NEW BRITISH MYSTERY

Bruce, Alison. Cambridge Blue (Soho $25). "This debut mystery by a British nonfiction crime writer accelerates like a train speeding to its destination. Highly recommended for all collections where British police procedurals, such as those by Peter Lovesey, are popular."-Library Journal
And thus makes our final 2008 British Mystery Club Pick.


Goddard, Robert. Found Wanting Signed. Just 4 left. Goddard, not to be confused with the early rocket designer of the same name, has been discovered by Stephen King. "King was so entranced by the thriller/mystery/suspense stories that he had Goddard's books shipped over from England. Particularly charming is King's enthusiasm for Goddard's writing output. 'Goddard has written at an amazing pace - 17 or 18 novels in as many years.'" Why this should impress the prolific King is a mystery. Anyway, this new novel by an author compared to Daphne Du Maurier or even LeCarre, and who mostly writes of men in jeopardy, usually stepping into disaster via some small, innocent act. So it is with Richard Eusden who is on his way to work in London one unremarkable winter morning when he is intercepted by his ex-wife, Gemma. She has sad news of his old friend, her other ex-husband, Marty Hewitson. Marty is dying, but needs a favour done for him - now, today, at once. Eusden reluctantly agrees. He's soon in a race for his life-and Marty's - across Belgium, Germany, and Denmark and on into the Nordic heart of a mystery that somehow connects Marty's long dead grandfather, Clem Hewitson, an Isle of Wight police officer, with the tragic fate of the Russian Royal Family.

Gregory, Philippa. Fallen Skies ($16). For fans of Charles Todd, the story of a young singer who marries a WWI veteran, a hero of the French front, and steps into a family with a history of repressed violence, secrets, and real danger.
Attempting to leave the past behind them, singer Lily Valance and World War I Captain Stephen Winters join in the revelry of the 1920s, but their happiness is shattered by Lily's career ambitions and Stephen's post-war stress.



Mills, Jenni. Crow Stone ($17).
A First Mystery Pick in hardcover develops an archaeological thriller set near the city of Bath and climaxing in an old flint mine. Wonderful local color and an appealing strong yet vulnerable female protagonist.





Watson, Colin. Bump in the Night ($15). Detective Inspector Purbright finds himself on loan to the police in Chalmsbury, a town that neighbors Flaxborough and is very like it in the general licentiousness of its citizenry. It seems that one of them has been blowing up the town's monuments and all the efforts of the Chalmsbury police force to find the miscreant have been in vain. Also, explosives have gone missing from the Flaxborough civil defense center where, by an odd coincidence, Chief Inspector Hector Larch of the Chalmsbury police force spends his Tuesday nights. Determined not to get in Larch's way, Purbright takes his time getting to know the locals, but when one of them is killed in the latest explosion, he steps up his investigations. With almost no clues to go on save a few scraps of cobbled together verse, he sorts through the town's eccentric residents until he finally gets his man. First published in 1960, this is the second of Colin Watson's witty Flaxborough chronicles.