Meissner (
The Last Year of the War) spins an exceptional story about an Irish immigrant who lands in San Francisco shortly before the 1906 earthquake. After spending two years in New York City, Sophie Whalen, 20, answers a newspaper ad from widower Martin Hocking of San Francisco, who is seeking a wife for him and a mother for his daughter. Sophie falls head over heels for Martin’s five-year-old daughter, Kat, having given up having a child of her own, and looks forward to developing a bond with her new husband. But Sophie learns that all is not as it seems when a pregnant woman named Belinda Bigelow shows up on her doorstep hours before the earthquake, looking for her husband, James, who told Belinda he had business with Martin. Upon seeing a picture of Martin, Belinda recognizes him as James. This leads the two women to go through Martin’s papers, and they deduce he’d married both of them under different names. Unexpected and masterfully crafted twists and turns abound afte
Akashic: 256 pages, $26
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In a landfill in La Puente, fighters engage in bloody battle by piloting scrap metal machines called chompers while spectators eat tacos and drink boba; on a quiet residential street in the San Fernando Valley, an abused girl calls on a mysterious tree spirit for help. One of the sculptures of ancient mammoths in the La Brea Tar Pits up and disappears, and in El Sereno, a child is reunited with his mother after being detained by ICE … but is the child who returns the same as the one they took?
Going Places With Jeff Abbott, Lisa Unger, and Brian Panowich
The importance of location in mysteries can never be stressed enough.
Mysteries that give us a sense of place make that area be it a city, region or country a true character that effects the plot and the people who inhabit the story.
And that place can vary from author to author. Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles is different from Robert Crais and a different city than that of Denise Hamilton or Rachel Howzell Hall or Steph Cha. And these different visions make for more involving novels.
But sometimes it’s the location that is the constant as different characters inhabit the landscape.