A private eye named Sam Tran is dead, hanged from a tree in a local cemetery, and Chicago P.D. Detective Annalisa Vega catches the case.

Vega figures the death is most likely related to a case Tran had been working on, of which there were three. Two are cold cases: A young woman hired him to discover what happened to her mother, who disappeared more than 30 years ago; and a man hired him to figure out who killed his cheating wife and her lover in a motel room more than 20 years ago.

However, the third case makes things more than a little awkward for Vega. Her brother Vincent hired Tran to catch a mysterious stalker who had been harassing his daughter Quinn and other female students on their college campus. Unsurprisingly, Vega’s first priority is protecting Quinn. This proves problematic since the college is outside the Chicago police department’s jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Vega and her partner, Nick Carelli, who also happens to be her ex-husband, are frequently distracted by the need to catch the Chicken Bandit, a violent creep in a chicken mask who is on a convenience- store robbery spree.

“Dead and Gone” is Joanna Schaffhausen’s eighth crime novel and third featuring Vega. In it, the author keeps readers guessing by offering a multitude of suspects for the stalking case, both cold cases and the murder of Tran. Eventually she brings all four to a successful conclusion.

Readers of this series already know that Vega is not trusted by her colleagues because she once turned in her own father, a retired Chicago cop, for covering up a long-ago murder by another family member. As in every Schaffhausen novel, the suspenseful plot is combined with a thoughtful treatment of family tensions and the toll police work takes on a dedicated officer. The characters, including the many stalking suspects, are well-drawn, and the prose is tight and vivid.

By the end of the story, Vega is mentally exhausted, doubting whether she is cut out for police work. This leaves readers wondering what the author has in mind for her next. — Bruce DeSilva, Associated Press

They say your second book is the hardest one to write, but Genevieve Gornichec — leaning on her Norse mythology love yet again as with debut “The Witch’s Heart” — performs a magic hat trick with her sophomore novel.

Historical fantasy “The Weaver and the Witch Queen” finds its footing immediately as tween friends Gunnhild and less well-off sisters Oddny and Signy reunite for a special celebration on their Norwegian fjord, only to be horribly separated by a seer foretelling that one of them will destroy the other two’s lives without naming the culprit.

As a result, Gunnhild runs into the night with the witch in order to get away from her cruel mother and forge her own destiny, while the sisters stay at the farm of their father with no prospects, until a decade later a violent raid tears them apart as well.

The now young women’s journeys come together once again as they cross paths with the charismatic if unwieldy Prince Eirik whose destiny also seems to be entangled in the vague prophecy that put the girls on their catastrophic path.

Gornichec is adept at mapping her characters’ emotional whereabouts and finding their propulsion points to the next disaster or solution. Their charm is in their flaws and their determination to achieve their goals, which is mostly saving Signy from a life of slavery but also finding their own place in the world in a time when women were largely relegated to the house.

Is this a romance? Yes and no. Is it a womance? Yes and no. Is it a classic enemies-to-lovers story? Yep. The ingredients are there for a heroine’s journey, and the result is a delicious Christmas pudding — crunchy, sweet, rich and a little bit hot once you set it on fire. — Cristina Jaleru, Associated Press