Set in Wisconsin, the eighth novel in Kathleen Ernst’s series about historical site curator Chloe Ellefson finds her spending a week at the old mining town of Mineral Point for work at the historic Pendarvis house. Work gets off to a very rocky start when news breaks that Pendarvis is in danger of being closed by the state, and the blame seems to rest at the feet of the larger historical site where Chloe works, making her reception by the Pendarvis staff none too friendly. Chloe’s enthusiasm for the site and her friendship with the head curator, Claudia, help her get through the week as things go from bad to worse when a corpse turns up.

In addition to her work at Pendarvis, Chloe and her cop boyfriend, Roelke, take the visit as an opportunity to join his buddy Adam at the old stone mining cottage he’s rehabbing nearby. Unfortunately, a skeleton is uncovered in Adam’s basement and his grandmother Tamsin, to whom the house once belonged, asks Chloe to see if she can find out anything about it.

Ernst has two other story threads: one concerns Roelke’s struggle with his cousin’s ex, who is stalking her; and one goes back in time to follow a Cornish family making their way to Wisconsin to lay claim to their own mine. The family—a sister, Mary, and two brothers—live in a “badger hole,” a hole in the ground (hence Wisconsin’s moniker as the Badger State). Their story is so good and so interesting, full of historical detail and heartbreaking circumstances, I almost hated to be dragged back to the present-day story line.

As Chloe retraces Mary’s footsteps, slowly discovering things about her, readers can see how historical research is conducted and how small some of the things that spark a revelation are—a piece of china, say, or the signature on the bottom of a rocking chair. Chloe is interested in everyday lives and her love of the past illuminates them for the reader.

I was captivated by this novel. Ernst holds all the story threads in her hands very lightly, providing the right doses of suspense, danger, and mystery in the right amounts at the right times. She helpfully includes both references and photographs to help the reader visualize what she’s writing about. This was a lovely reading experience.

Tagging your antagonist as a vet is a time-honored shortcut in fiction, a quick way to paint your hero with manly, big idea attributes such as honor, loyalty, and courage without really having to do the literary heavy lifting. But does anyone ever come home undamaged?

Sure, Daniel “Mac” MacCormick, a decorated war hero, seems to be doing all right on the surface—he’s 35 and single, the skipper of a 42-foot fishing boat, and he’s living in Key West.

OK, the charter boat biz isn’t all he hoped it would be and the bank would like some payback on its loan, but is agreeing to make an illegal (and possibly homicidal) run to Cuba in order to smuggle back a small fortune—under the guise of competing in a fishing tournament—for a small group of anti-Castro zealots from Miami really his only choice?

The answer is no.

But, mind you, Sara Ortega is awfully easy on the eyes, and she’s offering Mac a life-changing amount of cash for his services. And maybe (wink, wink) a bit more.

And so, Mac being a brooding, morally adrift kind of red-blooded Hemingway hero stuck in a Nelson DeMille book that’s bound to sell zillions, says yes. And then the fun starts.

In a plot that borrows liberally from To Have or Have Not, John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee books, and a dozen other action-adventure yarns, DeMille serves up a tale of greed, sliding loyalties, modern-day piracy, and political shenanigans set against what for many will be an eye-opening view of modern-day Cuba amid the slowly changing tide of complicated Cuban-American diplomacy, circa 2015. The plot may not be breaking any new ground, but that backdrop goes a long way to putting this solid, well-crafted story over the line.

Path Into Darkness is Lisa Alber’s third County Clare mystery set in Ireland and featuring Detective Sergeant Danny Ahern and “Californian-in-residence” Merrit Chase. Merrit discovers the eccentric Joseph Macy, known around the Irish village of Lisfenora as Elder Joe, stabbed to death in his home. Both protagonists on the case find themselves preoccupied with personal issues. DS Ahern, the lead investigator for Joe’s murder, is distracted by his wife, Ellen, who lies comatose in a hospital bed, and Merrit, an accomplished amateur sleuth and meddler, is dealing with her father’s lung cancer.

