Broken Promise, by Linwood Barclay (NAL), is the first book in a trilogy built around widowed reporter David Harwood (from 2010’s Never Look Away). Here Harwood lands back in his preternaturally peaceful hometown of Promise Falls, New York, determined to make a fresh start with his 9-year-old son. But things start going wrong immediately. The small newspaper that has just hired Harwood closes its doors shortly thereafter, and he is forced to find lodging again with his aging parents. Then Harwood’s mother asks that he carry some food over to his cousin Marla, who’s not been doing at all well since her miscarriage … only to discover the supposedly childless woman caring for an infant she insists was given to her by an “angel.” Harwood determines to identify the baby’s real mother, only to find her stabbed to death--leaving the reporter with more mysteries and related tragic events than he knows how to handle, at least initially. Blood, Salt, Water (Orion UK) is the fifth entry in Denise Mina’s series about Glasgow Detective Inspector Alex Morrow (following last year’s The Red Road). Morrow and the other members of her team have been tracking a Spanish woman named Roxanna Fuentecilla, who’s suspected of being mixed up in a large drug-smuggling and money-laundering scheme. After Fuentecilla suddenly vanishes and her family turns evasive under questioning, the DI hopes that an odd call from Fuentecilla’s cell phone to a number in a parochial seaside community, Helensburgh, will help crack the case open. However, picturesque Helensburgh has secrets all its own, including those involving a small-time thug with blood on his hands, a corpse in a local lake, and a former scout leader who has returned after many years, supposedly to sort out the affairs of her recently deceased mother--even though the mother actually died long ago.
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