More light and light, more dark and dark our woes!"

Shakespeare's words echo sadly across White Nights (400 pages, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95), the second installment in Ann Cleeves' projected Shetland Islands quartet.

It's summer in the islands off Scotland's northeastern coast, and the endless nights of winter become endless days. The lack of darkness puts people on edge -- but not as much as the murder of a stranger who, while attending an art exhibition, begins weeping and claims not to remember who he is.

Enter intuitive Inspector Jimmy Perez, a Shetlands native and the man who cracked the case in last year's first book in the series, "Raven Black." Perez uses his sympathetic persona to solve this puzzle, too -- a solution that, as in "Raven Black," comes as a shock.

Cleeves evokes the Shetlands with a clarity of prose that creates vivid images in the mind's eye of the reader. Nor does she confine her descriptive powers to the landscape; she's equally acute in her observations of her characters, such as this passage: "She stared at him as children stare at very fat people, or at people with a deformity, with a look that was at once frank and curious."

With skillfully drawn characters, an engaging cop and a poignant story of past deeds resonating in the present, "White Nights" lays bare the dark secrets and long nights of the spirit.

. . .

Create a truly captivating cop character, and what will your readers expect? More, of course.

John Sandford, author of 18 "Prey" novels in the Lucas Davenport series, did so when he introduced Virgil Bowers, like Davenport a quirky hot shot in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, in "Invisible Prey." Then he spun off Flowers in a novel of his own, "Dark of the Moon," a taut and edgy thriller. Sandford returns to Flowers (and more than just a bit of Davenport, too) in Heat Lightning (400 pages, Putnam, $26.95), and the ride's another wild one.

Flowers is in bed with his second ex-wife when Davenport calls on a sweaty midsummer night. A body has been found propped against a veterans memorial, shot twice in the head, a lemon stuck in the mouth. It's the second such case in as many weeks, and both men are convinced that a serial killer is at work -- and that more names are on the list.

But is the motive corruption, chance -- or something that happened decades ago in Vietnam? Complicating matters is the security headache for the upcoming Republican National Convention and the fact that two potential victims are major players in the Twin Cities.

With the idiosyncratic Flowers in full bloom, "Heat Lightning" becomes more than simply a thriller (although it's a fine one). Sandford's brilliance in characterization, evocative prose -- "The churches . . . pushed steeples into the night sky like medieval lightning rods, straining to ward off the evil that men do." -- philosophizing and plotting show him in "Heat Lightning" at the top of his game.

. . .

Ah, Paris. The French capital has long attracted artists, lovers, romantics of all stripes. But in Claude Izner's Murder on the Eiffel Tower (304 pages, St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95), the City of Light's dark side comes to the fore.

The book -- the first in Izner's projected series featuring bookstore owner Victor Legris -- opens in 1889, shortly after the completion of the Eiffel Tower. When an impoverished young widow who is living on the charity of her half sister dies on the tower, Legris is nearby. The death is attributed to a bee sting, but Legris becomes intrigued by the death. Soon, an American explorer dies in a similar fashion, and Legris learns of the earlier demise of a junk-seller.

More deaths follow, and Legris is drawn into the world of the Parisian intelligentsia, particularly those involved in a recent newspaper start-up and their friends. To his horror, Legris begins to suspect his business partner, father figure Kenji Mori, as well as a lovely young artist, Tasha Kherson. But as Legris follows other clues, more suspects come into play.

Izner combines a sparkling puzzle (reminiscent of one of Agatha Christie's most famous novels) with complex characters and appealing descriptions of Paris, and "Murder on the Eiffel Tower" is a well-executed beginning to a series with great potential.

. . .

Amid the tumult and the shouting, it's nice to find an oasis of calm. Such pleasures await in The Tale of Briar Bank (320 pages, Berkley Prime Crime, $23.95), the fifth entry in Susan Wittig Albert's "The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter" series, based on the life and work of the beloved author-illustrator of children's books.

As the story opens in December 1909, Beatrix has returned to her cherished Hill Top Farm in England's Lake District and learns that Hugh Wickstead, a collector of antiquities, has been killed by a falling tree limb. But why does the limb have claw marks, and is there any truth to the talk that he had unearthed a treasure trove?

With each succeeding volume in the series, Albert's voice grows more confident -- and more reminiscent of Potter's. Complete with country eccentrics and animals who talk (but only to each other), "The Tale of Briar Bank" includes a mystery of sorts, but the real appeal is Potter and her interactions with her neighbors.

If you're looking for mayhem, don't go here. But if you're seeking a sweet, gentle story of village life, this one will beguile a few hours of your time.

. . .

Where there's a will, there's trouble, and Written in Blood (320 pages, Obsidian, $6.99), the second in Sheila Lowe's forensic-handwriting series featuring expert Claudia Rose, is no exception to the honored mystery formula.

But it's so much more. As the novel opens, Claudia is asked by Paige Sorensen to verify that the signature on her late husband's will was his. Paige, a much-younger trophy wife, is hated by her stepchildren, who were cut out of the will.

Paige, though, is no scatter-brained skank. She's headmistress of the Sorensen Academy in Los Angeles, and she enlists Claudia's help in reaching out to troubled teen Annabelle Giordano, whose actress mother was killed in a car crash and whose producer father is linked to the mob.

Lowe quickly moves from the will plot to a larger storyline. Murder and abduction take place, and Claudia finds her life in danger. "Written in Blood" is written with dexterity and will have readers turning the page quicker than a doctor can scrawl something illegible.
Contact Jay Strafford at (804) 649-6698 or jstrafford@timesdispatch.com.