1. VANISHED by Kat Richardson. #4 Greywalker paranormal series sees main character Harper Blaine off to London. Her visit is two-fold: first, she's been having disturbing dreams about her ex-boyfriend Will and is worried about him. And Seattle's master vampire, Edward, wants her to find out what happened to his agent in London. He believes there's another takeover attempt that is beginning in Europe. Harper would likely have refused the request were it not for her horrific dreams, but sees it in her best interest to help Edward--he's the devil she knows and all of that. Harper also learns some new information about her father and his death, which ties into her own life and why she became a Greywalker. That storyline also sets up some potentially really interesting future books. Action-packed adventure, taking Harper, Will's young brother Michael and another Greywalker named Marsden through London's long-abandoned underground river system and through the Grey which allows Harper to see things as they were centuries ago. Marsden also helps Harper to understand more about her abilities, about Greywalkers in general, and about her father. Enjoyable entry in the series, but wasn't quite as good as the last one--the ending was rather abrupt and left a lot of loose ends dangling--which of course, means the wait til the next in series is more difficult. A-
2. WHITE NIGHT by Jim Butcher. (AUDIO) #9 Harry Dresden paranormal mystery. Harry is consulted "off the record" by Sgt. Karrin Murphy (demoted after the fiasco in the last book) in a series of killings that were made to look like suicides. One of the women has a strange altar in her bedroom and Murph's gut tells her something's hinky. Harry confirms this when he sees a magical signature on the wall (visible only to wizards or those who use magic) and to their horror, they discover that these women were all members of a group of Pagans and magick users. Further clues show that they wanted to attract Harry (now a Warden of the White Council) and even make it look as though he might be the killer--since the women were observed talking to a tall man in a gray cloak before they disappeared. Harry discovers that his half-brother Thomas (a White Court vampire) may be tangled up in the mess that soon dissolves into an out and out escalation of the war between the Red Court, the White Court and the White Council. Excellent entry in the series as Harry continues to school his apprentice, Molly Carpenter, and works with Warden Carlos Ramirez to bring down those preying on the magick-using women. Well-read once again by James Marsters who captures the tone of the books and Harry's wise-cracking humor very well. A.
3. A PLAGUE OF POISON by Maureen Ash. #3 Bascot de Marins "Templar Knight" historical mystery set in 1201, Lincoln UK. Bascot, attempting to make a decision as to whether or not he should leave the Templars and accept King John's offer to have his father's lands restored to him and allow him to name an heir. He worries that his ward, Gianni, a ragamuffin that he rescued from a life of poverty on the streets, will end up back where he came from if he were to go back to his Templar brothers rather than leave the order and remain one of Nicolaa de la Haye's retainers. He's distracted from thinking about his choices, however, when a rash of poisonings plague Lincoln, with several deaths both in castle and town, apparently through honey laced with a deadly herb that lead to a quick and violent death. Near-panic begins to take the townsfolk, with people suspicious of everyone around them. Lady Nicolaa places the castle cooks under orders to serve only plain, unspiced foods, and charges Bascot with finding the vile murderer. His first task is to determine the motive of the killer, and to do that, he must try to figure out if the actual victims were the intended victims. I like this series and am beginning to like Bascot more each book, but one thing I have found is that there are too many peripheral characters, such that when the killer was revealed, I barely remembered who they were. While not a wholly satisfying book, I'll definitely read on--a great sense of time and place and interesting major characters overshadow the meandering investigation. B.
4. THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT by Diane A.S. Stuckart. #1 in the Leonardo da Vinci historical mystery series, set in 1483 Milan. Told from the point of view of one of Leonardo's apprentices, Delfina della Fazia, an eighteen year old girl who has disguised herself as a boy named Dino. Female apprentices are not allowed, and Delfina wanted nothing more than to be an artist so with her father's help, she escapes her small home village and an arranged marriage to run off to Milan seeking apprenticeship with Leonardo. During a live chess match in which one of the players disappears, Leonardo asks "Dino" to go find the Conte di Ferrara, who was playing one of the bishops. The Conte is found, all right--with a knife in his back in one of the gardens! Dino tells Leonardo and they begin a charade in which Dino assumes the role of the bishop in the chess match while Leonardo explains to the Duke why his game is held up and the Duke charges Leonardo with solving the crime. Which he eventually does, with "Dino's" help--but only after a couple more bodies are thrown into the mix. Several theories as to the killer float about, although I had no problem sussing them out right from the start. Several times during the book, Dino's disguise almost comes unraveled, although she does eventually have one confidant who helps her maintain the illusion of being male. I have to admit I was a little leery of this book given that the author writes romances also, and I am NOT a fan of romances, nor especially of romances disguising themselves as mysteries. I was pleasantly surprised in that there was none of that going on at all. (Thank you, author!) I'm also often leery of books featuring prominent historical figures as sleuths--I don't know why, as I really don't know enough about any given historical figure to scoff at any errors that might exist. LOL I enjoyed this book, although I started it almost expecting not to. It didn't take long before I was well past the 50 pages I'd promised to give it and immersed in the story. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the historical settings or known information about Leonardo, but as this is historical FICTION, it wasn't something I worried about anyway. While not a stellar read (and I can't readily put my finger on what makes me downgrade this just slightly) it is a good start to a promising new series--I've got the second one here and we'll see how it holds up. B+
5. THE DEAD CAT BOUNCE by Sarah Graves. (AUDIO) #1 Home Repair is Homicide mystery featuring Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree in Eastport, Maine. Jacobia is a former financial adviser who lived in New York and had some pretty high-flying clients--including some unsavory 'connected' folks. A year ago, she decided to abandon the rat race and bought a 200-year-old house in Eastport, Maine and moved in with her teenage son Sam. Since then, her life has been one big instruction book in how to fix up her house, and it's not been easy. Still, she's made a few friends and seems to be settling in relatively well, even though she's "from away." She certainly doesn't expect to find a dead body in her storeroom--especially not the body of one of the world's richest men! Nor would she have expected her best friend Ellie White to be arrested for the murder, but Ellie's confessed. It's up to Jake to figure out who Ellie is protecting--since they have a confession, the cops don't seem especially eager to do a lot of investigating themselves. I enjoyed this book on many levels, but I did find the reader to be somewhat annoying. She did really well with the different accents, especially that Maine 'down East' twang, but her way of reading and the tone of the book gave Jake a really superior-sounding attitude which grated on my nerves. I'm going to try the next in series in print and see if that makes a difference. If the author intended the main character to have this air of smug superiority, I'm not sure I'll continue on much longer. Most of the immediate secondary characters were interesting and beginning to flesh out well, including Jake's pompous brain surgeon ex-husband (he sounds so much like a neurosurgeon I used to work with, it's not even funny!) and her son Sam is a real treat, so I'm hoping I like the print version better. B.
6. NECESSARY AS BLOOD by Deborah Crombie. #13 Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James British police procedural. This book's theme is London's East End, specifically the Brick Lane area, notable for its rich Indian/Pakistani/Bengali culture. Gemma is visiting her friend Hazel, newly back in London, when Hazel's soon-to-be-ex-husband Tim calls Gemma and asks her to look into the disappearance of a friend. Nasir, a Bangladeshi lawyer, was supposed to pick up his three-year-old daughter from the sitter several hours previously but hasn't turned up. Since Naz is normally very responsible, the sitter frantically calls Tim. Gemma is intrigued when she learns that the man's wife, Sandra Gilles, a white textile artist, vanished into thin air about three months previously. When Naz turns up dead, the welfare of Charlotte, the young child now apparently orphaned, hangs in the balance. Scotland Yard is called in and Duncan and his sergeant Doug Cullen are on the case, with Gemma investigating in an unofficial capacity while she tries to deal with her mother's illness and planning her and Duncan's upcoming wedding as well as her normal work duties as a Detective Inspector at the Notting Hill station. Once again, I very much enjoyed this entry in this stellar series. Crombie's writing style leaves you totally absorbed into the neighborhood she's focusing on in each book and this one was no exception. She balances well the investigation of the mystery of the day with the personal lives of the major players and smoothly shifts back and forth between the point of view of several different characters. The only bad thing about this book is that now I'm going to have to wait many months for the release of the next entry! A+
7. THE GATES by John Connolly. (AUDIO) YA fantasy about an odd boy named Samuel Johnson (who has a dog named Boswell! LOL) who goes trick or treating three days early, and accidentally sees his neighbors, the Abernathys, engaged in some weird ritual that ends with them transformed into demons and with the gate to Hell in their basement at 666 Crowley Rd. When they learn that Samuel has seen them, they set out to try to keep him quiet about their plans--even as Sam is trying as hard as he can to get someone to believe him about what he's seen. On the other side of the inter-dimensional portal, we also get to meet a demon named Nerd, who isn't very demonic and who keeps botching the assignments given to him. Brilliant and imaginative and very well read by Jonathan Cake, I enjoyed this humorous horror story very much, and the ending found me hoping that there will be a sequel. A.
8. THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER by Andrea Camilleri. #8 Inspector Montalbano mystery set in Vigata, Italy. Supposedly recuperating from the wound he sustained at the end of the last book, with the lovely (and yet curmudgeonly in her own way!) Livia visiting and tending to him, Montalbano is instead dragged into a kidnapping case, "just to consult" while another detective has the lead role. Susanna Mistretta has disappeared, presumed kidnapped, although motive seems a bit unclear as her family has lost most of their money years previously. Several days pass with no ransom demand and Montalbano is beginning to believe she just went walkabout or else was taken by the proverbial sex maniac and is long dead. Then the ransom call comes in. Montalbano suspects that things aren't quite what they seem--as did I, having figured out the mystery well in advance of our grumpy detective friend. Enjoyable visit to Sicily, with Montalbano enjoying his fabulous fresh Italian meals, waxing philosophical, all the while cogitating until he pieces the clues together to solve the case. Strewn with a host of interesting, diverse secondary characters and ripe with the essence of Italian culture, I always enjoy a read in this series--but they read so quickly I decided that reading just one was like having a snack and I decided to dive right into the next in series--very uncharacteristic of me, I know! A.
Current reads: THE PAPER MOON by Andrea Camilleri, THE CRUELEST MONTH by Louise Penny, and about to start listening to GRAVE SECRET by Charlaine Harris in audio.
Cheryl
Friday, November 6, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
October 2009 Reading
I just realized I hadn't started posting my October reads yet, and here it is, mid-month already! You'll probably notice quite a few titles with the words "Dead, Die, Dying, or Death" in the title this month--I'm participating in a reading challenge for one of my online book groups to read as many books as possible with those words in the title.
1. DEAD CENTER by David Rosenfelt. #5 Andy Carpenter mystery. Andy is a lawyer in Paterson, New Jersey but in this installment is off to the midwest in response to a call from his ex-girlfriend Laurie who is now the acting police chief in her home town of Findlay, Wisconsin. The son of a childhood friend has been accused of murdering two young college women, one of them the girl who just broke up with him. Andy, who has finally made up his mind to start to come to terms with life sans Laurie, is reluctant to take up the case primarily for that reason, but also because he can afford to be picky about his cases and he likes to have a belief that his client truly is innocent. Although he normally trusts Laurie's judgment implicitly, he feels she may be too close to the situation. Eventually he does drive out with his dog Tara in tow. But after meeting Jeremy (the accused) and his family and getting a feel for the locals from Calvin, the local attorney he'll be working with, he comes to believe that Laurie is right. There is something bigger going on, probably involving the Centurions, a cultish, isolationist religion that is the sole cornerstone of the neighboring town of Center City, where Elizabeth and Sheryl, the two murdered girls, were from. It takes another murder or two to convince the judge that Jeremy is innocent and that charges should be dropped, but Andy is disinclined to just go home and let things hang in the air. Plus, he and Laurie have started their relationship up again and he really doesn't want that to end, either. I did spot the bad guy very early on, but had no basis for it, just a gut feeling. This was a great entry in the series, one of the very few "lawyer/courtroom drama" mysteries I will even go anywhere near. A.
2. THE WAY OF FOUR: CREATING ELEMENTAL BALANCE IN YOUR LIFE by Deborah Lipp. Pagan tutorial about working with elemental magicks, determining your own elemental nature and learning to balance your own nature through ritual and practice. Although Pagan, I don't do a lot of magical ritual myself so hadn't really worked much with or been terribly cognizant of, the Elementals. The author explains the differences between the elements in nature and the Elementals, magical beings and takes you through several exercises to determine your own elemental nature. I had known that I was strongly of Earth, but was surprised to find that I have almost as many Air characteristics. I'm already fairly balanced, also having some Fire and Water traits in my nature, but those two are definitely tamped down most of the time by the Air-Earth domination of my personality and essential nature. It took me several weeks to get through the book as some exercises are done outdoors, which is not always easy for me to do, living in the city. Some parts I paid more attention to than others. I thought this was a very well-done book with plenty of different aspects for different people. Some of this was fairly basic, other parts more advanced. There is another workbook that also accompanies this book which I didn't have, but may purchase at some point. I'll definitely be referring to this book again in the future, it'll stay on my Keeper shelf. A.
3. WHEN GODS DIE by C.S. Harris. #2 Sebastian St. Cyr historical mystery. Set in 1811 London, full of political intrigue, Sebastian (aka Viscount Devlin) is asked by the close adviser of the Prince Regent to investigate the murder of a woman found in the Regent's company dead--while he fell asleep and doesn't recall anything that happens. Not wishing to become involved in the Regent's female problems nor in anything political in the current climate, he's set to decline when Jarvis dangles a necklace in front of him--an ancient necklace that was last seen around Sebastian's mother's neck on the day she disappeared when he was eleven years old. Of course this draws him into the mystery, and the story unfolds--both the story of the murder and of how the necklace came to be on Guinevere Anglissey's pretty dead neck. Sebastian, Tom (the street urchin he rescued who is now in his employ as his 'tiger' or horseman) and Kat Boleyn, his lover and actress in Drury Lane, investigate various aspects of the crime and things get more dangerous for them all the closer they get. I admit that I hooked one of the author's red herrings and ran with it and was rather surprised at the solution to the crime and the necklace mystery too. Cracking good action-packed suspense, the first book in awhile that I've been literally unable to put down. I liked this better than the first book, and the gratuitious sex didn't bother me as it was between well established characters. A+
4. SOVEREIGN by C.J. Sansom. #3 Matthew Shardlake historical mystery set in 1541 during King Henry VIII's Progress northward to York. Matthew, a lawyer, has been commissioned by Archbishop Cranmer to assist in readying petitions of Yorkshiremen to be put before the King's justice--but his real purpose is that he wants Matthew to keep a prisoner who is accused in the recent attempted revolution safe until he can be brought to the Tower for torture. As his father has recently died and left Matthew in debt for a mortgage on his farm, he feels that he has little choice but to take the £50 offered for the job although his heart is certainly not in it. Matthew and his assistant Jack Barak head north and soon are in the midst of a mire of not only terrible rains and mud, but also a tangle of political intrigues and plotting, with Barak taking up with one of Queen Catherine's servants. Matthew meets the fellow lawyer who will be in charge of the reading of the local petitions, Giles Wrenne, and strikes up a friendship with him only to learn after a time that he is slowly dying of an enlarging tumor in his gut. Meanwhile, several attempts are made on Matthew's life, as it seems he has made some powerful enemies who seek to discredit him, and there are also attempts to kill the prisoner that he is supposed to keep safe. Longing only for his own hearth and home, the mysteries within mysteries seem to deepen as the weeks roll past until Matthew doesn't know who should be trusted, until the end when all is revealed. I had a feeling about the resolution of the main mystery and was right, although some of the side plots had somewhat surprising ends to them. Very rich, meaty novel--a good mystery as well as plenty of historical detail with an interesting theory put forth by the author. The afterward notes were interesting too, to let the reader know where he'd taken liberties with known historical documentation or let his imagination run a bit wild. I'm ready for the next in series! This stays on my Keeper shelf. A.
5. CIRCLE OF THE DEAD by David Lawrence. #1 DS Stella Mooney mystery set in London. Stella is a haunted character, a street smart rogue cop who grew up in the tough projects and has maintained her toughness. Smart enough to escalate up the promotion ladder if she wanted to, Stella elects to stay a Detective Sergeant so she can keep her fingers on the pulse of the street, keep close to the people instead of becoming a paper pusher. I have to say that in this book, the role of DS seemed to be a lot more expansive than it is in many other British police procedurals I've read. Of course Stella tended to act impulsively at times with a lot of authority that she in reality didn't have, too. As she tries to solve the case of Jimmy Stone, killed by a professional hit man with a knife to the heart, her mental health becomes increasingly fragile as she is attacked several times, continues to drink too much and sleep too little due to nightmares about a previous case and her own miscarriage, and conflicting feelings about her live-in boyfriend George. There wasn't really any mystery here--we knew up front who the bad guys were, the only mystery was what would happen to Stella and her sanity. For much of the book it felt like Stella was nothing but a pinball battered back and forth, bouncing off various pylons out of control. I liked Stella, but at times her whole persona was just a real drag, and her continued unwise--okay, sometimes totally stupid--decisions tended to border on being unbelievable. Dark, gritty, violent, compelling story and interesting perspectives, but not something I would want to read a bunch of back to back. B.
6. DEATH OF A CELEBRITY by M.C. Beaton. #18 Hamish MacBeth mystery set in fictional Lochdubh, Scotland. A young woman, star of a local television show that has begun doing exposes of various Highland people and institutions, is killed. Hamish himself could be suspect as she was about to interview him and smear the local constabulary. A new interim Chief Inspector, Pat Carson, seems a little more keen on Hamish and his wild ideas than his old nemesis Blair was, but a couple of small foul ups leave Hamish once again banished to his own village patch to let the big boys in Strathbane solve the murder--or make fools of themselves trying. Of course it takes a second murder to wake them up and realize Hamish was right from the start. These books have gotten to be all so much alike that I'm sure the author can write them in her sleep--just as I can almost read them in my sleep. I know I say this after almost every book in this series...it's not that I hate the books, and I really do like Hamish, but I'm going to give up now, I think. They just don't seem to be worth the couple of hours of time it takes to read them, so predictable have they become. C.
7. INKHEART by Cornelia Funke. (AUDIO) First of a YA fantasy series about a young girl named Meggie, and her father Mortimer (she calls him Mo) who is a book repairer. One day a strange man comes to their house to speak to Mo; even his name (Dustfinger) is odd and he calls Mo "Silvertongue." Mo is worried after Dustfinger's visit and decides that they need to leave the house for awhile to visit Meggie's Aunt Eleanor--her long-gone mother's sister. Eleanor, a spinster with a houseful of books, some of them rare and collectible, welcomes them although she's uncertain of Meggie, not being fond of children in general--but when some mysterious men capture Mo to take him back to "Capricorn," Meggie and Eleanor must figure out why they wanted him, where they've taken him and how to rescue him. Along the course of their adventures, Meggie discovers why it is that her father never reads to her aloud--it has to do with the name Silvertongue--a name the evil Capricorn has given him. Mo can read things from stories into the real world--and vice versa. Meggie learns that Mo read Capricorn and his cronies and Dustfinger out of a book called Inkheart--while at the same time, Meggie's mother was read INTO the book, never to return again, although Mo tried many times to get her back out. What a wonderful story--very imaginitive, and this audio version was great, read by Lynn Redgrave who did a marvelous job with all the different voices from the evil Capricorn to the spinster-ish Eleanor to the pre-teen Meggie. A must for all bibliophiles, I think--well, a must for anyone, really! I look forward to the next in this series very much! A+
8. THE DEAD PLACE by Stephen Booth. #6 DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry mystery set in the Peak District of England. Once again, two cases end up tangled together. A strange caller rambles on about death, looking for 'the dead place,' quoting poetry and literary sources and makes it known how special they think the moment of death is. The call is made with a voice changer, and calls are made from public phones, often in the vicinity of where a funeral is taking place. And they promise that a death is coming. Is this a funeral home employee, or one of those ghouls who goes to funerals to soak up people's grief? Meanwhile, there is a case of a body found in an open area--first thought to be a murder victim, but once she is identified after a forensic artist's composite drawing is published in the newspapers, it's determined that she was a woman who had died of natural causes 18 months previously and had been believed to be cremated by her family. So who was cremated in her place? And how was the switch made? The story delves into the details of the funeral home/crematorium business as well as thoughts on death itself--which weighs heavily on Ben Cooper's mind as his mother suffers a stroke and is hospitalized, not doing well. Great story as always (although I still intensely dislike Diane Fry!) and I did not figure out the bad guy in this one at all. Looking forward to the next one! A.
9. THE SORCERESS by Michael Scott. (AUDIO) #3 'Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel' YA fantasy series. This book picks up immediately where the second one left off, with Sophie and Josh Newman, fifteen-year-old twins (now known to the 'The Twins of Legend') with the alchemist Nicholas Flamel battling against the forces of evil, which are spearheaded by the noted magician, Dr. John Dee. Presently in London, Dee continues to send various foes against them, most drawn from the pages of history and/or mythology. This book is very fast-paced, hurtling along from one near-disaster to another with little time for piecing together of any puzzles in between. Meanwhile, on Alcatraz Island, Flamel's wife Peronelle, a sorceress of some note, has to deal with various monsters sent by Niccolo Machiavelli, another of the evil crew, who is looking to settle an old debt with her. The book leaves no doubt that there will be more in the series as it seemed like nothing more than an action-packed interlude on the way to a hopefully somewhat meatier conclusion. (I've no idea how many books are planned in this series.) I enjoyed the book, although the reader is not my favorite. We learned a few things along the way, but most of this was action and not much introspection or puzzle-solving and not a lot of character development. My favorite character in this series, Scatatch, an ancient Celtic warrior goddess (who is now a vegetarian vampire!) was very short on exposure in this book--hoping to see more of her again next time. B+
10. DIES THE FIRE by S.M. Stirling. #1 of a speculative fiction/dystopian series set in a modern world beginning the night of "the Change" when some sort of worldwide, catastrophic event like a giant electromagnetic pulse renders modern technology useless. Everything electrical, battery-operated, or explosive is rendered instantly useless--planes fall out of the sky, automobiles stop working where they are, the lights literally go out all over the world. Mass chaos ensues, and as expected, as the months go by, much of the population left after the initial Change dies from starvation, various diseases and plagues, and eventually from the brutality of other men, with roving bands of cannibals stalking the countryside. A few viscious, power-hungry men setting up mini-empires in various cities, ruling by violence and terror to take what they want and control the populace. But out in the countryside (this takes place primarily in Oregon, with Portland being the demense of the evil Protector) small of people retreat to family farms and try to plan for a future, raising food without electricity, gasoline-powered machinery or modern conveniences. They must also, of course, protect themselves from the ruthless bands of bandits, cannibals, and the Protector's increasingly far-reaching cohorts demanding feudal-like power, tithes of food and service and the like. This story is told primarily from the point of view of two people, leaders of two different such groups, Juniper MacKenzie and Mike Havel, Mike having been a bush pilot whose plane crashed in the episode with the Larsson family his current clients on board--all miraculously survive the crash, and Mike, a former Marine, sets out to keep his charges safe. Juniper was a folk musician and High Priestess of a small Wiccan coven and heads for her cottage in the hills with a few friends when the Change happens. Very hard to put down! Interesting story, and very much looking forward to the next book in this series to see what happens to our friends (and to society!) as time goes on. A+
11. A CARRION DEATH by Michael Stanley. #1 Detective David "Kubu" Bengu mystery set in Gaborone, Botswana. A half-eaten body is found near a waterhole in the Kalahari desert, a disgruntled hyena hovering close by, waiting to see if the humans are going to leave him to his lunch or not. Not! Assistant Superintendent Kubu's first task is to try to determine the identity of the body, which has no hands and thus no fingerprints. No white men have been reported missing, so this is proving quite difficult initially. After a time, however, Kubu has several different possibilities to fulfill the role, and he and his team remain interested when the coroner determines that the man (whoever he was) was murdered. Several different sub-plots to the main mystery seem to intersect with Botswana Cattle & Mining Company (the country's largest company) involved on several scales, and with several more dead bodies piling up along the way. Some of these sub-plots were fairly easy to figure out, as was the main baddie. Detective Kubu (Kubu meaning "Hippopotamus") is a delightful character, a large man fond of good food and wine, proud of his heritage and country and family, and yet pragmatic in recognizing its faults, too. He sings off-key opera, is respectful of his parents, resists his wife's attempts at getting him to diet and delights in having the baboons from the nearby jungle jumping all over the outside of the police station! While I delved right into the cultural details about the country, enjoyed getting to know Kubu, his wife Joy and the other secondary characters, and learned much about several pertinent social issues (diamond poaching and theft, alienation of the indigenous Kalahari Bushmen, etc) it seemed to me that at times the story was burdened with too many different issues and details. It felt crowded, as though the author were trying to cram in as much information and detail about the area, the culture, the food, the climate, the law enforcement system...etc...as possible. It was a lot to digest, and thus was not a book to be read quickly in a couple of sittings. Whether that is the result of the collaborative effort of the two people writing the book and overlapping on some things, or some other reason, I don't know. At any rate, despite it being somewhat bloated, I very much enjoyed the book and do look forward to the second in the series. B+
12. THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM by Susan Wittig Albert. (AUDIO) #1 in the Beatrix Potter historical cozy mysteries set in early 1900's Sawrey, UK. First of a very cozy mystery series centering on Beatrix Potter (author of Peter Rabbit and other children’s books) beginning when she bought Hill Top Farm not long after the death of her beloved fiancé (and publisher) Norman Warne. The mystery here centers around the death of one of the villagers and Miss Potter and the village’s animals along with her own menagerie eventually solve the crime. I don’t think it’s easy to take a real historical figure and base a series of books on them, but from the admittedly little I know of Beatrix Potter, it seems that the author has done a remarkable job. The book is very cozy and told partly from the point of view of Beatrix and partly from the POV of various animals, and knowing this, I elected to ‘read’ the audio version, which actually worked well for me. The reader was wonderful, doing a variety of voices and accents very skillfully and captured the soul of the book well. I’m not sure I would read these in print—they’re just TOO cozy for my usual tastes and even in audio, the always “prim and proper” tone of the English village of the day did wear on my nerves after awhile—but I did enjoy this in audio and most certainly will listen to more of them. B+
13. THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman. (AUDIO) Very interesting tale of a toddler whose family is murdered but escapes the killer’s knife by wandering out of his house into a nearby graveyard. His mother’s spirit briefly visits the graveyard and asks two ghosts, Mr. & Mrs. Owens, to take care of her son, and they do, calling him Nobody Owens (“Bod” for short.) They need help raising him since they aren’t allowed to leave the graveyard and the living and the dead almost never interact, but a creature called Silas—who is neither living nor dead—agrees to help by procuring food and acting as Bod’s guardian and liaison with the outside world. And so Bod grows, living in the graveyard, interacting with spirits and ghosts, very much loved and feeling cared for, although he does realize he is somehow different. A variety of spirits and beings educate him as he grows. Eventually he knows what happened to his family and begins to look forward to the day when he will meet the man Jack who killed them. It’s hard to give a synopsis of the book without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that it was an excellent story, and wonderfully read by the author himself. A definite gothic feel, at times scary and macabre, at other times poignant and tender, this is a must-read (or must-listen if you can!!) for all but the very young. A+
14. DYING LIGHT by Stuart MacBride. #2 DS Logan MacRae Scottish police procedural set in Aberdeen. Logan, still trying to recover from the shame he feels associated with events at the end of the last book, doesn’t get fired like he anticipates—instead, he’s charged to work with DI Steel’s team. He’s not sure which is the worse fate; Steel, a chain-smoking, shrewd, crude and lewd woman whose squad is known as the Screw-Up Squad, sees Logan (a former hero) as her way to promotion and glory. He ends up doing much of her dirty work, dragged in to work off-shifts and days off on a serial killer case, much to the chagrin of his new love interest, fellow copper Jackie Watson. Dark, gritty and violent, this was a good story, but it was hard to believe some of the odd coincidences, and also to fathom how someone like DI Steel ever got as far as she did up the ladder with all the shortcuts she took and blatantly ignoring sound procedural practice. I like Logan, but he just seems to skitter from one disaster to another—which is, I suppose, what makes this noir. B+
15. ALANNA: SONG OF THE LIONESS (THE FIRST ADVENTURE) by Tamora Pierce. First of a children's fantasy series, this is the story of Alanna, a pre-pubescent noble girl who conspires with her twin brother Thom such that they each get sent where they want for training—she wants to be a warrior knight and he wants to be a sorcerer. Alanna changes her name to Alan and heads off to the castle for knight’s training in Thom’s place and he heads for the convent to begin training his magic Gift. This is made possible by a father who is a scholar with his head in his studies and somewhat indifferent and inattentive to his children. Of course trouble starts brewing the next year when “Alan” begins developing into a woman, but she is determined to find out what her dreams and visions of the black city mean. While this was an okay story, the writing was just a bit too simplistic and “young” for me. It only took a couple of hours to read, and while I think it would be a good story for children, I don’t think it’s a series I will pursue. B.
16. A DUTY TO THE DEAD by Charles Todd. First in a new historical mystery series featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse during WWI. As we meet Bess, she is on an empty hospital ship, Brittanic, heading back to England, when it hits a mine and sinks. During the fracas, her arm is broken and then injured worse, and thus must be taken off active duty. During this time, she decides to finally assuage her conscience and visit the family of a solider she'd grown close to who ultimately died and left her with a message for his brother that she promised to deliver in person. Arthur Graham's family lives at Owlhurst, a small manor village in Kent, and she sets off to deliver this message to his brother Jonathan. But while a guest in the Graham home, Bess becomes drawn into the family intrigue centering around Arthur's older brother Peregrine, who was committed to an asylum at the age of fourteen after murdering a servant girl. As Arthur's message consists of "Tell Jonathan I lied. I did it for mother's sake. But it has to be set right," she can't help but wonder if it has something to do with Peregrine's situation. As she asks more questions of the villagers who knew the family at the time, she becomes more involved, almost obsessed, with making certain Arthur's wish is carried out, to the point where her own life may be in peril. I very much enjoyed this book--the story was excellent, the characters well-drawn, and the spirit of the times were heartily embraced, and the mystery remained so til fairly close to the end. I look forward to reading more about Bess and her adventures. A.
17. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH by Caroline Graham. #5 DI Tom Barnaby British police procedural. Once again a small English village is the setting, as Alan Hollingsworth is found dead--at first believed to be of a suicide, his wife Simone having disappeared a few days previously, ostensibly to visit her sick mother, although her mother had been believed dead for many years. Then the thirty-year-old daughter of one of the Hollingsworth neighbors disappears, something totally out of character for her. DCI Barnaby and his Sergeant Troy begin investigating, gleaning information from all the nosy neighbors and trying to sift through to find the important bits. Was Alan done in by a former business partner that he'd swindled out of hundreds of thousands of dollars? Is the beautiful Simone's disappearance voluntary, or was she abducted? Neither were well-liked, but neither were they seemingly the types to incur strong hatred. Through many twists and turns, the mysteries are eventually solved, although not to Barnaby's satisfaction, as it's mostly speculation on his part. I did figure out the main part of the mystery about halfway through, but the hows and whys were a bit muddled til the end. Enjoyable, but perhaps a little TOO long and twisty. B+
#5 Kitty Norville paranormal series. Kitty, a werewolf, and Ben (formerly her lawyer, now her fiance and pack mate) finally get fed up with planning a big traditional wedding and decide to get married in Las Vegas, much to the chagrin of Kitty's mother. They plan on combining business with pleasure by having Kitty do a live version of her radio show, The Midnight Hour, at a theatre in Vegas. However, things start falling apart when Kitty is asked by Rick, Denver's Vampire Master, to carry a message to Vegas' Master, Dom. It gets worse when the happy couple arrive at their hotel only to discover that there is a gun convention taking place at the hotel--and Ben recognizes several Hunters--as in, werewolf and vampire hunters--in the crowd. Then there's magic shows featuring real magic and an animal act featuring several lycanthropes. Kitty begins to wonder if her show will ever get done and begins to wonder at the wisdom of their Vegas wedding plans--which were made to simplify everything--and when Ben is kidnapped hours before the ceremony is to take place, she begins the search for him in a state of near-panic. Does their wedding ever take place? You'll have to read it to find out! Another good entry in this paranormal series, although this one did seem a little fragmented and scattered compared to previous books, not quite as good. Looking forward to the next one, though! B+.
19. THE MISSING INK by Karen E. Olson. #1 Tattoo Shop mystery featuring Brett Kavanaugh, owner of the Painted Lady tattoo shop in Las Vegas. Brett gets involved in a complex case her brother Tim, a Las Vegas police detective, is investigating when it's determined that a missing girl was last seen in her shop. She'd come in to ask about getting devotion ink with her fiance's name on it, made an appointment to get the tat, then never showed. The odd thing is, her fiance's name was Bruce Manning Jr--son and heir of a wealthy businessman, known as Chip to his friends--but she wanted her tattoo to say Matthew! Soon the news is splashed with photos of Elise Lyon, missing bride-to-be of Chip Manning--but she had used the name Kelly Masters when she made the appointment at The Painted Lady. When a woman is found shot dead in a car near the airport--and HER name ends up being Kelly Masters, things begin to get really confusing. Soon Brett is in the puzzle up to her pretty little tattooed neck. I liked this book okay--I've enjoyed all of Olson's books in her other series--but this one wasn't exceptional. I like her writing style--it flows, it's easy to read. But this book was cozier than her other series, and in fact had many of the elements of "just another cookie cutter cozy mystery." You have a main character with a quirky job or hobby, you have a set of slightly freaky friends or secondary characters, and you have the main character doing unbelievable things that no sane person would do which continually puts her in jeopardy. And yes, one of those things was withholding evidence from the police, even though one of the police in question was her brother. The concept is great! As a tattooed woman, I felt it certainly had promise. I learned some interesting things. But Brett's character just didn't seem to have much depth, and the whole package didn't quite measure up--possibly because Olson's other series IS so good, I had high expectations. I will read the next in series, but I have become very disillusioned with cozies in general and it is going to have to be an improvement over this one, and Brett is going to have to develop some meat to her character and quit doing such dumb things if I'm to continue beyond that. B-
Current reads: VANISHED by Kat Richardson, WHITE NIGHT by Jim Butcher in audio.
Cheryl
1. DEAD CENTER by David Rosenfelt. #5 Andy Carpenter mystery. Andy is a lawyer in Paterson, New Jersey but in this installment is off to the midwest in response to a call from his ex-girlfriend Laurie who is now the acting police chief in her home town of Findlay, Wisconsin. The son of a childhood friend has been accused of murdering two young college women, one of them the girl who just broke up with him. Andy, who has finally made up his mind to start to come to terms with life sans Laurie, is reluctant to take up the case primarily for that reason, but also because he can afford to be picky about his cases and he likes to have a belief that his client truly is innocent. Although he normally trusts Laurie's judgment implicitly, he feels she may be too close to the situation. Eventually he does drive out with his dog Tara in tow. But after meeting Jeremy (the accused) and his family and getting a feel for the locals from Calvin, the local attorney he'll be working with, he comes to believe that Laurie is right. There is something bigger going on, probably involving the Centurions, a cultish, isolationist religion that is the sole cornerstone of the neighboring town of Center City, where Elizabeth and Sheryl, the two murdered girls, were from. It takes another murder or two to convince the judge that Jeremy is innocent and that charges should be dropped, but Andy is disinclined to just go home and let things hang in the air. Plus, he and Laurie have started their relationship up again and he really doesn't want that to end, either. I did spot the bad guy very early on, but had no basis for it, just a gut feeling. This was a great entry in the series, one of the very few "lawyer/courtroom drama" mysteries I will even go anywhere near. A.
2. THE WAY OF FOUR: CREATING ELEMENTAL BALANCE IN YOUR LIFE by Deborah Lipp. Pagan tutorial about working with elemental magicks, determining your own elemental nature and learning to balance your own nature through ritual and practice. Although Pagan, I don't do a lot of magical ritual myself so hadn't really worked much with or been terribly cognizant of, the Elementals. The author explains the differences between the elements in nature and the Elementals, magical beings and takes you through several exercises to determine your own elemental nature. I had known that I was strongly of Earth, but was surprised to find that I have almost as many Air characteristics. I'm already fairly balanced, also having some Fire and Water traits in my nature, but those two are definitely tamped down most of the time by the Air-Earth domination of my personality and essential nature. It took me several weeks to get through the book as some exercises are done outdoors, which is not always easy for me to do, living in the city. Some parts I paid more attention to than others. I thought this was a very well-done book with plenty of different aspects for different people. Some of this was fairly basic, other parts more advanced. There is another workbook that also accompanies this book which I didn't have, but may purchase at some point. I'll definitely be referring to this book again in the future, it'll stay on my Keeper shelf. A.
3. WHEN GODS DIE by C.S. Harris. #2 Sebastian St. Cyr historical mystery. Set in 1811 London, full of political intrigue, Sebastian (aka Viscount Devlin) is asked by the close adviser of the Prince Regent to investigate the murder of a woman found in the Regent's company dead--while he fell asleep and doesn't recall anything that happens. Not wishing to become involved in the Regent's female problems nor in anything political in the current climate, he's set to decline when Jarvis dangles a necklace in front of him--an ancient necklace that was last seen around Sebastian's mother's neck on the day she disappeared when he was eleven years old. Of course this draws him into the mystery, and the story unfolds--both the story of the murder and of how the necklace came to be on Guinevere Anglissey's pretty dead neck. Sebastian, Tom (the street urchin he rescued who is now in his employ as his 'tiger' or horseman) and Kat Boleyn, his lover and actress in Drury Lane, investigate various aspects of the crime and things get more dangerous for them all the closer they get. I admit that I hooked one of the author's red herrings and ran with it and was rather surprised at the solution to the crime and the necklace mystery too. Cracking good action-packed suspense, the first book in awhile that I've been literally unable to put down. I liked this better than the first book, and the gratuitious sex didn't bother me as it was between well established characters. A+
4. SOVEREIGN by C.J. Sansom. #3 Matthew Shardlake historical mystery set in 1541 during King Henry VIII's Progress northward to York. Matthew, a lawyer, has been commissioned by Archbishop Cranmer to assist in readying petitions of Yorkshiremen to be put before the King's justice--but his real purpose is that he wants Matthew to keep a prisoner who is accused in the recent attempted revolution safe until he can be brought to the Tower for torture. As his father has recently died and left Matthew in debt for a mortgage on his farm, he feels that he has little choice but to take the £50 offered for the job although his heart is certainly not in it. Matthew and his assistant Jack Barak head north and soon are in the midst of a mire of not only terrible rains and mud, but also a tangle of political intrigues and plotting, with Barak taking up with one of Queen Catherine's servants. Matthew meets the fellow lawyer who will be in charge of the reading of the local petitions, Giles Wrenne, and strikes up a friendship with him only to learn after a time that he is slowly dying of an enlarging tumor in his gut. Meanwhile, several attempts are made on Matthew's life, as it seems he has made some powerful enemies who seek to discredit him, and there are also attempts to kill the prisoner that he is supposed to keep safe. Longing only for his own hearth and home, the mysteries within mysteries seem to deepen as the weeks roll past until Matthew doesn't know who should be trusted, until the end when all is revealed. I had a feeling about the resolution of the main mystery and was right, although some of the side plots had somewhat surprising ends to them. Very rich, meaty novel--a good mystery as well as plenty of historical detail with an interesting theory put forth by the author. The afterward notes were interesting too, to let the reader know where he'd taken liberties with known historical documentation or let his imagination run a bit wild. I'm ready for the next in series! This stays on my Keeper shelf. A.
5. CIRCLE OF THE DEAD by David Lawrence. #1 DS Stella Mooney mystery set in London. Stella is a haunted character, a street smart rogue cop who grew up in the tough projects and has maintained her toughness. Smart enough to escalate up the promotion ladder if she wanted to, Stella elects to stay a Detective Sergeant so she can keep her fingers on the pulse of the street, keep close to the people instead of becoming a paper pusher. I have to say that in this book, the role of DS seemed to be a lot more expansive than it is in many other British police procedurals I've read. Of course Stella tended to act impulsively at times with a lot of authority that she in reality didn't have, too. As she tries to solve the case of Jimmy Stone, killed by a professional hit man with a knife to the heart, her mental health becomes increasingly fragile as she is attacked several times, continues to drink too much and sleep too little due to nightmares about a previous case and her own miscarriage, and conflicting feelings about her live-in boyfriend George. There wasn't really any mystery here--we knew up front who the bad guys were, the only mystery was what would happen to Stella and her sanity. For much of the book it felt like Stella was nothing but a pinball battered back and forth, bouncing off various pylons out of control. I liked Stella, but at times her whole persona was just a real drag, and her continued unwise--okay, sometimes totally stupid--decisions tended to border on being unbelievable. Dark, gritty, violent, compelling story and interesting perspectives, but not something I would want to read a bunch of back to back. B.
6. DEATH OF A CELEBRITY by M.C. Beaton. #18 Hamish MacBeth mystery set in fictional Lochdubh, Scotland. A young woman, star of a local television show that has begun doing exposes of various Highland people and institutions, is killed. Hamish himself could be suspect as she was about to interview him and smear the local constabulary. A new interim Chief Inspector, Pat Carson, seems a little more keen on Hamish and his wild ideas than his old nemesis Blair was, but a couple of small foul ups leave Hamish once again banished to his own village patch to let the big boys in Strathbane solve the murder--or make fools of themselves trying. Of course it takes a second murder to wake them up and realize Hamish was right from the start. These books have gotten to be all so much alike that I'm sure the author can write them in her sleep--just as I can almost read them in my sleep. I know I say this after almost every book in this series...it's not that I hate the books, and I really do like Hamish, but I'm going to give up now, I think. They just don't seem to be worth the couple of hours of time it takes to read them, so predictable have they become. C.
7. INKHEART by Cornelia Funke. (AUDIO) First of a YA fantasy series about a young girl named Meggie, and her father Mortimer (she calls him Mo) who is a book repairer. One day a strange man comes to their house to speak to Mo; even his name (Dustfinger) is odd and he calls Mo "Silvertongue." Mo is worried after Dustfinger's visit and decides that they need to leave the house for awhile to visit Meggie's Aunt Eleanor--her long-gone mother's sister. Eleanor, a spinster with a houseful of books, some of them rare and collectible, welcomes them although she's uncertain of Meggie, not being fond of children in general--but when some mysterious men capture Mo to take him back to "Capricorn," Meggie and Eleanor must figure out why they wanted him, where they've taken him and how to rescue him. Along the course of their adventures, Meggie discovers why it is that her father never reads to her aloud--it has to do with the name Silvertongue--a name the evil Capricorn has given him. Mo can read things from stories into the real world--and vice versa. Meggie learns that Mo read Capricorn and his cronies and Dustfinger out of a book called Inkheart--while at the same time, Meggie's mother was read INTO the book, never to return again, although Mo tried many times to get her back out. What a wonderful story--very imaginitive, and this audio version was great, read by Lynn Redgrave who did a marvelous job with all the different voices from the evil Capricorn to the spinster-ish Eleanor to the pre-teen Meggie. A must for all bibliophiles, I think--well, a must for anyone, really! I look forward to the next in this series very much! A+
8. THE DEAD PLACE by Stephen Booth. #6 DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry mystery set in the Peak District of England. Once again, two cases end up tangled together. A strange caller rambles on about death, looking for 'the dead place,' quoting poetry and literary sources and makes it known how special they think the moment of death is. The call is made with a voice changer, and calls are made from public phones, often in the vicinity of where a funeral is taking place. And they promise that a death is coming. Is this a funeral home employee, or one of those ghouls who goes to funerals to soak up people's grief? Meanwhile, there is a case of a body found in an open area--first thought to be a murder victim, but once she is identified after a forensic artist's composite drawing is published in the newspapers, it's determined that she was a woman who had died of natural causes 18 months previously and had been believed to be cremated by her family. So who was cremated in her place? And how was the switch made? The story delves into the details of the funeral home/crematorium business as well as thoughts on death itself--which weighs heavily on Ben Cooper's mind as his mother suffers a stroke and is hospitalized, not doing well. Great story as always (although I still intensely dislike Diane Fry!) and I did not figure out the bad guy in this one at all. Looking forward to the next one! A.
