A Puzzle For Two by Josh Lanyon is the story of Zach Davies, a struggling private investigator who has taken over his father’s not-so-successful firm. A wealthy businessman, Alton Beacher, hires Zach to investigate who is trying to kill him. Beacher is unlikeable and has made many enemies, some of whom are close relatives, including his wife whose family was the primary investor in his business Beacher’s claims of death threats seem to lack credibility and this is made worse by his insistence that Zach pose as Beacher’s boyfriend as an attempt to encourage his wife to divorce him. I like a story to be credible and this detail stretch that somewhat.

Zach’s inexperience and lack of resources prompts him to ask for help from another private investigator and ex-Marine, Flint Carey. Beacher is in fact killed in a car ‘accident’ and although the police investigate so too do Flint and Zach. When Zach is attacked in his garage Flint arrives to help and comfort him. To avoid spoilers, I’ll stop there.

I can’t say this was a great read. The gay agenda seemed too prominent. I mean, I wanted to read a detective/whodunnit story rather than a gay romance.

The Ski Trip by Sarah Clarke is the story of Ivy, a new single-mother, friend-ish of Zoe, Zoe’s husband, Tom, and several other friends from their long-ago university years.

Ivy receives a somewhat out of the blue call from Zoe requesting/begging her go to France because of Tom’s death on ski trip with several other of their mutual friends. Being a new mother, and Zoe being a somewhat estranged friend, the request is awkward. Ivy’s anxiety-ridden mother isn’t really in a good shape to look after Ivy’s son, but Ivy is insistent, desperate and…  

In France, Ivy doubts and then questions most of what has happened, who was involved and why. Tom was an excellent skier; could he really have skied off a well-marked cliff? The slope wasn’t dangerous and relationships within the group of friends were strained in the days before his ‘fall’. Ivy suspects foul play and so does the police chief, but there’s no evidence. Ivy is torn between justice for Tom and getting home to help her son and her anxious mother.

This is a crisply-written story, broken into well-structured chapters that kept me reading quickly. The characters’ back stories (their university and early career years) are credible and interesting; and flawed. Everyone is a suspect.

I really enjoyed reading this; it was a cut-above the rest of the simple, present-day whodunit genre. And I LOVED the twist at the end, followed by the extra twist in the last page.

One Beats the Bush by Riall Nolan is a fast read, an intriguing, twisty, action-packed plot involving a small cast of well-moulded characters.

Max Donovan, a Vietnam flies back to San Francisco after he’s informed that his old friend Fat Freddie Fields has been arrested for murder. The DA seems hell-bent on a quick conviction and so is barely interested in investigating the crime. Acquiring the bail money meant messing with local drug dealers, but Donovan gets his mate out of jail, it being too much of a reminder of their past in a North Vietnamese POW camp.

Donovan’s only clue to solving the murder seems to be in New Guinea and that involves a flight, local politics and crime, smugglers, weapons, and hostile hill tribes. Donovan and his female supporter fly into a hill tribe area to find a helicopter crash site and possible clues to the murder back in San Francisco, encounter a corrupt US missionary but also find the necessary information… and by great luck and immense skill they make it out of New Guinea and back to the US just in time blow apart a smuggling operation that of course involves that corrupt DA.

It’s a fast-paced plot, the characters are likeable when they need to be and the whole story ends with a satisfying climax.  

The Seafarer’s Secret by Carol Ann Collins is a very well-written, straightforward, small-town whodunit with a twinge of romance in the background. I enjoyed reading this book as much for its setting as the carefully constructed plot – not too many clues, timed and released well. William Templeton is a widower and the police chief in Eden, North Carolina. A dead woman’s body is found with an old gold coin in her pocket – identical to a coin that was discovered on his ex-wife’s body more than a year ago. Her death then was treated as an accidental drowning but now, similar as it is to the recent death, her case is reopened. An historian, Eva, is brought into the investigation team to identify the coins which are assumed to be part of Blackbeard’s pirate treasure. Eva had visited Eden as a young child and is gradually reunited with the friends she made back then, one of whom is not as he seems and that’s where I should stop. A highly-recommended summer time read.

In the Shadow of the Kingmakers by Vihad Imani tells some of the story of the post-WW1 countries’ geo-political maneuvering for control of Persia’s/Iran’s oil resources. Set in 1924 Tehran, the story revolves around the relationships between local Iranians such as young Ali who works at a restaurant and overhears spies manipulating each other, the British Embassy nurse who teaches him English in between his stints as a gardener and occasional waiter. A British spy/military officer is overheard manipulating an American into photographing a sensitive religious site in order to generate unrest with the locals. Locals also manipulate locals under the guise of being suitably religious or loyal to the government or the Cossacks who played a role in the newly-appointed prime minister…

At its core, this is the story of Ali, a young lad who had to leave school early despite his thirst for knowledge and the better life an education could bring him. His father’s early death means Ali must work menial jobs to support his mother and siblings. Ali is loyal to his father’s honour as a Cossack soldier and to Islam. He avoids being manipulated into protests but is accused anyway and locked away. The Embassy nurse takes on ambassadors and military generals, imploring them to fight to save Ali. But their careers, money and oil are more important to them.

This was a multi-layered story with many threads. I enjoyed its complexity and sense of reality.