Illegal Guilt by Jeffrey Ashford

Illegal Guilt by Jeffrey Ashford

Synopsis

The new mystery from this popular author - The disappearance of seven-year-old Elaine is especially disturbing for Detective Constable Perry, because she is the daughter of his estranged sister. Breaking protocol by pursuing his enquiries in a case where a relative is involved, Perry is soon convinced of the perpetrators identity, and it is a race against time before kidnapping turns into murder . . .

⇒ Via: BN.com

An insipid police procedural with a confilcted constable whose niece gets kidnapped and goes on dogged pursuit of a suspect.

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Synopsis

"Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, instead finds men shot dead, a load of heroin, and more than $2 million in cash. Packing the money out, he knows, will change everything. But only after two more men are murdered does a victim's burning car lead Sheriff Bell to the carnage out in the desert, and he soon realizes how desperately Moss and his young wife need protection. One party in the failed transaction hires an ex-Special Forces officer to defend his interests against a mesmerizing freelancer, while on either side are men accustomed to spectacular violence and mayhem. The pursuit stretches up and down and across the border, each participant seemingly determined to answer what one asks another: how does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?" A harrowing story of a war that society is waging on itself, and an enduring meditation on the ties of love and blood and duty that inform lives and shape destinies.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Hunter comes across a lot of money as a result of a shootout between drug dealers and finds himself on the run from both parties.

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

Synopsis

A burned–out private detective is enlisted by an army of presidential goons to retrieve the U.S. Constitution...the real one. Following in the steps of Neil Gaiman, CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is packed with action, adventure, and a wild cast of characters that are sure to appease not only hardcore comic fans, but a whole new slew of mystery readers waiting for a surprisingly surreal treat that infuses the madness of the graphic–novel world.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Unconventional narrative, fast storyline, surreal characters make up this fast paced detective noir story by a author who brings graphical novel techniques to tell a unconventional story. Very good if you like off beat novels.

Strange Blood by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Strange Blood by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Synopsis

Last year Frozen introduced Welsh crime writer Lindsay Jayne Ashford to U.S. mystery fans. Now Strange Blood, the next in this critically acclaimed series, has been shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Fellow nominees include Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, and Stephen Booth.

In this second crime novel to feature forensic psychologist Dr. Megan Rhys, she is called in to help police investigate what they believe to be a ritual killing. But as more women die, and as the press, the police, her boss, and even her own family turn on her, Megan stakes everything on finding the killer.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Criminal profiler tries to find a serial killer killing young women. The main character is supposed to be a criminal profiler but acts more like a detective. Impacts the realism of the story.

Learning English by Rachid Al-Daif

Learning English by Rachid Al-Daif

Book Description
No matter how hard Rachid tries to recreate himself, to become educated and worldly-to "learn English"-it is impossible for this hip Beiruti with his cell phone and high-speed internet to sever the connection to his past in the Lebanese village of Zgharta, known for its "tough guys" and old-fashioned clan mentality. When the news of his father's murder, a case of blood revenge, reaches him by chance through a newspaper report, it drags him inescapably back into the world of his past. Suddenly he is plunged once again into the endless questions that plagued his childhood: questions about his parents' marriage and his own legitimacy, questions he would rather have forgotten and which threaten not only his new lifestyle, but now, according to the protocol of vendetta culture, his very life.

The accomplished al-Daif hooks his readers from page one of this, his ninth, novel-partly with pieces and fragments of suspense-filled plot and partly with his typically idiosyncratic narrator, whose bizarre stories, comical asides and uncannily perceptive comments on human nature lead us through this tantalizing, funny, and sober book about the hold the past has on Lebanon, and on us all.

⇒ Via: Amazon.com

Astriking monologue exposing the psyche of a modern Lebanese professor caught in the roots of his past.

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

Synopsis
First in the Kurt Wallander series.
It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn’t present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman’s last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have–and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.
Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.

