Why I read

Over at Moments in Crime, Barbara "Barfly" Fister, has written an eloquent essay on why she reads. And she's tagged me to play in a blog meme, so here goes:

In "Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading," NPR book reviewer Maureen Corrigan opens her book with: "It's not that I don't like people. It's just that when I'm in the company of others -- even my nearest and dearest -- there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book." Growing up in a family of mostly non-readers, I thought I was alone in this burrowing of books, this need to escape into another life, even if for just a few minutes a day.

I don't know how I became a reader. My parents weren't big readers, though they did buy me books (including an encyclopedia set which they paid off in monthly installments) and took me often to the public library. At 9, already a bookworm, my mother thought the best way to explain my soon-to-be-arriving brother would be to take me to the library and find child-appropriate books on the birds and the bees.


But, if anything, it was Mark Twain who really made me a reader -- specifically, Tom Sawyer. My life couldn't have been farther from Tom's life -- we didn't have any white-picket fences to whitewash (or con others into whitewashing). There were no caves to explore in Miami, Florida, and the closest to a river was the always-murky canal behind our house. But I reread Tom Sawyer over and over in elementary school, in between The Bobbsey Twins.

My love of reading continued unabated throughout junior high and high school, as I devoured history books, science fiction, mysteries, anything. I credit my love of reading to thinking I could write, too, and becoming a journalist. Now, as a copy editor, I read for work as well. But I still read for pleasure, mostly crime fiction these days. For me, it's the challenge of the whodunnit, the unraveling of a mystery, that draws me (and for that, I prefer the traditional British mystery, thank you). I love these mysteries so much that I've traveled twice to the U.K. on mystery-book tours.

People have asked if I would ever consider writing a mystery myself. Maybe, though it seems an awfully hard task. For now, I'm much happier just being a reader.

April reads

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott (audio)
Protagonist: Lydia Brooke
Setting: Cambridge
Rating: 3.5
Lydia Brooke is asked by her former lover Cameron to finish a book on alchemy and Newton that was almost completed by his mother, who recently died in suspicious circumstances (drowned, clutching a glass prism). Lydia takes on the job of ghostwriter, finding that Cameron's mother had made some ties to 17th-century deaths and very similar present-day deaths. Usually, while I love the gothic and historical mysteries, Ghostwalk seems to ramble on a bit too much, throwing in an ill-fated romance and a storyline about radical animal-rights activists. In the end, the story was just not haunting enough to move it into the category of great mysteries.

Sideswipe by Charles Willeford (third in a series)
Protagonist: Hoke Moseley
Setting: Miami and Riviera Beach
Rating: 3.0
Willeford takes two separate story lines and ties them up neatly at the end. An old man becomes caught up with a convict, and you know it isn't going to end well. In the meantime, Moseley goes off the deep end, deciding he doesn't want to be a police officer anymore. Still, he manages to solve a crime here and there.

Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis by Cara Black (seventh in the series)
Protagonist: Aimee Leduc
Setting: Ile Saint-Louis, Paris
Rating: 4.0
A while back, I had read another in the Aimee Leduc series and not been bowled over. Lucky for me that I tried this, the seventh in the series. The character has become more rounded and interesting, and the plot -- involving environmental activists, bombings and an unexpected dip in the Seine -- was a great read. In this book, Aimee, a computer security analyst, gets a late-night call from a woman, pleading for her to go down to her building's courtyard. There, Aimee finds a newborn. Aimee, usually dressed in chic Chanel dresses and Manolo Blahnik shoes, immediately falls in love with baby Stella, nevermind the spit-up on her designer dresses. With one of the best sidekicks in detective fiction, Aimee is off to try to find the baby's mother -- and solve a murder or two along the way.

Angels in the Gloom by Anne Perry (3rd in a series, audio)
Protagonist: Reavley siblings
Setting: St. Giles, England
Rating: 4.0
Each book in this series just gets better. In this one, Joseph Reavley, injured at the front, returns to the quiet village of St. Giles. Perry's descriptions of war were riveting in the previous book, but so are her descriptions of the desperation in the men and women left behind -- especially the women, many of whom have lost their sons and husbands in war, and who are assuming greater roles in business. Of course, even in a quiet town such as St. Giles, there's a murder -- one of the men working on a top-secret project expected to change the outcome of the war. As Joseph investigates, Matthew Reavley is falling in love with a double agent and trying to find the identity of The Peacemaker, the man who killed the Reavleys' parents and is trying to bring peace, even at the cost of England. These books are much more than just mysteries; they are a sympathetic look into the costs of a world war.


The Eye of Jade by Diane Wei Liang (first in the series, audio)
Protagonist: Mei Wang
Setting: Beijing
Rating: 4.7
When Mei Wang loses her job at the Ministry of Public Security, she opens her own detective agency (outlawed in China, so she has to call it information consultancy). Her first client is her uncle, who asks her to look into a Han dynasty jade stolen from a museum. This is so much more than a detective novel, though; the language is so detailed and so beautiful we feel we are reading a memoir -- the life of Mei's mother hangs in the balance after a stroke, and Mei's former-but-never-forgotten boyfriend returns for a visit from San Francisco. Author Liang, born in China and exiled after her involvement with the students' revolt that led to the Tiananmen Square massacre, has also written a memoir. Her second in the Mei Wang series, Paper Butterfly, is due out in May. I'm looking forward to reading both.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Protagonist: Richard Papen (narrator)
Setting: Vermont
Rating: 4.7
The murder happens on the first page of this book, but I was still spellbound enough to read the 500-page book in a few days. The novel unwinds everything that happened before -- what led a tightknit group of college kids to kill one of their own -- and what happens afterward. The group are scholars in classic Greek, and the story itself plays out like a modern Greek tragedy. This is a carefully constructed story, and well worth reading.


The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai by John Tayman
Rating: 4.0
For 103 years, until 1969, more than 8,000 people afflicted with leprosy were exiled by the government to a remote piece of land, surrounded by high cliffs, in what author John Tayman calls the "longest and deadliest instance of medical segregation in American history, and perhaps the most misguided." This is the story of that segregation. Tayman not only tells us the history, but gives us some of the personal stories as well. Some of the handful of residents still left on Molokai have panned the book, but I found it to be a sensitive and moving story of what happened there, and what the government allowed to happen.

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: Pretty good
3.0: Mediocre to good
2.0: Pretty Bad
DNF: Did not finish

This Month's Pick: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

By Stieg Larsson
Protagonists: Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander
Setting: Hedeby Island, Sweden
Rating: 4.8
I'm always hesitant to read a book that is enthusiastically recommended as a "best" something. So when Ali Karim, an assistant editor at the e-zine Shots, praised The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, calling it "one of the greatest crime-fiction novels I have ever read," well, I thought, I'm bound to be disappointed. But Ali was pretty close to the mark -- this is a great novel, an updated take on the locked-room mystery with some thriller elements thrown in.

