Clara Maynard's blog

Clara Morrow has finally achieved her dream of becoming a successful artist. To celebrate her solo show at the famous Musee d’Art Contemporain, she and her husband, Peter, throw a party at their house in the village of Three Pines. However, in the morning there’s a dead women in her garden! Enter her old friend Chief Inspector Gamache to find out who the woman is and more importantly, who murdered her. Along the way, Clara has to deal with changes in her marriage, and Chief Inspector deals with challenges in his life as well.

From time to time, I read about new mysteries and I get interested in them. One author that sounds interesting is Brad Parks. His books have been described as “hilariously funny and deadly serious.” His detective series features Carter Ross, a journalist in New Jersey. Parks is a former journalist himself and his first book, Faces of the Gone, won both the Nero and the Shamus awards.

The Agatha Awards honor traditional mysteries like those written by the great Agatha Christie.  So these mysteries contain no explicit sex and no excessive gore or gratuitous violence. Some of you are saying, "That doesn't sound exciting!" but some of us like a quieter mystery. The 2012 awards were announced on May 4th and the winners are below.

From time to time I like to let you know about new titles that you might find interesting. These are ones that Library Journal featured in their mystery section. See what you think!

A Norwegian train derails during a monster blizzard, 1222 meters above sea level. Luckily, there’s a wonderful hotel nearby that takes in the stranded passengers. But then with 200 people snowed in, isolated from the outside world, a murder happens. A disabled, middle aged female police inspector, Hanne Wilhelmsen, is asked to investigate. A true misanthrope, she resists, until she has to take action.