1. THE ROSE RENT by Ellis Peters. #13 Brother Cadfael medieval mystery. When one of Shrewsbury Abbey's young monks is found brutally murdered under a rose bush at a property that the abbey is using (for the yearly sum of one white rose from that bush paid to the young widow who owns it) Cadfael and Sheriff Hugh Beringar are busily investigating, trying to figure out who stood to gain by the abbey missing their rent payment. When the widow herself, Judith Perle, goes missing, they figure it's one of the many townsmen who have been wooing her in hopes of gaining access to the family's very profitable business, which she has been sole owner of since her husband's death. The widow, however, is not interested in marriage to any of them, so the sleuths' thoughts are that perhaps one of them intended to persuade her by force. But which? Another stellar entry in this wonderful series that sets time and place so well, you feel as though you are right there, watching Cadfael tend his herb gardens, decocting his potions and salves, and ruminating on the latest mystery. A
2. WILFUL BEHAVIOUR by Donna Leon #11 Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery set in Venice, Italy. One of Guido's wife Paola's university students asks her if she can talk to Guido about a person being pardoned for a crime committed years previously, but asks in such vague terms that Guido tells Paola to have the girl speak to him directly. She does, and from what she tells him, gleans some clues to figure out who she's speaking about and starts inquiring among his older friends about the man he believes to be her grandfather, and his dealings during and after WWII. And then, just a couple of days later, the girl is brutally stabbed to death in her apartment. It seems too coincidental not to be related to the girl's inquiries to Guido, but of course he must investigate every aspect of Claudia Leonardo's life to find out if it might have been something else--something personal--that brought her to such a violent death. As often occurs in Leon's books, the justice that is meted out is not always the legal kind. Enjoyable visit to Leon's wonderfully atmospheric Venice, as always. A.
3.BEFORE THE FROST by Henning Mankell. (AUDIO) This is a stand-alone mystery featuring Swedish Detective Kurt Wallander's daughter Linda, a new police recruit. Actually she hasn't even started her first job as a patrol officer yet when her old friend Anna Westin disappears. Always conscientious, when Anna doesn't appear for a meeting she set up with Linda and remains incommunicado for several days, Linda investigates on her own before even mentioning it to her father, who pooh-poohs her worry initially, believing that Anna has decided to pursue her long-lost father, whom she believes she saw in Malmo a couple of days previously. But when Linda begins paging through Anna's journal for clues to where she might be and discovers the name of an older woman reported missing by her daughter, her find is definitely of more interest to Kurt Wallander. When Anna further questions those closest to Anna--since her friendship with her childhood friend has only been recently renewed--she begins to wonder how well she really knew her at all. And when the missing older woman's body turns up decapitated and with her hands removed, a new terror strikes Linda that Anna may have met the same fate. This mystery really wasn't much of one, as we are taken into the mind of the perpetrator on several occasions and it was painfully obvious who it was right from the start. I didn't really like Linda Wallander very much--not only because she seemed at times much younger and more immature than her nearly 30 years, but because she was very changeable and it was difficult to get a bead on just who she was. The book jacket indicates that this is the first in a new series, but it was initially published eight years ago and I don't see a followup anywhere--which is just as well, as I'd likely have given it a miss. Mankell's evocative writing made me listen on, and the reader was quite skillful as well, but the story itself wasn't that good and since I didn't like the main character much, I wouldn't have remained interested beyond this book, I don't think. C+
4.SLEEPLESS by Charlie Huston. I'm not sure how to describe or even classify this book. Part mystery, part sci-fi/fantasy, part dystopian fiction, Sleepless is set in the present, but with an alternative near-past. There is a voracious new plague out there, but it won't kill you outright. It involves a brain prion related loosely to 'mad cow disease' and something called FFI--Fatal Familial Insomnia, which oddly enough I'd just been reading about a few weeks before. Basically, you get the prion, it starts eating holes in your brain and soon you simply cannot sleep. At all. Ever. Until you die a while down the road, having suffered horrible hallucinations, delusions, memory lapses, the whole gamut of what happens with sleep deprivation. This is the story of two people--Parker, a Los Angeles policeman whose wife Rose is sleepless, and who fears his infant daughter may also be infected, and Jasper, an ex-military mercenary of some type who does 'odd jobs' for high-paying clients--mostly procuring difficult to come by things. Parker, an undercover cop posing as a drug dealer to try to get close to the person who is selling black market DR33M3R, the drug that combats