The story revolves around the Vanger clan, which owns a once-great but fading corporation. The head of the family, 82-year-old Henrik Vanger, hires Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who has just lost a libel suit and is facing jail time, to unravel a 40-year-old mystery: the disappearance of his niece, 16, from the family's secluded island on a day when the island's one bridge was inaccesible. Vanger fears one of his own family murdered his niece. Blomkvist is facing his own troubles: his magazine Millennium is fighting for its survival after the libel suit, and he's sure that the person he was found to have libeled -- industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerstrom -- is a guilty man. Vanger dangles him information about Wennerstrom and a fat paycheck if Blomkvist takes the job and moves to the island. So he does, and eventually hires as an assistant Lisbeth Salander, 24, a troubled young woman who is also a brilliant computer hacker. And so the fun begins ...

This is a massive 535-page tome (after all, we have to unravel all the family secrets), but it moves quickly, for the most part (dragging just a little at the end). Luckily, author Stieg Larsson wrote this as the first part of a Millennium trilogy (the English version of the second book will be released next January). Unfortunately, shortly after finishing the trilogy, Larsson, a Swedish journalist who battled racism and the far right, died suddenly of a heart attack. With only three books, Larsson indeed leaves behind a small legacy, but once that will only enrichen the crime fiction genre.

March reads

Slip of the Knife by Denise Mina
Protagonist: Paddy Meehan
Setting: Glasgow, 1990
Rating: 5.0
The Meehan series is one of my favorites, and this book, the third in a five-book arc, is the strongest so far. Paddy, who started out as a copy boy in a Glasgow newspaper, is now grown up -- a well-known columnist with a 5-year-old son. In this book, elements from the first play pivotal parts. Paddy's first lover, Terry Hewitt, is found murdered and Paddy tangles with the IRA, which puts her -- and her son -- in danger. The book kept me riveted until the shocking denouement. And while the book ends on a peaceful note, you just know there's going to be trouble ahead for Paddy.


The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant (audio)
Protagonist: Alessandra
Setting: Florence, 1400s
Rating: 3.9
While this book doesn't rise to the level of Dunant's other historical novel, In the Company of the Courtesan, it is still a vivid glimpse into a specific time during the Renaissance -- when the fanatical monk Savonarola whipped the city into a frenzy of fundamentalism, leading to the Bonfire of the Vanities. The story is told through a young woman, Alessandra, who is married off as a teenager rather than face the convent. Unknowingly, she has wed her brother's lover in a marriage of convenience, but he is at least a good enough man, one who lets her explore her love of painting. Still, in this time of religious fury, she and her family still face many dangers.

Shoulder the Sky by Anne Perry (second in series, audio)
Protagonists: The Reaveley children
Setting: England, 1915
Rating: 4.0
This is almost more of a war novel than a mystery, although there is a small mystery here (who murdered the annoying journalist?) and a larger one that marks the entire series: who is the Peacemaker, the person who is trying to end the bloodshed at any cost, even including a bargain with the kaiser? The characters are also faced with some difficult moral choices, enhancing the plot. I thought I'd take a little break from the Reaveleys and listen to other audio books, but I do miss them -- it may be time to get the next in the series.

New Hope for the Dead by Charles Willeford (second in the series)
Protagonist: Homicide Det. Hoke Moseley
Setting: Miami, 1980s
Rating: 3.0
In this second book, the author decided to go heavy on characterization, giving Moseley more of a social life and burdening him all of a sudden with two teenager daughters. But I found I really didn't like Moseley or care for his daughters. The crime-solving is minimal here, and I found the book pretty dull.


The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith (audio)
Protagonist: Isabel Dalhousie
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 4.0
McCall Smith's Dalhousie series is no serious contender in the mystery genre -- there's really not even a mystery in this one. But they are always fun to read, as Isabel always manages to find herself in some moral quandry. In fact, the book opens with these lines: "To take an interest in the affairs of others is entirely natural; so natural, in fact, that even a cat, lying cat-napping on top of a wall will watch with half an eye the people walking by below. But between such curiosity, which is permissible, and nosiness, which is not, there lies a dividing line that some people simply miss -- even if it is a line that is painted red and marked by the very clearest of warning signs." Isabel, of course, often crosses this line. In this book, she not only delves into the relationship between a wealthy businessman and his younger fiancee (a possible golddigger?), but we also learn more about Isabel's family -- and she begins a family of her own. A very nice entry in this series.

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: Pretty good
3.0: Mediocre to good
2.0: Pretty Bad
DNF: Did not finish

News from around

From The Telegraph (U.K.) comes "50 crime writers to read before you die." Also, an interview with Robert Parker.


I haven't read Stephen King in a while, but James Campbell's review of Duma Key in The New York Times may change that.

At Reviewing the Evidence, this quick interview with author Stuart Pawson. The one time I met him, he seemed a reticient, low-key person -- with a wicked sense of humor. Here, you really see Pawson's offbeat humor.

I'm a little late on this, but Maureen Corrigan at NPR reviews Sue Miller's The Senator's Wife. I'm also afraid to read this book -- there's been so much good hype, I don't want to be disappointed.

Finally, this neat story from the The Christian Science Monitor, titled "Homeless men find shelter in a book club.

Pick of the Month - The Arsenic Labyrinth

The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards (3rd in series)
Protagonist: DCI Hannah Scarlett and Historian Daniel Kind
Setting: Cumbria, Lake District, England
Rating: 4.0
Reading British mysteries is comfort food for me. And now I've found another author to add to my comfort list: Martin Edwards, who has written two mysteries series. This one, set in the Lake District, features DCI Hannah Scarlett and historian Daniel Kind and is a mix of the traditional British cozy and a police procedural. Hannah, assigned to the Cold Case Squad, re-investigates the disappearance of a woman 10 years ago in The Arsenic Labyrinth. We think we know who the murderer is -- after all, he confesses to us readers. But Edwards throws us quite a few twists and turns. And, of course, there's a growing spark between Hannah and Daniel, who both already have live-in partners. Although I haven't read the first two in the series, Arsenic Labyrinth didn't suffer for it (but now I do want to go back and read the first two). This is a wonderful read -- not only for the plot, but for the descriptions of the Lake District and the wonderful real-life characters.Luckily for us Americans, The Poisoned Pen in Phoenix publishes Edwards' books here.

Here's an interview of Martin Edwards:

February reads

Island of Bones by P.J. Parrish (5th in series)
Protagonist: Private investigator Louis Kincaid
Setting: Sanibel, Captiva and Ft. Myers, Fla.
Rating: 3.5
While I had some quibbles with the book (would have liked to have known more about Kincaid), this is another book that I enjoyed for its Florida setting. Here, Kincaid finds a skull washed up on the beach after a hurricane. A few days later, a woman's body is found among the mangroves. Then a woman hires Kincaid because she suspects her father, a mild-mannered librarian, has had something to do with two women who went missing years ago. Yes, it's all somehow related in this complex plot.

