Finished 11-21-12, rating 3.75/5, romantic suspense, pub. 2011

Julie DeMarco loved her big Italian-American family and they loved her, even though her blonde hair and blue eyes made her an obvious outsider.  Her mother married into the family and then had another daughter.  Julie never knew anything else.  Then one day at a photography exhibit she sees a photo of a little girl standing at the gate of a Russian orphanage.  She is scared when she feels a connection and wonders if the girl could be her.

Julie has had a rough year.  Her mother died, taking answers about her birth with her, her ‘father’ is drinking himself to death and her fiance is pushing for a wedding date.  Julie tells her fiance she’s not putting him off, but it’s not hard to see that she is and he is not supportive of her wild goose chase.  Neither is her sister, which I never did understand.  But Julie plunges ahead in her search with the help of sexy, bad boy photographer, Alex.

I found this book to be highly enjoyable and hard to put down.  There were a few twists I didn’t see coming and some danger that kept the suspense alive.  Oh, and the sex helped move the story along too.  While I found some of the storylines somewhat simplistic and the end just a bit too neat, I also found the book highly addictive.  A fast read that will keep you guessing.

I bought this for my Nook.

A is for Alibi, finished 10-27-12, rating 4/5, mystery, 214 pages, pub. 1982

After I finished the 1000+ IT, I knew I wanted to read something short and satisfying.  I’ve had this book on my shelf for a while but knowing that I was SO BEHIND in the series it was never much of a temptation.  Until I came across the book featured in Books to Die For.  This is a little of what Meg Gardiner says about it, “In Kinsey I discovered a young woman doing a job that had previously been restricted to male private investigators, and doing so in a thoroughly grown-up way, inhabiting her life and her story with confidence and uncertainty and charming, flawed honesty.”  With that recommendation I finally started the alphabet series.

For those who have yet to meet Kinsey she is a hard-edged private eye with an aversion to attachments.  Divorced twice and a one time cop it’s her policy never to sleep with anyone involved in a case, unless they prove irresistible, as in this case.  She’s hired to find the real killer of Laurence Fife, hired by the ex-wife who served eight years for his murder.  The cold case becomes hot again as Kinsey tracks down all the usual suspects.

I really liked this quick mystery.  There were many suspects for such a short novel, but it never seemed too much.  I was kept mostly guessing until close to the end.  It wasn’t perfect for sure, sometimes Kinsey being too oblivious to gloss over and a few extraneous storylines that went nowhere, but I thought it was a solid mystery for a series debut.

I know some of the appeal of Kinsey is that she was one of the first women in the central character detective role, but I think she proved herself worthy of more than just a cursory pat on the back.  Kinsey didn’t give much of herself away in this book and I’m looking forward to getting to know her better as I continue through the alpahbet.

Books to Die For: The World’s Greatest Mystery Writers on the World’s Greatest Mystery Novels

In this collection, 120 mystery writers were selected to write an essay on the book they consider ‘the best.’ It is not meant to be read at one time.  I like how Connolly and Burke say it in the Introduction, “obviously ideal for dipping into when you have a quiet moment.”  For that reason I’ll probably not try to review the book as a whole, but will add some commentary when I review a book that’s in here.

I’ve only read a dozen of the essays, but I can tell you that I recommend this book for mystery lovers.  Give it as the perfect gift, even if it’s to yourself 🙂  I picked this up at Bouchercon and had it signed by 30 of the authors.  I’ll have to see how many more I can get as the years go by.

Since I’ve read 7 of the 120 novels (a sad total, right?) I’m going to give you a taste of the essays on the books I’ve read and then my thoughts on the book.  The book lists them in chronological order but I think I’ll list them in order of how I like them best.

A Simple Plan by Scott Smith was chosen by Michael Koryta “The plotting of A Simple Plan is, and should be, widely praised, but I’d argue that the greater genius  of the novel is in the way in which Smith renders the voice of Hank, our narrator.  In those early pages, Hank is compelling and familiar and reasonable.  Oh so reasonable…  He’s not a typical suspense novel protagonist-no military skills, police background, or heroic traits.  No, he’s the accountant at a feedstore in a small midwestern town.  He has a pregnant wife and a troubled brother and the weight of two lost parents and one lost farm hanging over him, but these are problems we know or can relate to.  This man is one of us.  He’s speaking for us.”  To me this is a forgotten gem and I think everyone should give it a read.  Just reading his essay not only made me want to read it again, but to also finally read Koryta!

