July 7, 2023

New Fiction

I Only Read Murder by Ian Ferguson & Will Ferguson – Miranda Abbott, once known for the crime-solving, karate-chopping church pastor she played on network television, has hit hard times.  Turned down for a role on a cable reality show, Miranda is facing ruin when a mysterious postcard arrives, summoning her to Happy Rock, a small town in the Pacific Northwest.  But when she gets there, nothing is what she expected.  In dire straits, Miranda signs up for an amateur production at the Happy Rock Little Theater.  In front of a packed house, one of the actors is murdered, live, onstage.  But out of two hundred witnesses, no one actually saw what happened.  Now everyone is under a cloud of suspicion, including the sardonic town doctor, the local high school drama teacher, an oil-stained car mechanic, an elderly gentleman who may or may not have been in the CIA – and Miranda herself.  Clearly, the only way to solve this mystery is for Miranda to summon her skills as television’s Pastor Fran and draw on the help of her new sidekick, Susan, a shy bookstore clerk who seems to know everyone’s secrets.  Because the show must go on.

The Beach at Summerly by Beatriz Williams – May 1946.  As the residents of Winthrop Island open their doors for the summer season, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family.  To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly’s year-round caretaker, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of daring possibility.  While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world and fought for political causes.  She’s also the beloved aunt of the two surviving Peabody sons, Amory and Shep, with whom Emilia has a tangled romantic history.  As the weather heats up, Olive draws Emilia into a deep rapport, while romance simmers with war hero Shep.  But the heady promise of Peabody patronage is blown apart by the arrival of Summer Fox, an FBI agent who demands Emilia’s help in capturing a Soviet agent who’s transmitting vital intelligence on the West’s atomic weapons program from somewhere inside the Summerly estate.  April 1954.  Eight years later, Summerly is boarded up and Emilia has rebuilt her shattered life as a college professor, when shocking news arrives from Washington – the traitor she helped convict is about to be swapped for an American Spy imprisoned in the Soviet Union, with a mysterious condition only Emilia can fulfill.  A reluctant Emilia is forced to confront the harrowing consequences of her actions that fateful summer, and to make a choice that could destroy the Peabody family – and Emilia’s chance for redemption – all over again.

The Last Sinner by Lisa Jackson – There are killers so savage, so twisted, that they leave a mark not just on their victims but on everyone who crosses their path.  For Detectives Bentz and Montoya, Father John, a fake priest who used the sharpened beads of a rosary to strangle prostitutes, is one such monster.  Bentz thought he’d ended that horror years ago when he killed Father John deep in the swamp.  But now there are new chilling signs he may have been wrong.  A new victim has surfaced, her ruined body staged in deliberate, unmistakable detail.  Either it’s a terrifying copycat, or Father John, the detective’s own recurring nightmare, has come back to haunt New Orleans.  Another death, and another.  Bentz is growing convinced that Father John isn’t just back.  He’s circling closer, targeting those Bentz loves most.  And this time, he won’t be stopped until the last sinner has paid the ultimate price.

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See - According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.  From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.  But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.  How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to treat women and girls from every level of society, and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts?