CA Reviews

Plan Bee - Hannah Reed

2012-01-23T21:57:00.000-08:00

Plan Bee

A Queen Bee Mystery
Hannah Reed
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

It’s time for the Harmony Festival in tiny Moraine, WI, but life is hardly harmonious. Story Fischer, who owns The Wild Clover grocery store, is coming to realize that employing your family members brings its own set of complications. Her friend, neophyte beekeeper Stanley Peck, has his twelve-year-old grandson, Noel, staying for a visit. Noel is rocking the town, far too literally. He just might be a genius. Unfortunately for everyone else, his current obsession is with explosive devices of his own design. And Story has a new neighbor who just took up residence in her ex-husband’s house. Ordinarily, that might be a good thing. But the new guy, Ford, looks more than a little sketchy. He’s moved in with a bedroll and camp chair and says he’s only there for the weekend.

After a long day, Story is taking a shortcut through the cemetery when she stumbles over a body. This is shocking because the body in question is above-ground. Story leaves the cemetery and calls the police, but neglects to remove the garbage bag obscuring the face. When the police chief, Johnny Jay, arrives, the body is gone. Johnny Jay and Story, like just about everyone else in town, have history stretching back to childhood. In this case, it’s not pleasant. Johnny Jay doesn’t believe Story and, due to this and previous events, declares that no emergency response will be dispatched when Story calls in the future. This hardly seems fair (or legal) to Story, but small towns run in their own ways. It’s also unfortunate, since, not long after, Story discovers what she assumes is the same dead body. It’s Ford. This time, in her ex-husband’s house. Stuffed in the fireplace, no less.

This is the third in an ongoing series that started with BUZZ OFF and continued in MIND YOUR OWN BEESWAX. New readers will have no problems jumping in at this point, as the author is quite good at encapsulating characters and previous events. This time, the bees don’t really enter things much, but that doesn’t stop Story from launching her own investigation. She has a very good reason: the main suspect is dating her widowed mother, so finding the killer matters to her, on a very personal level.

The eccentric – and possibly unbalanced – neighbor, Patti is given a much larger role in this installment. That’s not really a good thing, from my point of view. Patti is a woman who openly uses a telescope to follow the comings and goings in the town. My personal tolerance for ‘zany’ is quite low, so bear that in mind as you continue reading. She tags along for parts of Story’s investigation, going so far as to kidnap and beat a suspect while asking questions. The fact that Story goes along with this bizarre behavior is odd, to say the least. I’m hoping this is not a new character arc for Story.

The plot is interesting, and there’s an interesting twist, but the outcome isn’t a huge surprise. The problem inherent in writing a series of mysteries set in a small town, I suppose, is that it’s the ‘outside’ people who make for the most likely victims and suspects. An author can’t just go through the town, knocking off each character in turn and sending another one to prison for the crime. Still, fans of cozies and amateur sleuths will find a lot to enjoy here. Tips and recipes for honey concoctions round out the book.

Rating: 6 ½
January 2012
ISBN# 978-0-425-24621-4 (paperback)

Earthbound - Joe Haldeman

2012-01-17T22:03:00.000-08:00

Earthbound

Joe Haldeman
Ace

Science Fiction

This is the third in a series that began with MARSBOUND and STARBOUND. If you haven’t read the first two novels, you’ve missed some great scifi. And you’re also going to be unavoidably spoiled by this review.

This novel begins directly after the events of STARBOUND. Carmen Dula and her pilot husband Paul, are back on Earth after a unique trip to the stars where they met and spoke with a race called the Others. The Others are completely alien to us. Their motivations and goals are virtually unknowable. Possibly immortal, the Others set plans for centuries or millennia into the future. They’ve told the humans, in no uncertain terms, to stop space exploration; to stop interstellar travel or face dire consequences.

Predictably, the military begins to construct a defensive space fleet. During a launch, the Others make good on their threat. They turn off the power, worldwide. Nothing electrical or better works. The Others effectively return Earth to a nineteenth-century existence. This means that billions will die. Most of them will die from starvation when food cannot be grown, harvested, and transported (gas-powered vehicles are a rarity) to them. Many more will die off when life-saving technology simply stops working.

Carmen, Paul, and the rest of the participants in the journey to meet the Others are stranded on Earth with little to no food, water, or weapons to survive the coming years. Survival from day to day is paramount; after that, planning for a future no one expected.

Their struggles on the ground seem pretty realistic. They each bring a certain amount of scientific or local or psychological knowledge to the table. There are other groups of people roaming the land (the world, one assumes) who are of the ‘kill the competition and take their resources’ mind-set. The story becomes an almost post-apocalypse type of road trip. It could be read that way, if the reader is starting with this volume. But that’s really selling the story – and the characters – short. Due to space travel and time relativity, these people have spent decades together, for better or worse. Their collective background adds a real resonance to their current situation. My only real quibble is that the ending feels a bit rushed. But that’s probably because I would have been happy to read another three novels with these characters.

This is a great series for fans of scifi, and also for newcomers to the genre. It’s a story that clearly spans Earth, Mars, and what lies beyond our own galaxy; but the story and events are truly driven by the characters and how they interact over time. Highly recommended.

Rating: 9
December 2012
ISBN# 978-0-441-02095-9 (hardcover)

Cemetery Girl - David Bell

2011-11-21T23:52:00.000-08:00

Cemetery Girl

David Bell
New American Library

Crime Fiction

Four years ago, when she was only twelve, Caitlin disappeared. She went out to walk the dog in the park that borders a cemetery near her home. The dog came home, but Caitlin didn’t. The police investigated, but seemed to suspect that she might have run away. Her parents, Tom and Abby, were left to pick up the pieces of what had been their life together. As is often the case, a rift opened in the marriage and only got wider and deeper over time. Abby feels that it’s time to move on, to “turn the page” in life, regarding Caitlin. Tom disagrees; feeling that this is tantamount to giving up hope on their only daughter.

During the four years, Tom continued to post flyers with age-progressed photos. He’s worked with a lawyer and advocate for victims of crime. He’s followed every lead and listened to every theory. He contacts the police with every lead. Finally, a woman comes forward with a story of seeing Caitlin. According to her, Caitlin has been in the area the entire time. Part of Tom refuses to believe that, but he would do anything, go anywhere, to get her home. When that day comes – when the police deliver Caitlin back to her parents – she’s not just four years older. She’s like a different person. Tom thought that simply having her back alive would be enough. Now that it’s happened, he realizes that simply having her isn’t enough. He wants to know “what happened” during those four years.

This is a difficult book to read, for multiple reasons. First, and most obviously, because it involves a child. Each parent has a completely different point of view, and neither one is wrong. Abby finds comfort in her church; Tom occupies himself with the search. Abby wants to place a grave marker as a sign of closure. Tom hates the idea, since it seems like admitting defeat. Abby has the backing of her pastor; Tom has the backing of his half-brother, who was himself a suspect in Caitlin’s disappearance. Once Caitlin is home, Tom still wants to know the truth. Abby wants to put it all behind them. They both have their child's best interest at heart, but cannot find a middle ground.

Of course, as the reader sees long before Tom does, that truth is going to come at a steep price. There’s no good answer to why the child was missing for four years. It’s going to involve some kind of violence. But Tom won’t let it go. Even when the police and everyone around him want him to, he continues his quest. Even when Caitlin, a virtual stranger now, demands that he not ask her about her time away, he can’t help himself. The author tells the story through Tom’s eyes, and while he’s not infallible, he seems like a living, breathing person with a past, hopes for a future, and an almost impossible present. There are no easy answers, and not much possibility of a happy ending here. Still, it is a compelling read for those who enjoy crime fiction. I missed out on some sleep just to find out “what happened.”

Rating: 9
October 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23467-4 (trade paperback)

Success Secrest of Sherlock Holmes - David Acord

2011-11-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

Success Secrets Of Sherlock Holmes

Life Lessons from the Master Detective
David Acord
Perigee

Nonfiction/Self-Help

As the author states, up front, you don’t need to know anything at all about Sherlock Holmes in order to read or understand this book. Which begs the question: why would you read the book if you didn’t know Holmes? But that’s a small quibble, I suppose, really. Just something I couldn’t help wondering.

This book takes the major traits of Sherlock Holmes (and some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, his creator) and uses them as examples of how to succeed in life. There are chapters devoted to such things as attention to detail, finding your passion in life, and taking credit where credit is due. All characteristics well known to fans of Holmes.

For fans, this is an interesting way to look at Holmes; as a sort of Successful Person Template. There are a few quotes and excerpts from various stories, and a couple of spoilers for the uninitiated. Whatever your interest, this is a very fast read. Chapters can be read out of order, since they’re all basically stand-alone concepts. I’m honestly not a huge fan of self-help books, but I do love Holmes and his partner, Watson. If you’re a fan and someone looking to improve some aspect of your life, it’s worth a look. And if you’re not yet a fan, and this leads you to read some of the best detective fiction ever written, so much the better.

Rating: 5
November 2011
ISBN# 978-0-399-53698-4 (trade paperback)

At The End Of The Road - Grant Jerkins

2011-11-17T06:32:00.000-08:00

At The End Of The Road

Grant Jerkins

Berkley Prime Crime

Crime Fiction

It all starts with an innocent mistake: a ten-year-old boy, riding his bike down the country road near his home, watching the plume of dust that rises behind him. Coming the other way is a young woman, a little bit late, driving a little too fast, who sees the boy only at the last moment. She’s able to swerve enough to miss him. Both are completely shocked. She’s injured and in need of help; he’s a terrified child with absolutely no idea of what to do about it.

The boy walks up his driveway to his home and, not knowing how to tell his mother what happened, he simply waits for the bloody woman from the car to knock on the front door. But she doesn’t. He’s sure she followed him up the driveway. When he ventures out later, there’s no car and no woman. As only a child could do, he mostly convinces himself that it was some kind of dream. It almost works, until a deputy arrives at the door, looking for a missing woman.

This amazing novel is the story of the summer of 1976, when Kyle Edwards turned ten and narrowly avoided what would have been a fatal accident. It’s also the story of how that one event ripples outward until it seeps into the lives of everyone along that road, changing them in fundamental ways. In some ways, it’s a coming-of-age story. It’s the last summer of innocence before Kyle realizes that evil things can happen, and to him; before he sees that even his family can be divided by divorce. There are scenes that play out in every family, as his two older brothers attempt to separate themselves from the younger Kyle. Playing in the cornfield next to the house with Grace, his seven-year-old sister who wants nothing so much as to be Wonder Woman and Kyle’s best friend. Times of resenting being forced to play with his little sister, and times of breathtaking sweetness when they understand each other like no one else ever could.

Part of being a child is the belief in fairy tales. Mama says to be good or Soap Sally (a local bogeyman) will get you. When the neighbor across the road, the man who was a church deacon, has a stroke and comes home in an electric wheelchair, it’s reasonable – to a kid – to think he’s some kind of monster, too. He’s different, therefore scary. Each little event dovetails into the next, just as in life. Once you get a good piece down the road, you may look back and wonder at how you started at A and ended up at G. This novel, by an incredibly talented author, is about filling in just want happened between points A and G, and continues, in some cases on to point Z. Not a good choice for cozy fans, obviously, but readers who can take a dark, rather bleak look at events will find a story that allows you to inhabit its expertly-drawn world, observing how one action can touch the lives of many. My best advice before you begin reading is to get comfortable. I read this in one sitting, but I’m sure I’ll be thinking and talking about it for days.

Rating: 9

November 2011

ISBN# 978-0-425-24334-3 (trade paperback)

Hickory Smoked Homicide - Riley Adams

2011-11-16T23:09:00.000-08:00

Hickory Smoked Homicide

A Memphis BBQ Mystery
Riley Adams
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

It seems that almost everyone who knew her had a reason to want Tristan Pembroke dead. She was running the family business into the ground, angering her sister. As a pageant coach and judge, she was apparently known to be biased and dealing in ‘insider information.’ (Pageants are serious business in Memphis.) She had an affair with a married man, then dumped him, angering both the man and his wife. She was verbally and emotionally abusive to her only daughter, Steffi. And she’d commissioned a portrait of herself, only to refuse to pay for it.

The painter was Sara, daughter-in-law to Lulu Taylor, the owner of Aunt Pat’s, a bbq restaurant and local institution. When Tristan ends up dead at the end of her charity art auction event, Sara is the most likely suspect. The two women had a fairly public to-do about the portrait, after all. But Lulu knows that Sara had nothing to do with it. The problem is, there were so many people there that night, and so many of them had a reason to kill Tristan, that it’s hard pick out just one. The police seem to be having the same problem, so, with the assistance of her good friend, Cherry, Lulu decides to investigate another murder.

This is the third in this entertaining series, following DELICIOUS AND SUSPICIOUS and FINGER LICKIN’ DEAD. It’s probably the most well-crafted and convoluted of the plots so far, which makes it the most interesting. Many different credible suspects from several different walks of life make for a lively mystery. Many regular characters appear, as well, making Lulu’s corner of Memphis feel a lot like a small town. Obviously, a huge part of Southern culture is based around food, so there’s a lot of eating and several recipes included at the end.

Rating: 7 ½
November 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24460-9

Blood Rules - Christine Cody

2011-11-15T23:39:00.000-08:00

Blood Rules

Christine Cody
Ace

Urban Fantasy/Paranormal

Note: If you haven’t read the first book in this great trilogy, BLOODLANDS, this review contains some serious, but unavoidable, spoilers. Do yourself a huge favor and read the first book before proceeding here.

This second installment picks up roughly two months after the events of the first book. By this time, Mariah and the rest of her neighbors have found a new homestead. They managed to defeat Stamp, a former Shredder, in their last home, but they know that men like him will never stop. They know that, at some point, he’ll be back to wipe them out, or die trying. Because Shredders, monster-killers, never stop.

The community faces a new threat now. Mariah continues to lose control over her were form, and even the peace that Gabriel, a vampire, passes through their shared link is beginning to lose effect. In desperation and with the tacit approval of the group (whose very existence is constantly threatened by Mariah’s problems) Mariah decides to leave the new homestead and head for the hubs in search of a cure. This rumored, almost mythical, cure may not even exist, but she feels that she must do everything she can to find it. Not only for herself, but for her neighbors. Gabriel accompanies her, partly out of a sense of duty, but also with a cautious hope than any cure for Mariah might affect him, too.

Sometimes, the second book of a trilogy serves only as a way to get the characters from the Big Conflict A to Big Conflict B. Not this time. This second installment is at least as good as the first, and possibly better. Watching Mariah and Gabriel travel through the New Badlands into outposts and finally a hub, the reader gets an expanded sense of the world. While the story is set in a dystopian future, there are plenty of aspects of the world that are recognizable projections of society today.

The author’s world-building skills are undeniable. This is a multi-faceted society that resulted from natural and economic disasters. Members of each social ‘layer’ have concrete reasons for acting as they do. There are hard choices, and no clear answer, but each solution is, ultimately, understandable. Layer this realistic society with were-creatures and vampires and various other monsters, and you’ve got a post-apocalyptic Western action paranormal urban fantasy that’s as difficult to put down as it is to define.

Rating: 8
September 2011
ISBN# 978-0-441-02076-8

How To Party With A Killer Vampire - Penny Warner

2011-10-25T23:57:00.001-07:00

How To Party With A Killer Vampire

A Party Planning Mystery
Penny Warner
Obsidian

Mystery

As usual, Presley Parker is in the middle of planning another party. As owner of Killer Parties, it’s pretty much her life. This time, the party is to celebrate the wrap of a vampire parody movie. Presley’s client, producer Lucas Cruz, is a local celebrity and the party is talk of the entertainment media. The party will, of course, have a vampire theme and will be held in an old cemetery.

There are a few people who aren’t so pleased about the party. The first is a group of kids who were extras in the movie. Apparently, they’re upset that they weren’t invited to the big bash. The night before the party, one of the kids is found in the cemetery, dead. There’s almost no time for Presley to get involved in that, though, since she’s up at dawn to complete the set-up. The party is invitation-only, and there’s a photographer turned away at the door. He’s none too happy about it. Later that night, he’s found, dead, in an open grave. Not quite the kind of event Presley wanted.

Suspects abound, from Lucas Cruz, to an entertainment reporter who was adamant about covering the event exclusively, to a disturbed man who claims the cemetery is ‘his’ and threatens anyone who ‘trespasses’ in it. Presley is sure the two deaths are connected, and she can’t believe that Lucas would be the guilty party, no matter how the circumstantial evidence looks at the moment.

This is another solid entry in a fun series that includes HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, HOW TO CRASH A KILLER BASH, and HOW TO SURVIVE A KILLER SÉANCE. New readers will have no problems jumping in at this point. In this one, the supporting cast is really on the outskirts of the story. This includes Presley’s mom, who was once the party doyenne of San Francisco. (Memo to Ms. Warner: a book about Presley’s mom throwing parties for the Who’s Who of the city would be a treat.) Not too gory, not too sweet, this series should entertain fans of all types of mysteries. The story is nicely twisty and ends with a bang.

Rating: 7
October 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23501-5 (paperback)

Liver Let Die - Liz Lipperman

2011-10-18T01:10:00.000-07:00

Liver Let Die

A Clueless Cook Mystery
Liz Lipperman
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

Jordan McAllister’s dream is to be a sports writer. She’s getting there. Sort of. At the moment, she’s doing personal ads for a paper in a small town outside Dallas. It’s a start. When the editor, Dwayne Egan, summons Jordan, she’s sure that her probationary period is over and she’s being shown the street. Instead, Egan asks her to take over a food column, called Kitchen Kupboard, whose usual writer is laid up after a mishap. Of course, the woman could write the column from a bed, but, being the niece of the owner, she’s decided to take some paid time off. Which means Jordan will be writing the food column (a subject about which she knows nothing) and the personals, for the same pitiful salary.

Her first assignment is to review a four-star restaurant. Aside from knowing nothing about food that comes without fries on the side, Jordan has an aversion to red meat. That’s going to make reviewing an upscale steak house problematic, at best. The waiter, J.T., recommends the foie gras, and Jordan orders it, thinking she’s getting chicken. She’s wrong: she’s getting fatty duck liver. Hoping to disguise her (completely understandable) distaste, she actually shoves the offending entrée into her borrowed evening bag. This action sets off a chain of events that results in J.T.’s murder in Jordan’s apartment building. And that’s only the beginning.

I’m disappointed to say that I had the main mystery almost completely sussed out by the end of the second chapter. I don’t think that shows any great detective work on my part; it’s simply that the main mystery is presented in fairly obvious ways. There is a subplot that’s quite tricky and carries a good deal of the rest of the book, though. More problematic is the tone of the book: it’s all over the place. Of course, any cozy mystery needs a bit of levity to balance the more serious scenes; but this story moves from one to the next with nothing in between. Smoothing out these abrupt shifts would be helpful.

The hook of this series is that a woman who doesn’t know how to cook at all gets a gig writing a food column and presenting recipes. That’s something that may be difficult to maintain past an installment or two. Jordan can’t keep publishing her friends’ recipes forever. Learning to cook in future books might be a nice way to allow Jordan’s character to grow. I hope we get to see more of the neighbors who serve as Jordan’s family away from home. They’re an eccentric bunch, but a group that seems real and caring. As far as friends go, Jordan couldn’t have landed in a better place. Here’s hoping the series grows and evolves with the characters.

Rating: 6 ½
October 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24404-3 (paperback)

Magic At The Gate - Devon Monk

2011-10-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

Magic At The Gate

An Allie Beckstrom Novel
Devon Monk
Roc

Urban Fantasy

There’s no way to write this review without spoilers, so read at your own risk. And don’t miss the previous novels: MAGIC TO THE BONE, MAGIC IN THE BLOOD, MAGIC IN THE SHADOWS, and MAGIC ON THE STORM.

The last installment in this fantastic series ended with a cliffhanger: Allie Beckstrom, strolling into the realm of death to rescue the soul of her lover and Soul Complement magic user, Zayvion Jones. Almost as soon as she crosses the border into death, Allie realizes that her time is severely limited. Even with the ghost of her dead father in her head (I told you, you need to read the previous novels) giving her advice, she’s at serious risk. The truth is that no living person has ever walked out of death’s realm alive. Allie, though, is determined to find Zay’s soul, carry it back to the living world, and reunite it with his still-living body. No problem at all.

I will not spoil how things go in the death realm. I will say that the author, as usual, does a great job of creating a unique landscape. In Allie’s view, death looks like “some twisted version of Portland.” Each building or street is just slightly wrong, except when it’s really, terribly wrong. The journey through the realm of death takes up the first several chapters, and the whole thing is riveting. Ms. Monk really knows how to write fantasy sequences and keep the reader glued to the pages.

Once Allie returns, the problems really begin. The previous novel ended with a huge free-for-all battle among magic users during a wild-magic storm. The cracks and unspoken differences among members of the magical Authority blew apart in a fairly spectacular fashion, with magic used against former friends and students. One of the Death magic users (Death magic, here, is simply an exchange of energy, and not necessarily a negative thing) stole a large quantity of experimental disks that were developed by Allie’s dad. The disks would make magic portable and usable by anyone without paying a price.

In the wrong hands, these are weapons. Clearly, they’re in the wrong hands now, because Allie is seeing the Veiled all over the city again. The Veiled are like ghosts, or echoes, of dead magic users. The Veiled want to absorb more magic to become more real. The problem is that, with the disks, the Veiled are now solid and look as real as anyone else. So there are a lot of pissed-off, solid, magic-using, magic-absorbing ghosts running around. And there are gates between realms popping open all over the city. This is bad, because things can come through the gates, and those members of the Authority left standing after the wild-magic storm are needed to continually close these gates.

There’s a lot going on in this installment, but the action sequence at the end seemed somewhat truncated for some reason. That could just be in comparison to the last few novels in the series, which were really amazing. Most urban fantasy series have some system of magic. You learn the rules, you move along. This time, though, the magic users themselves are constantly learning and growing within the system of magic. It’s possible that even those at the top don’t know everything there is to know about how magic works. It gives the author a lot of latitude, and makes it that much more exciting for the reader. There’s a lot of ‘bridge’ material presented here in service of the overall story arc, but it’s laid out in a way that continually moves the story forward. This just may be the best urban fantasy series out there right now. I know I’m on board for as long as the author continues.

Rating: 8
November 2010
ISBN# 978-0-451-46362-3 (paperback)

Magic On The Storm - Devon Monk

2011-10-11T00:54:00.000-07:00

Magic On The Storm

An Allie Beckstrom Novel
Devon Monk
Roc

Urban Fantasy

If you’ve missed the first three novels in this series (MAGIC TO THE BONE, MAGIC IN THE BLOOD, and MAGIC IN THE SHADOWS) then you’ve missed the start of what is shaping up to be a truly epic urban fantasy. I’d honestly advise you to read the first three before continuing this review; otherwise, you’re going to be spoiled on some fairly major issues.

Usually after using large amounts of magic, Allie Beckstrom loses her memory. It’s her price for using magic. Lately, though, she’s been in training, and things have changed. She still carries her notebook around to record events of her life, just in case, but things have been good for the past few months. Even her relationship with Zayvion Jones has been going well. Of course, that means that something big is coming. That thing is a wild magic storm.

Allie’s world is a world very much like ours, except that magic is ever-present. So much so that its use is regulated like any other resource or utility. Allie’s late father (mostly late – he’s still hanging around in her head, sometimes, which is awkward, to say the least) was at the forefront of melding magic and technology. He invented a sort of magic-lightning rod to collect and direct the flow of magic. It made him incredibly wealthy. At the time of his death, he was working on something infinitely more powerful and potentially dangerous: portable disks that hold magic. These disks could be used by anyone, anywhere, without the usual consequences magic exacts.

Her dad was also part of a secret community of magic users called the Authority. They’re a kind of shadow group. Unless you’re a member, you’d have no idea who the other members are or what they do or how much influence and power they have over magic and its use. For the uninitiated – which, until quite recently, included Allie – magic is limited. Which brings us to the current problem. It seems that, while the wild storm comes closer, magic is draining from the world. No one knows exactly what will happen when the wild storm arrives and re-ignites it all, all at once. The Authority is on it, but Allie is beginning to realize that even such a powerful and focused group has internal politics and conflicts. It couldn’t happen at a worse time.

Up to this point, each of the novels has been part of an overall story arc, but each one still read as a complete story. This time is so very different. It ends on a cliffhanger that is a stunner. Everything that leads up to the storm feels, fittingly, like a race against time. Allie’s world is expanding, and she’s juggling a lot more responsibilities at this point. She’s not on her own anymore, and that’s both a blessing and a curse, when so many people need her and the hits just keep on coming. This is one of those series that I’d love to re-read, back-to-back, just to watch the story unfold. Someday, I might get to do that. But, for now, I’ve got a cliff that’s hanging, and I’ve never been more grateful to have the next volume at hand. I see very little sleep in my immediate future.

Rating: 8 ½
May 2010
ISBN# 978-0-451-46327-2 (paperback)

Death By The Dozen - Jenn McKinlay

2011-10-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

Death By The Dozen

A Cupcake Bakery Mystery
Jenn McKinlay
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

It’s time for the Scottsdale Food Festival and every chef is town is gearing up to participate. This will be the first year that Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura will enter their cupcake bakery, Fairy Tale Cupcakes, in the cooking competition. The cash prize ($10,000) is nothing to sneeze at; but the real prize is the local prestige and the possibility of being covered by the Food Channel. One of their celebrity chefs, Johnny Pepper, will be acting as emcee for the event. Another star, Vic Mazzotta, was Mel’s favorite instructor when she attended the local culinary academy. He’ll be one of the judges.

With all the chaos of competition, and the success of their bakery, Melanie and Angie have to find someone to fill in while they’re gone. Angie’s many brothers are willing, but the ladies decide it’s time to hire an intern from the local school. What they get is Oz, who looks like a towering goth/punk/thug. With few options, and less time, they decide to take a chance.

The competition is based on using a mystery ingredient to create a dessert. There will be several elimination rounds, culminating in a final four, with the winner taking all. During the first day, Vic Mazzotta’s frozen body tumbles out of an ice truck. Melanie is devastated, and her grief turns to anger when she hears that rumors claim it was some kind of suicide. She knows that wasn’t Vic’s style. But Vic was an outspoken kind of man and he made plenty of enemies, personally and professionally. In fact, several of them are in town for the festival. In between crazy cooking challenges and trying to run her bakery from afar, Melanie decides to find out what really happened.

This is the third in a series (SPRINKLE WITH MURDER, BUTTERCREAM BUMP OFF) and, so far, the best as far as good old entertainment value is concerned. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with food/cooking shows will understand the characters and undercurrents going on here. And if you’ve ever watched “Iron Chef” or “Cupcake Wars” or any of the competitive cooking shows, you’ll immediately understand the idea of cooking with a mystery ingredient and barely enough time. The challenges are realistic, and Melanie comes up with some great desserts. For those who’d care to give it a try, the recipes are included at the end.

The mystery is well-written and woven into the fabric of the competition setting quite nicely. There are lots of new faces in town for the event, meaning lots of possible suspects and motives. For those who’ve read the series from the start, local arch-rival Olivia is there, apparently determined to win at any cost. She adds a bit of lunatic comic relief to the proceedings. Oz is a great addition to the series, and I already have a soft spot for both him and the charming Captain Jack. A great mystery, an entertaining all-or-nothing competition, and some real danger make this one the best installment so far.

Rating: 7 ¾
October 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24405-0 (paperback)

Mind Over Murder - Allison Kingsley

2011-09-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

Mind Over Murder

A Raven’s Nest Bookstore Mystery
Allison Kingsley
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

After an unhappy stint in New York, Clara Quinn has returned to her hometown, the tourist haven of Finn’s Harbor in Maine. Her cousin and lifelong best friend, Stephanie, runs a bookstore called The Raven’s Nest. Ana Jordan, the owner of the shop next door, is agitating against the book shop, claiming that the sale of “occult” books will inevitably turn the town’s kids into witches or toads or Satanists or thinking individuals or whatever it is that book-banners fear is likely to happen. Apparently, the fact that the store also stocks the required reading books for the local high school is lost on her. Molly, a bookstore employee, exchanges some fairly angry words with Ana on the sidewalk between the shops.

The following morning, Clara finds Ana in the bookstore’s storeroom. She’s dead; bashed over the head with a bust of Edgar Allan Poe. (Whether you find that horrifying or ironic kind of depends on your own personal stance on banning books, I suppose.) The police hear about the argument with Molly, and, since she was the last person out of the shop the previous night, she immediately becomes the prime suspect. Stephanie won’t have it and wants to prove that Molly is innocent. She convinces Clara to use something called the Quinn Sense to help figure out the identity of the killer.

This Quinn Sense is supposed to be a sort of psychic sense that, during her adolescence, allowed Clara to get flashes of the future and interpret dreams. As it stands, it’s really just common sense or intuition or that feeling you get when you know someone is staring at you. So, if you’re not a fan of paranormal stuff, you have nothing to worry about here. This, the first in a new series, is a fairly straightforward mystery novel. There’s a nice assortment of suspects and possible motives; although it’s not too hard to pinpoint the killer, even without a sixth sense.

Watching the actions and reactions of Clara and Stephanie, I can’t help thinking that they might have been originally conceived as teenage ‘girl detectives,’ and only given adult backgrounds as an afterthought. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it’s pretty common to revert to a younger version of yourself when you visit/rejoin close members of your family after an absence. It’s just jarring to witness a woman come up with Nancy Drew-level plans (don’t get me wrong, I grew up on Nancy and I loved her) when you’re told that the woman in question owns her own business, is married, and has three children. There are some kinks to be worked out here, but the setting is good, the surrounding characters are engaging, and the mystery was certainly interesting enough to keep my attention to the end.

Rating: 6
September 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24377-0 (paperback)

Button Holed - Kylie Logan

2011-09-28T20:28:00.000-07:00

Button Holed

Kylie Logan
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

That’s right, buttons. Who would have thought? But stay with me, because this was a very enjoyable mystery and the first of a new series.

Josie Giancola just opened her dream shop: the Button Box. She’s a self-proclaimed button nerd. I had no idea there was such a thing, but clearly, there are lots of people who view buttons as little pieces of art and history and devote their lives to collecting and studying them. Josie is preparing for her new shop to be put on the map in a big way. Superstar Kate Franciscus will be visiting to select the perfect buttons for her designed-to-order wedding dress. She’ll be marrying a foreign prince soon, and the press can’t get enough of her or her so-secret wedding plans.

Her first visit is accompanied by several assistants and a horde of reporters and photographers. Her second visit to the shop is supposed to be held in private, to keep her selections secret until the big day. Josie runs out for a sandwich several hours before the appointment time. When she returns to her shop, Kate is already there. Unfortunately, she’s lying on the floor, dead, stabbed with an antique button hook. When the body is removed, Josie discovers a unique button on the floor. The button doesn’t belong to her, but Josie is determined to track down the owner, and maybe even the killer.

Josie is a strong female character. Far too often, we meet women during the last months of their terrible relationship and have to watch them make excuses for themselves and their no-good significant others. Josie is a wonderful exception. She married a handsome guy who turned out to be a compulsive gambler, liar, and thief. We meet her after she’s realized the truth, found her backbone, and finalized the divorce. It’s refreshing to see a character acknowledge past mistakes and refuse to make them again.

The book actually begins when Josie arrives at her shop during a burglary. That scene introduces Josie, makes her sympathetic, lets the reader know who she is, and sets the pace for the rest of the story. The story is told by Josie, in first person, and she’s a very entertaining narrator. There’s a wide array of possible suspects, and the plot unfolds in expert fashion. The final scene reads like an old Nero Wolfe novel, with all the suspects assembled for the denouement. The whole thing comes off very well. I know I’ll never look at a button the same way again.

Rating: 7 ½
September 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24376-3 (paperback)

Thread Reckoning - Amanda Lee

2011-09-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

Thread Reckoning

An Embroidery Mystery
Amanda Lee
Obsidian

Mystery

Usually, embroidery shop owner Marcy Singer enjoys doing projects on commission, especially when there’s a hefty fee involved. This time, though, the proprietor of the Sever-Year Stitch just can’t find her motivation. Part of that is no doubt because her client, Cassie Wainwright is a Bridezilla who wants her dress be-jeweled in less than two weeks. She provides the vintage dress and commands Marcy to use the jewels, provided by her future mother-in-law, to embellish the dress and hide the yellowing spots. Maybe Marcy can’t get into the project because it reminds her of her own cancelled wedding. Her erstwhile groom, David, left her standing at the altar with no explanation. And today, of all days, David arrives in town, trying to apologize for his cold feet and expecting Marcy to fall back into his arms.

All of this angst becomes secondary when Marcy arrives at her shop the following day. Francesca, the future mother-in-law, is dead. The police seem to think that someone killed her for the contents of the velvet bag she was carrying. Marcy explains that the bag contained the rest of the gems and beads for the dress and quickly turns the gems in her possession over to the police. The very real distress of Frederic, the groom-to-be, coupled with the fact that the woman was murdered just outside her door, makes Marcy determined to figure out who could have done this.

Overall, this is a nice cozy mystery. There are several good suspects and motives for the crime, and the plot is probably the most complex in the series to this point. The main problem is that the ‘solution’ to the whole thing is dashed off in a very short Epilogue that might as well be written in bullet-point format. It’s an abrupt and disappointing way to end what, to that point, was an interesting story; and only serves to undermine all that went before it. Those who read the first two (THE QUICK ANDTHE THREAD and STITCH ME DEADLY) will enjoy seeing familiar characters again. Those who are new to the series will be able to jump in here with no problems.

Rating: 6 ½
September 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23455-1 (paperback)

Children Of Paranoia - Trevor Shane

2011-09-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

Children Of Paranoia

Trevor Shane
Dutton

Thriller

Joe is a soldier. He fights in the War. His job is to kill the targets identified by his superiors, efficiently and without question. No one really knows when or how the War started; not even those fighting and dying for the cause on either side has a real grasp on any concept other than taking revenge for past violence. It’s possible that the higher-ups know the truth, but it’s apparently not the concern of those on the ground. If Joe’s honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he really has no idea if he’s fighting on the ‘good’ side or the ‘bad’ side of this conflict.

You get into the War by being born into it, or marrying into it. The population of the world at large has no idea this War even exists. There are iron-clad rules prohibiting the involvement or killing of civilians. Only the initiated participate. Every child born into the War becomes aware of it at age sixteen. Most of the kids have already lost at least one close family member. It might be a parent, a sibling, an uncle, or all of the above. There follows two years of training before becoming active at eighteen. No one under the age of eighteen is allowed to participate; that’s another iron-clad rule. Anyone who breaks the rules becomes an immediate target for both sides; outed by his/her own people to the enemy for elimination.

Joe travels to Montreal for a job. It’s going to be a difficult job, so his handlers allow him some time for surveillance of the mark. During that time, he meets a girl, Maria. Given the nature of his life, Joe has never thought about falling in love. Having a family just gives the other side more targets to eliminate. Joe and Maria fall for each other, hard and fast. He can’t tell her the truth about his life, of course, and just wants to be ‘normal’ for a few days. His plans are destroyed when he discovers that Maria is pregnant. Despite his personal losses and life-long devotion to the War, Joe decides that it’s worth risking everything, even his own life, to try and carve out a life with Maria, even if they have to do it on the run.

It’s hard to believe that this is a first novel. The writing is more than solid, the pace never flags, and the action sequences are almost surreal. This is not for the squeamish, but if you’re a fan of thrillers and chase novels, this is a sure bet. There were a few elements that didn’t quite hang together for me, but these quibbles are pretty easy to overlook as the story rockets along. The story is presented in Joe’s voice, as he writes his story in a journal for Maria. This gives events real immediacy and impact. Even when they’re making mistakes that would be glaringly obvious in retrospect, the journal format makes it fairly easy to see why each character does what s/he does. The final pages make it clear that there’s more to come in this story, and I’m interested to see where it goes from here.

Rating: 8
September 2011
ISBN# 978-0-525-95237-4 (hardcover)

Green-Eyed Envy - Kasey Mackenzie

2011-09-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

Green-Eyed Envy

A Shades Of Fury Novel
Kasey Mackenzie
Ace

Urban Fantasy

Marissa (Riss) Holloway is a Fury of the mythological variety. Usually, she looks human, but she can shift into Fury mode when bringing a law-breaker to justice. As such, she’s the perfect person to serve as Chief Magical Investigator in Boston. You might think that she’d be used to just about anything, but events of the recent past (detailed in the first book in the series, RED HOT FURY) have rocked her understanding of her family heritage. In addition to this, she’s on the trail of what looks like the first-ever arcane serial killer.

So far, three Bastai, or were-Cats, have been found dead; their tongues ripped out and their mouths stuffed with catnip. Cats are shape-shifters, and for all intents and purposes are immortal. The mode of death itself is the first mystery. For those in the know, the catnip is a pretty heavy insult, and could be the result of some rogue Warhound counting coup on an ancient enemy. It doesn’t take long for Riss to discover that each of the dead Cats was once involved with FBI agent Harper Cruz. Harper is a Cat, and the first arcane to work for the FBI.

Riss and Harper have worked cases together. The fact that a very powerful someone is systematically working through Harper’s ex-boyfriends is problem enough. It’s possible that the ultimate target is Harper. But first, Riss has to get past her very protective current boyfriend and fiancé. Who just happens to be a Hound. And not any Hound, but a member of one of the most powerful families in the city. A family none too pleased with one of their own marrying a Cat.

This novel works very well both as a murder mystery and as urban fantasy. The realistic foundations of the world-building that were laid in the first novel are expanded here. This is a world that knows about arcane creatures and had a human/arcane war that nearly decimated both sides. Both sides have good reason to keep the peace, and this case is potentially explosive. Riss makes use of her own shape-shifting ability to go undercover with the bridal party. While that results in a few amusing scenes, the author wisely keeps the sitcom situations to a minimum. Readers who enjoy a good dose of gritty action (and some gore) should check out this series. The serial killer story wraps up here, but there are some pretty serious subplots left with loose ends for the next installments.

Rating: 7 ½
July 2011
ISBN# 978-0-441-02049-2 (paperback)

Bloodlands - Christine Cody

2011-09-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

Bloodlands

Christine Cody
Ace

Fantasy/Paranormal

This novel is the first of three, set in some not-too-distant future. In this time, ecological disasters and disease have taken a serious toll on the world. At some point, the Powers That Be decided that a lot of the west coast of the U.S. should be destroyed. People cluster in urban hubs, working from home, having contact with only their immediate families. No one ventures out unless it’s absolutely necessary. The bad guys are everywhere and willing to do anything to survive. The new west coast is a desert environment called the New Badlands. It’s almost like the old Wild West, except for the new, mutated species and the fact that water, not gold, is the most precious commodity.

Gabriel enters the Badlands on a mission. When he unwittingly trespasses onto the stake claimed by another new arrival, Johnson Stamp, he takes a vicious beating. He manages to find the underground home of Mariah. Mariah and several others have staked their claims as well. These people come from many different backgrounds and have carved out dwellings and connecting tunnels under the earth. All they want is to be left alone in peace. Most fled the violence of the hubs and want to live out their days in private obscurity.

When Gabriel finds Mariah’s place and pleads for shelter, her first instinct is to throw him back out. Outsiders only mean trouble. But Chaplin, her Intel Dog and only true friend, convinces her to let the stranger stay, at least until the killing heat of the day passes. Against her better judgment, Mariah agrees, unaware that she’s giving shelter to a vampire. Gabriel wants to remain anonymous, too. He plans to heal up and head back out as quickly as he can. But when Stamp and his men threaten the group, Gabriel finds that he hasn’t quite given up on being human.

This story is a truly original twist on the classic Western; a sort of post-apocalypse Western crossed with a paranormal. Many elements are recognizable, but most are twisted into new and interesting shapes. At its core, this is a group of miners threatened by a big city upstart who wants to drive them off their claims. They look to the mysterious stranger for help. Even if you’re not a fan of Westerns, you’ll be drawn in by the intensity of the narrative. Everyone is aware of the existence of vampires, but no one wants to shelter a monster, so Gabriel does his level best to conceal his true nature from Mariah and her friends. And Mariah, who lost her entire family, is intent on concealing her tragic past.

The book starts out strong, and then seems to lag just a bit in the middle. In hindsight, this is the author laying some very necessary groundwork and building believable characters and tensions. The final third of the book comes back strong and contains some great action scenes and reveals that I never saw coming. The world-building is done expertly, revealing the past in bits and pieces through the experiences of the characters. The New Badlands is a brutal, unforgiving place and requires hard decisions from the people who live there. For those who aren’t faint of heart, this is a new and original chapter in paranormal/fantasy fiction.

Rating: 8
August 2011
ISBN# 978-0-441-02062-1 (paperback)

Deep Disclosure - Dee Davis

2011-09-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

Deep Disclosure

Dee Davis
Forever/Grand Central

Romantic Suspense

This is the latest in the author’s fast-paced series about an elite CIA squad called A-TAC. One of the team members, Tucker Flynn, spent a long nightmarish time undercover in a Columbian prison. He’s back in the States, but still on an indefinite leave. One of his stops in the morning is a coffee shop. A couple at another table, a young woman and an older man have an animated conversation before the woman leaves, clearly upset. Moments later, a backpack bomb under their table demolishes the coffee shop and kills the man. Since Tucker was at ground zero, the A-TAC team takes an interest. Tracking down the young woman isn’t too difficult, given their technology. Finding out what (and who) was behind the bombing is far more problematic.

Alexis Markham had an unusual childhood. Her parents drilled her on the importance of staying off the grid; of never trusting anyone, especially if that someone has ties to the government. Alexis’ father was once a scientist working on a top secret project. When he realized that others in the organization intended to use his work to distribute bioweapons, he took his family and ran. When Alexis was a teen, someone caught up with them and bombed the house, killing her entire family. Since then, she’s been on the run and in hiding. Tucker is offering his assistance, but she’s got major trust issues.

For those who have read the previous books (DARK DECEPTIONS, DANGEROUS DESIRES, DESPERATE DEEDS) it’s no surprise that characters from those novels – other team members – make appearances here. Readers starting here won’t have any problems, though, since Tucker relates his backstory to Alexis during the narrative. I have to say, that of all the books in the series thus far, I find this relationship the least realistic. There’s no reason for Alexis to trust Tucker, especially since he spends a long time lying to her about who he is and why he’s helping her. Given her background, she ought to run, not walk, to the nearest exit.

That said, I don’t read this author’s books for the romance component. Indeed, the romance takes a back seat to the action and the thriller plot, and that’s more than fine with me. In this case, there are people after Alexis who either want to find her father’s work, or kill her off as a loose end. There are some neat plot twists as the team tries to figure out just exactly what the bad guys really want, and how to stop them. As always, the author writes a great action sequence, and the pages seem to turn themselves. Each of the novels is a complete story, but I’m glad to see there’s another installment on the way.

Rating: 7
September 2011
ISBN# 978-0-446-58292-6 (paperback)

Quickstep To Death - Ella Barrick

2011-09-02T22:57:00.000-07:00

Quickstep To Murder

A Ballroom Dance Mystery
Ella Barrick
Obsidian

Mystery

Four months ago, Stacy Graysin walked in on her fiancé and professional dance partner, Rafe, in bed with another woman. Of course, the engagement ended then and there. Too bad the same can’t be said for their business partnership. Together, they own the ballroom dance studio Graysin Motion. As award-winning competitive ballroom dancers, they attract a nice clientele of students. Some want to compete as amateurs; some just want to learn to dance.

Since neither Stacy nor Rafe can afford to buy out the other’s share of the business, they’re pretty much stuck with each other for the foreseeable future. Even factoring in the broken engagement, it’s been uncomfortable. Rafe seems far more interested in making fast money than usual; to the point that he’s advocating adding hip hop and tap classes and hosting annual recitals. That’s not the kind of studio Stacy wants to run, and she’s more than a little surprised that Rafe is pushing for it. He’s been acting odd recently, too, taking mysterious meetings in strange limos outside the studio and secretively taking phone calls he won’t discuss.

When Stacy finds Rafe dead in the studio (which is attached to her home) she’s not completely surprised. She is, however, surprised at the sorrow she feels over his death. All of that is quickly overshadowed, though, when the responding detectives look to her as the prime suspect. Then it turns out that Rafe was shot with the gun Stacy keeps in her nightstand drawer. The only fact to mitigate her guilt is the fact that Rafe changed his will, leaving his half of the studio to someone else. That’s another unpleasant shock. Now Stacy needs to figure out who killed Rafe, keep her business running, and deal with an unknown business partner.

This is the first in a new series that looks like fun. Stacy is a sort of everywoman caught up in awful events. The detectives investigating the case are refreshingly realistic. They’re annoyed by her interference and don’t seem to find her pluckiness at all endearing. That’s how I would expect the police to react to civilians trying to conduct an investigation. The truth is that Stacy doesn’t so much solve this case as have the solution dropped in her lap. And that’s pretty realistic, too, really. There are lots of suspects, all with clear and compelling motives, making for an interesting mystery. I look forward to the next installment.

Rating: 7
September 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23454-4 (paperback)

Die Buying - Laura DiSilverio

2011-08-31T23:29:00.000-07:00

Die Buying

A Mall Cop Mystery
Laura DiSilverio
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

Right off the bat, I know what you’re thinking: “A mall cop? Really?” I know you’re thinking that, because that’s what I was thinking, too. But stay with me here, because if you overlook this one, you’re going to miss a great mystery filled with fresh and original characters.

Thirteen months ago, EJ Ferris was on tour in Iraq when an IED shredded her knee. She was discharged from the Air Force security police, a job she loved, and sent home to rehab and rebuild a life. What she really wants is a job on a police force. But, with her knee the way it is, it’s highly unlikely that she could pass physical muster. To keep herself even peripherally in the game, she takes a job as a security officer at a large mall.

Generally, the job is reuniting lost kids with parents and helping people find their cars. But, on the day our story starts, there’s a whole lot more going on that a bunch of early-morning mall walkers. First, there’s the “liberation” of several dozen snakes and reptiles from the Herpetology Hut by animal activists. Then, and far more concerning, there’s the dead guy in the store window. The naked dead guy. The naked dead guy with the bullet hole in his head who’s been posed in the window’s display. The naked dead guy who turns out to be a high-powered developer who was about to close a deal to build a golf course and connected mall nearby that might put any number of current store owners out of business.

EJ is a great new character. Being a ‘mall cop’ isn’t her idea of a great job, but it’s all she can get at the moment. And, when the local cops look down their noses at her, she finds that being unofficial has its advantages, too. She knows the mall, its staff, its routines; she doesn’t need things like search warrants or probable cause to conduct an investigation or ask questions. Sure, being a cop is what she wants, but if that’s off the table, she’s going to do what she can.

EJ is assisted by her retired-CIA-operative granddad. He’s a fun character; a man who’s retired but still keeps up on the latest gadgets and tradecraft. EJ might worry about him, but rightly concludes that the man is an adult with all his mental faculties intact and someone who can be of help to her from time to time. He loves that, too, because he gets to use his knowledge and spy tools. It’s a nice, realistic relationship. That may be the hallmark of this new series: a well-constructed mystery that kept me turning pages surrounded by characters who act – for good or for bad – like real people.

Rating: 7 ½
August 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24273-6 (paperback)

Real Vampires Don't Wear Size Six - Gerry Bartlett

2011-08-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

Real Vampires Don’t Wear Size Six

Gerry Bartlett
Berkley

Paranormal Chick-Lit

Jumping into this long-running series at this point, as I did, puts the reader at a disadvantage. Glory is a 400-year-old vampire, so she’s got a lot of living piled up in the past. Most recently, she was possessed by a demon and cheated on her longtime boyfriend and sire, Jerry Blade with her onetime bodyguard, Rafe. Although the demon is now gone, the hurt feelings remain, and Jerry decides that the two of them need a cooling-off break so that Glory can decide whether her attraction for Rafe is real or a demonic delusion.

Also during the possession, Rafe apparently used his own partly-demonic powers and now there’s a price to pay. In point of fact, a couple of minor demons arrive and demand that Rafe start harvesting souls for El Jefe, Lucifer. Glory feels that she needs to help Rafe and puts herself squarely in the path of the demons, as well. While all this is going on the ruling council wants to make sure that Glory is trustworthy, so she’s charged with mentoring a brainy yet sullen college student who was turned vampire without consent. Wacky hijinks naturally ensue.

Clearly, the author intends these novels to be a sort of light-hearted take on the vampire mythos. Glory’s problems are few and mostly center around her desire to be a size six. She apparently has no character flaws at all, since everyone in her sphere is either in love/lust with her, willing to forgive her anything, or all of the above. This makes her a far less interesting character than she could be. The whole demon thing never gets too scary, since she’s got a couple of personal angels hovering around, making sure she’s ok; and Jerry is quite a dab hand with a sword. Take that however you like.

If you’re more into the paranormal or action type novels, you may be disappointed here. There’s really nothing graphic or gory about the supernatural inhabitants of this novel. They have the same concerns and hang-ups as your average twenty-something. The fight with the Big Bad is handled in a few paragraphs and comes of something as an anti-climax to those used to more edgy paranormals, but that fits in with what I believe is the author’s desire to keep things from becoming too grim. There are a few loose threads left for a future novel, and, of course, these are the threads that I found most interesting. For readers who enjoy chick lit with humor and want to venture a bit out of their comfort zone, this novel would be a great way to do that.

Rating: 6
August 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24135-6

A Sheetcake Named Desire - Jacklyn Brady

2011-08-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

A Sheetcake Named Desire

A Piece Of Cake Mystery
Jacklyn Brady
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

Rita Lucero isn’t in New Orleans to take in the sights. Her almost-ex-husband, Philippe, owns Zydeco Cakes. The two of them met while training to be pastry chefs. They split some time ago, but Philippe refuses to sign the final papers making their divorce official. On Rita’s first day in the city, he manages to duck her. She’s not going to let that happen again, so she very conspicuously sets up in the lobby of Zydeco Cakes. He has to come through at some point. And she’s fairly sure he wants to see her. He left a message for her, saying that he’d made a ‘mistake’ and now wants to fix it.

Or maybe he doesn’t. Sounds of a fight drift in from the loading dock and Rita, along with the bakery employees, drift that way. There’s a lot to take in at the scene. It seems that several of Rita’s and Philippe’s mutual friends went to work for Philippe; and Rita can’t help but notice that Zydeco Cakes is the realization of her dream shop. Most importantly, Philippe was apparently fist-fighting with Ox, a friend who’d been like a brother to him. Philippe is a little way away, in the rose garden out back. He’s lying there with a knife in his chest, dead.

One shock follows another as Rita learns that, as Philippe’s legal wife, she inherits the bakery and Philippe’s home. Naturally, this doesn’t sit well with the blonde magnolia who claims that Philippe intended to marry her. But Miss Frankie, Rita’s almost-ex-mother-in-law seems just fine with it. In fact, Miss Frankie seems happy to see Rita and asks her to stay on to help her deal with arrangements. Of course, to the police, Rita is a prime suspect in Philippe’s murder. And so is Ox. Rita decides that she needs to sort out some things. Not least of which would be to find out which of their longtime friends (now her employees) wanted to kill Philippe.

This is the first in a new series, and it looks like a real winner. Rita comes across as a real person with real, complex emotions. Watching her deal with Philippe’s death and the emotional aftermath really gives the reader insight into her character. She feels a bit betrayed that all of their friends work at Zydeco, but she had nothing comparable to offer them. Getting reacquainted while being the boss is stressful, but she handles it as well as she can, all while trying to uncover a murderer.

The mystery itself is well constructed and contains several subplots and possible outcomes. Rita’s relationship with Miss Frankie seems realistic under the circumstances, with a few bumps but a lot of respect on both sides. The setting, New Orleans, is wonderful and evocative as always, and I was happy to see the author avoid the “eccentric goofy southerners” stereotypes. Each character has reasons for his/her actions. Things like this make all the difference in a mystery, especially when a series is just beginning. Includes recipes for everything from jambalaya to strawberry jam.

Rating: 7
August 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24274-2 (paperback)

The Mythology Of Supernatural - Nathan Robert Brown

2011-08-17T22:29:00.000-07:00

The Mythology Of Supernatural

Nathan Robert Brown
Berkley Boulevard Books

Nonfiction/TV Tie-In

The first thing you should probably know is that “this book is not authorized” by anyone at “Supernatural.” That would explain the not-Sam-or-Dean silhouettes on the cover art. Come on, you have to know that even non-hardcore fans of the show are going to wonder who the bald guy and the kid on the cover are. (I like to think that it’s Lex Luthor and Ralphie with his coveted air rifle, but that’s just my personal delusion.)

All that aside, this book works very well as a World Mythology-101 primer for fans who want to know a bit more about myths and beings referenced in the show. For example, if you ever wondered why Bela’s last name was Talbot, or why salt works, or the Enochian alphabet, this book has the answer. There’s even a nice index at the back to help you find various subjects.

The book is divided into chapters including “The Winchester Arsenal,” “Demonic Possessions and Exorcisms” and “Lilith Is One Scary Bitch.” Clearly, the tone of the writing follows that of the show (the author says he’s become a fan since beginning work on this book) and the author does a nice job at relating various incidents/characters on the show to various world mythologies. The main characters are clearly part of the hero archetype in fiction; and other characters (a wise and bearded older mentor; a blind seer) and scenarios fit into various myths as well.

If you’re not a fan of the show, a lot will be lost on you. If you’re looking for an overall world mythology survey, viewed through the lens of the show, this is your book: Never pedantic or overbearing; just the facts about a whole lot of different lore. For those who want to delve deeper, there’s a nice bibliography at the end. My advice? Start with Joseph Campbell.

Rating: will depend entirely on your interest in the show and subject matter
August 2011
SBN# 978-0-425-24137-0 (trade paperback)

The Ridge - Michael Koryta

2011-08-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

The Ridge

Michael Koryta
Little, Brown and Company

Fiction

Every town has its history; even a tiny, out-of-the-way town in eastern Kentucky. Back in the 1880s, the town founders thought this was the place to mine resources and build a railroad trestle to ship it all over the country. It should have worked. But, somehow, the man in charge lost his mind and the family eventually lost interest in the project. Still, the railroad trestle sits there, in the woods, on Blade Ridge. Over a century later, local ‘character’ Wyatt French decided to buy some land and build a wooden lighthouse. Most people consider him an eccentric at best, a hopeless drunk at worst, and the lighthouse has become an odd local landmark that didn’t really bother anyone.

That is, until Audrey Clark decided to fulfill her late husband’s wish and relocate a large cat preserve to a piece of land that is essentially across the road from the lighthouse. Audrey and her resident cat expert, Wes, are worried that the light will disturb the cats. That’s the least of their worries. As they’re moving in, deputy Kimble is making another trip to prison to visit the woman who killed her husband, then turned the gun on him. He’s conflicted, but compelled to make the trip. As he drives through the early morning, Wyatt French calls him, asking cryptic questions about whether Kimble would rather respond to a homicide or a suicide. Wyatt’s round of calls continues when he contacts Roy Darmus, longtime writer for the local newspaper, and tells him that he should be proud of the choices his parents made. Darmus is insulted; his parents died decades ago in a car crash up on Blade Ridge.

The story begins with the odd phone calls from Wyatt French. He extracts a promise from Darmus to find out the truth. Since that’s been Darmus’ life calling, he agrees. It doesn’t take long for all of these seemingly disparate threads to be wound inextricably together. The author does a masterful job of establishing an atmosphere from the first pages. All the action takes place in a fairly small area, adding to the sense of entrapment felt by the characters.

Mr. Koryta’s books (SO COLD THE RIVER, THE CYPRESS HOUSE) will inevitably be compared to writers like Stephen King, Bentley Little, or Dan Simmons. Readers who enjoy those novels will be thrilled to find this one. The addition of the large cat rescue was easy for me to visualize, having visited just such a facility in the past. The characters (including the cats) react in believable ways to fairly unbelievable events. But that’s the gift of the writer: to make even the strangest incidents make sense in the context of the narrative. The story is truly original and chilling. I defy any reader to get through the first couple of chapters (the strange phone calls) and be able to put the book aside. I couldn’t. I found myself turning pages long into the night, and I’m already considering starting over just to enjoy losing myself in the story all over again.

Rating: 9
June 2011
ISBN# 978-0-316-05366-2 (hardcover)

A Killing In Antiques - Mary Moody

2011-07-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

A Killing In Antiques

A Lucy St. Elmo Antiques Mystery
Mary Moody
Obsidian

Mystery

It’s the first day of Brimfield, the Event of the antique dealer’s year. Actually, it’s only the pre-dawn darkness before the first day. Lucy St. Elmo is there, along with hundreds of her closest friends in the business. Brimfield is a sea of tents set up in a series of fields. Dealers line up for the early opening, then rush through the vendors, always on the lookout for that hidden gem or great deal.

This morning, however, is different. By lunchtime, the word is everywhere: well-known dealer Monty Rondo is dead. He was discovered at the edge of one of the fields. He’d been strangled by a strip of lace, of all things. First under suspicion is Monty’s sort-of partner, a furniture refinisher known as Silent Billy. Since Billy is strange, he’s the obvious choice of culprit, but Lucy knows he couldn’t possibly have done it. Monty had been in the business for years, and didn’t have the best reputation. Almost everyone roaming the fields might have had a motive. Lucy’s husband disapproves of her investigative leanings, but Lucy decides that there’s nothing wrong with simply gathering information if it will free an innocent man.

This is the first in a new series, and it shows a lot of promise. There are many references to Lucy’s previous investigations, including one that ended up with her being shot in the… left hip. It was that incident that really put her college professor husband off the amateur sleuth train. I feel sure that we’ll be hearing more about these previous cases in future installments.

It’s a lot of fun to follow Lucy around Brimfield to vicariously ‘see’ the various antiques and wares on display. There are even some tips for collectors included at the end. It’s more difficult to really get into the murder mystery, though, since it happens completely ‘off camera’ and to a character the reader has never met. The addition of a new daughter-in-law as a possible future cohort is a nice touch and a great way to connect with readers who are neophyte or armchair collectors. The antique shopping and investigating balance out nicely, though, and in the end the mystery is solved in a satisfying, if somewhat far-fetched way.

Rating: 6 ½
July 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-2318-6 (paperback)

To Sketch A Thief - Sharon Paper

2011-07-27T00:16:00.000-07:00

To Sketch A Thief

A Portrait Of Crime Mystery
Sharon Pape
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery/Paranormal

Rory McCain used to work as a police sketch artist. Then her uncle died and she inherited his house and his ghost. Yes, his ghost. The ghost is one Zeke Drummond, who worked as a federal marshal in the late 1870s, right up until the moment he was killed in the parlor of the house Rory now occupies. Her uncle, a private investigator, promised to try and find out who killed Zeke. Now Rory is trying to fulfill that promise. She’s also started her own PI firm.

During a much-needed therapeutic session of weed-pulling, a dog introduces himself to Rory by sticking his cold, wet nose onto the back of her neck. She checks his collar (Hobo) and decides to drive the dog back home, since it isn’t far. Arriving at the dog’s home, Rory finds the front door open and the dog’s owner dead on the kitchen floor. Getting involved in another murder was the last thing on her day’s to-do list, but Rory can’t seem to quell her curiosity. Especially when she’s got Hobo around as a reminder.

This is the second installment in a series, following SKETCH ME IF YOU CAN. If you missed it, the basics are covered nicely here. The most interesting sections of the book, by far, concern Zeke. He was a federal marshal on the trail of a killer. His journey began in the Arizona Territories and ended on the east coast in what is now Rory’s home. Reading the sections devoted to Zeke make me wish the entire book was about him. Clearly, his story will be continued in future volumes.

The case that embroils Rory is involving, beginning with finding a body and expanding into the world of dogs and dog lovers and even some shady dog dealers. There’s a fairly amusing story arc concerning Zeke and Hobo. Apparently, Zeke is not a fan of dogs, and Hobo (like all dogs) instinctively knows this. If you enjoy stories with a paranormal element, this is the mystery for you. Likewise, those who enjoy animals/dogs will find a lot to like here.

Rating: 7
June 2011

ISBN# 978-0-425-24192-9 (paperback)

Good Neighbors - Ryan David Jahn

2011-07-19T16:44:00.000-07:00

Good Neighbors

Ryan David Jahn
Penguin

Crime Fiction

This amazing novel covers a little over two hours’ time, from roughly 4 a.m. to a little after 6 a.m. on March 13, 1964. During that time, the author tells the story of Kat Marino (a stand-in for real-life murder victim Kitty Genovese) and various neighbors who live in her apartment complex. On her way home from her job as a bartender, Kat sees a strange man in the shadows near her garden apartment door. The man has a knife and a compulsion to kill that even he doesn’t understand.

Even though it’s four in the morning, there are plenty of people awake and aware, for various reasons. Many of them hear her screams. Not one of them calls the police. It sounds simple, but the reality is far from it. Each one of the neighbors, regular people all, has his/her own reasons for not making the call. Many are caught up in personal issues. There’s a teenager who cares for his dying mother while worrying about reporting for the Vietnam War draft in the morning. There’s a man caught up in the unexpected aftermath of a wife-swapping session. There’s a woman who finally confronts her husband about an affair. There’s Frank, a man in an interracial marriage (this is the 60s, he’s a “colored” man) out on an errand for his wife. And there’s the attacker, who wonders for us all why no one stopped him. The overall effect is not unlike “Rear Window” in reverse: instead of looking in, we’re inside all the apartments, looking out on the courtyard.

All of these disparate stories and more swirl around Kat, as she’s attacked and heroically tries to make it to safety while she waits for help to come. The whole is unsettling, disturbing, infuriating, moving, and very real. Each character is a real person with real problems, just trying to get through the night in their own ways. They’re all fighting for their lives; Kat fights on a much more heartbreaking and visceral level. The novel is part crime story and part time capsule, giving the reader a real look at what it was like to live during that time. Some things have changed, others seem strangely immutable.

After Kitty Genovese was murdered, there was an outcry over the cruel inhumanity of an entire apartment complex hearing her screams for help but doing nothing. The author of this astonishing debut novel makes each character’s decision not to get involved terrifyingly understandable, given their circumstances. The novel presents Kat’s ordeal in awful detail, moment by moment, allowing the reader to come to know her through her suffering. The most stunning realization for the reader is that, while it’s still horrible that no one came to her aid, we come to know and understand her good neighbors, and realize that they’re all simply and tragically human. Any one of them could be any one of us. All of them are, unknowingly, bound together by the events of the night. This is an excellent novel. Perhaps not for the faint of heart, but for those who can take it, it will stay with you for some time. I truly cannot recommend this highly enough.

Rating: 10
July 2011
ISBN# 978-0-14-311896-1 (trade paperback)

Black Ties And Lullabies - Jane Graves

2011-07-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

Black Ties And Lullabies

Jane Graves
Forever

Contemporary Romance

Bernadette (Bernie) Hogan has spent most of her life living on her own terms. She’s independent, unencumbered, and works in what is traditionally a man’s field. She’s a private bodyguard. Her current assignment is guarding the attractive, if irritating, body of super-rich CEO Jeremy Bridges. He’s also independent and plans to remain unencumbered. Bernie usually spends her time guarding him at black tie affairs, and watching him take home an endless parade of blonde, buxom, one night stands.

This evening is no different. They enter the event and Jeremy zeroes in on a blonde. The thing is, Bernie is sure she’s seen this woman before tonight. Not at another event; that would be pretty commonplace. No, this woman is clearly following Jeremy. Naturally, Bernie’s warning only serves to drive Jeremy into the silicone embrace of the blonde and they leave the event together. Suspicion on high, Bernie sticks around for a while. Turns out, the blonde is the ‘front man’ for a bunch of well-armed thugs. Bernie and Jeremy end up locked in his panic room, awaiting the police. They also end up having a one night stand of their own. Which results in a pregnancy for which neither one are prepared. (This is not a spoiler; this is all first-chapter stuff.)

Of course, Bernie makes all the right moves, telling Jeremy the truth, then asking him to sign a paper terminating his parental rights. She, in turn, wants not a penny of his fortune. Jeremy counters by surprising himself, refusing her offer, and accompanying her to doctor’s appointments. The rest of the story is pretty standard from there; although I did quite like that Bernie took another, equally fulfilling job once she could no longer be a bodyguard. She’s also got a huge side issue in the form of an aging mom who is losing a battle with Alzheimer’s.

My main problem with this story can be nicely summed up by Marge Simpson: “Nothing solves everything forever like a wedding.” Insert ‘baby’ for ‘wedding,’ and you’ve got it, Marge. Ask anyone who’s been through a divorce. A child (expected or not) does not cement a relationship in real life. On the other hand, this is clearly not real life. This is a light, fast, romance novel where a happy ending for all is virtually assured. The addition of Bernie’s mom and her perilous condition injects a note of gravitas to the story that grounds things nicely. It is very well written and some of the verbal sparring between Bernie and Jeremy is quite entertaining. If you’re looking for a light read on a hot summer night, you could do a lot worse than spending some time with Bernie.

Rating: 7
July 2011
ISBN# 978-0-446-56847-0 (paperback)

Stories For The Nighttime And Some For The Day - Ben Loory

2011-07-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

Stories For Nighttime And Some For The Day

Ben Loory
Penguin

Short Fiction

This collection of short stories is unlike any other I’ve ever read. Most of the stories are quite short. Most are a few pages; the shortest, “The Shadow” is a bare three sentences. Even so, each one is like a stone polished to a shine. There’s nothing there that doesn’t belong; nothing extraneous. Many of the stories are written in present tense, giving them an even greater immediacy.

The stories are by turns moving, funny, frightening, gentle, absurd, and thought-provoking. No matter how strange the subject matter may seem on its face, in the tiny universe of the story, it’s all perfectly logical. Witness “The House On The Cliff And The Sea,” who fall hopelessly in love. Or “The Octopus” who lives in an apartment and has his young nephews come from the sea for a visit. It sounds crazy, or like a children’s story. And, when I think about it, those two are quite closely related. But the octopus, in his story, is everyone.

Each one of these little gems will speak to someone. Many someones, most likely. Like most fables and fairy tales, there are lessons to be learned from these stories. They’re written for adults, but I think they’d make great bedtime stories for kids, too. Reading these stories felt almost like being read to, in a way that I’m not sure I can quite articulate. My guess is that this volume will become a classic. I know that I’ll want to re-read this sooner, rather than later. Don’t miss the longer story in the Appendix, included “at the publisher’s request.”

Rating: 9
July 2011
ISBN# 978-0-14-311950-0 (trade paperback)

Plague Zone - Jeff Carlson

2011-07-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

Plague Zone

Jeff Carlson
Ace

SciFi/Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

This is the third in a series including PLAGUE YEAR and PLAGUE WAR. This story takes place fifteen months after the events of the previous book, so there will be spoilers if you haven’t read the series to this point.

Most people consider the year of the nanotech machine plague to be Year One. The machine plague wiped out most warm-blooded life under ten thousand feet elevation. At that point, what remained of humanity waged wars over securing the highest points on the planet. Even after scientist Ruth Goldman came up with a vaccine to allow people to return to the lowlands, war continued. At the outset of this book, the survivors have weathered the machine plague and man-made weapons.

The novel begins with a bug infestation in a village greenhouse. The natural world is in turmoil, having lost so many species, and insects continue to breed and ravage almost unchecked. People grow crops in protected greenhouses, so an ant invasion is very bad news. Even worse is the stranger who wanders into the village, looking confused. This stranger is carrying a new nano-plague that affects higher brain functions. Unfortunately, the people in the village discover this only after several of their own are infected.

Ruth Goldman, a scientist partly responsible for the original plague, realizes almost immediately that only the Chinese currently have the capabilities of designing and manufacturing this tech. It makes sense. The Chinese have occupied a good portion of the western United States since the last war. This is obviously their latest attempt to wipe out the remaining population. Or worse, to enslave it. Ruth believes that she can find a cure for this plague, too. To do so, she’ll need a sample and a place to do research. Not so easy when you’re on the run for your life.

I wasn’t convinced that Ruth was any kind of hero at the end of the last novel. This one has not changed my mind at all. She overwhelming hubris is only held in check by the weird and twisted relationship she has with Cam Najarro, another survivor. I’m sure relationships during the end of the world are problematic, but there’s a lot of twisted stuff going on here that I’m not sure is intentional. The selfless heroics of even minor characters seem all the more heartbreaking when viewed against the two main characters.

The book starts out with the village inhabitants fighting for their crops against insects. The arrival of the stranger is surprising, and the results of that are unexpected. From there, the book takes off on what is almost an extended chase scene, across the western U.S. This time, we also get to see some of what’s going on over on the Chinese side. The author takes care to make the enemies just as human as the defenders. The only mindless soldiers here are the nanotech that may end us all. The writing seems more fluid and the pacing is faster in this installment, making for quite a page-turner.

Rating: 8
December 2009
ISBN# 978-0-441-01799-7 (paperback)

Plague War - Jeff Carlson

2011-07-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

Plague War

Jeff Carlson
Ace

SciFi/Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

This is a sequel to PLAGUE YEAR. I didn’t read the first novel, so I have no idea if this review contains spoilers. I would guess that it must. For those who didn’t read the first book, there’s a really excellent recap in the first chapter here that seems to hit all the high points.

The first book dealt with a nanotech device escaping from a lab. The nanotech was designed to enter the host’s body and eradicate cancer cells. What escaped was nanotech that simply liquefies any living host over the course of a few hours. The only way to escape the machine plague was to get to someplace above 10,000 feet in altitude, where the tech is rendered useless. This novel opens fourteen months after the events of the first, with humans all over the world perched on very limited mountain space.

Isolation, fear, and uncertain living conditions have changed most people. In the U.S., there’s a civil war brewing, with at least two governments in power in their respective areas, both claiming to be the legitimate government. The Rockies and Sierras contain what’s left of the population, in groups of varying size. Many countries in Europe are fighting for space in the Alps; China, and India are trying to negotiate for space in the Himalayas, with Russia trying to negotiate for any sliver of space it can get. The current capital of the U.S. is located in Leadville, CO, where the government knows about a vaccine for the plague, but wants to control the spread. Controlling the vaccine means absolute control of the population.

Ruth Goldman is a scientist who worked on the tech. She has a workable vaccine. She, Cam Najarro, and Mark Newcombe are engaged in a desperate journey to Leadville. Along the way, as soon as they can get into the mountains, they plan to spread the vaccine to everyone they can find. Ruth is an obvious target for any number of governments or groups with a wide range of agendas.

The majority of the novel is spent as a road trip on foot. Ruth, Cam, and Newcombe have to fight for their survival on a daily, if not hourly, basis. The virtual eradication of mammals means the explosion of insect populations without the attendant increase in food sources. Walking into a swarm of ants, even in protective gear, is pretty much my worst nightmare. This happens in the first chapter and while it horrified me, it crystallized the situation of survivors in a way not much else could. The insect attacks are shining examples of the writer’s dictate to ‘show, not tell.’ In too much of the rest of the novel, major events take place ‘off-screen,’ and are only presented in after-the-fact discussions by other characters. It’s a bit disappointing.

