All of this week’s Halloween Bingo books are crime novels, although one of them has some supernatural elements.

For Death In Translation, I’m reading a crime novel originally published in Spanish. It’s the first book in the Leo Caldas series.

For Monsters Of The Great Plains I’m reading a book about an attack on a woman on the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota.

For Darkest London, I’m listening to an audiobook about a mortuary technician at the Camden Morgue who sometimes hears the dead..

---

‘Water-Blue Eyes’ by Domingo Villar (2006), translated by Martin Schifino

‘Water-Blue Eyes‘ is set in a part of Spain that I’ve never been to, the Galician coast, just north of the border with Portugal. The series is known for being strong on local colour and for having a main character prone to existential despair – which may explain why he likes jazz.

I’m hoping for a robust hard-boiled murder mystery with a distinctively Spanish flavour.

---

‘The Round House’ by Louise Erdrich (2012)

I was delighted when I saw that a new square in this year’s Halloween Bingo called Monsters Of The Great Plains because I knew it would give me incentive that I needed to read one of the Louise Erdrich books that are languishing in may TBR pile. I decided to start with ‘The Round House‘ because it’s been on my shelves for six long years without being opened

The story sounds tough but compelling. I’m hoping that ‘The Round House’ will be the gateway drug that addicts me to Erdrich’s writing.

---

‘Life Sentence’ by A. K. Turner (2022)

I first met Cassie Raven a year ago in ‘Body Language‘ and I knew I wanted to read more.

Cassie Raven isn’t Kay Scarpetta or Temperance Brennan – high-profile, rich, preppy MEs with lots of letters after their names. She’s a mortuary assistant, not a Medical Examiner. She’s in Camden Town, a slightly bohemian, slightly disreputable, yet to be gentrified part of London, not some prestigious Institute in a rich State on America’s eastern seaboard. She’s bright but dropped out of school and has no degree. She’s from an immigrant Polish family, was raised by her gran, left home in her teens and lived in a squat. She dyes her hair bright colours and wears facial piercings. 

What does she have going for her? An engaging blend of empathy, compassion, curiosity and a tendency towards rebellion. She’s good at noticing details a harassed or inexperienced coroner might miss. She knows how to support grieving family members as they identify their dead. She treats the dead in her care with respect. She always talks to them. And sometimes, in their way, she believes they talk back.

I’m looking forward to seeing what she gets up to in the second book, ‘Life Sentence’.