Regular readers will know that I love MC Beaton’s cozy mysteries. Her latest Hamish Macbeth book just published. In this one a bothersome police officer has been put on assignment by Hamish’s nemesis Blair to track Hamish and to try to catch him slacking off so he can look bad. Unfortunately, the police officer ends up murdered. Hamish and his sidekick Dick need to figure out who the murderer is, and why people are suddenly showing up dead all over Lochdubh.
This is typical Hamish Macbeth fare — his pets, his work, the village characters, Hamish’s dismal love life. Poor Dick deals with an unproductive love life in this story, too. I know that some folks might find these stories too incredible (police procedure is enthusiastically broken) or the characters too caricaturish (e.g. Blair), but that is one reason why I like these stories. They make me laugh. Plus I love a good mystery!
I remember seeing the series on the BBC (via Netflix) and I wish they would make more of them. Robert Carlyle was the perfect Hamish!
If you love getting your Hamish fix, you will most probably like DEATH OF A POLICEMAN.
Thank you to Net Galley and Grand Central Publishing for my review copy.
I received THE DEAD OF SUMMER by Mari Jungstedt from publicist Meryl Zegarek to read and review. I had never read any of Jungstedt’s other works, and they are in the “translated Scandinavian crime novels” genre. This book is part of a series featuring Detective Anders Knutas, and it is translated into English by Tina Nunnally.
At the start of the story, a young father leaves his family’s camping site to go for an early morning run. He is a business owner and a family man, but he is plagued by a nameless anxiety. While running along the beach in beautiful Gotland (a Swedish island popular with vacationers), he is shot and killed. Knutas and his team begin to tie the victim into a scheme of hiring illegal workers and possibly trafficking illegal liquor from Russia, when another man is killed in a similar style. Knutas’ colleague , Karin Jacobsson, takes the helm in solving the mystery and finding the killer before anyone else is killed.
I really enjoyed this novel! I wasn’t sure what to expect and I was hoping it wouldn’t be too violent. While there is violence/sex/drugs/etc. none of it was overly graphic and it did not take up all the book. Instead I found that Jungstedt is a master at making her characters come alive through their interpersonal relationships. Knutas is having a bit of a lull in his marriage. Karin is holding a secret from her past. Television reporter Johan is struggling with his failed relationship with his once fiancée Emma. The nature of these relationships made a difference in how I read this book. It wasn’t all action, but also subtle shadings of character. I kept thinking that it would make a great BBC series!
THE DEAD OF SUMMER is currently available for Kindle and will be coming out in paperback in March, 2014.
If you enjoy crime novels, you will probably enjoy THE DEAD OF SUMMER. Thank you, Ms. Zegarek for sending me a copy!
This Amazon “Breakthrough Novel” award winner was a fun find for me! It is the quick moving story of Dimitri Petrov, an obituary writer at his local newspaper. Dimitri is mourning the death of his parents from the year before. He is also writing a tome on Rasputin in his spare time. Dimitri is sent on an assignment to cover a séance at a local deserted “haunted house”, along with an annoying colleague, the medium, and a young woman he has met before and hopes to attract. What happens that night causes Dimitri to end up in the morgue as a DOA (though thankfully, he revives). After the séance, Dimitri is haunted by a female spirit he calls “Poe”, and he becomes determined to solve the mysteries surrounding the house and some murders, while protecting himself and his new girlfriend, Lisa.
This was a fun and fast read. I just loved the character of Dimitri, who was a bit hapless. He wasn’t strong, overly courageous, or sophisticated. He was smart, though, and very “real”. I couldn’t help cheering for him!
I loved how this novel combined supernatural, horror, and fantasy elements, along with humor. I look forward to more from Ms. Fenn — maybe even more with Dimitri? I would recommend for older YA as well, but be aware of some adult content and language.
A while ago (longer than I care to admit), I received a download of Laura Shofer’s novel, THE FINGERPRINT OF DESTINY, from her. Due to an odd issue with my Kindle (where it shuffled my hundreds of novels!) I “lost” it and only recently rediscovered it. This novel has a little bit of something for everyone and I really enjoyed reading it!
THE FINGERPRINT OF DESTINY starts with a fire (arson) with deaths involved in the Hope’s Point area of Long Island. Ellie Sinclair goes to cover the fire (which isn’t the first that has occurred in this area of late) for her newspaper and discovers that her estranged mother is among the victims. This starts a series of events where Ellie digs to find the truth, but also digs up old emotions, an old romance, and memories of her “crazy” mother as she was growing up and their complicated relationship. Ellie is scrappy and tough, though somewhat dysfunctional and has a drinking problem. Add in some historical passages tracing Ellie’s Venezuelan heritage and the “fingerprint of destiny”, a few tough Latino gangs, a mystery, and some supernatural thrills and you’ve got the makings for this story!
