Starred Review Lists
Lists of books receiving at least one starred review (indicating a noteworthy book) from one of these major review sources: Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, or Publishers Weekly. The review source assigns the star.
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Crime Fiction Stars 2001: January - June
January
-
A Murder of Honor
Author: Andrews, Robert
Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399146849 Date: 2001
Kirkus
When a street-smart priest whose tough-love halfway house made him a savior in Washington, D.C., is killed in a drive-by shooting, detectives Frank Kearney and Jose Phelps are handed the case. What seems to be a simple drive-by of a public figure turns into a more complex case involving corrupt politicians, warring drug gangs, manipulative media, millions of dollars in questionable cash--and more murder.
Updated 12/5/00 - The 25th Hour
Author: Benioff, David
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 24 ISBN: 0786707720 Date: 2001
PW
Wall Street speculators, the Manhattan downtown club scene, Russian gangsters, immigrant neighborhoods; all the elements in the urban turf of this finely crafted contemporary crime novel wed danger with excitement and possibility. They're among the rewards lost by Monty Brogan on his last day "out" with his two friends before entering prison for seven years.
Updated 11/15/00 - A
Darkness More Than Night
Author: Connelly, Michael
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316154075 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
Terrence McCaleb, the retired FBI agent featured in the bestselling Blood Work, is asked by the LAPD to help them investigate a series of murders. They are the kind of ritualized killings that McCaleb specializes in solving, and he is reluctantly drawn from his peaceful new life back into the excitement of tracking down a homicidal maniac. More horrifying still, the suspect who seems to fit the profile that McCaleb develops is someone he has known and worked with in the past: Detective Harry Bosch.
Updated 11/15/00 - Grandmother
Spider
Author: Doss, James D.
Publisher: Morrow $ 23 ISBN: 0380977222 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Ute shaman Daisy Perika warns a small girl that if she kills a spider, the Grandmother Spider will emerge from her cavern under Navajo Lake and bite off human heads. Two men then vanish from the lake's shore. Tribal Policeman Charlie Moon, doesn't share the old woman's belief in the supernatural, and is determined to get to the rational source.
Updated 12/5/00 - Two
O'Clock Eastern Wartime
Author: Dunning, John
Publisher: Scribner $ 26 ISBN: 0743201957 Date: 2001
Booklist
It's the summer of 1942, and as bombs fall on England, a troupe of gallant actors, sound-effects people, writers, and producers labors to entertain the folks at home. Into this world come Jack Dulaney and Holly Carnahan, determined to find Holly's missing father, whose disappearance and the unsolved murder of an actor seem to be tied up with the very radio station that provides Holly and Jack a lifeline.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | World Wars Stars
Updated 11/14/00 - Third
Person Singular
Author: Erickson, K. J.
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 031226669 Date: 2001
PW
Updated 12/7/00 - Kingdom
of Shadows
Author: Furst, Alan
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375503374 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
In spymaster Furst's most electrifying thriller to date, Hungarian aristocrat Nicholas Morath--a hugely charismatic hero--becomes embroiled in a daring and perilous effort to halt the Nazi war machine in Eastern Europe.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | World Wars Stars | Spies
Updated 11/22/00 - The Third Victim
Author: Gardner, Lisa
Publisher: Bantam $ 6.99 (paper) ISBN: 0553578685 Date: 2001
PW
Although a boy confesses to a horrific crime that has torn Bakersville, Oregon, apart, Officer Rainie Conner finds evidence that he may not be guilty. With the help of FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, Rainie comes closer to a deadlier truth than she can imagine. This killer kills for sport--but what he's really come for is Rainie.
Updated 2/21/01 - The Babel Effect
Author: Hecht, Daniel
Publisher: Crown $ 23 ISBN: 0609607294 Date: 2001
PW
Is violence a virus? Can your genes make you a killer? In The Babel Effect, from the author of the widely acclaimed Skull Session, a brilliant husband-and-wife research team gets a blank check from a billionaire industrialist to find answers to these most urgent of questions. They quickly learn a nightmarish fact: that our propensity for violence is like something contagious. Can they survive the search?
Suggested Reading: Medical Thrillers
Updated 11/15/00 - The Constant
Gardner
Author: LeCarre, John
Publisher: Scribner $ 28 ISBN: 0743215052 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Featuring his strongest heroine since The Russia House, Le Carre's The Constant Gardener combines the international suspense of his Cold War thrillers with the exotic romanticism of The Little Drummer Girl. This is a masterful novel by one of the most compelling and elegant storytellers of our time.
