1. MURDER AT FENWAY PARK by Troy Soos (AUDIO) #1 Mickey Rawlings historical mystery set in 1912--this one in Boston. Mickey is a rookie major leaguer, second stringer utility player who, upon reporting to Fenway Park, comes across a man's body that has been beaten with a baseball bat. Initially suspected, later he finds out that the body was moved to another location so as not to generate negative publicity. Who was the man? When another death happens--this one an elderly assistant that Mickey had questioned about the first killing who was shot in an alley, it seems that someone is trying to set Mickey up. He works with a lady friend of his who introduces him to the principles of detecting and sets out trying to discover who had the motive, means and opportunity to do in both men. Was it the powerful owner of the Red Sox, or one of the players trying to cover up a problem? Or someone else from the shady gambling world? I had listened to one of the later books in the series last week, and it was definitely better than this one. I think if I had listened to this one first, I may not have continued. It just felt very circular, with the main character going around and around and around and over the same evidence and same suppositions over and over again. And there were a LOT of different characters to try to keep straight--which isn't always easy when listening to an audio book. I spotted the bad guy right away but I didn't know why or how he'd done it. Perhaps it was just listening to this so soon after the later, much better, book that caused it to suffer in comparison. I will likely listen on, but will take a nice long break before the next one. B-.
2. GRAVE GOODS by Ariana Franklin. (AUDIO) #3 "Mistress of the Art of Death" historical mystery. Adelia Aguilar, a doctor who must hide her profession because she is a woman in 1176 England, is summoned once again by King Henry Plantagenet. He requests that she (and the Moorish "doctor" Mansur who is actually her assistant) go to Glastonbury Abbey to inspect the bones of two people whose coffin was displaced during an earthquake. He wants her to find that these bones are the bones of Arthur and his queen Guinevere so that rebel Welsh will submit to his kingship at last and stop fighting him, hopes set on Arthur 'The Once and Future King' saving them. Along the way, Adelia and her party encounter brigands, and she later comes to find out that her traveling companion Lady Emma, did not make it to her destination--the home of her dead husband's mother, but disappeared somewhere on the trail. Frantic, Adelia attempts to find Emma while still doing the King's bidding, hoping that this favor will set her free from his service. But what if she cannot in good conscience state that the bones are Arthur and Guinevere's? The King will be most displeased. I really enjoyed this one more than the last entry in the series--the reader was excellent, the characters so well drawn and climbing up my list of favorite casts of 'motley crew' of the protagonist. The mystical elements of Glastonbury and the whole Arthurian legend also added a bit of special interest for me to this chapter of Adelia's life. Looking forward to the next in this series very much! A.
3. THE MESSENGER OF TRUTH by Jacqueline Winspear. #4 Maisie Dobbs series, set in post-WWI England. Maisie, a former nurse turned private investigator is hired by a young woman, Georgina Bassington-Hope, whose brother Nicholas has just died in what was ruled an accident when he fell from some scaffolding while preparing for an exhibition of his paintings. Georgina has a funny feeling that it was not an accident, and wants Maisie to figure out if her feeling has any substance to it. Nicholas Bassington-Hope was very talented, and had been documenting the war in his latest paintings, a set that together is said to be his magnum opus--which are missing. He had them hidden away, not to be displayed to anyone until his exhibition, and no one knows where they are--or will admit to it. As Maisie visits Nick's friends and family and those associated with the art gallery, she begins to get the same feeling Georgina had, but nothing solid. On the personal side, Maisie's assistant Billy Beale and his wife Doreen are having a bad time of it as their youngest child Lizzie is hospitalized with a severe case of diphtheria, and Maisie continues to settle in to her new home and resolves to figure out what she should do about her relationship with Dr. Andrew Dene. This series just seems to get better the further along I read in it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and until very close to the end, I did not figure out who the bad guy was--plenty of red herrings although in thinking back, the clues were there to be ferreted out. Looking forward to the next in series to see what direction the author takes Maisie in. A.
4. DRAGON KEEPER by Robin Hobb. #1 Rain Wilds fantasy trilogy. This world will not be a strange place to those who have read some of Hobb's other trilogies. This series, set mostly in the Rain Wilds, takes off where the Liveship Traders series ended, although with new characters leading the way and some of the old favorites making cameo appearances. That said, I do think it would read well on its own, although maybe wouldn't make quite as much sense as it did knowing the backstory. Alise Kincarron Finbok is a dragon/Elderling scholar, married to Hest Finbok--an outwardly charming but inwardly controlling and cruel man who thankfully spends most of his time away from home. Part of their marriage contract stated that Alise could go to the Rain Wilds to study dragons, and this she does when the dragons have only been out of their casings for a short time. The dragons are not the magnificent creatures she expected--many are small, slow-witted, and most have shriveled, stunted wings which won't allow them to fly. Their ancestral memories are only partly intact, most being confused about their role in the world. Still, when the dragons head up river in search of the fabled city of Kelsingra, Alise (and Hest's secretary Sedric, whom he's sent to chaperone her) goes along with Captain Leftrin, on his liveship Tarman up the river after them. The book also features Thymara, a sixteen-year-old Rain Wilds girl, badly 'affected' with claws for finger and toenails and heavy scaling who becomes a dragon keeper to Sintara, a blue female dragon. It's very clear that this book is part of a series, as the ending doesn't really resolve anything, just segues into the next book leaving pretty much all the storyline threads dangling. I love Hobb's writing style and the world she's created, but I can't say I was overly fond of any of the main characters in this book. They didn't seem quite as well-fleshed as some others in previous books, and at times they were just downright annoying. While this book didn't bowl me over as the first books of her other trilogies have done, I still really enjoyed this and am definitely looking forward to book two in the series to see what new discoveries about dragons and Elderlings are going to come forth. B+
5. SIDETRACKED by Henning Mankell. #5 Kurt Wallander Swedish police procedural set in and around Ystad. Wallander, hoping for an uneventful few weeks leading up to his summer holiday, is sorely disappointed when two troubling cases present themselves. First, he takes a call from an elderly farmer who has observed a girl in his rape (canola) field all day. She's behaving oddly and won't go away and wants the police. When Wallander arrives, he also observes the girl's odd behavior and it's not long before, to his horror, she dumps gasoline on herself and sets herself on fire! While he is still reeling from that incident, a call comes in about a man murdered with an axe--who's been scalped. One of those is bad enough--and it will be a higher profile case, as the victim was an elderly retired government official--but when a second murder with the same M.O. comes to light a few days later, Wallander knows they have a serial killer on their hands and his holidays to be spent abroad with his Latvian lover Baiba are in jeopardy. As Wallander and his team try to determine the connection between the two victims, they call in a profiler, although he is somewhat inexperienced given that serial killers seem to be not that prolific in Sweden. Tension mounts as they fear another killing and reprisals from the public and the press, poring over hundreds of reports and trying to come at the crimes through many different angles. While all this is going on, Wallander finds out that his father has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, although he's at the early stage where he knows there's something wrong. As usual, Wallander is a bit of a gloomy gus, and sometimes it can be a bit of a struggle to slog through his worries, self-doubt and pessimism. I still find him endearing, and of course his selfless dedication to his work is to be commended--otherwise, how would the criminals be caught? LOL At any rate, this was an excellent entry in the series and I'm looking forward to the next. A.
6. THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins. (AUDIO) #1 Hunger Games YA fantasy series. Katniss Everdeen is sixteen this Reaping day--the day when Tributes from all the districts of Panem--a post-apocalyptic country somewhere in future North America--are chosen. Tributes are children between twelve and eighteen, a boy and a girl from each district, who will fight to the death in a nationally televised (watching is mandatory) program called The Hunger Games. Sort of a reality show on steriods! Her name is in the barrel many times, so Katniss is totally shocked when her little sister Prim's name is chosen. She loves Prim more than anything, and thus invokes a rarely used rule and volunteers to take her place, knowing that this most likely means a death sentence for her as no one from district twelve has won the Games for years. Like the Olympics, the Tributes survive because of their sponsors, and when you come from the poor mining district, no one is interested in backing you. She and Peeta, the boy accompanying her from district twelve, are off to the Capitol, where their dictatorship is ruled from, to have a couple weeks of training before being sent into The Arena--where the terrain, the wildlife, the weather and available resources are controlled by the powers that be. More than anything they want an exciting show, so if the various Tributes were to just isolate themselves, they would do 'something' to bring them together for confrontations. Implanted with tracking chips before being released, the Tributes know that they are being watched 24/7. I found this book gripping, compelling, horrifying and very difficult to stop listening to. The characters were very well-drawn, and it wasn't long before you felt you knew Katniss inside and out and liked her despite her foibles. I cannot speak highly enough about this book and am very much looking forward to listening to the next one. The sad thing is, I find this whole scenario to be not as fantastical as it should be. This audiobook was skillfully read by Carolyn McCormick. A++
7. IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER by Julia Spencer-Fleming. #1 Rev. Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne mystery set in upstate New York. Clare, recently new in the small town of Miller's Kill, becomes acquainted with Sheriff Russ when an infant is left on the church's doorstep. Accompanying the child is a note, naming him Cody and asking that he be adopted out to the Burnses, a family in Clare's parish who have been trying for many years to conceive, and then to adopt. A couple of days later, when Russ is giving Clare a tour of the town and outlying areas, Clare stumbles upon the obviously-murdered body of a young woman who is later determined to be the mother of the baby. The most obvious suspects would be whoever the father of the child is, or perhaps the Burnses themselves, looking to uncomplicate the adoption process. But Clare can't believe that they are guilty, and being lawyers themselves, that they would be so desperate and stupid to do such a thing. She begins digging into things on the side, since Russ, who takes an instant disliking to Geoff Burns, seems hell bent on fitting them up for the murder. As the case goes on, another dead body turns up and Clare herself is put in mortal danger. I mostly enjoyed this book--the writing style was compelling and easy to read, I mostly like the characters and the sense of "place" was really phenomenal. However, I have a really hard time believing that someone as smart as Clare could do so very many really stupid things, most of which I'd classify as "fem jep"--putting herself in jeopardy and needing to be rescued purely because she did these stupid things. I also found it a little unbelievable that she had access to as much inside information as she did, often directly from the Sheriff himself, which just seems like really sloppy police work. I also find Clare terribly naive not to think that people were going to talk and gossip about her and Russ, given the amount of time they spent together on the case and being alone together at one another's homes for dinner and such--hard to believe that a minister of the church--ANY Christian church--would put themselves in that situation or not be mindful of their public persona, especially being so very new to the town. But suspending disbelief on those things, it was an enjoyable mystery and I will definitely be reading on in the series as long as the romance or continual, unresolved sexual tension doesn't take over the plots. B+
8.IN A DRY SEASON by Peter Robinson (AUDIO) #10 DCI Alan Banks British police procedural set in the Yorkshire dales. Banks, slowly recovering from the tailspin caused by his wife Sandra leaving him months previously, his son Brian dropping out of college to form a rock band, and being on the 'outs' with his Chief Constable Jimmy Riddle, is thrown a joke of a case by Riddle designed to do nothing more than put him in his place. Off to a remote area of their district to investigate a set of bones discovered by a young boy playing in some ruins that appeared when a reservoir area dries up, Banks soon discovers this case is right up his alley. He and DS Annie Cabot begin to piece together details of the decades-old murder, a woman's body wrapped in WWII blackout curtains and buried in an outbuilding of a cottage in the now-defunct town of Hob's End, which has been covered in water for many years. The reader knows the story (and can guess at much of the mystery) well before Banks, because it's told in part via the journal of a family member of the deceased from back in the 1940's. This is the first audio book I've listened to in this series and I enjoyed it very much. The book was perhaps a bit lengthy, but that's my only criticism of it. Looking forward to the next in series and probably will listen on in audio again. A.
9. ONE GOOD TURN by Kate Atkinson. #2 Jackson Brodie mystery, this one taking place in Edinburgh during The Fringe Festival, a city-wide art/craft fair. Jackson (a former cop, former PI and now a man of leisure, having been left a large bequest by a client) is in town because his girlfriend Julia is performing in a play. The book is really a conglomeration of stories about different people and how their lives intersect during this intense few days, beginning with a case of road rage in which a large man leaps from his Honda (thus becoming "Honda Man") and brutally attacks the driver of a rental car that he rear-ended with a baseball bat. Jackson witnesses this crime, as do several other players in the book, and the story follows each of them around in turn as their lives continue to intersect in one wacky coincidence after another. I love Atkinson's writing style and her interesting way of plotting books, but I found this one to be a bit long and too convoluted at times, and I struggled, especially mid-book, to stay engaged. In the end, though, Atkinson skillfully brings all the parts together in an interesting conclusion that I didn't see coming. I do look forward to the next in the series though, as the author does leave Jackson's life on a bit of a cliffhanger. B.
10.SEVENTY-SEVEN CLOCKS by Christopher Fowler. #3 Bryant & May British police procedural featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit. This mystery goes back in time again, to 1973, telling the story of how the PCU investigated the deaths of several members of the noble Whitstable family, members of the fabled Watchmaker's Guild and (they believe) another secret society within the guild. These strange murders, all with a different MO (and all the methods of death very odd indeed) are obviously tied together due to the family connection, but the PCU is up in arms trying to figure out how and why. Under pressure from the higher-ups, the press and the Whitstable family themselves, they must navigate a host of strange and seemingly disconnected clues to piece together the real story, one that spans decades of planning and deceit. Told from the point of view of both Bryant and May as well as a couple of other people, I have to admit that the book got a little confusing at times, and was a little too convoluted with forays not only to the '70's, but also back into the 1880's with other stops along the way. It was interesting, but (possibly because of the way I read the book--piecemeal, on my breaks at work over the course of more than a week) I'm still not sure I have the whole thing straight in my mind even after the reveal. There are a lot of subtle nuances and half-hidden clues that I'm sure I missed. Still, you gotta love Bryant & May, and the historical tidbits and information is all very interesting, too. I'm marking this one down slightly from the grades previous books in series got, but I think in future I won't be using this series as a 'take to work' read so I can concentrate on things better. I'm still really looking forward to the next one! B+
11. THE WITCH'S TRINITY by Erika Mailman. Historical fiction set in rural Germany in the village of Tierkinddorf in 1507. A famine has decimated the land, with poor harvests for two years, most of the woodland creatures killed off, the people becoming nothing but skin and bone. Gude Muller is the elderly mother of the local miller--now out of work with no grain to grind--and she is horrified when a visiting friar, a representative of the Inquisition from Rome, hauls out his copy of the Malleus Maleficarum ('The Witch's Hammer') and drags the local herb woman, Kunne, to trial for witchcraft, blaming the crop failure and famine among other things on her. Kunne is a kind, wise woman and lifelong friend of Gude, and when she is accused, Gude is the only one who stands up for her, to no avail. Kunne is burned alive at the stake in the village green, and Gude soon finds herself imprisoned in the Witch's Tower awaiting her own judgment. She is hoping her son Jost returns soon--he's off with most of the village men on a hunting trip further afield in hopes of finding game to ease the hunger of the village--for she knows her spiteful daughter-in-law Imeltrude will do nothing to save her. In fact, Gude believes she may be the one who accused her in exchange for some food from the friar. A somewhat bizarre and confusing tale in places because of the strange dreams Gude had (were these real, or what was actually happening? I'm still not sure) and it was equally horrifying in other places as (for example) the witch burning is described in quite graphic detail. It was interesting, and a very good study in mob mentality and what hunger can motivate a person to do, but the plot lacked much in the way of cohesion and I'm still scratching my head about parts of it. B.
12. MISS ZUKAS AND THE ISLAND MURDERS by Jo Dereske. #2 Helma Zukas mystery, featuring the intrepid librarian who lives in fictional Bellehaven, WA. Helma gets an anonymous letter reminding her that she promised to plan her 20-year high school reunion, and also hints that the death of a classmate after a basketball game their senior year may not have been an accident as was previously believed. Since Helma was the class treasurer and invested their funds with her usual aplomb, she and her friend Ruth who also hails from back home, decide to invite the whole class from Scoop River, MI (all fifty-two of them) to come to Bellehaven to spend a weekend at a resort in the San Juan Islands. Only half of them end up coming, and it's clear that someone is out to sabotage not only the reunion, but also possibly Helma and other members of the class who may know something about the classmate's death. This is kind of a strange series--to read the description, you wouldn't really think it would be my "thing" but I'm finding that I actually quite enjoy it so far. Helma is staid, practical, old-fashioned, and seems much older than her age. Her friend Ruth, an artist, is the polar opposite, being flamboyant and outgoing and always with a man on her arm. This mystery had a somewhat predictable ending, but overall it was a good, light read and I'm enjoying getting to know these characters better. B+
13. GOOD OMENS by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. (AUDIO) The end of the world is coming. Or it should be...actually, no one's quite sure. The ultimate battle between good and evil depends on the competence of the good and evil minions, though--so you can bet things aren't going to go quite as their bosses (whoever they are) planned. They can't even get the baby who is the spawn of Satan into the right home, having mixed him up with another baby or two in hospital, which isn't noticed until he turns eleven and his hellhound doesn't arrive--at least, not at *his* house. Things just go downhill from there, with the usual Pratchett hijinks and insane humor. Coupled with Gaiman's superb storytelling ability, this book is a gem, skillfully read by Martin Jarvis who does a great job with various voices and accents and gets the tone of the book perfectly right. I love each of these authors' books written individually; I sure hope they collaborate again in the future! A.
14. RED HOUSE by K.J.A. Wishnia. #5 Filomena Buscarsela mystery. Fil, Ecuadoran-born ex-cop, having survived her bout with lethal doses of toxic chemicals with only occasional lung problems, now is working as a rookie investigator for a big private eye firm, doing the necessary apprenticeship to get her investigator's license. Filomena decided that she needs to provide not only a loving, but a more financially stable home for daughter Antonia, now 12 years old. However, the pressure to bring in real paying clients to the firm (which most of the Spanish-speaking community are not) is huge, so she is kept very busy. And on the side, she's helping a couple of clients for virtually no pay at all. When the residents of a particular apartment house keep meeting with various accidents, she tries to follow the trail back to who stands to gain if the apartment were to end up empty. The first assumption is the landlord, but who's feeding the baddies information that lets them do their dirty work so easily? I really like Filomena's gutsy character, with her unique outlook on life and a cross-section of another of the little cultural blips that most of us don't get to see or experience. If I remember rightly, I wasn't overly thrilled with the previous book, but this one seemed back on track. Only one more book in this series, and I for one will be sad to see it end. A.
15. NINE MEN DANCING by Kate Sedley. #12 Roger the Chapman mystery in which Roger is heading home to Bristol with a nearly empty pack, stops in a small village of Lower Brockhurst. There, he hears of an ancient mystery of two travelers who were set upon and killed but not robbed more than a hundred years previously, and a more recent puzzle, when a local beauty disappears after declaring that she will not be marrying young Tom Rawbone, but instead has been betrothed to his father, Nathaniel. Running away into a violent storm, she's not heard from or seen again. Roger, always with a nose for a mystery, is asked by Eris Lilywhite's grandmother to see if he can look with the fresh eye of an outsider and find out what happened to her. No one believes she ran away, given that she had just schemed her way into the role of future mistress of the local manor. By all accounts, Eris was not at all well liked, despite her beauty, and though the obvious suspect in her disappearance would be young Tom Rawbone, there are plenty of other people who are not at all sad to see the back of her, wherever she might have gone. With the clock ticking--as Roger has promised his wife Adela that he will be home in time for St. Patrick's Day feast--and a host of sometimes conflicting clues to sort through, Roger must come up with a solution so he can set for home. He can't help but feel that the two mysteries, decades apart, are tied together somehow.The mystery was terribly easy to sort out, but as always, I love this series for the historical sense of time and place, the author's easy-reading writing style and the characters, not so much for the mysteries themselves. Loved this one as much as previous entries! A.
Current Reads: SLEEPLESS by Charlie Huston, THE ROSE RENT by Ellis Peters, WILFUL BEHAVIOUR by Donna Leon, and listening to BEFORE THE FROST by Henning Mankell
Cheryl
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
2009 Year-End Summary
Total Books Read (Finished): 234
DNF's: 11 (this is a shrinking number! Yay!)
Tops and Bottoms:
Since I read mainly mysteries, I have two separate top-ten categories, one for mysteries and one for "everything else."
Top Ten Mysteries:
1. The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston
2. A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
3. Echoes From the Dead by Johan Theorin
4. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
5. The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
6. The Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill
7. Water Like a Stone by Deborah Crombie
8. Winter's Child by Margaret Maron
9. The Water Room by Christopher Fowler
10. The Ravens of Blackwater by Edward Marston
Top Ten "Other":
1. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by MaryAnn Shaffer and Annie Barrows
2. Water For Elephants by Sarah Gruen
3. The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
4. The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
5. Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey
6. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
7. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
8. Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling
9. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
10. Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
Top Audios (with author and reader listed):
1.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows (multi-reader cast)
2.Percy Jackson & the Olympians by Rick Riordan (the whole series!) (Jesse Bernstein)
3.Hoot by Carl Hiassen (Chad Lowe)
4.The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry (Alyssa Bresnahan)
5.A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (Saul Reichlin)
6.The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Jayne Entwistle)
7.Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher (James Marsters)
8.The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein (read by J.J. Myers, aka Mrs. Grabenstein, LOL)
9.The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (read by the author, who is outstanding!)