As the title makes clear, war is imminent. This time, it’s the human kind of war. Because, clearly, even in times of near-total extinction, the need to wipe out the enemy and take his stuff is paramount in many people. It’s terribly sad, but probably pretty accurate. War is just looting with bigger guns on a much larger scale. Ruth and Cam are clearly meant to be heroes here. I find them to be complex characters dealing with impossible situations, but still not very likeable. Maybe that’s accurate, too. Ruth is personally responsible, in large part, for a huge number of deaths. Guilt like that would have an effect on anyone. Most of her decisions, both personal and public, seem mean-spirited and selfish. Even in the final scenes, I don’t see her as a great hero. There’s a third book in the series. Maybe she’ll be able to change my mind.

Rating: 7
August 2008
ISBN# 978-0-441-01617-4

Flying Blind - Deborah Cooke

2011-07-06T22:45:00.000-07:00

Flying Blind

The Dragon Diaries, Book 1
Deborah Cooke
New American Library

Young Adult/Paranormal

This is the first book in a new series, and it’s a really wonderful start. At nearly 16, Zoe is worried about the normal things, like when the Puberty Fairy will finally arrive and how to get through gym class without complete humiliation. On top of that, she’s got some other worries, too. Her father, Erik, is the leader of the Pyr, a race of dragon shape-shifters. As his daughter, she’s supposed to be the Wyvern. There’s only one female dragon shifter in the world at a time, and Zoe should be it. With her shifting power, she should have a whole bunch more neat tricks up her sleeve, too.

The problem is that she doesn’t have the power. Apparently, she used to… when she was a toddler. Then, for reasons unknown, it all vanished. There’s no other Wyvern to talk to and the rest of the Pyr are big into self-reliance, so Zoe is pretty much toughing it out alone. She can’t even talk to her best friend because her best friend is a human and humans aren’t supposed to know that dragons really exist. So, no pressure.

Then her dad decides to send her to what the guys call ‘boot camp’ over spring break. The guys, who all have their shifting abilities nailed down, have been several times, but Zoe is new to all of this. She gets that it’s all about testing your abilities, but what happens if you don’t really have any?

For fans of paranormal and fans of fantasy, this book is a great find. It’s the kind of book that pulls you into its world immediately, making you remember why you loved to spend your summer vacations reading. There’s lots of action, a possible love interest or two, and quite a lot of conflict. Some books for young adults are fairly shallow and underwritten; that’s definitely not the case here. The writing is fast-paced and accessible; the story contains several plotlines that are all used to great effect. The story is complete in this book, but there’s clearly more to come. I’m really looking forward to it.

Rating: 8
June 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23388-2 (trade paperback)

Deadly Lies - Cynthia Eden

2011-06-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

Deadly Lies

Cynthia Eden

Forever

Romantic Suspense

Mostly-unrelated Side Note: Computer game aficionados will understand that I must call the female lead Samantha. Otherwise, it becomes Sam and Max, and that’s too distracting. And a bit disturbing.

This is the third book in the series and concerns the fate of FBI Agent Samantha Kennedy. Her story started in the first book in the series (DEADLY FEAR) when she was kidnapped by a crazed serial killer. It’s an unavoidable spoiler to say that she survived that experience physically, but was left with some serious emotional trauma. She works with a special group in the FBI, one tasked with taking down serial offenders. The first time around it was a serial killer. The second book (DEADLY HEAT) dealt with a serial arsonist.

This time out, it’s a serial kidnapper. It takes a while to put the pattern together, but it soon becomes clear that someone is kidnapping the college-aged sons of very wealthy families and holding them for ransom. The first two kidnappings go off perfectly and the victims return to their families. In the opening pages, the kidnapper finds that the family isn’t so willing to deal with a kidnapper and refuses to just pay the ransom. In short order, that victim returns to his family, very dead. Clearly, the kidnapper is escalating, both in terms of the time between crimes and the amount of violence used on victims.

Samantha Kennedy returned to work in the second novel, but her boss isn’t so sure she’s really ready to be in the field. Her experience with the serial killer changed her. When she meets a man at a bar, she’s fine with a one-night stand. Imagine her surprise to meet him again at an upscale party. Turns out, he’s Max Ridgeway, a self-made man and stepson to a wealthy developer. Samantha tells herself it’s all a physical thing, but it’s clear she’s falling for him. Being with Max accidentally makes her the inside man when Max’s stepbrother, Quinlan, goes missing and the kidnappers demand ransom. Quinlan’s father, accustomed to getting exactly what he wants from everyone, wants to play hardball. He won’t contact the police and he initially refuses to pay the ransom. Max reluctantly agrees to keep her work affiliations secret, even as they race to find Quinlan before the kidnappers harm him.

This is one fast-paced novel. The relationship between Samantha and Max evolves quickly, absent any real reason aside from circumstance and coincidence. If you can overlook that, and it’s not difficult, you’re in for a great read. The case involving the kidnappers is twisty and full of possible suspects. Coincidence aside, I appreciated that Samantha’s presence made the FBI’s involvement easier, but made her dealings with Max progressively more problematic. As before the pages flew by; and what I meant to be a few chapters before bed, ended up being nearly half the novel before I could put it down. The author has a great way with action sequences, criminal types, and dialogue. Anyone looking for a great romantic suspense author should give Ms. Eden a try.

Rating: 7 ½
March 2011
ISBN# 978-0-446-55925-6 (paperback)

Infernal Affairs - Jes Battis

2011-06-14T00:05:00.000-07:00

Infernal Affairs

An OSI Novel
Jes Battis
Ace

Urban Fantasy

This series is frustrating for me as a reader. The last novel in the series (INHUMAN RESOURCES) was a clear stand-out from the rest (NIGHT CHILD, A FLASH OF HEX.) This begins with a sequence that is best opening yet in the series. Tess Corday, an occult investigator, and her team need to get to the non-occult morgue quickly. It seems that one of the bodies there appears to be a dead child, but is really a demon. And it’s most likely not dead. It’s in everyone’s best interests to make sure an autopsy never even starts.

The scenes in the morgue are fantastic, fast-paced, and full of new and unexpected things. The ‘child’ is, in fact, a demon called Ru. The problem is, he’s lost his recent memory and has no idea how he ended up there. Before the OSI team can stop it, though, a normate pathologist has made the first cut. Not only does he have to deal with a ‘child’ waking up during an autopsy, he has to survive the arrival of the OSI team and a centaur-looking, bounty-hunting demon who is gunning for Ru, claiming that Ru is a renegade criminal from his home dimension.

As gripping as the first chapters are, the novel too quickly degenerates into subplots. Some of these subplots are threads picked up from previous novels, some are new. It feels like the author is trying to do too many things. We see Tess at home, dealing with her unusual household (one teenaged vampire Magnate and one teenager infected with the vampire virus, but holding it at bay with medication.) We see Tess go to her shrink at work. We see Tess and Lucien her very much on-again necromancer boyfriend. There’s so much going on that much of what happens seems rushed and truncated. The final showdown here consists almost entirely of a conversation that manages to wedge in a lot of information about Ru and about Tess. The ending scene, while it fits with Tess’ character, seems like a ploy to end the book abruptly on a cliffhanger-ish note.

There are some really great things about this series. The world that Tess inhabits is one in which the occult types have to hide the occult from the normates. That builds in a lot of potential problems and twists. The paranormal beings (most of them) are interesting and unique. Minor spoiler, but the lawyers for the occult world are talking animals and this really jolted me out of the story. I’m not sure why, but in a novel like this I’m ready to accept demons and vampires and other dimensions; while talking animals just seem childish, not whimsical. This one starts out very strong, but loses its way somewhere around the midpoint. I’m still interested enough to see where Tess goes from here, though, on the strength of the last installment.

Rating: 7
June 2011
ISBN# 978-0-441-02045-4 (paperback)

Finger Lickin' Dead - Riley Adams

2011-06-07T23:42:00.000-07:00

Finger Lickin’ Dead

A Memphis BBQ Mystery
Riley Adams
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

As the second-generation owner of Aunt Pat’s Barbeque, Lulu Taylor knows a lot about her regulars. Memphis may be a big city, but the regulars make it seem like a small town. At the moment, she’s mostly concerned about Evelyn, who’s been going out with her ex-husband, Adam. The problem is, he’s still legally married to his current wife. Also, as the Graces (a group of ladies who work as docents at Graceland) point out, Adam didn’t treat Evelyn well the first time around, and he hasn’t changed his tune this time, either. He seems to be mostly interested in her money. But Evelyn is a big girl, and it’s usually a mistake to try and intervene when it comes to love.

Talk quickly turns to a local restaurant critic, who writes under the dubious name Eppie Currian. This anonymous critic has been making a game out of writing snarky reviews. It might just be one critic’s opinion, but this critic has a large and loyal following. A bad review can seriously impact, or even close down, a restaurant. In fact, that’s exactly what happened to Oliver and Tudy, who spent years running their place, only to see it close down after a particularly nasty review. And just the day before, a bad review appeared about Aunt Pat’s. The regulars vociferously disagree, of course, and Lulu’s son, Ben, the cook, is especially upset about it.

When the news breaks that the infamous Eppie Currian is really the odious Adam, there are plenty of people who would like to at least smack him. Ben being among those, since Adam is at Aunt Pat’s almost daily, wolfing down the food he claimed was so bad. It doesn’t take long for someone to take action. Lulu and her granddaughters find Adam’s body lying by the river. He was shot and covered in baked beans. Perhaps a post-mortem food commentary? In any event, the list of suspects is quite long. There’s Evelyn, who just found out that Adam was cheating on her with his wife and a third woman; the current wife, Ginger; anyone whose restaurant had been impacted by the mean reviews; and even the reviewer who lost his job when snarky reviews proved more popular than the more balanced type. Lulu is positive that Evelyn and Ben couldn’t possibly be guilty. And, since she solved one murder mystery not too long ago, she sets out to make sure the right person pays for this one.

Please look past the goofy title. (Don’t judge a book by its cover, in other words.) While this is a fairly light, cozy mystery, it’s not as camp as the title would suggest. Lulu comes across as a real person with a deep and true connection to Memphis and Aunt Pat’s. She’s a loyal friend, and a pretty smart amateur sleuth. The rest of the supporting cast reads as a group of people who have known each other forever and don’t hesitate to jump in when one of their number needs help. There are some eccentric characters, to be sure, but they always stop short of slapstick. With so many viable suspects, the mystery is an interesting one, with several possible outcomes. The second installment (DELICIOUS AND SUSPICIOUS) this should entertain any fan of cozy mysteries.

Rating: 7
June 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24191-2 (paperback)

The Lost Fleet: Beyond The Frontier: Dreadnaught - Jack Campbell

2011-06-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

The Lost Fleet: Beyond The Frontier: Dreadnaught

Jack Campbell
Ace

Military SciFi

This is the first book I’ve read in this series, and I really wish I’d read the previous six. To be fair, this is the first installment in a new series that picks up after the century-long war of the previous series. Clearly, the vast majority of the characters are holdovers, but the author does a fine job of introducing them for new readers. If you haven’t read the previous books, I’m sure a lot of this review contains unavoidable spoilers, so beware.

The century-long war between the Alliance and the Syndics is finally over, and John “Black Jack” Geary finds himself somewhat unappreciated in his own time. To the public, he’s a hero and a miracle. To the government, he’s a bit of an inconvenience. What do you do with the most famous military hero in the universe during peacetime? If you don’t want him to try to take over the government, you put him in charge of the First Fleet and send him out on a mission to contact an alien species. Humans and what they call the ‘enigma race’ met once before, unexpectedly, and it led to an all-out battle and massive destruction. The current plan is to assess their territory and make non-aggressive contact.

A lot of the book is spent with preparations for the mission, both physical and political, with one ridiculous delay or demand after another. It gets a bit old quickly, but I realize that this is probably exactly how it would play out in reality, with various politicians jockeying for position in the new order. Since Geary is the guy in charge of the entire fleet, most of the action is seen from his perspective. That is, from a distance; from his position on his flagship. Again, it’s completely realistic since he has to keep track of the big picture, but it’s less than satisfying to hear about huge action scenes happening elsewhere via terse broadcast updates from another commander.

It’s fairly clear that this book is setting up plotlines and characters for future installments. With so many characters and divergent plotlines, there’s necessarily a lot of cross-talk and explanation and loose ends left dangling for upcoming novels. There are some very interesting ideas put forth here, from sources military, political, and scientific; and these ideas are introduced in a way that is completely organic. It will be interesting to see how they develop throughout future books.

Rating: 7 ½
May 2011
ISBN# 978-0-441-02037-9 (hardcover)

Deadly Heat - Cynthia Eden

2011-06-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

Deadly Heat

Cynthia Eden
Forever

Romantic Suspense

This is the second in a series that started with DEADLYFEAR. You don’t need to read the first novel first, though, since the books are related, but not exactly continuous. If you did read the first book, you’ll recognize some returning characters. If you didn’t, the author does a nice job of filling in pertinent details when needed without going into information overload.

This installment concerns Lora Spade, a local firefighter. She’s the real deal, fighting fires and pulling victims to safety because it’s her job and her calling in life. She lived through a fire in her childhood and fights fires for partly personal reasons. Perhaps that’s why a serial arsonist is now fixated on her. She’s had the feeling lately that someone is watching her. And there have been a series of strange fires. Lora goes over the heads of her bosses to request the help of the SSD, a new and elite squad in the FBI that specializes in tracking and stopping serial offenders.

The SSD sends Kenton Lake to town as point man. He actually meets Lora in the middle of a fire while trying to pull an informant to safety. Since he has no idea who to trust among the locals, he’s forced to withhold some information from them. It doesn’t endear him to the locals when he begins by investigating those closest to the fires: the cops and firefighters. This is where the author lost me a bit. It would be insulting, sure, but in any crime you look at the closest people first. Professionals might not like it, but they should understand it. Of course, there’s the usual head-butting about who’s in charge, which seemed completely realistic.

The writing moves the story along at a fast and irresistible pace. We see scenes from the arsonist’s point of view without knowing who the arsonist is. There are plenty of possible suspects and a few that seem more than probable. Less probable is the instant, inexplicable attraction between Lora and Kenton. Yes, she pulled him out of a fire (the opposite of meeting cute?) and there’s the usual verbal sparring. But, to me, the relationship happened because the story demanded it. There were times that I became impatient with that aspect of the story, wanting to get back to the hunt.

That quibble aside, the story of tracking the arsonist is handled very well, and is what interested me in the first place. There are several familiar faces from the first book, and these people are brought in because they have a job to do, and they do it well. Not for fans of cozies, there are scenes of explicit violence and the author doesn’t stint on showing the reader what fire can do to structures and bodies. This author has a great way with an action scene, and there are lots of interesting places for this series to go.

Rating: 7
February 2011
ISBN# 978-0-446-55926-3 (paperback)

The Worst Thing - Aaron Elkins

2011-05-30T03:17:00.000-07:00

The Worst Thing

Aaron Elkins
Berkley Prime Crime

Thriller

For those readers who have followed this author’s excellent Gideon Oliver series (LITTLE TINY TEETH, UNEASY RELATIONS, SKULL DUGGERY) this standalone novel is almost by definition a let-down of sorts. If you have met Gideon and his lovely and beloved wife Julie, then you have met Bryan and his wife Lori. If you know the first couple, you know immediately how the current couple relates to each other and just about everything else. I’m not sure why this bothers me so much, since I sincerely like Gideon and Julie, but it does.

The only real difference is that Bryan is in crisis management. He was once a hostage negotiator. Now he writes policy and prepares presentation for the executives of large corporations regarding how to avoid abductions. In many countries around the world, kidnapping for profit is a form of business. He’s quite good at what he does because, when he was a child, he was abducted and held for nearly two months. The memories of that time have colored most of his life. He will not fly, due to feelings of loss of control. He will not present the programs he writes, because it just hits too close to home.

Eventually, of course, he’s confronted with his fears. His boss wants him to fly to Iceland and give his presentation to GlobalSeas. Instantly, Bryan is against the idea. First, he’d have to fly. Second, the CEO of GlobalSeas has already been the victim of an abduction attempt. That would put Bryan much too close to kidnappers for his comfort. Bryan’s wife, Lori, a marine biologist would love to make the trip and see the country and the company. It’s her desire and Bryan’s guilt that goads him into agreeing, in spite of himself.

The worst thing that could happen, for Bryan, would be another kidnapping. It’s hardly a giveaway to say that this eventually does occur. A lot of the book takes place inside Bryan’s head, while he deals with his fears, his memories, and his captivity. These sections are written in first-person, from Bryan’s point of view. It’s a bit jarring, then, to be thrown into third-person to witness the action happening elsewhere. We see how Lori and the Icelandic police deal with things; we see the kidnappers deal with each other. Then it’s back to being inside Bryan’s head.

I think it might have been far more effective, and certainly more interesting from a psychological standpoint, if we spent the entire book with Bryan. A big part of his lecture program is to tell the executives what to expect and how to deal with it. Being taken out of Bryan’s point-of-view cuts the tension and really dilutes the effect of experiencing being a hostage. In the end, this head-hopping makes the book less effective than it might have been. Add to this one last-minute plot twist too many, and, even with an interesting setting, the result is a bit disappointing from such a talented author.

Rating: 7

May 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24099-1 (hardcover)

The Bake-Off - Beth Kendrick

2011-05-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

The Bake-Off

Beth Kendrick
New American Library

Fiction

Linnie Bialek and Amy Bialek Nichols are sisters with nothing in common. Linnie was a childhood genius who took all her parents’ time and attention. Amy, the older sister, spent a lot of time with her Grammy Syl. When she complained, her parents explained to her that Linnie just needed them more. Things didn’t turn out quite the way everyone expected, though. Amy is a soccer mom of toddler twins, a dental hygienist married to a dentist. Linnie deals blackjack in a Vegas casino.

Linnie also has a roommate. When the roommate’s brother steals an antique brooch, Linnie will do anything to get it back. Except, of course, tell anyone the truth. Or call the police and report the theft. She manages to get the pawn ticket and tries to play poker to win the thousands of dollars it will take to redeem the heirloom. That fails. Enter the indefatigable Grammy Syl. Grammy Syl would like her granddaughter to join her in a baking contest in New York. First prize is big money. Linnie is desperate enough to accept. Amy goes along for Grammy Syl. And, it must be said, for the opportunity to sleep peacefully past the crack of dawn. Then Grammy Syl drops the bomb. She won’t be participating. The sisters will do it together. Obviously, it’s a ploy to reunite the girls, but neither one feels she can say no.

It’s really hard to feel sorry for Linnie, although we’re clearly supposed to do so. Not only was she born a genius, she’s model-gorgeous, too. Her childhood was one long science fair, and she claimed that she’d be an M.D. before she could legally get a drink. When all that falls through, she retreats to a seedy apartment in Vegas and, because she can’t face anyone, spends years there. This is what some might call karma. She’s completely insufferable at the outset of the story, and only softens a bit by the end. I think I was supposed to like her by the end, but the truth is that I was just used to her at that point.

The bake-off setting and story is quite fun, especially since neither one of the sisters is anything of a cook. Some of the contestants are ferociously competitive, some are underhanded, and some are just there for the fun and the trip to New York. Amy gets her own little story arc, and it’s a lot more convincing than Linnie’s. Sadly, there’s less to it. Grammy Syl is obviously the glue that holds this whole thing together. She was far and away my favorite character, keeping on the right side of the ‘eccentric old lady’ line. It would be nice to think that a week in a hotel for a baking contest could repair the damage wrought by short-sighted parents and decades of mistrust. Possibly not terribly realistic, but that’s why fiction is fun.

Rating: 7

May 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23310-3 (trade paperback)

Magic In The Shadows - Devon Monk

2011-05-22T23:44:00.000-07:00

Magic In The Shadows
An Allie Beckstrom Novel

Devon Monk
Roc

Urban Fantasy

In Allie Beckstrom’s world, magic is so real that it’s treated as a natural resource. In fact, her father got rich by figuring out how to collect magic and pipe it from one place to another. Allie is a Hound, which means she can track the magical signature of a spell back to the caster. For Allie, the price is often pain, and sometimes memory loss. She carries a notebook with her to record to daily activities in case of such a loss.

If you missed the first two books in the series, MAGIC TOTHE BONE and MAGIC IN THE BLOOD, you’ll be starting this one on equal footing with Allie. Recent events took a huge piece of her recent memory. She’s been told about what happened, but has no memory of it. According to her notebook, she’s in a relationship with magic-user Zayvion Jones, but she remembers none of it. Upping the awkward factor is that Zayvion remembers everything.

What Allie does know is that her father, entrepreneur and powerful magic-user, is dead. That little fact hasn’t stopped him from taking up residence in her head. He wants her to find his killer (understandable, if creepy) and find some disks. The disks are new technology from his company that will make magic portable; make it usable by anyone, anywhere; and completely bypass any price (in pain, memory loss, etc.) to the user. In short, they’re extremely dangerous. Adding to the mix is Detective Stotts, who would like Allie to work for him, in a magical-investigative capacity. Allie’s predecessor was Pike, the leader of the Hounds. Since his recent death, Allie has inherited his title and responsibilities. And all she really wants to do right now is act like a normal girl – whatever that is - and go on a date and see what’s what with Zayvion.

Up to this point, Allie’s memory loss not only illustrates that magic giveth and magic taketh away; it’s an ingenious way to keep new readers up to speed. There’s a lot Allie doesn’t remember, and getting filled in on prior events because of her memory loss seems completely natural and not at all intrusive to the narrative. It probably goes without saying that the whole Date Night With Zayvion goes a bit haywire. Before they even get to his car, Allie finds a creature lurking in the alley, killing an animal. With Allie’s Hound senses, she can tell the creature is something different. She can also smell the scent of one of her Hounds. Since she’s responsible for all the Hounds, this is her problem in more ways than one.

The system of magic in this series is fresh and original and makes a lot of sense. In this world, the magic pools beneath the ground and was just waiting for someone to tap into it. Of course, as with any natural resource, there are those who will use it responsibly and well, and those who are in it only for monetary profit or personal gain. All of that seems completely realistic. Allie is a bit prickly as a character, but I’d say she has more than ample reason for her attitudes.

This installment starts quickly, introduces some great new characters (and re-introduces some who are already familiar) and ends with a scene that will make any fantasy reader sit up and take notice. As with all of the books so far, this one is a complete story, but it’s very clear that there’s more to come. That’s good news for fans of fantasy and urban fantasy.

Rating: 8

November 2009
ISBN# 978-0-451-46287-9 (paperback)

Inhuman Resources - Jes Battis

2011-05-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

Inhuman Resources
An OSI Novel
Jes Battis
Ace

Urban Fantasy

This is the third novel in this series (NIGHT CHILD, A FLASH OF HEX) and as far as I’m concerned, it’s far and away the best yet. The author has created a world in which magic and the occult exist, but are still mostly hidden from the ordinary citizen. Tess Corday and her partner, Derrick, work for CORE, investigating supernatural crimes. They have their individual paranormal skill sets, but they’re aided by labs and equipment created to detect traces of supernatural beings. Tess’ mother was a witch of some power; her father, she recently discovered is a full-blood demon. A demon in the bloodline is bad enough. Having a demon father, a witch mother, and a so-so level of talent is just plain odd.

Still, Tess does the best with what she has, and as the story begins, she’s called to a crime scene. A necromancer is dead, murdered. That’s almost unheard of, period. Add to that the fact that there’s no trace of anyone/anything else in the apartment, and the fact that he’s wearing armor from the 1500s, and the not-inconsiderable fact that he was a legal activist and wielded huge power, both political and necromantic in his own community, and it becomes a case with unknowable consequences. Unknown to her superiors, Tess has been having an off-and-on affair with Lucien, a necromancer and student of the murder victim. This kind of relationship is forbidden for all kinds of reasons. Now that Lucien has been designated the liaison for the necromancers, he and Tess will have to work together on this. Necromancers have always been secretive and devious, and this is no exception. It’s becoming quite clear to Tess that she knows next to nothing about necromancers in general, or about Lucien in particular.

