Thankless in Death

This is one of pseudonymous J.D. Robb's futuristic series featuring police lieutenant Eve Dallas of the New York city police and security department. The year is 2060 and Thanksgiving is bearing down on Even like a freight train as husband Roarke's pack of Irish relatives are soon to descend on their normally quiet home. Add to that, Roarke always invites every stray friend and associate to join them for the meal as well. It's not that Eve has to prepare the meal. Roarke is fabulously wealthy and all that is taken care of, but Eve--never the most socially facile person--will need to be present and pleasant. Her attention is diverted, however, by a double homicide. The evidence is fairly compelling that this ordinary older couple were brutally murdered by their 20-something year old son, but he is proving harder to find than Eve would have expected. And it appears that the murders have unlocked a previously unknown set of skills in this formerly ne'er-do-well malcontent who blames everyone in the world--except for himself--for his failures. He has started on a killing spree of all those he feels have wronged him in the past, and the list is long. It is up to Eve, her erstwhile partner Peabody, Roarke, and the entire NYPSD to find the killer before the body count goes any higher.

Ironhorse

I am always a little leery of new authors being assigned, or choosing, to take on the continuation of a series after the original author has died. Robert Parker has been a long-time favorite of mine and I have read all the books he wrote in the Spenser series and all of his books in the relatively new Cole and Hitch series. Robert Knott has produced this new episode in that latter series and done a reasonably good job of it. Virgil Cole is the personification of laconic communication, although he appears to be a serious reader. Everett Hitch, his partner in law enforcement for over 20 years, is West Point educated and somewhat more fluent. It is one of the quirky and occasionally funny aspects of their relationship that Virgil turns to Everett occasionally for help with finding the right word to express himself.
Virgil and Everett are now U.S. Marshals and are returning from transporting some prisoners to the Mexican authorities. It is just their bad luck, and the passengers good luck, that they are on a train carrying the governor of Texas and his family and business associates and a whole lot of money. It is the target of a well-orchestrated robbery attempt by a large group of robbers, and even murderers. Cole and Hitch manage to kill several of the robbers and temporarily foil the theft of the money but are then out-played when the train cars carrying the governer's two adult daughters is detached from the rest of the train. When they make their way into town, they find that the governor and his wife are unharmed and soon receive a ransom demand. One of the governor's "business associates" is the traitor and he has disappeared. Cole and Hitch offer to deliver the money and try to get the young women back.
This is a fast read with an interesting plot and the characters as presented seem pretty consistent with Parker's original creations. If you have never seen the movie made from the first book in this series, Appaloosa, don't miss it. You will forever after see Ed Harris as Virgil and Vigo Mortenson as Everett

A Delicate Truth

John le Carré is nothing if not the master of unease. His characters are always struggling with action vs. no action, morality vs. complacency--and this tale is no exception. So slow starting that I almost did not continue reading, I was eventually gripped by the struggle of career Foreign Office rising star, Toby Bell. His mentor, Giles Oakley, has nurtured and guided him through various postings and Toby has returned the favor by covering up an indiscretion in Berlin. Toby eventually ends up as the private secretary to a junior Cabinet minister who is so secretive that he stays in his locked office during much of the day, refuses to let Toby see his diary or prepare his briefcase for trips. Toby eventually learns that this ambitious and gullible junior minister is being led by the nose by a private information brokering group, so he secretly records a meeting. He finds out that some operation is being planned and will be carried out, but none of the details. Meanwhile, long-serving diplomatic underling Christopher Probyn is pulled into the plot and told that he will be the minister's eyes and ears on an "extraordinary rendition" of a "high value target." That is, he will observe while a terrorist is kidnapped by a combined force of British soldiers operating off the books--at the minister's request--and some mercenaries organized by the aforementioned information brokers.Three years later, through a chance encounter with one of the British soldiers, Kit, now Sir Christopher Probyn, learns that the whole secret operation was botched. There was no high value target and an innocent woman and her young child were shot to death in the process. The whole thing has been covered up. Kit enlists Toby to help him reveal this misdeed, but the information brokering firm will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep this quiet. How much are Kit and Toby willing to risk to see evil revealed and justice done?

The book was a little hard to follow at times. Places are named, but it is not always clear what the timing is until you read a bit further into a chapter. It feels like Le Carré was being just a bit too clever in this one. As always the characters are complex and convincing and the moral struggle is made altogether believable and makes you question what you would do in these people's shoes. Puts me in mind of the really excellent BBC mini-series recently aired, starring Bill Nighy, about an MI5 analyst risking it all to reveal an unholy alliance between the British prime minister and a private corporation building "black sites" for the interrogation of terrorist suspects. The first was called "Page Eight" and you can find them on Netflix or IMDB.

Suspect

I have read a number of Robert Crais' books, especially the "Elvis Cole" series, and they have all been good--tightly constructed plots, realistic and gritty detail in the settings, and complex character development. This book has two protagonists: Scott James, is an LAPD cop who was gunned down when he and his senior partner, Stephanie, stumbled upon a hit. His partner was killed and James has struggled to overcome his injuries and his PTSD to return to work. He refuses to take the medical retirement he is entitled to or a safe desk job and has instead requested the K-9 unit. The other protagonist is Maggie, a former Marine, whose handler was killed by snipers who also tried to kill her. The head of the K-9 unit isn't very impressed with Scott as a dog person and also doesn't think Maggie is up to the work, as she too suffers from PTSD and jumps at every loud noise. Scott begs for just a couple of weeks to try and bring Maggie up to speed. These two terribly damaged souls tell us the story of saving each other and of catching the people responsible for killing Scott's former partner and leaving him for dead. Crais does a wonderful job of getting into the mind of Maggie as he has always done with getting into the mind of his human characters.
Other blog posts for books by Crais are Voodoo River, Free Fall, and The Last Detective.

Personal

The latest of the "Jack Reacher" novels by Lee Child finds Reacher responding to an ad in The Army Times because he owes someone a favor. When he follows up, he is pulled into an all-hands-on-deck effort to locate the would-be assassin of the French president who took a shot from an extraordinary distance--almost 3/4 mile. The CIA and State Department, think this was only the audition for an attack on the leaders who will be attending the upcoming G8 meeting outside London. The bullet was American, and the only American sniper capable of such a shot is someone Reacher put in jail 15 years ago who is now out of prison and out of sight. Reacher is told he has the best chance of finding this sniper, Kott. Other nations are putting forth similar efforts to track down other snipers from their own military elites, but Kott is all Reacher's, and as Reacher investigates, it appears that Kott is also looking for him.
Reacher gets paired up with a fairly young CIA agent who is the official liaison to the State Department. He doesn't want her there for a number of reasons. She is inexperienced in the field, she is taking tranquilizers to maintain, and she reminds him too much of another young woman who was killed in a joint operation with Reacher. As they travel first to Paris and then to London, Reacher uses brains as well as brawn to figure out where Kott is hiding. But something else is not adding up and Reacher insists at the last minute that his handlers back in the states are kept out of the loop as he closes in on Kott, takes him down, and returns to the states. It turns out that the real enemy was right back at home, where this whole manufactured threat started. A twisty surprise at the end.
Other blog posts on Lee Child books are Never Go Back, Killing Floor, Gone Tomorrow, and 61 Hours. 