Updated 11/17/00 - Candyland
Author: McBain, Ed & Evan Hunter
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0743213165 Date: 2001
PW
Written from the point of view of a man obsessed, the first, fever-paced half of this two-part novel is classic Evan Hunter and ends in a late night confrontation in a mid-town bordello. The next morning, in the book's second section, the story is picked up by Ed McBain, the celebrated inventor and master of the modern police procedural. This masterpiece combines the bestselling styles of two authors into one powerful, sexy, and shocking crime story.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 1/18/01 - Murder Me Now:
Olivia Brown
Author: Meyers, Annette
Publisher: Mysterious $ 23.95 ISBN: 0892966955 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Greenwich Village is decked with snow and mistletoe in December of 1920. Prohibition may be the law, but the speakeasies are crowded with writers and artists, friends and lovers. In the midst of all this conviviality, poet-sleuth Olivia Brown once again finds herself drawn into murder; this time it is the mysterious death of a young nanny, who is employed by one of Olivia's friends.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | Poets | Prohibition
Updated 11/15/00 - Mimi's Ghost
Author: Parks, Tim
Publisher: Arcade $ 24.95 ISBN: 1559705566 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus
Updated 12/5/00 - Protect
and Defend
Author: Patterson, Richard North
Publisher: Knopf $ 26.95 ISBN: 0679450440 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW Booklist
In a compelling new novel, Patterson makes a major departure that confirms his place among the most important writers at work today. A newly elected president faces the unexpected chance to nominate a new chief justice of the Supreme Court, but the Senate majority leader is determined to thwart the nomination for reasons that cross the boundary between the political and the personal. What results is the definitive novel of politics and law at the dawn of the 21st century.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars | Political Fiction| All Stars
Updated 11/17/00 - Declare
Author: Powers, Tim
Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0380976528 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A coded message draws Professor Andrew Hale back into Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1963. Elements from his past are gathering in Beirut, rushing toward a deadly confrontation on Mt. Ararat, where a covert Soviet expedition is closing in on the biblical Ark.
Suggested Reading: If You Liked The Da Vinci Code
Updated 12/18/00 - Two for Joy
Author: Reed, Mary & Eric Mayer
Publisher: Poisoned Pen $ 23.95 ISBN: 189020837x Date: 2001
Booklist
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars
Updated 12/15/00 - Temple
Author: Reilly, Matt
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312266596 Date: 2001
Kirkus
This sensational new action/adventure blockbuster is by the bestselling author of Ice Station. When the U.S. Army beaks through the doors of an Incan temple to remove an idol carved out of a strange stone--a stone that could be used in a terrifying new weapon--they discover they have broken a golden rule. Some doors are meant to be unopened.
Suggested Reading: Action and Adventure | If You Like Clive Cussler
Updated 12/5/00 - Piranha
to Scurfy: And Other Stories
Author: Rendell, Ruth
Publisher: Crown $ 23 ISBN: 0609608533 Date: 2001
Booklist
The internationally celebrated mystery novelist and author of Harm Done now offers a collection of deeply unsettling stories evocative of Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and other masters of the chilling touch.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 11/17/00 - The Kill Artist
Author: Silva, Daniel
Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375500901 Date: 2001
PW
The bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy and The Mark of the Assassin returns with a new hero and a thrilling story of Middle East political intrigue and terrorism that covers three continents and shows the peace process in jeopardy. The story, by an author who was praised by Newsday for "bringing new life to the international thriller", features a colorful supporting cast and fascinating background detail about the Palestinian situation and the cutthroat art world.
Suggested Reading: Espionage | If You Liked The Da Vinci Code
Updated 11/30/00 - On Night's
Shore
Author: Silvis, Randall
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312262019 Date: 2001
Booklist
In 1840 New York City, a beautiful shopgirl is murdered. The discovery of her body in the Hudson River prompts young journalist Edgar Allan Poe to search for the truth behind an apparently motiveless crime. Joining Poe is Augie Dubbins, an orphaned street urchin who becomes Poe's most trusted ally and narrates the story as it swings wildly from the Five Points slums to the mansions of Fifth Avenue.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | Poe Stars
Updated 12/7/00 - Heat of Lies
Author: Stone, Jonathan
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312206046 Date: 2001
PW
Updated 12/7/00 - Endless
Honeymoon
Author: Webb, Don
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312265824 Date: 2001
Booklist
Updated 12/7/00 - A Dream of
Wolves
Author: White, Michael C.
Publisher: Cliff St $ 23 ISBN: 0060194324 Date: 2001
PWBooklist
Transplanted Yankee Doc Stuart Jordan has spent nearly 30 years in Hubbard County, North Carolina, dedicating his life to helping the people of the Blue Ridge Mountains. One night he is called to the scene of a brutal murder. Little does he know his fate will change.
Updated 1/24/01
February
- A
Hearse of a Different Color
Author: Cockey, Tim
Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN: 0786865717 Date: 2001
PW
A surprise blizzard dumps more than snow on the steps of Sewell & Sons Funeral Home--it leaves behind the corpse of a murdered waitress. As amateur detective Hitchcock Sewell investigates, his TV meteorologist girlfriend sees this as a chance to move into hard news. But her unctuous mentor wants to beat Hitch to the punch.
Suggested Reading: Six Feet Under
Updated 1/29/01 - A Clod
of Warward Marl
Author: DeMarinis, Rick
Publisher: Dennis McMillan $ 30 ISBN:? Date: 2001
Booklist
This crime novel by the critically acclaimed and commercially underappreciated DeMarinis is the story of a drunken crimewriter who is hired to teach "literature" at La Siberia Tech, and finds himself embroiled in the sordid world of academia. - Publisher marketing
Updated 3/6/01 - Hunting Season
Author: Deutermann, Peter T.
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 031226979x Date: 2001
PW
From the author of the acclaimed thriller Sweepers comes an explosive return to the world of the top secret intelligence operative whose job it is to "kill the killers"--and this time it's personal. Hunting Season moves from rolling hills to the marble corridors of Washington, D.C., as it tracks the progress of a man on a mission and the secret he alone knows.
