How could you not be fascinated by a photo of a woman wearing a wedding dress, standing alone on a beach, clasping a handgun behind her back? There has to be a story there, right? Well, there is, titled (unsurprisingly) Woman with a Gun and penned by Phillip Margolin. The woman in the photograph is Megan Cahill, on the night of her 2005 wedding to multimillionaire Raymond Cahill—the very night that Raymond was shot to death. To further complicate matters, Megan suffered a blow to the head and cannot remember anything that happened that evening—or so she says. The scanty evidence was all circumstantial, and the murder was never solved. The photo went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. Fast forward to 2015, when fledgling novelist Stacey Kim sees the photograph in a trendy Manhattan art exhibit. Captivated by the image, Kim wants to write a novel based loosely on the decade-old news item. Little does she know that the truth is much stranger than any fiction—and exponentially more dangerous and deadly.

WAR CRIMES
Those crazy Scots. For lack of something better to do, a number of them have taken up free-climbing, scaling the outside of old buildings without the benefit of ropes or other climbing aids. It would seem that the greatest danger in this pastime would be a fall from a high place, so imagine the surprise of an acrophobic building inspector when he happens upon the skeleton of a free-climber in a Gothic turret high atop a Victorian-era building, in Val McDermid's aptly titled The Skeleton Road. But this is no natural death, as there is a hole the size of a shirt button just above where the right eyebrow used to be. Enter Karen Pirie of the Edinburgh cold case squad, because, as it turns out, cases don't get much colder than this. Her forensics team turns up dental evidence suggesting that the skeleton may have originated in the Balkans. Meanwhile, an ocean away on the sunny Greek isle of Crete, a retired history professor is murdered. There is no apparent connection to the skeleton in Scotland, but a bit of digging reveals the deceased to have been a Balkan war criminal who managed to slip away scot-free. The Skeleton Road is listed as a standalone novel, but don't be surprised to see Pirie again; I suspect McDermid's readers will demand it.

OFF THE PAGE
In reviewing Pierre Lemaitre's American debut novel, Alex, I noted that the book was "deliciously twisted and truly not to be missed." I am pleased to report that the second novel of the Camille Verhoeven trilogy, Irène—which is actually a prequel to Alex—is every bit as twisted as its predecessor. Cops everywhere dread the notion of a copycat killer, someone who reads a newspaper story of a murder and then sets out to duplicate it in every detail. But what if you have a copycat killer who ups that game a notch, copying several of the goriest murders depicted in modern fiction, such as James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia or Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho? A well-written mystery could give a would-be killer all sorts of helpful hints at honing his craft, and the killer known as "The Novelist" borrows from the best. One word of caution: The violence is graphic, overflowing with torture, dismemberments and miles of entrails, so use discretion when reading Irène close to bedtime.

TOP PICK IN MYSTERY
If you want to create a badass protagonist in suspense fiction, give him only one name, like Robert B. Parker's Spenser (and his uber-cool sidekick, Hawk) or James W. Hall's Thorn, hero of more than a dozen first-rate novels, the latest of which is The Big Finish. Thorn would like for his action days to be behind him; he wants nothing more than to live off the grid, just a simple life tying expensive flies for wealthy sport fishermen. But last year, Thorn discovered that he has a grown son, the result of a fleeting liaison a couple of decades back. His son, Flynn Moss, possesses an extraordinary talent for creating drama in Thorn's otherwise staid existence. Flynn is a major player in the eco-underground and is an experienced nonviolent saboteur. Now he is on the run, or perhaps dead, the only clue to his recent existence a postcard bearing the words "Help me!" Novels are often described as "character-driven" or "plot-driven"; the Thorn novels are rage-driven. Thorn will bear a lot with equanimity, but if you incur his serious ire, step back—no, scratch that, run away as fast as you can.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In last year's Going Dark, series hero Thorn's son Flynn disappeared into a radical ecomovement group. Now, rushing to find him after a call for help via postcard, Thorn is told that Flynn had been acting as an informant for the FBI and was executed when his undercover activities were discovered. But the truth may prove to be pretty thorny. From a Shamus and Edgar Award-winning author.

In 2013's Going Dark, South Florida recluse Thorn discovered he had an adult son, Flynn, an actor-turned-ecowarrior. In this follow-up, Thorn gets a postcard ostensibly from Flynn pleading for help. He promptly heads to a huge North Carolina hog farm where several of Flynn's colleagues have been murdered and from where he is missing, probably wounded. Thorn's search is quickly complicated by a crooked FBI agent, a murderous ex-con with an unusual ability to track by smell, and the vicious owners of the farm, who are intent on stopping any interference. VERDICT As in Edgar Award winner Hall's 13 previous series titles, Thorn is a passionate individualist with empathy for the victims of social and racial injustice. Aided here by poor whites, a downtrodden black community, and some illegal weapons, he delivers justice on his own terms. Hall's trademark mix of strikingly drawn characters caught in ever more perilous situations will keep his many fans turning the pages. [See Prepub Alert, 6/16/14.]—Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Edgar-winner Hall's heart-pounding 14th Thorn novel (after 2013's Going Dark) takes the hard-bitten Florida PI to Pine Haven, N.C., where Thorn's newly discovered son, Flynn Moss, and his fellow Earth Liberation Front activists target a hog factory farm in an "action" that goes awry. Shortly after, Thorn receives the latest in a series of postcards from Flynn, dropped anonymously at the office of his PI friend, Sugarman, and bearing only two words: "Help Me." The rescue attempt mounted by the pair soon becomes complicated as Sugar's girlfriend, Tina Gathercole, and an FBI agent, Madeline Cruz, attach themselves to the effort. Meanwhile, murderous ex-con X-88 and his girlfriend, Pixie, descend on Pine Haven with evil intent. Hall keeps the tension mounting as motives and alliances shift with the foul-scented wind. Even as violence looms, Hall's talent for description adds a balancing, poetical note. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Dec.)