Pierce’s Picks: A New Home

Five and a half years ago, when I proposed to January Magazine editor Linda L. Richards that I spin off The Rap Sheet--which I’d been writing as a mostly monthly newsletter for January subscribers--as a standalone blog, I promised that I would continue to write weekly crime-fiction book recommendations for the original site. Thus was born “Pierce’s Picks,” the brief, boxed book write-up that has appeared ever since at the top of January’s crime-fiction contents page. (An archive of the last year’s worth of such recommendations is located here.)

This morning, though, begins a new chapter in the life of “Pierce’s Picks.”

As the end of 2011 drew near, Linda told me that she would like to lighten her editorial load going forward, and asked whether I’d be willing to move my weekly book recommendation over to The Rap Sheet. Fair enough. So beginning today, you will find my “Picks” prominently displayed on this page, a new one each Monday, all recommending freshly published books--mostly fiction, but occasionally non-fiction works--of particular interest to crime, mystery, and thriller readers.

First up: Cold Comfort, by Quentin Bates (Soho Crime).

This sequel to last year’s Frozen Assets finds Sergeant “Gunna” Gunnhildur being promoted from her police posting in rural Iceland to Reykjavík’s Serious Crime Unit. She arrives in time to participate in a hunt for escaped convict Long Ommi, whose spree of violent retribution is terrorizing the Icelandic capital--a place still reeling from the ongoing worldwide financial crisis. Concurrently, she is tasked with solving the murder of a TV fitness guru. Powerful special interests and damaging secrets are soon swept into the case, testing Gunna’s determination to find truths, not just easy answers.