Books

Iris Anderson Mysteries

The Girl Is Murder (Macmillan -Roaring Brook Press)

EDGAR NOMINEE - Best YA Novel

Iris Anderson is only 15, but she's quickly mastering the art of deception in this YA novel for fans of Veronica Mars.

It's the Fall of 1942, and Iris's world is rapidly changing. Her Pop is back from the war with a missing leg, limiting his ability to do the physically grueling part of his detective work. Iris is dying to help, especially when she discovers that one of Pop's cases involves a boy at her school. Now, instead of sitting at home watching Deanna Durbin movies, Iris is sneaking out of the house, double-crossing her friends, and dancing at the Savoy till all hours of the night. There's certainly never a dull moment in the private eye business.

The Girl Is Trouble (Macmillan -Roaring Brook Press)

“Haines delves deeper into Iris’ intriguing character in this compelling, self-contained sequel while doing a bang-up job of maintaining the ace period setting.” —Kirkus Reviews

This sequel to The Girl Is Murder (Roaring Brook, 2011) finds Iris Anderson, a New York City teen circa 1942, both willing and unwilling to investigate her mother's death. It helps that her father and uncle work as private investigators because, from them, she has learned things like how to pick locks. But when a safe left open accidentally reveals photographs of her mother that tell a different story from what the newspapers reported, Iris must confront truths and lies in her own Jewish family. She is plausibly misled by immature impressions of adults, which slow the plot down somewhat but are not distracting. Iris and Pearl build and test their friendship as other kids at their elite private school question their bond because Pearl is unpopular. Iris also gets close to an Italian working-class boy and school misfit, who may or may not become a love interest. These teens spy on one another, adding a layer of interest that draws readers in to more serious issues, such as anti-Semitism. The historical setting gives Iris's probing a certain edge; readers want to know what happened to her mom, but they'll need to understand the bigger picture of how Germans and Americans perceived one another leading up to and during World War II. Pop is appealing as both a respectful father and grieving husband, but will he stay alive long enough to be there for his daughter? This absorbing novel works on three levels as the story of the relationship between a daughter and parent, as a drama among teen peers, and as historical fiction.

Rosie Winter Mysteries

The War Against Miss Winter (HarperCollins)

“Perfectly captures the feel, sights and sounds of New York in the 1940s.” -Publishers Weekly

Set in New York City, Haines's assured debut brings the WWII era to vivid life, from a topical jump-rope song (Whistle while you work. Hitler is a jerk...) to Automats and jive joints. On New Year's Eve 1942, actress Rosie Winter, whose day job is with a Manhattan detective agency, finds the body of her boss, Sam McCain, hanging in his office closet, his hands and neck tied with a phone cord. The investigating cop calls Sam's death a well-deserved suicide, but there's a missing play that a reclusive playwright and a rich widow want found. Rosie, a fast-thinking Hepburn type, takes on the case, aided by her best pal, Jayne (a petite blonde with... the voice of a two-year-old dubbed America's squeakheart). This is a fun romp, though the author, herself a playwright and actor, provides some dark commentary on avant-garde theater and war as well as an unexpected and wicked twist in the novel's final act. (June)

The Winter of Her Discontent (HarperCollins)

The second Rosie Winter mystery finds the World War II–era Broadway actress (and former assistant to a private eye) using her sleuthing skills to solve a series of backstage crimes. Rosie and roommate Jane are cast in a troubled production of a musical financed by a lowlife mobster. After the show’s star is murdered and a pal of Rosie’s confesses to the crime, Rosie and Jane, not buying the confession, set out to find who really dunnit. As more accidents befall the cast and crew, it becomes clear that someone does not want the show to open. Haines capably combines home-front ambiance (rationing, worries over soldier boyfriends) with plenty of backstage drama. The setting, a rooming house occupied by various actresses and dancers, provides no shortage of working-girl details, and Rosie and Jane make a winning team of feisty home-fronters. Several decades before Sex in the City, popular fiction thrived on less-explicit melodramas starring single gals making a go of it on their own; this entertaining tale draws on that tradition, successfully spicing up the proceedings with a crime element. --Bill Ott

When Winter Returns (HarperCollins)

“Kathryn Miller Haines perfectly captures the feel, sights and sounds of New York in the 1940s….A lot of fun.” —Rhys Bowen

Aspiring actress and sometime sleuth Rosie Winter is back in When Winter Returns—the fourth installment of Kathryn Miller Haines’s atmospheric and suspenseful World War II era mystery series. Fans of historical whodunits like the Maisie Dobbs books by Jacqueline Winspear—and readers who love stories of feisty female sleuths, like Alexander McCall Smith’s #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels—will thrill to Rosie’s big city adventures, as she encounters espionage on her own doorstep.

