Former newspaper reporter, T. Johnson Parker, leaves L.A., site of most of his well-received crime novels, and moves his latest novel to Mammoth Lakes in California's ski country. The result is an enjoyable read
featuring Olympic-level skiing, dysfunctional family, and a glorious setting. The novel's strength lies in Parker's description of the taut world of high stakes skiing. The skillfully written work is thus engaging enough to forgive predictable plotting and stereotypical characters. An apt fireside companion after a long day on the slopes.

Best-seller Canadian crime-novelist ,Linwood Barclay, sets his stories in Promise Falls, a run-down town in northern NY state. Though the town's economy is depressed, its citizens are lively; there is enough murdering bad behavior and sexual derring-do to satisfy a hot Las Vegas suburb. Certainly enough to keep the reader engaged.

Barclay is a skilled writer, with a fine sense of plot. Unfortunately, he also has borrowed a tedious trait from Charles Dickens, and leaves major plot-lines unresolved, awaiting the next (as yet unpublished) novel. The loyal reader is left dangling - and irritated.

Written by John Brady, author of Craft of Interviewing (1977), Frank and Ava: In Love and War is well-researched and clearly written. It focuses on the tempestuous on-again, off-again romance between famous Rat Packer Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, the insecure movie actress whose looks once rivaled those of a young Elizabeth Taylor.

Though an easy read (the way Hostess Twinkies are an easy snack), the book is barren at its core. Its central characters are empty, shallow and self-absorbed, dispute Sinatra's great vocal gifts and Gardner's luminous beauty. Gardner comes across as the Lindsay Lohan of her day, while the Mafia-entangled Sinatra easily matched her in destructive, drunken behavior.

Brady surrounds their story with plenty of well-worn mid-century Hollywood gossip about short, power-crazed, movie moguls, and the naughty goings-on of the movie stars they created. The most pleasant, person in the book may well be Reenie, Gardner's long-suffering maid, who one hopes was well-paid for her 30 years of loyal service.

Writing successful historical mysteries is not for the faint-hearted: the author must plot skillfully, while effectively presenting the historical characters and setting without bogging down amongst arcane information which does not propel the story.

Daughter of a U.S. foreign correspondent, Else Hart has spent much of her life abroad, including three years in China. In this debut mystery novel, Hart deftly plunges into the intriguingly unfamiliar world of late 18th century Yunnan province, a remote corner of SE China. Her chief character is learned, charming and recently disgraced Li Du, former librarian at the Royal Court in Beijing.

Hart shares her historical facts effectively, draws her characters deftly, and leaves the reader eager to accompany Li Du on his next adventure.

Frequent Smithsonian Magazine contributor, Stanley Meisler, takes one into the art world of early 20th Century Paris, focusing on foreign-born artists, many of them Jewish, drawn to the City of Lights by its relatively free-wheeling and permissive culture.

Of central interest is Lithuanian Chaim Soutine (1893-1943), who personifies many central themes: poverty-ridden youth; desperate struggles as Left-Bank artist; volcanically brilliant work; and tempestuous friendships with other members of the School of Paris (as this circle of foreign-born artists is known) such as Modigliani and Chagall.

As an editor at Smithsonian points out, Meisler's prose is "free of flapdoodle." Aimed at the general reader, this work is an entertaining glimpse into an era when Paris was still the art world's vibrant center.

As with most of her best-selling novels, Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale focuses on the intricacies of family relationships. Here, she has set her fast paced tale during the very bleak years of the Nazi Occupation of France (1940-45). Little surprise then that the plucky, head-strong sister joins the Resistance, while the conservative one takes longer to find her niche in the fight. Conforming to genre norms, the plucky one is fearless, her love interest has gray-green eyes, and eventually all family misunderstandings are are exposed and forgiven. Well-researched and smoothly written, Nightingale is a great companion for a rainy mid-winter afternoon.

A cunning debut historical mystery by Antonia Hodgson, editor in chief of Little, Brown, UK. Thoroughly researched, this mystery is set in London's Marshalsea debtor's prison in 1727.Tom Watson, a charming, handsome parson's son who prefers London highlife to the quiet countryside of his childhood, finds himself in Marshalsea, a rat-infested hell hole which makes Alcatraz seem like Club Med.

Populating her fast-paced narrative with real-life characters, Hodgson weaves a vivid tale which intrigues both as a solid historical mystery as well as a lucid portrait of a little known aspect of early Eighteenth century London society.

Her Last Breath is author Linda Castillo's fifth in her mystery police procedurals featuring Kate Burkholder as police chief in the small Amish town of Painters Mill, Ohio.  The series began in 2007 with Sworn to Silence, which has recently been adapted into a  Lifetime Original TV movie.

Prior to the Amish series, Castillo was a prolific author of Romance novels for publishing imprints such as Berkley Sensation, Harlequin Intrigue, and Silhouette Intimate Moments. The Virginia Romance Writers awarded her its Holt Medallion.

Castillo's grounding in the Romance tradition is evident in Her Last Breath. A pleasing page-turner, the novel is as meaty as a Hostess Twinkie: two-dimensional characters, slim improbable plot. The book's saving grace is its setting in an  Amish community, and the intriguing  contrast  with surrounding Englisher (21st century American) culture.

A good beach book,  one that you would not regret leaving in the rental cottage at summer's end.

Award-winning mystery novelist, Laura Lippman, has delivered another winner. Deftly, Lippman lures the reader into the morally murky world of a suburban Madam known variously as Helen-Heloise-Hel. Just like any suburban Mom, Helen is out to protect and provide for her son, only here the dangers are far more deadly than over-baking cookies for the PTA meeting--Helen is possibly being stalked by a revengeful killer. The reader is ever on the side of this resourceful, ambitious woman who, having been dealt a lousy hand in the game of life, plays her cards with skill and courage: one concurs that when Helen was good, she was very, very good,but when she was bad she understandably could be horrid. And therein lies the fascination of this masterfully written mystery novel.