No Graves as Yet by Anne Perry (first in series, on audio)
Protagonists: Matthew and Joseph Reavley
Setting: England, 1914
Rating: 3.7
While I found one book to lack characterization, this book almost had a little too much! There were times I wished the author would get on with the plot. On the eve of World War I, Reavleys' parents are killed in a car accident; the sons soon suspect this is no mere accident. Their father was on his way to see Matthew, an intelligence officer, with what he claimed was an explosive document about a conspiracy that would disgrace England. Then just days later, a student of Joseph's is murdered in Cambridge -- a student who was adamantly against England becoming involved in a war. Can the two be connected? Excellent plotting. I already have the second book in hand!

Transgressions by Sarah Dunant
Protagonist: Lizzie Skorvecky
Setting: London, England
Rating: 4.6
Once in a while comes a book I absolutely cannot put down. Transgressions is one such book. Lizzie lives alone, after a breakup with her longtime boyfriend. Weird things start to happen: some CDs go missing, music is playing when she comes home. She changes the locks, but the next morning she wakes to find the breakfast table set for two. Is she going crazy? Does she have a poltergeist at home? Or will Lizzie have to deal with something much more human and more terrifying? A very smart female thriller.

Rampart Street by David Fulmer
Protagonist: Valentin St. Cyr
Setting: New Orleans, 1910
Rating: 3.7
When a rich man ends up shot dead in a bad part of town, his family wants to know what happened. But there are plenty of people who would just as soon cover it up. Valentin, a down-on-his-luck, has-been detective, is hired because the powers-that-be think he won't do a good enough job. Well, of course, he does. As a bonus, we get to see New Orleans at a time when it was filled with "jass" clubs and whorehouses. A very atmospheric book. I only wish I could have liked Valentin more -- he's an aloof, cold character.

News from around

Over at CrimeSpot, it's Black Mystery Month, where you'll get an education to black crime fiction and black detectives.

John Grisham, in an Associated Press interview, says he's not a literary author, that's he an entertainer. As someone who made $9 million last year, I'm sure he doesn't care what he's called; he's laughing all the way to the bank. He also talks about his addiction to political campaigns and his new book, The Appeal.

There's been a bit of uproar over quotes attributed to Whitbread award-winner Joan Brady. The whole story is over at P.J. Parrish's blog, which writes Brady sued a shoe factory in her English village claiming that toxic fumes had caused her health to deteriorate so much that she had been "reduced to writing thrillers." Or so that was the quote in the London Times. As it turns out, Brady said no such thing, Parrish writes. Says Brady: "I haven't dumbed down. I never said it. That's the pure invention of the Times. They have decided that this effete literary woman has become so stupid that she can no longer write boring literary fiction and writes poorly selling thrillers instead. My mental faculties haven't deteriorated. And anyway, what an insult it would be to thriller writers to suggest that you need to be stupid to write them. It seems to me so irritating that you would denigrate a remarkable genre where much of the best writing is done. I'm a great admirer of writers like John Grisham and Scott Turow." Anyhow, her new thriller is Bleedout, and it's one going on my TBR list.

And over at Euro Crime, we learn that
screening of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency movie, based on the novel by Alexander McCall Smith, has been set for March 24.

Pick of the Month: The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo
Protagonist: Det. Harry Hole
Setting: Oslo, Norway
Rating: 4.7
Ah, another Scandinavian writer, I thought. In recent years, seems there's been a raft of excellent crime writers from Nordic countries: Arnaldur Indidason, Henning Mankell, Karin Fossum, Hakan Nesser, Asa Larsson and Ake Edwardson. Now add Jo Nesbo to the list.

In The Redbreast, he has written an intricate and long (521 pages) book. I had to make notes just to follow. But even with notes, Nesbo takes you on such a complicated, twists-and-turns journey that the ending is still a stunner. The action keeps shifting between 1942, when some Norwegians joined and fought with the Nazis, to present day (1999-2000), when some of their actions come back to haunt them. Harry Hole, an alcoholic prone to falling off the wagon under stress, has been promoted from the Crime Unit to POT (the security service unit) because of a mistake he has made and which his bosses want covered up. He's shuffled off to do paperwork, but Hole doesn't go quietly. He takes what seems a small item buried among the paperwork and starts following the clues, while a killer hunts down those who were part of a small unit at the Eastern Front. Part police procedural, part mystery and part thriller, The Redbreast gets my pick of the month, hands down. And best yet: there's a second in this series: The Devil's Star.

January Reads

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Rating: 3.5
A post-apocalyptic book in which all of Earth is gray and ash, and survivors have to be wary of each other. A father and son take to the road in order to survive. Many have found the ending to be uplifting, and it is, to some extent. The writing is sparse, but beautiful. Yet, in the end, I found this to be the most depressing book I've ever read.

A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill (first in the series)
Protagonists: Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe
Setting: Yorkshire
Rating: 4.0
A small-town female fatale is found dead inside her home, clubbed to death. Was it her husband, at home with a concussion? It could be anyone, really, since, as Pascoe tells Dalziel: "I didn't know the lady as well as you, sir, but she seems in all particulars to have been a pretty clubbable woman." Although the first in what is now a 23-book series, Dalziel and Pascoe are already fully formed.

The Man Who Invented Florida by Randy Wayne White (third in the series)
Protagonist: Marion "Doc" Ford
Setting: Sanibel Island and Mango Island (Everglades), Fla.
Rating: 3.0
The weakest of the three books I've read so far, as there's hardly a mystery in this one. This book involves a crazy scheme by Doc's uncle, from whom Doc has been estranged. I might have given up on this book, but White does write some great passages about Florida. When he writes about a dolphin giving birth, you wish you had been there to see it in person.

The Pure in Heart by Susan Hill
Protagonist: Insp. Simon Serrailler
Setting: Lafferton, England
Rating: 4.7
Hill's book are slow-moving, drawing portraits of Serrailler and his family, as well as the victim's family. In this one, Serrailler is in Venice when he's abruptly called home for a family emergency. Back home, a young boy is kidnapped, and Serrailler, already back home early, jumps into the case. I like Hill's books because she never gives you the expected -- which a mystery writer should do, but many don't succeed as does Hill.

Miami Blues by Charles Willeford (first in the series)
Protagonist: Det. Hoke Moseley
Setting: Miami, Fla., 1980s
Rating: 4.3
Just out of jail, "Junior" flies into Miami from California, unintentionally kills a Hare Krishna at the airport and then, coincidentally, ends up moving in with the Krishna's sister. When Moseley grows suspicious, Junior starts to go after the detective himself. While hard-boiled is not my usual fare, Willeford really nails down my hometown in the '80s. The quirky characters and situations are a plus. I'll definitely spend more time with Moseley in Miami.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (audio)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (audio)
Protagonist: Harry Potter
Setting: Hogswarts and the non-muggle world
Rating: 5.0
The final two books in this fantastic series. Enough has been written about this series, which I'm sure is destined to become a classic. But I'll say that Rowling's story-telling is so masterful (and Jim Dale so wonderful as the audiobook narrator) that I became a little Potter-addicted, toward the end. I couldn't wait to get in my car and drive, so I could hear what happened next!

