Mailbox Monday – 1/13

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

Tell us about your new arrivals by adding your Mailbox Monday post to the linky at mailboxmonday.wordpress.com.

I made the mistake of stopping by NetGalley. Here’s what I picked up.

Trace Elements by Donna Leon
Series: Commissario Brunetti #29
Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on March 3, 2020
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Mystery
Pages: 320
Format: eARC
Purchase at Bookshop.org or Purchase at Amazon
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When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding.

“They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no,” Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently-deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice’s water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta’s obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once more by the remarkable research skills of Patta’s secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman’s accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seeking solace, he reads Aeschylus’s classic play The Eumenides.

As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engages our sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.

Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg
Series: Eve Ronin #1
Published by Thomas Mercer on January 1, 2020
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Mystery
Pages: 240
Format: eARC
Purchase at Bookshop.org or Purchase at Amazon
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A detective’s brutal first case could make or break her career in an exhilarating thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Goldberg.

A video of Deputy Eve Ronin’s off-duty arrest of an abusive movie star goes viral, turning her into a popular hero at a time when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is plagued by scandal. The sheriff, desperate for more positive press, makes Eve the youngest female homicide detective in the department’s history.

Now Eve, with a lot to learn and resented by her colleagues, has to justify her new badge. Her chance comes when she and her burned-out, soon-to-retire partner are called to the blood-splattered home of a missing single mother and her two kids. The horrific carnage screams multiple murder—but there are no corpses.

Eve has to rely on her instincts and tenacity to find the bodies and capture the vicious killer, all while battling her own insecurities and mounting pressure from the media, her bosses, and the bereaved family. It’s a deadly ordeal that will either prove her skills…or totally destroy her.

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: A Collection of Victorian-Era Detective Stories by G. K. Chesterton, Jacques Futrelle
Published by Dover Publications on December 18, 2019
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Mystery, Short Stories
Pages: 352
Format: eBook
Purchase at Bookshop.org
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Enthralled by the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Victorian readers around the world developed a fascination with eccentric detectives and bizarre crimes. Featuring an international array of authors and characters, this compilation of 16 short stories showcases the best of the mysteries inspired by the Baker Street sleuth. Their heroes range from famous figures like G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown and Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin to lesser-known but equally captivating characters. "The Problem of the Stolen Rubens," by Jacques Futrelle, centers on Professor Van Dusen, also known as The Thinking Machine, whose superior mental powers and dispassionate approach resemble Holmes'. Robert Barr's "The Absent Minded Coterie" presents French detective Eugène Valmont, a cultured and elegant gentleman . . . but a rather poor investigator. "The Murder at Troyte's Hill," by Catherine L. Pirkis, "The Ninescore Mystery," by The Scarlet Pimpernel author Baroness Orczy, and "Cinderella's Slipper," by Hugh C. Weir, feature a Victorian novelty—a detective heroine. Holmesians and other lovers of old-time mysteries will thrill to these tales of dark deeds and their discovery.