the sleepless prion, stumbles on a gory mass murder at a 'gold farming operation' (which is related to the video gaming industry and will take too long to explain) and walks off with the hard drive that Jasper's employer wants. Their paths are bound to intersect and they do. This is a bleak and hopeless scenario as Huston's books usually are, but with a kernel of hope and a whiff of the possibility of goodness, or at least survival. Picture a country near martial law, with the basics we have come to rely on in short supply, gangs of insane sleepless, zomboid people roaming the streets, with shortages and chaos becoming the norm. Imagine a time when it's no longer quite so easy to 'do the right thing' because doing the wrong thing is the only way to survive. Imagine a world where it is infinitely more appealing to immerse yourself in an online game because the real world no longer makes sense. There are times when the book is confusing, as it switches back and forth between Jasper and Parker's point of view, and sometimes it isn't clear who's who until a few paragraphs in. There are also things that might be confusing to those who aren't acquainted with MMORPG games. I have noticed a pattern with my reaction to every book of Huston's I've read: first I start devouring it, mid-book I want to throw it against the wall, and by the end, he's got me thinking, deeply thinking, and I end up reflecting on things for a good while to come. This book was no exception. It's not a book to be 'enjoyed' but it is another great story. A
5. SLEEP WITH THE FISHES by Brian Wiprud. Stand-alone mystery featuring Sid "Sleep" Bifulco, ex-con who shunned the government's offer of Witness Protection and opts to set out on his own, trying to stay away from multiple Mafia baddies who have good reason to ice him--since he rolled over on them! After seven years inside, he buys a small cottage on a river and hopes to begin leading a quiet life fishing--something he's never done but which he became interested in while in prison and read everything he could on the subject, even to the point of learning how to tie his own flies. But moving to small-town America where everyone knows everyone else's business may not have been the best idea Sid's ever had. Soon the quirky townspeople are nosing around and hit men are on the way to try to deal Sid a little retribution. And a strange coincidence tying Sid to the local fishing guide was just way too implausible to believe. I really didn't like this book very much--I enjoy Wiprud's Garth Carson (taxidermy) series quite a lot, but am not overly fond of mafia books to begin with, and the humor in this one just felt very forced and mostly not-funny. I finished it because it was a very quick, easy read, but I can't say I would recommend it. Not horrible, just...not so good. C.
6. THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW by Susan Wittig Albert. (AUDIO) #2 in the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter cozy historical series. Beatrix is buying a few sheep to make Hilltop Farm more profitable, and also adding on to the farmhouse so that the farmer who's been managing the property can stay on with his family and not displace Beatrix herself. When the shepherd is found dead, at first presumed accidentally, at the bottom of a cliff, Beatrix (who found the body) investigates on the sly. The village is also trying to work through issues of choosing a new head teacher for the local school--the woman who's been filling in until a formal choice could be made is doing a marvelous job and was presumed to be the person to choose, until the local village Lady steps in and tries to ramrod her own choice--an Oxford educated missionary--though the selection committee, causing no end of hard feelings. Cozy, light and with 'talking animals' (to each other, anyway) this series won't appeal to everyone, and actually is not one I thought I'd like. But listening to the audio versions is actually very enjoyable with the excellent reader. I'm not sure I'd enjoy it so much in print, but as long as my library has the audio versions, I'll keep listening on. I don't know that much about Beatrix Potter, but it seems as though this has been fairly well researched. B+
7. A GRAVE IN GAZA by Matt Beynon Rees. #2 Omar Yussef Sirhan mystery set in the Middle East, this time in Gaza where Omar Yussef has gone with a UN delegation to inspect a school there. He is a history teacher and the principal at a UN school in Bethlehem, his hometown, so the other delegates feel he will have valuable observations. Their visit starts off on a troubling note--one of the teachers at the school has been arrested, not for his school work, but because he also worked part-time as a university lecturer and apparently spoke out against the university. In a short time, Omar finds himself in a sticky, complicated political situation with warring factions pulling strings behind the scenes. He desperately wants to help the imprisoned man, especially after meeting his family. When one of the UN delegates is kidnapped, Omar has no idea who could be behind it, with equally corrupt security groups vying for power on the war-torn Gaza strip. He isn't even sure the kidnapping is related to the teacher's imprisonment--it may be some other totally different incident between these various powerful men. His friend, the police chief of Bethelem, is in Gaza for a convention and Omar is forced to rely on him and his bodyguard, Sami, who know the ins and outs of Gaza politics much better than he does, although he doesn't fully trust them. A complicated and at times ugly (and probably realistic) view of this area, the culture, the reality of existence there. The book is written in an easy to read style, with a believable and likable main character, although it isn't always easy to understand him from a cultural standpoint. Sometimes he accepts things that to me seem just horrible as a matter of course, but I'm sure that's due to the vast cultural gulf between us. I have really enjoyed this series to date and will definitely be continuing on. A