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: Pretty good
3.0: Mediocre to good
2.0: Pretty Bad
DNF: Did not finish

Best reads of 2007

Top mystery reads:

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny. This is the second in a series that captured me from the first moment. Penny does everything right: character, plotting and setting. I love Three Pines, the small fictional Canadian town that is oh-so-idyllic (except for an abundance of murders). Det. Armand Gamache has been described as a cross between Colombo and Poirot, a quirky character in his own right. This novel is set between Christmas and New Year's -- and that's when I read it. A perfect book with which to end the year.

Raven Black by Ann Cleeves. On the list of my favorite authors, Cleeves writes wonderfully about another closed community -- the Shetland islands (where Scotland meets Scandinavia). This is the first in a quartet that features Insp. Jimmy Perez, an unlikely detective hero.

The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill. When Hill was compared to P.D. James, I knew I had to read her books. Again, this is the first in a series -- the fourth book will be released next year. Hill slowly unravels a novel, giving us rich portraits of each characters, including the victims. And with one of the most shocking endings I've ever read.

Naked to the Hangman by Andrew Taylor. Eighth in another series that is a favorite. In this one, Det. Richard Thornhill becomes the suspect, and it is up to his wife, Edith, and his former lover, journalist Jill Francis, to find the truth. Taylor never takes you where you are expecting to go. In my eyes, one of the finest British writers around.

The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees. First in a series, Rees has an unlikely detective: Omar Yussef, an elderly history teacher. This is set in the Mideast, the villians are a martyrs brigade, and the police chief is hesitant to take action. It is a mystery like none other that I've read, and it has stayed with me long after I put it down.

The Devil's Feather by Minette Walters. Set in another war-torn area, Sierra Leone, the story moves to an English countryside -- where the real tension begins. Walters is known for delving into psychological terror, and she doesn't disappoint here.

Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason. A sort of cold case book that jumps back and forth between 1940s and present-day in Reykjavik. Wonderfully done, I enjoyed this much more than his first book, Jar City.

Recalled to Life by Reginald Hill. Part of the Dalziel and Pascoe series, and another sort of "cold case" (the detectives go back to a 1963 case as they try to clear a colleague's name). Great for the working relationship between the two detectives, the humor and a Golden Age mystery as well.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. Again, a cold case mystery, based on a true story of two sisters who disappeared in Baltimore. Here, Lippman takes the premise and asks: what if a woman suddenly appeared 30 years later, claiming to be one of the missing girls?

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. More gothic than mystery. I recommend this in audio, as the narrators' voices are wonderful. If you like your secrets unraveled slowly, and you're a fan of Bronte, this is a must-read.

All Mortal Flesh by Julia Spencer-Fleming. Fifth in the series about Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne and the Rev. Clare Fergusson, and the most powerful so far in the series. I was so hooked on this series, I read all five in a matter of months.


Tops in other fiction:
Saturday by Ian McEwan
In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Looking forward to in 2008 (novels and release dates):


January: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. First in a trilogy. Have heard many, many good things, including at this blog.
February: A Grave in Gaza by Matt Beynon Rees (second in his series)
March: The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny (third in her series, and she's already set up one cliffhanger in the second book)
April: White Nights by Ann Cleeves (second in the Shetland series)
May: Bleeding Heart Square (presumably a standalone) by Andrew Taylor
June: The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill (fourth in her series)

And elsewhere ...

Over at It's a Crime!, Andrew Taylor, author of the Lydmouth series, gives us his recommendations for Christmas books (be forewarned, some of them are pretty grim!) Other authors also weigh in, including Matt Beynon Rees, Zoe Sharp and Martin Edwards (I must read Peter Lovesey's The Secret Hangman!).

At Books to the Ceiling, the very well-read Roberta Rood gives us her Best of 2007, a two-part list (thanks to her, I now have a much longer list of books to read).

Writer Louise Penny (Still Life, A Fatal Grace and, soon to come to the U.S., The Cruellest Month, has a lovely blog in addition to her Web site. Life at her country home sounds almost as idyllic as Three Pines!

Our roundup has to include Carnival of the Crime Minds, which is making its way around the world with guest bloggers.

And, finally, don't miss In For Questioning, a great blog that provides podcasts of mystery authors and others involved in the book world, including Maddy Van Hertbruggen, founder of 4 Mystery Addicts, an online discussion group with about 993 members (at last count). Maddy tells us which fictional character she'd be afraid of running into on the street.

November/December

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
Setting: Three Pines, Canada
Protagonist: Insp. Armand Gamache
Rating: 5.0
CC de Poitiers, the villain in the tiny fictional town of Three Pines, is electrocuted at a Christmas curling competition. Suspects abound, and in addition to the central mystery, there are other smaller mysteries surrounding the plot, including one that may impact Gamache's career. This novel is set around Christmastime, and it was just wonderful to read it in the last days of 2007. A great way to end the year.

Naked to the Hangman by Andrew Taylor
Setting: Lydmouth, Wales
Protagonists: Det. Richard Thornhill and journalist Jill Francis
Rating: 4.5
This is the eighth in Taylor's Lydmouth series (one of my favorites). This one takes a different turn, going back to Thornhill's past as an officer in Palestine. His actions then haunt him now, as a fellow officer appears in Lydmouth. We don't get too much of the storyline between Thornhill and Francis, but still an excellent (as always) book in the series.



Sanibel Flats by Randy Wayne White (first in series)
The Heat Islands by Randy Wayne White (second in series)
Protagonist: Marion "Doc" Ford
Setting: Sanibel Island, Florida
Rating: 3.5, 3.7
Read these books for their wonderful portrayal of Florida, a Florida that is fast disappearing. White's description of a fast-moving thunderstorm over open waters is reason enough to read The Heat Islands. The plots are OK and the characters a bit skimpy or cardboard-like, but I still have high hopes for this series (which I hope to continue reading).



Fleshmarket Alley by Ian Rankin
Protagonist: Rebus and Siobhan
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 3.7
I was blown away by the early Rankin books; this one failed to capture me. Maybe I like Rebus too much for him to share the page with Siobhan. Still, it's interesting to see Rankin weave a greater plot out of a small, mundane thing. In Edinburgh, I visited the real Fleshmarket Close (Alley for us Americans). Apparently, Rankin was none too happy with the American name change of his book.