10.Winter's Child by Margaret Maron (CJ Critt)
Bottoms (These are books I finished that I gave grades of C or lower to...there aren't many.)
1. A Fistful of Charms by Kim Harrison
2. Flesh and Bone by Jefferson Bass
3. A Potion for a Widow by Caroline Roe
4. The Last Templar by Michael Jecks
5. Flower Net by Lisa See
6. If It's Not One Thing, It's a Murder by Liz Wolfe
7. Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin
8. The Long-Legged Fly by James Sallis
It's been a good year! I completed the RYOB (Read Your Own Books) Challenge, where I pledged to read 150 books from my own TBR shelf, not the library or borrowing. I completed a couple of monthly challenges in 4MA (a Yahoo mystery group) and also did the whole Mystery challenge on Paperbackswap, including bonuses. I did NOT complete the Historical Fiction Challenge at PBS.
Reading goals for 2010: I always give voice to the vague concept of paring down my TBR stacks, but somehow it never seems to happen and I admittedly only make half-hearted attempts at it. I read a lot of my own books, but I acquire more just as fast as I trade off the ones I've read. Or faster! So I will once again give lip service to this noble goal and then most likely promptly ignore it. :)
My goal as always will be to have fun with reading. It's my primary pastime, and when it gets so bogged down with having to read too many books for review before release deadlines, having to read this or that for a discussion or umpteen challenges, it just becomes work rather than fun. No thanks! This year I'm limiting the number of ARCs I'll accept and cutting down on the number of challenges, too.
Happy New Year to all and keep on reading! :)
Cheryl
DNF's: 11 (this is a shrinking number! Yay!)
Tops and Bottoms:
Since I read mainly mysteries, I have two separate top-ten categories, one for mysteries and one for "everything else."
Top Ten Mysteries:
1. The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston
2. A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
3. Echoes From the Dead by Johan Theorin
4. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
5. The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
6. The Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill
7. Water Like a Stone by Deborah Crombie
8. Winter's Child by Margaret Maron
9. The Water Room by Christopher Fowler
10. The Ravens of Blackwater by Edward Marston
Top Ten "Other":
1. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by MaryAnn Shaffer and Annie Barrows
2. Water For Elephants by Sarah Gruen
3. The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
4. The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
5. Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey
6. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
7. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
8. Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling
9. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
10. Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
Top Audios (with author and reader listed):
1.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows (multi-reader cast)
2.Percy Jackson & the Olympians by Rick Riordan (the whole series!) (Jesse Bernstein)
3.Hoot by Carl Hiassen (Chad Lowe)
4.The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry (Alyssa Bresnahan)
5.A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (Saul Reichlin)
6.The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Jayne Entwistle)
7.Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher (James Marsters)
8.The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein (read by J.J. Myers, aka Mrs. Grabenstein, LOL)
9.The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (read by the author, who is outstanding!)
10.Winter's Child by Margaret Maron (CJ Critt)
Bottoms (These are books I finished that I gave grades of C or lower to...there aren't many.)
1. A Fistful of Charms by Kim Harrison
2. Flesh and Bone by Jefferson Bass
3. A Potion for a Widow by Caroline Roe
4. The Last Templar by Michael Jecks
5. Flower Net by Lisa See
6. If It's Not One Thing, It's a Murder by Liz Wolfe
7. Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog by Boris Akunin
8. The Long-Legged Fly by James Sallis
It's been a good year! I completed the RYOB (Read Your Own Books) Challenge, where I pledged to read 150 books from my own TBR shelf, not the library or borrowing. I completed a couple of monthly challenges in 4MA (a Yahoo mystery group) and also did the whole Mystery challenge on Paperbackswap, including bonuses. I did NOT complete the Historical Fiction Challenge at PBS.
Reading goals for 2010: I always give voice to the vague concept of paring down my TBR stacks, but somehow it never seems to happen and I admittedly only make half-hearted attempts at it. I read a lot of my own books, but I acquire more just as fast as I trade off the ones I've read. Or faster! So I will once again give lip service to this noble goal and then most likely promptly ignore it. :)
My goal as always will be to have fun with reading. It's my primary pastime, and when it gets so bogged down with having to read too many books for review before release deadlines, having to read this or that for a discussion or umpteen challenges, it just becomes work rather than fun. No thanks! This year I'm limiting the number of ARCs I'll accept and cutting down on the number of challenges, too.
Happy New Year to all and keep on reading! :)
Cheryl
Sunday, December 6, 2009
December 2009 Reading
1. CHRISTMAS IS MURDER by C.S. Challinor. #1 Rex Graves mystery. Rex, a Scottish barrister, has been invited to spend Christmas at a hotel run by an old friend of his mother's, and as he hasn't heard from his girlfriend in ages (she's off to foreign parts volunteering or something) he accepts. Upon arrival, he discovers that there's been a death, an elderly man who apparently had a seizure of some sort in the common room. One of the other guests, a paramedic, tells Rex privately that he believes the dead man was poisoned. As a snowstorm blocks all traffic and phone reception, Rex feels obligated as an officer of the court to investigate as best as possible until the police are able to arrive. It isn't long before two more guests join the old man in the land of the dead, and Rex is really beginning to worry and wonder whom to trust. I think this is meant to be a classic British 'locked room' type mystery, but it really pales in comparison to the masters. It's cozy, but not annoyingly so. (Those who know my tastes will understand that comment! LOL) It struck me also that this is a perfect example of something we were discussing in one of my Goodreads groups a few months ago, about women trying to write a male lead character and vice versa--Rex didn't seem much like a man to me; his behavior and thoughts just seemed...I don't know, not manly. But then, I'm a woman, so what do I know? Maybe it's just that Rex was just not well-fleshed out, regardless of gender. Oddly enough, though the book had many faults, I found myself reading on and found it overall a quick, mostly pleasant read and found myself nearly done with it before I had time to grumble much. plan to continue on for at least one more book in the series. I'm hoping to get more of a sense of who Rex is in the next one, though. B-
2. BONE CROSSED by Patricia Briggs. #4 Mercy Thompson paranormal mystery. Mercy is a 'walker'--a skinwalker who can transform instantly into a coyote. She also runs her own garage in the Tri-Cities area (Washington state) and her boyfriend, Adam, is the Alpha of the local werewolf pack. Trouble is still bubbling in the area between the wolves and the vampires, as (last book) Mercy killed one of the leaders of the local seethe who was creating demon-vampires, and Marsilia, the seethe's mistress, wants her dead. It's not bad enough that Mercy is still recovering from the savage rape that took place last book, but as a message, Marsilia sends the nearly-destroyed body of Stefan, another of the seethe's leaders who helped Mercy, into Mercy's living room, thinking that in his debilitated state, he will 'forget' that Mercy is a friend and kill her before he himself dies. But Adam is there, and he and his wolves heal Stefan and take him to Adam's to recover. Mercy heads out of town to Spokane at the behest of an old college friend to listen to some ghosts in her house and try to get them to stop troubling her ten-year-old son, Chad. It's a good opportunity for Mercy to get out of town and lie low for a while--or is it? Amber's appearance on Mercy's doorstep might be just a little too convenient. Another great entry in this series, which is one of my favorite paranormals. Looking forward to the next. A.
3. THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY by Siobhan Dowd. (AUDIO) A young adult mystery told from the point of view of Ted Spark, a 12-year-old Londoner with (what I presume is--it's never actually named) Aspberger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. Ted is good with numbers, scientific concepts and deductive reasoning, but he has a very difficult time socially. As he puts it, "the pc in my brain operates on a different operating system than most people's." When Ted's cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye, Ted and his somewhat rebellious older sister Kat try to piece together what happened to him. Salim is visiting with his mother (Ted's Aunt Gloria) before they are due to move to New York in a few days, where Gloria will have a job at an art museum. Gloria and her sister,Ted's mum, Faith, aren't terribly close and it's been several years since Salim and his family visited from Manchester, so they don't really know Salim. Did he leave of his own accord, or did someone abduct him? Ted's main interest was in HOW he disappeared, since he and Kat watched him get on the Eye and watched his pod (as well as several others, in case they were wrong about which one he was on) empty out afterwards with no sign of him. A very wonderful story, told with an interesting protagonist's voice. At first, I was a bit annoyed by the reader--he had a kind of high, nasal, breathless voice with a sort of staccato rhythm that was hard to listen to. Then I realized that he was trying to talk that way, since he was using Ted's voice to set the tone for the story, and he did a really good job. I was hoping that this was the first of a series featuring the Spark kids, but unfortunately it isn't--the author died in 2007 at the age of 47 of breast cancer, and while she did write several other books for kids and young adults, this wasn't a series. She was passionate in life about getting kids to read, making books accessible to disadvantaged children, and in the last few months of her life set up a trust geared towards providing funds to get books in the hands of underprivileged kids. On her website, there is a motto that says, "If a child can read, they can think. And if a child can think, they are free." This so exemplifies my own childhood experience with reading that I've decided to contribute to her Trust in 2010 rather than purchase any new books for myself. You rock, Siobhan! A+
4. VERDICT UNSAFE by Jill McGown. #8 Lloyd & Hill British police procedural. A two-year-old rape case is brought back into focus when the rapist is released on a legal technicality. Not only are his victims put into an emotional tailspin, so are their families, the police officers involved and the community at large. A twisted and convoluted tale full of petty criminals, crooked cops, and nothing but lies and more lies in Stansfield and Malworth, where the crimes were committed. DI Judy Hill firmly believes that Colin Drummond was guilty, but new evidence keeps coming to light that put doubt into the minds of some of her co-workers, including DCI Lloyd. Judy is formally removed from the case by their new Chief, who's a misogynistic throwback--but actually the only real "case" is a pending lawsuit filed by Drummond claiming the police set him up, and also beat him savagely. She's assigned to work on a series of burglaries, that coincidentally involve some of the same players in the rape cases. As Lloyd, Hill and their officers try to cut through the layers of deception, the real story begins to unfold, backtrack, unfold some more until finally it becomes clear. I have to admit I hadn't a clue til very close to the end. I vacillated back and forth between several scenarios, none of which happened to be right. First time in awhile that's happened! Another enjoyable read in this series which as often happens, started slow and became un-putdownable towards the end. A.
5. THE BOOK OF ANSWERS by Barbara Berliner. This is a compilation of questions on various topics posed to the telephone reference line at the NY public library. It was published over 2 decades ago, so some parts (chapters on statistics and pop culture, for example) are somewhat dated, but there's a lot of interesting stuff too. Organized neatly into chapters such as Firsts (Who/what was the first _________?) Myth and Legends, Trademarks, Who Was Who? etc, and with each Q&A separated by double spacing, it was easy to read small chunks at a time without getting lost--which was important to me as this was my (ahem) 'bathroom book' for a couple of months. LOL Enjoyable, entertaining and informative--although an updated version would be a boon! B.
6. PAGAN CHRISTMAS: THE PLANTS, SPIRITS, AND RITUALS AT THE ORIGINS OF YULETIDE by Christian Ratsch and Claudia Muller-Ebling. This book looks back at history and explains the origins of some of our modern-day Christmas traditions: the Christmas tree, the colors red and white, various common decorations, St. Nicholas (and his cousins Father Christmas and Sinterklaas among others) and various festivals held over the centuries around the world that coincide with Christmas. The idea that Santa's reindeer fly because they're high on magic mushrooms made me giggle a bit, I must admit! There was a lot of new information in here that I hadn't come across before--probably because the authors are German and a lot of these traditions were things I wasn't familiar with--but unfortunately the book was not very well organized, got repetitive at times (possibly because there were two authors? I don't know...) and was not easy to navigate. I enjoyed reading about some of these things--including the bits about "Baccy Claus: the smoking Christmas man" with various 'baccy recipes! LOL This isn't a book I want to make room for as a permanent reference, however, as it just isn't very user friendly, however much interesting stuff it might contain. C+
7. SISTER PELAGIA AND THE WHITE BULLDOG by Boris Akunin. #1 in the Sister Pelagia series, featuring this red-headed nun who is an assistant to Bishop Mitrofanii in a remote Russian province in the 19th century. The Bishop sends Pelagia to investigate who is poisoning his aunt's rare white bulldogs, which are near and dear to her heart--even moreso than her human family, really. While investigating who is harming the dogs, a murder mystery with a human victim takes place and Pelagia goes under cover as a noblewoman (Pelagia's supposed sister) to be the Bishop's eyes and ears during this time of political unrest and religious upheaval. I have to be honest and say that had this not been a book I was reading to complete a Challenge for one of my groups, I probably would not have read beyond page 50. It began verrrrrrry slowly, and although the story did eventually become more cohesive and interesting about mid-book, the writing style was just generally off-putting, although perhaps that may be in part the translation? I don't know. There were way too many peripheral characters all with long names (for example, Vladimir Lvovich Bubentsov and Marya Afanasievna Tatishcheva) that were repeated time and again over and over. It was very confusing as to who was who for the longest time. I also never really got a sense of who Pelagia was, what she stood for. I don't mind a richly detailed, slow-moving so-called literary mystery, but this one was just not my cup of tea. I'm glad I finished the book, but I won't be carrying on in the series, even though I've got the next two here--will trade them off to someone who will doubtless enjoy them much more than I would! C-.
8. A SEA OF TROUBLES by Donna Leon. #10 Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery set in Venice, Italy. Brunetti and Vianello head out to Pellestrina, a island with a small fishing community, to investigate the death of a father and son fisherman team. Their boat exploded, but no one is surprised when it turns out that they were dead before the boat went up--brutally murdered, in fact. In the closed community, it's not likely that the police are going to glean much information from the natives, and Brunetti despairs of finding the culprit. But it turns out that Patta's secretary, the ever-helpful Signorina Elettra has family on the island and volunteers to take a week's vacation there as she does every year, and keep her eyes and ears open. Brunetti is afraid for her, but cannot dissuade her. When a local woman, a shopkeeper, is found drowned, they are certain it's related to the first murders, but can't figure out how. Soon things race to an exciting conclusion, although to be honest, none of it suprised me terribly much. I enjoyed this trip to Venice, but I have to admit it wasn't quite as compelling for me as many others in this series have been. Still, am looking forward to the next. B+
9. THE SUGAR HOUSE by Laura Lippman. (AUDIO) #5 Tess Monaghan mystery set in Baltimore, MD. Having returned from Texas with boyfriend Crow in tow, Tess is beginning to settle into somewhat of a routine with her PI business and her personal life. She is asked by her father to take on a case for an old friend. Ruthie wants her to find out the identity of the Jane Doe her glue-sniffing, addict brother was sent to prison for killing, albeit accidentally in a drug-hazed stupor. Her brother was subsequently knifed to death in prison, and Ruthie is convinced that it wasn't just another prison squabble, but that it's because of who the Jane Doe was. For her own peace of mind and closure, she wants to know why her brother died. Tess doesn't hold much hope of finding the woman's identity after a year has gone by, but she gives it her best shot, linking one clue to another--beginning on Baltimore's mean streets but which eventually leads she and her good friend Whitney Talbot, recently returned from Japan, to a very exclusive private eating disorders clinic on the coast. Having once tangled with her own bulimia demon as a teenager, Tess feels as though she's on familiar ground and does eventually find out who Jane Doe really is--but there's a story behind the story, and once Tess gets hold of a bone, she's like a junkyard dog and won't let go, even when it puts herself in danger. It took me awhile to warm up to the reader of this book; I've encountered her before and she's not my favorite, although many folks just love her. "Something" about her (Barbara Rosenblatt) voice/tone/whatever annoys me, but I like this series enough that I was able to enjoy the book despite it. I guess if I plan to listen on in audio I'd better get used to it anyway. Looking forward to the next adventure! A-
10. OPEN SEASON by C.J. Box. #1 Joe Pickett mystery. Joe is a game warden for the state of Wyoming, in remote Twelve Sleep County. He and his pregnant wife and two young girls live in a small house that comes with the job, and he's just trying to get settled into this life when Ote Keeley, a hunting guide and known poacher, fatally wounded, stumbles into Joe's yard and dies on his woodpile. It's an obvious case of murder, and Joe becomes a suspect because he and Keeley have a history, one in which Ote took Joe's gun away from him when he was attempting to write him a citation for poaching some months back. Joe wonders at the lack of real investigation by the Sheriff's department and sets out to find out what Ote was up to, who killed him, and most importantly, why Ote headed for Joe's house with a cooler containing animal scat. What he begins to unravel is a conspiracy reaching to the upper echelons of Wyoming's wildlife regulatory boards and which threatens to put not only Joe but his family in grave danger if he continues to rock the boat. Although the bad guy in this was painfully obvious almost from the beginning (at least to me) I still enjoyed this debut novel. The author is obviously either a native or someone who has grown to love the land he writes about, and makes the place very much a character in the story. The writing style is easy to read, the characters engaging and realistic, and the main character has a flawed charm about him that makes him easy to like and to care about almost immediately. I greatly look forward to continuing on reading this series! A.
11. WORMWOOD by Susan Wittig Albert. #17 China Bayles "herbal" mystery, generally set in Texas, but in this book is set in Mt. Zion, KY where China travels with old friend Martha to assist her doing herbal workshops at an old Shaker museum. Or at least that's what China thinks--on the drive there, Martha confesses that she has ulterior motives in asking China along, that there are some problems with the way the Shaker village museum is being run. Martha has ties to the old Shaker village as her Aunt Charity was a Sister in that community for many years, having left abruptly in 1912, not long before it closed down. Martha's also curious about why her aunt departed so suddenly, since she never mentioned anything about it to her family. She figures that China's cover as an herbalist will work well, even as China the lawyer digs around in the paperwork to find out what is happening legally with Mt. Zion. Since they are well on their way when Martha springs this on her, she reluctantly agrees although she was loathe to leave home for two weeks, with a lot of turmoil there as well. The story is actually two mysteries, one back in 1912 within the Shaker community, the other in modern times, and the narrative of the book goes back and forth between the two. While I knew a little bit about the Shakers, I found this a fascinating look at their culture and what life was like in one of their communities--certainly not all tranquil bliss like the image they projected! The mysteries themselves were rather easy to work out, but I enjoyed the two storylines entwining, and definitely liked this much better than the last book in the series which was told partly from China's husband McQuaid's point of view. The only thing really missing was China's usual setting back at her herb shop and all her friends and family there--that's two books in a row now where there has not been nearly enough of Ruby, Cass, Brian and his menagerie and the rest of the gang, and I really do hope they are back in the upcoming Holly Blues! B+
12. ORYX AND CRAKE by Margaret Atwood. (AUDIO) Since my opinion of Atwood's work has been rather hit or miss, and since my favorite of hers was another of her dystopian novels (A Handmaid's Tale--which is, indeed, one of my top ten all time favorite novels!) this book was recommended to me by several people and I finally got around to it. Set in a dystopian world in which most of the species Homo sapiens sapiens disappears from the planet, the story is told from the point of view of Snowman, previously known as Jimmy. Snowman now lives in a world where he is nearly worshiped as a prophet of the god Crake and the goddess Oryx by the beings that Crake created through gene splicing, cloning and other various bio-manipulations. Important though he may seem, Snowman lives in a tree to avoid being the prey of some of the other creatures Crake created that once in the wild were not quite what they were supposed to be and spends his time half-starved and full of nasty insect bites. Humans are mostly gone because of worldwide plagues, though Jimmy for some reason was immune. The story goes back and forth in time, to Jimmy's childhood, telling of life in the Compounds--enclosed communities run by various massive corporations and government agencies--where his father was also a scientist working on biogenetics. Jimmy's mother runs off to join a bio-terroristic guerrilla group, so he is mostly left to his own devices and spends hours with his friend Crake (an obvious genius even at a young age) watching various internet porn sites and games which quickly become boring to Jimmy. This is where he first "meets" Oryx, who was an eight-year-old star on a kiddie porn site called Hot Tots. Back then, the lands outside the compounds were known as the Pleeblands--where disease, violence and chaos were the norm for the Pleebes--those humans not fortunate enough to be part of a compound. As the story eventually unravels (it takes awhile to get going) to tell how and why Snowman came to be one of the few (the only?) human beings left, and how Crake and Oryx came to be deified, you're left with a sense that although the story is over, it really isn't. The reader of this book did a great job of inflecting the book with Atwood's wry, dark humor and with the various voices and managed the point of view/time changes very well, too. It would be misleading to say I enjoyed this book, but I did find it a powerful and most excellent entry in the field of dystopian fiction which I've come to be fascinated with in recent years. A.
