Strangers Behind Closed Doors by Catherine Adel West

Posted on July 10, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Disclosure: I was sent a galley copy of this book by a publisher’s representative in exchange for my honest review.

Giovanni Mason – Gio to her friends – is the chief concierge at one of Chicago’s most exclusive premier hotels, the Ivory. She was the first Black concierge of any kind, let alone chief, and she’s very proud of this accomplishment, even if her mother (a longtime Ivory housekeeper) hoped she’d wind up somewhere different. Detective Redding Stark has followed her father’s path with the Chicago PD. Like Gio, Red is a workaholic, whose commitment to her work has not always proved healthy. She remains preoccupied with the cold cases of five missing women – young Black women, whose disappearances have been far too easily forgotten by the system Red works for. Then a beauty influencer, who also happens to be Gio’s former best friend, vanishes from one of the Ivory’s extra-rarified upper floor rooms, a room now marked by broken glass and blood splatter. Gio fought with Natalie just hours earlier, and now has bruises on her wrists and no memory of a chunk of her evening. But Red suspects the chief concierge is innocent. She believes instead that Natalie’s case is linked to the others.

The two form, in fits and starts, a mistrustful alliance, motivated by concern that Natalie may be alive and in danger, wanting to prove Giovanni’s innocence, and wishing for justice for women who look like them. There are few people in either woman’s life whom they can trust. Instead, the Ivory Hotel and the Chicago Police Department are filled with politicians, social climbers, and the very rich. In chasing the truth, as they reveal plots, corruption, and double-crossings, Gio and Red place themselves in great danger.

Strangers Behind Closed Doors offers intrigue and action scenes by the truckload. Amid luxury suites, fine dining establishments and neighborhood classics, flower shops and cozy homes, fight scenes and family drama unfold. The impulse toward friendship between Gio and Red feels real, and poignant, even as both are limited by their own trauma. I was definitely propelled by the twisty-turny plot, which kept offering surprises. It was not completely without unbelievable details, but that’s not too unusual in the genre. The background big issue, that the disappearances of women of color are overlooked, is a point well taken. West’s Chicago is well done: it’s not a city I claim great familiarity with, but I recognized some landmarks, and it felt fully realized. I never stopped rooting for the two stars, even in their flaws.

Rating: 7 photographs.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit by Amy Stewart (audio)

Posted on June 29, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Here we have book four in the Kopp Sisters series, and I think I’m more and more bought in with each one. There’s a trajectory here. As ever, I’m not sure how much of it is about differences in the books, and how much is me. I always find this a fascinating question, about beers and mountain bike trails and everything else: how much has it changed, and how much is my taste buds / skill level / preferences? We can never know. Thank you for making it through that moment of philosophy, and now the novel.

If anything, Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit takes a step further from the mystery or puzzle sort of plot, and (while absolutely telling a story about Deputy Kopp and her work) considers the time and time in which it is set.

…the sheriff maintained his posture of unruffled detachment.

I, on the other hand, was the very opposite of unruffled. John Courter was, in every way, a small-minded, petty, vindictive man unworthy of public office. I didn’t care to stand at the edge of a crowd and listen to him hurl insults and lies at us.

What made it worse, though, was that the crowd seemed to love it. It was an uncertain time in Bergen County: there was labor unrest in the factories, a mistrust of immigrants who might be German sympathizers, and the very real fear that a munitions depot might go up like so many crates of firecrackers at the hands of secret agents of the Kaiser. And most of all, there was the absolute terror of war – a war we surely couldn’t avoid much longer.

These people were looking for an enemy, and John Courter had one on offer.

Constance has been at work as a sheriff’s deputy for a while now. She’s been involved in investigations and arrests, including wrestling in the streets with male criminals (she would be affronted that that even needs pointing out). She’s cared for the female inmates at the jail, which includes basic food-and-shelter sort of needs as well as something we might call counseling, and questioning. She has pioneered a system of probation that (with the help of a friendly judge) allows women whose crimes are minor, or that shouldn’t count as crimes at all, to keep their freedom, work, and contribute to society. In a world that still isn’t sure women should do this sort of work, she has not only had some real successes, she’s also gotten to contemplate and enact improvements in the system. She’s the breadwinner for her household of three adult women, with her sister Norma and her ‘sister’ (biological daughter) Fleurette. And in that last role, she has also undertaken some thoughtful changes and modernizations. All of this is arguably made possible by her supportive boss, Sheriff Heath.