⇒ Via: BN.com

A well made police procedural from Sweden featuring old fashioned detective work featuring character Kurt Wallander.

A Welcome Grave by Michael Koryta

A Welcome Grave by Michael Koryta

Synopsis
Sometime after midnight, on a moonless October night turned harsh by a fine, windswept rain, one of the men I liked least in the world was murdered in a field near Bedford, just south of the city....The detectives went looking for suspects--- people whose histories with Jefferson were adversarial and hostile. At the top of that list, they found me.
So begins A Welcome Grave, the third novel by award-winning mystery writer Michael Koryta, featuring private investigator Lincoln Perry. Once a rising star on the Cleveland police force, Perry ended his career when he left one of the city’s prominent attorneys, Alex Jefferson, bleeding in the parking lot of his country club---retribution for his affair with Perry’s fiancée.
Now Jefferson is dead, the victim of a brutal murder, and his widow has called upon Perry for a favor he knows he shouldn’t accept but can’t turn down: to find Jefferson’s estranged son, partial beneficiary of the dead man’s fortune. The case is simple enough, a routine “locate,” and he’ll be paid plenty of money for the work. The encounter should be simple, too: a brief exchange of information and maybe an empty condolence before Perry gets back into his truck and returns home. Instead, he’s loaded into a police car and taken to a rural jail while Jefferson’s son is zipped into a body bag.
Perry soon learns that Jefferson’s millions are the target of a thirst for revenge that hasn’t been satisfied by blood. As a pair of deadly assailants push deep into the investigator’s life, they bring with them police from two states whoare determined to see Perry in jail.
Building on the skill that prompted the Toronto Sun to call him “one of America’s best young mystery writers,” Michael Koryta makes A Welcome Grave an intense exploration of the lengths to which a desperate man is forced to go in order to clear his name and solve a crime. This is a thrilling new book that justifies the critical acclaim and solidifies his role as an emerging talent among today’s top writers.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Private investigator is called upon by his former love to find her husbands killers. A gripping tale of family secrets and ruthless revenge.

Virgin Lies by Roderick Anscombe

Virgin Lies by Roderick Anscombe

Book Description
On a blistering Boston summer day, a nine-year-old girl disappears while crossing a public park. The only witness is a homeless schizophrenic woman who believes she is under surveillance and whose memory may not be reliable. Dr. Paul Lucas, an expert at interrogating violent criminals and the insane, is called in to help evaluate the woman’s testimony.
Lucas elicits small details that lead police to three people with no apparent connection: a retired engineer, his disabled wife, and a young man who works at a doughnut shop. But interviews with each suspect go nowhere, frustrating detectives and calling into doubt Lucas’s role in the case. Believing the girl is alive but without water and soon to die, he is pushed to the brink of a professional abyss—under intense focus from local media, distrusted by police, and pressured by his wife, Abby, whose stake in the search is deeply personal.
With time running out, Lucas has to make a choice: to honor and uphold the sworn central oath of his profession, or to cross the line and do whatever it takes to find the girl, even if he must crack the mind of a vulnerable patient.
Suspenseful, intriguing, and informed by years of real-life experience with violent criminals, Virgin Lies is a first-class thriller.

Paul soon is trapped in an ever-tightening web of circumstance and scrutiny that implicates him in the eyes of his wife, his colleagues, and eventually the police. As the battle of wits turns deadly, with his career on the line and his life over the edge, Paul must learn to play the game by Craig's rules-for he who tells the best lie wins.

Smart and wickedly suspenseful, Virgin Lies winds through twists and turns to a place where nothing is as it seems.

⇒ Via: Amazon.com

Forensic Psychiatrist finds himself embroiled in a kidnapping case of a young girl who is very close to his wife. A gripping psychological tale that holds your attention till the very end. The author addresses ethical dilemmas such as patient confidentiality and torture in face of emotional ties.