When another murder victim, Annie Belden, is found with a bouquet of dead flowers, the investigation turns to Nathan Tate, a potter with romantic inclinations toward Ms. Belden. Nathan, who is haunted by terrible dreams, begins to slowly unravel under the pressure of his nightmares and the investigation. His adult daughter, the beautiful Zoe, is home to help her father with his troubles, but as Ahern continues to dig, it becomes apparent that both Nathan and Zoe have secrets worth hiding.

Path Into Darkness is a complex and darkly atmospheric novel. Its rural Irish setting is nicely rendered and the dialogue has the ring of authenticity (though the author tends to over explain the Irish idiom, which dampens its effectiveness). The story develops at a crawl in the opening chapters as characters, and their personal demons, are introduced, but as the mystery deepens and the Tate family’s secrets unravel, so does the tension and pace. It should appeal to readers with an appreciation of well-developed characters, and a desire to read and experience a foreign place.

As a bike messenger, Zesty Meyers races through the Boston streets, dodging cars and pedestrians, and trying to navigate the chaos that the Big Dig (a massive reroute of Interstate 93 through the city) and urban renewal has wrought. After making a pickup off his normal route, Zesty is thrown off his bike by a hit-and-run driver. When he comes to, his bike is a mess and the package, which he quickly learns is stolen cash, is gone. Soon, Zesty is dodging the cops, FBI, and the gangsters who want the return of that package.

Zesty isn’t exactly unfamiliar with criminals. His father, Will, once ran backroom poker games where gangsters and politicians played. Will may have once known where the bodies are buried in Boston, but he now suffers from dementia. And Zesty’s mother, who disappeared decades ago, once pulled off a legendary Boston bank robbery.

Adam Abramowitz’s debut starts strong with Zesty’s lively voice elevating the story. Zesty cares deeply for his father and his brother, who often skirts the law. While he is not the best businessman, he tries to keep his bike messenger company afloat and help his friends. But the plot of Bosstown is overwhelmed by too many subplots. Still, Abramowitz’s view of Boston is spot-on and the dialogue sharp.

Set in 1997 in small-town Connecticut, the second book in the Thomas Lynch series finds the big-city cop turned small-town police chief beset by trouble on all sides when a six-year-old boy with a medical condition that makes him unable to feel any kind of pain goes missing. Complicating matters is the fact that it is two weeks before Christmas and a massive snowstorm has just begun. Aided, then hamstrung, by the parents of the boy and the town government he is beholden to, Lynch also finds himself at odds with some of his own subordinates over suspects behind the kidnapping. When the boy is mysteriously returned, everyone seems happy to forget about finding his kidnapper—that is until he is kidnapped a second time.

Meanwhile, Lynch is still dealing with the fallout of his coming out as a gay man in the previous book, Idyll Threats. Townspeople talk behind his back, his men are afraid to so much as shower at the same time as him, and his own station administrator, the formidable Mrs. Dunsmore, seems appalled by his very existence. There’s also the “small” matter of threatening phone calls and the antigay vandalism of his police vehicle.

The character development in Idyll Fears is outstanding. Chief Lynch is far from a put-upon saint, but a fully realized person for whom being gay is a part of who he is rather than the sum total of his existence. As a big fish in a small pond, he is a little sanctimonious and he makes assumptions about people that can be totally off base. Perhaps even more important is how Gayle’s supporting characters are woven into the story. While they start out standoffish, progress is made on both sides and relationships show signs of improving, yet nothing is magically solved all at once. One character in particular is revealed to be far more than what Lynch assumed, and could become one of his more staunch allies as the series continues.

The split between the main case and the exploration of Lynch’s life as a newly out gay man is evenly handled, but the investigation’s solution can be seen coming a mile away, as it is only thinly disguised and Lynch and his detectives put things together in a rather quick and linear way. This robs the criminal case aspect of the story of some of its effectiveness. Despite this, I found the story rather enjoyable and I am looking forward to where this series takes readers next.