Tell No One by Harlan Coben was chosen by German writer Sebastian  Fitzek.  “To sum up, for its inconsistencies alone Tell No One is a “book to die for” for me.  It starts with a question that sounds almost supernatural, but leads to a real story, which leads to a logical ending.  It’s about extraordinary people we have never met in real life, but take at face value…With this book Coben has not invented a new genre, but he has pushed the boundaries toward new frontiers.  It makes him one of the few popular authors whose style can be recognized without looking at the name on the cover.”  This was my first Coben book and the one I always recommend to thriller lovers.  I’ve read all of his books and even though there’s no Myron it’s probably still my favorite.

Clockers by Richard Price was chosen by Gar Anthony Haywood. “Part of the great pull of Clockers is the anxiety a reader is made to feel throughout, waiting for Strike or Rocco to prove himself more compassionate, more alive than Price would lead us to believe he is.  In the hands of a lesser writer, characters this detached and manipulative, wading through daily existences this harsh and seemingly pointless, would tax a reader’s patience…But Price lends each man just enough humanity, just enough hope for his sorry future, to make writing him off impossible.”  It’s been many years since I read this one but I remember being blown away by the dialogue.  I think it may be time for a reread.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote was chosen by Joseph Wambaugh.  “This book is less interested in the bogeyman terror of the event or the whodunit aspect of the investigation that in the psychological exploration of the criminal mind and motive, which had not been done in such depth since Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.”  My thoughts are here.

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain was chosen by Joseph Finder.  “If you haven’t yet read it, or haven’t read it in a while, you’ll be surprised at how well it holds up.  The prose is lean and spare, completely stripped of ornamentation or affection.  It reads like the confession that it reveals itself to be.”  You can find my thoughts here.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier was chosen by Minette Walters.  “For those who see Daphne du Maurier as a romantic author, the book ticks every box in the developing Jane Eyre-love between the older Maxim and his younger second wife.  For crime buffs, it is one of the few murder stories where the voice of the victim resonates loudly on every page, playing not only with the minds of the other characters but also with the reader’s.”  I listened to the audio of this a few years before I started blogging and liked it, but didn’t fall in love with it.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt was chosen by Tana French.  “For me, this book redefined the territory that mysteries can claim.  When I started writing, more than ten years after I first read it, I was writing within a landscape that The Secret History had redrawn for me.  I aim to write mysteries that take genre conventions as springboards, not as laws, and never as limitations on quality or scope: books where the real murder mystery  isn’t whodunit, but whydunit and what it means.”  Listened to this on a road trip way, way back when and remember liking it but not a whole lot else.

Added 2/15

A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton was chosen by Meg Gardiner. “Deftly plotted, vivid, and convincing, the story has twists, multiplemurders, and some we-intended B&E by the heroine. It has sex. It has regret, and gunplay.  It has a cast of motley neighborhood characters that, over the course of the series, become beloved.  And in the center of the action it has Kinsey…  My thoughts here.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle was chosed by Carol O’Connell. “There are 56 short stories, but I recommend Doyle’s finest of four novels, The HOund of the Baskervilles, to understand why Holmes’s story can never end, but extends from the horse-drawn-carriage era of 1887 into the twenty-first century-with fresh horses.”  My thoughts are here.

Jane. Finished 9-11-12, rating 3.75/5, fiction, 320 pages, pub.2012

Cambridge, England: 1905. Jane Porter is hardly a typical woman of her time. The only female student in Cambridge University’s medical program, she is far more comfortable in a lab coat, dissecting corpses, than she is in a corset and gown, sipping afternoon tea. A budding paleoanthropologist, Jane dreams of travelling the globe in search of fossils that will prove the evolutionary theories of her scientific hero, Charles Darwin.

When dashing American explorer Ral Conrath invites Jane and her father on an expedition deep into West Africa, she can hardly believe her luck. Rising to the challenge, Jane finds an Africa that is every bit exotic and fascinating as she has always imagined. But she quickly learns that the lush jungle is full of secrets—and so is Ral Conrath. When danger strikes, Jane finds her hero, the key to humanity’s past, and an all-consuming love in one extraordinary man: Tarzan of the Apes.

