1. IN LIKE FLYNN by Rhys Bowen. #4 Molly Murphy historical mystery set in New York in the early 1900's. Molly, trying hard to be a private investigator and finding the going tough, accepts a timely case from none other than Daniel Sullivan, her policeman "friend." It's timely for a couple of reasons--she's just had a falling out with her current beau, and also there's a typhoid outbreak in the city and this assignment would take her to a manse in the country to investigate a couple of spiritualists that Sullivan believes are fake. He sets up credentials for Molly to assume the identity of one of Senator Barney Flynn's cousins visiting from Ireland in an attempt to cheer up his wife, who is still despondent from their young son's death five years previously in a botched kidnapping. The Sorenson sisters are hoping to help Theresa Flynn speak to the spirit of her son and are also guests of the Flynns. Molly ends up investigating the kidnapping moreso than the spiritualists and of course ends up in a world of trouble when she uncovers some clues that went unnoticed when the case was originally investigated and riles up those involved. A light and fluffy read that does tackle some tough social issues of the times, but there were a few things that happened that did tend to boggle my mind. (Can't say more lest I spoil things for those who've not read it yet. LOL) I did figure out the mystery (and the plot twist) ahead of time but still enjoyed this foray back in time and plan to keep on reading the series. B+
2. STRIPPED by Brian Freeman. #2 Jonathan Stride police procedural, this one moving from Duluth to Las Vegas. An old murder case, once considered solved, is brought to the fore as people related to those who were associated with Amira Luz, murdered exotic dancer, begin to die off. The killer is giving them clues, even deliberately leaving fingerprints at some of the crime scenes, and Jonathan is trying to figure out why as he delves into the past to try to solve the old crime which will almost certainly lead to the present-day killer. When a case Serena (his lover and the reason he moved to Vegas) is working on ties in with his own case, they get the chance to work together again. I liked this book; I love Freeman's writing style and his characters, but this one was a little weird. There seemed to be an inordinate number of G/L/T (gay/lesbian/transgendered) people in it, which I don't have a problem with in any way, it just seemed like the book was overrun with them for some reason, including Stride's new partner Amanda, a 'she-male' who is also a darned good cop. I also didn't like the Vegas setting as well as Duluth, which is a city I dearly love. And I did figure out part of the mystery, although not a couple of the plot twists. I didn't like it quite as well as the first one, but it was still very good and am looking forward to the next in series. A-
3. WHO CUT THE CHEESE? A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE FART by Jim Dawson. Nonfiction humor with plenty of serious, factual information too, although the author usually did slant things to the humorous side. It's hard not to when you're talking about intestinal gas, I suppose! LOL I had this as my 'bathroom book' (with the appropriate bookmark of two squares of toilet tissue) for several weeks and quite enjoyed this foray into the world of farts, and tidbits about how farting has been viewed by various cultures throughout the world in various times, including literary references to the foul wind across the centuries--one of the aptly named chapters being "Lit Farts." You get the idea! LOL I did enjoy this--it was a light, fun read, and I did learn a few facts along the way, too. (Who knew that Whoopi Goldberg devoted a whole chapter of her autobiography to farts? Not me! LOL) Sometimes the humor was a bit forced (a bit like a crosswise fart in that respect I guess! HA!) but all in all an entertaining, worthwhile read. B+
4. HONOLULU by Alan Brennert. Historical fiction set first in Korea in the early 1900's to the 1910's-20's in Honolulu, HI. Tells the story of a Korean girl with the unfortunate name of Regret (female babies were often given these types of negative names) who flees the stifling control of her family's Confucian home in rural Korea to the promised paradise of Hawaii as a "picture bride." When the handsome man who has chosen Regret as his bride ends up not to be the wealthy, wonderful man he was portrayed to be, (he is instead a sugar-cane laborer and a drinking, gambling wife-beater) she also flees the rural plantation where they live to the big city of Honolulu. There she begins a new life pretending to be a widow, and Regret takes several different jobs and has many adventures as she seeks her place in the world. Full of pain, sorrow, and often portraying conditions that are brutal and hard to imagine people living in and through, this is also a hopeful story, and one I very much enjoyed. I learned quite a lot along the way too, having not read much about Korean--or Hawaiian--culture before. I haven't yet read Brennert's other book based in Hawaii, Molo'kai, but it won't be long before I get to it! Well done, very readable style, believable characters and descriptions that will put you right there. A.
5. HARD ROW by Margaret Maron. (AUDIO) #13 Judge Deborah Knott mystery set in Colleton County, NC. Judge Knott begins settling in with her new family, step-son Cal having moved in with she and Dwight after his mother's death in the previous book. It's an adjustment for all concerned, but Deborah is distracted when a case that Dwight is working on (body parts found along a roadside) intersects with a case in her court. It takes some time to identify who the hacked up parts belong to (and to find them all!) but once big-time farmer Buck Harris is identified, a few different suspects come to the fore: his ex-wife, his mistress, and a disgruntled employee or ten, among others. I like the way Maron weaves information and a story about some social issue in each of her books--in this one, it's the fate and the life of migrant workers. As always, the reader is excellent for this series, and the author's writing style and characterizations make for easy reading and listening--and in this case, a resolution to the crime that I didn't see coming, though the clues were there. Maron really makes you wish that these were real people that you could meet and talk to. Only one left to catch up to the end of the series, with the newest due in August. A.
6. THE FALLS by Ian Rankin. #13 DI Rebus Scottish police procedural set in Edinburgh. It's been ages since I read a Rebus--the last couple were rather disappointing to me--but Rankin is back in form with this book. The story, one of a young woman who had set off from her flat to meet some friends for drinks and never showed up, sucked me in right away. It's determined that Philippa Balfour ("Flip" to her friends) was playing a dungeons-and-dragons style game, with clues given by the Quizmaster via e-mail. But was this related to her death or not? Supposedly people who play in this way were anonymous to one another. While Rebus works a possible historical connection to other similar cases, Siobhan Clarke works the computer game angle, and both are trying to adapt to their boss "Farmer" Watson retiring and their former colleague Gill Templer taking his place. There's a new lady in Rebus's life too, which lifts his often dour spirit. Very enjoyable--I only figured out part of the mystery, so it was great to be led a merry chase and to be surprised at the end. Excellent entry in the series! A.
7. A NOBLE RADIANCE by Donna Leon. #7 Commissario Guido Brunetti Italian police mystery set in Venice. Another cold case mystery where an old unsolved case is brought to the forefront when skeletal remains are found in a shallow grave in a village north of Venice when the new owner of an estate begins renovating. A valuable gold ring with a family crest with the body leads authorities to believe that the body is that of twenty-one-year-old Roberto Ludovicio, wealthy heir who was kidnapped two years ago and never found. Dental records confirm this and a bullet hole in the back of the head confirms that he was murdered, but can Brunetti track down the perpetrators with so many of the clues gone dead? Of course--Brunetti finds that the clues are merely dormant, not dead at all, and they lead him on a merry chase, throwing red herrings all over the place. As usual, it's not always possible to obtain justice through the Italian penal and court system, but in Leon's Venice, usually the universe knows what its doing, and this was no exception. I love the author's intellectual mysteries, with much philosophy and excellent cooking as well as vibrant atmosphere included in the bargain. In fact I love it so much, I'm going to do something I've not done in many a moon--read a couple of series books back to back. A+
8. FATAL REMEDIES by Donna Leon. #8 Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery in which Guido's wife Paola becomes a lawbreaker. Convinced she must do what she can to stop travel agents from booking "sex tours" to places like Thailand where the tourists have very young girls procured for them in what essentially amounts to rape and pedophelia, Paola gets up in the middle of the night and throws a rock through the window of a local travel agency known to cater to these types of tours. She does this twice and causes a bit of scandal for Guido as the newspapers hound him, her and the Questura. Guido's boss, Patta, puts him on administrative leave until the owner of the travel agency ends up murdered in his apartment--visciously strangled, with a note referring to him being a pedophile. Further investigation of course reveals that Paola's timely rock-throwing just provided an easy excuse for someone else who had it in for the man to kill him. Another solid entry in the series, although I didn't enjoy this one as much as the last--which is my signal that "two in a row is enough." LOL I think it may just have been the subject matter and the emotional roller coaster that Guido was on in part, though. A-
9. REAPER MAN by Terry Pratchett #11 in publication order of the Discworld humorous fantasy series in which DEATH gets a vacation and an hourglass of his own! When DEATH stops coming around, what happens? People who are supposed to die, don't. Case in point, Windle Poons, venerable hundred and thirty year old Bursar at Unseen University. His time is up--he knows it and so does everyone else. So why is he still alive? Er...or rather, undead? Because DEATH is having a working vacation on a ranch under the assumed name of handyman Bill Door, using his scythe to harvest the hay and being decidedly squeamish about butchering chickens. LOL And when things stop dying, life force starts building up--which can only lead to dire (if hilarious!) consequences. As usual, Pratchett's wacky (and yet, still rather profound at times) world never fails to leave me smiling, laughing and chortling with glee--and as always, I often found myself reading only to have the real meaning of some goofy phrase or concept that I read about a few pages previous dawn on me, paging backwards to reread portions of it. Nothing to be said except that Terry Pratchett is a genius! A+
10. BUTCHER'S HILL by Laura Lippmann (AUDIO) #3 Tess Monaghan mystery series set in Baltimore. Tess, now an official private investigator, is hired by two people--the first, a woman who claims to be looking for her long lost sister and the second an elderly man who is just out of prison, having been put there because he shot a neighborhood boy to death when he was harassing the old man. Luther Beale, "The Butcher" of Butcher's Hill wants Tess to find the other children who were with Donny Moore when he died to attempt to compensate them in some way for their suffering, but since they were minors in the foster care system, they won't be easily tracked down. Of course both cases end up being more complicated than they first seem, although I figured out much of both of them fairly early, the main mystery was a bit of a surprise ending for me. I enjoyed this book but not as much as I did the previously book in the series. The reader is pretty good, just not a favorite, and while I mostly like Tess, many of her supporting characters are annoying as heck. Still, a solid entry in the series and I look forward to the next, whether I end up reading in print or listening to it. B+
11. CHARLIE BONE AND THE INVISIBLE BOY by Jenny Nimmo (AUDIO) #3 in the Children of the Red King YA fantasy series, in which Charlie once again seeks to help out someone that the Bloors have enslaved. This time it's Oliver, an invisible boy they're hiding in the attic. Oliver was made invisible by an ensorcelled blue Boa Constrictor. Who is on Charlie's side and who's on the Bloors' becomes more defined in this book, as a pretty new girl, Belle, arrives at Bloor Academy. There's a lot happening in this book! Charlie also has responsibility for his friend Benjamin's dog, Runner Bean, as Benjamin is off to Hong Kong with his private detective parents on a case. Of course this complicates matters a bit, too, as Charlie is worried about his Uncle Paton, who has come up very ill after a week-long absence in which he tries to find out what his nasty sisters are up to. Excellent story as always and I really look forward to listening to the next one! A.
12. HIGH PRIESTESS by David Skibbins. #2 Warren Ritter "Tarot" mystery, featuring the old hippie radical fugitive from the law, now a tarot reader on the street in San Francisco. Warren is also bipolar and heavily involved in therapy attempting to deal with his checkered past. Warren (aka Richard Green in his previous life) is visited by a ghost from his past--someone who knew him back in his days with the Weathermen, a radical anti-war group from the 60's. Edward Hightower (also an assumed name) is now the leader of a small church--an offshoot of the Church of Satan. Their members are dropping like flies and Edward (with his sister, Veronique--who also happens to be Warren's ex-girlfriend) wants Warren to find out who. Instant suspects include several hyper-religious folks who sent threatening e-mails to Edward and the group, tracked down by Warren's current girlfriend Sally--a paraplegic computer hacker. But those solutions seem almost too easy, and soon it's rather obvious that those people haven't committed the string of murders. But someone wants Warren to take the fall for that--so the next crime is brilliantly set up to make him look like the bad guy. Now he has no choice but to investigate and clear his borrowed name. I really like this series! Warren is a definitely flawed and fallible but very likable guy, and the author obviously has mental health experience (I believe he's a therapist of some sort) as he portrays the bipolar swings very accurately. The solution to the mystery was quite simple, but Skibbins manages to still eke out a dynamite twist at the end. Loved it! A+
13. THE SNAKE STONE by Jason Goodwin. #2 in the Yashim the Eunuch historical mystery series set in 1830's Istanbul. The sultan is dying, and the city is in a peculiar mood. Yashim, who works for the sultan, hasn't been summoned to the palace in months, so he's perfectly free to investigate the murder of a French archaelogist on his own behalf. Dr. Lefevre had been a guest in Yashim's home the day before he died and he had been asking a lot of nosy questions about valuable Greek artifacts. He sought a ship back to France which Yashim helped him procure and then his body was found, gutted stem to stern and half-eaten by dogs a couple of days later. With lack of any other suspects, the French ambassador can only conclude that Yashim had something to do with his death, so he sets out to remove the cloud of suspicion from his good name before the ambassador files his final report. Steeped in history, myth and legend, the tale leads Yashim to several different neighborhoods of the city and even below it, as other people that Dr. Lefevre talked to end up attacked or dead also. When his widow arrives, not yet knowing she is a widow, things get even more complicated. An excellent story, full of the culture, sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Istanbul (I want to hire Yashim as my personal chef!!), with lots of history and the added bonus of secrets well-kept and secret societies, this was a very enjoyable read. A.
14. THE WHITE DRAGON by Anne McCaffrey. (AUDIO) #3 in the DragonRiders of Pern fantasy series, which features primarily Jaxom, soon-to-be Lord holder and also dragonrider of the world's only white dragon. Jaxom, still a very young man of eighteen, does much maturing during this book as he finds his way through his confusing position in life--should he focus on being Lord of the hold, or on being a Dragonrider? How can he be both? Exciting new discoveries are made regarding the ancestors of Pern and the three stars known as The Dawn Sisters. It's discovered that they are fixed entities, not stars at all, and when mysterious traveling ships are found during an excavation, it's believed that they may be somehow tied to those ships. Excellent entry in this series and I look forward to the next, although I have noticed that despite its age, it seems to be rather difficult to find. A.
15. DEAD BEAT by Jim Butcher. #7 in the Harry Dresden paranormal mystery series. Something foul is afoot in Chicago, as usual. The evil vampire queen Mavra contacts Harry, basically blackmailing him into searching for a much-sought-after item called The Word of Kemmler. Kemmler was a necromancer--one who could animate the dead, essentially make zombies of them. The White Council had hunted and killed him years previously, but someone (several someones probably!) want his power. Under normal circumstances, Harry would tell Mavra to go fly a kite--in the sun!--but the trump card she's playing has Harry's friend Karrin Murphy, police detective in charge of the Special Investigations department, as the bait. If Harry doesn't cooperate, Mavra will see to it that Murphy's career is ruined. So Harry cooperates--or at least gives the appearance of doing so. This leads him down a twisty path to first of all find out what The Word of Kemmler might be and then locating it. As usual, this is never as easy as it seems as unplanned-for obstacles litter Harry's path. An enjoyable, quick read with a marvelous writing style and a lovely visit with Harry. I do enjoy this paranormal series because it's not chock full of romancey bullcrap like so many of them are. I wish we could visit the poor guy when things are quiet and he actually has time to eat and sleep, but I guess that would be kind of boring! Looking forward to the next. A.
16. GET OUT OR DIE by Jane Finnis. #1 in the Aurelia Marcella historical mystery series set in A.D. 91 in Roman Britannia. Aurelia runs the local mansio (inn) with her sister and with their brother Lucius' permission--he is technically the owner, but as an army spy, is away "on business" most of the time. When a series of local attacks occur, with Roman travelers being killed and left with a badge that says "Get Out or Die!" Aurelia feels threatened to her core, especially as one of the victims is left for dead in her courtyard! But Quintus is another spy, like her brother, although he is loathe to tell her much at first. They all decide that the best way to return their small village to safety is to catch "The Shadow of Death" who is organizing the attacks is to catch him. The list of suspects includes some of Aurelia's friends and the town leaders, and although I knew right away who it was, it took Aurelia and company ages to figure it out. I did quite enjoy the book--the settings and characters were very well drawn, the writing style was easy to read, and I learned plenty of new things about that era. However, I did find the book a bit draggy in the midsection especially and it seemed like they hashed over the suspects' motives, means and opportunities to commit the various crimes over and over again to the point where it became repetitive--which is the only reason I didn't give it top marks. I will definitely be on the lookout for the next book in series and hope that the editor had a bit more a judicious hand with the draggy bits. B+
Currently reading: WATER LIKE A STONE by Deborah Crombie (#11 Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James mystery.) In audio, I'm listening to The Magician: Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott, second in a YA fantasy series.
DNF: MAD SEASON by Nancy Means Wright. I slogged through about 50 pages and just found the writing style stilted and the whole storyline confusing. Couldn't get into it at all. WICKED WEAVES (Renaissance Faire mystery #1) by Jim and Joyce Lavene. Oh, boy, I'm sorry but that book was just BAD...I did read 50 pages but it almost killed me.
Cheryl
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
MARCH 2009 Reading
1. DRAGONQUEST by Anne McCaffrey (AUDIO) #2 in the Dragonriders of Pern fantasy series, taking place some seven turns after events in the first book. This is a little longer than my usual audiobook listen, so I expected to take quite awhile to finish it, but it was a very engaging story that was hard to stop listening to, so it was devoured in just two days. The Dragonriders continue to fight the dreaded Thread, strands of some toxic element that falls regularly from the skies, but things go a bit topsy-turvy when Thread begins falling at irregular times and places. Desperate to figure out what these new chaotic attacks mean, F’lar of Benden Weyr travels far and wide, talking to not only other Weyr leaders, but craftholders, Oldtimers, harpers and the like, gathering information. His influence, garnered of necessity seven turns ago, begins to wane as Oldtimers plot against craftholders, who in turn are becoming resentful of the Weyrs. There’s much political jockeying taking place as well as plenty of Dragon action and several side stories featuring some of the main characters from the first book as well as some new characters stepping to the forefront. Very enjoyable, and I’d even found the reader more appealing in this book—his sometimes overly dramatic reading was the one downfall I found to the first book in this very long-lived series. Great book! A
2. THE MAGICIAN’S APPRENTICE by Trudi Canavan. Prequel to the Black Magician fantasy trilogy, taking place several hundred years before the first book in that series. This is the story of Tessia, a commoner in Kyralia who is a healer’s daughter and who wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps. But women in Kyralia are not allowed to be healers, so when an episode of attempted rape by a visiting Sachakan magician reveals that Tessia is a natural magician, she becomes a second apprentice to Lord Dakon, who holds the ley her family lives in. First learning control of her magic lest she cause serious damage to her surroundings, Tessia’s goal is to figure out a way to incorporate healing with her magic, which has to that point not been done. A few months after she is apprenticed, she heads off to Imardin, the capital city, with Lord Dakon and his first apprentice (who is of noble blood and doesn’t like Tessia much) to meet the king, beginning a series of political intrigues and growing experiences for Tessia, both as a magician and as a person. I really wanted to love this book as I did the previously-published trilogy, but it really fell flat. Canavan is a good writer, with an easy-to-read style, but the story in this book was just….well, rather ho-hum. None of the characters really stirred me to either liking or hating them much, and while the story did explain some of the events that occurred later in the trilogy, it wasn’t done with the panache I had expected. The best I can say about the book is that it was okay. I don’t think writing prequels is an easy thing, and I will be on the lookout for more work by this author, but I hope she’s planning something new. C+
3. INNOCENT GRAVES by Peter Robinson. #8 Chief Inspector Alan Banks British police procedural set in rural Yorkshire. A young schoolgirl from the local private girls’ school is found strangled in a graveyard on a foggy November night. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Her body was arranged like a sex crime, but she hadn’t been raped or sexually assaulted in any way. Or was this some personal crime against Deborah Harrison herself, she being the daughter of a wealthy computer company mogul? A likely suspect is found in a local college teacher who was seen in the area at the right time, and he even had some of Deborah’s blood and hair on his jacket. He maintains his innocence and said she did bump into him on a bridge in the fog, but the police, wanting a quick solution for the girl’s powerful father, latch onto Owen Pierce and are determined to make the evidence fit. A few months later, he’s acquitted and a short time after his release, another girl is killed in similar fashion—again with some of his hairs on her jacket and some fingerprints on a film canister found nearby. Inspector Banks takes awhile to come around but believes Pierce is being set up, but by whom? Well, duh. I sussed the bad guy out right away and even guessed accurately at the reason why, but the actual clues that would let you figure it out didn’t come til later. It was still a great read despite my instinctive ‘knowing’ who the bad guy was ahead of time. This book didn’t feature just Banks—much of the story was told from the viewpoint of Owen Pierce and also some from other characters, including one of Banks’ subordinates, an ambitious detective who put together the first case against Pierce. Looking forward to the next! A.
