Books like No Stone Unturned

Our next stop is Essex for a classic English village mystery. I knew from the moment I read the opening scene—the grisly discovery of a young man entombed in the crypt of the usually murder-free parish church—that I was going to love the story. And I did.   

I was delighted to see how the tranquility of the pastoral scenes—the thatched-roof cottages, the earthy smell of horses in the stable, the square, Norman-style church tower overlooking the village green—carried through the story and beautifully counterpointed the skullduggery at the heart of the mystery.

The quaint village atmosphere heightens the tension in this well-constructed first installment of what promises to be an exciting new mystery series.  

Every so often, I meet a charming, humane fictional character who seems like someone I would very much like to have a long conversation with. The gentlemanly amateur detective Charles Lenox is just such a man. And, in fact, he does seem to spend an awful lot of time having tea with his friends in this novel, set in 1865 London.

But that doesn’t stop Mr. Lenox from using his impressive wits to solve the murder of a housemaid, who is dead in an apparent suicide. I love this series by author Charles Finch and eagerly await each new installment.

I must confess to a special interest in this mystery. It is set in Wales, and I am Welsh by birth. From a series of accidental deaths to an old collage created by a local master military tailor, this recent publication (2023) mesmerized me from start to finish. I could not put it down.

What fascinated me was how the settings, whether the town center with its breweries, tanneries, and museum, the site of the Art Treasures Exhibition, or the menacing waters of the Irish Sea, the location of the story’s nail-biting climax, brought this well-researched, page-turner to life before my eyes. I could feel the time and place of this intriguing detective story deep in my Welsh roots.  

This debut author's story takes place in the beautiful city of Edinburgh—beautiful for some, but not all. I very much enjoyed this mystery, a tale of a female medical student’s efforts to find out what happened to a dead prostitute. What really sets it apart for me is the true-to-life description of the city’s underbelly.

Whether it is the infirmary that treats the poverty-stricken, the downcast, and those forced into a life of wrongdoing, or the crime-infested slums where shady deals and illegal trades are carried out with little regard for the arm of the law, I felt as though I was right there.  

The Alex Versus series's world-building, magic, and plots are very complex and layered. This is some seriously well thought out urban fantasy. 

The main character, Alex, is basically an instant seer, able to see multiple consequences of diving left versus right, shooting someone, running, etc. He doesn’t always have time to evaluate his choices before having to make a decision. And often, there’s no out without loss or a high price to be paid. 

The back story is cleverly woven into the plot and is never boring. This series has one of my favorite side characters ever written—an arachnid with startling insight and wisdom. 

Leaving Piccadilly for the moment, we have the adult western. As if the name of the genre and the name that starts every book title isn’t enough, it’s published by Playboy. And as you might have guessed from there being four hundred of these books, put out damn near monthly since the seventies, it’s a bit of a fool’s errand to single out any one book. They’re somewhere between the formulaic nature of needing to be a Western with literally obligatory sex and violence, and the author being a house name that’ll change with any given volume, who by necessity will have his own idiosyncratic take on the material. 

One book, you might get a writer that’s really into delivering the sex appeal promised by the cover. Another time, you’ll get someone who just wants to write a Western (if that: people weren’t writing these things for their health,… show more.

Dominic wrote two very good crime books in a short series before publishing Vine Street.

I am including Vine Street on my list because, although it’s set in London and is therefore not ‘regional’, it was one of the great crime novels of 2021-22 and deserves to become a classic. I read this book before it was published, and I knew, like everyone else, that it was something special.

The story spans almost a century, from the seedy streets of London’s Soho in the 1930s, until the present day. There are some really well-researched and vividly depicted descriptions of police investigations in the 30s, and just for that it’s worth a read. But there’s also a twisting, mesmerizing plot that takes us all the way to the present.

What really distinguishes Vine Street, though, is the writing itself, which seems to echo the rhythms of the 1930s jazz clubs, and… show more.

This is a gorgeous book to be savoured slowly.

It is suffused with music throughout (and the nerd within me loves the reoccurring literary motifs and phrases that definitely lend a musical quality to the book) and took me back to lazy summer days as a teenager when I first moved to London and the city felt wide open with excitement and possibility.

This is another love story, but one about community, family and the first loves that we learn from our parents.

Only one night with a handsome stranger in London? This has been my dream forever, and once I read this blurb, I immediately one clicked.

Sandi Lynn made me feel like I was literally living this, and I found it almost impossible to drag my eyes away. I wanted this book to continue forever, and if you haven't read it already, you need to.

The Seeker takes us through the streets of Cromwellian London in the 1650s, a period rarely considered by historical crime novelists, but one of paranoia as Cromwell’s regime struggles to crush the enemies seeking to overthrow it. The novel introduces the character of Captain Damian Seeker, Cromwell’s mysterious agent who is a force to be reckoned with.