Thus the great conflict of this novel: the sheriff is an elected position, and Heath is term-limited. A change is coming for Constance either way, but the two men running for election offer rather different outcomes for her: bad and worse. The shift away from police work and into politics pleases no one – not Sheriff Heath, not Deputy Kopp, and not the reader. But here we are. Constance loves her work, and has found a comfortable place in the world, where she feels good about what she can contribute. In a nutshell, Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit is about what she’ll do when continuing on that path is no longer an option. It’s terribly sad, but it’s also heartening to see her come to terms. Not all reviewers agree with me, but I really liked the ending, and I can’t wait to see what she’ll do in book five.

Rating: 8 first names.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart (audio)

Posted on June 19, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I continue to feel deeply involved with the indefatigable Miss Kopp and her earnest pursuit of betterment for herself, her sisters, and her community.

Following closely on the events of Lady Cop Makes Trouble, Constance Kopp efforts at the Bergen County Jail to keep her female inmates safe, in line, and pointed toward rehabilitation. She continues to enjoy a good relationship with Sheriff Heath, whose progressive ideals inspire her. It’s 1916, and times are changing: much of Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions deals with the options of young women to make their own way in the world, in terms of work and housing. (Other lifestyle choices remain yet more controversial.) Edna Heustis, for instance, left home to go to work in a munitions factory, patriotically hoping to contribute to the war effort as her brothers prepare to go fight in France. She lives in a respectable (strict) boarding house for young factory-working women like herself – and yet is arrested for waywardness, because her mother would rather she stay home and keep house. Minnie Davis left home with the (perhaps slightly less righteous) ambition of having a little fun and getting out from under her parents’ thumb. Shacked up with a young man she’s not married to, working in a mill and drinking at night, Minnie is likewise subject to criminal charges, just because she’s interested in flexing the moral boundaries of her day. (Minnie and Constance both repeat the question: why isn’t the young man locked up for ‘waywardness’ or ‘moral depravity’ as well?)

Constance feels strongly about defending the rights of women like Edna and Minnie to find their own paths in a changing world. But when it’s Fleurette who wants to leave home and work for a living, and maybe have a little fun – well. Constance’s values will be put to the test. And Norma is even less ready to entertain looser restraints on the youngest Kopp sister.

Norma’s lips worked furiously over her composition. From time to time a word escaped: presumptuous, unconscionable, iniquitous, abhorrent. She took a breath and continued: indecorous, opportunistic, unprincipled, opprobrious.

Fleurette had been right not to breathe a word of her plans to her sisters. Nothing – not a tour with a theater troupe, and certainly not an offer of marriage – stood a chance against Norma’s formidable vocabulary of refusal.

It’s one of Amy Stewart’s greatest strengths that she can tell such complex, fascinating, moving stories about history and women’s rights, alongside absolutely laugh-out-loud funny moments, perfectly played by audio-narrator Christina Moore.

I love the interplay of serious (and true historical) issues with family dynamics and simple human struggle. These moments can be both funny and serious.

Constance had grown to count on Norma to be that domestic presence who sat in the parlor and disapproved of things. She did not, however, like to find Norma disapproving of things at [Constance’s] place of employment, and wished she knew how to discourage the habit.

I’m still having a riotous good time, and simultaneously, enjoying considering some hefty issues through the lens of these expertly drawn mysteries. Three cheers for Amy Stewart, and on to the next one.

Rating: 8 trinkets.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart (audio)

Posted on June 8, 2026 by pagesofjulia

It’s been years since I listened to Girl Waits with Gun, and I guess I’d forgotten all about it*, but I’m so happy to have now rediscovered Stewart’s work. I love Constance Kopp: subversive, contrary, big and strong, determined to do the work she sees fit. As we left her, Miss Kopp lives in the New Jersey countryside with her two sisters: no-nonsense Norma, who loves her carrier pigeons and has strong opinions about everything but rarely leaves the farm; and Fleurette, young, flighty, fashion-forward, and yearning to live in a wider world. (Also, Fleurette is not in fact a sister but Constance’s own daughter, although I still don’t think she knows it.)

