Tag Archives: mystery

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Ghost Walk by Marianne MacDonald & Haunting Jordan by P.J. Alderman

Started and finished this book this morning; it almost made me late for work:)  It is the second in the Dido Hoare series which I only recently discovered.  I love the characters of Dido, her father Barnabas and now her new sidekick, Ernie.   The characters are rich and well developed and I really enjoy the relationships among them and the others on the periphery of the story.

The mystery surrounds a former spy/secret agent and bookstore customer who died under what Dido deems suspicious circumstances.  Scotland Yard is involved along with other police/governmental agencies and even Egyptian authorities.  Dido follows the clues, attempting to do justice for  the dead man.  Barnabas and Ernie each helping in their own ways, everything from watching her baby, Ben, to minding the store, acting as a bodyguard, or researching antiquities.

This is a wonderful series, with a strong and intelligent cast,  and I plan to read all of it.  There are 8 in the series so far.  I have looked on line but am unable to find any current information on the author so I don’t know if she is still writing or not. The antiquarian book shop sets the theme, but it is not as cutesy as many modern theme based cozies.

 

Finished this one last night, the first in the Port Chatham series.  This is a paranormal cozy and the paranormal definitely takes front and center stage so you need to be prepared for that to be the focus.

The characters are interesting including Jordan Marsh, the protagonist therapist turned home renovator turned sleuth.  A good looking contractor type is thrown in for fun and then of course, the ghosts.

Jordan is actually dealing with more than one mystery.  The death of her ex-husband, an open case in she is the main suspect and the murder of Hattie, one of the ghosts inhabiting her home.  The chapters flip back and forth between the present day and the past events and journal entries.

The writing is well done and the transitions between chapters, past and present flow smoothly, which can be difficult to do well. Curious to see how this series continues since the original ghost’s mystery is solved.  Paranormal is not my favorite read, but this was well enough done that I would give another book in the series a try.

 

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A Veiled Deception by Annette Blair and The Best Man by Kristan Higgins

Last night I read these two books that I’ve had stacked in my bedroom for quite a while, A Veiled Deception and The Best Man.

The Best Man was an engaging light American romance.  There are some hardships that the main character overcomes, death of her mother and being jilted at the altar in front of her whole town.  A “boy” from the wrong side of the tracks and a family full of characters who love each other and show it in their own way.  I liked the characters and the story line.  This was a light, fun read.

 

A Veiled Deception by Annette Blair is a magical themed cozy mystery, involving fashion, weddings, family, lost love, secrets, and of course, murder.  The main character is Madeira…and she has sisters Sherry and Brandy, let’s just leave that alone.

The fashion information that was incorporated was interesting to me.  I like vintage fashion and Madeira,”Maddie” is interested in fleeing from her NY designer job to open a vintage fashion shop in her home town.

Some of the dialogue was a little off, unnatural, but the mystery was interesting and involved secrets and long lost love.   The magic end was not overplayed, more psychic than witch, but I don’t know how that will develop over the series.  Overall, a fun light cozy read and I will read more in the series.

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The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey & Evan Help Us by Rhys Bowen

This is the second book in the wonderful Constable Evans Mystery series by Rhys Bowen.  I picked this book up from the library having read and enjoyed the first one.  Constable Evans is a happy village policeman surrounded by an interesting array of characters, among them Evans the Meat, Evans the Post, tourists, competing love interests, and of course a murderer.  The mystery begins when an amateur archaeologist stumbles upon what might be the tomb of King Arthur and then has his head bashed in on his way home from the pub.  The mystery leads the reader all through the little Welsh village and then some leads go all the way to London.

The book invokes a well established sense of place.  I love the Welsh mountain village setting.  The characters are well developed and engaging.  I will definitely read more in this series.

I have never read any Josephine Tey books, but having recently heard of her I decided to read The Daughter of Time, which is supposed to be one of her best or most well known books.  The Daughter of Time opens with Inspector Alan Grant being injured and laid up in the hospital.  He is not a happy patient and Marta, who knows of the Inspector’s fascination with faces, provides him with stacks of images to entertain himself.  One of them was the image of RIchard III.  The changeable nature of the portrait captures Grant’s imagination.

Inspector Grant takes up an investigation to discover whether or not Richard III was really guilty of murdering the young princes.  From his hospital bed, Grant conducts his entire investigation.  A fascinating look at history and how it is recorded, particularly when the victor is doing the recording.

This book is number 5 in the series and I have not read any of the others, but it is very able to be a stand alone book. I liked Inspector Grant as a character, even though I suppose in this book he was not entirely himself, since he spent the whole time in his hospital bed and I loved the historical mystery.

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The Irish Cottage Murder by Dicey Deere

Picked this up from the library and read it last night.  I recently read another Irish based mystery, Buried in a Bog, and really liked that book, so this appealed to me.  First the good, the book has a, strong female protagonist and interesting writing style, such as using chapters of varying lengths and different points of view (some are only a page long).  The bad is ..well, bad.  The protagonist is 27 or is that 30? Depends upon which section of the book you are reading (not really a bad error over all), the combination of languages the translator speaks is almost completely impossible to believe, especially coming from a relatively small American town where she would not have had the opportunity to be be immersed in them, we are talking about Scandinavian languages, Greek, Hungarian, some Russian, French, Portuguese, Gaelic and so on.    I could understand a large group of Romance languages, but not this combination.  And if by chance she is some unique human language savant, why would she be working hit or miss contract work and struggling for money?