A painting by Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, is a large part of the case. If you’re not familiar with the painting, you owe it to yourself to check it out online. The author does a superb job of describing the painting and its history, but nothing beats seeing it. Also, be sure to check out the re-interpretation by Picasso, which, while also described well, is more difficult to visualize.

As is usually the case in this series, Tess spends some time being sidetracked by other issues, including her less-than-normal home life. This time, though, it all gets tied together by the end, and seems right. At one point, Lucien must take Tess to the necromancer’s hidden city - inaccessible to those who don’t belong there - and this is the stuff of high fantasy. It’s fascinating to see the home turf of the ‘other side’ and it opens up some very interesting possibilities for future novels. Just as a side note, however, I’d prefer to see the use of the term “speculum” restricted to certain medical practices. Your mileage may vary on this. This installment is fascinating, fast-paced, and ties up some loose ends from previous novels while leaving open some tantalizing new possibilities for the future.

Rating: 7 ½
June 2010
ISBN# 978-0-441-01884-0 (paperback)

Mind Your Own Beeswax - Hannah Reed

2011-05-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

Mind Your Own Beeswax
A Queen Bee Mystery
Hannah Reed
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

It all starts with a Great Escape, Bee-Style. Well, that’s not exactly true. Sixteen years before Story Fischer’s honeybees swarmed off to find a bigger spot (she got them back and everyone is living happily) there was a tragedy in town. Since Moraine, WI is so small, absolutely everyone knew about, and they still talk about it today. A group of teenagers, including Story, were off the in woods, drinking. One of the kids, Lauren Kerrigan, left the group early and ended up driving her car over the town’s police chief. That first hit didn’t kill him, though. She backed up and finished the job. Lauren always claimed she was black-out drunk when it happened, and she’s spent the intervening years in prison, paying for it.

Cut to present-day Moraine, where Story runs her own grocery store, stocked with local items and her own honey products. She’s running a beeswax candle-making class when Rita Kerrigan (mother of Lauren) and a stranger appear. After the class, Story is shocked to hear that the stranger was Lauren, out on a medical parole with terminal cancer. Later that day, Lauren and the family’s gun go missing. The current police chief isn’t too interested in mounting a search party. Possibly because he’s got some issues with Lauren killing his dad with her car. When all is said and done, Lauren and another woman lie dead in the woods, murdered. The current police chief is an obvious suspect with some serious anger issues, but why now? And why would anyone want to kill both women?

This is the second in a series that began with BUZZ OFF. I admit, I’m not partial to bees. At all. But in this installment, bees are mainly in the background. The real mystery concerns the deaths of the two women, and how the past can shape the present. In such a small town, where almost everyone grew up together, memories are long, and gossip rules. That can be a plus when you’re trying to ferret out information, or a drawback when you’re the object of speculation. There’s no sophomore slump here. MIND YOUR OWN BEESWAX is a winning entry in an entertaining series. And for those who are so inclined, there are recipes and tips on growing bee-attracting flowers included.

Rating: 7 ½
May 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24159-2 (paperback

Almost Final Curtain - Tate Hallaway

2011-05-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

Almost Final Curtain
A Vampire Princess Novel
Tate Hallaway
New American Library

Young Adult/Paranormal

NOTE: This review is going to spoil quite a bit of the first novel in the series, ALMOST TO DIE FOR, so proceed at your own risk.

Just last semester, the only strange things Ana Parker knew about her heritage was that her mom was a witch who could do real magic and her dad was absent. Now she knows that her mom is the Queen of the Witches and her dad is a Vampire Prince. Oh, and that witches and vampires pretty much hate each other, so being from both worlds is a lot more than awkward. Since Ana demonstrated no real magical power during her initiation into the Circle, she’s sort of been letting her witch side slide. Her best friend, Bea, a True Witch, is accusing her of choosing her vampire side over her witch side. And her sort-of boyfriend, Nikolai is a vampire hunter in training. Also, somehow she’s now betrothed to Elias, one of her dad’s vampire knights. Not at all confusing.

This semester, Ana would like to pretend to be a regular student and try out for the spring musical. Unlike other years, half the student body wants to try out, too, since Nikolai is the lead singer for a local rock band and he’s going to be updating the music for “My Fair Lady.” (I’ll believe a rock version of the “Ascot Gavotte” when I hear it.) Ana has to contend not only with the whole ‘going to kill vampires’ thing with Nikolai, but also the endless supply of groupies. And the bizzaro fact that even the jocks and cheerleaders suddenly thing that musical theater is awesome. It’s enough to make anyone insecure.

Just when you think it can’t possibly get more weird, Ana learns about a talisman that means absolutely everything to both vampires and witches. Turns out, the whole hating each other thing started because the First Witch created a talisman that allowed her to bring vampires through the Veil. The catch? The vampires were only brought here to be slaves to witches. Then there was a whole war and the vampires were freed. Not by Lincoln, but because the witches lost the talisman. Now it’s up for grabs again, and so is the life of every vampire and every witch, depending on who gets their hands on it first. The sad thing is, even Bea thinks it would be cool to have a vampire servant. No one seems to have any real idea where Ana would fall on the whole master-servant continuum, but they all seem fairly sure that she should be doing something to help “her people.” So, which people are hers? And what, exactly, should she be doing?

The politics between the two groups goes back for, well, ever, and there’s no one simple solution to the problem. Ana doesn’t know whether to try and balance her two sides or choose one over the other. She’s really caught in the middle of everything, but she’s honestly trying to do what’s best for everyone. In other respects, she’s a normal teenager who just wants to write her extra-credit reports and not be late for math class and maybe get a singing role in the musical. Don’t let the ‘young adult’ designation fool you. These books are tightly plotted and contain enough intrigue and action to satisfy any reader of paranormals. There are some plot threads left open for the next book, but no dreaded cliffhanger ending. I’m looking forward to much more of Ana and her world.

Rating: 8
May 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23311-0 (trade paperback)

Deadly Fear - Cynthia Eden

2011-05-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

Deadly Fear
Cynthia Eden
Forever

Romantic Suspense

This novel, the first in a trilogy, is billed as romantic suspense. It would be more accurate, I think, to call it a murder thriller with romance. Monica Davenport is an FBI agent. She’s part of an elite team formed to identify patterns and hunt down serial killers. Luke Dante is the new guy on the team, and he’s worked hard to get there. The only snag is that Monica and Luke have a past. They went through training together and had a short-lived, fast-burning relationship. Now, Monica wants to put all that behind them and simply work as colleagues. Her reasons are more complicated than that, but she’s not interested in sharing. Luke is determined to re-ignite the spark he feels is still there.

The serial killer hunt – not for the faint of heart, or anyone who objects to colorful language – is written extremely well. The killer chooses and studies his victims in advance. He wants to know what scares each victim the most, and tailors the deaths for maximum terror. From the first scene they investigate, it’s clear to Monica and Luke that this killer is no novice; he’s highly organized and has been at his ‘craft’ for quite a while. The trail to the killer is twisted in more ways than one, but it always makes sense. Even absent the romance storyline, this would be an excellent thriller, and I’d recommend it for fans of that genre.

Fairly early on, it becomes clear that the killer has Monica on his radar. He starts making calls to her cell phone; a number that shouldn’t be available to just anyone. Then he leaves his phone – a phone that belonged to one of his victims – on the ground next to Monica’s car. Clearly, he loves playing his game and Monica is his next target. Monica has a past that makes her an excellent profiler, and she’s determined not only to evade the killer’s grasp, but to prove that she can do her job with all the steely determination of any man. That may play right into the killer’s hands. The pages fly by as the action accelerates throughout the narrative. The final denouement and the events that follow are fascinating and quite satisfying.

Rating: 7 ½
August 2010
ISBN# 978-0-446-55924-9 (paperback)

Classified As Murder - Miranda James

2011-05-06T01:43:00.000-07:00

Classified As Murder
A Cat In The Stacks Mystery
Miranda James
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

Life should be rather sedate for widower Charlie Harris. He lives in tiny Athena, Mississippi, works part-time as a rare book cataloger for the local college, and volunteers at the library. Diesel, a Maine Coon cat and Charlie’s constant companion, travels with him. During a morning at the library, local eccentric (meaning, odd but wealthy) James Delacorte approaches Charlie and asks him to catalog Mr. Delacorte’s personal collection of rare volumes. It seems that Mr. Delacorte is worried that someone is pilfering the treasures he’s spent a lifetime acquiring.

When Charlie arrives for tea at the Delacorte home, he’s treated to just about as much Southern eccentricity as anyone could stand. The entire extended family lives in the home, and on Mr. Delacorte’s largesse. Since few of them have any independent source of income, the thief could be anyone. But first, Charlie has to determine that volumes are missing. To do that, he must complete an inventory using Mr. Delacorte’s written records. Returning from lunch on the first day, Charlie finds Mr. Delacorte dead at his desk. It might have been a heart attack, but circumstances would argue otherwise.

Adding to the mystery is the arrival of Charlie’s adult son, Sean. He’s fairly vague on the reason or length of his visit, but it’s clear that, after several years of working for a law firm, he’s disenchanted with the prospect. Watching Charlie and Sean come to terms really deepens both of the characters. The issues seem organic and not at all forced. That makes their resolution, such as it is, that much sweeter. Speaking of coming to terms, Charlie is on much better terms with deputy Kanesha Berry than he was in the first book, MURDER PAST DUE. This makes for a nice working relationship and an easier time for both the characters and the reader.

Throughout the book, Charlie mentions Miss Marple and Agatha Christie. The first mention came at a time when I was thinking that if Dame Agatha had written mysteries about quirky Southern families, this would have been the result. It’s a wonderful, classic mystery. Not only for the who-dunnit, but for the why-dunnit. There were several viable suspects, leaving everything up for grabs until the satisfying resolution. Diesel is always present, warbling and chirping to Charlie, sharing his days. This time, he even gets a friend, since Sean brings a dog home with him. Cat lovers will understand that Diesel instantly establishes a pecking order, with him as benevolent ruler. Charlie and Diesel are great characters, and I hope to see much more of them in the near future.

Rating: 7 ½
May 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24157-8 (paperback)

Among Thieves - Douglas Hulick

2011-05-03T23:46:00.000-07:00

Among Thieves
A Tale Of The Kin
Douglas Hulick
Roc

Fantasy

When you look back on it, this whole thing is really the fault of one Athel the Grinner. Who, as it happens, is definitely not grinning when we meet him. Because he’s being tortured. Because he stole a reliquary for which Drothe already had a buyer. It’s bad enough to get ripped off like that, but even worse when relic hunting is pretty much a sideline, and a deadly one at that. If the empire catches someone trading in holy relics or artifacts, that someone ends up dead. Dead is exactly what happens to Athel, too, although not via the empire. Before he expires, he gives Drothe a name: Ioclaudia, a name not used in centuries. Among Athel’s thing, Drothe finds some twisted bits of paper with ideograms on them. Those would be clues.

Drothe’s normal line of work is as a Nose, or gatherer and sorter of information. He’s one of the Kin, a loose association of individuals who work outside the law and are governed by local bosses. Drothe’s boss, Nicco, is known for his near-psychopathic temper, so Drothe hesitates to tell him about rumors floating around that another boss is attempting to make a move on him. This hesitation backfires in a big way when someone else in the organization tells Nicco first. Long story and many rumors short, it looks like there’s a war brewing in an area called Ten Ways between Nicco and his former partner, Kells. This is bad because nothing brings out the empire (and their executioners) like a war among Kin. Another little wrinkle in his day? Everyone seems to be looking for a holy book. Everyone thinks Drothe has it. No one is going to be polite about getting their hands on it.

Drothe and his friends and associates are criminals. Some more than others, true, but they’re all part of what the p.c. police would call the ‘criminal underbelly of society.’ There are definite hierarchies, and there’s a lot of politics and intrigue. The difference is, if you insult the wrong Kin the right way, you’re dead. It makes for a lot of excitement, but dicey job security. While the Kin are criminals, they have their own code of conduct. There are penalties for certain acts and a clear understanding of possible consequences if you decide to go up against someone bigger or more powerful than yourself. The bosses aren’t just guarded by swords. Some of them have glimmer: magical protection. It’s expensive, but you might feel your life is worth it.

AMONG THIEVES is a grand adventure set in a fully-realized world. The history of this world and its empire are integral to the story, and the author manages to set it all out for the reader by weaving it into the narrative. Each character has a distinct point of view and goal, and they all act according to those mindsets. Since many of them are used to using deceit, some of those goals are obscured until late in the proceedings. It all works perfectly and produces a story that has twists right up until the end. This is one of the rare books that, upon finishing, you may want to start all over again, now that you know the truth about things. Readers of fantasy who also enjoy a good dose of action – and not a little language and violence – will love this, the first installment of what I hope to be a long-running series. Highly recommended.

Rating: 8 ½
May 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-46390-6 (paperback)

A Hard Day's Fright - Casey Daniels

2011-04-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

A Hard Day’s Fright
A Pepper Martin Mystery
Casey Daniels
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery/Paranormal

Due to car problems, cemetery tour guide Pepper Martin (TOMB WITH A VIEW) finds herself forced aboard the Cleveland train, or “rapid” as it’s called. As if public transportation isn’t enough to ruin her day, she finds herself confronted by a ghost. This is nothing new to Pepper; she can see and speak with the dead. They usually want her to solve their murder or to finish something they left undone. This teenager, Lucy, wants Pepper to find her body so her spirit can rest. It’s a fairly startling request, even for someone with Pepper’s background.

Lucy was riding the rapid with a bunch of friends on what was perhaps the best night of her life. It was the summer of 1966, and they’d all been to the Beatle’s concert. Lucy was thrilled with herself because she’d been brave enough (in the midst of a near-riot that almost stopped the concert) she’d jumped onstage and planted a kiss on Paul McCartney. Then the night turned sour. Her memories are fragmentary, but she knows she was blindfolded and put in a car trunk. She has no idea about the identity of her killer or where that person left her body. As far as everyone else is concerned, Lucy simply disappeared that night, never to be seen again.

A lot of the story – too much, for my personal taste – deals with Ariel, the teenaged daughter of Pepper’s boss, Ella. Ariel is rebelling and being generally obnoxious. Ella’s plan is to force her to come to the cemetery office every day after school, and hoping that Pepper can work some kind of change on her. She definitely has her moments, but a little of this kid goes a long way. When she’s not dealing with a teenager, Pepper is bemoaning the state of her relationship, or lack thereof, with a local detective. As it turns out, there’s a reason for this, but during the course of the book, it just seems like wallowing.

The story of Lucy and her final evening makes for a very good mystery. Pepper has to rely on Lucy’s hazy and incomplete recollections and the willingness of other people to re-open what is, at this point, a forty-five-year-old wound. Lucy is a great character and the reader really feels the tragedy of her life cut so violently short. The investigation takes some interesting twists and turns, and the resolution feels nicely complete. The plot twists continue until the final page, leaving Pepper at a crossroads. Readers who enjoy a dose of the paranormal in their mysteries should enjoy this series.

Rating: 7
April 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24056-4 (paperback)

A Question Of Belief - Donna Leon

2011-04-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

A Question Of Belief
A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery
Donna Leon
Penguin/Grove Press

Mystery

The canals and soaring architecture of Venice are no match for the stifling and inescapable August heat due to widespread lack of air conditioning. These are the realities that face Commissario Guido Brunetti. Usually, the crime rate increases during a heat wave, but this one is so bad that the criminals apparently can’t be bothered. Brunetti is counting the days to a family vacation in the mountains (where sweaters and quilts will be necessary) when a friend drops in on him with a strange file. The file details several cases wending their very slow way through the court system. Examining the information, Brunetti sees that there are far more delays with these cases than would be usual. And he finds a couple of names that appear frequently: Araldo Fontana, a man who has spent a distinguished career as a functionary in the system; and Judge Coltellini.

Before Brunetti has much time to pursue the information, Inspector Lorenzo Vianello comes to him with a problem. Lorenzo’s aunt, generally a no-nonsense type of woman, has begun withdrawing large sums of money and is uncharacteristically secretive about where the money is going. For her to be so secretive must mean that there’s something shady about her actions. It’s a family problem, but the family is making no headway. Brunetti finds himself following an old woman after a bank withdrawal to see where she goes. The answer satisfies no one and the recipient of the funds raises further concerns.

Brunetti and his family are on the train to the mountains when he’s called back to the city. Araldo Fontana is dead; murdered in the courtyard of his apartment building. An apartment that a court clerk should never be able to afford. Despite everyone’s assurances that Fontana was “decorous” and “a good man,” there was clearly more to his life than his dedication to his job.

This is the nineteenth book in the series; don’t let that discourage you. Venice, its people, its summer heat, even its political problems, are all detailed in a way that allows the reader to fully experience the story. To read A QUESTION OF BELIEF is to live in Venice while turning the pages. This is a very literate and character-driven crime novel. This was my first foray into the world of Guido Brunetti, and I felt right at home. His relationships with his wife, his children, and his colleagues are deep and complex. Each character feels absolutely genuine. The story is crafted with care and grace. Ms. Leon is clearly a master at work.

Rating: 9
April 2011
ISBN# 978-0-14-311895-4 (trade paperback)

A Timely Vision - Joyce and Jim Lavene

2011-04-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

A Timely Vision
A Missing Pieces Mystery
Joyce and Jim Lavene
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery/Paranormal

Miss Mildred and Miss Elizabeth are legends in tiny Duck, North Carolina. The oldest living residents, and sisters, they’ve got plenty of history with the town and each other. At age 92, and after a successful marriage of her own, Miss Mildred still carries a grudge over Johnny Simpson, who chose Miss Elizabeth instead of her. The fact that this man later ran out on Miss Elizabeth doesn’t seem to enter into the equation. The story begins when Miss Mildred visits Dae O’Donnell at her shop, Missing Pieces, to ask for help.

Everyone in town knows that Dae has a talent for finding things. If you’ve lost something, Dae can hold your hand and tell you where that thing is. In a town that traces its roots to pirates and takes ghost sightings on the beach as a matter of course, Dae’s gift is regarded simply as useful. Miss Mildred lent her mother’s watch to Miss Elizabeth, who hasn’t returned it. To Miss Mildred, that means it’s lost. Dae gets a very clear mental image of the watch on Miss Elizabeth’s arm, but Miss Elizabeth is nowhere to be found. That’s a serious problem because Miss Elizabeth is known for aimlessly wandering on the beach, and there’s a serious storm breaking over the coast.

Kevin Brickman, the new guy in town, volunteers to help Dae search. To their dismay, they find Miss Elizabeth on the beach. She’s buried in the sand, with only her watch arm showing. It’s a blow to the town, but Miss Mildred opines that her sister might have got what she had coming. Not what you’d expect to hear. Days later, Miss Elizabeth’s purse (missing from the crime scene) turns up at Miss Mildred’s house. Miss Mildred claims her sister brought it to her the previous night. Ghost sightings may be accepted by the locals, but there’s no way a judge or a court of law is going to believe it. In no time, Mildred is arrested for the murder of her sister. Dae knows that it’s not true, and sets out to prove it.

This is the solidly entertaining first installment in a new series. The paranormal elements are blended seamlessly with the mystery elements. Dae has a gift, and sometimes she has to prove it to the skeptical. Kevin, for instance, doesn’t quite believe in the gift, but he’s renovating the long-abandoned local inn, and needs to find a key to a locked door. When Dae finds it for him, they find much more than they expected in that locked room. Although he’s a ‘show me’ type, Kevin has to admit that the gift is real.

There’s a lot of necessary introduction that takes place in any first book, but each character appears in a natural way and is woven into the life of the town (and Dae.) The mystery here involves a lot of the town’s history, allowing readers to become well acquainted with the town and its inhabitants. There are plenty of twists to this tale, and clearly more to come. I know I’ll be returning to Duck.

Rating: 7
May 2010
ISBN# 978-0-425-23475-4 (paperback)

A Deadly Cliche - Ellery Adams

2011-04-20T02:16:00.000-07:00

A Deadly Cliché
A Books By The Bay Mystery
Ellery Adams
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

When I reviewed the first book in this series (A KILLER PLOT) I admitted to having problems with the main character, Olivia Limoges, oak barrel heiress and generally entitled person. Those problems still exist, but now come with a measure of confusion. She still parks in fire zones or anywhere else that’s convenient to her and waves her magical credit cards around to solve everyone’s immediate problems, to the point that she becomes “drunk” on the gratitude of the townspeople. During the course of the book, a couple of secondary characters openly call her on her habit of constantly buying friendship. It makes me wonder if the author actually likes the main character any better than I do. That’s odd.

This time around, there are a couple of mystery plots, but they’re both clearly subplots in service to detailing the dichotomous Olivia. She had an emotionally rough but materially wealthy childhood that has clearly left her with some scars. She wears those proudly and apparently enjoys playing the eccentric Lady Bountiful in her little hometown. She says she’s doing it all behind the scenes, but it seems pretty clear that everyone knows all the details. She claims to enjoy being alone, yet nurtures two potential romantic relationships. One of those is the local sheriff, which gets her the inside track on the investigation into a man’s body she finds on the beach, buried up to his neck in sand.

Another contradiction is her friendship with various members of her writing group. (There are long passages from a couple of the group’s ‘books’ included. Sadly, they sound more interesting than the one at hand.) She encourages Laurel, a stifled stay-at-home mom of twin toddlers to live her life by going for a part-time writing/reporting job at the local paper. Then she encourages Laurel to lie to her husband and in-laws about it, while sending home five-star meals from Olivia’s top-notch restaurant as ‘proof’ of the mythical set of cooking classes that take up Laurel’s time. This job, however, has the benefit of getting Olivia in on interviews with local burglary victims, since Laurel needs her to come along as moral support. Someone is breaking into homes and leaving strange little tableaux on the scene: a knife in butter, a deck of cards that’s not complete, that kind of thing. At first, they’re little more than nuisance crimes, until a homeowner ends up dead.

The second mysterious subplot is the letter Olivia receives claiming that her long-lost father (who sailed into the fog during a drunken rage thirty years ago, never to return) is actually alive, but his location will cost Olivia $1,000. This sets off a private investigation, memories, and a storyline that all but eclipses everything else. The robbery/murder case is given fairly short shrift, and is solved by some logic leaps that don’t seem quite feasible. The solution seems fairly unrealistic, too, but I suppose ‘only in a small town’ applies here. The mystery of her father is cleared up, too. The good news would be that Olivia seems to be starting to come to terms with her childhood. I hope this character arc continues and she becomes a likeable character. I find the rest of the cast, specifically the writers, far more appealing.

Rating: 6
March 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24023-6

The Trouble With Demons - Lisa Shearin

2011-04-15T23:57:00.000-07:00

The Trouble With Demons
Lisa Shearin
Ace

Fantasy

Fair Warning: If you haven’t read the first two books in this series (MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND and ARMED & MAGICAL) you have missed a couple of really great books. Also, this review will contain unavoidable spoilers. So go read the first two books before proceeding here. Really. It’s worth it. I’ll wait.

It’s difficult to believe that, only two weeks ago, Raine Benares, an elf and seeker, found the Saghred. An incredible amount of action has taken place over those two weeks (detailed in the previous two volumes.) It should be noted, too, that, even though Raine’s profession is a seeker of objects, her finding of the Saghred was something of an accident. That accident was most likely helped along by the Saghred itself, since it’s an ancient stone of nearly limitless magical power. Now it holds Raine to it as a bond servant, meaning escape is impossible.

At the moment, Raine is still on the Isle of Mid, which contains the best college for sorcery in the seven kingdoms. Originally, she went there seeking help for her bound-to-a-magical-rock problem, but her problems have only escalated since then. It’s almost – almost – not surprising when, on a lovely sunny morning, Raine catches sight of a bunch of blue demons wandering the streets. To her shock, no one else can see them. Even worse, they’re in search-and-attack mode. It’s pretty clear that, although they’re looking for something, they don’t have any problems munching on college students while they search.

