July Wrap-Up & P.O.M. Award

Once again in 2014 I will be combining my monthly wrap-up post with Kerrie's Crime Fiction Pick of the Month over at Mysteries in Paradise.  And...I'm falling behind on my GoodReads progress. Instead of being ahead, as I had been for several months, I am now running "on track."  If I'm not careful, I'm going to get behind.... Here are the stats:
Total Books Read: 18
Total Pages: 4822 Average Rating: 3.22 stars (with 2 books unrated) Top Rating: 4.5 stars 
Percentage by Female Authors: 33%
Percentage by US Authors: 44%
Percentage by non-US/non-British Authors: 5%
Percentage Mystery: 50% 
Percentage Fiction: 78%
Percentage written 2000+: 22%
Percentage of Rereads: 0%
Percentage Read for Challenges: 100% {It's easy to have every book count for a challenge when you sign up for as many as I do.}   Number of Challenges fulfilled so far: 21 (44%)




AND, as mentioned above, Kerrie has started us up for another of Crime Fiction Favorites. What she's looking for is our Top Mystery Read for each month. In July, I read 9 books that qualify as mysteries.  

The Day They Kidnapped Queen Victoria by H. K. Fleming ( ★★ & 1/2 stars)
The Chief Inspector's Daughter by Sheila Radley (★★★)
Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout (★★★★)
Murder at the Villa Rose by A. E. W. Mason (★★★ & 1/2 stars)
Death in an Ivory Tower by Maria Hudgins (★★★)
The Tattooed Man by Howard Pease  (★★★) 
Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (★★★★)
Who Guards a Prince by Reginald Hill  (★★)
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (★★★)


I managed to hand out two four-star ratings this past month to Rex Stout's Too Many Cooks and Relic by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Stout is a much read and much beloved author and has already been awarded the coveted Reader's Block P.O.M. award at least once. So--while I thoroughly enjoyed Nero Wolfe's murderous cooking adventures, you may remember I try very hard not to have repeat winners here on the blog. That means that July's P.O.M. Award winner is......

This is a hair-raising, edge-of-the-seat thriller.  Weighing in at 468 pages, I managed to finish this book in less than 24 hours--and that's allowing time for sleeping at night and working a full 8 hours. That's not meant as a brag. I'm simply underlining the fact that, despite thrillers being NOT my thing (and only reading this one because I had to have something in the horror-line for a challenge), I only put the thing down when I absolutely had to. Preston and Child know exactly how reel you in and keep you reading even when you're being scared out of your wits.