4. CHARLIE BONE AND THE TIME TWISTER by Jenny Nimmo (audio) #2 Children of the Red King children’s fantasy series in which Charlie meets a boy of about his age that he first saw in a photograph at home—and who is actually his great-great-uncle Henry, sent forward through time by his evil cousin Zeke using a Time Twister—a marble with magical powers. Of course, evil cousin Zeke is none other than Ezekiel Bloor, now head of the same Bloor family that runs Charlie’s school. When the Bloors find out that Henry Yewbeam has been spotted in the school, they do everything in their power to attempt to capture him as Charlie and his group of friends do their best to protect the poor, baffled Henry, who arrived from 1916 and would be totally sunk on his own. Another enjoyable entry in this interesting children’s fantasy series, and I look forward to the third one soon. A.
5. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Didion (audio) A memoir of this writer’s life in the year after her husband of nearly forty years, author John Gregory Dunne, died suddenly of a heart attack at the dinner table. At the time, their only child, Quintana, a newlywed, was hospitalized and on a ventilator, having developed a septic infection from pneumonia, and after her eventual release a month later, then developed blood clots which led her to be on anticoagulants, which then resulted in a cerebral hemorrhage and coma a few weeks later. As you can imagine, Joan’s life was thrown into utter turmoil, and while she maintained an outward calm, inside her body was compensating by failing to emotionally accept some things. For example, she refused to give away her husband’s last pair of shoes, because she felt he would be upset at not having any when he came back. She called her year of grief her year of magical thinking because she believed that many impossible things were utterly true. The reader for this book set the tone very well, I thought, and it was difficult to stop listening much as people gather to watch the after-effects of a horrible accident. I have to say that I am glad it was short, though (only about 5 hours) or I might have stopped eventually. The tone was quite detached, almost cold, and at times I was irritated at the author’s description of privilege—the best doctors, the best hospitals, the best hotels—and I wondered how she would have handled her grief if she had been a poor housewife from Brooklyn with no money who had to find a job after her husband’s death. Still, it was an interesting book and very far my usual fare, and I can say that I felt it a worthwhile listen, although “enjoy” would be the wrong word. B.
6. ACCOMODATING BROCOLLI IN THE CEMETARY: OR, WHY CAN’T ANYONE SPELL? By Vivian Cook. I’m not really sure what the purpose of the book is supposed to be. I thought it was somewhat of a rant against bad spellers, but it isn’t, really. It’s a mixed bag of things cobbled together into a hodge podge of semi-related things—tests that see how well you can spell, blurbs about the evolution of the English language and how some words evolved over time, a review of some of the rules and fallacies of spelling, including the “i before e except after c” rule (which doesn’t hold much water, by the way) and various and sundry other things. There were photos of stupid spelling mistakes in newspapers (but they weren’t very good ones) and lists of differences between English English and American English, quotations from various famous people about spelling, lists of ways our modern culture has bastardized the language further with things like internet acronyms, texting language, etc. It was very poorly organized without a clear mission that I could glean. I love words and bits about their origins and the evolution of the language, but these bits weren’t even that well-done. (Oh yes; there was a section about hyphenated words too. LOL) I think the author wrote it just because he was pissed off that people think he’s a woman because his name is Vivian. I dunno! I wouldn’t really recommend the book. It took me about an hour to read through it and I was decidedly unimpressed. D.
7. KILLER’S CHOICE by Ed McBain #5 in the 87th Precinct police procedural series set in fictional Isola (modeled after New York.) Published the year I was born, some people would call this book “dated,” which, admittedly it is. But it’s a wonderful time capsule too, and I have to wonder if McBain deliberately set out to accomplish that, if he had any idea how long-lasting his series would be. The opening paragraph lets you know you’ve gone back in time as it talks about “eight dollar Scotch and twenty-five-cent wine” bottles broken together on a liquor store floor. I’m not even sure you can buy a bottle of eight dollar Scotch these days, and that was the expensive stuff back then. LOL There are numerous other clues—twenty-one-cent-a-gallon gas, a policeman’s salary of $3,800 a year, and phone numbers with an exchange listed rather than just a number. All that aside, McBain writes an enjoyable detective story, and already at this point in the series, I’m a big fan of Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, Bert Kling and the rest of the gang. A young woman employed in a liquor store is brutally shot to death four times, the stock in the store smashed to smithereens. They get several different pictures of who the young woman was—one from her mother, another from her ex-husband, and still another from friends. I had an inkling about who the killer was at the time they were introduced, but the clues as to how it was done weren’t really revealed until the end of the book—and I’d have missed them anyway, as a knowledge as to ‘how certain things were done’ would have been needed to figure it out. I still enjoyed this very much and look forward to the next one. B+
8. KITTY GOES TO WASHINGTON by Carrie Vaughn. #2 Kitty Norville paranormal series featuring the radio talk show hostess who is also a werewolf. Kitty, now traveling around the country doing her night time talk show from different cities, has been subpoenaed by a Congressional Committee to testify regarding an ongoing research project into the causes and potential cures of the ‘supernatural’ races like vampires, werewolves, and the like. She’s never been to the nation’s capital and hopes to combine some sightseeing with her testimony. That doesn’t happen, though, as she is waylaid by the city’s Vampire leader on the way to her hotel, commandeered to Alette’s townhouse and warned of rogue lycanthropes who may want to harm Kitty. She doesn’t know whether to trust Alette and her lackeys and does eventually hooks up with a sexy Brazilian were-jaguar named Luis (he purrs! LOL) whom she met at a party. Luis leads her to a bar that is a hangout for weres—there is no pack, no leader and the place exudes comfort and friendship. Was Alette lying, or are things not as they really seem? Kitty also finally meets the head of the research project she’s testifying about. She isn’t sure whether to trust Dr. Paul Flemming either—he’s been nothing but evasive when she’s tried to speak to him in the past and this is no exception. She knows she doesn’t trust Senator Duke, who is looking for a witch hunt (rather, a were-hunt) and wants Congress to declare open season on all ‘abominable creatures of the devil’ like weres and vampires. But who among those she’s met of the supernatural community has her best interests at heart? She finds out the hard way in a stunning climax that shocks not only Kitty but the whole world. Very enjoyable read—I really like Kitty, and I find the world that Vaughn has created to be believable and plausible, and I like that she is able to incorporate a bit of a sex for her heroine without making romance andsex so pervasive that it takes over the story. Glad to have the next couple in the series here waiting patiently for me. A.
9. THE GHOST WAR by Alex Berenson. #2 John Wells spy thriller in which two incidents, one in Afghanistan and the other involving China and North Korea, entwine to bring about potential disaster. John goes into Afghanistan on a mission to find out who is helping the Taliban. The usual ragtag bands of guerrillas are noticed to be more organized, well-equipped and prepared, and there’s rumor of ‘white’ soldiers helping them. Russians? Or a band of mercenaries? Satellite intelligence gleaned leads the Americans to believe that they need to find out. While John is in the Middle Eastern mountains fighting for his very life, Jennifer Exley, his girlfriend, is working with their boss on ferreting out a recently-discovered mole who betrayed a nuclear scientist in North Korea, leaving him and his American rescue team dead. A fairly typical spy novel, filled with political intrigue, deception, the very latest in spy vs. spy technology and even a modicum of diplomacy. There wasn’t a whole lot of character development since the last book, in fact, I felt like Wells stepped backwards somewhat into the grayness of the pages and became more of a ghost himself. This was a decent read, but a bit of a disappointment after the excellent first in series. If I were prone to spouting clichés, I would say this is probably the author suffering from the ‘sophomore slump.’ I like a good spy novel, but I can’t live on a steady diet of them, so while I have the third one in this series here, I think it’ll be awhile before I get to reading it. I hope things pick up somewhat, as this author has obvious talent. B.
10. THE TAINTED RELIC by “The Medieval Murderers” (audio) The Medieval Murderers is a combination of five historical mystery authors—Michael Jecks, Ian Morson, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight, Philip Gooden and Simon Beaufort—yes, that’s six, but Beaufort is actually the same person as Susanna Gregory who has a different series. Each write a short story about their sleuth as a cursed relic (a piece of the “true cross” of Christ) crosses their path leaving murder and mayhem in its’ wake. I wasn’t sure if I’d like this setup or not, but I actually really enjoyed it. A couple of the authors I’d never encountered before, and particularly liked the writing style of Ian Morson, enough to seek out the first in his Falconer series. I’m not particularly fond of Michael Jecks—at least, the one book of his I’ve read I wasn’t wild about, but I’m going to give him another try—but it came off okay in the audio version; it was my least favorite of the stories though. Two of my favorite sleuths were included—Bernard Knight’s Crowner John de Wolfe and Susanna Gregory’s Matthew Bartholomew. The reader for the book was excellent, using many different voices and accents over the course of the story. I have a couple of these combination books on my TBR pile in print—we’ll see if the stories are as appealing that way as this one was in the audio version. Some of the later ones cobble different authors into the mix. Well done and quite enjoyable, it didn’t seem like it was a 15-hour listen! A.
11. THE PESTHOUSE by Jim Crace. Not sure how to classify this—I guess it would be sort of speculative, post-apocalyptic fiction of sorts. It’s the story, mainly, of two people—Margaret and Franklin—and seems to be set in the future, a future in which America as we know it has disappeared. We’re back to wood and bone implements, handmade homespun clothing, horse-drawn transportation (if we’re lucky!), no electricity and a rather bleak landscape in which people are leaving the country in droves—by ship. However, human seem to have changed little, and our age-old cruelty to one another, greediness, hunger for power and self-preservation instinct seems to have survived whatever catastrophe took place. And as always, small pockets of goodness and unselfishness will be found, too, if you look hard enough. Franklin and his brother Jackson, young men in their twenties, set out eastward for the sea after their father’s death and the family farm fails, leaving their mother to hold down the fort and knowing they probably won’t see her again. Margaret, a single woman in her 30’s who developed a flux of some sort, is quarantined in a hut on the edge of town—Ferrytown—with her head and body hair shaved off, basically left to either die or survive by her family, in hopes that they aren’t already afflicted. Through a set of bizarre circumstances, Franklin and Margaret end up traveling together eastward, then become separated, and end up together again towards the end of the book. Initially I found the book mesmerizing and couldn’t put it down, but later wanted more information about what had happened to land America in such a state, and that information really wasn’t forthcoming—just a lot of ‘teaser’ kind of clues. Franklin and Margaret’s stories became a bit stale after awhile, though it was a good book overall and I did come away with some things to think about and ponder. The ending was quite satisfying if a little predictable, and had the book been a bit less bogged down in the middle, my overall opinion would have been higher. B+.
12. A FATAL GRACE by Louise Penny. #2 Three Pines mystery set in a small village outside Quebec, Ontario and featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. When a vile newcomer, CC de Poitiers, who moved into the old Hadley house, is deliberately electrocuted while in the middle of a frozen pond watching a curling match on Boxing Day, Chief Inspector Gamache is once again dispatched to Three Pines to work on the murder. No one liked CC—she was mean, viscious and cruel to virtually everyone she encountered, most noticeably to her own pubescent daughter. But who had means, motive and opportunity to do the wannabe Martha Stewart in in such a complicated and bizarre way? Gamache’s team ponders, puzzles and gets stuck in Three Pines in a snowstorm, and eventually they figure it out. There are a couple of red herrings, but I did have a gut feeling about the killer early on and I was right, though I did doubt myself for quite some time. Wonderful mystery, delightful characters, food descriptions that you can almost smell wafting off the pages, and a writing style that just keeps you wanting more. Humorous at times, yet poignant, rich in the Quebecois culture, there’s a bit of everything. I’m glad I have the third one here but I fear I won’t be able to keep my hands off it for long. Excellent! A+
13. THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH by Rick Riordan. (audio) #4 Percy Jackson and the Olympians YA fantasy series. I really enjoy this series a lot! Percy, AnnaBeth, Grover and their friends are off again on another quest, this time to navigate the labyrinth made by Daedalus, who was also the infamous designer of the wings stuck on with wax that caused his son Icarus to fall when he flew too close to the sun and the wax melted. The half-bloods believe that Luke, their arch-nemesis who has an allegiance with the Titan Kronos, has found a way to easily get to Camp Half-Blood through the Labyrinth and seek to find that path and block it. Meanwhile, Grover sets out with them determined to find the god Pan, given one last chance to do so before his Seeker’s license is revoked by the Council. Percy, fast approaching fifteen, has his share of girl trouble in this episode too, with the usual adolescent confusions that go with it. Another action-packed adventure, with some humor and some very serious moments too. There’s one more installment, and Percy will be turning sixteen, when everyone finds out if his prophecy—whether he will save or destroy Mount Olympus—comes to pass. Excellent stuff, wonderful reader (Jesse Bernstein) who does a multitude of male and female, old and young, human and creature voices very well. A+
14. WHO COOKED THE LAST SUPPER? THE WOMEN’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD by Rosalind Miles. Nonfiction history, from ancient to modern times, as it relates to women’s place in history. Spans the gamut from religious to political history, and this book is difficult to read without getting quite angry at times, me being a woman and all, and a majority of the book being about how women have been second-class citizens since, as the author wryly puts it, ‘the rise of the phallus.’ Viewed as simply man’s property for much of recorded history, women have had to fight tooth and nail for basic human rights. This is a glimpse into how things were through time, from the beginning (when women were revered) and with specific views at different cultures and microcosms. Also points out notable exceptions to the rule of the day, wherever and whenever that might be, with information about various “famous women” but also about how things were for the ‘average Jane’ of the times. I learned a lot reading this book, but despite the author’s attempts at injecting some humor into it, I did read it in small bits rather than devour it in large chunks as it tended to get quite dry in places. A very worthwhile read, though. B+
15. CAT’S EYEWITNESS by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown. (audio) #13 in the Mrs. Murphy mysteries set in Crozet, Virginia and featuring not only the wise tabby cat but her friends Pewter the fat gray cat and Tucker, the Welsh Corgi. And let’s not forget their human, Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen. Thanksgiving in Crozet should be a relaxed and happy time, and it is, until Harry’s friend Susan’s great-uncle Thomas, a monk at the local monastery dies, praying in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary that had begun crying tears of blood. Harry, ever the skeptic, wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t witnessed the phenomenon herself. Brother Thomas was over 80, so his death wasn’t investigated as suspicious, but when a reporter who had broken the story about the Virgin also ends up dead, very obviously murdered, Harry’s ‘something’s not right’ antennae start twitching and she starts asking pointed questions, much to the chagrin of her friends and family and Sheriff Rick Shaw. Personally, Harry is a bit at loose ends, having quit her job at the Post Office, and is investigating growing grapes and starting a vineyard. And Fair, her ex-husband, has put more pressure on her with regard to his oft repeated proposal of re-marriage, too. The mystery was fairly straightforward, but I’ve come to love these characters more and more as the series wears on, and I’ve also grown fond of this reader, Kate Forbes, too. I found it hard to stop listening to this one and had to find things to do to occupy me so I could finish it. And now my bathrooms are really, really clean. LOL I’m glad my library has all of these available for audio download—I’ve already got the next one on my list. A.
16. FLESH AND BONE by Jefferson Bass. #2 in the Body Farm mysteries featuring Dr. Bill Brockton, founder of the research institute dedicated to learning more about how we decompose. In the first book, I enjoyed the forensic parts but was not crazy about the main character, and that trend continued in this book. For all that Dr. Bill Brockton is the consummate “nice guy,” I just can’t get attached to him, nor do I really care much about him—even when he’s suspected of murder. He’s just boring milquetoast for me. But I *did* enjoy the forensic aspect of the book a lot—if not for that, it’s doubtful I would have continued reading it. Lots of gory details, so if you’re squeamish, I wouldn’t read this book. Bill gets embroiled in the creationism/intelligent design vs. evolution debate in this book as well as working on the murder of a guy dressed in women’s clothes that appears to be a hate crime. When a colleague of Bill’s—whom he just happens to have slept with also—ends up murdered and displayed in his own Body Farm on top of the body they’re using to research that hate crime murder, he is a strong suspect in the case. Can’t see why, when ‘whodunit’ was as plain as the nose on your face, at least to me. I’m debating whether to continue on in this series or not. The whole package just seems really uninspired, great forensic details or no. One of those, “It wasn’t really bad...it was okay, BUT”...kind of books. C+
17. THE BLADE ITSELF by Joe Abercrombie. #1 in The First Law fantasy trilogy. Set in a world beset by war and utterly devoid of magic, this book tells the story of several very different characters. Loren Ninefingers, an aptly named mercenary who has survived many wars, battles and skirmishes; Sand dan Glokta, a former fencing champion turned Inquisitor, a master of torture after his eight-year experience in an enemy prison leave him crippled and disfigured both physically and emotionally; Jezal dan Luthar, a young nobleman of privilege who has yet to see war and who is hoping to win the upcoming summer fencing Contest. Several other peripheral characters come into play as well, and the world is about to see Magic and all the myths and legends that were thought to be just children’s stories come back to life as Bayaz, the First of the Magi, makes himself known as the country is thrown into war from two directions. The king is a puppet, his heir a worthless fop, and his advisors plot and scheme to gain control of the government. A multi-layered tale, well-written and interesting to read. While this had many of the elements of your ‘classic’ fantasy tale, it was decidedly darker than some, but all the better for it, I thought—me not being a big fan of knights in shining armor and all that rot. I like a world where the lines between good and evil are more realistically drawn, blurred and gray in many places, much like our own world. The characters were well-fleshed, imperfect and varied, and it will be interesting to follow their stories into the next book, which I thankfully have here already. Well-done! A+.