Winter In June (HarperCollins)

New York, 1943: Aspiring actress Rosie Winter has been marooned in New York throughout the war. Now, faced with the news that her ex-boyfriend Jack might not be coming home again, she's desperate to leave the home front and head for the war front. So when Rosie and her best pal Jayne get an offer to go to the South Pacific to perform with USO Camp Shows, they jump at the chance.

But being a greasepaint soldier isn't as easy as they had hoped. Not only are the cast members surly, the schedules inhumane, and the housing conditions primitive but they also have to travel with a major—and majorly difficult—Hollywood star. But none of that is as bad as living in a war zone, and when tragedy strikes, Rosie and Jayne are left wondering if they are being targeted by the enemy or if something far more sinister is afoot.

Stand Alone

The Girl From Yesterday (Simon & Schuster -Pocket Star)

In the fast-paced psychological thriller traditions of Gillian Flynn, Jessica Knoll, and Liane Moriarty, Edgar Award nominated author Kathryn Haines Miller (The Girl Is Murder) spins an engrossing tale of what might be the worst birthday ever.

Foreign Editions

Miss Winters Hang zum Risiko (Suhrkamp Verlag)

Um die Miete bezahlen zu können, bräuchte Rosie Winter – großes Talent und große Klappe – dringend mal wieder ein Engagement. Aber im Kriegsjahr 1942 sind die guten Rollen am Broadway schwer zu kriegen, und für die schlechten hat Rosie leider viel zu viel Temperament. So hält sie sich mit einem Job im Detektivbüro von Jim McCain über Wasser. Bis ihr eines Nachmittags die Leiche ihres Bosses in die Arme fällt.

Miss Winters Hang zum Risiko: Ein Krimi mit Witz, Herz und Spannung.

Ein Schlachtplan für Miss Winte (Suhrkamp Verlag)

Keine Feldpost vom Exfreund, dafür Fleischrationierung und zwei linke Füße beim Vortanzen: Die Laune von Rosie Winter, Broadway-Schauspielerin ohne Engagement, ist in diesem Frühjahr 1943 nicht die beste. Und dann wird auch noch Al verhaftet, Rosies treuer Kumpel aus der New Yorker Unterwelt.

Broadway-Starlet Paulette Monroe wurde erschlagen. Al, ein Muskelprotz im Dienst der Mafia, gesteht die Tat. Klar, dass ihm jeder glaubt. Doch Rosie Winter kennt Al und weiß, dass er kein Mörder ist. Als für die Show, in der Paulette die Hauptrolle hätte spielen sollen, noch Tänzerinnen gesucht werden, sieht Rosie ihre Chance. Zusammen mit ihrer Freundin Jayne macht sie sich daran, Als Unschuld zu beweisen. Mit Witz, Verstand und dem Herz auf der Zunge ermittelt Rosie Winter wieder in der kriegsgeplagten New Yorker Theaterwelt der 40er Jahre.

Miss Winter lässt nicht locker (Suhrkamp Verlag)

Rosie Winter ist auf dem Weg in die Südsee. Zusammen mit ihrer Freundin Jayne und einer Gruppe Tänzerinnen soll sie in diesem Juni 1943 bei den Soldaten an der Front für gute Laune sorgen. Doch das erweist sich als gar nicht so einfach: Die Überfahrt ist turbulent, die Feldbetten hart und das Essen schlecht. Außerdem stiehlt der Hollywood-Star Gilda DeVane den anderen Frauen die Show, und Rosies große Liebe Jack gilt seit Wochen als vermisst. Während Rosie zwischen Tanzeinlagen und Luftangriffen versucht, mehr über Jacks Verschwinden herauszufinden, wird Gilda bei einem ihrer Auftritte erschossen …

Rosie Winter bricht in die Südsee auf, um ihre große Liebe wiederzufinden. Seekrankheit, Kugelhagel, ein unliebsamer Verehrer und eine mörderische Verschwörung – nichts kann sie in diesem Juni 1943 aufhalten, denn Miss Winter lässt nicht locker.