9. THE SORCERESS by Michael Scott. (AUDIO) #3 'Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel' YA fantasy series. This book picks up immediately where the second one left off, with Sophie and Josh Newman, fifteen-year-old twins (now known to the 'The Twins of Legend') with the alchemist Nicholas Flamel battling against the forces of evil, which are spearheaded by the noted magician, Dr. John Dee. Presently in London, Dee continues to send various foes against them, most drawn from the pages of history and/or mythology. This book is very fast-paced, hurtling along from one near-disaster to another with little time for piecing together of any puzzles in between. Meanwhile, on Alcatraz Island, Flamel's wife Peronelle, a sorceress of some note, has to deal with various monsters sent by Niccolo Machiavelli, another of the evil crew, who is looking to settle an old debt with her. The book leaves no doubt that there will be more in the series as it seemed like nothing more than an action-packed interlude on the way to a hopefully somewhat meatier conclusion. (I've no idea how many books are planned in this series.) I enjoyed the book, although the reader is not my favorite. We learned a few things along the way, but most of this was action and not much introspection or puzzle-solving and not a lot of character development. My favorite character in this series, Scatatch, an ancient Celtic warrior goddess (who is now a vegetarian vampire!) was very short on exposure in this book--hoping to see more of her again next time. B+
10. DIES THE FIRE by S.M. Stirling. #1 of a speculative fiction/dystopian series set in a modern world beginning the night of "the Change" when some sort of worldwide, catastrophic event like a giant electromagnetic pulse renders modern technology useless. Everything electrical, battery-operated, or explosive is rendered instantly useless--planes fall out of the sky, automobiles stop working where they are, the lights literally go out all over the world. Mass chaos ensues, and as expected, as the months go by, much of the population left after the initial Change dies from starvation, various diseases and plagues, and eventually from the brutality of other men, with roving bands of cannibals stalking the countryside. A few viscious, power-hungry men setting up mini-empires in various cities, ruling by violence and terror to take what they want and control the populace. But out in the countryside (this takes place primarily in Oregon, with Portland being the demense of the evil Protector) small of people retreat to family farms and try to plan for a future, raising food without electricity, gasoline-powered machinery or modern conveniences. They must also, of course, protect themselves from the ruthless bands of bandits, cannibals, and the Protector's increasingly far-reaching cohorts demanding feudal-like power, tithes of food and service and the like. This story is told primarily from the point of view of two people, leaders of two different such groups, Juniper MacKenzie and Mike Havel, Mike having been a bush pilot whose plane crashed in the episode with the Larsson family his current clients on board--all miraculously survive the crash, and Mike, a former Marine, sets out to keep his charges safe. Juniper was a folk musician and High Priestess of a small Wiccan coven and heads for her cottage in the hills with a few friends when the Change happens. Very hard to put down! Interesting story, and very much looking forward to the next book in this series to see what happens to our friends (and to society!) as time goes on. A+
11. A CARRION DEATH by Michael Stanley. #1 Detective David "Kubu" Bengu mystery set in Gaborone, Botswana. A half-eaten body is found near a waterhole in the Kalahari desert, a disgruntled hyena hovering close by, waiting to see if the humans are going to leave him to his lunch or not. Not! Assistant Superintendent Kubu's first task is to try to determine the identity of the body, which has no hands and thus no fingerprints. No white men have been reported missing, so this is proving quite difficult initially. After a time, however, Kubu has several different possibilities to fulfill the role, and he and his team remain interested when the coroner determines that the man (whoever he was) was murdered. Several different sub-plots to the main mystery seem to intersect with Botswana Cattle & Mining Company (the country's largest company) involved on several scales, and with several more dead bodies piling up along the way. Some of these sub-plots were fairly easy to figure out, as was the main baddie. Detective Kubu (Kubu meaning "Hippopotamus") is a delightful character, a large man fond of good food and wine, proud of his heritage and country and family, and yet pragmatic in recognizing its faults, too. He sings off-key opera, is respectful of his parents, resists his wife's attempts at getting him to diet and delights in having the baboons from the nearby jungle jumping all over the outside of the police station! While I delved right into the cultural details about the country, enjoyed getting to know Kubu, his wife Joy and the other secondary characters, and learned much about several pertinent social issues (diamond poaching and theft, alienation of the indigenous Kalahari Bushmen, etc) it seemed to me that at times the story was burdened with too many different issues and details. It felt crowded, as though the author were trying to cram in as much information and detail about the area, the culture, the food, the climate, the law enforcement system...etc...as possible. It was a lot to digest, and thus was not a book to be read quickly in a couple of sittings. Whether that is the result of the collaborative effort of the two people writing the book and overlapping on some things, or some other reason, I don't know. At any rate, despite it being somewhat bloated, I very much enjoyed the book and do look forward to the second in the series. B+
12. THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM by Susan Wittig Albert. (AUDIO) #1 in the Beatrix Potter historical cozy mysteries set in early 1900's Sawrey, UK. First of a very cozy mystery series centering on Beatrix Potter (author of Peter Rabbit and other children’s books) beginning when she bought Hill Top Farm not long after the death of her beloved fiancé (and publisher) Norman Warne. The mystery here centers around the death of one of the villagers and Miss Potter and the village’s animals along with her own menagerie eventually solve the crime. I don’t think it’s easy to take a real historical figure and base a series of books on them, but from the admittedly little I know of Beatrix Potter, it seems that the author has done a remarkable job. The book is very cozy and told partly from the point of view of Beatrix and partly from the POV of various animals, and knowing this, I elected to ‘read’ the audio version, which actually worked well for me. The reader was wonderful, doing a variety of voices and accents very skillfully and captured the soul of the book well. I’m not sure I would read these in print—they’re just TOO cozy for my usual tastes and even in audio, the always “prim and proper” tone of the English village of the day did wear on my nerves after awhile—but I did enjoy this in audio and most certainly will listen to more of them. B+
13. THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman. (AUDIO) Very interesting tale of a toddler whose family is murdered but escapes the killer’s knife by wandering out of his house into a nearby graveyard. His mother’s spirit briefly visits the graveyard and asks two ghosts, Mr. & Mrs. Owens, to take care of her son, and they do, calling him Nobody Owens (“Bod” for short.) They need help raising him since they aren’t allowed to leave the graveyard and the living and the dead almost never interact, but a creature called Silas—who is neither living nor dead—agrees to help by procuring food and acting as Bod’s guardian and liaison with the outside world. And so Bod grows, living in the graveyard, interacting with spirits and ghosts, very much loved and feeling cared for, although he does realize he is somehow different. A variety of spirits and beings educate him as he grows. Eventually he knows what happened to his family and begins to look forward to the day when he will meet the man Jack who killed them. It’s hard to give a synopsis of the book without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that it was an excellent story, and wonderfully read by the author himself. A definite gothic feel, at times scary and macabre, at other times poignant and tender, this is a must-read (or must-listen if you can!!) for all but the very young. A+
14. DYING LIGHT by Stuart MacBride. #2 DS Logan MacRae Scottish police procedural set in Aberdeen. Logan, still trying to recover from the shame he feels associated with events at the end of the last book, doesn’t get fired like he anticipates—instead, he’s charged to work with DI Steel’s team. He’s not sure which is the worse fate; Steel, a chain-smoking, shrewd, crude and lewd woman whose squad is known as the Screw-Up Squad, sees Logan (a former hero) as her way to promotion and glory. He ends up doing much of her dirty work, dragged in to work off-shifts and days off on a serial killer case, much to the chagrin of his new love interest, fellow copper Jackie Watson. Dark, gritty and violent, this was a good story, but it was hard to believe some of the odd coincidences, and also to fathom how someone like DI Steel ever got as far as she did up the ladder with all the shortcuts she took and blatantly ignoring sound procedural practice. I like Logan, but he just seems to skitter from one disaster to another—which is, I suppose, what makes this noir. B+
15. ALANNA: SONG OF THE LIONESS (THE FIRST ADVENTURE) by Tamora Pierce. First of a children's fantasy series, this is the story of Alanna, a pre-pubescent noble girl who conspires with her twin brother Thom such that they each get sent where they want for training—she wants to be a warrior knight and he wants to be a sorcerer. Alanna changes her name to Alan and heads off to the castle for knight’s training in Thom’s place and he heads for the convent to begin training his magic Gift. This is made possible by a father who is a scholar with his head in his studies and somewhat indifferent and inattentive to his children. Of course trouble starts brewing the next year when “Alan” begins developing into a woman, but she is determined to find out what her dreams and visions of the black city mean. While this was an okay story, the writing was just a bit too simplistic and “young” for me. It only took a couple of hours to read, and while I think it would be a good story for children, I don’t think it’s a series I will pursue. B.
16. A DUTY TO THE DEAD by Charles Todd. First in a new historical mystery series featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse during WWI. As we meet Bess, she is on an empty hospital ship, Brittanic, heading back to England, when it hits a mine and sinks. During the fracas, her arm is broken and then injured worse, and thus must be taken off active duty. During this time, she decides to finally assuage her conscience and visit the family of a solider she'd grown close to who ultimately died and left her with a message for his brother that she promised to deliver in person. Arthur Graham's family lives at Owlhurst, a small manor village in Kent, and she sets off to deliver this message to his brother Jonathan. But while a guest in the Graham home, Bess becomes drawn into the family intrigue centering around Arthur's older brother Peregrine, who was committed to an asylum at the age of fourteen after murdering a servant girl. As Arthur's message consists of "Tell Jonathan I lied. I did it for mother's sake. But it has to be set right," she can't help but wonder if it has something to do with Peregrine's situation. As she asks more questions of the villagers who knew the family at the time, she becomes more involved, almost obsessed, with making certain Arthur's wish is carried out, to the point where her own life may be in peril. I very much enjoyed this book--the story was excellent, the characters well-drawn, and the spirit of the times were heartily embraced, and the mystery remained so til fairly close to the end. I look forward to reading more about Bess and her adventures. A.
17. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH by Caroline Graham. #5 DI Tom Barnaby British police procedural. Once again a small English village is the setting, as Alan Hollingsworth is found dead--at first believed to be of a suicide, his wife Simone having disappeared a few days previously, ostensibly to visit her sick mother, although her mother had been believed dead for many years. Then the thirty-year-old daughter of one of the Hollingsworth neighbors disappears, something totally out of character for her. DCI Barnaby and his Sergeant Troy begin investigating, gleaning information from all the nosy neighbors and trying to sift through to find the important bits. Was Alan done in by a former business partner that he'd swindled out of hundreds of thousands of dollars? Is the beautiful Simone's disappearance voluntary, or was she abducted? Neither were well-liked, but neither were they seemingly the types to incur strong hatred. Through many twists and turns, the mysteries are eventually solved, although not to Barnaby's satisfaction, as it's mostly speculation on his part. I did figure out the main part of the mystery about halfway through, but the hows and whys were a bit muddled til the end. Enjoyable, but perhaps a little TOO long and twisty. B+
#5 Kitty Norville paranormal series. Kitty, a werewolf, and Ben (formerly her lawyer, now her fiance and pack mate) finally get fed up with planning a big traditional wedding and decide to get married in Las Vegas, much to the chagrin of Kitty's mother. They plan on combining business with pleasure by having Kitty do a live version of her radio show, The Midnight Hour, at a theatre in Vegas. However, things start falling apart when Kitty is asked by Rick, Denver's Vampire Master, to carry a message to Vegas' Master, Dom. It gets worse when the happy couple arrive at their hotel only to discover that there is a gun convention taking place at the hotel--and Ben recognizes several Hunters--as in, werewolf and vampire hunters--in the crowd. Then there's magic shows featuring real magic and an animal act featuring several lycanthropes. Kitty begins to wonder if her show will ever get done and begins to wonder at the wisdom of their Vegas wedding plans--which were made to simplify everything--and when Ben is kidnapped hours before the ceremony is to take place, she begins the search for him in a state of near-panic. Does their wedding ever take place? You'll have to read it to find out! Another good entry in this paranormal series, although this one did seem a little fragmented and scattered compared to previous books, not quite as good. Looking forward to the next one, though! B+.
19. THE MISSING INK by Karen E. Olson. #1 Tattoo Shop mystery featuring Brett Kavanaugh, owner of the Painted Lady tattoo shop in Las Vegas. Brett gets involved in a complex case her brother Tim, a Las Vegas police detective, is investigating when it's determined that a missing girl was last seen in her shop. She'd come in to ask about getting devotion ink with her fiance's name on it, made an appointment to get the tat, then never showed. The odd thing is, her fiance's name was Bruce Manning Jr--son and heir of a wealthy businessman, known as Chip to his friends--but she wanted her tattoo to say Matthew! Soon the news is splashed with photos of Elise Lyon, missing bride-to-be of Chip Manning--but she had used the name Kelly Masters when she made the appointment at The Painted Lady. When a woman is found shot dead in a car near the airport--and HER name ends up being Kelly Masters, things begin to get really confusing. Soon Brett is in the puzzle up to her pretty little tattooed neck. I liked this book okay--I've enjoyed all of Olson's books in her other series--but this one wasn't exceptional. I like her writing style--it flows, it's easy to read. But this book was cozier than her other series, and in fact had many of the elements of "just another cookie cutter cozy mystery." You have a main character with a quirky job or hobby, you have a set of slightly freaky friends or secondary characters, and you have the main character doing unbelievable things that no sane person would do which continually puts her in jeopardy. And yes, one of those things was withholding evidence from the police, even though one of the police in question was her brother. The concept is great! As a tattooed woman, I felt it certainly had promise. I learned some interesting things. But Brett's character just didn't seem to have much depth, and the whole package didn't quite measure up--possibly because Olson's other series IS so good, I had high expectations. I will read the next in series, but I have become very disillusioned with cozies in general and it is going to have to be an improvement over this one, and Brett is going to have to develop some meat to her character and quit doing such dumb things if I'm to continue beyond that. B-
Current reads: VANISHED by Kat Richardson, WHITE NIGHT by Jim Butcher in audio.
Cheryl
Sunday, September 6, 2009
September 2009 Reads
I've been on vacation and thought I would get more reading done...but I mostly listened to audios this past week, as I was busy doing a lot of stuff around the house that was perfect for listening while I worked. :)
1. MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN by Anne McCaffrey. (AUDIO) #7 overall publication order of the "Pern" fantasy series, this seems to be a stand-alone story of the weyr-woman Moreta, whose dragon Orlith is the queen of Fort Weyr. The events in this book happen about 900 years before the earlier books in the series, and take place when they are just discovering that dragons cannot only go "between" and thus traverse hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye, but that they can also go other places in TIME. A plague is upon the land, started by a strange cat-like creature and spread to horses and other four-legged beasts. Many all across Pern have died, but some have recovered, and the principle of vaccination is put to good use to keep many people (and animals!) alive. Moreta works together with Alessan, new leader of Ruatha Hold--they meet at a Gather there, and shortly after when the sickness starts, they work together to secure ingredients needed to treat the illness by using dragon riders to travel other places and times. A romance develops between them, but the story has a rather sad and bittersweet ending, but this is something you sort of knew was coming if you're familiar with the series, as there is a ballad in some of the other earlier books (that Menolly sings if I remember right) about Moreta's Ride--and now it all makes sense. Very well done, enjoyable to listen to--another different reader than previous books, but very well-suited to the prose and the tone of the book. A.
2. THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE by C. Alan Bradley. (AUDIO) I guess this would be classified as a 'historical' mystery, as it takes place more than 50 years ago, in 1950 in the English village of Bishop's Lacey. Our heroine is a precocious 11-year-old girl named Flavia de Luce who loves chemistry and spends as much time as she can tinkering in the lab she inherited from her mother, who died when she was just a baby--and where she concocts such things as poison ivy lipstick for her annoying older sister. The de Luce family has lived at Buckshaw for generations, and the current family consists of Flavia, her two teenage sisters, and her father, a reclusive stamp collector. The household staff consist of Mrs. Mullet, the cook and housekeeper, and Dogger, the gardener and general dogsbody. Flavia is awakened one night by loud voices and discovers her father arguing with a tall red-haired man--whom she later discovers dead in the cucumber patch! When her father is arrested for the murder--the man was an old school chum of his--Flavia sets out to free him and travels around on her ancient bicycle Gladys digging up ancient history and cogitating until she comes up with the solution--but not before she ends up in plenty of hot water! I think Flavia is either someone you will really appreciate and enjoy, or someone you'll look at as an annoying brat and give up reading in frustration. Put me firmly in the 'enjoy' camp! I loved this whole story from beginning to end--the atmosphere, Flavia's way with words, the literary references strewn throughout, and even though I'm NOT a fan of chemistry, Flavia's passion for it (and for poisons!) came through to illuminate her character and the story. The reader did an excellent job, too, and made listening a pleasure. I noticed that there's another entry in this series set for publication next year and I'm already looking forward to it. A+
3. MISS ZUKAS AND THE LIBRARY MURDERS by Jo Dereske. #1 Helma Zukas mystery. Wilhelmina "Helma" Zukas, a thirty-something librarian working in a smallish seaside town in Washington State, is a very precise woman. So when she is a little late for work one morning (she knocked over a houseplant when she went back into the apartment to make sure she'd drawn the blinds--and had to clean it up) only to find a police car parked in HER spot, she's a little put out. Arriving inside, she finds that there's a murdered body in the Mo-Ne aisle of the fiction stacks--not one of their regulars, thank heavens! Helma takes it as almost a personal affront and sets off doing a parallel investigation to the police. As I said, Miss Zukas is very precise--so while she doesn't actually out-and-out lie to the police, she does omit some very pertinent information that she observed/gleaned during the course of the investigation. I was a little leery of this book as I've had bad experiences with most cozy mysteries of late, but I actually liked this one. Miss Zukas obviously has a touch of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and could keep company with Mr. Monk without too much trouble I think. LOL But although she's rather rigid and epitomizes the 'spinster librarian' stereotype, there is an undercurrent of wry humor and her bawdy friend Ruth rather offsets Helma's prim and properness. I did have one of my 'gut feelings' about the bad guy, but didn't figure out the hows and whys of the mystery until closer to the end. I've already set out to procure the second one in this series. B+
4. LABYRINTH by Kate Mosse. The blurb on the front of the book reads a quote from author Val McDermid stating, "Eat your heart out, Dan Brown--this is the real thing." Well....I don't know about that. It's another tale of lore regarding the Holy Grail, another possible story and explanation of the secrets of the Cathars lodged in the mountains and caves of what is now southern France. The story weaves together the lives of two women, Alaïs Pelletier in the 12th century and Dr. Alice Tanner in 2005. Alaïs is the second daughter of Bertrand Pelletier, close advisor and seneschal for the Viscount of Carcassone, and when the Inquisition begins and war appears imminent, her father confides a secret of great importance to her and gives her an ancient book to keep safe. She knows it is part of a trilogy and that there are two other books who also have appointed guardians, but she strives to learn more and investigates on her own when her father refuses to share more details with her. The modern-day Alice, an Englishwoman in France to meet with a lawyer regarding a bequest from a previously-unknown aunt, asks an archaelogist friend if she can volunteer on a dig in the Pyrenees for a few days. While doing some work, she discovers a secret cave entrance with two bodies and some interesting artifacts--a ring with a small labyrinthine stone disc most notably. She also has a strange flashback sensation and sees some visions as though in a dream. From there, things start to get really weird. Alice has a feeling of being followed and soon her hotel room is riffled through. Then one of the young policeman who was at the site approaches her and gives her a number to call--and subsequently is run down by an unknown assailant. Unsure of who to trust and unable to reach her friend Shelagh, Alice also investigates, and continues to have the strange dreams, too, and the story continues to entwine and Alice discovers her connection with Alaïs. This was a good story, but for some reason, it took me ages to get through it and I had a hard time staying on track and interested for very long. Part of it was that it was rather bloated and overblown and in need of some judicious editing--sort of the polar opposite of Dan Brown's Grail story, The DaVinci Code, which was action packed and short on detail. I think a book somewhere between the two in tone and substance would be ideal. This story was also quite predictable, and I think anyone who's read anything of Grail lore will easily know what's going to happen by mid-book at the latest. In short, I'm glad I read it, and would recommend it for those interested in the Grail or the story of the Cathars, but I wasn't blown away. B.
5. THE PHYSICK BOOK OF DELIVERANCE DANE by Katherine Howe. (AUDIO) Story of a Harvard graduate student studying Colonial America who is attempting to come up with something to write her dissertation about. Connie Goodwin then is asked by her mother to ready her grandmother's house in Marblehead, MA for selling. What Connie finds there is chaos--the house hasn't been touched in 20 years and has no electricity, telephone and is coated in layers of dust. But she finds the family Bible with a key bearing what she believes is a name, Deliverance Dane, and also develops strange feelings accompanied by headaches. The researcher in her takes over and Connie soon finds herself immersed in the search for Deliverance Dane, and comes to believe that she was accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. As her advisor begins pressuring her to come up with some new primary sources for her research (Deliverance Dane's book of receipts--recipes--would do nicely), Connie begins spending more time with Sam, a fellow that she met who does building restorations. When he falls off some scaffolding and is badly injured--then it's determined that he fell due to a seizure and these become more severe and almost life-threatening, Connie follows an instinct that leads her to Deliverance's physick book, which she believes holds the key to curing Sam. Meanwhile, the chapters are interspersed with "interludes" that actually tell the story back in the 1690's of Deliverance and her daughter Mercy. I actually found the interludes more interesting than the contemporary parts. I do like this sort of book, and I did like this one, or at least the premise for it, although I have to say it was very predictable all the way through and I was disappointed by the lack of something unexpected happening. The characters in the modern sections were rather undeveloped--sort of cookie-cutter images of "the hunky boyfriend," "the evil villain," "the steadfast friend/roommate," and "the quirky mother" pulled from some melodramatic serial. And Connie herself rather reminded me of an "airheaded academic." I wanted to smack her upside the head more than once. In short, the book is a wonderful idea that seems to have fallen a little short on execution--I would have liked it much more had the modern parts been more believable (example: Connie's apartment was only an hour away from the grandmother's house--why would she stay there in layers of dust and decay with no phone, no electricity, minimal running water, etc. when she could have taken a week or so to at least make it semi-habitable first?) and if the characters had been more than just going through the motions. The narrator did a commendable job with the varying voices and accents as well, although I can't say I really "enjoyed" her voice or the telling as much as I have some other readers. I'm giving this a B-.
6. MAMA DOES TIME by Deborah Sharp. #1 Mace Bauer mystery set in central Florida. Mace works at a local wildlife park and is dismayed one September morning to get a call from her Mama saying she's at the jail--the dead body of a man was found in the trunk of her car when she came out of the bingo parlor and she's been hauled in for questioning. Mace rallies with her two sisters, Maddie and Marty, and they essentially overwhelm the police station trying to get her out. Detective Carlos Martinez, new in town from Miami, locks Mama up which puts him in a costume with horns and a pitchfork in the girls' eyes. Soon they provide evidence that Mama couldn't have committed the crime so she is released, but Mace and her mother get a threatening letter with a decapitated, stuffed dog that looks suspiciously like Mama's Pomeranian, Teensy, so Mace figures no one is safe until the real murderer is caught. It turns out the dead guy was an ex-gangster in a witness protection program and Mace and her sisters immediately suspect their mother's boyfriend, Sal, who hails from New York and looks and talks like a gangster. He moves down the list when Mace runs into an old boyfriend, whom she learns has borrowed a lot of money from the dead man--and was seen arguing with him. More suspects come to light, and Mace continues investigating behind the scenes, much to the chagrin of Detective Martinez. I have to admit that Mace was actually better than many "cozy" mystery heroines at keeping the police informed of what she was doing--although that might have had something to do with the fact that Det. Martinez is quite a hunk. LOL I really enjoyed this book--Mace is a great character that I really like, although I am generally not a fan of "southern" books, this one was okay because of Mace. Even the yappy-little-dog-in-a-sweater-toting Mama, the epitome of the petite, polite Southern lady with all accessories color matched, didn't put me off. LOL The writing style was easy to read and relaxed, the only downfall being that the dialogue felt somewhat stilted and unnatural at times. (If you are alone in a room with someone and you're talking privately, do you keep interjecting their name into the conversation every few sentences? I don't...I mean, they're the only one there so they know I'm addressing things to them, and vice versa, so there's no need. I find that it's fairly common with newer authors to do that, though--it's not really bad writing, just sounds awkward, at least to me.) At any rate, I'm glad I took a chance on this mystery when the "Southern" bit could have easily put me off, as I enjoyed it very much. Looking forward to the next one! A-
7. UNPAID DUES by Barbara Seranella. #6 Munch Mancini mystery. Munch, an auto mechanic living in 1980's California, has another visit from her past, which comes back to haunt her again when a beaten, dead body found in a pond comes up with a picture of Munch attached to the name and prints, nearly giving Detective Mace St. John another heart attack. The victim is actually someone named Jane Farrar, "New York" Jane to Munch, who had been one of the gang of druggies Munch used to hang with ten years previously before she went straight. Munch wonders whether Jane's husband Thor might be the perpetrator as he had savagely beaten Jane (and many others) to near death before. She is loathe to tell all to St. John though, because it will dredge up a very bad incident in her past life in which she unknowingly participated in a brutal triple murder--she was the driver for a supposed drug heist that Thor, Jane, and Sleaze John did, and didn't know until later that people had been killed. Munch fears that revealing this will pull the rug out from under her new stable, sober life with a decent job and her adopted daughter Asia. On top of this, Munch's friend Deb's son Nathan "Boogie" Franklin comes for a visit--she hadn't seen him since he was a young boy, and now is a teenager, living on his own. Munch invites him to stay until he finds a job and gets himself together. Munch's romance with Detective Rico Chacon is on shaky ground as well, as she attempts to get him to commit to a more permanent relationship and provide some stability--but of course, he's still married. The mystery was painfully simple to figure out, and as much as I love Munch, I wish some of the mysteries would involve something besides her sordid past. Yes, it's true--past mistakes will come to bite you in the butt, and by now we get that. I hope the next book is more firmly rooted in Munch's present life. B.
8. ECHOES FROM THE DEAD by Johan Theorin. Translated from the Swedish, this compelling story mingles past and present very skillfully. Julia Davidsson has been mourning the loss of her five-year-old son Jens for twenty years. He disappeared into the fog one day and was never seen again, presumed drowned, but his body was never found and Julia is haunted by the fact that he may still be alive and wants to know what happened to him. She has, over the years, distanced herself from family back on the Baltic island Öland because it's just too painful to continue seeing people who were in her life when Jens disappeared. Now she is simply existing and working as a nurse in a city some distance away, drinking too much and spending much time brooding over Jens. When her father Gerlof calls her and says that he has received one of the sandals that Jens was wearing when he disappeared in a parcel in the mail, Julia extends a work leave and is off to Öland to once again take up the quest for knowledge. While there, she reacquaints herself with Gerlof, now elderly and living in a care home, suffering from Sjögren's syndrome, which causes much pain and difficulty with movement. She really knows no one else, and has plenty of time to confront the past and her own demons as she spends time in the places of her childhood. When one of Gerlof's friends who had been working on the mystery of Jens' disappearance with Gerlof is found dead, crushed by one of his stone sculptures, Gerlof (who has been rather reticent with Julia about some of his thoughts and findings) realizes how real the danger of knowledge about the past likely is. Has the past come back to haunt the whole island? Is the mysterious Nils Kant, a felon who shot three people--including a local police superintendant--with a shotgun and then fled to South America still alive and coming back for revenge? His body was returned and is presumably buried in the cemetery, but some believe he is alive. The local policeman, who was the son of the one Kant shot, thinks this is nonsense and tells Julia so as they begin striking up a friendship. As the story is unveiled in bits and pieces--told from several points of view including that of the young Nils Kant--clues are dropped here and there. I admit I did figure out most of the mystery well ahead of time, but it made the story no less compelling. You just had to read on and find out what happens to Julia and to Gerlof, too. Dark and brooding (which seems fairly typical for Scandinavian mysteries) and very well-written--and thus, presumably well-translated also--I was thoroughly enthralled with this story from beginning to end and would highly recommend it. A+
9. PROVEN GUILTY by Jim Butcher. (AUDIO) #8 Harry Dresden paranormal mystery set in Chicago. This is the first audio version of the series I've listened to, and the book is narrated by none other than James Marsters--aka "Spike" from the Buffy TV series! If you're expecting his Spikey accent though, you'd be wrong. Marsters voice is barely recognizable if that's the only thing you've heard him in. He actually has a very nice, very expressive voice, and adopted Harry's 'tone' very well. Harry is contacted by Molly Carpenter, teenage daughter of his friends Michael (wielder of one of the Holy Swords) and Charity to come bail her out of jail. Upon arrival at the jail, though, Harry discovers (after the shock of seeing a pierced, tattooed, rather grown-up looking Molly) that it's her boyfriend who's been jailed for assault. He supposedly visciously attacked an old man in a rest room at SplatterCon, a horror movie convention that's in town. After speaking to him, Harry believes he's innocent and upon putting up the bail and bringing the two of them back to the convention, ends up getting caught in the midst of a huge attack--perpetrated by beings that appear to be the bad guys from the horror shows come to life. Things just get weirder and weirder from there, with the White Council and the Summer and Winter Courts getting involved. Harry leads a team that ends up having to go into Winter to retrieve Molly who was captured by some critters from the Never-Never, and once again Harry ends up facing several life or death situations on no sleep, little food or rest and without much planning or foreknowledge as surprises spring up one after another. Also addressed in this book is Harry's continuing battle with the demon Lashiel who exists in his head, and his relationship with Karin Murphy, the cop who heads Chicago's Special Investigations unit. This is by far my favorite paranormal series, as it's all about the magic and the alternate world that Butcher has created in Chicago--a little sexual tension here and there but no out and out romancey clap-trap. I found I really enjoyed the audio version and likely will continue to listen to them rather than read them, at least for as many as the library has available. Excellent! A+
10. OH DANNY BOY by Rhys Bowen. #5 Molly Murphy mystery, set in 1902 New York. Molly is still struggling along as a private detective, but not doing very well. Her two young charges and their father are presently in the country where Bridie is at a camp recovering from the typhoid fever, so although she is grateful that she doesn't have to worry about feeding more mouths when she doesn't have much income, Molly is somewhat at loose ends. She's been studiously refusing to even open the letters she has been getting from police Captain Daniel Sullivan almost daily, being very angry at herself and him for their encounter at the end of the last book. But he sends a messenger to summon her to the jail where he's being held on charges of taking bribes and being in the pay of the Eastman gang. Since his assets have been frozen, he can't even make bail. Molly stirs into action, shocked at his condition after a few days in jail, trying to figure out who stood to gain by Daniel's being out of the police force. Then, surprise of all surprises, Daniel's former fiance, Arabella Norton comes to see Molly and wants to hire her to find a friend of hers who's disappeared. I wasn't sure who the bad guy was in this one until fairly close to the end. Molly had some interesting adventures, teaming up with a female police "matron" whose policeman husband had been killed in the line of duty, so she had taken to overstepping her bounds and investigating a serial killer case, which Molly helps her with. I enjoyed the book, despite Molly's continual back-and-forth fight with herself over her feelings for Daniel. Have the next couple in the series here already and looking forward to them. A.
11. THE STEPSISTER SCHEME by Jim C. Hines. #1 in the "Princess" fairy tale fantasy series in which Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White team up to rescue Cinderella's husband, Prince Charming from the clutches of her evil stepsisters Charlotte and Stacia who've kidnapped him and taken him off to Fairytown. But are the stepsisters really bright enough to have come up with this scheme, or is there someone more powerful and evil behind it all? It sounds kind of cheesy and rather "chick litty" doesn't it? And when the blurb on the back of the book compared the trio of beauties to Charlie's Angels, I cringed inwardly. But I enjoyed Jim's "Jig the Goblin" series so much, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And it's really not like that at all--it's great fun! Fairy tales mingle with myth, legend and fantasy (with the requisite dwarves, pixies, witches and fairie folk) in a light, adventurous romp. These three strong but very different women work together (with a few odd helpers--some willing and some not so willing) to free the Prince against near impossible odds, each playing to her own strengths and helping each other out of various scrapes along the way. Quite enjoyable, and definitely looking forward to book two! A.
12. THE SERPENT'S TALE by Ariana Franklin. #2 Adelia Aguilar "Mistress of the Art of Death" historical mystery. The Bishop (Adelia's former lover Rowley, who is also the father of her child Allie) summons Adelia to investigate the death of one of King Henry's mistresses, Rosamond. It's being made to appear that Queen Eleanor (recently escaped from her imprisonment) has done the deed, and Rowley is anxious to get to Rosamond's manor before the king so he can hopefully divert an all-out war, which is sure to ensue if Henry believes Eleanor has killed one of his favored mistresses. Adelia, traveling as always with Mansur (her Arabian assistant who must needs pose as the real doctor since women aren't allowed in England at that time) and Gyltha, is reluctant to leave hearth and home but is compelled by her tie to King Henry. Waylaid by a band of mercenaries hired by the Queen herself, they end up seeking shelter at Godstow abbey and more murder and mayhem ensues until Adelia sorts out who's done what. During the discovery process, she's frightened that the murderer will discover what she knows (or assume that she knows more than she does!) and seek retribution against her by harming her child. I did not see the solution coming, so that was a big plus, even with the hints that were dropped along the way. This book was a bit of a letdown after the stellar opening book in the series, though, and while I enjoyed the tale quite a lot, there were a lot of things that required you to suspend disbelief to carry on. Still, as I often say, it IS historical FICTION, and in the author's notes at the end, she does comment on some of the things she took liberties with. I also felt that Adelia's character was changed somewhat being that she is now the mother of a young child, which weakened her in some ways, especially as it applies to her role as an intrepid investigator--but in other ways it strengthened her and made her a more rounded person. I'm definitely looking forward to the next one. I really like Adelia's supporting cast a lot! B+
13. CHARLIE BONE AND THE BEAST by Jenny Nimmo. (AUDIO) Read by Simon Jones. #6 in the Children of the Red King YA fantasy series. This book is read by a different reader than the previous five, and I'll start off by saying I did not enjoy his reading as much--too many of his varied voices sounded alike, and unlike with the previous reader, you couldn't always tell who was speaking just by the voice. The voices of individual persons also varied a little each time they spoke, as though he'd forgotten who he was. Still, I enjoyed the story itself, as the new boy at Bloor's Academy, Dagbert Endless (who has as his endowment the ability to call the sea--he's a self-proclaimed "Drowner!") tries to come between Charlie and his friends by sowing dissention and whispering gossip. Meanwhile, in the town, a wolf beast has been howling and the citizens are up in arms, organizing a hunt. Charlie believes that this is actually Asa Pike, the wolf-boy who was previously the sidekick of Manfred Bloor, but who stepped in to save Charlie at the end of the last book. Charlie believes that Manfred is holding Asa prisoner somewhere and is planning to rescue him, but with half of his friends not speaking to him because of Dagbert's whisperings, it's proving a little difficult. Charlie's mum and dad are absent in this book, off taking an extended second honeymoon, since they've been apart for ten years, Lyle Bone having been believed dead in a car crash. Looking forward to the next one, although I do hope the reader gets a grip on his characters' voices a little better by then. B+
14. UNNATURAL CAUSES by P.D. James. #3 in the Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard series. Dalgliesh is off to Suffolk on holiday to visit his Aunt Jane, his only living relative, for a week of peace and quiet on the coast. He's going to be contemplating a major life issue--should or should he not ask his steady girlfriend, Deborah, to marry him? Once at his aunt's, though, he doesn't have much time to ponder at all--he's distracted when one of the villagers goes missing--and then turns up dead, floating in a rowboat with both his hands chopped off! In the small seaside community of Monksmere, many are writers and artists, including the dead man. Maurice Seton was the author of popular detective fiction, and he was disliked in varying degrees by his neighbors and fellow villagers. Mr. Seton was last seen down in London at his club two days previously, and of course aside from the mystery of who killed him, there are the questions as to why, how, and why the disfigurement was done. Dalgliesh is determined to stay 'on the side' and not become involved, knowing that even should the local constabulary deign to call in The Yard, he would be exempt since he is too closely involved with and knows most of the suspects--including his dear aunt, whose wood chopper was apparently stolen to do the limb severing. So he gleans information as he is able and tries to resume his holiday, to little avail. This book was a bit different from her first two in the series in that we actually get to know Dalgliesh better--there is as much focus on him as on the mystery itself, so for me this was great, as characters are just as important to me if not moreso than plotting. The mystery was still very well done and I enjoyed this book immensely. Although I'd read it before some years past, I did not remember 'whodunit' and wasn't sure even right up til the reveal. The book was written in 1967, which makes it by necessity a bit dated in some ways, but in others, the story itself is really timeless and stands the test of time quite well. Very enjoyable and well-done! A+
15. GIRL IN A RED TUNIC by Alys Clare. #8 Hawkenlye Abbey mystery set in 1190's Kent, England featuring Abbess Helewise and Sir Josse d'Acquin, knight of King Richard. The whole country of England seems to be poor and hungry as people give and give to attempt to ransom their captured King Richard. Even staunch supporters such as Sir Josse and the Abbess are much less enthusiastic than they once were, especially the Abbess as her giving and giving makes it harder to feed and help those who are hungry and in need. Abbess Helewise gets a visit from her past when her Leofgar, her eldest son (she was a widow when she entered the nunnery and had fostered her two young sons out) whom she's not seen since he was a child, comes calling at Hawkenlye. His wife is ill, seemingly in the midst of a post-partum depression, and his fourteen-month-old son has developed fears and terrors and refuses to speak. Professing to want them under the care of the Abbey's well-known healer, Leofgar spends some time with his mother and Sir Josse, who happened to be there himself with a bit of a fever and cough. Soon it becomes apparent that the young family is on the run from something or someone--but what, or whom? When a man is found hung from a tree a short distance from the Abbey, Leofgar and his family disappear in the night, and the Abbess and Sir Josse set out to discover the mystery, and of course eventually do. I enjoyed this book more than the last one in the series, which seemed a little long-winded and unfocused. This one had me wanting to eagerly read on, and getting to know a bit more about Abbess Helewise's past was interesting, too, although much of the contents of her dreams and memories were rather, shall we say, unseemly for a nun! I'm by no means a prude, but nun + romance just doesn't add up to anything I really want to read, and I do hope THAT trend doesn't continue, but I am still looking forward to the next. B+
16. WORLD MADE BY HAND by James Howard Kunstler. Speculative "post-earth-changing-event" fiction set in a time slightly in our future, about 20 years after the United States economy collapsed due to the lack of availability of oil, there were several nuclear bombs dropped on major cities, and this was followed with a couple of serious flu epidemics which depopulated the country to about a quarter of its former self. The folks of Union Grove, a smallish town in upstate New York, like everyone else in the country, live in a whole new world. A world without cars, electricity, and supermarkets. A world without mass-produced goods, medicines, and a world where former bank presidents and real estate agents work in the fields like peasants in days of yore. The middle-aged ones still clearly remember the days of cell phones, computer and commuter trains. The younger ones--and there aren't that many, since exposure to the flu viruses seem to have sterilized most people--gape in awe as their elders try to explain what a car is and how it used magic fluid to 'drive.' It wasn't necessarily the smartest folks who survived--it was those who were adaptable to change, who were willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work. This is the story of a month or so in the life of Union Grove, primarily of Robert Earle, a forty-seven-year-old former software executive who is now a carpenter, earning his keep (most business is conducted by barter) by repairing and revamping things around town. Several different factions exist in the area, including a big farm cooperative, a gang of hoodlums who run the 'general store' which sells salvaged goods, and a rather freaky religious cult. What this story tells us is that regardless of how much things have changed, some things remain constant: the capacity for human beings to do evil, and the capacity for human beings to do good, and that the capacity for both resides within each of us. This was a good story, an interesting story with a few well-fleshed and real characters that you came to care about (although a lot of the secondary ones seemed to be almost caricatures in a way) and it was a well-written story, but it wasn't a truly unique concept and the book seemed to run out of steam at the end. I'm reminded of Pat Frank's 1959 classic Alas, Babylon, among others. Definitely worth a read though if you enjoy this sort of book. B+
17. THE LONG-LEGGED FLY by James Sallis. #1 Lew Griffin mystery set in New Orleans. The book travels through time from 1964 when Lew was a young private eye to the 1990's when he's an older author of mystery novels and sometimes "looks into things" on the side. Lew Griffin is a tough black private eye and even in the 1960's he was cynical and world-weary, drinking too much and barely scraping by, alternating between apathy and rage with little in-between. Self-educated and sensitive underneath it all, his drinking problem develops into a full-blown alcoholism over the years, of the variety that leaves you indebted to friends who haul you home off the street and tuck you in bed, bail you out and eventually commit you to detox. The cases in this book were essentially unremarkable and the focus here was all Lew. Now, characterization is important to me, but in a mystery, there has to BE a mystery, too. There really wasn't much here. By the time he got to the '90's, I liked him and his philosophical musings, but overall the book was quite depressing and had it not been short and easy to read, I would have stopped early on. The writing style was lyrical and very evocative and quite unusual for a mystery about a 'tough guy private eye' and I wonder if the author's obvious talent is somewhat wasted here. I'm still not sure what the purpose was in writing the book in this format with snippets of Lew's life over the years, and the so-called cases he had really didn't tie together coherently. In short, I have mixed feelings about the book. As a mystery, it doesn't quite "work." As a story, it was very interesting, and probably a must for anyone who knows and loves New Orleans. I have the second in the series here and will give it a try, but if it's written the same way I probably won't continue beyond that. C.
18. FURIES OF CALDERON by Jim Butcher (AUDIO) #1 in the Codex Alera fantasy series, a much more 'traditional' fantasy than Butcher's other modern-day "urban" fantasy Harry Dresden series. The land of Alera is about to be besieged by war, with the barbarians at the gates. While Alera itself seems based in Roman history, it's odd because the barbarians (the Marat) sound like the marauding American Indians of tomahawk and scalping fame with their various tribes and clans. Alerans use magic by bonding with furies, which are elementals based in air, earth, fire, water and metal. Like many fantasies, this story switches point of view several times to tell the various storylines of the main characters. Tavi, a fifteen-year-old boy living in Bernardhold, nephew to the steadholder, has not yet bonded with any furies, and thus is known as a freak and Amara, a young Cursor (messenger/spy) who is a windcrafter sent by the First Lord to the Calderon Valley (Tavi's home) to seek out information about the invasion, and who finds a traitor very close to hand, are the main characters. Tavi's uncle and aunt and Amara's tutor and traitor Fidelius as well as several other secondary characters also figure heavily in the story. As they trek along, sometimes together and sometimes not, they meet a fairly predictable set of adversarial situations. I did enjoy the book, but something about it failed to fully engage my interest. Good, but not great, in other words. It was a rather slow starter, and Butcher does a good job of building the world of Alera, although all the various magical rules and the governmental setup were a little confusing for awhile. The tone of the book was completely different than Butcher's Dresden Files series also, missing the wry humor and smart-alecky main character, but if anything it shows that the author is not a one-dimensional writer but can easily expand his horizons, and has done so. I'm hoping that subsequent books in the series will be a tad easier to get through now that I'm familiar with the world of Alera. The reader for this one was good, but not a favorite. B.
