Bryant and May off the Rails

When an elusive criminal known as Mr. Fox kills a police officer while escaping from a holding cell, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is outraged. As they attempt to track the murderer down, they discover Mr. Fox has been using different identities and altering his appearance.

Meanwhile, an attractive young woman in a polka dot dress dies from a fall in a London tube station. She was on her way home from her job at a department store cosmetics counter, and security camera footage shows that although she was wearing four inch high heels, she didn’t stumble. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May dig deeper, and wonder if there is any significance to a sticker found on her coat. When a university student goes missing in a tube station, another sticker is found, and the detectives are sure there is a connection.

Bryant is a rumpled, aged detective, who pours over his books but is not opposed to using new technology, as long as he’s not the one tapping the keys. May is the silver haired ladies’ man, a stylish dresser, and smooths over the mussed feathers caused by his unorthodox partner. A thoroughly entertaining series, a police procedural uniquely British.

Gin and Daggers by Donald Bain

Can’t get enough of “Murder, She Wrote”? In the first of the book tie-ins with the television series, Jessica Fletcher leaver Cabot Cove for England to visit Marjorie Ainsworth, the world’s queen of mystery writers. Joining Jessica at the country house are Marjorie’s sullen niece Jane, her sister and her husband, a charming but penniless Italian count, a critic, two book publishers, a theatrical producer, and a handsome young protégé of Marjorie’s. The household staff is on hand too, but when Marjorie is murdered, no one present thinks that the butler did it. It’s a classic English country house murder, and Jessica is right in the middle of it. Fans of the television series will be pleased to follow Jessica through the streets of London and meet up with all sort of characters.

Twas the Bite Before Christmas by Lee Charles Kelley

Ex-cop Jack Field now trains dogs in Maine and is engaged to medical examiner Dr. Jamie Cutter.  When a maid is found murdered in a house owned by a wealthy, mysterious couple, suspects abound.  Local police are inclined to call it an accident, but Jack is suspicious.  The couple is uncooperative, they have a chauffeur whose eastern European accent comes and goes, and a houseguest who appears without warning and claims to speak to the dead.  The plot is overly complicated, and several subplots could have been eliminated.  The characters are interesting, though, and carry the story when the plot bogs down.

Miss Julia Paints the Town by Ann B. Ross

Miss Julia hears that the historic Abbottsville courthouse is to be torn down to make way for condominiums. 

Helen Stroud’s husband seems to have disappeared with a good deal of money that was given to him for investing.  Miss Julia enlists the aid of her friends to dissuade the developer from tearing down the courthouse.  This is the ninth book in the humorous mystery series, full of southern charm and colorful local characters.

Index to Murder by Jo Dereske

Helma Zukas, reference librarian at Bellehaven Public Library, comes to the aid of her friend Ruth Winthrop, when two of Ruth’s paintings are stolen.  Is the thief one of Ruth’s former lovers depicted in the paintings?  The always-organized Miss Zukas investigates.  Fans of humorous mysteries, like those of Carolyn Hart and Mary Daheim, should check out this series.

Cry rape: the true story of one woman’s harrowing quest for justice by Bill Lueders

         

   Patty was a legally blind single mother, sharing an apartment with her adult daughter, when an intruder held a knife to her neck and raped her.  She reported the rape to the Madison police, but was bullied into recanting her story, and was subsequently charged with obstruction of justice for filing a false report.  Lueders is a journalist who followed Patty’s case through the courts.  It is a shocking, painful book to read, showing how in some cases the justice system abuses the very victims that should be helped.