From the Booking Desk:

This is a good week to visit your local bookstore – there are so many great book releases.

Tara Laskowski – One Night Gone (Graydon House, Paperback, $16.99, 10/01/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

The BOLO Books Review of One Night Gone posted last week. Hopefully, that means you all have already pre-ordered the book, but if you were waiting, you will be able to pick it up this week at your local bookstore.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

It was the perfect place to disappear…

One sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in the wealthy town of Opal Beach to start her life anew—to achieve her destiny. There, she finds herself lured by the promise of friendship, love, starry skies, and wild parties. But Maureen’s new life just might be too good to be true, and before the summer is up, she vanishes.

Decades later, when Allison Simpson is offered the opportunity to house-sit in Opal Beach during the off-season, it seems like the perfect chance to begin fresh after a messy divorce. But when she becomes drawn into the mysterious disappearance of a girl thirty years before, Allison realizes the gorgeous homes of Opal Beach hide dark secrets. And the truth of that long-ago summer is not even the most shocking part of all…

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Vanessa Lillie – Little Voices (Thomas & Mercer, Paperback, $15.95, 10/01/2019

BOLO Books Comments:

Look for a release day review of Vanessa Lillie’s LITTLE VOICES tomorrow. This impressive debut novel is one that you are going to want to read before you hear too much about it. Mark my words.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

The voice in her head says he’s guilty. She knows he’s innocent.

Devon Burges is in the throes of a high-risk birth when she learns of her dear friend’s murder. The police quickly name another friend as the chief suspect, but Devon doesn’t buy it—and despite her difficult recovery, she decides to investigate.

Haunted by postpartum problems that manifest as a cruel voice in her head, Devon is barely getting by. Yet her instincts are still sharp, and she’s bent on proving her friend’s innocence.

But as Devon digs into the evidence, the voice in her head grows more insistent, the danger more intense. Each layer is darker, more disturbing, and she’s not sure she—or her baby—can survive what lies at the truth.

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Michael Nava – Carved in Bone (Persigo Press, Paperback, $15.99, 10/01/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

I will have a longer review of this title in the near future – maybe later this week or early next. But fans who have been waiting for the return of Henry Rios will not be disappointed. This “historical” novel is a must read and marks the return of one of the most diverse characters – and voices in crime fiction.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

November, 1984. Criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios, fresh out of rehab and picking up the pieces of his life, reluctantly accepts work as an insurance claims investigator and is immediately is assigned to investigate the apparently accidental death of Bill Ryan. Ryan, part of the great gay migration into San Francisco in the 1970s, has died in his flat of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty gas line, his young lover barely surviving. Rios’s investigation into Ryan’s death–which Rios becomes convinced was no accident–tracks Ryan’s life from his arrival in San Francisco as a terrified 18-year-old to his transformation into a successful businessman. What begins for Rios as the search for the truth about Bill Ryan’s death becomes the search for the meaning of Ryan’s life as the tsunami of AIDS bears down on the gay community.

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Ang Pompano – When It’s Time For Leaving (Encircle, E-book, $3.99, 10/01/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

The launch of this new series from Ang Pompano came out of nowhere to blow me away. Pompano has crafted an unusual mix of hard-boiled PI mystery and genuine, bona fide family drama. These characters grab the readers attention and never let go and the Savannah setting leaps off the page – leaving this reader ready for another visit to that iconic location (both the real Savannah and via the next in Ang’s series.)

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

When his girlfriend dumps him and a dealer rams him off a bridge, Al DeSantis quits the New Haven Police Department. As he plans to head for LA, he learns his father who abandoned him as a kid has deeded him the Blue Palmetto Detective Agency in Georgia.

Now fearing bridges, Al drives to Savannah intending to sell fast and go west, but before he can, he discovers a strong and attractive female detective named Maxine, a dead body on the dock—and his father, alive, suffering from Alzheimer’s, and determined to help his “new partner Al” solve the crime.

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Neil S. Plakcy – Deadly Labors (Indie, Paperback, $10.99, 10/01/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Kimo Kanapa’aka is another example of true diversity in our crime fiction family. This is the 12th book in Neil S. Plakcy’s Hawaiian-set series and while it has been a while since readers have seen Kimo, slipping back into the groove couldn’t be easier. The mystery here – and especially the path to its conclusion – are refreshing and filled with fascinating cultural information. If you are new to the series, the early books have recently relaunched with more modern covers. It’s well worth checking this series out.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

Can Hawaiian native Ikaika Kahale turn his life around after studying the hula in a cultural program at San Quentin and then returning to the Aloha State? Or is the new murder he’s accused of proof that an orchid can’t change its colors?

While Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka is on a temporary departmental leave, his mother asks him to investigate the case of her friend’s son Ikaika, who Kimo went to Hawaiian school with as a child.

Working undercover, Kimo traces the roots of what seems like an unfortunate death in a fight at the bar where Ikaika worked as a bouncer. What was HPD officer Brian Yang doing at the Surf City Crazy Bar? Who was the mysterious man he brawled with before Ikaika intervened and delivered a deadly punch?

Kimo’s investigation takes him into the hills of the Windward Coast of O’ahu, where the gorgeous blossoms of a nursery may be hiding a deadly secret. Along the way, he’ll require the assistance of his partner, his friends and his loved ones in a demonstration of what the word ohana, Hawaiian for family, really means.