Destroyer Angel

For fans of Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series, no further introduction is needed. Anna Pigeon is a ranger for the National Parks Service and these books are generally set in the national parks, although Anna is not always working when they take place. I must have listened to Hard Truth, an earlier book in the series, rather than reading it because I don't have it in my book blog and the characters in this one, Destroyer Angel, I knew from the earlier book...also very much worth a read. In Hard Truth, Anna gets involved with Heath, a former technical climber who is now paraplegic as a result of a bad fall. Heath and her aunt are camping when two half-starved and obviously terrified young girls stumble into their campsite. They have been kidnapped and tortured, but finally escaped. One of these girls is Elizabeth and in the current book, Heath has adopted Elizabeth, who is now 15 years old. Anna is on vacation with Heath, Elizabeth and a woman who designs outdoor equipment for the disabled, Leah, plus Leah's 13-year old daughter, Katie. They are testing out some new designs of Leah's and Anna is just along for the ride on this trip into the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. On their second night, Anna is taking a solo paddle on the Fox River and returns to find that four armed thugs have invaded the camp and taken the two women and the girls prisoner. There is no cell phone reception and Anna is unarmed. She has to rely on stealth, determination, and a certain amount of regression to the wild and savage if she is going to rescue her friends before they disappear or are killed. This is a very tense and grueling story with dark events and some truly evil characters--not uncommon in these books. But the good gals win in the end, although not without taking psychological and physical abuse that will leave them all scarred for a long time.

Moon Called

This is the first book in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. I recently read the latest book (Frost Burned) in this series and liked it so much that I decided to go back and read the series from the beginning. It is always more interesting to me to see how a character develops as well as which characters make return appearances and what significance that has over time. Mercy is a mechanic for German cars, and a shape-shifter (coyote) and walker, descended from the Native American Coyote of lore and legend. She knows very little about the extent of her powers, beyond being able to change form, in this first book. What we do learn is that she was raised by a pack of werewolves in Montana and returned to her mom and step-father (along with a slew of step-siblings) when she fell in love and planned to elope with the son of the pack's alpha. In her mind, they abandoned her and she has never been back. However events conspire to send her speeding (or at least driving as fast as a VW Vanagon can go) back there when a newly converted werewolf comes to her for help and is then murdered and the neighboring werewolf alpha, Adam Hauptman, is also severely injured and left for dead. Maybe worse is the fact that Adam's human daughter, Jesse, has been kidnapped. Mercy know she does not have the skills to cope with Adam's injuries or his recovery and she does not trust his pack, fearing someone may have betrayed him in a bid to take over. While in Montana, she reconnects with the long-ago love of her life, Samuel, who is sent by his father to accompany Mercy and Adam back to the Tri-Cities and see if they can find out who attacked Adam and killed the young werewolf. We also get to see the preliminary stages of Adam's attraction to Mercy.
The plot is pretty twisty but the action never stops and the characters are great. This is a totally absorbing and fun read if you like the supernatural. Along with werewolves, we also get to meet Mercy's friend Stephan, a vampire, as well as the queen of the local vampire Seethe. And a master metal smith and fairy, Zee, helps Mercy out with the loan of a magic dagger. Highly recommended series so far.

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

Parker Palmer, known best to me through his book, The Courage to Teach, apparently has written on a number of other subjects. This is a slender volume -- just over 100 page -- and well worth the investment of time, at least to me. He talks I guess most thematically about self-acceptance--recognizing our weak as well as our strong points and embracing them as guideposts to finding what it is we are here on earth to do. And he is very clear that admiring someone for what they do or being told what we should do or aspiring to live up to the values of someone else or some institution outside ourselves is not the best guidance in finding our true calling. He is a Quaker, I think having come to that as an adult, although not entirely sure about that.
Palmer spends one whole chapter talking about what he learned from a couple of significant and lengthy encounters with clinical depression. There were several things that resonated for me, not only my own personal history with depression, but also my concerns about dealing with my sister's ongoing depression.  A few examples: "One begins the slow walk back to health by choosing each day things that enliven one's selfhood and resisting things that do not." "Depression is the ultimate state of disconnection..." He cites Rilke who says, "love...consists in this, that two solitudes protect and border and salute each other." and goes on to say that "Rilke describes a kind of love that neither avoids nor invades the soul's suffering."  He said the therapist who he finally found to be helpful said at one point, " Do you think you could see it [depression]...as the hand of a friend, pressing you down to ground on which it is safe to stand?" And "One of the most painful discoveries I made in the midst of the dark woods of depression was that a part of me wanted to stay depressed. As long as I clung to this living death, lie became easier; little was expected of me, certainly not serving others." Finally, "One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to "fix" it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery. Standing there, we feel useless and powerlesss, which is exactly how a depressed person feels...In an effort to avoid those feelings, I give advice, which set me, not you, free."
I lingered over-long perhaps on that chapter, but there is much in the book that I found useful. I plan to buy a copy of this book so I can re-read it at my leisure, and maybe even loan it to a friend if the occasion arises. 

The Black Country

This is apparently the 2nd in a series by Alex Grecian written about the "murder squad" of Scotland Yard that was inaugurated in the late 19th century (i.e., Victorian era), after the Jack the Ripper cases failed to be solved. I could not find much about this unit, but in an author Q & A, Grecian claims it was and is a real unit and that his characters are based loosely on actual men in the unit. Given the unit's purview (i.e., the London metropolitan area), it's a little surprising that, in this story, they have been sent to a small village in coal mining country, Blackhampton, to find a missing family--or at least the parents and the youngest child. Inspector Walter Day and his sergeant, Nevil Hammersmith, have come on ahead of the Yard's first forensic pathologist (also based on an actual person), Dr. Bernard Kingsley. The villagers are a closed lot, highly superstitious, and seem to want to thwart efforts to find the missing family by any means, including drugging the two Yard policemen.  To complicate the picture, there is a terribly disfigured American who has come to the village on a quest for vengeance. The village itself is sinking (sometimes slowly and sometime rather abruptly) into the myriad tunnels dug underground in search of coal; it and the unseasonably cold weather both are characters in this mystery as well. It takes a while to sort out who did what. Two of the older children from the missing family are being looked after by a housekeeper and the local school teacher, and it is clear that they know something about their missing younger brother. A couple of "Interludes" set during the Civil War in the U.S. provide the motivation behind the American's quest and fill in some history on one of the people in the village who is particularly keen to find the missing child. Tied into the story is the fact, initially hidden from the police, that over half the villagers have come down with an illness which is killing them off at an alarming rate. Hammersmith may soon be among them. Day's very pregnant wife makes an appearance in the village, on her way to stay with her sister, and adds dimension to the character of Inspector Day.
Altogether this is a very atmospheric setting, with well developed characters and an engrossing plot line. Not too improbable and yet tricky to figure out. If you like historically based mysteries, this would certainly satisfy.

