Tag Archives: review

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As the Crow Flies by Damien Boyd & Uncommon Grounds by Sandra Balzo

crow  grounds

Sitting home with a leg in a cast has at least let me do some reading!  Both of these were this month’s selections from book clubs.

As the Crow Flies is the selection for the Kindle English Mystery Club on Goodreads for the month of April.  This is the first book in which we meet DI Dixon.  DI Dixon has relocated from a more prestigious posting to a small outpost, much to the dismay of his family and the confusion of his new colleagues.  DI Dixon is a former rock climber and rock climbing is the back drop for this thriller.

Dixon is called to investigate a death of a former rock climbing partner, Jake, by Jake’s parents. The opening scene of the book is actually Jake’s death in a tremendous fall.   The first few paragraphs worried me a little because of all the climbing jargon.  I wondered if I would be able to read it, but it was pretty easy to catch on to and the pace of the book swept me along.

The mystery takes a few twists and turns and several probable theories of the crime are put forth.  Dixon is an intelligent sleuth, who manages to be smarter than most of those around him but does not come across as arrogant about it.  As a reader, I can understand his family’s dismay at his apparently throwing away his shot at a more promising career for life in “the slow lane”.  On the way to solving the main mystery, Jake’s death, there are other cases that may or may not be connected and that Dixon tackles proving his worth as a sleuth.

Very fast paced mystery making for a quick read. It definitely kept me turning the pages.  My only critique is that the book is too short, I got to the end too quickly.  However, better a little  short than stuffed with unneeded filler.

Uncommon Grounds is the selection for the Cozy Mystery Corner Group on Goodreads.  This is the first in a cozy series based around a coffee shop.  Maggy Thompson, partner in a coffee shop venture to the murder victim Patricia Harper, takes her turn as a sleuth to solve Patricia’s death.

I read another coffee shop based mystery, Cleo Coyle’s Coffee House Mystery series and could not help making comparisons between the two. Unfortunately  Uncommon Grounds comes out the loser in this comparison. Maggy is no Clare Cosi.  In fact, Maggy seems to have entered into a business venture with someone she knows very little about or is just woefully uninformed and didn’t care to investigate.  Wouldn’t the fact that your new business partner was the member of some cult like church be of concern to the average person?

I will just leave it with this book didn’t work for me.

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Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride

  Just finished Cold Granite from Stuart MacBride.  I picked it up on offer for my Kindle one month when another Stuart MacBride book, Birthdays for the Dead was the monthly read.

This is book one in the Logan McRae series.  DS McRae has just returned to work after a year off.  He gets swept up into a case(s) involving murdered and assaulted children.  He is just trying to find his footing again, with a new partner of sorts, WPC Watson (as an aside, he is attracted to her but this is not a romance).  This is a police procedural and thriller first and foremost.

Well written and staffed with characters who have depth to them, complex motivations and histories. The reader sees DS McRae’s doubts, his fears that he is not up to the job yet, his insecurity in working with a new DI, and his conflicted feelings about his ex, Isobel, the pathologist.  His ability to deal with all of this and then the gruesome details of the crimes and the criminals makes him a great protagonist. McRae is methodical, a thinking man’s sleuth.  He makes connections between the cases and sees where there are no connections.  It makes for very engaging reading.

There are more than the average number of twists and turns built into the mystery plot here.  Everytime you think you have it solved, another curveball comes out of the blue and McRae leads you charging off in a new direction.  In the end, all the plots are untangled and all the loose ends are tied.

This was my first outing with Stuart MacBride and I am so glad that I was introduced to his writing by the Kindle English Mystery Club.  I will certainly read more by this author!

 

 

 

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Inherit the Word by Daryl Wood Gerber & Garnethill by Denise Mina

garnethill inherit

 

I had been waiting for some time for the second outing in the “A Cookbook Nook Mystery” series and it does not disappoint.  Jenna Hart, the protagonist, is still working at her Cookbook shop, hosting a community grill off event, grieving for her “dead” husband and, of course, sleuthing.

