From The Booking Desk:

Between Malice, a family wedding, and an illness, things have been quieter than normal around here. Hopefully this week will see things start to return to the status quo, but in the meantime, reviews will be a little slower than usual. But not to worry, I will keep you up to date on what to be looking for when out shopping your local stores.

Ragnar Jónasson – The Island (Minotaur, Hardcover, $27.99, 05/21/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Those who read Ragnar Jónasson’s The Darkness have been waiting some time to see how he was going to pull off continuing this series. This is the second in the Hidden Iceland series and it more than lives up to the promise of that first book. Review coming soon.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

Autumn of 1987 takes a young couple on a romantic trip in the Westfjords holiday―a trip that gets an unexpected ending and has catastrophic consequences.

Ten years later a small group of friends go for a weekend in an old hunting lodge in Elliðaey. A place completely cut off from the outside world, to reconnect. But one of them isn’t going to make it out alive. And Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is determined to find the truth in the darkness.

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Agnete Friis – The Summer of Ellen (Soho Press, Hardcover, $26.95, 05/21/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Agnete Friis is probably a name that is not as familiar to you as it should be. Her Denmark-based crime series (written with Lene Kaaberbøl) is excellent and she has now taken to writing some very strong stand-alones solo. The Summer of Ellen reminded me of an international version of Nancy Pickard’s The Scent of Rain and Lightning.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

Jacob, a middle-aged architect living in Copenhagen, is in the alcohol-soaked throes of a bitter divorce when he receives an unexpected call from his great-uncle Anton. In his nineties and still living with his brother on their rural Jutland farm—a place Jacob hasn’t visited since the summer of 1978—Anton remains haunted by a single question: What happened to Ellen?
 
To find out, Jacob must return to the farm and confront what took place that summer—one defined by his teenage obsession with Ellen, a beautiful young hippie from the local commune, and the unsolved disappearance of a local girl. In revisiting old friends and rivals, Jacob discovers the tragedies that have haunted him for over forty years were not what they seemed.

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Gillian French – The Missing Season (HarperTeen, Hardcover, $17.99, 05/21/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

This Young Adult blend of crime, mystery, and horror will please fans both young and old.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

Whenever another kid goes missing in October, the kids in the old factory town of Pender know what is really behind it: a monster out in the marshes that they call the Mumbler.

That’s what Clara’s new crew tells her when she moves to town. Bree and Sage, who take her under their wing. Spirited Trace, who has taken the lead on this year’s Halloween prank war. And magnetic Kincaid, whose devil-may-care attitude and air of mystery are impossible for Clara to resist.

Clara doesn’t actually believe in the Mumbler—not like Kinkaid does. But as Halloween gets closer and tensions build in the town, it’s hard to shake the feeling that there really is something dark and dangerous in Pender. Lurking in the shadows. Waiting to bring the stories to life.