13. SECONDHAND SPIRITS by Juliet Blackwell. #1 "Witchcraft" mystery featuring Lily Ivory, a 'natural' witch who has decided to settle in San Francisco after leading a rather vagabond life. She's opened up a vintage clothing shop in the Haight, the quirky neighborhood most known as a hippy hangout in the '60's. Just beginning to feel at home, she suddenly feels the rug pulled out from under her when she and a friend go the home of an old woman who has a large collection of vintage clothing from several eras that she wants to sell. Lily gets strange vibes from the woman's home, and a young neighbor girl just disappears before they've left--and later that night, the old woman herself ends up dead--laid out inside a pentagram--and this after Lily returned and performed a protection spell over the woman! Lily first begins investigating alone, but learns that she needs to trust her new friends, Bronwyn--a Wiccan who rents a corner of Lily's shop to sell her herbal concoctions and Maya, and even Aidan, a powerful male witch who knew Lily's father. Then there's Max, a hunky supernatural 'myth-buster' who keeps turning up wherever Lily is. I was surprised that I actually liked this book. Those who know me know I've really gotten picky about silly cozy mysteries lately, and since I'm Pagan, even pickier about my paranormal mysteries. This one took awhile to convince me but by the end I found I was indeed looking forward to the next one. The bad guy was terribly easy to spot, and there are a few things in the 'witchy' parts that made me scratch my head a bit...and I don't yet feel I have a good handle on Lily, but the fact that I want to know more speaks volumes. There were some darker aspects to things that (in my opinion anyway) elevated it above the usual sweetness and light cozy. I think this was a good opening to what will potentially be an excellent series--as long as the author doesn't veer off into the old 'love triangle" problem and use a bunch of romantic suspense malarkey to keep the reader interested. (Or, in my case, cause the reader to LOSE interest.) One thing that definitely endeared me to Lily is that she, like myself, has a 'parking space spell.' LOL A-
First in the Prior's Ford series, featuring the cast of the village of that same name in the Scottish lowlands. Not sure exactly how to classify this--not mystery, I guess general fiction, rather cozy, with a cast of motley characters each with their own hopes, dreams and problems, and some mutual issues affecting the village--the potential reopening of a granite quarry for one. Perhaps a written soap opera would be the way to describe this--though it's much less sordid than the soaps on TV--at least from the last time I watched one years ago! It's surprising that I liked this, really, but I did, very much. It tells the story of Glen and Libby, owners of the local pub (The Neurotic Cuckoo) who have an old secret in their past that they want kept quiet. Libby worries it will be brought to the fore when Glen heads up a committee working against the quarry re-opening. There's Jenny, Helen and Ingrid, local village women with younger children who together run a seasonal craft shop. There's Clarissa, recently widowed and a village outsider as she and her husband had only moved to Prior's Ford a few months before he died. And there's the Ralston-Kerrs, owners of Linn Manor (and the land the quarry is on!) who haven't two pennies to rub together but are valiantly carrying on as 'lairds of the manor' while they can. All in all, an enjoyable story with a lovely sense of place and atmosphere and some diverse, well-drawn and interesting characters. I closed the book feeling very satisfied and wanting to go back for another visit soon. A.
15. THE CINCINNATI RED STALKINGS by Troy Soos (AUDIO) This is one of the later books in the Mickey Rawlings "baseball" series set in the late 1910's/early 1920's. I needed an audiobook quickly to listen to on a long drive, and this one was there, so I snabbed it--very uncharacteristic for me, who never reads series out of order! Mickey is a utility infielder who's been traded all over the league, currently doing duty with the Cincinnati Red Stockings. He has an interest in baseball history and spends some time with a guy whom the team's owner has hired to set up a baseball museum to help draw in some crowds. When that man turns up dead, Mickey is at first a suspect and then becomes the hunted himself, as he figures the killer must have the idea that Mickey has something that the murdered man passed on to him--but for the life of him, he can't figure out what it might be. Until he does, the mystery is going to remain just that--the police aren't overly interested and seem content to let the murder go off as death in the midst of a robbery. I really enjoyed this book--enough that I went ahead and downloaded the first book to my MP3 player already. Mickey is interesting and I like the secondary characters too. It's interesting hearing about what baseball was like during those long-ago days, a time even before my parents were born. The reader had kind of an odd voice, not your "classical" deep, bounding male voice, but it suited Mickey's personality very well and was pleasant enough to listen to. Looking forward to going back to the beginning to hear about how it all started. A.
16. FIGURE OF HATE by Bernard Knight. #9 Crowner John historical mystery set in 1190's Devon. Lots of upheavals in the Crowner's life as the new Sheriff, who displaced his treacherous brother-in-law, begins dispensing the law. While honest, he's rather plodding and lazy and tends to let John handle most things. John's wife Matilda, an extremely socially conscious woman concerned with the neighbors' opinions and her diminishing status, seems to have developed a drinking problem after the fall of her brother from the highly lucrative Sheriff's position. And it's tournament season--jousting and melee are just beginning to gain popularity, and John is asked to referee at a joust to be held during the Exeter fair, given his battle experience as a knight of the realm. One of the knights, a local manor lord, behaves very badly after losing his joust (which meant losing his horse, armor and often a good chunk of money to the winning knight) and John publicly chastises him for his unchivalrous behavior. The coroner later meets up with Hugo Peverel a second time when he's found stabbed several times in the back in one of his barns on the manor. Soon his death is tied to two other previous deaths and the Crowner must figure out which of the man's friends or family killed the odious man--not an easy task with a wealth of suspects at hand, and it's further complicated when his brother-in-law Richard, a friend and neighbor of the family, throws in his support for them. I like this series a lot; the books seem to be well-researched and the author always has some interesting notes to read, too. Despite John's crabbiness, I like him and his secondary characters. The one thing that bothers me (and I know I've mentioned this before) is the constant use of the same verbs, often "animal sounds" attributed to the characters as they're speaking. For example, the Crowner, who is a rather gruff, curmudgeonly fellow, often snaps, growls or barks. His dandified brother-in-law frequently brays. If it wasn't for this, I would tend to rate the books higher, but at times it happens very frequently and is distracting enough to pull me right out of the story. I still look forward to the next one, though. B+
Current reads: DRAGON KEEPER by Robin Hobb (ARC for review, due out in January), MESSENGER OF TRUTH by Jacqueline Winspear, SIDETRACKED by Henning Mankell and listening to MURDER AT FENWAY PARK by Troy Soos in audio.
Hope your holidays are great, whichever you celebrate! And Happy New Year!
Cheryl
2. BONE CROSSED by Patricia Briggs. #4 Mercy Thompson paranormal mystery. Mercy is a 'walker'--a skinwalker who can transform instantly into a coyote. She also runs her own garage in the Tri-Cities area (Washington state) and her boyfriend, Adam, is the Alpha of the local werewolf pack. Trouble is still bubbling in the area between the wolves and the vampires, as (last book) Mercy killed one of the leaders of the local seethe who was creating demon-vampires, and Marsilia, the seethe's mistress, wants her dead. It's not bad enough that Mercy is still recovering from the savage rape that took place last book, but as a message, Marsilia sends the nearly-destroyed body of Stefan, another of the seethe's leaders who helped Mercy, into Mercy's living room, thinking that in his debilitated state, he will 'forget' that Mercy is a friend and kill her before he himself dies. But Adam is there, and he and his wolves heal Stefan and take him to Adam's to recover. Mercy heads out of town to Spokane at the behest of an old college friend to listen to some ghosts in her house and try to get them to stop troubling her ten-year-old son, Chad. It's a good opportunity for Mercy to get out of town and lie low for a while--or is it? Amber's appearance on Mercy's doorstep might be just a little too convenient. Another great entry in this series, which is one of my favorite paranormals. Looking forward to the next. A.
3. THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY by Siobhan Dowd. (AUDIO) A young adult mystery told from the point of view of Ted Spark, a 12-year-old Londoner with (what I presume is--it's never actually named) Aspberger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. Ted is good with numbers, scientific concepts and deductive reasoning, but he has a very difficult time socially. As he puts it, "the pc in my brain operates on a different operating system than most people's." When Ted's cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye, Ted and his somewhat rebellious older sister Kat try to piece together what happened to him. Salim is visiting with his mother (Ted's Aunt Gloria) before they are due to move to New York in a few days, where Gloria will have a job at an art museum. Gloria and her sister,Ted's mum, Faith, aren't terribly close and it's been several years since Salim and his family visited from Manchester, so they don't really know Salim. Did he leave of his own accord, or did someone abduct him? Ted's main interest was in HOW he disappeared, since he and Kat watched him get on the Eye and watched his pod (as well as several others, in case they were wrong about which one he was on) empty out afterwards with no sign of him. A very wonderful story, told with an interesting protagonist's voice. At first, I was a bit annoyed by the reader--he had a kind of high, nasal, breathless voice with a sort of staccato rhythm that was hard to listen to. Then I realized that he was trying to talk that way, since he was using Ted's voice to set the tone for the story, and he did a really good job. I was hoping that this was the first of a series featuring the Spark kids, but unfortunately it isn't--the author died in 2007 at the age of 47 of breast cancer, and while she did write several other books for kids and young adults, this wasn't a series. She was passionate in life about getting kids to read, making books accessible to disadvantaged children, and in the last few months of her life set up a trust geared towards providing funds to get books in the hands of underprivileged kids. On her website, there is a motto that says, "If a child can read, they can think. And if a child can think, they are free." This so exemplifies my own childhood experience with reading that I've decided to contribute to her Trust in 2010 rather than purchase any new books for myself. You rock, Siobhan! A+
4. VERDICT UNSAFE by Jill McGown. #8 Lloyd & Hill British police procedural. A two-year-old rape case is brought back into focus when the rapist is released on a legal technicality. Not only are his victims put into an emotional tailspin, so are their families, the police officers involved and the community at large. A twisted and convoluted tale full of petty criminals, crooked cops, and nothing but lies and more lies in Stansfield and Malworth, where the crimes were committed. DI Judy Hill firmly believes that Colin Drummond was guilty, but new evidence keeps coming to light that put doubt into the minds of some of her co-workers, including DCI Lloyd. Judy is formally removed from the case by their new Chief, who's a misogynistic throwback--but actually the only real "case" is a pending lawsuit filed by Drummond claiming the police set him up, and also beat him savagely. She's assigned to work on a series of burglaries, that coincidentally involve some of the same players in the rape cases. As Lloyd, Hill and their officers try to cut through the layers of deception, the real story begins to unfold, backtrack, unfold some more until finally it becomes clear. I have to admit I hadn't a clue til very close to the end. I vacillated back and forth between several scenarios, none of which happened to be right. First time in awhile that's happened! Another enjoyable read in this series which as often happens, started slow and became un-putdownable towards the end. A.
5. THE BOOK OF ANSWERS by Barbara Berliner. This is a compilation of questions on various topics posed to the telephone reference line at the NY public library. It was published over 2 decades ago, so some parts (chapters on statistics and pop culture, for example) are somewhat dated, but there's a lot of interesting stuff too. Organized neatly into chapters such as Firsts (Who/what was the first _________?) Myth and Legends, Trademarks, Who Was Who? etc, and with each Q&A separated by double spacing, it was easy to read small chunks at a time without getting lost--which was important to me as this was my (ahem) 'bathroom book' for a couple of months. LOL Enjoyable, entertaining and informative--although an updated version would be a boon! B.
6. PAGAN CHRISTMAS: THE PLANTS, SPIRITS, AND RITUALS AT THE ORIGINS OF YULETIDE by Christian Ratsch and Claudia Muller-Ebling. This book looks back at history and explains the origins of some of our modern-day Christmas traditions: the Christmas tree, the colors red and white, various common decorations, St. Nicholas (and his cousins Father Christmas and Sinterklaas among others) and various festivals held over the centuries around the world that coincide with Christmas. The idea that Santa's reindeer fly because they're high on magic mushrooms made me giggle a bit, I must admit! There was a lot of new information in here that I hadn't come across before--probably because the authors are German and a lot of these traditions were things I wasn't familiar with--but unfortunately the book was not very well organized, got repetitive at times (possibly because there were two authors? I don't know...) and was not easy to navigate. I enjoyed reading about some of these things--including the bits about "Baccy Claus: the smoking Christmas man" with various 'baccy recipes! LOL This isn't a book I want to make room for as a permanent reference, however, as it just isn't very user friendly, however much interesting stuff it might contain. C+
7. SISTER PELAGIA AND THE WHITE BULLDOG by Boris Akunin. #1 in the Sister Pelagia series, featuring this red-headed nun who is an assistant to Bishop Mitrofanii in a remote Russian province in the 19th century. The Bishop sends Pelagia to investigate who is poisoning his aunt's rare white bulldogs, which are near and dear to her heart--even moreso than her human family, really. While investigating who is harming the dogs, a murder mystery with a human victim takes place and Pelagia goes under cover as a noblewoman (Pelagia's supposed sister) to be the Bishop's eyes and ears during this time of political unrest and religious upheaval. I have to be honest and say that had this not been a book I was reading to complete a Challenge for one of my groups, I probably would not have read beyond page 50. It began verrrrrrry slowly, and although the story did eventually become more cohesive and interesting about mid-book, the writing style was just generally off-putting, although perhaps that may be in part the translation? I don't know. There were way too many peripheral characters all with long names (for example, Vladimir Lvovich Bubentsov and Marya Afanasievna Tatishcheva) that were repeated time and again over and over. It was very confusing as to who was who for the longest time. I also never really got a sense of who Pelagia was, what she stood for. I don't mind a richly detailed, slow-moving so-called literary mystery, but this one was just not my cup of tea. I'm glad I finished the book, but I won't be carrying on in the series, even though I've got the next two here--will trade them off to someone who will doubtless enjoy them much more than I would! C-.
8. A SEA OF TROUBLES by Donna Leon. #10 Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery set in Venice, Italy. Brunetti and Vianello head out to Pellestrina, a island with a small fishing community, to investigate the death of a father and son fisherman team. Their boat exploded, but no one is surprised when it turns out that they were dead before the boat went up--brutally murdered, in fact. In the closed community, it's not likely that the police are going to glean much information from the natives, and Brunetti despairs of finding the culprit. But it turns out that Patta's secretary, the ever-helpful Signorina Elettra has family on the island and volunteers to take a week's vacation there as she does every year, and keep her eyes and ears open. Brunetti is afraid for her, but cannot dissuade her. When a local woman, a shopkeeper, is found drowned, they are certain it's related to the first murders, but can't figure out how. Soon things race to an exciting conclusion, although to be honest, none of it suprised me terribly much. I enjoyed this trip to Venice, but I have to admit it wasn't quite as compelling for me as many others in this series have been. Still, am looking forward to the next. B+
9. THE SUGAR HOUSE by Laura Lippman. (AUDIO) #5 Tess Monaghan mystery set in Baltimore, MD. Having returned from Texas with boyfriend Crow in tow, Tess is beginning to settle into somewhat of a routine with her PI business and her personal life. She is asked by her father to take on a case for an old friend. Ruthie wants her to find out the identity of the Jane Doe her glue-sniffing, addict brother was sent to prison for killing, albeit accidentally in a drug-hazed stupor. Her brother was subsequently knifed to death in prison, and Ruthie is convinced that it wasn't just another prison squabble, but that it's because of who the Jane Doe was. For her own peace of mind and closure, she wants to know why her brother died. Tess doesn't hold much hope of finding the woman's identity after a year has gone by, but she gives it her best shot, linking one clue to another--beginning on Baltimore's mean streets but which eventually leads she and her good friend Whitney Talbot, recently returned from Japan, to a very exclusive private eating disorders clinic on the coast. Having once tangled with her own bulimia demon as a teenager, Tess feels as though she's on familiar ground and does eventually find out who Jane Doe really is--but there's a story behind the story, and once Tess gets hold of a bone, she's like a junkyard dog and won't let go, even when it puts herself in danger. It took me awhile to warm up to the reader of this book; I've encountered her before and she's not my favorite, although many folks just love her. "Something" about her (Barbara Rosenblatt) voice/tone/whatever annoys me, but I like this series enough that I was able to enjoy the book despite it. I guess if I plan to listen on in audio I'd better get used to it anyway. Looking forward to the next adventure! A-
10. OPEN SEASON by C.J. Box. #1 Joe Pickett mystery. Joe is a game warden for the state of Wyoming, in remote Twelve Sleep County. He and his pregnant wife and two young girls live in a small house that comes with the job, and he's just trying to get settled into this life when Ote Keeley, a hunting guide and known poacher, fatally wounded, stumbles into Joe's yard and dies on his woodpile. It's an obvious case of murder, and Joe becomes a suspect because he and Keeley have a history, one in which Ote took Joe's gun away from him when he was attempting to write him a citation for poaching some months back. Joe wonders at the lack of real investigation by the Sheriff's department and sets out to find out what Ote was up to, who killed him, and most importantly, why Ote headed for Joe's house with a cooler containing animal scat. What he begins to unravel is a conspiracy reaching to the upper echelons of Wyoming's wildlife regulatory boards and which threatens to put not only Joe but his family in grave danger if he continues to rock the boat. Although the bad guy in this was painfully obvious almost from the beginning (at least to me) I still enjoyed this debut novel. The author is obviously either a native or someone who has grown to love the land he writes about, and makes the place very much a character in the story. The writing style is easy to read, the characters engaging and realistic, and the main character has a flawed charm about him that makes him easy to like and to care about almost immediately. I greatly look forward to continuing on reading this series! A.
11. WORMWOOD by Susan Wittig Albert. #17 China Bayles "herbal" mystery, generally set in Texas, but in this book is set in Mt. Zion, KY where China travels with old friend Martha to assist her doing herbal workshops at an old Shaker museum. Or at least that's what China thinks--on the drive there, Martha confesses that she has ulterior motives in asking China along, that there are some problems with the way the Shaker village museum is being run. Martha has ties to the old Shaker village as her Aunt Charity was a Sister in that community for many years, having left abruptly in 1912, not long before it closed down. Martha's also curious about why her aunt departed so suddenly, since she never mentioned anything about it to her family. She figures that China's cover as an herbalist will work well, even as China the lawyer digs around in the paperwork to find out what is happening legally with Mt. Zion. Since they are well on their way when Martha springs this on her, she reluctantly agrees although she was loathe to leave home for two weeks, with a lot of turmoil there as well. The story is actually two mysteries, one back in 1912 within the Shaker community, the other in modern times, and the narrative of the book goes back and forth between the two. While I knew a little bit about the Shakers, I found this a fascinating look at their culture and what life was like in one of their communities--certainly not all tranquil bliss like the image they projected! The mysteries themselves were rather easy to work out, but I enjoyed the two storylines entwining, and definitely liked this much better than the last book in the series which was told partly from China's husband McQuaid's point of view. The only thing really missing was China's usual setting back at her herb shop and all her friends and family there--that's two books in a row now where there has not been nearly enough of Ruby, Cass, Brian and his menagerie and the rest of the gang, and I really do hope they are back in the upcoming Holly Blues! B+
12. ORYX AND CRAKE by Margaret Atwood. (AUDIO) Since my opinion of Atwood's work has been rather hit or miss, and since my favorite of hers was another of her dystopian novels (A Handmaid's Tale--which is, indeed, one of my top ten all time favorite novels!) this book was recommended to me by several people and I finally got around to it. Set in a dystopian world in which most of the species Homo sapiens sapiens disappears from the planet, the story is told from the point of view of Snowman, previously known as Jimmy. Snowman now lives in a world where he is nearly worshiped as a prophet of the god Crake and the goddess Oryx by the beings that Crake created through gene splicing, cloning and other various bio-manipulations. Important though he may seem, Snowman lives in a tree to avoid being the prey of some of the other creatures Crake created that once in the wild were not quite what they were supposed to be and spends his time half-starved and full of nasty insect bites. Humans are mostly gone because of worldwide plagues, though Jimmy for some reason was immune. The story goes back and forth in time, to Jimmy's childhood, telling of life in the Compounds--enclosed communities run by various massive corporations and government agencies--where his father was also a scientist working on biogenetics. Jimmy's mother runs off to join a bio-terroristic guerrilla group, so he is mostly left to his own devices and spends hours with his friend Crake (an obvious genius even at a young age) watching various internet porn sites and games which quickly become boring to Jimmy. This is where he first "meets" Oryx, who was an eight-year-old star on a kiddie porn site called Hot Tots. Back then, the lands outside the compounds were known as the Pleeblands--where disease, violence and chaos were the norm for the Pleebes--those humans not fortunate enough to be part of a compound. As the story eventually unravels (it takes awhile to get going) to tell how and why Snowman came to be one of the few (the only?) human beings left, and how Crake and Oryx came to be deified, you're left with a sense that although the story is over, it really isn't. The reader of this book did a great job of inflecting the book with Atwood's wry, dark humor and with the various voices and managed the point of view/time changes very well, too. It would be misleading to say I enjoyed this book, but I did find it a powerful and most excellent entry in the field of dystopian fiction which I've come to be fascinated with in recent years. A.