Next, up some of the geography in Ireland, as in the distances is off.  The pay for Maureen Devlin is off for the time period  and some other little anachronisms as well.  The biggest problem with the plot is the back story for the protagonist, Torrey Tunet.  I don’t want to tell the whole thing, but it drives much of the plot in the current story, so the fact that it is far fetched is an issue.

As many problems as there are, the main character is strong and charming, very individualistic, it does leave me wondering if things improve in later books.

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End of Dewey’s Read-a-thon :(

  1. Which hour was most daunting for you?  Hour 18 – couldn’t stay awake
  2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?   No, particular titles, just  I would suggest a variety of genres, authors, and format.
  3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?  No, everything seemed to work really well.
  4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?  Really everything was great, although maybe it was just me but it didn’t seem the twitter presence was as much as previously?  
  5. How many books did you read?  I read 4 books in total.
  6. What were the names of the books you read?  Murder on the Candlelight Tour, Strictly Murder, Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club, Ghost in the Machine
  7. Which book did you enjoy most?  Ghost in the Machine
  8. Which did you enjoy least?  Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club
  9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?  Nope, just a reader 🙂
  10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?  I will participate again as a reader.

My mistake this time was to use the Read-a-thon to try to clean up my Kindle.  First, because many of the books are just impulse buys because they were freebies or very cheap, so not books I was really invested in reading.  Second, reading for that long on my Kindle bothered my eyes.  Third, all my books were mysteries.  Mysteries are my go-to genre, but four in a row (especially when a couple were just ok) was a problem.

Still now I know and I can have a better plan for next time.

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Read-a-thon Book 4: Ghost in the Machine by Ed James

 

This was book 4 for me in the Dewey’s Read-a-thon.  I found the character of Cullen interesting and well drawn.  I liked the relationships drawn among the team of officers investigating the case.  The mystery was well plotted out and all the ends tied together.  I particularly liked all the technology aspects of the crime and how they were integrated into the story.  The most interesting part of the story was really the “frame” job that was done.  I don’t want to say anything more to spoil it for anyone else.  Interesting mystery read, well written with good characters.

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Read-a-thon Book 3: Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club by Liz Stauffer

Finished Book 3 for the Dewey’s Read-a-thon.  Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club by Liz Stauffer.  I didn’t really get into this book at all.  It seemed very rushed and there were lots of characters but no time spent to develop them.  I assumed they were older and retired because only a couple, the sheriff and the film producer seemed to have work  while the rest met on Thursday mornings for breakfast.  Just not for me.

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Read-a-thon Book 2: Strictly Murder by Lynda Wilcox

 

Finished Book 2 for the Dewey’s Read-a-thon.  This was an interesting British murder mystery with twists and turns and tie-ins to a previous crime.  I really liked the fact that the sleuth was a researcher/assistant for a crime novelist, I think that is a great lead in for an amateur sleuth.  I felt the mystery was well plotted as far as the whodunnit portion of things.  However, some parts of the book didn’t really gel for me, the sleuth, Verity insisting that she wasn’t investigating.  Her reactions at times didn’t  ring true to the character, as developed in the book.  The constant references to the play on one character’s name, Candida = thrush, get it, heh heh, funny huh, elbow in the ribs, was well overdone.  The Detective Inspector Farish character needed some fleshing out but that might occur in later books in the series.

I might have appreciated the jabs at Strictly Come Dancing, if I had ever seen the show so I won’t hold that against the book.  Fans (or people who hate the show) might find the tie-in interesting.

I don’t know if I will read more of not of this series, I already have a huge TBR list.

 

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Read-a-thon Book 1: Murder on the Candlelight Tour by Ellen Elizabeth Hunter

 

Finished book 1 for Dewey’s Read-a-thon.  This is book 2 in a mystery series that I found when the first book was chosen  by the Cozy Mystery Corner book club on Goodreads.  I was one of the few members who liked the first book in this series.  I found the mystery well done in that book and this one.

Just like in the first book,, I like the main character, her sister and her sidekick.  Her love interest, Nick runs hot and cold, but it made him interesting to me.  Her sister’s boyfriend, Joel was a little too stereotypical Hollywood con man  This book connected several crimes, an old robbery and a couple new murders.  There were lots of clues and red herrings.  The issue with this book, like the first, is that sometimes the dialog is unnatural or stilted and in a couple places, I actually had to go back and reread to understand what I had read.  Still, I think there is enough good about this books, well plotted mystery and interesting characters, to make me want to continue with it.

On to a visit to my local book shop and then back for more reading!

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Death and the Lit Chick by G.M. Malliet

 

 

This is the second in the series, the first being Death of  a Cozy Writer.  I thought the first one was okay and so decided to try another in the series.  This started out definitely more interesting.  Very Agatha Christie-ish, as in And Then There Were None.

We had the group of isolated visitors, in this case writers at a conference.  There is a house that is cut off from the outside, power outage, fog, etc.  There is a first victim, who is a very unlikable character.  All this added up to a lot of promise for this book.

St. Just, the detective, is definitely more visible and engaged in this book than he was in the first outing of the series.  The characters are all very classic of cozy “house” mysteries, the elderly female, the brash American, the meek submissive wife, the femme fatale, the young “con man” type, and  the unlucky-in-love copper and others.

The book just didn’t live up to the promise of all the elements.  It was definitely okay, but I don’t know if I would read any others in the series.  I enjoyed about the first two thirds and then it just seemed to  peter out.