The Speed of Dark

Oh what an incredibly touching an profound book this is by Elizabeth Moon. A long time ago, I read her other non-series book, Remnant Population, and really liked it, but never read any other books by her. Sister-in-law Joan recommended this one and I am so glad to have read it. Set just a few years into the future, childhood autism has become a think of the past due to genetic tinkering in the womb or shortly after birth. However, that leaves the existing adult autists rather out in the cold. Some of them received early training to learn enough compensatory skills to get by in society. One of these is our protagonist and narrator, Lou Arrendale. He lives on his own, drives a car, and has a good job with a pharmaceutical company, where his pattern recognition skills are providing a valuable service. In fact, there is a whole unit of adult autists working for the company in this capacity. The company receives a tax credit, and the autistic employees are given a specially supportive environment to facilitate their high productivity. But along comes a new regional manager who detests them and all they represent and he is determined to get rid of them. He essentially tells them that they can become subjects in an experimental treatment to "cure" adult autism or risk losing their jobs. Their immediate supervisor, who has a more severely impaired autistic brother, seems--initially--unable to protect them, although eventually he succeeds in revealing and stopping this ruthless manager's illegal plans.
A parallel story occurs in Lou's private life wherein he is attracted to a woman, Marjory, in his small fencing class that meets once a week. Lou has become so adept at fencing that his teacher persuades him to participate in a tournament, where Lou does very well. But another member of the group, Don, hates Lou for his success and because Marjory seems to favor Lou over him. Don begins to do malicious deeds like slash Lou's tires and break the windshield on his car. When Don rigs a small explosive device to Lou's car, the police finally begin to take the events seriously and manage to catch the perpetrator when he tries to shoot Lou.
All these events serve to give the reader insight into Lou's ways of viewing human interaction and dealing with the "normal" people around him. The really profound questions have to do with what normal really means, and whether or not Lou would lose his identity if he agreed to the experimental treatment and was no longer autistic. Lou is an absolutely compelling character, given real credibility by the fact that author Moon has a teenaged son with autism. You will empathize with Lou's concerns, fear for his safety and his future self, and cheer when he prevails. Highly recommended!

Frost Burned

Oh Boy! I have discovered a fun new author, AND she has already published a bunch of earlier books, so I will be doing a lot of catching up. Patricia Briggs writes about the supernaturals being a parttially recognized segment of society--at least the werewolves are. The fae are questionable and the vampires are still.....in the closet. The most entertaining part of this whole book took place before I even read it. I opened the cover and there was a map--now I LOVE it when authors include maps of where the action is taking place. But what was too funny was that this was a map of the Tri-Cities in Washington state; that's right, Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland, which I never knew was such a hotbed of supernatural activity. Although I guess after the wildly popular Stephenie Meyer books made a thinly disguised Forks, WA on the Olympic peninsula such a "go-to" place for vampires and werewolves, it was bound to spread.
Mercy (short for Mercedes) Thompson is an auto mechanic, and also a shapeshifter, and a Walker ( I am not entirely clear what this means yet). She is descended from the original Coyote of American Indian lore. In this book she is married to the alpha wolf of the local pack, Adam Hauptman and so has acquired a teen-aged step-daughter in the bargain, Jesse. Jesse and Mercy are out shopping when they collide with a car and find they can't drive home. They are unable to reach Adam or any of the other pack members. Mercy discovers eventually that the entire pack has been kidnapped and she is forced to call upon others--fairies and vampires--to help her find them. But in the meantime, it appears that someone is trying to kill her as well. Mercy can help the pack escape remotely through her mate bond with Adam, and she uses it in heretofore unknown ways to pull the silver used to subdue the wolves from his body and thus restore him to full strength. After the pack has returned home, Mercy is asked for a meeting with the local vampire queen, who, it turns out, needs Mercy's unique skills in communing with the dead to fight off a take-over coup. In fact, the entire pack kidnapping and murder attempts on Mercy have all been part of this usurper's plans to gain control of the local vampire queen's territory and power. Mercy prevails and discovers in the process that she has skills she did not know about.
Great potential series read for lovers of the supernatural, and the locale makes it especially fun for those of us living in the northwest.

The Gods of Guilt

This is the 6th entry in Michael Connelly's series featuring attorney, Mickey Haller--aka "The Lincoln Lawyer," which became a movie starring Matthew McConaughey. Mickey is still doing business out of his Lincoln Towncar, and being driven around by Earl as an exchange for some legal work Mickey did to help him out. In this story, Mickey is currently estranged from his ex-wife and 16-year old daughter. His daughter holds Mickey responsible for the death of a woman and daughter killed by a drunken driver. Mickey previously got the drunken driver off on a technicality. The widely publicized case also lost Mickey the race for the DA's position. Here, Mickey is contacted by a digital pimp--a man who publishes the web sites for prostitutes and takes a cut of their earnings. He has been charged with murdering one of his clients. The victim, it turns out, was a woman Mickey had been close to; in fact, he thought he had helped her escape "the life" seven years earlier. Still, Mickey thinks this particular client is actually innocent and has been set up by an unscrupulous and ruthless DEA agent. The dead prostitute had helped the DEA agent convict a drug dealer by planting a gun under the mattress before the dealer was busted. The gun allowed the feds to put the dealer in jail for life instead of just a few months or years. The fact that the case is being re-opened means that several people might have had a motive to kill "Glory Days."
This is really well written as are all the Michael Connelly books that I have ever read, and I am actually now interested in going back to read earlier installments in this particular series, as most of what I have read are the Harry Bosch novels. There are a couple of videos about this book on Connelly's web site.

The Chase

This is a series by Janet Evanovich working with Lee Goldberg. Kate O'Hare is an FBI agent who has an obsession with master thief Nicolas Fox.  Apparently she finally caught him and he is now working with the FBI to catch bad guys. So imagine Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality meets Neal Caffrey in White Collar and you have the characters pretty close to the ones in this book. As in her Stephanie Plum books, you need to throw in unconventional relatives--in this case it's Jake, Kate's father, who was a special ops guy back in the day, and who now provides support for those operations requiring a little more force than finesse.  The initial play is to retrieve a valuable Chinese artifact that has been stolen from the Smithsonian before the Smithsonian is supposed to return it to the Chinese. This involves not just stealing it from the current illegitimate owner, Carter Grove, who happens to be a former White House Chief of Staff and now runs a hugely successful security (i.e., mercenaries) firm, but also a mid-air switch so the Chinese do not discover the original theft. All this goes according to plan, with a few hurdles successfully overcome. When Grove comes after Kate's extended family, however, the goal switches to taking him down, which can only be done only by luring him into making another stolen art purchase. As with other of Evanovich's books, things blow up, there is unconsummated sexual tension between protagonists, and the good guys and gals prevail. These are light reads that are always entertaining and well written with interesting, if somewhat improbable, characters.

The Wheel of Darkness

This series, featuring FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast, and his ward, Constance Greene, are somewhat different from the usual procedurals or thrillers in that Pendergast, and now Constance, are studying Buddhism. They have come to a remote Tibetan monastery to seek respite from the world and to study. So remote is the monastery, in fact, that the Chinese do not even know of its existence. While there, an impossible theft takes place. An ancient artifact that has the power to cleanse the earth of humanity has been stolen from the most secret and well-guarded part of the monastery. Pendergast and Constance are tasked with its return. They are hot on the trail of the thief, only to find him brutally murdered. They determine that the murderer must be one of the passengers scheduled on the inaugural sailing of the largest British ocean liner, the Brittainia. Disappearances and murders begin to accumulate on the voyage to New York city, but the captain of the ship refuses to turn back or alter course. When the officers declare him unfit for command and take over the ship, matters seem to be improving. But  the world is quickly turned upside down as the new commander sets the ship on a suicidal collision course for dangerous rocks off the coast of Canada. Anti-terrorism measures mean that once she has locked herself in the bridge, no one can gain access or change course. To top it off, Pendergast has changed personality and now plans to abandon ship rather than trying to save the ship and passengers. Can Constance bring Pendergast back to himself in time, and what is the strange force that has infected the minds of the commander and Pendergast? Those are the questions that will drive you along to the end. I would not turn down reading another book by this duo, but I also would not go out of my way to find more.

