The Next Chapter's mystery book panel recommend 9 novels to read this summer
The panel includes P.K. Rangachari, Angela Misri and Margaret Cannon
In need of a good mystery to solve this summer? The mystery book panel returns to The Next Chapter with intriguing reading recommendations.
The mystery book panel is composed of McMaster University professor, P.K. Rangachari, Toronto Metropolitan University assistant professor, journalist and mystery writer Angela Misri and Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Cannon.
They spoke with Shelagh Rogers about nine books that mystery fans should read in their downtime this summer.
Standing in the Shadows by Peter Robinson
Margaret Cannon: "This is the last Alan Banks mystery and it fills in a few of the blanks in Banks's life and touches on many of the things that interested Robinson throughout his long career ... I heartily recommend it if you're looking for something to read by the beach."
Standing in the Shadows is the final novel in the 28-book series chronically the mysteries of Inspector Alan Banks. The novel begins in the 1980s as a university student discovers his ex-girlfriend has been killed and her new boyfriend is missing. Then in 2019, an archeologist finds the remains of someone unexpected and Alan Banks is left to thread together the past with the present.
Peter Robinson was a prolific British Canadian crime novelist and author. He was most known for his popular Alan Banks mystery novels including Many Rivers to Cross and Careless Love. The Crime Writers of Canada awarded him the Derrick Murdock Award in 2010 for his "contribution of Canadian crime writing". The Toronto author died on Oct. 4, 2022 after a brief illness.
Scandal at the Savoy by Prudence Emery and Ron Base
Angela Misri: "I can't say that Priscilla, since the first book, has actually grown out of her crazy ways, but trouble doesn't really follow her around so much as she chases it down and makes it have a drink with her. She has an alibi in the most inconvenient ways."
In the second book in the Priscilla Tempest mystery series, Scandal at the Savoy, Priscilla is working in the press office at the Savoy when she once again is swept up in a mysterious murder at the hotel. Her alibi for the night happens to be a certain Canadian prime minister but Priscilla is set on clearing her name. Among the wealthy and star-studded guests in 1960s London, can Priscilla find the true killer?
Prudence Emery is a mystery writer currently based in Victoria, B.C. She formerly worked as a press and public relations officer at the Savoy Hotel. She is the co-author of the Priscilla Tempest mystery series.
Ron Base is a former journalist and author based between Milton, Ont. and Fort Myers, Florida. He has written 20 novels including Death at the Savoy, The Hidden Quarry and The Escarpment.
The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
P.K. Rangachari: "This book is all about a map that gets lost … it has what is called a 'phantom settlement' — a place that appears on a map but does not exist.
"In this case, what happens is that phantom settlement becomes reality, so the city actually bursts into life if you happen to have the map. It's a very intriguing story."
The Cartographers follows a young woman called Nell Young who discovers an old highway map in her deceased father's office which turns out to be very rare. Within the map is a phantom settlement, an imagined place cartographers often include as a copyright trap. When the phantom settlement in Nell's map becomes reality, she is sent on an unexpected journey where she learns the truth about her family.
Peng Shepherd is an award-winning American author. Her debut novel The Book of M received the Neukom Institute for Literary Award for Debut Speculative Fiction in 2019. The Cartographers received a 2020 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray
Margaret Cannon: "This is a new discovery for me in this whole series — I rushed out and got the other two right away … it's a very complicated but yet very simple plot line that works beautifully."
When the body of a stabbed man is found on the Nihonbashi bridge guarded by a statue of a kirin — a mythic Japanese beast — Tokyo Detective Kyoichiro Kaga is sent on the case. A Death in Tokyo is the third mystery novel for Detective Kaga, who is left to connect the missing dots of this man's death and the mysterious person who gets into a car accident with the murdered man's wallet on him.
Keigo Higashino is a Japanese author of thrillers and mystery novels. His books include Journey Under the Midnight Sun, The Devotion of Suspect X and The Miracles of the Namiya General Store.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Angela Misri: "It's not a story that's going to make you feel like there's a solution to environmentalism. It's mostly a mirror type story where it mirrors what's going on in the world and there's a huge twist at the end that I didn't see coming."