13. SECONDHAND SPIRITS by Juliet Blackwell. #1 "Witchcraft" mystery featuring Lily Ivory, a 'natural' witch who has decided to settle in San Francisco after leading a rather vagabond life. She's opened up a vintage clothing shop in the Haight, the quirky neighborhood most known as a hippy hangout in the '60's. Just beginning to feel at home, she suddenly feels the rug pulled out from under her when she and a friend go the home of an old woman who has a large collection of vintage clothing from several eras that she wants to sell. Lily gets strange vibes from the woman's home, and a young neighbor girl just disappears before they've left--and later that night, the old woman herself ends up dead--laid out inside a pentagram--and this after Lily returned and performed a protection spell over the woman! Lily first begins investigating alone, but learns that she needs to trust her new friends, Bronwyn--a Wiccan who rents a corner of Lily's shop to sell her herbal concoctions and Maya, and even Aidan, a powerful male witch who knew Lily's father. Then there's Max, a hunky supernatural 'myth-buster' who keeps turning up wherever Lily is. I was surprised that I actually liked this book. Those who know me know I've really gotten picky about silly cozy mysteries lately, and since I'm Pagan, even pickier about my paranormal mysteries. This one took awhile to convince me but by the end I found I was indeed looking forward to the next one. The bad guy was terribly easy to spot, and there are a few things in the 'witchy' parts that made me scratch my head a bit...and I don't yet feel I have a good handle on Lily, but the fact that I want to know more speaks volumes. There were some darker aspects to things that (in my opinion anyway) elevated it above the usual sweetness and light cozy. I think this was a good opening to what will potentially be an excellent series--as long as the author doesn't veer off into the old 'love triangle" problem and use a bunch of romantic suspense malarkey to keep the reader interested. (Or, in my case, cause the reader to LOSE interest.) One thing that definitely endeared me to Lily is that she, like myself, has a 'parking space spell.' LOL A-
First in the Prior's Ford series, featuring the cast of the village of that same name in the Scottish lowlands. Not sure exactly how to classify this--not mystery, I guess general fiction, rather cozy, with a cast of motley characters each with their own hopes, dreams and problems, and some mutual issues affecting the village--the potential reopening of a granite quarry for one. Perhaps a written soap opera would be the way to describe this--though it's much less sordid than the soaps on TV--at least from the last time I watched one years ago! It's surprising that I liked this, really, but I did, very much. It tells the story of Glen and Libby, owners of the local pub (The Neurotic Cuckoo) who have an old secret in their past that they want kept quiet. Libby worries it will be brought to the fore when Glen heads up a committee working against the quarry re-opening. There's Jenny, Helen and Ingrid, local village women with younger children who together run a seasonal craft shop. There's Clarissa, recently widowed and a village outsider as she and her husband had only moved to Prior's Ford a few months before he died. And there's the Ralston-Kerrs, owners of Linn Manor (and the land the quarry is on!) who haven't two pennies to rub together but are valiantly carrying on as 'lairds of the manor' while they can. All in all, an enjoyable story with a lovely sense of place and atmosphere and some diverse, well-drawn and interesting characters. I closed the book feeling very satisfied and wanting to go back for another visit soon. A.
15. THE CINCINNATI RED STALKINGS by Troy Soos (AUDIO) This is one of the later books in the Mickey Rawlings "baseball" series set in the late 1910's/early 1920's. I needed an audiobook quickly to listen to on a long drive, and this one was there, so I snabbed it--very uncharacteristic for me, who never reads series out of order! Mickey is a utility infielder who's been traded all over the league, currently doing duty with the Cincinnati Red Stockings. He has an interest in baseball history and spends some time with a guy whom the team's owner has hired to set up a baseball museum to help draw in some crowds. When that man turns up dead, Mickey is at first a suspect and then becomes the hunted himself, as he figures the killer must have the idea that Mickey has something that the murdered man passed on to him--but for the life of him, he can't figure out what it might be. Until he does, the mystery is going to remain just that--the police aren't overly interested and seem content to let the murder go off as death in the midst of a robbery. I really enjoyed this book--enough that I went ahead and downloaded the first book to my MP3 player already. Mickey is interesting and I like the secondary characters too. It's interesting hearing about what baseball was like during those long-ago days, a time even before my parents were born. The reader had kind of an odd voice, not your "classical" deep, bounding male voice, but it suited Mickey's personality very well and was pleasant enough to listen to. Looking forward to going back to the beginning to hear about how it all started. A.
16. FIGURE OF HATE by Bernard Knight. #9 Crowner John historical mystery set in 1190's Devon. Lots of upheavals in the Crowner's life as the new Sheriff, who displaced his treacherous brother-in-law, begins dispensing the law. While honest, he's rather plodding and lazy and tends to let John handle most things. John's wife Matilda, an extremely socially conscious woman concerned with the neighbors' opinions and her diminishing status, seems to have developed a drinking problem after the fall of her brother from the highly lucrative Sheriff's position. And it's tournament season--jousting and melee are just beginning to gain popularity, and John is asked to referee at a joust to be held during the Exeter fair, given his battle experience as a knight of the realm. One of the knights, a local manor lord, behaves very badly after losing his joust (which meant losing his horse, armor and often a good chunk of money to the winning knight) and John publicly chastises him for his unchivalrous behavior. The coroner later meets up with Hugo Peverel a second time when he's found stabbed several times in the back in one of his barns on the manor. Soon his death is tied to two other previous deaths and the Crowner must figure out which of the man's friends or family killed the odious man--not an easy task with a wealth of suspects at hand, and it's further complicated when his brother-in-law Richard, a friend and neighbor of the family, throws in his support for them. I like this series a lot; the books seem to be well-researched and the author always has some interesting notes to read, too. Despite John's crabbiness, I like him and his secondary characters. The one thing that bothers me (and I know I've mentioned this before) is the constant use of the same verbs, often "animal sounds" attributed to the characters as they're speaking. For example, the Crowner, who is a rather gruff, curmudgeonly fellow, often snaps, growls or barks. His dandified brother-in-law frequently brays. If it wasn't for this, I would tend to rate the books higher, but at times it happens very frequently and is distracting enough to pull me right out of the story. I still look forward to the next one, though. B+
Current reads: DRAGON KEEPER by Robin Hobb (ARC for review, due out in January), MESSENGER OF TRUTH by Jacqueline Winspear, SIDETRACKED by Henning Mankell and listening to MURDER AT FENWAY PARK by Troy Soos in audio.
Hope your holidays are great, whichever you celebrate! And Happy New Year!
Cheryl
Friday, November 6, 2009
November 2009 Reading
1. VANISHED by Kat Richardson. #4 Greywalker paranormal series sees main character Harper Blaine off to London. Her visit is two-fold: first, she's been having disturbing dreams about her ex-boyfriend Will and is worried about him. And Seattle's master vampire, Edward, wants her to find out what happened to his agent in London. He believes there's another takeover attempt that is beginning in Europe. Harper would likely have refused the request were it not for her horrific dreams, but sees it in her best interest to help Edward--he's the devil she knows and all of that. Harper also learns some new information about her father and his death, which ties into her own life and why she became a Greywalker. That storyline also sets up some potentially really interesting future books. Action-packed adventure, taking Harper, Will's young brother Michael and another Greywalker named Marsden through London's long-abandoned underground river system and through the Grey which allows Harper to see things as they were centuries ago. Marsden also helps Harper to understand more about her abilities, about Greywalkers in general, and about her father. Enjoyable entry in the series, but wasn't quite as good as the last one--the ending was rather abrupt and left a lot of loose ends dangling--which of course, means the wait til the next in series is more difficult. A-
2. WHITE NIGHT by Jim Butcher. (AUDIO) #9 Harry Dresden paranormal mystery. Harry is consulted "off the record" by Sgt. Karrin Murphy (demoted after the fiasco in the last book) in a series of killings that were made to look like suicides. One of the women has a strange altar in her bedroom and Murph's gut tells her something's hinky. Harry confirms this when he sees a magical signature on the wall (visible only to wizards or those who use magic) and to their horror, they discover that these women were all members of a group of Pagans and magick users. Further clues show that they wanted to attract Harry (now a Warden of the White Council) and even make it look as though he might be the killer--since the women were observed talking to a tall man in a gray cloak before they disappeared. Harry discovers that his half-brother Thomas (a White Court vampire) may be tangled up in the mess that soon dissolves into an out and out escalation of the war between the Red Court, the White Court and the White Council. Excellent entry in the series as Harry continues to school his apprentice, Molly Carpenter, and works with Warden Carlos Ramirez to bring down those preying on the magick-using women. Well-read once again by James Marsters who captures the tone of the books and Harry's wise-cracking humor very well. A.
3. A PLAGUE OF POISON by Maureen Ash. #3 Bascot de Marins "Templar Knight" historical mystery set in 1201, Lincoln UK. Bascot, attempting to make a decision as to whether or not he should leave the Templars and accept King John's offer to have his father's lands restored to him and allow him to name an heir. He worries that his ward, Gianni, a ragamuffin that he rescued from a life of poverty on the streets, will end up back where he came from if he were to go back to his Templar brothers rather than leave the order and remain one of Nicolaa de la Haye's retainers. He's distracted from thinking about his choices, however, when a rash of poisonings plague Lincoln, with several deaths both in castle and town, apparently through honey laced with a deadly herb that lead to a quick and violent death. Near-panic begins to take the townsfolk, with people suspicious of everyone around them. Lady Nicolaa places the castle cooks under orders to serve only plain, unspiced foods, and charges Bascot with finding the vile murderer. His first task is to determine the motive of the killer, and to do that, he must try to figure out if the actual victims were the intended victims. I like this series and am beginning to like Bascot more each book, but one thing I have found is that there are too many peripheral characters, such that when the killer was revealed, I barely remembered who they were. While not a wholly satisfying book, I'll definitely read on--a great sense of time and place and interesting major characters overshadow the meandering investigation. B.
4. THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT by Diane A.S. Stuckart. #1 in the Leonardo da Vinci historical mystery series, set in 1483 Milan. Told from the point of view of one of Leonardo's apprentices, Delfina della Fazia, an eighteen year old girl who has disguised herself as a boy named Dino. Female apprentices are not allowed, and Delfina wanted nothing more than to be an artist so with her father's help, she escapes her small home village and an arranged marriage to run off to Milan seeking apprenticeship with Leonardo. During a live chess match in which one of the players disappears, Leonardo asks "Dino" to go find the Conte di Ferrara, who was playing one of the bishops. The Conte is found, all right--with a knife in his back in one of the gardens! Dino tells Leonardo and they begin a charade in which Dino assumes the role of the bishop in the chess match while Leonardo explains to the Duke why his game is held up and the Duke charges Leonardo with solving the crime. Which he eventually does, with "Dino's" help--but only after a couple more bodies are thrown into the mix. Several theories as to the killer float about, although I had no problem sussing them out right from the start. Several times during the book, Dino's disguise almost comes unraveled, although she does eventually have one confidant who helps her maintain the illusion of being male. I have to admit I was a little leery of this book given that the author writes romances also, and I am NOT a fan of romances, nor especially of romances disguising themselves as mysteries. I was pleasantly surprised in that there was none of that going on at all. (Thank you, author!) I'm also often leery of books featuring prominent historical figures as sleuths--I don't know why, as I really don't know enough about any given historical figure to scoff at any errors that might exist. LOL I enjoyed this book, although I started it almost expecting not to. It didn't take long before I was well past the 50 pages I'd promised to give it and immersed in the story. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the historical settings or known information about Leonardo, but as this is historical FICTION, it wasn't something I worried about anyway. While not a stellar read (and I can't readily put my finger on what makes me downgrade this just slightly) it is a good start to a promising new series--I've got the second one here and we'll see how it holds up. B+
5. THE DEAD CAT BOUNCE by Sarah Graves. (AUDIO) #1 Home Repair is Homicide mystery featuring Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree in Eastport, Maine. Jacobia is a former financial adviser who lived in New York and had some pretty high-flying clients--including some unsavory 'connected' folks. A year ago, she decided to abandon the rat race and bought a 200-year-old house in Eastport, Maine and moved in with her teenage son Sam. Since then, her life has been one big instruction book in how to fix up her house, and it's not been easy. Still, she's made a few friends and seems to be settling in relatively well, even though she's "from away." She certainly doesn't expect to find a dead body in her storeroom--especially not the body of one of the world's richest men! Nor would she have expected her best friend Ellie White to be arrested for the murder, but Ellie's confessed. It's up to Jake to figure out who Ellie is protecting--since they have a confession, the cops don't seem especially eager to do a lot of investigating themselves. I enjoyed this book on many levels, but I did find the reader to be somewhat annoying. She did really well with the different accents, especially that Maine 'down East' twang, but her way of reading and the tone of the book gave Jake a really superior-sounding attitude which grated on my nerves. I'm going to try the next in series in print and see if that makes a difference. If the author intended the main character to have this air of smug superiority, I'm not sure I'll continue on much longer. Most of the immediate secondary characters were interesting and beginning to flesh out well, including Jake's pompous brain surgeon ex-husband (he sounds so much like a neurosurgeon I used to work with, it's not even funny!) and her son Sam is a real treat, so I'm hoping I like the print version better. B.
6. NECESSARY AS BLOOD by Deborah Crombie. #13 Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James British police procedural. This book's theme is London's East End, specifically the Brick Lane area, notable for its rich Indian/Pakistani/Bengali culture. Gemma is visiting her friend Hazel, newly back in London, when Hazel's soon-to-be-ex-husband Tim calls Gemma and asks her to look into the disappearance of a friend. Nasir, a Bangladeshi lawyer, was supposed to pick up his three-year-old daughter from the sitter several hours previously but hasn't turned up. Since Naz is normally very responsible, the sitter frantically calls Tim. Gemma is intrigued when she learns that the man's wife, Sandra Gilles, a white textile artist, vanished into thin air about three months previously. When Naz turns up dead, the welfare of Charlotte, the young child now apparently orphaned, hangs in the balance. Scotland Yard is called in and Duncan and his sergeant Doug Cullen are on the case, with Gemma investigating in an unofficial capacity while she tries to deal with her mother's illness and planning her and Duncan's upcoming wedding as well as her normal work duties as a Detective Inspector at the Notting Hill station. Once again, I very much enjoyed this entry in this stellar series. Crombie's writing style leaves you totally absorbed into the neighborhood she's focusing on in each book and this one was no exception. She balances well the investigation of the mystery of the day with the personal lives of the major players and smoothly shifts back and forth between the point of view of several different characters. The only bad thing about this book is that now I'm going to have to wait many months for the release of the next entry! A+
7. THE GATES by John Connolly. (AUDIO) YA fantasy about an odd boy named Samuel Johnson (who has a dog named Boswell! LOL) who goes trick or treating three days early, and accidentally sees his neighbors, the Abernathys, engaged in some weird ritual that ends with them transformed into demons and with the gate to Hell in their basement at 666 Crowley Rd. When they learn that Samuel has seen them, they set out to try to keep him quiet about their plans--even as Sam is trying as hard as he can to get someone to believe him about what he's seen. On the other side of the inter-dimensional portal, we also get to meet a demon named Nerd, who isn't very demonic and who keeps botching the assignments given to him. Brilliant and imaginative and very well read by Jonathan Cake, I enjoyed this humorous horror story very much, and the ending found me hoping that there will be a sequel. A.
8. THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER by Andrea Camilleri. #8 Inspector Montalbano mystery set in Vigata, Italy. Supposedly recuperating from the wound he sustained at the end of the last book, with the lovely (and yet curmudgeonly in her own way!) Livia visiting and tending to him, Montalbano is instead dragged into a kidnapping case, "just to consult" while another detective has the lead role. Susanna Mistretta has disappeared, presumed kidnapped, although motive seems a bit unclear as her family has lost most of their money years previously. Several days pass with no ransom demand and Montalbano is beginning to believe she just went walkabout or else was taken by the proverbial sex maniac and is long dead. Then the ransom call comes in. Montalbano suspects that things aren't quite what they seem--as did I, having figured out the mystery well in advance of our grumpy detective friend. Enjoyable visit to Sicily, with Montalbano enjoying his fabulous fresh Italian meals, waxing philosophical, all the while cogitating until he pieces the clues together to solve the case. Strewn with a host of interesting, diverse secondary characters and ripe with the essence of Italian culture, I always enjoy a read in this series--but they read so quickly I decided that reading just one was like having a snack and I decided to dive right into the next in series--very uncharacteristic of me, I know! A.
9. THE CRUELEST MONTH by Louise Penny. #3 Armand Gamache "Three Pines" mystery in which the Sûreté du Québec detective and his team head back to the village of Three Pines to find out who scared a woman to death during a séance at the old Hadley House. The house, which Gamache has had the displeasure of seeing before, is said to be haunted, and the scare tactic was helped along with a real witch to bring the dead--and, for the victim, a lethal dose of ephedra, the diet medication. But from all reports, Madeline Favreau was a wonderful person, kind and loving, and it's hard for anyone to imagine why someone would want her dead. But villages hold their secrets, and it's up to Gamache and team to discover those hiddeen in Three Pines, all the while Gamache continues to search out a spy among his ranks who is still feeding information to his enemies in the higher ranks at the Sûreté. Gamache is the victim of some vicious attacks in the newspaper, publishing lies and misleading photos about the Inspector and his family, all linking back to the Arnot case which exposed a huge conspiracy a few years previously headed by one of the Sûreté's most popular detectives. I love this series--very atmospheric setting of a rather provincial French-Canadian village with a wonderfully eclectic set of secondary characters, descriptions of foods that make your mouth water and always a longing to go to this imaginary place and find a home. I didn't figure out who had done it ahead of time, although I suspected them all at one point or another, I think--Penny does a great job of laying out several red herrings along the way. I can't wait to get to the next in the series! A+
10. THE PAPER MOON by Andrea Camilleri. #9 Inspector Montalbano series set in Sicily, Italy. Once again, beautiful women and corrupt men pepper Inspector Montalbano's investigation into the death of one Angelo Pardo, a pharmaceutical representative. There's Angelo's sister Michela--who reported him missing and his mistress Elena, whose husband is older and impotent and allows his wife her sexual freedom. Both seem to be playing off one another, blaming each other for Angelo's death, and both are definitely suspects and not telling the whole truth, but when Angelo's connection to some corrupt politicians comes to light, there are a whole host of other possibilities as well. While the mystery was rather obvious, as always, I enjoyed the whole package of being deposited into Sicily, with its weather, the food, the atmosphere of Montalbano's world. These books read very quickly but are by no means cozy--there's a lot of sexual innuendo and content and graphic descriptions of the violent crime scenes. It's hard to know since it's written and set in a different culture if the author is trying to be 'sensational' or if this is just what's expected of crime fiction in Italy. At any rate, I loved this entry in the series no less than others but since I read two close together, am now content to wait another couple of months before I get to the next one. A.
11. FLOWER NET by Lisa See. #1 Liu Hulan mystery set in China. Hulan is an inspector with the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing. American-educated, she seems to be the natural choice to work with an American delegation who arrives to sort out the murders of two men--one Chinese, one American. The American happens to be the ambassador's son, and the Chinese man was a friend of his, and was found stuffed into a closet on a ship carrying illegals to California. These deaths are destined to trigger a diplomatic explosion if they aren't solved quickly. David Stark, the attorney chosen to go to China--and coincidentally, Hulan's former lover--believes that the deaths have something to do with the Chinese mafia, the triads, particularly one called Rising Phoenix, but is short on proof. Working together with Hulan in China and in America, their delegation works to sift the clues. I must admit I was quite disappointed in this book, having read some of Lisa See's other "literary" fiction which I enjoyed a lot. There are three books in this mystery series, all written earlier than her other works, and it shows. This was rather amateurishly written, the plot was full of holes and the characters were two-dimensional. It was also just....boring, for lack of a better word. I didn't care about either of the main characters and wasn't really sure "who" they were, actually. I did finish it, but I skimmed the last 50 pages and in retrospect, rather wish I hadn't bothered. I really have no desire to read on in the series at all. C-/D+
12. GRAVE SECRET by Charlaine Harris. (AUDIO) #4 (and final--according to the author) Harper Connelly paranormal mystery in which Harper and Tolliver head back to Texas at the behest of the well-moneyed Lizzie Joyce, who is seeking to find out how her grandfather died a few years previously. When Lizzie leads them to a small family graveyard and deliberately doesn't point out which grave is her grandfather's, Harper sighs and begins 'reading' each grave, with the name and how they died--but springs a surprise on the family by telling them that Mariah, Richard Joyce's caregiver after his stroke, died from an infection after childbirth--NOT from a ruptured appendix as they were told. While in Texas, Harper and Tolliver stop to see their young sisters (who have been adopted by Harper's aunt) and learn from Tolliver's older brother Mark that their father is out of prison on parole and has been asking to see him. Harper also touches base with the police, trying to find out if there have been any new leads in her sister Cameron's disappearance. Once they poke all their irons into the various fires, Tolliver is shot, there is an attempt against Harper's life and other people are killed. As the author strives to wind down this series by tying up all the loose ends, the plot careens a bit and latches on to several very convenient coincidences, but the ending was satisfying if a bit rushed. I have enjoyed this series of Harris' more than any of the others she writes and was very intrigued with Harper's strange gift. Once again the reader (Alyssa Bresnahan) did a stellar job. One note: you really must start from the beginning of this series or you will be sadly lacking in the understanding of events as the backstory is very important as are the twisty relationships in the Lang-Connelly family. A-.