19. THE MERRY MISOGYNIST by Colin Cotterill. #6 Dr. Siri Paiboun series set in 1970's Vientiane, Laos. As usual, Dr. Siri and gang have two cases going--the first, a personal one, has Siri and his noodle-making wife Madame Daeng trying to locate Crazy Rajid, a mute Indian street person who hasn't been seen by anyone for several days. They follow a set of riddles around the city to try to figure out what happened to him--Siri has a bad feeling about it, and he's learned to pay attention to his spirit guides. The second case involves a woman brought to him as a 'customer' to the morgue, a beautiful young woman who appears to have been the victim of a strangling. Fairly routine, until they get to the internal exam and find a foreign body stuck in her female parts. At first it seems to be a lone case, but eventually someone remembers a similar case a few years ago and Siri and Inspector Phosy investigate what they believe to be an especially brutal serial killer, a rather uncommon animal in Laos. On a personal note, Nurse Dtui (also Inspector Phosy's wife) is large with child, and Siri is being investigated by the Housing Authority, since he does not live at his proscribed address but has moved in with his wife above her noodle shop and allows various and sundry characters to inhabit his former home. Very, very enjoyable read--this is definitely among my top ten favorite series of all time. If it were possible to give six out of five stars, I would gladly do so! A+
20. KILLER'S PAYOFF by Ed McBain. #6 in the 87th Precinct series, set in fictional Isola, modeled after New York. Classic "cop fiction" with the boys from the 87th trying to track down the murderer of a blackmailer/extortionist who was mowed down gangland style in the street. First they must track down who he was blackmailing, and then figure out which among them had the means and opportunity to go with their obvious motive for wanting the man dead. Or maybe it wasn't one of Sy's "clients" at all--maybe it was someone from his personal life who wanted him out of the way? Great police procedural, although a bit dated, as it was written in 1958--the author uses lots of monetary figures which make me laugh--you know, the blackmailer was living in the lap of luxury in a $350/month apartment, stuff like that. LOL I've speculated before on whether he realized at the time what a time capsule he was creating? Enjoyable, quick read, interesting to read about the characters that I came to know and love later in the series before they were really fully formed. B.
21. KITTY AND THE SILVER BULLET by Carrie Vaughn. #4 Kitty Norville paranormal series. Kitty, a werewolf who's been basically exiled from her former pack in Denver, must return home again when her mother falls ill. With boyfriend Ben (also a werewolf) in tow, she tries to make a low-profile return, rarely leaving Ben's condo there except to visit her mother and do her radio show The Midnight Hour at KNOB. But of course word leaks out and her former pack-leaders Carl and Meg, now ruling the pack with essentially a reign of terror, are looking to hunt them down and kill them. Meanwhile, Kitty has been approached by one of the Master vampire's assistants who wants to make a move on the Master and with the alliance that Carl and the Master have forged, helps Kitty to see that the only way to make the town safe again is for them to work together to oust the current leadership. Kitty is torn--all she wanted was to exist quietly, do her radio show and stay on the sidelines. She's not sure she's pack leader material, but some of Carl's pack have come to her pledging support. When her family is threatened, she knows she must act. Excellent, action-packed entry in this series, which has become one of the few paranormal series I've stuck with so far, that seems to get better with each book. There is some romance and sexual tension, but it's understated and doesn't take over the whole story, so I don't mind it at all. A+.
Current reads: SOVEREIGN by C.J. Sansom, and listening to INKHEART by Cornelia Funke in audio.
DNF: I ended up not finishing the audio version of THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery; I gave up after about an hour. It was the readers' voices that put me off--and since it takes place in France, there was a lot of what I call the "snotty-sounding French accent" going on. I just wasn't in the mood. It may be a perfectly good story, but I'll probably just wait to read it in print.
Also DNF'd a book I'd gotten from Amazon Vine to review, THE TATTOO MACHINE by Jeff Johnson--which sounded really interesting but was just poorly written and scattered, sort of like anecdotes cobbled together rather than a coherent story. I usually try to finish review books, but after 40 pages I knew I didn't want to waste any more time on this one.
Cheryl
1. MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN by Anne McCaffrey. (AUDIO) #7 overall publication order of the "Pern" fantasy series, this seems to be a stand-alone story of the weyr-woman Moreta, whose dragon Orlith is the queen of Fort Weyr. The events in this book happen about 900 years before the earlier books in the series, and take place when they are just discovering that dragons cannot only go "between" and thus traverse hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye, but that they can also go other places in TIME. A plague is upon the land, started by a strange cat-like creature and spread to horses and other four-legged beasts. Many all across Pern have died, but some have recovered, and the principle of vaccination is put to good use to keep many people (and animals!) alive. Moreta works together with Alessan, new leader of Ruatha Hold--they meet at a Gather there, and shortly after when the sickness starts, they work together to secure ingredients needed to treat the illness by using dragon riders to travel other places and times. A romance develops between them, but the story has a rather sad and bittersweet ending, but this is something you sort of knew was coming if you're familiar with the series, as there is a ballad in some of the other earlier books (that Menolly sings if I remember right) about Moreta's Ride--and now it all makes sense. Very well done, enjoyable to listen to--another different reader than previous books, but very well-suited to the prose and the tone of the book. A.
2. THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE by C. Alan Bradley. (AUDIO) I guess this would be classified as a 'historical' mystery, as it takes place more than 50 years ago, in 1950 in the English village of Bishop's Lacey. Our heroine is a precocious 11-year-old girl named Flavia de Luce who loves chemistry and spends as much time as she can tinkering in the lab she inherited from her mother, who died when she was just a baby--and where she concocts such things as poison ivy lipstick for her annoying older sister. The de Luce family has lived at Buckshaw for generations, and the current family consists of Flavia, her two teenage sisters, and her father, a reclusive stamp collector. The household staff consist of Mrs. Mullet, the cook and housekeeper, and Dogger, the gardener and general dogsbody. Flavia is awakened one night by loud voices and discovers her father arguing with a tall red-haired man--whom she later discovers dead in the cucumber patch! When her father is arrested for the murder--the man was an old school chum of his--Flavia sets out to free him and travels around on her ancient bicycle Gladys digging up ancient history and cogitating until she comes up with the solution--but not before she ends up in plenty of hot water! I think Flavia is either someone you will really appreciate and enjoy, or someone you'll look at as an annoying brat and give up reading in frustration. Put me firmly in the 'enjoy' camp! I loved this whole story from beginning to end--the atmosphere, Flavia's way with words, the literary references strewn throughout, and even though I'm NOT a fan of chemistry, Flavia's passion for it (and for poisons!) came through to illuminate her character and the story. The reader did an excellent job, too, and made listening a pleasure. I noticed that there's another entry in this series set for publication next year and I'm already looking forward to it. A+
3. MISS ZUKAS AND THE LIBRARY MURDERS by Jo Dereske. #1 Helma Zukas mystery. Wilhelmina "Helma" Zukas, a thirty-something librarian working in a smallish seaside town in Washington State, is a very precise woman. So when she is a little late for work one morning (she knocked over a houseplant when she went back into the apartment to make sure she'd drawn the blinds--and had to clean it up) only to find a police car parked in HER spot, she's a little put out. Arriving inside, she finds that there's a murdered body in the Mo-Ne aisle of the fiction stacks--not one of their regulars, thank heavens! Helma takes it as almost a personal affront and sets off doing a parallel investigation to the police. As I said, Miss Zukas is very precise--so while she doesn't actually out-and-out lie to the police, she does omit some very pertinent information that she observed/gleaned during the course of the investigation. I was a little leery of this book as I've had bad experiences with most cozy mysteries of late, but I actually liked this one. Miss Zukas obviously has a touch of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and could keep company with Mr. Monk without too much trouble I think. LOL But although she's rather rigid and epitomizes the 'spinster librarian' stereotype, there is an undercurrent of wry humor and her bawdy friend Ruth rather offsets Helma's prim and properness. I did have one of my 'gut feelings' about the bad guy, but didn't figure out the hows and whys of the mystery until closer to the end. I've already set out to procure the second one in this series. B+
4. LABYRINTH by Kate Mosse. The blurb on the front of the book reads a quote from author Val McDermid stating, "Eat your heart out, Dan Brown--this is the real thing." Well....I don't know about that. It's another tale of lore regarding the Holy Grail, another possible story and explanation of the secrets of the Cathars lodged in the mountains and caves of what is now southern France. The story weaves together the lives of two women, Alaïs Pelletier in the 12th century and Dr. Alice Tanner in 2005. Alaïs is the second daughter of Bertrand Pelletier, close advisor and seneschal for the Viscount of Carcassone, and when the Inquisition begins and war appears imminent, her father confides a secret of great importance to her and gives her an ancient book to keep safe. She knows it is part of a trilogy and that there are two other books who also have appointed guardians, but she strives to learn more and investigates on her own when her father refuses to share more details with her. The modern-day Alice, an Englishwoman in France to meet with a lawyer regarding a bequest from a previously-unknown aunt, asks an archaelogist friend if she can volunteer on a dig in the Pyrenees for a few days. While doing some work, she discovers a secret cave entrance with two bodies and some interesting artifacts--a ring with a small labyrinthine stone disc most notably. She also has a strange flashback sensation and sees some visions as though in a dream. From there, things start to get really weird. Alice has a feeling of being followed and soon her hotel room is riffled through. Then one of the young policeman who was at the site approaches her and gives her a number to call--and subsequently is run down by an unknown assailant. Unsure of who to trust and unable to reach her friend Shelagh, Alice also investigates, and continues to have the strange dreams, too, and the story continues to entwine and Alice discovers her connection with Alaïs. This was a good story, but for some reason, it took me ages to get through it and I had a hard time staying on track and interested for very long. Part of it was that it was rather bloated and overblown and in need of some judicious editing--sort of the polar opposite of Dan Brown's Grail story, The DaVinci Code, which was action packed and short on detail. I think a book somewhere between the two in tone and substance would be ideal. This story was also quite predictable, and I think anyone who's read anything of Grail lore will easily know what's going to happen by mid-book at the latest. In short, I'm glad I read it, and would recommend it for those interested in the Grail or the story of the Cathars, but I wasn't blown away. B.
5. THE PHYSICK BOOK OF DELIVERANCE DANE by Katherine Howe. (AUDIO) Story of a Harvard graduate student studying Colonial America who is attempting to come up with something to write her dissertation about. Connie Goodwin then is asked by her mother to ready her grandmother's house in Marblehead, MA for selling. What Connie finds there is chaos--the house hasn't been touched in 20 years and has no electricity, telephone and is coated in layers of dust. But she finds the family Bible with a key bearing what she believes is a name, Deliverance Dane, and also develops strange feelings accompanied by headaches. The researcher in her takes over and Connie soon finds herself immersed in the search for Deliverance Dane, and comes to believe that she was accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. As her advisor begins pressuring her to come up with some new primary sources for her research (Deliverance Dane's book of receipts--recipes--would do nicely), Connie begins spending more time with Sam, a fellow that she met who does building restorations. When he falls off some scaffolding and is badly injured--then it's determined that he fell due to a seizure and these become more severe and almost life-threatening, Connie follows an instinct that leads her to Deliverance's physick book, which she believes holds the key to curing Sam. Meanwhile, the chapters are interspersed with "interludes" that actually tell the story back in the 1690's of Deliverance and her daughter Mercy. I actually found the interludes more interesting than the contemporary parts. I do like this sort of book, and I did like this one, or at least the premise for it, although I have to say it was very predictable all the way through and I was disappointed by the lack of something unexpected happening. The characters in the modern sections were rather undeveloped--sort of cookie-cutter images of "the hunky boyfriend," "the evil villain," "the steadfast friend/roommate," and "the quirky mother" pulled from some melodramatic serial. And Connie herself rather reminded me of an "airheaded academic." I wanted to smack her upside the head more than once. In short, the book is a wonderful idea that seems to have fallen a little short on execution--I would have liked it much more had the modern parts been more believable (example: Connie's apartment was only an hour away from the grandmother's house--why would she stay there in layers of dust and decay with no phone, no electricity, minimal running water, etc. when she could have taken a week or so to at least make it semi-habitable first?) and if the characters had been more than just going through the motions. The narrator did a commendable job with the varying voices and accents as well, although I can't say I really "enjoyed" her voice or the telling as much as I have some other readers. I'm giving this a B-.
6. MAMA DOES TIME by Deborah Sharp. #1 Mace Bauer mystery set in central Florida. Mace works at a local wildlife park and is dismayed one September morning to get a call from her Mama saying she's at the jail--the dead body of a man was found in the trunk of her car when she came out of the bingo parlor and she's been hauled in for questioning. Mace rallies with her two sisters, Maddie and Marty, and they essentially overwhelm the police station trying to get her out. Detective Carlos Martinez, new in town from Miami, locks Mama up which puts him in a costume with horns and a pitchfork in the girls' eyes. Soon they provide evidence that Mama couldn't have committed the crime so she is released, but Mace and her mother get a threatening letter with a decapitated, stuffed dog that looks suspiciously like Mama's Pomeranian, Teensy, so Mace figures no one is safe until the real murderer is caught. It turns out the dead guy was an ex-gangster in a witness protection program and Mace and her sisters immediately suspect their mother's boyfriend, Sal, who hails from New York and looks and talks like a gangster. He moves down the list when Mace runs into an old boyfriend, whom she learns has borrowed a lot of money from the dead man--and was seen arguing with him. More suspects come to light, and Mace continues investigating behind the scenes, much to the chagrin of Detective Martinez. I have to admit that Mace was actually better than many "cozy" mystery heroines at keeping the police informed of what she was doing--although that might have had something to do with the fact that Det. Martinez is quite a hunk. LOL I really enjoyed this book--Mace is a great character that I really like, although I am generally not a fan of "southern" books, this one was okay because of Mace. Even the yappy-little-dog-in-a-sweater-toting Mama, the epitome of the petite, polite Southern lady with all accessories color matched, didn't put me off. LOL The writing style was easy to read and relaxed, the only downfall being that the dialogue felt somewhat stilted and unnatural at times. (If you are alone in a room with someone and you're talking privately, do you keep interjecting their name into the conversation every few sentences? I don't...I mean, they're the only one there so they know I'm addressing things to them, and vice versa, so there's no need. I find that it's fairly common with newer authors to do that, though--it's not really bad writing, just sounds awkward, at least to me.) At any rate, I'm glad I took a chance on this mystery when the "Southern" bit could have easily put me off, as I enjoyed it very much. Looking forward to the next one! A-
7. UNPAID DUES by Barbara Seranella. #6 Munch Mancini mystery. Munch, an auto mechanic living in 1980's California, has another visit from her past, which comes back to haunt her again when a beaten, dead body found in a pond comes up with a picture of Munch attached to the name and prints, nearly giving Detective Mace St. John another heart attack. The victim is actually someone named Jane Farrar, "New York" Jane to Munch, who had been one of the gang of druggies Munch used to hang with ten years previously before she went straight. Munch wonders whether Jane's husband Thor might be the perpetrator as he had savagely beaten Jane (and many others) to near death before. She is loathe to tell all to St. John though, because it will dredge up a very bad incident in her past life in which she unknowingly participated in a brutal triple murder--she was the driver for a supposed drug heist that Thor, Jane, and Sleaze John did, and didn't know until later that people had been killed. Munch fears that revealing this will pull the rug out from under her new stable, sober life with a decent job and her adopted daughter Asia. On top of this, Munch's friend Deb's son Nathan "Boogie" Franklin comes for a visit--she hadn't seen him since he was a young boy, and now is a teenager, living on his own. Munch invites him to stay until he finds a job and gets himself together. Munch's romance with Detective Rico Chacon is on shaky ground as well, as she attempts to get him to commit to a more permanent relationship and provide some stability--but of course, he's still married. The mystery was painfully simple to figure out, and as much as I love Munch, I wish some of the mysteries would involve something besides her sordid past. Yes, it's true--past mistakes will come to bite you in the butt, and by now we get that. I hope the next book is more firmly rooted in Munch's present life. B.
8. ECHOES FROM THE DEAD by Johan Theorin. Translated from the Swedish, this compelling story mingles past and present very skillfully. Julia Davidsson has been mourning the loss of her five-year-old son Jens for twenty years. He disappeared into the fog one day and was never seen again, presumed drowned, but his body was never found and Julia is haunted by the fact that he may still be alive and wants to know what happened to him. She has, over the years, distanced herself from family back on the Baltic island Öland because it's just too painful to continue seeing people who were in her life when Jens disappeared. Now she is simply existing and working as a nurse in a city some distance away, drinking too much and spending much time brooding over Jens. When her father Gerlof calls her and says that he has received one of the sandals that Jens was wearing when he disappeared in a parcel in the mail, Julia extends a work leave and is off to Öland to once again take up the quest for knowledge. While there, she reacquaints herself with Gerlof, now elderly and living in a care home, suffering from Sjögren's syndrome, which causes much pain and difficulty with movement. She really knows no one else, and has plenty of time to confront the past and her own demons as she spends time in the places of her childhood. When one of Gerlof's friends who had been working on the mystery of Jens' disappearance with Gerlof is found dead, crushed by one of his stone sculptures, Gerlof (who has been rather reticent with Julia about some of his thoughts and findings) realizes how real the danger of knowledge about the past likely is. Has the past come back to haunt the whole island? Is the mysterious Nils Kant, a felon who shot three people--including a local police superintendant--with a shotgun and then fled to South America still alive and coming back for revenge? His body was returned and is presumably buried in the cemetery, but some believe he is alive. The local policeman, who was the son of the one Kant shot, thinks this is nonsense and tells Julia so as they begin striking up a friendship. As the story is unveiled in bits and pieces--told from several points of view including that of the young Nils Kant--clues are dropped here and there. I admit I did figure out most of the mystery well ahead of time, but it made the story no less compelling. You just had to read on and find out what happens to Julia and to Gerlof, too. Dark and brooding (which seems fairly typical for Scandinavian mysteries) and very well-written--and thus, presumably well-translated also--I was thoroughly enthralled with this story from beginning to end and would highly recommend it. A+
9. PROVEN GUILTY by Jim Butcher. (AUDIO) #8 Harry Dresden paranormal mystery set in Chicago. This is the first audio version of the series I've listened to, and the book is narrated by none other than James Marsters--aka "Spike" from the Buffy TV series! If you're expecting his Spikey accent though, you'd be wrong. Marsters voice is barely recognizable if that's the only thing you've heard him in. He actually has a very nice, very expressive voice, and adopted Harry's 'tone' very well. Harry is contacted by Molly Carpenter, teenage daughter of his friends Michael (wielder of one of the Holy Swords) and Charity to come bail her out of jail. Upon arrival at the jail, though, Harry discovers (after the shock of seeing a pierced, tattooed, rather grown-up looking Molly) that it's her boyfriend who's been jailed for assault. He supposedly visciously attacked an old man in a rest room at SplatterCon, a horror movie convention that's in town. After speaking to him, Harry believes he's innocent and upon putting up the bail and bringing the two of them back to the convention, ends up getting caught in the midst of a huge attack--perpetrated by beings that appear to be the bad guys from the horror shows come to life. Things just get weirder and weirder from there, with the White Council and the Summer and Winter Courts getting involved. Harry leads a team that ends up having to go into Winter to retrieve Molly who was captured by some critters from the Never-Never, and once again Harry ends up facing several life or death situations on no sleep, little food or rest and without much planning or foreknowledge as surprises spring up one after another. Also addressed in this book is Harry's continuing battle with the demon Lashiel who exists in his head, and his relationship with Karin Murphy, the cop who heads Chicago's Special Investigations unit. This is by far my favorite paranormal series, as it's all about the magic and the alternate world that Butcher has created in Chicago--a little sexual tension here and there but no out and out romancey clap-trap. I found I really enjoyed the audio version and likely will continue to listen to them rather than read them, at least for as many as the library has available. Excellent! A+
10. OH DANNY BOY by Rhys Bowen. #5 Molly Murphy mystery, set in 1902 New York. Molly is still struggling along as a private detective, but not doing very well. Her two young charges and their father are presently in the country where Bridie is at a camp recovering from the typhoid fever, so although she is grateful that she doesn't have to worry about feeding more mouths when she doesn't have much income, Molly is somewhat at loose ends. She's been studiously refusing to even open the letters she has been getting from police Captain Daniel Sullivan almost daily, being very angry at herself and him for their encounter at the end of the last book. But he sends a messenger to summon her to the jail where he's being held on charges of taking bribes and being in the pay of the Eastman gang. Since his assets have been frozen, he can't even make bail. Molly stirs into action, shocked at his condition after a few days in jail, trying to figure out who stood to gain by Daniel's being out of the police force. Then, surprise of all surprises, Daniel's former fiance, Arabella Norton comes to see Molly and wants to hire her to find a friend of hers who's disappeared. I wasn't sure who the bad guy was in this one until fairly close to the end. Molly had some interesting adventures, teaming up with a female police "matron" whose policeman husband had been killed in the line of duty, so she had taken to overstepping her bounds and investigating a serial killer case, which Molly helps her with. I enjoyed the book, despite Molly's continual back-and-forth fight with herself over her feelings for Daniel. Have the next couple in the series here already and looking forward to them. A.
11. THE STEPSISTER SCHEME by Jim C. Hines. #1 in the "Princess" fairy tale fantasy series in which Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White team up to rescue Cinderella's husband, Prince Charming from the clutches of her evil stepsisters Charlotte and Stacia who've kidnapped him and taken him off to Fairytown. But are the stepsisters really bright enough to have come up with this scheme, or is there someone more powerful and evil behind it all? It sounds kind of cheesy and rather "chick litty" doesn't it? And when the blurb on the back of the book compared the trio of beauties to Charlie's Angels, I cringed inwardly. But I enjoyed Jim's "Jig the Goblin" series so much, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And it's really not like that at all--it's great fun! Fairy tales mingle with myth, legend and fantasy (with the requisite dwarves, pixies, witches and fairie folk) in a light, adventurous romp. These three strong but very different women work together (with a few odd helpers--some willing and some not so willing) to free the Prince against near impossible odds, each playing to her own strengths and helping each other out of various scrapes along the way. Quite enjoyable, and definitely looking forward to book two! A.
12. THE SERPENT'S TALE by Ariana Franklin. #2 Adelia Aguilar "Mistress of the Art of Death" historical mystery. The Bishop (Adelia's former lover Rowley, who is also the father of her child Allie) summons Adelia to investigate the death of one of King Henry's mistresses, Rosamond. It's being made to appear that Queen Eleanor (recently escaped from her imprisonment) has done the deed, and Rowley is anxious to get to Rosamond's manor before the king so he can hopefully divert an all-out war, which is sure to ensue if Henry believes Eleanor has killed one of his favored mistresses. Adelia, traveling as always with Mansur (her Arabian assistant who must needs pose as the real doctor since women aren't allowed in England at that time) and Gyltha, is reluctant to leave hearth and home but is compelled by her tie to King Henry. Waylaid by a band of mercenaries hired by the Queen herself, they end up seeking shelter at Godstow abbey and more murder and mayhem ensues until Adelia sorts out who's done what. During the discovery process, she's frightened that the murderer will discover what she knows (or assume that she knows more than she does!) and seek retribution against her by harming her child. I did not see the solution coming, so that was a big plus, even with the hints that were dropped along the way. This book was a bit of a letdown after the stellar opening book in the series, though, and while I enjoyed the tale quite a lot, there were a lot of things that required you to suspend disbelief to carry on. Still, as I often say, it IS historical FICTION, and in the author's notes at the end, she does comment on some of the things she took liberties with. I also felt that Adelia's character was changed somewhat being that she is now the mother of a young child, which weakened her in some ways, especially as it applies to her role as an intrepid investigator--but in other ways it strengthened her and made her a more rounded person. I'm definitely looking forward to the next one. I really like Adelia's supporting cast a lot! B+
13. CHARLIE BONE AND THE BEAST by Jenny Nimmo. (AUDIO) Read by Simon Jones. #6 in the Children of the Red King YA fantasy series. This book is read by a different reader than the previous five, and I'll start off by saying I did not enjoy his reading as much--too many of his varied voices sounded alike, and unlike with the previous reader, you couldn't always tell who was speaking just by the voice. The voices of individual persons also varied a little each time they spoke, as though he'd forgotten who he was. Still, I enjoyed the story itself, as the new boy at Bloor's Academy, Dagbert Endless (who has as his endowment the ability to call the sea--he's a self-proclaimed "Drowner!") tries to come between Charlie and his friends by sowing dissention and whispering gossip. Meanwhile, in the town, a wolf beast has been howling and the citizens are up in arms, organizing a hunt. Charlie believes that this is actually Asa Pike, the wolf-boy who was previously the sidekick of Manfred Bloor, but who stepped in to save Charlie at the end of the last book. Charlie believes that Manfred is holding Asa prisoner somewhere and is planning to rescue him, but with half of his friends not speaking to him because of Dagbert's whisperings, it's proving a little difficult. Charlie's mum and dad are absent in this book, off taking an extended second honeymoon, since they've been apart for ten years, Lyle Bone having been believed dead in a car crash. Looking forward to the next one, although I do hope the reader gets a grip on his characters' voices a little better by then. B+
14. UNNATURAL CAUSES by P.D. James. #3 in the Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard series. Dalgliesh is off to Suffolk on holiday to visit his Aunt Jane, his only living relative, for a week of peace and quiet on the coast. He's going to be contemplating a major life issue--should or should he not ask his steady girlfriend, Deborah, to marry him? Once at his aunt's, though, he doesn't have much time to ponder at all--he's distracted when one of the villagers goes missing--and then turns up dead, floating in a rowboat with both his hands chopped off! In the small seaside community of Monksmere, many are writers and artists, including the dead man. Maurice Seton was the author of popular detective fiction, and he was disliked in varying degrees by his neighbors and fellow villagers. Mr. Seton was last seen down in London at his club two days previously, and of course aside from the mystery of who killed him, there are the questions as to why, how, and why the disfigurement was done. Dalgliesh is determined to stay 'on the side' and not become involved, knowing that even should the local constabulary deign to call in The Yard, he would be exempt since he is too closely involved with and knows most of the suspects--including his dear aunt, whose wood chopper was apparently stolen to do the limb severing. So he gleans information as he is able and tries to resume his holiday, to little avail. This book was a bit different from her first two in the series in that we actually get to know Dalgliesh better--there is as much focus on him as on the mystery itself, so for me this was great, as characters are just as important to me if not moreso than plotting. The mystery was still very well done and I enjoyed this book immensely. Although I'd read it before some years past, I did not remember 'whodunit' and wasn't sure even right up til the reveal. The book was written in 1967, which makes it by necessity a bit dated in some ways, but in others, the story itself is really timeless and stands the test of time quite well. Very enjoyable and well-done! A+
15. GIRL IN A RED TUNIC by Alys Clare. #8 Hawkenlye Abbey mystery set in 1190's Kent, England featuring Abbess Helewise and Sir Josse d'Acquin, knight of King Richard. The whole country of England seems to be poor and hungry as people give and give to attempt to ransom their captured King Richard. Even staunch supporters such as Sir Josse and the Abbess are much less enthusiastic than they once were, especially the Abbess as her giving and giving makes it harder to feed and help those who are hungry and in need. Abbess Helewise gets a visit from her past when her Leofgar, her eldest son (she was a widow when she entered the nunnery and had fostered her two young sons out) whom she's not seen since he was a child, comes calling at Hawkenlye. His wife is ill, seemingly in the midst of a post-partum depression, and his fourteen-month-old son has developed fears and terrors and refuses to speak. Professing to want them under the care of the Abbey's well-known healer, Leofgar spends some time with his mother and Sir Josse, who happened to be there himself with a bit of a fever and cough. Soon it becomes apparent that the young family is on the run from something or someone--but what, or whom? When a man is found hung from a tree a short distance from the Abbey, Leofgar and his family disappear in the night, and the Abbess and Sir Josse set out to discover the mystery, and of course eventually do. I enjoyed this book more than the last one in the series, which seemed a little long-winded and unfocused. This one had me wanting to eagerly read on, and getting to know a bit more about Abbess Helewise's past was interesting, too, although much of the contents of her dreams and memories were rather, shall we say, unseemly for a nun! I'm by no means a prude, but nun + romance just doesn't add up to anything I really want to read, and I do hope THAT trend doesn't continue, but I am still looking forward to the next. B+
16. WORLD MADE BY HAND by James Howard Kunstler. Speculative "post-earth-changing-event" fiction set in a time slightly in our future, about 20 years after the United States economy collapsed due to the lack of availability of oil, there were several nuclear bombs dropped on major cities, and this was followed with a couple of serious flu epidemics which depopulated the country to about a quarter of its former self. The folks of Union Grove, a smallish town in upstate New York, like everyone else in the country, live in a whole new world. A world without cars, electricity, and supermarkets. A world without mass-produced goods, medicines, and a world where former bank presidents and real estate agents work in the fields like peasants in days of yore. The middle-aged ones still clearly remember the days of cell phones, computer and commuter trains. The younger ones--and there aren't that many, since exposure to the flu viruses seem to have sterilized most people--gape in awe as their elders try to explain what a car is and how it used magic fluid to 'drive.' It wasn't necessarily the smartest folks who survived--it was those who were adaptable to change, who were willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work. This is the story of a month or so in the life of Union Grove, primarily of Robert Earle, a forty-seven-year-old former software executive who is now a carpenter, earning his keep (most business is conducted by barter) by repairing and revamping things around town. Several different factions exist in the area, including a big farm cooperative, a gang of hoodlums who run the 'general store' which sells salvaged goods, and a rather freaky religious cult. What this story tells us is that regardless of how much things have changed, some things remain constant: the capacity for human beings to do evil, and the capacity for human beings to do good, and that the capacity for both resides within each of us. This was a good story, an interesting story with a few well-fleshed and real characters that you came to care about (although a lot of the secondary ones seemed to be almost caricatures in a way) and it was a well-written story, but it wasn't a truly unique concept and the book seemed to run out of steam at the end. I'm reminded of Pat Frank's 1959 classic Alas, Babylon, among others. Definitely worth a read though if you enjoy this sort of book. B+
17. THE LONG-LEGGED FLY by James Sallis. #1 Lew Griffin mystery set in New Orleans. The book travels through time from 1964 when Lew was a young private eye to the 1990's when he's an older author of mystery novels and sometimes "looks into things" on the side. Lew Griffin is a tough black private eye and even in the 1960's he was cynical and world-weary, drinking too much and barely scraping by, alternating between apathy and rage with little in-between. Self-educated and sensitive underneath it all, his drinking problem develops into a full-blown alcoholism over the years, of the variety that leaves you indebted to friends who haul you home off the street and tuck you in bed, bail you out and eventually commit you to detox. The cases in this book were essentially unremarkable and the focus here was all Lew. Now, characterization is important to me, but in a mystery, there has to BE a mystery, too. There really wasn't much here. By the time he got to the '90's, I liked him and his philosophical musings, but overall the book was quite depressing and had it not been short and easy to read, I would have stopped early on. The writing style was lyrical and very evocative and quite unusual for a mystery about a 'tough guy private eye' and I wonder if the author's obvious talent is somewhat wasted here. I'm still not sure what the purpose was in writing the book in this format with snippets of Lew's life over the years, and the so-called cases he had really didn't tie together coherently. In short, I have mixed feelings about the book. As a mystery, it doesn't quite "work." As a story, it was very interesting, and probably a must for anyone who knows and loves New Orleans. I have the second in the series here and will give it a try, but if it's written the same way I probably won't continue beyond that. C.
18. FURIES OF CALDERON by Jim Butcher (AUDIO) #1 in the Codex Alera fantasy series, a much more 'traditional' fantasy than Butcher's other modern-day "urban" fantasy Harry Dresden series. The land of Alera is about to be besieged by war, with the barbarians at the gates. While Alera itself seems based in Roman history, it's odd because the barbarians (the Marat) sound like the marauding American Indians of tomahawk and scalping fame with their various tribes and clans. Alerans use magic by bonding with furies, which are elementals based in air, earth, fire, water and metal. Like many fantasies, this story switches point of view several times to tell the various storylines of the main characters. Tavi, a fifteen-year-old boy living in Bernardhold, nephew to the steadholder, has not yet bonded with any furies, and thus is known as a freak and Amara, a young Cursor (messenger/spy) who is a windcrafter sent by the First Lord to the Calderon Valley (Tavi's home) to seek out information about the invasion, and who finds a traitor very close to hand, are the main characters. Tavi's uncle and aunt and Amara's tutor and traitor Fidelius as well as several other secondary characters also figure heavily in the story. As they trek along, sometimes together and sometimes not, they meet a fairly predictable set of adversarial situations. I did enjoy the book, but something about it failed to fully engage my interest. Good, but not great, in other words. It was a rather slow starter, and Butcher does a good job of building the world of Alera, although all the various magical rules and the governmental setup were a little confusing for awhile. The tone of the book was completely different than Butcher's Dresden Files series also, missing the wry humor and smart-alecky main character, but if anything it shows that the author is not a one-dimensional writer but can easily expand his horizons, and has done so. I'm hoping that subsequent books in the series will be a tad easier to get through now that I'm familiar with the world of Alera. The reader for this one was good, but not a favorite. B.
19. THE MERRY MISOGYNIST by Colin Cotterill. #6 Dr. Siri Paiboun series set in 1970's Vientiane, Laos. As usual, Dr. Siri and gang have two cases going--the first, a personal one, has Siri and his noodle-making wife Madame Daeng trying to locate Crazy Rajid, a mute Indian street person who hasn't been seen by anyone for several days. They follow a set of riddles around the city to try to figure out what happened to him--Siri has a bad feeling about it, and he's learned to pay attention to his spirit guides. The second case involves a woman brought to him as a 'customer' to the morgue, a beautiful young woman who appears to have been the victim of a strangling. Fairly routine, until they get to the internal exam and find a foreign body stuck in her female parts. At first it seems to be a lone case, but eventually someone remembers a similar case a few years ago and Siri and Inspector Phosy investigate what they believe to be an especially brutal serial killer, a rather uncommon animal in Laos. On a personal note, Nurse Dtui (also Inspector Phosy's wife) is large with child, and Siri is being investigated by the Housing Authority, since he does not live at his proscribed address but has moved in with his wife above her noodle shop and allows various and sundry characters to inhabit his former home. Very, very enjoyable read--this is definitely among my top ten favorite series of all time. If it were possible to give six out of five stars, I would gladly do so! A+
20. KILLER'S PAYOFF by Ed McBain. #6 in the 87th Precinct series, set in fictional Isola, modeled after New York. Classic "cop fiction" with the boys from the 87th trying to track down the murderer of a blackmailer/extortionist who was mowed down gangland style in the street. First they must track down who he was blackmailing, and then figure out which among them had the means and opportunity to go with their obvious motive for wanting the man dead. Or maybe it wasn't one of Sy's "clients" at all--maybe it was someone from his personal life who wanted him out of the way? Great police procedural, although a bit dated, as it was written in 1958--the author uses lots of monetary figures which make me laugh--you know, the blackmailer was living in the lap of luxury in a $350/month apartment, stuff like that. LOL I've speculated before on whether he realized at the time what a time capsule he was creating? Enjoyable, quick read, interesting to read about the characters that I came to know and love later in the series before they were really fully formed. B.
21. KITTY AND THE SILVER BULLET by Carrie Vaughn. #4 Kitty Norville paranormal series. Kitty, a werewolf who's been basically exiled from her former pack in Denver, must return home again when her mother falls ill. With boyfriend Ben (also a werewolf) in tow, she tries to make a low-profile return, rarely leaving Ben's condo there except to visit her mother and do her radio show The Midnight Hour at KNOB. But of course word leaks out and her former pack-leaders Carl and Meg, now ruling the pack with essentially a reign of terror, are looking to hunt them down and kill them. Meanwhile, Kitty has been approached by one of the Master vampire's assistants who wants to make a move on the Master and with the alliance that Carl and the Master have forged, helps Kitty to see that the only way to make the town safe again is for them to work together to oust the current leadership. Kitty is torn--all she wanted was to exist quietly, do her radio show and stay on the sidelines. She's not sure she's pack leader material, but some of Carl's pack have come to her pledging support. When her family is threatened, she knows she must act. Excellent, action-packed entry in this series, which has become one of the few paranormal series I've stuck with so far, that seems to get better with each book. There is some romance and sexual tension, but it's understated and doesn't take over the whole story, so I don't mind it at all. A+.
Current reads: SOVEREIGN by C.J. Sansom, and listening to INKHEART by Cornelia Funke in audio.
DNF: I ended up not finishing the audio version of THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery; I gave up after about an hour. It was the readers' voices that put me off--and since it takes place in France, there was a lot of what I call the "snotty-sounding French accent" going on. I just wasn't in the mood. It may be a perfectly good story, but I'll probably just wait to read it in print.
Also DNF'd a book I'd gotten from Amazon Vine to review, THE TATTOO MACHINE by Jeff Johnson--which sounded really interesting but was just poorly written and scattered, sort of like anecdotes cobbled together rather than a coherent story. I usually try to finish review books, but after 40 pages I knew I didn't want to waste any more time on this one.
Cheryl
Monday, August 3, 2009
August 2009 Reads
1. A DARK HORSE by Craig Johnson. #5 Walt Longmire mystery set in Wyoming. The elections are coming up and Sheriff Longmire is avoiding thinking about it, and things are a bit slow in Absaroka County. Walt's daughter Cady has returned to her home in Philadelphia and he's at loose ends. The Sheriff of a neighboring county sends him a puzzle to chew on and a prisoner to house since their jail is overflowing and Walt eagerly jumps into it. Mary Barsad has confessed to shooting her husband Wade six times in the head after he set their barn afire--with her beloved horses inside. Wade was universally disliked, and were it not for Mary's confession, the suspect list would be a mile long--and would include some ghosts from his past, as he was in the witness protection program. But after talking with Mary, Walt doesn't believe she's guilty--and he goes undercover in Jackson County, posing as an insurance investigator--although his cover doesn't last very long. (I kind of wondered about that, anyway. Walt was born and raised very near where all this action took place and he recognized a few of the characters--so why would they NOT recognize him?) As usual, this was a well-told story in a wonderful voice, and the book was nearly impossible to put down. I love Walt, I love his cast of secondary characters, including the great state of Wyoming, which Johnson obviously loves. With a perfect balance of slow, rambling detail and fast-paced action, and a plot twist I didn't see coming at all, this will likely make my top ten of the year list. The only thing missing for me was the voice of George Guidall who narrates the audio versions--I listened to three of the previous four books and could hear his version of Walt's voice faintly at the back of my mind as I read along. A+
2. THE BELLINI CARD by Jason Goodwin (AUDIO) #3 Yashim the Eunuch historical mystery taking place in the 1830's. This one is set partly in Istanbul and partly in Venice, Italy. The new Sultan, young Abdulmecid asks Yashim to locate a painting by Gentile Bellini--a portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror--that is believed to be in Venice. Yashim's friend Stanislaw Palewski, the Polish ambassador to Turkey, undertakes an undercover role as a rich American out to purchase Venetian art, and Yashim actually takes a back seat role in the book until the last third or so, when all of his complex behind-the-scenes manipulations begin to come to the fore. A richly-woven tale involving the Venetian aristocracy (and its underbelly as well!) including a beautiful Contessa, as well as political intrigue and secrets from the past and present. I love Jason Goodwin's Istanbul, but I must admit that I found all the different twists and turns in this book a bit overwhelming. Perhaps that was in part due to the fact that I listened to this one and couldn't go back to check on something he'd referred to before as I could with the print version of previous books in the series. The multitude of names and titles confused me somewhat, and I have to admit that I wasn't totally enamored of the reader. He did a skillful enough job at the voices, but there was an annoying hint of a whine in his tone that kept distracting me. I think this is one series I will go back to reading in print--but carry on I will! Once again, there were some wonderful evocative descriptions of Yashim's cooking, too. Mouth-watering! I give this one a B+ and look forward to the next.
3. DEATH OF A SQUIRE by Maureen Ash. #2 Bascot de Marins "Templar" mystery set in 1200 Lincoln. King John is coming to Lincoln so the whole town, and most certainly the castle, is astir with preparations. When the squire of Nicolaa de la Haye's brother-in-law is found hanged in the nearby forest, she is concerned that her brother-in-law is somehow involved and that a plot to overthrow the King might be involved--and she needs to know the score before the King's arrival. Bascot de Marins, a Templar knight who is for now a temporary retainer of Nicolaa and her husband Gerard Camville, sheriff of Lincoln, helped her earlier in the year with another investigation, so she asks him once again to investigate and get to the bottom of the squire's death. Hubert de Tournay was not well-liked, being a nosy braggart who was always ferreting out secrets, and also tended to coerce young women to have assignations with him. Was his death the result of a political plot, or was there a more personal motive? I enjoyed this second entry in the series more than the first, as we get to know the main character and his supporting cast better. I've read quite a few books set in this time period and this is the first one I recall where there was actually a supporter of King John among the major cast of characters--Nicolaa de la Haye was staunchly in favor of the King. On a personal level, Bascot struggles with decisions in his own life--whether to rejoin the Templars now that his body and soul are somewhat healed after his years-long captivity in the Holy Land, or permanently become a knight of Nicolaa's household? And what of Gianni, his mute servant whom he rescued from a life of poverty and starvation? Looking forward very much to the next in the series. A.
4. A SHRED OF EVIDENCE by Jill McGown. #7 Lloyd & Hill British police procedural mystery. It had been over 2 years since I read a book in this series, since I was very disappointed in #6, which went backward and forward in time, was bloated and boring and featured long portions that were written from the POV of the suspects/players in the mystery. It just didn't work for me at all, and was a huge shock after the previously stellar books. Every author's allowed one stinker I guess, and this one gets things back on track. A fifteen-year-old school girl is battered and strangled on a public green a few days after the opening of school term. Since Lloyd is off on a weeks-long training course, acting boss Judy Hill starts the investigation off with DS Tom Finch assisting. Lloyd comes back a couple of days early at the behest of HIS boss. There is only one plausible suspect to begin with (save for the ubiquitous "unknown sex fiend") and he is Colin Cochrane, a teacher at the school and celebrity of some note, having been one of England's star runners and now doing the lecture and advertising circuit. Rumor has it that Colin has been having it off with one of the school girls and a letter found in his tracksuit pocket would seem to bear that out. The victim was not, by all accounts, a chaste and virginal fifteen. The body was discovered by Colin's wife while taking their dog for a walk but her story changes slightly from first interview to formal statement such that her husband would be protected with somewhat of an alibi. You just know he's NOT the guy, and although neither Lloyd or Hill think so either, DS Finch is convinced of it. In pursuing evidence against him, other clues come to light and the murderer eventually found, of course. I did figure out the killer in one of those lightbulb moments, but not until very close to the end, having followed one of McGown's adeptly placed red herrings right to the sea. LOL I really enjoyed this, and stayed up a bit past my bedtime to finish it off last night. Was especially glad that Lloyd and Hill were featured more prominently again and it wasn't all about the suspects. I very much look forward to continuing on with this series to its end, which unfortunately came too soon as the author died in 2007. Still, I've got six more to read and savor before I'm done. A.