Suggested Reading: Espionage
Updated 12/14/00 - Mapping the
Edge
Author: Dunant, Sarah
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375503234 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Anna, a self-sufficient and reliable single mother, packs her bags one day for a short Italian vacation. She leaves her beloved six-year-old daughter, Lily, at home with good friends. But when Anna doesn't return, everyone begins to make excuses until the likelihood that she might not come back becomes chillingly real.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 11/29/00 - Edge of Danger
Author: Higgins, Jack
Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399147012 Date: 2001
PW
A murderous vendetta places not only lives at stake but also the fate of nations in this powerful new thriller by the author of Day of Reckoning. Over the years, the Rashid family's British and Arab ancestries had interwoven to produce a remarkable family of warriors, as at home under the pitiless desert sun as the streets of London. But now they direct their rage against the United States, whose president they hold accountable for a series of attacks upon their power and honor.
Updated 1/18/01 - Murder
at Monticello: Homer Kelly
Author: Langton, Jane
Publisher: Penguin $ 22.95 ISBN: 0670894621 Date: 2001
Booklist
The Harvard sleuth attends Virginia's bicentennial celebration of Monticello. Camped in the dark woods behind the estate is a young ponytailed trespasser, Tom Dean. When a vicious murderer of local women strikes, Tom is arrested as the prime suspect. Homer is now drawn into the lives of "two" Toms: Thomas Jefferson with historians, and Tom Dean with the law.
Updated 1/24/01 - Mystic River
Author: Lehane, Dennis
Publisher: Morrow $ 22 ISBN: 0688163165 Date: 2001
Booklist PW LJ
When Jimmy Marcus's daughter is found dead, his childhood friend Sean Devine is assigned the case. Sean's personal life begins to unravel as his investigation takes him back into a world of violence and pain he thought he'd left behind. His quest also leads him on a collision course with Marcus--a man with his own dark past--and David Boyle, a man who hides monstrous secrets beneath a bland facade.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Reading Group Stars
Updated 1/17/01 - A Private
Inquiry
Author: Mann, Jessica
Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 22 ISBN: 0786708263 Date: 2001
Kirkus
An anonymous telephone threat endangers more than the professional integrity of arbitrator Barbara Pomeroy in this tautly woven, intricately plotted mystery novel. It also imperils her young son, Toby -- unless Barbara rules in the caller's favor. - Publisher's marketing.
Updated 12/18/00 - Right as Rain
Author: Pelecanos, George
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316695262 Date: 2001
Kirkus Booklist PW
Derek Strange, a private detective, is hired to clear the lingering doubts about a young black police officer killed in the line of duty. After Strange interviews Terry Quinn, the officer who pulled the trigger, Quinn joins the investigation and helps seek answers in the darkest sectors of Washington, D.C., where racism and ruthless capitalism create a lawless world.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Private Investigators
Updated 1/18/01 - The
Whitechapel Conspiracy
Author: Perry, Anne
Publisher: Ballentine $ 25 ISBN: 0345433289 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Bow Street Superintendent Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, return in an intricately plotted and highly atmospheric novel of murder and political conspiracy that moves from elegant drawing rooms to the most desperate slums in late Victorian London. "An Anne Perry novel is a delight to read as much for its Victorian-era details as for the mystery it unfolds".--Chicago Tribune.
Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
Updated 11/2/00 - Death Benefits
Author: Perry, Thomas
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0679435059 Date: 2001
Booklist PW
With writing that is "sharp as a sushi knife" (Los Angeles Times), Perry crafts a story of insurance fraud that explodes and overtakes the life of John Walker, a young data analyst who has no idea what he's getting into when he joins a deadly investigation.
Suggested Reading: Grift Sense
Updated 11/2/00 - The
Secret Ingredient Murders
Author: Pickard, Nancy
Publisher: Delacorte $ 22.95 ISBN: 038531227x Date: 2001
Kirkus
Eugenia Potter is back in the kitchen and on the case of a wily killer who has shattered the peace of a small New England town. The beloved detective and chef extraordinaire, created by the late Virginia Rich, continues her adventures in this delectable mystery penned by Rich's award-winning collaborator, Nancy Pickard.
Suggested Reading: Cooked Books
Updated 11/1/00 - Reflecting
the Sky
Author: Rozan, S.J.
Publisher: Minotaur $24.95 ISBN: 0312244274 Date: 2001
Kirkus Booklist PW
Lydia Chin . . . is hired by Grandfather Gao, one of the most respected figures in New York City's Chinatown, for what seems to be a simple task. Lydia, along with her professional partner Bill Smith, is to fly to Hong Kong to deliver a family heirloom to the young grandson of a recently deceased colleague. They arrive in Hong Kong safely, but before they can deliver the heirloom, the grandson is kidnapped and two separate ransom demands are made. While the family of the kidnapped boy tries to freeze them out, Lydia and Bill must quickly learn their way around a place where the rules are different, the stakes are high, and the cost of failure is too dire to imagine. - from the jacket copy.
Suggested Reading: Private Investigators | All Stars
Updated 1/24/01 - Fire's Edge
Author: Siporin, Alan
Publisher: Blue Heron $ 22.95 ISBN: 0936085665 Date: 2001
Kirkus
What do a group of skinheads, a school teacher, a Jewish family, a black investigator, and members of a rural gay community all have in common? The obvious answer lies in Oregon's explosion of hate crimes, the contemporary social phenomenon that allows Siporin's narrative to move between and among this eclectic mix of characters. But a dangerous web of hate, violence, and fear also binds these characters to one another and sets them on an irreversible collision course. Fire's Edge is more than a politically charged suspense novel -- it is also a wrenching exploration of human pain, fear, and strength. - Publisher's marketing.