13. IF IT'S NOT ONE THING, IT'S A MURDER by Liz Wolfe. #1 Skye Donovan "photographic" mysteries, although I have to say for most of this book, the main character was Skye Williams (she gets divorced and takes her maiden name back) and doesn't even pick up a camera til the last quarter of the book. Skye Williams nee Donovan is a woman who discovers her husband is cheating on her--with another man. While all that drama is going on, her best friend Bobbi Jo is accused of murder, then Bobbi's husband dies after having a massive stroke, and her other best friend Lily has a relationship crisis AND a daughter's wedding to plan also. At first I wasn't sure I was going to finish the book. It was really scattered with a bunch of different subplots, there was too much going on, not enough details about the mystery--which almost seemed to fall through the cracks as the book went on--and I had a hard time relating to Skye, who struck me as just another SUV-driving yuppie suburbanite trying to stave off boredom with various hobbies, clubs and friend-activities. There was a lot of set-up, a lot of going 'round and 'round in circles, and while the main character did grow on me somewhat after awhile, there are too many relationship/romance-like sides to the stories for my taste. I'm going to try the second one in the series (probably from the library though, rather than acquiring it) and see if things have improved. I didn't really feel as though this was a mystery--more like chick lit with sort of a mystery (I figured it out well in advance) attached. If you like that sort of mystery, you will probably enjoy this more than I did. C+
14. THE LOST SYMBOL by Dan Brown. #3 Robert Langdon thriller/mystery. Professor Langdon, specialist in symbology, is summoned to Washington by (he thinks) his good friend Peter Solomon on very short notice. Once there, he discovers that Peter has been captured by a madman who expects Langdon to unlock the centuries-old Masonic secret of the Ancient Mysteries--a portal, a pyramid hidden under Washington DC or his friend will be killed. As with the other two books, this one proceeds at breakneck speed, slowed down only by the flashbacks each character has, as Langdon and a cast of other interesting characters race against time in an effort to save (or destroy) Solomon and the secret he has hidden. It's up to the professor to decode various items and bring practical interpretation to the fore, while barely having time to stop and wipe the sweat from his brow. I did enjoy the book on the whole, but as this is the third in the series, the plot twists and turns are now expected and somewhat formulaic rather than surprising. The author provides some nuggets of information, trivia and arcana centering around the Masons and their legends and I do enjoy this sort of a mystery and probably will do more of my own research on these topics at a later date. If you enjoyed the others in the series you will probably like this one too, as I did. That said, I can't say that it's worth all the hype leading up to it, but then again, how could ANY book live up to that much hype!? LOL Not great literature by any stretch of the imagination--but still a worthy read. B+.
15. SAND SHARKS by Margaret Maron (AUDIO) #15 Judge Deborah Knott mystery. Deborah is off to the beach at Wilmington for a judges' conference while new husband Dwight takes his son and Deborah's brother Will north to Virginia to clear out his murdered ex-wife's house and ready it for selling, while attending some seminars of his own in that area. Deborah is looking forward to a few days of relaxing on the beach, seeing old friends and scarfing down some fresh seafood, but of course ends up smack dab in the middle of a murder investigation when she discovers the strangled body of Judge Pete Jeffries in the water. She didn't know him well but had witnessed him being quite a butthead in just the few hours before his death that evening at Jonah's, a local restaurant. Her colleagues then fill the gaps with other stories of his greed and incompetence and the suspect list burgeons. When an older judge who is about to retire is deliberately run down on the way to a retirement reception for him, putting him into a coma, the local police detective and (privately) Deborah begin trying to figure out if the two incidents are related--and if so, how. There was a lot of different personal things going on in this episode, and the mystery seemed somewhat secondary. Which is okay, because I love visiting with Deborah and her family and friends. Another wonderful episode in this series, which has become one of my very favorites, and probably THE favorite audio series for me now, since reader C.J. Critt does such a fantastic job of interpreting who Deborah is and also all the secondary characters as well as the peripheral characters who exist for just a short time. The down side? I have to wait many moons for the release of the next one! A.
16. BAKING CAKES IN KIGALI by Gaile Parkin. This is a story about Angel, a menopausal woman living in Kigali, Rwanda with her husband and five grandchildren. Both of her children have died in her native Tanzania, and she and her husband move to Kigali when he is offered a consultancy with the university there. Angel bakes cakes, and while she runs her business out of her apartment, she considers herself "a professional somebody." The story encompasses life in and around an apartment compound, featuring a variety of people from all over the world who have come to Kigali for various reasons. It tells of the struggle to beat back the myths about AIDS, about learning ways of dealing with centuries-old traditions that keep women firmly in their places, about a commingling of people who speak one or two of several different languages who practice different religions and have different outlooks on life surviving and even sometimes happily co-existing. At first I thought this book was going to be kind of lame, too cozy, too much like Mma Ramotswe goes to Kigali. But it wasn't, and by the time I was done with it, I was very satisfied, felt I had gained much cultural (and geographical!) knowledge about different African traditions and was glad to have read it. I found much that I could relate to with Angel despite our many differences--especially her descriptions of her hot flashes! LOL It's simultaneously silly, heart-breaking, depressing, poignant and yet hopeful. It's a story of survival, and so much more. Highly recommended! A+
17. STEEL GUITAR by Linda Barnes. #4 Carlotta Carlyle mystery set in Boston, MA. Carlotta, a private investigator who drives cab to fill in the monetary gap, picks up a fare she recognizes--Dee Willis, a blues singer/guitarist who has increasingly gained fame and fortune over the years. The same Dee Willis whom Carlotta used to play with in a blues band. The same Dee Willis who stole Carlotta's husband Cal, now ex. Carlotta saves Dee from a bunch of hungry hobos who attack when Dee begins waving money around looking for 'one of their kind.' When they've escaped and Dee realizes who she is, she hires Carlotta to find an old mutual friend of theirs, another musician named Davey Dunrobie. Against her better judgment, Carlotta agrees, but when Dee's bass player Brenda ends up dead in Dee's bed, she begins to wonder how that event ties into Dee's hiring Carlotta. As angry as she has been with Dee in the past, Carlotta can't imagine her having anything to do with murder. So who did kill Brenda, and what has it got to do with Davey Dunrobie? Another good entry in the series, and one in which we get a closer look at Carlotta's past and where she's come from. A-.
18. GROUNDS FOR MURDER by Sandra Balzo. #2 Maggy Thorsen mystery. Maggy is co-owner of Uncommon Grounds, a coffee shop in Brookhills, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She and her business partner Caron are struggling to keep things going, what with the death of their other partner in the last book, and trying to stay ahead of the chain coffee stores springing up. Maggy, planning to attend Java Ho, a coffee convention being held locally, agrees reluctantly to host the Barista Competition, hoping for some good publicity for Uncommon Grounds. But things turn messy when Marvin LaRoche, owner of the HotWired coffee chain and the convention's organizer, is bashed on the head with the trophy--and Maggy finds his body. Being a power-hungry self-centered man and having delivered a very controversial speech at the opening ceremonies of the convention, there is no shortage of suspects with a motive to clobber LaRoche. Maggy is even added to the list as she had a rather loud argument with him just hours before his death. So she has a reason to investigate, and doesn't share all she knows with her love interest, Sheriff Jake Pavlick, which gets her into even more trouble. I had a gut feeling about the baddie in this book, but didn't really know why or how the murder was done until close to the end. Enjoyable read, this series seems to be what I'd call a "semi-cozy." There are definitely some adult themes and a little mild cussing, but it's not terribly edgy. I like the author's writing style and down-to-earth characters and am looking forward to the next one in the series. A-
19. THE CHALK CIRCLE MAN by Fred Vargas. #1 Chief Inspector Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg mystery set in Paris. Adamsberg, the new Commissaire recently transferred from his home in the Pyrenees, comes with a stellar reputation for solving big cases, but on the surface he appears more like a bumbling Columbo-esque sleuth who doesn't use any of the usual techniques for solving crimes. Working more by his senses than by deductive reasoning, Adamsberg begins taking interest in a person who draws blue chalk circles around various objects around the city and writing an odd little quotation next to the circle. He feels that something bigger is coming, and that soon the chalk circle man will be encircling dead bodies with his chalk rather than discarded plastic toys, broken watch straps and the like. And so it happens, to the disappointment of Adamsberg's colleague Danglard, an often-tipsy man who views Adamsberg's reputation skeptically--but comes to respect it by the end of the case. This book was a little hard to get into at first, possibly in part due to the translation, not sure. The writing style doesn't seem to flow well at times, but when it does, it's brilliant. The main character was also quite an enigma, with his personal foibles intersecting with his professional work. It was difficult to get to know him and his methods, but by the end of the book I was more comfortable with him and with the whole situation. Although there have been several later books in the series translated into English in past years, and I've had a couple of them on my TBR for awhile, I was glad I waited to get this one (the first in series) and read it first. I'm hoping future books will make more sense due to the groundwork laid by this one. B+
20. CHARLIE BONE AND THE SHADOW by Jenny Nimmo (AUDIO) #7 Children of the Red King YA fantasy series. Charlie and his endowed friends, all descendents of the fabled Red King, all attendees of Bloor's Academy, are once again under attack by the nasty side of the family tree. Charlie's parents are still away on their extended second honeymoon, and Charlie's nasty Grandma Bone brings a wrapped package into the basement, knowing that Charlie's curiosity will get the better of him, and it does--he and his friend Benjamin's dog Runner Bean are sucked into the painting to the stark, foreboding land of Badlock. There, Charlie meets up with one of his ancestors, Otis Yewbeam, and a nasty stone gargoyle dog named Oddthumb. Charlie eventually manages to get out, but Runner Bean remains trapped inside, much to Benjamin's dismay. Charlie plans to bring Billy Raven, an albino boy who's an orphan, home the following weekend to try to speak to Runner (he speaks to animals) to try to figure out how to get him back. Meanwhile, Dagbert "the Drowner" Endless begins plotting his revenge against Charlie and his friend Tancred Torsson, but behind all these attacks is the evil Count Harken, an enchanter set on eliminating all those who work against him. Another excellent entry in the series with yet another cliffhanger at the end! A.
DNF: GHOST AT WORK by Carolyn Hart. I tried the audio version, and while the fact that the reader was annoying influenced my decision to stop somewhat, I wasn't getting into the book itself at all either.
Current reads: CHRISTMAS IS MURDER by C.S. Challinor, BONE CROSSED by Patricia Briggs and listening to THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY by Siobhan Dowd.
Cheryl
2. WHITE NIGHT by Jim Butcher. (AUDIO) #9 Harry Dresden paranormal mystery. Harry is consulted "off the record" by Sgt. Karrin Murphy (demoted after the fiasco in the last book) in a series of killings that were made to look like suicides. One of the women has a strange altar in her bedroom and Murph's gut tells her something's hinky. Harry confirms this when he sees a magical signature on the wall (visible only to wizards or those who use magic) and to their horror, they discover that these women were all members of a group of Pagans and magick users. Further clues show that they wanted to attract Harry (now a Warden of the White Council) and even make it look as though he might be the killer--since the women were observed talking to a tall man in a gray cloak before they disappeared. Harry discovers that his half-brother Thomas (a White Court vampire) may be tangled up in the mess that soon dissolves into an out and out escalation of the war between the Red Court, the White Court and the White Council. Excellent entry in the series as Harry continues to school his apprentice, Molly Carpenter, and works with Warden Carlos Ramirez to bring down those preying on the magick-using women. Well-read once again by James Marsters who captures the tone of the books and Harry's wise-cracking humor very well. A.
3. A PLAGUE OF POISON by Maureen Ash. #3 Bascot de Marins "Templar Knight" historical mystery set in 1201, Lincoln UK. Bascot, attempting to make a decision as to whether or not he should leave the Templars and accept King John's offer to have his father's lands restored to him and allow him to name an heir. He worries that his ward, Gianni, a ragamuffin that he rescued from a life of poverty on the streets, will end up back where he came from if he were to go back to his Templar brothers rather than leave the order and remain one of Nicolaa de la Haye's retainers. He's distracted from thinking about his choices, however, when a rash of poisonings plague Lincoln, with several deaths both in castle and town, apparently through honey laced with a deadly herb that lead to a quick and violent death. Near-panic begins to take the townsfolk, with people suspicious of everyone around them. Lady Nicolaa places the castle cooks under orders to serve only plain, unspiced foods, and charges Bascot with finding the vile murderer. His first task is to determine the motive of the killer, and to do that, he must try to figure out if the actual victims were the intended victims. I like this series and am beginning to like Bascot more each book, but one thing I have found is that there are too many peripheral characters, such that when the killer was revealed, I barely remembered who they were. While not a wholly satisfying book, I'll definitely read on--a great sense of time and place and interesting major characters overshadow the meandering investigation. B.
4. THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT by Diane A.S. Stuckart. #1 in the Leonardo da Vinci historical mystery series, set in 1483 Milan. Told from the point of view of one of Leonardo's apprentices, Delfina della Fazia, an eighteen year old girl who has disguised herself as a boy named Dino. Female apprentices are not allowed, and Delfina wanted nothing more than to be an artist so with her father's help, she escapes her small home village and an arranged marriage to run off to Milan seeking apprenticeship with Leonardo. During a live chess match in which one of the players disappears, Leonardo asks "Dino" to go find the Conte di Ferrara, who was playing one of the bishops. The Conte is found, all right--with a knife in his back in one of the gardens! Dino tells Leonardo and they begin a charade in which Dino assumes the role of the bishop in the chess match while Leonardo explains to the Duke why his game is held up and the Duke charges Leonardo with solving the crime. Which he eventually does, with "Dino's" help--but only after a couple more bodies are thrown into the mix. Several theories as to the killer float about, although I had no problem sussing them out right from the start. Several times during the book, Dino's disguise almost comes unraveled, although she does eventually have one confidant who helps her maintain the illusion of being male. I have to admit I was a little leery of this book given that the author writes romances also, and I am NOT a fan of romances, nor especially of romances disguising themselves as mysteries. I was pleasantly surprised in that there was none of that going on at all. (Thank you, author!) I'm also often leery of books featuring prominent historical figures as sleuths--I don't know why, as I really don't know enough about any given historical figure to scoff at any errors that might exist. LOL I enjoyed this book, although I started it almost expecting not to. It didn't take long before I was well past the 50 pages I'd promised to give it and immersed in the story. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the historical settings or known information about Leonardo, but as this is historical FICTION, it wasn't something I worried about anyway. While not a stellar read (and I can't readily put my finger on what makes me downgrade this just slightly) it is a good start to a promising new series--I've got the second one here and we'll see how it holds up. B+
5. THE DEAD CAT BOUNCE by Sarah Graves. (AUDIO) #1 Home Repair is Homicide mystery featuring Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree in Eastport, Maine. Jacobia is a former financial adviser who lived in New York and had some pretty high-flying clients--including some unsavory 'connected' folks. A year ago, she decided to abandon the rat race and bought a 200-year-old house in Eastport, Maine and moved in with her teenage son Sam. Since then, her life has been one big instruction book in how to fix up her house, and it's not been easy. Still, she's made a few friends and seems to be settling in relatively well, even though she's "from away." She certainly doesn't expect to find a dead body in her storeroom--especially not the body of one of the world's richest men! Nor would she have expected her best friend Ellie White to be arrested for the murder, but Ellie's confessed. It's up to Jake to figure out who Ellie is protecting--since they have a confession, the cops don't seem especially eager to do a lot of investigating themselves. I enjoyed this book on many levels, but I did find the reader to be somewhat annoying. She did really well with the different accents, especially that Maine 'down East' twang, but her way of reading and the tone of the book gave Jake a really superior-sounding attitude which grated on my nerves. I'm going to try the next in series in print and see if that makes a difference. If the author intended the main character to have this air of smug superiority, I'm not sure I'll continue on much longer. Most of the immediate secondary characters were interesting and beginning to flesh out well, including Jake's pompous brain surgeon ex-husband (he sounds so much like a neurosurgeon I used to work with, it's not even funny!) and her son Sam is a real treat, so I'm hoping I like the print version better. B.
6. NECESSARY AS BLOOD by Deborah Crombie. #13 Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James British police procedural. This book's theme is London's East End, specifically the Brick Lane area, notable for its rich Indian/Pakistani/Bengali culture. Gemma is visiting her friend Hazel, newly back in London, when Hazel's soon-to-be-ex-husband Tim calls Gemma and asks her to look into the disappearance of a friend. Nasir, a Bangladeshi lawyer, was supposed to pick up his three-year-old daughter from the sitter several hours previously but hasn't turned up. Since Naz is normally very responsible, the sitter frantically calls Tim. Gemma is intrigued when she learns that the man's wife, Sandra Gilles, a white textile artist, vanished into thin air about three months previously. When Naz turns up dead, the welfare of Charlotte, the young child now apparently orphaned, hangs in the balance. Scotland Yard is called in and Duncan and his sergeant Doug Cullen are on the case, with Gemma investigating in an unofficial capacity while she tries to deal with her mother's illness and planning her and Duncan's upcoming wedding as well as her normal work duties as a Detective Inspector at the Notting Hill station. Once again, I very much enjoyed this entry in this stellar series. Crombie's writing style leaves you totally absorbed into the neighborhood she's focusing on in each book and this one was no exception. She balances well the investigation of the mystery of the day with the personal lives of the major players and smoothly shifts back and forth between the point of view of several different characters. The only bad thing about this book is that now I'm going to have to wait many months for the release of the next entry! A+
7. THE GATES by John Connolly. (AUDIO) YA fantasy about an odd boy named Samuel Johnson (who has a dog named Boswell! LOL) who goes trick or treating three days early, and accidentally sees his neighbors, the Abernathys, engaged in some weird ritual that ends with them transformed into demons and with the gate to Hell in their basement at 666 Crowley Rd. When they learn that Samuel has seen them, they set out to try to keep him quiet about their plans--even as Sam is trying as hard as he can to get someone to believe him about what he's seen. On the other side of the inter-dimensional portal, we also get to meet a demon named Nerd, who isn't very demonic and who keeps botching the assignments given to him. Brilliant and imaginative and very well read by Jonathan Cake, I enjoyed this humorous horror story very much, and the ending found me hoping that there will be a sequel. A.
8. THE PATIENCE OF THE SPIDER by Andrea Camilleri. #8 Inspector Montalbano mystery set in Vigata, Italy. Supposedly recuperating from the wound he sustained at the end of the last book, with the lovely (and yet curmudgeonly in her own way!) Livia visiting and tending to him, Montalbano is instead dragged into a kidnapping case, "just to consult" while another detective has the lead role. Susanna Mistretta has disappeared, presumed kidnapped, although motive seems a bit unclear as her family has lost most of their money years previously. Several days pass with no ransom demand and Montalbano is beginning to believe she just went walkabout or else was taken by the proverbial sex maniac and is long dead. Then the ransom call comes in. Montalbano suspects that things aren't quite what they seem--as did I, having figured out the mystery well in advance of our grumpy detective friend. Enjoyable visit to Sicily, with Montalbano enjoying his fabulous fresh Italian meals, waxing philosophical, all the while cogitating until he pieces the clues together to solve the case. Strewn with a host of interesting, diverse secondary characters and ripe with the essence of Italian culture, I always enjoy a read in this series--but they read so quickly I decided that reading just one was like having a snack and I decided to dive right into the next in series--very uncharacteristic of me, I know! A.