5. DRAGONDRUMS by Anne McCaffrey. (AUDIO) #3 Harper Hall trilogy within the greater "Pern" fantasy series. I thought this was going to be a continuation of Menolly's story, but instead we get to go on adventures with her young friend Piemer, who has (until now) been the soprano voice in the choir at Harper Hall. However, Piemer's voice has cracked--he's at the age where it's bound to change--so now something else must be figured out for him to do. Being that he always seems to find trouble and is quick on his feet, Master Harper Robinton and his Journeyman, Sebell, decide to apprentice him (officially) to the Drum master, sending and receiving messages, but on the quiet have Pymer report to them and be, for lack of a better word, a spy. And get into hot water he does, on the day of a Gather at one of the outlying Holds, when hiding in the wrong sack after stealing a queen fire lizard egg ends him up on dragonback going "between" to a far off southern locale. Very enjoyable visit to Pern with a great reader and exciting story. I've enjoyed this trilogy within the larger series--hope the next stories are just as interesting! A.
6. A POTION FOR A WIDOW by Caroline Roe. #5 Isaac of Girona medieval mystery featuring the blind Jewish physician in 1350's Spain and his family as well. Daughter Raquel is pining away for her betrothed, Daniel, who is off to Constantinople, and Isaac's Moorish apprentice Yusuf, a ward of the King, is sent to Sardinia for fostering to protect his status. Isaac and Raquel accompany the party on the first part of the journey, but before they can even leave the city gates, a man stumbles in with a knife in his back and dies. When it's discovered that the man was actually an agent of the King, the Bishop asks Isaac to look into things discreetly as he always does. Along the way, Yusuf's party meets up with a young girl posing as a boy hoping to get to Girona to find her family, and this girl ends up with ties to the man who was murdered. I like this series, but the earlier ones were definitely better. There were too many strange coincidences, the plot was at once convoluted and too simplistic, if that makes any sense. We seem also to have lost the depth of the characters that was present in the first few books where I felt more of a real connection. I have two more of the last 3 books in this series and likely will read them if only to see how the family's lives pan out. This was an okay read--light and quick, just not something to rave about. C+
7. KUSHIEL'S CHOSEN by Jacqueline Carey. #2 in the Kushiel's Legacy fantasy series, loosely based on Renaissance Europe. Phèdre nó Delaunay returns to the City of Elua after the death of her adoptive father, Anafriel Delaunay, in the previous book and assumes her place among the peerage as the Comtesse de Montrève, wielding the title her benefactor never got to don. She also resumes her service to the demigods Namaah and Kushiel, both of whom have marked her, which essentially means she is a highly-paid whore who specializes in the pleasure of pain. As an anguissette (the only living one, apparently) marked with a fleck of red in the iris of her left eye, she is meant to be a bearer of pain. The difference here is that in the beliefs of the predominant religion, her service is actually a sacred, religious offering and not something dirty nor illegal. She resumes her trade in order to ferret out details about the treachery of Melisande Shahrizai, who escaped at the end of the last book. Phèdre believes that Melisande is waiting in the wings orchestrating some complicated political coup to take over the throne of Terre d' Ange, and she is right. She doesn't get to stay comfortably at home for long and soon is off on an adventure taking her to a Venice-like city called La Serenissima, and to several other places in her search for information and a way to bring Melisande's plan to ruin. Complex and detailed, with a huge cast of characters, exotic locations, plenty of steamy (but well-written!) sex, twisted plots, strange religions, and even pirates (yo ho ho!), this was an excellent followup to Kushiel's Dart and I am kicking myself many times over for waiting so long (it's been at least 2 1/2 years!) to have gotten to this sequel. I won't make the same mistake again--I have four more of them here awaiting my pleasure. This could easily have gotten overblown and off track with the scope of its contents and so much happening in a relatively short time, but the author skillfully keeps things together and makes this a very difficult book to put down. A+
8. WOLF BROTHER by Michelle Paver. (AUDIO) First in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness YA fantasy series. This is sort of "Clan of the Cave Bear" for young adults--set during the Stone Age, featuring Torak, a 12-year-old whose father has just been slain by a demonic bear and whose quest (given by his dying father) is to find the Mountain of the World Spirit. Torak had thought this was just a fable told around the campfire, but his Fa seemed to think it real and made Torak promise to try to find it or die trying. He also told Torak that he would find "his guide" who turns out to be an orphaned wolf cub, whom he is surprisingly able to communicate with. They set off together and soon are in the midst of a grand and dangerous adventure. I really wanted to like this book more than I did. It was narrated by Sir Ian McKellan, which is one of the reasons I chose it--he did a stellar job of it too, I must say. But there was just "something" lacking in the book and it took a full 2-3 hours before I was really interested in the story and even then for some reason it just didn't quite measure up to the other YA fantasy I've been listening to. I may move on to the next in series at some point, but it won't be on the front burner. C+
9. THE LAST TEMPLAR by Michael Jecks. #1 in the Knights Templar medieval series featuring bailiff Simon Puttock and 'retired' Templar knight Sir Baldwin Furnshill in Devon, UK. The time is 1316, several years after the Templars have been disbanded and disgraced, many of their number tortured and executed at the hands of the Inquisition. Sir Baldwin heads to his boyhood home, Furnshill Manor, to resume duty as the Lord of the manor after the death of his elder brother. Simon, meanwhile, is the brand new bailiff of Lydford Castle and finds himself very busy in the first days of his new position. First, a villager is burned to death in the fire of his cottage and then a group of monks is waylaid by highwayment, the abbot among them taken for ransom and later found burned at the stake over a fire in the woods. Simon, a rather sensitive man, is devastated and somewhat indecisive as to how to proceed, and Baldwin steps in to assist. They become friends, but Baldwin is wary of sharing the secrets of his past so soon after meeting Simon so their relationship is a little superficial at first. When a group of travelers is brutally attacked, robbed and murdered, things escalate quickly and it's soon determined that there are actually three separate crimes and not one roving band of killers. Bit of a surprising end, but by then I just wanted the book to be done. I chose this book for a challenge I was in with a category called, "Everyone Deserves a Second Chance" where you read an author you'd previously read and didn't care for. I liked this book better than the other Jecks I'd read a few years ago, but not much. There were many repetitive parts, and Jecks' propensity to describe every person you come across in great detail down to their wrinkles got old really fast. And I didn't particularly like Simon Puttock's character--he seemed like a whiny wimp to me. At any rate, at least for now, I will not be continuing on in this series. C+
10. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson #1 in the Milennium trilogy. Translated from Swedish and featuring journalist Mikael Blomkvist, middle-aged co-founder of Millennium magazine, and freelance investigator Lisbeth Salander, a pierced, tattooed twenty-something computer hacker with a definite antisocial bent. Blomkvist is convicted of libeling a billionaire financier and, intending to take a break is instead hired by Henrik Vanger, an octogenarian businessman to investigate the disappearance and probable murder of his niece Harriet decades previously. It's a locked-room mystery, as the Vangers lived on an island with but one access, and that was blocked by a tanker crash. Blomkvist is intrigued but not sure what he can come up with that the much-obsessed Vanger himself hasn't already considered. To entice him, Vanger promises some juicy information about the billionaire that will vindicate Blomkvist's near-ruinous fine and prison sentence when he has completed his investigation. Reluctantly, Mikael agrees, but though he reviews hundreds and thousands of pages of documents and photographs, it isn't until midway through the book when Salander comes into the investigation that things begin to really move, and they realize they're onto something much more than the disappearance of one teenage girl thirty-odd years ago--something horrifying, grisly and on-going! To be honest, I nearly gave up on this book by the time I got to my mandatory 50 page trial, and probably would have, had I not read from a number of people that it's a very slow starter. I'm glad I read it--it was a good, solid thriller with some interesting characters, but I can't say it came anywhere close to living up to all the raves and hype. Not only was the beginning slow, the writing throughout was rather meandering and tangential at times--could definitely have been tightened up a bit, though perhaps that was partly due to the translation. I also figured out two of the major plot twists/solutions well in advance. And the ending? That was sort of like an afterthought more than anything. For me, as an American, even one of Swedish descent, it was also a little difficult to try to come to terms with all the various place names and cultural vagaries, but the author can't be faulted for that, since he's writing about his homeland for his countrymen. In short, it was certainly a good first book which I liked, and I will most definitely read on in the series, but this book suffered from "hypeitis" in that it in no way lived up to the high expectations I had for it. B.
11. THE PURRFECT MURDER by Rita Mae Brown (AUDIO) #16 Mrs. Murphy cozy cat mystery set in Crozet, Virginia. It's autumn in Virginia, and Harry and Fair are busy on the farm with various harvestings, but a good murder mystery will always distract Harry. When the local OB/GYN doctor who works at Planned Parenthood is shot by a sniper, many in Crozet are grieved, but not terribly surprised, as the doctor had been getting threats from radical Pro-Life groups for years due to his willingness to perform abortions. A rabidly religious man comes forward to claim responsibility, but then the doctor's wealthy female patients begin to get threats--and one is murdered at a fundraiser which Harry and all her friends are attending--and Harry's friend Tazio is found standing over Carla's body with the knife in her hand. Harry is determined to clear Tazio's name and begins to ask questions--she can't even rely on her friends Sheriff Shaw and Deputy Cooper for information, as this murder took place in another county. Are these two murders connected or are they about two very different issues? Harry and the critters are on the case! While I enjoy this reader (Kate Forbes) very much and enjoy a visit to Crozet, the actual mysteries in these books are getting less and less mysterious, it seems. The red herrings are very red indeed--I would even say scarlet--because I spotted them a mile away and knew the killer from the time of introduction. Harry, as usual, does some really stupid things--for being such a smart and saavy lady, it's amazing how she continues to defy logic to do the dangerous things she does. Enjoyable, but also frustrating, if that makes any sense! B-
12. THE EYE OF JADE by Diane Wei Liang. #1 Mei Wang mystery set in modern-day Beijing, China. Mei Wang is a young woman in her twenties who left her job at the Ministry of Security because she refused to play the game and become one of the ministers' mistress. Of course in doing so, she lost face and most of her acquaintances think she 'lost' her job. Now with her own business as an "information consultant" (since private detectives are forbidden by the government) she struggles along to make ends meet and has a hard time getting people to take her seriously, being that she is a young woman. When an old family friend whom she calls "Uncle Chen" comes to hire her to find a Han Dynasty artifact, she eagerly takes on the case and ends up in hot water several times before solving the crime. A lot of this book was setting the stage for Mei's future exploits, I think--letting us get to know her and her background. Mei's father died in the labor camps when she was just a small girl, which colored pretty much her whole life. Her mother struggled to raise Mei and her sister Lu, who is now marrying a rich businessman, and of course Mei as the unmarried older sister, is never in favor. When her mother suffers a stroke and ends up in hospital, despite the fact that they don't get on well, Mei is devastated. I had a hard time getting "into" the book--Mei did seem in some ways to be a rather silly young woman, but I have to admit she did mature somewhat by the end, confronting several ghosts from her past. The strength of the book was an introduction to life in modern-day Beijing (somewhere I'd never been before) with the kow-towing that must be done to stay on the good side of the government, and even to get decent medical care. She also didn't shy away from showing the whole spectrum of life, from the dark, seedy areas to the beautiful gardens and areas where the wealthy live. The author herself was born in Beijing and spent time in the labor camps as a child, and was a member of the Student Democracy Movement, even participating in the protest in Tiananmen Square before emigrating. These aspects were very interesting, and even though the mystery itself was rather weak and almost a sideline, I'm willing to cut the author some slack and see if her second effort (which I have here on Mt. TBR) is a little beefier in content. B-.
13. BLOOD AT THE ROOT (also published as DEAD RIGHT) by Peter Robinson. #9 Chief Inspector Alan Banks British police procedural. A young man is found beaten to death in an alley, and and after identifying him, it's discovered that Jason Fox was a member of a white supremacist group called The Albion League. He was seen having words with three Pakistani youths in a nearby pub, and they become the natural first suspects. But Banks doesn't believe they're guilty and begins searching into Fox's life to find out more about the youth, which leads him down a path into not only hate-groups, but international drug rings, gangsters and a whole slew of ne'er-do-wells. Meanwhile, he has personal issues to deal with as his wife Sandra has decided that a trial separation is needed and goes to stay with her parents. Banks is devastated and realizes that he'd taken his twenty-some year marriage quite for granted. He also gets into hot water with the Chief Constable, Jimmy Riddle. I enjoyed this entry in the series quite a lot, although a couple of the minor plot twists were easy peasy to figure out. The main mystery of who killed Fox was rather a natural progression to the ending without much of a surprise, either. The writing was a little uneven though--at times wonderfully evocative and poignant, and at other times seeming a bit rushed. Still, this has become one of my favorite series and I'll definitely keep reading onward. B+
14. THE BLACK DOVE by Steven Hockensmith. #3 "Holmes on the Range" mystery featuring Old Red and Big Red Amlingmeyer in the 1890's American west. This episode finds the brothers, previously cattle wranglers and now wannabe detectives, in San Francisco. The ginger-haired brothers see their old friend Dr. Chan (from the train episode last book) and follow him into Chinatown, where he nearly shoots Big Red, not realizing who they are. The next day when Old Red smells a mystery, they go his shop in Chinatown to see why he's so skittish, but they find him dead of an apparent suicide, having gassed himself to death. Of course Big Red starts his deducifyin' and sees several clues that lead him to believe that Chan was helped to the other side. With the help of Diana Corvus, the Southern Pacific railroad detective that they worked with last book, the brothers navigate the seedy and dangerous Chinatown attempting to solve Chan's murder and find out what happened to The Black Dove, the name given to a much-desired prostitute that Chan actually purchased from her madam. Along the way, in typical Amlingmeyer fashion, they manage to piss off just about everyone who's anyone in Chinatown, including rival tongs (gangs) and the so-called law in this action-packed, humorous adventure. I enjoyed this book as much as I've enjoyed the previous entries in the series. The author doesn't shy away from controversial issues of the day, so the book (while humorous) isn't totally light and fluffy. I'm not a fan of typical "westerns" but I do really enjoy this series a lot! A.
15. TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO by Philip Josè Farmer. #1 Riverworld Saga classic Sci-fi. Sir Richard Burton, nineteenth-century explorer, linguist, and often controversial man, awakens from death totally naked and hairless alongside a river. After some initial disorientation, he sees many other people in the same state--people from not only a variety of cultures, races, religions but also different times. In his first days, he meets not only a twenty-first century American, but a neanderthal man, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's concentration camps and an alien (who apparently brought about the demise of earth in 2008) as well as several other more famous people, such as Hermann Göring. As these people attempt to communicate, to figure out where they are and why they've been resurrected, and just to learn "how things work" in this riverworld, Burton (who considered himself an athiest) realizes that if this is 'heaven' it's not much better than Earth, in that men are still selfish, greedy, power-hungry beings and he and his friends struggle to survive the brutal world. After many months, he decides to try to lead a group in a boat up the River to see where it begins to determine if they can figure out what it's all about. He also learns that it's impossible to die--when someone is killed or dies, they simply resurrect again somewhere else along the River, which after some time is determined to be millions or billions of miles long. It's been awhile since I've read any classic Sci-Fi and this was very refreshing and interesting to me, although it was written back in the early 70's so I suppose is a bit "dated" in that sense. Some stirring philosophical debate, a very interesting concept. There are several more books in the series and I've ordered the next--which features Samuel Clemens! A.
16. MIND SCRAMBLER by Chris Grabenstein. #5 John Ceepak mystery set along the Jersey shore, told from the POV of Ceepak's young partner, Danny Boyle. Danny and Ceepak are of to Atlantic City to obtain the deposition of a former cellmate of Ceepak's father in hopes of obtaining testimony that will convict him. (Yes, Ceepak's father is a real scumbucket that he hopes to see locked away with the key melted down.) While there, Danny bumps into his former girlfriend Katie--a kindergarten teacher who moved to California, and who is now employed as the nanny for Richard Rock, a big-time magician and illusionist performing at a ritzy casino in AC. Katie says she wants to talk to Danny about something, but before that happens, she turns up dead--and not only dead, but dressed in a kinky S&M outfit and looking like the victim of erotic asphyxiation--of course, we all know that wasn't the case and that she was murdered. But why? And did Katie really have a secret life that is totally out of character for the sweet girl Danny dated? Danny's mind is a bit scrambled with his personal involvement in the case, but Ceepak keeps him on the straight and narrow as they are deputized by the local constabulary to help investigate, muddling through the hidden world of stage magicians. I enjoy this series more with each book, as we get to know Ceepak and Danny better. The bad guy stuck out like a sore thumb for me right from the beginning, but I had no idea why or the how it was done details, so still made for a very interesting, enjoyable read. More, more! A.
17. COYOTE by Linda Barnes. #3 Carlotta Carlyle mystery featuring the PI and sometime-cabbie in Boston, MA. A young Spanish-speaking woman, possibly an illegal from some Central American country, comes to Carlotta as a walk-in client. She has with her one of Carlotta's business cards and a newspaper, pointing to an article about a dead woman named Manuela Estefan. The woman claims in halting Spanish that the dead person isn't Manuela Estefan--SHE is, and the woman had her green card. She wants Carlotta to get it back without involving the police, and she seems decidedly afraid. When Carlotta leaves the room briefly, the woman disappears, leaving behind an envelope with five crisp hundred-dollar bills behind, but no way to contact her. She turns up dead a couple of days later, much the same way the original woman was killed--with her hands cut off! Tackling a big social issue of essentially slavery of illegals for cheap labor, this book tells the story of how a "coyote" operates, helping get people to the country and then basically using them for whatever they want to. Meanwhile, Carlotta's "little sister" Paolina--her sister from the Big Sisters program--has returned from Columbia with her mother, where she's been visiting for several weeks. Paolina, now almost eleven, seems changed--she's started back-talking, skipping school, and where the relatively happy and enthusiastic girl had been is a dejected, sullen one and she won't talk to Carlotta about it or explain why. Paolina's behavior and the murder investigation ultimately end up tied together. I didn't figure out the bad guy in this one til very near the end, and I've enjoyed getting to know Carlotta a little better with each book in the series. This was the first one I'd read in print (I listened to the others in audio) and liked the smooth, easy-reading style just as much as I enjoyed listening to the others. A.
18. UNCOMMON GROUNDS by Sandra Balzo. #1 Maggy Thorsen mystery set in Brookhills, Wisconsin. Maggy and her business partners Caron and Patricia are set to open their new coffee shop, Uncommon Grounds, in a strip mall in suburban Brookhills. Maggy, late on her first day, opens the door only to find Patricia collapsed on the floor, a pitcher of milk spilled around her. At first it appears to be some sort of natural event but it's later determined that the espresso machine was interfered with and that Patricia was deliberately electrocuted. Although Patricia could be a bit intense and overbearing, Maggy can't think why anyone would want to kill her--until some previously unknown facts about her come to light, and Maggy realizes how little she really knew Patricia. Then the suspect list begins to burgeon, though the new sheriff in town, Jake Pavlick, seems to be happy with the easiest result. Gary Donovan, the town's chief of police and long time friend of Maggy, helps her mull over possibilities--she just doesn't believe that Patricia's husband David is capable of murder as everyone seems to think--but when he turns up dead of an apparent suicide, she begins to wonder. I had a vague inkling about the bad guy early on but wasn't sure til about two-thirds of the way through. I enjoyed the book quite a lot more than I expected, as I've had a pretty low opinion of most "themed" cozy series I've tried lately--to the point where I haven't bothered finishing most of them. But this has a little harder edge to it than your "typical" cozy mystery, and I liked Maggy a lot--she seemed to be a very "real" person with some depth of character--and not an annoying one!--and her supporting cast is also coming along nicely. I found a few bloopers (wrong form of a word used, wrong character name, etc) which threw me off guard a bit, and Maggy did admittedly suffer from that old 'amateur sleuth' curse where she does dumb things like withholding evidence and investigating dangerous things on her own....but that almost seems de rigeur these days. I'm glad to have found a cozy series that I'm actually looking forward to carrying on with. B+
19. THE LAST OLYMPIAN by Rick Riordan. (AUDIO) #5 Percy Jackson and the Olympians YA fantasy. Percy and his pals from Camp Half-Blood (so named because its denizens are demi-gods with one parent being a Greek god or goddess) are preparing for the big battle--the battle to save Mount Olympus--which, in its present incarnation, is at the Empire State Building in New York. Forced to fight a two-pronged battle--one against the monster Typhos, who is headed for New York, and the other against the evil Kronos (who is using the body of Percy's once-friend Luke as his host) and his army of Titans and fallen demi-gods. Meanwhile, Percy--about to turn sixteen, when the prophecy featuring him is due to come to fruition--tries to get things sorted in his personal life: is AnnaBeth more than just a friend? And where does Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the mortal girl who can see through the mist, figure into things? Percy begins dreaming of things past, of Luke, Thalia and AnnaBeth's childhoods and starts to piece together why things are the way they are. A tale of Greek mythology and prophecy, friendship and betrayal and loyalties strained to the breaking point, Riordan brings the whole series to a satisfying climactic end while still leaving room for potential future expansion--which I personally hope happens! Excellent book, excellent series, highly recommended for young and old alike! A+
20. THE WITCH HUNTER by Bernard Knight. #8 Crowner John historical mystery set in late 12th century Devon. A local tradesman falls over dead of an apparent apoplexy while riding his horse, in front of witnesses. But the man's widow insists that he was done to death by a witch's spell, the witch having been hired by her husband's arch enemy, who has been trying unsuccessfully to talk him into selling his lands off. A corn dolly effigy with a pin in its heart is found in the man's saddle bag, but even before that little artifact is discovered, the widow insists that Crowner John be notified to hold an inquest. Sir John thinks it's all a bunch of hogwash and denies her claim, and because the widow is a friend of his harpy-like wife Matilda, hears no end of complaint about it over the next few days. And when the widow's cousin Gilbert, a canon in one of the local churches, begins preaching against witchcraft and exhorting the church to actively stifle the "pagan ways" they've passively condoned by looking the other way, the whole city of Exeter gets stirred up, with several local "wise women" in danger of being condemned by the church or harmed by the townspeople. Crowner John is still reluctant to get involved, although his brother-in-law Richard de Revelle, the sheriff, has jumped on Gilbert's bandwagon. But when John's own mistress, Nesta--the proprietor of a local inn--comes under a cloud of suspicion, then he begins to feel an urgent need to get to the bottom of the original death, if only to show that the man was killed by very earthly means and thus dispel the furor in the town. A typical entry in the series, which I mostly enjoyed--certainly for the atmosphere and sense of time and place. Knight does a wonderful job of invoking the mores and culture of the times, as well as the sights, sounds and (often not so nice) smells. I have to admit though that sometimes the author tends to overuse certain words or phrases in description of his characters. For example, Crowner John, who is rather taciturn and crabby, often will "snap" or "bark" or "growl" when he's speaking. His brother-in-law, somewhat of a dandified popinjay, tends to "bray." At times it's enough to make me grit my teeth a bit--but certainly not enough of a problem to stop me from reading on in the series. B+
Current reads: LABYRINTH by Kate Mosse and listening to MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN by Anne McCaffrey--but it's doubtful I'll finish either of those tomorrow, so this likely ends my list for August. (And just WHERE has the summer gone, I'd like to know??)
Cheryl
2. THE BELLINI CARD by Jason Goodwin (AUDIO) #3 Yashim the Eunuch historical mystery taking place in the 1830's. This one is set partly in Istanbul and partly in Venice, Italy. The new Sultan, young Abdulmecid asks Yashim to locate a painting by Gentile Bellini--a portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror--that is believed to be in Venice. Yashim's friend Stanislaw Palewski, the Polish ambassador to Turkey, undertakes an undercover role as a rich American out to purchase Venetian art, and Yashim actually takes a back seat role in the book until the last third or so, when all of his complex behind-the-scenes manipulations begin to come to the fore. A richly-woven tale involving the Venetian aristocracy (and its underbelly as well!) including a beautiful Contessa, as well as political intrigue and secrets from the past and present. I love Jason Goodwin's Istanbul, but I must admit that I found all the different twists and turns in this book a bit overwhelming. Perhaps that was in part due to the fact that I listened to this one and couldn't go back to check on something he'd referred to before as I could with the print version of previous books in the series. The multitude of names and titles confused me somewhat, and I have to admit that I wasn't totally enamored of the reader. He did a skillful enough job at the voices, but there was an annoying hint of a whine in his tone that kept distracting me. I think this is one series I will go back to reading in print--but carry on I will! Once again, there were some wonderful evocative descriptions of Yashim's cooking, too. Mouth-watering! I give this one a B+ and look forward to the next.
3. DEATH OF A SQUIRE by Maureen Ash. #2 Bascot de Marins "Templar" mystery set in 1200 Lincoln. King John is coming to Lincoln so the whole town, and most certainly the castle, is astir with preparations. When the squire of Nicolaa de la Haye's brother-in-law is found hanged in the nearby forest, she is concerned that her brother-in-law is somehow involved and that a plot to overthrow the King might be involved--and she needs to know the score before the King's arrival. Bascot de Marins, a Templar knight who is for now a temporary retainer of Nicolaa and her husband Gerard Camville, sheriff of Lincoln, helped her earlier in the year with another investigation, so she asks him once again to investigate and get to the bottom of the squire's death. Hubert de Tournay was not well-liked, being a nosy braggart who was always ferreting out secrets, and also tended to coerce young women to have assignations with him. Was his death the result of a political plot, or was there a more personal motive? I enjoyed this second entry in the series more than the first, as we get to know the main character and his supporting cast better. I've read quite a few books set in this time period and this is the first one I recall where there was actually a supporter of King John among the major cast of characters--Nicolaa de la Haye was staunchly in favor of the King. On a personal level, Bascot struggles with decisions in his own life--whether to rejoin the Templars now that his body and soul are somewhat healed after his years-long captivity in the Holy Land, or permanently become a knight of Nicolaa's household? And what of Gianni, his mute servant whom he rescued from a life of poverty and starvation? Looking forward very much to the next in the series. A.
4. A SHRED OF EVIDENCE by Jill McGown. #7 Lloyd & Hill British police procedural mystery. It had been over 2 years since I read a book in this series, since I was very disappointed in #6, which went backward and forward in time, was bloated and boring and featured long portions that were written from the POV of the suspects/players in the mystery. It just didn't work for me at all, and was a huge shock after the previously stellar books. Every author's allowed one stinker I guess, and this one gets things back on track. A fifteen-year-old school girl is battered and strangled on a public green a few days after the opening of school term. Since Lloyd is off on a weeks-long training course, acting boss Judy Hill starts the investigation off with DS Tom Finch assisting. Lloyd comes back a couple of days early at the behest of HIS boss. There is only one plausible suspect to begin with (save for the ubiquitous "unknown sex fiend") and he is Colin Cochrane, a teacher at the school and celebrity of some note, having been one of England's star runners and now doing the lecture and advertising circuit. Rumor has it that Colin has been having it off with one of the school girls and a letter found in his tracksuit pocket would seem to bear that out. The victim was not, by all accounts, a chaste and virginal fifteen. The body was discovered by Colin's wife while taking their dog for a walk but her story changes slightly from first interview to formal statement such that her husband would be protected with somewhat of an alibi. You just know he's NOT the guy, and although neither Lloyd or Hill think so either, DS Finch is convinced of it. In pursuing evidence against him, other clues come to light and the murderer eventually found, of course. I did figure out the killer in one of those lightbulb moments, but not until very close to the end, having followed one of McGown's adeptly placed red herrings right to the sea. LOL I really enjoyed this, and stayed up a bit past my bedtime to finish it off last night. Was especially glad that Lloyd and Hill were featured more prominently again and it wasn't all about the suspects. I very much look forward to continuing on with this series to its end, which unfortunately came too soon as the author died in 2007. Still, I've got six more to read and savor before I'm done. A.
5. DRAGONDRUMS by Anne McCaffrey. (AUDIO) #3 Harper Hall trilogy within the greater "Pern" fantasy series. I thought this was going to be a continuation of Menolly's story, but instead we get to go on adventures with her young friend Piemer, who has (until now) been the soprano voice in the choir at Harper Hall. However, Piemer's voice has cracked--he's at the age where it's bound to change--so now something else must be figured out for him to do. Being that he always seems to find trouble and is quick on his feet, Master Harper Robinton and his Journeyman, Sebell, decide to apprentice him (officially) to the Drum master, sending and receiving messages, but on the quiet have Pymer report to them and be, for lack of a better word, a spy. And get into hot water he does, on the day of a Gather at one of the outlying Holds, when hiding in the wrong sack after stealing a queen fire lizard egg ends him up on dragonback going "between" to a far off southern locale. Very enjoyable visit to Pern with a great reader and exciting story. I've enjoyed this trilogy within the larger series--hope the next stories are just as interesting! A.
6. A POTION FOR A WIDOW by Caroline Roe. #5 Isaac of Girona medieval mystery featuring the blind Jewish physician in 1350's Spain and his family as well. Daughter Raquel is pining away for her betrothed, Daniel, who is off to Constantinople, and Isaac's Moorish apprentice Yusuf, a ward of the King, is sent to Sardinia for fostering to protect his status. Isaac and Raquel accompany the party on the first part of the journey, but before they can even leave the city gates, a man stumbles in with a knife in his back and dies. When it's discovered that the man was actually an agent of the King, the Bishop asks Isaac to look into things discreetly as he always does. Along the way, Yusuf's party meets up with a young girl posing as a boy hoping to get to Girona to find her family, and this girl ends up with ties to the man who was murdered. I like this series, but the earlier ones were definitely better. There were too many strange coincidences, the plot was at once convoluted and too simplistic, if that makes any sense. We seem also to have lost the depth of the characters that was present in the first few books where I felt more of a real connection. I have two more of the last 3 books in this series and likely will read them if only to see how the family's lives pan out. This was an okay read--light and quick, just not something to rave about. C+
7. KUSHIEL'S CHOSEN by Jacqueline Carey. #2 in the Kushiel's Legacy fantasy series, loosely based on Renaissance Europe. Phèdre nó Delaunay returns to the City of Elua after the death of her adoptive father, Anafriel Delaunay, in the previous book and assumes her place among the peerage as the Comtesse de Montrève, wielding the title her benefactor never got to don. She also resumes her service to the demigods Namaah and Kushiel, both of whom have marked her, which essentially means she is a highly-paid whore who specializes in the pleasure of pain. As an anguissette (the only living one, apparently) marked with a fleck of red in the iris of her left eye, she is meant to be a bearer of pain. The difference here is that in the beliefs of the predominant religion, her service is actually a sacred, religious offering and not something dirty nor illegal. She resumes her trade in order to ferret out details about the treachery of Melisande Shahrizai, who escaped at the end of the last book. Phèdre believes that Melisande is waiting in the wings orchestrating some complicated political coup to take over the throne of Terre d' Ange, and she is right. She doesn't get to stay comfortably at home for long and soon is off on an adventure taking her to a Venice-like city called La Serenissima, and to several other places in her search for information and a way to bring Melisande's plan to ruin. Complex and detailed, with a huge cast of characters, exotic locations, plenty of steamy (but well-written!) sex, twisted plots, strange religions, and even pirates (yo ho ho!), this was an excellent followup to Kushiel's Dart and I am kicking myself many times over for waiting so long (it's been at least 2 1/2 years!) to have gotten to this sequel. I won't make the same mistake again--I have four more of them here awaiting my pleasure. This could easily have gotten overblown and off track with the scope of its contents and so much happening in a relatively short time, but the author skillfully keeps things together and makes this a very difficult book to put down. A+
8. WOLF BROTHER by Michelle Paver. (AUDIO) First in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness YA fantasy series. This is sort of "Clan of the Cave Bear" for young adults--set during the Stone Age, featuring Torak, a 12-year-old whose father has just been slain by a demonic bear and whose quest (given by his dying father) is to find the Mountain of the World Spirit. Torak had thought this was just a fable told around the campfire, but his Fa seemed to think it real and made Torak promise to try to find it or die trying. He also told Torak that he would find "his guide" who turns out to be an orphaned wolf cub, whom he is surprisingly able to communicate with. They set off together and soon are in the midst of a grand and dangerous adventure. I really wanted to like this book more than I did. It was narrated by Sir Ian McKellan, which is one of the reasons I chose it--he did a stellar job of it too, I must say. But there was just "something" lacking in the book and it took a full 2-3 hours before I was really interested in the story and even then for some reason it just didn't quite measure up to the other YA fantasy I've been listening to. I may move on to the next in series at some point, but it won't be on the front burner. C+
9. THE LAST TEMPLAR by Michael Jecks. #1 in the Knights Templar medieval series featuring bailiff Simon Puttock and 'retired' Templar knight Sir Baldwin Furnshill in Devon, UK. The time is 1316, several years after the Templars have been disbanded and disgraced, many of their number tortured and executed at the hands of the Inquisition. Sir Baldwin heads to his boyhood home, Furnshill Manor, to resume duty as the Lord of the manor after the death of his elder brother. Simon, meanwhile, is the brand new bailiff of Lydford Castle and finds himself very busy in the first days of his new position. First, a villager is burned to death in the fire of his cottage and then a group of monks is waylaid by highwayment, the abbot among them taken for ransom and later found burned at the stake over a fire in the woods. Simon, a rather sensitive man, is devastated and somewhat indecisive as to how to proceed, and Baldwin steps in to assist. They become friends, but Baldwin is wary of sharing the secrets of his past so soon after meeting Simon so their relationship is a little superficial at first. When a group of travelers is brutally attacked, robbed and murdered, things escalate quickly and it's soon determined that there are actually three separate crimes and not one roving band of killers. Bit of a surprising end, but by then I just wanted the book to be done. I chose this book for a challenge I was in with a category called, "Everyone Deserves a Second Chance" where you read an author you'd previously read and didn't care for. I liked this book better than the other Jecks I'd read a few years ago, but not much. There were many repetitive parts, and Jecks' propensity to describe every person you come across in great detail down to their wrinkles got old really fast. And I didn't particularly like Simon Puttock's character--he seemed like a whiny wimp to me. At any rate, at least for now, I will not be continuing on in this series. C+
10. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson #1 in the Milennium trilogy. Translated from Swedish and featuring journalist Mikael Blomkvist, middle-aged co-founder of Millennium magazine, and freelance investigator Lisbeth Salander, a pierced, tattooed twenty-something computer hacker with a definite antisocial bent. Blomkvist is convicted of libeling a billionaire financier and, intending to take a break is instead hired by Henrik Vanger, an octogenarian businessman to investigate the disappearance and probable murder of his niece Harriet decades previously. It's a locked-room mystery, as the Vangers lived on an island with but one access, and that was blocked by a tanker crash. Blomkvist is intrigued but not sure what he can come up with that the much-obsessed Vanger himself hasn't already considered. To entice him, Vanger promises some juicy information about the billionaire that will vindicate Blomkvist's near-ruinous fine and prison sentence when he has completed his investigation. Reluctantly, Mikael agrees, but though he reviews hundreds and thousands of pages of documents and photographs, it isn't until midway through the book when Salander comes into the investigation that things begin to really move, and they realize they're onto something much more than the disappearance of one teenage girl thirty-odd years ago--something horrifying, grisly and on-going! To be honest, I nearly gave up on this book by the time I got to my mandatory 50 page trial, and probably would have, had I not read from a number of people that it's a very slow starter. I'm glad I read it--it was a good, solid thriller with some interesting characters, but I can't say it came anywhere close to living up to all the raves and hype. Not only was the beginning slow, the writing throughout was rather meandering and tangential at times--could definitely have been tightened up a bit, though perhaps that was partly due to the translation. I also figured out two of the major plot twists/solutions well in advance. And the ending? That was sort of like an afterthought more than anything. For me, as an American, even one of Swedish descent, it was also a little difficult to try to come to terms with all the various place names and cultural vagaries, but the author can't be faulted for that, since he's writing about his homeland for his countrymen. In short, it was certainly a good first book which I liked, and I will most definitely read on in the series, but this book suffered from "hypeitis" in that it in no way lived up to the high expectations I had for it. B.
11. THE PURRFECT MURDER by Rita Mae Brown (AUDIO) #16 Mrs. Murphy cozy cat mystery set in Crozet, Virginia. It's autumn in Virginia, and Harry and Fair are busy on the farm with various harvestings, but a good murder mystery will always distract Harry. When the local OB/GYN doctor who works at Planned Parenthood is shot by a sniper, many in Crozet are grieved, but not terribly surprised, as the doctor had been getting threats from radical Pro-Life groups for years due to his willingness to perform abortions. A rabidly religious man comes forward to claim responsibility, but then the doctor's wealthy female patients begin to get threats--and one is murdered at a fundraiser which Harry and all her friends are attending--and Harry's friend Tazio is found standing over Carla's body with the knife in her hand. Harry is determined to clear Tazio's name and begins to ask questions--she can't even rely on her friends Sheriff Shaw and Deputy Cooper for information, as this murder took place in another county. Are these two murders connected or are they about two very different issues? Harry and the critters are on the case! While I enjoy this reader (Kate Forbes) very much and enjoy a visit to Crozet, the actual mysteries in these books are getting less and less mysterious, it seems. The red herrings are very red indeed--I would even say scarlet--because I spotted them a mile away and knew the killer from the time of introduction. Harry, as usual, does some really stupid things--for being such a smart and saavy lady, it's amazing how she continues to defy logic to do the dangerous things she does. Enjoyable, but also frustrating, if that makes any sense! B-
12. THE EYE OF JADE by Diane Wei Liang. #1 Mei Wang mystery set in modern-day Beijing, China. Mei Wang is a young woman in her twenties who left her job at the Ministry of Security because she refused to play the game and become one of the ministers' mistress. Of course in doing so, she lost face and most of her acquaintances think she 'lost' her job. Now with her own business as an "information consultant" (since private detectives are forbidden by the government) she struggles along to make ends meet and has a hard time getting people to take her seriously, being that she is a young woman. When an old family friend whom she calls "Uncle Chen" comes to hire her to find a Han Dynasty artifact, she eagerly takes on the case and ends up in hot water several times before solving the crime. A lot of this book was setting the stage for Mei's future exploits, I think--letting us get to know her and her background. Mei's father died in the labor camps when she was just a small girl, which colored pretty much her whole life. Her mother struggled to raise Mei and her sister Lu, who is now marrying a rich businessman, and of course Mei as the unmarried older sister, is never in favor. When her mother suffers a stroke and ends up in hospital, despite the fact that they don't get on well, Mei is devastated. I had a hard time getting "into" the book--Mei did seem in some ways to be a rather silly young woman, but I have to admit she did mature somewhat by the end, confronting several ghosts from her past. The strength of the book was an introduction to life in modern-day Beijing (somewhere I'd never been before) with the kow-towing that must be done to stay on the good side of the government, and even to get decent medical care. She also didn't shy away from showing the whole spectrum of life, from the dark, seedy areas to the beautiful gardens and areas where the wealthy live. The author herself was born in Beijing and spent time in the labor camps as a child, and was a member of the Student Democracy Movement, even participating in the protest in Tiananmen Square before emigrating. These aspects were very interesting, and even though the mystery itself was rather weak and almost a sideline, I'm willing to cut the author some slack and see if her second effort (which I have here on Mt. TBR) is a little beefier in content. B-.
13. BLOOD AT THE ROOT (also published as DEAD RIGHT) by Peter Robinson. #9 Chief Inspector Alan Banks British police procedural. A young man is found beaten to death in an alley, and and after identifying him, it's discovered that Jason Fox was a member of a white supremacist group called The Albion League. He was seen having words with three Pakistani youths in a nearby pub, and they become the natural first suspects. But Banks doesn't believe they're guilty and begins searching into Fox's life to find out more about the youth, which leads him down a path into not only hate-groups, but international drug rings, gangsters and a whole slew of ne'er-do-wells. Meanwhile, he has personal issues to deal with as his wife Sandra has decided that a trial separation is needed and goes to stay with her parents. Banks is devastated and realizes that he'd taken his twenty-some year marriage quite for granted. He also gets into hot water with the Chief Constable, Jimmy Riddle. I enjoyed this entry in the series quite a lot, although a couple of the minor plot twists were easy peasy to figure out. The main mystery of who killed Fox was rather a natural progression to the ending without much of a surprise, either. The writing was a little uneven though--at times wonderfully evocative and poignant, and at other times seeming a bit rushed. Still, this has become one of my favorite series and I'll definitely keep reading onward. B+
14. THE BLACK DOVE by Steven Hockensmith. #3 "Holmes on the Range" mystery featuring Old Red and Big Red Amlingmeyer in the 1890's American west. This episode finds the brothers, previously cattle wranglers and now wannabe detectives, in San Francisco. The ginger-haired brothers see their old friend Dr. Chan (from the train episode last book) and follow him into Chinatown, where he nearly shoots Big Red, not realizing who they are. The next day when Old Red smells a mystery, they go his shop in Chinatown to see why he's so skittish, but they find him dead of an apparent suicide, having gassed himself to death. Of course Big Red starts his deducifyin' and sees several clues that lead him to believe that Chan was helped to the other side. With the help of Diana Corvus, the Southern Pacific railroad detective that they worked with last book, the brothers navigate the seedy and dangerous Chinatown attempting to solve Chan's murder and find out what happened to The Black Dove, the name given to a much-desired prostitute that Chan actually purchased from her madam. Along the way, in typical Amlingmeyer fashion, they manage to piss off just about everyone who's anyone in Chinatown, including rival tongs (gangs) and the so-called law in this action-packed, humorous adventure. I enjoyed this book as much as I've enjoyed the previous entries in the series. The author doesn't shy away from controversial issues of the day, so the book (while humorous) isn't totally light and fluffy. I'm not a fan of typical "westerns" but I do really enjoy this series a lot! A.
15. TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO by Philip Josè Farmer. #1 Riverworld Saga classic Sci-fi. Sir Richard Burton, nineteenth-century explorer, linguist, and often controversial man, awakens from death totally naked and hairless alongside a river. After some initial disorientation, he sees many other people in the same state--people from not only a variety of cultures, races, religions but also different times. In his first days, he meets not only a twenty-first century American, but a neanderthal man, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's concentration camps and an alien (who apparently brought about the demise of earth in 2008) as well as several other more famous people, such as Hermann Göring. As these people attempt to communicate, to figure out where they are and why they've been resurrected, and just to learn "how things work" in this riverworld, Burton (who considered himself an athiest) realizes that if this is 'heaven' it's not much better than Earth, in that men are still selfish, greedy, power-hungry beings and he and his friends struggle to survive the brutal world. After many months, he decides to try to lead a group in a boat up the River to see where it begins to determine if they can figure out what it's all about. He also learns that it's impossible to die--when someone is killed or dies, they simply resurrect again somewhere else along the River, which after some time is determined to be millions or billions of miles long. It's been awhile since I've read any classic Sci-Fi and this was very refreshing and interesting to me, although it was written back in the early 70's so I suppose is a bit "dated" in that sense. Some stirring philosophical debate, a very interesting concept. There are several more books in the series and I've ordered the next--which features Samuel Clemens! A.