A Wrinkle in Time

Can you imagine me, voracious reader since I was 6 years old, never having read this book? And a librarian as one of my careers, to boot! For shame. But retirement is an opportunity to right the wrongs and gaping holes of my childhood, so at the suggestion of my sister-in-law, I read this Newbery-winning classic by Madeleine L'Engle. This re-issue, published in 2007 (originally published in 1962) has a lovely introduction, "An Appreciation," by Anna Quindlen that says in part, " On its surface this is a book about three children who fight an evil force threatening their planet. But it is really about a more primal battle all human beings face, to respect, defend, and love themselves" (p. 4). Since I have also been reading Florida Scott-Maxwell's book, The Measure of My Days, which  talks quite a lot about the tremendous effort required to be true to ourselves, this really smacked me in the face. Wow, this is a lot to pack into a book for youngsters! But L'Engle did not underestimate her young readers in any way--neither in what they must experience growing up, nor in their ability to think seriously about the related issues.  Meg Murry learns that what sets her apart from her fellow students, and even to some extent her own siblings, can be her strengths, even if the world at large does not necessarily endorse being different. In the battle for the mind and heart of her younger brother, Meg finds that her love and loyalty can beat back the darkest evil.  Definitely worth a read or a re-read. And since this was the first of the "Time Quintet" there is more to come when you're done.

Sepulchre

I know I read an earlier work by Kate Mosse, Labyrinth, some time ago but I don't seem to have posted a review. There is also a sequel in this "Languedoc Trilogy," Citadel, which I have not yet read. If you like the supernatural, this will certainly appeal as it has elements of Tarot card reading, evil spirits, and languishing ghosts. The time frame moves back and forth between the autumns of  1891 and 2007. Each heroine, Leonie in 1891 and Meredith in 2007, start out in Paris and end up in Rennes-les-Bains, or more specifically, Domain de la Cade, in the mountainous region bordering the Pyrenees. Leonie's story focuses on the vendetta of an evil man, Constant, growing ever more diabolical as he is consumed by syphilis. He feels jilted by Isolde, who is Leonie's widowed aunt-by-marriage to her mother's older half-brother. Leonie's brother, Anatole, has rescued Isolde from the disastrous affair with Constant, only to be hounded by him and slandered through a rumor campaign in the Paris press. Finally, Anatole and Isolde--who have become lovers--concoct a plan to fake her death and funeral, but Constant eventually sees through the ruse and takes up the pursuit once again, eventually resulting in both their deaths. Leonie has her revenge on Constant in the end, summoning dangerous spirits to kill him.
Present tense, Meredith is writing a biography of Debussy and also looking for the ancestors of her mother. Meredith was adopted by an aunt because her mother was mentally unbalanced and eventually took her own life. She has only a photograph of a young solder, taken--she thinks--in southern France, and a piece of music titled "Sepulchre" as legacies from her mother. She starts in Paris and then heads to Rennes-les-Bains, ostensibly to look for archival traces of Debussy's wife, Lily, but also because she believes she will find her own family's history there. The Domaine de la Cade has been turned into a high end hotel and Meredith finds more evidence of her ties to the ancestral owners.
If I have done the complex plot a disservice, I apologize. There is rich description and decent character development. I was actually a bit put off by the supernatural elements, which is not usually true for me. I love historical mysteries generally, but found myself a bit impatient with this one. I also just don't like books--or real life for that matter--where it appears that one really bad person can wreak so much havoc and get away with it. Constant essentially destroys the Vernier family, although Anatole and Isolde's son does survive and turns out to be Meredith's ancestor. Constant murders Leonie and Anatole's mother, drives Isolde slowly insane, and spreads rumors about evil spirits being housed at Domaine de la Cade, causing a mob to burn the place down. Yes the devil gets him in the end, but there is just too much death and destruction before that happens--for my taste.  For a more informed review, here is one from The Guardian.

The Bones of Paris

I have been a big fan of Laurie King's work for years (the Mary Russell and Kate Martinelli series, as well as her stand alones) so was happy to see this new (2013) morsel. It grabs you right away and does not let go, keeping you guessing abot who is going to be next and who did what to whom. Set in late 1920's Paris, it is a detailed portrayal of the expat American community and the art scene in particular. The surrealists were making a statement about art-- above and beyond realism and above and beyond conventional mores and morality.
Harris Stuyveysant is a former Bureau agent (as in J.E.Hoover's bureau) who became disaffected and is now working as a solo investigator, roaming around Europe. There are hints sprinkled throughout the book that a bombing played a significant role in that decision--as it cost not only lives, but also the loss of the left hand of the woman he was in love with, Sarah. He has not seen or heard from her in several years, although he stays in touch, via postcards, with her brother, Bennett Grey. Grey has the unlucky distinction of having died in the war but being brought back to life with an out of control sensitivity to everything going on around him. He can tell a mile away if someone is lying and of course the government (British) would very much like to use that skill. He would very much like not to, and he lives as a hermit in Cornwall. When Harris sends Bennett several photographs of women who look terrified and asks if they are real or staged, Bennet feels compelled to come to Paris and this precipitates the climax of the book.
Leading up to that, Harris has come to Paris to try and locate a missing person, Philippa Crosby, at the behest of her uncle and mother. She is a young American woman who has been living in Paris for several years, but has now been out of contact for several months. By happenstance, Harris encountered Philippa in Nice prior to her disappearance and had a brief sexual fling with her, so he is motivated by more than money. When Harris goes to the Paris police to let them know he is pursuing the case, he finds out that the inspector, Emile Doucet, thinks there might be an emerging pattern to several recent disappearances. When Harris fails to turn up any evidence that Philippa is alive, he begins to believe she has come to a bad end. Meanwhile, pursuing Philippa's contacts in the art community, Harris learns about a surrealist theatre, the Grand Guignol, which ostensibly seeks to heal those traumatized by war by offering cathartic experiences of terror on the stage. Harris is not favorably impressed and, in fact, comes to believe several people associated with the theatre and the surrealist community (e.g., Man Ray) are potential suspects in Philippa's disappearance. When he drunkenly blunders into a confrontation with Man Ray and the theatre's patron, Comte Charmentier, he is stunned to find that Sarah Grey is working for the Comte. And to confound issues even further, she is engaged to Emile Doucet.
When Sarah disappears, Bennett and Emile Doucet go to talk to Charmentier, but are attacked by a gunman in an alley. Doucet is shot and now in a coma; Bennett has disappeared. Harris gets himself thrown in jail after confronting Ray in the hunt for Sarah, and then is accused of shooting Doucet. You don't know until the very end if Sarah is alive or dead, and whether or not Bennett will survive. King is a writer of great skill with complex, well-realized characters, vivid sense of place and compelling plots. A great read! King's book Touchstone, published in 2007, precedes this one with two of the characters, Stuyvesant and Bennett Grey.