Updated 1/19/01 - Deal with
the Dead
Author: Standiford, Les
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399147047 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Attempting to resurrect the Miami building firm that his late father ruined, John Deal is elated to be awarded part of a major project, only to find that the project has strings. The result: Deal's life is immediately torn apart, as he is caught in the middle of a vicious personal vendetta, his family threatened, his friends hunted, his own existence hanging by a thread.
Updated 12/7/00 - Cold Water
Burning
Author: Straley, John
Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553106430 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Being a P.I. in Sitka, Alaska is one of the worst career decisions a person could make, and Cecil Younger cannot let go of a three-year-old case of unsolved murders aboard a boat, the "Mygirl". As a storm bears down on the Alaskan coast, two people die and Younger is certain someone is trying to finish the job begun on the "Mygirl".
Updated 11/1/00 - High Lonesome
Road
Author: Thornton, Betsy
Publisher: Minotaur $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312268610 Date: 2001
PW
Updated 1/18/01 - Bone House
Author: Tobin, Betsy
Publisher: Scribner $ 23 ISBN: 0743201965 Date: 2001
Booklist LJ
Gothic, elegant and suspenseful, Bone House vividly evokes seventeenth-century rural England. It is the tale of two women. One is Dora, a prostitute - her death affects everyone in the village. The other is a chambermaid - her quest to uncover the truth about the prostitute's mysterious life and death leads her to a terrible discovery and the beginnings of a future. Sensual, sophisticated, and fiercely compelling, this is an enormously assured debut. - adapted from the jacket copy.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars
Updated 1/24/01
March
- Blood Lure
Author: Barr, Nevada
Publisher: Putnam $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399147020 Date: 2001
PW
The laws of nature take a murderous turn in this spellbinding addition to the bestselling series featuring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon. Anna returns to the West, where she is sent on a training assignment to study grizzly bears in Waterton/Glacier National Peace Park. But when daybreak finds a boy missing and a camper dead, Anna must track the beast stalking the trails as she becomes involved in a gripping wilderness life-or-death mystery.
Suggested Reading: Wildlife
Updated 1/17/01 - Death of
a Dustman: Hamish MacBeth
Author: Beaton, M.C.
Publisher: Mysterious $ 22.95 ISBN: 0892966319 Date: 2001
Booklist
A bullying tyrant with a neat uniform and a new truck, Lochdubh's dustman, Fergus Macleod, issues harsh fines and enforces petty rules--until he is found dead, stuffed into a recycling bin. Harnish Macbeth not only must solve the murder, but juggle his lazy new constable and labor trouble washing over the new oceanfront hotel.
Suggested Reading: Scottish Crime Fiction
Updated 1/24/01 - Angel in Black
Author: Collins, Max Allen
Publisher: NAL $ 21.95 ISBN: 0451202635 Date: 2001
Booklist
The newspaper dubbed her The Black Dahlia. Nathan Heller knew her--intimately--as Elizabeth Short. To discover the identity of the fiend who destroyed her, Heller must lay bare the terrifying truth behind Hollywood's make-believe facade.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars
Updated 3/13/01 - Water of Death>
Author: Johnston, Paul
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312273118 Date: 2001
Booklist
Edinburgh, 2025: an almost crime-free oasis surrounded by anarchic city-states. But global warming has turned summer into the Big Heat, and water, like everything else, is strictly rationed. Citizens live only for the weekly lottery drawing. When a recent winner goes missing, however, subversive investigator Quintilian Dalrymple is called in to deal with a case of the summertime blues. Then a body is discovered face down in the Water of Leith, and the only clue to the death is a bottle of contraband whisky. Quint thinks he sees traces of a conspiracy to destabilize the city, as the body count -- like the temperature -- keeps on rising.
Suggested Reading: Scottish Crime Fiction | Dystopian Stars
Updated 3/13/01 - The Mind Game
Author: MacDonald, Hector
Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345440226 Date: 2001
LJ
When Ben Ashurst agrees to participate in a study of the biology of human emotions for his charismatic Oxford tutor, he can't begin to imagine what lies ahead. With a luxury resort on a beach in Kenya as the site of the experiment and his beautiful new girlfriend along for company, it seems the perfect way to spend the Christmas holidays. But paradise starts to lose its luster when, without warning, Ben finds the experiment veering from abstract scientific theory into terrifyingly real danger.
Suggested Reading: Medical Thrillers
Updated 12/14/00 - Exile
Author: Mina, Denise
Publisher: Carrol & Graf $ 25 ISBN: 0786708387 Date: 2001
PW
Maureen O'Donnell investigates the murder of Ann Harris, who'd had two broken ribs and reeked of alcohol when she'd visited Maureen's office at the women's shelter two weeks before her mutilated body washed up by the Thames hundreds of miles away. Maureen travels to London to search out the circumstances surrounding Ann's brutal death.
Suggested Reading: Scottish Crime Fiction
Updated 1/18/01 - Rag and Bone
Author: Nava, Michael
Publisher: Putnam $ 039914708x ISBN: Date: 2001
LJ
The conclusion to the series featuring gay Mexican-American lawyer Henry Rios. Rios learns that his niece has an abusive husband. When the man is shot dead, and the bruised wife confesses, Rios assumes it to be self-defense, but finds himself on the path to a darker, more complex truth.
Updated 1/29/01 - The
Last Blue Plate Special
Author: Padgett, Abigail
Publisher: Mysterious $ 23.95 ISBN: 0892967315 Date: 2001
LJ
It seems impossible that two healthy female politicians could have both died from a cerebral hemorrhage within days of each other. The police hire Blue McCarron and Roxie Bouchie as consultants. The two women, who are involved professionally and personally, work with evangelical preachers, former convicts, and paintball playing plastic surgeons in order to find this unorthodox killer.