While fighting the demons, Raine gets an unexpected magical assist from Tam, a former dark mage. He’s also a goblin, which in this world, makes him visually an elf with grey skin and black hair, and quite attractive. Raine, whose magical abilities were pedestrian at best before the Saghred, can suddenly channel vast amounts of magic and can hear Tam speaking to her in her mind. Moments later, she has almost the same experience with paladin Mychael. This should not be happening at all, never mind with men who represent the white and black sides of magic. But, thanks to that annoying rock, Raine is now in some kind of three-way soul-twin relationship. It’s confusing and illegal and dangerous and still first thing in the morning. So, you know the rest of the day is going to be great.

Clearly (to the magic users) the demons are coming out of a Hellgate. The really bad news? Hellgates don’t just open on their own; someone very powerful has to create one and then keep it stable to allow the demons to move from their world to ours. As paladin of Mid, Mychael’s job is to keep everyone on the island safe. The action moves all over the city, above and below ground. The writing style is so fluid that I was honestly surprised to realize that the first two-thirds of the book covers a single day. There is so much action, magic, and character development that I was simply swept up in events.

This is the kind of story, the kind of writing, that makes you remember why you love reading fantasy. The characters are many and varied, and the author has managed to make each one of them individual and believable. The world they inhabit feels completely real. During scenes of peril, I honestly care what happens to each character. This story is complete in itself, but is clearly the start of something more. Events continue until the final pages, letting this grateful reader know that there’s more to come. I’m so glad.

Rating: 8
May 2009
ISBN# 978-0-441-01712-6 (paperback)

Cookie Dough Or Die - Virginia Lowell

2011-04-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

Cookie Dough Or Die
A Cookie Cutter Shop Mystery
Virginia Lowell
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

After her divorce, Olivia Greyson returns to her hometown and, along with lifelong best friend Maddie, opens The Gingerbread House, a shop on the first floor of a Victorian house (she lives upstairs) devoted to cookies, cookbooks, and especially cookie cutters. During the planning and opening stages, local businesswoman Clarisse Chamberlain was a sort of mentor who became a friend and customer. Not coincidentally, Clarisse was an avid collector of vintage cookie cutters, loving them for the feeling of history and home they gave her.

It comes as a horrible shock when news arrives that Clarisse is dead. In her sixties, Clarisse was still a force to be reckoned with, both in her business and personal lives. Widowed, she still took a very active role in her various businesses, along with her grown sons, Hugh and Edward. The sheriff believes the death was an unfortunate and accidental combination of wine and sleeping pills (Clarisse had insomnia) but Olivia refuses to believe it. Clarisse was clear-headed and quite in control of all aspects of her life. If it was murder, the motive seems pretty obvious: money. Then the will reading reveals that Clarisse left Olivia a large amount of money and her very valuable collection of cookie cutters. Now it looks like Olivia had a motive, too. Undaunted, Olivia is determined to get to the truth behind her friend’s death.

I wouldn’t have thought that a shop like this one would thrive in an economy like ours, but I have to admit that the shop sounds divine. And it’s a great place to gather various characters. Olivia has a lot of history in this small town; she knows just about everyone in some way. That makes for a large and varied and interesting cast of characters, all with intersecting stories and possible motives. Olivia moved away from town for a while, but her friends and family remained there, so they’re able to fill her in on what she might have missed. Olivia’s mom, Ellie, is an interesting character who manages to be eccentric without veering into caricature at any point.

This is exactly the kind of mystery that made me a fan of the genre. My first mysteries were Agatha Christie novels, so it’s fun to see Olivia compare herself to Tuppence Beresford. A couple of scenes, like the will reading and the gathering of all the suspects at the end, seem like homages to classic mysteries, without being slavish imitations. It’s always a joy to find a new series that has such a solid first outing and contains such promise. There are plenty of possibilities to the story at hand; enough suspects and subplots to make the mystery delightfully twisty, and to sustain suspense until the end. I’m hoping for lots more from this author.

Rating: 8
April 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24067-0 (paperback)

I Would Find A Girl Walking - Kathy Kelly and Diana Montane

2011-04-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

I Would Find A Girl Walking
Kathy Kelly and Diana Montané
Berkley

True Crime

During the 1970s, a serial killer was at work in the U.S. He was very good at his “job,” and might have gone undetected in that era before ViCAP and DNA. He made a mistake. He let a woman live. When he was arrested, Gerald Eugene Stano did very little to deny or obfuscate his guilt. In fact, he built a certain trust with a police officer, Paul Crow, and began confessing, in detail and without emotion or remorse, to dozens of murders.

By all accounts, Gerald Stano was unprepossessing. He was pudgy, of below-average intelligence, and displayed a fondness for polyester and disco music long past the time either of those things were considered cool. It must have been his harmless-looking exterior (and the times they lived in) that allowed so many young women to get into a car with him. They probably felt, as the authors surmise, that they could either overpower or outrun him if the situation arose. Unfortunately for most of them, they were wrong. Stano attacked with a suddenness and ferocity that left almost all of his victims dead. A careless comment about his weight, his clothes, or his music set him off and he attacked with his hands, a knife, a gun, or whatever was at hand.

One of the authors, Kathy Kelly, covered many of the stories of murdered girls as separate incidents. At the time, no one put together a pattern. By the time he was awaiting execution, Stano entered into a written correspondence with Kelly, sending some forty letters in a bit less than a year. These letters are appended to the text, and they are chilling. Some are chatty, and sound like a long-distance boyfriend. Some contain offhand confessions to heinous acts. The letters lend insight into the mind of a killer; although readers should remain aware that he was always in control of exactly what he wrote and how he appeared.

The body of the text is somewhat more disjointed. It may be that this is a reflection of the fact that most of these stories appeared as separate events when first reported. There are quotes from the appended letters and interviews the author held with Stano to tie things together, but there’s a lot of repetition and overall, the accounts feel oddly second-hand. It may also be that the author necessarily needed to hold Stano at more than arm’s length, mentally, to deal with the subject matter. Whatever the case, it is unlikely that a killer like Stano would escape notice with today’s detection methods. The truth is that he killed for no good reason, and he cut short lives that held promise out of pettiness and jealousy. This book is far more than he deserves.

Rating: 7
April 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-23186-9 (paperback)

Royal Pains - Leslie Carroll

2011-04-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

Royal Pains
A Rogue’s Gallery Of Brats, Brutes, And Bad Seeds
Leslie Carroll
NAL

History

Everyone loves to read about a good scandal, especially when the actors are the most powerful/wealthy people in the world.

This is no dry recitation of historical fact. The writing style is conversational, almost chatty, and breezes along through each narrative. No prior historical knowledge is required, as the author helpfully provides background and dates to ground each historical person. History buffs should find this an entertaining read, too, since the author takes care to separate fact from fiction, and also corrects some common misconceptions about those covered.

The book begins with King John (the nasty guy from the Robin Hood tales) and his tale sets the tone. He was undeniably a complete pain and a horrible person in some ways. In others, he laid the foundations that allowed modern English society to evolve. Vlad the Impaler, who served as the inspiration for Dracula; Ivan the Terrible of Russia; and King Richard III are obvious inclusions here. Still, each gets evenhanded treatment while dealing with even the nastiest of rumors and facts.

The most surprising inclusion (to me) was Princess Margaret, who died in 2002. Let’s be honest: her sins pale in comparison to someone like Elizabeth Bathory. But it’s all entertaining and informative. I think I might have learned a thing or two, accidentally of course, during the book. Readers of historical fiction will enjoy this on its own. For those with more scholarly leanings, there’s a truly great bibliography of other resources included.

Rating: 8
March 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23221-2 (trade paperback)

Stitch Me Deadly - Amanda Lee

2011-03-26T01:16:00.000-07:00

Stitch Me Deadly
An Embroidery Mystery
Amanda Lee
Obsidian

Mystery

It’s been several weeks since embroidery shop owner Marcy Singer discovered a dead body in her shop (THE QUICK AND THE THREAD) and she’s not anxious to repeat the experience. When elderly Louisa Ralston enters the shop, she already looks ill, but she’s intent on her mission. She hands Marcy an antique sampler, and asks Marcy to help find “my ivy.” Marcy has no idea what she means, and has no chance to find out, since Ms. Ralston almost immediately collapses into unconsciousness, then dies.

Marcy is horrified and saddened by the event. The autopsy turns up a prescription medication in Ms. Ralston’s system that caused a heart attack, and now the police are looking hard at Marcy as the prime suspect, since she was the last person with Ms. Ralston. A search of Marcy’s home turns up a bottle of that same medication in a guest room last inhabited by Beverly, Marcy’s mom. As is her wont, Beverly is determined to set the police straight on the whole story. It’s not enough to allay suspicion, but it’s a start. In the meantime, Marcy is left with the lovely sampler that the dead woman’s family apparently doesn’t want. It might have been worth something at one time, but the verse at the bottom was removed and changed for some reason. With nothing better to go on, and to get herself out of hot water, Marcy looks into the stitching.

This is the second in a solid mystery series. Marcy is an engaging and realistic. She doesn’t always make the right decisions, and she’s far more trusting that I would ever be, even in normal circumstances, but she’s a good person at heart. Her mother, Beverly, is a well-known costume designer for the film industry. Unlike many other moms (who are played for overbearing comic effect) Beverly is really a more mature, wiser version of Marcy. She wants to look out for her thirty-something daughter, but she’s got her own life and career and seems like someone who’d be great fun to know. I found myself far more in tune with Beverly than Marcy this time around. I have no idea what that says about me.

The mystery is interesting, and the sampler angle makes it unusual. It makes sense that Marcy would want to clear her name. Again. I think most readers will have at least half of the story figured out long before Marcy and Beverly get to the point. Usually, that’s a serious demerit. If it’s so easy to figure out, why didn’t someone in the story get it? This time around, there’s a solid answer for that; it makes sense, on both a literary and human level. That kind of plotting is what makes mysteries fun reading, and makes this installment stronger than the first book.

Rating: 7
February 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23251-9 (paperback)

Beaglemania - Linda O. Johnston

2011-03-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

Beaglemania
A Pet Rescue Mystery
Linda O. Johnston
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

As the head administrator of HotRescues, Lauren Vancouver has a lot on her hands. HotRescues is a no-kill shelter funded privately by a super-chain of pet stores called, of course, HotPets. Lauren takes care of her charges, runs the books for the place, and oversees adoptions. One of the least savory aspects of her job is finding out about puppy mills. Rumors spread fast through formal and informal channels in the shelter business, and Lauren hears about a raid going on nearby. When she arrives, she’s horrified to find Efram Kiley, an erstwhile volunteer at Hot Rescues on the premises. He claims he heard about the rescue and is only there to help, but it soon becomes clear that he had a hand in the puppy mill.

Not only in the mill, but in the four tiny beagle puppies tossed into a nearby storm drain. Clearly, Efram thought he could cover his crimes by disposing of the living evidence. Naturally, Laruen bans Efram from the premises of HotRescues. Naturally, the lowlife makes threats against the people and animals at HotRescues. Not so naturally, Lauren finds Efram at the shelter, dead. The high-tech camera system and crack security team saw nothing and Lauren immediately becomes the prime suspect. A few more nasty incidents at the shelter only seem to point the finger of suspicion more firmly in her direction. Taking a cue from animal-rights lawyer Kendra Ballantyne, Lauren decides that she owes it to herself and her animal friends to do a little investigating of her own.

This is the first installment in a new series by the author of the Kendra Ballantyne series. It’s interesting to see the sort of spin-off series take shape, as Lauren needs to hire a lawyer, and hires one from Kendra’s practice. I may be a bit biased, since I firmly believe that every animal in every shelter deserves a loving forever home, and so I’m pretty sympathetic toward Lauren and her cause. The scenes of Lauren going through her daily routine at the shelter are a bit bittersweet, knowing that, for every animal that ends up in a place like this, there are many more that meet less fortunate ends.

Although I’m disposed to like this series, this effort feels uneven. Lauren, who has no investigative experience, decides to make a list of suspects and question every one of them. It’s completely unrealistic to think that Efram’s relatives (who know that Lauren considered him an animal-abusing monster, since he was) would talk to her at all, let alone give her any useful information. Yet, this is what happens. I know the story needs to move forward, but there’s no reason the puppy mill operators or Efram’s lawyer would give Lauren the time of day. The book mainly focuses on the animals, with the mystery a sort of subplot that’s just too easy to solve. Still, anyone who feels this strongly about animal rights gets not only my respect, but my continued support.

Rating: 6
March 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24021-2 (paperback)

The Queen's Rival - Diane Haeger

2011-03-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

The Queen’s Rival
In The Court Of Henry VIII
Diane Haeger
New American Library

Historical Fiction

Young Bess Blount dreamed of going to the court of King Henry VIII. Both her parents served there, and the stories they told made it seem like a magical place, ruled over by a god-like King. Bess gets her wish at 14 when her father returns, injured, from war, and her mother must stay at home in the country to nurse him back to health. Bess will serve as a sort of place-holder for her mother in the court of Queen Katherine of Aragon. Bess is shocked to discover that the Queen’s court is not the lively place full of music and dancing that the remembered from childhood stories. Instead, the Queen is devoted more and more to prayer, desperate to give the King (and the country) the son and heir he desires.

Bess’ first meeting with Henry does nothing to diminish her childhood crush or her romantic notions about the man. She’s sure that she, alone, can be the partner he needs. Thinking no further than that, really, Bess learns how to flirt and catch the King’s attention, completely oblivious to the fact that one of her best friends at court is currently Henry’s mistress. Bess will not believe that she is just one in a long line, and allows her thoughts of romance to become deed. The reality of the situation becomes quite clear when Mistress Blunt (not even a lady of any real standing) discovers that she is with child.

It’s true that Bess’ story is one of the more little-known stories of the Tudor era. She was absolutely real, and had an affair with the king that resulted in a child. Her time at court began during the time of Katherine of Aragon and continued through the times of the Boleyns and into the time of Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour. It should have been quite a dangerous time for anyone at court, not the least one of Henry’s many mistresses, but Bess somehow floats above it all, living out a girl’s fantasy.

In a way, it’s understandable, since she comes to court at 14, and begins her affair with Henry at perhaps 16. Girls that age are still full of romantic silliness and unrealistic expectations about life. On the other hand, I found it nearly impossible to believe that Bess’ mother, a longtime member of Katherine’s court, wouldn’t have warned her lovely daughter about the King’s habits in no uncertain terms. And it’s extremely difficult to imagine that a girl would live at court for years and still retain her innocently rose-colored view about the King and his court.

Be that as it may, this is a bit of Tudor history that generally gets a footnote or, at best, a paragraph. When held up beside the courage of Katherine and the scandals that followed the Boleyns, Bess’ story seems quite tame. The author does a wonderful job of making Bess into a living, breathing human being with strength of character and the kind of flaws that define a person. She’s real, on the page, as are Henry, and the many members of his court. The descriptive passages allow the reader to feel that they’ve walked through the hallways or sat at supper with some of the greatest names in English history. The writing is lovely and makes this story accessible for those with no familiarity for the historical period; yet deep and fascinating for those readers who do. It’s a beautiful book about a little-known part of Tudor history that might have changed the course of a country.

Rating: 8 ½
March 2011
978-0-451-23220-5 (trade paperback)

Sealed With A Kill - Lucy Lawrence

2011-03-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

Sealed With A Kill
A Decoupage Mystery
Lucy Lawrence
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

It’s fall in New England, and there are lots of tourists around, looking at the gorgeous leaves. Brenna Miller, who works at Vintage Papers with/for her best friend, Tenley Morse, sees more than her share of these tourists since she lives in a cottage on a scenic lake. When another friend asks Brenna to take his group for a walking tour, she agrees. What could happen on a nature hike?

What happens is that Brenna finds her third dead body since moving to tiny Morse Point. That’s bad enough; it’s even worse that the group of sight-seers had to see it, too; and even worse is that the body turns out to be that of Harvey Lester, longtime business partner of Tenley’s dad. The partners were having some financial issues, and suspicion naturally falls on Mr. Morse. Tenley begs Brenna to put her sleuthing skills to work, and Brenna is unable to refuse.

This is the third installment (STUCK ON MURDER, CUT TO THE CORPSE) in this very solid series, and newcomers will have no problems at all jumping in at this point. This is one of those times a reader can look back after the murderer is unmasked and see the clues that were planted along the way. The ongoing will-they-or-won’t-they between Brenna and Nate is resolved in this book, and there are a couple of interesting subplots to keep things lively. Townspeople of all walks of life are rendered as complex, real people. This series is a very solid bet for fans of cozy mysteries.

Rating: 7
March 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-24025-0 (paperback)

Falling Under - Gwen Hayes

2011-03-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

Falling Under
Gwen Hayes
New American Library

Young Adult/Paranormal

Theia Alderson begins as a sheltered and rather vanilla poor-little-rich girl, sheltered from the world and everything in it by an overprotective, if loving, Father. Professional decorators update her room regularly, Father’s personal shopper buys her clothing for her, and until moving to the US from London a few years ago, she was homeschooled. High school and a few friends have made a big difference in her life, but she’s still mostly wrapped in a nice, safe, boring cocoon.

“Everything changed the night I saw the burning man fall from the sky.” The man fell onto her lawn, burned, and turned to dust. The next morning, she isn’t at all sure it had happened. Then the dreams begin; dreams about a handsome boy she’s never met, in a place that is somewhere not quite real. His name is Haden, and when she sees him in the school admin office, she’s beyond shocked. The dreams continue, even though waking-time Haden pretends he has no interest in her. So, either she’s seriously crazy, or he’s keeping some serious secrets from her.

The plot of the first half of the book will be familiar to anyone who has read a certain series of books or seen the movies made from them. It’s a lot of back and forth, he loves me/he loves me not kind of thing. One day, Theia is positive that their love is real and forever; the next day, she completely believes that he wants nothing to do with her. This might play very well if you’re thirteen. I struggle to remember that far back in my life. Theia’s friends and a few secondary characters go a long way towards making all of this bearable.

Adults looking for an interesting paranormal story would be advised to stick it out through all the teen angst of the first portions of the book. In later parts of the book, the mystery of Haden’s identity is solved, and with that knowledge come a host of other problems for everyone involved. These last portions of the book tell a much deeper and complex tale, with a unique setting and characters. Theia and Haden both change and mature during this part of the story, and I liked the characters on the last pages far better than I liked them on the first. The book is complete, but the final pages leave things open for a sequel.

Rating: 7
March 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23268-7 (trade paperback)

How To Survive A Killer Seance - Penny Warner

2011-03-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

How To Survive A Killer Séance
A Party Planning Mystery With Tips
Penny Warner
Obsidian

Mystery

Presley Parker has a new client for her event planning business. Jonathan Ellington, CEO and owner of one of the many high tech computer development firms in San Francisco, wants a special kind of party to announce the launch of his new 4-D projector. According to Jonathan, it will revolutionize fields as disparate as movies and medicine. His idea is to hold the party/demonstration at the famous Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. The house was built over decades by Sarah Winchester, heir to the fortune. Sarah believed the mediums who told her that continual building would appease the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifles. The result is a puzzle box of a house and a great place for a séance party.

The main set-piece for the party will be a séance during which the “ghost” of Sarah Winchester will appear to the guests through use of the 4-D projector and speak to those in the room. Given her social stature and introverted nature, I’m not sure how much she would have enjoyed being posthumously turned into a spokesperson for the new tech, even in a small gathering. Be that as it may, tech wizard Levi Webster will be hidden in a nearby room, running the effects and making it appear that Sarah can speak directly to various people in the room. Plans break down, though, when Sarah goes completely off-script and exposes Jonathan as a serial cheater that he is. As you might expect, that pretty much breaks up the party.

The following morning, Presley arrives to complete her post-party cleanup and finds Levi still holed up in his computer closet. When she left the previous evening, Levi was trying to find out who hijacked his signal and how they did it. Sadly, he’ll never know, because he’s dead. One of the prop candlesticks was used to bash him in the back of the head. An angry Jonathan and his disgusted wife left quite quickly after the revelations of the night before and neither has been seen since. Then there’s everyone involved in setting up and serving at the party who must be considered suspects. That most definitely includes Presley, who is starting to feel that she might have had some otherworldly intervention when she named her business Killer Parties.

The idea of an event planner/amateur sleuth (HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, HOW TO CRASH A KILLER BASH) is a great one. It gives Presley entrée to venues that are often closed to the public; and while she’s there, she can be mixing with quite a cross-section of society. She’s got legitimate reasons to visit the CEO who came up with the party, the programming guys who did the grunt work, and everyone in between. The most entertaining portion is toward the end when Presley decides to do a second Séance Party, this time inviting only those who are prime suspects. She’s got some high tech wizardry of her own planned; just enough to smoke out the real killer. The scene brings to mind the suspects assembling in a drawing room to hear the convoluted solution. This solution is convoluted, but looking back, all the pieces fit and everything makes sense. This is the strongest, most entertaining installment so far, and I’m looking forward to the next party/mystery, where the theme will be vampires.

Rating: 7 ½
March 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23279-3 (paperback)

Desperate Deeds - Dee Davis

2011-03-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

Desperate Deeds
Dee Davis
Forever/Grand Central

Romantic Suspense

Tyler Hanson thinks she’s on a fairly routine delivery mission. Of course, nothing is completely routine when you work with the CIA and the delivery consists of prototypes for a new detonator mechanism. There’s only Tyler and her two armed escorts, and she makes the seemingly outrageous decision to stop in the middle of the road for a downed motorcycle with no rider. It all turns out to be a fairly obvious ambush, but her backstory later explains this decision, and it’s clear that her enemies know exactly how to push her buttons. The bottom line is that the detonators are gone, her two military escorts are dead, and it looks a lot like Tyler set up the whole thing.

Enter Owen Wakefield, a British agent who was waiting on the other end to take possession of the detonators. The two of them commiserate over the situation, drink, and end up in a one-night stand. Except that Owen gets orders to work with Tyler’s group, ostensibly to retrieve the detonators, but in actuality to try and pinpoint the mole clearly working from within the group. Since Tyler is the munitions expert, she and Owen work together, trying to hide what went on the first night they met.

This is the third in a series including DARK DECEPTIONS and DANGEROUS DESIRES, and the author does not disappoint here. Each book can be read as a standalone, with the common thread of a possible mole working within the group to sabotage their efforts. That subplot is wrapped up very nicely here, and the outcome is honestly surprising. In addition to this mystery, there’s personal loss involved for both Tyler and Owen, and the author manages to weave this into the action with great expertise.

These detonators could be used to create a suitcase-sized nuclear bomb, so finding them is clearly a top priority. Fortunately for readers everywhere, Tyler and Hunter are professional enough to get on with it with a minimum fuss. There’s plenty of action, and the pacing is quite fast. As always the suspense/action plot far outweighs the romance plot, and that’s exactly the way I like it. There’s death, murder, treachery, and gunfights here, so those looking for a cute story should look elsewhere. Those of us who enjoy a great action story will be right at home. I hope to see much more from this author.

Rating: 7 ¾
August 2010
ISBN# 978-0-446-54202-9 (paperback)

Play Dead - John Levitt

2011-02-27T19:15:00.000-08:00

Play Dead
A Dog Days Novel
John Levitt
Ace

Urban Fantasy

Mason is a jazz guitarist in San Francisco. He’s also a practitioner in a world that doesn’t know – or doesn’t want to know – about magic. He does a lot of freelance work for Victor, who oversees the use of magic in the area. There are black practitioners, and those who use their magic in ways that might harm others or expose the rest of the community. Imagine Mason’s surprise when Jessie Alexander, a well-known black practitioner wants to hire him to find a young woman who stole something from her.

Of course, Mason doesn’t believe it will be that simple. But Victor wants him to take the job just to find out what’s really happening. If a powerful black practitioner has a problem serious enough to need help, it could affect lots of people. As it turns out, Victor is right. More right than he ever wanted to be. The young woman in question is on a mission that could turn the entire world inside-out, and she’s fine with that.