Lady Cop Makes Trouble offers us two main mystery plotlines, but also importantly follows the home lives of the Kopp sisters and of Sheriff Heath. Following the events of that earlier book, Constance is proud to be employed as a sheriff’s deputy in her rural county. She was promised a badge, but that’s now in jeopardy because, predictably, the 1915 New Jersey public (not least, the sheriff’s wife) is not sure about having a “lady” deputy (or a “girl” one), let alone Constance’s take on the job, which involves wrestling suspects to the grimy ground, whether in New Jersey or New York City. It’s quite unfortunate, then, that Constance happens to be the one on duty guarding an inmate who escapes from custody – never mind that he’d faked a debilitating injury and was in the hospital, during a power outage and a mass casualty event, and the (male) deputy who was supposed to be on duty had defected. It just goes to prove to those who wanted it proved, that Constance is unfit. Worse, it goes a ways toward making Constance question her fitness. She ramps up her devotion to the job in hunting down the fugitive – sometimes crossing over into insubordination in her enthusiasm. I found it interesting to see the conflict between following orders and Doing Right, especially as Sheriff Heath has always been a sympathetic character. And here we see him face some difficulties of his own.

The manhunt is the main mystery-plot-driver, but there is also a secondary puzzle of a case involving one of the female prisoners Constance is in charge of, a woman whose murder confession is being questioned. I like this second line for the foundation I think it might offer for future books.

*I had also forgotten that I wasn’t a huge fan of that first book, apparently, but I’m glad I did forget this. Something changed – about the books, about me? – and I was on board with the pace this time around. I can’t explain to you whether it got snappier or I got more patient, but this reader and this series have come into sync. (Stewart did bring this one down to 320 pages.) A benefit to my long hiatus: there are now seven books in the series! Oh, good.

I was once again pleased by Christina Moore’s narration, and appreciated the same things I did in that earlier review: historical setting and detail; some very funny exchanges, between the Kopp sisters but also Constance with many others; characters; and now pacing. I am already on to book three, with no more qualms.

Rating: 7 nights in a cell.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

The Jewelled Moth by Katherine Woodfine

Posted on May 22, 2026 by pagesofjulia

This sequel to The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow begins by introducing a new family of characters: first we meet Mei Lim, the daughter of a Chinese immigrant father and an English mother. She and her family live in the Chinatown section of Limehouse in London’s East End: her two parents, her older brother and younger twin brothers, and until recently, her grandfather, now deceased. We learn early of the Lims’ concern for the missing Moonbeam Diamond, a storied piece of Chinese and family history.

From here, the novel continues in the same satisfying vein as Sparrow, starring our foursome – Sophie, Lil, Billy, and Joe – but especially our two plucky heroines. All four are employed at Sinclair’s, with Joe in particular marveling at his good fortune to have escaped the Baron’s gang and found a legal and relatively comfortable lifestyle. It’s debutante season (and brief excerpts from a manual on those social mores punctuate this text, as a similar etiquette book did the last), and it is a fashionable, wealthy, privileged, not to say spoiled, young debutante who approaches Sophie and Lil with a case. A precious jewelled moth brooch, a gift from a very eligible suitor to Miss Veronice Whiteley, has been stolen. At its center: the famous Moonbeam Diamond.

Sophie and Lil, and their male counterparts and assistants and admirers Billy and Joe, are slowly joined by a few high-society friends and the Lims in chasing down the moth and the diamond, ferreting out the true identity of the intimidating Baron, and righting all the wrongs – including, hopefully, ensuring their own safety. Incidentally, Sophie finds a photograph of her late parents that calls some of her own history into question, and thereby sets us up neatly for book three.

I continue to find these books fun, engrossing, and easy to read. I look forward to more.

Rating: 7 dumplings.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow by Katherine Woodfine

Posted on March 13, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I picked this paperback up in a coffee shop where it had been abandoned with other, clearly used magazines and newspapers and such. It just looked fun: the cover, the back blurb. I read a few chapters that night and otherwise finished it in a single sitting. Fun fact: Amazon rates this book as being for ages 11-14, or grades 1-3. (Facepalm.) At any rate, it would be friendly for younger readers – I’d go with the age range rather than the grades listed there – but, obviously, was plenty enjoyable for this adult.

