Crime in the School is a read for this month over a the Kindle English Mystery Club on Goodreads.  This is actually number 2 in the Detective Markham series.  I really enjoyed this, the tagline said “fiercely addictive crime thriller” and it wasn’t lying.  I didn’t want to put it down.  Detective Markham and his team of Noakes and young Burton develop a nice sense of loyalty and there is a chemistry among the members of the team.  The relationship between Markham and Olivia while rocky seems to be developing as best as it can amidst the chaos of multiple murders.

In this installment, Olivia is working at  school and one night when leaving after working late she almost falls over the corpse of a brutally murdered colleague.  Markham and his team are set to investigate even as forces are working against their investigation.  Nicely developed sense of menace in the setting and well drawn characters.  Even ones that don’t figure prominently seem to be given enough attention to be fleshed out.   Very good police procedural!

Scene of the Climb was an impulse purchase, a cozy mystery with an extreme sports theme.  No one would ever accuse me of having an interest in extreme sports.  It is set in the Pacific Northwest though and that did interest me.  Meg is a recent Journalism major graduate, at a time when most papers are closing down and cutting back and certainly not hiring.  So when a job at an extreme sports magazine becomes available, she may have exaggerated her athletic skills, just a tad.  Now she finds herself covering an extreme race and one of the front runners just went over a cliff face.  Determined to prove herself a real reporter in the likeness of her father, a well known figure in the field, Meg starts to investigate.  Although the theme was not really for me, this was very well written, the characters were interesting people with believable actions, the reality TV felt very current,  and the story had very good pacing.  I really enjoyed this.

Tippy Toe Murder is book 2 in the Lucy Stone Mystery Series.  Lucy is no longer working the phone lines because she is pregnant waiting to deliver another baby inbetween Little League practices, games, sewing ballet costumes, and ballet practices.  Meanwhile, much is afoot in town with a friend going missing mysteriously when out for a walk with her dog. Another friend is first  accused of theft and then when she tried to gather evidence to clear her name of the theft, she ends up being accused of murder.  Lucy perseveres through it all until a dramatic conclusion.