Ted and Gloria Feit live in Long Beach, New York, a few miles outside of New York City. For 26 years, Gloria was the manager of a medium-sized litigation firm in lower Manhattan. Her husband, Ted, is an attorney and former stock analyst, publicist and writer/editor for, over the years, several daily, weekly and monthly publications. Having always been avid mystery readers and since they're now retired, they're able to indulge their passion. Their reviews appear online as well as in three print publications in the UK and US. On a more personal note: Both having been widowed, Gloria and Ted have five children and nine grandchildren between them.

THE END OF THE WASP SEASON         
DENISE MINA          
Reagan Arthur Books / Little, Brown & Company   September 2011

Each of the first three chapters of this newest novel by Denise Mina, author of the Garnethill trilogy among other wonderful books, introduces the reader to three women, each of them strong and independent, and each tested by events which follow. The most dramatic, and tragic, is Sarah Erroll, twenty-four years old, who is sexually mutilated and brutally murdered in the first pages. [The full extent of the savagery is not known till nearly half-way through the book, although it is strongly hinted at.] In Glasgow, the Strathclyde police are called in, and the DS handling the brunt of the investigation is DS Alex Morrow, not quite five months pregnant with twins. The third of these women is Kay Murray, a single mother of four who had worked for the dead woman and, coincidentally, had been a schoolmate of Alex many years ago.

But the central figure throughout the book is Lars Anderson, multimillionaire banker who believed that "you couldn't trick an honest man." He appears to be a UK version of Bernard Madoff, having ruined many lives before taking his own in the early pages of the book. There is plenty of family dysfunction and family tragedy to go around in this book, the Andersons only the worst of these.

Alex thinks, as the case begins, that "she hated sexual murders. They all hated them, not just out of empathy with the victim but because sexual crimes were corrosive, they took them to hideous dark places in their own heads, made them suspicious and fearful, and not always of other people."

The author kept this reader off balance with having to figure out who some of the characters were and their relationship to other players, and to the plot itself. The book has sudden shocking moments, only adding to that sense of being off-balance. The author mentions Alex looking forward to a night going over her notes and trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle that is her investigation, and "the promise of utter absorption" that it holds. I could completely relate to that description, for that is precisely what this novel provides. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

TRICK OF THE DARK          
VAL McDERMID             
Bywater Books   September, 2011
ISBN: (hc) 978-1-932859-95-9
ISBN: Trade pb 978-1-932859-82-9

As the book opens, Dr. Charlotte "Charlie" Flint finds her professional life as a forensic psychiatrist in tatters, her reputation destroyed and she is awaiting a hearing by the General Medical Council to decide whether or not she can be reinstated as an expert in her field.

Magdalene [Magda] Newsam, a pediatric oncologist, a twenty-eight-year-old woman whose husband was killed on their wedding night, is attending the trial of her husband's partners for his murder. One of the two hubs of this book is Magda's mother, Corinna Newsam, who was Charlie's tutor while an undergraduate at St. Scholastika's College, Oxford University, which is the other point around which all else revolves. Each of the characters' ties to Corinna and Oxford have shaped their lives to this point. As is the case also with Jay Stewart, a wildly successful businesswoman in the throes of writing her second memoir following her first bestseller. The point of view throughout the book rotates between these three young women.

Corinna asks Charlie to investigate whether, as she suspects, Jay Stewart had something to do with her son-in-law's death, mostly due to the fact that Jay is now romantically involved with Magda. Seeking redemption, Charlie agrees. As the solution drew near, the feeling that I knew what lay ahead didn't diminish the suspense or the intricacy of the plot. And, of course, I was completely wrong in my expectations.

Few of the characters in the book are male; few of the romantic relationships / entanglements are heterosexual, a fact noteworthy only in the prejudices thereby aroused in others which are essential to the plot. The novel, though somewhat lengthy, is absorbing and a worthy addition to Ms. McDermid's past novels, and is RECOMMENDED.

                                                                                                - Gloria Feit

Gloria reviews
THE CALLER by Karin Fossum
 and
OUTRAGE by Arnaldur Indriđason
in the U. K. REPORT .

A VINE IN THE BLOOD         
LEIGHTON GAGE         
Soho Crime   December, 2011

This is the fifth novel in the series, referred to as the Inspector Mario Silva Investigations, and it is every bit as delightful as the others. "Delightful" might be a strange adjective for a book concerning kidnapping and murder, but it is entirely fitting.

Football [or, as the Americans call it, 'soccer'] is the most popular sport in Brazil, and the FIFA World Cup is the premier event in that sport. Tico Santos, known as The Artist, is considered the greatest player in the history of the sport. As the book opens, three weeks before the first game is to take place in Brazil [the only country to have won the Cup five times and hosting the series for the first time in more than sixty years], Juraci Santos, his mother, is kidnapped. Other victims are Juraci's servants, two young women brutally murdered.

The effect in the country is devastating - does Brazil have a chance of beating Argentina without their star player? The headlines speak of nothing else, and the pressure on the police, and on Director Mario Silva, is enormous. The possibilities are endless: the Argentineans themselves; The Artist's gold-digging girlfriend; his principal rival, who wants to play in Tico's place; and a man whose career was destroyed when Tico broke his leg in a match. Or is it just about the $5,000,000 ransom demand?

The usual complement of background factors of this series is present: The corruption inherent throughout the justice system and the police [to which Silva, called the "sharpest criminal investigator in this country," is known as an incorruptible exception], and Silva's colleagues, including charming Haraldo "Babyface" Goncalves [so called because although he is 34 he looks 22]. There is also Fiorello Rosa, PhD and master kidnapper currently serving a fourteen-year prison sentence, an unlikely expert consulted by Silva to assist in the investigation. Everyone is mindful of the fact that the kidnapped woman is likely to be killed before her abductors can be found. The terrific writing makes this a fast read, and one that is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.