I’ve recently picked up a couple mysteries by authors I haven’t read before, and this is one of them. Before I Go To Sleep received good reviews from a couple sources, and it wasn’t a let down. It’s a slow burner, for sure, but the wait is worth it.

Our main character, Christine, wakes in an unfamiliar bed. Unfamiliar room. Next to a man she doesn’t remember. Rough night out, maybe, but no. She goes to the bathroom, looks in the mirror, and realizes that she is unfamiliar as well. The face is hers, but it’s twenty-some years older than what she expected, and she has no memory at all of getting to that age. Panic, disbelief, nightmare all set in, until the man from the room comes to explain to her what he’s been explaining to her for countless days, every day: she is his wife, this is their house, they’ve been married for years, she had a very bad accident years ago, and has made no new memories since then. Well, not exactly; she can remember things throughout the day, but every night when she sleeps, they are erased. Every morning brings the same shock and unknowing, the same re-learning of her life.

It’s an interesting concept, and it plays out really well in that we, the reader, learn about Christine’s life at the same time she does–she doesn’t know anything that we don’t know. She begins to write things down in a journal each day and has reminders to read it the next day, and in doing so creates a sort of paper memory for herself. She also begins to see a doctor who sets out to help her regain her lost memories, as well as begin to make new ones. Her husband is unaware of these things, though, and she begins to notice that what he tells her can change from day to day, and that what her doctor can tell her about her past is sometimes very different than what her husband tells her. Who’s lying? Why? Christine doggedly pursues her own past, and as every little bit she learns takes her somewhere darker and more dangerous, her inability to remember what really happened greatly increases the suspense. What begins as a rather slow, monotonous and plodding (necessarily so, though) story builds into a blind rush towards the awful truth, one that Christine can’t know (again) until it’s too late.

A nice bedtime read, I think, if there ever was one!

How cool would it be to not only write about a beyond-smart, witty, attractive woman with two jobs that are both unusually interesting, but to actually be that person as well? Meet Kathy Reichs, the real-life medical examiner (formerly in North Carolina, now in Quebec) who is also the author of the Dr. Temperance Brennan series. Reichs is clearly super-doopah intelligent (she’s a doctor, she’s been on several high-profile boards, she’s bi-lingual!), her author photo shows her to be pretty easy on the eyes, and she’s penned a handful of mysteries that are original, clever and involved, not to mention humorous in just the right way (that is, the way I like).

Now meet her main character, Dr. Temperance Brennan, a medical examiner who splits her time between North Carolina and Quebec. Her job is interesting enough–identifying bodies, determining cause of death, investigating crime scenes–but she somehow always seems to get involved with cases that go beyond the norm and require a little more effort. In the past, her cases have put her up against a motorcycle gang, sent her to Jerusalem, exposed her to Satanism and Voodoo…you get the picture. The case in Spider Bones is no less unusual; Brennan is called to identify a male body found floating in the water, and wearing bra, panties, a motorcycle boot and breathing apparatus. The unusual bit is that he’s identified as someone who has already died–in Vietnam, in 1968–and been buried in North Carolina. So, who’s actually been buried in North Carolina for over 40 years? Why the mix-up? Brennan is sent to find out, and as luck would have it, that means going to the POW/MIA laboratories in Hawaii. That’s where the real fun starts, if your idea of fun is mucking about with bones and bodies, receiving threats from scary people who don’t want the past dug up, and being called in to look at the remains of a shark-bite victim or two.

Of course, if you already like the Brennan series (or the television show Bones, which is based on these books), or you like modern, clever mysteries with a slight bit of eww-factor, then this book is your idea of fun, and you won’t be disappointed!

Aimée Leduc is at it again! By ‘it’ I mean doing everything she can to solve one murder while saving another person’s life, charming the police to get information without letting them on to what she is doing, getting her business partner and friend René to help her while still keeping their clients happy, and holding her would-be suitors at bay (at least temporarily). All while drinking lots of espresso, wearing haute couture flea market finds, and in high heels. Sometimes on a Vespa.