The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (on audio)
Protagonist: Liesel Meminger
Setting: Nazi Germany
Rating: 4.0
This is a Young Adult book, but so many Older Adults recommended (and raved) over it, that I sought it out. When Death comes to take Liesel Meminger's brother, he finds himself drawn to Liesel's life, especially after she steals her first book at the gravesite, "The Grave Digger's Handbook." Liesel can't read yet, but her kind foster father soon teaches her how to read, and she never looks back. A touching story, with beautiful prose.

Two Way Split by Allan Guthrie
Protagonist: Robin Greaves
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 3.3
Guthrie's been swept up with the newest of the "tartan noir" writers (although, isn't all Scottish crime fiction pretty much gothic or noir?). Robin is an armed robber who thinks his wife is sleeping with his partner in crime. Oh yeah, and Robin is also schizophrenic and has stopped taking his medication. Noir is not my cup of tea, but this character was so different that I was hooked until the end.

The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard
Protagonist: Cast of characters
Setting: Small Plains, Kansas
Rating: 3.1
On a winter night, a teenage girl is found dead in the snow. It seems no one knows who she was, but the townspeople bury her and come to revere her, as it's believed that she performs miracles. But 17 years later, long-ago secrets start to surface. Turns out plenty of people knew who she was. Despite some very nicely written scenes, this novel was disappointing. While the cover touts a "novel of suspense," there was little mystery in it, the characters' actions didn't always seem plausible and there was just a tad too much of the Harlequin-romance-plotting in it for me.

Catch Me When I Fall by Nicci French (on audio)
Protagonist: Holly Krauss
Setting: London
Rating: 3.0
Holly, who is manic depressive, is a woman out of control, sleeping with a man not her husband, gambling (and losing 11,000 pounds). The first part of the book is told through Holly's eyes and we feel sympathetic for her, as she is stalked by Rees (the man she slept with) and by loan sharks. Then the point of view changes to Meg, her friend and business partner, after Holly attempts suicide (a bit confusing, as I feel asleep with the iPod in my ear). From there, the book picks up, and turns into a thriller. All is not what it seems, especially after a second suicide attempt. I'd heard a lot about this husband-and-wife writing duo that goes by one name, and I hope to read more of their books. This one, though, by all consensus, seems to be a weak spot among their works.


Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: Pretty good
3.0: Mediocre to good
2.0: Pretty Bad
DNF: Did not finish

October reads

If not for audiobooks, it would have been a very light month indeed.

On audio, I listed to no. 2, 3, and 4 in the Julia Spencer-Fleming series:

A Fountain Filled With Blood
Out of the Deep I Cry
To Darkness and to Depth
Protagonist: Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne
Setting: Millers Kill, N.Y.
Rating: 4.0 to 4.2
Read by Suzanne Toren
These book are set in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York, and Spencer-Fleming does a wonderful job of creating characters and showcasing the beauty (and danger) of the mountains. This is, in fact, a great place to set mysteries. Cell phone service is very spotty up there (sometimes, I've moved just six feet and been able to get cell phone service), so characters are often unable to make that crucial call that would get them out of a dicey situation. With each book, Spencer-Fleming stretches and produces something better. These books should really be read in order, as the relationship between the characters grows. I read no. 5 first, but the most recent book brings to a point much of what's been happening in the series, so I do not recommend reading it out of order.

The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
Protagonist: Dave Robicheaux
Setting: New Orleans, after Katrina
Rating: 4.5
Burke writes a rich, atmospheric novel about the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina on Robicheaux and the people he's investigating. Burke is one of those writers who turns a phrase so beautifully that you read it a couple of times to savor it. While I liked the book overall, I didn't like the characters and Burke often changes the tense, which can be confusing. There are those who love Burke's books, but I'm unlikely to pick up another one.

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: Pretty good
3.0: Mediocre to good
2.0: Pretty Bad
DNF: Did not finish

September reads

Not surprisingly, after a U.K. trip, I'm still reading only U.K. authors (or, in one case, about an English author):


The Case of the Missing Bronte by Robert Barnard
Protagonist: Percy Trewothan
Setting: Haworth
Rating: 3.5
The premise: What if a missing Bronte manuscript turned up? What would people do to claim it? In this case, attempted murder and mayhem ensue, but there's the usual humor in the Trewothan series.


Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves
Protagonist: Vera Stanhope
Setting: Northumberland
Rating: 4.5
I've been raving about Cleeves' Black Raven, and now there's another series I'm hooked on. Vera Stanhope is a middle-aged, overweight, never married, slightly bitter detective -- who also is very good at her job. In this novel, a boy is found strangled in his bathtub, surrounded by flowers. Then a young woman is found on the beach, similarly posed. The clues lead to a group of four men, longtime friends. Can one of them be the murderer?

Prey to All by Natasha Cooper
Protagonist: Trish Maguire
Setting: London
Rating: 3.5
Banister Trish Maguire gets pulled into a TV program examining whether a jail woman did indeed kill her own father. As Maguire investigates, there's another murder, and suddenly she's looking out for her own safety. The book's characters are interesting, but the author employs a technique which kept confusing me -- switching the narrator's voice from character to character. For being slightly confusing, I give this book lower marks.


Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
(on audio, narrated by Peter J. Fernandez)
Rating: 4.7
Even if you haven't read Shakespeare in, oh, 20 years, this is still an entertaining account of Shakespeare's life that also provides a look into Elizabethan England. I highly recommend this book!


Curious Scotland: Tales from a Hidden History by George Rosie
Rating: 3.2
A sort of history of Scotland -- tales of quirky aspects of the country's past. It won't fill in for a complete history, but is a quick, fun read.

Rankin -- and maybe another Rebus?

The last author to speak to our group was also the biggest name in mystery writing in the U.K.: Ian Rankin, a funny, engaging speaker (shown here with tour guide Ros Hutchison). We'd studied Rankin and his first book, Knots and Crosses, before meeting him -- a book very much inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (which, while set in London, is really modeled on Edinburgh). In this first book, we have Rebus, a character who has involuntary flashbacks and doesn't allow himself to explore his consciousness, therefore "hiding" himself, as our study leader Carol Kent describes it. Both books have a deeply flawed character with a dark side, and both feature young girls as victims. In Knots and Crosses, the plot even converges at a gothic library.

If you read Knots and Crosses with Jekyll and Hyde in mind, you get that right away. But reviewers of that first book didn't, prompting Rankin to write a second book: Hide and Seek, the title hammering home the point. "We all have a mix of good and bad," Rankin told us at a lunch at the Scottish Book Trust in Edinburgh. "As P.D. James says, we're all capable of murder."

Some other tidbits from Rankin:

"There are two things I like about being an author: You are omniscient and omnipotent. You have the power of life and death over your characters. At the same time, as well as being godlike, you are childlike...you are still playing pretend."

