CRUNCH TIME           
A Novel of Suspense
DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON                     
Avon pb 1/12

CRUNCH TIME by Diane Mott Davidson, is her fifteenth starring Goldy Schulz, caterer/sleuth of Aspen Meadows, Colorado. Goldy lives with her husband, Sheriff Tom Schulz, and her son, Arch, in a home with a custom-built catering kitchen and a pet containment room. Due to the economic downturn, Goldy's wealthy clientele has cut back drastically on entertaining and her assistant has left for steadier employment. To keep afloat and be prepared for better times, Goldy has taken on her friend, chef/caterer Yolanda Garcia.

As Goldy and Yolanda are prepping for the next day's event, Tom and another officer arrive to question Yolanda about the death of Ernest McLeod, a friend, neighbor and former police officer turned P.I. That Yolanda and her great-aunt Ferdinanda are living at Ernest's home makes her a person of interest. Her associates and $17,000 found in her room make her a suspect.

As the police look into Ernest's open cases, other suspects emerge and other people are targeted for "accidents".

CRUNCH TIME is a delightful romp. Details of an illicit puppy mill, creative ways to carry on adultery, inventive hiding places for contraband jewels and the back-story of catered affairs enrich the murder thread. In a police procedural, Goldy would be arrested many times for her investigative techniques, which taint the chain of evidence. In this novel, however, her husband and his fellow officers overlook her methods and incorporate her findings as they solve the case. If you can go with the flow and overlook Goldy's capriciousness, you'll enjoy this lighthearted read. I RECOMMEND this book and am looking forward to trying the recipes.

COLD COMFORT         
QUENTIN BATES         
Soho Crime   January, 2012
ISBN: 9781616950545

COLD COMFORT by Quentin Bates is a saga of business relationships gone viral. It's a tale of intertwined greed and deceit set against the background of Iceland's economic collapse. The unscrupulous and self-serving people at the helm cause a lot of grief for those of lesser means and stature. To quote Sir Walter Scott, "Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive!"

The sleuth in this mystery is Sgt. Gunnhildur "Gunna" Gísladottir, newly appointed head of Reykjavík's new Serious Crime Unit. She lives with her teenage daughter in rural Hvalvík, a "coastal backwater" forty-minutes drive from the city, where she had headed the police station for many years. In the opening pages, Gunna is tasked with finding Long Ómar "Ommi" Magnússon, a Hvalvík bad boy sent up for murder ten years ago who "did a runner" and is reported having been seen in the Reykjavík area. As Ommi eludes capture, he leaves a growing number of bruised and beaten former friends in his wake. But no one's naming names and thus Gunna doesn't see the connection to Ommi - yet - as she queries the victims.

The plot coalesces around another of Gunna's investigations: the murder of Svana, a curvaceous, thirty-five-year-old, part owner of a fitness club and past TV celebrity, model and singer, who appears to have had a side business involving wealthy and influential men.

As Gunna and her two male subordinates dig deeper into the lives of Ommi and Svana and those linked to them, the more Gunna intuits that if they get to the root cause of Svana's murder they will uncover the reason Ommi escaped prison a few days before he would have been eligible for parole.

In Gunna, Bates has created a "tough broad". She's an excellent delegator, a skilled and dogged interrogator, straightforward with superiors and suspects alike, doesn't back down from confrontation and is ready to pursue a lead or answer a call at all hours. Balancing this image is a mother who has a ready Plan B for her child and a boss who looks out for the well-being of her team.

I recommend COLD COMFORT because it is well crafted and cleverly plotted. For those not conversant with Iceland or its naming conventions, there are dozens of characters with complicated unfamiliar names and nicknames to puzzle through, but I found it well worth the slog to learn who was who as I discovered the intricate relationships in this house of cards.

Barbara's review of
MURDER IN PASSY by Cara Black
appears on the PAPERBACK PAGE .

MURDER AT THE LANTERNE ROUGE          
An Aimée Leduc Investigation Set in Paris
CARA BLACK          
Soho Crime   March, 2012

MURDER AT THE LANTERNE ROUGE, by Cara Black, is a boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl story that takes place in Paris's smallest Chinese community in the northernmost blocks of the Marais District. The "boy" is dapper René Friant, partner with Aimée Leduc in Leduc Investigations, a computer security firm. The "girl" is Meizi Wu, a Chinese immigrant whom he meets at his judo class. He loses this soul mate when she excuses herself from her birthday dinner to take a phone call. When she doesn't return in a reasonable time, René and Aimée go in search of her. Instead of Meizi, they find a shrink-wrapped corpse in the alley near the restaurant. The only clue to the man's identity is a library card in the name of Pascal Samour with a photo of Meizi taped to the back. How these two might know each other causes René to go into denial and Aimée to go into detective mode.

The tale is compressed into an action-packed forty-two-hour timeframe. As Aimée searches for the connection between the dead man and Meizi, René focuses on rescuing Meizi from whoever caused her to vanish without a word. Aimée works her network of childhood friends, professional acquaintances and police to put together a picture of the missing girl. But she finds the Chinese community close-mouthed and insular. Little by little she pierces their world, finding people aren't who they seem, sweatshops making buildings hum through the night and a particularly nasty snakehead supplying girls to various industries. Another thread leads to a relative of the deceased who tells of his elite schooling, an obsessive interest in medieval inventions and a special project that has him very excited. René spends his time following some of the characters Aimee has unearthed as well as researching on the computer for clues. A third complication involves several levels of the Paris police, who constantly have the pair under surveillance.

Cara Black is a skilled writer. Her plots are intricate, her characters three-dimensional and her descriptions are awash with tastes, smells, sounds, textures and sights of the ungentrified small streets, back alleys and courtyard ateliers of medieval Marais's Chinatown. The red paper lanterns that hang in front of each shop give the book its name. For those who love Paris or are simply curious, the locations are real and can be plotted on a map.

I will note that for the exacting reader, this book leaves several unresolved questions. However, these questions don't take away from the enjoyment of the book or my recommendation to read it, the 12th in a series featuring Aimée Leduc and René Friant. For a list of books visit www.carablack.com . 

MURDER AT THE LANTERNE ROUGE is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

ASHES TO DUST         
YRSA SIGURDARDÓTTIR         
Translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton
Minotaur Books Trade PBO 4/12