Does expertise in a certain field make you the best person to write about it? Yoou can find out for yourself with “Unknown Means,” the book released last month by Elizabeth Becka. Becka, a forensics specialist with the Coral Gables police department. The thriller is about wild game hunting in Africa, and how a lion terrorizes a group of rich, snobbish Americans on safari. Or it’s about a forensic expert trying to solve a murder of a wealthy socialite. One of those two. This follows Becka’s well received “Trace Evidence.”

Rhys Bowen is back with another Molly Murphy mystery, “Tell Me, Pretty Maiden.” As usual, we cannot get through a Bibliophile entry without at least one mention of a historical mystery, which are hot. And none is hotter than Bowen, the British-born California resident (another trend) who is now on the seventh novel in this award-winning series. This time, detective Murphy tracks down the attackers of a young woman she and her “beau” — Daniel Sullivan — find beaten and left for dead in Central Park.

If you want more a contemporary setting, thriller writer Dan Fesperman is back with “The Amateur Spy.” Fespersman offers upmarket thrills, with fine writing and often exotic settings. This time, the story centers on a retired aid worker living with his wife on an island in the Aegean Sea is recruited my mysterious people to spy on a former friend. Somehow, this will tie into a wealthy doctor who is planning a terrorist attack in Washington.