In the first years of the 1900s, a sumptuous new department store is set to open, one like London has never seen. Our protagonist is Sophie Taylor. She lost her mother young, and now, at age fourteen, she has just lost her father, a mostly-absent but loving military man. Raised in comfortable wealth, she’s now orphaned and on her own. Plucky Sophie feels lucky to have landed a job at Sinclair’s, where she’ll work in millinery and earn just enough for a spartan room in a working girls’ boarding house. But the night before the store is set to open, a priceless object is stolen: a jewel-encrusted clockwork sparrow that purportedly plays a unique song each time it’s wound. A young man is attacked in the commission of the burglary. And, in an unlikely twist, the cultured Sophie is implicated! Luckily, she has already made some new friends: junior porter Billy, who tends to get lost in his books; indomitable Lil, a chorus girl and ‘dress mannequin’; and perhaps even a less savory character with secrets of his own. Together, the young people set out to solve a mystery – or several of them – and clear Sophie’s good name. But the case is increasingly complicated, as major organized crime, police corruption, and shopgirl dramas intertwine. And the stakes get higher, as livelihoods and even lives are revealed to be at stake. But Sophie, Lil, Billy and Joe are not pushovers. They rise to the occasion. A delightful sequel is already headed my way. This is a series of four books so far!

The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow does indeed involve the grand, the daring, the dastardly, and the bold, as the back cover claims. I found it a delicious tale of adventure, friendship, and self-determination, not to mention mystery, danger, and code-breaking. I can’t wait to follow up with our two strong female leads. Best book picked up off a coffee shop table in years!

Rating: 8 iced buns.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Secrets of the First School by T. L. Huchu

Posted on February 27, 2026 by pagesofjulia

The fifth and final book in Huchu’s Edinburgh Nights series, Secrets of the First School does indeed pull things together and wrap them up neatly (though not overly so). Since The Legacy of Arniston House, Ropa has been through a lot and learned a lot. She continues to evince a teenager’s quick-changing moods and loyalties, but if this is occasionally jarring or even a little irritating, that’s not unlike “real” teenagers, is it. And she’s going through it: the loyalties unto her have taken some jarring turns, too. Avoiding spoilers, I will say we learn some shocking truths about Ropa’s own past, which challenge her relationship with everything and everyone around her.

Ropa dwells in a dystopian and at least mildly post-apocalyptic Scotland heavily influenced by her family’s Zimbabwean roots, in which magic is real and fairly complex. Ropa has special powers to communicate with the dead, who inhabit several afterworlds with varying levels of porosity with her own living one, and she has an unusual ability to travel in between. I admit I never fully grasped the details of the rules of this fictional sphere; I let it all float by me when things got a little confusing, which is often how I handle fantasy and sci fi – a personal failing? or maybe a way many of us read these genres? Not sure. At any rate, I think this is something the real world sometimes asks of us, too, and it’s always felt okay to me. I’m not sure I ‘get’ everything Ropa encounters, but who among us does? Which is all to say: this is a highly detailed act of worldbuilding. Ropa and her crew feel quirky and odd at times – like real people do. I cared deeply about what happened to her. I’ll miss her.

Rating: 7 bodies.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

The Legacy of Arniston House by T.L. Huchu

Posted on January 30, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Following The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle, this novel makes the fourth in Huchu’s Edinburgh Nights series. In some respects, we continue in the same vein: Ropa possesses a drive to help others, but fights it in favor of her higher priority to help her own first, meaning her little sister Izwi, their Gran, and herself. She is employed by big fancy powerful magic–in this instance, the English Sorcerer Royal, Lord Samarasinghe–who does not treat her as well as they should, but she puts up with a lot in the interest of providing for her household. She must solve mysteries and problems outside of her own personal purview, which often do come to affect her personally. In this installment, however, Ropa suffers the greatest tragedy that Huchu has put her through to date. (No spoilers, but it’s hard enough that I held it against the author for a bit.) She also gets a nudge toward some secrets about her own family history that may bear on present problems. And boy, does this one end on a drastic cliffhanger.

I continue to find Ropa’s voice and persona intriguing. She is a type unto herself, a mix of hardnosed and naive, swaggering and vulnerable. The Scottish slang adds significant flavor: I had to look up oxters, haar and wazzocks in the course of just a few lines. Her Edinburgh is a world to get lost in, even as the finer points of this magical universe remain a bit hazy for me – I’m not sure that’s not the case for Ropa, too. As I finish this one, I’m feeling Ropa’s loss, and concerned for her future. Still in.

Rating: 7 beanies with dreadful pom poms.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

The Gallagher Place by Julie Doar

Posted on November 7, 2025 by pagesofjulia

In this moody debut novel, new and old crimes on her family’s estate in upstate New York force a quietly struggling woman to confront loyalties and conflicts among family and friends.

Julie Doar’s first novel, The Gallagher Place, investigates old and new mysteries within a compelling family drama set in a striking landscape.