16. MIND SCRAMBLER by Chris Grabenstein. #5 John Ceepak mystery set along the Jersey shore, told from the POV of Ceepak's young partner, Danny Boyle. Danny and Ceepak are of to Atlantic City to obtain the deposition of a former cellmate of Ceepak's father in hopes of obtaining testimony that will convict him. (Yes, Ceepak's father is a real scumbucket that he hopes to see locked away with the key melted down.) While there, Danny bumps into his former girlfriend Katie--a kindergarten teacher who moved to California, and who is now employed as the nanny for Richard Rock, a big-time magician and illusionist performing at a ritzy casino in AC. Katie says she wants to talk to Danny about something, but before that happens, she turns up dead--and not only dead, but dressed in a kinky S&M outfit and looking like the victim of erotic asphyxiation--of course, we all know that wasn't the case and that she was murdered. But why? And did Katie really have a secret life that is totally out of character for the sweet girl Danny dated? Danny's mind is a bit scrambled with his personal involvement in the case, but Ceepak keeps him on the straight and narrow as they are deputized by the local constabulary to help investigate, muddling through the hidden world of stage magicians. I enjoy this series more with each book, as we get to know Ceepak and Danny better. The bad guy stuck out like a sore thumb for me right from the beginning, but I had no idea why or the how it was done details, so still made for a very interesting, enjoyable read. More, more! A.
17. COYOTE by Linda Barnes. #3 Carlotta Carlyle mystery featuring the PI and sometime-cabbie in Boston, MA. A young Spanish-speaking woman, possibly an illegal from some Central American country, comes to Carlotta as a walk-in client. She has with her one of Carlotta's business cards and a newspaper, pointing to an article about a dead woman named Manuela Estefan. The woman claims in halting Spanish that the dead person isn't Manuela Estefan--SHE is, and the woman had her green card. She wants Carlotta to get it back without involving the police, and she seems decidedly afraid. When Carlotta leaves the room briefly, the woman disappears, leaving behind an envelope with five crisp hundred-dollar bills behind, but no way to contact her. She turns up dead a couple of days later, much the same way the original woman was killed--with her hands cut off! Tackling a big social issue of essentially slavery of illegals for cheap labor, this book tells the story of how a "coyote" operates, helping get people to the country and then basically using them for whatever they want to. Meanwhile, Carlotta's "little sister" Paolina--her sister from the Big Sisters program--has returned from Columbia with her mother, where she's been visiting for several weeks. Paolina, now almost eleven, seems changed--she's started back-talking, skipping school, and where the relatively happy and enthusiastic girl had been is a dejected, sullen one and she won't talk to Carlotta about it or explain why. Paolina's behavior and the murder investigation ultimately end up tied together. I didn't figure out the bad guy in this one til very near the end, and I've enjoyed getting to know Carlotta a little better with each book in the series. This was the first one I'd read in print (I listened to the others in audio) and liked the smooth, easy-reading style just as much as I enjoyed listening to the others. A.
18. UNCOMMON GROUNDS by Sandra Balzo. #1 Maggy Thorsen mystery set in Brookhills, Wisconsin. Maggy and her business partners Caron and Patricia are set to open their new coffee shop, Uncommon Grounds, in a strip mall in suburban Brookhills. Maggy, late on her first day, opens the door only to find Patricia collapsed on the floor, a pitcher of milk spilled around her. At first it appears to be some sort of natural event but it's later determined that the espresso machine was interfered with and that Patricia was deliberately electrocuted. Although Patricia could be a bit intense and overbearing, Maggy can't think why anyone would want to kill her--until some previously unknown facts about her come to light, and Maggy realizes how little she really knew Patricia. Then the suspect list begins to burgeon, though the new sheriff in town, Jake Pavlick, seems to be happy with the easiest result. Gary Donovan, the town's chief of police and long time friend of Maggy, helps her mull over possibilities--she just doesn't believe that Patricia's husband David is capable of murder as everyone seems to think--but when he turns up dead of an apparent suicide, she begins to wonder. I had a vague inkling about the bad guy early on but wasn't sure til about two-thirds of the way through. I enjoyed the book quite a lot more than I expected, as I've had a pretty low opinion of most "themed" cozy series I've tried lately--to the point where I haven't bothered finishing most of them. But this has a little harder edge to it than your "typical" cozy mystery, and I liked Maggy a lot--she seemed to be a very "real" person with some depth of character--and not an annoying one!--and her supporting cast is also coming along nicely. I found a few bloopers (wrong form of a word used, wrong character name, etc) which threw me off guard a bit, and Maggy did admittedly suffer from that old 'amateur sleuth' curse where she does dumb things like withholding evidence and investigating dangerous things on her own....but that almost seems de rigeur these days. I'm glad to have found a cozy series that I'm actually looking forward to carrying on with. B+
19. THE LAST OLYMPIAN by Rick Riordan. (AUDIO) #5 Percy Jackson and the Olympians YA fantasy. Percy and his pals from Camp Half-Blood (so named because its denizens are demi-gods with one parent being a Greek god or goddess) are preparing for the big battle--the battle to save Mount Olympus--which, in its present incarnation, is at the Empire State Building in New York. Forced to fight a two-pronged battle--one against the monster Typhos, who is headed for New York, and the other against the evil Kronos (who is using the body of Percy's once-friend Luke as his host) and his army of Titans and fallen demi-gods. Meanwhile, Percy--about to turn sixteen, when the prophecy featuring him is due to come to fruition--tries to get things sorted in his personal life: is AnnaBeth more than just a friend? And where does Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the mortal girl who can see through the mist, figure into things? Percy begins dreaming of things past, of Luke, Thalia and AnnaBeth's childhoods and starts to piece together why things are the way they are. A tale of Greek mythology and prophecy, friendship and betrayal and loyalties strained to the breaking point, Riordan brings the whole series to a satisfying climactic end while still leaving room for potential future expansion--which I personally hope happens! Excellent book, excellent series, highly recommended for young and old alike! A+
20. THE WITCH HUNTER by Bernard Knight. #8 Crowner John historical mystery set in late 12th century Devon. A local tradesman falls over dead of an apparent apoplexy while riding his horse, in front of witnesses. But the man's widow insists that he was done to death by a witch's spell, the witch having been hired by her husband's arch enemy, who has been trying unsuccessfully to talk him into selling his lands off. A corn dolly effigy with a pin in its heart is found in the man's saddle bag, but even before that little artifact is discovered, the widow insists that Crowner John be notified to hold an inquest. Sir John thinks it's all a bunch of hogwash and denies her claim, and because the widow is a friend of his harpy-like wife Matilda, hears no end of complaint about it over the next few days. And when the widow's cousin Gilbert, a canon in one of the local churches, begins preaching against witchcraft and exhorting the church to actively stifle the "pagan ways" they've passively condoned by looking the other way, the whole city of Exeter gets stirred up, with several local "wise women" in danger of being condemned by the church or harmed by the townspeople. Crowner John is still reluctant to get involved, although his brother-in-law Richard de Revelle, the sheriff, has jumped on Gilbert's bandwagon. But when John's own mistress, Nesta--the proprietor of a local inn--comes under a cloud of suspicion, then he begins to feel an urgent need to get to the bottom of the original death, if only to show that the man was killed by very earthly means and thus dispel the furor in the town. A typical entry in the series, which I mostly enjoyed--certainly for the atmosphere and sense of time and place. Knight does a wonderful job of invoking the mores and culture of the times, as well as the sights, sounds and (often not so nice) smells. I have to admit though that sometimes the author tends to overuse certain words or phrases in description of his characters. For example, Crowner John, who is rather taciturn and crabby, often will "snap" or "bark" or "growl" when he's speaking. His brother-in-law, somewhat of a dandified popinjay, tends to "bray." At times it's enough to make me grit my teeth a bit--but certainly not enough of a problem to stop me from reading on in the series. B+
Current reads: LABYRINTH by Kate Mosse and listening to MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN by Anne McCaffrey--but it's doubtful I'll finish either of those tomorrow, so this likely ends my list for August. (And just WHERE has the summer gone, I'd like to know??)
Cheryl
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
JULY 2009 READING LIST
1. THE LAMMAS FEAST by Kate Sedley. #11 Roger the Chapman medieval mystery. Roger is firmly ensconced at home in Bristol with his growing family (wife Adela, daughter Elizabeth, step-son Nicholas and new baby Adam) and feeling a little smothered, especially in the heat of summer in the small one-room cabin they're renting from the Priory. So when a series of murders plague the city, Roger of course is interested and begins poking his nose into the investigation as the Lammas Day festivities and week-long St. James' Fair approach. The sheriff's deputy is content to accept whatever solution seems easier, but Roger believes all the murders are tied together and seeks to figure out why and how. The mystery in this book (like pretty much every one in the series so far) was rather painfully obvious--it's kind of funny actually because each time I read one of these, I figure it out very early and then think, "Oh surely not!" and think the author's just throwing out a red herring. But it never is! LOL But despite that, I really do enjoy the books--the characters, the settings, the period details--it just 'works' for me despite the simplicity of the mysteries. A.
2. EATERS OF THE DEAD by Michael Crichton. (AUDIO) Narrated by the incomparable George Guidall, I figured I would finally investigate the book behind one of my favorite movies of all time (The 13th Warrior.) This is one case where the movie outshines the book. It's not that it's a bad book, it's just rather dry, being a slight dramatization, Crichton's take on a real historical document, a journal kept by one Ahmad ibn Fadlan of his travels as an ambassador from the Caliph of Baghdad to the Volga Bulgars. On the way, he was sidetracked and ended up on adventures with a band of Vikings, going deep into their cold north lands and seeing many things that were an affront to him and his Muslim religion; this took place in the 10th century. As a journal meant to relay facts, it was somewhat of a recitation (we saw this, we did that, we spent this many days here and traveled that many days until the next stop...and the phrase "I saw this with my own eyes" was used a lot, too.) While Crichton obviously embellished and made it more interesting than it probably was in reality, there were a lot of asides and footnotes, which the reader did very well, using different tones of voice to indicate a further explanation which was not a part of Fadlan's actual journal. It was a good listen, especially because of Guidall's reading. There were some differences between the movie and the book, but the basic premise was the same. B.
3. A COTSWOLD KILLING by Rebecca Tope. #1 Thea Osborne mystery, set in (duh!) the Cotswolds. Thea is a forty-something year-old recently widowed house sitter--a brand new house sitter on her first job minding the home of Clive and Jennifer Reynolds while they are on a Caribbean holiday. On the first full day of her occupation, she discovers a dead body in the pond on the Reynolds' property, which considerably livens up what promised to be a rather dull three weeks following Clive's extensive "do this and that" lists. Thea's brother-in-law is a Chief Inspector in another area but has apparently been "looking into" some sort of fishy business in that area and although he won't elaborate, Thea wonders if this death has something to do with James's investigation. There is an odd cast of villagers, and definitely something 'weird' about many of them, and with Thea not knowing them or the history of the interactions there, it's all that much more difficult to know what's going on. I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed with this book; it was disjointed and not really cohesive. I couldn't get a good sense of who Thea was as a person, and her actions were often very contradictory from one minute to the next. It wasn't really bad, just sort of... "meh" I guess. This series of books has been hard to come by--I've had the second and third books on my wishlist at PBS for about a year and a half and have only moved up one spot on one of the books. My library doesn't have them either, so being that I was not bowled over with excellence in this opening entry, I think I will delete them from my WL and relegate this series to one of those I'm choosing not to pursue. C.
4. DEATH OF A COZY WRITER by G.M. Malliet. #1 St. Just mystery. Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk is a writer of cozy British mysteries, and he's also an absolute beast. Pompous, phony, and cruel to his family, frequently changing his will in favor of whichever of his children has momentarily pleased him (or displeased him the least), he decides to have some real fun by inviting his four children to his wedding. They are aghast of course, seeing a threat to their inheritances, but they all head toward his manor, figuratively attempting to elbow their way into his favor and hopefully talk him out of this marriage to an obvious gold digger. (It takes one to know one!) Then Sir Adrian drops the bombshell that his marriage is a done deal, that he and Violet are already man and wife and that his will has (yet again) been changed--but he doesn't say how. Shortly thereafter, Sir Adrian's eldest child Ruthven is brutally murdered, and it's not long before he follows his son to the afterlife. Just about everyone has motive to kill one or another of them, so who dunnit? I admit that I was surprised by the ending, but to be honest, I didn't much care by that point. The book started very slowly, and I nearly gave it up since by the time I hit page 100 (1/3 of the way through the book) there had not yet been a murder, nor had we met DCI St. Just, our intrepid hero. There was just too much set-up, and in reflecting back, the set-up didn't really give many clues to the murderer. Once St. Just entered the scene, things did improve. I like him, and Sgt. Fear too, and wish that his character had been more developed. There is some wry humor that I found amusing, but the overall package of this book was just mediocre to me. I will likely read the next one, but I've deleted it from my wishlist and just added it to my library list. If St. Just develops further in that book I would say the series has promise. C+
5. THE RAVENS OF BLACKWATER by Edward Marston. #2 in the Domesday medieval mysteries, featuring Gervase Bret and Ralph Delchard and their cohorts Canon Hubert and Brother Simon, who travel around England at the behest of King William the Conqueror. The year is 1086, and the mission of our motley crew is to compile a so-called Domesday Book, in which every person and their lands are catalogued--and of course, appropriately taxed. They investigate cases of fraud, where landholders bilk other people out of their rightful property on the sly and in doing so avoid paying the taxes owed the King. In this case, they are off to Blackwater Hall near the town of Maldon in Essex. The local lord, Hamo FitzCorbucion, has apparently been stealing lands for years and several have finally complained, despite the risk of being killed for speaking out. Upon arrival, Gervase and Ralph learn that Hamo is out of the country and his eldest son Guy has just been brutally slain. Gervase, a lawyer, becomes interested in the case and they come to the conclusion that the murder is indeed related to their land-grab investigation, and thus they stay to get it all sorted out. This is only the second in the series, but already I think it will become one of my favorites. Gervase and Ralph are two very different characters--Gervase being a gentle soul who is betrothed to his beloved Alys and chaste, Ralph being a Knight who fought in King William's battles to conquer England and a man of lusty appetites. While this does occasionally cause some conflict, the two genuinely like each other and are friends, so it works well. The two clerics who travel with them round off the foursome, and the secondary characters are also interesting and well-drawn. The mysteries are also well-done, with plenty of clues dropped along the way, including some enticing red herrings that always seem to lead me astray to the wrong conclusion. I'm not often surprised anymore, so that's always a treat. I did figure out part of this one but not until very close to the end. Well done and looking forward to more! A+
6. DRANGONSINGER by Anne McCaffrey (AUDIO) #2 Harper Hall trilogy in the Pern series. This book continues where the first in this trilogy-within-a-huge-series left off, with fifteen-year-old Menolly, formerly of Half-Circle Sea Hold, now at the Harper Hall, where musicians are trained. The book chronicles her first week in the Hall, her wonderment and awe at how her music-making is not only welcomed but encouraged--at Half-Circle, girls were not allowed to become Harpers, so she was actually beaten for writing music and singing her tunes! It tells of the adjustment of those in the Hall to her, and more pointedly, to her nine fire lizards, which had previously been thought to be naught but mythical creatures. There are friendships made, and enemies acquired as well--as there are bound to be jealousies when someone has as much natural talent as Menolly. It is a week of huge changes and adjustment for Menolly, and it was a delight to have this reader (Sally Darling) take us through all those highs and lows. I am particularly enjoying this trilogy within the greater Pern series and hope that even after it has been completed, we will return to Menolly's story at some point later on. A+
7. WIFE OF THE GODS by Kwei Quartey. Debut novel (not sure if it is an intended series or not) featuring Detective Inspector Darko Dawson in Accra, the major city in Ghana, Africa. Dawson is off to a small village near the city of Ho in the Volta region when a young medical student is found murdered in the forest. Gladys Mensah was an outspoken young medical student who volunteered much of her time educating neighboring villages about HIV and prevention. She was also outspoken against trokosi, or ritual enslavement of women by so-called fetish priests. Were one of these activities what got Gladys killed, or was it something personal? Though she seemed to be universally loved by all who knew her, the suspect list is by no means short. Darko is called in from Accra (bypassing Ho CID) when some political pressure is brought to bear. He's suited to the task as he speaks Ewe, the regional dialect, and he has family in the area--an aunt and uncle whom he hasn't seen since he was a child, when his mother disappeared. The mystery of his mother's disappearance is also brought into the present-day investigation. I really enjoyed this book--it was from a culture that I know little about which always sparks my interest. I had mixed feelings about Darko--though I liked him, he had a problem with rage that he didn't seem to be able to handle well, which was more than a little disturbing in some instances. The writing style was fluid and easy to read. The only downfall really is that the plot was so transparent. I did figure the mystery out very early on (both of them, actually!) but I do that a lot, so it didn't lower my appreciation for the book as a whole very much. I hope the author continues with more Darko Dawson books--I would definitely look for them and would like to hear more about what happens with Darko, his wife Christine and their son Hosiah. While I enjoy Alexander McCall Smith's series set in Botswana, it's nice to have a flip side to Mma Ramotswe's Africa, a darker and more realistic side. Well-done first book! B+
8. FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES by Donna Leon. #9 Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery set in Venice, Italy. Guido gets a big surprise one lazy Saturday morning when Franco Rossi, an official from the housing commission pays him a visit to essentially tell him that his apartment doesn't exist. In reviewing and reconciling building permits and architectural plans, it seems his downstairs neighbor has the top floor of his apartment building and any permits and building done after that is null and void. Rossi tells him the commission will be in touch, but it's several weeks later when Guido hears from the man again--this time, Rossi makes a call stating that he hadn't realized at the time of the visit that Guido was a policeman and now there is something fishy going on at his office that he wants to talk to him about. He's calling from a cell phone which Guido says isn't secure and asks him to call back from a public pay phone. Rossi never calls and Guido discovers that he is in a coma in hospital from a fall, but never regains conciousness and dies. Meanwhile, Vice-Questore Patta's son is nicked on a drugs charge while at University and Patta asks Guido to use his network of contacts to keep it out of the papers. As is often the case with this series, there isn't really a hard and fast solution to the crime and justice seems a bit nebulous. But I enjoy them to the hilt. With the wonderful characters and setting, a visit to Brunetti's Venice always throws me thoroughly into another culture. A
9. A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO DIE by Malla Nunn (AUDIO) A powerful book set in 1952 South Africa, when apartheid was just 'ramping up' and the laws that separated and regulated race were newly enacted. DS Emmanuel Cooper is sent from Johannesburg CID to investigate the murder of a white policeman near the village of Jacob's Rest. Captain Willem Pretorius, an Afrikaner with an impeccable reputation is found in the river, shot twice. The whole town is grieving--particularly his sons--large, brutish louts certain of their rightful place in the world and their God-given right to wreak retribution on whoever killed their Pa. Certain that this heinous crime had to be committed by someone passing through, probably a native African or "colored" (mixed race) person, the family attempt to shanghai Cooper's investigation, which is already compromised because those of the "lesser classes" are very reluctant to speak out against anyone of the ruling Afrikaner class. When the Security Branch of the government moves in and begins attempting to tie Pretorius' murder to a Communist plot, Cooper is essentially shoved aside and assigned to working on a series of attacks and rapes of colored women in the year previous to Pretorius' death--which, that case being of little import to anyone in power, is a real slap in the face. During that investigation, he continues to glean information with the help of Constable Shabalala, Pretorius' Zulu co-worker, about Captain Pretorius that shows him that despite the public show of grief, there are many people who are relieved that he is dead and that the town leader was not as spotless as believed. Shabalala remains rather reticent about his longtime friend, yet always stands behind Cooper in his investigation.This was a great book--I can't say I always enjoyed it per se, as there are a lot of unsettling and unpleasant parts to it, things to make ones blood boil, but the author strives for the mood and realistic setting for how things were at the time. The reader (Saul Reichlin) was excellent, handling many different accents and voices very well. The plot was rather complicated with several sub-plots that were almost more interesting than the murder mystery itself. Parts of the mysteries I figured out well in advance but not the actual "whodunit" itself. Excellent--not sure if this will become a series with Cooper featured in more books, but if it is, I will definitely be seeking them. A+
10. MURDER IN LITTLE ITALY by Victoria Thompson. "Gaslight" historical mystery #8 set in early 1900's New York with widowed midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Frank Malloy. Summoned to the Ruocco home above their Italian restaurant in Little Italy to help deliver a baby, Sarah Brandt soon finds trouble on her hands when the size of the baby points out obviously that Antonio Ruocco could not possibly be the baby's father--even allowing for the fact that Nainsi O'Hara was pregnant when they married, they were expecting a seven-month baby instead of the full-term plus size baby she delivered. Nainsi's mother-in-law, Patrizia, matriarch of the famity, wants
her to take the bastard baby and go. Sarah convinces her to let Nainsi stay until she's recovered, but she returns the following morning to check on her patient only to find her dead. Nainsi's mother, arriving a short time later, begins screaming that the Italian family killed her daughter, and insists the police be called. Thus Sarah ends up working again with Frank Malloy, who has been directed by Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt (a friend of Sarah's prominent family) to solve this crime and fast as the death sparks a series of riots between Italian and Irish gangs and threatens to rip the city of New York apart. This was a light, enjoyable read, typical of the series with a mystery that wasn't too hard to figure out but a nice visit with "old friends" in the form of the main characters. There was some interesting details about the political machinations of the gangs and the rampant corruption in the city at that time. Looking forward to the next one. A.
11. DEATH'S HALF-ACRE by Margaret Maron. (AUDIO) #14 Judge Deborah Knott mystery, narrated by C.J. Critt. Spring has arrived in Colleton County, North Carolina and once again the debate as to whether to develop and build or to preserve and protect the countryside ramps up. Many issues are being hotly debated among friends, family and colleagues of Judge Knott, and the County Commissioners have their plates full. When the head of the Commission turns up missing for an important meeting and then later is found dead of an apparent suicide--with a letter implicating herself and vaguely hinting at impropriety of others--everyone who knew Candace Bradshaw
is surprised. Not necessarily that the ambitious woman might have been doing some shady deals, but that she would kill herself over it. Sure enough, a couple of days later, Deborah's husband deputy sheriff Dwight Bryant learns from the coroner that Candace was murdered, and with a list of suspects as long as your arm, it's not going to be easy to narrow it down. Of course Deborah tries to remain cool and uninterested but her curiosity gets the better of her and soon she is in the thick of things. Meanwhile, Deborah spots her octogenarian father Kezzie having a very expensive pair of earrings appraised and wonders what he's got up his sleeve--but knows better than to ask outright. Let's just say that her old Daddy is just as sharp as he ever was and a bit of the rogue con man comes to the surface in his caper. A very enjoyable trip down south with Deborah and her very large extended family, as always. I spotted the killer very early on, but it was just that old gut instinct kicking in--there were several times I doubted my proclamation but at the end I was right after all. I'm all caught up with this series now--although the next one comes out in August. A
12. WARBREAKER by Brandon Sanderson. This is a stand-alone fantasy novel, one in which the author creates a totally unique world, a world where things don't quite work as we know them, a world with BioChromatic Breath--which is used almost like currency. Don't have it, and you're a Drab. Have enough and you're practically a God. This is several stories within a story, woven skillfully together into a cohesive epic tale that grabs hold of you and won't let you put the book down. Siri is the third (read: unimportant) daughter of the King of Idris and is shocked when her father sends her to Hallandren to wed the God-King Susebron instead of her older sister Vivenna, who has been groomed for just that position her entire life. Vivenna decides to attempt to rescue her sister, whom she feels must be totally out of her element and miserable, and in doing so breaks out of her 'perfect, compliant daughter' mode and hooks up with a band of mercenaries who had been helping one of her father's spies in Hallandren. Lightbringer, one of the Returned Gods of Hallandren, begins having flashes of memory of his previous life--do these visions relate to present day as prophecy or are they just memories? And who are (or were) Vasher and Denth, opposing each other in an effort to start (or stop?) a war? A tale of two very differing religions and countries, with lifestyles and beliefs that are miles apart, headed towards what seems an inevitable war. Political and religious intrigue, dark magic, and a whole host of people who are not who or what they seem, combine together with Sanderson's easy reading style to make this an excellent read. He writes in such a way that you care about all the characters, even though they are on opposing sides and are very different people. This was the first Sanderson book I've read, and I can assure you it won't be the last. A+
13. KITTY TAKES A HOLIDAY by Carrie Vaughn. #3 Kitty Norville paranormal mystery. Kitty has decided to take a break from hosting her supernatural talk show, The Midnight Hour, and heads for the hills (an isolated cabin in the mountains) to work on writing a book she's contracted for to share her life and experiences since becoming a werewolf four years previously. She's not making much progress, but her efforts are interrupted by the appearance of werewolf-hunter Cormac with her friend and lawyer Ben O'Farrell, who has been bitten and is now also a werewolf. Cormac hopes that Kitty can help Ben through the horrible first days and weeks and the first "change" at the full moon. Cormac and Ben have been best friends since childhood and at one time gave a promise to each other to kill the other if they ever were to become a lycanthrope. Cormac couldn't follow through on that promise and Ben is angry, but the situation is complicated by the fact that there was "something else" working with the wolf who bit Ben that got away, and Cormac is determined to hunt it down. While longing for some solitude, Kitty is happy to help Ben but then finds that the neighbors are not so keen on having a werewolf next door and Kitty begins receiving threats, dead animals on her doorstep and some kind of odd curse with barbed-wire crosses strewn around her cabin--and then Cormac's 'evil thing' shows up and makes itself known, but the hostile sheriff thinks Kitty is behind some attacks on cattle some few miles away. Things take a romantic twist (of course!) but it was well-done and not off-putting to me like some romantic side plots can be, so I'll definitely keep reading the series. Enjoyable, quick read. A.
14. MISTER MONDAY by Garth Nix. (AUDIO) #1 in the "Keys to the Kingdom" young adult fantasy series. Young Arthur Penhaligon,during the throes of an asthma attack in gym class, comes close to death before help is summoned, and has what he thinks is a
hallucination, being given a piece of metal and told it is a Key. When he takes this key, his asthma all but disappears and he feels verywell--and the person (Mister Monday) who gave him the key now wants it back. But Arthur is warned to not let him have it and told that he is the heir apparent to the Key, which is part of the Will and is suddenly drawn into a strange world inside an invisible house that only
he can see. He willingly goes into this house when a devastating plague strikes his city and he receives a clue that the cure can be found inside--and as a plague killed his real parents when he was but a baby, he is determined that his adoptive parents will not suffer the same fate. Once inside, he finds out that he is in a house that defies space and time and that it's inhabited by Denizens, who are creatures created by the house itself, and by the children who followed the fabled Pied Piper into it (from the real world, which are called The Secondary Realms) and have become immortal slaves of the House. As he travels through the strange world of the House, he meets various characters--some in the employ of Mister Monday that he flees from, and others who work to help him figure out what to do--and hopefully come up with the plague cure, too. While this book had an interesting premise and a good reader, I did occasionally find my mind wandering and it didn't hold me spellbound as some audio books do. That might be due to being distracted by other things, and I did feel that it's a good start to a series that encompasses all seven days of the week, and I presume Arthur will have to navigate through each of those (the namesake of each day has a Key that is one of the seven fragments of the Will) so that he's able to save the world. LOL Will definitely listen on! B+.
15. HALF THE BLOOD OF BROOKLYN by Charlie Huston. #3 Joe Pitt paranormal noir mystery. Joe is a vampire, infected with the Vyrus, and now is the head of security for one of the vampire gangs that control New York. Gone is his carefree life as a Rogue, answering only to himself--but also gone is the constant scrabbling for a living, for having a decent supply of blood. Terry, his boss and the head of the Society clan, is trying to keep the balance between the clans (and maybe expand his membership a bit) and asks Joe to protect Lydia (his assistant) in a meeting across the bridge with the boss of a small clan they hope to annex. Joe is distracted because his girlfriend Evie who has AIDS, is in hospital and failing rapidly. He has been trying to decide if he should just infect her with the Vyrus (which will kill her instantly or cure her AIDS) and make her a vampire--something he sees as a horrid last resort--or let her die. Evie doesn't even know he's a vampire at this point, so he can't even offer her the choice! There is also a strange "Van Helsing" (vampire slayer) at work, who knows his stuff, and Joe is trying to figure that into the current happenings as well. At any rate, when they head across the bridge into Brooklyn, there's big trouble waiting in the form of a previously hidden clan of Jewish vampires, who are much more powerful than Joe or anyone anticipated, and he learns that all is not what it seems and his loyalties--such as they are--are tested
again and he has some major decisions to make. Some of those decisions are made for him, and he's not crazy about the choices that were made. Dark, gloomy, violent and abrasive and without an ounce of goodness and light, this book is typical Charlie Huston fare, and propels Joe Pitt down the same bloody path he's been wandering for decades, only at a faster pace. Plenty of plot twists and turns to turn up the odd surprise and with enough issues unresolved that you know you have to read the next installment to find out what happens. This book (and series) is great for what it is, but I couldn't thrive on a continual diet of this doom and gloom. A.
16. THE WATER ROOM by Christopher Fowler. #2 Bryant and May mystery, featuring our two elderly policemen and the entire PCU (Peculiar Crimes Unit) in London. The unit is finally ready to move into their refurbished quarters after the fire that destroyed nearly everything at the end of the first book in the series. Bryant and May, both fearing that their boss is going dissolve their unit at the drop of a hat, are determined to keep themselves and their subordinates busy. They begin to investigate cases brought to them by friends or acquaintances, and find that their cases begin to intersect with the hidden rivers of London as their common ground. Ruth Singh, an elderly woman of Indian descent, is found dead by her brother--sitting in a chair in her basement looking as though she's ready to go out to do the weekly shopping. She's totally dry, but autopsy reveals that she has Thames water--in her mouth and esophagus, but she didn't drown--she asphyxiated from laryngospasm. But how did the water get there?? Bryant is certain foul play is involved and sets out obsessively to prove it. May undertakes a favor for an old lover who has become concerned that her museum curator husband has started doing something illegal that will get them into trouble with the law--he's meeting a known dodgy character in areas that deal with old riverbeds under London's streets, and for the life of them, Bryant & May cannot think of what his interest might be or what they are up to. I enjoyed this book even more than I did the first one--it's not often you have detectives worrying about seeds under their dentures or chest pains when going up several flights of stairs. Both eccentric in different ways, these two lead their younger colleagues into thinking outside the box to solve these odd cases. The prose is very descriptive and the author has a wonderful way with words and phraseology. I had to look up a few words that I'd never heard of before--which always makes me happy. And I didn't figure the mystery out, either. Wonderful stuff, and I will definitely not be waiting too long to get to the next in series! A+
17. FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS by Cherie Priest. First book in the Eden Moore trilogy--not sure how to classify it. Sort of Southern gothic horror paranormal mystery ghost story? LOL Eden Moore is a young mixed-race woman who's seen ghosts ever since she was a young girl. Her childhood and parentage are shrouded in mystery, her mother having died in a home for troubled teenagers during Eden's birth, her father's identity unknown. Lovingly raised by her Aunt Lulu and Uncle Dave near Chattanooga, Tennessee, they give her everything she needs except the answers to questions about her past. She was attacked by a religious nut when she's just a young girl, and is spared from death because the three sisters (her ghosts) warn her that he's coming. Later, Eden learns that Malachi is a relative who thinks she's the reincarnation of an evil person from generations back in their family tree. As a young woman, Eden sets out to find the answers that Lulu refuses to give her, which leads her on a trail of horror, danger, and pure evil as she travels from Tennessee to Georgia and then the swamplands of Florida as she tries to work out who to trust and what to do next. Steeped in Southern mythology, this ghost story grabbed me in from the first page and wouldn't let me go. While the plotting seems a bit wobbly at times and all the ghosts, ancestors and their relationships are sometimes confusing (there's some inbreeding and I'm still not sure of a couple of the ties) Eden's character grows during the course of the book and by the end, I've come to like her very much. The ending is a bit anti-climactic but there are hints of stories yet untold which I presume will be unfolded in the other two books in the series. I'm glad I've already got them or I'd have to go hunting them down! A-.
18. CHINA TRADE by S.J. Rozan #1 Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery set in New York's Chinatown. Lydia Chin is a 20-something private investigator. She's also Chinese-American with a large family including a mother and several brothers who would like nothing better than for her to be a traditional woman--meaning to marry and learn her "place" and stop bringing disgrace to the family. But Lydia is not so inclined. In this first entry in the series, a friend who runs a small Chinese museum called Chinese Pride hires her to find some porcelains that were recently donated to the museum by the widow of a collector--only two crates of the newest additions were stolen from their basement. Because they don't want word to get out that they can't properly safeguard donations, they hire Lydia rather than contact the police. Lydia works with a sometime partner, another PI, "older white guy" Bill Smith, and she calls him in on this case. They seem to have a sort of semi-romantic relationship--Lydia is reluctant to get involved with him because of her family, and Bill obviously cares for Lydia but is content to just bide his time, at least for now. They begin investigating this case by trying to hear of any word on the street and consulting other museums and some of Bill's contacts (read: fences) to try to locate the porcelains. A complicated tale involving rival museums/porcelain collectors, a ghost from Lydia's past, import-export dealers, the unsavory leaders of a couple of local Chinese gangs, and Lydia's best friend Mary, a police detective. Great first entry in the series! This isn't really a 'cozy' mystery, but it isn't real hard-boiled either. I like Lydia and her independent spirit a lot. Bill is less well-fleshed in this book, but I understand that Rozan alternates between their two points of view in each book, so I'm assuming we'll get to know him better next time. (Interesting concept, by the way!) I liked the details about Chinese-American culture and values and the writing style was relaxed and easy to read. I'm impressed enough that I've already ordered books 2 and 3 from PBS. A.
19. THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM by Matt Beynon Rees. #1 Omar Yussef mystery set in Bethlehem, Israel. Omar Yussef is a fifty-six-year-old history teacher, an alcoholic who's been dry for ten years. Obviously not a devout Muslim, he does the best he can in an ever-changing, violent world to teach his students right from wrong and respect for all. When one of his former students, George Saba, is accused of being a collaborator with the Israelites and murdering one of the local heros, Omar takes a leave of absence from his school and sets out to investigate so he can prove his friend's innocence. Of course, he's been living too long with his head in an idealistic cloud, and in reality, those in power need a scapegoat and since they hold all the cards, they thwart Omar Yussef's efforts at every turn. After awhile, he isn't even sure that people he's considered close friends and confidantes (including the head of the police in Bethlehem) for many years aren't pulling strings against him. Does he take the easy way out and go with the flow to keep his family safe, or does he soldier on in the name of what he believes is right? Probably not a dilemma many of us can identify with on a very real and visceral level. Despite being in a setting that is brand new to me, with lots of interesting cultural details, one thing the book shows is that humans are human wherever you go--and motives for murder like power and greed cross national, religious and cultural borders. Very interesting first entry in series. It's difficult to read about an area of the world that has existed as a war-torn scrap of land for so very long, but I am always glad to learn about new areas and cultures. I did figure the mystery out ahead of time, but it was just a good guess or my gut feeling--I felt like I was on shaky ground being so unfamiliar with the culture and missed a lot of clues, I think, and sometimes had to stop to rearrange my thoughts. I liked Omar despite his sometimes petty vanity and stubbornness and I look forward to getting to know him better. B+.
20. THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION by Michael Chabon. (AUDIO) Set in modern-day Sitka, Alaska, but in a modern world changed inexorably by an alternative history--one in which, during WWII, Berlin was nuked, where Jews are resettled in Sitka (a proposal FDR actually put forth but which went nowhere in "our" world) as a temporary homeland--whose lease is now about to expire and which will leave "the frozen Chosen" in limbo. With reversion imminent, Sitka detective Meyer Landsman, a bit of a drunken rogue, is awakened to a call that someone in his own building (a flea-bitten hotel) has been murdered. Divorced for several years, Landsman discovers that his ex-wife (also a cop) Bina Gelbfish is back in town and is now his superior officer. As they attempt to piece together who killed the heroin addict who was Landsman's neighbor, they discover that the dead man is actually the once-loved son of the local head of the Verbover Jewish sect, who was rumored at one time to be a possible messiah. The story quickly becomes much more complicated than a simple murder investigation--soon there are conspiracies between the Jewish gangs, the leaders of the reversion committee, even the US Government! I love Chabon's writing style, and the premise for the book is certainly interesting. The plot, however, becomes a bit tangled along the way, and at least in the audio version, a bit confusing at times with a prodigious number of characters and some shifting back and forth in time that wasn't always easy to keep straight. Still, a great, winding story with a scope that defies genre classification, being part noir murder mystery, part speculative fiction, part social commentary, part literary novel. And does that blending very well. A.
Cheryl
2. EATERS OF THE DEAD by Michael Crichton. (AUDIO) Narrated by the incomparable George Guidall, I figured I would finally investigate the book behind one of my favorite movies of all time (The 13th Warrior.) This is one case where the movie outshines the book. It's not that it's a bad book, it's just rather dry, being a slight dramatization, Crichton's take on a real historical document, a journal kept by one Ahmad ibn Fadlan of his travels as an ambassador from the Caliph of Baghdad to the Volga Bulgars. On the way, he was sidetracked and ended up on adventures with a band of Vikings, going deep into their cold north lands and seeing many things that were an affront to him and his Muslim religion; this took place in the 10th century. As a journal meant to relay facts, it was somewhat of a recitation (we saw this, we did that, we spent this many days here and traveled that many days until the next stop...and the phrase "I saw this with my own eyes" was used a lot, too.) While Crichton obviously embellished and made it more interesting than it probably was in reality, there were a lot of asides and footnotes, which the reader did very well, using different tones of voice to indicate a further explanation which was not a part of Fadlan's actual journal. It was a good listen, especially because of Guidall's reading. There were some differences between the movie and the book, but the basic premise was the same. B.
3. A COTSWOLD KILLING by Rebecca Tope. #1 Thea Osborne mystery, set in (duh!) the Cotswolds. Thea is a forty-something year-old recently widowed house sitter--a brand new house sitter on her first job minding the home of Clive and Jennifer Reynolds while they are on a Caribbean holiday. On the first full day of her occupation, she discovers a dead body in the pond on the Reynolds' property, which considerably livens up what promised to be a rather dull three weeks following Clive's extensive "do this and that" lists. Thea's brother-in-law is a Chief Inspector in another area but has apparently been "looking into" some sort of fishy business in that area and although he won't elaborate, Thea wonders if this death has something to do with James's investigation. There is an odd cast of villagers, and definitely something 'weird' about many of them, and with Thea not knowing them or the history of the interactions there, it's all that much more difficult to know what's going on. I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed with this book; it was disjointed and not really cohesive. I couldn't get a good sense of who Thea was as a person, and her actions were often very contradictory from one minute to the next. It wasn't really bad, just sort of... "meh" I guess. This series of books has been hard to come by--I've had the second and third books on my wishlist at PBS for about a year and a half and have only moved up one spot on one of the books. My library doesn't have them either, so being that I was not bowled over with excellence in this opening entry, I think I will delete them from my WL and relegate this series to one of those I'm choosing not to pursue. C.