Brat Farrar

I have heard a lot about Josephine Tey (a pseudonym used by Elizabeth Mackintosh) over the years. She is one of that pantheon of distinguished English (Scottish actually) mystery writers who has gone down in legend, so I grabbed one of her books to take to England! Brat Farrar, also published under the title Come and Kill Me, first appeared in 1949.  Brat Farrar, a relatively poor young British expat who made his way working with horses in America, has returned to England. He is accosted on the street by a man, Alex Loding, claiming Brat is the spitting image of the long-dead (supposedly) heir to a reputable stable, Patrick Ashby. He persuades Brat to "return" to the farm and dispossess his twin, Simon Ashby, who is set to take over the stables on his upcoming birthday. As Brat gets more and more enmeshed in the family, he comes to suspect that the missing Patrick's death was not a suicide as many believed, but a murder by his brother Simon. Of course if Brat shares what he finds out, he will be revealed as an imposter and lose the only family and home he has ever known. Simon of course cannot tell the family of Brat's identity without giving away his own guilt, but he might just try his luck a 2nd time. Intriguing and tightly crafted plot, believable characters, and an English setting all served to make this a satisfying read.

Time and Chance

I picked this historical novel by Sharon Kay Penman from the sale table because I had liked a couple of her historically based mysteries (e.g., The Queen's Man). Penman is a competent historian (an Author's Note details the liberties she has taken with history and discusses some of her sources) and a fine craftswoman as a writer. I became absolutely engrossed in this story, which begins two years into the reign of Henry II, 1156, and continues until 1171, shortly after the murder of Thomas Becket. Henry and his equally famous queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, come to life as flesh and blood people with charismatic and strategic skills, as well as human failings. Eleanor is as astute a politician as Henry and so it chafes her and echoes down the years when Henry ignores her advice against elevating Thomas Becket from Chancellor to Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry and Thomas have been of the same mind for years and made a nearly irresistible alliance in bringing a fragmented England, as well as significant parts of France, into a more cohesive kingdom. Henry desires to bring the Church to heel in his quest for control and lawfulness, and sees putting his ally Thomas into the most powerful position in England as a brilliant strategic move. Eleanor has never trusted Thomas, and when he experiences a religious conversion after taking holy orders, her distrust is validated. Henry feels betrayed and the feud between the two men continues to escalate until Thomas is living in exile. When the Pope pressures for reconciliation, Thomas returns to England, not the least bit repentent or conciliatory and immediately takes actions that enrage Henry once more. In the heat of the moment, Henry speaks rashly against Thomas and some young noblemen take it upon themselves to rid the king of this troublesome man. Eleanor is the mother of Henry's eight children--the 2nd oldest of whom, Richard, is to become the Lionheart. She is also the force that holds the kingdom together when Henry is off fighting. Eleanor and Henry have shared not only a bed, but ambition and visions for empire, and she feels betrayed by Henry's installing a young concubine in their favorite home in England, Woodstock. As her friend Maud advises, you must take Henry as he is or learn to love him less--and Eleanor chooses the latter. They have lived mostly apart when Henry was off putting down various rebellions, now they live separately because she can hardly bear the humiliation he has foisted upon her. There is apparently a previous novel about Henry and Eleanor, When Christ and his Saints Slept,  as well as a sequel, Devil's Brood. Penman has a substantial body of work, including a 2-part series about Richard the Lionheart, several other tales of English rulers, and her mysteries. If you like historical novels, you can't go wrong here .

Top Secret Twenty One

I know Janet Evanovich solicits titles from her readers for the Stephanie Plum number series, but I do not know if the titles come first --stimulating plot ideas--or she writes the book first and then picks the title that best matches the plot line. In any case, there are some new elements and some of the more familiar plot devices in this latest installment. Ranger and Stephanie are still dancing around each other, although Stephanie remains sexually faithful--in behavior if not in fantasy--to Joe Morelli. Another car gets destroyed, although not burned up--this time while Lula is sleeping in the front seat. One of Stephanie's old contacts, height-challenged Randy Briggs, is being targeted by his boss, Jimmy Poletti, one of Stephanie's FTA's. She plans to use Briggs as bait. Polletti and Randy are persons of interest because they are key players in a drugs and sex slaves ring operating between Mexico and New Jersey. Someone has sent a missile into Briggs' apartment, leaving him homeless and now he is camped out with Stephanie--a highly undesirable situation for all kinds of reasons. Meanwhile, someone is also targeting Ranger with intent to harm and with deadly nuclear materials, so now the FBI is involved. Worse yet, the material, designed to be placed into the ventilation system at Rangeman headquarters, may just be a trial run for a larger target. Stephanie gets enlisted to help Ranger smoke out the would-be assassin and, in the process, becomes #2 on the hit list.  Last but not least, Grandma Mazur is at war with Morelli's Grandma Bella. But wait, I forgot the pack of feral chihuahuas guarding another one of Stephanie's FTA's. Yikes! A bit more complex and a little less formulaic than recent entries in the series, and still lots of fun.

The Long Way Home

I always anticipate the arrival of a new Louise Penny installment of the Inspector Gamache series with curiosity and high expectations for luscious dining. Apparently, a lot of people agree, for her last couple of books have debuted at first position on the NYT Bestseller list. She is such a fine writer of character, place and plot that it is just pure pleasure to read her novels. And, by now, all these characters have become so familiar and beloved. Clara's husband Peter is missing. They separated over a year ago and promised each other they would reconnect in a year. So far there has only been silence and Clara fears the worst. She is reluctant to voice her fears to the Armand, who is now retired and living in Three Pines. But he cannot let the disappearance go uninvestigated. And so begins a journey through the mind of Peter Morrow, who apparently has gone on a  globe-trotting pilgrimage to recover his artistic soul. Myrna, Clara, Jean Guy and even Ruth all pursue leads through old art school faculty and Peter's estranged family to finally locate his likely destination, in an out of the way town in the back of Quebec. It remains unclear almost to the very end who has the "sin sick soul" and what terrible deeds he has  wrought, but eventually Peter and Clara are reunited, just for a moment. It is a bittersweet ending. I cannot recommend these books enough--read them in order starting with Still Life! She continues to delve into the hearts and minds of her characters--very human and very fallible-- and make them even more remarkable and engaging. Penny has had her own life challenges in dealing with her husband's encroaching Alzheimer's disease, and her humanity absolutely shines through.

The Alpine Traitor

This part of the "Emma Lord" series by Mary Daheim that is set in the fictional town of Alpine, somewhere out Hiway 2 towards Stevens Pass in Washington state. Having lived in Seattle 18 years, I was attracted because I like reading books set in surroundings I might recognize and I had heard positive reviews of this author. I would say this is competent but not outstanding. I found little things irritating like the fact that the sheriff, Milo, never walks, strolls or ambles, but always lopes out of the room. Not being really sure what that looked like, I checked with dictionary.com and found that, although usually applied to quadrapeds, it can apply to a person and conveys "with a long, easy stride." OK, fair enough, but pick another verb to use once in a while.
To the plot. Apparently, Emma Lord had a son, now a priest in his 30's, with a married man, Tom Cavanaugh. When he left his wife, who was mentally unbalanced, Tom and Emma renewed their relationship and were on the verge of getting married when he was killed. That was about 5 years ago. Emma is the owner of the town's weekly newspaper and has about 4 people working for her. Out of the blue, she receives a call, ostensibly from the husband of her deceased fiance's daughter, making an offer to buy the paper. According to this caller, the Cavanaugh children and their spouses want to buy the paper because they are expanding the newspaper empire left to them by their father, Tom. Emma is adamant that she is not interested in selling. Then this person turns up dead. Except it turns out he wasn't really the person he claimed to be, and said husband is alive and well. Meanwhile though the Cavanaugh children and spouses have started converging on Alpine. Emma makes efforts to talk with them but this seems to go nowhere. One of her employees is the next to be shot, although not killed. The plot is complicated by yet another revelation that someone is not who they claim to be. There are certainly a lot of colorful characters and I suspect if you read a number of these books, they would get to seem like old friends. However, there was not enough appealing about this book to send me in search of more in the series. Recommended only if you don't have something else you would rather read.