The mystery revolves around a murder at the competition and involves many recurring characters from book one.  After a rocky start in book one, Jenna and Cinnamon, the local Police Chief, have a tentative new friendship.  The Mayor Zeller returns again in this book and features prominently in it.  Many of the other locals are included as well.

The characters are interesting and many of them seem like people you could know in real life.  There are lots of possible culprits to choose from and the plot takes the reader through many twists and turns.  The mystery plot is two-fold, the current murder mystery and a continuing plot from book one about David, Jenna’s dead (maybe missing??) husband.  I am eager to read the next in this series.

Garnethill is a book that was chosen as a group read for my Kindle English Mystery Book Club on Goodreads.  I have never read anything by this author, Denise Mina before this book.

Garnethill is about an incest survivor who wakes up and finds her married boyfriend murdered in her living room.  She was institutionalized briefly in the past and the book is as much about her attempt to hold onto her sanity as it is solving the murder.

The positives about this book are that it has a well done mystery, with enough characters to keep you guessing and twists and turns throughout the plot.  The pacing is good and it kept me turning the pages in a race to get to the end.  The setting is particularly well done, in description and in setting the mood of the book.  It has a well developed sense of place as the reader follows Maureen to institutions, her family home, the police station, and day centers.

I found the portrayal of Maureen O’Donnell, incest survivor, mental health patient, and adult child of an alcoholic to be extraordinarily perceptive and full of the nuances necessary to make it real.  Maureen is a study in contradictions, doubting herself and unable to trust others. Distrustful of authority figures, morally “flexible” – yet with a sense of right and wrong, intelligent yet with no ambition, craving independence yet feeling lonely…all of the things that come from being violated as a child and not having your emotional needs met in childhood.  This is the best part of the book for me.

The main negative that I could find about this book is the portrayal of the police.  It is a very stereotypical, cartoon-like characterization.  It seemed we were supposed to side with Maureen in the interviews, but I could definitely see the police’s perspective.  The body is found in her flat.  Her behavior is odd, to say the least, she lied time and again (and got caught), and she came across as manipulative or even criminal.  This part of the book is not up to the standards of the rest of the book.  It seems like an adolescent take on authority – they are authority figures, hence they must be bad/incompetent/uncaring.

A final word to the wise, as I was not aware of this when I read the book, it is book one in a trilogy, so there are some things left unresolved.  The good thing is that there was enough great stuff here that I will probably read the next two books anyway.

 

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The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe

 

Not even sure why I checked out this one, maybe a Goodreads recommendation?? Anyway, I picked it up from the library.  This is a Canadian based series, similar to Louise Penny’s series that is so popular.

I really wanted to like this.  I had a lot of sympathy for the protagonist, a Detective Inspector with a chronic pain injury, recently divorced and dealing with some issues related to alcohol and to not being able to let of her ex.  Hazel is a well drawn character, however her actions and even attitudes don’t always make a whole lot of sense, especially when you think of her as a law enforcement professional.  Maybe it was all the drugs she takes for her pain?  There is a token gay character, who has a reveal scene that really adds nothing to the plot and seems just meaningless, like a box to be checked.

The whole law enforcement/procedural piece is very unflattering to Canadian law enforcement.  The serial killer piece is confusing, slowly paced and not entirely clear even at the resolution.  For a killer with an interesting, to say the least, method of “work”, it was just not that engaging.

I understand that this is work written by a literary writer under a pseudonym, but it just didn’t really work for me.

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Eclectic Reading: Immobility & The House of Mirth

Two very different books this time.  The first is Immobility a dystopian novel set after the “Kollaps”.  Our lead character is a paraplegic survivor with a  very valuable skill.  Awoken from suspended animation and completely dependent upon those that awoke him, he doesn’t know who he is, who to trust, or what the truth is.  Very fast paced, thriller style writing with an intriguing plot.  Dystopian books are not really my go-to genre but I found this a good read.

