Lethal

"The Mapping of Love and Death" by Jacqueline Winspear

If you are a Maisie Dobbs fan, this mystery, the 6th in the series, is simply splendid.  I'm not going to give you any more information about the story and ruin it for you.  Just enjoy, take your time and savor the story.

If you've never read the "Maisie Dobbs" series, start with the first book. It's a gentle, well written mystery that begins before World War I in England.  Each book is so satisfying that you'll crave a cup of tea and more of Maisie's story.

Put this book on your holiday shopping list for those mystery readers--and good readers as well.  Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin is a terrific story of 2 rich characters in rural Mississippi.  Silas and Larry were boyhood friends who have been "torn apart by circumstance and brought together by tragedy."  The story --rich in the prejudices of color and hatred seen in Grisham's A Time to Kill or even the currently popular Mudbound--takes you from the 1970s to the present day. It involves the disappearance of a girl not unlike the unsolved disappearance of another girl more than 20 years before. Now the 2 men who once called themselves friends are forced to confront each other and a past they have buried.  Don't miss it.