Review_FICTION
58 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ APRIL 6, 2020
Review_FICTION
narrow blade, as the autopsy later indicates.
A week later, Anderson, Costello, and
their team head off for the remote village
of Riske. Two people have been found
dead in a vacation rental cottage. Heavy
snows have covered the area, and the only
footprints leading to the house are those
of the local lad who discovered the bodies.
Could there be a connection between
these two seemingly unsolvable murder
cases? Ramsay judiciously balances
Anderson’s complicated family woes with
nuts and bolts police work and keen
detecting skills. Pithy dialogue, plenty of
wintery Highland atmosphere, and villains
that readers will love to hate make this a
perfect accompaniment for a wee dram by
the fireside. Agent: Jane Gregory, David
Higham Assoc. (U.K.). (June)Shills Can’t Cash Chips
Erle Stanley Gardner. Hard Case Crime, $10.95
trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-78565-636-1
A car accident in Colinda, Calif., drives
this appealing Cool and Lam caper from
Gardner (1889–1970), first published in- The chunky Berta Cool, the head of
the Cool Detective Agency, believes she’s
got a line on some respectable detective
work that’s easier and more lucrative than
her agency’s usual dangerous jobs. An
insurance com-
pany wants the
agency to look
into the sudden
disappearance of
Vivian Deshler,
who was
involved in the
accident and
was considering
making a claim.
The diminutive
Donald Lam, Cool’s employee, drives to
Colinda, where he encounters a bevy of
short-skirted babes and suspicious
activity in the sales offices of a subdivision
development. Lam spends a lot of time
driving around, until a local cop tries to
pin a murder on him, and then he must
perform the obligatory clearing of his
name. Overall, this is a quieter case than
usual for Lam. Instead of getting the snot
beaten out of him, he’s only knocked out
once by a clean punch. This is just the
ticket for fans of retro crime fiction. (June)
husband proposed to her only after June
turned him down. The first night at the
main house, June, Em, Amy, and Kimiko
all black out after being drugged. The
next morning, they wake up to discover a
mess of strewn clothes, scattered jewelry,
and half-eaten meals around the house.
The four women become distraught when
they can’t find Sadie, and it becomes clear
every one of them has a motive to want
her dead. The drawn-out plot builds to a
predictable ending. Gehrman does a
good job delineating the women’s indi-
vidual characters, but they’re basically
stereotypes. Even those with a taste for
tales about devious educated women may
want to take a pass. Agent: Jill Mar, Sandra
Dijkstra Literary Agency. (June)The Red, Red Snow
Caro Ramsay. Severn, $28.99 (256p)
ISBN 978-0-7278-8923-2
At the start of Ramsay’s gripping 11th
Scottish police procedural featuring Det.
Chief Insp. Colin Anderson and Det. Insp.
Winifred “Freddie” Costello (after 2018’s
The Sideman), Eric Callaghan, a father
picking up an order for his family at a
crowded Glasgow food court, collapses.
Callaghan doesn’t realize at first that he’s
been stabbed in the back—with a sharp,factories and available online at signifi-
cantly cheaper prices. The next morning,
Claudia arrives to open the marketplace
and finds Lori dead, hit on the head with
a pickle jar and garroted with a cheese-
slicing wire. Unfortunately for Claudia,
police chief Bill Lennox, a “man with a face
like a disappointed frog,” wants to pin the
death on her. Evidence starts stacking up,
and Claudia has no choice but to investigate
on her own. Another death raises the stakes.
Claudia’s lively and often highly amusing
narration presents plausible potential
suspects and motives galore—all this plus
intelligent furry and feathered friends. Cozy
fans will eagerly await Claudia’s next adven-
ture. Agent: Abby Saul, Lark Group. (June)The Girls Weekend
Jody Gehrman. Crooked Lane, $26.99 (320p)
ISBN 978-1-64385-386-4
English professor June Moody, the
narrator of this slow-burning psycholog-
ical thriller from Gehrman (Watch Me),
reluctantly decides to attend a weekend
baby shower with four college friends—
Em, Amy, Kimiko, and Sadie MacTavish—
at Sadie’s opulent estate in Washington’s
San Juan Islands. June is jealous of Sadie’s
success as the author of a bestselling
children’s book. Sadie resents that her★ The Shadows
Alex North. Celadon, $26.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-250-31803-9T
he pseudonymous North follows up his sensational
debut, 2019’s The Whisper Man, with another terri-
fying spine-tingler set in Featherbank, England.
When Paul Adams was 15, his school playground
was the scene of the murder of one of his friends. The
alleged killer, teenager Charlie Crabtree, was another
friend of Paul. Charlie disappeared and was never seen
again. After going away to college, Paul doesn’t return
to Featherbank until, as a 40-year-old English teacher,
he decides he must come home to tend to his dying
mother. To his dismay, history appears to be repeating
itself with a series of copycat killings of teenage boys.
Det. Amanda Beck, from the previous novel, investigates as the bodies pile up
and suspects accumulate. Ghosts (real and imagined) continue to haunt Paul,
whose senile mother fears something strange is in the house. The complex plot
shifts smoothly between past and present with numerous unexpected twists. An
overwhelming atmosphere of doom and disaster hovers over the perennial darkness
of the nearby woods. This heart-pounding page-turner is impossible to put down.
Agent: Sandra Sawicka, Marjacq (U.K.). (July)