Pierce’s Picks and Sad News

If you’re looking for Pierce’s Picks, from now on, you’ll find it on the nearby Rap Sheet, edited by Pierce himself.

While you’re at The Rap Sheet, you’ll see some very sad news: Reginald Hill, creator of the Yorkshire-based detective team of Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe, died last Thursday at age 75.

In a lovely tribute, Karen Anderson writes:

The last three books in the Dalziel/Pascoe series were all about death, illness, and the consequences of aging. Hill, who died this last Thursday at age 75 of cancer, was clearly playing with the ideas of lessening powers, and how society treats the ill and elderly. And how people remember the dead. Midnight Fugue sees the feisty Dalziel returning to work after near-death in a terrorist bombing and panicking when he realizes he’s headed off to the Monday-morning staff meeting ... on a Sunday.

You can see Anderson’s piece here.

Pierce’s Pick: Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith:

Former Moscow secret policeman Leo Demidov’s wife and two daughters travel to New York City in 1950 as part of a “peace tour,” only to be implicated in the killing of an African-American singer. Afterwards, Demidov -- denied the chance to investigate officially -- launches a years-long, international quest for truth ... and revenge.

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here. And though the Pierce’s Pick archive will remain on January Magazine, going forward, you’ll find the weekly Pierce’s Pick on January’s sister publication, the crime fiction-focused Rap Sheet.

Pierce’s Pick: The Silver Stain by Paul Johnson

Speaking of crime, this week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses The Silver Stain by Paul Johnson:

Half-Greek, half-Scots gumshoe Alex Mavros (The Golden Silence, 2004) gets involved with a film being made about the 1941 German invasion of Crete. When one of the movie’s consultants is found hanged, Mavros must determine whether the tragedy has to do with old animosities or a conspiracy involving drugs and antiquities theft.

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here.

Pierce’s Pick: Dark Men by Derek Haas

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Dark Men by Derek Haas:

Contract killer Columbus (The Silver Bear) has retired with his lover to an Italian village. But he keeps up his tracking skills, just in case -- which is how he discovers that someone’s following him. To free himself once and for all, Columbus must return to Chicago and face whoever has kidnapped his former fence.

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here.

Pierce’s Pick: The Boy Who Shoots Crows by Randall Silvis

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses The Boy Who Shoots Crows by Randall Silvis. Pierce writes:

Silvis (Disquiet Heart, 2002) introduces us into the search for a Pennsylvania boy who went missing while hunting crows. Charlotte Dunleavy, a recent escapee from Manhattan, may have heard something useful to the investigation -- but her memory isn’t working properly. Could she be hiding her complicity in this case, even from herself?

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here.

Pierce’s Pick: Utu by Caryl Férey

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Utu by Caryl Férey.

Set in New Zealand, Utu follows Paul Osborne, who’s called back to the Auckland police force from a bender in Sydney to take over an investigation by Jack Fitzgerald, an ex-colleague who committed suicide. But probing Fitzgerald’s death will introduce Osborne into a mystery involving Maori discontents, revenge and political corruption.

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here.

Pierce’s Pick: The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis.

“After helping an estranged friend retrieve luggage from the Copenhagen train station, only to discover a naked child in the suitcase, Nina Borg is drawn into a dangerous world as she tries to identify the boy and keep him safe from the people who trapped him, and who will now kill to get him back.”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here.

Pierce’s Pick: Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr.

No sooner has German homicide cop Bernie Gunther returned to a beleaguered Berlin in 1941, than he’s called away again -- this time to Prague, where a gathering of Nazi officials is taking place. Following a locked-room murder, it falls to Bernie to solve it, or maybe lose more than simply his good reputation in failing.

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here.

Pierce’s Pick: Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson.

“Disgraced knight-turned-sleuth Crispin Guest takes on a job for the Archbishop of Canterbury: figure out who’s behind threats to the displayed bones of martyr Thomas à Becket. But he’s distracted from that task by the arrival of an old acquaintance, poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who’s been accused of murdering a visiting pilgrim.”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here.

Pierce’s Pick: The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin.

“Detective Inspector Malcolm Fox and his Internal Affairs investigators are back (after The Complaints, 2009), this time looking into misconduct charges against a fellow policeman. But that simple case soon adds dimensions and dangers, connecting to a vicious murder and to terrorist attacks by Scottish separatists in the mid-1980s.”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? Twelve months of them are here.

Pierce’s Pick: Motor City Shakedown by D.E. Johnson

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Motor City Shakedown by D.E. Johnson.

“While pursuing revenge in 1911 against the killers of a friend -- and also struggling to kick a morphine habit -- Detroit auto company heir Will Anderson and his former fiancée, Elizabeth Hume, blunder into murder and the fiery midst of their city’s first mob war. A sequel to 2010’s The Detroit Electric Scheme..”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here.