4. DEATH OF A COZY WRITER by G.M. Malliet. #1 St. Just mystery. Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk is a writer of cozy British mysteries, and he's also an absolute beast. Pompous, phony, and cruel to his family, frequently changing his will in favor of whichever of his children has momentarily pleased him (or displeased him the least), he decides to have some real fun by inviting his four children to his wedding. They are aghast of course, seeing a threat to their inheritances, but they all head toward his manor, figuratively attempting to elbow their way into his favor and hopefully talk him out of this marriage to an obvious gold digger. (It takes one to know one!) Then Sir Adrian drops the bombshell that his marriage is a done deal, that he and Violet are already man and wife and that his will has (yet again) been changed--but he doesn't say how. Shortly thereafter, Sir Adrian's eldest child Ruthven is brutally murdered, and it's not long before he follows his son to the afterlife. Just about everyone has motive to kill one or another of them, so who dunnit? I admit that I was surprised by the ending, but to be honest, I didn't much care by that point. The book started very slowly, and I nearly gave it up since by the time I hit page 100 (1/3 of the way through the book) there had not yet been a murder, nor had we met DCI St. Just, our intrepid hero. There was just too much set-up, and in reflecting back, the set-up didn't really give many clues to the murderer. Once St. Just entered the scene, things did improve. I like him, and Sgt. Fear too, and wish that his character had been more developed. There is some wry humor that I found amusing, but the overall package of this book was just mediocre to me. I will likely read the next one, but I've deleted it from my wishlist and just added it to my library list. If St. Just develops further in that book I would say the series has promise. C+
5. THE RAVENS OF BLACKWATER by Edward Marston. #2 in the Domesday medieval mysteries, featuring Gervase Bret and Ralph Delchard and their cohorts Canon Hubert and Brother Simon, who travel around England at the behest of King William the Conqueror. The year is 1086, and the mission of our motley crew is to compile a so-called Domesday Book, in which every person and their lands are catalogued--and of course, appropriately taxed. They investigate cases of fraud, where landholders bilk other people out of their rightful property on the sly and in doing so avoid paying the taxes owed the King. In this case, they are off to Blackwater Hall near the town of Maldon in Essex. The local lord, Hamo FitzCorbucion, has apparently been stealing lands for years and several have finally complained, despite the risk of being killed for speaking out. Upon arrival, Gervase and Ralph learn that Hamo is out of the country and his eldest son Guy has just been brutally slain. Gervase, a lawyer, becomes interested in the case and they come to the conclusion that the murder is indeed related to their land-grab investigation, and thus they stay to get it all sorted out. This is only the second in the series, but already I think it will become one of my favorites. Gervase and Ralph are two very different characters--Gervase being a gentle soul who is betrothed to his beloved Alys and chaste, Ralph being a Knight who fought in King William's battles to conquer England and a man of lusty appetites. While this does occasionally cause some conflict, the two genuinely like each other and are friends, so it works well. The two clerics who travel with them round off the foursome, and the secondary characters are also interesting and well-drawn. The mysteries are also well-done, with plenty of clues dropped along the way, including some enticing red herrings that always seem to lead me astray to the wrong conclusion. I'm not often surprised anymore, so that's always a treat. I did figure out part of this one but not until very close to the end. Well done and looking forward to more! A+
6. DRANGONSINGER by Anne McCaffrey (AUDIO) #2 Harper Hall trilogy in the Pern series. This book continues where the first in this trilogy-within-a-huge-series left off, with fifteen-year-old Menolly, formerly of Half-Circle Sea Hold, now at the Harper Hall, where musicians are trained. The book chronicles her first week in the Hall, her wonderment and awe at how her music-making is not only welcomed but encouraged--at Half-Circle, girls were not allowed to become Harpers, so she was actually beaten for writing music and singing her tunes! It tells of the adjustment of those in the Hall to her, and more pointedly, to her nine fire lizards, which had previously been thought to be naught but mythical creatures. There are friendships made, and enemies acquired as well--as there are bound to be jealousies when someone has as much natural talent as Menolly. It is a week of huge changes and adjustment for Menolly, and it was a delight to have this reader (Sally Darling) take us through all those highs and lows. I am particularly enjoying this trilogy within the greater Pern series and hope that even after it has been completed, we will return to Menolly's story at some point later on. A+
7. WIFE OF THE GODS by Kwei Quartey. Debut novel (not sure if it is an intended series or not) featuring Detective Inspector Darko Dawson in Accra, the major city in Ghana, Africa. Dawson is off to a small village near the city of Ho in the Volta region when a young medical student is found murdered in the forest. Gladys Mensah was an outspoken young medical student who volunteered much of her time educating neighboring villages about HIV and prevention. She was also outspoken against trokosi, or ritual enslavement of women by so-called fetish priests. Were one of these activities what got Gladys killed, or was it something personal? Though she seemed to be universally loved by all who knew her, the suspect list is by no means short. Darko is called in from Accra (bypassing Ho CID) when some political pressure is brought to bear. He's suited to the task as he speaks Ewe, the regional dialect, and he has family in the area--an aunt and uncle whom he hasn't seen since he was a child, when his mother disappeared. The mystery of his mother's disappearance is also brought into the present-day investigation. I really enjoyed this book--it was from a culture that I know little about which always sparks my interest. I had mixed feelings about Darko--though I liked him, he had a problem with rage that he didn't seem to be able to handle well, which was more than a little disturbing in some instances. The writing style was fluid and easy to read. The only downfall really is that the plot was so transparent. I did figure the mystery out very early on (both of them, actually!) but I do that a lot, so it didn't lower my appreciation for the book as a whole very much. I hope the author continues with more Darko Dawson books--I would definitely look for them and would like to hear more about what happens with Darko, his wife Christine and their son Hosiah. While I enjoy Alexander McCall Smith's series set in Botswana, it's nice to have a flip side to Mma Ramotswe's Africa, a darker and more realistic side. Well-done first book! B+
8. FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES by Donna Leon. #9 Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery set in Venice, Italy. Guido gets a big surprise one lazy Saturday morning when Franco Rossi, an official from the housing commission pays him a visit to essentially tell him that his apartment doesn't exist. In reviewing and reconciling building permits and architectural plans, it seems his downstairs neighbor has the top floor of his apartment building and any permits and building done after that is null and void. Rossi tells him the commission will be in touch, but it's several weeks later when Guido hears from the man again--this time, Rossi makes a call stating that he hadn't realized at the time of the visit that Guido was a policeman and now there is something fishy going on at his office that he wants to talk to him about. He's calling from a cell phone which Guido says isn't secure and asks him to call back from a public pay phone. Rossi never calls and Guido discovers that he is in a coma in hospital from a fall, but never regains conciousness and dies. Meanwhile, Vice-Questore Patta's son is nicked on a drugs charge while at University and Patta asks Guido to use his network of contacts to keep it out of the papers. As is often the case with this series, there isn't really a hard and fast solution to the crime and justice seems a bit nebulous. But I enjoy them to the hilt. With the wonderful characters and setting, a visit to Brunetti's Venice always throws me thoroughly into another culture. A
9. A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO DIE by Malla Nunn (AUDIO) A powerful book set in 1952 South Africa, when apartheid was just 'ramping up' and the laws that separated and regulated race were newly enacted. DS Emmanuel Cooper is sent from Johannesburg CID to investigate the murder of a white policeman near the village of Jacob's Rest. Captain Willem Pretorius, an Afrikaner with an impeccable reputation is found in the river, shot twice. The whole town is grieving--particularly his sons--large, brutish louts certain of their rightful place in the world and their God-given right to wreak retribution on whoever killed their Pa. Certain that this heinous crime had to be committed by someone passing through, probably a native African or "colored" (mixed race) person, the family attempt to shanghai Cooper's investigation, which is already compromised because those of the "lesser classes" are very reluctant to speak out against anyone of the ruling Afrikaner class. When the Security Branch of the government moves in and begins attempting to tie Pretorius' murder to a Communist plot, Cooper is essentially shoved aside and assigned to working on a series of attacks and rapes of colored women in the year previous to Pretorius' death--which, that case being of little import to anyone in power, is a real slap in the face. During that investigation, he continues to glean information with the help of Constable Shabalala, Pretorius' Zulu co-worker, about Captain Pretorius that shows him that despite the public show of grief, there are many people who are relieved that he is dead and that the town leader was not as spotless as believed. Shabalala remains rather reticent about his longtime friend, yet always stands behind Cooper in his investigation.This was a great book--I can't say I always enjoyed it per se, as there are a lot of unsettling and unpleasant parts to it, things to make ones blood boil, but the author strives for the mood and realistic setting for how things were at the time. The reader (Saul Reichlin) was excellent, handling many different accents and voices very well. The plot was rather complicated with several sub-plots that were almost more interesting than the murder mystery itself. Parts of the mysteries I figured out well in advance but not the actual "whodunit" itself. Excellent--not sure if this will become a series with Cooper featured in more books, but if it is, I will definitely be seeking them. A+
10. MURDER IN LITTLE ITALY by Victoria Thompson. "Gaslight" historical mystery #8 set in early 1900's New York with widowed midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Frank Malloy. Summoned to the Ruocco home above their Italian restaurant in Little Italy to help deliver a baby, Sarah Brandt soon finds trouble on her hands when the size of the baby points out obviously that Antonio Ruocco could not possibly be the baby's father--even allowing for the fact that Nainsi O'Hara was pregnant when they married, they were expecting a seven-month baby instead of the full-term plus size baby she delivered. Nainsi's mother-in-law, Patrizia, matriarch of the famity, wants
her to take the bastard baby and go. Sarah convinces her to let Nainsi stay until she's recovered, but she returns the following morning to check on her patient only to find her dead. Nainsi's mother, arriving a short time later, begins screaming that the Italian family killed her daughter, and insists the police be called. Thus Sarah ends up working again with Frank Malloy, who has been directed by Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt (a friend of Sarah's prominent family) to solve this crime and fast as the death sparks a series of riots between Italian and Irish gangs and threatens to rip the city of New York apart. This was a light, enjoyable read, typical of the series with a mystery that wasn't too hard to figure out but a nice visit with "old friends" in the form of the main characters. There was some interesting details about the political machinations of the gangs and the rampant corruption in the city at that time. Looking forward to the next one. A.
11. DEATH'S HALF-ACRE by Margaret Maron. (AUDIO) #14 Judge Deborah Knott mystery, narrated by C.J. Critt. Spring has arrived in Colleton County, North Carolina and once again the debate as to whether to develop and build or to preserve and protect the countryside ramps up. Many issues are being hotly debated among friends, family and colleagues of Judge Knott, and the County Commissioners have their plates full. When the head of the Commission turns up missing for an important meeting and then later is found dead of an apparent suicide--with a letter implicating herself and vaguely hinting at impropriety of others--everyone who knew Candace Bradshaw
is surprised. Not necessarily that the ambitious woman might have been doing some shady deals, but that she would kill herself over it. Sure enough, a couple of days later, Deborah's husband deputy sheriff Dwight Bryant learns from the coroner that Candace was murdered, and with a list of suspects as long as your arm, it's not going to be easy to narrow it down. Of course Deborah tries to remain cool and uninterested but her curiosity gets the better of her and soon she is in the thick of things. Meanwhile, Deborah spots her octogenarian father Kezzie having a very expensive pair of earrings appraised and wonders what he's got up his sleeve--but knows better than to ask outright. Let's just say that her old Daddy is just as sharp as he ever was and a bit of the rogue con man comes to the surface in his caper. A very enjoyable trip down south with Deborah and her very large extended family, as always. I spotted the killer very early on, but it was just that old gut instinct kicking in--there were several times I doubted my proclamation but at the end I was right after all. I'm all caught up with this series now--although the next one comes out in August. A
12. WARBREAKER by Brandon Sanderson. This is a stand-alone fantasy novel, one in which the author creates a totally unique world, a world where things don't quite work as we know them, a world with BioChromatic Breath--which is used almost like currency. Don't have it, and you're a Drab. Have enough and you're practically a God. This is several stories within a story, woven skillfully together into a cohesive epic tale that grabs hold of you and won't let you put the book down. Siri is the third (read: unimportant) daughter of the King of Idris and is shocked when her father sends her to Hallandren to wed the God-King Susebron instead of her older sister Vivenna, who has been groomed for just that position her entire life. Vivenna decides to attempt to rescue her sister, whom she feels must be totally out of her element and miserable, and in doing so breaks out of her 'perfect, compliant daughter' mode and hooks up with a band of mercenaries who had been helping one of her father's spies in Hallandren. Lightbringer, one of the Returned Gods of Hallandren, begins having flashes of memory of his previous life--do these visions relate to present day as prophecy or are they just memories? And who are (or were) Vasher and Denth, opposing each other in an effort to start (or stop?) a war? A tale of two very differing religions and countries, with lifestyles and beliefs that are miles apart, headed towards what seems an inevitable war. Political and religious intrigue, dark magic, and a whole host of people who are not who or what they seem, combine together with Sanderson's easy reading style to make this an excellent read. He writes in such a way that you care about all the characters, even though they are on opposing sides and are very different people. This was the first Sanderson book I've read, and I can assure you it won't be the last. A+
13. KITTY TAKES A HOLIDAY by Carrie Vaughn. #3 Kitty Norville paranormal mystery. Kitty has decided to take a break from hosting her supernatural talk show, The Midnight Hour, and heads for the hills (an isolated cabin in the mountains) to work on writing a book she's contracted for to share her life and experiences since becoming a werewolf four years previously. She's not making much progress, but her efforts are interrupted by the appearance of werewolf-hunter Cormac with her friend and lawyer Ben O'Farrell, who has been bitten and is now also a werewolf. Cormac hopes that Kitty can help Ben through the horrible first days and weeks and the first "change" at the full moon. Cormac and Ben have been best friends since childhood and at one time gave a promise to each other to kill the other if they ever were to become a lycanthrope. Cormac couldn't follow through on that promise and Ben is angry, but the situation is complicated by the fact that there was "something else" working with the wolf who bit Ben that got away, and Cormac is determined to hunt it down. While longing for some solitude, Kitty is happy to help Ben but then finds that the neighbors are not so keen on having a werewolf next door and Kitty begins receiving threats, dead animals on her doorstep and some kind of odd curse with barbed-wire crosses strewn around her cabin--and then Cormac's 'evil thing' shows up and makes itself known, but the hostile sheriff thinks Kitty is behind some attacks on cattle some few miles away. Things take a romantic twist (of course!) but it was well-done and not off-putting to me like some romantic side plots can be, so I'll definitely keep reading the series. Enjoyable, quick read. A.
14. MISTER MONDAY by Garth Nix. (AUDIO) #1 in the "Keys to the Kingdom" young adult fantasy series. Young Arthur Penhaligon,during the throes of an asthma attack in gym class, comes close to death before help is summoned, and has what he thinks is a
hallucination, being given a piece of metal and told it is a Key. When he takes this key, his asthma all but disappears and he feels verywell--and the person (Mister Monday) who gave him the key now wants it back. But Arthur is warned to not let him have it and told that he is the heir apparent to the Key, which is part of the Will and is suddenly drawn into a strange world inside an invisible house that only
he can see. He willingly goes into this house when a devastating plague strikes his city and he receives a clue that the cure can be found inside--and as a plague killed his real parents when he was but a baby, he is determined that his adoptive parents will not suffer the same fate. Once inside, he finds out that he is in a house that defies space and time and that it's inhabited by Denizens, who are creatures created by the house itself, and by the children who followed the fabled Pied Piper into it (from the real world, which are called The Secondary Realms) and have become immortal slaves of the House. As he travels through the strange world of the House, he meets various characters--some in the employ of Mister Monday that he flees from, and others who work to help him figure out what to do--and hopefully come up with the plague cure, too. While this book had an interesting premise and a good reader, I did occasionally find my mind wandering and it didn't hold me spellbound as some audio books do. That might be due to being distracted by other things, and I did feel that it's a good start to a series that encompasses all seven days of the week, and I presume Arthur will have to navigate through each of those (the namesake of each day has a Key that is one of the seven fragments of the Will) so that he's able to save the world. LOL Will definitely listen on! B+.
15. HALF THE BLOOD OF BROOKLYN by Charlie Huston. #3 Joe Pitt paranormal noir mystery. Joe is a vampire, infected with the Vyrus, and now is the head of security for one of the vampire gangs that control New York. Gone is his carefree life as a Rogue, answering only to himself--but also gone is the constant scrabbling for a living, for having a decent supply of blood. Terry, his boss and the head of the Society clan, is trying to keep the balance between the clans (and maybe expand his membership a bit) and asks Joe to protect Lydia (his assistant) in a meeting across the bridge with the boss of a small clan they hope to annex. Joe is distracted because his girlfriend Evie who has AIDS, is in hospital and failing rapidly. He has been trying to decide if he should just infect her with the Vyrus (which will kill her instantly or cure her AIDS) and make her a vampire--something he sees as a horrid last resort--or let her die. Evie doesn't even know he's a vampire at this point, so he can't even offer her the choice! There is also a strange "Van Helsing" (vampire slayer) at work, who knows his stuff, and Joe is trying to figure that into the current happenings as well. At any rate, when they head across the bridge into Brooklyn, there's big trouble waiting in the form of a previously hidden clan of Jewish vampires, who are much more powerful than Joe or anyone anticipated, and he learns that all is not what it seems and his loyalties--such as they are--are tested
again and he has some major decisions to make. Some of those decisions are made for him, and he's not crazy about the choices that were made. Dark, gloomy, violent and abrasive and without an ounce of goodness and light, this book is typical Charlie Huston fare, and propels Joe Pitt down the same bloody path he's been wandering for decades, only at a faster pace. Plenty of plot twists and turns to turn up the odd surprise and with enough issues unresolved that you know you have to read the next installment to find out what happens. This book (and series) is great for what it is, but I couldn't thrive on a continual diet of this doom and gloom. A.
16. THE WATER ROOM by Christopher Fowler. #2 Bryant and May mystery, featuring our two elderly policemen and the entire PCU (Peculiar Crimes Unit) in London. The unit is finally ready to move into their refurbished quarters after the fire that destroyed nearly everything at the end of the first book in the series. Bryant and May, both fearing that their boss is going dissolve their unit at the drop of a hat, are determined to keep themselves and their subordinates busy. They begin to investigate cases brought to them by friends or acquaintances, and find that their cases begin to intersect with the hidden rivers of London as their common ground. Ruth Singh, an elderly woman of Indian descent, is found dead by her brother--sitting in a chair in her basement looking as though she's ready to go out to do the weekly shopping. She's totally dry, but autopsy reveals that she has Thames water--in her mouth and esophagus, but she didn't drown--she asphyxiated from laryngospasm. But how did the water get there?? Bryant is certain foul play is involved and sets out obsessively to prove it. May undertakes a favor for an old lover who has become concerned that her museum curator husband has started doing something illegal that will get them into trouble with the law--he's meeting a known dodgy character in areas that deal with old riverbeds under London's streets, and for the life of them, Bryant & May cannot think of what his interest might be or what they are up to. I enjoyed this book even more than I did the first one--it's not often you have detectives worrying about seeds under their dentures or chest pains when going up several flights of stairs. Both eccentric in different ways, these two lead their younger colleagues into thinking outside the box to solve these odd cases. The prose is very descriptive and the author has a wonderful way with words and phraseology. I had to look up a few words that I'd never heard of before--which always makes me happy. And I didn't figure the mystery out, either. Wonderful stuff, and I will definitely not be waiting too long to get to the next in series! A+
17. FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS by Cherie Priest. First book in the Eden Moore trilogy--not sure how to classify it. Sort of Southern gothic horror paranormal mystery ghost story? LOL Eden Moore is a young mixed-race woman who's seen ghosts ever since she was a young girl. Her childhood and parentage are shrouded in mystery, her mother having died in a home for troubled teenagers during Eden's birth, her father's identity unknown. Lovingly raised by her Aunt Lulu and Uncle Dave near Chattanooga, Tennessee, they give her everything she needs except the answers to questions about her past. She was attacked by a religious nut when she's just a young girl, and is spared from death because the three sisters (her ghosts) warn her that he's coming. Later, Eden learns that Malachi is a relative who thinks she's the reincarnation of an evil person from generations back in their family tree. As a young woman, Eden sets out to find the answers that Lulu refuses to give her, which leads her on a trail of horror, danger, and pure evil as she travels from Tennessee to Georgia and then the swamplands of Florida as she tries to work out who to trust and what to do next. Steeped in Southern mythology, this ghost story grabbed me in from the first page and wouldn't let me go. While the plotting seems a bit wobbly at times and all the ghosts, ancestors and their relationships are sometimes confusing (there's some inbreeding and I'm still not sure of a couple of the ties) Eden's character grows during the course of the book and by the end, I've come to like her very much. The ending is a bit anti-climactic but there are hints of stories yet untold which I presume will be unfolded in the other two books in the series. I'm glad I've already got them or I'd have to go hunting them down! A-.
18. CHINA TRADE by S.J. Rozan #1 Lydia Chin and Bill Smith mystery set in New York's Chinatown. Lydia Chin is a 20-something private investigator. She's also Chinese-American with a large family including a mother and several brothers who would like nothing better than for her to be a traditional woman--meaning to marry and learn her "place" and stop bringing disgrace to the family. But Lydia is not so inclined. In this first entry in the series, a friend who runs a small Chinese museum called Chinese Pride hires her to find some porcelains that were recently donated to the museum by the widow of a collector--only two crates of the newest additions were stolen from their basement. Because they don't want word to get out that they can't properly safeguard donations, they hire Lydia rather than contact the police. Lydia works with a sometime partner, another PI, "older white guy" Bill Smith, and she calls him in on this case. They seem to have a sort of semi-romantic relationship--Lydia is reluctant to get involved with him because of her family, and Bill obviously cares for Lydia but is content to just bide his time, at least for now. They begin investigating this case by trying to hear of any word on the street and consulting other museums and some of Bill's contacts (read: fences) to try to locate the porcelains. A complicated tale involving rival museums/porcelain collectors, a ghost from Lydia's past, import-export dealers, the unsavory leaders of a couple of local Chinese gangs, and Lydia's best friend Mary, a police detective. Great first entry in the series! This isn't really a 'cozy' mystery, but it isn't real hard-boiled either. I like Lydia and her independent spirit a lot. Bill is less well-fleshed in this book, but I understand that Rozan alternates between their two points of view in each book, so I'm assuming we'll get to know him better next time. (Interesting concept, by the way!) I liked the details about Chinese-American culture and values and the writing style was relaxed and easy to read. I'm impressed enough that I've already ordered books 2 and 3 from PBS. A.
19. THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM by Matt Beynon Rees. #1 Omar Yussef mystery set in Bethlehem, Israel. Omar Yussef is a fifty-six-year-old history teacher, an alcoholic who's been dry for ten years. Obviously not a devout Muslim, he does the best he can in an ever-changing, violent world to teach his students right from wrong and respect for all. When one of his former students, George Saba, is accused of being a collaborator with the Israelites and murdering one of the local heros, Omar takes a leave of absence from his school and sets out to investigate so he can prove his friend's innocence. Of course, he's been living too long with his head in an idealistic cloud, and in reality, those in power need a scapegoat and since they hold all the cards, they thwart Omar Yussef's efforts at every turn. After awhile, he isn't even sure that people he's considered close friends and confidantes (including the head of the police in Bethlehem) for many years aren't pulling strings against him. Does he take the easy way out and go with the flow to keep his family safe, or does he soldier on in the name of what he believes is right? Probably not a dilemma many of us can identify with on a very real and visceral level. Despite being in a setting that is brand new to me, with lots of interesting cultural details, one thing the book shows is that humans are human wherever you go--and motives for murder like power and greed cross national, religious and cultural borders. Very interesting first entry in series. It's difficult to read about an area of the world that has existed as a war-torn scrap of land for so very long, but I am always glad to learn about new areas and cultures. I did figure the mystery out ahead of time, but it was just a good guess or my gut feeling--I felt like I was on shaky ground being so unfamiliar with the culture and missed a lot of clues, I think, and sometimes had to stop to rearrange my thoughts. I liked Omar despite his sometimes petty vanity and stubbornness and I look forward to getting to know him better. B+.
20. THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION by Michael Chabon. (AUDIO) Set in modern-day Sitka, Alaska, but in a modern world changed inexorably by an alternative history--one in which, during WWII, Berlin was nuked, where Jews are resettled in Sitka (a proposal FDR actually put forth but which went nowhere in "our" world) as a temporary homeland--whose lease is now about to expire and which will leave "the frozen Chosen" in limbo. With reversion imminent, Sitka detective Meyer Landsman, a bit of a drunken rogue, is awakened to a call that someone in his own building (a flea-bitten hotel) has been murdered. Divorced for several years, Landsman discovers that his ex-wife (also a cop) Bina Gelbfish is back in town and is now his superior officer. As they attempt to piece together who killed the heroin addict who was Landsman's neighbor, they discover that the dead man is actually the once-loved son of the local head of the Verbover Jewish sect, who was rumored at one time to be a possible messiah. The story quickly becomes much more complicated than a simple murder investigation--soon there are conspiracies between the Jewish gangs, the leaders of the reversion committee, even the US Government! I love Chabon's writing style, and the premise for the book is certainly interesting. The plot, however, becomes a bit tangled along the way, and at least in the audio version, a bit confusing at times with a prodigious number of characters and some shifting back and forth in time that wasn't always easy to keep straight. Still, a great, winding story with a scope that defies genre classification, being part noir murder mystery, part speculative fiction, part social commentary, part literary novel. And does that blending very well. A.
Cheryl
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
June 2009 Reading
I'm doing another "theme month" and am calling June "Support Your Local Library" month. There are a lot of great series that I have a hard time finding at my primary source of books, paperbackswap.com but that my library has. Of course, with my burgeoning TBR shelves rapidly approaching the 600 mark again, it doesn't seem practical to check out library books, but it's the only way I'll ever get to read these series, I think. So most of my books in June will be library books, although not all.
1. DRAGONSONG by Anne McCaffrey. (AUDIO) #4 in publication order of the Pern books, this is the first one in the Harper Hall trilogy. We were briefly introduced to Menolly in previous books, but this is her story--how she came to be a harper, her life at Half Circle Sea Hold and how she came to reside at Benden Wyr instead. Menolly's father is the SeaHolder (head of the Hold) at Half Circle, and very much a staunch traditionalist. Women are kept in their places, not given much information about the outside world, and most certainly NEVER become Harpers. So when the elderly harper at Half Circle dies, Menolly isn't allowed to follow in his footsteps, even though she is given the task of teaching the children and singing the songs that need singing until the new harper arrives several months later. Despite her talent for singing, playing and songwriting, fifteen-year-old Menolly can only look forward to a life of cleaning fish, repairing nets and caring for the old uncles and aunties of the hold, a prospect which chills her to the bone. She runs away one night, ends up in a fire lizard cave, and then is found during thread fall by a Dragonrider from Benden Wyr and is brought there for safety. Benden is much kinder to its women and Menolly finds she wants to stay. A different reader from the previous books in series, although no less enjoyable. Looking forward to the next in this trilogy within a huge series. A.
2. ALAS, BABYLON by Pat Frank. Post-apocalyptic fiction, a classic written the year after I was born, which I've been meaning to read for years. The scene is set for a devastating nuclear event when Randy Bragg, small-town lawyer in central Florida, receives a telegram from his brother Mark, a military intelligence man, that informs him that his wife and kids will be joining Randy in Florida the next day and ends with the cryptic phrase, 'Alas, Babylon' which is a code word between them for impending disaster. Randy does the best he can to prepare, stocking up on groceries and necessities like batteries and gasoline, and sure enough, just a couple of days after Helen Bragg's arrival, Russia launches a multi-faceted nuclear attack that destroys most major US cities, various strategic military bases, and many allied cities around the world. Randy and a small group of friends and neighbors, curiously untouched by the radiation and fallout, learn to exist without most of the things we take for granted--of course, this was probably a little easier in 1959 than it would be today, given our technology-driven society, but it was still a big fall for them. A bit dated, with responses and dialogue that seem a bit cliched, but still a great story with a lot to think about and a definite must for anyone who likes reading this type of book. B+
3. THE MERCHANT'S MARK by Pat McIntosh. #3 Gil Cunningham historical mystery set in 1490's Glasgow, Scotland. Gil (a lawyer) is present when a merchant friend of his opens a barrel of books that the two of them ordered together, only to find no books--instead, a man's head in brine and a saddlebag of jewels and coins which look to be part of the previous King's bounty that has been missing. Augie, the merchant friend, is soon charged with the unknown man's murder (a frame-up if Gil ever saw one!) so he and his future father-in-law (a master mason) set out to investigate the crime back where the merchant's cart had been loaded and to then follow its path to see if they can find where the obvious switch was made. Meanwhile at home, Gil's betrothed, Alys, and his sister Kate investigate (unbeknownst to Gil) by temporarily moving in to Augie's household. Augie is a widower of two years and his home and children are a shambles, but Alys and Kate soon have them whipped into shape, all the while gleaning information. When they catch one of Augie's cart men breaking into the house and he is then subsequently murdered, they learn that an evil axe-man that they'd previously seen in the pub with the murdered man is likely after them. I enjoy this series and feel that it's a shame that it's not more widely recognized, but I have to admit that the use of the Scottish vernacular sometimes gets old, especially as it's OLD Scottish. Sometimes it's enough to draw you out of the story as you have to look up what is meant, although most of the time it's not too difficult and just slows your reading speed a little. It's also not consistently used, which is kind of puzzling. I wasn't as crazy about this book as I was about the first two, but still a decent read. The book was split, the story told partly about Gil and Pierre, partly about Alys and Kate, and there were just a whole lot of characters to keep straight and several sub-plots. Of course it was only when the two sets of investigators were reunited that all the puzzle pieces fell into place for the characters, but by then there was really no surprises for the reader. Normally I enjoy a more complex, winding mystery, but that coupled with the extensive use of Scots accent/words made it a little more difficult to actually "enjoy" the story. B-.
4. THE LAMORNA WINK by Martha Grimes, #16 Chief Inspector Richard Jury/Melrose Plant British mystery. This is a bit of an odd book, in that we don't really see or hear from Jury until about the last quarter of the book. This book is more about Melrose--he is off to Cornwall, where he's planning to rent a house by the sea for a few months. In a contemplative mood, Melrose reflects on his past, but on his first day there, meets a young man named Johnny (who works three jobs!) and comes to like him almost immediately. Johnny's aunt Chris, who has cared for him since childhood, disappears--and several hours later, a woman's body is found shot to death in the nearby village of Lamorna. No, it's not Chris--but it's a woman who used to live in the area whom Chris once threatened. No one who knew Chris Wells could believe she had killed this woman, but where is she if she isn't involved somehow? Melrose is also intrigued by the four-year-old case of the deaths of two children who lived in the house he's renting, which is why it's available; the parents could not tolerate living there any longer and the tales going around say it's haunted. Melrose calls Cmdr. Brian Macalvie to look into Chris Wells' disappearance (he's already investigating the murder of the Lamorna woman) and discovers that it was he who was the primary officer in the Bletchley childrens' case as well. Of course the cases are related. Jury is off in Northern Ireland and doesn't come to Cornwall until just before the case breaks. An intriguing, interesting story, and although I had a gut feeling about the baddie, I didn't really know WHY until much further along when some more clues got uncovered. Very enjoyable read. A.
5. CHARLIE BONE AND THE HIDDEN KING by Jenny Nimmo (AUDIO) #5 Children of the Red King young adult fantasy series. Another series of adventures await Charlie Bone and his friends at Bloor's Academy. Their nemesis, Manfred Bloor is still about, and although he's lost his hypnotising endowment, something new is brewing. Charlie's best friend Benjamin Brown returns with his parents from Hong Kong after many months away, only to discover that his beloved dog Runner Bean, who has been at the Pets Cafe, has disappeared, along with every other animal in the city. Billy Raven talks to animals and his rat Rembrandt tells him that 'something bad has awoken and the animals are afraid and have run away.' Charlie, his uncle Paton and their circle try to figure out just what's awoken--and Charlie finds that whatever the Shadow is, it has his mother bewitched and his grandmother Maisie literally frozen under a spell. Charlie is in a race against time to recover the Mirror of Amaret so he can travel through it to his father--believed dead, but now known to be simply 'lost'--before he is totally forgotten and fades away. As usual, an excellent reading of an engaging, imaginative story. A.
6. WRITTEN IN BLOOD by Caroline Graham. #4 Chief Inspector Barnaby British police series. A local writer's group invites a famous author, Max Jennings, to come speak to them at their monthly meeting, and lo and behold, he agrees. Turns out he knew the secretary of the group, Gerald Hadleigh, many years previous, although Gerald admits this to no one except his neighbor Rex--and confesses that he's somewhat afraid of Max. When Gerald turns up dead the morning after their meeting, head bludgeoned in with a candlestick, Jennings is the obvious first suspect--and he's apparently done a runner as no one can find him. But was he really the killer, or were there other deep-seated emotions brewing in the small enclave that drove one of the writer's club to kill? I liked this book better than the previous one in the series by far. The mystery itself was more interesting, the people captured my attention, and I felt like I was getting to know Barnaby and Troy in more depth, too. As usual, Barnaby doesn't show up until a good few chapters in, when the central characters in the cast have been introduced and little tidbits of information strewn about. I figured out part of the mystery ahead of time, but not the ever-important 'whodunit' part til close to the end. Jolly good rebound, and I definitely will keep on in the series. A.
7. FACE DOWN BESIDE ST. ANNE's WELL by Kathy Lynn Emerson. #9 Lady Susanna Appleton historical mystery set in Elizabethan England with all its political intrigues. Rosamond, Susanna's 12-year-old foster daughter (the child of one of her dead husband's mistresses) involves Susanna in an investigation involving the death of her French tutor at St. Anne's Well. It's been declared an accident, but Rosamond is sure she was murdered, so Susanna and her housekeeper Jennet are off to supposedly take the baths at nearby Buxton while looking into things. What they discover is a whole nest of plotters to put Mary Stuart back on the throne--but was Madame Poitier's death related to that, or to something personal? This was a fairly typical entry in this series, an easy light read, good period detail and a relatively interesting story. However, I have to say that this series has really lost its shine for me. I absolutely loved the first few, but depsite the fact that I recognize that it's a decent book, I found that it felt like work getting through it. Not really sure why, perhaps it's the lack of Susanna's character development as the series has gone on--she seems to have become much less interesting than she was early on in the series. I do know that I'm glad I got this one from the library rather than spending much effort tracking it down myself. There's one left in the series, and while I do plan to finish it off eventually, I suspect it may be awhile. C+
8. IN BIG TROUBLE by Laura Lippman (AUDIO) #4 Tess Monaghan mystery. Tess is off to Texas when she gets a letter from there with a picture of her ex-boyfriend Crow with the headline "In Big Trouble" above it. She ignores this letter for a few days, but when she eventually tries to contact him, finds that his phone has been disconnected and he's vanished. Contacting his parents, whom she's never met, leads to them hiring her to find him, as they have not heard from him in over a month either--very unusual. So, retainer in hand, Tess tells herself that this is a job and nothing more. A dead body turns up in the last place he was known to be--so Tess can only wonder if Crow is indeed in big trouble. She finds him with a new band, with a waif-like female singer that Tess first believes is his new girlfriend, but eventually finds out otherwise. The plot twists and turns and eventually Tess solves things, not an easy feat in a strange place where she's feeling like a fish out of water and has no idea where to look. But people are people and the motives for murder seldom vary much. I figured out a few of the side plots, but not the main mystery until close to the end. Excellent listen/story, I think my favorite in this series so far. I'm very much looking forward to the next one. A+
9. TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE by Judy Clemens #3 Stella Crown mystery. It's nearly Christmas in rural Pennsylvania, and Stella is half-heartedly making holiday preparations on the farm. The last thing that anyone wants to have to deal with is a murder and a disappearance--although focusing on someone else's problems is ever a way to avoid confronting your own. That's what happens when Wolf, the tattoo artist who is working on Stella's new tat, disappears mid-tattoo. Wolf's wife Mandy calls him into the back room, and Stella, tired and feeling warm and comfortable, falls asleep for about twenty minutes. When she awakens, Wolf and Mandy are both gone, with Mandy's body turning up later in the dumpster. Everyone who knows Wolf knows he would never have done his wife harm, so Stella sets out to help the police by inquiring among the biker and body art crowd who would likely clam up under questioning by the cops. Mandy and Wolf were both political-minded and had been active in a group putting forth the rights of tattoo artists, so the police and Stella wonder whether there is some connection to Mandy's death and Wolf's disappearance or if it was some personal motivation. Meanwhile, Stella's former hottie Nick shows up, and ends up snowed in at the farm for the holiday with Stella and her farmhand Lucy, her daughter Tess and Lucy's boyfriend Lenny. Still unsure of her feelings, things don't go so well, especially at first. Once again in this book, Stella seems constantly on edge with raw emotions and she's prickly as a porcupine. Her family and friends seem to be well-endowed with forbearance, as I think I would have just drifted away from someone who is such a crab-ass all the time! But they stick with her through thick and thin, and so I guess I will, too, if only to discover if she finally finds some happiness. I do like Stella, I wish she'd just lighten up a bit sometimes. There is promise, judging from the ending. B+
10. EMPIRE OF IVORY by Naomi Novik. #4 in the Temeraire historical fantasy series, which is set during the Napoleonic war but with dragons. Laurence and Temeraire and their exhausted team have finally reached the shores of the UK, fighting off a few French dragons along the coast, and Laurence is surprised that they are not met by any of the coverts of dragons and their fliers. When they are landed, they learn that during the year they have been off in China, a horrible virus has attacked most of the dragons and many have died already while others--some of them members of Laurence and Temeraire's own group--are gravely ill. With no cure in sight, the dragon doctors are desperate and eventually Laurence, Temeraire and a crew of the feral dragons they brought back with them head to Africa to attempt to find the cure--to determine what it was that Temeraire ate or did during their trip to keep the virus at bay, since he had nothing but a mild cold. This leads to a whole series of complications, including the issue of slavery. There are political machinations at work that are not in the best interest of dragons, and Temeraire is hot under the collar...er, ruff...to make right the injustices against his kind and to make people realize that dragons are beings in their own right, not someone else's pet or property. I really enjoy this series and look forward to the next and will be eagerly watching the movie news to see if it is going to be adapted for the big screen. (Peter Jackson has bought the movie rights.) A.
11. GASA-GASA GIRL by Naomi Hirahara #2 Mas Arai mystery. Mas, a 70-year-old owner of his own gardening business in Los Angeles, is off to New York in response to a phone call from his daugher Mari. Something is wrong but he doesn't know what, and Mari isn't sure either, just why she's summoned him after being quite stand-offish for many years. Her husband Lloyd is the gardener for a Japanese museum's grounds and they are working on a major restoration project when the main benefactor is killed. Both Mari and Lloyd are suspected in the shooting death, as is Mas initially, as he is the one who found the body. Mas is lost in New York. Add to the stress of not knowing how things work (the subway, for instance) or where to go, his grandson Takeo (Mari and Lloyd's infant son) is quite ill and is hospitalized while the police are questioning them about the murder. Mas barely knows his daughter, having seen her only briefly in the past ten years since his wife's death from cancer. Despite this, and his typically isolationist lifestyle, his sense of family awakens and wanting to protect her, he--with the help of Tug Yamada, a friend from LA who is also in NY visiting his daughter--investigates some aspects of the case on his own. Mas finds he even rather likes his hakujin son-in-law. Eventually the case is solved, with a bit of a surprise (for me anyway) although I'd figured out parts of it. I enjoy this series, a peek at a culture I have little experience with, and wish there were more, but I believe there's only one book left in this series, and that published in 2006, so it looks as though it may be a dead end. :-( A.
12. PUSS 'N CAHOOTS by Rita Mae Brown (AUDIO) #14 Mrs. Murphy mystery set in Crozet, Virginia, although in this book the crew is off to another part of the state for an equestrian event as Harry accompanies her husband Fair (an equine vet) and also plans to look for a horse to purchase for her friend Alicia Palmer. While attending the events, Harry also visits a good friend Joan and her husband Larry who are horse breeders, and they meet a bunch of the other folks associated with the event, from breeders to the riders entered in the events themselves. When one of the Mexican grooms is brutally murdered during a thunderstorm, speculation runs rampant as to why and who had motive. Of course the animals (tabby cat Mrs. Murphy, gray fat cat Pewter and Tucker, the Welsh Corgi) investigate and have a private war with Miss Nasty, the pet monkey of one of the other riders. I liked this book MUCH better than the last one, but it still doesn't seem to be quite up to par with many of the earlier books in the series. Still, like most cozies, it's about the characters and the settings and it was a nice visit with "the gang" as always, and the reader is very pleasant and easy to listen to as well. B.
13. AND THEN THERE WERE NONE by Agatha Christie. Classic "locked room" mystery (or actually, "isolated island" in this case) written in 1939, with ten people invited to an island off the coast of Devon under false pretenses, each thinking they will be having a holiday, some thinking they're meeting someone known to them, or were recommended by so-and-so, or that they will be employed by Mr. U.N. Owen. Each bedroom in the manor house has a copy of the poem "Ten Little Indians" on the wall, and in one of the downstairs rooms there is a setup with ten Indian figurines--which is appropriate as they are on Indian Island. One by one the guests are killed just as described in the poem and the figurines disappear. As time passes the remaining guests of course conclude that since they can find no trace of their host, that it must be one of them...but who? And why?? This is my all-time favorite mystery. I first enjoyed it at the age of 10 or 12, have read it several times since then, and it was a great pleasure indeed to read it once again, even knowing the solution. Christie was indeed the Mistress of Mystery! A+
14. THE ANGEL'S GAME by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Zafón , the consummate storyteller, returns to Barcelona in his followup to The Shadow of the Wind, although this story takes place years before that, before the main character in TSOTW, Daniel Sempere, is even born. The author has said he plans to write four novels in this setting, all somewhat entwined with a few shared characters and situations, but with stories that are also totally stand-alone. I look forward to them all! This book features David Martin, popular author of 'penny dreadfuls' and suspense novels under the pseudonym Ignatius B. Samson. David, a loner who has been so almost since birth with his mother leaving his father when he was but a child, and his father dying before David reached his teens, finds himself increasingly isolated socially, aside from his enjoyable contacts with Señor Sempere at his bookstore. He is contacted by a mysterious publisher, Andreas Corelli, to write a book for him. The book is to be a story that will inspire a new religion and he will be paid an exorbitant amount of money to write it, paid up front. He agrees, and then David, who has been told he has an inoperable brain tumor, is cured and begins facing his life with a new vigor. After some time working on his book, he begins to see frightening parallels to a book he plucked from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and the author who wrote it many years before. While this is happening, his obsession with Cristina, the daughter of the chauffeur of his mentor, Pedro Vidal, grows stronger and becomes dangerous when she marries Vidal himself. Betrayed once again, David's life spirals downward as he still obsessively works on his masterpiece. While similar in style to The Shadow of the Wind, this novel is darker, more overtly violent, and has more supernatural elements to it. I liked it....no, I loved it. Zafón's lyrical, richly textured writing makes his telling of the story a delight to read--even though many times the circumstances the protagonist is in make the story itself painful. This is *not* The Shadow of the Wind reprised. It is less, and yet it is more. There are many dangling loose ends that make you wonder, and I can't help but hope that some of these threads will be grabbed and woven into another tale in the other books planned for Zafón's Barcelona. Another for the Keeper shelf! A+
15. THE BLUE LAST by Martha Grimes. (AUDIO) #17 Richard Jury/Melrose Plant mystery. Jury's policeman friend Mickey Haggerty, whom he's not seen in a number of years, asks to meet him, but upon reacquainting himself with Mickey, discovers it's not a problematic case that has Haggerty calling on Scotland Yard, but a personal case that he wants Jury to look into 'off the record.' Puzzled by the request, Mickey confides that he has a rare form of leukemia and has only months to live, and although he's the officer in charge of the murder of Simon Croft, he has a personal interest in the case as his father had been friends with Croft years previously, and he believes that there is a mystery buried in the past that may be linked to Croft's death. Croft had been writing a book about the war period and since his notes and the book's manuscript were stolen, that some detail that Croft uncovered from that time could be something that someone wanted hushed up. Jury is loathe to go back to explore the details of the past, particularly the Blitz, during which his own mother was killed, but can hardly refuse a dying friend. The Blue Last is the name of the pub where events during the Blitz tie to the present. Meanwhile, Melrose and Trueblood are off to Italy to attempt to authenticate a painting, and upon his return, Jury asks him to pose as a gardener in a rich family's home associated with his case. Although some folks don't like this foray away from the actual cases, I do enjoy Melrose's adventures with his friends in Long Piddlington and this one was especially good. I do have to say though, that I did NOT like the reader for this book. Although he did a very good reading, he totally made Melrose sound like a pretentious git with the snotty, posh accent he gave him--which is not at all how Melrose is. AND he mispronounced Melrose's butler's name, Ruthven--I remember this because in a previous book there was much discussion about just how it was supposed to be said. Argh! I have the next few here in print and I believe I will stick with those, since the readers for the series seem to change with each book, and who knows what the quality of the next one would be. I enjoyed this story despite the reader (which is the reason for the slight markdown in the grading) and was very surprised by the ending, for a nice change too! A-.