So goes the life of this Parisian computer security expert who seems to do way more private detecting and crime solving than computer securing.  The series of books by Cara Black all follow a similar pattern, and this is no exception. What they lack in design they make up for in cultural commentary and setting. Paris plays a large role in the books: the history of the different areas, the politics that govern, the layout and architecture of the environment, the cultural background of the inhabitants. I always learn something about the city when I read one of her books, usually a combination of a specific historical event and its reverberations, along with how a particular part of the city has changed over time in relation to the types of people living there. This time around that area is Passy, in the 16th arrondissement, an area that was once a small village with thermal baths, then a commune, and now houses fancy embassies and many of the city’s wealthiest citizens. The historical events that surround the murder and intrigue are related to the Basque nationalist group ETA, widely considered a terrorist organization and responsible for many killings in the name of Basque independence.

Will Aimée find out who done it in time to save everyone? Will she escape from a dangerous encounter just in the nick-of-time? Will she save the day and get the guy, with perfectly tousled hair at the end of it all?? We all know how it’s gonna turn out…it’s the getting there that is the nice part. A good summer read, if there ever was one!

Louis Bayard‘s new novel, The School of Night, combines many elements and plot themes that readers of historical mystery are fond of. To name just a few, there are rare books that have gone missing, a mysterious letter about Kit Marlowe, references to the dark science of alchemy, and a group of characters that all seem to have different motives and aren’t entirely trustworthy. Throw in a little bit of the plague, some time-jumping back and forth between current day New York and post-Elizabethan England, and a love story that centers on a real person that many probably haven’t heard of before, and–hello!–no wonder this book had several holds on it and made me feel guilty for keeping it past the due date (sorry about that)!

It was worth the overdue fine, though. This is a pretty quick-paced book, and it begins in a fairly straight-forward fashion: Henry Cavendish is at the funeral of his friend Alonzo Wax, a rare books collector. Henry is approached by the menacing but dryly humorous Bernard Styles to find a letter that Alonzo stole from Styles. Simple enough, except that it’s no ordinary letter, Alonzo’s suicide is no normal death, and the young woman who signs on to help Henry is very much not the normal sidekick. Of course. Thus begins the chase to suss out the real meaning behind the letter, and why people are willing to kill for it.

A large portion of the book focuses on various Elizabethan-era men who pushed the boundaries of learning and knowledge acquisition (often with disastrous personal results), namely Thomas Harriot. Harriot is a somewhat overlooked man of study who made many significant discoveries throughout his lifetime, but didn’t receive credit (let alone acknowledgment or fame) until long after he was dead. His story here provides the most human and touching parts of the novel, and forgiving a little suspension of disbelief at points, he ends up being the protagonist that the reader roots for.

All in all, a well-rounded, intellectual mystery. I haven’t read Bayard’s other books, but after this one I imagine I will.

Oh, Inspector Rutledge, I’ve missed you so! While Bess Crawford, the other story line by mother-son author team Charles Todd, makes for an enjoyable read, Rutledge is really where my heart is. At least, my post-World War I heart (my Roman heart is with Nic Costa, my Florentine with Guido Brunetti, my stateside heart with…Alex Delaware? I digress). Now he’s back, and finds himself dealing with a case that brings up some very painful memories.

Rutledge is sent to Hastings to find the link between three murders, all young men who served in the war, all found garroted and with the identity tags of different soldiers stuffed in their mouths. Rutledge has to find what happened in the past in order to catch the murderer, but the shared incident is very elusive, and others are still in danger in the meantime. At the same time, he’s following a very unusual, decades-old unsolved killing that his Chief Inspector told him about, a crime with a bizarre murder scene and no suspects.

Many of the same themes from previous titles in the series are here: the unfriendly rivalries at Scotland Yard, the intriguing but unattainable Meredith Channing, the constant, unquiet voice of Hamish MacLeod in Rutledge’s mind, and the small town mindset that hampers the inspector at every turn. These story lines are a constant in the series, but they evolve nicely so as not to seem repetitive. In fact, there are some events in this title that take the series a bit further and in some new direction, which is nice. All in all, it’s pretty much the same ol’ Rutledge, and that is what I like!