Fiction and Mystery Book Reviews

Meet Zephyr Zuckerman, a bright and highly educated young woman who finds herself agreeing to become the superintendent of her parent's Greenwich Village brownstone after the previous super is arrested. Having recently dropped out of school, Zephyr's life is at something of a crossroads, but she's bouyed by her close friends whose personal lives range from the cultured Mercedes - a concert violinist, Tag - the divorced, world-travelling scientist, to Lucy, a social worker who's still looking for Mr. Right.

When Zephyr hires an exterminator, Gregory Samson, to take care of some pest problems in the building, they discover a concealed stairway that leads from the super's apartment which ultimately leads them to discover one of the female tenants is running a very special business from her apartment.

A bold and brassy, but breezy romp, "Super In The City" will keep you entertained as the mysteries of this Manhattan apartment building unfurl and sweep Zephyr and Gregory into each others' arms.

A hit-and-run accident in which a bicyclist is killed kicks off this psychological thriller from Silver Dagger award-winning author, Morag Joss. Written from the driver's point of view, we follow the guilt-ridden woman as she becomes obsessed with the victim. She starts to haunt the husband of the dead woman, Dr. Arthur Mitchell who is so devastated by the loss that his grip on reality is severely shaken. In fact, the poor man starts to believe that the mysterious woman that seems to be spying on him is actually the spirit of his dead wife.

Much-acclaimed around the world, "The Night Following" is an eerie tale that delves into the swirling darkness of guilt and loss that ensares everyone involved in the tragedy.

Featuring one of the most popular fictional detectives of the 20th century, these two Nero Wolfe novels are excellent examples of why Rex Stout's work achieved that status. This is just one of a series of two-episode Nero Wolfe paperbacks from Bantam.

In the first mystery, "Fer-De-Lance", Wolfe receives an anonymous gift of a snake, which his assistant Archie believes is a warning that Wolfe should drop his investigation of a pair of murders of an immigrant worker and a college president. Since Wolfe has a $10,000 bet with the district attorney that he can prove that a young woman's mother is innocent of the crimes.

In the second, "The League of Frightened Men", a prank pulled by a group of college men went horribly wrong many years ago, and has come back to haunt them all as one of their classmates is killed at a reunion. They turn to Wolfe to solve the case and free them from their long-held guilt.

April Gutierrez' new novel tells the story of Ava, a young woman who finds deceipt at every turn, which makes her wary of relationships - especially with men. So she struggles to find ways of dealing with the world and eventually finds how to love and be loved. It's a raw emotional story, filled with the roller-coaster sexual relationships of Ava and her friend Jackie as she moves from her teens to adulthood. Finding how Ava finds contentment is worth following the tortuous betrayals she endures.

Set on the Baltic island of Oland in Sweden, this debut novel by Johan Theorin begins with the tragic story of Jens, the 5 year-old son of Julia Davidsson who disappears one foggy day on the island. Julia is so distraught that she spends 20 years of her life in total dispair of finding her son until one day when her father Gerlof tells her that he has a clue to what happened. Someone has sent Gerlof one of Jens' sandals in the mail. This intriguing clue sends them back to Oland where they encounter an old veteran in a nursing home whom they suspect was involved in Jens' disappearance. The story flashes back and forth between the present day and the day when Jens went missing, and keeps you following a circle of clues and you think you know what happened, but you just aren't sure. It's a carefully plotted mystery with rich characters that you come to care about as you follow them through their trials. This book won Sweden's Best First Crime Novel and is well-deserving of that honor. You're sure to enjoy it.

Our hero, the intrepid Captain Wilson Cole, outlaw and rebel that he is, is still leading his fleet of nearly fifty ships as he flees from The Republic who prey on the planets in the Frontier and generally plunder men and materials to continue their struggle against the Teroni Federation. But one day, The Republic pushes Cole too far and he declares his own personal war against them. While his rag-tag fleet is no match for the overwhelming forces of The Republic, Cole finds allies among the outer worlds who are just as mad as he is about the way The Republic treats them.

This is the forth in the series of space-swashbucklers and it continues its tradition of spectacular space battles, intrigue, and even a bit of romance. If you like classic sci-fi shoot-em-ups, this is the book for you!