9. THE CRUELEST MONTH by Louise Penny. #3 Armand Gamache "Three Pines" mystery in which the Sûreté du Québec detective and his team head back to the village of Three Pines to find out who scared a woman to death during a séance at the old Hadley House. The house, which Gamache has had the displeasure of seeing before, is said to be haunted, and the scare tactic was helped along with a real witch to bring the dead--and, for the victim, a lethal dose of ephedra, the diet medication. But from all reports, Madeline Favreau was a wonderful person, kind and loving, and it's hard for anyone to imagine why someone would want her dead. But villages hold their secrets, and it's up to Gamache and team to discover those hiddeen in Three Pines, all the while Gamache continues to search out a spy among his ranks who is still feeding information to his enemies in the higher ranks at the Sûreté. Gamache is the victim of some vicious attacks in the newspaper, publishing lies and misleading photos about the Inspector and his family, all linking back to the Arnot case which exposed a huge conspiracy a few years previously headed by one of the Sûreté's most popular detectives. I love this series--very atmospheric setting of a rather provincial French-Canadian village with a wonderfully eclectic set of secondary characters, descriptions of foods that make your mouth water and always a longing to go to this imaginary place and find a home. I didn't figure out who had done it ahead of time, although I suspected them all at one point or another, I think--Penny does a great job of laying out several red herrings along the way. I can't wait to get to the next in the series! A+
10. THE PAPER MOON by Andrea Camilleri. #9 Inspector Montalbano series set in Sicily, Italy. Once again, beautiful women and corrupt men pepper Inspector Montalbano's investigation into the death of one Angelo Pardo, a pharmaceutical representative. There's Angelo's sister Michela--who reported him missing and his mistress Elena, whose husband is older and impotent and allows his wife her sexual freedom. Both seem to be playing off one another, blaming each other for Angelo's death, and both are definitely suspects and not telling the whole truth, but when Angelo's connection to some corrupt politicians comes to light, there are a whole host of other possibilities as well. While the mystery was rather obvious, as always, I enjoyed the whole package of being deposited into Sicily, with its weather, the food, the atmosphere of Montalbano's world. These books read very quickly but are by no means cozy--there's a lot of sexual innuendo and content and graphic descriptions of the violent crime scenes. It's hard to know since it's written and set in a different culture if the author is trying to be 'sensational' or if this is just what's expected of crime fiction in Italy. At any rate, I loved this entry in the series no less than others but since I read two close together, am now content to wait another couple of months before I get to the next one. A.
11. FLOWER NET by Lisa See. #1 Liu Hulan mystery set in China. Hulan is an inspector with the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing. American-educated, she seems to be the natural choice to work with an American delegation who arrives to sort out the murders of two men--one Chinese, one American. The American happens to be the ambassador's son, and the Chinese man was a friend of his, and was found stuffed into a closet on a ship carrying illegals to California. These deaths are destined to trigger a diplomatic explosion if they aren't solved quickly. David Stark, the attorney chosen to go to China--and coincidentally, Hulan's former lover--believes that the deaths have something to do with the Chinese mafia, the triads, particularly one called Rising Phoenix, but is short on proof. Working together with Hulan in China and in America, their delegation works to sift the clues. I must admit I was quite disappointed in this book, having read some of Lisa See's other "literary" fiction which I enjoyed a lot. There are three books in this mystery series, all written earlier than her other works, and it shows. This was rather amateurishly written, the plot was full of holes and the characters were two-dimensional. It was also just....boring, for lack of a better word. I didn't care about either of the main characters and wasn't really sure "who" they were, actually. I did finish it, but I skimmed the last 50 pages and in retrospect, rather wish I hadn't bothered. I really have no desire to read on in the series at all. C-/D+
12. GRAVE SECRET by Charlaine Harris. (AUDIO) #4 (and final--according to the author) Harper Connelly paranormal mystery in which Harper and Tolliver head back to Texas at the behest of the well-moneyed Lizzie Joyce, who is seeking to find out how her grandfather died a few years previously. When Lizzie leads them to a small family graveyard and deliberately doesn't point out which grave is her grandfather's, Harper sighs and begins 'reading' each grave, with the name and how they died--but springs a surprise on the family by telling them that Mariah, Richard Joyce's caregiver after his stroke, died from an infection after childbirth--NOT from a ruptured appendix as they were told. While in Texas, Harper and Tolliver stop to see their young sisters (who have been adopted by Harper's aunt) and learn from Tolliver's older brother Mark that their father is out of prison on parole and has been asking to see him. Harper also touches base with the police, trying to find out if there have been any new leads in her sister Cameron's disappearance. Once they poke all their irons into the various fires, Tolliver is shot, there is an attempt against Harper's life and other people are killed. As the author strives to wind down this series by tying up all the loose ends, the plot careens a bit and latches on to several very convenient coincidences, but the ending was satisfying if a bit rushed. I have enjoyed this series of Harris' more than any of the others she writes and was very intrigued with Harper's strange gift. Once again the reader (Alyssa Bresnahan) did a stellar job. One note: you really must start from the beginning of this series or you will be sadly lacking in the understanding of events as the backstory is very important as are the twisty relationships in the Lang-Connelly family. A-.
13. IF IT'S NOT ONE THING, IT'S A MURDER by Liz Wolfe. #1 Skye Donovan "photographic" mysteries, although I have to say for most of this book, the main character was Skye Williams (she gets divorced and takes her maiden name back) and doesn't even pick up a camera til the last quarter of the book. Skye Williams nee Donovan is a woman who discovers her husband is cheating on her--with another man. While all that drama is going on, her best friend Bobbi Jo is accused of murder, then Bobbi's husband dies after having a massive stroke, and her other best friend Lily has a relationship crisis AND a daughter's wedding to plan also. At first I wasn't sure I was going to finish the book. It was really scattered with a bunch of different subplots, there was too much going on, not enough details about the mystery--which almost seemed to fall through the cracks as the book went on--and I had a hard time relating to Skye, who struck me as just another SUV-driving yuppie suburbanite trying to stave off boredom with various hobbies, clubs and friend-activities. There was a lot of set-up, a lot of going 'round and 'round in circles, and while the main character did grow on me somewhat after awhile, there are too many relationship/romance-like sides to the stories for my taste. I'm going to try the second one in the series (probably from the library though, rather than acquiring it) and see if things have improved. I didn't really feel as though this was a mystery--more like chick lit with sort of a mystery (I figured it out well in advance) attached. If you like that sort of mystery, you will probably enjoy this more than I did. C+
14. THE LOST SYMBOL by Dan Brown. #3 Robert Langdon thriller/mystery. Professor Langdon, specialist in symbology, is summoned to Washington by (he thinks) his good friend Peter Solomon on very short notice. Once there, he discovers that Peter has been captured by a madman who expects Langdon to unlock the centuries-old Masonic secret of the Ancient Mysteries--a portal, a pyramid hidden under Washington DC or his friend will be killed. As with the other two books, this one proceeds at breakneck speed, slowed down only by the flashbacks each character has, as Langdon and a cast of other interesting characters race against time in an effort to save (or destroy) Solomon and the secret he has hidden. It's up to the professor to decode various items and bring practical interpretation to the fore, while barely having time to stop and wipe the sweat from his brow. I did enjoy the book on the whole, but as this is the third in the series, the plot twists and turns are now expected and somewhat formulaic rather than surprising. The author provides some nuggets of information, trivia and arcana centering around the Masons and their legends and I do enjoy this sort of a mystery and probably will do more of my own research on these topics at a later date. If you enjoyed the others in the series you will probably like this one too, as I did. That said, I can't say that it's worth all the hype leading up to it, but then again, how could ANY book live up to that much hype!? LOL Not great literature by any stretch of the imagination--but still a worthy read. B+.
15. SAND SHARKS by Margaret Maron (AUDIO) #15 Judge Deborah Knott mystery. Deborah is off to the beach at Wilmington for a judges' conference while new husband Dwight takes his son and Deborah's brother Will north to Virginia to clear out his murdered ex-wife's house and ready it for selling, while attending some seminars of his own in that area. Deborah is looking forward to a few days of relaxing on the beach, seeing old friends and scarfing down some fresh seafood, but of course ends up smack dab in the middle of a murder investigation when she discovers the strangled body of Judge Pete Jeffries in the water. She didn't know him well but had witnessed him being quite a butthead in just the few hours before his death that evening at Jonah's, a local restaurant. Her colleagues then fill the gaps with other stories of his greed and incompetence and the suspect list burgeons. When an older judge who is about to retire is deliberately run down on the way to a retirement reception for him, putting him into a coma, the local police detective and (privately) Deborah begin trying to figure out if the two incidents are related--and if so, how. There was a lot of different personal things going on in this episode, and the mystery seemed somewhat secondary. Which is okay, because I love visiting with Deborah and her family and friends. Another wonderful episode in this series, which has become one of my very favorites, and probably THE favorite audio series for me now, since reader C.J. Critt does such a fantastic job of interpreting who Deborah is and also all the secondary characters as well as the peripheral characters who exist for just a short time. The down side? I have to wait many moons for the release of the next one! A.
16. BAKING CAKES IN KIGALI by Gaile Parkin. This is a story about Angel, a menopausal woman living in Kigali, Rwanda with her husband and five grandchildren. Both of her children have died in her native Tanzania, and she and her husband move to Kigali when he is offered a consultancy with the university there. Angel bakes cakes, and while she runs her business out of her apartment, she considers herself "a professional somebody." The story encompasses life in and around an apartment compound, featuring a variety of people from all over the world who have come to Kigali for various reasons. It tells of the struggle to beat back the myths about AIDS, about learning ways of dealing with centuries-old traditions that keep women firmly in their places, about a commingling of people who speak one or two of several different languages who practice different religions and have different outlooks on life surviving and even sometimes happily co-existing. At first I thought this book was going to be kind of lame, too cozy, too much like Mma Ramotswe goes to Kigali. But it wasn't, and by the time I was done with it, I was very satisfied, felt I had gained much cultural (and geographical!) knowledge about different African traditions and was glad to have read it. I found much that I could relate to with Angel despite our many differences--especially her descriptions of her hot flashes! LOL It's simultaneously silly, heart-breaking, depressing, poignant and yet hopeful. It's a story of survival, and so much more. Highly recommended! A+
17. STEEL GUITAR by Linda Barnes. #4 Carlotta Carlyle mystery set in Boston, MA. Carlotta, a private investigator who drives cab to fill in the monetary gap, picks up a fare she recognizes--Dee Willis, a blues singer/guitarist who has increasingly gained fame and fortune over the years. The same Dee Willis whom Carlotta used to play with in a blues band. The same Dee Willis who stole Carlotta's husband Cal, now ex. Carlotta saves Dee from a bunch of hungry hobos who attack when Dee begins waving money around looking for 'one of their kind.' When they've escaped and Dee realizes who she is, she hires Carlotta to find an old mutual friend of theirs, another musician named Davey Dunrobie. Against her better judgment, Carlotta agrees, but when Dee's bass player Brenda ends up dead in Dee's bed, she begins to wonder how that event ties into Dee's hiring Carlotta. As angry as she has been with Dee in the past, Carlotta can't imagine her having anything to do with murder. So who did kill Brenda, and what has it got to do with Davey Dunrobie? Another good entry in the series, and one in which we get a closer look at Carlotta's past and where she's come from. A-.
18. GROUNDS FOR MURDER by Sandra Balzo. #2 Maggy Thorsen mystery. Maggy is co-owner of Uncommon Grounds, a coffee shop in Brookhills, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She and her business partner Caron are struggling to keep things going, what with the death of their other partner in the last book, and trying to stay ahead of the chain coffee stores springing up. Maggy, planning to attend Java Ho, a coffee convention being held locally, agrees reluctantly to host the Barista Competition, hoping for some good publicity for Uncommon Grounds. But things turn messy when Marvin LaRoche, owner of the HotWired coffee chain and the convention's organizer, is bashed on the head with the trophy--and Maggy finds his body. Being a power-hungry self-centered man and having delivered a very controversial speech at the opening ceremonies of the convention, there is no shortage of suspects with a motive to clobber LaRoche. Maggy is even added to the list as she had a rather loud argument with him just hours before his death. So she has a reason to investigate, and doesn't share all she knows with her love interest, Sheriff Jake Pavlick, which gets her into even more trouble. I had a gut feeling about the baddie in this book, but didn't really know why or how the murder was done until close to the end. Enjoyable read, this series seems to be what I'd call a "semi-cozy." There are definitely some adult themes and a little mild cussing, but it's not terribly edgy. I like the author's writing style and down-to-earth characters and am looking forward to the next one in the series. A-
19. THE CHALK CIRCLE MAN by Fred Vargas. #1 Chief Inspector Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg mystery set in Paris. Adamsberg, the new Commissaire recently transferred from his home in the Pyrenees, comes with a stellar reputation for solving big cases, but on the surface he appears more like a bumbling Columbo-esque sleuth who doesn't use any of the usual techniques for solving crimes. Working more by his senses than by deductive reasoning, Adamsberg begins taking interest in a person who draws blue chalk circles around various objects around the city and writing an odd little quotation next to the circle. He feels that something bigger is coming, and that soon the chalk circle man will be encircling dead bodies with his chalk rather than discarded plastic toys, broken watch straps and the like. And so it happens, to the disappointment of Adamsberg's colleague Danglard, an often-tipsy man who views Adamsberg's reputation skeptically--but comes to respect it by the end of the case. This book was a little hard to get into at first, possibly in part due to the translation, not sure. The writing style doesn't seem to flow well at times, but when it does, it's brilliant. The main character was also quite an enigma, with his personal foibles intersecting with his professional work. It was difficult to get to know him and his methods, but by the end of the book I was more comfortable with him and with the whole situation. Although there have been several later books in the series translated into English in past years, and I've had a couple of them on my TBR for awhile, I was glad I waited to get this one (the first in series) and read it first. I'm hoping future books will make more sense due to the groundwork laid by this one. B+
20. CHARLIE BONE AND THE SHADOW by Jenny Nimmo (AUDIO) #7 Children of the Red King YA fantasy series. Charlie and his endowed friends, all descendents of the fabled Red King, all attendees of Bloor's Academy, are once again under attack by the nasty side of the family tree. Charlie's parents are still away on their extended second honeymoon, and Charlie's nasty Grandma Bone brings a wrapped package into the basement, knowing that Charlie's curiosity will get the better of him, and it does--he and his friend Benjamin's dog Runner Bean are sucked into the painting to the stark, foreboding land of Badlock. There, Charlie meets up with one of his ancestors, Otis Yewbeam, and a nasty stone gargoyle dog named Oddthumb. Charlie eventually manages to get out, but Runner Bean remains trapped inside, much to Benjamin's dismay. Charlie plans to bring Billy Raven, an albino boy who's an orphan, home the following weekend to try to speak to Runner (he speaks to animals) to try to figure out how to get him back. Meanwhile, Dagbert "the Drowner" Endless begins plotting his revenge against Charlie and his friend Tancred Torsson, but behind all these attacks is the evil Count Harken, an enchanter set on eliminating all those who work against him. Another excellent entry in the series with yet another cliffhanger at the end! A.
DNF: GHOST AT WORK by Carolyn Hart. I tried the audio version, and while the fact that the reader was annoying influenced my decision to stop somewhat, I wasn't getting into the book itself at all either.
Current reads: CHRISTMAS IS MURDER by C.S. Challinor, BONE CROSSED by Patricia Briggs and listening to THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY by Siobhan Dowd.
Cheryl
Saturday, October 17, 2009
October 2009 Reading
I just realized I hadn't started posting my October reads yet, and here it is, mid-month already! You'll probably notice quite a few titles with the words "Dead, Die, Dying, or Death" in the title this month--I'm participating in a reading challenge for one of my online book groups to read as many books as possible with those words in the title.
1. DEAD CENTER by David Rosenfelt. #5 Andy Carpenter mystery. Andy is a lawyer in Paterson, New Jersey but in this installment is off to the midwest in response to a call from his ex-girlfriend Laurie who is now the acting police chief in her home town of Findlay, Wisconsin. The son of a childhood friend has been accused of murdering two young college women, one of them the girl who just broke up with him. Andy, who has finally made up his mind to start to come to terms with life sans Laurie, is reluctant to take up the case primarily for that reason, but also because he can afford to be picky about his cases and he likes to have a belief that his client truly is innocent. Although he normally trusts Laurie's judgment implicitly, he feels she may be too close to the situation. Eventually he does drive out with his dog Tara in tow. But after meeting Jeremy (the accused) and his family and getting a feel for the locals from Calvin, the local attorney he'll be working with, he comes to believe that Laurie is right. There is something bigger going on, probably involving the Centurions, a cultish, isolationist religion that is the sole cornerstone of the neighboring town of Center City, where Elizabeth and Sheryl, the two murdered girls, were from. It takes another murder or two to convince the judge that Jeremy is innocent and that charges should be dropped, but Andy is disinclined to just go home and let things hang in the air. Plus, he and Laurie have started their relationship up again and he really doesn't want that to end, either. I did spot the bad guy very early on, but had no basis for it, just a gut feeling. This was a great entry in the series, one of the very few "lawyer/courtroom drama" mysteries I will even go anywhere near. A.
2. THE WAY OF FOUR: CREATING ELEMENTAL BALANCE IN YOUR LIFE by Deborah Lipp. Pagan tutorial about working with elemental magicks, determining your own elemental nature and learning to balance your own nature through ritual and practice. Although Pagan, I don't do a lot of magical ritual myself so hadn't really worked much with or been terribly cognizant of, the Elementals. The author explains the differences between the elements in nature and the Elementals, magical beings and takes you through several exercises to determine your own elemental nature. I had known that I was strongly of Earth, but was surprised to find that I have almost as many Air characteristics. I'm already fairly balanced, also having some Fire and Water traits in my nature, but those two are definitely tamped down most of the time by the Air-Earth domination of my personality and essential nature. It took me several weeks to get through the book as some exercises are done outdoors, which is not always easy for me to do, living in the city. Some parts I paid more attention to than others. I thought this was a very well-done book with plenty of different aspects for different people. Some of this was fairly basic, other parts more advanced. There is another workbook that also accompanies this book which I didn't have, but may purchase at some point. I'll definitely be referring to this book again in the future, it'll stay on my Keeper shelf. A.
3. WHEN GODS DIE by C.S. Harris. #2 Sebastian St. Cyr historical mystery. Set in 1811 London, full of political intrigue, Sebastian (aka Viscount Devlin) is asked by the close adviser of the Prince Regent to investigate the murder of a woman found in the Regent's company dead--while he fell asleep and doesn't recall anything that happens. Not wishing to become involved in the Regent's female problems nor in anything political in the current climate, he's set to decline when Jarvis dangles a necklace in front of him--an ancient necklace that was last seen around Sebastian's mother's neck on the day she disappeared when he was eleven years old. Of course this draws him into the mystery, and the story unfolds--both the story of the murder and of how the necklace came to be on Guinevere Anglissey's pretty dead neck. Sebastian, Tom (the street urchin he rescued who is now in his employ as his 'tiger' or horseman) and Kat Boleyn, his lover and actress in Drury Lane, investigate various aspects of the crime and things get more dangerous for them all the closer they get. I admit that I hooked one of the author's red herrings and ran with it and was rather surprised at the solution to the crime and the necklace mystery too. Cracking good action-packed suspense, the first book in awhile that I've been literally unable to put down. I liked this better than the first book, and the gratuitious sex didn't bother me as it was between well established characters. A+
4. SOVEREIGN by C.J. Sansom. #3 Matthew Shardlake historical mystery set in 1541 during King Henry VIII's Progress northward to York. Matthew, a lawyer, has been commissioned by Archbishop Cranmer to assist in readying petitions of Yorkshiremen to be put before the King's justice--but his real purpose is that he wants Matthew to keep a prisoner who is accused in the recent attempted revolution safe until he can be brought to the Tower for torture. As his father has recently died and left Matthew in debt for a mortgage on his farm, he feels that he has little choice but to take the £50 offered for the job although his heart is certainly not in it. Matthew and his assistant Jack Barak head north and soon are in the midst of a mire of not only terrible rains and mud, but also a tangle of political intrigues and plotting, with Barak taking up with one of Queen Catherine's servants. Matthew meets the fellow lawyer who will be in charge of the reading of the local petitions, Giles Wrenne, and strikes up a friendship with him only to learn after a time that he is slowly dying of an enlarging tumor in his gut. Meanwhile, several attempts are made on Matthew's life, as it seems he has made some powerful enemies who seek to discredit him, and there are also attempts to kill the prisoner that he is supposed to keep safe. Longing only for his own hearth and home, the mysteries within mysteries seem to deepen as the weeks roll past until Matthew doesn't know who should be trusted, until the end when all is revealed. I had a feeling about the resolution of the main mystery and was right, although some of the side plots had somewhat surprising ends to them. Very rich, meaty novel--a good mystery as well as plenty of historical detail with an interesting theory put forth by the author. The afterward notes were interesting too, to let the reader know where he'd taken liberties with known historical documentation or let his imagination run a bit wild. I'm ready for the next in series! This stays on my Keeper shelf. A.
5. CIRCLE OF THE DEAD by David Lawrence. #1 DS Stella Mooney mystery set in London. Stella is a haunted character, a street smart rogue cop who grew up in the tough projects and has maintained her toughness. Smart enough to escalate up the promotion ladder if she wanted to, Stella elects to stay a Detective Sergeant so she can keep her fingers on the pulse of the street, keep close to the people instead of becoming a paper pusher. I have to say that in this book, the role of DS seemed to be a lot more expansive than it is in many other British police procedurals I've read. Of course Stella tended to act impulsively at times with a lot of authority that she in reality didn't have, too. As she tries to solve the case of Jimmy Stone, killed by a professional hit man with a knife to the heart, her mental health becomes increasingly fragile as she is attacked several times, continues to drink too much and sleep too little due to nightmares about a previous case and her own miscarriage, and conflicting feelings about her live-in boyfriend George. There wasn't really any mystery here--we knew up front who the bad guys were, the only mystery was what would happen to Stella and her sanity. For much of the book it felt like Stella was nothing but a pinball battered back and forth, bouncing off various pylons out of control. I liked Stella, but at times her whole persona was just a real drag, and her continued unwise--okay, sometimes totally stupid--decisions tended to border on being unbelievable. Dark, gritty, violent, compelling story and interesting perspectives, but not something I would want to read a bunch of back to back. B.