Jane is the first version of the Tarzan story written by a woman and authorized by the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate. Its 2012 publication will mark the centennial of the publication of the original Tarzan of the Apes.  (from Goodreads)

I know next to nothing about the Tarzan story.  I vaguely remember seeing him fly vine by vine through the jungle in black in white as a kid flipping through channels.  And that’s it.  So, when I was offered a chance to learn his story from a viewpoint that interested me, I was excited.  I was pleasantly surprised at this telling of Jane’s story.

Jane is highly educated, opinionated and more progressive than her peers.  More interested in bones than marriage, she is the first woman to attend Cambridge Medical School and eager to join her father on one of his expeditions, much to her mother’s horror.  Father and daughter depart for the African jungle hoping to find the missing Darwin gene and instead find treachery, death, lies and separation.  When Jane is rescued by Tarzan she moves beyond the typical heroine and becomes a woman and scientist discovering passion for the first time.

I thoroughly enjoyed Jane’s adventures and Tarzan’s primal heroism and know that this is the closest I’ll ever get to an expedition such as this one.  With that said, adventure stories aren’t really my thing so there were small chunks of jungle time that I found myself skimming, but this is not a judgement on the storytelling, only on my reading habits.

This book was authorized by the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate and is timed to celebrate the first publication of Tarzan 100 years ago.  Burroughs even makes an appearance at the beginning and end of the book.

As a newbie to Tarzan and Jane, I was totally captivated by their world and plan to check out more of Robin Maxwell’s novels about historical women.

Thanks to PR by the Book for getting this book in my hands.  Isn’t the cover cool?

Finished 8-6-12, rating 4/5, mystery/thriller, 448 pages, pub. 2012

Book 3 of the Dave Gurney series. (Book 1 – Think of a Number) (Book 2- Shut Your Eyes Tight)

Dave Gurney, highly decorated retired NYPD detective, is in a funk after his last encounter with a killer left him with both physical and mental scars.  When the reporter who helped catapult Gurney to detective stardom asks him to help her daughter with a project he said yes and that’s how he got involved in a 10 year old serial killer case gone cold.  The Good Shepherd killed 6 Mercedes drivers, all the same way, and then sent a manifesto to the police railing against greedy, moneyed folks.  When Gurney challenges the FBI’s handling of the case he immediately butts heads with Agent Trout, an FBI guy who could do some damage to Gurney’s life.

I love all three of the Dave Gurney books.  He is a complicated man who knows his strengths and weaknesses.  He is a great detective, an average husband, and a not-so-wonderful dad.  In the past two books Gurney’s relationship with his wife Madeleine added dimension to the man and in this one we get to see the dynamic between he and his son first-hand.  I loved it.  I hope we see more of his son in future books.

I was a lukewarm to the mystery at first, but it grew on me (much better than the cringe-inducing details of the second book).  There was a large cast of characters and lots of overlapping storylines, but they all revolved around the Good Shepherd case and Kim’s interviewing the families for RAM-TV, kind of a cross between Fox News and TMZ.  There was so much going on and I loved the fast pace of the book.  I will say that I did figure it out somewhere past the halfway mark, well, I had two theories and one was correct 🙂  I wish there had been a little more wrapping up of some of the storylines at the end, but that in no way took away from my enjoyment.  I love this series and highly recommend it.

I received this as part of the TLC Book Tour.  Thanks for the book!  Check out what everyone else had to say…

John Verdon’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Let me start by saying that when I received this for the blog tour I couldn’t make myself pick it up even though I thought it would be a book I’d love.  Why?

This cover is seriously creepy and I had such a negative reaction every time I walked by it.  So, last week I took the jacket off and put it away.  Deep Sigh.  I was finally ready to read!

This psychological thriller has it all.  Jack Cole, FBI agent who investigates the worst of the worst killers in the country, doesn’t look or act the part.  He is covered in one big Dante’s Inferno tatoo from his neck to his ankles with an attitude to match.  Jake is one of the more interesting characters I’ve encountered in awhile.

In simple terms he solved riddles – it was as mundane as that.

