Wild prey: an Inspector Lu Fei mystery

The killing of exotic and endangered animals, sold for their supposed healing properties to restaurants and pharmacies throughout China, is the focus of this high-octane thriller, the second in the Inspector Lu Fei series. Lu Fei has been stationed in a rural outpost in northern China as punishment for running afoul of a corrupt homicide detective in the city of Hardin. Thwarted by his superiors at every turn, the lowly inspector uncovers a thriving black-market business that specializes in animal and even human body parts. When a waitress at a high-end restaurant goes missing and her sister keeps pestering Lu Fei to investigate (his superiors want him to ignore such a common occurrence), Lu Fei visits the restaurant undercover. Even one visit, with the "secret menu" and clientele of older men groping waitresses, is enough to raise suspicions. The mystery quickly deepens, as Lu Fei is attacked, two murders are committed at the restaurant, and the sketchy owner disappears. This thriller delivers on heart-stopping action, an in-depth characterization of a very persistent man, and wonderfully realized settings. Lu Fei's move from operating as a cop to working undercover as a buyer of exotic meats (with no official backup) is especially fascinating. A stunner.

Klingborg's tense sequel to 2021's Thief of Souls finds Insp. Lu Fei, home in Raven Valley, a township near Harbin, where he's trying to advance his relationship with widow Yanyan. But Tan Meirong, a girl of 12 or 13, refuses to leave him alone until he agrees to look for her missing 15-year-old sister, Meixiang, who works at Wilson Fang's virility-enhancing game restaurant in Harbin. Lu goes to Harbin, where he immediately senses something off at the restaurant. His superiors brush aside his concerns and then suspend him when he disobeys and returns to Fang's business the evening before a shoot-out sends Fang into hiding. A government official later approaches Lu and offers him a deal: travel to Myanmar to locate Fang at an illegal animal breeding operation and the official will get answers about Meixiang's whereabouts. Filled with plenty of close calls, the well-paced plot takes some unpredictable turns, though Lu's behavior can be off-putting, as when he dismisses Yanyan's grief for her dead husband and is rude to Meirong. This exciting outing shows a writer at ease with thriller conventions. Agent: Bob Diforio, D4EO Literary. (May)

*Starred Review* The killing of exotic and endangered animals, sold for their supposed healing properties to restaurants and pharmacies throughout China, is the focus of this high-octane thriller, the second in the Inspector Lu Fei series. Lu Fei has been stationed in a rural outpost in northern China as punishment for running afoul of a corrupt homicide detective in the city of Hardin. Thwarted by his superiors at every turn, the lowly inspector uncovers a thriving black-market business that specializes in animal and even human body parts. When a waitress at a high-end restaurant goes missing and her sister keeps pestering Lu Fei to investigate (his superiors want him to ignore such a common occurrence), Lu Fei visits the restaurant undercover. Even one visit, with the "secret menu" and clientele of older men groping waitresses, is enough to raise suspicions. The mystery quickly deepens, as Lu Fei is attacked, two murders are committed at the restaurant, and the sketchy owner disappears. This thriller delivers on heart-stopping action, an in-depth characterization of a very persistent man, and wonderfully realized settings. Lu Fei's move from operating as a cop to working undercover as a buyer of exotic meats (with no official backup) is especially fascinating. A stunner. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

In a series starter from the ever-popular Armstrong, homicide detective Mallory is in 2019 Edinburgh when she experiences A Rip Through Time and winds up in one of the city's alleyways in 1869, inhabiting the body of strangled-if-not-quite-dead housemaid Catriona Thomson and soon hunting for a killer (50,000-copy first printing). In Atherton's Aunt Dimity and the Enchanted Cottage, the redoubtable sleuth and her English-village neighbors fail in their attempt to befriend standoffish newcomer Crispin Windle until they discover the ruins of a Victorian woolen mill—and the graves of children who worked there, whom they seek to identify (30,000-copy first printing; originally scheduled for July 2021). In Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride, crusty but beloved widow Nonna Maria—who lives on the isle of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples and was inspired by the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Carcaterra's grandmother—intervenes when a young bride-to-be declares that she's afraid of her fiancé. In Haines's Lady of Bones, Mississippi-based Sarah Booth Delaney of the Delaney Detective Agency is attending a party alit with jack-o-lanterns when she's approached by a woman seeking her vanished daughter, who has been investigating the disappearance of young women in New Orleans every Halloween for the last five years (40,000-copy first printing). The internationally best-selling author of the "Dark Iceland" and "Hulda" series, Jónasson sets his new standalone during an Icelandic blizzard, with four frantic friends sheltering in an abandoned hunting lodge and facing a reignited tragedy that likely makes them wish they were all Outside (50,000-copy first printing). In Klingborg's Wild Prey, Inspector Lu Fei of the Chinese Police travels to a remote region of Myanmar to find a missing 15-year-old girl in a case involving the illegal trafficking of exotic animals (50,000-copy first printing). In Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour, Lupica assigns PI Sunny Randall the thankless task of investigating actress friend Melanie Joan Hall when Melanie's manager turns up dead, her bank account looks to be wiped out, and details of her past suddenly seem more imagined than real. In Paretsky's Overboard, a seriously injured teenage girl discovered by V.I. Warshawski on Lake Michigan's rocky shore subsequently vanishes from the hospital, and the iconic detective must chase down a monstrous conspiracy with pandemic-ridden Chicago as backdrop (100,000-copy first printing). Pursuing a massive drugs-and-weapons shipment being shepherded across the U.S.-Mexican border by former cops with the warning "You talk, you die" written on their bodies, Patterson/Paetro stalwart Sgt. Lindsay Boxer suddenly has 22 Seconds to decide what her fate will be. Second in the new series from librarian Weaver, who launched her writing career with the delightful Amory Ames mysteries, The Key to Deceit has breaker-and-enterer Ellie McDonnell again approached by stuffed-shirt good-guy Major Ramsey in World War II London: he wants her to discover which side the female spy found bobbing in the Thames was on (40,000-copy first printing).

Klingborg's tense sequel to 2021's Thief of Souls finds Insp. Lu Fei, home in Raven Valley, a township near Harbin, where he's trying to advance his relationship with widow Yanyan. But Tan Meirong, a girl of 12 or 13, refuses to leave him alone until he agrees to look for her missing 15-year-old sister, Meixiang, who works at Wilson Fang's virility-enhancing game restaurant in Harbin. Lu goes to Harbin, where he immediately senses something off at the restaurant. His superiors brush aside his concerns and then suspend him when he disobeys and returns to Fang's business the evening before a shoot-out sends Fang into hiding. A government official later approaches Lu and offers him a deal: travel to Myanmar to locate Fang at an illegal animal breeding operation and the official will get answers about Meixiang's whereabouts. Filled with plenty of close calls, the well-paced plot takes some unpredictable turns, though Lu's behavior can be off-putting, as when he dismisses Yanyan's grief for her dead husband and is rude to Meirong. This exciting outing shows a writer at ease with thriller conventions. Agent: Bob Diforio, D4EO Literary. (May)