Birnam Wood is an engaging eco-thriller set in the middle of a landslide in New Zealand. Looking to make opportunity out of a disaster, Mira, the founder of a guerilla gardening collective that plants crops amid other criminal environmental activities, sets her sights on an evacuated farm as a way out of financial ruin. The only problem is the American billionaire Robert Lemoine who has already laid claim to it as his end-of-the-world lair. After the same thing for polar opposite reasons, their paths cross and Robert makes Mira an offer that would stave off her financial concerns for good. The question is: can she trust him?
Eleanor Catton is a London, Ont.-born New Zealand author. She won the 2013 Booker Prize for fiction and the 2013 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction for her second novel, The Luminaries.
A Death in Denmark by Amulya Malladi
P.K. Rangachari: "It begins as a very interesting look at what is happening in Denmark, then quickly changes to an exploration of Nazi sympathizers, events during the Second World War, and so on. So it becomes a complex book … it raises this whole issue of what is politics and what is personal."
In A Death in Denmark, the stylish private detective Gabriel Præst investigates a murder of a right-wing politician at the request of his ex. The prime suspect, Yousef Ahmed, is a refugee from Iraq. When Gabriel notices something decidedly suspicious going on, he questions whether Yousef may have been framed due to the xenophobia and nationalism within the country.
Amulya Malladi is a Danish and Indian author currently based in California. She has written nine novels including The Copenhagen Affair and A House for Happy Mothers.
Fit To Die by Daniel Kalla
Margaret Cannon: "Fit to Die is about influencers — people on social media who convince particularly young people to take drugs to lose weight or to have illusions of fitness … it really is so good and every time I see advertisements for diet drugs on television, I think about this book. I can't stop thinking about it."
Fit to Die is a medical thriller following the effects of a deadly diet pill known as DNP across Los Angeles and Vancouver. The track star son of a U.S. senator, a global pop star and the co-owner of a popular wellness centre all overdose on the same illicit drug. Dr. Julie Rees, a toxicologist in Vancouver and two unlikely detectives are set to uncover the mystery of this unknown and widely spreading drug.
Kalla is a physician and author based in Vancouver. He has written over a dozen books, including The Darkness in the Light, Lost Immunity, We All Fall Down and The Last High.
Shamus the Urban Rez Dog, P.I. by Leslie Gentile
Angela Misri: "I'm a sucker for a four legged P.I. Shamus the Urban Rez Dog, P.I. by Leslie Gentile is my new favorite flea attracting clue-chaser … I love this book, it was so adorable."
Shamus the Urban Rez Dog, P.I. is a humorous middle grade novel about an inquisitive dog from a reserve. Shamus is beginning to win the love of his adopted family when Mom is accused of thieving from a jewelry store. Alongside the kids, Shamus is determined to clear Mom's name and solve the case.
Leslie Gentile is an author and singer-songwriter of Northern Salish, Tuscarora and Scottish heritage. Based on Vancouver Island, she performs with her children in The Leslie Gentile Band. She is also the author of Elvis, Me, and the Lemonade Stand Summer.
Sunset and Jericho by Sam Wiebe
P.K. Rangachari: "It turns out to be a very complicated story, because there's a whole bunch of people who seem to have taken on righting wrongs for everybody else around them, whether the people want them to be righted at all.
"It's very interesting because half of the time [Wakeland] doesn't know whether he sympathizes with the victims or with the perpetrators."
Sunset and Jericho is the fourth novel in the Wakeland detective series which takes place in Vancouver. Private Investigator Dave Wakeland just went through a breakup and is feeling a little lost when he ends up in the thick of the city's latest mystery. The mayor's brother has gone missing and so has a transit cop's gun. In this investigation, Wakeland is sent down mysterious paths which cause him to question his ethics.
Sam Wiebe is the award-winning author of the Wakeland detective series, including Invisible Dead, Cut You Down and Hell and Gone. Wiebe's debut, Last of the Independents, won the Arthur Ellis Award for best unpublished first novel and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. He is currently based in Vancouver.