The writing allows you to experience the confusion and disorientation of Horkai as he makes his way through the lies and the desolate landscape.  Horkai is a sympathetic protagonist and I was rooting for him all the way.  The near extinction of the human race, the mutations, and the continuing poison in the air and water are described in enough detail to be imagined but not so much as to slow the plot.  Very good read.

The second book was also very good, however as it is a classic and considered a landmark book in American fiction so you don’t need me to say that it was good.  The title comes from the quote from Ecclesiastes 7:4:

 “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” 

The novel follows the downward spiral of Lily Bart.  A combination of unfortunate circumstances, poor decisions, and societal pressures culminating in the downfall of Lily Bart.  Lily finds a good match, personality-wise, and intellectually in Lawrence Seldon, however he is not able to support her to the standards she feels she needs, that her society has groomed her to seek.  Lawrence remains throughout the tale as  a touchstone for Lily.  He actually opens the book…and closes it, with Lily at the beginning of her story and the end. 

The novel exposed the hypocrisy that surrounded the New York society of the time.   Edith Wharton was a member of this society and attacked it with the precision of a surgeon.  The novel is both a satire and a form of tragedy, not necessarily a tragedy in a classical sense but tragic nonetheless.  The strength of the novel is this insider’s perspective of the society and revelation of how a society molds its inhabitants, impacts their choices, and  opportunities.

I read this for my One Drink Minimum book Club and enjoyed it far more than I expected to at first glance.  I haven’t really been a big reader of classics in recent year so this was a real change of pace.  I can’t wait to have the book club meeting to discuss it!

 

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Oldies But Goodies…

I read a great deal of Agatha Christie when I was young, but I missed these two classic mystery authors.  Ngaio Marsh’s A Man Lay Dead was first published in 1934.  This is the first book in the series that introduces Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn, who is the sleuth.  I actually found this book very timely.  In current crime fiction and tv shows there is a plethora of references to the Russian Mob and that theme features heavily in this story.  It is a classic British “country house” mystery, the group of people gather in an isolated country estate and then a murder occurs.  The red herrings are very well done and this is delightful read!

The characters engage in witty banter and the manners and customs of the times feature prominently in the story.  Even though  I have read many of these type of mysteries this one certainly holds it own.  I did find it interesting that the focus seemed to be mainly on Nigel, one of the guests and not necessarily on the sleuth, but I suppose that is because this was the first in the series.  I understand that the plots in this series become more complicated in later books.

Dorothy L. Sayers was the focus of a current mystery book I read, The Sayers Swindle.  That peaked my interest in this classic mystery series.  Whose Body? is the first book introducing the Lord Peter Wimsey. First published in 1923, the series continued on for several years with Lord Peter Wimsey becoming a beloved character for many readers.

I found the book to have more of a humorous bent (whether intentional or not) than the Ngaio Marsh books.  I was not as enamored of the writing style, extremely dialogue heavy and correspondence with very little description or narration.  Still the mystery was well crafted and the sleuthing was certainly masterful.  This just didn’t work for me as well as Christie’s works or Ngaio Marsh’s.  The books certainly have a legion of fans so it is probably just me.

 

 

 

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Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly

 

This book was a Goodreads recommendation.  It is very Gone Girl-esque.  The characters are well drawn and the interactions between the not posh, not perfect Lisa Kallisto and the other mother, Kate, and her family, are well crafted.  The dynamic between Lisa and Joe and the other, much more well off, members of their community was particularly well done.  Lisa is a character that I could definitely relate to and I could  imagine the horror of having someone else’s child disappear on your watch.

Two things made the resolution very obvious to me, the fact that it was recommended for fans of Gone Girl and a revelation made about one of the characters a little over the half way mark.  Even with that I still found it a compelling page turner, I really wanted to get to the ending and see how it all turned out.