16. MAGIC STUDY by Maria V. Snyder #2 in the "Study" fantasy series featuring Yelena, a young woman with magic powers who had been kidnapped from her home in Sitia as a child and kept in a prison in Ixia, then used as the ruler's food taster. When the government changes hands and she is banished, she returns to the home she's not seen since the age of six, only to find that her welcome is a bit thin with her brother Leif accusing her of being a spy. She longs to spend time getting reacquainted with her parents and extended family, but must set out to enroll in the Citadel, where she will learn to control and use her magic. There she learns that some sort of tribal serial killer is on the loose, and that not everyone there is very welcoming, either, with one of the Master Magicians wanting her to be put to death as a spy as well. After a mind-reading assures them that she has no intention of spying, Yelena sets out to learn her lessons while plotting how to catch the serial killer. This book was okay, but I didn't particularly like it as much as the first one, which really intrigued me. The author has a great writing style, and it's easy to read and has an engaging tone. But this book has more of a romancey feel to it, and I thought Yelena in many respects to have lost her appeal as a strong female character and become something of a silly girl prone to making stupid decisions. I probably will at least attempt to read the third one, simply because I have it already, but I'm dubious as to how much appeal it will have for me if the storyline continues in this vein. C+
17. A SUMMER OF DISCONTENT by Susanna Gregory. #8 Matthew Bartholomew historical mystery set in 1350's Cambridge, UK. Matthew (a physician and professor at Michaelhouse College at Cambridge University) and his friend Michael (a monk and also an agent of the Bishop of Ely) are off to Ely at a summons from the Bishop. Matt is accompanying his friend but hopes to spend time in the library at the Priory there to gather more information for the treatise on fevers he's working on. Of course, upon arrival, they discover that the Bishop has summoned Michael because he is accused of murder and wants Michael to investigate and have him exonerated. Michael, not at all sure in his heart of hearts that his boss is innocent, investigates, often times asking Matt to tag along to offer his professional opinion, so Matt doesn't get as much studying done as he would like. When two other deaths that had been presumed accidents are tied to the first death (after Matt's examination of the bodies) the number of suspects skyrockets as none of the dead were liked by the townspeople nor the clergy involved. Of course they eventually (after a long and twisty course of events and much visiting and re-visiting the various suspects) find the killer, who was not a surprise to me. I enjoy these mysteries but the last couple especially seem to have become a bit too long with quite a lot of repetition and needless foraying back and forth, covering the same materials over and over. Still, it's been many months since I had a visit to medieval Cambridge and did enjoy this one, even if it was a bit long-winded. B+
18. THE LACE READER by Brunonia Barry. (AUDIO) Towner Whitney has come home to Salem, Massachussetts, responding appropriately when her brother calls to let her know that her 85-year-old great-aunt Eva is missing. She hasn't been home for fifteen years, and the town is full of harsh memories for her--most notably, her twin sister Lynley's suicide when they were seventeen years old. Lynley had been given to her aunt and uncle at birth as they were unable to conceive, and Towner had
never quite forgiven her mother for that, especially when her uncle Cal turned out to be a drunk and abuser, who beat his wife and sexually abused his adoptive daughter, and who has now 'found God' and become the leader of an extremist religion hell-bent on persecuting witches. Towner is a 'reader' as many of the Whitney women are--intuitives, reading people's thoughts and intentions, and specifically having the talent of reading lace, the way some read tea leaves. Towner's mother May runs a
women's shelter on Yellow Dog Island where the women are taught to make Ipswitch lace by hand; they are not close, and Towner (whose birth name was Sophya, but she refused to respond to that at some point in her childhood) spent her last months with Eva in town. Towner has lived in California for many years, having undergone serious and prolonged psychiatric therapy, including ECT (electro-shock therapy) which has left her with gaps in her memory. So when she comes home, her fragile mental health takes a tumble backward as the memories assault her, complicated by her attempts to recover from a recent hysterectomy and the cop investigating Eva's disappearance, John Rafferty, who finds himself falling in love with Towner. A multi-layered story that shifts back and forth in time with an interesting plot twist that, I have to admit, I did see coming about halfwaythrough the book. Skillfully written, a compelling story that gives you a real sense of place in modern-day Salem (where the author lives) as well as an intimate look into the world of mental illness. With elements of magic, this will probably not appeal to those who aren't fans of "woo woo" but if you don't mind a bit of the supernatural, you'll find this a wonderful and compelling story. I wondered whether there are such a thing as 'lace readers' but it seems that it's a figment of the author's imagination with no historical record of it. Very enjoyable listen, read by one of my favorite readers, Alyssa Bresnahan. I'll definitely be looking out for more by this author--it's hard to believe this is a first novel. A+
19. 47 RULES OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE BANK ROBBERS by Troy Cook. A wacky ride across the southwest begins with father-daughter bankrobbing team Wyatt and Tara pulling off a couple of major jobs. Tara, who's been helping her father rob banks since before her age was in double digits always disguised as a male, has begun to become decidedly less than happy with her father's choice of careers for her. Although she adheres to Wyatt's rules of crime, he's become increasingly violent and seems to thrive on the killing almost more than the money from the bank jobs, and Tara's getting tired of it. When she sees young Max Williams (of course he's a sheriff's son, though Tara doesn't know it yet!) in a bar in the town they're scouting for the next job, something comes alive for the 22-year-old, but Wyatt (as always) practically kills the young man as he does anyone who looks twice at his lovely daughter. And Max, smitten himself, certainly DID look. And then it happens--Max turns up at the bank
during the job and Tara doesn't follow Rule #47. The final rule: When in Doubt, Take 'em Out. She lets him get away--and when her father takes her to task for it later, she snaps and breaks up their little team, clocking a drunken Wyatt a good one and
leaving him naked with some of the money in their hotel room. She hooks up with Max and away they go, not realizing that some of Tara and Wyatt's ex-partners, having recognized Wyatt's voice on the sound bit on the surveillance video played on the
news, are now after them and their share of the cash. Add to the mix the sleazy, perverted FBI agent who ignores his much smarter subordinate and gets off on watching the blood and gore of the surveillance tapes and you've got a right ribald mix of "interesting things" just waiting to happen--and happen they did! This was a highly original work that I mostly liked a lot, but the fact that I was tempted to skim through several parts of it leads me to think that the execution of the idea was just not quite spot on, although I can't pin down just why not. Perhaps it was just too many wacky characters to try to keep tabs on, or the dearth of so-called "normal" folks for them to play off of, I don't know. The book was laugh out loud funny in spots, yet other parts seemed to have humor that was just a little forced. All in all though, an enjoyable read and an author I look forward to reading more of. B+
Current reads:
DNF: THE BLACK WIDOW AGENCY by Felicia Donovan. I gave it 50 pages, but while the concept was quite interesting, the characters were stereotypical and two-dimensional and the book read like a recitation, like pieces of dry, boring prose stacked together rather than woven skillfully into a story I could care about. NEXT!
DNF: THE ANTEATER OF DEATH by Betty Webb. Another one I'm glad I got from the library. I've enjoyed a couple of mysteries in another series this author did, but this is apparently her try at a cozy and it really doesn't work. It's set in a zoo, with the main character (can't even recall her name now, although she had four or five of them...Theodora Something Something Something....Teddy, that's right....) as one of the zookeepers and a Giant Anteater accused of the murder. I yawned my way through about 35 pages and decided to let it go back to the library.
Cheryl
1. DRAGONSONG by Anne McCaffrey. (AUDIO) #4 in publication order of the Pern books, this is the first one in the Harper Hall trilogy. We were briefly introduced to Menolly in previous books, but this is her story--how she came to be a harper, her life at Half Circle Sea Hold and how she came to reside at Benden Wyr instead. Menolly's father is the SeaHolder (head of the Hold) at Half Circle, and very much a staunch traditionalist. Women are kept in their places, not given much information about the outside world, and most certainly NEVER become Harpers. So when the elderly harper at Half Circle dies, Menolly isn't allowed to follow in his footsteps, even though she is given the task of teaching the children and singing the songs that need singing until the new harper arrives several months later. Despite her talent for singing, playing and songwriting, fifteen-year-old Menolly can only look forward to a life of cleaning fish, repairing nets and caring for the old uncles and aunties of the hold, a prospect which chills her to the bone. She runs away one night, ends up in a fire lizard cave, and then is found during thread fall by a Dragonrider from Benden Wyr and is brought there for safety. Benden is much kinder to its women and Menolly finds she wants to stay. A different reader from the previous books in series, although no less enjoyable. Looking forward to the next in this trilogy within a huge series. A.
2. ALAS, BABYLON by Pat Frank. Post-apocalyptic fiction, a classic written the year after I was born, which I've been meaning to read for years. The scene is set for a devastating nuclear event when Randy Bragg, small-town lawyer in central Florida, receives a telegram from his brother Mark, a military intelligence man, that informs him that his wife and kids will be joining Randy in Florida the next day and ends with the cryptic phrase, 'Alas, Babylon' which is a code word between them for impending disaster. Randy does the best he can to prepare, stocking up on groceries and necessities like batteries and gasoline, and sure enough, just a couple of days after Helen Bragg's arrival, Russia launches a multi-faceted nuclear attack that destroys most major US cities, various strategic military bases, and many allied cities around the world. Randy and a small group of friends and neighbors, curiously untouched by the radiation and fallout, learn to exist without most of the things we take for granted--of course, this was probably a little easier in 1959 than it would be today, given our technology-driven society, but it was still a big fall for them. A bit dated, with responses and dialogue that seem a bit cliched, but still a great story with a lot to think about and a definite must for anyone who likes reading this type of book. B+
3. THE MERCHANT'S MARK by Pat McIntosh. #3 Gil Cunningham historical mystery set in 1490's Glasgow, Scotland. Gil (a lawyer) is present when a merchant friend of his opens a barrel of books that the two of them ordered together, only to find no books--instead, a man's head in brine and a saddlebag of jewels and coins which look to be part of the previous King's bounty that has been missing. Augie, the merchant friend, is soon charged with the unknown man's murder (a frame-up if Gil ever saw one!) so he and his future father-in-law (a master mason) set out to investigate the crime back where the merchant's cart had been loaded and to then follow its path to see if they can find where the obvious switch was made. Meanwhile at home, Gil's betrothed, Alys, and his sister Kate investigate (unbeknownst to Gil) by temporarily moving in to Augie's household. Augie is a widower of two years and his home and children are a shambles, but Alys and Kate soon have them whipped into shape, all the while gleaning information. When they catch one of Augie's cart men breaking into the house and he is then subsequently murdered, they learn that an evil axe-man that they'd previously seen in the pub with the murdered man is likely after them. I enjoy this series and feel that it's a shame that it's not more widely recognized, but I have to admit that the use of the Scottish vernacular sometimes gets old, especially as it's OLD Scottish. Sometimes it's enough to draw you out of the story as you have to look up what is meant, although most of the time it's not too difficult and just slows your reading speed a little. It's also not consistently used, which is kind of puzzling. I wasn't as crazy about this book as I was about the first two, but still a decent read. The book was split, the story told partly about Gil and Pierre, partly about Alys and Kate, and there were just a whole lot of characters to keep straight and several sub-plots. Of course it was only when the two sets of investigators were reunited that all the puzzle pieces fell into place for the characters, but by then there was really no surprises for the reader. Normally I enjoy a more complex, winding mystery, but that coupled with the extensive use of Scots accent/words made it a little more difficult to actually "enjoy" the story. B-.
4. THE LAMORNA WINK by Martha Grimes, #16 Chief Inspector Richard Jury/Melrose Plant British mystery. This is a bit of an odd book, in that we don't really see or hear from Jury until about the last quarter of the book. This book is more about Melrose--he is off to Cornwall, where he's planning to rent a house by the sea for a few months. In a contemplative mood, Melrose reflects on his past, but on his first day there, meets a young man named Johnny (who works three jobs!) and comes to like him almost immediately. Johnny's aunt Chris, who has cared for him since childhood, disappears--and several hours later, a woman's body is found shot to death in the nearby village of Lamorna. No, it's not Chris--but it's a woman who used to live in the area whom Chris once threatened. No one who knew Chris Wells could believe she had killed this woman, but where is she if she isn't involved somehow? Melrose is also intrigued by the four-year-old case of the deaths of two children who lived in the house he's renting, which is why it's available; the parents could not tolerate living there any longer and the tales going around say it's haunted. Melrose calls Cmdr. Brian Macalvie to look into Chris Wells' disappearance (he's already investigating the murder of the Lamorna woman) and discovers that it was he who was the primary officer in the Bletchley childrens' case as well. Of course the cases are related. Jury is off in Northern Ireland and doesn't come to Cornwall until just before the case breaks. An intriguing, interesting story, and although I had a gut feeling about the baddie, I didn't really know WHY until much further along when some more clues got uncovered. Very enjoyable read. A.
5. CHARLIE BONE AND THE HIDDEN KING by Jenny Nimmo (AUDIO) #5 Children of the Red King young adult fantasy series. Another series of adventures await Charlie Bone and his friends at Bloor's Academy. Their nemesis, Manfred Bloor is still about, and although he's lost his hypnotising endowment, something new is brewing. Charlie's best friend Benjamin Brown returns with his parents from Hong Kong after many months away, only to discover that his beloved dog Runner Bean, who has been at the Pets Cafe, has disappeared, along with every other animal in the city. Billy Raven talks to animals and his rat Rembrandt tells him that 'something bad has awoken and the animals are afraid and have run away.' Charlie, his uncle Paton and their circle try to figure out just what's awoken--and Charlie finds that whatever the Shadow is, it has his mother bewitched and his grandmother Maisie literally frozen under a spell. Charlie is in a race against time to recover the Mirror of Amaret so he can travel through it to his father--believed dead, but now known to be simply 'lost'--before he is totally forgotten and fades away. As usual, an excellent reading of an engaging, imaginative story. A.
6. WRITTEN IN BLOOD by Caroline Graham. #4 Chief Inspector Barnaby British police series. A local writer's group invites a famous author, Max Jennings, to come speak to them at their monthly meeting, and lo and behold, he agrees. Turns out he knew the secretary of the group, Gerald Hadleigh, many years previous, although Gerald admits this to no one except his neighbor Rex--and confesses that he's somewhat afraid of Max. When Gerald turns up dead the morning after their meeting, head bludgeoned in with a candlestick, Jennings is the obvious first suspect--and he's apparently done a runner as no one can find him. But was he really the killer, or were there other deep-seated emotions brewing in the small enclave that drove one of the writer's club to kill? I liked this book better than the previous one in the series by far. The mystery itself was more interesting, the people captured my attention, and I felt like I was getting to know Barnaby and Troy in more depth, too. As usual, Barnaby doesn't show up until a good few chapters in, when the central characters in the cast have been introduced and little tidbits of information strewn about. I figured out part of the mystery ahead of time, but not the ever-important 'whodunit' part til close to the end. Jolly good rebound, and I definitely will keep on in the series. A.
7. FACE DOWN BESIDE ST. ANNE's WELL by Kathy Lynn Emerson. #9 Lady Susanna Appleton historical mystery set in Elizabethan England with all its political intrigues. Rosamond, Susanna's 12-year-old foster daughter (the child of one of her dead husband's mistresses) involves Susanna in an investigation involving the death of her French tutor at St. Anne's Well. It's been declared an accident, but Rosamond is sure she was murdered, so Susanna and her housekeeper Jennet are off to supposedly take the baths at nearby Buxton while looking into things. What they discover is a whole nest of plotters to put Mary Stuart back on the throne--but was Madame Poitier's death related to that, or to something personal? This was a fairly typical entry in this series, an easy light read, good period detail and a relatively interesting story. However, I have to say that this series has really lost its shine for me. I absolutely loved the first few, but depsite the fact that I recognize that it's a decent book, I found that it felt like work getting through it. Not really sure why, perhaps it's the lack of Susanna's character development as the series has gone on--she seems to have become much less interesting than she was early on in the series. I do know that I'm glad I got this one from the library rather than spending much effort tracking it down myself. There's one left in the series, and while I do plan to finish it off eventually, I suspect it may be awhile. C+
8. IN BIG TROUBLE by Laura Lippman (AUDIO) #4 Tess Monaghan mystery. Tess is off to Texas when she gets a letter from there with a picture of her ex-boyfriend Crow with the headline "In Big Trouble" above it. She ignores this letter for a few days, but when she eventually tries to contact him, finds that his phone has been disconnected and he's vanished. Contacting his parents, whom she's never met, leads to them hiring her to find him, as they have not heard from him in over a month either--very unusual. So, retainer in hand, Tess tells herself that this is a job and nothing more. A dead body turns up in the last place he was known to be--so Tess can only wonder if Crow is indeed in big trouble. She finds him with a new band, with a waif-like female singer that Tess first believes is his new girlfriend, but eventually finds out otherwise. The plot twists and turns and eventually Tess solves things, not an easy feat in a strange place where she's feeling like a fish out of water and has no idea where to look. But people are people and the motives for murder seldom vary much. I figured out a few of the side plots, but not the main mystery until close to the end. Excellent listen/story, I think my favorite in this series so far. I'm very much looking forward to the next one. A+
9. TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE by Judy Clemens #3 Stella Crown mystery. It's nearly Christmas in rural Pennsylvania, and Stella is half-heartedly making holiday preparations on the farm. The last thing that anyone wants to have to deal with is a murder and a disappearance--although focusing on someone else's problems is ever a way to avoid confronting your own. That's what happens when Wolf, the tattoo artist who is working on Stella's new tat, disappears mid-tattoo. Wolf's wife Mandy calls him into the back room, and Stella, tired and feeling warm and comfortable, falls asleep for about twenty minutes. When she awakens, Wolf and Mandy are both gone, with Mandy's body turning up later in the dumpster. Everyone who knows Wolf knows he would never have done his wife harm, so Stella sets out to help the police by inquiring among the biker and body art crowd who would likely clam up under questioning by the cops. Mandy and Wolf were both political-minded and had been active in a group putting forth the rights of tattoo artists, so the police and Stella wonder whether there is some connection to Mandy's death and Wolf's disappearance or if it was some personal motivation. Meanwhile, Stella's former hottie Nick shows up, and ends up snowed in at the farm for the holiday with Stella and her farmhand Lucy, her daughter Tess and Lucy's boyfriend Lenny. Still unsure of her feelings, things don't go so well, especially at first. Once again in this book, Stella seems constantly on edge with raw emotions and she's prickly as a porcupine. Her family and friends seem to be well-endowed with forbearance, as I think I would have just drifted away from someone who is such a crab-ass all the time! But they stick with her through thick and thin, and so I guess I will, too, if only to discover if she finally finds some happiness. I do like Stella, I wish she'd just lighten up a bit sometimes. There is promise, judging from the ending. B+
10. EMPIRE OF IVORY by Naomi Novik. #4 in the Temeraire historical fantasy series, which is set during the Napoleonic war but with dragons. Laurence and Temeraire and their exhausted team have finally reached the shores of the UK, fighting off a few French dragons along the coast, and Laurence is surprised that they are not met by any of the coverts of dragons and their fliers. When they are landed, they learn that during the year they have been off in China, a horrible virus has attacked most of the dragons and many have died already while others--some of them members of Laurence and Temeraire's own group--are gravely ill. With no cure in sight, the dragon doctors are desperate and eventually Laurence, Temeraire and a crew of the feral dragons they brought back with them head to Africa to attempt to find the cure--to determine what it was that Temeraire ate or did during their trip to keep the virus at bay, since he had nothing but a mild cold. This leads to a whole series of complications, including the issue of slavery. There are political machinations at work that are not in the best interest of dragons, and Temeraire is hot under the collar...er, ruff...to make right the injustices against his kind and to make people realize that dragons are beings in their own right, not someone else's pet or property. I really enjoy this series and look forward to the next and will be eagerly watching the movie news to see if it is going to be adapted for the big screen. (Peter Jackson has bought the movie rights.) A.
11. GASA-GASA GIRL by Naomi Hirahara #2 Mas Arai mystery. Mas, a 70-year-old owner of his own gardening business in Los Angeles, is off to New York in response to a phone call from his daugher Mari. Something is wrong but he doesn't know what, and Mari isn't sure either, just why she's summoned him after being quite stand-offish for many years. Her husband Lloyd is the gardener for a Japanese museum's grounds and they are working on a major restoration project when the main benefactor is killed. Both Mari and Lloyd are suspected in the shooting death, as is Mas initially, as he is the one who found the body. Mas is lost in New York. Add to the stress of not knowing how things work (the subway, for instance) or where to go, his grandson Takeo (Mari and Lloyd's infant son) is quite ill and is hospitalized while the police are questioning them about the murder. Mas barely knows his daughter, having seen her only briefly in the past ten years since his wife's death from cancer. Despite this, and his typically isolationist lifestyle, his sense of family awakens and wanting to protect her, he--with the help of Tug Yamada, a friend from LA who is also in NY visiting his daughter--investigates some aspects of the case on his own. Mas finds he even rather likes his hakujin son-in-law. Eventually the case is solved, with a bit of a surprise (for me anyway) although I'd figured out parts of it. I enjoy this series, a peek at a culture I have little experience with, and wish there were more, but I believe there's only one book left in this series, and that published in 2006, so it looks as though it may be a dead end. :-( A.
12. PUSS 'N CAHOOTS by Rita Mae Brown (AUDIO) #14 Mrs. Murphy mystery set in Crozet, Virginia, although in this book the crew is off to another part of the state for an equestrian event as Harry accompanies her husband Fair (an equine vet) and also plans to look for a horse to purchase for her friend Alicia Palmer. While attending the events, Harry also visits a good friend Joan and her husband Larry who are horse breeders, and they meet a bunch of the other folks associated with the event, from breeders to the riders entered in the events themselves. When one of the Mexican grooms is brutally murdered during a thunderstorm, speculation runs rampant as to why and who had motive. Of course the animals (tabby cat Mrs. Murphy, gray fat cat Pewter and Tucker, the Welsh Corgi) investigate and have a private war with Miss Nasty, the pet monkey of one of the other riders. I liked this book MUCH better than the last one, but it still doesn't seem to be quite up to par with many of the earlier books in the series. Still, like most cozies, it's about the characters and the settings and it was a nice visit with "the gang" as always, and the reader is very pleasant and easy to listen to as well. B.
13. AND THEN THERE WERE NONE by Agatha Christie. Classic "locked room" mystery (or actually, "isolated island" in this case) written in 1939, with ten people invited to an island off the coast of Devon under false pretenses, each thinking they will be having a holiday, some thinking they're meeting someone known to them, or were recommended by so-and-so, or that they will be employed by Mr. U.N. Owen. Each bedroom in the manor house has a copy of the poem "Ten Little Indians" on the wall, and in one of the downstairs rooms there is a setup with ten Indian figurines--which is appropriate as they are on Indian Island. One by one the guests are killed just as described in the poem and the figurines disappear. As time passes the remaining guests of course conclude that since they can find no trace of their host, that it must be one of them...but who? And why?? This is my all-time favorite mystery. I first enjoyed it at the age of 10 or 12, have read it several times since then, and it was a great pleasure indeed to read it once again, even knowing the solution. Christie was indeed the Mistress of Mystery! A+
14. THE ANGEL'S GAME by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Zafón , the consummate storyteller, returns to Barcelona in his followup to The Shadow of the Wind, although this story takes place years before that, before the main character in TSOTW, Daniel Sempere, is even born. The author has said he plans to write four novels in this setting, all somewhat entwined with a few shared characters and situations, but with stories that are also totally stand-alone. I look forward to them all! This book features David Martin, popular author of 'penny dreadfuls' and suspense novels under the pseudonym Ignatius B. Samson. David, a loner who has been so almost since birth with his mother leaving his father when he was but a child, and his father dying before David reached his teens, finds himself increasingly isolated socially, aside from his enjoyable contacts with Señor Sempere at his bookstore. He is contacted by a mysterious publisher, Andreas Corelli, to write a book for him. The book is to be a story that will inspire a new religion and he will be paid an exorbitant amount of money to write it, paid up front. He agrees, and then David, who has been told he has an inoperable brain tumor, is cured and begins facing his life with a new vigor. After some time working on his book, he begins to see frightening parallels to a book he plucked from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and the author who wrote it many years before. While this is happening, his obsession with Cristina, the daughter of the chauffeur of his mentor, Pedro Vidal, grows stronger and becomes dangerous when she marries Vidal himself. Betrayed once again, David's life spirals downward as he still obsessively works on his masterpiece. While similar in style to The Shadow of the Wind, this novel is darker, more overtly violent, and has more supernatural elements to it. I liked it....no, I loved it. Zafón's lyrical, richly textured writing makes his telling of the story a delight to read--even though many times the circumstances the protagonist is in make the story itself painful. This is *not* The Shadow of the Wind reprised. It is less, and yet it is more. There are many dangling loose ends that make you wonder, and I can't help but hope that some of these threads will be grabbed and woven into another tale in the other books planned for Zafón's Barcelona. Another for the Keeper shelf! A+
15. THE BLUE LAST by Martha Grimes. (AUDIO) #17 Richard Jury/Melrose Plant mystery. Jury's policeman friend Mickey Haggerty, whom he's not seen in a number of years, asks to meet him, but upon reacquainting himself with Mickey, discovers it's not a problematic case that has Haggerty calling on Scotland Yard, but a personal case that he wants Jury to look into 'off the record.' Puzzled by the request, Mickey confides that he has a rare form of leukemia and has only months to live, and although he's the officer in charge of the murder of Simon Croft, he has a personal interest in the case as his father had been friends with Croft years previously, and he believes that there is a mystery buried in the past that may be linked to Croft's death. Croft had been writing a book about the war period and since his notes and the book's manuscript were stolen, that some detail that Croft uncovered from that time could be something that someone wanted hushed up. Jury is loathe to go back to explore the details of the past, particularly the Blitz, during which his own mother was killed, but can hardly refuse a dying friend. The Blue Last is the name of the pub where events during the Blitz tie to the present. Meanwhile, Melrose and Trueblood are off to Italy to attempt to authenticate a painting, and upon his return, Jury asks him to pose as a gardener in a rich family's home associated with his case. Although some folks don't like this foray away from the actual cases, I do enjoy Melrose's adventures with his friends in Long Piddlington and this one was especially good. I do have to say though, that I did NOT like the reader for this book. Although he did a very good reading, he totally made Melrose sound like a pretentious git with the snotty, posh accent he gave him--which is not at all how Melrose is. AND he mispronounced Melrose's butler's name, Ruthven--I remember this because in a previous book there was much discussion about just how it was supposed to be said. Argh! I have the next few here in print and I believe I will stick with those, since the readers for the series seem to change with each book, and who knows what the quality of the next one would be. I enjoyed this story despite the reader (which is the reason for the slight markdown in the grading) and was very surprised by the ending, for a nice change too! A-.
16. MAGIC STUDY by Maria V. Snyder #2 in the "Study" fantasy series featuring Yelena, a young woman with magic powers who had been kidnapped from her home in Sitia as a child and kept in a prison in Ixia, then used as the ruler's food taster. When the government changes hands and she is banished, she returns to the home she's not seen since the age of six, only to find that her welcome is a bit thin with her brother Leif accusing her of being a spy. She longs to spend time getting reacquainted with her parents and extended family, but must set out to enroll in the Citadel, where she will learn to control and use her magic. There she learns that some sort of tribal serial killer is on the loose, and that not everyone there is very welcoming, either, with one of the Master Magicians wanting her to be put to death as a spy as well. After a mind-reading assures them that she has no intention of spying, Yelena sets out to learn her lessons while plotting how to catch the serial killer. This book was okay, but I didn't particularly like it as much as the first one, which really intrigued me. The author has a great writing style, and it's easy to read and has an engaging tone. But this book has more of a romancey feel to it, and I thought Yelena in many respects to have lost her appeal as a strong female character and become something of a silly girl prone to making stupid decisions. I probably will at least attempt to read the third one, simply because I have it already, but I'm dubious as to how much appeal it will have for me if the storyline continues in this vein. C+
17. A SUMMER OF DISCONTENT by Susanna Gregory. #8 Matthew Bartholomew historical mystery set in 1350's Cambridge, UK. Matthew (a physician and professor at Michaelhouse College at Cambridge University) and his friend Michael (a monk and also an agent of the Bishop of Ely) are off to Ely at a summons from the Bishop. Matt is accompanying his friend but hopes to spend time in the library at the Priory there to gather more information for the treatise on fevers he's working on. Of course, upon arrival, they discover that the Bishop has summoned Michael because he is accused of murder and wants Michael to investigate and have him exonerated. Michael, not at all sure in his heart of hearts that his boss is innocent, investigates, often times asking Matt to tag along to offer his professional opinion, so Matt doesn't get as much studying done as he would like. When two other deaths that had been presumed accidents are tied to the first death (after Matt's examination of the bodies) the number of suspects skyrockets as none of the dead were liked by the townspeople nor the clergy involved. Of course they eventually (after a long and twisty course of events and much visiting and re-visiting the various suspects) find the killer, who was not a surprise to me. I enjoy these mysteries but the last couple especially seem to have become a bit too long with quite a lot of repetition and needless foraying back and forth, covering the same materials over and over. Still, it's been many months since I had a visit to medieval Cambridge and did enjoy this one, even if it was a bit long-winded. B+
18. THE LACE READER by Brunonia Barry. (AUDIO) Towner Whitney has come home to Salem, Massachussetts, responding appropriately when her brother calls to let her know that her 85-year-old great-aunt Eva is missing. She hasn't been home for fifteen years, and the town is full of harsh memories for her--most notably, her twin sister Lynley's suicide when they were seventeen years old. Lynley had been given to her aunt and uncle at birth as they were unable to conceive, and Towner had
never quite forgiven her mother for that, especially when her uncle Cal turned out to be a drunk and abuser, who beat his wife and sexually abused his adoptive daughter, and who has now 'found God' and become the leader of an extremist religion hell-bent on persecuting witches. Towner is a 'reader' as many of the Whitney women are--intuitives, reading people's thoughts and intentions, and specifically having the talent of reading lace, the way some read tea leaves. Towner's mother May runs a
women's shelter on Yellow Dog Island where the women are taught to make Ipswitch lace by hand; they are not close, and Towner (whose birth name was Sophya, but she refused to respond to that at some point in her childhood) spent her last months with Eva in town. Towner has lived in California for many years, having undergone serious and prolonged psychiatric therapy, including ECT (electro-shock therapy) which has left her with gaps in her memory. So when she comes home, her fragile mental health takes a tumble backward as the memories assault her, complicated by her attempts to recover from a recent hysterectomy and the cop investigating Eva's disappearance, John Rafferty, who finds himself falling in love with Towner. A multi-layered story that shifts back and forth in time with an interesting plot twist that, I have to admit, I did see coming about halfwaythrough the book. Skillfully written, a compelling story that gives you a real sense of place in modern-day Salem (where the author lives) as well as an intimate look into the world of mental illness. With elements of magic, this will probably not appeal to those who aren't fans of "woo woo" but if you don't mind a bit of the supernatural, you'll find this a wonderful and compelling story. I wondered whether there are such a thing as 'lace readers' but it seems that it's a figment of the author's imagination with no historical record of it. Very enjoyable listen, read by one of my favorite readers, Alyssa Bresnahan. I'll definitely be looking out for more by this author--it's hard to believe this is a first novel. A+
19. 47 RULES OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE BANK ROBBERS by Troy Cook. A wacky ride across the southwest begins with father-daughter bankrobbing team Wyatt and Tara pulling off a couple of major jobs. Tara, who's been helping her father rob banks since before her age was in double digits always disguised as a male, has begun to become decidedly less than happy with her father's choice of careers for her. Although she adheres to Wyatt's rules of crime, he's become increasingly violent and seems to thrive on the killing almost more than the money from the bank jobs, and Tara's getting tired of it. When she sees young Max Williams (of course he's a sheriff's son, though Tara doesn't know it yet!) in a bar in the town they're scouting for the next job, something comes alive for the 22-year-old, but Wyatt (as always) practically kills the young man as he does anyone who looks twice at his lovely daughter. And Max, smitten himself, certainly DID look. And then it happens--Max turns up at the bank
during the job and Tara doesn't follow Rule #47. The final rule: When in Doubt, Take 'em Out. She lets him get away--and when her father takes her to task for it later, she snaps and breaks up their little team, clocking a drunken Wyatt a good one and
leaving him naked with some of the money in their hotel room. She hooks up with Max and away they go, not realizing that some of Tara and Wyatt's ex-partners, having recognized Wyatt's voice on the sound bit on the surveillance video played on the
news, are now after them and their share of the cash. Add to the mix the sleazy, perverted FBI agent who ignores his much smarter subordinate and gets off on watching the blood and gore of the surveillance tapes and you've got a right ribald mix of "interesting things" just waiting to happen--and happen they did! This was a highly original work that I mostly liked a lot, but the fact that I was tempted to skim through several parts of it leads me to think that the execution of the idea was just not quite spot on, although I can't pin down just why not. Perhaps it was just too many wacky characters to try to keep tabs on, or the dearth of so-called "normal" folks for them to play off of, I don't know. The book was laugh out loud funny in spots, yet other parts seemed to have humor that was just a little forced. All in all though, an enjoyable read and an author I look forward to reading more of. B+
Current reads:
DNF: THE BLACK WIDOW AGENCY by Felicia Donovan. I gave it 50 pages, but while the concept was quite interesting, the characters were stereotypical and two-dimensional and the book read like a recitation, like pieces of dry, boring prose stacked together rather than woven skillfully into a story I could care about. NEXT!
DNF: THE ANTEATER OF DEATH by Betty Webb. Another one I'm glad I got from the library. I've enjoyed a couple of mysteries in another series this author did, but this is apparently her try at a cozy and it really doesn't work. It's set in a zoo, with the main character (can't even recall her name now, although she had four or five of them...Theodora Something Something Something....Teddy, that's right....) as one of the zookeepers and a Giant Anteater accused of the murder. I yawned my way through about 35 pages and decided to let it go back to the library.
Cheryl
Sunday, May 3, 2009
May 2009 Reading List
I've proclaimed that May will be "Catch up or finish it off!" month, in which I tackle several ongoing series on my lists--so, there will be no new-to-me authors or series started. I hope to finish off or at least catch up to the end of several series I've got ongoing. I have a list, but...I'm not always the greatest at following lists. As long as I stick to the basic premise of "nothing new," I won't judge myself too harshly. :)
1. MONKEY WRENCH by Liza Cody. #2 Eva Wylie mystery. The street-smart, tough female wrestler Eva Wylie (aka The London Lassassin) is back, this time reluctantly helping another old street friend Crystal, when her sister Dawn, a local doxie. is beaten and killed. Crystal has Eva attempting to teach self-defense to a group of prostitutes who hung out with Dawn, as they're naturally scared silly. It doesn't take long before Eva wishes she'd never laid eyes on the group, as they get her involved in several dodgy schemes, in trouble with her gym's owner, and put her in situations where her memories and emotions get stirred up, and trust me, you don't want to stir up Eva's emotions! Eva's got her problems, but I like her--she tells it like it is, even if 'like it is' is anything but pleasant. She has a total blind spot about her own self, but given her past life, that's not surprising. More details about her childhood come out in this book and it's heartbreaking at the same time you admire this tough survivor, even as your mind boggles at some of the choices she makes. Looking forward to the next--and sadly, last--book in this powerful trilogy. A.
2. THE MAGICIAN by Michael Scott (AUDIO) #2 in the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel YA Fantasy series. Josh and Sophie Newman were working summer jobs in a book store and coffee shop two days ago--and now they're in Paris with Scathach, a centuries-old Amazonian vampire warrior, the mysterious and legendary St Germain who is a French rock star in his current incarnation, and the infamous alchemist, Nicholas Flamel. Oh yeah, and Joan of Arc--who is married to the rock star. And they have a couple of notorious criminals after them--the philosopher and magician Dr. John Dee (once an advisor of Queen Elizabeth I) and the political schemer Niccolo Machiavelli. Yes, they're immortal too, and like Flamel, believe Sophie and Josh to be the "twins of the prophecy" who will either save the world or destroy it. So naturally everyone wants them in their camp! Sophie's magical powers have been awakened, but Josh's haven't been yet, and he is feeling left out and estranged from his sister, but he hasn't much time to think about it as they dash from one disaster to the next, out-maneuvering one legendary creature or person after another. Meanwhile, Perenelle Flamel, Nicholas's wife, is being held prisoner on Alcatraz Island by some of Dee's magical creatures and strives to escape. An action-packed second entry in the series, although I am not as crazy about the reader for this series as I am for some others I've listened to. In this one, set in France and thus full of French phrases and place-names, his rendition of the French accent was accurate with its constant nasal twang and slurring of words together. It probably wasn't his fault; I admittedly find French accents annoying. B+
3. WATER LIKE A STONE by Deborah Crombie. #11 Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James British police procedural. It's Christmas, and Duncan and Gemma have both wangled time off so they can be off to visit Duncan's parents in Nantwich over Christmas week with their kids. It's a nerve-wracking time, as Gemma has only briefly met Duncan's mother (at his first wife's funeral!) and never his father, and is wondering how they will like her and how their odd, cobbled-together family will fit in. But there's no time to really worry about it much; Duncan's sister Juliet, who recently started her own company doing building renovations, while breaking some concrete in a dairy barn on Christmas Eve just before she's set to leave to meet the family for dinner, discovers the long-dead body of an infant walled up inside. Before long, there's another (freshly murdered!) corpse, also found by a member of the Kincaid family, not far from the barn where the baby was found. Is there a connection? Family tensions run high as Juliet and her husband Caspar initiate a very public split, and Kit begins to realize how troubled his cousin Lally (Juliet and Caspar's daughter) is, and has been for some time, apparently. Never mind that I spotted the bad guy early on--I love this series, and Crombie always seems to manage the right balance of police work with personal scenarios, and often a bit of social commentary or information about a given area or segment of the population as well. (In this book, the subculture of the boating community--people who live on boats and navigate up and down the rivers and canals--and how they live.) Very interesting, very well done, and I'm very much looking forward to her newest book. A+
4. THE STARGAZEY by Martha Grimes (AUDIO) #15 Supt. Richard Jury police procedural. This is the first in this series that I've listened to rather than read, and I must say I quite enjoyed Donata Peters rendition as she got a large variety of different voices and accents spot on. Jury gets involved in a case in Fulham, when he follows a woman who's behaving oddly (getting on and off the bus, going into Fulham Palace late at night) and later discovers that she was murdered shortly after he stopped following her. Or was she? He calls the local constabulary with his information and when viewing the body, realizes that the dead woman is NOT the woman he saw, but someone who looks remarkably like her. How can there be two rather distinct looking women in the same area, both wearing a long fur coat? Eventually Jury tracks the other woman down, and gets Melrose Plant involved to check up on the coat angle--the one the dead woman wore had been purchased by her at a consignment shop just that day, and had been set for consignment by a woman in a family who owns an art gallery. Melrose takes up his titles again, staying at his exclusive men's club in London and perusing the gallery in hopes of finding something hinky--and of course he does, more than one something, actually! Sometimes these stories get to be a little on the ludicrous side and you have to laugh at the amazing number of coincidences and plot twists. Some of them I picked up on quite early, some of them I didn't, but despite some of the far-fetched connections, I did enjoy this book quite a lot and plan on carrying on til the end. A.
5. ABHORSEN by Garth Nix. #3 in the Abhorsen YA fantasy trilogy. This book takes up where the second book in trilogy leaves off, with Lirael, now known to be Abhorsen-in-Waiting, and Prince Sammeth, now known to be a Wallmaker, rushing to attempt to stop Hedge, the evil necromancer who plans to ressurect the ultimate evil Destroyer. Along with their two companions, Mogget (a white cat) and The Disreputable Dog (I love that name! LOL) both also magical creatures, they try to formulate a plan while on the run towards The Wall separating the kingdom of Ancelstierre from The Old Kingdom where Hedge and Sam's friend Nick Sayre (whom Hedge is using as a host for the spirit of his evil Master until he can be resurrected) are animating thousands of dead to help them. Lirael and Sam both confront some of their worst fears along the way as the story heads toward its inevitable conclusion. Wonderful series, highly recommended for actual young adults and regular old adults as well. A.
6. THE DIAMOND OF DARKHOLD by Jeanne DuPrau (AUDIO) #4 and so far most recent in the "City of Ember" YA fantasy series. I didn't much care for the third book in this series as it was a prequel to events that happened in City of Ember, but this one gets back on the main storyline with Lina and Doon and their families and friends as they begin adjusting to life in the town of Sparks. A roamer comes to Sparks but has very little to trade, but Doon notices a ripped up book in the back of her wagon that he barters for, and finds some of the same writing as he and Lina discovered in the papers that helped them find their way out of Ember. Unfortunately, the roamer had been using the pages of the book as kindling (gasp!!) and there are only 8 pages remaining, and those are very old, crumbling and smudgy. However, there is enough to convince Doon and Lina that they should go back to Ember to look for something that was left by the Elders to help the city in its time of need. So they plan an excursion and do arrive back in Ember only to find that squatters have taken over the town, looting and pillaging and the Trogg family manages to capture Doon, with plans to make him a slave. Lina heads back to Sparks for help. I really enjoy this series as a whole, although each book has had a different reader so there hasn't been much consistency. I liked this reader, although not quite as much as the woman who read the first one. I hope the author writes more in the series, but typically she takes several years between books, and the way this book ended, it could either be the end or a bridge to a new book/series. A
7. THE DEMON AND THE CITY by Liz Williams. #2 in the Detective Inspector Chen paranormal mystery series set in Singapore Three, a futuristic version of Singapore. DI Chen is on vacation with his demon wife in Hawaii, so his partner Zhu Irzh, a demon temporarily assigned to the police force (due to his ticking off some of Hell's powerful people) ends up being the one to initiate investigation into the mauling death of a young woman from a prominent family. This leads him to Jhai Tserai, the beautiful head of a Singapore pharmaceutical company--and he also learns that she's not quite human--a little secret which could have her exiled to the farthest reaches of Hell if the powers that be knew. She takes powerful drugs that she made herself to keep her true self cloaked, but even through that cloaking, she has a physical effect on Zhu Irzh that he doesn't expect, and after a couple of steamy sessions in the sack with Jhai, is actually contemplating her offer to be part of her attempted coup. Being the most powerful woman on Earth isn't enough for her, she wants to rule in Heaven and Hell as well, and has undertaken some bizarre pharmaceutical experiments on Celestial beings to begin setting that plan in motion. Zhu Irzh is saved from his temptation by the return of DI Chen early from vacation, having been summoned by the worried Sgt. Ma and the badger, a magical creature belonging to Chen's wife--a badger who also doubles as a teakettle some of the time. LOL (He is still my favorite character in this series--I want one!) As Chen and his demon partner investigate further, the very world is rocked by impending war between the realms. I really enjoy this series--it's a strange blend of sci-fi, fantasy and mystery with a world premise that is very bizarre and sometimes so complex that it's hard to keep things straight. But it's so imaginitive that you read on eagerly. Well done! A.
8. SOUR PUSS by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown (AUDIO) #15 Mrs. Murphy mystery, set in Crozet, Virginia. Mary Minor "Harry" Harristeen and her ex, Fair, have remarried and the second chapter of their life together starts with a bang--a couple of murders, of course. Winemaking has come to Crozet and surrounding areas, and Harry herself is getting in on it with a small plot dedicated to the grape as well as a partnered business with her friend Susan, growing nursery plants. Competition between some of the more prominent vineyards has become fierce, and when a lecturing professor of biology specializing in vineyard toxins disappears and one of the local vineyard owners ends up shot dead just minutes before Fair arrives at his farm to check out one of his animals, tensions rise even further. Was one of the vineyard owners really sabotaging the vines of the others with a virulent disease as the dead man, Toby Pittmann, claimed? I've enjoyed most of the books in the series, some better than others. This was definitely low on the scale with too much technical information, characters jumping on various political bandwagons, not enough of the small-town sweetness and the characters we've come to know and love. Not even the stellar reading by Kate Forbes could totally save this book. I hope the author gets back on track with the next one! C.
9. THE TREATMENT by Mo Hayder. #2 DI Jack Caffrey mystery, set in London. Jack Caffrey is a mess. Still haunted by the disappearance of his brother Ewan when they were children, obsessed with nailing the (now elderly) pedophile next door whom Jack believes was responsible for stealing Ewan, Caffrey is in no condition to take on an investigation into the kidnapping of a nine-year-old boy (just Ewan's age when he went missing) by a likely sexual predator. Rory Peach's parents were drugged and tied up in their home along with Rory for three days before the abductor had to make a run for it with Rory when a shopkeeper looking for money came knocking. Where did they go? The hue and cry was raised quickly afterwards, and every inch of the park behind the Peachs' home has been searched. Caffrey goes into a very dark place as he hunts down clues about who could have done such a thing--and believes it is a serial criminal, so sets to searching old records for similar cases as well. Interviews with neighborhood folks turn up a few clues that lead to a shocking conclusion when they are all pieced together. Meanwhile, Caffrey's personal life is in a shambles as well, as his girlfriend Rebecca also confronts the ghosts haunting her and Ivan Penderecki, the object of Caffrey's obsession, dies, leaving him a package that may contain information about what happened to Ewan. Dark, gut-wrenching and utterly horrible in some places, this is not a book for those with a tendency towards queasiness. At times it almost feels like the author uses some of the more dark stuff purely for the shock value. That said, it's one of the few so-called "thrillers" that has actually thrilled me to any degree of late, that provided a true "edge of your seat, got-to-get-to-the-end-and-see-what-happens" experience, with plot twists that I didn't see coming and slammed me in the gut when they arrived. A+.