Lisa Scottoline hits a home run with Exposed, her newest Rosato and DiNunzio legal mystery. She delivers a deliciously twisted plot and ratchets up readers’ emotional investment in her two main characters. Fans of this series know Bennie Rosato as a take-charge lawyer who doesn’t let her personal life get in the way of her career. Law firm partner Mary DiNunzio, by contrast, wears her South Philly Italian heart on her sleeve. When a friend from the old neighborhood, Simon Pensiera, decides to sue OpenSpace, the company that unjustly fired him, Mary offers her help. Unfortunately there’s a huge conflict of interest on the horizon. Their firm already represents OpenSpace’s parent company, Dumbarton. Not only is it a large and lucrative account, but it’s owned by Nate Lence, Bennie’s former law school classmate.

The two partners go head to head on whether this constitutes an ethics violation, with neither one wanting to back down. Mary is driven by loyalty to her family and friends and knowing that Simon really needs his job and the company health insurance. She’s prepared to quit if necessary. And why is a health insurance policy so important? Because a child’s life is at stake. Simon’s four-year-old daughter, Rachael, has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. A donor has finally been found and the tense medical countdown has begun.

Scottoline’s sensitive handling of this story line poignantly reveals what it might feel like to have a severely ill child. It also provides a fierce current that pulls at Bennie and Mary in profoundly different ways. One of the pleasures of reading this series has always been the outspoken DiNunzio family, and we have them in spades here. Who can resist lovable octogenarians Matty DiNunzio, and the three Tonys: Tony “From-Down-The-Block,” “Pigeon” Tony, and Tony “Two Feet” who runs on “caffeine and Coumadin.” You’ll laugh and cry as you read this warmhearted, can’t-put-down, enjoyable read.

In The Ways of Wolfe, James Carlos Blake finds Axel Prince Wolfe, a college student with a bright future in law and a job already secured in the family practice, joining up with a criminal and his friend for a robbery. Why? Axel has the itch. It is the itch that one gets when it looks like the next 30 years of one’s life have already been chosen for you. The job doesn’t go as planned and Axel finds himself in jail, his partners skirting the law, leaving Axel to take the blame.

Twenty years later the Wolfe family has washed their hands of Axel. His daughter won’t see him, his wife has left him, and Axel has resigned himself to the life of a prisoner. He keeps to himself and doesn’t have any friends on the inside. That is, until a young inmate, Cacho, floats the idea of escaping. Axel, who still has around a decade to serve, does not harbor any ideas of retribution. All he cares about is seeing the daughter he left behind. Axel accepts, and together with Cacho and the help of his powerful friends on the outside, they move to escape.

The Ways of Wolfe bides it time with strong, readable prose about Axel and Cacho’s adventures in getting over the boarder, which includes a long and exciting sequence traveling down river, until it finally returns to the reasons why Axel was in jail in the first place. Blake does a good job tying up loose ends and expanding the world of the story with his usage of minor characters. The book, however, succeeds or fails on the reader’s willingness to accept Axel’s reasons for his decisions. Blake does his best to explain Axel’s initial choice of a life of crime, but it’s questionable whether or not the “itch” is fully convincing.

Fast Falls the Night, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julia Keller, is the sixth novel featuring rural West Virginia county prosecutor Bell Elkins. The fictional town of Ackers Gap, the county seat, has fallen on hard times and many of its residents have turned to drugs as a coping mechanism for rising unemployment and poverty.

These marginalized addicts are mostly ignored by the sheriff’s department and others in county government, but when Deputy Jake Oakes finds a heroin overdose victim—the daughter of a wealthy lawyer—in a gas station bathroom, it is the beginning of a long night. A night that will see dozens of overdoses and find Bell Elkins desperately searching for the culprits responsible for a tainted batch of heroin, and that will ultimately focus a harsh light on the city’s and county’s drug problem.

Fast Falls the Night, covering 24 hours, is a compassionate procedural—long on the impact of drugs on its users and their communities and short on investigative techniques—that feels as much like a true-crime magazine article as it does a novel. Its pace, despite the brief timeline, is unhurried and often interrupted with long passages of internal character dialogue.

Bell Elkins, likable and empathetic, is weary and jaded by her inability to help the struggling residents of her county and caught in a family dilemma. Her sister, Shirley, recently released from jail for killing their abusive father when Bell was a child, has a potentially catastrophic secret that may destroy Bell’s world. The tale ends much the same as it starts, with more questions than answers.