Tag Archives: Detective Novels

Exiles by Jane Harper

I scored a free, no cost, no obligation, Advance Readers Copy of Exiles by Jane Harper. Ms. Harper is an Australian and the book is set in Australia and it is quite a read. I won’t go through the plot for you but it is about two murders that has everybody in a small town baffled about what happened especially about a missing mother who abandoned her baby during a festival.

That happened a year ago and a big city policeman comes, not to investigate the crime, but to reconnect with his family. He gets home and his curiosity just gets the better of him so he starts asking here and there trying to figure it out.

This is a who dunnit but it is also a relationship book. Lots of conversations and talking and thinking going on. When we get to the reveal about who did it, it is kind of wow, I should have seen that coming but didn’t. This is a totally satisfying book and I give it five stars out of five.

It’s going to be released in the USA in 2023.

Anne Hillerman’s “Stargazer”

Anne Hillerman's Stargazer - Book Cover

Stargazer is another detective novel by Anne Hillerman set on the Navajo Reservation. This one stars Bernadette Manuelito, a tribal policewoman, who gets involved in a murder case involving her old college roommate Maya and scientists doing research at the Very Large Array radio telescope (“That’s where Stargazer came from, get it.”) As in all the Hillerman books, Navajo tradition and the desert southwest are prominent in the story. Since Anne took over the series after her father Tony Hillerman died, she put more emphasis on the characters and the relationships between the characters. I kind of like that. Anne Hillerman has made the series her own.

I strongly recommend this book.