First, a little business. If you’re looking for this week’s giveaway, check the previous post. Fortunately, Friday giveaways and Treasures in My Closet seldom end up on the same day.

March means a pile of books. It would also signal the calendar end of winter. Yay! And, yay for all the books we’re going to talk about today.

The Malta Exchange is the fourteenth novel in Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series. The pope is dead. Cardinals are arriving at the Vatican for the conclave. But, one has fled Rome in search of a document that dates back tot he 4th century and Constantine. Cotton Malone is after the same relic, as are the legendary Knights of Malta. “The game is on. And the world’s most secretive, and powerful, organizations will stop at nothing to win.” (Release date is March 5.)

Claire Booth’s third Sheriff Hank Worth mystery is A Deadly Turn. One Saturday night, Sheriff Hank Worth stops a speeding car full of teenagers. He lets them go with just a warning, but just a short time later, he responds to a call, and finds the wrecked car with all the teens dead. Hank feels guilt, and tries to find proof it wasn’t just an accident. When he finds an unidentified body at one teen’s home, and another teen apparently tries to commit suicide, Hank feels he’s on the right track. (Release date is March 1.)

Like Berry’s book, C.J. Box’s Wolf Pack really doesn’t need mentioning. It’s the nineteenth book in the series featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. Joe encounters a drone that’s killing wildlife, and is asked by the FBI and Department of Justice to ignore it. It’s not just animal bodies piling up, though. Joe fears that a group of four vicious killers working on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel known as the Wolf Pack has arrived. (Release date is March 12.)

A Beautiful Corpse is Christi Daugherty’s second mystery featuring crime reporter Harper McClain. She’s still working for a struggling newspaper in Savannah, Georgia. When a woman is illed in the heart of the affluent district of Savannah, Harper recognizes the young woman. There may be no witnesses, but three men, all who claim to have loved Naomi Scott, are the primary suspects. “For a woman, being killed by someone who claims to love her is the most ordinary murder of all.” (Release date is March 12.)

I already read Charles Fergus’ first Gideon Stoltz mystery, A Stranger Here Below. It’s slow-going because of all the historical background I didn’t know, but it’s fascinating. Gideon is only twenty-two, young for a sheriff in Pennsylvania in 1835. When his mentor and friend, a judge, commits suicide, Gideon can’t let go of the death, and wants to find out why. It’s not easy to investigate because he’s Pennsylvania Dutch, and many consider him a foreigner. (Release date is March 19.)

Candice Fox takes readers back to Crimson Lake in her latest crime novel set in Queensland, Redemption Point. Former police detective Ted Conkaffey, wrongly accused of abducting a young woman, and private detective Amanda Pharrell, could both use redemption. Ted finds no place is safe from a devastated father, and Amanda complicates a police detective’s first homicide investigation. (Release date is March 19.)

Eva Gates’ latest Lighthouse Library Mystery is Something Read, Something Dead. Lucy Richardson and her friends are helping her favorite cousin, Josie, prepare for her upcoming wedding. But, when the New Orleans relatives arrive, Josie’s grandmother and others, they stir up trouble and tears. Worst of all, Josie’s the primary suspect and the wedding’s in danger when one of the relatives dies after eating special food prepared by Josie. (Release date is March 13.)

I’m a big fan of Glen Erik Hamilton’s Van Shaw series, and the latest book, Mercy River, is due out in March. Here’s the summary from the book. “Helping a fellow veteran accused of murder, Van Shaw is drawn into a dangerous labyrinth involving smuggled opioids, ruthless mercenaries, and deadly family secrets that will challenge his notions of brotherhood and justice.” (Release date is March 12.)

Cemetery Road is Greg Iles’ latest novel. When Marshall McEwan left his hometown of Bienville, Mississippi at eighteen, he vowed never to return. His past led him to push his career, and he became one of the most successful journalists in Washington, D.C. Just as he’s achieving television stardom, he’s called home because his father is terminally ill. Marshall finds the town is in the middle of a rebirth that might be based on crimes that reach high into political echelons. When two murders associated with a shadowy “club” shake up the town, Marshall and his former high school girlfriend team up to find a family’s secrets, and those of the town. (Release date is March 5.)