18. COLD GRANITE by Stuart MacBride. #1 Logan MacRae Scottish police procedural series. DS MacRae, on his first day back to work after a year-long medical leave following a stabbing that left him near-dead, ends up as lead investigator on a child murder case—the months-dead body of a four-year-old boy found in a ditch who appears to have been tortured and sexually abused. Logan was supposed to be gently transitioned back into work, but this murder kicks off a couple of weeks from hell, in which several other childrens bodies are found, though not all of them are related to the first case. Logan is also recovering from a break-up with his girlfriend, who happens to be the medical examiner/pathologist. I had a really hard time putting this book down—stayed up later than usual to finish it, in fact. The writing was very compelling and the story was quite interesting. While mostly a bleak, dark book, MacBride does inject enough humor into it so that it doesn’t feel quite so grim. And I really do like Logan. However, after I finished it and thought back, there was much about the book and the procedures, etc. that I found to question. Perhaps police procedure works differently in Aberdeen, but it seemed to me that Logan, as a Detective Sergeant, had a whole lot more direct involvement, leadership responsibility and latitude with his activity than most other DS’s I’ve read about in other series, who seem to be assigned a lot of mundane detail work while the Detective Inspectors and higher do the actual investigation. He basically solves all the cases—obviously he’s brilliant, so why is he still a DS? As often happens I did figure out most of the cases well ahead of the police—these nice juicy obvious clues kept falling right in the reader’s lap! LOL Also, the interconnections of all the various cases just seemed a little too pat, too coincidental. While not a sprawling metropolitan area, Aberdeen does have over 200,000 people and it just doesn’t seem likely that these cases could all connect up like they did. There was also a lot of repetition with regard to descriptions—of the weather, especially. Yes, it was rainy and snowy. We get it. How many ways and times can that (or can wet and miserable policemen) be described without becoming tiresome? At any rate, despite those negatives, I am quite excited about this series and am looking forward to the next one but I’m hoping MacBride learns to tighten things up a bit and makes the plots more plausible in future works. B+
19. THE WOLVES OF SAVERNAKE by Edward Marston. #1 Domesday medieval mystery set about twenty years after William the Conqueror takes Britain by storm. Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are traveling around compiling The Domesday Book, in which a sort of census is taken along with recording what lands are owned by whom so that the appropriate taxes can be paid to the King. Summoned to the town of Bedwyn near Savernake Forest by the local miller regarding a dispute with the local Abbey over some tracts of land, Ralph and Gervase arrive only to discover that Alric the miller has died--the apparent victim of a brutal wolf attack--throat ripped out and bleeding in the stream. This seems a little too coincidental for our sleuths, and they set out to find who stood to lose by the knowledge the miller would have given to the King's men. I quite enjoyed this introduction to the characters of Ralph and Gervase, with a solution to the murders that I didn't see coming at all. Lots of period detail and atmosphere which was excellent, though the writing style on the whole is just a bit dry in places. I have a couple more of these and will definitely continue on reading, though. B+
20. FLUSH by Carl Hiaasen (audio) Another of Hiaasen's YA books, the theme for this one (like HOOT) is Florida and saving wildlife and the environment. Noah Underwood's father is in jail...again. He's not a bad guy, he just has "principles." He KNOWS that the scumbag owner of a gambling boat dumps raw sewage into the water (instead of the holding tanks they're supposed to use) so he...well, he sinks the boat. Determined to get the public aware and on his side, Mr. Underwood conducts a media campaign from his jail cell. Noah, determined to help his father get the proof he needs, contacts "Lice" (so-named for obvious reasons!) Peking, a former employee of the casino owner--who subsequently goes missing after agreeing to help them. But the Underwoods don't give up that easily, although MRS. Underwood wishes they would, and their marriage is hanging by a precarious thread, much to Noah's dismay. Chock full of Hiaasen's usual quirky characters (including Noah's sister Abby) and environmental themes, this book wasn't as good as Hoot but was still a great listen,with some laugh out loud moments as well as serious issues dealt with, and I have put more of Hiaasen's work on my library download list. B+
21. THREE CAN KEEP A SECRET by Judy Clemens. #2 in the Stella Crown mystery series featuring the amateur sleuth who also is a dairy farmer. Stella sets out to begin life anew after the events of the first book left her good friend and farmhand Howie dead, and herself recovering from a serious motorcycle accident. The first order of business is to hire a new hand. Enter Lucy, a young widowed woman with a little girl, who seems to know her way around a barn and whom Stella likes immediately. But when an anonymous caller warns her off Lucy and there's a visit from Child Protective Services--and then someone paints nasty graffiti directed at Lucy on Stella's barn, Stella begins to wonder if she made the right choice in hiring her. Added to that mystery is Stella's biker friend Lenny, a big teddy bear of a man who it seems has a checkered past which is now coming back to haunt him. Attempted break-ins at his store and home and a brutal attack on his business partner devastate Lenny as he works to confront his demons. I really enjoy this series; the writing style is great, it reads quickly and smoothly and I like the characterizations, too, and am learning a lot about the Mennonite culture--although Stella isn't Mennonite, many of the characters in her series are. The mystery wasn't too much of a mystery in this one, and I'm getting a little weary of Stella's apparently emotionally-stunted personality (for someone so strong and independent, she has a hard time facing personal things) but I still enjoyed it a lot and have put the next one on my library list as they are hard to come by at PBS. B+
22. ALONE AT NIGHT by KJ Erickson. #4 (and as far as I can tell, the last) in the Mars Bahr police procedural series set in Minneapolis. This book tells a case that Mars & Nettie are working on as part of the Cold Case Unit, this one investigating three unsolved convenience store abductions from years previously. The one that intrigues and haunts Mars is the one where a body was never found, having occurred 19 years previously when a seventeen-year-old student named Andrea Bergstad disappeared from the isolated, rural One Stop where she was about to finish her shift. There were precious few clues even back then, and Mars heads back to Redstone Township to talk with the then-sheriff, Sig Sampson, to get a better feel for the case. Of course digging in the past can often dredge up things that someone doesn't want brought to light, and it's not long before Mars believes there is a present-day tie to the case that might be dangerous for anyone looking to discover what really happened to Andrea. This was an excellent entry in the series, although I have mixed feelings about the ending. I wonder whether the author knew this would be the last book--though with several things not resolved, I can't help but think not. It always saddens me when a series that I started out being slightly ambivalent about begins to blossom and then just drops off the face of the earth just as I'm getting truly addicted to it. I keep hoping there will be more. A.
Currently reading: Haven't decided yet!
DNF: After listening for 3 hours, I finally decided to give up on 44 SCOTLAND STREET by Alexander McCall Smith. It’s not that the story is bad—although there isn’t much happening, it’s an interesting peek at the lives of a few wildly different people living in a building in Edinburgh, Scotland. The reason I’m quitting is the reader, who does a very poor job of differentiating between the characters’ voices and often seems to slur his words or try to read parts too fast. I do have the print copy of this and may eventually pick up where I left off in the audio, but no way could I look forward to another 9 hours of listening to (checks audio details) Robert Ian Mackenzie! Why couldn’t they get Sean Connery to read this? LOL
I also tried reading DEATH OF A RED HEROINE by Qiu Xiaolong, which I found to be dry and rather tedious and the main character didn't interest me much. As it was a very long book for a series mystery, I gave up after 50 pages or so, not wanting to slog through another 400+ of the same.
Cheryl
2. THE MAGICIAN’S APPRENTICE by Trudi Canavan. Prequel to the Black Magician fantasy trilogy, taking place several hundred years before the first book in that series. This is the story of Tessia, a commoner in Kyralia who is a healer’s daughter and who wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps. But women in Kyralia are not allowed to be healers, so when an episode of attempted rape by a visiting Sachakan magician reveals that Tessia is a natural magician, she becomes a second apprentice to Lord Dakon, who holds the ley her family lives in. First learning control of her magic lest she cause serious damage to her surroundings, Tessia’s goal is to figure out a way to incorporate healing with her magic, which has to that point not been done. A few months after she is apprenticed, she heads off to Imardin, the capital city, with Lord Dakon and his first apprentice (who is of noble blood and doesn’t like Tessia much) to meet the king, beginning a series of political intrigues and growing experiences for Tessia, both as a magician and as a person. I really wanted to love this book as I did the previously-published trilogy, but it really fell flat. Canavan is a good writer, with an easy-to-read style, but the story in this book was just….well, rather ho-hum. None of the characters really stirred me to either liking or hating them much, and while the story did explain some of the events that occurred later in the trilogy, it wasn’t done with the panache I had expected. The best I can say about the book is that it was okay. I don’t think writing prequels is an easy thing, and I will be on the lookout for more work by this author, but I hope she’s planning something new. C+
3. INNOCENT GRAVES by Peter Robinson. #8 Chief Inspector Alan Banks British police procedural set in rural Yorkshire. A young schoolgirl from the local private girls’ school is found strangled in a graveyard on a foggy November night. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Her body was arranged like a sex crime, but she hadn’t been raped or sexually assaulted in any way. Or was this some personal crime against Deborah Harrison herself, she being the daughter of a wealthy computer company mogul? A likely suspect is found in a local college teacher who was seen in the area at the right time, and he even had some of Deborah’s blood and hair on his jacket. He maintains his innocence and said she did bump into him on a bridge in the fog, but the police, wanting a quick solution for the girl’s powerful father, latch onto Owen Pierce and are determined to make the evidence fit. A few months later, he’s acquitted and a short time after his release, another girl is killed in similar fashion—again with some of his hairs on her jacket and some fingerprints on a film canister found nearby. Inspector Banks takes awhile to come around but believes Pierce is being set up, but by whom? Well, duh. I sussed the bad guy out right away and even guessed accurately at the reason why, but the actual clues that would let you figure it out didn’t come til later. It was still a great read despite my instinctive ‘knowing’ who the bad guy was ahead of time. This book didn’t feature just Banks—much of the story was told from the viewpoint of Owen Pierce and also some from other characters, including one of Banks’ subordinates, an ambitious detective who put together the first case against Pierce. Looking forward to the next! A.
4. CHARLIE BONE AND THE TIME TWISTER by Jenny Nimmo (audio) #2 Children of the Red King children’s fantasy series in which Charlie meets a boy of about his age that he first saw in a photograph at home—and who is actually his great-great-uncle Henry, sent forward through time by his evil cousin Zeke using a Time Twister—a marble with magical powers. Of course, evil cousin Zeke is none other than Ezekiel Bloor, now head of the same Bloor family that runs Charlie’s school. When the Bloors find out that Henry Yewbeam has been spotted in the school, they do everything in their power to attempt to capture him as Charlie and his group of friends do their best to protect the poor, baffled Henry, who arrived from 1916 and would be totally sunk on his own. Another enjoyable entry in this interesting children’s fantasy series, and I look forward to the third one soon. A.
5. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Didion (audio) A memoir of this writer’s life in the year after her husband of nearly forty years, author John Gregory Dunne, died suddenly of a heart attack at the dinner table. At the time, their only child, Quintana, a newlywed, was hospitalized and on a ventilator, having developed a septic infection from pneumonia, and after her eventual release a month later, then developed blood clots which led her to be on anticoagulants, which then resulted in a cerebral hemorrhage and coma a few weeks later. As you can imagine, Joan’s life was thrown into utter turmoil, and while she maintained an outward calm, inside her body was compensating by failing to emotionally accept some things. For example, she refused to give away her husband’s last pair of shoes, because she felt he would be upset at not having any when he came back. She called her year of grief her year of magical thinking because she believed that many impossible things were utterly true. The reader for this book set the tone very well, I thought, and it was difficult to stop listening much as people gather to watch the after-effects of a horrible accident. I have to say that I am glad it was short, though (only about 5 hours) or I might have stopped eventually. The tone was quite detached, almost cold, and at times I was irritated at the author’s description of privilege—the best doctors, the best hospitals, the best hotels—and I wondered how she would have handled her grief if she had been a poor housewife from Brooklyn with no money who had to find a job after her husband’s death. Still, it was an interesting book and very far my usual fare, and I can say that I felt it a worthwhile listen, although “enjoy” would be the wrong word. B.
6. ACCOMODATING BROCOLLI IN THE CEMETARY: OR, WHY CAN’T ANYONE SPELL? By Vivian Cook. I’m not really sure what the purpose of the book is supposed to be. I thought it was somewhat of a rant against bad spellers, but it isn’t, really. It’s a mixed bag of things cobbled together into a hodge podge of semi-related things—tests that see how well you can spell, blurbs about the evolution of the English language and how some words evolved over time, a review of some of the rules and fallacies of spelling, including the “i before e except after c” rule (which doesn’t hold much water, by the way) and various and sundry other things. There were photos of stupid spelling mistakes in newspapers (but they weren’t very good ones) and lists of differences between English English and American English, quotations from various famous people about spelling, lists of ways our modern culture has bastardized the language further with things like internet acronyms, texting language, etc. It was very poorly organized without a clear mission that I could glean. I love words and bits about their origins and the evolution of the language, but these bits weren’t even that well-done. (Oh yes; there was a section about hyphenated words too. LOL) I think the author wrote it just because he was pissed off that people think he’s a woman because his name is Vivian. I dunno! I wouldn’t really recommend the book. It took me about an hour to read through it and I was decidedly unimpressed. D.
7. KILLER’S CHOICE by Ed McBain #5 in the 87th Precinct police procedural series set in fictional Isola (modeled after New York.) Published the year I was born, some people would call this book “dated,” which, admittedly it is. But it’s a wonderful time capsule too, and I have to wonder if McBain deliberately set out to accomplish that, if he had any idea how long-lasting his series would be. The opening paragraph lets you know you’ve gone back in time as it talks about “eight dollar Scotch and twenty-five-cent wine” bottles broken together on a liquor store floor. I’m not even sure you can buy a bottle of eight dollar Scotch these days, and that was the expensive stuff back then. LOL There are numerous other clues—twenty-one-cent-a-gallon gas, a policeman’s salary of $3,800 a year, and phone numbers with an exchange listed rather than just a number. All that aside, McBain writes an enjoyable detective story, and already at this point in the series, I’m a big fan of Steve Carella, Meyer Meyer, Bert Kling and the rest of the gang. A young woman employed in a liquor store is brutally shot to death four times, the stock in the store smashed to smithereens. They get several different pictures of who the young woman was—one from her mother, another from her ex-husband, and still another from friends. I had an inkling about who the killer was at the time they were introduced, but the clues as to how it was done weren’t really revealed until the end of the book—and I’d have missed them anyway, as a knowledge as to ‘how certain things were done’ would have been needed to figure it out. I still enjoyed this very much and look forward to the next one. B+
8. KITTY GOES TO WASHINGTON by Carrie Vaughn. #2 Kitty Norville paranormal series featuring the radio talk show hostess who is also a werewolf. Kitty, now traveling around the country doing her night time talk show from different cities, has been subpoenaed by a Congressional Committee to testify regarding an ongoing research project into the causes and potential cures of the ‘supernatural’ races like vampires, werewolves, and the like. She’s never been to the nation’s capital and hopes to combine some sightseeing with her testimony. That doesn’t happen, though, as she is waylaid by the city’s Vampire leader on the way to her hotel, commandeered to Alette’s townhouse and warned of rogue lycanthropes who may want to harm Kitty. She doesn’t know whether to trust Alette and her lackeys and does eventually hooks up with a sexy Brazilian were-jaguar named Luis (he purrs! LOL) whom she met at a party. Luis leads her to a bar that is a hangout for weres—there is no pack, no leader and the place exudes comfort and friendship. Was Alette lying, or are things not as they really seem? Kitty also finally meets the head of the research project she’s testifying about. She isn’t sure whether to trust Dr. Paul Flemming either—he’s been nothing but evasive when she’s tried to speak to him in the past and this is no exception. She knows she doesn’t trust Senator Duke, who is looking for a witch hunt (rather, a were-hunt) and wants Congress to declare open season on all ‘abominable creatures of the devil’ like weres and vampires. But who among those she’s met of the supernatural community has her best interests at heart? She finds out the hard way in a stunning climax that shocks not only Kitty but the whole world. Very enjoyable read—I really like Kitty, and I find the world that Vaughn has created to be believable and plausible, and I like that she is able to incorporate a bit of a sex for her heroine without making romance andsex so pervasive that it takes over the story. Glad to have the next couple in the series here waiting patiently for me. A.
9. THE GHOST WAR by Alex Berenson. #2 John Wells spy thriller in which two incidents, one in Afghanistan and the other involving China and North Korea, entwine to bring about potential disaster. John goes into Afghanistan on a mission to find out who is helping the Taliban. The usual ragtag bands of guerrillas are noticed to be more organized, well-equipped and prepared, and there’s rumor of ‘white’ soldiers helping them. Russians? Or a band of mercenaries? Satellite intelligence gleaned leads the Americans to believe that they need to find out. While John is in the Middle Eastern mountains fighting for his very life, Jennifer Exley, his girlfriend, is working with their boss on ferreting out a recently-discovered mole who betrayed a nuclear scientist in North Korea, leaving him and his American rescue team dead. A fairly typical spy novel, filled with political intrigue, deception, the very latest in spy vs. spy technology and even a modicum of diplomacy. There wasn’t a whole lot of character development since the last book, in fact, I felt like Wells stepped backwards somewhat into the grayness of the pages and became more of a ghost himself. This was a decent read, but a bit of a disappointment after the excellent first in series. If I were prone to spouting clichés, I would say this is probably the author suffering from the ‘sophomore slump.’ I like a good spy novel, but I can’t live on a steady diet of them, so while I have the third one in this series here, I think it’ll be awhile before I get to reading it. I hope things pick up somewhat, as this author has obvious talent. B.
10. THE TAINTED RELIC by “The Medieval Murderers” (audio) The Medieval Murderers is a combination of five historical mystery authors—Michael Jecks, Ian Morson, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight, Philip Gooden and Simon Beaufort—yes, that’s six, but Beaufort is actually the same person as Susanna Gregory who has a different series. Each write a short story about their sleuth as a cursed relic (a piece of the “true cross” of Christ) crosses their path leaving murder and mayhem in its’ wake. I wasn’t sure if I’d like this setup or not, but I actually really enjoyed it. A couple of the authors I’d never encountered before, and particularly liked the writing style of Ian Morson, enough to seek out the first in his Falconer series. I’m not particularly fond of Michael Jecks—at least, the one book of his I’ve read I wasn’t wild about, but I’m going to give him another try—but it came off okay in the audio version; it was my least favorite of the stories though. Two of my favorite sleuths were included—Bernard Knight’s Crowner John de Wolfe and Susanna Gregory’s Matthew Bartholomew. The reader for the book was excellent, using many different voices and accents over the course of the story. I have a couple of these combination books on my TBR pile in print—we’ll see if the stories are as appealing that way as this one was in the audio version. Some of the later ones cobble different authors into the mix. Well done and quite enjoyable, it didn’t seem like it was a 15-hour listen! A.
11. THE PESTHOUSE by Jim Crace. Not sure how to classify this—I guess it would be sort of speculative, post-apocalyptic fiction of sorts. It’s the story, mainly, of two people—Margaret and Franklin—and seems to be set in the future, a future in which America as we know it has disappeared. We’re back to wood and bone implements, handmade homespun clothing, horse-drawn transportation (if we’re lucky!), no electricity and a rather bleak landscape in which people are leaving the country in droves—by ship. However, human seem to have changed little, and our age-old cruelty to one another, greediness, hunger for power and self-preservation instinct seems to have survived whatever catastrophe took place. And as always, small pockets of goodness and unselfishness will be found, too, if you look hard enough. Franklin and his brother Jackson, young men in their twenties, set out eastward for the sea after their father’s death and the family farm fails, leaving their mother to hold down the fort and knowing they probably won’t see her again. Margaret, a single woman in her 30’s who developed a flux of some sort, is quarantined in a hut on the edge of town—Ferrytown—with her head and body hair shaved off, basically left to either die or survive by her family, in hopes that they aren’t already afflicted. Through a set of bizarre circumstances, Franklin and Margaret end up traveling together eastward, then become separated, and end up together again towards the end of the book. Initially I found the book mesmerizing and couldn’t put it down, but later wanted more information about what had happened to land America in such a state, and that information really wasn’t forthcoming—just a lot of ‘teaser’ kind of clues. Franklin and Margaret’s stories became a bit stale after awhile, though it was a good book overall and I did come away with some things to think about and ponder. The ending was quite satisfying if a little predictable, and had the book been a bit less bogged down in the middle, my overall opinion would have been higher. B+.
12. A FATAL GRACE by Louise Penny. #2 Three Pines mystery set in a small village outside Quebec, Ontario and featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. When a vile newcomer, CC de Poitiers, who moved into the old Hadley house, is deliberately electrocuted while in the middle of a frozen pond watching a curling match on Boxing Day, Chief Inspector Gamache is once again dispatched to Three Pines to work on the murder. No one liked CC—she was mean, viscious and cruel to virtually everyone she encountered, most noticeably to her own pubescent daughter. But who had means, motive and opportunity to do the wannabe Martha Stewart in in such a complicated and bizarre way? Gamache’s team ponders, puzzles and gets stuck in Three Pines in a snowstorm, and eventually they figure it out. There are a couple of red herrings, but I did have a gut feeling about the killer early on and I was right, though I did doubt myself for quite some time. Wonderful mystery, delightful characters, food descriptions that you can almost smell wafting off the pages, and a writing style that just keeps you wanting more. Humorous at times, yet poignant, rich in the Quebecois culture, there’s a bit of everything. I’m glad I have the third one here but I fear I won’t be able to keep my hands off it for long. Excellent! A+
13. THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH by Rick Riordan. (audio) #4 Percy Jackson and the Olympians YA fantasy series. I really enjoy this series a lot! Percy, AnnaBeth, Grover and their friends are off again on another quest, this time to navigate the labyrinth made by Daedalus, who was also the infamous designer of the wings stuck on with wax that caused his son Icarus to fall when he flew too close to the sun and the wax melted. The half-bloods believe that Luke, their arch-nemesis who has an allegiance with the Titan Kronos, has found a way to easily get to Camp Half-Blood through the Labyrinth and seek to find that path and block it. Meanwhile, Grover sets out with them determined to find the god Pan, given one last chance to do so before his Seeker’s license is revoked by the Council. Percy, fast approaching fifteen, has his share of girl trouble in this episode too, with the usual adolescent confusions that go with it. Another action-packed adventure, with some humor and some very serious moments too. There’s one more installment, and Percy will be turning sixteen, when everyone finds out if his prophecy—whether he will save or destroy Mount Olympus—comes to pass. Excellent stuff, wonderful reader (Jesse Bernstein) who does a multitude of male and female, old and young, human and creature voices very well. A+
14. WHO COOKED THE LAST SUPPER? THE WOMEN’S HISTORY OF THE WORLD by Rosalind Miles. Nonfiction history, from ancient to modern times, as it relates to women’s place in history. Spans the gamut from religious to political history, and this book is difficult to read without getting quite angry at times, me being a woman and all, and a majority of the book being about how women have been second-class citizens since, as the author wryly puts it, ‘the rise of the phallus.’ Viewed as simply man’s property for much of recorded history, women have had to fight tooth and nail for basic human rights. This is a glimpse into how things were through time, from the beginning (when women were revered) and with specific views at different cultures and microcosms. Also points out notable exceptions to the rule of the day, wherever and whenever that might be, with information about various “famous women” but also about how things were for the ‘average Jane’ of the times. I learned a lot reading this book, but despite the author’s attempts at injecting some humor into it, I did read it in small bits rather than devour it in large chunks as it tended to get quite dry in places. A very worthwhile read, though. B+
15. CAT’S EYEWITNESS by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown. (audio) #13 in the Mrs. Murphy mysteries set in Crozet, Virginia and featuring not only the wise tabby cat but her friends Pewter the fat gray cat and Tucker, the Welsh Corgi. And let’s not forget their human, Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen. Thanksgiving in Crozet should be a relaxed and happy time, and it is, until Harry’s friend Susan’s great-uncle Thomas, a monk at the local monastery dies, praying in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary that had begun crying tears of blood. Harry, ever the skeptic, wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t witnessed the phenomenon herself. Brother Thomas was over 80, so his death wasn’t investigated as suspicious, but when a reporter who had broken the story about the Virgin also ends up dead, very obviously murdered, Harry’s ‘something’s not right’ antennae start twitching and she starts asking pointed questions, much to the chagrin of her friends and family and Sheriff Rick Shaw. Personally, Harry is a bit at loose ends, having quit her job at the Post Office, and is investigating growing grapes and starting a vineyard. And Fair, her ex-husband, has put more pressure on her with regard to his oft repeated proposal of re-marriage, too. The mystery was fairly straightforward, but I’ve come to love these characters more and more as the series wears on, and I’ve also grown fond of this reader, Kate Forbes, too. I found it hard to stop listening to this one and had to find things to do to occupy me so I could finish it. And now my bathrooms are really, really clean. LOL I’m glad my library has all of these available for audio download—I’ve already got the next one on my list. A.
