From the Booking Desk:

This week’s BOLO report contains books released both this week and last week. There are so many great books this year, it’s been hard to keep up with them all. As you start planning your holiday shopping, keep these titles in mind.

Steph Cha – Your House Will Pay (Ecco, Hardcover, $26.99, 10/15/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

I almost never reveal my favorite book of the year publicly – feeling that the yearly Top Reads list is more than sufficient to let my followers know what books I love – but after my second read of Your House Will Pay, I feel so passionately about the impact this novel can (and will) have on our culture that I have no qualms going on the record stating that Steph Cha’s book is my favorite this year. Look for a launch day review here tomorrow – but order the book today!

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

A powerful and taut novel about racial tensions in Los Angeles, following two families―one Korean-American, one African-American―grappling with the effects of a decades-old crime

In the wake of the police shooting of a black teenager, Los Angeles is as tense as it’s been since the unrest of the early 1990s. But Grace Park and Shawn Matthews have their own problems. Grace is sheltered and largely oblivious, living in the Valley with her Korean-immigrant parents, working long hours at the family pharmacy. She’s distraught that her sister hasn’t spoken to their mother in two years, for reasons beyond Grace’s understanding. Shawn has already had enough of politics and protest after an act of violence shattered his family years ago. He just wants to be left alone to enjoy his quiet life in Palmdale.

But when another shocking crime hits LA, both the Park and Matthews families are forced to face down their history while navigating the tumult of a city on the brink of more violence.

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Cheryl A. Head – Judge Me When I’m Wrong (Bywater Books, Paperback, $16.95, 10/15/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Cheryl Head just keeps getting better. This is without a doubt my favorite book in the Charlie Mack series. Everyone can relate to jury duty, but hopefully most people don’t find themselves as embroiled into matters as Charlie and her gang do. There has been a trend this year of riveting courtroom mysteries, and Judge Me When I’m Wrong fits nicely into that genre-blurring pattern.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

When a guilt-ridden client has an unexpected change of heart, the Mack team’s careful preparation for his grand jury testimony is blown to smithereens. Now, Charlie and Gil must pull out all the stops to defend him from his new enemies and the estrangement of his father. Meanwhile, Charlie reports for jury duty and unwittingly begins to unravel a disturbing plan to alter the outcome of a crime lord’s conspiracy trial. Before she knows it, Charlie’s dangerous meddling lands a bull’s-eye squarely on the intersection of her personal and professional lives, putting all that she holds dear in jeopardy.

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John Connolly – Book of Bones (Atria, Hardcover, $28.99, 10/15/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

It is fitting that this epic entry in Connolly’s Charlie Parker series is its most global. Fans have followed along as Parker gets closer and closer to true evil and this novel makes a culmination of sorts – taking readers all over the world – as Parker hunts for The Fractured Atlas, a legendary volume with occult connections. A Book of Bones is a long novel, largely do to the fact that it contains several short stories that are contained within The Fractured Atlas. Like other short stories that John Connolly has released from this fictional book over the years, these stories can easily stand on their own and make for compelling reading outside of (or alongside) the novel’s main story line.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

He is our best hope.

He is our last hope.

On a lonely moor in northern England, the body of a young woman is discovered. In the south, a girl lies buried beneath a Saxon mound. To the southeast, the ruins of a priory hide a human skull.

Each is a sacrifice, a summons. And something in the darkness has heard the call.

Charlie Parker has also heard it and from the forests of Maine to the deserts of the Mexican border, from the canals of Amsterdam to the streets of London, he will track those who would cast the world into darkness.

Parker fears no evil—but evil fears him.

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Deborah Crombie – A Bitter Feast (William Morrow, Hardcover, $25.99, 10/08/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Eighteen books into her Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series and Deborah Crombie shows no signs of slowing down. This excellent entry finds Crombie weaving in many of her regular characters with a fascinating group of newcomers. The title alone should clue readers in that the mystery at the core of the book centers on foodie culture and there are countless insights about chefs and the restaurant industry contained within this book.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his wife, Detective Inspector Gemma James, have been invited for a relaxing weekend in the Cotswolds, one of Britain’s most enchanting regions, famous for its rolling hills, golden cottages, and picturesque villages.

Duncan, Gemma, and their children are guests at Beck House, the family estate of Melody Talbot, Gemma’s detective sergeant. The Talbot family is wealthy, prominent, and powerful—Melody’s father is the publisher of one of London’s largest and most influential newspapers. The centerpiece of this glorious fall getaway is a posh charity harvest luncheon catered by up-and-coming chef Viv Holland. After fifteen years in London’s cut-throat food scene, Viv has returned to the Gloucestershire valleys of her childhood and quickly made a name for herself with her innovative meals based on traditional cuisine but using fresh local ingredients. Attended by the local well-to-do as well as national press food bloggers and restaurant critics, the event could make Viv a star.

But a tragic car accident and a series of mysterious deaths rock the estate and pull Duncan and Gemma into the investigation. It soon becomes clear that the killer has a connection with Viv’s pub—or, perhaps, with Beck House itself.

Does the truth lie in the past? Or is it closer to home, tied up in the tangled relationships and bitter resentments between the staff at Beck House and Viv’s new pub? Or is it more personal, entwined with secrets hidden by Viv and those closest to her?

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Michael Craft – ChoirMaster (Questover Press, Paperback, $14.95, 10/10/2019)

BOLO Books Comments:

Michael Craft returns to Dumont, Wisconsin for the second book in is cozy mystery series. Once again, Craft excels at weaving LGBTQ+ characters and concerns into this light-hearted traditional mystery. There is a strong history of “church-based” crime novels in the crime genre, so it is refreshing to see this tackled in a fresh way. Needless to say – just look at the cover – our new favorite talking (maybe) cat is back to help Brody and friends solve this murder.

Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):

A marriage of convenience … a crisis of faith … a talking cat.
What could possibly go wrong?

In idyllic little Dumont, Wisconsin, the historic but financially troubled St. Alban’s Episcopal Church has a new rector who plans to turn things around, a woman named Joyce Hibbard. Local architect Marson Miles puts two and two together and figures out that Mother Hibbard’s husband is none other than his long-ago college friend, Curtis Hibbard, who is now a prominent New York attorney. And unless Marson is mistaken, Curtis and Joyce must have a marriage of convenience.

Mother Hibbard wants to build a fabulous new church to replace the crumbling St. Alban’s. Local philanthropist Mary Questman wants her friend Marson to design it. And Mother Hibbard’s husband really wants the hunky young choir director, David Lovell. But then, in a god-awful development, someone turns up dead.

It was murder, all right, and suspects abound. Once again, Marson’s dashing husband, Brody Norris, steps into the role of amateur sleuth and sidekick to Sheriff Thomas Simms. And once again, Brody himself gets a bit of help–from Mary Questman’s exotic cat, a chatty Abyssinian named Mister Puss.