All Books Considered

The Blue Horse (Porter Beck #3) by Bruce Borgos Blurb from Goodreads : A controversial wild horse round-up in the high desert of Nevada results in two murders and too many suspects for Sheriff Porter Beck to deal with. A helicopter driving a controversial round-up of wild horses suddenly crashes and the pilot is found to have been shot. Then the person coordinating the round-up for the Bureau of Land Management is savagely murdered, buried up to her neck and then trampled to death by the very same wild horses. And there's no lack of suspects—with the wild horse advocacy group having sworn to protect the horse At Any Cost! Now the state and federal agencies are showing up looking for answers or at least a scapegoat. Sheriff Porter Beck has had better days. Porter Beck's new girlfriend, Detective Charlie Blue Horse, arrives to help with the investigation, which leads them to Canadian Lithium mining operation near...

The Queen City Detective Agency by Snowden Wright Blurb from Goodreads : Following an unforgettable cast of characters and a jaded female P.I. enmeshed in a criminal conspiracy in 1980s Mississippi, The Queen City Detective Agency is a riveting, razor-sharp Southern noir that unravels the greed, corruption, and racism at the heart of the American Dream. Meridian, Mississippi—once known as the Queen City for its status in the state—has lost much of its royal bearing by 1985. Overshadowed by more prosperous cities such as New Orleans and Atlanta, Meridian attracts less-than-legitimate businesses, including those enforced by the near-mythical Dixie Mafia. The city’s powerbrokers, wealthy white Southerners clinging to their privilege, resent any attempt at change to the old order. Real-estate developer Randall Hubbard took advantage of Meridian’s economic decline by opening strip malls that catered to low-income families i...

Shades of Mercy (Porter Beck #2) by Bruce Borgos Blurb from Goodreads : In the usually quiet high desert of Nevada, Sheriff Porter Beck faces one of his greatest challenges—a series of unlikely, disturbing and increasingly deadly events of unknown origins. Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, doing the same lawman's job his father once did now that he's returned home after decades away. With his twelve person department, they cover a large area that is usually very quiet, but not of late. One childhood friend is the latest to succumb to a new wave of particularly strong illegal opioids, another childhood friend—now an enormously successful rancher—is targeted by a military drone, hacked and commandeered by an unknown source. The hacker is apparently local—local enough to call out Beck by name—and that means they are Beck...

The Unquiet Bones by Loreth Anne White Blurb from Goodreads : A shocking discovery of human bones reopens an almost fifty-year-old cold case—and rips apart the lives of a group of friends. When human bones are found beneath an old chapel in the woods, evidence suggests the remains could be linked to the decades-old case of missing teen Annalise Jansen. Homicide detective Jane Munro—pregnant and acutely attuned to the preciousness of life—hopes the grim discovery will finally bring closure to the girl’s family. But for a group of Annalise’s old friends, once dubbed the Shoreview Six by the media, it threatens to expose a terrible pledge made on an autumn night forty-seven years ago. The friends are now highly respected, affluent members of their communities, and none of them ever expected the dark chapter in their past to resurface. But as Jane and f...

Dissolved by Sara Blaedel and Mads Peder Nordbo Blurb from Goodreads : Everything is peaceful in Tommerup, Denmark, until a young mother disappears in the middle of an idyllic summer day. There’s no trace of the missing woman when Chief Superintendent Liam Stark and Superintendent Dea Torp are called to investigate. The small town is on edge, rumors begin to fly, and blame is cast on Charlotte’s husband, who was the last to see her. When another person goes missing and Liam and Dea find a strange note linking the second missing person to the first crime, they suspect the disappearances may be the work of a serial killer.  As the investigation continues, dark secrets about the victims from the past are revealed. Is someone targeting them because of this? As more people vanish, it’s a race against time for Liam and Dea, who find themselves face-to-face with horrifying footage tha...

Reykjavík: A Crime Story  by Ragnar Jónasson and Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Translated by Victoria Cribb Blurb from Goodreads : What happened to Lára? Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case. But as he draws closer to discovering the secret, and with the eyes of Reykjavík upon him, it soon becomes clear that Lára's disappearance is a mystery that som...

The Bitter Past (Porter Beck #1) by Bruce Borgos Blurb from Goodreads : In the tradition of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box, Bruce Borgos's The Bitter Past begins a compelling series set in the high desert of Nevada featuring Sheriff Porter Beck… Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he's back home, doing the same lawman's job his father once did, before his father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that wasn't strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck's investigation. In a case that unfolds in...

Blaze Me a Sun by Christoffer Carlsson,  Translated by  Rachel Willson-Broyles Blurb from Goodreads : In February 1986, the Halland police receive a call from a man who claims to have attacked his first victim. I’m going to do it again, he says before the line cuts off. By the time police officer Sven Jörgensson reaches the crime scene, the woman is taking her last breath. For Sven, this will prove a decisive moment. On the same night, Sweden plunges into a state of shock after the murder of the prime minister. Could there possibly be a connection? As Sven becomes obsessed with the case, two more fall victim. For years, Sven remains haunted by the murders he cannot solve, fearing the killer will strike again. Having failed to catch him, Sven retires from the police, passing his obsession to his son, who has joined the force to be closer to his father. Decades later, the case unexpectedly resurfaces when a nove...

Stone Cold Heart (Tracers #13) by Laura Griffin Blurb from Goodreads : New York Times bestselling author Laura Griffin “delivers another top-notch thriller" (RT Book Reviews) in her beloved Tracers series, about a leading forensic anthropologist who uncovers eerie clues in a high-stakes case that threatens to deliver her to the doorstep of a cold-blooded murderer.  When local rock climbers stumble upon abandoned human bones in a remote Texas gorge, Sara Lockhart is the first to get the call. She has a reputation as one of the nation’s top forensic anthropologists, and police detective Nolan Hess knows she is just the expert he needs to help unravel this case. Although evidence is scarce, Nolan suspects the bones belong to a teenage climber who vanished last summer. But as Sara unearths strange clues, she finds chilling similarities to a case from her past—a case that now threatens to rock Nolan’s com...