New in crime fiction: Benjamin Black and Jacqueline Winspear

This month: Anglo-Irish crime, all the time! Well, nearly.

Irishman John Banville, winner of the prestigious Booker Prize, writes as Benjamin Black when spinning crime stories. "Elegy for April" (Holt, 30 pp., $25) is his third book set in 1950s Dublin and centering on Quirke, a doleful pathologist with an interestingly complex past.

A small group of friends, including Quirke's daughter Phoebe, rally round when one of their own goes missing and her wealthy family remains oddly unconcerned. This gorgeously sad and atmospheric book about family, lust, friendship and '50s-style repression also considers, sometimes to comic effect, the social effects of bad driving and really startling amounts of cigarettes and alcohol. John Banville (Benjamin Black) will read from and sign "Elegy for April" at 7 p.m. April 21, at the Seattle branch of the University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle (206-634-3400 or www.ubookstore.com).

Ignore its awkward mouthful of a title and instead cherish Alan Bradley's endearing and clever "The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag" (Delacorte, 364 pp., $24). Flavia de Luce is an 11-year-old in 1950s England, first encountered in Bradley's "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie." Flavia, who has a sharp and refreshing voice, is a brilliant chemical experimenter, a keen observer of human nature and a whiz at insinuating herself into odd situations.

Here, Flavia's village plays host to a puppeteer and his pregnant assistant/lover after their van breaks down. We learn that the puppeteer has a history with some of the town's residents, and, when the showman is electrocuted during a performance, Flavia knows it was no accident. Think of this book as a typical English-village mystery with a wickeder sting.

England between the wars is a milieu custom-made for fertile storytelling, and an excellent example is "The Mapping of Love and Death" (HarperCollins, 352 pp., $25.99), the latest adventure of Maisie Dobbs, an insightful psychologist and "inquiry agent." Here, author Jacqueline Winspear invents a task worthy of the capable Dobbs' skills.

It's a mystery (based on a true incident) involving the recently discovered remains of an American soldier from WWI, his letters to a mysterious English nurse and an attack on the soldier's parents when they arrive to claim his remains. What we know about Maisie's private life deepens as well, with a hint of something big on the horizon at story's end.

Jacqueline Winspear will sign books at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Seattle Mystery Bookshop (206-587-5737 or www.seattlemystery.com). She will read from and sign "The Mapping of Love and Death" at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park (206-366-3333 or www.thirdplacebooks.com).

Sharing that same time frame is "Strange Images of Death" (Soho, 320 pp., $25). Barbara Cleverly's well-traveled policeman, Commander Joe Sandilands, is supposed to be on vacation in the south of France. Instead, he's drawn into a classic country-house mystery involving eccentric artists, a vandalized tomb and a modern-day murder aping the death of the tomb's resident. The book boasts notably above-average characterizations: the oddballs, the canny English cop, the meticulous French inspector — they're all lively and well-rounded.

No room for details, but I also heartily recommend:

Two rapid-fire page-turners from Kitsap Peninsula writer Gregg Olsen: "Victim Six" (Pinnacle, 418 pp., $7.99 paper), a serial killer novel set locally, and "A Twisted Faith" (St. Martin's, 320 pp., $25.99), a true crime book about a pastor from Bainbridge who murdered his wife.

Alexander McCall Smith's "The Double Comfort Safari Club" (Pantheon, 247 pp., $23.95), which finds his gracious lady detective, Precious Ramotswe, journeying to a wildlife refuge in search of justice;

And "The Barbary Pirates" (HarperCollins, 336 pp., $25.99), from Anacortes writer William Dietrich — the latest irresistible romp starring Napoleonic-era ne'er-do-well, adventurer and ladies' man Ethan Gage, who this time out-swashbuckles pirates while searching for a legendary weapon: the Mirror of Archimedes.

William Dietrich will read from and sign "The Barbary Pirates" at 7 p.m. Monday at Seattle's University Book Store (206-634-3400 or www.ubookstore.com) and at 7 p.m. April 21 at Parkplace Books in Kirkland (425-828-6546 or www.parkplacebookskirkland.com). He will sign books at noon April 28 at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop (206-587-5737 or www.seattlemystery.com).

Seattle writer Adam Woog's column on crime fiction appears on the second Sunday of the month in The Seattle Times.