Rankin calls himself an "accidental crime writer," not having meant to write a crime novel when he first started, although he wrote in his notes for that first book that "the hero may be a cop." Now, he loves writing in this form: "I love the sense of pace, a strong pacing narrative. I love the games you can play with the reader, that questions are answered. You get a comfort from that which you don't get from real life."

Although readers like to think Rankin is like Rebus, "Rebus is not at all like me," Rankin says. "I'm a wishy-washy liberal. Every book is an internal argument between us [himself and Rebus]....He's horrible Mr. Hyde so I can be nice Dr. Jekyll."


What is said to be the final Rebus novel was published this week in the U.K.: Exit Music, which immediately climbed to No. 1 on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Scottish detectives must retire by the age of 60, and Rebus has reached this age in the books. However, cold case detectives can be older, and Rankin left the possibility open of someday returning to either Rebus or Siobhan (Rebus' younger female partner). Saying he had several other projects in the work, Rankin added that "it may be a couple of years before I can go back to [Rebus] with a blank slate, and see if I can do anything with Rebus of Siobhan."

So who knows -- we may not have seen the last of Rebus.

Northumbria

Our last day in England before arriving in Scotland had us driving along the Northumbrian coast (photo left) and stopping to have lunch with Ann Cleeves, who makes her home in this area and has set some of her novels here. Cleeves has been writing for more than 20 years, and last year won the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger for her book Raven Black, set in the remote Shetlands islands.

Cleeves was visiting the Shetlands three years ago with her husband when, she told our group, "I saw three ravens against the snow. I thought if there was blood in the snow, it would be like a fairy tale. That image stayed in my head: Those ravens, so black against the snow." What started out as a short story metamorphosed into her award-winning crime novel (the first in a four-part series). She also explained that she uses the traditional "cozy" form, layered with psychological insights. In Raven Black, Cleeves expertly masters the theme of being an outsider, giving the book a rich depthness.

Cleeves is among the current generation of U.K. writers who are using the traditional British mystery forms and adding so much more. For those of us who love British mysteries, it's a great time to be reading!

Whitby

The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker is not only set in Transylvannia. In fact, a large part of it is set in Whitby, an English coastal town. In Dracula, all is obscured in mist and fog. In truth, Whitby is a quaint town. Here are a few photos, including the ruins of Whitby Abbey, where Dracula finds his first vicitm.

Dracula (the book, not the many movies) represents an example of a foreign invader who "doesn't only invade, but wants to take over all of England, especially its women," our study leader, Carol Kent, tells us. With its repetitive intensity of the vampire's attacks, "the reader finds it hard to believe Dracula can be conquered," Kent says.

The book may not be what you think. All my exposures to Dracula had been through movies, yet the original book is much different. Dracula is hardly seen in the novel, and the happenings are told through different narrators. In the book, we have much more of a monster than the romantic vampires of, say, Anne Rice's novels.

The Bronte Sisters

The Brontes may not be immediately associated with mystery, but the gothic form, according to study leader Carol Kent, is "the most enduring influence on mystery." And Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, is, of course, a pure piece of gothic fiction. So today, we were off to Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage, where the Bronte sisters lived, beginning in 1820. There, we met with author Robert Barnard (above at the parsonage), a prolific mystery writer as well as president of the Bronte Trust. Barnard gave us a tour of the Bronte house, and later a tour of The Red House, owned by friends of Charlotte and immortalized in her novel Shirley. It was a double bonus: one of Britain's most-known authors and a Bronte expert! Barnard has a wicked sense of humor -- I recommend his Death by Sheer Torture and The Case of the Missing Bronte, but Barnard has more than 40 books -- so plenty to choose from.

It was also our second pub lunch on the tour -- and I must mention it because it was at the Old Silent -- the namesake of Martha Grimes' novel The Old Silent. And one mystery solved for me: Yorkshire pudding is not a pudding (in the American sense, at least), but it is still quite good!

The mystery of Yorkshire

Where better than the United Kingdom to immerse yourself in mysteries? As part of the Smithsonian's Mystery Lover's England and Scotland tour, I'm doing just that -- getting quite the literary education while visiting some of the most beautiful countryside anywhere. Our base for now if the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate (North Yorkshire), a turn-of-the-century grand spa hotel.

Study leader Carol Kent, a former Georgetown University professor, has presented us with first-rate classes on gothic literature (think horror, the supernatural, a brooding atmosphere and the macabre) and how some modern authors "defang" the gothic by turning it on its head (authors Robert Barnard, Reginald Hill).

We've had some wonderful guest speakers as well -- authors Staurt Pawson, Ann Cleeves and Martin Edwards formed a panel on why the North of England is so hospitable to mysteries. For Cleeves, one explanation is that the south has become populated by wealthy newcomers who don't spend their time peeking out windows to see what their neighbors are doing. But in the north, there's more seclusion -- and more noisy neighbors. The landscape helps as well -- the moors and dales of Yorkshire have been inspiring writers since the Bronte sisters.

Cleeves and Martin have novels coming out soon -- watch for them! And if you aren't a Pawson fan yet, his Insp. Charlie Priest is one of the best characters today in detective fiction.

Ian Rankin talks about the new Rebus novel

August 2007

Death in the Truffle Wood by Pierre Magnan
Protagonist: Commissaire Laviolette
Setting: The village of Banon, Provence, France
Rating: 4.5
I might have read this book for the quirkly title alone, but I also received a few recommendations. Written in 1978, it was finally translated into English in 2005, and is a quick, fun read. In Banon, passing hippies start to disappear -- and then show up dead. It's a real whodunnit, and the characters are as quirky as the title -- after all, a truffle-sniffing pig has a major plot role!

S is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Protagonist: Kinsey Millhone
Setting: Santa Maria, Calif.
Rating: 4.7
Grafton's best, the story bounces back and forth between Kinsey's investigation and the actual events surrounding a disappearance, possible murder. Kinsey is asked to solve a woman's sudden disappearance, 34 years later. What she finds is a string of heartbreaking secrets.

The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid
Protagonist: Jane Gresham
Setting: Lake District, England
Rating: 4.0
Jane Gresham, a Wordsworth scholar, is on a hunt for a missing poem and the answer to a long-ago mystery involving an HMS Bounty mutineer. Those who might know the whereabouts of the poem suddenly start dying before Gresham can get answers. I like McDermid's writing and the plot sounded promising, but I was disappointed -- too many characters, a bit choppy and way too melodramatic. And the worse, a predictable ending.

In the Woods by Tana French
Protagonist: Adam Robert Ryan
Setting: Knocknaree, Ireland
Rating: 4.3
Three children go into the woods to play, but only one returns. The other two have gone missing and the surviving child has no memory of what's happened to them. This child grows up to become detective. One day, a young girl is slain in the same woods. With his partner Cassie, Ryan, now a murder squad detective, tries to unravel the strange case. This has a very bleak ending, and one that was ultimately unsatisfying. Until then, I was hooked -- great characters, very well-written. But the ending spoiled what had been a great read.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (audio).
Progatonist: Harry Potter
Setting: Hogswart
Rating: 4.5
As usual, Rowling doesn't disappoint. Harry, growing up, has his first kiss, but also has the bitter experience of seeing a loved one die. The book, much darker than previous ones, is obviously setting up the final two books.

