Six thrillers for springtime suspense

What We Buried, Robert Rotenberg (Simon & Schuster Canada, 320 pages) This is the seventh book in Robert Rotenberg’s excellent series, set in Toronto and featuring detectives Daniel Kennicott and Ari Greene, and it’s the best of the series so far. Rotenberg, a Toronto criminal lawyer, knows police work inside and out but he’s also well-versed in good writing. Here, he takes us into Italy’s past to investigate a crime with long and dangerous tentacles.

It’s 10 years since Daniel Kennicott’s brother, Michael, was murdered in his front yard on the eve of a trip to Italy. No clues were ever found and there was no motive. The death naturally haunts his brother. After the accidental death of the men’s parents, the family appears cursed. All that was known is that Michael was on his way to the village of Gubbio. Daniel is convinced that the murder is connected to the trip but what was in Gubbio? He decides to follow Michael’s trail.

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At this point, Daniel discovers that his friends Greene and Nora Bering have been assembling the meager evidence on Michael’s death. They are convinced that Daniel is in danger if he starts digging around. Why does he want to uncover a truth that will endanger himself and others?

Once in Gubbio, Daniel quickly discovers a town beset by history. Events during the Nazi occupation of the Second World War have festered for nearly a century. I found this book irresistible reading and didn’t put it down until the final page.

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, Janice Hallett (Atria, 432 pages)

I loved Janice Hallett’s last novel, The Appeal, which used the epistolary method of storytelling through documents, legal and criminal, to lead to a reveal. The idea wasn’t new (Bram Stoker liked it and Poe used the newspapers in The Mystery of Marie Roget) but in Hallett’s talented hands, it was updated and used to perfection.

It doesn’t quite work in this novel. Amanda, a true-crime author hoping to revive a flagging career, needs a big story. Enter the tale of the Alperton Angels, who in 1996 were a sensation. The group, believing themselves to be angels in earthly form, brainwashed a teenage girl into believing her baby was the anti-Christ and had to be killed. Eventually, she called the police, leading the group members to die by suicide. Now, the baby, who was spared, is finally 18 and can be interviewed. Amanda has to find them, write the book and reap the rewards. Where is the baby?

That nutshell doesn’t really do the plot justice. As we glide through e-mail, WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok, and the notes of a clever young woman who copies down interviews and adds her own comments, the story unfolds and gets deeper. I wanted to know the end but I skipped a lot of Amanda’s e-mails to get to it.

Leave No Trace, A.J. Landau (Minotaur, 352 pages) The debut of A.J. Landau, which is the pseudonym for two writers, Jon Land and Jeff Ayers – is obviously the beginning of a series, featuring park ranger Michael Walker. For the first third of the book, they have a whale of a thriller when an explosion rocks the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty blows up, topples and ranger Walker heads to represent the National Park Service in the ensuing investigation, which is headed by a feisty explosives expert, special agent Gina Delgado of the FBI. Terrorism is suspected. Worse may follow. There are no clues. So far, so good.

Naturally, Walker and Delgado clash and eventually team up to discover that there’s far more afoot than garden-variety mayhem and it’s here that the book begins to drag. Land and Ayers know far more about the National Park Service than about investigating crimes, especially spectacular ones. They also reveal too much too soon and that puts a drag on the ending. Avid readers will recall another national-park series: Nevada Barr’s terrific Anna Pigeon books, which include one of the most inventive murders ever devised in Firestorm as well as a plot against the Statue of Liberty. Landau isn’t Barr but this is a first book. There are plenty of parks and time to learn the ropes.

The Rumor Game, Thomas Mullen (Minotaur, 368 pages) I love good historical mysteries and Thomas Mullen writes some of the best. Ever since Darktown, his re-creation of segregation-era Atlanta, I’ve looked forward to each new book. The Rumor Game, set in Boston, is brilliant and took me right into the dark heart of wartime America.

In 1943, Boston, like much of the U.S., is listening to the news and reading the papers. And the talk is about whose son is at Guadalcanal, whose husband is in North Africa. Men are dying and people believe that spies are everywhere and must be ferreted out. Reporter Anne Lemire’s job is to uncover rumours and dispel them, and while a lot of it involves tittle-tattle she wants to uncover a real espionage story.

Enter FBI agent Devon Mulvey who investigates sabotage in the war industries and fascist clerics on the weekend. He, too, wants in on a big case. When he and Anne team up to uncover who is passing out Nazi propaganda and investigate the death of a local factory worker, they find far more than either of them dreamed. If you haven’t already read Mullen, this is the perfect book to start and you’ll definitely want to read his other seven, especially Darktown.

The Heiress, Rachel Hawkins (Raincoast, 304 pages) In the middle of even a warm winter, I love a good dollop of Southern gothic and The Heiress serves it up with a trowel. Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore began life kidnapped and ransomed as a child, then outlived her four husbands and ended her life as North Carolina’s richest and most notorious woman.

For decades, Ruby ruled her little town of Tavistock from her Ashby House, her aerie in the Blue Ridge Mountains. When she died, her adopted and estranged son, Camden, wanted no part of North Carolina or Ruby’s money. He built a new life as a teacher in Colorado with his wife, Jules. Then, 10 years after Ruby’s death, Camden is summoned back to Tavistock. It’s time to settle Ruby’s estate finally. Once back in Tavistock, Ruby’s ghost is everywhere and the possibility of money and power tempts even those sworn to disregard it. Save this one for a wet weekend when you can keep reading for hours without putting it down.

The Year of the Locust, Terry Hayes (Atria, 800 pages) I adored Terry Hayes’s first novel, I Am Pilgrim, and, like other, fans I waited for his second which, after 10 years, has finally arrived. This wrist-breaking book – 800 pages – has a lot of the elements that made Pilgrim so good. The central character, CIA spy Kane (no first name) is a specialist in infiltrating denied access areas. Young, vital, speaking a dozen languages and more dialects, he’s headed for Iran to uncover a plot to destroy the U.S. So far, so good.

The problem comes more than halfway into the book where Hayes seems to have decided to include an entirely different book and marry (badly) the plots. I won’t give anything away but do be warned that your willing suspension of disbelief will be put to the most severe test. Still, Hayes knows how to write a thriller that thrills.