Updated 3/7/01
- Hollowpoint
Author: Reuland, Rob
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375505016 Date: 2001
PW
It's been a year since his daughter died, but the loss carves away at him still. Then, a case much like others crosses the desk of Assistant District Attorney Andrew Giobberti: young girl, dead from a gunshot wound, crackhead mother, very guilty looking boyfriend. Something in this ordinary if tawdry case uncovers a vast well of grief and rage in him, and it's unclear who will be the target of his urge to avenge a pointless death.
Updated 1/17/01 - Ex-Libris
Author: King, Ross
Publisher: Walker $ 24.95 ISBN: 0802733573 Date: 2001
Kirkus Booklist
A cryptic summons to a remote country house launches a London bookseller on an odyssey through 17th-century Europe. Given the task of restoring a magnificent library that has been pillaged during the English Civil War, Isaac Inchbold finds himself slipping from the surface of 1660s London into an underworld of spies, smugglers, ciphers, and forgeries.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | Booked Stars | If You Liked The Da Vinci Code
Updated 2/28/00 - Force 12
Author: Thayer, James Stewart
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0375411038 Date: 2001
Kirkus
From the author of Terminal Event comes the tale of Rex Wyman, a world-famous software billionaire who is determined to win the world's longest and most challenging yacht race through some of the roughest seas in the world. When a huge storm engulfs the "Victory", the stakes become not just win or lose but life and death.
Suggested Reading: Sea Stories
Updated 2/21/01 - Heartland
Author: Wiltse, David
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312269579 Date: 2001
Booklist
The author of Prayer for the Dead and Bone Deep takes readers on a chilling journey into rural America's heart of darkness. When a decorated Secret Service Agent suffers a crisis of confidence, he returns to his hometown where he finds that behind a small town's bigotry lies deadly intrigue.
Suggested Reading: Conspiracy Theory
Updated 2/28/01
April
- You Only
Die Twice: Britt Montero
Author: Buchanan, Edna
Publisher: Morrow $ 26 ISBN: 0380976552 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A murdered woman, drowned off Miami Beach, is positively identified through fingerprints to be Lily Jordan, a mysterious lady who was thought dead years ago. Her husband--tried, convicted, and sentenced to die for the crime--resides on Death Row, only a few short weeks away from his execution. For the insatiably curious newspaperwoman Britt Montero, it looks like a killer story. Now all she has to find out is where Lily Jordan has been for the past decade . . . and who killed her for real.
Updated 1/31/01 - Widow's Walk
Author: Coburn, Andrew
Publisher: Five Star $ ? ISBN: 0786231602 Date: 2001
Kirkus
When three men are murdered in police chief Paul Jenkins' community of Boar's Bluff, New Hampshire, the DA s office wants the glory of solving the cases. The Chief has two choices: stay safely out of the investigation, or defy everybody and try to do it on his own . . . and risk losing his job to a sergeant he loathes. As Jenkins begins to pursue the truth, he risks a lot more as the killer tries to find out how much he really knows.
Suggested Reading: Serial Killers
Updated 3/5/01 - Fast Women
Author: Crusie, Jennifer
Publisher: St Martin's $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312252617 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Nell Dysart brings calamity to her job at a detective agency, but even her boss has to admit that no matter how much he hates the confusion she's brought into his life, Nell shares his passion for making things right. It's not long before they share another passion--one they can't ignore--even in the face of distractions like adultery, blackmail, arson, murder, and really bad business cards.
Suggested Reading: If You Like Janet Evanovich
Updated 3/19/01 - Undercurrents>
Author: Fyfield, Frances
Publisher: Viking $ 23.95 ISBN: 0670896365 Date: 2001
Kirkus LJ PW
For 20 years, Henry Evans has been haunted by a blurred but shining memory of his lost love, Francesca Chisholm. Now this shy American has come looking for her in her hometown on the English coast. What he finds there is not what he expects.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 3/1/01 - Panicking
Ralph
Author: James, Bill
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393047628 Date: 2001
Booklist
In this 17th edition of the "Harpur and Iles" mysteries, Ralph Ember, owner of the shady drinking club The Monty, longs to be respectable. The trouble is, his money comes from big-time drug dealing, where reputations are dubious and the risks are truly murderous. Meanwhile Detective Chief Superintendant Colin Harpur, bypassing his jealous superior Desmond Iles, is developing his own dangerous plan.
Suggested Reading: British Police
Updated 5/17/01 - Death
in Holy Orders
Author: James, P.D.
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0375412557 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
Commander Dalgliesh, P.D. James's great detective, returns after four years. An untimely death brings him to the East Anglian coast where a young man has fallen from a cliff at the small theological college of St. Anselm's. He agrees to investigate, but no sooner does Dalgliesh arrive than he finds himself drawn into the labyrinth of a violent mystery.
Suggested Reading: British Police
Updated 3/14/01 - Painting
in the Dark
Author: James, Russell
Publisher: Do Not Press $ 15.95 (trade paper) ISBN: 1899344624 Date: 2001
Booklist
Updated 4/20/01 - Peacemaker
Author: Kent, Gordan
Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399146636 Date: 2001
PW Kirkus
Alan Craik, an intelligence officer and a pilot, returns from sea duty and lands behind a desk at the Pentagon. When his best friend Harry O'Neill, a new CIA agent, is kidnapped, he presses his superiors to let him run a rescue mission. Soon Alan joins a U.S. fleet off the African coast and flies into war-torn Rwanda in search of the missing Harry.