Last Scene Alive

This is #7 in the Aurora Teagarden series by Charlaine Harris. Aurora is still sunk in the gray landscape of loss from the death of her husband Martin (see previous post for A Fool and His Honey). Apparently, her former writer friend, Robin Crusoe, has optioned one of his books--loosely based on a series of murders that occurred in Lawrenceton, which Aurora helped the police to solve. As a result, a film company is coming to town and some "B" level starlet--who may or may not still be involved with Robin--is going to play the Aurora-based character in the movie. Aurora does not want to have anything to do with it, and struggles not to take it personally when friends in town get involved in and excited about the the making of the movie. Of course, the actress playing Aurora gets murdered, and Aurora will have to find the killer or risk suffering the same fate. On the bright side, the flame seems to have been rekindled with Robin and Aurora begins to see a light at the end of her dark tunnel of mourning. Well done, fast-paced read.

A Fool and His Honey

This is book #6 in the "Aurora Teagarden" series by Charlaine Harris. I have not read these in order but found a couple of them in the "Friends" shop at the public library and I have really enjoyed her other series with Lily Bard and Sookie Stackhouse. In this book, Aurora is married to Martin, and although she no longer needs to work, she is back to being a part-time librarian at the public library in the the Atlanta bedroom community of Lawrenceton. One afternoon she answers the front door and is met by Martin's niece, Regina, carrying her new baby, Hayden. Aurora and Martin have a dinner engagement that evening and when they return, they find, Regina missing and her husband, Craig, lying dead on the stairs leading to the garage apartment. The baby is found safely hidden under the bed in the apartment. Inside, they find a groggy Rory,  Craig's best friend, sleeping behind the sofa in the den. Unable to reach Regina's mother (Martin's sister, Barby), who is on a cruise, and determined to get the baby with someone who can take care of him, they head to Ohio to find Craig's adoptive parents. When that doesn't work out, they decide to stay a few days at Martin's family farm, where he had been letting Regina and Craig--and apparently, Rory--live. But the person who killed Craig, and perhaps kidnapped Regina, is so desperate to find the baby, that more people will die. As with all Harris' characters and books, no one is free of dark character flaws, nor are the endings always happy. Still, she is a good writer, the plots are tight, the characters and sense of place are well-developed. No regrets at reading this one.

King of the Mountain

I only know M.K. Wren from reading her post-apocalyptic novel, A Gift Upon the Shore, so was surprised to find that she has a whole series of mysteries with a PI protagonist named Conan Flagg. Flagg also owns a bookstore on the coast of Oregon, and he is loathe to leave it just now, but his friend, Lise King, has pleaded with him to join her family for her father's annual birthday get together at his lodge in the mountains east of Portland. The trip brings together wealthy timber man A.C.King, his relatively new and much younger wife, and his 3 sons, at least two of whom appear to have some significant conflicts with A.C. Part of the annual celebration involves A.C. and his sons hiking up the mountain to camp out overnight.  One son is staying behind at the lodge, ostensibly with an injured ankle. Conan is invited to join the camp out, and it is only A.C.'s snoring which wakes Conan and sends him wandering out of camp to look at the stars, minutes before a landslide buries the campsite and--presumably--A.C. and two of his sons.  Conan races down the mountain as a freak blizzard moves in and barely survives hypothermia in getting back to the lodge to deliver the sad news. Conan is sure he heard a separate explosion moments before the landslide started and he thinks this is an elaborately plotted murder, not an accident of nature. That means somebody at the lodge is involved, and Conan means to find out who. Everyone has a motive--most of them centered around money. If you enjoy reading books set in the Pacific Northwest and like a decently wrought mystery, this would be an enjoyable choice.

Lucky You

I have not read anything by Carl Hiaasen in a while and forgot how he makes me laugh out loud with his outrageous characters and dialogue. Bode and Chub, two ne'er do wells--also would-be anti-government militia--win the Florida lottery. The only thing is, someone else did, too, and that means they only get $14 m instead of $28 m. They decide to find the other winner and steal the ticket. They accomplish their goal, beating up a proud young black woman, JoLayne Lucks, who works as a veterinary assistant and had wanted to use her winnings to save a piece of land that is soon to be bulldozed by developers. She loves the land and the animals that live there; this is along the same lines as many of Hiaasen's other books with semi-environmental activist themes. Tom Krome, a jaded newspaper reporter sent to cover JoLayne's winning the lottery by his incompetent and idiotic editor, finds himself in the middle of JoLayne's quest to find the two brutal sociopaths and get her ticket back. When Krome goes off the grid, and his house gets blown up with somebody's body inside, the newspaper sends the features editor to check up on Krome. Said editor has a religious conversion, after an encounter with tiny turtles in the town of Grange, a place known for religious miracles and the shysters who create them. Other characters include Krome's actress wife who refuses to divorce him, the waitress from Hooters with whom Chub falls in love, the convenience store clerk who sold JoLayne the winning ticket and then denied it in order to join Chub and Bode in the militia, and the various eccentrics living in the town of Grange. Hiaasen's humor is dark, but the good guys win in the end and this is a hilarious read.

A Summons to Memphis

Written by Peter Taylor in 1986, and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1987, this is, according to the critics, a quintessentially Southern novel. Like his main character, Phillip Carver, Taylor was born in Nashville, and later lived in Memphis, where his father practiced law; and, like Carver, Taylor attended Vanderbilt, at least for a time. In the novel, Philip is "summoned" home to Memphis by his domineering older sisters to help prevent the marriage of their octogenarian father after the death of their mother. Phillip lives with a younger woman in Manhattan, working as a book editor and rare book dealer-- having escaped the cloistered environment of Memphis with financial help from these same sisters after the second World War. His older brother had been killed in the war. The senior Carver had moved the family from Nashville to Memphis following the financial scandals surrounding a large insurance and finance conglomerate owned by his then best friend and boss, Lewis Shackleford. Phillip was then just a teenager, and his older sisters were in their late teens, with their brother in between. The entire family felt betrayed by their father's decision to move, with Mrs.Carver comparing it to the Cherokee "Trail of Tears." She had come from a moneyed family in Nashville and "married down" somewhat to George Carver, although he came from a family with land and was an aspiring lawyer. Mrs. Carver at first engaged with abandon in the new social scene of Memphis but then retreated into pseudo-invalidism for the rest of her life. Mr. George Carver,however, wasn't through messing up their lives. First he managed to put a stop to Betsy's engagement to a promising young Nashville suitor. Then during WWII, he also bought off the woman that Phillip loved.  Neither of the older sisters ever married and Phillip's older brother was killed in the war. In this book, what becomes increasingly clear to Phillip during the course of the novel is just how manipulative his entire family has become, with revenge apparently the end goal of both the sisters if not also the father. What he does not seem to openly acknowledge is his retreat, not so much geographically, but emotionally from these large dramatic characters of his family into a small and monochromatic life. He calls it serenity.  Perhaps. A much more scholarly review of the book is available from the NYTimes.