I enjoyed reading this novel, the first for Ms. Shofer, and found it engrossing and well-written. I think it has such a variety of happenings that many will find it and its “mash-up genre” appealing!
Just in time for Halloween! Dan Newman’s THE CLEARING is a suspenseful story within a story. In 1976 four boys were playing the swamps and woods of St. Lucia when one of them dies. The others decide to keep the events surrounding his death secret and instead blame it on island superstition: the monster Bolum. Time passes and while lives are irreparably changed by the child’s death, life does go on.
Fast forward forty years to present day, and our hero, Nate, is returning to the island to put old ghosts to rest. However, in doing so, Nate opens up old wounds and upsets the precarious balance of society on the island. Soon he is being followed and attacked by scary men wielding sacrificed animals and vials of blood. Someone is trying to hush up the events of that night and will stop at nothing to keep Nate and anyone who helps him quiet.
I enjoyed reading this novel which read quickly and was rather thrilling. At the end things tied up pretty neatly, and I felt that Newman expounded the final conclusions a bit too much (just in case someone couldn’t figure it out on their own, I guess); however, all in all, I enjoyed this light read and kept going to the end. A little fantastic – yes. A good read for the Halloween season – yes!
I got mine as an ARC from Net Galley (Exhibit A Publishers) – thanks!
Regular readers know that I LOVE the Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries and have read them all. I was so excited for “W” to come out this month and pre-ordered it on Amazon. (I actually ordered it to give to my husband for his birthday in October, but gently read it last week while he was away on business!).
W IS FOR WASTED starts with two deaths: a homeless man is found dead of what appears to be natural causes and a less than upright private investigator is found shot to death. Kinsey dismisses the PI’s death, as he was known for being less than honest. She figured he came up on the wrong end of a deal. She decides to help find out the homeless man’s name so that they can notify his next of kin. As his story unfolds, however, Kinsey finds herself drawn into the man’s life with a connection she could not have foreseen. Things become more and more complicated, and then more and more dangerous, as Kinsey becomes involved in an intricate web of dishonesty, subterfuge, and shadows from the past. Are these two deaths related? Is Kinsey much more involved than she first realizes? Will she figure it all out before more people are killed?
I really enjoyed this quick read, which was well plotted and moved swiftly. While I have been disappointed in only a few of Grafton’s stories, this was one that I really liked!
My readers know that I LOVE Rhys Bowen’s historical cozy mysteries series – especially the Molly Murphy series and the Royal Spyness series. The latest Royal Spyness book – HEIRS AND GRACES – has just come out and I received an ARC from Rhys herself to read and review.
First let me say just how very EXCITED I was to get a book from Ms. Bowen herself and even signed by her! Yeah!! (I follow her on Facebook and she had mentioned having a few if any bloggers wanted one.) Lady Georgie is one of my favorite characters in cozies. She’s so likable and yet so ordinary. She’s clumsy and unsophisticated, and always struggling to make ends meet. Yet she’s intelligent and spunky and keeps the most remarkable company (ex-police officer grand-dad, actress mummy, cousin the Queen of England, etc.). You can’t help liking her and wanting her to be successful!
In this story, Georgie is sent to a friend’s estate to help a new family member adjust to life as a noble. It seems that an heir has been found for the Altringham family: a heretofore unknown son of the son who died in the war. This young man, Jack, has been born and raised in Australia and is now found and coming to “train” so he can eventually claim the title (a bit against his will). The family is in an uproar and the head of house, the very unlikable and unfriendly eldest son and Duke, is giving Jack less than a warm welcome. Then the Duke is found dead with a knife in his back – Jack’s knife. Can Georgie figure out who the killer really is and save the day?
This might be my favorite Georgie title yet! There was no dearth of suspects and even though I figured it all out, the mystery was cleverly plotted. Familiar friends Darcy and Belinda plays their parts as well.
Definitely one to read for those who follow the series – and for those new to the series, too!
I grabbed this book on a whim off Net Galley. If you read me you know I love YA and I have a special spot in my reader’s heart for stories that take place in boarding schools. I’m rather critical of these story lines since I’ve worked in independent schools since the 80’s, and quite honestly, if the administrators were as clueless/useless/evil/unavailable as they usually are portrayed, well, they’d all have gone out of business long ago! I was prepared to not really like this book – to be honest the title put me off – so I was surprised by how much I really enjoyed reading it!