This is the most recent entry in a series that includes NEW TRICKS. I’ve missed a few of these novels, but they’re all written in such a way that, while they’re a continuous series, each novel feels complete in and of itself. The necessary background gets sketched in where appropriate, and the world’s rules are succinctly explained. My favorite character, naturally, is Lou, Mason’s Ifrit. Ifrits are magical creatures who find a practitioner and act as a sort of familiar – but much more than that. Lou, in particular, looks like a mini-Doberman.

Mason’s journey through this story takes him to some interesting and unique places. The characters make absolute sense within this particular world. Even the bad guys have concrete reasons for the actions they take. The endgame to this novel is both epic and surprising. I’m sure I’m not alone in my impatient desire to know just where things go from here.

Rating: 7 ½
February 2011
ISBN# 978-0-441-01964-9 (paperback)

The Quick And The Thread - Amanda Lee

2011-02-27T18:59:00.000-08:00

The Quick And The Thread
An Embroidery Mystery
Amanda Lee
Obsidian

Mystery

Marcy Singer moved from fast-paced San Francisco to small-town Tallulah Bay in order to follow her dream and open an embroidery store. In keeping with her fondness for old movies, she calls it The Seven Year Stitch. During her opening night open house, the previous tenant of the shop appears. He’s clearly drunk and not making any sense. He says he has something to say to Marcy, but Marcy is in no mood to hear it. The next morning, she finds him dead in her storeroom, a cryptic message partially scratched on the wall near him.

The death is bad enough, but when Marcy’s landlord hears about the message, he gets really upset and demands to see it, immediately. Not long after, he, too, is found dead. Marcy’s best friend and college roommate, Sadie, runs the shop next door with her husband. She says the previous tenant was there for decades and rumor had it that he was leaving his wife and pulling up stakes. Instead of the quiet, small town life Marcy envisioned, she finds herself tangled in a web of murder.

This is the first in a new series. Marcy is a fun, intelligent character with a quick wit. There’s the obligatory maybe-love-triangle with Marcy, Todd the microbrewery owner, and Ted the cop. Marcy’s relationship with Sadie seems pretty realistic, with the two of them arguing and making up, the way friends do. Sadie has her own concerns and history, making her much more than a stock character. The mystery is interesting at the outset, but the story relies far too much on lucky finds, and bizarre coincidences to keep things moving. The ultimate resolution makes sense, but I’m not a fan of “I guess we’ll never really know” dangling threads in a mystery novel. Overall, the setting is great, Marcy is a character I’d like to spend more time with, and the whole thing shows a great deal of promise. I’ll be sticking around to see what happens.

Rating: 6
August 2010
ISBN# 978-0-451-23096-6 (paperback)

Snow Angels - James Thompson

2011-02-17T00:37:00.000-08:00

Snow Angels
An Inspector Vaara Novel
James Thompson
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

In Finnish Lapland, one hundred miles above the Arctic Circle, there are two weeks of constant darkness, called kaamas. The ski resorts stay open, and lots of people cope by drinking far too much. There are killings, but they’re usually domestic in nature. This year, at the beginning of kaamas, local chief of police Kari Vaara arrives at the scene of a terrifically brutal murder.

Sufia Elmi is a B-movie actress in Finnish films. She’s something of an anomaly, since she’s a refugee from Somalia. Her death, just outside the neighborhood where Vaara grew up, looks like it could be a sex crime, or a hate crime. Either way, the violence done to the body of the beautiful girl is going to be big news and the national chief of police wants a solution and an arrest in short order.

This beautifully-written novel takes place in an environment that seems almost alien. The people and their motivations are recognizable, but they’re all filtered through the lens of a different culture, a different history, a different set of laws. That only makes sense when you realize that the residents are people who chose, more or less, to live in a place where the temperature regularly hovers in the ‘below zero degrees Celsius’ range for a good part of the year. At first blush it sounds harsh and arid, but as the author continues to describe the place and its people, the beauty of the place and the strength of the people emerge, too.

Many U.S. readers will be unaware that there was a large influx of Somali refugees in Finland in recent decades. Before that point, many Finns had never seen a black person, outside of TV shows. The author speaks of a quiet, ingrained racism. It’s important to remember, but also odd, in a place where there would be so few people of color. The death of this Somali girl is shocking, then, for many reasons.

Vaara and his skeleton crew (it’s close to Christmas) are perhaps in over their heads, but this is where they live, Sufia died on their watch, and they’re doing everything they should be doing to solve the crime. At times, the mystery almost takes a back seat to the setting, but, in the end, it all feels right. The characters are complex, and the prose is spare enough to echo the setting, yet still evocative. The eventual solution comes through a series of muddled human and inhuman actions and reactions. This is one of those stories that truly transports the reader to a unique place, and holds us there until the tale is told.

Rating: 8
February 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-23883-7 (trade paperback)

The King Of The Crags - Stephen Deas

2011-02-15T19:08:00.000-08:00

The King Of The Crags
The Memory Of Flames, Book II
Stephen Deas
Roc

Fantasy

Note: If you haven’t read the first book in this series (THE ADAMANTINE PALACE) then you’ve missed a great fantasy debut. And this review will contain unavoidable plot spoilers.

Too many times, the second book in any given fantasy series feels like filler, info dumps, and moving characters into place for the big finale to come. Not this time. This time, the second installment is every bit as intriguing as the first, and leaves the reader impatiently awaiting the next. We’re still following the plotting and intrigues of Prince Jehal and Queen Zafir, the latter of whom is now Speaker of the Realms. It’s clear that Zafir is not content with the power that comes with being Speaker. Dragons mean power, and Zafir wants to have all of it. To that end, she is not at all averse to starting an all-out war, when the Speaker traditionally acts as peacekeeper of the nine realms.

Jehal sees both wisdom and folly in this stance. And there’s still the matter of what to do with Queen Shezira and King Valgar, both now prisoners in the dungeons of the Adamantine Palace, accused of treachery and killing the former Speaker. Queen Shezira, who just happens to be the mother of Jehal’s new wife. As is usually the case in politics, everyone concerned has plotted for years to get to the top. Political rivalries and alliances will clearly be tested in the time to come.

Zafir is correct: Dragons mean power. Snow, the white dragon meant as a wedding present for Jehal, is lost in the wilds. She’s been without the alchemists potions for some time now, and is wide awake and full of memories. Legend has it that dragons die only to be reborn again and again, each time with memories intact. Snow would appear to prove that theory. She’s not willing to be a drugged slave to humans any more. Her plan is to recruit more dragons and let them awaken to reality and their memories. Of course, this is a nightmare for the inhabitants of the realms, who have no defenses against dragon attacks.

There’s so much going on in this novel that it would be impossible to recount, or even introduce, every plotline in a review. If the dragons are changing, then so are some of the humans. There are alchemists, blood-mages, riders, Kings, Queens, and soldiers, all with a very real stake in the outcome of things. Political intrigues, alliances, and rivalries abound. For all of the plotlines and action being juggled here, the author somehow still manages to craft each character as an individual with unique hopes and dreams and desires. I feel sure that the dragons will become unique once they awaken. Snow is a fantastic, terrifying, and awesome (in the best sense of the word) character. This is, quite simply, some of the best fantasy writing I’ve read in quite some time. This series is highly recommended.

Rating: 8
February 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-46375-0 (hardcover)

Drip Dead - Christy Evans

2011-02-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

Drip Dead

A Georgiana Neverall Mystery
Christy Evans
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

There’s a lot going on in Georgiana (Georgie) Neverall’s life these days. She’s in the final stages of studying to get her plumber’s license; her mother, the indefatigable Sandra, is turning into a bridezilla planning her wedding to slick real estate mogul Gregory Whitlock; and Georgie is planning on buying her mother’s house (her childhood home) once Sandra moves in Gregory’s brand new McMansion. It’s that last bit that has Georgie wriggling through the crawlspace under her mother’s house. If she’s going to buy the place, she might as well use her plumber’s knowledge to check out the state of things.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, while she’s under the house, she finds more than pipes. She finds a stack of shipping crates and the body of Gregory Whitlock. Now both Sandra’s house and Gregory’s house are considered crime scenes, so Sandra temporarily moves in with Georgie. The arrangement is more temporary than expected when, within days, Sandra ends up in jail, accused of killing Gregory. Georgie never really liked the man, true, but she’s more than sure that her mother is no murderer, and intends to prove it.

The set-up for this story is great. The narrative hits the ground running, with Georgie finding the body in the first few pages. Then, sadly, the book degenerates into a bunch of sit-com situations with Sandra and Georgie living together for a couple of days. Once Sandra is in jail, Georgie searches Sandra’s laptop for evidence. She finds hidden files, but various circumstances keep her from even looking at the files for most of the book. If your mother is in jail, awaiting trial for murder, I don’t think much would stop you from actually looking at those files on the laptop.

For the first time in this series (SINK TRAP, LEAD-PIPE CINCH) I found Georgie to be strangely ineffectual and borderline unsympathetic. I felt that much of the book consisted of filler and contrived, frustrating delays in examining readily-available evidence. The mystery itself was quite linear and, despite a few names thrown into the mix late in the proceedings, the whodunit completely unsurprising. In contrast, the setup was more than solid, and there were some really interesting and fun scenes scattered throughout the book, bringing in various characters who already feel like old friends to the reader. The writing and characters are engaging. If the plotlines were less simple, this series would really be a winner.

Rating: 5 ½
February 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-23989-6 (paperback)

Iron River - T. Jefferson Parker

2011-01-31T11:44:00.000-08:00

Iron River
A Charlie Hood Novel
T. Jefferson Parker
NAL/New American Library

Mystery/Thriller

The term ‘iron river’ refers to the apparently never-ending “great current of firearms headed south.” As the drug traffickers and cartels become more bold and ruthless, the need for guns only increases. The US is full of cheap guns, and more than a few dealers are willing to sell to anyone for a profit.

Charlie Hood is on loan from the L.A. Sheriff’s Department to an ATFE group trying to stem the tide. Even members of the operation know that a few buy-and-busts won’t make a dent. The idea is to arrest the low guys on the totem pole and turn them against the people above them. Eventually, they hope to land a really big fish.

Before that can happen, though, a normal buy turns into a shootout in Buenavista, a border town. One of the bad guys goes down, but so does an innocent bystander, a teenaged boy. This teenaged boy happens to be the son of the leaders of a major cartel. Obviously, his father is going to want vengeance. To everyone’s shock, the rules have clearly changed: the cartel members came across the border and grabbed the agent from American soil, then transported him back to Mexico. This is a diplomatic nightmare. It’s also the first step for the group of ATFE agents (including Charlie Hood) on a shadowy path.

The original buy was part of a planned escalation. Someone is planning to provide a large number of American guns to drug cartels. It may be true that the criminal world in any given area is fairly small, but Charlie is shocked and disheartened to discover just how small it really is. Then there’s the mystery of one Mike Finnegan, hit by a car along a desert road while changing a tire, head injuries, multiple bone fractures, a miracle of survival. He has $90,000 in an unlocked tool chest in the bed of his truck; Charlie Hood’s name and current P.O. Box in his wallet; and speaks vividly about sharing a drink with Wyatt Earp and watching sunsets with Manson. His daughter, who may or may not be trustworthy, claims that Mike is a paranoid schizophrenic. Maybe it’s just the head injury. Whatever the case, it looks like all roads lead to Charlie Hood.

Being in law enforcement cannot be easy in the best of times. These are far from the best of times. A friend today could be working for your enemy tomorrow. Or maybe that friend has been working for the enemy for years. Alliances are shifting and murky. The soul of even a killer can be compared to the desert environment that surrounds the characters: from a distance, it looks dry and empty; but up close, there’s life and complication, and possibly even beauty to be found. Charlie Hood’s moral compass provides the true north here. Even when sorely tested, his personal imperative is to do the right thing, even when those things are not formally codified.

This is my second Charlie Hood novel (after THE RENEGADES) and I forgot what to expect. These are not written as procedurals or straight clue-to-clue-to-clue-to-killer mysteries. There are so many layers to what’s going on that I find myself slowing down; going back and re-reading sections to pick up some word or phrase I might have missed the first time. For all its complication and multiple stories, the pace is surprisingly fast. The tension is established in the first pages and only grows throughout the novel. There’s an overriding feeling of darkness and despair that’s just held back by force of will. These books are gems and should be read by anyone with an interest in well-written, realistic crime fiction.

Rating: 8 ½
January 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23242-7 (trade paperback)

Hexbound - Chloe Neill

2011-01-28T23:36:00.002-08:00

Hexbound
A Novel of the Dark Elite
Chloe Neill
Signet

Young Adult/Paranormal

This is the second in a series, following FIRESPELL. I didn’t read the first novel, so there may very well be spoilers in this review.

Since Lily Parker’s parents moved her to St. Sophia’s in Chicago, she’s had a steep learning curve. She discovered that there are magic users called Adepts. They understand and accept the fact that their gifts are only temporary, and they’re the good guys. And there are magic users who try to hold onto their gifts forever. They’re called Reapers, or the Dark Elite, and they’re the bad guys. The Reapers gain power by draining it from innocents and Adepts. Lily’s best friend, Scout, was kidnapped and nearly killed by the Reapers.

Lily also found out that she can work a firespell. It’s a powerful weapon, but there’s still a lot she needs to learn about it. The Adepts secretly patrol the area to make sure Reapers aren’t doing what they tried to do to Scout. While on a patrol in the underground tunnels, the Adepts run into some bizarre, nasty, half-human things with fangs. Not vampires: they’re different, and are, just by the way, waging a war between covens. These tunnel things are something else entirely, and the Adepts need to figure out what they are and how to stop them. While also staying out of the way of angry vampires and taking classes like normal teenagers and keeping their magical secrets. So, no pressure.

While I feel like I missed quite a bit by missing the first book in the series, it was pretty easy to get up to speed on this one. Lily narrates and fills in the blanks and background. There’s a lot going on (vampire wars, weird things in the tunnels, mean girls at school, a Reaper who seems to be hanging around Lily for reasons she doesn’t understand, the truth about Lily’s parents, a maybe-boyfriend who’s a definite werewolf) and the author does a great job of keeping everything sorted out and moving forward while still allowing the characters to grow and evolve.

HEXBOUND has action, humor, high school problems, and a lot of supernatural battles. It can be read as a single novel, but there’s clearly more to come. The friendship between Lily and Scout seems quite real, even when tested by some seriously scary stuff. They’re the kind of friends every girl would want to have. It’ll be fun to see what happens next.

Rating: 6 ½
January 2011
ISBN# 978-0-451-23079-9

Hellforged - Nancy Holzner

2011-01-28T01:29:00.000-08:00

Hellforged

A Deadtown Novel
Nancy Holzner
Ace

Urban Fantasy

Note: If you missed the first novel in this series, DEADTOWN, this review contains a few unavoidable spoilers. And you missed a fun read.

When last we left Vicky (Victory) Vaughn, she was saving Boston from a Hellion attack. Quick history: a recent plague of unknown origin killed everyone in a certain section of Boston. Then brought them back as zombies. With zombies in even the best families, other paranormals came out of the closet, too. Due to current laws, they’re confined to that same section of Boston, now called Deadtown, for reasons that should be painfully obvious.

Vicky is a shapeshifter, so she must live in Deadtown. However, she’s also a demon fighter, so she’s allowed to leave the area to pursue her career. This time, the book opens with Vicky fighting a Glitch in a computer lab. It’s meant to throw us into the action in the way her fighting a dream demon did in the first book. But, where the first book was exciting and a bit scary, setting a perfect tone, the Glitch fight comes off as strangely comical and does not really fit in with the rest of the book.

Once the Glitch is dead (see what I did there?) Vicky’s assistant, Tina, doomed to be a teenaged zombie forever, announces that she’s joining an undead rock act. It’s just as well, since Vicky has got plenty of problems to occupy her time. First and foremost, she’s lost control of her own dreamscape. This is a huge problem since it theoretically shouldn’t be possible, and since it rules out the lucrative field of slaying dream demons. There have also been some zombie deaths. Really messy, permanent deaths. It doesn’t take Vicky too long to figure out that these deaths are connected somehow to her out-of-control dreams and the Hellion who’s been appearing in them when he should have been banished. It’s clear that she’s going to need the help of her Aunt Mab to get through whatever is coming.

As second books do, this one takes what happened in the first and continues to build. Aside from the strangely out-of-tune first scene with the Glitch, the tone here is pretty uniformly dark. And that’s fine, because the story takes Vicky to some very dark places, both figuratively and literally. It’s quite interesting to see her visit and train with her Aunt Mab in Wales. There’s a lot of action and pace is quite fast. There are some loose ends tied up from the last novel, and some plot elements that are clearly left open for upcoming installments. Even so, the final battle is quite satisfying and well-written. The author does a great job of building an original world and weaving in mythologies and various paranormal nasties. I’m looking forward to seeing where the series goes from here.

Rating: 8
January 2011
ISBN# 978-0-441-07980-9 (paperback)

The Cypress House - Michael Koryta

2011-01-15T02:55:00.000-08:00

The Cypress House
Michael Koryta
Little, Brown and Company

Fiction

“They’d been on the train for five hours before Arlen Wagner saw the first of the dead men.” Arlen, a WWI vet, is travelling to the Florida Keys, looking for work, like just about everyone else in 1935. He’s spent the trip with a 19-year-old kid, Paul Brickhill. When he sees smoke in the eyes of his fellow travellers, he knows that something terrible is about to happen. He tries to get everyone off the train, but people aren’t inclined to listen to man who claims to have the ‘gift’ of seeing impending death. Only young Paul gets off the train with him.

The two men, looking for a place to spend the night before setting out again, join up with a man who claims that the local gypsies told him to keep an eye out for travellers in need. He offers them a ride, which is hard to refuse at this point. The trio eventually winds up at an isolated inn called the Cypress House. The place is run by Rebecca Cady, a tight-lipped woman who has clearly seen a lot in her life. She clearly doesn’t want them there. When the third man dies in a car explosion, Arlen and Paul are essentially stranded. The local sheriff arrests them for reasons that are murky at best, and jails them for reasons that are even more unclear. The local judge arrives to interrogate them.

When they’re finally released, they’re told, in no uncertain terms, to leave the area. War changes a man, and Arlen decides to stay on and help Rebecca, even though she doesn’t appear to want it. Paul wants to stay, too, but his reason is an infatuation with Rebecca. It’s clear to Arlen that all is not well at the Cypress House, and he’s puzzled about why he couldn’t see the driver’s impending death. Once things become clear, it may be too late for all of them.

This novel, by the author of the excellent SO COLD THE RIVER, begins as a paranormal, but turns into so much more. It almost reads like a noir. The atmosphere is described so well that I could almost feel the oppressive heat and humidity, echoing the oppressive nature of the authority figures in the town. The truth comes from Rebecca little by little, and it makes absolute sense that she would keep her own counsel. The story is really character-driven, with each person trying to make the best choices in the worst of circumstances. I really cared what happened to each individual.

Arlen’s stay is depicted in just enough day-to-day detail that it feels real. This makes the paranormal elements at once strange and believable. Arlen carries his gift like a burden, and it eventually becomes clear exactly why he feels this way. The details of his past are moving and only serve to deepen his character. At one point, he looks back to the first day at the inn and remembers that he and Paul only meant to spend a few hours there. He considers how it all changed so drastically. We’ve been on the trip with him, and look back with a sense of wonder, too. Even if you’re not a fan of ‘supernatural’ plotlines, I highly recommend this novel.

Rating: 9
January 2011
ISBN# 978-0-316-05372-3 (hardcover)

Catch Her If You Can - Merline Lovelace

2011-01-09T17:31:00.000-08:00

Catch Her If You Can
A Samantha Spade Mystery
Merline Lovelace
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

“I was at Pancho’s bar/café/motel/convenience store when I lifted the lid on a dented beer cooler and discovered three severed heads.”

If that first line doesn’t pull you right in, I have no idea what will. Samantha (Sam) Spade is a second lieutenant in the Air Force, stationed in El Paso, TX. Her team tests inventions that don’t make it through the big-league finance track: stuff submitted by retired professors and garage tinkerers. At the moment, they’re testing a robot that can self-fuel by using whatever organic matter it happens to find. Due to a slight operator error, the robot is currently configured to find *any* organic matter, including lovely stuff like dead animals. That’s why it zeros in on a pickup truck with a beer cooler in the back. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, the press instantly jumps on the story. Even in an out-of-the-way spot like their desert testing grounds, this is big news. And, of course, there are various reactions, from enthused to outraged. The owner of the pickup is outraged. He pulls a gun, and ends up on the wrong end of Pancho’s shotgun. Thing is, there’s a reward for the pickup driver, and Sam may be in line to collect part of it. Once that hits the news, everyone she’s ever heard of, including her slimy ex-husband, comes out of the woodwork looking for a ‘loan.’

Sam’s relatives aren’t the only ones watching the news. Someone with an axe to grind was watching, too, and tries to kidnap Sam and her ex (or possibly just her ex, if it’s the scary guys he owes money to) right outside her apartment. Sam’s fairly sure it’s all about her ex’s debts, until she ends up kidnapped. If only the reward money could get her out of this.

This installment of the series (ALL THE WRONG MOVES, NOW YOU SEE HER) is more of a thriller than a straight-up mystery. The identities of the pickup owner and the owners of the severed heads are revealed fairly early on, as is the motive for their murders. The rest of the novel involves Sam allowing herself to be shamelessly manipulated by her ex-husband, and then getting kidnapped. The kidnapping is really the heart of the story, and I wish the book would have focused a lot more on that and less on the wacky ex hijinks. The writing is solid, though, and the pace is fairly quick. Not the best of the series so far, but still a solidly entertaining read.

Rating: 7
January 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-23925-4 (paperback)

Buttercream Bump Off - Jenn McKinlay

2011-01-07T18:48:00.000-08:00

Buttercream Bump Off
A Cupcake Bakery Mystery
Jenn McKinlay
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

Watching your widowed mom prepare for her first date in thirty-five years can be nerve-wracking. Fortunately for Melanie (Mel) Cooper, she’s got a distraction. She’s holding a couple’s baking class at her bakery, Fairy Tale Cupcakes. No cooking class can override the call for help she gets later in the evening. It’s mom, saying that her date, Baxter Malloy, ended up floating face-down in his own swimming pool. Leaving aside, for the moment, how mom ended up in her underwear at a man’s house on a first date, Mel springs into action. It only looks worse for mom when the police discover that Baxter didn’t drown; he was strangled with one of mom’s stockings. That’s awkward.

Turns out, there were plenty of people who might want to see serious harm visited on Baxter. He’d run a Ponzi scheme that defrauded many wealthy people out of every penny they ever had. His estranged son, who now goes by the name Roach and plays in a famous rock band, coincidentally happened to be in town that week. Mel thinks that makes him a viable suspect, but Roach and Mel’s business partner, Angie, are in some kind of whirlwind relationship, so that’s awkward in more ways than one. Any way you slice it, Mel needs to figure out who killed Baxter to keep her mom and her friend out of danger. Or jail.

This is the second in a very entertaining series (SPRINKLE WITH MURDER) based around the owners of a cupcake bakery. If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to avoid sweets, either avoid this book or use it as a vicarious sugar fix. There’s lots of cupcake talk, flavor inventions, and even recipes included. (I tried a couple from the first book, with great results.) The lifelong friendship between Mel, Angie, and their third partner, Tate, seems real and organic. I love their running game of identifying movie quotes. Angie has been in love with Tate forever, but Tate remained blissfully unaware until Angie started dating Roach. It adds a level of real personal involvement for everyone.

The mystery is interesting and there are plenty of potential suspects in the area. Aside from Roach, there’s everyone in the area affected by Baxter’s fraudulent money games. And, of course, the police are looking hard at Mel’s mom, because it’s hard to believe that she went to change and just happened to miss someone showing up and killing her date in those few minutes. The dialogue is done very well, and the pacing is quick and even. I pretty much read this in one sitting. And now I want cupcakes.

