This is my first Bailey Weggins mystery! Bailey is a fun character — a true-crime journalist, based in Manhattan, writing for a celebrity magazine and getting seriously involved with a hot new boyfriend. There’s all kinds of material there for fun stories, and Kate White delivers the goods in So Pretty It Hurts
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
This is the story of Jacob Portman, an unremarkable young man with a very remarkable grandfather. All through his childhood, Grandpa Portman told the most wonderful stories of his childhood — in particular, of his time on a magical island full of the most unusual children. There was a girl who could fly. There was a young boy who could lift boulders over his head and all sorts of children with peculiar skills and talents. The island itself was like a paradise, always sunny, always beautiful, and the children played and lived happily ever after. [Read more →]
There is something I find really intriguing, at least in novels, about a female criminal. Their motivations seem so different from most male criminals — it never seems to be just about greed or power. It’s something more subtle. In The Face Thief
There are a number of things about In Search of the Rose Notes
When Nora and Charlotte were eleven years old, they were best friends. They made plans for their around-the-world trip when they got out of high school. They did their schoolwork together. They played the elaborate games that kids dream up together. And they spent their afternoons with Rose, Charlotte’s babysitter, until one day, Rose walked out of their lives and out of the world. [Read more →]
Every now and then, the hype surrounding a book does not lie. That is certainly the case with Defending Jacob by William Landay. I had been hearing a lot of buzz about this one, but I was a little late on the Request button and didn’t get my copy right away. Once I picked it up, I could hardly stand to put it down.
Defending Jacob
“In April 2008, Neal Logiudice finally subpoenaed me to appear before the grand jury. By then, it was too late. Too late for his case, certainly, but also too late for Logiudice. His reputation was already damaged beyond repair, and his career along with it.” [Read more →]
Contemplating this review, I started off thinking that This Burns My Heart has all the hallmarks of great historical fiction. It takes place in an exotic location (South Korea) in an interesting time period (1960s). It has an ambitious female protagonist, Soo-Ja Choi, who wants to do great things. There is plenty of conflict for Soo-Ja — with her parents, her culture, her husband. The world outside South Korea is changing rapidly, while her culture seems mired in the past, smothering her. But after three attempts to read the book and 175 pages, I just found myself asking, “so what?” [Read more →]
I think this is the first time that reading a book has made me want to watch a tv show.
I’ve read books and wanted to see them made into movies, but I don’t normally watch a lot of television. Still, I might have to make an exception for Justified, the show based around Raylan Givens. Givens appears in Riding the Rap
Raylan Givens is a former coal miner, now a U.S. Marshal. You get the distinct impression that Givens is not quickly climbing the career ladder at the Marshal service — he seems a bit too out-spoken and he has a tendency to go off in his own direction, rather than following directions he’s been given. He gets good results, especially since he’s assigned to his old stomping grounds:
“The troopers got a kick out of this marshal, at one time a coal miner from Harlan County but sounded like a lawman, his attitude about his job. This morning, they watched him enter a fugitive felon’s motel room without drawing his gun.” [Read more →]
The Mirage
“11/9/2001: Christian fundamentalists hijack four jetliners. They fly two into the Tigris and Euphrates Word Trade Towers in Baghdad, and a third into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh. The fourth plane, believed to be bound for Mecca, is brought down by its passengers.”
What if America was the rogue terrorist nation and the Arab states were the world power? What if Osama bin Laden was a war hero and Dick Cheney was a terrorist? What would an Arab superpower look like? And what if none of it was real? [Read more →]
“The universe is not made up of atoms; it’s made up of tiny stories.”
It’s a great beginning to a very tiny book. The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1
Actually, the great beginning was the end paper. It’s full of tiny drawings and all the detail and work that went into it are just amazing.
Then, there are the stories — they are truly tiny. Maybe a sentence or two, with a drawing to go with them. They are sad and funny and wonderful. [Read more →]
This was a fun read. When it comes to the backside of Hollywood, you have to admit that Cheryl Crane, daughter of screen legend Lana Turner, really knows her stuff. The Bad Always Die Twice
Nikki Harper is a Hollywood real estate agent, selling those megamillion dollar mansions in the hills with her partner, Jessica Martin. They are young, pretty, celebrity-savvy girls:
“One of Jessica’s most endearing qualities was that she wasn’t any more impressed by celebrities than Nikki was. Their only difference was that Nikki had grown up with them and Jessica slept with them. The combination of their personalities made them a great team at work.”
