Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May on the Loose
is a treat for readers familiar with his ancient and indefatigable detectives. Their Peculiar Crimes Unit has been disbanded, but a difficult case causes their bureaucratic arch-nemesis to issue a temporary reprieve. World War II bombings and ruthless developers both play a role in the plot, which ends on an unexpectedly sad note, with the death of a familiar character (spoiler alert: not Bryant or May). One note: For anyone who hasn't read the series, I'd definitely start with the first title, Full Dark House
, rather than jumping in partway through. There's a lot of history and quite a bit of who's who background that's necessary to fully appreciate the later installments.
is a Chief Inspector Gamache/Three Pines mystery, and I'd advise reading the previous entries in the series before tackling this one. The book affords more insights into Gamache's relationship with his wife, Raine-Marie, as well as Penny's usual insights into her characters. Sometimes these insights become a bit excessive, but the strength of the series is in its well-drawn, sympathetic, complex characters. In this case, Penny reveals a dark, calculating facet to a beloved Three Pines character, with repercussions for the rest of the village and for Gamache, who finds himself investigating someone who has become a dear friend.
, and it's a fine introduction indeed. A woman comes to the attention of the police as a result of a hit-and-run accident. She keeps their attention by claiming she is one of a pair of sisters kidnapped thirty years earlier. While she has intimate knowledge of the case, however, pieces of her story don't quite add up, and she isn't entirely cooperative with their investigation.
is mid-series, I think, so I might have a different impression if I'd started earlier. The mystery is reasonably entertaining and suspenseful, the North Carolina setting almost cliched (although, having lived in the South, I realize there's a good amount of realism within some of the cliches). The print is enormous, which made me suspect the book might be a lightweight. It is, rather--reasonably entertaining if you're looking for something to kill time, but not compelling enough to make me seek out other Maron books when there are so many far more urgent titles on my list.
is the fourth entry in Craig Johnson's series about Wyoming (yeah, I'm picking up on a theme here, too) sheriff Walt Longmire, and the second I've read. I do not intend for it to be the last. Johnson has an easy, spare style that suits the open country he writes about. His sense of landscape, awareness of history, and incorporation of Native American traditions remind me of the late Tony Hillerman, a longtime favorite of mine. 
takes place not in the village of Three Pines, but at the nearby, secluded Manoir Bellechasse.
didn't disappoint. Set in northern Minnesota near the Anishinaabe reservation, the novel features former sheriff and current burger man Cork O'Connor. As winter descends on the eponymous boundary waters, O'Connor guides a troubled Anishinaabe ex-convict, his 10-year-old son, a worried father, and abrasive federal agents into the wilderness. Their quarry is Shiloh, a country singer who's holed up in a remote cabin for months but whose life is now threatened. Fifteen years earlier, she witnessed her mother's murder, and recent therapy may have brought back her memories of the killer. The two men suspected of the crime converge on O'Connor's hometown, but their motives may be more complex than they appear.