10. THE PRICE OF MURDER by Bruce Alexander. #10 Sir John Fielding historical mystery. Sir John and Jeremy have (as usual) two investigations going--one regarding the body of a young girl found in the river, very obviously sexually abused and the other the disappearance of a childhood friend of Clarissa's. The dead child is found to have been the same one reported missing by her mother a few weeks previously, and now the mother's gone missing as well. After Jeremy brings a neighbor woman in to speak with Sir John regarding the disappearance, they determine that the mother had actually 'sold' her child--or, she thought, adopted her out to a well-to-do family for a fee. When Jeremy goes back to question the neighbor further, he finds her brutally murdered also, and they fear the trail has gone cold. Of course it hasn't, and soon the theme of horseracing comes into play as well, when the brother of the missing woman (and uncle of the murdered child) who is also a jockey, helps in their investigation. Clarissa discovers that her childhood friend isn't who she thought she was, and the Fielding household changes yet again as Molly (the cook) and Dr. Donnelly (the Fieldings' friend and the medical examiner) plan to marry and Jeremy and Clarissa's relationship moves forward as well. This was definitely one of the more enjoyable (among many!) in the series although I'm not particularly fond of horseracing. Only one more to go before the end of the series, which I plan to finish off later in the month. A.
11. THE ORACLE'S QUEEN by Lynn Flewelling. Third and final entry in the Tamir Trilogy, in which Princess Tamir (once Prince Tobin, Tamir being revealed in the previous book when a mystical fire burns away her male body, a shell and illusion held in place by magic) takes her place as the leader of Skala from the prophesy--or she will as soon as she can thrust her cousin Korin and his evil wizard Niryn from the usurper's role. Gathering her army and supporters, Tamir begins without much confidence, but grows in assurance as the leader of her country each day. Her personal life is a shambles, of course, what with the big adjustment to her new gender ('there's an empty spot in my breeches!' LOL) and her feelings for Ki, her squire plus her worries over Korin, believing him to be a victim of Niryn's dark wizardry and manipulation . The ending to this was fairly predictable, but I really enjoy Flewelling's writing style and her characterizations, and this was certainly among the most unique series I've read in recent years with its strange premise and storyline. Will be checking out other series by this author for certain! A.
12. SHOT GIRL by Karen E. Olson. #4 (and last, to date) Annie Seymour mystery set in New Haven, CT. Annie is a crime reporter, but in this book she ends up in the middle of her story when her ex-husband Ralph ends up dead in the parking lot of a dance club where's she's attending a bachelorette party for one of her co-workers. Shells from her gun are scattered around the body, but oddly enough, he wasn't even shot--there's not a mark on his body. And several witnesses claim to have seen Annie kissing Ralph before he died, and going from the club to her car--where her gun was found. Someone is setting her up, big time--but who? And why? Where has Ralph's current girlfriend run off to--and why was Annie's mother representing Ralph in an upcoming grand jury investigation but neglected to even let Annie know he was back in town? Something smells rotten in Denmark and Annie's determined to find out why. I enjoyed this book, although it was a bit different in that Annie didn't share some things with the reader until much further along in the story--so we didn't really have all the clues we needed. I can understand her not sharing certain facts with Tom, the police detective handling the case (and Annie's ex-boyfriend) but with her readers? Please! LOL I still managed to figure out the major portion of the mystery anyway. I'm going to miss Annie--she's smart, irreverent, independent and very human; her town and friends are also a big part of these books and I do hope the author brings them all back at some point in time. Meanwhile, I'll be waitng to read the first of Olson's "Tattoo Shop" mysteries, due out in a couple of months. A.
13. MUSCLEBOUND by Liza Cody. Third and last Eva Wylie mystery in which Eva finds herself on the down and outs--her wrestling manager has barred her from the gym and won't speak to her, her Ma was all set to move away and not even tell her, and Anna Lee, the private investigator who sometimes throws her jobs has told her she must stop drinking or their working relationship is done. No money, it's raining, her new pup Milo disrespects her, so Eva is feeling particularly sorry for herself. When she 'borrows' a car that ends up having a sports bag full of money in it, she thinks her luck has changed, but it brings her nothing but trouble, as does the reappearance of her sister Simone in her life. Simone, having been adopted out by a foster family when she was a small girl, hasn't the patience to deal with Eva and her drinking and her bleak lifestyle. However, a pesky fellow-wrestler named Keif wants to be Eva's personal trainer and get her back into fighting shape and he seems to be the one bright spot in her life although she doesn't see it that way. I have to admit that reading these last two books in this series close together makes me rather glad there isn't another--I think I'd have taken a good long break from the series if there were, as Eva's almost-whiny "poor me, none of this is my fault" attitude really began to grate on my nerves and made me think of all my former mental health patients with Borderline Personality Disorder. Granted, she's had a tough life and survived a lot, but get on with it, already! She made so many poor decisions/choices in this book I can't even begin to count them, and most of them did indeed come back to bite her in the bum. Ah well. I did like the ending and would like to think that if Eva's story ever gets resurrected that there is hope for her. B-
14. WHERE MEMORIES LIE by Deborah Crombie (AUDIO) #12 and most recent in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series. I really enjoyed the reader for the one previous Kincaid/James book I listened to, but this is a different one and I must say that at times, she really annoyed me with a couple of her voices. That said, the book itself was great, with Crombie once again tying in a past case (from the 1950's in post-war Britain) to present, when Gemma's elderly friend Erica Rosenthal asks her to look into the reappearance of a valuable brooch made by her father, a well-known jewellery crafter, which she had last seen before the war. Her father, who died in the concentration camps, had made the brooch for her as a special gift, and it turns up in the catalogue of a London auction house. The murder that happened in 1952 was the brutal stabbing of none other than Erica's own husband, David Rosenthal. When the sales girl that Gemma questions about the brooch as an unofficial favor for Erica ends up dead that very same night, something smells fishy and the Yard (with Duncan) is on the case. Is there a connection between the girl's death and David Rosenthal's those many years previous? Gemma also learns that her mother is gravely ill with leukemia and takes some personal time from work but then ends up spending most of it helping Duncan and Erica. Crombie once again leads us on a merry chase with several red herrings--some of which I fell for hook, line and sinker, but I did figure it out well before the final reveal. Now I'm one of those waiting not-so-patiently for the October release of her next book! A.
15. HELL HOLE by Chris Grabenstein. #4 John Ceepak mystery, in which Ceepak and Danny investigate the supposed suicide of a soldier in a wayside rest stop. They're doing this on the sly because the rest stop falls outside of their jurisdiction, but it's obvious to even Danny, a relative rookie, that Shareef Smith did not shoot himself and that some type of coverup is underway. The two Sea Haven cops take on some powerful enemies to bring down Smith's killer, but they get there in the end with some help from folks on both sides of the law. Although the bad guy was obvious to me from the start and I was pretty sure what the motive was (at least in general,) how the murder was achieved was a bit of a puzzle until Ceepak tells all at the end. I have enjoyed every one of these books in this series--they're light reads with just the right amount of humor, interesting characters and an easy-to-read style. Looking forward to Mind Scrambler! A.
16. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT by Bruce Alexander. This is the final Sir John Fielding historical mystery in which the subject of hypnotism and "Mesmerism" is investigated as a means to murder, when a member of Parliament jumps from Westminster Bridge into the Thames in front of a dozen witnesses, one of them being Annie Oakum, former cook of the Fielding household. It was obvious that the man jumped himself--no one pushed him--and it was known that he could not swim, but why would he jump? The mystery itself wasn't much of a mystery in this one, but many threads in the personal lives of the characters were tied together as Jeremy (who tells the stories) and Clarissa prepare for their nuptials. The ending was a bit anticlimactic, but due to the author's untimely death, the last few chapters were written by his wife with the help of another author. I shall greatly miss having more adventures of Jeremy and Sir John to read about, but at least I can always go back and visit them when the spirit moves me. A.
17. SUDDEN DEATH by David Rosenfelt. #4 Andy Carpenter mystery. Andy is a lawyer living in Paterson, NJ and became rather famous in the last book by getting a convicted death-row inmate's guilty verdict reversed. This time around another celebrity case comes his way in the form of Kenneth Schilling, a running back for the New York Giants who's just been charged with murdering a long-time friend who plays for a rival team. Kenny maintains his innocence despite mounting evidence against him, and Andy nearly packs the case in, as he doesn't believe in defending people he believes are guilty. But his gut tells him Kenny is telling the truth, so he sticks it out until evidence proves his case--as always, at the last minute in the middle of the trial. On a personal note, Andy's girlfriend Laurie, who is an investigator for his law office, is thinking of taking a job offer back in her hometown in Wisconsin that would likely lead to her being chief of police in just a few years. Andy is agonizing over this, as he really loves her, but he won't allow himself to try to influence her to stay. I figured the baddie out very early on and chuckled to myself as the tiny little clues were dropped into place, confirming my thoughts. I'm not really a big fan of lawyer mystery and courtroom drama leaves me cold, but I do like Andy and his crew so I'm continuing on with the series. I enjoyed this book despite the "lawyer stuff" in it. B+
18. YOU SUCK by Christopher Moore. (AUDIO) Another crazy romp through Chris Moore's twisted mind, this one a continuation of events that happened in his book Bloodsucking Fiends, with many of the same characters. This one opens with 19-year-old Tommy Flood waking up next to his older, more worldly girlfriend Jody (who just happens to be a vampire) only to find that he gets to stay 19 forever, because Jody's "turned" him, too. Neither one of them are very experienced vampires so they struggle along trying to figure out how to make it in the world, all the while trying to stay ahead of the evil vampire Elijah (who turned Jody) and his associates--who are much displeased to learn of their presence. Also, Tommy's friends from the overnight stock crew at the supermarket ("the Animals") learn he's a vampire and try to capture him for a Vegas hooker (named Blue, because she dyed herself that way) between rounds of turkey bowling at the Safeway. LOL! Yes, it sounds ridiculous, and it really is, but lots of fun, too. This is the first audio I'd listened to by this author and the reader was really good. She was sometimes really annoying to listen to, but only because she got the characters spot on, especially Abby Normal, whom Tommy recruits to be his and Jody's minion (to get stuff done, like, during the daytime, dude!) Is there anything more annoying than a sixteen-year-old Valley Girl Goth wannabe? I doubt it!! LOL Still, an enjoyable and appropriately crazy listen. A.
19. RITUAL by Mo Hayder. #3 Jack Caffrey mystery (and so far latest--at least in the US, as her next one SKIN hasn't been released here yet.) Jack has moved from London, having left girlfriend Rebecca when she kept pestering him to have a child together, something he has vowed he will never do, seeing what he's seen and living what he's been through with his brother Ewan. So he is now in Bristol, and gets a case working with a diving crew who finds a severed hand in the river. This is nothing unusual, but when the lead diver, Phoebe "Flea" Marley, tells Jack that she believes the hand was severed while the person was still alive and the coroner confirms this, Jack definitely knows he's going to be after another sick and twisted bastard of a villain. And of course, it is. The story is also in large part about Flea, about the tragic diving accident her parents were involved in two years previously along with her brother Thom, who has been so badly affected by it that he's unable to keep a job or settle to anything. Flea struggles to find out the truth of that accident while trying not to get involved more than she ought in Caffrey's case, but because her father was a professor, she knows a lot about African black magic rituals in which severed human body parts play a big role. Gritty, grisly and gripping, this was not a book for 'enjoying' per se but was an excellent story. Caffrey is a complex character, one I don't always like very much, but whose life certainly makes for interesting reading. A.
20. CHARLIE BONE AND THE CASTLE OF MIRRORS by Jenny Nimmo (AUDIO) #4 in the Children of the Red King YA fantasy series. Charlie and his friends at Bloor's Academy find that they still must deal with the evil Manfred Bloor, son of the headmaster. Even though he's graduated, he's now a teaching assistant. There are three new endowed children with magical talents and all of them seem to be on the side of the Bloors. The balance is tipping. Billy Raven is adopted, but Charlie has a bad feeling about it which is confirmed when he looks at a photo of the adoptive parents and hears their thoughts. More about Billy's ancestry is discovered and Charlie even thinks he's discovered where his father is being held captive. The story is furthered along nicely and ends on another cliffhanger. Can't wait to get to the next one, I really enjoy this series and the reader is great--Simon Russell Beale is his name. A.
21. TO WEAR THE WHITE CLOAK by Sharan Newman. #7 Catherine LeVendeur historical mystery series set in medieval France. Catherine, Edgar and their household return home to Paris after a year's absence in Germany, where they'd gone to assist Catherine's sister Agnes with a problem. Upon returning, they find a dead body in their counting room, a man apparently a Templar Knight, as he is wearing their distinctive white cloak and a brooch. He was obviously murdered, and Catherine and Edgar struggle to find out who he was and why he was left in their home. The Templars don't recognize him and they are now set to blame Catherine and Edgar as rumors of her father Hubert's association with the Jews fly wildly. Hubert, of course, IS a Jew and has gone back to the Jewish community at Troyes, not on pilgrimage as they've told everyone. I generally enjoy this series, but this one annoyed me on many levels. There were too many sub-plots, too many peripheral characters to keep straight, and too many changes of point of view. Even several of the peripheral characters had their say, with switches often occurring mid-chapter. Just too confusing. I love the main characters in the series, but some of the issues they are dealing with have gone on for multiple books and they are getting a bit tired now. I'm going to finish this series (3 books left, and I have them all) but I'm not as eager to jump on the next one as I was to get to this one. C+.
22. THE SILENT MAN by Alex Berenson. #3 John Wells spy thriller. Another solid entry in this modern-day spy thriller series. John Wells is settling into domestic bliss with Jennifer Exley, his co-worker and fellow spy. But their life is about to be shattered when one of the baddies that John previously wronged seeks revenge in a planned assassination as Wells and Exley make their way to work. They are well-guarded, but though the attack is partially blocked, Exley is severely injured. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, two nuclear bombs have gone missing from a Russian bomb storage facility, having been stolen by a small group of Muslim terrorists. As those people work to get the bombs over the sea to American soil where they will build their own nuclear device, the CIA learns of the missing bombs and must play games behind the scenes to find out what they can because the Russians are not very forthcoming. John Wells has a role in that too--in fact, the two cases eventually intersect. I enjoy this series quite a lot. I really loved the first book where John was more or less on his own--it was a more unique story and he had to rely on his own resourcefulness and wit. The subsequent books, including this one, with all the machinations of the FBI, CIA and the other "initial" agencies and their posturing and game-playing have been slightly less appealing to me. Anyone can accomplish things if you have the CIA providing you with false documentation and 'friends' to talk to to get you what you need or to introduce you to the people you need involved. It's just not as exciting to me as the 'lone wolf.' But still a good read, well-written and as it's addressing concerns of the present day, enough to scare the bejeezus out of you if you let it. B+
23. DEATH OF A DUSTMAN by M.C. Beaton. #17 Hamish MacBeth Scottish cozy police mystery. One of the councilwomen in Strathbane, eager for some attention, targets Lochdubh for her 'go green' campaign and enlists the local dustman, Fergus Macleod, to get the residents to separate their rubbish for recycling. Fergus, a nasty, wife-beating drunk who was on the verge of losing his job before Mrs. Fleming got him a new uniform and reason to be nasty, of course ends up dead. There's hardly a villager who hadn't been heard threatening him at one time or another, but when a second man, a crofter named Angus also dies, the suspect list narrows a bit. Hamish, now a Sergeant with yet another PC--Clarry, this one a great cook but not much in the grooming and cleanliness department--learns that Fergus was blackmailing several Lochdubh residents and wonders if Angus found out somehow and one of those people killed him? Hamish keeps this news to himself, wanting to protect his fellow villagers, and of course it ends up disastrously and by the end of the book, Hamish is once again a lowly PC and Blair gnashes his teeth as his red-haired menace once again escapes being sacked. An enjoyable, light read and this one had a solution that I didn't anticipate, at least for part of it. B+.
DNF: NO REST FOR THE WICCAN by Madelyn Alt. (After 50 pages, the book had gone nowhere and seeing that the main character is likely going to be caught in a Stephanie Plum-esque romantic limbo which began last book and is continuing (Oh! Which guy do I choose?) I decided to give up on the series. Also, the main character is pretty immature for someone who is supposedly an adult. Enough is enough.)
Currently reading: listening to Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey in audio.
Cheryl
1. MONKEY WRENCH by Liza Cody. #2 Eva Wylie mystery. The street-smart, tough female wrestler Eva Wylie (aka The London Lassassin) is back, this time reluctantly helping another old street friend Crystal, when her sister Dawn, a local doxie. is beaten and killed. Crystal has Eva attempting to teach self-defense to a group of prostitutes who hung out with Dawn, as they're naturally scared silly. It doesn't take long before Eva wishes she'd never laid eyes on the group, as they get her involved in several dodgy schemes, in trouble with her gym's owner, and put her in situations where her memories and emotions get stirred up, and trust me, you don't want to stir up Eva's emotions! Eva's got her problems, but I like her--she tells it like it is, even if 'like it is' is anything but pleasant. She has a total blind spot about her own self, but given her past life, that's not surprising. More details about her childhood come out in this book and it's heartbreaking at the same time you admire this tough survivor, even as your mind boggles at some of the choices she makes. Looking forward to the next--and sadly, last--book in this powerful trilogy. A.
2. THE MAGICIAN by Michael Scott (AUDIO) #2 in the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel YA Fantasy series. Josh and Sophie Newman were working summer jobs in a book store and coffee shop two days ago--and now they're in Paris with Scathach, a centuries-old Amazonian vampire warrior, the mysterious and legendary St Germain who is a French rock star in his current incarnation, and the infamous alchemist, Nicholas Flamel. Oh yeah, and Joan of Arc--who is married to the rock star. And they have a couple of notorious criminals after them--the philosopher and magician Dr. John Dee (once an advisor of Queen Elizabeth I) and the political schemer Niccolo Machiavelli. Yes, they're immortal too, and like Flamel, believe Sophie and Josh to be the "twins of the prophecy" who will either save the world or destroy it. So naturally everyone wants them in their camp! Sophie's magical powers have been awakened, but Josh's haven't been yet, and he is feeling left out and estranged from his sister, but he hasn't much time to think about it as they dash from one disaster to the next, out-maneuvering one legendary creature or person after another. Meanwhile, Perenelle Flamel, Nicholas's wife, is being held prisoner on Alcatraz Island by some of Dee's magical creatures and strives to escape. An action-packed second entry in the series, although I am not as crazy about the reader for this series as I am for some others I've listened to. In this one, set in France and thus full of French phrases and place-names, his rendition of the French accent was accurate with its constant nasal twang and slurring of words together. It probably wasn't his fault; I admittedly find French accents annoying. B+
3. WATER LIKE A STONE by Deborah Crombie. #11 Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James British police procedural. It's Christmas, and Duncan and Gemma have both wangled time off so they can be off to visit Duncan's parents in Nantwich over Christmas week with their kids. It's a nerve-wracking time, as Gemma has only briefly met Duncan's mother (at his first wife's funeral!) and never his father, and is wondering how they will like her and how their odd, cobbled-together family will fit in. But there's no time to really worry about it much; Duncan's sister Juliet, who recently started her own company doing building renovations, while breaking some concrete in a dairy barn on Christmas Eve just before she's set to leave to meet the family for dinner, discovers the long-dead body of an infant walled up inside. Before long, there's another (freshly murdered!) corpse, also found by a member of the Kincaid family, not far from the barn where the baby was found. Is there a connection? Family tensions run high as Juliet and her husband Caspar initiate a very public split, and Kit begins to realize how troubled his cousin Lally (Juliet and Caspar's daughter) is, and has been for some time, apparently. Never mind that I spotted the bad guy early on--I love this series, and Crombie always seems to manage the right balance of police work with personal scenarios, and often a bit of social commentary or information about a given area or segment of the population as well. (In this book, the subculture of the boating community--people who live on boats and navigate up and down the rivers and canals--and how they live.) Very interesting, very well done, and I'm very much looking forward to her newest book. A+
4. THE STARGAZEY by Martha Grimes (AUDIO) #15 Supt. Richard Jury police procedural. This is the first in this series that I've listened to rather than read, and I must say I quite enjoyed Donata Peters rendition as she got a large variety of different voices and accents spot on. Jury gets involved in a case in Fulham, when he follows a woman who's behaving oddly (getting on and off the bus, going into Fulham Palace late at night) and later discovers that she was murdered shortly after he stopped following her. Or was she? He calls the local constabulary with his information and when viewing the body, realizes that the dead woman is NOT the woman he saw, but someone who looks remarkably like her. How can there be two rather distinct looking women in the same area, both wearing a long fur coat? Eventually Jury tracks the other woman down, and gets Melrose Plant involved to check up on the coat angle--the one the dead woman wore had been purchased by her at a consignment shop just that day, and had been set for consignment by a woman in a family who owns an art gallery. Melrose takes up his titles again, staying at his exclusive men's club in London and perusing the gallery in hopes of finding something hinky--and of course he does, more than one something, actually! Sometimes these stories get to be a little on the ludicrous side and you have to laugh at the amazing number of coincidences and plot twists. Some of them I picked up on quite early, some of them I didn't, but despite some of the far-fetched connections, I did enjoy this book quite a lot and plan on carrying on til the end. A.
5. ABHORSEN by Garth Nix. #3 in the Abhorsen YA fantasy trilogy. This book takes up where the second book in trilogy leaves off, with Lirael, now known to be Abhorsen-in-Waiting, and Prince Sammeth, now known to be a Wallmaker, rushing to attempt to stop Hedge, the evil necromancer who plans to ressurect the ultimate evil Destroyer. Along with their two companions, Mogget (a white cat) and The Disreputable Dog (I love that name! LOL) both also magical creatures, they try to formulate a plan while on the run towards The Wall separating the kingdom of Ancelstierre from The Old Kingdom where Hedge and Sam's friend Nick Sayre (whom Hedge is using as a host for the spirit of his evil Master until he can be resurrected) are animating thousands of dead to help them. Lirael and Sam both confront some of their worst fears along the way as the story heads toward its inevitable conclusion. Wonderful series, highly recommended for actual young adults and regular old adults as well. A.
6. THE DIAMOND OF DARKHOLD by Jeanne DuPrau (AUDIO) #4 and so far most recent in the "City of Ember" YA fantasy series. I didn't much care for the third book in this series as it was a prequel to events that happened in City of Ember, but this one gets back on the main storyline with Lina and Doon and their families and friends as they begin adjusting to life in the town of Sparks. A roamer comes to Sparks but has very little to trade, but Doon notices a ripped up book in the back of her wagon that he barters for, and finds some of the same writing as he and Lina discovered in the papers that helped them find their way out of Ember. Unfortunately, the roamer had been using the pages of the book as kindling (gasp!!) and there are only 8 pages remaining, and those are very old, crumbling and smudgy. However, there is enough to convince Doon and Lina that they should go back to Ember to look for something that was left by the Elders to help the city in its time of need. So they plan an excursion and do arrive back in Ember only to find that squatters have taken over the town, looting and pillaging and the Trogg family manages to capture Doon, with plans to make him a slave. Lina heads back to Sparks for help. I really enjoy this series as a whole, although each book has had a different reader so there hasn't been much consistency. I liked this reader, although not quite as much as the woman who read the first one. I hope the author writes more in the series, but typically she takes several years between books, and the way this book ended, it could either be the end or a bridge to a new book/series. A
7. THE DEMON AND THE CITY by Liz Williams. #2 in the Detective Inspector Chen paranormal mystery series set in Singapore Three, a futuristic version of Singapore. DI Chen is on vacation with his demon wife in Hawaii, so his partner Zhu Irzh, a demon temporarily assigned to the police force (due to his ticking off some of Hell's powerful people) ends up being the one to initiate investigation into the mauling death of a young woman from a prominent family. This leads him to Jhai Tserai, the beautiful head of a Singapore pharmaceutical company--and he also learns that she's not quite human--a little secret which could have her exiled to the farthest reaches of Hell if the powers that be knew. She takes powerful drugs that she made herself to keep her true self cloaked, but even through that cloaking, she has a physical effect on Zhu Irzh that he doesn't expect, and after a couple of steamy sessions in the sack with Jhai, is actually contemplating her offer to be part of her attempted coup. Being the most powerful woman on Earth isn't enough for her, she wants to rule in Heaven and Hell as well, and has undertaken some bizarre pharmaceutical experiments on Celestial beings to begin setting that plan in motion. Zhu Irzh is saved from his temptation by the return of DI Chen early from vacation, having been summoned by the worried Sgt. Ma and the badger, a magical creature belonging to Chen's wife--a badger who also doubles as a teakettle some of the time. LOL (He is still my favorite character in this series--I want one!) As Chen and his demon partner investigate further, the very world is rocked by impending war between the realms. I really enjoy this series--it's a strange blend of sci-fi, fantasy and mystery with a world premise that is very bizarre and sometimes so complex that it's hard to keep things straight. But it's so imaginitive that you read on eagerly. Well done! A.
8. SOUR PUSS by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown (AUDIO) #15 Mrs. Murphy mystery, set in Crozet, Virginia. Mary Minor "Harry" Harristeen and her ex, Fair, have remarried and the second chapter of their life together starts with a bang--a couple of murders, of course. Winemaking has come to Crozet and surrounding areas, and Harry herself is getting in on it with a small plot dedicated to the grape as well as a partnered business with her friend Susan, growing nursery plants. Competition between some of the more prominent vineyards has become fierce, and when a lecturing professor of biology specializing in vineyard toxins disappears and one of the local vineyard owners ends up shot dead just minutes before Fair arrives at his farm to check out one of his animals, tensions rise even further. Was one of the vineyard owners really sabotaging the vines of the others with a virulent disease as the dead man, Toby Pittmann, claimed? I've enjoyed most of the books in the series, some better than others. This was definitely low on the scale with too much technical information, characters jumping on various political bandwagons, not enough of the small-town sweetness and the characters we've come to know and love. Not even the stellar reading by Kate Forbes could totally save this book. I hope the author gets back on track with the next one! C.
9. THE TREATMENT by Mo Hayder. #2 DI Jack Caffrey mystery, set in London. Jack Caffrey is a mess. Still haunted by the disappearance of his brother Ewan when they were children, obsessed with nailing the (now elderly) pedophile next door whom Jack believes was responsible for stealing Ewan, Caffrey is in no condition to take on an investigation into the kidnapping of a nine-year-old boy (just Ewan's age when he went missing) by a likely sexual predator. Rory Peach's parents were drugged and tied up in their home along with Rory for three days before the abductor had to make a run for it with Rory when a shopkeeper looking for money came knocking. Where did they go? The hue and cry was raised quickly afterwards, and every inch of the park behind the Peachs' home has been searched. Caffrey goes into a very dark place as he hunts down clues about who could have done such a thing--and believes it is a serial criminal, so sets to searching old records for similar cases as well. Interviews with neighborhood folks turn up a few clues that lead to a shocking conclusion when they are all pieced together. Meanwhile, Caffrey's personal life is in a shambles as well, as his girlfriend Rebecca also confronts the ghosts haunting her and Ivan Penderecki, the object of Caffrey's obsession, dies, leaving him a package that may contain information about what happened to Ewan. Dark, gut-wrenching and utterly horrible in some places, this is not a book for those with a tendency towards queasiness. At times it almost feels like the author uses some of the more dark stuff purely for the shock value. That said, it's one of the few so-called "thrillers" that has actually thrilled me to any degree of late, that provided a true "edge of your seat, got-to-get-to-the-end-and-see-what-happens" experience, with plot twists that I didn't see coming and slammed me in the gut when they arrived. A+.
10. THE PRICE OF MURDER by Bruce Alexander. #10 Sir John Fielding historical mystery. Sir John and Jeremy have (as usual) two investigations going--one regarding the body of a young girl found in the river, very obviously sexually abused and the other the disappearance of a childhood friend of Clarissa's. The dead child is found to have been the same one reported missing by her mother a few weeks previously, and now the mother's gone missing as well. After Jeremy brings a neighbor woman in to speak with Sir John regarding the disappearance, they determine that the mother had actually 'sold' her child--or, she thought, adopted her out to a well-to-do family for a fee. When Jeremy goes back to question the neighbor further, he finds her brutally murdered also, and they fear the trail has gone cold. Of course it hasn't, and soon the theme of horseracing comes into play as well, when the brother of the missing woman (and uncle of the murdered child) who is also a jockey, helps in their investigation. Clarissa discovers that her childhood friend isn't who she thought she was, and the Fielding household changes yet again as Molly (the cook) and Dr. Donnelly (the Fieldings' friend and the medical examiner) plan to marry and Jeremy and Clarissa's relationship moves forward as well. This was definitely one of the more enjoyable (among many!) in the series although I'm not particularly fond of horseracing. Only one more to go before the end of the series, which I plan to finish off later in the month. A.
11. THE ORACLE'S QUEEN by Lynn Flewelling. Third and final entry in the Tamir Trilogy, in which Princess Tamir (once Prince Tobin, Tamir being revealed in the previous book when a mystical fire burns away her male body, a shell and illusion held in place by magic) takes her place as the leader of Skala from the prophesy--or she will as soon as she can thrust her cousin Korin and his evil wizard Niryn from the usurper's role. Gathering her army and supporters, Tamir begins without much confidence, but grows in assurance as the leader of her country each day. Her personal life is a shambles, of course, what with the big adjustment to her new gender ('there's an empty spot in my breeches!' LOL) and her feelings for Ki, her squire plus her worries over Korin, believing him to be a victim of Niryn's dark wizardry and manipulation . The ending to this was fairly predictable, but I really enjoy Flewelling's writing style and her characterizations, and this was certainly among the most unique series I've read in recent years with its strange premise and storyline. Will be checking out other series by this author for certain! A.
12. SHOT GIRL by Karen E. Olson. #4 (and last, to date) Annie Seymour mystery set in New Haven, CT. Annie is a crime reporter, but in this book she ends up in the middle of her story when her ex-husband Ralph ends up dead in the parking lot of a dance club where's she's attending a bachelorette party for one of her co-workers. Shells from her gun are scattered around the body, but oddly enough, he wasn't even shot--there's not a mark on his body. And several witnesses claim to have seen Annie kissing Ralph before he died, and going from the club to her car--where her gun was found. Someone is setting her up, big time--but who? And why? Where has Ralph's current girlfriend run off to--and why was Annie's mother representing Ralph in an upcoming grand jury investigation but neglected to even let Annie know he was back in town? Something smells rotten in Denmark and Annie's determined to find out why. I enjoyed this book, although it was a bit different in that Annie didn't share some things with the reader until much further along in the story--so we didn't really have all the clues we needed. I can understand her not sharing certain facts with Tom, the police detective handling the case (and Annie's ex-boyfriend) but with her readers? Please! LOL I still managed to figure out the major portion of the mystery anyway. I'm going to miss Annie--she's smart, irreverent, independent and very human; her town and friends are also a big part of these books and I do hope the author brings them all back at some point in time. Meanwhile, I'll be waitng to read the first of Olson's "Tattoo Shop" mysteries, due out in a couple of months. A.
13. MUSCLEBOUND by Liza Cody. Third and last Eva Wylie mystery in which Eva finds herself on the down and outs--her wrestling manager has barred her from the gym and won't speak to her, her Ma was all set to move away and not even tell her, and Anna Lee, the private investigator who sometimes throws her jobs has told her she must stop drinking or their working relationship is done. No money, it's raining, her new pup Milo disrespects her, so Eva is feeling particularly sorry for herself. When she 'borrows' a car that ends up having a sports bag full of money in it, she thinks her luck has changed, but it brings her nothing but trouble, as does the reappearance of her sister Simone in her life. Simone, having been adopted out by a foster family when she was a small girl, hasn't the patience to deal with Eva and her drinking and her bleak lifestyle. However, a pesky fellow-wrestler named Keif wants to be Eva's personal trainer and get her back into fighting shape and he seems to be the one bright spot in her life although she doesn't see it that way. I have to admit that reading these last two books in this series close together makes me rather glad there isn't another--I think I'd have taken a good long break from the series if there were, as Eva's almost-whiny "poor me, none of this is my fault" attitude really began to grate on my nerves and made me think of all my former mental health patients with Borderline Personality Disorder. Granted, she's had a tough life and survived a lot, but get on with it, already! She made so many poor decisions/choices in this book I can't even begin to count them, and most of them did indeed come back to bite her in the bum. Ah well. I did like the ending and would like to think that if Eva's story ever gets resurrected that there is hope for her. B-
14. WHERE MEMORIES LIE by Deborah Crombie (AUDIO) #12 and most recent in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series. I really enjoyed the reader for the one previous Kincaid/James book I listened to, but this is a different one and I must say that at times, she really annoyed me with a couple of her voices. That said, the book itself was great, with Crombie once again tying in a past case (from the 1950's in post-war Britain) to present, when Gemma's elderly friend Erica Rosenthal asks her to look into the reappearance of a valuable brooch made by her father, a well-known jewellery crafter, which she had last seen before the war. Her father, who died in the concentration camps, had made the brooch for her as a special gift, and it turns up in the catalogue of a London auction house. The murder that happened in 1952 was the brutal stabbing of none other than Erica's own husband, David Rosenthal. When the sales girl that Gemma questions about the brooch as an unofficial favor for Erica ends up dead that very same night, something smells fishy and the Yard (with Duncan) is on the case. Is there a connection between the girl's death and David Rosenthal's those many years previous? Gemma also learns that her mother is gravely ill with leukemia and takes some personal time from work but then ends up spending most of it helping Duncan and Erica. Crombie once again leads us on a merry chase with several red herrings--some of which I fell for hook, line and sinker, but I did figure it out well before the final reveal. Now I'm one of those waiting not-so-patiently for the October release of her next book! A.
15. HELL HOLE by Chris Grabenstein. #4 John Ceepak mystery, in which Ceepak and Danny investigate the supposed suicide of a soldier in a wayside rest stop. They're doing this on the sly because the rest stop falls outside of their jurisdiction, but it's obvious to even Danny, a relative rookie, that Shareef Smith did not shoot himself and that some type of coverup is underway. The two Sea Haven cops take on some powerful enemies to bring down Smith's killer, but they get there in the end with some help from folks on both sides of the law. Although the bad guy was obvious to me from the start and I was pretty sure what the motive was (at least in general,) how the murder was achieved was a bit of a puzzle until Ceepak tells all at the end. I have enjoyed every one of these books in this series--they're light reads with just the right amount of humor, interesting characters and an easy-to-read style. Looking forward to Mind Scrambler! A.
16. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT by Bruce Alexander. This is the final Sir John Fielding historical mystery in which the subject of hypnotism and "Mesmerism" is investigated as a means to murder, when a member of Parliament jumps from Westminster Bridge into the Thames in front of a dozen witnesses, one of them being Annie Oakum, former cook of the Fielding household. It was obvious that the man jumped himself--no one pushed him--and it was known that he could not swim, but why would he jump? The mystery itself wasn't much of a mystery in this one, but many threads in the personal lives of the characters were tied together as Jeremy (who tells the stories) and Clarissa prepare for their nuptials. The ending was a bit anticlimactic, but due to the author's untimely death, the last few chapters were written by his wife with the help of another author. I shall greatly miss having more adventures of Jeremy and Sir John to read about, but at least I can always go back and visit them when the spirit moves me. A.
17. SUDDEN DEATH by David Rosenfelt. #4 Andy Carpenter mystery. Andy is a lawyer living in Paterson, NJ and became rather famous in the last book by getting a convicted death-row inmate's guilty verdict reversed. This time around another celebrity case comes his way in the form of Kenneth Schilling, a running back for the New York Giants who's just been charged with murdering a long-time friend who plays for a rival team. Kenny maintains his innocence despite mounting evidence against him, and Andy nearly packs the case in, as he doesn't believe in defending people he believes are guilty. But his gut tells him Kenny is telling the truth, so he sticks it out until evidence proves his case--as always, at the last minute in the middle of the trial. On a personal note, Andy's girlfriend Laurie, who is an investigator for his law office, is thinking of taking a job offer back in her hometown in Wisconsin that would likely lead to her being chief of police in just a few years. Andy is agonizing over this, as he really loves her, but he won't allow himself to try to influence her to stay. I figured the baddie out very early on and chuckled to myself as the tiny little clues were dropped into place, confirming my thoughts. I'm not really a big fan of lawyer mystery and courtroom drama leaves me cold, but I do like Andy and his crew so I'm continuing on with the series. I enjoyed this book despite the "lawyer stuff" in it. B+
18. YOU SUCK by Christopher Moore. (AUDIO) Another crazy romp through Chris Moore's twisted mind, this one a continuation of events that happened in his book Bloodsucking Fiends, with many of the same characters. This one opens with 19-year-old Tommy Flood waking up next to his older, more worldly girlfriend Jody (who just happens to be a vampire) only to find that he gets to stay 19 forever, because Jody's "turned" him, too. Neither one of them are very experienced vampires so they struggle along trying to figure out how to make it in the world, all the while trying to stay ahead of the evil vampire Elijah (who turned Jody) and his associates--who are much displeased to learn of their presence. Also, Tommy's friends from the overnight stock crew at the supermarket ("the Animals") learn he's a vampire and try to capture him for a Vegas hooker (named Blue, because she dyed herself that way) between rounds of turkey bowling at the Safeway. LOL! Yes, it sounds ridiculous, and it really is, but lots of fun, too. This is the first audio I'd listened to by this author and the reader was really good. She was sometimes really annoying to listen to, but only because she got the characters spot on, especially Abby Normal, whom Tommy recruits to be his and Jody's minion (to get stuff done, like, during the daytime, dude!) Is there anything more annoying than a sixteen-year-old Valley Girl Goth wannabe? I doubt it!! LOL Still, an enjoyable and appropriately crazy listen. A.
19. RITUAL by Mo Hayder. #3 Jack Caffrey mystery (and so far latest--at least in the US, as her next one SKIN hasn't been released here yet.) Jack has moved from London, having left girlfriend Rebecca when she kept pestering him to have a child together, something he has vowed he will never do, seeing what he's seen and living what he's been through with his brother Ewan. So he is now in Bristol, and gets a case working with a diving crew who finds a severed hand in the river. This is nothing unusual, but when the lead diver, Phoebe "Flea" Marley, tells Jack that she believes the hand was severed while the person was still alive and the coroner confirms this, Jack definitely knows he's going to be after another sick and twisted bastard of a villain. And of course, it is. The story is also in large part about Flea, about the tragic diving accident her parents were involved in two years previously along with her brother Thom, who has been so badly affected by it that he's unable to keep a job or settle to anything. Flea struggles to find out the truth of that accident while trying not to get involved more than she ought in Caffrey's case, but because her father was a professor, she knows a lot about African black magic rituals in which severed human body parts play a big role. Gritty, grisly and gripping, this was not a book for 'enjoying' per se but was an excellent story. Caffrey is a complex character, one I don't always like very much, but whose life certainly makes for interesting reading. A.
20. CHARLIE BONE AND THE CASTLE OF MIRRORS by Jenny Nimmo (AUDIO) #4 in the Children of the Red King YA fantasy series. Charlie and his friends at Bloor's Academy find that they still must deal with the evil Manfred Bloor, son of the headmaster. Even though he's graduated, he's now a teaching assistant. There are three new endowed children with magical talents and all of them seem to be on the side of the Bloors. The balance is tipping. Billy Raven is adopted, but Charlie has a bad feeling about it which is confirmed when he looks at a photo of the adoptive parents and hears their thoughts. More about Billy's ancestry is discovered and Charlie even thinks he's discovered where his father is being held captive. The story is furthered along nicely and ends on another cliffhanger. Can't wait to get to the next one, I really enjoy this series and the reader is great--Simon Russell Beale is his name. A.
21. TO WEAR THE WHITE CLOAK by Sharan Newman. #7 Catherine LeVendeur historical mystery series set in medieval France. Catherine, Edgar and their household return home to Paris after a year's absence in Germany, where they'd gone to assist Catherine's sister Agnes with a problem. Upon returning, they find a dead body in their counting room, a man apparently a Templar Knight, as he is wearing their distinctive white cloak and a brooch. He was obviously murdered, and Catherine and Edgar struggle to find out who he was and why he was left in their home. The Templars don't recognize him and they are now set to blame Catherine and Edgar as rumors of her father Hubert's association with the Jews fly wildly. Hubert, of course, IS a Jew and has gone back to the Jewish community at Troyes, not on pilgrimage as they've told everyone. I generally enjoy this series, but this one annoyed me on many levels. There were too many sub-plots, too many peripheral characters to keep straight, and too many changes of point of view. Even several of the peripheral characters had their say, with switches often occurring mid-chapter. Just too confusing. I love the main characters in the series, but some of the issues they are dealing with have gone on for multiple books and they are getting a bit tired now. I'm going to finish this series (3 books left, and I have them all) but I'm not as eager to jump on the next one as I was to get to this one. C+.
22. THE SILENT MAN by Alex Berenson. #3 John Wells spy thriller. Another solid entry in this modern-day spy thriller series. John Wells is settling into domestic bliss with Jennifer Exley, his co-worker and fellow spy. But their life is about to be shattered when one of the baddies that John previously wronged seeks revenge in a planned assassination as Wells and Exley make their way to work. They are well-guarded, but though the attack is partially blocked, Exley is severely injured. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, two nuclear bombs have gone missing from a Russian bomb storage facility, having been stolen by a small group of Muslim terrorists. As those people work to get the bombs over the sea to American soil where they will build their own nuclear device, the CIA learns of the missing bombs and must play games behind the scenes to find out what they can because the Russians are not very forthcoming. John Wells has a role in that too--in fact, the two cases eventually intersect. I enjoy this series quite a lot. I really loved the first book where John was more or less on his own--it was a more unique story and he had to rely on his own resourcefulness and wit. The subsequent books, including this one, with all the machinations of the FBI, CIA and the other "initial" agencies and their posturing and game-playing have been slightly less appealing to me. Anyone can accomplish things if you have the CIA providing you with false documentation and 'friends' to talk to to get you what you need or to introduce you to the people you need involved. It's just not as exciting to me as the 'lone wolf.' But still a good read, well-written and as it's addressing concerns of the present day, enough to scare the bejeezus out of you if you let it. B+
23. DEATH OF A DUSTMAN by M.C. Beaton. #17 Hamish MacBeth Scottish cozy police mystery. One of the councilwomen in Strathbane, eager for some attention, targets Lochdubh for her 'go green' campaign and enlists the local dustman, Fergus Macleod, to get the residents to separate their rubbish for recycling. Fergus, a nasty, wife-beating drunk who was on the verge of losing his job before Mrs. Fleming got him a new uniform and reason to be nasty, of course ends up dead. There's hardly a villager who hadn't been heard threatening him at one time or another, but when a second man, a crofter named Angus also dies, the suspect list narrows a bit. Hamish, now a Sergeant with yet another PC--Clarry, this one a great cook but not much in the grooming and cleanliness department--learns that Fergus was blackmailing several Lochdubh residents and wonders if Angus found out somehow and one of those people killed him? Hamish keeps this news to himself, wanting to protect his fellow villagers, and of course it ends up disastrously and by the end of the book, Hamish is once again a lowly PC and Blair gnashes his teeth as his red-haired menace once again escapes being sacked. An enjoyable, light read and this one had a solution that I didn't anticipate, at least for part of it. B+.
DNF: NO REST FOR THE WICCAN by Madelyn Alt. (After 50 pages, the book had gone nowhere and seeing that the main character is likely going to be caught in a Stephanie Plum-esque romantic limbo which began last book and is continuing (Oh! Which guy do I choose?) I decided to give up on the series. Also, the main character is pretty immature for someone who is supposedly an adult. Enough is enough.)
Currently reading: listening to Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey in audio.
Cheryl
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