Sort of sets the tone for their interaction. Jessica is the pretty, flashy girl who flirts with the gentlemen clients and reels them in. Nikki is less flashy, with a more understated style, and the Hollywood chops to make the deals. And when Jessica is accused of murder, Nikki puts those Tinseltown connections to work. [Read more →]
When I heard the news of Robert B. Parker’s passing, I was heartbroken. I have been reading his Spenser novels for ages and the thought there would be no more of them — too much to contemplate. Sixkill
In Sixkill, Spenser is older and wiser and without his usual back-up, Hawk, who is off in Central Asia. We start off with a visit from our old friend, Martin Quirk, who wants Spenser to look into a murder. A particularly nasty piece of work named Jumbo Nelson is shooting a movie in Boston and has apparently murdered a young woman he hooked up with. At least, she died in his bed, the coroner isn’t quite sure of what, and he claims to have been barely sober enough to notice she was dead when he came back from taking a leak. Like I said, nasty fella. As much as everyone wants to put him away, Quirk isn’t sure, and Spenser trusts Quirk’s instincts. [Read more →]
To be honest, when I started Other People’s Money
Sir Harry Trevelyan-Tubal has been the head of Tubal & Co., a small privately-owned bank in England, for decades. The bank is in trouble. His son, Julian, was suckered in, like so many financiers, and now the bank is sunk deep in worthless mortgages and complex financial instruments that he barely understands. His father always said he wanted to run a bank, not a casino, but his son gambled and lost. Now Julian will need some fancy footwork — and shady dealing — to keep the bank solvent. [Read more →]
Anyone who reads here regularly will know that I love mysteries. One of the keys to a good mystery series is that it should be accessible — if I haven’t read anything of yours before, I should be able to walk into the series, no matter which book I choose. So when I learned that Black Thunder
Black Thunder takes place on the Navajo reservation (“the Rez”) in New Mexico. One of the most interesting things about the book is the setting and the restrictions it places on Clah’s police work. How can you discuss the suspects in a case when the Navajos avoid using a person’s name? How do you interrogate someone when you have to wait in your car to be invited to their door? It’s a very different way of dealing with people and it was fascinating to see the way that Clah and the other detectives adapted their methods. [Read more →]
Well, I have found my new detective obsession. I love good detective fiction and I love my handsome detectives, but I am an equal opportunity fan and Keye Street is my new best girl. The Stranger You Seek
Keye Street is a terrific character. She’s a private detective with a sordid past, living in Atlanta, Georgia. She’s Chinese; she was adopted by the Streets when she was just a toddler. She didn’t come from a great background:
“I wasn’t emotionally devastated by the fact that they’d given me up. They did it because they were incapable of caring for a child. I mean, with the prostitution and stripping and drugs and all, they were really busy. I guess I was a little pissed that I’d grown up on cheese grits and gravy…but generally I have been incredibly blessed by their handing over their child.” [Read more →]
I was very excited to receive this collection of stories. This is the third Ellen Datlow collection I’ve read, the second that I’ve reviewed, and I think she does a great job of choosing really interesting stories that all play to a theme. Blood and Other Cravings
I was really looking forward to reading this book! From the minute it arrived, it sat on the shelf, in the To Be Read pile, and whispered to me every time I walked by. You could tell by the cover that it was going to be racy. There was also the subtitle, “A Novel of Sex & Violence”, to give you a clue. And the publisher — Hard Case Crime. Doesn’t that just sound like it’s going to be a great book? And Lawrence Block’s Getting Off
This is a novel about a female serial killer, but a woman so interesting that sometimes you forget just what she is. She picks up men in bars, takes them home and has sex with them, then she drugs them and kills them. She takes their money, their credit cards, whatever she needs to pay her bills. When she gets bored, she moves on — new city, new neighborhood, new name. She’s been doing some version of that since she left home (and believe me, her leaving home was a story in itself). [Read more →]
You start out feeling very sorry for Lucian Glass. He’s late picking up his girlfriend; she ends up dead. He meets with an important witness; he gets bashed over the head and the witness ends up dead. He has nightmares, compulsions, crippling headaches. But what if it is all his fault? What if this is all related to his past…his past lives.
In The Hypnotist
In a sense, The Woodcutter
Wolf Hadda is a successful businessman who describes his life as a fairy tale. His father was a woodcutter, the groundskeeper for a castle, and he grew up in a cabin in the woods. He fell in love with the daughter of the castle’s owner and eventually won her hand. But everything changes when he is accused of a shocking crime and gets swept up in accusations and investigations. In typical Wolf fashion, he doesn’t wait for the wheels of justice to grind him up. In a bid for freedom (more stubborn than desperate), there is an horrific accident that leaves Wolf crippled, disfigured, and near death. He wakes up to a world in which his friends have deserted him, his wife is divorcing him and he has been all but convicted of child pornography. His fairy tale is over. [Read more →]
Well, the title is a little longer than that, but you get the general idea.
Fabulous Finds: How Expert Appraiser Lee Drexler Sold Wall Street’s Charging Bull, Found Hidden Treasures and Mingled with the Rich & Famous
It’s Christmas Eve and Vera Coffey is on the run. What she brings to the little town of American Rapids is certainly not holiday cheer. She has something with her, and the people following her will do anything to get it back.
In Pitch Dark
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