Something More Than Night

I must have seen this book reviewed on Powell's book blog because I am unfamiliar with author Ian Tregillis, although he written other books. Everything gets turned on its head in his version of the world. The premise is that there is a coup brewing in the celestial realms; the archangel Gabriel has been murdered, though it's not clear why until the very end. Heaven is not the realm of peace and harmony we stereotypically believe it to be, and the various levels of creatures who reside there are imprisoned in a sense and not at all happy about it. When earthly Bayliss is tapped to find a compliant human replacement to fill Gabriel's spot in the Choir, he accidentally kills the wrong person--a dame instead of the mugg he had targeted. Did I mention that Bayliss fashions himself after Philip Marlowe? You only think you know what is going on in this book, because Tregillis leads us all astray. Bayliss is not who he claims to be, i.e., just a low level angel who has to bend to more powerful forces, but who, like Marlowe, has a code of honor requiring him to protect the dame in distress from those same dark and very dangerous and very weird beings. Molly, said dame, is also quite a bit more than your ordinary "monkey"--er, I mean human. The celestials have a decidedly low opinion of earth's two legged occupants.  Tregillis writes with flair and color and will leave you gasping for breath trying to keep up. This was a totally entertaining and surprising read from start to finish and I will definitely look for more of his books.

The Arsenic Labyrinth

Third installment in Martin Edwards' "Lake District" mystery series, this one is set in the former mining district of Coniston. See earlier posts of The Coffin Trail and The Cipher Garden for a more detailed cast of regular characters and previous cases. This time the re-opening of a case by Hannah Scarlett's team is prompted by a story in the local papers about the 10th anniversary of a disappearance. No one has seen or heard from Emma Bestwick for 10 years and journalist Tony DiVenuto is playing the story for all it's worth. Apparently, he has struck a chord because he receives an anonymous call saying that Emma won't ever be heard from again. The call came from con man GuyKoenig, who has returned to the Lake District after a 10 year absence--an absence which coincided with the disappearance of Emma. He in fact didn't mean to kill Emma, but ultimately did. Why Emma agreed to meet him in an out-of-the-way spot on the fells near the ruins of an arsenic mine drives this mystery. Daniel gets involved because he is researching for a possible new book on John Ruskin, who lived out his final years in Coniston, and was known for his antagonism toward industrial development. Once again, a complex plot with lots of twists and turns. Several side stories are developed as well as the main plot lines. Not too surprisingly, Miranda decides to move back to London, and Hannah and Marc's relationship continues to be full of discontents on both sides. Frankly the possible relationship between Hannah and Daniel just fails to arouse my interest. There are several more books in this series, but I don't feel compelled to read any more of them at this point...maybe after we have returned from our trip there.

The Cipher Garden

This is the 2nd of the Martin Edwards "Lake District" mystery series--see my previous post on the first one, The Coffin Trail, for a cast of characters. The cold case team, led by Hannah Scarlett, has received an anonymous letter saying that the wife of murder victim Warren Howe, was the killer, even though the case had never been solved. Hannah's sargent, Nick Lowther, was on the original investigating team, and grew up as friends with one of the potential suspects. He seems reluctant to re-open this particular cold case, so Hannah and one of the team's other detectives begin some initial inquiries.
Daniel is still intrigued by the apparent randomness of the garden layout for Tarn Cottage and has now figured out who the original owners were, so he's hot on the trail, hunting for information that will help him decipher the dead-end paths and odd plantings there. Hannah's partner, Marc, is helping Daniel look for material as he pursues his used book business. Miranda has had offers to write magazine columns but it will require her spending more time in London and Daniel is having doubts about whether she is really going to stick with their decision to leave their former lives mostly behind and stay in the small village of Brack. Daniel is still wanting to spend more time with Hannah, both for the insights she can possibly provide into Daniel's father, and also because he is attracted to her. His endeavors coincide with Hannah's investigation since the murder victim was half of a landscape/ garden design partnership, which is still functioning and is hired by Daniel to help him sort the garden. In the midst of everything, Daniel's sister Louise comes to stay after breaking up with her partner, and things get a little testy between her and Miranda.
Hannah is having some challenges of her own in both her personal and professional relationships. Nick is acting strange, and Marc is clearly annoyed at Hannah's continuing obsession with work. The case they have re-opened is a challenging one, not because of lack of suspects, but because there are too many, although they all seem to have alibis. The remaining Howe family--wife Tina and children Sam and Kirsty--, along with the wife of Howe's business partner, and the clients in whose garden Howe was killed are all in the mix. Again this is a twist you'll never see coming. The prologue as usual sets up expectations, but they will be the wrong ones as new facts come to light only very late in the book.

The Coffin Trail

This is the first in Martin Edwards' "Lake District" mystery series, and I really felt I should read a few of them just to put myself in the right frame of mind for our upcoming visit to that area. The main characters are: Daniel Kind, a rising star in the history faculty at Oxford; Miranda, his new passion and a London based journalist; Ben Kind, Daniel's now deceased father and former supervisor of Hannah Scarlett, one of the youngest DCI's ever to come up through the ranks in the Cumbria constabulary; Nick Lowther, her sargent; Marc, Hannah's live-in partner and a used book dealer.
Not only is Daniel sick of the politicking in academia, but his previous girlfriend, Aimee, committed suicide and so Oxford holds a lot of attendant bad memories. When Daniel and Miranda take a trip to the Lake District on a spur-of-the-moment vacation, Daniel takes them to the village of Brack, nestled in a hidden valley (Brackdale) where his family vacationed one summer before Daniel's father abandoned his family to get involved with another woman. That summer, though, holds fond memories for Daniel and so he is open to the idea when Miranda, spurred on by a "For Sale" sign on a run down cottage, says they should chuck it all and move there. They do indeed buy the cottage, Miranda takes on coordinating a makeover from top to bottom and Daniel tackles the long neglected garden. Daniel had actually befriended the young man who lived in the cottage that long-ago summer. Barrie Gilpin was slightly autistic and so kept at arm's length by most of the villagers, but the two boys had a wonderful time together exploring the valley. Daniel could not believe it possible, when many years later, Barrie was believed to have brutally murdered a visiting tourist and left her body on the Sacrifice Stone, which stands in silhouette as part of the surrounding mountain range. Barrie fell to his death that same night, accidentally or not, and so was never charged, nor was he ever cleared, and his mother lived with the villagers' assumptions about her son for the rest of her life.
Hannah has been put in charge of a new "cold case" team--she believes because of a murder case that went sideways, letting the man she is sure is guilty go free. The murder in Brackdale was one that Hannah helped Ben Kind investigate and so this is the case she chooses to start with. Given that Hannah worked with his dad after Ben had left, Daniel sees her as a potential source of information to help understand why Ben never stayed in touch after leaving. Moreover, Daniel sees historians as detectives of sorts, and he--apparently like his father--just does not think Barrie killed the woman. So Daniel and Hannah's paths will cross and recross as Daniel plays amateur sleuth, and Hannah reopens the case. Both find themselves somewhat intrigued by the other but unwilling to do anything to threaten their primary relationships--for now. Fair amount of local color, pretty complex and well-drawn characters, a twisty plot you cannot see coming. Not the best writer I've ever read, but competent, and I will move on to the next installment, The Cipher Garden.