PREP SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, which is the first in a series, starts with protagonist Anne Dowling getting expelled from her toney Manhattan private school for (accidentally) setting a fire. She is shipped off to a New England boarding school in the Boston suburbs where her first order of business is to rearrange the pecking order and get herself to the top of the social hierarchy. Anne’s a tough nut to crack – she’s feisty, tough, and fearless. At the same time, though, she’s sincere and has integrity (which is more that can be said about some other characters). She quickly forms her friends and enemies. Then her roommate goes missing and is found murdered. Anne seems to care more than the administration does about finding Isabella’s killer, so she starts her own “investigation” to figure out how and why Isabella was killed.
I’m a tad embarrassed to admit it, but I couldn’t put this book down. I thought the mystery was cleverly plotted and I liked the character of Anne. I often laughed out loud at her sarcasm and humor. I would have absolutely loved this book when I was in high school. I think Ms. Taylor did well with her independent school portrayal, and I wonder if she maybe attended a school very like Wheatley in real life!
I’m looking forward to the next book in this series which will be out in 2014.
Thanks, Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for my copy.
I had been reading about Chris Bohjalian’s THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS all over the blogosphere, so I was more than thrilled to score a copy through Net Galley. This is a touching and beautifully written novel that leaves the reader thinking about the characters long after it is over.
THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS takes place in Italy and moves between 1943 and 1955. During WWII, the Rosati family live quietly in their villa. They are a remnant of Italy’s nobleman past and are faring better than the peasants in the area. Caught in the crossfires of the war, they must support and welcome Nazi soldiers into their home; at the same time they must aid and assist partisans in their area. The war is turning and the Germans are getting desperate, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t do their utmost to destroy all they can in their path. The marchese and marchesa are a middle-aged couple. One son is away at war and his wife and two young children are living in the villa with them. Their second son is working as an archeologist. Their eighteen year old daughter Christina lives at the villa, too. Soon she finds herself falling in love for the first time – with a Nazi officer. At the same time, partisans are living in the hills and using the property, including ancient Etruscan tombs, as hideouts. The events converge into a riveting and tragic ultimatum.
Meanwhile, ten years later in 1955, a murder occurs in Rome. It soon becomes apparent that someone is stalking the surviving members of the Rosati family and killing them. Of the police detectives assigned to the case, one is the tough and intrepid Serafina – the first female police officer in her department and a surviving partisan from WWII. Serafina is horribly scarred from the war, in more ways than one. Her involvement with the Rosati case opens up old wounds and memories.
The story is written as switching between 1943/44 and 1955. As it progresses, we hear the full story of WWII for the family, and its tragic events. We follow the events of the murders and try to figure out the murderer. I could not put this book down!
I just loved this book. I found it so well-written and it evoked such strong images of the Tuscan countryside, along with such emotion. The word that comes to mind is heart-breaking. I couldn’t stop thinking about the story and its characters afterwards.
I also loved the choice of title. The “light in the ruins” can be the light in the Etruscan tombs where they hid, or the light that shined through in the aftermath of the devastation of WWII. Or it can be that small light that shined within those who were most damaged by the events of the war.
Brilliant! Buy it! Borrow it! But whatever you do – read it!
Thanks to Doubleday Books and Net Galley for my copy!
I’ve read all the James Patterson and Maxine Paetro “Women’s Murder Club” books. Just out is number twelve: THE 12TH OF NEVER, which I managed to get at the library even though there is a long wait for it. In this installment (number 12 obviously!) Lindsay and Joe have a baby girl. Lindsay is learning to balance the demands of motherhood and the demands of her job. Baby Julie is the light of their lives, but then she falls ill (and that’s all I’m saying about that!).
Meanwhile, down at the precinct, Lindsay is faced with some tough cases. A rather odd English professor comes in to announce that he is dreaming of murders happening. No one really takes him seriously until the murders DO happen, very much the way he predicts they will. This case gets more confounding as time goes on. At the same time, the high-profile girlfriend of a star 49er football player is murdered, and then her body disappears from Lindsay’s best friend and medical examiner, Claire’s, lab. At the same time, Yuki, another murder club member, is prosecuting the case of her career against a sleazy lawyer who is accused of killing his wife and child. And, last but not least, reporter Cindy is having relationship issues with Lindsay’s partner, Richie.
All in all, there’s a lot going on in this novel. It moves quickly and I read it in a day or two. I have to say it wrapped up quickly, especially the missing body/murder part. I still don’t fully understand how the precognition piece and how the murders involved happened. Without saying too much, I will say I found that piece far-fetched. Also (SPOILER ALERT) I found the missing body/missing security guard problem kind of far-fetched, too (everyone seemed to think of the guard as a suspect and not a potential victim – perhaps to create another suspect?). However, overall I enjoyed this read, as I have the other ones in the series!
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