8. HERESY by Sharan Newman. #8 Catherine LeVendeur historical mystery set in France. Catherine, once again pregnant, sets out to help her friend Astrolabe, son of the infamous Heloise and Abelard. He became entangled with a group of heretics and is being pursued by an old enemy of his father's who hopes to frame him for the murder of a nun. Edgar and Solomon are off to Spain on a business trip and Catherine and the children are off to the Paraclete with Astrolabe disguised as one of their guards, and eventually end up attending a conference in Reims. While I do enjoy this series and have come to be quite fond of the characters, I find the endless struggles with various religious factions, heretics, discussions about Heloise and Abelard and Catherine's father's family being secretly Jewish and all that to have become somewhat tiresome. So many of these stories tie back to the same issues over and over again. The endless waffling about them has gotten old.There are two books left in the series and I will finish them, but I do hope there will be something new and different or that several of these threads will be tied up and resolved. B-
9. OUR LADY OF IMMACULATE DECEPTION by Nancy Martin. #1 Roxy Abruzzo mystery, featuring modern girl Roxy, who is (for lack of a better description) an architectural scavenger by trade, gleaning what she can from the aftermath of fires, buildings set for destruction, etc. When the owner of a burned-out mansion ends up shot to death shortly after talking with Roxy at the site, she and her not-too-bright-but-muscley assistant Nooch are both being questioned by the cops. And since Roxy's uncle is big in the local Mafia, she's always learned to be leery of cops. Besides, she did take a big Greek or Roman statue that is apparently worth a lot more than she originally thought, and definitely wasn't on her approved list. Soon several family members and the family lawyer are trying to find the statue of Achilles, Roxy's getting shot at, and her uncle Carmine wants her to start "running errands" for him and sends her a wad of cash as an advance. Since her daughter Sage's school tuition is overdue, it's very tempting, but that situation is then complicated when Sage (who is seventeen) thinks she may be pregnant. I finished this book, but mostly because it was a book I received to review. The writing style was easy enough to read, but it just wasn't that interesting to me--perhaps I'm older than the target audience because I just felt rather curmudgeonly reading about the over-sexed Roxy hopping into bed with every other guy she met, and yet somehow managing to be indignant when here daughter suspected she was pregnant. And really, I don't need repeated descriptions of her nice ass, steamy truck windows, and other cheesy sex scenes. I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I intensely hate gratuitous sex and so-called romance. Bah. Roxy, who I think was supposed to come off as a tough, independent, rebellious "modern" woman, just came of as a wishy-washy boring floozy. (OMG, I used the word floozy! I must be getting old!) The other characters (the book was told alternately from several different POV) were equally inane--the crooked family lawyer trying to work an angle to retain the most money, the anorexic, Xanax-popping artsy-fartsy niece of the dead man, the jilted ex-wife (who is the one who burned down the house when she caught her husband with a barely-legal pop tart) and so on. I couldn't get interested. I didn't really care whodunit. This is the first book I've read by this author and unless someone actually pays me to read another, it will be the last. D+
10. AUGUST HEAT by Andrea Camilleri. #10 Inspector Salvo Montalbano Italian police procedural series set in Sicily. Salvo's girlfriend Livia asks him to rent a beach house for her friend Laura and family, so he does some searching and comes up with the perfect place. But the family is plagued by a host of pests--cockroaches, rats, spiders, and finally, a dead body in a trunk in a hidden sub-basement apartment that had been built illegally several years before. The body is that of a brutally murdered young woman, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in the trunk, and of course Salvo must investigate. Which he has plenty of time to do, as Livia and her friends leave in rather a huff. Who is the culprit--the man who had the house built or his crazy-acting son--both of whom are now dead? Or the building contractor or one of his employees? Or someone else? Montalbano struggles through a hot and sweaty August contemplating, swimming, eating until he comes up with the clue that gives him the answer. An enjoyable visit to Montalbano's world, as always. A.
