New voices

New voices are always a happy discovery. And I find myself reading new authors or authors I've never encountered before. Some is dreck, but some is simply splendid.

So, if you are looking for a good mystery from a voice you've never heard before to brighten up you summer vacation, check out these great titles.

Blood Alley by Tom Coffey is a neo noir in a class by itself. Great background, snappy patter with hints of Raymond Chandler and a nod to the movie Chinatown.

Blood of the Wicked is Leighton Gage's initial outing for Brazilian detective Mario Silva as he investigates the assassination of a bishop and political corruption. It's a solid send-off for this Soho Press series which will continue in January with Buried Strangers.

For those who like their thrillers mean and lean, you can't do much better than Tom Rob Smith's Child 44, as Leo Demidov hunts a serial killer in Stalinist Russia.

Scott Heim, whose Mysterious Skin found fame in Hollywood, returned to fiction with We Disappear, examining the death of his own mother against a fictional background. Heartfelt, heartbreaking and redemptive, the book takes us on a meth-fuel investigation into fate of the missing.

The Water Room by Christopher Fowler sent me back to the first in his series, Full Dark House. Fowler's progatonists John May and Arthur Bryant are a couple of grumpy old men and head of London's Peculiar Crime Unit. If you haven't encountered this pair of aging agents, you're in for some delightful reading.

Finally, Jennifer McMahon's Island of Lost Girls bowled me over. Another writer I had yet to read (I had somehow missed Promise Not to Tell), Island of Lost Girls captures the fragility of innocence and the darkness of the world. This book is disturbing without beginning graphic, making it even more effective.

For more information, go to:

www.bloodalleynovel.com/

http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/cf/bio.php

http://heim.etherweave.com/

www.jennifer-mcmahon.com/

http://www.leightongage.com/

Long time, no blog

It's been a busy couple of months and my blogging, I admit, has suffered. Running a bookshop, it turns out, can be difficult at best ... but, finally, I'm back in the blogosphere.

Recently had author Tom Coffey in the store to sign books and answer questions of readers. For those of you who don't know Coffey, he's a sports editor at The New York Times and author of Blood Alley (Toby Press), a new novel in the noir tradition.

The book is stiletto sharp with rich dialogue and striking images. Set in post-WWII New York, it evokes a time of big city corruption, unbridled wealth and daily newspaper wars. (Not much, it seems, has changed in 60 years.) It's not a pretty book, portraying racism in the Big Apple when it was rotten to the core. There are no heroes in Blood Alley, simply people trying to do what's best for themselves. The few who do good quickly discover that no good deed goes unpunished.

The period detail is spot-on and Coffey immerses you in a time gone by. It's a great read for those who love Chandler, Chinatown and all those gritty '50s films that you knew would end badly for the protagonist.

Since Blood Alley received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, booksellers and readers around the country may soon discover Coffey's talent.