’t sure what to make of Cat’s career choice. But hey, it’s serve and protect! Then one day Rita Polansky retains Cat. Rita’s liar-liar husband is the mysterious, but seriously hot, Chance Savino. Cat is hot on his heels when an exploding building hurls her out of her stilettos and into the hospital…”- publisher

The Masuda Affair: a Sugawara Akitada novel,
by I.J. Parker

“A Sugawara Akitada Mystery of Ancient Japan – Eleventh-century Japan. Government official Sugawara Akitada finds a small mute boy on a deserted road. Akitada, still grieving for his own small son, determines to find the boy’s parents. Meanwhile, Akitadarsquo’s faithful servant Tora has troubles of his own: he has lost his new bride to a powerful man who pursues beautiful women and will stop at nothing to possess them. The trails of these two seemingly unrelated cases lead Akitada and Tora to the entertainers and prostitutes of the amusement quarter, and murder follows in their footsteps . . .” – publisher