11. HEMLOCK AT VESPERS by Peter Tremayne. An early collection of fifteen short stories about Sister Fidelma, the 7th-century nun and dalaigh (lawyer) in Ireland. I enjoy this series of medieval mysteries so was quite interested in seeing where Fidelma came from and how she developed. I found these stories to be mostly repetitive and unsatisfying, though. Much ground was covered over and over again; in every story, there was mention of the Fidelma's "unruly strands of red hair that escaped from her head-dress," (often using the same exact phraseology) and much time was spent explaining her law degrees and how much authority she had, with appropriate shock from pompous male authority figures when they were told she could boss them around. LOL Probably read individually with much time between them, these stories would have been pleasant little interludes. Cobbled together into one book, I found them mostly formulaic and yawn-worthy after the first couple, although there was some interesting information about Fidelma's past. I was also disappointed that Brother Eadulf, the Saxon monk who works with Fidelma in the series, was nowhere in evidence yet. In short, I wouldn't recommend reading this book straight through as I did. If you're a Fidelma fan, you'll enjoy them, but it's probably best if you put the book down for a few days/weeks between stories. I have a couple of other short-story collections that occur later in the series, and that's how I plan to read those books instead of just plowing through them. C+
12. LAST WORDS by George Carlin with Tony Hendra. This book was described by Carlin himself as his "sortabiography" which was many years in the writing. He worked with Hendra over a dozen-year span with the book put on the back burner many times, and was finally put together and completed after George's death in 2008. To be honest, I didn't know much about George Carlin's personal life, his childhood, his past or anything aside from the bits he let leak out in his comedy routines and books. This was an interesting foray back in time, told mostly in George's own words about his Irish Catholic upbringing in New York, his desire since childhood to be a performer, about having to toe the line in the 50's and 60's and not make waves to get anywhere, and how he went from being various comedic characters to just allowing his own self to bust out of the cocoon he'd been wrapped in to produce the George Carlin we know and love (or hate.) He talks about his prolific drug use, the love of his life (his wife of thirty-six years, Brenda) and what it was like trying to make a living as a comedian/performer back from the days of radio and early television and performing live in clubs. It's funny that, while I always looked at George as young and hip and as a contemporary, really he was only a few years younger than my own parents. While I enjoyed the book and the insights it provides, in some ways it reinforced for me why I am not a big reader of biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and the like. I mostly don't want to know all the sordid details about my favorite performers, singers, authors...I want to simply enjoy the 'product' of the artist/performer/writer without prejudice, without knowing all about how and why that product came to be. And yet, of course, a book like this does provide greater understanding, a little clarity to the origin of Carlin's years of political and social statements and attitudes thinly dolled up as humor. And if you're a fan of Carlin as I am, this is an essential read--so read it, even if (like me) you really didn't wanna. If you're just looking for more of his trademark humor, this isn't the place where you'll find it--although there are smatterings of it, this is mostly about the man behind the mouth. I'm still not sure if I like him as a person or not--but I love his message. B+
13. KITTY RAISES HELL by Carrie Vaughn. #6 Kitty Norville paranormal mystery, featuring werewolf Kitty who hosts a night-time radio show called The Midnight Hour, where all things paranormal are discussed. Kitty and her packmate and now husband Ben are back in Denver from their harrowing honeymoon trip to Vegas only to find that what happened in Vegas did NOT stay in Vegas! She ticked off the Cult of Tiamat, a pack of lycanthropes headed by an ancient vampire priestess, and they've set something after her. Something that smells of brimstone, causes spontaneous combustion of things and people and something that seems like pure evil--and it's after her. Working together with a team of paranormal investigators from a popular TV show, Kitty hopes to solve the problem by first identifying what the thing is, and then by learning how to stop it. As her circle of friends and trusted acquaintances broadens, she realizes that she has a lot more help at her disposal and doesn't have to do everything on her own. Still, new threats loom in the form of an ancient vampire named Roman who says he knows how to stop the demon-thing, but will only help her for a price. Denver's vampire boss Rick absolutely refuses to have anything to do with him, and Kitty much choose where her loyalties lie--to the tentative truce made with Rick, or by cooperating with Roman to learn how to get rid of the demon and thus keep the pack safe. I enjoy this paranormal series very much and liked this one better than the last (which felt a bit "off" to me) and am looking forward to the next. A.