16. FLESH AND BONE by Jefferson Bass. #2 in the Body Farm mysteries featuring Dr. Bill Brockton, founder of the research institute dedicated to learning more about how we decompose. In the first book, I enjoyed the forensic parts but was not crazy about the main character, and that trend continued in this book. For all that Dr. Bill Brockton is the consummate “nice guy,” I just can’t get attached to him, nor do I really care much about him—even when he’s suspected of murder. He’s just boring milquetoast for me. But I *did* enjoy the forensic aspect of the book a lot—if not for that, it’s doubtful I would have continued reading it. Lots of gory details, so if you’re squeamish, I wouldn’t read this book. Bill gets embroiled in the creationism/intelligent design vs. evolution debate in this book as well as working on the murder of a guy dressed in women’s clothes that appears to be a hate crime. When a colleague of Bill’s—whom he just happens to have slept with also—ends up murdered and displayed in his own Body Farm on top of the body they’re using to research that hate crime murder, he is a strong suspect in the case. Can’t see why, when ‘whodunit’ was as plain as the nose on your face, at least to me. I’m debating whether to continue on in this series or not. The whole package just seems really uninspired, great forensic details or no. One of those, “It wasn’t really bad...it was okay, BUT”...kind of books. C+
17. THE BLADE ITSELF by Joe Abercrombie. #1 in The First Law fantasy trilogy. Set in a world beset by war and utterly devoid of magic, this book tells the story of several very different characters. Loren Ninefingers, an aptly named mercenary who has survived many wars, battles and skirmishes; Sand dan Glokta, a former fencing champion turned Inquisitor, a master of torture after his eight-year experience in an enemy prison leave him crippled and disfigured both physically and emotionally; Jezal dan Luthar, a young nobleman of privilege who has yet to see war and who is hoping to win the upcoming summer fencing Contest. Several other peripheral characters come into play as well, and the world is about to see Magic and all the myths and legends that were thought to be just children’s stories come back to life as Bayaz, the First of the Magi, makes himself known as the country is thrown into war from two directions. The king is a puppet, his heir a worthless fop, and his advisors plot and scheme to gain control of the government. A multi-layered tale, well-written and interesting to read. While this had many of the elements of your ‘classic’ fantasy tale, it was decidedly darker than some, but all the better for it, I thought—me not being a big fan of knights in shining armor and all that rot. I like a world where the lines between good and evil are more realistically drawn, blurred and gray in many places, much like our own world. The characters were well-fleshed, imperfect and varied, and it will be interesting to follow their stories into the next book, which I thankfully have here already. Well-done! A+.
18. COLD GRANITE by Stuart MacBride. #1 Logan MacRae Scottish police procedural series. DS MacRae, on his first day back to work after a year-long medical leave following a stabbing that left him near-dead, ends up as lead investigator on a child murder case—the months-dead body of a four-year-old boy found in a ditch who appears to have been tortured and sexually abused. Logan was supposed to be gently transitioned back into work, but this murder kicks off a couple of weeks from hell, in which several other childrens bodies are found, though not all of them are related to the first case. Logan is also recovering from a break-up with his girlfriend, who happens to be the medical examiner/pathologist. I had a really hard time putting this book down—stayed up later than usual to finish it, in fact. The writing was very compelling and the story was quite interesting. While mostly a bleak, dark book, MacBride does inject enough humor into it so that it doesn’t feel quite so grim. And I really do like Logan. However, after I finished it and thought back, there was much about the book and the procedures, etc. that I found to question. Perhaps police procedure works differently in Aberdeen, but it seemed to me that Logan, as a Detective Sergeant, had a whole lot more direct involvement, leadership responsibility and latitude with his activity than most other DS’s I’ve read about in other series, who seem to be assigned a lot of mundane detail work while the Detective Inspectors and higher do the actual investigation. He basically solves all the cases—obviously he’s brilliant, so why is he still a DS? As often happens I did figure out most of the cases well ahead of the police—these nice juicy obvious clues kept falling right in the reader’s lap! LOL Also, the interconnections of all the various cases just seemed a little too pat, too coincidental. While not a sprawling metropolitan area, Aberdeen does have over 200,000 people and it just doesn’t seem likely that these cases could all connect up like they did. There was also a lot of repetition with regard to descriptions—of the weather, especially. Yes, it was rainy and snowy. We get it. How many ways and times can that (or can wet and miserable policemen) be described without becoming tiresome? At any rate, despite those negatives, I am quite excited about this series and am looking forward to the next one but I’m hoping MacBride learns to tighten things up a bit and makes the plots more plausible in future works. B+
19. THE WOLVES OF SAVERNAKE by Edward Marston. #1 Domesday medieval mystery set about twenty years after William the Conqueror takes Britain by storm. Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are traveling around compiling The Domesday Book, in which a sort of census is taken along with recording what lands are owned by whom so that the appropriate taxes can be paid to the King. Summoned to the town of Bedwyn near Savernake Forest by the local miller regarding a dispute with the local Abbey over some tracts of land, Ralph and Gervase arrive only to discover that Alric the miller has died--the apparent victim of a brutal wolf attack--throat ripped out and bleeding in the stream. This seems a little too coincidental for our sleuths, and they set out to find who stood to lose by the knowledge the miller would have given to the King's men. I quite enjoyed this introduction to the characters of Ralph and Gervase, with a solution to the murders that I didn't see coming at all. Lots of period detail and atmosphere which was excellent, though the writing style on the whole is just a bit dry in places. I have a couple more of these and will definitely continue on reading, though. B+
20. FLUSH by Carl Hiaasen (audio) Another of Hiaasen's YA books, the theme for this one (like HOOT) is Florida and saving wildlife and the environment. Noah Underwood's father is in jail...again. He's not a bad guy, he just has "principles." He KNOWS that the scumbag owner of a gambling boat dumps raw sewage into the water (instead of the holding tanks they're supposed to use) so he...well, he sinks the boat. Determined to get the public aware and on his side, Mr. Underwood conducts a media campaign from his jail cell. Noah, determined to help his father get the proof he needs, contacts "Lice" (so-named for obvious reasons!) Peking, a former employee of the casino owner--who subsequently goes missing after agreeing to help them. But the Underwoods don't give up that easily, although MRS. Underwood wishes they would, and their marriage is hanging by a precarious thread, much to Noah's dismay. Chock full of Hiaasen's usual quirky characters (including Noah's sister Abby) and environmental themes, this book wasn't as good as Hoot but was still a great listen,with some laugh out loud moments as well as serious issues dealt with, and I have put more of Hiaasen's work on my library download list. B+
21. THREE CAN KEEP A SECRET by Judy Clemens. #2 in the Stella Crown mystery series featuring the amateur sleuth who also is a dairy farmer. Stella sets out to begin life anew after the events of the first book left her good friend and farmhand Howie dead, and herself recovering from a serious motorcycle accident. The first order of business is to hire a new hand. Enter Lucy, a young widowed woman with a little girl, who seems to know her way around a barn and whom Stella likes immediately. But when an anonymous caller warns her off Lucy and there's a visit from Child Protective Services--and then someone paints nasty graffiti directed at Lucy on Stella's barn, Stella begins to wonder if she made the right choice in hiring her. Added to that mystery is Stella's biker friend Lenny, a big teddy bear of a man who it seems has a checkered past which is now coming back to haunt him. Attempted break-ins at his store and home and a brutal attack on his business partner devastate Lenny as he works to confront his demons. I really enjoy this series; the writing style is great, it reads quickly and smoothly and I like the characterizations, too, and am learning a lot about the Mennonite culture--although Stella isn't Mennonite, many of the characters in her series are. The mystery wasn't too much of a mystery in this one, and I'm getting a little weary of Stella's apparently emotionally-stunted personality (for someone so strong and independent, she has a hard time facing personal things) but I still enjoyed it a lot and have put the next one on my library list as they are hard to come by at PBS. B+
22. ALONE AT NIGHT by KJ Erickson. #4 (and as far as I can tell, the last) in the Mars Bahr police procedural series set in Minneapolis. This book tells a case that Mars & Nettie are working on as part of the Cold Case Unit, this one investigating three unsolved convenience store abductions from years previously. The one that intrigues and haunts Mars is the one where a body was never found, having occurred 19 years previously when a seventeen-year-old student named Andrea Bergstad disappeared from the isolated, rural One Stop where she was about to finish her shift. There were precious few clues even back then, and Mars heads back to Redstone Township to talk with the then-sheriff, Sig Sampson, to get a better feel for the case. Of course digging in the past can often dredge up things that someone doesn't want brought to light, and it's not long before Mars believes there is a present-day tie to the case that might be dangerous for anyone looking to discover what really happened to Andrea. This was an excellent entry in the series, although I have mixed feelings about the ending. I wonder whether the author knew this would be the last book--though with several things not resolved, I can't help but think not. It always saddens me when a series that I started out being slightly ambivalent about begins to blossom and then just drops off the face of the earth just as I'm getting truly addicted to it. I keep hoping there will be more. A.
Currently reading: Haven't decided yet!
DNF: After listening for 3 hours, I finally decided to give up on 44 SCOTLAND STREET by Alexander McCall Smith. It’s not that the story is bad—although there isn’t much happening, it’s an interesting peek at the lives of a few wildly different people living in a building in Edinburgh, Scotland. The reason I’m quitting is the reader, who does a very poor job of differentiating between the characters’ voices and often seems to slur his words or try to read parts too fast. I do have the print copy of this and may eventually pick up where I left off in the audio, but no way could I look forward to another 9 hours of listening to (checks audio details) Robert Ian Mackenzie! Why couldn’t they get Sean Connery to read this? LOL
I also tried reading DEATH OF A RED HEROINE by Qiu Xiaolong, which I found to be dry and rather tedious and the main character didn't interest me much. As it was a very long book for a series mystery, I gave up after 50 pages or so, not wanting to slog through another 400+ of the same.
Cheryl
Monday, February 9, 2009
FEBRUARY 2009 READING
1. THE LAST WITNESS by K.J. Erickson. #3 Marshall “Mars” Bahr police procedural series set in Minneapolis. Mars has two weeks left before he and Nettie jump ship from the Minneapolis police department to start working for the state’s expanding cold case squad. What he doesn’t need is a hugely high-profile case, but that’s exactly what he gets when one of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ basketball players’ wives is found murdered in her home and “T-Jack” is a prime suspect—but he has an air-tight alibi, having been in a conference with his wife’s parents present at the time of her murder. The new police chief, who is a media hound and not at all adept at handling this type of case, promises a quick resolution and Mars is doing his best to make that come true, if only so he can leave the department with a clean slate. Of course things are never that simple and there seems to be obstacles at every turn, but eventually Mars comes up with a solution—one that I totally didn’t see coming. On a personal level, Mars’ son Chris is growing up and his ex-wife has a new beau that Chris isn’t fond of. Mars has some hard choices to make both personally and professionally in this book and manages to rise to the occasion like a pro. This is by far my favorite in the series so far. Lots of seat-of-your pants action, a great visit with some characters that finally started to flesh out and grow on me in the last book, and a wonderful portrayal of the Twin Cities area by someone who obviously lives here. I am looking forward to the next—and unfortunately, I believe the last—book in this series. A+
2. THE BODY IN THE TRANSEPT by Jeanne M. Dams. #1 Dorothy Martin mystery. Dorothy is a widowed American whose husband had been a professor and guest lecturer, so when it came time to settle down on her own, she chose to relocate to a village in England, which she’d come to love on visits there over the years. It’s Dorothy’s first Christmas without Frank and her first in England, and it’s destined to be an eventful one, when she stumbles across the dead body of a canon in a darkened side transept after Christmas Eve services at the cathedral. Canon Billings was almost universally disliked so there’s no shortage of suspects, and Dorothy, a fan of British mysteries, feels compelled to look into things on her own since she has a connection to the case, finding the body and all. Doing so seems to help lift her out of the depression she’d been feeling, but it’s bound to get her in hot water with the local police force. This was an okay first effort—it won some kind of award the year it was written, but I didn’t think it was *that* good. I figured out the bad guy and the essential plot bits fairly early, which is not unusual. I couldn’t really get “into” Dorothy, either—she’s a little too “fussy” for me, I guess—she has an affinity for outlandish hats and a bit too concerned at keeping up appearances. Also, at least in this book, there was just a little too much of the ‘poor me’ thing, related to her recent widowhood, being an outsider, etc. I think that is likely to change as the series goes on, though, and I certainly intend to read on. B.
3. A WHISKER OF EVIL by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown. (Audio) #12 in the series featuring Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen and her cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter and her Welsh Corgi, Tucker. This book opens with Harry finding Barry Monteith, a horse breeder and neighbor, dying, with his throat ripped out in what is assumed to be a wild animal attack. Later, it’s determined that it wasn’t—he was killed by human hands and a knife, but the odd thing is, the autopsy also reveals that he had rabies. Since Barry essentially dies in Harry’s arms, she’s quite shaken and her life goes topsy-turvy when the word of rabies gets out—first in Barry, and then in his business partner who ends up dying from it. The animal control officer, who begins to doggedly investigate the rabies also ends up dead—shot in the head—hours after telling Harry and the Postmaster that according to regulations she can no longer have her animals with her at the Post Office. I always enjoy these books, but this entry in the series was a little darker than some and slightly off-kilter, but that’s possibly due to Harry’s changing circumstances. I spotted the bad guy right away again, but wasn’t sure why the murders were committed until further along as the clues fell into place. Still, a mostly light, enjoyable listen, easy to concentrate on while unpacking and sorting and such. B+
4. CASE HISTORIES by Kate Atkinson. #1 Jackson Brodie mystery, featuring an ex-cop and ex-Army security officer now a private investigator. Mostly Jackson’s work life is boring—following people suspected of having affairs or stealing from their employers and the like. Suddenly though, several interesting cases fall into his lap at once. All deal with the past—two sisters want Jackson to find out what happened to their sister Olivia who disappeared thirty-four years ago when she was just three years old. A still-grieving father wants him to find the murderer of his beloved eighteen-year-old daughter Laura, murdered right in his own law office by a supposed madman in a fit of random violence. And the sister of an axe-murderer wants him to locate her niece, who was a baby at the time and sent to live with her paternal grandparents after her mother apparently murdered her father right in front of her. Tanya, the niece, ends up being a handful and runs away from home as a teenager and no one knows where she’d ended up. Various chapters of the book tell the stories from the point of view of the different people in the stories and I think at least some of them are meant to be Jackson’s supporting cast of characters in future installments, so if this is the case, they become very well fleshed. I loved this book, although I did figure out two of the three mysteries well in advance. The characters are very human, very engaging, a bit eccentric, and yet the author manages to make you cheer and root for them despite their sometimes annoying foibles. Jackson is a peach, and I do look forward to getting to know him better in upcoming series books. Excellent stuff! A+
5. FEAR IN THE FOREST by Bernard Knight. #7 Crowner John medieval mystery set in and around Exeter. Devon’s coroner is investigating doings in the King’s forest in the nearby countryside, spurred by a verderer found with an arrow in his back. There has long been conflict between forest officials and the people who live there, but this is something different. It seems the forest lawmen have taken up with outlaws, using them to enforce their new, stricter and very unreasonable rules. But why? John de Wolfe thinks there must be someone with money and power behind the whole scheme, and even begins to suspect his brother-in-law the sheriff. While I figured out part of the mystery ahead of time, I think a more comprehensive knowledge of medieval laws and political workings would have been needed to sort the whole thing out. On a personal note, John’s mistress Nesta is expecting a baby and when his wife finds out, she leaves in a huff for the nunnery. While Matilda had long known of John’s dalliances, the news that a baby is forthcoming sends her over the edge and she decides to enter the convent as she’s threatened to do for many years. Nesta, rather than being joyful, is despondent over her condition and John is totally perplexed. While I enjoyed the historical aspects of the book (relating to the King’s laws about ‘venison’ and ‘vert’ in the forest) I thought this book was a bit too long and convoluted. At least, there have certainly been better entries in the series. I’ve got several more of these in series waiting and certainly will read them, but I do hope the story itself is a little more tightly put together in upcoming books. B.
6. LIRAEL by Garth Nix. Second of the Abhorsen trilogy, YA fantasy series. This book moves forward in time by about 20 years from the previous book and deals with Sabriel’s son Prince Sameth and with Lirael, a Clayr who has not yet awakened to the Sight despite being fourteen years of age, long past time when most Clayr begin to See into the future. Finally given a job as a Third Assistant Librarian essentially to keep her out of trouble, Lirael meets the Disreputable Dog and begins reading some of the old texts and discovers ways of getting into some of the locked rooms in the Old section of the library. Sam, meanwhile, begins to realize that he does not want to be Abhorsen-in-Waiting and does anything he can to avoid his training and reading The Book of the Dead that his mother has given him to study so that he can begin to assist her in the troubled times ahead. As Sam and Lirael journey from opposite directions to their inevitable meeting, both are dreading what they are sure their future holds for them as they battle the Dead—but of course are in for some big surprises. Very well done second entry in series, left on a bit of a cliffhanger that definitely causes some anticipation of the finale. A.
7. MIDNIGHT FOR CHARLIE BONE by Jenny Nimmo (audio) First in the young adult “Children of the Red King” fantasy series set in England. Charlie Bone is ten years old and lives with his mum and both of his grandmas. Grandma Maisie, his mother’s mum, is kind and friendly. Grandma Bone, his father’s mother, is not. His father died when Charlie was very young, so of financial necessity, they live with Grandma Bone—a perpetually cross, rigid, mean old woman who lords it over Charlie and his mother. Also living in the big old house is Uncle Payton Yewbeam (I thought this was ‘Youbean’ as pronounced by the reader—had to look it up! LOL) who is an odd and slightly sinister fellow. When Charlie discovers he can ‘hear’ photographs—the thoughts of the people in them at the time they were taken—Grandma Bone calls in the three Yewbeam aunts to test Charlie—and since he turns out to be one of the ‘endowed,’ he is sent to Bloor’s Academy, a school where you must be either a genius or endowed with some odd power like Charlie’s. His power means he’s a descendant of the Red King. Charlie is sad to be leaving his best friend Benjamin Brown (and his dog, Runner Bean—that name gave me fits of giggles every time I heard it!) behind, but he does make some new and interesting friends (and enemies!) at the Academy, and his weird uncle turns out to be Charlie’s ally. While a bit predictable in places, I did enjoy this reading (the reader was excellent!) and look forward to listening to the next in series. A-.
