CRIME FICTION
The Sulphur Springs Cure
Jeffrey Round Cormorant Books 256 pages $24.95
Eighty-four-year old Violet McAdams startles her niece Claire one day while reminiscing about a spa she attended with her parents when she was just a teenager. “I think I killed somebody there,” she says bluntly, setting off a trip into the past that will find Violet and Claire returning to the Dundas, Ont., site of the Sulphur Springs. As a 14-year-old, Violet accompanied her father and ailing mother to the springs to treat what was supposedly her tennis-player mother’s sprained ankle — only the first of many secrets and lies to be revealed in this elegantly written narrative that alternates as a coming-of-age story and a tale of an older woman looking back on her life’s formative stage.
A Man Downstairs
Nicole Lundrigan Viking 432 pages $24.95
As a young girl in the small town of Aymes, Molly Wynters was largely responsible for sending Terry Kage to prison for the murder of Molly’s mother. Her testimony, including the declaration that there was “a man downstairs,” helped a jury convict the young man in only one hour of deliberation. Now in her 40s and back in Aymes to care for her ailing father, who has suffered a catastrophic stroke, Molly takes a volunteer gig as a crisis-line operator; she is soon subject to increasingly creepy and aggressive anonymous calls dredging up the past. Lundrigan has a strong command of character and pace, and she is adept at keeping the screws of her tale tightening as she moves her story inexorably toward its climax.
Listen for the Lie
Amy Tintera Celadon Books 352 pages $25.99
Los Angeles writer Amy Tintera mines the current fascination with true-crime podcasts in her first novel for adults, about a woman suspected of the murder of her best friend. Lucy Chase was found wandering the streets covered in her dead friend Savannah “Savvy” Harper’s blood and with no memory of what happened; Ben Owens, the man behind the popular podcast “Listen for the Lie” has helped solidify public belief in Lucy’s guilt. Lucy, about to be estranged from her boyfriend Nathan in L.A., returns to her Texas hometown; she finds that her podcast nemesis is also in town preparing a followup season about Savvy’s killing. He and Lucy launch into a fling as they track down clues about what actually happened the night Savvy died. Tintera’s background as an author for young adults serves her well in lending the book a strong narrative spine that keeps things moving.
Death Comes Too Late
Charles Ardai Hard Case Crime 400 pages $24.99
Bringing out originals and classic, out-of-print works by writers such as Rex Stout, Erle Stanley Gardner and Oakland Ross, Hard Case Crime has become a fixture for readers who admire the hardboiled side of crime fiction. (The books are even packaged in faux-1940s style cover art.) To mark its 20th anniversary, Ardai has compiled a collection of his own fiction, which might seem like little more than a vanity project but for how good the stories actually are. These 20 stories remind readers of the pleasures the classics provided.