all your Reads in Here

Echoes of Evil winds up the current storyline about the McFadden brothers in Heather Graham's Krewe of Hunter series. Brodie, the youngest brother, is the featured player. There's not much interplay with the FBI this time, but there's no doubt that the youngest brother, who can see and talk with ghosts, will end up with the Krewe of Hunters. Brodie McFadden is actually on vacation in Key West, diving on the historical wreck of a British slave ship, when he finds a body. It's a recent corpse, though, not a body from two hundred years earlier. Because of an earlier connection, working a case with Liam Beckett of the Key West police force, Brodie is brought in to the case. He's also interested when a musician dies while performing at a bar. Is there a connection between the two dead men? Dakota (Kody) McCoy isn't the one who discovers the link, but it's her Key West museum, the Haunts and History Museum, that links the two dead men. Cliff Bullard, the dead mus...

Oceanview Publishing, publisher of Danny Lopez' The Last Breath , has a statement in the front of the book. "Oceanview focuses on works that exhibit a strong sense of place and setting; compelling protagonists and supporting characters; tension that builds throughout a book's narrative; seamless, gripping, and suspenseful story lines; and authenticity." While I believe all mysteries should strive for those goals, Lopez' book, with its descriptions of Siesta Key, certainly succeeds with that strong sense of place and setting. The atmospheric mystery captures Florida's Gulf Coast and the political tensions between developers and those who love the islands as they are. Dexter Vega is an unemployed reporter who picks up freelance writing jobs when he can. He actually spends a lot of time in Siesta Key and Sarasota bars, bemoaning his lack of money and work. When he gets desperate, a friendly editor throws him an idea. Bob Fleming, a wealthy retiree, is looking for...

Last month, I interviewed Paula Matter, author of the debut mystery, Last Call,   http://bit.ly/2OEesvq . Just this week, I had the chance to read the book, and there's so much I like about this book. I could have used a list of characters, but bartender Maggie Lewis and her story were fresh and original. Maggie Lewis has been the bartender at the VFW in North DeSoto, Florida for five years. She's a short, middle-aged, grumpy widow, but, most of the time, she enjoys the hours she spends with the regulars at the bar. Jack Hoffman has always been a pain, though. He complains about women in the bar, Maggie as a bartender, and every other issue that comes up. After writing his complaints in his notebook, he takes those problems to the board. Despite Jack's behavior, Maggie certainly wouldn't want the man dead. Why is she the main suspect when Jack's found murdered in his truck? Maggie had her first Saturday night off in five years when a younger woman is hired for the b...

I won't say bestselling romance author Jude Deveraux has written herself into her first mystery, but the wonderful Sara Medlar character sounds familiar. If you read Deveraux' website, she's living in Florida, loves boxing and weightlifting, and drives a Mini Cooper. Sara Medlar is a retired romance writer, lives in Florida, boxes, lifts weights, and drives a yellow Mini Cooper. I hope Deveraux has as much fun writing the character as I did reading about her in  A Willing Murder. Sara Medlar bought a big mansion in Lachlan, her hometown, and hired Jack Wyatt, grandson of her childhood sweetheart, to remodel it. But, she's rattling around in that house. When Jack breaks his leg in a tragic accident, she invites him to move in. Then her niece Kate Medlar accepts a job as a realtor in Lachlan, and Sara is excited to offer her a suite in the house. But, Kate's just a little suspicious of Jack's motives. However, Kate's not there long when the trio finds somethin...

While the third Foggy Moscowitz mystery, Icepick , is called "A noir mystery set in Florida", the violence of Phillip DePoy's latest book is offset by the dark humor and the mysticism. In fact, like Foggy, the reader may get to the end and wonder what just happened. Foggy was once a successful car thief from Brooklyn, but when one of his thefts went horribly wrong, he escaped to Florida, where he's changed his life to make reparations. Now, in 1976, he's working for Child Protection Services. It's in that role that he tries to help two Seminole children, a brother and sister, Duck and Sharp, whose mother has disappeared. She was a hard-working, devoted mother who walked seven miles each way to work as a housekeeper at the Benton Inn. But, she hasn't been home in three days. When Foggy asks around, he learns twenty-seven Seminole women, almost one third of the women from the local tribe, have disappeared. Foggy's fears grow worse when he follows clues t...