8. THE TITAN’S CURSE by Rick Riordan (audio) #3 Percy Jackson and the Olympians YA fantasy. I normally wouldn’t have listened to another book from the same genre one after another by choice, but this one I was on a wait list for, so when it’s your turn to download it, you snap it up while you can. When Percy’s friend AnnaBeth is kidnapped, he naturally wants to be on the quest to rescue her. But her rescue coincides with another disaster—the kidnapping of the Goddess Artemis, and thus her Hunters have a say in who goes along, and Percy is NOT on the guest list! Does that stop him? It does not! He sets out on his own, but then ends up with the selected group. On a strict timetable—the quest must be accomplished and Artemis rescued before the Council of the Gods on the Winter Solstice—Percy, Grover, Thalia, and some of the Hunters are led across country from New York to New Mexico to San Francisco as various bad guys (led by Percy’s old nemesis Luke) and clues fall into place revealing who is behind Luke’s caper and why. Very well done with an excellent reader, loosely educational as information about mythology is imparted in an informal way, and entertaining too, with a just plain great story. A.
9. PARDONABLE LIES by Jacqueline Winspear. #3 Maisie Dobbs historical mystery. In this episode, Maisie is beginning to settle comfortably into her business as a private investigator, but gets pulled to France on two personal cases—one to confirm the death of the son of a friend of a friend, another she’s looking into informally for her good friend Priscilla, to locate where her brother Peter died. She also is working with a very young girl who is accused of murdering her pimp. During the course of her investigations, Maisie has several attempts made on her life, though she’s not sure which investigation has stirred up such a hornet’s nest. She also confronts many of her own demons and ghosts with regards to her service as a nurse during WWI in France. While I did like this book, I found some of the coincidences tying her cases together to be almost so fantastic as to be nearly unbelievable. I figured out some of the mysteries in advance but the final one was a surprise. I like Maisie and look forward to reading the other books in series but I didn’t like this one quite as much as the previous ones—it seemed a bit long and drawn out in places, too. B+
10. DEATH IN DISGUISE by Caroline Graham. #3 Inspector Barnaby English mystery. Set on a large estate that is run and occupied by a New Age religious group. Chief Inspector Barnaby and Sgt. Troy arrive when The Master, the head of the group, is murdered during a regression session. This book was very slow-moving for me, long and drawn out, with much detail about the lives of the members of the group, such that Inspector Barnaby doesn’t even make an entrance until page 133. I liked the other two books in the series, but really found this one tedious and slow-going. I don’t know if it was just that I couldn’t get interested in any of the characters or what, but to be honest by about page 200, I didn’t much care who killed whom and skimmed through to the end. I do intend to read on in the series—mostly because I’ve already got several of the next ones here, and based on the strength of the first couple of books. I guess every author is allowed to have one worm in the apple basket of their work. C-
11. HOOT by Carl Hiaasen. (Audio) Those of you who read this author’s adult humor books might be surprised to know that he also writes for young adults and is actually a Newbery Award winner for this book. I’ve read a couple of Hiassen’s adult books and while I thought they were okay, I just loved the audio version of this YA story. Set in Hiaasen’s beloved Florida, this is the story of Roy Eberhardt, the new kid at Trace Middle School in Coconut Grove, FL, and his shaky alliance of new friends. They band together to save some burrowing owls (a protected species) from greedy land developers and the bigwigs at Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House. Determined not to let Mother Paula’s build their 469th restaurant where the owls are currently nesting, Roy, his friends Beatrice and her nameless stepbrother, a runaway living on the streets, plot to take on the town’s officials, the cops, and the foreman of the construction crew all the while Roy is trying to stay out of the clutches of the town bully. Excellent story, with some of Hiaasen’s typical humor, toned down somewhat for the younger set. Great reader, too. I also understand this book has been made into a movie, and I do plan to watch it soon! A+
12. FOOL by Christopher Moore. The wacky Moore goes all medieval in this spoof of Shakespeare’s King Lear story, this time told from the point of view of his jester, Pocket. With more plot twists and turns than a redundant colon, Moore’s ribald wit permeates the tale, poking fun at not only Shakespeare himself, but all his characters as well. The inept yet cruel King Lear, his grasping, whorish daughters and their power-hungry husbands, and Pocket’s own half-wit apprentice, Drool. It’s been years since I actually read King Lear itself, so (to be honest) I’m sure I missed a whole bunch of parallels and puns. It’s also been a couple of years since I read my last Chris Moore book, and this one seems to me to be much more decidedly raunchy than his previous work. I seem to recall that he used to rely more on actual wit than on adolescent sexual jokes.While I don’t mind irreverent humor at all, this book was so full of it that IMO it detracted somewhat from the story itself. Sort of like an X-rated Austin Powers meets Shakespeare, more or less. There were some definite laugh out loud moments, lots of witty repartee and some stellar prose and verse, and Moore’s portrayal of Pocket as the main character rather than Lear was an interesting take on things. But I have to say that this was definitely not my favorite of Moore’s works and when it was finished, I closed the book more with relief than satisfaction. C.
13. PAGAN EVERY DAY: FINDING THE EXTRAORDINARY IN OUR ORDINARY LIVES by Barbara Ardinger. I actually started reading this ‘page a day’ type book several months ago, periodically picking it up and reading a dozen days’ or so worth of ruminations. Each day of the year has some thoughts from the author—information about a particular God or Goddess, holiday, pantheon, or concept, often tying together ancient beliefs and myths with the modern world. Sometimes she suggested mini-rituals, other times it was just information, and sometimes she encouraged the reader to think about some particular thing that might tie in with that day of the year and explore our thoughts and feelings about things. There were even some challenges to help us to live a “greener” life (‘walk to work or take the bus today if you normally drive,’) or just to be a better person (volunteer for a few hours at a homeless shelter or do something kind for someone you really don’t like) and such. I very much enjoyed the book, although I didn’t always follow through with her suggestions since I was reading several days’ worth of things at a time. But I did learn a LOT—not only about various pagan beliefs, but about ties from pagan and mythological beliefs as the origin for some current modern-day practices. And oh yes, it definitely gave me things to think about! I am going to keep this book on my Keeper shelf and perhaps one year will choose to pick it up and actually go through the days one at a time. A+
14. MURDER ON LENOX HILL by Victoria Thompson. #7 “gaslight” historical mystery set in early 1900’s New York and featuring midwife Sarah Brandt and police detective Frank Malloy. Sarah is referred to speak discreetly with the Linton family to examine their seventeen year old daughter Grace, whom they are concerned might be pregnant. Grace is a ‘simpleton’ with the mind of a five-year-old and Sarah does indeed determine that she is several months along—everyone assumes that she was raped or taken advantage of, but most puzzlingly, Grace denies anyone hurting her. Living a very sheltered life, Grace is never alone with any men, but Sarah doesn’t believe in immaculate conception and is determined to find who fathered Grace’s child. Mr. Linton comes under immediate suspicion, being the only man to see her regularly, but he is ruled out fairly quickly and the trail next leads to the church the Lintons attend, which is where Grace and Mrs. Linton spend some time volunteering, and eventually a murder does occur there, though the main mystery seems to be Grace’s pregnancy. Meanwhile, Malloy is asked by Sarah’s father, socialite Peter Decker, to resume investigating Sarah’s husband’s murder, which took place four years previously—Decker believes Dr. Tom Brandt was a womanizer and wants Malloy to prove it so that Sarah will finally forget about carrying on Tom’s legacy of helping the poor and return to her rightful place in society. Frank Malloy, of course, has other motives for wanting the crime solved. A predictable, light historical read that I did enjoy despite the mystery (all of them, actually) being extremely transparent and easy to solve. B.
15. TRIGGER CITY by Sean Chercover. #2 Ray Dudgeon mystery set in the Windy City of Chicago. In the first book, Ray takes on the mob and in this one, he seems to be tackling the US Government and their covert military operations. Battered, bruised and barely holding things together (physically and psychologically) after his torture and near death some months previously, Ray is hired by a retired military man whose daughter was brutally murdered—shot to death by one of her employees who then turned the gun on himself. Her killer had apparently been suddenly psychotic and paranoid and believed Joan was ‘out to get him’ and thus he ended both their lives. Of course nothing is ever that simple—the fact that Joan was set to testify for a Congressional hearing on defense contract spending had *nothing* to do with her death, I’m sure, right!?—and the fact that that information was kept hushed up is even more telling. Ray ends up in a tangled web of deceit, trying to sort out the good guys from the bad while trying to keep himself alive and mend his broken relationship with ex-girlfriend Jill, and also trying to protect Steven Zhang’s widow and daughter—he being the man who killed Joan and then himself. I like Ray, despite his foibles, and the author’s writing style make the reading of his story easy and appealing. Ray lives in a world of realism where things are never perfect and exist in multiple shades of gray, not ever simplistically black and white or right and wrong—much like real life, I suppose. I hope he lives a long and prolific life and I will be eagerly awaiting the next in series to see which major player he goes up against next. A.
16. WINTER’S CHILD by Margaret Maron (audio) #12 Judge Deborah Knott mystery set in Colleton County, North Carolina. Newly married sheriff’s deputy Dwight Bryant is just settling in to his blissful home life with Judge Deborah but is pulled away from her AND from a murder investigation in which a much-disliked, abusive good ole boy is shot in the back of the head while driving home from work. The summons away from Colleton County is a strange phone call from his eight-year-old son Cal, who lives five hours away in Virginia with his mother. Dwight makes a trip north to see Cal, and then learns that Jonna, his ex-wife, is actually missing. When Cal goes missing, last seen being picked up in front of his house by a woman in a blue parka who was assumed to be Jonna, Dwight frantically tries to figure out what’s going on, as his relationship with Jonna has not, to this point, been antagonistic at all. Jonna’s body is discovered in her car a day later, murdered, and Cal is still missing, so Deborah takes emergency leave to be with her new husband in the search for his son. Back home, Detective Maylene Richards is now in charge of the murder investigation, which continues with too many suspects and not enough opportunities. As a twisted tale of family secrets and prideful deception unfolds, Deborah and Dwight begin to piece together the tale of Jonna’s death in hopes of finding Cal unharmed. Excellent entry in the series, which just seems to get better and better with each one, and as a reader, C.J. Critt is wonderful and never lets me down. A+
17. TAILED by Brian Wiprud. #3 Garth Carson mystery. Garth has turned his rental taxidermy business over to his Russian friend Otto to run and is now an insurance appraiser specializing in taxidermy collections. Traveling around the country to check out various big-game hunters’ collections is something he’s enjoying a lot—until he keeps an appointment for an appraisal and comes across the body of Sprunty Fulmore, Chicago Bears football player and the apparent victim of a big game hunt himself. After awhile, Garth is sent to Denver to do another appraisal but finds himself the object of an FBI investigation since Sprunty was the second of his clients to end up dead—not only dead, but with a white gecko placed in his hand, so the authorities believe there is a serial killer on the loose. When a collector in Denver ends up dead the same way while Garth is there, they’re convinced the killer is Garth himself. Garth learns more about his grandfather, “Kit” Carson, big-game hunter whom he inherited his own stuffed animal collection from, and about a secret society he formed with Native American implications. Now, as the last remaining descendant of the founding members of the Order of the White Gecko, the FBI don’t realize that Garth isn’t the killer but the next intended target. Off on a wild gecko—er, goose—chase across the country, Garth, Angie (his long-time live-in girlfriend) and some crazy people he meets along the way head for New Mexico to try to head off an alien evil spirit that will take over the earth if it manages to get hold of the ‘vuka’ (spirit) inhabiting Garth. Enjoyable, wacky, light read—it’s been quite awhile since I read any Wiprud, and I’m not sure why I was so long in getting back to this. So far this is the last in this series, but Wiprud has several non-series books out there, and I’m glad to say a couple of them are on my shelf. A.
DNF: I did end up giving up on SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING by Amy Tan in audio. I may still actually read the print version, but the audio version was read by the author and it didn't seem very professionally done--the sound volume varied frequently (as though she were moving away and towards the microphone) and just wasn't (IMO) very expressively read. I gave it a good two hours before moving on.
CR:
Cheryl
2. THE BODY IN THE TRANSEPT by Jeanne M. Dams. #1 Dorothy Martin mystery. Dorothy is a widowed American whose husband had been a professor and guest lecturer, so when it came time to settle down on her own, she chose to relocate to a village in England, which she’d come to love on visits there over the years. It’s Dorothy’s first Christmas without Frank and her first in England, and it’s destined to be an eventful one, when she stumbles across the dead body of a canon in a darkened side transept after Christmas Eve services at the cathedral. Canon Billings was almost universally disliked so there’s no shortage of suspects, and Dorothy, a fan of British mysteries, feels compelled to look into things on her own since she has a connection to the case, finding the body and all. Doing so seems to help lift her out of the depression she’d been feeling, but it’s bound to get her in hot water with the local police force. This was an okay first effort—it won some kind of award the year it was written, but I didn’t think it was *that* good. I figured out the bad guy and the essential plot bits fairly early, which is not unusual. I couldn’t really get “into” Dorothy, either—she’s a little too “fussy” for me, I guess—she has an affinity for outlandish hats and a bit too concerned at keeping up appearances. Also, at least in this book, there was just a little too much of the ‘poor me’ thing, related to her recent widowhood, being an outsider, etc. I think that is likely to change as the series goes on, though, and I certainly intend to read on. B.
3. A WHISKER OF EVIL by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown. (Audio) #12 in the series featuring Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen and her cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter and her Welsh Corgi, Tucker. This book opens with Harry finding Barry Monteith, a horse breeder and neighbor, dying, with his throat ripped out in what is assumed to be a wild animal attack. Later, it’s determined that it wasn’t—he was killed by human hands and a knife, but the odd thing is, the autopsy also reveals that he had rabies. Since Barry essentially dies in Harry’s arms, she’s quite shaken and her life goes topsy-turvy when the word of rabies gets out—first in Barry, and then in his business partner who ends up dying from it. The animal control officer, who begins to doggedly investigate the rabies also ends up dead—shot in the head—hours after telling Harry and the Postmaster that according to regulations she can no longer have her animals with her at the Post Office. I always enjoy these books, but this entry in the series was a little darker than some and slightly off-kilter, but that’s possibly due to Harry’s changing circumstances. I spotted the bad guy right away again, but wasn’t sure why the murders were committed until further along as the clues fell into place. Still, a mostly light, enjoyable listen, easy to concentrate on while unpacking and sorting and such. B+
4. CASE HISTORIES by Kate Atkinson. #1 Jackson Brodie mystery, featuring an ex-cop and ex-Army security officer now a private investigator. Mostly Jackson’s work life is boring—following people suspected of having affairs or stealing from their employers and the like. Suddenly though, several interesting cases fall into his lap at once. All deal with the past—two sisters want Jackson to find out what happened to their sister Olivia who disappeared thirty-four years ago when she was just three years old. A still-grieving father wants him to find the murderer of his beloved eighteen-year-old daughter Laura, murdered right in his own law office by a supposed madman in a fit of random violence. And the sister of an axe-murderer wants him to locate her niece, who was a baby at the time and sent to live with her paternal grandparents after her mother apparently murdered her father right in front of her. Tanya, the niece, ends up being a handful and runs away from home as a teenager and no one knows where she’d ended up. Various chapters of the book tell the stories from the point of view of the different people in the stories and I think at least some of them are meant to be Jackson’s supporting cast of characters in future installments, so if this is the case, they become very well fleshed. I loved this book, although I did figure out two of the three mysteries well in advance. The characters are very human, very engaging, a bit eccentric, and yet the author manages to make you cheer and root for them despite their sometimes annoying foibles. Jackson is a peach, and I do look forward to getting to know him better in upcoming series books. Excellent stuff! A+
5. FEAR IN THE FOREST by Bernard Knight. #7 Crowner John medieval mystery set in and around Exeter. Devon’s coroner is investigating doings in the King’s forest in the nearby countryside, spurred by a verderer found with an arrow in his back. There has long been conflict between forest officials and the people who live there, but this is something different. It seems the forest lawmen have taken up with outlaws, using them to enforce their new, stricter and very unreasonable rules. But why? John de Wolfe thinks there must be someone with money and power behind the whole scheme, and even begins to suspect his brother-in-law the sheriff. While I figured out part of the mystery ahead of time, I think a more comprehensive knowledge of medieval laws and political workings would have been needed to sort the whole thing out. On a personal note, John’s mistress Nesta is expecting a baby and when his wife finds out, she leaves in a huff for the nunnery. While Matilda had long known of John’s dalliances, the news that a baby is forthcoming sends her over the edge and she decides to enter the convent as she’s threatened to do for many years. Nesta, rather than being joyful, is despondent over her condition and John is totally perplexed. While I enjoyed the historical aspects of the book (relating to the King’s laws about ‘venison’ and ‘vert’ in the forest) I thought this book was a bit too long and convoluted. At least, there have certainly been better entries in the series. I’ve got several more of these in series waiting and certainly will read them, but I do hope the story itself is a little more tightly put together in upcoming books. B.
6. LIRAEL by Garth Nix. Second of the Abhorsen trilogy, YA fantasy series. This book moves forward in time by about 20 years from the previous book and deals with Sabriel’s son Prince Sameth and with Lirael, a Clayr who has not yet awakened to the Sight despite being fourteen years of age, long past time when most Clayr begin to See into the future. Finally given a job as a Third Assistant Librarian essentially to keep her out of trouble, Lirael meets the Disreputable Dog and begins reading some of the old texts and discovers ways of getting into some of the locked rooms in the Old section of the library. Sam, meanwhile, begins to realize that he does not want to be Abhorsen-in-Waiting and does anything he can to avoid his training and reading The Book of the Dead that his mother has given him to study so that he can begin to assist her in the troubled times ahead. As Sam and Lirael journey from opposite directions to their inevitable meeting, both are dreading what they are sure their future holds for them as they battle the Dead—but of course are in for some big surprises. Very well done second entry in series, left on a bit of a cliffhanger that definitely causes some anticipation of the finale. A.
7. MIDNIGHT FOR CHARLIE BONE by Jenny Nimmo (audio) First in the young adult “Children of the Red King” fantasy series set in England. Charlie Bone is ten years old and lives with his mum and both of his grandmas. Grandma Maisie, his mother’s mum, is kind and friendly. Grandma Bone, his father’s mother, is not. His father died when Charlie was very young, so of financial necessity, they live with Grandma Bone—a perpetually cross, rigid, mean old woman who lords it over Charlie and his mother. Also living in the big old house is Uncle Payton Yewbeam (I thought this was ‘Youbean’ as pronounced by the reader—had to look it up! LOL) who is an odd and slightly sinister fellow. When Charlie discovers he can ‘hear’ photographs—the thoughts of the people in them at the time they were taken—Grandma Bone calls in the three Yewbeam aunts to test Charlie—and since he turns out to be one of the ‘endowed,’ he is sent to Bloor’s Academy, a school where you must be either a genius or endowed with some odd power like Charlie’s. His power means he’s a descendant of the Red King. Charlie is sad to be leaving his best friend Benjamin Brown (and his dog, Runner Bean—that name gave me fits of giggles every time I heard it!) behind, but he does make some new and interesting friends (and enemies!) at the Academy, and his weird uncle turns out to be Charlie’s ally. While a bit predictable in places, I did enjoy this reading (the reader was excellent!) and look forward to listening to the next in series. A-.
8. THE TITAN’S CURSE by Rick Riordan (audio) #3 Percy Jackson and the Olympians YA fantasy. I normally wouldn’t have listened to another book from the same genre one after another by choice, but this one I was on a wait list for, so when it’s your turn to download it, you snap it up while you can. When Percy’s friend AnnaBeth is kidnapped, he naturally wants to be on the quest to rescue her. But her rescue coincides with another disaster—the kidnapping of the Goddess Artemis, and thus her Hunters have a say in who goes along, and Percy is NOT on the guest list! Does that stop him? It does not! He sets out on his own, but then ends up with the selected group. On a strict timetable—the quest must be accomplished and Artemis rescued before the Council of the Gods on the Winter Solstice—Percy, Grover, Thalia, and some of the Hunters are led across country from New York to New Mexico to San Francisco as various bad guys (led by Percy’s old nemesis Luke) and clues fall into place revealing who is behind Luke’s caper and why. Very well done with an excellent reader, loosely educational as information about mythology is imparted in an informal way, and entertaining too, with a just plain great story. A.
