In the Game by Nikki Baker:She moved back in with her parents the next day and she sabotaged the toilet before she left so it ran constantly. The sound kept me up all night and I had to sleep at Naomi's until the plumber came and fixed it. Craziness is hard to keep isolated. It will metastasize all through ordinary lives.

Synopsis: Black lesbian ( Read more... )

Deathday Party by Paula Carter:

"Like I said, people who are careless with their gardening can't be trusted. You just never know what they have in their background. That's why we've got to get out of here, Jane, dear. I am not used to this kind of thing, you know ( Read more... )

#104: A Taste for Murder by Claudia Bishop:The statue of the man and his horse had been erected in 1868, two hundred years after the founding of the village. Something had gone awry in the casting process, and the General's face had a wrinkled brow and half-open mouth, leaving him with a permanently pained expression as he sat in the saddle. On ( Read more... )

# 96: The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie:"You must have had a very interesting life, Colonel Race?" said Miss Beddingfeld, gazing at him with wide, starry eyes.

That's how they do it, these girls! Othello charmed Desdemona by telling her stories, but, oh, didn't Desdemona charm Othello by the way she listened?
Synopsis: Plucky but ( Read more... )

# 95: The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie:Miss Marple's sharp eyes were looking round the room. She said: "I see you've no hearthrug in front of the fire ( Read more... )

#91: Lavender Lies by Susan Wittig Albert:We settled ourselves in the wicker chairs, and I glanced around. The porch might have been a set for a 1930s movie, with an old oak icebox standing against one wall and a bench with a white enameled bucket and wash basin on the other, an embroidered hopsacking towel hanging above it. The painted floor was ( Read more... )

#87: Get Garrity by Allan Nixon:Hurrying down the hall, I’d expected him to be alone--not just because everyone dies along, but because they’d told me he had no servants.
Synopsis: A drunk, homophobic disbarred lawyer just might be the worst P.I. in 1960s L.A.

My review's up in the new issue of Crime Factory. Enjoy!

#86: The Transcendental Murder by Jane Langton:She was a servant of the old school, eager to please. But she had one well-known flaw. Gwen beheld Mrs. Bewley sticking the sugar tongs coyly into her bosom, the dear old kleptomaniac. It was just a habit she had. She didn't mean anything by it. Mrs. Goss always frisked her sternly before she went home ( Read more... )

# 85: The Great Black Kanba by Constance and Gwenyth Little:Uncle Joe was waltzing Matilda again in the lounge car, and Eileen was singing it for him in a shrill treble. She had pitched it a bit too high and was having trouble, but she solved the problem by suddenly plunging down two whole octaves. This put Uncle Joe off, and he stopped and asked ( Read more... )

#58: Town in a Blueberry Jam by B. B. Haywood:But the fact remained that Sapphire Vine was dead. Someone had killed her. And though Candy found it not only absurd but also literally painful to think that Herr Georg could have plunged a hammer into the back of Sapphire's head (not to mention how painful it must have been for Sapphire herself) the ( Read more... )