Suggested Reading: Rwanda
Updated 2/21/01 - The Reaper
Author: Lovesey, Peter
Publisher: Soho $ 23 ISBN: 1569472270 Date: 2001
PW
Otis Joy is the handsome young rector of St. Bartholomew's Church in Foxford, England. His bishop has just accused him of embezzling church funds and ordered him to resign. But before that can happen, the bishop commits suicide. How opportune. One sudden death seems to lead to another. But then Otis Joy finds his soul mate.
Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
Updated 3/7/01 - Silent Joe
Author: Parker, T. Jefferson
Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN:0786867280 Date: 2001
LJ PW
In an intelligent mystery that will satisfy the mind as well as the heart, the bestselling author of Red Light and The Blue Hour returns with a moody, sexy, suspenseful novel about a scarred man, the father he idolized, and the secret he uncovered.
Updated 3/14/01 - Black Lotus
Author: Rowland, Laura Joh
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312268726 Date: 2001
PW
In a cottage on the premises of the Black Lotus Temple in 1691, Japan, someone kills three sect members. Veteran samurai-detective Sano Ichiro uncharacteristically blames a delinquent orphan-girl found fleeing the scene. But his young wife, Reiko, has different ideas of who may be the culprit.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars
Updated 1/26/01 - The Orange
Curtain: Jack Liffey>
Author: Shannon, John
Publisher: Carrol & Graf $ 24 ISBN: 078670876x Date: 2001
Booklist PW
Former aerospace engineer Jack Liffey tracks down lost children, and the case of a missing young woman takes Jack deep into Los Angeles' Vietnamese community where he must contend with the realities and complex alliances of Little Saigon, and a sad young man named Billy, who likes to watch people and has a very strange relationship with his mother.
Updated 3/23/01 - Red Mesa
Author: Thurlo, Aimee and David
Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312870604 Date: 2001
Booklist
When Navajo Police Special Investigator Ella Clah is accused of murdering her cousin and fellow officer, the Navajo believe she has turned evil. Her brother and mother must protect Ella's daughter, and the FBI agents and Navajo police she helped train are on her trail, using her own techniques to find her.
Suggested Reading: If You Like Tony Hillerman
Updated 12/15/00 - Bad News
Author: Westlake, Donald
Publisher: Mysterious $ 23.95 ISBN: 089296717x Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
John Dortmunder doesn't like manual labor. So when he gets the offer of money to dig up a grave, he balks . . . then he wonders why Fitzroy Guilderpost, criminal mastermind, wants to pull a switcheroo of two 70-years-dead Indians.
Suggested Reading: Capers & Crooks
Updated 3/1/01
May
- The
Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders
Author: Browne, Marshall
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312322157 Date: 2001
PW
Rome Police Inspector Anders became a national hero when he shut down an anarchist group years ago--losing a leg, and his nerve. Since then, he's compromised with corruption in the Italian state. Now sent to southern Italy to investigate the murder of a judge, he again finds himself in the world of corruption and power.
Updated 3/23/01 - Blue Nowhere
Author: Deaver, Jeffrey
Publisher: Dimon & Schuster $ 26 ISBN: 0684871270 Date: 2001
PW
From the bestselling author of The Empty Chair comes the suspenseful story of a computer hacker--code-named PHATE--on a Silicon Valley killing spree. Hot on his trail are ex-hacker Wyatt Gillette and Frank Bristol, a grizzled homicide detective who's accustomed to using old-fashioned forensics to track his quarry.
Updated 4/26/01 - The Cold
Six Thousand
Author: Ellroy, James
Publisher: Knopf $ 25.95 ISBN: 0679403922 Date: 2001
PWKirkus
Wayne Tedrow Jr., a young Vegas cop, arrives in Dallas after the Kennedy assassination with a loathsome job to do. He's got $6,000 in cash and no idea that he is about to plunge into a cover-up conspiracy and a hellish five-year ride through the private underbelly of public policy.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | Conspiracy Theory
Updated 5/17/01 - Fury>
Author: Ford, G.M.
Publisher: Morrow $ 24 ISBN: 0380977249 Date: 2001
PW
The author of the Leo Waterman mysteries launches a crackling new series with Frank Corso, a rising New York Times journalist who must end his career due to a libel suit. Then he gets a tip about a death row killer who may be innocent, and Corso's career is back on headline track.
Updated 4/4/01 - True Believers
Author: Haddam, Jane
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312209290 Date: 2001
PW
A woman whose body is found in a Philadelphia church is believed to have died of natural causes. When the coroner discovers arsenic, the police think her husband, who has committed suicide, was responsible. A nun doesn't think so and asks Gregor Demarkian, retired head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, to investigate.
Updated 3/29/01 - Uncommon Clay
Author: Maron, Margaret
Publisher: Mysterious $ 23.95 ISBN: 089296720x Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Judge Deborah Knott of Seagrove, North Carolina, must unearth a local family's tragic past to find a vengeful killer in the eighth installment of the award-winning mystery series by Maron.
Updated 5/17/01 - The
Devil Went Down to Austin>
Author: Riordan, Rick
Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553110977 Date: 2001
PW Booklist
Garrett is a computer genius and a fool, a long-haired, wheelchair-bound Jimmy Buffet fan who's accused of killing his oldest friend. Garrett doesn't want to ask his private eye brother for help, but Navarre has never been one to take no for an answer. All too soon, he's about to ride the high tech wave in a one-way dive to betrayal and death.
Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
Updated 5/17/01 - Chosen Prey
Author: Sandford, John
Publisher: Putnam $ 26.95 ISBN: 0399147284 Date: 2001
PW
Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport finds himself investigating a killer who is learning as he goes. The man is becoming a monster, and Lucas may have no choice but to walk right into his lair. In Chosen Prey, Sandford returns with his most-harrowing novel of all: the story of a congenial man with a decidedly uncongenial hobby.
Updated 4/19/01 - Misconceptions
Author: Shapiro, Robert L. & Walt Becker
Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0688176852 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A small-town Louisiana doctor has it all until one weekend of infidelity and an unwanted pregnancy threaten to destroy everything. Plunged into a nightmare of lies and legal maneuvering, Wyatt is forced into one desperate act that thrusts his town--and his country--into an explosive legal battle.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 5/4/01 - Sound Tracks
Author: Simpson, Marcia
Publisher: Poisoned Pen $ 24.95 ISBN: 1890208728 Date: 2001
Booklist
Something is disturbing the whales of Southeast Alaska, causing the humpbacks and orcas to run into propellers and rocks, and beach themselves upon the shores. When the only man capable of solving the mystery drowns in Sumner Strait, Liza Romero, captain of the "Salmon Eye", must investigate.
Updated 6/20/01 - The Singing
of the Dead
Author: Stabenow, Dana
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312209576 Date: 2001
PW
The heady gold rush days of Alaska's past are reborn on the present-day campaign trail in Stabenow's new Kate Shugak mystery. The Aleutian PI must delve into the past--in particular, the grisly murder of a "good-time girl" during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1915--to track a modern killer.
Suggested Reading: Private investigators
Updated 3/29/01 - The Death
of Sweet Mister
Author: Woodrell, Daniel
Publisher: Putnam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399147519 Date: 2001
BooklistPW
A southern gothic tale of the events that tear at a dysfunctional family when a slick stranger comes to visit.
Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled/Noir Stars
Updated 5/17/01
June
- Little America
Author: Bromell, Henry
Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375406840 Date: 2001
BooklistLJ
Little America opens in Boston today and tells the story of a man searching for the truth about his father's past, the key to which is locked away in the CIA code of silence.
Updated 6/13/01
- A Finer End: Duncan
Kincaid/Gemma Jones Novel
Author: Crombie, Deborah
Publisher: Bantam $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553109561 Date: 2001
PW
A tale of mysteries--one old, one modern. Worker Jack Montford's office overlooks a mysterious castle and graveyard. He begins hearing cries of help from a monk who died 1,000 years ago. He appeals to Scotland Yard for help, and unleashes a fatal chain of events.
Suggested Reading: British Police
Updated 4/18/01 - Deceit
Author: Francis, Clare
Publisher: Soho $ 24 ISBN: 1569472394 Date: 2001
PW
A tense, twisty thriller with an appealing heroine by a bestselling author. The sudden loss of her husband forces Ellen Richmond to cope with matters she has never had to face. She's learning Harry's secrets, but only one person knows what really happened to Harry.
Updated 5/17/01 - Witness
for the Dead
Author: Fredickson, Michael
Publisher: Forge $ 25.95 ISBN: 0312874472 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Butchy Crimmins, head of Boston's Irish mob, is ratted out as a snitch for the FBI. Butchy and his girlfriend, Mavis Reilly, are on the run from the Feds, the District Attorney, and the Italian Mafia. The only way to Bring Butchy in is to trick Mavis into revealing her whereabouts.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 4/4/01 - Death
of an Irish Sinner
Author: Gill, Bartholomew
Publisher: Morrow $ 24 ISBN: 080977982 Date: 2001
PWBooklist
When a celebrated biographer is brutally killed with a curious religious object, Dublin's Chief Superintendent Peter McGarr suspects a clandestine Catholic organization named "Opus Dei"--God's Work.
Suggested Reading: British Police
Updated 6/4/01 - P is for Peril
Author: Grafton, Sue
Publisher: Putnam $ 26.95 ISBN:0399147195 Date: 2001
Kirkus
It's no surprise that Grafton has taken on new territory in her 16th book of the alphabet series, this time entering the world of noir. It's a world cast in shades of black amid shafts of steel and silver, a shadow land in which the disappearance of a prominent physician leads Kinsey Millhone into a danger-filled maze of duplicity as she taps into a cunning Medicare fraud.
Suggested Reading: P.I. Stars
Updated 3/5/01 - Six Pound
Walleye
Author: Gunn, Elizabeth
Publisher: Walker $ 23.95 ISBN: 0802733565 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
Jake Hines is back on the case, only this time there are two cases that may--or may not--be connected when a child is shot in his front yard at the same time a brawl breaks out at the high school.
Suggested Reading: Cops
Updated 4/26/01 - Secret Sanction
Author: Haig, Brian
Publisher: Warner $ 24.95 ISBN: 0446527432 Date: 2001
Kirkus
A battalion of Serbs has been senselessly murdered in Kosovo and the Green Berets stand accused. Now, Major Sean Drummond, a top Army lawyer, is assigned to investigate this unspeakable atrocity. Teamed with a straight-laced prosecutor and a sexy defense attorney, Drummond probes a cover-up that could threaten the stability of the most powerful nation in the world.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars | Former Yugoslavia
Updated 4/20/01 - The Hunting
Wind
Author: Hamilton, Steve
Publisher: Minotaur $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312268947 Date: 2001
BooklistPW
It's April in Paradise, a small town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Alex McKnight is contacted by an old baseball minor league teammate--Randy Wilkins--who is on a quest to find Maria, his old true love. The only problem: Randy walked away from her in 1971 and hasn't seen or heard from her since.
Updated 5/17/01 - Fearless Jones
Author: Mosley, Walter
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316592382 Date: 2001
Kirkus PW
Mosley returns to mysteries at last with his most engaging hero since Easy Rawlins. When Paris Minton meets a beautiful new woman, before he knows it he has been beaten up, slept with, shot at, robbed, and his bookstore burned to the ground. He's in so much trouble he has no choice but to get his friend, Fearless Jones, out of jail to help him.
Suggested Reading: African American Stars
Updated 5/29/01 - Mute Witness
Author: O'Brien, Charles
Publisher: Poisoned Pen $ 23.95 ISBN: 1890208620 Date: 2001
PW
Picture the Scarlet Pimpernell as a woman--dealing with murder before the Terror made heads roll... It's the eve of the French Revolution. Fiscal crisis and social tensions brew. Anne Cartier, a headstrong young vaudeville actress at Sadler's Wells company in London hears terrible news. Her stepfather, the actor Antoine Dubois has mysteriously died in Paris. The official verdict: he killed his mistress, then himself. Anne enlists the aid of Colonel Paul de Saint-Martin and his adjutant Georges Charpentier of the royal highway patrol. But, in her search for truth, Anne befriends a deaf, illiterate seamstress with a talent for puppetry who gives Anne an entre into the Palais Royale. Her quest further confronts her with an amateur theatrical society of dissolute young noblemen; a tormented female botanist; a sadistic aesthete; a rich, well-connected financier; a professional assassin. Unravelling the mystery tests Anne's nerve as well as her remarkable acrobatic skills. At a critical juncture in the investigation, she acts the part of an exotic queen in Indian costume at a reception. Priceless Indian jewelry disappears. Its owner, an aged count is murdered. And a venal police inspector threatens to derail Anne's project. The story rises to a violent climax in a vast limestone cave outside Paris where the city has begun to bury its dead. Historian O'Brien's debut novel is elegantly written as befits the times and explores borders between countries and between layers of society. Few have chosen to place a crime novel here. O'Brien makes us wonder why. - Publisher Marketing.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | Debuts
Updated 4/26/01 - Water
Touching Stone
Author: Pattison, Eliot
Publisher: Minotaur $ 24.95 ISBN:0312206127 Date: 2001
Booklist
In this breathtaking novel by the Edgar Award-winning author of The Skull Mantra, a former investigator from Beijing--just released from four years in the gulag--pieces together the murder of a venerated teacher and searches for a missing Tibetan lama.
Updated 5/17/01 - Lord of
the Silent
Author: Peters, Elizabeth
Publisher: Morrow $ 25 ISBN: 0380978849 Date: 2001
PW
In the newest "Amelia Peabody Mystery", the intrepid Egyptologist risks life, limb, and her second-best hat in 1915 Cairo. Amelia and her handsome archeologist husband defy German submarines and warring Senussi to embark on another season of exploration and crime solving.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | Egyptian Stars
Updated 4/19/01 - Ring of Truth
Author: Pickard, Nancy
Publisher: Pocket $ 23.95 ISBN: 0671887971 Date: 2001
PW
From the award-winning author of The Whole Truth comes a chilling new story featuring her gutsy heroine, Marie Lightfoot. This time Lightfoot can't make the pieces of a Florida murder--involving a priest and his lover--fit together. And the missing piece could be fatal.
Suggested Reading: Author Author (books about writers)
Updated 6/4/01 - Slayer of Gods:
Lord Meren
Author: Robinson, Lynda
Publisher:Mysterious $ 23.95 ISBN: 0892967056 Date: 2001
Booklist
In the sixth novel of the celebrated series set during the reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamen, Lord Meren recruits a clever female counterpart to help him find Queen Nefertiti's murderer.
Suggested Reading: Historical Mystery Stars | Egyptian Stars
Updated 5/17/01 - Half
Moon and Empty Stars
Author: Spence, Gerry
Publisher: Scribner $ 27 ISBN: 0743202767 Date: 2001
PW
From the author of bestselling How to Argue and Win Every Time comes a new classic about two Native American brothers torn apart--a legal thriller, a love story, and a visionary work that examines deeply the values of life and death.
Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
Updated 5/29/01 - The Children's
War
Author: Stroyar, J.N.
Publisher: Pocket $ 29.95 ISBN: 0743407393 Date: 2001
Kirkus
In a searingly authentic vision of what could have been, The Children's War is an epic modern-day thriller of a Europe ruled by Nazis and of the men and women determined to defeat them. "Great historical detail, fascinating premise, and nonstop suspense".--Nelson DeMille.
Suggested Reading: Alternative History Stars
Updated 4/4/01 - Grift Sense:
Tony Valentine
Author: Swain, James
Publisher: Pocket $ 23.95 ISBN: 0743406222 Date: 2001
Kirkus
With a knack for sly sucker punches in the tradition of Elmore Leonard, Swain makes the scene with a comic, crackerjack debut mystery set in Las Vegas, the first in a series starring ex-cop Tony Valentine.
Suggested Reading: Take a Gamble | Grift Sense
Updated 4/20/01
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