Protagonist Marlowe Fisher is an illustrator living on the Upper West Side and a loner, even surrounded by her powerful family and their estate. When she and her two brothers, as adults, discover a body on their property, the case reopens old wounds. Decades earlier, Marlowe’s childhood best friend vanished without a trace. The freshly murdered man and the long-missing teenaged girl do not initially appear linked, but the surrounding community has long harbored suspicions about the wealthy Fishers. Marlowe has always yearned to know what happened to Nora, although that desire presents new conflicts, having come under investigation once again.

The Fishers have always used the Gray House in upstate New York as a weekend and holiday retreat, “a wholesome family sanctuary to escape the crowded city life and the bittersweet pain of growing up too fast. A haven, her father sometimes called it. If that was the case, why did bad things still happen?” And bad things do happen, especially the disappearance of Nora Miller. Marlowe has never had another relationship as meaningful as her friendship with Nora, a local girl and an honorary, if part-time, fourth Fisher sibling, who wished desperately to escape her rural roots. Marlowe feels strongly: “Nothing mattered as much as the two of us.” The loss of Nora has shadowed Marlowe’s life ever since, culminating in a carefully hidden drinking problem.

The recent murder, and accompanying investigation into Nora’s disappearance, is both galvanizing and disturbing. As Marlowe embarks on her own inquiries, more thoroughly than ever before, she not only refreshes old pains but discovers new risks. To search for Nora means to interrogate her own memory, to learn uncomfortable truths about herself and her family, to confront class differences, privilege, and inheritances. This discomfiting process takes place in two timelines, against the backdrop of Dutchess County, N.Y., in the summers of the 1990s (when Nora and Marlowe were teenagers) and in the present winter of 2018. The Fisher property defines Marlowe’s greatest trauma and coming of age; she remains devoted to “the spirit of landscape” that inspires her art. A strong sense of place is central to this chilling novel about old secrets and what one might choose to uncover or keep hidden. The Gallagher Place is dramatically atmospheric, expertly paced, and haunting.

This review originally ran in the October 10, 2025 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 gifts.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk

Posted on October 20, 2025 by pagesofjulia

I’m a big fan of C. L. Polk.

Even Though I Knew the End is romance amid magic and determinism wrapped in a PI novella. (It’s actually a bit of a much-less-dark cousin to last week’s Harmattan Season.) When we meet Helen Brandt, she’s in a Chicago alley attempting an augury, for which she’ll be paid a whopping $50, which she can add to the nest egg she’ll leave her beloved, Edith, on this their last weekend together. The murder she’s meant to investigate turns out much uglier than originally understood, and besides, her augury is interrupted by two members of the Brotherhood of the Compass, a sort of magical professional society from which she’s been barred. Oh and one of them is her long-lost brother (literal). Same-sex love in 1941 Chicago is a challenge unto itself (Helen has friends who have disappeared into insane asylums, for example), as is being a woman in that same setting. Add to that mix angels, demons, souls sold and stolen and earned back.

I loved the historical setting (but plus magic), and the queer speakeasy and community; I loved the femme fatale / gorgeous-but-dangerous-dame sort of character, and found Edith’s religious devotion an unexpected twist. Again (and in such a short time span for this reader) I met some classic or traditional elements of a noir tale, mixed up with new ones. I heard echoes of Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black. But where Harmattan Season was grim, Polk offers hope – however bittersweet and limited – for a happier ending. As smoke-shadowed as this world is, Even Though I Knew the End is also deeply sweet in its romantic element.

I felt that those Polk shorts I read recently offered varied degrees of success with the shorter format – meaning, some felt a bit more complete or fully realized than others. Many writers, I’d venture, get trained in the novel-length form, and/or have the most reading experience in that length; masters of the short story seem fewer than masters at the novel. (Am I reaching? Do you agree?) I don’t know if that shorter form is harder, or just a place where we tend to get less experience. At any rate. If Polk was experimenting with highly enjoyable but imperfect success in those shorts, here I feel they have achieved something pretty perfect, fully realized, in these 133 pages. Which is not to say I don’t want more of Helen (and Edith) – I very much do. But Helen’s days were always numbered; maybe this is all we get.

Plenty gritty but still sweet, masterfully complete in a small package, with period detail and imaginative flair–I love this story and will follow Polk wherever they may lead next.

Rating: 9 perfect cups of coffee.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Next Page »