In preparation for trip to northern England and Scotland, some classic gothic literature: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Dracula by Bram Stoker, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

July 2007

I've not had much time this month to read fiction, but still some interesting books:


The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times makes an interesting argument on why globalization and outsourcing is good for the United States, using ancedotes and interviews with today's business leaders. But he also makes the point that the U.S. has to step up to challenges today, writing, “In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears – and that is our problem.”

The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyer
All over the country, newspapers are slashing staff and closing bureaus as they try to maintain high profit margins. Is this the best solution for newspapers? Meyer offers a business model for papers, and writes that, first and foremost, newspapers must continue to preserve quality. For anyone interested in the future of newspapers, this is a must-read.

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business by John Battelle
An interesting look not only at the history of Google, but also what factors led it to become the behemoth it is. Also, an explanation of how search is impacting marketing and news.

For a change of pace now:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (audio)
Protagonist: Harry Potter
Setting: Hogswart Academy
Rating: 4.6
"Oh, you have a fine on this," the librarian tells me when I finally return it. OK, but it was a rather long book (and I hear the books that follow it are even longer!). This is the fourth in a series, and much darker than the first three. I read the first three years ago, but with the series coming to an end, now is the time to jump back into the books. Sure, it's a children's / teen book, but don't we all wish we could have gone to Hogswart?

Bleeding Hearts by Ian Rankin
Protagonist: Michael Weston
Setting: London, Edinburgh, U.S. (from NYC to Seattle)
Rating: 3.5
Rankin is one of my favorites, but this book didn't capture me the way his Rebus series does. In fact, I found it very hard to finish. It's told from the point of view of a hired killer, Michael Weston. No matter how nice the guy, it's hard to sympathize with someone who kills people for a living. Premise: Weston is anonymously hired to kill a TV reporter, but a series of events after the killing lead him to try to find out who hired him -- and why. It eventually leads him to a cult in Seattle, with a private detective, Hoffer, hot on his trail. In a twist, Hoffer has been hired not only to find Weston, but to kill him. Ultimately, there is a confrontation.


Christine Falls by Benjamin Black (pen name for John Banville)
Read on audio by actor Timothy Dalton
Protagonist: Quirke Griffin
Setting: Dublin to Boston, in the 1950s
Rating: 4.0
The first in the Quirke series, this is more a novel of family secrets than a detective story. When Quirke, a hard-drinking pathologist, finds his brother-in-law changing the file of a dead woman, he becomes almost compulsive in finding out what is going on -- and in the process uncovers far more.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (audio)
Protagonist: Kathy H.
Setting: Hailsham school, somewhere in England, in the 1990s
Rating: 3.8
This is a slow-moving book, set in a typical English school. Except the students aren't typical -- they are clones, being raised solely to donate organs when they become adults. NPR reviewer Maureen Corrigan said of this book that it "takes time to settle in a reader's mind" and that's exactly how I feel (and have felt about previous Ishiguro books). It took me a while to decide that, yes, this is a good book, but while I was reading it, it made me feel uncomfortable -- or unsettled. Now that it's settled in my mind, as Corrigan says, I can say that it's a worthwhile read.

June 2007

Death by Sheer Torture by Robert Barnard
Protagonist: Insp. Perry Trethowan
Setting: Northumberland, England
Rating: 4.8
A real whodunnit with a sarcastic edge. How can you not like a book where the detective, in an aside to the reader, says: "Look, I won't tell you anything more about that damned risotto. I don't need to be accused of writing gastronomic pornography." Perry has the ultimate dysfunctional family -- his estranged father is found dead on a torture machine, wearing spangled tights, no less. While Perry doesn't want to go back, his boss insists, and soon he's back at the old family mansion. The killer's identity is obvious -- but only after Perry explains it all. Robert Barnard is a recent find -- a real treat.

Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton (audio)
Protagonist: Kinsey Millhone
Setting: Santa Teresa and Lompoc, Calif.
Rating: 4.6
Kinsey teams up with a retired detective and an old, ailing detective on a cold case murder -- trying to find the identity of a teenaged girl who was killed. It's as much about the case as about her relationship with these two old detectives. A departure for Kinsey, and another in an outstanding series by Grafton.

R is for Richochet by Sue Grafton (audio)
Protagonist: Kinsey Millhone
Setting: Santa Teresa
Rating: 4.4
After the excellent Q, this one fell a few notches, especially because I couldn't believe that Kinsey would let herself be led around by a woman just out of jail.



The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Beynon Rees
Protagonist: Omar Yussef
Setting: Bethlehem
Rating: 4.9
This has been one of the best novels I've read this year. In this, Rees, in his first novel, has created the unlikely detective of Omar Yussef, a frail, elderly schoolteacher. When one of his former and best students is falsely accused of being an Israeli collaborator, Yussef sets out to find who the real collaborator is, in hopes of clearing his student. This is a book based on the very real violence in the Mideast (Rees was Jerusalem bureau chief for Time magazine) and it can be quite chilling -- in a way that most thrillers are not. This is a powerful book, and I'm glad to say Rees is making this a series.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Protagonist: Judas (Jude) Coyne
Setting: Upstate New York to Louisiana
Rating: 4.7
It's been a long, long time since I was an avid Stephen King reader, and I wasn't expecting much when someone pressed this book into my hands -- written by King's son. But this book hooked me right away -- it's one of those that are hard to put down. A ghost story / thriller (with a little mystery thrown in), it reminds me a bit of Stephen King, but Hill definitely has his own style. Try it -- you might like it!

May 2007

Baby Shark by Robert Fate
Protagonist: Kristin Van Dijk (aka Baby Shark)
Setting: Texas in the 1950s
Rating: 4.7
Reviewer after reviewer has called Fate's Baby Shark an amazing debut. It sounded overblown, and given the subject matter, I wasn't sure I'd like this book. But let me say -- it will definitely be among my top 10 reads for the year. Fate has created a one-of-a-kind protagonist, the 17-year-old Kristin, half-woman, half-child. One night, in a pool hall, a motorcycle gang kills Kristin's father and brutally rapes and beats Kristin, leaving her for dead. The pool hall owner, Henry, whose own son has been killed, saves Kristin and helps her become Baby Shark, a pool hustler out for revenge. This book will draw you in and, before you know it, you'll have reached the end. Fortunately for us, Fate has already given us a second book, Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues, and a third book is in the works.


