A missing laptop, a treasure map and two bizarre murders await in this month's Whodunit column.

Bryant & May: Oranges and Lemons

Author Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit investigates exactly what you'd expect: cases that are far from your everyday, humdrum homicide. But as Bryant & May: Oranges and Lemons—the latest entry in the popular series—opens, it appears that the unit will close up shop, having fallen victim to budgetary cuts and some remarkably public blunders. The chief will tend his garden on the Isle of Wight, while one detective chief inspector is barely clinging to life in the hospital and the other has dropped off the radar completely. But then the Speaker of the House of Commons (the U.K. analog of Nancy Pelosi) is nearly killed by a falling crate of oranges and lemons. This would have been written off as an accident, save for the fact that it took place within spitting distance of the Church of St. Clement's, of nursery rhyme fame ("Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's"). Thus, the incident appears to fall directly within the purview of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, which is quickly confirmed by more nursery rhyme-themed crimes. As is the case with other books in the series, the setup is improbable (bordering on bizarre), the characters droll, the prose exceptionally clever and often hilarious and the "aha" moment deliciously unexpected.

The Butterfly House

Scandinavian mystery novels enjoy such constant appreciation from suspense fans worldwide that they've become an established subgenre unto themselves, with no signs of flagging. Danish writer Katrine Engberg hit the scene in 2020 with her critically acclaimed bestseller, The Tenant, and as 2021 opens, she returns with The Butterfly House. The Copenhagen police are summoned to a rather macabre display: A young woman has been found in a fountain, her body completely exsanguinated. It is clearly a murder, which is bad enough in its own right, but when another body is found the following day, also drained of blood, also in a fountain, it becomes starkly clear that a serial killer is at large. The case falls to Investigator Jeppe Kørner, one of the two protagonists of The Tenant. The other, Kørner's partner Anette Werner, is on maternity leave at the moment, but that won't stop her from taking part in the investigation. Engberg has crafted a fine police procedural. She is an author to look out for, one who will be cited years hence as a key player in Nordic noir.

Picnic in the Ruins

Picture a Tony Hillerman-style tableau: a red rock desert beneath a deep azure sky, imbued with the history of the sacred rituals and artifacts of the Southern Paiute. Now add a Tim Dorsey or Carl Hiaasen-esque overlay, awash in desiccated Ford pickup trucks, characters who embody the word "characters," ulterior motives and belly-rumbling hilarity, and you'll get an idea of the strange trip you're about to embark on in Todd Robert Petersen's Picnic in the Ruins. We open with a bungled burglary that would have been screamingly funny for its ineptitude if not for its deadly outcome. Now the perps are on the lam, treasure map in hand, with the really bad guys—the smarter criminals—in hot pursuit. Other assorted protagonists include an anthropology Ph.D. candidate banished to the wilds of Utah, a somewhat shady government dude, a German tourist on some sort of personal quest (Old West folklore is huge in Europe) and a cast of off-the-grid "desert rats" who add big yucks at every turn. Beneath all this, Petersen poses some intellectual questions, such as who really "owns" land, what rights and responsibilities such ownership conveys and how the inevitable collisions between titled owners, the public good and the ancient claims of sacred ground should be addressed.

★ Someone to Watch Over Me

Reboots of major suspense series after the death of the author have been a mixed bag at best; witness, for example, the hit-and-miss follow-ups to Ian Fleming's books featuring MI6 superspy James Bond. But some series nail the reboot from the get-go, and Ace Atkins' continuation of Robert B. Parker's franchise featuring mononymous Beantown private investigator Spenser and his lethal sidekick, Hawk, falls firmly into the latter category. Someone to Watch Over Me finds the ace sleuth conscripted into retrieving a laptop from an exclusive Boston men's club. Spens er's client is his own young protege, Mattie Sullivan, who is building an investigation business of her own. Mattie has correctly surmised that her boss will carry a great deal more authority in demanding the return of the computer amid the club's misogynistic all-male milieu. But as often happens in mystery novels, a seemingly simple initial task explodes into something exponentially more complicated, here threatening to link a loosely knit cabal of high-ranking socialites and politicians to a human trafficking organization operating offshore in a remote and private Bahamian island. Needless to say, these people will stop at nothing to save their reputations and their livelihoods, and it will take all of Spenser's considerable talents to stay one step ahead.

Iconic PI Spenser is back, watching over assistant Mattie Sullivan as she investigates the murder of childhood chum Chloe from the South Boston projects. Soon, it's clear that Chloe is one of dozens of impoverished girls who have vanished after forging ties with a powerful billionaire on Commonwealth Avenue. Parker keeps kicking in Atkins's capable hands.

In bestseller Atkins's tepid ninth contribution to Parker's Spenser franchise (after 2019's Angel Eyes), 22-year-old Mattie Sullivan, Spenser's "occasional secretary, part-time assistant, and sleuthing apprentice," needs his help. The younger sister of a friend of Mattie's, 15-year-old Chloe Turner, agreed to give a massage to a man at a swanky Boston club, but when the man began to masturbate in front of her, Chloe fled, leaving her backpack and laptop behind. When Mattie tried to retrieve the backpack and laptop, she was turned away at the club door. After Spenser gets involved, he learns that the pervert's name is Peter Steiner, a Jeffrey Epstein clone, complete with a female accomplice who procures underage girls for him and a private island in the Bahamas beyond the reach of law enforcement. Spenser devotes himself to taking Steiner down, confronting an old enemy en route to the pat ending. The ripped-from-the-headlines plot doesn't generate much suspense, and pulled punches dilute what could have been a memorable climax. Atkins seems to be going through the motions in this one. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM Partners. (Jan.)