14. COLD IS THE GRAVE by Peter Robinson. (AUDIO) #11 Chief Inspector Alan Banks British police series set in the Yorkshire Dales. Alan is contacted privately by his arch nemesis, his boss, Chief Constable Jimmy Riddle to locate his teenage daughter Emily. Emily is sixteen (going on thirty!) and had debunked to London several months previously. The family wasn't overly worried as Emily had always been older than her years and knew how to survive) but when Riddle's young son spots a pornographic photo of Emily in a pop-up on the computer, he becomes worried and wants Emily located--but due to his political aspirations, he can't do this publicly since he fears scandal. Although Riddle hates Banks, he knows he's the best man for the job and promises Alan he'll get off his back if he's successful in locating Emily. Banks does the job, finding Emily posing under the name Louisa Gamine and living with a much older gangster type fellow. Eventually he brings Emily back to Eastvale and delivers her safely home, only to have her turn up dead in the toilet of a local dance club a month or so later, dead of strychnine, the poison having been laced in her cocaine. Banks' attention immediately goes to the gangster--whom he's also investigating in possible connection with another murder case involving smuggling--but did he really care enough about Emily to kill her in such a brutal way? Or was this something more personal? I enjoy this series a lot, and have really enjoyed these last couple in audio format with a great reader (Ron Keith) so will likely continue on listening as long as they are available from my library. I didn't take the red herring that Robinson threw out for this one, but guessing the baddie didn't in any way diminish the enjoyment. A.
15. BELSHAZZAR'S DAUGHTER by Barbara Nadel. #1 Cetin Ikmen mystery set in modern-day Istanbul, Turkey. Inspector Ikmen is unlike any other sleuth I've come across so far in some ways--(mostly) happily married, father of eight, dedicated to his work. And yet in other ways, he resembles favored inspectors everywhere--a bit rebellious and unconventional in his methods, maneuvering around his mostly incompetent or politically motivated bosses, and able to ferret out the subtle clues to find justice for the murdered. Chain-smoking, brandy-drinking Ikmen and his handsome young sergeant, Mehmet Suleyman, are after a particularly cruel killer--someone who beat and tortured a ninety-year-old man and then poured sulfuric acid down his throat while he was still alive. Little is known about Leonid Meyer, except that he was a Russian Jew, living in a drunken squalor for many years. Due to the personal nature of the murder, Ikmen of course believes that his demise was tied to his past, and when clues start coming forth leading all the way back to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917-18, he consults his elderly father, Timur, who speaks and reads Russian. The story switches points of view several times, sometimes being told by Robert Cornelius, an Englishman teaching in a local school who happened to be in the area where the murder was committed who is in thrall to a young woman in the family Ikmen is taking a close look at for the crime. There are also brief parts told from Suleyman's point of view as well as Natalia's (Cornelius' lover) and other members of her family and others. I enjoyed this first entry in the series, and definitely enjoyed the cultural detail and the historical aspect of the story, but all the jumping around between differing points of view got confusing and made it hard to identify strongly with any given character. I will definitely be reading on and look forward to getting to know Ikmen and the supporting cast better. B+
16. HER ROYAL SPYNESS by Rhys Bowen. #1 Lady Georgiana mystery set in 1932 England, featuring minor royal (there are more than thirty people ahead of her in line to the throne) "Georgie," who is recently come of age, quite penniless, and who heads from her family's castle in Scotland to London to strike out on her own, hoping to avoid an arranged marriage with some obscure European prince or playing lady-in-waiting to one of the princesses. Georgie stays alone in the family's London house and as her sister-in-law Fig who holds the purse strings is loathe to spring for the cost of a maid, she must learn to "do" for herself without servants for the first time in her young life. She visits her Cockney grandfather, father to her actress mother (who's been married several times and flits around the Continent) who teaches her how to lay a fire, and Georgie muddles through things like bed-making, dusting and dressing herself. Eventually she decides to open a maid service, but it's difficult when many of her potential customers would recognize her and be totally appalled to see even a minor royal in such a role. She meets up with an old school friend who is also striking out on her own as a clothing designer, but things turn ugly when Georgiana's half brother Binky (the duke) comes to London on business and shortly thereafter, a Frenchman who'd come calling the previous day is floating dead in their bathtub! The police don't seem terribly interested in looking much beyond Binky or Georgie as their suspects (and there is motive!) so Georgie sets out herself to find who else might have wanted the man dead. I have to say when I first started reading this, I was a bit