Rating: 7 ½

January 2011
ISBN# 978-0-425-23924-7 (paperback)

Grave Witch - Kalayna Price

2011-01-05T23:41:00.000-08:00

Grave Witch
An Alex Craft Novel
Kalayna Price
Roc

Paranormal/Urban Fantasy

Alex Craft used to be Alexis Caine. When she was eight, it became clear that she couldn’t control her abilities as a wyrd witch, and she was sent to a boarding school that could train her. Fortunately for her, the faeries came out of the woodwork decades ago, so those kinds of schools exist. Alex is a grave witch. She can connect with the land of the dead, speak to ghosts, and raise shades. She also sees and talks to Death on a regular basis. In fact, raising shades (which are simply the unfeeling memories of a once-living person) has become her profession. Asking recently-deceased dad about the terms of his will can curtail a lot of family arguments. Or start more.

As the story begins, Alex is about to be the first person to raise the shade of a murder victim in a courtroom for purposes of prosecution. It sounds like a logical idea, but there are a lot of people who don’t understand (or care) about the difference between a ghost and a shade, and find the idea morally repugnant. The governor and much of the legislature are run by members of the Humans First Party. George Caine, the Lieutenant Governor, among them. That would be why Alex changed her name and hasn’t been home in years.

Before her court date, Alex heads to the morgue to help out a detective friend by raising the shade of an unidentified murder victim. This shade acts completely unlike any other: the shade crosses into reality screaming and violent, attacking Alex. That shouldn’t happen, ever. Before she can recover, she finds out that the body of the Governor is on the premises. He’d been missing and presumed dead for over two weeks during a heat wave, but his body shows no signs of decay. It also doesn’t ‘feel’ like a body to Alex. She can see, with her gravesight, a series of glowing glyphs on the “body.” And there’s a ghost wandering around, claiming that the “body” in question is his, just glamoured to look like the Governor.

I read a lot of paranormals, so it’s really a pleasure to find one that is fresh and unique, with great characters and a fascinating story. There are so many elements and subplots that describing them all here would really be a disservice. The book opens very strong and the pace and voice never waver. Each character, even minor ones, is given a realistic personality and history. The system of magic in use is explained and detailed very well. The way Alex visualizes a living wall of ivy vines separating her from the cold of the grave is really a perfect and perfectly-understandable image.

It’s not often that I finish a book and immediately want to go back and start it again. This is one of those. There’s magic, all kinds of paranormal beings, a good dose of action, and multi-faceted mystery. I’m truly looking forward to further installments in this series. It’s a clear winner.

Rating: 8 ½
October 2010
ISBN# 978-0-451-46380-7 (paperback)

Celebrity Sudoku - Kaye Morgan

2011-01-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

Celebrity Sudoku
A Sudoku Mystery
Kaye Morgan
Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

Leaving scenic Maiden’s Bay, Oregon for the frantic pace of Los Angeles is not the first choice of sudoku columnist Lisa Kelly. But she’s been asked to spend a couple of days serving as an expert for Celebrity Week of long-running TV game show “K-Dodas.” What really tips the balance is the chance to spend some quality time with her longtime not-quite-ex-husband, Michael Langely.

On the set, tempers flare almost immediately. Celebutante and chronic instigator Ritz Tarleton gets the ball rolling by insulting nearly everyone she encounters. Her actions include, but are not limited to, giving another hapless expert the kind of makeover that ends up in a drastic haircut; insulting and baiting her fellow C-listers; appearing petulant and annoyed by the entire process; and starting a yelling match with the show’s hostess over the hostess’ gowns. Most on set realize that Ritz’ fifteen minutes are ticking away their final seconds and believe she’s doing whatever she can to extend them.

During the taping, an earthquake hits, dislodging an overhead light and injuring Liza’s leg. On her way to get treatment from the studio infirmary, she sees the famous bungalow built on the grounds for child star Baby Boots. The bungalow, once an attraction itself is mostly destroyed. Almost immediately after, the studio receives a threat that Ritz is “in danger.” Most insiders assume that’s a lame ploy for more publicity, staged by Ritz or her questionable publicist. But the search for Ritz ends when rescuers find her in the wreckage of the cottage. Interestingly, she did not die from injuries sustained during the quake.

Even though Liza’s leg is injured, her mind is moving at top speed. Obviously, there were a lot of people who didn’t like Ritz, but who disliked her enough to kill her? With the help of Michael and the vast network of behind-the-scenes contacts she made during her own days as a publicist, Liza is on the case.

This is the most recent in a solidly entertaining series (see list below.) Newcomers to the series will have no trouble starting here, and longtime readers will enjoy seeing Liza work through some of her ‘old’ life. The setting is interesting and the characters are just plain fun. There are lots of possible suspects, and the further the investigation goes, the more suspects appear. Of course, the book contains several sudoku puzzles, their solutions, and tips for solving tougher puzzles. Every time I read one of these, I find my addiction to sudoku rekindled. If it weren’t so fun, it would be diabolical.

Rating: 7 ½
December 2010
ISBN# 978-0-425-23827-1 (paperback)

The rest of the series:
DEATH BY SUDOKU
MURDER BY SUDOKU
SINISTER SUDOKU
KILLER SUDOKU
GHOST SUDOKU

Dangerous Desires - Dee Davis

2010-12-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

Dangerous Desires
Dee Davis
Grand Central/Forever

Romantic Suspense

This is the second in a series that began with DARK DECEPTIONS. If you didn’t read the first book, you missed a good story, but you’re not going to feel lost here. This one begins with secret operative Drake Flynn working a job with a female spy. Unfortunately for him, it quickly becomes obvious (as in, the first couple of pages) that she’s only working him for her own reasons. The experience leaves Drake with a huge chip on his shoulder.

Cut to Columbia, where Madeline Reynard has been forced into working for a drug lord’s syndicate in a desperate effort to free her drug-addicted sister. When the cartel’s focus turns from drugs to weapons, Madeline manages to get a message out, detailing the danger and the general location of the weapons stockpile. Enter A-TAC, the secret operational group of which Drake is part. They can’t go in through the front door, since this is Columbia, and when things go wrong during the operation (objectives: destroy weapons and get Madeline and all her information back to DC,) Madeline and Drake get cut off from the rest of the group. That leaves them to make their way through the jungle to a secondary rendezvous point.

As with the first novel, there’s plenty of action. The first half of the novel involves the flight through the jungle, and the second half brings up some very interesting plot twists. Unlike the first book, though, this one didn’t ring quite as true. There were just too many coincidences for my taste. Still, the author really has a nice way with an action sequence, and places the action/suspense on a higher level than the romance, which is what I like in a book like this.

There’s a subplot that involves sabotage, either from within the group or in the chain of command. That plot was furthered here, but not finished. There are lots of clues dropped as to who the traitor may be, and I’ve got my main suspect pinpointed. The pace of the story moves along very quickly, only getting interrupted by some necessary background-sharing discussions. The end of this one seemed a bit abrupt, but I’m looking forward to seeing how the author ties up everything in the third installment.

Rating: 7
July 2010
ISBN# 978-0-446-54204-3 (paperback)

On Target - Mark Greaney

2010-12-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

On Target
A Gray Man Novel
Mark Greaney
Jove

Thriller

When we last saw contract assassin Court Gentry at the end of THE GRAY MAN (slight, but really unavoidable spoiler) he’d been shot, stabbed, beaten half to death, and still managed to save both the day and his own dignity. When we meet him again at the start of this, his second outing, he’s mostly healed from the previous mayhem. But, during his convalescence, he picked up a nasty little addiction to painkillers, aided in no small part by his slightly shady doctor. While this might be understandable in a civilian, it’s a serious impediment to continuing a career as a paid assassin, where any misstep or hesitation could be your last.

It’s an interesting an unexpected character development in a thriller starring a guy who should be hyper-vigilant and completely clear-headed. While the addiction, and Court’s struggle with it, seems quite realistic and makes him much more human and vulnerable, I found myself a bit disappointed with this new, more fuzzy-thinking Gray Man. A lot of the fun in the previous entry revolved around Court’s nearly superhuman ability to think or act or shot his way out of any situation. That, after all, is how he became a legend in certain circles as The Gray Man.

This time around, he’s working for pretty much anyone who will give him a paying contract (subject to his own moral compass and approval of the job.) That’s how he ends up taking a job from Russian Mob overboss “Sid” Sidorenko, a man who would, under normal circumstances find himself at the business end of one of the Gray Man’s many weapons. The job in question is to take out the despotic leader of a ravaged African country. Court is set to take the job when he’s contacted by his old pals from the CIA. These pals are currently under orders to shoot Court on sight, so it’s a fairly surprising development. The CIA has some different ideas about what to do with the African leader, and they’d like to use Court’s Russian contract as their way in, making him a sort of double agent. If he agrees, and succeeds, they’ll rescind that pesky shoot-on-sight directive and welcome him back into the fold. With many misgivings, but not much left to lose, Court agrees.

While the first book was a sort of world tour, assassin style, most of this novel takes place in Africa. The job starts going wrong pretty much from the get-go, and there’s one snafu after another. There’s a rather lengthy section involving a female human rights lawyer foolishly travelling alone in this lawless land who wants to think that Court is really a nice guy who’s just gone off the rails. The reason for her presence becomes clear later, but these sections seem to drag.

Maybe it’s the old sophomore curse. THE GRAY MAN was hugely entertaining, very fast-paced and almost impossible to put down. That’s a tough act to follow. ON TARGET is filled with great action scenes, but the pacing and drive really picked up in the second half, leading up to an ending that was classic Court. The final pages give me hope that the upcoming novel, coming in 2011 and excerpted at the end of this one, will return the ‘old’ Court to his fighting form.

Rating: 7 ½
October 2010
ISBN# 978-0-515-14845-9 (paperback)

How To Crash A KIller Bash - Penny Warner

2010-12-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

How To Crash A Killer Bash
A Party Planning Mystery
Penny Warner
Obsidian
Mystery

Never let it be said that Presley Parker doesn’t know how to throw a convincing Murder Mystery Party. It’s dress rehearsal night for the murder mystery to be played out at a fund raising party for the de Young museum in San Francisco. As usual, Mary Lee Miller, museum fund-raiser and all-around pain in the neck is making it all about her. Which it sort of is, since Mary Lee insisted on playing the murder victim. Little did she realize that, on the night of the party, the stab wound and death scene would be all too real.

The last player in the room with Mary Lee was Delicia, Presley’s friend and employee. The police zero in on Delicia and find out very quickly that she and Mary Lee had a huge fight the previous evening, mostly to do with Delicia dating Mary Lee’s adult son. With Delicia in jail and the cops satisfied, it’s clearly up to Presley to put her skills to the test and flush out the real killer.
This is the second in this entertaining series, following HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY. Presley is mostly on her own this time, since Delicia is in jail and her other employees seem to be unavailable. The story does suffer a bit from their absence and camaraderie. This time around, much is made of crime scene cleaning specialist Brad Matthews, and Presley’s fondness for him. Since the author clearly doesn’t want to clue in Presley (or the reader) about ‘what’s really going on with Brad’ just yet, this results in a lot of circular conversations and hurt feelings and not much progress.

The rest of the supporting cast fares far better. The internal workings of the museum, and the people who staff it, read like the sudsiest of soap operas. Jealousies, rivalries, entanglements, and motives abound almost everywhere Presley looks. This is what makes for a fun mystery full of twists and surprises. Adding to the suspense are two more dead bodies that turn up, begging the question of Delicia’s involvement from her jail cell. It takes every organizational and snooping skill that Presley possesses to peel back the layers. Sadly, this one ends in what I like to call a James Bond Villain Reveal, where the (surprising) Big Bad spends oodles of time detailing past motives and future plans, instead of simply offing the nosey event planner who wants to ruin everything. Not that I want to see Presley offed, of course. I’m looking forward to the next party.

Rating: 7
August 2010
ISBN# 0-451-23097-3 (paperback)

Play Dead - Harlan Coben

2010-10-22T22:45:00.000-07:00

Play Dead
Harlan Coben
Signet

Thriller

The first thing to know about this book is that it’s the author’s very first book. This is the first time it’s been published, and to his everlasting credit, the author declined to rewrite it and issue it as something ‘new.’ He tells us this on the very first page. It’s a kind of a time trip back to 1989, when cell phones were futuristic devices and coming up with phone or hotel records involved looking through a stack of papers. This, children, was a time before the entire world was computerized.

It’s clear that this is a first novel because the main character, Laura Ayars, is perfect in practically every way. She’s gorgeous; the world’s foremost supermodel until she retired at age 23. She’s smart; after retiring from the modeling biz, she started up a multi-million dollar designer clothing business. And she’s unbelievably kind and brave; coming to her sister’s rescue when she needs it desperately. The main character, David Baskin, is also just about perfect. He’s handsome, a pro basketball player who loves the game, wealthy, intelligent, and does charity work with handicapped kids. The point is, there is nothing at all relatable about these people. It helps to remember that this novel was written during the “Dynasty” and “Dallas” period.

The book begins with Laura and David on their honeymoon in Australia, after they eloped. It’s all picture-perfect for about the first chapter. Then Laura goes to a business meeting and David goes swimming and never returns. Laura is left to deal with David’s tragic death. She can’t quite believe that someone who was such a strong swimmer would drown, but she’s told about the dangerous currents off the coast, and begins to accept it.

Once she returns home to Boston, where they lived and David played for the Celtics, there’s the funeral, a memorial, a statue unveiling (David was a beloved star player) and various other events to occupy her time, if not her mind. At the will reading, Laura finds that one of David’s smaller accounts (roughly half a million dollars) is missing. The money was transferred to Switzerland, and that’s all anyone can tell her. From there, she begins to doubt everything about David’s disappearance and determines to find out what really happened.

For longtime readers of thrillers, the outcome is fairly obvious from the set-up. We read about “the patient” having plastic surgery. Then someone comes out of nowhere to try out for the Celtics. It’s not hard to figure out at all. There’s a string of murders going on in Laura’s circle, and despite some heavy-handed misdirection by the (first time, remember) author, the identity of the killer is pretty easy to suss out, too. There’s a lot of filler and prose that verges on the purple. It’s pretty much what you’d expect for a first novel. It’s not great, but it’s probably a lot better than most. For fans of Harlan Coben (LONG LOST) it’s interesting to see how he got started, and how much he’s honed his craft over the years.

Rating: 6
October 2010

ISBN# 978-0-451-23174-1 (paperback)

Memories Of Envy - Barb Hendee

2010-10-17T22:22:00.000-07:00

Memories Of Envy
A Vampire Memories Novel #3
Barb Hendee
Roc

Paranormal/Vampire

If you haven’t read the first two novels in this series (BLOOD MEMORIES and HUNTING MEMORIES) you’ll most likely feel that you’ve missed out on some key plot developments. And, truth be told, you’ve not only missed the plot developments, you’ve missed a couple of novels with a very interesting take on vampires. You’ll also find a few unavoidable spoilers in this review if you’re new to the series, so read at your own risk.

Long ago, vampires lived among human, following a few simple laws that allowed them to feed without killing and drawing attention to themselves. They all shared a talent for telepathy, giving them the ability to alter the memories of the humans on which they fed, removing memories of the feeding. It was a good system, and each elder vampire taught the very few children he or she made to live within it.

Then came Julian. Julian became a vampire with no telepathic abilities. Over time, he feared that this lack made him vulnerable to attack by other vampires. His plan is to find as many elder vampires as he can and destroy them. His theory is that the younger vampires were created without knowing the laws, and they live in frightened isolation, so they’re no real threat. The problem he faced was how to go about tracking down the remaining vampires.

Enter Eleisha. She’s a relatively young vampire, created with no knowledge of the laws or her real talents. Over the first two novels, she discovers her latent telepathy and conceives a plan to gather vampires together in a safe place, where they can live under the old laws. For Julian, this works out quite well. All he has to do is track Eleisha and her followers to the next vampire. At the moment, that vampire is Simone. Julian is disappointed to find that she’s not an elder. Eleisha wants to bring Simone into the fold, despite Simone’s clear disdain for the whole concept. Philip, one of Eleisha’s group, finds Simone fascinating because of the way she hunts. He’s done his best to live by the laws, but something in him enjoys killing. Simone recognizes a fellow predator in Philip, and a potential rival in Eleisha. Simone loves playing with her prey, and this game promises to be the best yet.

The author does a really wonderful job of giving each vampire his or her own background. Since they’re telepathic, they can ‘see’ each others’ memories. These sections of the books really shine. In this case, Simone is clearly a ruthless hunter with a lot of issues. But, after reading her story, it’s completely clear why she behaves the way she does. Simone is, quite possibly, the most complex of the vampires to date.

Each book builds on the ones that came before it. As each new character joins the story (including vampires, mortals and ghosts) the plot becomes more intricately woven and gains depth. Each of the characters has grown and changed over the course of the novels. It must be a complex balancing act, but the author manages quite nicely. Readers of the series will be glad to know that we learn more about Philip’s past in this installment, too. This is the best yet, and there’s still clearly more to come.

Rating: 8
October 2010

ISBN# 978-0-451-46353-1 (trade paperback)

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

2010-10-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
Scholastic

Thriller/Young Adult

When I started this novel, I thought I’d read a chapter or two and then turn out the light. I was honestly unable to put this book down until I finished it.

Every year, each district must send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to the Hunger Games. They are called “tributes.” The winner of the Hunger Games is richly rewarded and guaranteed a life of ease for him/herself and his/her family members. For some districts, this is simply a show of athletic prowess. In other districts, it’s the difference between eating and starving to death. The Games are televised live and are required viewing. The twenty-four tributes are dropped into an arena empty-handed and must survive. It’s kill or be killed. The last tribute standing is the winner. Refusing to participate is not an option.

Every year is different. If things get too boring – say, the tributes simply try to avoid one another instead of attacking and killing each other – the Gamemakers are ready with some twist or event (a fire, a flood) that pushes everyone back into the same place where they are forced to fight. This is what the audience (and, more to the point, the government) wants.

The main character, Katniss, is a girl of 16, made tough by circumstances. Just to put a little food on the table for her sister and mother every day, she hunts illegally, risking brutal punishment. The day the tributes are chosen is called ‘the reaping.’ It’s a holiday of sorts, except for the two families who must mourn the loss of their children. In District 12, where the people almost always go hungry, it’s a virtual certainty that the tributes will not come home alive. In the seventy-four years of the Games, only one tribute from District 12 has survived and returned home.

When Katniss hears her sister’s name called as the girl tribute, she immediately volunteers herself instead. Her hunting abilities may give her an edge. Besides, her younger sister would never survive the Games. The second tribute from her district is Peeta, the baker’s son. He and Katniss grew up together. Now they’ll be forced to try to kill each other. Unless someone else does it first.

This is a young adult novel, but can be enjoyed on many different levels. As an action thriller, the writing is virtually flawless. The pace never lets up, making the reader feel hunted, just as Katniss does. She clearly doesn’t want to have to kill anyone, especially for the amusement of others. But there are other tributes who have no such problems. Katniss must make some exceptionally hard choices at almost every point in the story. For her, it’s all about her family, even as she comes to realize that larger issues are in play. Read this as an action adventure story. Read this as socio-political commentary. Just read it.

Rating: 9
2008

ISBN# 978-0-439-02352-8 (trade paperback)

Bones Of Empire - William C. Dietz

2010-10-12T21:55:00.001-07:00

Bones Of Empire
William C. Dietz
Ace

Science Fiction

This is a sequel to AT EMPIRE’S END, but it’s not at all necessary to have read the first book to enjoy this one. The author does a great job of hitting the highlights of what has come before while still telling an engaging story.

Jak Cato is a Xeno Corps officer on a mission. Since the events of the previous novel, he and his slave/partner Alamy have returned to the planet Corin, the capital of the Uman Empire. Legate Isulu Usurlus is back in the capital as well, and ready for some political advancement. He has a difficult time, however, since the Emperor has been acting very out-of-character lately. He’s become reclusive and refuses to discuss pressing matters or see visitors for weeks at a time. He can’t avoid being on display during a celebratory parade, though, and that’s when Cato spots the imposter.

Like all Xeno officers, Cato is bio-engineered to be an empath; a sort of living lie detector. Like his fellow officers, he can also ‘see through’ the efforts of shape shifters. What he sees masquerading as the Emperor is Fiss Verafti, a shape shifter Cato thought he’d taken care of months ago. Clearly, something has to be done. Not only because of day-to-day operations of the Empire, but because another alien race called the Vord have recently taken a planet at the edge of the Empire’s boundaries. It’s obviously the prelude to a war, and the Empire needs an Emperor who can deal with the situation.

All of this barely scratches the surface of the plots and subplots in this novel. I’m always amazed that this author (WHEN DUTY CALLS, latest of the long-running Legion of the Damned series) so skillfully weaves so much into one novel. There’s plenty of action, political intrigue, military maneuvering, the search for the shape shifter, dealings with the Vord, and even the relationship between Cato and Alamy. The plot moves smoothly and swiftly from one plot to another, never getting bogged down, yet never seeming to skimp on detail or motivations. This is science fiction for anyone who enjoys action, politics, and character-driven stories.

Rating: 8 ½
October 2010

ISBN# 978-0-441-07922-9 (hardcover)

Last To Die - Kate Brady

2010-09-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

Last To Die
Kate Brady
Grand Central/Forever

Romantic Suspense

This novel – not for the squeamish – starts out with a lot of promise. The first scenes are of a faceless killer stalking the first victim at a carnival. The murder is violent and just plain creepy. In my opinion, that’s a great beginning, and it sets the bar pretty high. Unfortunately, the rest of the book doesn’t quite live up to it.

Sgt. Dani Cole just lost her father, a dirty cop who shot himself in the bedroom next door to hers. She’s dealing with his death, their not-very-happy past, and the fact that many members of the force simply assume that since her dad was in bed with the local crime boss, she’ll follow in his footsteps. All that fades to background when she’s called the scene of the carnival murder. The dead woman, who was all of 18 years old, was a former prostitute who was getting her life back on track. Dani knew her and had tried to help her, so the death hits Dani hard.

As part of the investigation, Dani makes some provocative statements to the press, calling the victim “innocent” and the killer a “monster.” This enrages the killer, as planned, who begins leaving gruesome notes for Dani. It quickly escalates to the killer trashing Dani’s house and poisoning her beloved dog. Just when she needs someone to lean on, Mitch Sheridan appears on the scene. They had a summer fling after high school, until Dani pushed him away and went on with her life. Mitch went on to become a globetrotting photojournalist. He’s back in town for a show of his work. Events bring the two together during the investigation.

I have to say that a teenaged summer fling that happened eighteen years ago does not seem like the lynchpin of these characters’ lives. There’s so much water under the bridge for both of them that it seems unlikely to me that they’d each still be carrying such a torch that they’d simply pick up where they left off. That aside, the death of Sheridan’s mentor and father figure makes it seem logical that he would want to be involved in the investigation.

The first half of the book zips along at a great pace with several possible killers lurking around the edges. The killer is unmasked at about the halfway point of the story, and the motive explained shortly after that. There’s another Big Reveal that’s left until closer to the end, but that’s become obvious long before we get there. I wonder if it would have worked better if the readers knew the identity of the killer from the start, and watched the build-up while having that information. Or maybe that’s why I’m not a writer!

This novel is related to a previous novel by the same author, but, not having read the first, I can say that this works just fine as a standalone. A character from the previous novel appears at one point, but is really just a peripheral character, so no prior knowledge is needed. This novel started strong and held my interest throughout the first half. After that, I felt like major plot points were telegraphed far in advance of being revealed, so the ending really fell flat for me. I do like her writing style, though, and I’m interested enough to give another one of her books a try.

Rating: 6 ½
September 2010

ISBN# 978-0-446-54153-4 (paperback)