9. PARDONABLE LIES by Jacqueline Winspear. #3 Maisie Dobbs historical mystery. In this episode, Maisie is beginning to settle comfortably into her business as a private investigator, but gets pulled to France on two personal cases—one to confirm the death of the son of a friend of a friend, another she’s looking into informally for her good friend Priscilla, to locate where her brother Peter died. She also is working with a very young girl who is accused of murdering her pimp. During the course of her investigations, Maisie has several attempts made on her life, though she’s not sure which investigation has stirred up such a hornet’s nest. She also confronts many of her own demons and ghosts with regards to her service as a nurse during WWI in France. While I did like this book, I found some of the coincidences tying her cases together to be almost so fantastic as to be nearly unbelievable. I figured out some of the mysteries in advance but the final one was a surprise. I like Maisie and look forward to reading the other books in series but I didn’t like this one quite as much as the previous ones—it seemed a bit long and drawn out in places, too. B+
10. DEATH IN DISGUISE by Caroline Graham. #3 Inspector Barnaby English mystery. Set on a large estate that is run and occupied by a New Age religious group. Chief Inspector Barnaby and Sgt. Troy arrive when The Master, the head of the group, is murdered during a regression session. This book was very slow-moving for me, long and drawn out, with much detail about the lives of the members of the group, such that Inspector Barnaby doesn’t even make an entrance until page 133. I liked the other two books in the series, but really found this one tedious and slow-going. I don’t know if it was just that I couldn’t get interested in any of the characters or what, but to be honest by about page 200, I didn’t much care who killed whom and skimmed through to the end. I do intend to read on in the series—mostly because I’ve already got several of the next ones here, and based on the strength of the first couple of books. I guess every author is allowed to have one worm in the apple basket of their work. C-
11. HOOT by Carl Hiaasen. (Audio) Those of you who read this author’s adult humor books might be surprised to know that he also writes for young adults and is actually a Newbery Award winner for this book. I’ve read a couple of Hiassen’s adult books and while I thought they were okay, I just loved the audio version of this YA story. Set in Hiaasen’s beloved Florida, this is the story of Roy Eberhardt, the new kid at Trace Middle School in Coconut Grove, FL, and his shaky alliance of new friends. They band together to save some burrowing owls (a protected species) from greedy land developers and the bigwigs at Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House. Determined not to let Mother Paula’s build their 469th restaurant where the owls are currently nesting, Roy, his friends Beatrice and her nameless stepbrother, a runaway living on the streets, plot to take on the town’s officials, the cops, and the foreman of the construction crew all the while Roy is trying to stay out of the clutches of the town bully. Excellent story, with some of Hiaasen’s typical humor, toned down somewhat for the younger set. Great reader, too. I also understand this book has been made into a movie, and I do plan to watch it soon! A+
12. FOOL by Christopher Moore. The wacky Moore goes all medieval in this spoof of Shakespeare’s King Lear story, this time told from the point of view of his jester, Pocket. With more plot twists and turns than a redundant colon, Moore’s ribald wit permeates the tale, poking fun at not only Shakespeare himself, but all his characters as well. The inept yet cruel King Lear, his grasping, whorish daughters and their power-hungry husbands, and Pocket’s own half-wit apprentice, Drool. It’s been years since I actually read King Lear itself, so (to be honest) I’m sure I missed a whole bunch of parallels and puns. It’s also been a couple of years since I read my last Chris Moore book, and this one seems to me to be much more decidedly raunchy than his previous work. I seem to recall that he used to rely more on actual wit than on adolescent sexual jokes.While I don’t mind irreverent humor at all, this book was so full of it that IMO it detracted somewhat from the story itself. Sort of like an X-rated Austin Powers meets Shakespeare, more or less. There were some definite laugh out loud moments, lots of witty repartee and some stellar prose and verse, and Moore’s portrayal of Pocket as the main character rather than Lear was an interesting take on things. But I have to say that this was definitely not my favorite of Moore’s works and when it was finished, I closed the book more with relief than satisfaction. C.
13. PAGAN EVERY DAY: FINDING THE EXTRAORDINARY IN OUR ORDINARY LIVES by Barbara Ardinger. I actually started reading this ‘page a day’ type book several months ago, periodically picking it up and reading a dozen days’ or so worth of ruminations. Each day of the year has some thoughts from the author—information about a particular God or Goddess, holiday, pantheon, or concept, often tying together ancient beliefs and myths with the modern world. Sometimes she suggested mini-rituals, other times it was just information, and sometimes she encouraged the reader to think about some particular thing that might tie in with that day of the year and explore our thoughts and feelings about things. There were even some challenges to help us to live a “greener” life (‘walk to work or take the bus today if you normally drive,’) or just to be a better person (volunteer for a few hours at a homeless shelter or do something kind for someone you really don’t like) and such. I very much enjoyed the book, although I didn’t always follow through with her suggestions since I was reading several days’ worth of things at a time. But I did learn a LOT—not only about various pagan beliefs, but about ties from pagan and mythological beliefs as the origin for some current modern-day practices. And oh yes, it definitely gave me things to think about! I am going to keep this book on my Keeper shelf and perhaps one year will choose to pick it up and actually go through the days one at a time. A+
14. MURDER ON LENOX HILL by Victoria Thompson. #7 “gaslight” historical mystery set in early 1900’s New York and featuring midwife Sarah Brandt and police detective Frank Malloy. Sarah is referred to speak discreetly with the Linton family to examine their seventeen year old daughter Grace, whom they are concerned might be pregnant. Grace is a ‘simpleton’ with the mind of a five-year-old and Sarah does indeed determine that she is several months along—everyone assumes that she was raped or taken advantage of, but most puzzlingly, Grace denies anyone hurting her. Living a very sheltered life, Grace is never alone with any men, but Sarah doesn’t believe in immaculate conception and is determined to find who fathered Grace’s child. Mr. Linton comes under immediate suspicion, being the only man to see her regularly, but he is ruled out fairly quickly and the trail next leads to the church the Lintons attend, which is where Grace and Mrs. Linton spend some time volunteering, and eventually a murder does occur there, though the main mystery seems to be Grace’s pregnancy. Meanwhile, Malloy is asked by Sarah’s father, socialite Peter Decker, to resume investigating Sarah’s husband’s murder, which took place four years previously—Decker believes Dr. Tom Brandt was a womanizer and wants Malloy to prove it so that Sarah will finally forget about carrying on Tom’s legacy of helping the poor and return to her rightful place in society. Frank Malloy, of course, has other motives for wanting the crime solved. A predictable, light historical read that I did enjoy despite the mystery (all of them, actually) being extremely transparent and easy to solve. B.
15. TRIGGER CITY by Sean Chercover. #2 Ray Dudgeon mystery set in the Windy City of Chicago. In the first book, Ray takes on the mob and in this one, he seems to be tackling the US Government and their covert military operations. Battered, bruised and barely holding things together (physically and psychologically) after his torture and near death some months previously, Ray is hired by a retired military man whose daughter was brutally murdered—shot to death by one of her employees who then turned the gun on himself. Her killer had apparently been suddenly psychotic and paranoid and believed Joan was ‘out to get him’ and thus he ended both their lives. Of course nothing is ever that simple—the fact that Joan was set to testify for a Congressional hearing on defense contract spending had *nothing* to do with her death, I’m sure, right!?—and the fact that that information was kept hushed up is even more telling. Ray ends up in a tangled web of deceit, trying to sort out the good guys from the bad while trying to keep himself alive and mend his broken relationship with ex-girlfriend Jill, and also trying to protect Steven Zhang’s widow and daughter—he being the man who killed Joan and then himself. I like Ray, despite his foibles, and the author’s writing style make the reading of his story easy and appealing. Ray lives in a world of realism where things are never perfect and exist in multiple shades of gray, not ever simplistically black and white or right and wrong—much like real life, I suppose. I hope he lives a long and prolific life and I will be eagerly awaiting the next in series to see which major player he goes up against next. A.
16. WINTER’S CHILD by Margaret Maron (audio) #12 Judge Deborah Knott mystery set in Colleton County, North Carolina. Newly married sheriff’s deputy Dwight Bryant is just settling in to his blissful home life with Judge Deborah but is pulled away from her AND from a murder investigation in which a much-disliked, abusive good ole boy is shot in the back of the head while driving home from work. The summons away from Colleton County is a strange phone call from his eight-year-old son Cal, who lives five hours away in Virginia with his mother. Dwight makes a trip north to see Cal, and then learns that Jonna, his ex-wife, is actually missing. When Cal goes missing, last seen being picked up in front of his house by a woman in a blue parka who was assumed to be Jonna, Dwight frantically tries to figure out what’s going on, as his relationship with Jonna has not, to this point, been antagonistic at all. Jonna’s body is discovered in her car a day later, murdered, and Cal is still missing, so Deborah takes emergency leave to be with her new husband in the search for his son. Back home, Detective Maylene Richards is now in charge of the murder investigation, which continues with too many suspects and not enough opportunities. As a twisted tale of family secrets and prideful deception unfolds, Deborah and Dwight begin to piece together the tale of Jonna’s death in hopes of finding Cal unharmed. Excellent entry in the series, which just seems to get better and better with each one, and as a reader, C.J. Critt is wonderful and never lets me down. A+
17. TAILED by Brian Wiprud. #3 Garth Carson mystery. Garth has turned his rental taxidermy business over to his Russian friend Otto to run and is now an insurance appraiser specializing in taxidermy collections. Traveling around the country to check out various big-game hunters’ collections is something he’s enjoying a lot—until he keeps an appointment for an appraisal and comes across the body of Sprunty Fulmore, Chicago Bears football player and the apparent victim of a big game hunt himself. After awhile, Garth is sent to Denver to do another appraisal but finds himself the object of an FBI investigation since Sprunty was the second of his clients to end up dead—not only dead, but with a white gecko placed in his hand, so the authorities believe there is a serial killer on the loose. When a collector in Denver ends up dead the same way while Garth is there, they’re convinced the killer is Garth himself. Garth learns more about his grandfather, “Kit” Carson, big-game hunter whom he inherited his own stuffed animal collection from, and about a secret society he formed with Native American implications. Now, as the last remaining descendant of the founding members of the Order of the White Gecko, the FBI don’t realize that Garth isn’t the killer but the next intended target. Off on a wild gecko—er, goose—chase across the country, Garth, Angie (his long-time live-in girlfriend) and some crazy people he meets along the way head for New Mexico to try to head off an alien evil spirit that will take over the earth if it manages to get hold of the ‘vuka’ (spirit) inhabiting Garth. Enjoyable, wacky, light read—it’s been quite awhile since I read any Wiprud, and I’m not sure why I was so long in getting back to this. So far this is the last in this series, but Wiprud has several non-series books out there, and I’m glad to say a couple of them are on my shelf. A.
DNF: I did end up giving up on SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING by Amy Tan in audio. I may still actually read the print version, but the audio version was read by the author and it didn't seem very professionally done--the sound volume varied frequently (as though she were moving away and towards the microphone) and just wasn't (IMO) very expressively read. I gave it a good two hours before moving on.
CR:
Cheryl
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
January 2009 Reading
1. UNDERGROUND by Kat Richardson. Third book in the “Greywalker” paranormal fantasy series set in Seattle, WA. Featuring Harper Blaine, a woman who becomes a Greywalker after having died for two minutes. She is able to go into the Grey—the murky area between life and death, seeing ghosts other spirit-folk. This story features a series of grisly killings of Seattle’s homeless community, where folks are showing up dead with body parts missing and having been quite literally chewed up. The murders, while being investigated, are not a high priority given the victims’ status, and are being written off as “attacked by dogs” and such. Harper gets involved with the case when Quinton, her friend who does her tech work, designed her security system, etc. asks her to investigate as he knew some of the people who have died—and others who have simply disappeared recently. He knows about Harper’s abilities and thinks she’s the perfect person to look into things, and as she has no pressing cases, she does. Plunging to the world of the homeless, the Seattle Underground, and learning much about a local Native American myth, Harper and Quinton make some startling discoveries. This is the book where I think the author finally comes into her stride. Don’t get me wrong—I liked the first two books just fine, but I didn’t really feel “connected” to Harper and there was an elusive ‘something missing’ from them. Whatever that was, it’s now been found! This story sucked me in right away and I literally read this book in two sittings. I felt as though I finally got to really get into Harper’s head, and the story wasn’t just about her, it *was* her. Excellent—glad my intuition led me to reading this as it was a great way to start the new year! A+
2. BONE BY BONE by Carol O’Connell. Non-series mystery/thriller Oren Hobbs has come home after twenty years, the last several spent as an Army CID officer. The family housekeeper, Hannah Rice, has been writing and letting him know that his little brother Josh (who disappeared the summer Oren turned seventeen) has been coming home—bone by bone. Someone is leaving pieces of what they presume is Josh’s skeleton on his father’s front porch. And yet Judge Henry Hobbs (retired) hasn’t seen fit to contact the local sheriff’s office. Why not? No one knows for sure what happened to Josh—a bright fifteen-year-old with a penchant for photography and for watching people. Oren suspects that a picture Josh took captured someone doing something they didn’t want known and that he was killed because of it. But who? Everyone knows everyone’s secrets in small town Coventry, California. Don’t they? This story sucked me in right from the beginning, never revealing too much, just enough crumbs to keep you following the trail—which was also littered with many red herrings, several of which I fell for along the way. You were never really allowed to get to know Oren too well either—the story didn’t take place inside his head, really, so there were many questions I still had about him at the end of the book, even. The characters were all rather complex—and yet you didn’t ever really ‘know’ them if that makes any sense. But this is one of the few books I’ve read recently where I can honestly say that character development didn’t really matter too much. It was the story that was intriguing, and the entire package worked very well. I had read the first of this author’s series featuring Kathleen Mallory and liked it well enough, but it was one of those that got abandoned and lost along the way, with so many other books to read. I think I will need to get back to it soon. A.
3. THE CROSSROADS by Chris Grabenstein. (audio) The author of the John Ceepak and Christopher Miller adult mystery series branches out into young adult fiction with this book, I would tend to call it a paranoramal fantasy/horror story, a ghost story. Zach Jennings and his father and new stepmother are moving into their new home in rural Connecticut. Fortunately, Zach gets along well with Judy, his stepmother—his real mother had died of lung cancer and actually doesn’t sound like a nice person at all. When they arrive in the small town where Zach’s dad grew up, they’re met by a whole parcel of ghosts—although they don’t realize it at first. They also meet nasty old Mrs. Spratling, who keeps a Monday morning vigil at a large tree in the corner of the Jennings’ property where her boyfriend met his demise fifty years previously—along with about fifty other people who died in a Greyhound bus accident. What emerges is a twisted, sordid tale of secrets, lusts and greed close to the surface of small-town life. Told partly from the view of Zach, and from several other of the characters, too. This was an excellent story, very suspenseful, and probably quite scary when read or listened to by the pre-teen/young teen audience that it’s intended for. Grabenstein certainly makes the crossover to YA fiction very well and tells the story with his usual easy-reading style and enough light humor to offset the scarier parts. Very well done! A.
4. AN EXPERIMENT IN TREASON by Bruce Alexander. #9 Sir John Fielding mystery in which Jeremy and Sir John become involved in a plot involving Benjamin Franklin and the American colonies. Someone has stolen a packet of letters from the home of a prominent member of Parliament, believed to be damning to certain British officials with regard to the rights of the Colonials. A footman was brutally coshed on the head and killed during the burglary, therefore it’s a murder case as well. Mr. Franklin is high on the suspect list as having hired certain thugs to perform the deed, but without proof, Sir John and Jeremy are stuck at a standstill. Several changes are in the works with regards to secondary characters as well, as the Fieldings’ former cook, Annie, stars in a production of Romeo and Juliet, Molly (the new cook) settles in and is courted by Dr. Donnelly (the medical examiner) and Jeremy and Clarissa’s relationship begins to change. Enjoyable entry in the series as always; the author’s notes indicate that he played fast and loose with known historical fact in this book with regard to Ben Franklin’s involvement, but I thought he did it very well. It *is* historical fiction after all! A.
5. EXCALIBUR by Bernard Cornwell. Third of the Arthurian legends “Warlord” historical fiction trilogy in which Derfel Cadarn, Arthur’s one-time second in command and now a monk, completes the tale of what happened to Arthur—who never was a king, though he should have been. It’s 530’s A.D. in Britain, and the Saxons are on the prowl again, trying to gain more land. Arthur still stands behind his promise to Uther that he would support Mordred as Britain’s king, and it does nothing but gain him trouble. He’s also trying to recover from Guinevere’s betrayal and is not himself. The story is told of what happens to Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin, Nimue, Lancelot and to Derfel himself to some degree. I absolutely loved Cornwell’s take on the whole Arthurian legend, treating it as more historical fiction than fantasy and telling a plausible tale of what could have been the basis for the whole “King Arthur/Camelot” legends. Excellently wonderful, and this whole series is staying on my Keeper shelf. A.
6. PRIEST by Ken Bruen #5 Jack Taylor mystery set in Galway, Ireland and featuring the tormented alcoholic ex-Guard once again. Just released from ‘the nuthouse’ where he’s spent many months with his brain on vacation and subdued by medication after the tragic events at the end of the previous book (trying not to give spoilers here!), Jack discovers just how much Galway and his situation can change in just a few months’ time. He discovers that his old landlady at the hotel has died and left him a hefty sum of money and an apartment, his friend Jeff has become a drunken bum, and someone has beheaded a priest—a priest that had been one of those accused of sexual abuse of young boys a few years previously. His old nemesis Fr. Malachy actually approaches Jack and asks him to investigate, and Jack is also approached by a young man who has been following his career and wants to go into partnership with him as a pair of P.I.’s. Through many stressful, horrible situations, Jack manages not to succumb to his desire for a drink, but this tale, too, ends tragically in what is becoming a bit of a formulaic plot device. I really didn’t expect anything different, as Jack can never seem to catch a break or a bit of lasting happiness. A stark and depressing tale, yet a deeply philosophical one that plumbs the depths of Jack’s soul, I wouldn’t read this if you’re looking for something light and uplifting—but despite the predictable ending, it was still a good read. B+.
7. THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH by Norton Juster. A classic children’s fantasy tale that I’d never heard of til recently—written in 1961 and full of the sort of puns and wordplay I would have loved as a youngster—wish I’d known about it then. Milo is a young boy who is disillusioned with life—wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, he wishes he were somewhere else doing something different. Thoroughly bored with life is our Milo. One day he comes home to find a tollbooth in his bedroom, something he’s pretty sure wasn’t there before. He climbs in his little car, pays his toll and finds himself suddenly somewhere else and certainly doing something different! Consulting the map, he decides to head for Dictionopolis, but first must travel through Expectations, the doldrums and the Foothills of Confusion. Wonderful story with a very basic life lesson (that I think some people never quite learn, actually)...hilarious characters, word streams and funky illustrations as well. A+
8. A FISTFUL OF CHARMS by Kim Harrison. #4 in the Rachel Morgan “Hollows” paranormal mystery cum paranormal romance series. Why, why, WHY does every good paranormal series I read start out so great and slowly devolve into a pseudo-romance full of sexual tension, descriptions of clothing, hair, body parts and with a veritable smorgasbord of sexual choices for the heroine? I really liked the first two of this series. The third one was okay, but I could see where it was headed, which is probably why I took so long to get to this one. It’s happened to sooooo many series I started out raving about, though…it drives me freakin’ insane!! The story, the real story of what is happening in this paranormal world between the vamps and Weres and Pixies and witches, etc. gets lost in all the sweating, mingling of scents, rapid hearts beating, descriptions of washboard abs, sexy bottoms, leather clothing exchanging of bodily fluids. Bah! I finished this book two days ago but I can barely recall what it was about. And it’s rather an irrelevant point since I won’t be continuing the series anyway. I’m sad about it, because I really liked Rachel in the first couple books. However, I am happy because although Book 6 just came up on my PBS wishlist, I finished this book in time to cancel the order before the member could respond to my auto request. Yes! The book gods DO love me after all! D+
9. BURNING BRIGHT by Tracy Chevalier (audio download). Wonderful historical fiction tale about a couple of families in 1792 London. The book loosely contains William Blake, noted poet, artist and engraver and all-around ‘odd duck’ as the neighbor of the two families, but it’s mostly about the Kellaways and Butterfields. The Kellaways are innocents, newly-arrived in London from Dorsetshire—chair-maker Tom, his wife Annie and children Gem and Maisie, having been promised work by traveling circus owner Philip Astley. The Butterfields are hardened, street-wise life-long Londoners. The story changes points of view and we come to know particularly Jem Kellaway and Maggie Butterfield very well as they have adventures in the streets of London, have visits with their neighbor Mr. Blake and his wife Kate. I love books like this, not about kings and queens and Lord this-and-that, but the ordinary folk and a snapshot of what their lives were like over a year or so’s time. Chevalier has ever told wonderful stories, and this one is no exception. While William Blake isn’t a central character in the book, he is rather prominent in the minds and eyes of the other characters and it does feature some of his work, as this takes place not long after he’d written his famed “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience.” I grew fearful towards the ending that the author would wrap everything up in a nice little packages in the way that real life never is, and thus spoil the whole story, but not to worry—it was decidedly satisfying for me. The reader was excellent, too, doing a myriad of voices and accents without faltering. A.
10. THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows (audio download) Wonderful production, a story told in letters back and forth between several people in the UK in 1946. It’s post-war England and writer Juliet Ashton is busy doing book tours when she receives an interesting letter from a Mr. Dawsey Adams on the island of Guernsey. He had picked up a book that used to belong to her, a work by Charles Lamb, which he really likes, and had some questions for her. They begin a correspondence that leads to Juliet corresponding with many people on the island, members of a group called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—so-named during a ruse to fool the Germans who had been occupying the island at the time of the group’s formation. It started out as a bit of a joke but actually did develop into a book club, and Juliet decides that it might be interesting to write about the group, the German occupation there (which she knew precious little about) and Guernsey in general. After several months of correspondence, and despite the protestations of her steady boyfriend, rich American Markham Reynolds, Juliet heads off to the island to meet her pen pals, totally unprepared for what she finds there. Absolutely wonderful book!! This was the first audiobook I’d read that was done by more than one reader, almost like an old time radio production, with the letters being read by four or five different people. It was very hard to stop listening to this wonderful reading. Yes, it’s rather sappy in places but the way this book was done, I didn’t mind it at all. There were parts that were terribly sad, others that were joyous and hopeful, the characters were brilliant and well-fleshed and there’s plenty of literary reference for the seasoned bibliophile, too. I was saddened to hear that the primary author, Mary Ann Schaffer, passed away before the book was ever released, so we won’t be privy to more of her work. Very likely to make my top ten of the year! A+
11. EIGHT OF SWORDS by David Skibbins. First of a mystery series featuring Warren Ritter, a fifty-something tarot reader with a street stall in Berkeley, California, and fugitive from the law because of his “un-American” activities back in the ‘60’s. Well, actually, it’s believed that he’s dead—and Richard Green, the person he was, IS dead for all intents and purposes. He’s also bi-polar and prone to do a lot of self-medicating. The story sucked me in immediately, with Warren doing a reading for a teenage girl in which he forsees a bad end. He gives his clients one of his tarot cards with a sticker containing his contact information, and when the girl is kidnapped later that day, he’s contacted by the police, as Heather’s backpack with his card in it was found in an alley not far away. To top things off, his sister Tara—who believes that “Richard” has been dead for the last couple of decades—is on a temporary job in Berkeley and sees him at his tarot stall. This puts Warren into a whole dilemma of “fight or flight”—does he stay and try to figure out what happened to Heather, and to resolve things with Tara, or does he run to Spokane or Alaska, where he has two other identities that he can use? He decides to stay, which sets off crisis after crisis for Warren—not easy for anyone, but for someone living on the edge psychologically, especially devastating. I really like Warren, despite some of his stupid choices, and the writing style is easy to read, casual and with just enough humor to balance out the edginess. I’ve already put the second in series on my PBS wishlist. A winner! A.
12. HE WHO FEARS THE WOLF by Karin Fossum. #2 Inspector Konrad Seijer mystery set in Norway. An elderly woman is found dead in her remote cabin home, her garden hoe firmly planted in the side of her head. Meanwhile, Errki Johrma, a disturbed young schizophrenic, has escaped from a nearby asylum so everyone assumes he is the perpetrator of that heinous crime. A young boy walking in the woods taking some bow-shooting practice who discovered the woman’s body reports having seen Errki in the woods near her cabin. But Inspector Seijer isn’t so sure, and even comes up with a bizarre bet with his second in command that their culprit isn’t Errki at all. The young man’s psychiatrist doesn’t believe he did it either, as violence simply doesn’t fit his profile of past behaviors. Seijer is working not only the murder case, but the case of a bank robbery that occurs the next morning—a bank robbery that involves a hostage, no less. The two cases begin to strangely entwine during the course of the investigation. I enjoyed this book more than the first in the series. Seijer wasn’t quite so morose in this book, maybe that had something to do with it. The book rotates back and forth with chapters told from the point of view of several characters, including the bad guys. Sometimes this works for an author and other times I find it annoying, but Fossum uses that tool remarkably well and the book had a very satisfying feel to it: I’m certainly glad to have already procured the next few in the series. A.
13. THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH by Charlie Huston. ARC for review from Amazon Vine. This is the gritty, edgy tale of Webster Fillmore Goodhue, a former teacher cum slacker, now employed by Clean Team, a company that does clean-up at crime scenes after the forensic teams are done. Hired by families too bereaved to deal with such a mess and without the knowledge of how to handle it even if they wanted to, Web finds a certain satisfaction in scraping bloody bits of brains, offal and gore and restoring a room such that you could not tell that a brutal murder or suicide or other messy death occurred there. Web himself is pretty messed up inside, having lived an “interesting” childhood, shall we say, and then suffering a major traumatic incident as a teacher that left him essentially unable to cope with most of life except by sleeping and by being a total jerk while he’s awake. Despite all that, I liked him almost immediately, much as I have liked every one of Huston’s main characters in previous books. I know I’m not supposed to like them, but I can’t help it. Perhaps it’s just the author’s ‘voice’ or writing style, but like his other works, I found this book hard to put down and devoured it in a matter of hours. Not for the faint of heart, nor the prim and proper, this book is graphic, full of gory descriptions of crime scenes, evidence of man’s brutality towards one another and it oozes darkness—and yet, it left me with a sense of hope, too. I believe this book is meant to be a stand-alone, but I hope I’m wrong, because I would love to see it become a series. There’s already a great main character and a set of interesting, well-fleshed out supporting characters too. Excellent and highly recommended for lovers of indecently pulpy noir. A+
14. THE GOLDSMITH’S DAUGHTER by Kate Sedley. #10 Roger the Chapman series set in 1470’s England. Roger and new wife Adela are off to London in January, even though Adela is now three months’ pregnant. Adela has hopes of seeing some of the festivities to celebrate the royal wedding of King Edward’s four-year-old son to Lady Anne Mowbray. Meanwhile, Edward’s brother George, The Duke of Clarence sits in the Tower, charged with treason. Roger has a bad feeling about the trip, and sure enough, while in the crowd at the wedding and again during George’s trial the next day, Roger is spotted by Prince Richard, whom he has done service for in the past and whom he is extremely loyal to. Richard charges Roger to solve the murder of a local goldsmith—or actually, the goldsmith’s son-in-law—as the wife is rumored to be the killer and she is related to King Edward’s latest mistress, Jane Shore. Richard wants to approach Jane to ask her to intercede for his brother George’s life, but he wants a bargaining chip before doing so. He feels that solving the murder and removing the suspicion from her cousin’s head will be enough. Roger ends up spending most of his week in the investigation while Adela spends time with the Lampreys, old friends of Roger’s from previous trips. And of course Roger solves the crime, although the answer was as plain as the nose on your face from midway through the book. This is one of my favorite historical series, with Roger’s ‘voice’ telling stories at an advanced age as he recalls them from his past. Depite the obviousness of the mystery, I still enjoyed this one and always applaud Sedley’s descriptions, settings and of course her characters, too. A.
15. RITUALS OF THE SEASON by Margaret Maron. (audio) #11 Judge Deborah Knott series set in Colleton County, North Carolina. It’s Christmas, and Deborah’s wedding looms large on the horizon, but there’s no time for celebrating just yet. An up-and-coming assistant DA, Tracy Johnson, has been shot while driving down the interstate and her year-old adopted daughter May, who is in her carseat in the back, lives only briefly after the ensuing crash. Suspicion centers around people she’s previously prosecuted, especially since she’s gotten a death threat recently. And then it’s revealed that she was beginning to dig into an old case regarding a woman on death row who is to be executed the following month. On top of that, the autopsy reveals that Johnson was pregnant when no one knew she was seeing anyone seriously—so was her death related to her personal life, or her professional one? Although admonished to stay out of the investigation, Deborah gets tangled in it anyway and solves the old murder case while the sheriff’s office finally draws enough evidence to light to solve Johnson’s murder. As is common, I knew the bad guy as soon as he was introduced, and watched the clues fall into place as they all scrambled around after the wrong guy for quite awhile. But I still love this series, and the reader is just excellent too. The highlight of course was Deborah’s wedding, and watching her huge family prepare for it and spending Christmas in Colleton County was wonderful, although a bit late. LOL A
16. SOLACE FOR A SINNER by Caroline Roe. #4 Isaac of Girona historical mystery set in 1550’s Spain, featuring the blind Jewish physician and his family. In this installment, the Holy Grail has apparently come to Girona in the hands of a merchant who is trying to auction it off to the highest bidder. Rumors abound and then one of the hopeful buyers ends up dead, as does the merchant himself. Near-panic ensues in the marketplaces as the rumors escalate about the Grail and its powers. Isaac begins to investigate as one of the members of the Jewish community is suspect, and the Bishop, whom Isaac tends faithfully. is annoyed with Isaac for stirring up trouble and tries to stay out of the fracas. While I didn’t dislike this book, I certainly didn’t like it as much as the previous ones in the series. It seemed rather blah and I had a hard time getting interested in the political/religious intrigue and in the main part of the story even though I enjoy Isaac, Raquel, Yusuf and the rest of the supporting cast very much. I’ll give this one a B- and hope the next one picks up again.
17. DIE ONCE by Marianne MacDonald. #6 Dido Hoare antiquarian bookseller mystery set in London. A regular customer of Dido’s has committed suicide and a few days later, her bank contacts her to say that the cheque he used to make his last purchase from her has bounced. She contacts the solicitors handling his estate and is hired by them to do a valuation on his books, and in the process of doing so, Dido realizes that something is just not right about the whole situation, and she begins to think perhaps someone helped Tim Curwen over his balcony. Conversations with a small nearly-blind lad who lives next door and a couple of irate CID detectives who pop in to the flat to see what Dido is doing there begin to raise her suspicions even more. Dido, naturally, gets herself into investigating and helps unlock the mystery. Once again I have to say that, much like the last book in this series that I read, I found most of the situations to be totally implausible. Why on earth would a woman with a young toddler to raise put herself in such jeopardy on a continual basis?? This was not a person she had any sort of deep relationship with so that her running hither and yon would be inspired by passion or a deep friendship of great longevity or something. Why would policemen willingly share details of ongoing investigations with her—a bookseller and rank amateur—and even invite her along on snooping expeditions? Why would she willingly withhold vital evidence from the investigating officers and still not be able to figure out the bad guy til the end of the book when I had figured it out about a third of the way through? LOL I just can’t see how any of this could have happened, really… my head was rattling continuously as I shook it incredulously. Don’t get me wrong—I like Dido and her world a lot (what’s not to like about an antiquarian bookstore??) and I’m still wishing her father were a real person that I could call up and natter with. BUT… truly, I think the author needs to make situations that an amateur like Dido could reasonably get into or else make her a policewoman. Were I basing my grade strictly on the characters and settings, the book would get an A, but the continual stream of ludicrous actions by Dido and just plain lowered it to a B-.
18. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sara Gruen. Historical fiction set during the Depression about a young man whose parents die suddenly in a car crash when he is away at Cornell University, and is due to take his final exams to become a veterinarian. At a total loss when he finds out that his parents had mortgaged their home and essentially lost the farm with nothing in the estate, Jacob Jankowski just starts walking. Hungry, tired, footsore and grieving, he ends up hooking up with a traveling circus, and this is the story of what life was like under (and behind!) the big top, trying to survive during the Depression. The story actually bounces back and forth in time, being told by a much older Jacob, who is now ninety (or ninety-three, he’s not sure which) and living in a nursing home. When the circus comes to town, all these memories come flooding back. I don’t want to say too much or give anything away, so just GO READ IT! I absolutely loved this book! It’s a gritty tale, doesn’t gloss over the realities of life and yet somehow manages to be a gently told story. I fell in love with the elder Mr. Jankowski—he reminded me so much of one of my favorite residents from when I used to work in a nursing home. I always did like the feisty ones! At any rate, if this book doesn’t make my top ten of the year, I’ll be really surprised. A+
19. THE GHOST AND MRS MCCLURE by Alice Kimberly. #1 in the Haunted Bookshop mystery series, set in small town Rhode Island where Penelope has moved from New Yorkwith her young son Spencer after her husband’s suicide. Moving in with her aging aunt Sadie and buying half-interest in her failing bookstore, Penelope revamps it, modernizes everything and uses her background in publishing to try and make Buy the Book viable again. She manages to snag big-time mystery author Timothy Brennan to come speak and do a book signing. Little does she realize that Brennan, one of her favorite authors, is a real jerk. And it turns out someone else thinks so too, as he’s murdered during his talk right on camera. At first it’s thought he suffered a heart attack, but later it’s revealed that he was deliberately driven into anaphylactic shock with nut oil. While all this is going on, Penelope discovers that her bookstore is haunted by Jack Shepard, a 1940’s tough-guy private eye—the very one that Brennan’s books are based on. The reason he’d agreed to do a signing in Buy the Book was that Brennan and his staff had discovered that Shepard had died there. And of course Penelope is briefly a suspect ibecause of the massive publicity to the shop generated by Brennan’s death on site. This was a fairly decent book for a cozy, but it wasn’t great. The plot was very transparent and I’d figured out whodunit and the subplot way in advance. I’m going to try the next in series—although I’ve put it on my library list rather than taking up a wishlist spot at PBS—and see if it shakes my tree a little more. I like Penelope and the supporting cast, but the characters were a bit weak and, I don’t know—lackluster I guess. A light and predictable read, what will make or break this series for me is whether (as seems typical) it denigrates into a mystery-cum-romance and whether the author will keep Jack’s ghost’s abilities within the parameters she’s set down in this first book. B
20. ROUNDING THE MARK by Andrea Camilleri. #7 Inspector Salvo Montalbano police procedural mystery set in Sicily. Salvo has become disillusioned with the world and with policework specifically and is all set to turn in his resignation when he gets caught up in an unofficial investigation dealing with illegal immigrants. He comes across a scared black immigrant boy at the docks who looks at Montalbano imploringly as if to ask him to help him escape—but the woman who takes the little fellow by the hand appears to be his mother, so why was the boy afraid? The question definitely needs answering a few days later when the boy turns up dead, the victim of a hit and run accident. When this unofficial case ties in with the case of a dead body that Montalbano literally ‘ran into’ while swimming, his instincts go into high gear and the scent of the chase banishes all thought of resignation from his mind. Excellent as usual, and as usual, don’t read this series while hungry—the descriptions of the wonderful foods will leave you drooling! A.
21. BONK: THE CURIOUS COUPLING OF SCIENCE AND SEX by Mary Roach. (audio) The author takes her usual quirky look at a touchy subject, delving particularly into the various documented studies about sex—attitudes, practices, and the actual nitty-gritty science of coupling—done by the likes of Masters & Johnson, Kinsey and other lesser-known researchers, both past and present. She discusses not only the subject matter undertaken by these folks, but the researchers themselves, their lives and thoughts about sex. Traveling the globe to meet with researchers and to observe some studies in action—even to participate in some herself—the author helps to debunk some common misconceptions about ‘the science of sex’ and ‘how it all works’ and offers up a few little-known facts along the way. Roach’s off-beat sense of humor comes in handy during the discussion, and she handles the delicate subject with straightforward aplomb that greatly diminishes any squeamishness or embarrassment. Also explored some were cultural considerations, although I would have liked to have had even more discussion about that. Since her audience is primarily from Western civilization, that’s where she concentrated her efforts. I enjoyed this book quite a lot, learned a lot, and the reader for this audio version was really good too, which made concentrating not a problem—which sometimes it can be when I’ve attempted other non-fiction books. There were many footnotes and asides throughout the book, but to me they weren’t distracting, just added extra information—in fact, some of the most interesting bits were in the footnotes, I thought. It will be really interesting to see what topic Ms. Roach decides to dive into next! A.
DNF: FAULT LINE by Barry Eisler (ARC for review)
Cheryl
2. BONE BY BONE by Carol O’Connell. Non-series mystery/thriller Oren Hobbs has come home after twenty years, the last several spent as an Army CID officer. The family housekeeper, Hannah Rice, has been writing and letting him know that his little brother Josh (who disappeared the summer Oren turned seventeen) has been coming home—bone by bone. Someone is leaving pieces of what they presume is Josh’s skeleton on his father’s front porch. And yet Judge Henry Hobbs (retired) hasn’t seen fit to contact the local sheriff’s office. Why not? No one knows for sure what happened to Josh—a bright fifteen-year-old with a penchant for photography and for watching people. Oren suspects that a picture Josh took captured someone doing something they didn’t want known and that he was killed because of it. But who? Everyone knows everyone’s secrets in small town Coventry, California. Don’t they? This story sucked me in right from the beginning, never revealing too much, just enough crumbs to keep you following the trail—which was also littered with many red herrings, several of which I fell for along the way. You were never really allowed to get to know Oren too well either—the story didn’t take place inside his head, really, so there were many questions I still had about him at the end of the book, even. The characters were all rather complex—and yet you didn’t ever really ‘know’ them if that makes any sense. But this is one of the few books I’ve read recently where I can honestly say that character development didn’t really matter too much. It was the story that was intriguing, and the entire package worked very well. I had read the first of this author’s series featuring Kathleen Mallory and liked it well enough, but it was one of those that got abandoned and lost along the way, with so many other books to read. I think I will need to get back to it soon. A.
3. THE CROSSROADS by Chris Grabenstein. (audio) The author of the John Ceepak and Christopher Miller adult mystery series branches out into young adult fiction with this book, I would tend to call it a paranoramal fantasy/horror story, a ghost story. Zach Jennings and his father and new stepmother are moving into their new home in rural Connecticut. Fortunately, Zach gets along well with Judy, his stepmother—his real mother had died of lung cancer and actually doesn’t sound like a nice person at all. When they arrive in the small town where Zach’s dad grew up, they’re met by a whole parcel of ghosts—although they don’t realize it at first. They also meet nasty old Mrs. Spratling, who keeps a Monday morning vigil at a large tree in the corner of the Jennings’ property where her boyfriend met his demise fifty years previously—along with about fifty other people who died in a Greyhound bus accident. What emerges is a twisted, sordid tale of secrets, lusts and greed close to the surface of small-town life. Told partly from the view of Zach, and from several other of the characters, too. This was an excellent story, very suspenseful, and probably quite scary when read or listened to by the pre-teen/young teen audience that it’s intended for. Grabenstein certainly makes the crossover to YA fiction very well and tells the story with his usual easy-reading style and enough light humor to offset the scarier parts. Very well done! A.
4. AN EXPERIMENT IN TREASON by Bruce Alexander. #9 Sir John Fielding mystery in which Jeremy and Sir John become involved in a plot involving Benjamin Franklin and the American colonies. Someone has stolen a packet of letters from the home of a prominent member of Parliament, believed to be damning to certain British officials with regard to the rights of the Colonials. A footman was brutally coshed on the head and killed during the burglary, therefore it’s a murder case as well. Mr. Franklin is high on the suspect list as having hired certain thugs to perform the deed, but without proof, Sir John and Jeremy are stuck at a standstill. Several changes are in the works with regards to secondary characters as well, as the Fieldings’ former cook, Annie, stars in a production of Romeo and Juliet, Molly (the new cook) settles in and is courted by Dr. Donnelly (the medical examiner) and Jeremy and Clarissa’s relationship begins to change. Enjoyable entry in the series as always; the author’s notes indicate that he played fast and loose with known historical fact in this book with regard to Ben Franklin’s involvement, but I thought he did it very well. It *is* historical fiction after all! A.
5. EXCALIBUR by Bernard Cornwell. Third of the Arthurian legends “Warlord” historical fiction trilogy in which Derfel Cadarn, Arthur’s one-time second in command and now a monk, completes the tale of what happened to Arthur—who never was a king, though he should have been. It’s 530’s A.D. in Britain, and the Saxons are on the prowl again, trying to gain more land. Arthur still stands behind his promise to Uther that he would support Mordred as Britain’s king, and it does nothing but gain him trouble. He’s also trying to recover from Guinevere’s betrayal and is not himself. The story is told of what happens to Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin, Nimue, Lancelot and to Derfel himself to some degree. I absolutely loved Cornwell’s take on the whole Arthurian legend, treating it as more historical fiction than fantasy and telling a plausible tale of what could have been the basis for the whole “King Arthur/Camelot” legends. Excellently wonderful, and this whole series is staying on my Keeper shelf. A.
6. PRIEST by Ken Bruen #5 Jack Taylor mystery set in Galway, Ireland and featuring the tormented alcoholic ex-Guard once again. Just released from ‘the nuthouse’ where he’s spent many months with his brain on vacation and subdued by medication after the tragic events at the end of the previous book (trying not to give spoilers here!), Jack discovers just how much Galway and his situation can change in just a few months’ time. He discovers that his old landlady at the hotel has died and left him a hefty sum of money and an apartment, his friend Jeff has become a drunken bum, and someone has beheaded a priest—a priest that had been one of those accused of sexual abuse of young boys a few years previously. His old nemesis Fr. Malachy actually approaches Jack and asks him to investigate, and Jack is also approached by a young man who has been following his career and wants to go into partnership with him as a pair of P.I.’s. Through many stressful, horrible situations, Jack manages not to succumb to his desire for a drink, but this tale, too, ends tragically in what is becoming a bit of a formulaic plot device. I really didn’t expect anything different, as Jack can never seem to catch a break or a bit of lasting happiness. A stark and depressing tale, yet a deeply philosophical one that plumbs the depths of Jack’s soul, I wouldn’t read this if you’re looking for something light and uplifting—but despite the predictable ending, it was still a good read. B+.
7. THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH by Norton Juster. A classic children’s fantasy tale that I’d never heard of til recently—written in 1961 and full of the sort of puns and wordplay I would have loved as a youngster—wish I’d known about it then. Milo is a young boy who is disillusioned with life—wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, he wishes he were somewhere else doing something different. Thoroughly bored with life is our Milo. One day he comes home to find a tollbooth in his bedroom, something he’s pretty sure wasn’t there before. He climbs in his little car, pays his toll and finds himself suddenly somewhere else and certainly doing something different! Consulting the map, he decides to head for Dictionopolis, but first must travel through Expectations, the doldrums and the Foothills of Confusion. Wonderful story with a very basic life lesson (that I think some people never quite learn, actually)...hilarious characters, word streams and funky illustrations as well. A+
8. A FISTFUL OF CHARMS by Kim Harrison. #4 in the Rachel Morgan “Hollows” paranormal mystery cum paranormal romance series. Why, why, WHY does every good paranormal series I read start out so great and slowly devolve into a pseudo-romance full of sexual tension, descriptions of clothing, hair, body parts and with a veritable smorgasbord of sexual choices for the heroine? I really liked the first two of this series. The third one was okay, but I could see where it was headed, which is probably why I took so long to get to this one. It’s happened to sooooo many series I started out raving about, though…it drives me freakin’ insane!! The story, the real story of what is happening in this paranormal world between the vamps and Weres and Pixies and witches, etc. gets lost in all the sweating, mingling of scents, rapid hearts beating, descriptions of washboard abs, sexy bottoms, leather clothing exchanging of bodily fluids. Bah! I finished this book two days ago but I can barely recall what it was about. And it’s rather an irrelevant point since I won’t be continuing the series anyway. I’m sad about it, because I really liked Rachel in the first couple books. However, I am happy because although Book 6 just came up on my PBS wishlist, I finished this book in time to cancel the order before the member could respond to my auto request. Yes! The book gods DO love me after all! D+
9. BURNING BRIGHT by Tracy Chevalier (audio download). Wonderful historical fiction tale about a couple of families in 1792 London. The book loosely contains William Blake, noted poet, artist and engraver and all-around ‘odd duck’ as the neighbor of the two families, but it’s mostly about the Kellaways and Butterfields. The Kellaways are innocents, newly-arrived in London from Dorsetshire—chair-maker Tom, his wife Annie and children Gem and Maisie, having been promised work by traveling circus owner Philip Astley. The Butterfields are hardened, street-wise life-long Londoners. The story changes points of view and we come to know particularly Jem Kellaway and Maggie Butterfield very well as they have adventures in the streets of London, have visits with their neighbor Mr. Blake and his wife Kate. I love books like this, not about kings and queens and Lord this-and-that, but the ordinary folk and a snapshot of what their lives were like over a year or so’s time. Chevalier has ever told wonderful stories, and this one is no exception. While William Blake isn’t a central character in the book, he is rather prominent in the minds and eyes of the other characters and it does feature some of his work, as this takes place not long after he’d written his famed “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience.” I grew fearful towards the ending that the author would wrap everything up in a nice little packages in the way that real life never is, and thus spoil the whole story, but not to worry—it was decidedly satisfying for me. The reader was excellent, too, doing a myriad of voices and accents without faltering. A.
10. THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows (audio download) Wonderful production, a story told in letters back and forth between several people in the UK in 1946. It’s post-war England and writer Juliet Ashton is busy doing book tours when she receives an interesting letter from a Mr. Dawsey Adams on the island of Guernsey. He had picked up a book that used to belong to her, a work by Charles Lamb, which he really likes, and had some questions for her. They begin a correspondence that leads to Juliet corresponding with many people on the island, members of a group called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—so-named during a ruse to fool the Germans who had been occupying the island at the time of the group’s formation. It started out as a bit of a joke but actually did develop into a book club, and Juliet decides that it might be interesting to write about the group, the German occupation there (which she knew precious little about) and Guernsey in general. After several months of correspondence, and despite the protestations of her steady boyfriend, rich American Markham Reynolds, Juliet heads off to the island to meet her pen pals, totally unprepared for what she finds there. Absolutely wonderful book!! This was the first audiobook I’d read that was done by more than one reader, almost like an old time radio production, with the letters being read by four or five different people. It was very hard to stop listening to this wonderful reading. Yes, it’s rather sappy in places but the way this book was done, I didn’t mind it at all. There were parts that were terribly sad, others that were joyous and hopeful, the characters were brilliant and well-fleshed and there’s plenty of literary reference for the seasoned bibliophile, too. I was saddened to hear that the primary author, Mary Ann Schaffer, passed away before the book was ever released, so we won’t be privy to more of her work. Very likely to make my top ten of the year! A+
11. EIGHT OF SWORDS by David Skibbins. First of a mystery series featuring Warren Ritter, a fifty-something tarot reader with a street stall in Berkeley, California, and fugitive from the law because of his “un-American” activities back in the ‘60’s. Well, actually, it’s believed that he’s dead—and Richard Green, the person he was, IS dead for all intents and purposes. He’s also bi-polar and prone to do a lot of self-medicating. The story sucked me in immediately, with Warren doing a reading for a teenage girl in which he forsees a bad end. He gives his clients one of his tarot cards with a sticker containing his contact information, and when the girl is kidnapped later that day, he’s contacted by the police, as Heather’s backpack with his card in it was found in an alley not far away. To top things off, his sister Tara—who believes that “Richard” has been dead for the last couple of decades—is on a temporary job in Berkeley and sees him at his tarot stall. This puts Warren into a whole dilemma of “fight or flight”—does he stay and try to figure out what happened to Heather, and to resolve things with Tara, or does he run to Spokane or Alaska, where he has two other identities that he can use? He decides to stay, which sets off crisis after crisis for Warren—not easy for anyone, but for someone living on the edge psychologically, especially devastating. I really like Warren, despite some of his stupid choices, and the writing style is easy to read, casual and with just enough humor to balance out the edginess. I’ve already put the second in series on my PBS wishlist. A winner! A.
12. HE WHO FEARS THE WOLF by Karin Fossum. #2 Inspector Konrad Seijer mystery set in Norway. An elderly woman is found dead in her remote cabin home, her garden hoe firmly planted in the side of her head. Meanwhile, Errki Johrma, a disturbed young schizophrenic, has escaped from a nearby asylum so everyone assumes he is the perpetrator of that heinous crime. A young boy walking in the woods taking some bow-shooting practice who discovered the woman’s body reports having seen Errki in the woods near her cabin. But Inspector Seijer isn’t so sure, and even comes up with a bizarre bet with his second in command that their culprit isn’t Errki at all. The young man’s psychiatrist doesn’t believe he did it either, as violence simply doesn’t fit his profile of past behaviors. Seijer is working not only the murder case, but the case of a bank robbery that occurs the next morning—a bank robbery that involves a hostage, no less. The two cases begin to strangely entwine during the course of the investigation. I enjoyed this book more than the first in the series. Seijer wasn’t quite so morose in this book, maybe that had something to do with it. The book rotates back and forth with chapters told from the point of view of several characters, including the bad guys. Sometimes this works for an author and other times I find it annoying, but Fossum uses that tool remarkably well and the book had a very satisfying feel to it: I’m certainly glad to have already procured the next few in the series. A.
13. THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH by Charlie Huston. ARC for review from Amazon Vine. This is the gritty, edgy tale of Webster Fillmore Goodhue, a former teacher cum slacker, now employed by Clean Team, a company that does clean-up at crime scenes after the forensic teams are done. Hired by families too bereaved to deal with such a mess and without the knowledge of how to handle it even if they wanted to, Web finds a certain satisfaction in scraping bloody bits of brains, offal and gore and restoring a room such that you could not tell that a brutal murder or suicide or other messy death occurred there. Web himself is pretty messed up inside, having lived an “interesting” childhood, shall we say, and then suffering a major traumatic incident as a teacher that left him essentially unable to cope with most of life except by sleeping and by being a total jerk while he’s awake. Despite all that, I liked him almost immediately, much as I have liked every one of Huston’s main characters in previous books. I know I’m not supposed to like them, but I can’t help it. Perhaps it’s just the author’s ‘voice’ or writing style, but like his other works, I found this book hard to put down and devoured it in a matter of hours. Not for the faint of heart, nor the prim and proper, this book is graphic, full of gory descriptions of crime scenes, evidence of man’s brutality towards one another and it oozes darkness—and yet, it left me with a sense of hope, too. I believe this book is meant to be a stand-alone, but I hope I’m wrong, because I would love to see it become a series. There’s already a great main character and a set of interesting, well-fleshed out supporting characters too. Excellent and highly recommended for lovers of indecently pulpy noir. A+
14. THE GOLDSMITH’S DAUGHTER by Kate Sedley. #10 Roger the Chapman series set in 1470’s England. Roger and new wife Adela are off to London in January, even though Adela is now three months’ pregnant. Adela has hopes of seeing some of the festivities to celebrate the royal wedding of King Edward’s four-year-old son to Lady Anne Mowbray. Meanwhile, Edward’s brother George, The Duke of Clarence sits in the Tower, charged with treason. Roger has a bad feeling about the trip, and sure enough, while in the crowd at the wedding and again during George’s trial the next day, Roger is spotted by Prince Richard, whom he has done service for in the past and whom he is extremely loyal to. Richard charges Roger to solve the murder of a local goldsmith—or actually, the goldsmith’s son-in-law—as the wife is rumored to be the killer and she is related to King Edward’s latest mistress, Jane Shore. Richard wants to approach Jane to ask her to intercede for his brother George’s life, but he wants a bargaining chip before doing so. He feels that solving the murder and removing the suspicion from her cousin’s head will be enough. Roger ends up spending most of his week in the investigation while Adela spends time with the Lampreys, old friends of Roger’s from previous trips. And of course Roger solves the crime, although the answer was as plain as the nose on your face from midway through the book. This is one of my favorite historical series, with Roger’s ‘voice’ telling stories at an advanced age as he recalls them from his past. Depite the obviousness of the mystery, I still enjoyed this one and always applaud Sedley’s descriptions, settings and of course her characters, too. A.
15. RITUALS OF THE SEASON by Margaret Maron. (audio) #11 Judge Deborah Knott series set in Colleton County, North Carolina. It’s Christmas, and Deborah’s wedding looms large on the horizon, but there’s no time for celebrating just yet. An up-and-coming assistant DA, Tracy Johnson, has been shot while driving down the interstate and her year-old adopted daughter May, who is in her carseat in the back, lives only briefly after the ensuing crash. Suspicion centers around people she’s previously prosecuted, especially since she’s gotten a death threat recently. And then it’s revealed that she was beginning to dig into an old case regarding a woman on death row who is to be executed the following month. On top of that, the autopsy reveals that Johnson was pregnant when no one knew she was seeing anyone seriously—so was her death related to her personal life, or her professional one? Although admonished to stay out of the investigation, Deborah gets tangled in it anyway and solves the old murder case while the sheriff’s office finally draws enough evidence to light to solve Johnson’s murder. As is common, I knew the bad guy as soon as he was introduced, and watched the clues fall into place as they all scrambled around after the wrong guy for quite awhile. But I still love this series, and the reader is just excellent too. The highlight of course was Deborah’s wedding, and watching her huge family prepare for it and spending Christmas in Colleton County was wonderful, although a bit late. LOL A
16. SOLACE FOR A SINNER by Caroline Roe. #4 Isaac of Girona historical mystery set in 1550’s Spain, featuring the blind Jewish physician and his family. In this installment, the Holy Grail has apparently come to Girona in the hands of a merchant who is trying to auction it off to the highest bidder. Rumors abound and then one of the hopeful buyers ends up dead, as does the merchant himself. Near-panic ensues in the marketplaces as the rumors escalate about the Grail and its powers. Isaac begins to investigate as one of the members of the Jewish community is suspect, and the Bishop, whom Isaac tends faithfully. is annoyed with Isaac for stirring up trouble and tries to stay out of the fracas. While I didn’t dislike this book, I certainly didn’t like it as much as the previous ones in the series. It seemed rather blah and I had a hard time getting interested in the political/religious intrigue and in the main part of the story even though I enjoy Isaac, Raquel, Yusuf and the rest of the supporting cast very much. I’ll give this one a B- and hope the next one picks up again.
17. DIE ONCE by Marianne MacDonald. #6 Dido Hoare antiquarian bookseller mystery set in London. A regular customer of Dido’s has committed suicide and a few days later, her bank contacts her to say that the cheque he used to make his last purchase from her has bounced. She contacts the solicitors handling his estate and is hired by them to do a valuation on his books, and in the process of doing so, Dido realizes that something is just not right about the whole situation, and she begins to think perhaps someone helped Tim Curwen over his balcony. Conversations with a small nearly-blind lad who lives next door and a couple of irate CID detectives who pop in to the flat to see what Dido is doing there begin to raise her suspicions even more. Dido, naturally, gets herself into investigating and helps unlock the mystery. Once again I have to say that, much like the last book in this series that I read, I found most of the situations to be totally implausible. Why on earth would a woman with a young toddler to raise put herself in such jeopardy on a continual basis?? This was not a person she had any sort of deep relationship with so that her running hither and yon would be inspired by passion or a deep friendship of great longevity or something. Why would policemen willingly share details of ongoing investigations with her—a bookseller and rank amateur—and even invite her along on snooping expeditions? Why would she willingly withhold vital evidence from the investigating officers and still not be able to figure out the bad guy til the end of the book when I had figured it out about a third of the way through? LOL I just can’t see how any of this could have happened, really… my head was rattling continuously as I shook it incredulously. Don’t get me wrong—I like Dido and her world a lot (what’s not to like about an antiquarian bookstore??) and I’m still wishing her father were a real person that I could call up and natter with. BUT… truly, I think the author needs to make situations that an amateur like Dido could reasonably get into or else make her a policewoman. Were I basing my grade strictly on the characters and settings, the book would get an A, but the continual stream of ludicrous actions by Dido and just plain lowered it to a B-.
18. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sara Gruen. Historical fiction set during the Depression about a young man whose parents die suddenly in a car crash when he is away at Cornell University, and is due to take his final exams to become a veterinarian. At a total loss when he finds out that his parents had mortgaged their home and essentially lost the farm with nothing in the estate, Jacob Jankowski just starts walking. Hungry, tired, footsore and grieving, he ends up hooking up with a traveling circus, and this is the story of what life was like under (and behind!) the big top, trying to survive during the Depression. The story actually bounces back and forth in time, being told by a much older Jacob, who is now ninety (or ninety-three, he’s not sure which) and living in a nursing home. When the circus comes to town, all these memories come flooding back. I don’t want to say too much or give anything away, so just GO READ IT! I absolutely loved this book! It’s a gritty tale, doesn’t gloss over the realities of life and yet somehow manages to be a gently told story. I fell in love with the elder Mr. Jankowski—he reminded me so much of one of my favorite residents from when I used to work in a nursing home. I always did like the feisty ones!
19. THE GHOST AND MRS MCCLURE by Alice Kimberly. #1 in the Haunted Bookshop mystery series, set in small town Rhode Island where Penelope has moved from New Yorkwith her young son Spencer after her husband’s suicide. Moving in with her aging aunt Sadie and buying half-interest in her failing bookstore, Penelope revamps it, modernizes everything and uses her background in publishing to try and make Buy the Book viable again. She manages to snag big-time mystery author Timothy Brennan to come speak and do a book signing. Little does she realize that Brennan, one of her favorite authors, is a real jerk. And it turns out someone else thinks so too, as he’s murdered during his talk right on camera. At first it’s thought he suffered a heart attack, but later it’s revealed that he was deliberately driven into anaphylactic shock with nut oil. While all this is going on, Penelope discovers that her bookstore is haunted by Jack Shepard, a 1940’s tough-guy private eye—the very one that Brennan’s books are based on. The reason he’d agreed to do a signing in Buy the Book was that Brennan and his staff had discovered that Shepard had died there. And of course Penelope is briefly a suspect ibecause of the massive publicity to the shop generated by Brennan’s death on site. This was a fairly decent book for a cozy, but it wasn’t great. The plot was very transparent and I’d figured out whodunit and the subplot way in advance. I’m going to try the next in series—although I’ve put it on my library list rather than taking up a wishlist spot at PBS—and see if it shakes my tree a little more. I like Penelope and the supporting cast, but the characters were a bit weak and, I don’t know—lackluster I guess. A light and predictable read, what will make or break this series for me is whether (as seems typical) it denigrates into a mystery-cum-romance and whether the author will keep Jack’s ghost’s abilities within the parameters she’s set down in this first book. B
20. ROUNDING THE MARK by Andrea Camilleri. #7 Inspector Salvo Montalbano police procedural mystery set in Sicily. Salvo has become disillusioned with the world and with policework specifically and is all set to turn in his resignation when he gets caught up in an unofficial investigation dealing with illegal immigrants. He comes across a scared black immigrant boy at the docks who looks at Montalbano imploringly as if to ask him to help him escape—but the woman who takes the little fellow by the hand appears to be his mother, so why was the boy afraid? The question definitely needs answering a few days later when the boy turns up dead, the victim of a hit and run accident. When this unofficial case ties in with the case of a dead body that Montalbano literally ‘ran into’ while swimming, his instincts go into high gear and the scent of the chase banishes all thought of resignation from his mind. Excellent as usual, and as usual, don’t read this series while hungry—the descriptions of the wonderful foods will leave you drooling! A.
21. BONK: THE CURIOUS COUPLING OF SCIENCE AND SEX by Mary Roach. (audio) The author takes her usual quirky look at a touchy subject, delving particularly into the various documented studies about sex—attitudes, practices, and the actual nitty-gritty science of coupling—done by the likes of Masters & Johnson, Kinsey and other lesser-known researchers, both past and present. She discusses not only the subject matter undertaken by these folks, but the researchers themselves, their lives and thoughts about sex. Traveling the globe to meet with researchers and to observe some studies in action—even to participate in some herself—the author helps to debunk some common misconceptions about ‘the science of sex’ and ‘how it all works’ and offers up a few little-known facts along the way. Roach’s off-beat sense of humor comes in handy during the discussion, and she handles the delicate subject with straightforward aplomb that greatly diminishes any squeamishness or embarrassment. Also explored some were cultural considerations, although I would have liked to have had even more discussion about that. Since her audience is primarily from Western civilization, that’s where she concentrated her efforts. I enjoyed this book quite a lot, learned a lot, and the reader for this audio version was really good too, which made concentrating not a problem—which sometimes it can be when I’ve attempted other non-fiction books. There were many footnotes and asides throughout the book, but to me they weren’t distracting, just added extra information—in fact, some of the most interesting bits were in the footnotes, I thought. It will be really interesting to see what topic Ms. Roach decides to dive into next! A.
DNF: FAULT LINE by Barry Eisler (ARC for review)
Cheryl
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