I’m rich in books, always have been and suspect I always will be. This truth is never more evident than during the holidays, when my family and friends come through with enough new reading material to get me through the winter.

This year’s book haul is particularly wonderful.

I already devoured Dervla McTiernan’s THE UNQUIET GRAVE, because she’d not written a Cormac Reilly book in five years and I’d been missing his brains and heart. The engrossing story starts with a body being discovered in a Galway bog and uncovers, along with his mutilated limbs, the lies used to obfuscate the facts that led to the killing. If you’ve not read the earlier books in the Cormac Reilly series, it’s well worth seeking them out first (THE RUIN is the initial one), especially as an important recurring character is a key to this story.

I’m eager to read THE BONE THIEF by Vanessa Lille, the second in her series featuring archaeologist Syd Walker.  Set in Rhode Island, it’s a story about found remains and a missing teenager, and at a deeper level, the historic exploitation of Native people. Lille is a member of the Cherokee Nation who weaves into her stories the ugly history of injustice that is not really historic at all, actually. To start from the beginning of the series, BLOOD SISTERS, which came out in 2023, will lay the predicate for you. Trust me, Vanessa is one compelling writer.

Maine’s Morgan Talty has followed his impressive collection of short stories, THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING REZ, with his debut novel, FIRE EXIT. He again draws on his Penobscot heritage in this novel, which is the story of Charles Lamosway who lives across the Penobscot River from the tribal community of which he is both a part and not a part. Echoes of his youth thrum in the background of his adult life, and it’s time he must make choices that will have impact well beyond himself.

THE FROZEN RIVER by Ariel Lawhon also is set on another of Maine’s most powerful and historic rivers, the mighty Kennebec. It’s a fictionalized tale of a real person, Martha Ballard, whose diary was the subject of the non-fiction book A MIDWIFE’S TALE, for which Laurel Thatcher Ulrich won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991. In THE FROZEN RIVER, set  in 1789, Midwife Ballard helps solve the case of a man found frozen in the river ice, and in the course of her investigation, links his death to a rape that occurred before winter set in.

Peter Swanson’s KILL YOUR DARLINGS also focuses on a past crime, the memory of which has haunted the 25-year marriage of a couple living on the North Shore in Massachusetts. Structurally inventive, it recounts their relationship from the current day, when they are turning fifty, backwards to when they met, and to the event that has colored the rest of their lives. As in so many crime novels, lies and self-deception have star turns.

Not to be outdone in the lying department is the marvelous Scottish author Denise Mina, whose newest book THE GOOD LIAR features blood spatter expert Dr. Claudia O’Sheil. The forensics expert identifies an error made on a case she worked years ago, but the stakes for changing her determination have far reaching implications for herself and those dear to her.  If you’ve not read Denise’s novels be warned, they will keep you reading deep into the night, so best to read when the next day doesn’t involve an early alarm.

Speaking of keeping one up long after it’s time to turn out the light, the inimitable Val McDermid has released a book #8 in her Karen Pirie series, SILENT BONES, in which a brilliant cold case cop and her terrific sidekicks in the Historic Cases Unit work two unsolved murders. One victim is a journalist who covered the Scottish Independence campaign in 2014 whose body is found in an unexpected location. His untimely passing turns out to be related to the death of a hotel executive, whose tumble down the Scotsman Steps in Edinburgh was no accident.

Lou Berney is a must-read author for me, and I cannot wait to dive in to CROOKS, subtitled “A Novel About Crime and Family.” From what I understand this does not mean a crime family of the sort that runs the Mob, more the type that the Mob runs. Set in Oklahoma City, his home turf, it promises to be insightful and hilarious at the same time. If you’re not familiar with Lou, dip into his oeuvre, especially THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE, one of my favorite crime novels of all time.

CARNEGIE’S MAID, by Marie Benedict, the pen name of a Pittsburgh lawyer, was recommended by a friend who knows my grandmother worked for a prosperous family as a laundress after she emigrated to the US from Ireland in 1901. The protagonist in this novel is an Irish immigrant who became a lady’s maid to the mother of Andrew Carnegie. Her influence transformed him from a capitalist robber baron into a well-known philanthropist.  As readers of this blog likely know, Andrew Carnegie’s money built 2,500 libraries worldwide, including 1700 in the US and 20 in Maine 18 public and two academic.

Finally, that’s an i-pad on top of my book stack because that’s how I’m reading a manuscript titled FLYNT & STEELE, A MAINE ISLAND MYSTERY (not yet a book yet, but it will be) written by friend of the blog Sandy Emerson. The spouse of MCW founder and stalwart Kathy Lynn Emerson, he’s a fine writer himself, as entertaining as all get out. Leavened with humor and insight into life in rural Maine, I’m enjoying this book, which features a somewhat unlikely pair of private investigators. So far, so good, Sandy!

Brenda Buchanan sets her novels and short stories in Maine. Her three-book Joe Gale series features a contemporary newspaper reporter with old-school style who covers the courts and crime beat at the fictional Portland Daily Chronicle. Brenda’s short story, “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” was in the anthology Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories 2021 and received an honorable mention in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. Her story Assumptions Can Get You Killed appears in Wolfsbane: Best New England Crime Stories 2023 and her newest, “Cape Jewell,” was published in the 2025 edition of the same anthology, Snakeberry.