A place and time new to me with an appealing and original heroine. I not only learned a lot but wanted to know more. After reading the first book, I immediately got and read the whole series. Each one took me deeper into Singapore under the British, then the Japanese, then after the War as Su Lin's story unfolded as well as providing a fresh mystery and an expanded cast of characters. What I learned about the Japanese and the Chinese in Singapore and the Philippines led me to some fascinating mysteries in my own extended family.
First in a delightfully charming crime series set in 1930s Singapore, introducing amateur sleuth Su Lin, a local girl stepping in as governess for the Acting Governor of Singapore.
1936 in the Crown Colony of Singapore, and the British abdication crisis and rising Japanese threat seem very far away. When the Irish nanny looking after Acting Governor Palin's daughter dies suddenly - and in mysterious circumstances - mission school-educated local girl Su Lin - an aspiring journalist trying to escape an arranged marriage - is invited to take her place.
But then another murder at the residence occurs and it…
This novel in stories of a woman on the run pulled me right in. I cheered every time the woman made a friend or solved a murder and ached for her every time she had to abandon one new life for the next one to stay safe. I loved how the bookish librarian grew into a woman of action with the strength to protect herself and make hard choices.
A PhD candidate who can quote Shakespeare, Baudelaire, and Louis Leakey with ease, the brainy but naive librarian we know as “Cam Baker” must go on the run, trusting Witness Protection to keep her alive as she jumps from one alias to another, always just a step ahead of her ruthless ex and his cartel henchmen.
Hiding her intelligence and education, Cam accepts menial jobs that will let her stay on the down-low, experiencing the best and worst of the human condition along the way. From her first placement as nanny to two over-achieving teenaged girls in Billings, Montana to…
This is a witty police procedural, latest in a series that does New York City better than any crime fiction writer since Lawrence Block. The protagonists are a gay couple, one a detective on the cold case squad, the other a forensic artist. Both have traumatic pasts to overcome. The cases are gruesome, but the relationship is touchingly romantic. Thanks to the writing, the read is loads of fun, but as a New Yorker, what I loved most of all was immersion in a New York that is real as real can be in all its savor and liveliness and glitter and joy as well as its grit and stink and shadows and despair.
The Cold Case Squad has a problem: Someone won’t stop taunting Detective Everett Larkin. He’s been able to apprehend some of the worst criminals to ever stalk the streets of New York City, thanks in great part to forensic artist and boyfriend, Ira Doyle, but after their last case, events have taken a turn for the worse.A body recovered from the Hudson River bears a message addressed to Larkin and another token from Victorian mourning culture. As nineteenth-century hair jewelry leads Larkin deeper into the growing tangle of interconnected crimes, it becomes evident that solving these mysteries will come at…
New Yorker Bruce Kohler, a recovering alcoholic with a smart mouth and an ill-concealed heart of gold, is staying sober. But the problems with women and feelings that he drowned in booze may kill him yet. Now he's torn between the attractive girlfriend of an abusive drug dealer who's been murdered and Bruce's own alluring but crazy ex-wife, who's never quite let him go and wants to drag him down with her to destruction. His best friends, codependent Barbara and computer genius Jimmy, are on the case. The hunt for a killer takes them from East Harlem to the wilds of Brooklyn. But leaving a toxic relationship is a lot harder than solving a murder.