Recalled to Life by Reginald Hill
Protagonists: Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe
Setting: Yorkshire, England
Rating: 4.6
Dalziel and Pascoe unofficially investigate a 30-year-old crime, one which sends Dalziel to New York City, where he tangles with burglars, shifty women and New York cab drivers. A great spin to a "golden age" mystery. These two detectives are wonderfully written, and yet the plot doesn't take a back seat to the characterizations, as often happens in some books. Until the very end, the truth is hard to suss out -- and then, after the reader thinks the mystery is solved, there's another neat twist. Definitely one of the better mystery authors writing today.

The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin
Protagonist: Jim Stringer
Setting: England, 1903
Rating: 3.5
If you love to read about railways and their history, this is a book for you. If, like me, that isn't of such great interest, then this is still a pretty good little mystery. I have to admit, though, the book was heavy on railway lore and I found myself skimming over parts of it. The author based his novel on the real-life London Necroplis Cemetery, which ran funeral trains from Waterloo to Brookwood Cemetery from 1854 to 1941. In this novel, young Jim Stringer moves to London to become a railway man and finds that the man he's replaced recently disappeared. After a few more deaths, his life is suddenly in jeopardy, too.


The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (audio)
Protagonist: Margaret Lea and Vida Waters
Setting: Yorkshire, England
Rating: 4.8
Setterfield's first novel is one of gothic suspense that moves back and forth between the present and the past, as aging author Vida Waters commissions Margaret Lea to write her biography. Waters has never told the truth to any of the journalists who have interviewed her, so Margaret is understandably hesitant. But slowly, secrets are revealed, and mysteries solved.

P is for Peril by Sue Grafton (audio)
Protagonist: Kinsey Millhone
Setting: Santa Teresa, Calif.
Rating: 4.2
Fortunately, Grafton's books just keep getting better. Here, Kinsey is hired to find a man who has disappeared -- not by his wife, but by his ex-wife. She solves the disappearance long before the book's end, but still has a few more mysteries to figure out, one involving her soon-to-be new office landlords. There's enough double-crosses and red herrings in this one to keep it very interesting.


The Torso by Helene Tursten
Protagonist: Det. Insp. Irene Huss
Setting: Gotenburg, Sweden, and Amsterdam
Rating: 3.5
A body found near the seashore is so mutilated that police can't even tell the gender. But through a tattoo, detectives in Sweden piece together the killer's identity -- and soon determine that other murders are linked. The language in this book is quite stilted (although that may be due to the translation) and some of the scenes were a little too gruesome for my taste, but the main characters are interesting, and the author does a great job of incorporating family life, giving the reader some lightness in what would have otherwise been a very dark book. A series I would continue reading.

The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori by Robert Barnard
Protagonist: Det. Constable Charlie Pearce and Det. Supt. Mike Oddie
Setting: Haworth, Yorkshire, England
Rating: 4.5
A young man is found dead in the Indian Tandoori restaurant parking lot. Then the story switches back in time and we meet Declan O'Hearn, who had been hired to help an aging artist. Declan has a feeling something sinister is afoot, and then he suddenly disappears. Is he the dead man in the parking lot? A great mystery, in the tradition of Agatha Christie.

Barrel Fever by David Sedaris (short stories)
Rating: 4.0
When he's good, Sedaris' warped humor is hilarious (as in the "Santaland Diaries," based on his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's). Unfortunately, some of his other stories just sort of fall flat.

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: Pretty good
3.0: Eh, mediocre
2.0: Pretty Bad
DNF: Did not finish

Jill McGown

Jill McGown, who wrote a series with two great characters, Lloyd and Judy, has passed away. Julia Buckley has more in her blog.

Seems like in the past few weeks we've had several notable deaths: Kurt Vonnegut and Michael Dibdin, who wrote the Aurelio Zen series. Sad to think we'll no longer see new books from these authors.

April 2007

The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill
Protagonists: Chief Insp. Simon Serrailler and Sgt. Freya Graffham
Setting: Lafferton, England
Rating: 4.7
A woman vanishes in an area known as "the Hill." Freya uncovers other cases of missing people and the police soon have what appears to be a serial killer -- although no bodies. This is the first of the Simon Serrailler series, although this book is mostly told through Freya's eyes -- we even get to know Serrailler through the lovestruck Freya. Very much character-driven, the novel takes its time setting up the story -- and then hits you with a shocking ending.

The Mosaic Crimes by Giulio Leoni
Protagonist: Dante Alighieri
Setting: Florence in 1300
Rating: 2.5
An interesting premise: Dante Alighieri, as prior of Florence, solves two murders (the story opens with a mosaic artist killed inside a church, his face covered in quicklime). However, the author seems more interested in showing off his knowledge of Dante and Florence during the 1300s than in crafting a good mystery. As much as I like Florence, this book could have been trimmed by half (at least!).

O is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton (audio)
Protagonist: Kinsey Millhone
Setting: Santa Teresa, Calif.
Rating: 4.4
Kinsey's ex-husband is in a coma, shot with an old gun that had belonged to Kinsey. Kinsey picks up his investigation where he left off. Very nicely written, with a mix of humor (Kinsey getting a tarot card reading!), mystery and a bittersweet look at the past. One of Grafton's best so far.


What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
Protagonists: Det. Infante, Det. Porter
Setting: Baltimore
Rating: 4.9
Thirty years ago, two young sisters were kidnapped. Now a woman turns up claiming to be one of the sisters, but is she really? The story moves back and forth in time, drawing us into the girls' family. Great characters, great plotting and great resolution. Lippman has been getting rave reviews, and now I see why.

Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell
Protagonists: Wexford and Burden
Setting: Kingsmarkham
Rating: 4.7
Second in this series. A young woman is missing and a murder may have been commited in a room that is rented out by the hour. But there's no body and the only clue is a name. Excellent use of solid detective work, with a nice twist at the end.

Killjoy by Ann Cleeves
Protagonist: Insp. Stephen Ramsay
Setting: Hallowgate, England
Rating: 3.5
A young woman is killed during rehearsals at a community theater. Investigating, Insp. Ramsay runs into an old flame. Wish I could have liked this one better, but the characters were a bit flat and uninteresting.

Sea Fever by Ann Cleeves
Protagonist: George and Molly Palmer-Jones
Setting: Porthkennan, England
Rating: 4.0
Palmer-Jones and his wife board the Jessie Ellen along with other birdwatchers on a mission to persuade Greg Franks to visit his family. But as the fanatical birdwatchers are excitedly discovering a seabird never recorded before, someone is murdering Franks. Great mystery. This time around, really engaging characters.


In a Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming (audio)
Protagonists: Rev. Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne
Setting: Millers Kill in upstate NY
Rating: 4.3
First in the series. Having read the most recent in the series and knowing where it's headed, this was still a good read -- for the characters. Plot was OK, although a tad long in some places. Highly recommend reading this series -- in order!

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: Pretty good
3.0: Eh, mediocre
2.0: Pretty Bad
DNF: Did not finish