Essie Lang launches a new series, a Castle Bookshop mystery, with Trouble on the Books. Shelby Cox returns to her hometown in Upstate New York to operate one of two bookshops she co-owns with her aunt while her aunt is recovering from surgery. Shelby’s operating the bookshop in a castle on a nearby island. She brings a family mystery with her, but it’s sidelined while she investigates after she finds the body of the castle’s volunteer coordinator. (Release date is March 13.)

John McMahon’s debut, The Good Detective, takes readers to Mason Falls, Georgia, and asks the question, “How do you solve a crime if you killed the prime suspect?” Detective P.T. Marsh was a rising star on the police force until his wife and son were killed in an accident. Now, his judgment isn’t always correct. One night, he “helps out” an exotic dancer by confronting her abusive boyfriend. The next day, the man he beat up is found dead, and Marsh’s fingerprints are all over the crime scene. The trouble is only beginning. When the dead body of a black teenager is found in a burned-out field, a portion of a blackened rope around his neck, he realizes he might have killed the number-one suspect. (Release date is March 19.)

There’s been a deluge of World War II novels in the last few years, but Susan Meissner’s The Last Year of the War has a different premise. Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa fourteen-year-old in 1943, until her father, a legal U.S. resident for almost two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas. The only thing that makes this camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese American teen from Los Angeles. Then, the Sontag family is exchanged for American prisoners behind enemy lines in Germany, and Elise has to decide how the war will change her identity. (Release date is March 19.)

Murder Once Removed by S.C. Perkins is the winner of the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. It’s the enjoyable first mystery in the Ancestry Detective series. Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster deals with murders in both the past and present. When an Austin billionaire announces on TV that a long-dead Texas senator might have been a murderer, he’s using research Lucy worked on. But, Lucy isn’t prepared for that old murder to lead to crimes and murder in the present day. (Release date is March 19.)

J.P. Pomare’s debut psychological suspense novel is Call Me Evie. A seventeen-year-old struggles to remember the tragic night that changed her life forever. Evie and her Uncle Jim have just moved to an isolated cabin, far from their hometown of Melbourne. Evie isn’t her real name. And Jim isn’t really her uncle. He tells her she did something terrible back home, and he’s hiding her to protect her. But, as fragments of her memory return, Evie starts to wonder if Jim is her savior or her captor. (Release date is March 5.)

Doug Brock from David Rosenfelt’s Fade to Black is back in Black and Blue. Brock hasn’t had it easy since he was shot in the line of duty as a New Jersey state police officer. He had amnesia, had to solve two murder cases, and he’s slowing earning his way back in his girlfriend’s trust because he doesn’t remember their breakup. Now, one of his old cases has resurfaced, and he has to retrace steps he doesn’t remember to solve the case. It actually became a cold case until another man is murdered in the same fashion. Now, as Doug investigates, he questions his own actions in the previous case. (Release date is March 26.)

I’m eager to read Eithne Shortall’s American debut, Grace After Henry. First, it’s set in Dublin. When the love of her life, Henry, is killed in a freak biking accident, Grace feels lost. They’d been together for five years. Now, she moves into their dream house, returns to work as a chef. But, she’s always aware of the hole in her life. Then, his long lost twin brother knocks on her door. Andy just arrived in Ireland, and he’s looking for answers. He looks like Henry, but he’s not. “Grace isn’t sure if she’s learning to let go or becoming desperate to change on.” (Release date is March 12.)

Here’s the list of other books that might appeal to you.

Rajeev Balasubramanyam – Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss (March 26)
Diane Les Becquets – The Last Woman in the Forest (March 5)
Jesse Blackadder – In the Blink of an Eye (March 19)
Kate Hope Day – If, Then (March 12)
David Downie – The Gardener of Eden (March 5)
Samantha Downing – My Lovely Wife (March 26)
Jenna Glass – The Women’s War (March 5)
Peter Heller – The River (March 5)
Mira Jacob – Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations (March 26)
Maria Kuznetsova – Oksana, Behave! (March 19)
T Kira Madden – Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls (March 5)
Andrew Rannells – Too Much is Not Enough (March 12)
Taylor Jenkins Reid – Daisy Jones & The Six (March 5)
Dana Reinhardt – Tomorrow There Will Be Sun (March 12)
Maura Roosevelt – Baby of the Family (March 5)
Craig Russell – The Devil Aspect (March 5)