Notorious Nineteen

I do not know how I could have missed this installment in Janet Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum" number series; I have read every single other one, including Takedown Twenty. Predictable in so many ways, but also predictably entertaining. Evanovich likes to keep the "big question" of who Stephanie will finally end up with going and going--will it be her cop boyfriend, Morelli, or the equally handsome and somewhat darker Ranger. Someone from Ranger's old special forces unit has gone off the beaten path and is threatening both Ranger and his friend and former fellow soldier, Kinsey, who is supposed to be getting married. The threats are scarey and are not limited to just Ranger and Kinsey but extend to Kinsey's fiancee, and now to Stephanie, since she has agreed to be Ranger's "date" and 2nd set of eyes at the various pre/wedding festivities. In the meantime, Stephanie and Lula are trying to bring in a variety of perps who have missed their court dates. The biggest monetary prize would come from Geoffrey Cubbin,  a man who embezzled $5m from the local retirement home, Cranberry Manor, and who Vinnie put up a lot of bail money for. Stephanie is behind on her rent and needs to score, and she just can't figure out how a man could go missing from a hospital floor--unless someone or some ones from the hospital staff are in on the disappearance. Turns out, this is not the first patient to go "missing" from the hospital. Cars blow up, apprehension situations are frequently slapstick (think arresting someone while you are naked), and the heat between Stephanie and Morelli and between Stephanie and Ranger never seems to die down. All the rest of the usual cast are present and making a good accounting of themselves. Good plot line; great light reading.

Summer House with Swimming Pool

I did not read The Dinner, Herman Koch's first novel, which apparently got rave reviews, but based on reading this book, I am not going to seek it out either. I thought about stopping several times but just kept reading more out of morbid curiosity. I did not like any of the characters in this book, not that they weren't well drawn, rather that they are really not likable people. And if you can't identify with any of the characters or at least admire them, what is the point? Set in Holland and maybe France, the protagonist is a Dutch GP, Marc Schlosser, who really detests his patients, as best I can tell. He does not want them to take their clothes off because he thinks they are ugly, and he just listens to them for 20 minutes because he figures that's what it takes to keep them coming back. When a famous actor, Ralph Meier, becomes a patient, and then invites Schlosser, his wife and two daughters to visit him and his family at the summer home the Meiers rent near the coast of ???, life begins to spin out of control. There is something "off" about Meier, the way he looks at women, and on one occasion, his apparent willingness to beat them senseless if they provoke and then deny him sexually. When Schlosser's 14-year-old daughter disappears one evening while everyone is at the beach and is later found raped, suspicions grow, and Schlosser takes an unexpected opportunity to punish Meier, using his knowledge and skill as a physician. Turns out Meier didn't commit the rape, but he's dead now anyway, thanks to Schlosser, and really, he deserved to die. Just checked the NYT Book Review, and was pleasantly surprised to find they shared my assessment!

Promise of Shadows

This is a new author to me, Justina Ireland, and apparently this is only her 2nd novel. But the premise is a popular one, i.e., half gods (half humans) live among or near us and we poor mortals know nothing about it. Politics, feuds, prophecies and ancient enmities fuel this entertaining tale with a Harpy and various other beings based on Greek mythology providing the cast. When the book opens, we meet 20 something Zephyr Mourning (the aforementioned Harpy) who has been sent to Tartarus (part of the Underworld) to toil the rest of her life away, because she killed one of the  Æthereals.

Harpies are warrior women, but Zephyr has never really been any good at conjuring magic or killing people, so imagine her shock when she finds her sister murdered and she actually kills the murderer--who just happens to be a god. Harpies aren't supposed to be able to do that, and Zephyr is further surprised that the High Council (the gods) condemn her to a hellish labor camp instead of death. Someone is pulling strings. When a childhood friend, Tallon, along with his brother Blue, show up to break Zephyr and her guardian/friend Cass out of the Underworld and take them back to the Mortal Realm, things start looking up. And then Zephyr finds out that the half-gods all think she is their promised savior, the Nyx, a dark goddess who can finally help them regain power against the abusive gods. Zephyr is a coward as well as a klutz and she just doesn't see how she is going to save the world, but she is fueled by her rage against those who ordered her sister's murder, and then also killed her best friend, Cass. It looks like Hera is behind a plot to kill anyone who might have dark powers and capture their shades for a magical spell that will give her dominion over all mortals. Turns out that Hades is Zephyr's father, so she has much more power at her disposal than she ever realized and she swears she will avenge the shades of her sister, Cass, and all the other murdered victims or die trying. The powers of light are not always right, nor are the dark powers necessarily bad in this story--a welcome change. If you enjoyed the series from Rick Riordan or Michael Scott with similar mythological approaches, you will love this slightly older age outing. Review from Kirkus is here.

Never Go Back

This novel in the "Jack Reacher" series by Lee Child is predictable, but also predictably satisfying as are the other Reacher books I have read. Reacher has been carrying on lengthy phone conversations with the current commander of the 110th MP, the unit he used to command. Her name is Susan Turner and, for no other reason than because he likes her voice, he has traveled back to DC to ask her to dinner. And because Reacher lives his life the way he does, with no more baggage than a folding toothbrush, he can do just that. But someone is expecting Reacher and has some surprises in store for him, including a paternity suit from a woman he claims not to know, and a wrongful death suit--validated only by affadavit--regarding a man Reacher says he never laid a hand on. To top it off, Major Turner has been incarcerated on bribery charges that very day. Reacher gets "called up" by the acting commander, essentially re-enlisted, and then arrested and imprisoned. Even before that, however, tough guys were sent to Reacher's motel room to try and scare him into leaving town. And we all know Reacher never walks away from a fight. And now he figures that all these trumped up charges have something to do with him coming back to see Turner. So he finds a way to break them both out of prison so they can figure out what the hell is going on that is so important, and who is pulling the strings at such a high level. For the pursuers seem to know their every move mere minutes after they make them in spite of their best efforts to cover their tracks. They head to California to find out if Reacher really has a daughter he didn't know about, with the DC metro police, the FBI and the secret enemies all in pursuit. Of course he will best the bad buys, solve the mystery, and walk away without the girl. That's what Reacher does, and you'll be rooting for him all the way.

Silent Night

Apparently when he died in 2010, Robert Parker had begun the manuscript for this Spenser novel set at Christmas time. His literary agent of several decades, who also become the executor of his literary estate, undertook to finish it. The premise is that an 11 year old boy comes to Spenser's office to seek his help for the man running a home for street kids. When Spenser investigates further, he find that Jackie Alvarez has an unlicensed home, Street Business, that takes kids off the street and gets them started with minimum wage jobs. Someone has been roughing up the kids and stealing their money. Alvarez wants Spenser to help find who is responsible and put a stop to it. Perfect sort of case for our literate do-gooder private eye and gourmet cook. Christmas is coming and Spenser is trying to plan the menu in-between investigating. Turns out the problems is Jackie's older brother, Juan Alvarez, big-time Boston philanthropist and successful business man, who has also been providing the money to keep Street Business running. The tricky part is figuring out why Alvarez wants to shut down Street Business, and catch him in the act, without jeopardizing the home and the kids who have taken sanctuary there. Hawk, Susan, Pearl, and even Rita Fiori all make a showing. I don't think the dialogue between Spenser and Hawk is quite as sharp, but the element that ties this particular piece of pro-bono work to Hawk's past is somewhat intriguing. Kirkus did not give this a glowing review, nor did Publishers Weekly. Strictly for Parker/ Spenser die-hards; otherwise, you will get more joy from the earlier Spenser novels.