6. DEATH OF A CELEBRITY by M.C. Beaton. #18 Hamish MacBeth mystery set in fictional Lochdubh, Scotland. A young woman, star of a local television show that has begun doing exposes of various Highland people and institutions, is killed. Hamish himself could be suspect as she was about to interview him and smear the local constabulary. A new interim Chief Inspector, Pat Carson, seems a little more keen on Hamish and his wild ideas than his old nemesis Blair was, but a couple of small foul ups leave Hamish once again banished to his own village patch to let the big boys in Strathbane solve the murder--or make fools of themselves trying. Of course it takes a second murder to wake them up and realize Hamish was right from the start. These books have gotten to be all so much alike that I'm sure the author can write them in her sleep--just as I can almost read them in my sleep. I know I say this after almost every book in this series...it's not that I hate the books, and I really do like Hamish, but I'm going to give up now, I think. They just don't seem to be worth the couple of hours of time it takes to read them, so predictable have they become. C.
7. INKHEART by Cornelia Funke. (AUDIO) First of a YA fantasy series about a young girl named Meggie, and her father Mortimer (she calls him Mo) who is a book repairer. One day a strange man comes to their house to speak to Mo; even his name (Dustfinger) is odd and he calls Mo "Silvertongue." Mo is worried after Dustfinger's visit and decides that they need to leave the house for awhile to visit Meggie's Aunt Eleanor--her long-gone mother's sister. Eleanor, a spinster with a houseful of books, some of them rare and collectible, welcomes them although she's uncertain of Meggie, not being fond of children in general--but when some mysterious men capture Mo to take him back to "Capricorn," Meggie and Eleanor must figure out why they wanted him, where they've taken him and how to rescue him. Along the course of their adventures, Meggie discovers why it is that her father never reads to her aloud--it has to do with the name Silvertongue--a name the evil Capricorn has given him. Mo can read things from stories into the real world--and vice versa. Meggie learns that Mo read Capricorn and his cronies and Dustfinger out of a book called Inkheart--while at the same time, Meggie's mother was read INTO the book, never to return again, although Mo tried many times to get her back out. What a wonderful story--very imaginitive, and this audio version was great, read by Lynn Redgrave who did a marvelous job with all the different voices from the evil Capricorn to the spinster-ish Eleanor to the pre-teen Meggie. A must for all bibliophiles, I think--well, a must for anyone, really! I look forward to the next in this series very much! A+
8. THE DEAD PLACE by Stephen Booth. #6 DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry mystery set in the Peak District of England. Once again, two cases end up tangled together. A strange caller rambles on about death, looking for 'the dead place,' quoting poetry and literary sources and makes it known how special they think the moment of death is. The call is made with a voice changer, and calls are made from public phones, often in the vicinity of where a funeral is taking place. And they promise that a death is coming. Is this a funeral home employee, or one of those ghouls who goes to funerals to soak up people's grief? Meanwhile, there is a case of a body found in an open area--first thought to be a murder victim, but once she is identified after a forensic artist's composite drawing is published in the newspapers, it's determined that she was a woman who had died of natural causes 18 months previously and had been believed to be cremated by her family. So who was cremated in her place? And how was the switch made? The story delves into the details of the funeral home/crematorium business as well as thoughts on death itself--which weighs heavily on Ben Cooper's mind as his mother suffers a stroke and is hospitalized, not doing well. Great story as always (although I still intensely dislike Diane Fry!) and I did not figure out the bad guy in this one at all. Looking forward to the next one! A.
9. THE SORCERESS by Michael Scott. (AUDIO) #3 'Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel' YA fantasy series. This book picks up immediately where the second one left off, with Sophie and Josh Newman, fifteen-year-old twins (now known to the 'The Twins of Legend') with the alchemist Nicholas Flamel battling against the forces of evil, which are spearheaded by the noted magician, Dr. John Dee. Presently in London, Dee continues to send various foes against them, most drawn from the pages of history and/or mythology. This book is very fast-paced, hurtling along from one near-disaster to another with little time for piecing together of any puzzles in between. Meanwhile, on Alcatraz Island, Flamel's wife Peronelle, a sorceress of some note, has to deal with various monsters sent by Niccolo Machiavelli, another of the evil crew, who is looking to settle an old debt with her. The book leaves no doubt that there will be more in the series as it seemed like nothing more than an action-packed interlude on the way to a hopefully somewhat meatier conclusion. (I've no idea how many books are planned in this series.) I enjoyed the book, although the reader is not my favorite. We learned a few things along the way, but most of this was action and not much introspection or puzzle-solving and not a lot of character development. My favorite character in this series, Scatatch, an ancient Celtic warrior goddess (who is now a vegetarian vampire!) was very short on exposure in this book--hoping to see more of her again next time. B+
10. DIES THE FIRE by S.M. Stirling. #1 of a speculative fiction/dystopian series set in a modern world beginning the night of "the Change" when some sort of worldwide, catastrophic event like a giant electromagnetic pulse renders modern technology useless. Everything electrical, battery-operated, or explosive is rendered instantly useless--planes fall out of the sky, automobiles stop working where they are, the lights literally go out all over the world. Mass chaos ensues, and as expected, as the months go by, much of the population left after the initial Change dies from starvation, various diseases and plagues, and eventually from the brutality of other men, with roving bands of cannibals stalking the countryside. A few viscious, power-hungry men setting up mini-empires in various cities, ruling by violence and terror to take what they want and control the populace. But out in the countryside (this takes place primarily in Oregon, with Portland being the demense of the evil Protector) small of people retreat to family farms and try to plan for a future, raising food without electricity, gasoline-powered machinery or modern conveniences. They must also, of course, protect themselves from the ruthless bands of bandits, cannibals, and the Protector's increasingly far-reaching cohorts demanding feudal-like power, tithes of food and service and the like. This story is told primarily from the point of view of two people, leaders of two different such groups, Juniper MacKenzie and Mike Havel, Mike having been a bush pilot whose plane crashed in the episode with the Larsson family his current clients on board--all miraculously survive the crash, and Mike, a former Marine, sets out to keep his charges safe. Juniper was a folk musician and High Priestess of a small Wiccan coven and heads for her cottage in the hills with a few friends when the Change happens. Very hard to put down! Interesting story, and very much looking forward to the next book in this series to see what happens to our friends (and to society!) as time goes on. A+
11. A CARRION DEATH by Michael Stanley. #1 Detective David "Kubu" Bengu mystery set in Gaborone, Botswana. A half-eaten body is found near a waterhole in the Kalahari desert, a disgruntled hyena hovering close by, waiting to see if the humans are going to leave him to his lunch or not. Not! Assistant Superintendent Kubu's first task is to try to determine the identity of the body, which has no hands and thus no fingerprints. No white men have been reported missing, so this is proving quite difficult initially. After a time, however, Kubu has several different possibilities to fulfill the role, and he and his team remain interested when the coroner determines that the man (whoever he was) was murdered. Several different sub-plots to the main mystery seem to intersect with Botswana Cattle & Mining Company (the country's largest company) involved on several scales, and with several more dead bodies piling up along the way. Some of these sub-plots were fairly easy to figure out, as was the main baddie. Detective Kubu (Kubu meaning "Hippopotamus") is a delightful character, a large man fond of good food and wine, proud of his heritage and country and family, and yet pragmatic in recognizing its faults, too. He sings off-key opera, is respectful of his parents, resists his wife's attempts at getting him to diet and delights in having the baboons from the nearby jungle jumping all over the outside of the police station! While I delved right into the cultural details about the country, enjoyed getting to know Kubu, his wife Joy and the other secondary characters, and learned much about several pertinent social issues (diamond poaching and theft, alienation of the indigenous Kalahari Bushmen, etc) it seemed to me that at times the story was burdened with too many different issues and details. It felt crowded, as though the author were trying to cram in as much information and detail about the area, the culture, the food, the climate, the law enforcement system...etc...as possible. It was a lot to digest, and thus was not a book to be read quickly in a couple of sittings. Whether that is the result of the collaborative effort of the two people writing the book and overlapping on some things, or some other reason, I don't know. At any rate, despite it being somewhat bloated, I very much enjoyed the book and do look forward to the second in the series. B+
12. THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM by Susan Wittig Albert. (AUDIO) #1 in the Beatrix Potter historical cozy mysteries set in early 1900's Sawrey, UK. First of a very cozy mystery series centering on Beatrix Potter (author of Peter Rabbit and other children’s books) beginning when she bought Hill Top Farm not long after the death of her beloved fiancé (and publisher) Norman Warne. The mystery here centers around the death of one of the villagers and Miss Potter and the village’s animals along with her own menagerie eventually solve the crime. I don’t think it’s easy to take a real historical figure and base a series of books on them, but from the admittedly little I know of Beatrix Potter, it seems that the author has done a remarkable job. The book is very cozy and told partly from the point of view of Beatrix and partly from the POV of various animals, and knowing this, I elected to ‘read’ the audio version, which actually worked well for me. The reader was wonderful, doing a variety of voices and accents very skillfully and captured the soul of the book well. I’m not sure I would read these in print—they’re just TOO cozy for my usual tastes and even in audio, the always “prim and proper” tone of the English village of the day did wear on my nerves after awhile—but I did enjoy this in audio and most certainly will listen to more of them. B+
13. THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman. (AUDIO) Very interesting tale of a toddler whose family is murdered but escapes the killer’s knife by wandering out of his house into a nearby graveyard. His mother’s spirit briefly visits the graveyard and asks two ghosts, Mr. & Mrs. Owens, to take care of her son, and they do, calling him Nobody Owens (“Bod” for short.) They need help raising him since they aren’t allowed to leave the graveyard and the living and the dead almost never interact, but a creature called Silas—who is neither living nor dead—agrees to help by procuring food and acting as Bod’s guardian and liaison with the outside world. And so Bod grows, living in the graveyard, interacting with spirits and ghosts, very much loved and feeling cared for, although he does realize he is somehow different. A variety of spirits and beings educate him as he grows. Eventually he knows what happened to his family and begins to look forward to the day when he will meet the man Jack who killed them. It’s hard to give a synopsis of the book without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that it was an excellent story, and wonderfully read by the author himself. A definite gothic feel, at times scary and macabre, at other times poignant and tender, this is a must-read (or must-listen if you can!!) for all but the very young. A+
14. DYING LIGHT by Stuart MacBride. #2 DS Logan MacRae Scottish police procedural set in Aberdeen. Logan, still trying to recover from the shame he feels associated with events at the end of the last book, doesn’t get fired like he anticipates—instead, he’s charged to work with DI Steel’s team. He’s not sure which is the worse fate; Steel, a chain-smoking, shrewd, crude and lewd woman whose squad is known as the Screw-Up Squad, sees Logan (a former hero) as her way to promotion and glory. He ends up doing much of her dirty work, dragged in to work off-shifts and days off on a serial killer case, much to the chagrin of his new love interest, fellow copper Jackie Watson. Dark, gritty and violent, this was a good story, but it was hard to believe some of the odd coincidences, and also to fathom how someone like DI Steel ever got as far as she did up the ladder with all the shortcuts she took and blatantly ignoring sound procedural practice. I like Logan, but he just seems to skitter from one disaster to another—which is, I suppose, what makes this noir. B+
15. ALANNA: SONG OF THE LIONESS (THE FIRST ADVENTURE) by Tamora Pierce. First of a children's fantasy series, this is the story of Alanna, a pre-pubescent noble girl who conspires with her twin brother Thom such that they each get sent where they want for training—she wants to be a warrior knight and he wants to be a sorcerer. Alanna changes her name to Alan and heads off to the castle for knight’s training in Thom’s place and he heads for the convent to begin training his magic Gift. This is made possible by a father who is a scholar with his head in his studies and somewhat indifferent and inattentive to his children. Of course trouble starts brewing the next year when “Alan” begins developing into a woman, but she is determined to find out what her dreams and visions of the black city mean. While this was an okay story, the writing was just a bit too simplistic and “young” for me. It only took a couple of hours to read, and while I think it would be a good story for children, I don’t think it’s a series I will pursue. B.
16. A DUTY TO THE DEAD by Charles Todd. First in a new historical mystery series featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse during WWI. As we meet Bess, she is on an empty hospital ship, Brittanic, heading back to England, when it hits a mine and sinks. During the fracas, her arm is broken and then injured worse, and thus must be taken off active duty. During this time, she decides to finally assuage her conscience and visit the family of a solider she'd grown close to who ultimately died and left her with a message for his brother that she promised to deliver in person. Arthur Graham's family lives at Owlhurst, a small manor village in Kent, and she sets off to deliver this message to his brother Jonathan. But while a guest in the Graham home, Bess becomes drawn into the family intrigue centering around Arthur's older brother Peregrine, who was committed to an asylum at the age of fourteen after murdering a servant girl. As Arthur's message consists of "Tell Jonathan I lied. I did it for mother's sake. But it has to be set right," she can't help but wonder if it has something to do with Peregrine's situation. As she asks more questions of the villagers who knew the family at the time, she becomes more involved, almost obsessed, with making certain Arthur's wish is carried out, to the point where her own life may be in peril. I very much enjoyed this book--the story was excellent, the characters well-drawn, and the spirit of the times were heartily embraced, and the mystery remained so til fairly close to the end. I look forward to reading more about Bess and her adventures. A.
17. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH by Caroline Graham. #5 DI Tom Barnaby British police procedural. Once again a small English village is the setting, as Alan Hollingsworth is found dead--at first believed to be of a suicide, his wife Simone having disappeared a few days previously, ostensibly to visit her sick mother, although her mother had been believed dead for many years. Then the thirty-year-old daughter of one of the Hollingsworth neighbors disappears, something totally out of character for her. DCI Barnaby and his Sergeant Troy begin investigating, gleaning information from all the nosy neighbors and trying to sift through to find the important bits. Was Alan done in by a former business partner that he'd swindled out of hundreds of thousands of dollars? Is the beautiful Simone's disappearance voluntary, or was she abducted? Neither were well-liked, but neither were they seemingly the types to incur strong hatred. Through many twists and turns, the mysteries are eventually solved, although not to Barnaby's satisfaction, as it's mostly speculation on his part. I did figure out the main part of the mystery about halfway through, but the hows and whys were a bit muddled til the end. Enjoyable, but perhaps a little TOO long and twisty. B+
#5 Kitty Norville paranormal series. Kitty, a werewolf, and Ben (formerly her lawyer, now her fiance and pack mate) finally get fed up with planning a big traditional wedding and decide to get married in Las Vegas, much to the chagrin of Kitty's mother. They plan on combining business with pleasure by having Kitty do a live version of her radio show, The Midnight Hour, at a theatre in Vegas. However, things start falling apart when Kitty is asked by Rick, Denver's Vampire Master, to carry a message to Vegas' Master, Dom. It gets worse when the happy couple arrive at their hotel only to discover that there is a gun convention taking place at the hotel--and Ben recognizes several Hunters--as in, werewolf and vampire hunters--in the crowd. Then there's magic shows featuring real magic and an animal act featuring several lycanthropes. Kitty begins to wonder if her show will ever get done and begins to wonder at the wisdom of their Vegas wedding plans--which were made to simplify everything--and when Ben is kidnapped hours before the ceremony is to take place, she begins the search for him in a state of near-panic. Does their wedding ever take place? You'll have to read it to find out! Another good entry in this paranormal series, although this one did seem a little fragmented and scattered compared to previous books, not quite as good. Looking forward to the next one, though! B+.
19. THE MISSING INK by Karen E. Olson. #1 Tattoo Shop mystery featuring Brett Kavanaugh, owner of the Painted Lady tattoo shop in Las Vegas. Brett gets involved in a complex case her brother Tim, a Las Vegas police detective, is investigating when it's determined that a missing girl was last seen in her shop. She'd come in to ask about getting devotion ink with her fiance's name on it, made an appointment to get the tat, then never showed. The odd thing is, her fiance's name was Bruce Manning Jr--son and heir of a wealthy businessman, known as Chip to his friends--but she wanted her tattoo to say Matthew! Soon the news is splashed with photos of Elise Lyon, missing bride-to-be of Chip Manning--but she had used the name Kelly Masters when she made the appointment at The Painted Lady. When a woman is found shot dead in a car near the airport--and HER name ends up being Kelly Masters, things begin to get really confusing. Soon Brett is in the puzzle up to her pretty little tattooed neck. I liked this book okay--I've enjoyed all of Olson's books in her other series--but this one wasn't exceptional. I like her writing style--it flows, it's easy to read. But this book was cozier than her other series, and in fact had many of the elements of "just another cookie cutter cozy mystery." You have a main character with a quirky job or hobby, you have a set of slightly freaky friends or secondary characters, and you have the main character doing unbelievable things that no sane person would do which continually puts her in jeopardy. And yes, one of those things was withholding evidence from the police, even though one of the police in question was her brother. The concept is great! As a tattooed woman, I felt it certainly had promise. I learned some interesting things. But Brett's character just didn't seem to have much depth, and the whole package didn't quite measure up--possibly because Olson's other series IS so good, I had high expectations. I will read the next in series, but I have become very disillusioned with cozies in general and it is going to have to be an improvement over this one, and Brett is going to have to develop some meat to her character and quit doing such dumb things if I'm to continue beyond that. B-
Current reads: VANISHED by Kat Richardson, WHITE NIGHT by Jim Butcher in audio.
Cheryl
1. DEAD CENTER by David Rosenfelt. #5 Andy Carpenter mystery. Andy is a lawyer in Paterson, New Jersey but in this installment is off to the midwest in response to a call from his ex-girlfriend Laurie who is now the acting police chief in her home town of Findlay, Wisconsin. The son of a childhood friend has been accused of murdering two young college women, one of them the girl who just broke up with him. Andy, who has finally made up his mind to start to come to terms with life sans Laurie, is reluctant to take up the case primarily for that reason, but also because he can afford to be picky about his cases and he likes to have a belief that his client truly is innocent. Although he normally trusts Laurie's judgment implicitly, he feels she may be too close to the situation. Eventually he does drive out with his dog Tara in tow. But after meeting Jeremy (the accused) and his family and getting a feel for the locals from Calvin, the local attorney he'll be working with, he comes to believe that Laurie is right. There is something bigger going on, probably involving the Centurions, a cultish, isolationist religion that is the sole cornerstone of the neighboring town of Center City, where Elizabeth and Sheryl, the two murdered girls, were from. It takes another murder or two to convince the judge that Jeremy is innocent and that charges should be dropped, but Andy is disinclined to just go home and let things hang in the air. Plus, he and Laurie have started their relationship up again and he really doesn't want that to end, either. I did spot the bad guy very early on, but had no basis for it, just a gut feeling. This was a great entry in the series, one of the very few "lawyer/courtroom drama" mysteries I will even go anywhere near. A.
2. THE WAY OF FOUR: CREATING ELEMENTAL BALANCE IN YOUR LIFE by Deborah Lipp. Pagan tutorial about working with elemental magicks, determining your own elemental nature and learning to balance your own nature through ritual and practice. Although Pagan, I don't do a lot of magical ritual myself so hadn't really worked much with or been terribly cognizant of, the Elementals. The author explains the differences between the elements in nature and the Elementals, magical beings and takes you through several exercises to determine your own elemental nature. I had known that I was strongly of Earth, but was surprised to find that I have almost as many Air characteristics. I'm already fairly balanced, also having some Fire and Water traits in my nature, but those two are definitely tamped down most of the time by the Air-Earth domination of my personality and essential nature. It took me several weeks to get through the book as some exercises are done outdoors, which is not always easy for me to do, living in the city. Some parts I paid more attention to than others. I thought this was a very well-done book with plenty of different aspects for different people. Some of this was fairly basic, other parts more advanced. There is another workbook that also accompanies this book which I didn't have, but may purchase at some point. I'll definitely be referring to this book again in the future, it'll stay on my Keeper shelf. A.
