June brings hot mystery thrillers

Bad Things

By Michael Marshall

William Morrow, $24.99

Bad things can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere, but in Black Ridge, Wash., they seem to happen much more often. Take the case of lawyer John Henderson, who watched as his 4-year-old son fell from the jetty outside their home. When the child’s body was retrieved, he was dead, not by drowning or by any cause known to man.

Three years later, John, devastated and divorced, was working as a waiter and living in a beach house in Oregon. His life was simple and uncomplicated by relationships. Then one night he receives an e-mail: “I know what happened.”

This disturbing message from a stranger sends him back to Black Ridge where he finds bad things are still happening – and not just to him.

This is a psychological thriller guaranteed to keep you up nights.

The Associate

By John Grisham

Doubleday, $27.95

In Grisham’s first big blockbuster, “The Firm,” a young Harvard law graduate joins a Memphis law firm when he’s made “an offer he can’t refuse.” Turns out it’s a Mafia outfit and the FBI wants him to steal incriminating documents. If he refuses he goes to jail. If he’s discovered stealing, he’s dead.

Now, in “The Associate,” it’s a Yale law school grad with a dark secret in his past who’s blackmailed into joining the “largest law firm in the world” to steal secret files for a mysterious corporate raider. If he’s discovered, he risks losing his job and maybe going to prison. If he refuses, a video of his dark secret will expose his past, cost him his job and his girl and, maybe, send him to prison.

Tension rides on every page till near the end. Happy déjà vu.

Spade and Archer

By Joe Gores

Knopf, $24

Can there be any reader/moviegoer who’s not a fan of Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” which introduced us to his sharp-tongued sleuth, Sam Spade? At the request and blessing of Hammett’s daughter, Jo, Gores turns back the clock to 1921 when Samuel Spade sets up his own detective agency. It’s composed of two rooms and a young, 17-year-old secretary, Effie Perrine, who gets more space here than in “Falcon.”

Sam’s first case is to stop the son of a banker from stowing away on a South Seas steamer. While on the ship Sam learns of the theft of thousands of gold coins and although he recovers some he is haunted for years in his attempts to find the mastermind behind the caper, which you can bet, he does.

A really good yarn with echoes of Humphrey Bogart on every page. Classic noir that can’t be beat.

Road Dogs

By Elmore Leonard

William Morrow, $26.99

Elmore Leonard’s stories are all fast-start, non-stop reads, powered by crisp dialogue that moves the plot along at a furious pace. And this is no exception.

Leonard unites three of his characters from previous books; Jack Foley, the most successful bank robber of all time; Cundo Rey, who needs Jack out of the pen; and his wife, Dawn Navarro, a self-styled psychic who can’t wait to relieve him of his millions.

Cundo pays a sharp female attorney to get Foley’s 30-year sentence reduced to 30 months (less time served) and he’s out two weeks before his benefactor. When Cundo sets Foley up in one of his two mansions in Venice Beach, Calif., and Dawn in the other, it’s all but inevitable the two will find each other irresistible.

This one’s so good you may want to read it twice.

The Widow Clicquot

By Tilar J. Mazzeo

Collins, $25.95

Whether you only pop the cork on a bottle of champagne on New Year’s Eve or are an aficionado of the bubbly all during the year, you’re certain to enjoy this fascinating story of the woman who made it popular with the masses when before it was enjoyed only by royalty and the very rich.

When her husband, Francois Clicquot, died mysteriously (from what we now know as Typhoid fever), 27-year-old Barbe-Nicole took the reins of their vineyards and created innovative ways to bottle and promote the premier Veuve Clicquot brand of champagne, which is still sold in its iconic yellow-labeled bottles.

She became, in her late 30s, one of the richest women in France, making champagne synonymous with style and celebrations. She died in July 1866 at age 89, still the “Grand Lady of Champagne.”