My main issue with the book is that the ending is only solved by “accident”, neither the police nor the protagonist really solve it.  It is more like the reveal is “stumbled upon” by Lisa.  There are also some strange side storylines that don’t really add to the main plot and don’t seem to serve a purpose.  Overall, there is enough good here that I would read more by this author.

 

 

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The Sayers Swindle by Victoria Abbott

This is the second book in the A Book Collector Mystery series.  The premise of this series is that a young woman, Jordan Bingham, is hired by a reclusive bibliophile, Vera Van Alst, to attempt to track down books that were stolen from her collection.  This book in the series focus is a collection of first edition Dorothy Sayers books.  Jordan comes from a dubious background and her to two Uncles are comic relief characters recurring from the first book.

The characters in these books have been great, particularly the recurring characters. Jordan is a well written character with depth and humor.  She is resourceful and intelligent, but doesn’t take herself too seriously.  The setting and the theme is very engaging to me.  My dad was from upstate New York and I visited there frequently so I am familiar with it.  Books? As a theme, can never have too many books. 🙂

The focus of this book is Dorothy Sayers and as a reader you may miss some of the references, if you have not read those books. I have not read them and it didn’t seem to impact my enjoyment of The Sayers Swindle.  What I appreciated about this book was that the authors did not spend a lot of time rehashing the first book.  Many times authors spend time explaining events from previous books in case a reader is reading out of order, but for people who aren’t that can get tiresome.  If you didn’t read The Christie Curse, you might want to do so before reading this one.

The mystery plot had lots of twists and turns.  I do think the ending was a little fast, but on the other hand I like that better than when an ending just seems dragged out for no apparent reason.

Excellent continuation in this series!

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Cambridge Blue by Alison Bruce

  I saw this recommended on Goodreads and was able to pick it up from my local library.  I  enjoyed it and really liked the sleuth DC Gary Goodhew.  He is not a “normal” character…not really a plodder playing by the rules. In fact, the driving force of the story is that he operates outside the rules to solve cases. The cast of possible suspects is well drawn and full of secrets and hidden agendas.  I did guess the resolution, but not all the details relatively early on, however it was not with complete certainty.

The story centers around a family with a tragic history, siblings and lovers and a deceased parent’s’ rambling journal.  I found it very interesting, especially the long term impact of secrets and lies.  There is more than one murder involved and I did have to pay attention to keep the character’s straight.

I would read more by this author, but I will say that fans of police procedurals may not care for it.  The whole premise of this is that DC Goodhew uses his intellect, cunning and willingness to break the law to solve cases, sometimes putting convictions in jeopardy.  I am not a huge reader of police procedurals, so I appreciated the “thinking out of the box” sleuth, others might argue that he is a loose cannon and should be shut down.

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Voices by Arnaldur Indridason

I have read the first two translated books in this series and enjoyed them immensely.  This one did not disappoint me. Again the protagonist Erlendur is called to investigate a murder of “Santa” at a tourist hotel.  Santa was the hotel’s doorman dressed up for a Christmas party for the hotel guests.  Due to his feelings about the Christmas season, the situation with his recovering drug addict daughter, and the murder, Erlendur checks himself into the hotel for the investigation.

The investigation leads into the world of rabid collectors, the kind that will go to any length to get the perfect next piece for their collection.  It also winds its way through the world of choir boy singers and child stardom. It is a fascinating mix, especially delving into how an ex-child  star ends up as the character in the book does.  The story comes across as dark and intense without the intensely graphic violence prevalent in some thrillers/mysteries.

The setting of the book, including the Christmas holiday season, enhances the melancholy feeling of the book, which has been building through this series.  I would suggest that you read the first two translated books in this series before this one, if only to get more of an understanding for the characters and their motivations.  There is enough retelling of pertinent details that you could get away with reading this as a one off, but I think it would flow better after reading the others.

Nordic Noir fans will find a lot to like in this dark, moody mystery.  I will certainly read more in the series.