dismayed--I just am not into all the "hoity toity" posh English stuff, old bean, and the proper language and mannerisms can drive me up the wall. The fact that it is Rhys Bowen writing this saved it, I think. She's one of my favorite writers and I've enjoyed her other series and her writing style very much. Georgie's plucky character saves it somewhat too, and even though the fact that she must adhere to and abide by most of the conventions of the day, she does break away to some degree and do things her own way. Her helplessness at first was rather a turn-off, but her perseverance endeared her to me in the end, especially as I realized that she really couldn't help but be a product of her upbringing to a certain degree. Makes me glad all over again that I never had to live in such a society! The mystery itself was a no-brainer, and one historical blooper I caught was Georgie dialing "999" when she had a prowler at her home, and that service wasn't initiated in London until at least five years later. This was a light easy read that I came to enjoy more as I got through the book, and snapped it shut with a rather satisfying feeling. I've got the next two in this series already waiting, and most certainly will read on. B+
17. HORSEFEATHERS AND OTHER CURIOUS WORDS by Charles Earle Funk. This is one of my favorite kinds of books--books of weird, obscure words, and about the origins of those words. This one is quite dated, though, having been published back in .... well, cripes, in 1958, the year I was born. I guess we're both a bit dated. LOL A lot of the words listed as common slang in this book have already fallen out of favor--some of them I had not really even heard used before. It was still interesting learning where various expressions and words came from though. I had read this in bits and pieces over the past couple of months as it was my 'bathroom book' and I quite enjoyed it, although as I say, it may not interest everyone and given the publication date is only mildly "useful" really. It's an old ex-library book that I'll be adding to my Keeper shelf of books about words. B.
18. SMALL FAVOR by Jim Butcher. (AUDIO) #10 Harry Dresden paranormal mystery set in Chicago. Harry, the only wizard in the phone book, hasn't been able to do much mundane business lately, as his job as a Warden of the White Council and other supernatural business has kept him busy. During a blizzard of epic proportions, Harry is called to the scene of a fire by cop Karrin Murphy who suspects something "otherworldly" about the crime. A major mob boss is apparently missing, but who's taken him and why? As things unfold, Harry begins to suspect that there are some major supernatural players orchestrating things behind the scenes--old "friends" of his from the Summer and Winter courts, and some new acquaintances straight out of Grimm's Grimmer Faerie Tales. Trying to figure out the motivations of everyone and stay one step ahead of them all isn't easy, but Harry and his friends dash madly through one crisis after another on (as usual!) little rest and meager rations, flying by the seats of their pants hoping to not only stay alive but end up by not owing too many favors, large or small. With a large cast of characters from many different magical factions, sometimes things were hard for me to keep straight, but that's really my only complaint. Definitely must read these in order, as things happening here are based on events in past books. Skillfully read by James Marsters, I have greatly enjoyed listening to this series in audio, although I enjoyed them in print before discovering the CDs from my library, too. The brief television series based on these books really did not do them justice--the books are far, far better. I would call this my very favorite paranormal series, a true blending of the paranormal and mystery genres. A
19. KILLER'S WEDGE by Ed McBain. #7 of the long-lived 87th precinct series set in fictional Isola (which reads like New York City.) Published in 1958, (back in the day when series authors cranked out several books a year) the book is a bit dated and kind of funny to read for that reason, but I'm determined to read through these early volumes that I hadn't read before--I got through most of the books from the late 1970's onward at the times they were released. These really serve for me to set up the past of the characters I got to know in those later books. In this episode, the wife of a man that Det. Steve Carella 'sent up the river' who later died in prison, takes the entire precinct house hostage with a gun and a bottle of volatile nitroglycerine in her purse while she waits for Carella to arrive so she can shoot and kill him. Carella, unaware of all that's going on at the station, is out in the field investigating a supposed suicide and contemplating becoming a father, as he's just found out his wife Teddy is expecting. Enjoyable, light read with an interesting glimpse into policework the way it used to be before technology changed things so irrevocably. B
Current Reads: HOOD by Stephen Lawhead, listening to MURDER IN CHINATOWN by Victoria Thompson in audio.
Cheryl
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
January 2010 Reading
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
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
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
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