Postmark Berlin

At the start of Arthur Ellis Award–winner Emery’s gripping 11th Collins-Burke mystery (after 2018’s Though the Heavens Fall), Fr. Brennan Burke gets a visit from his bishop in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The bishop berates Burke for having been drunk the night before and forgetting to meet with a parishioner, Meika Keller, who wanted to talk to him. Meika’s body had washed up on a Halifax beach that morning. Alban MacNair, a neighbor of Meika who was seen arguing with her, is charged with her murder. Burke’s lawyer friend, Monty Collins, who defends MacNair in court, says that it’s a case of suicide. Feeling guilty, Burke sets out to discover what happened to Meika. Guided by a postcard showing the former East German Stasi headquarters sent to Meika with a Berlin postmark, Burke travels to what was once East Berlin, from where Meika claimed to have escaped with her young daughter in 1974. The roller-coaster ride to learn who Meika was and what led to her death will keep the reader guessing along with Burke and Collins. Fans of analytic detective stories will be pleased. (May)