3. WHEN GODS DIE by C.S. Harris. #2 Sebastian St. Cyr historical mystery. Set in 1811 London, full of political intrigue, Sebastian (aka Viscount Devlin) is asked by the close adviser of the Prince Regent to investigate the murder of a woman found in the Regent's company dead--while he fell asleep and doesn't recall anything that happens. Not wishing to become involved in the Regent's female problems nor in anything political in the current climate, he's set to decline when Jarvis dangles a necklace in front of him--an ancient necklace that was last seen around Sebastian's mother's neck on the day she disappeared when he was eleven years old. Of course this draws him into the mystery, and the story unfolds--both the story of the murder and of how the necklace came to be on Guinevere Anglissey's pretty dead neck. Sebastian, Tom (the street urchin he rescued who is now in his employ as his 'tiger' or horseman) and Kat Boleyn, his lover and actress in Drury Lane, investigate various aspects of the crime and things get more dangerous for them all the closer they get. I admit that I hooked one of the author's red herrings and ran with it and was rather surprised at the solution to the crime and the necklace mystery too. Cracking good action-packed suspense, the first book in awhile that I've been literally unable to put down. I liked this better than the first book, and the gratuitious sex didn't bother me as it was between well established characters. A+
4. SOVEREIGN by C.J. Sansom. #3 Matthew Shardlake historical mystery set in 1541 during King Henry VIII's Progress northward to York. Matthew, a lawyer, has been commissioned by Archbishop Cranmer to assist in readying petitions of Yorkshiremen to be put before the King's justice--but his real purpose is that he wants Matthew to keep a prisoner who is accused in the recent attempted revolution safe until he can be brought to the Tower for torture. As his father has recently died and left Matthew in debt for a mortgage on his farm, he feels that he has little choice but to take the £50 offered for the job although his heart is certainly not in it. Matthew and his assistant Jack Barak head north and soon are in the midst of a mire of not only terrible rains and mud, but also a tangle of political intrigues and plotting, with Barak taking up with one of Queen Catherine's servants. Matthew meets the fellow lawyer who will be in charge of the reading of the local petitions, Giles Wrenne, and strikes up a friendship with him only to learn after a time that he is slowly dying of an enlarging tumor in his gut. Meanwhile, several attempts are made on Matthew's life, as it seems he has made some powerful enemies who seek to discredit him, and there are also attempts to kill the prisoner that he is supposed to keep safe. Longing only for his own hearth and home, the mysteries within mysteries seem to deepen as the weeks roll past until Matthew doesn't know who should be trusted, until the end when all is revealed. I had a feeling about the resolution of the main mystery and was right, although some of the side plots had somewhat surprising ends to them. Very rich, meaty novel--a good mystery as well as plenty of historical detail with an interesting theory put forth by the author. The afterward notes were interesting too, to let the reader know where he'd taken liberties with known historical documentation or let his imagination run a bit wild. I'm ready for the next in series! This stays on my Keeper shelf. A.
5. CIRCLE OF THE DEAD by David Lawrence. #1 DS Stella Mooney mystery set in London. Stella is a haunted character, a street smart rogue cop who grew up in the tough projects and has maintained her toughness. Smart enough to escalate up the promotion ladder if she wanted to, Stella elects to stay a Detective Sergeant so she can keep her fingers on the pulse of the street, keep close to the people instead of becoming a paper pusher. I have to say that in this book, the role of DS seemed to be a lot more expansive than it is in many other British police procedurals I've read. Of course Stella tended to act impulsively at times with a lot of authority that she in reality didn't have, too. As she tries to solve the case of Jimmy Stone, killed by a professional hit man with a knife to the heart, her mental health becomes increasingly fragile as she is attacked several times, continues to drink too much and sleep too little due to nightmares about a previous case and her own miscarriage, and conflicting feelings about her live-in boyfriend George. There wasn't really any mystery here--we knew up front who the bad guys were, the only mystery was what would happen to Stella and her sanity. For much of the book it felt like Stella was nothing but a pinball battered back and forth, bouncing off various pylons out of control. I liked Stella, but at times her whole persona was just a real drag, and her continued unwise--okay, sometimes totally stupid--decisions tended to border on being unbelievable. Dark, gritty, violent, compelling story and interesting perspectives, but not something I would want to read a bunch of back to back. B.
6. DEATH OF A CELEBRITY by M.C. Beaton. #18 Hamish MacBeth mystery set in fictional Lochdubh, Scotland. A young woman, star of a local television show that has begun doing exposes of various Highland people and institutions, is killed. Hamish himself could be suspect as she was about to interview him and smear the local constabulary. A new interim Chief Inspector, Pat Carson, seems a little more keen on Hamish and his wild ideas than his old nemesis Blair was, but a couple of small foul ups leave Hamish once again banished to his own village patch to let the big boys in Strathbane solve the murder--or make fools of themselves trying. Of course it takes a second murder to wake them up and realize Hamish was right from the start. These books have gotten to be all so much alike that I'm sure the author can write them in her sleep--just as I can almost read them in my sleep. I know I say this after almost every book in this series...it's not that I hate the books, and I really do like Hamish, but I'm going to give up now, I think. They just don't seem to be worth the couple of hours of time it takes to read them, so predictable have they become. C.
7. INKHEART by Cornelia Funke. (AUDIO) First of a YA fantasy series about a young girl named Meggie, and her father Mortimer (she calls him Mo) who is a book repairer. One day a strange man comes to their house to speak to Mo; even his name (Dustfinger) is odd and he calls Mo "Silvertongue." Mo is worried after Dustfinger's visit and decides that they need to leave the house for awhile to visit Meggie's Aunt Eleanor--her long-gone mother's sister. Eleanor, a spinster with a houseful of books, some of them rare and collectible, welcomes them although she's uncertain of Meggie, not being fond of children in general--but when some mysterious men capture Mo to take him back to "Capricorn," Meggie and Eleanor must figure out why they wanted him, where they've taken him and how to rescue him. Along the course of their adventures, Meggie discovers why it is that her father never reads to her aloud--it has to do with the name Silvertongue--a name the evil Capricorn has given him. Mo can read things from stories into the real world--and vice versa. Meggie learns that Mo read Capricorn and his cronies and Dustfinger out of a book called Inkheart--while at the same time, Meggie's mother was read INTO the book, never to return again, although Mo tried many times to get her back out. What a wonderful story--very imaginitive, and this audio version was great, read by Lynn Redgrave who did a marvelous job with all the different voices from the evil Capricorn to the spinster-ish Eleanor to the pre-teen Meggie. A must for all bibliophiles, I think--well, a must for anyone, really! I look forward to the next in this series very much! A+
8. THE DEAD PLACE by Stephen Booth. #6 DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry mystery set in the Peak District of England. Once again, two cases end up tangled together. A strange caller rambles on about death, looking for 'the dead place,' quoting poetry and literary sources and makes it known how special they think the moment of death is. The call is made with a voice changer, and calls are made from public phones, often in the vicinity of where a funeral is taking place. And they promise that a death is coming. Is this a funeral home employee, or one of those ghouls who goes to funerals to soak up people's grief? Meanwhile, there is a case of a body found in an open area--first thought to be a murder victim, but once she is identified after a forensic artist's composite drawing is published in the newspapers, it's determined that she was a woman who had died of natural causes 18 months previously and had been believed to be cremated by her family. So who was cremated in her place? And how was the switch made? The story delves into the details of the funeral home/crematorium business as well as thoughts on death itself--which weighs heavily on Ben Cooper's mind as his mother suffers a stroke and is hospitalized, not doing well. Great story as always (although I still intensely dislike Diane Fry!) and I did not figure out the bad guy in this one at all. Looking forward to the next one! A.
9. THE SORCERESS by Michael Scott. (AUDIO) #3 'Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel' YA fantasy series. This book picks up immediately where the second one left off, with Sophie and Josh Newman, fifteen-year-old twins (now known to the 'The Twins of Legend') with the alchemist Nicholas Flamel battling against the forces of evil, which are spearheaded by the noted magician, Dr. John Dee. Presently in London, Dee continues to send various foes against them, most drawn from the pages of history and/or mythology. This book is very fast-paced, hurtling along from one near-disaster to another with little time for piecing together of any puzzles in between. Meanwhile, on Alcatraz Island, Flamel's wife Peronelle, a sorceress of some note, has to deal with various monsters sent by Niccolo Machiavelli, another of the evil crew, who is looking to settle an old debt with her. The book leaves no doubt that there will be more in the series as it seemed like nothing more than an action-packed interlude on the way to a hopefully somewhat meatier conclusion. (I've no idea how many books are planned in this series.) I enjoyed the book, although the reader is not my favorite. We learned a few things along the way, but most of this was action and not much introspection or puzzle-solving and not a lot of character development. My favorite character in this series, Scatatch, an ancient Celtic warrior goddess (who is now a vegetarian vampire!) was very short on exposure in this book--hoping to see more of her again next time. B+
10. DIES THE FIRE by S.M. Stirling. #1 of a speculative fiction/dystopian series set in a modern world beginning the night of "the Change" when some sort of worldwide, catastrophic event like a giant electromagnetic pulse renders modern technology useless. Everything electrical, battery-operated, or explosive is rendered instantly useless--planes fall out of the sky, automobiles stop working where they are, the lights literally go out all over the world. Mass chaos ensues, and as expected, as the months go by, much of the population left after the initial Change dies from starvation, various diseases and plagues, and eventually from the brutality of other men, with roving bands of cannibals stalking the countryside. A few viscious, power-hungry men setting up mini-empires in various cities, ruling by violence and terror to take what they want and control the populace. But out in the countryside (this takes place primarily in Oregon, with Portland being the demense of the evil Protector) small of people retreat to family farms and try to plan for a future, raising food without electricity, gasoline-powered machinery or modern conveniences. They must also, of course, protect themselves from the ruthless bands of bandits, cannibals, and the Protector's increasingly far-reaching cohorts demanding feudal-like power, tithes of food and service and the like. This story is told primarily from the point of view of two people, leaders of two different such groups, Juniper MacKenzie and Mike Havel, Mike having been a bush pilot whose plane crashed in the episode with the Larsson family his current clients on board--all miraculously survive the crash, and Mike, a former Marine, sets out to keep his charges safe. Juniper was a folk musician and High Priestess of a small Wiccan coven and heads for her cottage in the hills with a few friends when the Change happens. Very hard to put down! Interesting story, and very much looking forward to the next book in this series to see what happens to our friends (and to society!) as time goes on. A+
11. A CARRION DEATH by Michael Stanley. #1 Detective David "Kubu" Bengu mystery set in Gaborone, Botswana. A half-eaten body is found near a waterhole in the Kalahari desert, a disgruntled hyena hovering close by, waiting to see if the humans are going to leave him to his lunch or not. Not! Assistant Superintendent Kubu's first task is to try to determine the identity of the body, which has no hands and thus no fingerprints. No white men have been reported missing, so this is proving quite difficult initially. After a time, however, Kubu has several different possibilities to fulfill the role, and he and his team remain interested when the coroner determines that the man (whoever he was) was murdered. Several different sub-plots to the main mystery seem to intersect with Botswana Cattle & Mining Company (the country's largest company) involved on several scales, and with several more dead bodies piling up along the way. Some of these sub-plots were fairly easy to figure out, as was the main baddie. Detective Kubu (Kubu meaning "Hippopotamus") is a delightful character, a large man fond of good food and wine, proud of his heritage and country and family, and yet pragmatic in recognizing its faults, too. He sings off-key opera, is respectful of his parents, resists his wife's attempts at getting him to diet and delights in having the baboons from the nearby jungle jumping all over the outside of the police station! While I delved right into the cultural details about the country, enjoyed getting to know Kubu, his wife Joy and the other secondary characters, and learned much about several pertinent social issues (diamond poaching and theft, alienation of the indigenous Kalahari Bushmen, etc) it seemed to me that at times the story was burdened with too many different issues and details. It felt crowded, as though the author were trying to cram in as much information and detail about the area, the culture, the food, the climate, the law enforcement system...etc...as possible. It was a lot to digest, and thus was not a book to be read quickly in a couple of sittings. Whether that is the result of the collaborative effort of the two people writing the book and overlapping on some things, or some other reason, I don't know. At any rate, despite it being somewhat bloated, I very much enjoyed the book and do look forward to the second in the series. B+
12. THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM by Susan Wittig Albert. (AUDIO) #1 in the Beatrix Potter historical cozy mysteries set in early 1900's Sawrey, UK. First of a very cozy mystery series centering on Beatrix Potter (author of Peter Rabbit and other children’s books) beginning when she bought Hill Top Farm not long after the death of her beloved fiancé (and publisher) Norman Warne. The mystery here centers around the death of one of the villagers and Miss Potter and the village’s animals along with her own menagerie eventually solve the crime. I don’t think it’s easy to take a real historical figure and base a series of books on them, but from the admittedly little I know of Beatrix Potter, it seems that the author has done a remarkable job. The book is very cozy and told partly from the point of view of Beatrix and partly from the POV of various animals, and knowing this, I elected to ‘read’ the audio version, which actually worked well for me. The reader was wonderful, doing a variety of voices and accents very skillfully and captured the soul of the book well. I’m not sure I would read these in print—they’re just TOO cozy for my usual tastes and even in audio, the always “prim and proper” tone of the English village of the day did wear on my nerves after awhile—but I did enjoy this in audio and most certainly will listen to more of them. B+
13. THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman. (AUDIO) Very interesting tale of a toddler whose family is murdered but escapes the killer’s knife by wandering out of his house into a nearby graveyard. His mother’s spirit briefly visits the graveyard and asks two ghosts, Mr. & Mrs. Owens, to take care of her son, and they do, calling him Nobody Owens (“Bod” for short.) They need help raising him since they aren’t allowed to leave the graveyard and the living and the dead almost never interact, but a creature called Silas—who is neither living nor dead—agrees to help by procuring food and acting as Bod’s guardian and liaison with the outside world. And so Bod grows, living in the graveyard, interacting with spirits and ghosts, very much loved and feeling cared for, although he does realize he is somehow different. A variety of spirits and beings educate him as he grows. Eventually he knows what happened to his family and begins to look forward to the day when he will meet the man Jack who killed them. It’s hard to give a synopsis of the book without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that it was an excellent story, and wonderfully read by the author himself. A definite gothic feel, at times scary and macabre, at other times poignant and tender, this is a must-read (or must-listen if you can!!) for all but the very young. A+
14. DYING LIGHT by Stuart MacBride. #2 DS Logan MacRae Scottish police procedural set in Aberdeen. Logan, still trying to recover from the shame he feels associated with events at the end of the last book, doesn’t get fired like he anticipates—instead, he’s charged to work with DI Steel’s team. He’s not sure which is the worse fate; Steel, a chain-smoking, shrewd, crude and lewd woman whose squad is known as the Screw-Up Squad, sees Logan (a former hero) as her way to promotion and glory. He ends up doing much of her dirty work, dragged in to work off-shifts and days off on a serial killer case, much to the chagrin of his new love interest, fellow copper Jackie Watson. Dark, gritty and violent, this was a good story, but it was hard to believe some of the odd coincidences, and also to fathom how someone like DI Steel ever got as far as she did up the ladder with all the shortcuts she took and blatantly ignoring sound procedural practice. I like Logan, but he just seems to skitter from one disaster to another—which is, I suppose, what makes this noir. B+
15. ALANNA: SONG OF THE LIONESS (THE FIRST ADVENTURE) by Tamora Pierce. First of a children's fantasy series, this is the story of Alanna, a pre-pubescent noble girl who conspires with her twin brother Thom such that they each get sent where they want for training—she wants to be a warrior knight and he wants to be a sorcerer. Alanna changes her name to Alan and heads off to the castle for knight’s training in Thom’s place and he heads for the convent to begin training his magic Gift. This is made possible by a father who is a scholar with his head in his studies and somewhat indifferent and inattentive to his children. Of course trouble starts brewing the next year when “Alan” begins developing into a woman, but she is determined to find out what her dreams and visions of the black city mean. While this was an okay story, the writing was just a bit too simplistic and “young” for me. It only took a couple of hours to read, and while I think it would be a good story for children, I don’t think it’s a series I will pursue. B.
16. A DUTY TO THE DEAD by Charles Todd. First in a new historical mystery series featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse during WWI. As we meet Bess, she is on an empty hospital ship, Brittanic, heading back to England, when it hits a mine and sinks. During the fracas, her arm is broken and then injured worse, and thus must be taken off active duty. During this time, she decides to finally assuage her conscience and visit the family of a solider she'd grown close to who ultimately died and left her with a message for his brother that she promised to deliver in person. Arthur Graham's family lives at Owlhurst, a small manor village in Kent, and she sets off to deliver this message to his brother Jonathan. But while a guest in the Graham home, Bess becomes drawn into the family intrigue centering around Arthur's older brother Peregrine, who was committed to an asylum at the age of fourteen after murdering a servant girl. As Arthur's message consists of "Tell Jonathan I lied. I did it for mother's sake. But it has to be set right," she can't help but wonder if it has something to do with Peregrine's situation. As she asks more questions of the villagers who knew the family at the time, she becomes more involved, almost obsessed, with making certain Arthur's wish is carried out, to the point where her own life may be in peril. I very much enjoyed this book--the story was excellent, the characters well-drawn, and the spirit of the times were heartily embraced, and the mystery remained so til fairly close to the end. I look forward to reading more about Bess and her adventures. A.
17. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH by Caroline Graham. #5 DI Tom Barnaby British police procedural. Once again a small English village is the setting, as Alan Hollingsworth is found dead--at first believed to be of a suicide, his wife Simone having disappeared a few days previously, ostensibly to visit her sick mother, although her mother had been believed dead for many years. Then the thirty-year-old daughter of one of the Hollingsworth neighbors disappears, something totally out of character for her. DCI Barnaby and his Sergeant Troy begin investigating, gleaning information from all the nosy neighbors and trying to sift through to find the important bits. Was Alan done in by a former business partner that he'd swindled out of hundreds of thousands of dollars? Is the beautiful Simone's disappearance voluntary, or was she abducted? Neither were well-liked, but neither were they seemingly the types to incur strong hatred. Through many twists and turns, the mysteries are eventually solved, although not to Barnaby's satisfaction, as it's mostly speculation on his part. I did figure out the main part of the mystery about halfway through, but the hows and whys were a bit muddled til the end. Enjoyable, but perhaps a little TOO long and twisty. B+
#5 Kitty Norville paranormal series. Kitty, a werewolf, and Ben (formerly her lawyer, now her fiance and pack mate) finally get fed up with planning a big traditional wedding and decide to get married in Las Vegas, much to the chagrin of Kitty's mother. They plan on combining business with pleasure by having Kitty do a live version of her radio show, The Midnight Hour, at a theatre in Vegas. However, things start falling apart when Kitty is asked by Rick, Denver's Vampire Master, to carry a message to Vegas' Master, Dom. It gets worse when the happy couple arrive at their hotel only to discover that there is a gun convention taking place at the hotel--and Ben recognizes several Hunters--as in, werewolf and vampire hunters--in the crowd. Then there's magic shows featuring real magic and an animal act featuring several lycanthropes. Kitty begins to wonder if her show will ever get done and begins to wonder at the wisdom of their Vegas wedding plans--which were made to simplify everything--and when Ben is kidnapped hours before the ceremony is to take place, she begins the search for him in a state of near-panic. Does their wedding ever take place? You'll have to read it to find out! Another good entry in this paranormal series, although this one did seem a little fragmented and scattered compared to previous books, not quite as good. Looking forward to the next one, though! B+.
19. THE MISSING INK by Karen E. Olson. #1 Tattoo Shop mystery featuring Brett Kavanaugh, owner of the Painted Lady tattoo shop in Las Vegas. Brett gets involved in a complex case her brother Tim, a Las Vegas police detective, is investigating when it's determined that a missing girl was last seen in her shop. She'd come in to ask about getting devotion ink with her fiance's name on it, made an appointment to get the tat, then never showed. The odd thing is, her fiance's name was Bruce Manning Jr--son and heir of a wealthy businessman, known as Chip to his friends--but she wanted her tattoo to say Matthew! Soon the news is splashed with photos of Elise Lyon, missing bride-to-be of Chip Manning--but she had used the name Kelly Masters when she made the appointment at The Painted Lady. When a woman is found shot dead in a car near the airport--and HER name ends up being Kelly Masters, things begin to get really confusing. Soon Brett is in the puzzle up to her pretty little tattooed neck. I liked this book okay--I've enjoyed all of Olson's books in her other series--but this one wasn't exceptional. I like her writing style--it flows, it's easy to read. But this book was cozier than her other series, and in fact had many of the elements of "just another cookie cutter cozy mystery." You have a main character with a quirky job or hobby, you have a set of slightly freaky friends or secondary characters, and you have the main character doing unbelievable things that no sane person would do which continually puts her in jeopardy. And yes, one of those things was withholding evidence from the police, even though one of the police in question was her brother. The concept is great! As a tattooed woman, I felt it certainly had promise. I learned some interesting things. But Brett's character just didn't seem to have much depth, and the whole package didn't quite measure up--possibly because Olson's other series IS so good, I had high expectations. I will read the next in series, but I have become very disillusioned with cozies in general and it is going to have to be an improvement over this one, and Brett is going to have to develop some meat to her character and quit doing such dumb things if I'm to continue beyond that. B-
Current reads: VANISHED by Kat Richardson, WHITE NIGHT by Jim Butcher in audio.
Cheryl
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)