Pierce’s Pick: Temporary Perfections by Gianrico Carofiglio

This week, J. Kingston Pierce’s pick is Temporary Perfections by Gianrico Carofiglio.

“Italian attorney Guido Guerrieri must exercise his detective talents in order to reinvigorate the months-old case of Manuela Ferraro, who went missing from a beach resort. As he digs into this woman’s secrets-filled life, Guerrieri discovers a drug ring, revisits his own uneasy past and questions the inevitability of justice.”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here.

Pierce’s Pick: Damage Control by Denise Hamilton

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Damage Control by Denise Hamilton.

“Public relations exec Maggie Silver tries to protect U.S. Senator Henry Paxton of California from a crippling scandal,” Pierce explains, “following the death of a female aide. At the same time, she must cope with re-entering the Paxtons’ sphere of celebrity and recollections of a long-ago tragedy that drove her and the senator’s daughter apart.”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here.

Pierce’s Pick: The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Laura Lippman’s latest, The Most Dangerous Thing.

Says Pierce, “Skipping back and forth through time, this tale relates the experiences of a once-inseparable group of childhood friends who, after years of separation, are thrust back together by the car-crash death of their most wild-haired member. That’s when a secret they share threatens to be exposed and bring trouble all around.”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here.

Pierce’s Pick: Bye Bye, Baby by Max Allan Collins

This week, J. Kingston Pierce chooses Bye Bye, Baby by Road to Perdition author Max Allan Collins.

Says Pierce, “Back for the first time since Chicago Confidential (2002), P.I. Nate Heller is in Hollywood in 1962, helping Marilyn Monroe with a contract dispute. When the sex symbol suddenly dies, he’s sure it had as much to do with the politicians and mobsters she’d been cozying up to as with the drugs in her system.”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here. Want to hear more from Pierce? He’s most often found at The Rap Sheet, and that’s here. Feeling nostalgic? January Magazine’s 1999 interview with Collins is here.

Pierce’s Pick: Murder in the Minster by Susanna Gregory

This week, our man Pierce chooses Cambridge academic Susanna Gregory’s latest novel to feature 14th century teach-investigator Matthew Bartholomew.

In Murder in the Minster, Pierce writes, Bartholomew “travels from the college of Michaelhouse, in Cambridge, to help claim a much-needed legacy from the Archbishop of York. But trouble brews: York is threatened by greed and the French, several of the Archbishop’s executors have died and proof of Michaelhouse’s bequest has vanished.”

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here. Want to hear more from Pierce? He’s most often found at The Rap Sheet, and that’s here.

Pierce’s Pick: The Hand That Trembles by Kjell Eriksson

This week J. Kingston Pierce chooses a new work by Swedish veteran crime fictionist, Kjell Eriksson. Says Pierce:

Police detective Ann Lindell is already tackling the mystery of a severed female foot found in an area of Uppsala, Sweden, that’s dominated by single men. But then a second, related case comes her way: the sighting, in India, of someone closely resembling a county commissioner who went missing from Uppsala years ago.

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here.

Pierce’s Pick: Thick as Thieves by Peter Spiegelman

J. Kingston Pierce gives this week’s nod to Shamus Award-winning author Peter Spiegelman. Says Pierce:

Intrigue and paranoia marble this thriller about an ex-CIA agent, Carr, who’s planning to rob a former hedge fund manager now working as a money man for the worst -- and richest -- sorts of criminals. As the plot shifts from Texas to the Caribbean, Carr realizes he cannot trust anyone, least of all his fellow crooks.

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here.

Pierce’s Pick: The Day Is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

This week Yrsa Sigurdardottir, noted Icelandic author of crime and children’s fiction, catches J. Kingston Pierce’s eye. The Rap Sheet editor says:

Small-time Icelandic attorney Thóra Gudmundsdóttir (last seen in 2009’s My Soul to Take) is hired to investigate the vanishing of two of her fellow countrymen, who had been working on the northeast coast of Greenland. Do the locals’ hostility toward Thóra’s questions derive from this case as well as a previous disappearance?

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here.

Pierce’s Pick: Misterioso by Arne Dahl

This week, crime fiction and Rap Sheet editor J. Kingston Pierce smiles at Misterioso by Swedish crime fictionist Arne Dahl. Says Pierce:

Allocated to a special national task force, Stockholm police detective Paul Hjelm hunts for a murderer who’s targeting prestigious businesspeople, shooting them in the head while listening to Thelonious Monk’s music. The case will pit Hjelm against the Russian mafia and expose the xenophobia that’s become all too prevalent in Sweden.

Looking for previous Pierce’s Picks? They’re here.