New Mysteries on the Shelves (3)

I skipped a month in March with new titles but here are two more now. My first one is listed in the library system's African American fiction section yet it is also a mystery series.

Bill Moody's Shades of Blue is another in a series of the Evan Horne novels with a jazz pianist who gets involved in mysteries and danger. In this novel, Horne is currently in California with modest success in the Bay Area jazz circuit. Things quickly change as Horne receives a phone call that his mentor and fellow pianist, Calvin Hughes, has died leaving him all his possessions including a small Hollywood home. Sifting through Hughes' sheet music remains, Horne finds notes of significant jazz recordings which appear to be his uncredited work. That might be the case yet Horne probes and finds yet even more secrets might exist.

Shades of Blue is the sixth book of this series and is 265 pages.

The second book is Southern Fatality : a Jersey Barnes mystery by T. Lynn Ocean. This the first (as best as I can tell) novel with tough lady private investigator Jersey Barnes, a former private security specialist. Set in the Carolinas, Barnes accepts a job from a boyfriend which should be a "simple favor" of surveillance but a double kidnapping and cover-up later prove matters very wrong. The trail includes a share of various characters with a faithful dog no less in a novel that doesn't shy away from humor and wit.

The book is 278 pages long.