CHECK IT OUT

For readers looking for female role models who are smart,

self-sufficient and superbly resourceful, there’s hardly a better genre

than detective fiction. From Marcia Muller’s tough Sharon McCone to Sara

Paretsky’s black belt-wielding V.I. Warshawski, there are heroines who

neatly outwit outlaws and killers in a growing crop of contemporary

mysteries.

Muller fans who have followed one of the genre’s pioneer female

private investigators since 1971 are likely to relish her latest

escapades in “Listen to the Silence.” After her father dies, San

Francisco private investigator Sharon McCone discovers long-hidden

documents that send her searching for her roots. The journey takes her

from San Diego to a Montana Indian reservation and a Northern California

ghost town on the trail of family secrets and a violent murderer.

A parent’s illness launches another journey of self-discovery in

“Beacon Street Mourning,” the latest in Dianne Day’s acclaimed historical

mystery series. When plucky Fremont Jones returns to her native Boston to

be at her dying father’s bedside, she does battle with both her detested

stepmother and personal demons. Concurrently, she’s drawn into the most

personal case of her career in a charged novel rich with

turn-of-the-century period details.

Skeletons in a feuding family’s closet and a brutal crime that hits

close to home also play roles in “Seven Sisters,” the seventh offering in

Earlene Fowler’s Benni Harper series. When the sleuthing quilter and

cowgirl sets out to learn who killed the cousin of her stepson’s pregnant

fiance, she becomes entangled in an embittered clan’s past. Equally

intriguing is an amusing subplot instigated by the reappearance of her

police chief husband’s glamorous first wife.

The setting is more urban in “Hard Time,” in which Sara Paretsky’s

tough-talking V.I. Warshawski reappears for her ninth adventure. In a

plot that moves from Chicago’s moneyed enclaves to its dilapidated jails,

Vic finds herself framed for vehicular manslaughter, then incarcerated

for another crime she did not commit. When she uncovers a sensational

scandal in her stint behind bars, the suspense builds to a climax.

One could hardly do justice to a discussion about the world of gritty

female gumshoes without mentioning wisecracking Kinsey Millhone. In “O is

for Outlaw,” Sue Grafton’s sleuth reveals more about herself than ever

before, when she takes on her past in the 15th installment of the

alphabet series. The upshot is a romp through her childhood and her first

marriage to two-timing vice cop Mickey Magruder, who may or may not have

committed the crime that ruined him.

Fans of Kinsey and her ilk won’t want to miss “Women of Mystery,” a

March series about the art of detective fiction, co-sponsored by the

Newport Beach Public Library and the California Center for the Book.

Watch for details in library publications, local newspapers and on the

Web at https://www.newportbeachlibrary.org.

* CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public

Library. This week’s column is by Melissa Adams in collaboration with

Susie Lamb. All titles may be reserved from home or office computers by

accessing the catalog at https://www.newportbeachlibrary.org.