March Treasures in My Closet

The Treasures in My Closet posting might be a couple days late this month, but it's never too late to talk about forthcoming books.  I have fourteen March releases in my closet at the moment.  I'm sure a couple of these will also entice you to put them on your TBR (To Be Read) list.

Let's kick off the list with the latest Aimée Leduc mystery by Cara Black, Murder in Passy.   When the girlfriend of Leduc's godfather, Morbier, is strangled to death outsider her home in the Passy neighborhood, circumstantial evidence points to him.  To vindicate him, Aimée launches an investigation that leads to police corruption, radical Basque terrorists, and a kidnapped princess.  And, don't forget.  Cara Black will be appearing March 10 at 2 PM for Authors @ The Teague, along with Libby Hellmann and Zoe Sharp.

Chelsea Cain brings back damaged cop Archie Sheridan in The Night Season.  Just when he's getting his life back together, a relentless storm hits Portland.  The floods wash up a body dead for decades, and sets Archie on the trail of a killer.

  Scones & Bones is Laura Childs' twelfth Tea Shop Mystery.  When Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning attends the Heritage Society's Pirates and Plunder party, an antique skull ring set steals the show.  But, that treasure is stolen, and a history intern is murdered in the course of the crime.  And, it isn't long before Theodosia is in the midst of the investigation.

David Dickinson brings us Death in a Scarlet Coat, the tenth in the historical Lord Francis Powerscourt mystery series.  When the fifteenth Earl of Candlesby is found dead, his body wrapped in blankets atop his horse, three people see the body.  One dies.  One vanishes.  Now, only one man knows how he was killed.  When Lord Powerscourt is called to investigate, he uncovers a tangled mess of jealousy, revenge and hatred that leads to another murder before Powerscourt can find a killer.

I also have a juvenile book in the pile.  The Midnight Tunnel marks the debut of Angie Frazier's Suzanna Snow mystery series, designed for readers 8-12.  In 1905 Loch Harbor, New Brunswick, Suzanna works at her family's inn, where her parents want her to be a charming lady and well-mannered hostess.  But, she wants to be a detective like her famous uncle.  When one of the hotel's guests go missing, Suzanna knows she has clues, so she thinks she can help her uncle solve the case, despite the danger.

Separate from the World is the sixth Amish-Country mystery by P.L. Gaus.  When Enos Erb, an Amish man, claims his brother, Benny, a dwarf like himself, has been murdered, professor Michael Branden is intrigued.  But, his attention is diverted when a young student appears to have committed suicide.  During the course of the investigation, though, he and his friends uncover a link to a controversial genetics study involving the effects of inbreeding within the Amish community, and Enos and Benny participated in that study.

 There are a few non-mysteries in this month's list, beginning with Kristin Hannah's Night Road.  Jude Farraday's two teens are bright and happy.  But, when foster child Lexi Baill moves into the western Washington community, one decision changes everyone's lives.  It's a novel that raises questions about
motherhood, identity, love, and forgiveness.  It's a story about the longing for family, and the courage to forgive.

What's Joe "Animal" Laurinaitis' biography doing in my closet?  It's called The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling.  Laurinaitis also happens to be the father of James Laurinaitis, Hawk,  now with the St. Louis Rams, but a former Ohio State football player.  Anyone who knows of my love for Ohio State football will understand why this book is in the pile.  Hawk's father calls his own book about professional wrestling a story of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Ian Rankin introduces a new detective in The Complaints.  "The Complaints" are the cops who investigate other cops in the Edinburgh police force.  Malcolm Fox works there, and his latest assignment is to investigate Jamie Beck, who everyone believes is dirty, but no one can prove it.  But, there's more to Beck than meets the eye.  And Fox understands that when a murder takes place too close to home.

The Brothers of Baker Street is the second mystery in Michael Robertson's series slated for a TV series on ABC.  It features two lawyer brothers who receive mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes.  Reggie Heath lost his personal fortune, all of his clients, and quite possibly the love of his life due to the first Sherlock Holmes letter he and his brother answered.  He hopes to win them back while working the case of a cabbie accused of murdering two American tourists.  But, while he works that case, the Sherlock letters are piling up, including one from someone who claims to be a descendant of Professor James Moriarty.

For armchair travellers, I have To Timbuktu by Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg.  Her words and his illustrations tell their story, meeting in Morocco, moving to China, and then going all the way to Timbuktu, as they spent their first two years out of college teaching English, making friends across language barriers, enjoying a budding romance, and seeing parts of the world most people don't get to see.

Teresa Solana brings back "Shady, accident-prone private detective twins Eduard Martinez and Borja Masdeu."  This time, they investigate the murder of one of Barcelona's literary glitterati in A Shortcut to Paradise.

Murder of a Bookstore Babe is number thirteen in Denise Swanson's Scumble River Mystery  series.  School psychologist Skye Dension is excited about the grand opening of a new bookstore called Tales and Treats, but some of Scumble River's outspoken citizens want to shut down the store before it even opens.  And, someone is angry enough to commit murder.  When Skye stumbles upon the secret that killed a woman in the bookstore, the killer might make her murder a sequel.

James Thompson, whose Snow Angels is nominated for an Edgar Award, brings back Inspector Karl Vaara in the second book in the series, Lucifer's Tears.  Thompson, an American who has lived in Finland for ten years, sets his series in that country.  Now, while Vaara works the graveyard shift in homicide, and worries that his pregnant wife might miscarry again, he is pushed to investigate a ninety-year-old national hero for war crimes committed during World War II.  Soon, the past and present collide in cases of Nazi collaboration, government cover-ups, and murder by torture.

Did you find a treasure to entice you?  If not, wait until tomorrow, when I'll cover March's hot titles.