The element of the otherworldly that his coworkers subscribed to was simply confusion in the face of a mental acuity they could not understand.  Like a musical or mathematical savant, Jake was able to tap into something that those around him could not and the result was that they were uncomfortable around him.  Some were even afraid.

Chapter 19

When Jake heads home to take care of his sick father, famous artist Jacob Coleridge, he is called in to help the local police solve a grisly murder.  The two victims had been skinned alive, not a sliver of skin left on the two bodies, just like his mother 30 years before.  There is also the biggest hurricane ever recorded headed straight for them, so time was in short supply.  More bodies pile up and disturbing works are found in his father’s studio.

Those are the only details you need. I stayed up until 1 am racing through this book.  I really could not put it down.  (I regretted this 5 and a half hours later when Gage decided to get up early) I went to bed disturbed, woke up disturbed and have mentioned parts of the book to Jason all day.  The end was a mixed bag.  The reveal was great, but the end was a little unsatisfying.

I recommend this book for grisly murder and horror lovers who don’t mind liberal use of the f-word.  I think you’ll race through this debut novel and look forward to the next one by Pobi.  I am.  And so is Oprah! “O, The Oprah Magazine’s August issue, on stands now, named Bloodman one of their “Titles to pick up now” and called it a “Very suspenseful novel”!

I received this book from Wunderkind PR as part of a blog tour.  Thanks so much – loved it.

Bloodman  Finished 7-24-12, rating 4/5, horror, 345 pages, pub. 2012

An Infinite Number of Monkeys. Stacy and Janet are both rating it 3.75 stars.

I’ve raved about the Milan Jacovich series set in Cleveland and when given the opportunity to read Roberts first book and series set in Los Angeles I said yes and brought my mom along for the fun (post here).  I stopped by his blog and saw this recent post about the publication of his first book and Ray Bradbury.  I thought I’d share because it’s a good one and it’ll make you want to write a fan letter.  This is the fourth stop on my Ohio author tour and my second by Les Roberts.

This is book 1 in the Saxon series and right now the whole series is half price on ebooks (info here).

My mom reads all the time, especially now that she’s retired, so I convinced her to try a joint review with me.  We may do more in the future after some tweaking.  So, please welcome my mom, Janet.

Saxon is half private eye, half actor with only half a name.  Les Roberts claims that he doesn’t know Saxon’s given name, so here are a few suggestions from us…

Stacy: He does seem to like the ladies, so Casanova or Bond. Saxon Bond.

Janet: I’d pick a strong name like Jack or Luke.

How did you feel about Saxon?

Janet: Saxon is a strong character and very likable.   I liked that Saxon’s best friend in the whole world was Jo, his bookkeeper and secretary.

Stacy: Except for his inclination to fall in love on sight, I liked him.  I don’t know how good Saxon was as an actor, but he was a great private detective.  He knew the right people, wasn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with those more dangerous than he was, and he always seemed to ask the right questions. He was tough, fair, and smart. 

Saxon was investigating a possible attempted murder and became involved with a bestselling author and his daughter.  What did you think of the story?

Stacy: I liked it.  It felt like a throwback to some of my favorite movies in the mystery noir genre. I think the Los Angeles film scene was a perfect setting to enhance the comparison. 

Janet: The story moved along well and since there were no shortage of suspects, I did not guess who the murderer was until the end.

Did you have a favorite part?

Janet: My favorite part of the book was how it all came together at the end.  It was action packed.

Stacy: I liked that I kind of guessed the big reveal but still didn’t know for sure who the culprit was.  Made me feel smart and confused at the same time.

One word to describe the book.

Stacy: Noirish

Janet: If I had to describe the book in a word it would be ‘fast-paced’.  Sorry, I know that’s two words.

This was Roberts’ first book and series.  How does is compare to the Milan series?

Janet:  This was my first Saxon book and I plan to read the others.  I have read the Milan Jacovich mysteries and loved every one.  Milan is still my favorite sleuth, but Saxon is definitely worth the read. 

Stacy: I like the Milan series better, but that may be because it’s set in my town of Cleveland.  While Milan and Saxon have a lot in common, part of my love for Milan comes from his love of family and I don’t get that from Saxon.  Yet.  I do plan on reading the rest of the series.

I want to thank Jane from Gray & Company for sending us the book.