Review_FICTION
44 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 2, 2020
Review_FICTION
late in the book and not in a very satisfying
way. Despite sometimes moving portraits
of characters in deep pain, the whole is less
than the sum of its parts. (May)The Good Wife
Jane A. Adams. Severn, $28.99 (224p)
ISBN 978-0-7278-8962-1
Set in 1929, Adams’s solid fifth mystery
featuring Det. Chief Insp. Henry Johnstone
of the Metropolitan Police (after 2019’s
The Clockmaker) takes Johnstone and his
sergeant, Mickey Hitchens, to Southwell,
Nottinghamshire, to investigate the
murder of Martha Mason, who left her
physician husband and the friends she was
mixing with at the local racecourse to go in
search of an acquaintance she had suppos-
edly spotted. Her body was later discovered
in a horse box away from the track, her skull
smashed by a single blow. Who would kill
“a woman that everyone accepted was a
good wife and model citizen”? The two
detectives soon figure out that Martha had
an ambiguous and possibly murky past;
they also uncover various criminal activities
among suspects who range from members
of street gangs to lords of the realm. Mickey,
who “usually mitigated what was often
referred to as Chief Inspector Johnstone’s
sharpness and lack of tact,” does the heavy
lifting, while Henry quietly ponders the
clues. Appealing characters compensate
for a convoluted plot. Fans of historical
police procedurals will be satisfied. (May)To Kill a Mocking Girl:
A Bookbinding Mystery
Harper Kincaid. Crooked Lane, $26.99
(352p) ISBN 978-1-64385-304-8
Quinn Caine, the 20-something heroine
of this enjoyable series launch from Kincaid
(The Wonder of You), has just returned from
teaching abroad to Vienna, Va., to work
as a bookbinder at the family bookstore.
A lot has changed in her hometown. Her
once rambunctious cousin, Elizabeth
Anne Caine, is now Sister Daria, a nun in
training, and her high school nemesis,
Trisha Pemberley, is engaged to Scott
Hauser, whom Quinn once dated briefly.
One night, while walking Ruff Barker
Ginsburg, her German shepherd, Quinn
comes across Trisha’s body in the park. The
police officer who responds to her call, also
a newcomer to Vienna, Wyatt Reynolds,
seems to have known the victim and regardsbecomes the catalyst for murder. Historical
anniversaries, meanwhile, are central to Lee
Child’s clever “Normal in Every Way,” in
which knowledge of key dates from WWII
enables a police file clerk to target a serial
killer in 1950s
San Francisco.
Series characters
also appear,
notably the
mother of S.J.
Rozan’s Lydia
Chin in “Chin
Yong-Sun Sets
the Date,” in
which the
mother foils an
attempt to sabotage one wedding engage-
ment and smooths the way for another. On
a lighter note, a pair of redneck thieves in
Julie Smith’s “Whodat Heist” pull off a
big score on Superbowl Sunday only to be
once again outmatched by their female
partner. Other contributors include Jeffery
Deaver, Laurie R. King, Peter Lovesey,
and Margaret Maron. This is a must for
mystery fans. (May)The Law of Lines
Hye-young Pyun, trans. from the Korean by
Sora Kim-Russell. Arcade, $24.99 (304p)
ISBN 978-1-948924-96-2
In this enigmatic tale of two South
Korean women dealing with tragedy,
Shirley Jackson Award winner Pyun (The
Hole) fails to sustain the energy from the
dramatic opening developments in the
lives of Se-oh Yun and Ki-jeong Shin. The
anxious Se-oh, whose mother died when
she was eight, doesn’t like to stay away for
too long from the small, rundown house
she shares with her father. One day, she
returns from an errand to find the house
devastated by a gas explosion, which the
police suspect may have been the result of a
suicide attempt by her father, who unbe-
knownst to her was in debt. She suspects,
however, someone tried to kill her father.
Meanwhile, high school teacher Ki-jeong
learns that her college student sister has
been found dead in the Namgang River.
The drowning, which could have been
either accident or suicide, elicits con-
flicting feelings, given how often Ki-jeong
imagined her sibling, who tormented their
mother, dead. Eventually, the story lines of
the two leads intersect, but that happensStreet. Valentino sets out to see how much
he can learn, decades later, about what
actually happened from the few people left
involved with the film, including a fellow
actor who was the last person known to
have seen Oliver alive. The solution to
the cold case is both clever and surprising.
Film noir buffs will be in heaven. Agent:
Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary.
(May)The Perfect Daughter
Joseph Souza. Kensington, $26 (304p)
ISBN 978-1-4967-2638-4
Weak portrayals of the main characters
mar this meandering thriller from Souza
(Pray for the Girl). Isla Eaves calls the
Shepherd’s Bay, Maine, police after she’s
awakened early one morning by a noise in
her house only to discover that it was just
her Alzheimer’s-afflicted father. When
officer Karl Bjornson arrives, Isla notes
her daughter Katie, a high school junior,
isn’t in her room, but—despite another
teen having been missing from town for
more than three months—neither Isla nor
Karl is particularly concerned until the
following day when Katie’s best friend,
Willow Briggs, is also reported missing.
Katie turns up days later, beaten and with
temporary memory loss. Karl investigates,
but his technique is limited to questioning
Katie and having “gut feelings.” Katie
meanwhile tries to remember the start of
her friendship with Willow, but her
internal monologues often don’t sound
like that of a teen. Various extraneous
plot threads help keep readers guessing,
but the true culprits act suspiciously
from the very beginning. This isn’t one of
Souza’s finer works. Agent: Evan Marshall,
Evan Marshall Agency. (May)Deadly Anniversaries:
Celebrating 75 Years of
Mystery Writers of America
Edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini.
Hanover Square, $26.95 trade paper (400p)
ISBN 978-1-335-04494-5
Anniversaries of all kinds are the source
of mayhem for the 19 stories in this enter-
taining all-original anthology from MWA
grand masters Muller and Pronzini (the
Sabrina Carpenter series). Wedding
anniversaries feature prominently, as in
Max Allan Collins’s diverting “Amazing
Grace,” in which a 50th-anniversary cake