Oath Of Office-Michael Palmer

Oath Of Office


Michael Palmer

St. Martin’s, Feb 14 2012, $27.99

ISBN: 9780312587536



Almost a decade ago Dr. Lou Welcome lost his license to practice medicine when he prescribed amphetamines for himself. Soon after his disgrace, the Physician Wellness Office in Kings Ridge, Virginia helps Lou kick his habit. Grateful, he joins the PWO team counseling physicians with addiction issues.



Lou believes his client John Meacham had fully recovered and recommend his license restored. However, soon afterward John commits mass murder at his office when he kills his partner, several patients and staff before committing suicide. The PWO suspends Lou who notices other strange happenings and tragedies at Kings Ridge as the focus. As Lou follows clues that lead to the First Lady; he struggles with what to do after receiving a warning from a Double M.



Out of Office is an exciting medical thriller in which Michael Palmer does what he does best: combine easy to understand but not dumbed down science with avaricious political and economic interest (see A Heartbeat Away and The Last Surgeon). Readers will root for Lou to succeed on his quest though his reaching the White House and beyond is over the top of the Washington Monument. Still fans will enjoy the conspiratorial convergence of money, power and medicine.



Harriet Klausner

Fashion Faux Paw-Judi McCoy

Fashion Faux Paw
Judi McCoy
Obsidian, Mar 6 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9780451236272

It's Fashion Week in New York City and professional dog walker Ellie Engleman has been hired to take care of the canines. Each dog will wear identically matching clothing that matches her human model; they will walk together on the runway.

One designer Lilah Perry insults Ellie so quickly after their introductions, she belongs in the Guinness Book of Records for speediest derision. However, Ellie realizes that offensive Lilah lashes out at everyone. Lilah and Ellie receive gift baskets that include perfume strips. The mean spirited designer goes to talk to the “important” people, but begins to choke. Someone recognizes the symptoms of Anaphylactic Shock and asks if anyone has an Epipen. Ellie retrieves an Epipen from Lilah’s bag, but the gizmo is empty. The police discover peanut oil was an ingredient of the perfume strip that Lilah wore and declare the death a homicide. They soon arrest Jeffrey King, brother of designer Kitty King. Elle is fond of the young woman so when Kitty and others plead with her to investigate she does. Finding someone who did not loathe the victim is like finding a needle in a haystack so Ellie seeks whose motive could lead to murder.

The heroine and her Yorkie Rudy are adorable especially when they communicate as their humorous discussions reduce the tension when Ellie and her canine companion posse begin sleuthing. Also adding an element of humanizing Ellie is her strong romance with Sam the homicide detective as they have a lot in common. Although the reason Ellie investigates is a paradoxical sub-genre default, fans will enjoy the latest Dog Walker amateur sleuth (see Till Death Do Us Bark, Begging for Trouble and Death In Show) as this is an entertaining canine cozy.





















Harriet Klausner

Little Shop Of Homicide-Denise Swanson

Little Shop Of Homicide


Denise Swanson

Obsidian, Mar 6 2012, $7.99

ISBN: 9780451236180



Devereaux Sinclair moved back to her small Missouri hometown because her grandmother has shown signs of senility and needs someone to take care of her; but Dev knows her beloved relative’s pride will limit her granddaughter’s role to watch her. In town Dev opens up a throwback five and dime store.



Dev had no idea that Stramp Investment where she quit over seven months ago ran a Ponzi scheme until the FBI interrogated her. Only recently has she begun to relax. Her respite ends when Detective Woods barges into her shop asking her if she sold a gift basket to Joelle Ayers; Dev says yes. Woods accuses Dev of murdering Joelle as the victim’s fiancé Dr. Noah Armstrong was Dev’s former boyfriend; who dumped her when her father was convicted of manslaughter. Abusing his authority, Woods wants Dev guilty because he lost his money in the Stramp Investment fiasco. At the same time recuperating at his uncle’s ranch from an on the job injury, deputy U.S. Marshal Jake Del Vecchio has doubts about his judgment of women, still he hunts for the real culprit as do Dev and her two BFFs (Poppy and Boone).



While Scumble River school psychologist and police consultant Skye Denison (see Murder of a Creped Suzette) takes a derseverd breather, Denise Swanson begins a new entertaining mystery series that her fans will appreciate. The amateur sleuth investigation is fun to follow as the heroine believes that for her to avoid life in prison she needs to prove she is a native daughter of the Show Me State as the lead detective and his superior are uninterested in the facts. With a touch of romance in the air, readers will enjoy this delightful cozy.



Harriet Klausner

Gone West-Carola Dunn

Gone West


Carola Dunn

Minotaur, Jan 17 2012, $24.99

ISBN: 9780312675486



In 1926 Derbyshire, Humphrey Birtwhistle has done well writing American Western novels. Although he has never set foot in the territory he describes, neither has his readers who take his descriptions and heroes as gospel. Humphrey has a large retinue of family, friends, and others living idly comfortably off his royalties.



Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits her school days friend Sybil Sutherby at the home of the novelist. Humphrey’s confidential secretary, Sybil feels something is not right, but is unsure what disturbs her except her gut tells her someone is poisoning her employer to keep him ill. She knows her friend has solved mysteries so she has invited Daisy to investigate. Sibyl explains to Daisy that when the writer became too sick to write, she ghost wrote the books, which lead to greater sales. Her fear is one of the hanger-on likes the additional income so does not want the status quo changed. Daisy begins her inquiry only before she makes much headway, Humphrey is dead. As the amateur sleuth investigates what she believes is a homicide by seeking the motive amidst a horde of house guests and employees, Daisy’s Scotland Yard DCI husband Alec Fletcher wants her to drop the case.



The latest Daisy Dalrymple historical amateur sleuth is a great 1920s whodunit due to a strong mystery and the usual trademark sense of time and place. Fast-paced, readers will enjoy Daisy’s latest caper (see Sheer Folly, Anthem for Doomed Youth and Gunpowder Plot) as she has Gone West to Debyshire where she faces a horde of ungrateful demanding slackers.



Harriet Klausner

Astride A Pink Horse-Robert Greer

Astride A Pink Horse


Robert Greer

North Atlantic Books, Mar 27 2012, $23.95

ISBN: 9781583943694



USPS mail-person Lyle Sudderman is poaching on restricted federal land when he notices a body hanging upside down in the Tango 11 decommissioned military nuclear silo near Wheatland, Wyoming.



Platte County Sheriff Art Bosack leads the investigation into the murder; USAF Office of Special Investigations Major Bernadette Cameron leads the federal inquiry into security breach. Former college baseball superstar Elgin “Cozy” Coseia, Digital Registry News reporter, arrives at the scene while Bosack and Cameron discuss jurisdiction. The body is that of retired USAF Master Sergeant Thurmond Giles, an expert on missile maintenance technology. Cozy’s boss and former college teammate Freddy Dames obtains tips and writes incendiary opinions criticizing the Air Force and the county’s sheriff department. Cameron’s superior officer Colonel Joel DeWitt demands she find nothing that embarrasses the department just short of ordering a hate crime finding. The government and the reporters focus on an antinuclear group who protested in the 1970s and 80s and the victim’s history of womanizing; even while the major joins the two journalists as the third amateur sleuth musketeer trying to solve the case together.



Astride a Pale Horse is an exciting investigative tale in which a present day homicide has ties to the Cold War era. The ensemble cast to include the lead trio, the corpse, other air force, the serif and the suspects are fully developed so that the audience understands what motivates each of them especially the politics of acceptable solutions. Fast-paced from the moment Cozy arrives at the silo and never slowing down readers will appreciate the three musketeers working a case that twists into an over the top of Mount Wheeler entertaining late thriller.



Harriet Klausner

Vulture Peak-John Burdett

Vulture Peak


John Burdett

Knopf, Jan 10 2012, $25.95

ISBN: 9780307272676



In Bangkok, the brass assigns Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep to end the illegal trafficking in human organs. Sonchai the Buddhist understands that the harvesting and selling of organs is a lucrative cash crop as classic economics 101 includes a very high demand by desperate customers and suppliers, and ruthlessly avaricious sellers.



Sonchai knows his leadership watches his every action as this case will end up with international media scrutiny. To achieve his objective, Sonchai sets up a sting to capture the major commodity sellers. As he travels to the world’s most luxurious locales, his effort focuses on the queenpins of the lucrative market: the Vultures Chinese twins. As Sonchai baits his trap, he becomes distracted when he learns his wife former prostitute Chanya is having an affair.



This is a terrific entry in what is consistently a great Thailand police procedural (see The Godfather of Kathmandu, Bangkok 8, Bangkok Haunts and Bangkok Tattoo) is a superb thriller that puts faces on the suppliers, sellers and buyers in a nefarious free capitalist venture. Fast-paced and filled with action, reader will enjoy Sonchai’s sting operation and his fall from Buddhist enlightenment due to jealousy and betrayal.



Harriet Klausner

Raylan-Elmore Leonard

Raylan


Elmore Leonard

Morrow, Jan 17 2012, $26.99

ISBN: 9780062119469



In Harlan County, Kentucky, the two cash crops are marijuana and organ harvesting. U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (see Pronto and Riding the Rap) investigates who removed the kidneys from drug dealer Angel Arenas. His inquiry leads to weed dealing brothers Dickie and Coover Crowe who expanded their operations into the lucrative harvesting of organs to sell back at 10K to the donor; the Fed knows this pair’s combined IQ would remain in single digits so someone medically competent is the brains of the operation.



The Crowe family owns mountain land that a coal company covets. Executive Carol Conlon will kill anyone who gets in her firm’s mountaintop removal operation. Givens follows a deadly feud to the Crowe clan and the mining company.



Raylan pursues stoned bank robbing strippers. The clues lead to Jackie Nevada who pays for her college tuition at Butler by playing poker.



More novellas and shorts (there is additional vignettes) than a novel, the tie between the tales is Raylan. The zany tales are over the top of Black Mountain as the madcap police procedurals are fun to read while satirizing American capitalism especially through the various legal and illegal industries and the caricature villains and villainesses. Fans will enjoy Elmore Leonard’s latest madcap thriller.



Harriet Klausner