The Pianist in the Dark: Review

Based on the true story of Maria-Theresa von Paradis, the only daughter of the secretary of the empress of Austria, and her interactions with Franz Anton Mesmer, a doctor and the source of the term mesmerism, The Pianist in the Dark by Michéle Halberstadt is ultimately about the price of sight. Maria-Theresa was musical prodigy. Blind from unknown causes since she was about three, she played beautifully and with great passion before the court in Austria. She was filled with a talent that eclipsed her disability and the ability to hold her audience spellbound. She seemed to have the world at her feet. Her father, however, could never resign himself to accept her condition and subjected her to the ministrations of doctor after doctor. None of whom could identify the source of the problem or offer any solution. After giving his word to his daughter that he would stop trying to cure her, he meets Franz Anton Mesmer and manipulates events so Mesmer makes the offer to treat her himself. She is suspicious at first--she has submitted to too many "treatments" at the hands of "experts" who were only out to forward their own careers. After all, should they have succeeded, they would have won the gratitude of the Empress herself. But Maria-Theresa becomes convinced of Mesmer's sincerity and agrees to allow him to perform his "magnetic" treatments. And they work. Soon the girl who didn't, as the introduction says, "know the color of the sky or the shape of the clouds, [didn't] know the meaning of blue or red,or dark or pale" begins to see shapes and colors.

She also, through Mesmer, begins to know the meaning of love and passion. But it is a short-lived victory. The other doctors, jealous of Mesmer's apparent success, begin to ridicule his methods and to spread rumors that his relationship with is patient is unorthodox. If he did not have power over her as a lover, that she would not "see" as well as she does--that it is only his "amorous suggestion" that influences her. What began as an incredible journey towards sight and love, becomes a horrible nightmare. She learns that everything in life seems to be motivated by power and greed. Even Mesmer is ready to give her up when his reputation is at stake. As she says to him late in the book:

Cursed! I am cursed! My blindness made them suffer and my recovery has made them mad. Even you prefer me ill to cured. Life is so cruel! It allows me to discover passion and harmony, then steals it away as if it were a mirage! What good is seeing if all it does is open your eyes to the truth of human nature? Have I been through all this just to come eye to eye with cowardice, lies, and trickery?

In the end the price of seeing is too high for Maria-Theresa. She chooses to return to darkness and devotes herself once again to her music. Disappointed by her parents who could not accept her for who and what she was and disappointed by her lover who could not accept what he had helped her become, she decides for herself what her life will be.

In this short novel, Halberstadt has given us a story of awakenings and choices. The writing (or perhaps the translation) is spare and direct. There is nothing superfluous in the descriptions. And the story flows almost perfectly. My only minor quibble comes with the romantic scenes between Maria-Theresa and Mesmer. They are a bit over the top--soap opera and bodice ripperish--but the chapters are short and fortunately this portion does not last long. Otherwise, a nicely done peek into history and an interesting look at one of music's female blind prodigies. Three and a half stars.

Death of an Englishman: Review

Chosen originally as an "N" author for the A-Z Mystery Author Challenge, Death of an Englishman by Magdalen Nabb will also come in handy for the Crime on a Europass Challenge. Nabb's debut novel features Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia of the Carabinieri. The Marshal is a Sicilian stationed in Florence, Italy and now that it is Christmas-time, he is looking forward to heading South and spending the holidays with his wife and family. However, before he can board the train a nasty bout of flu hits him (as well as a number of his fellow Carabineiri). He must get well.....and solve a murder....before he can leave Florence.

Holiday shoppers are making last-minute purchases and festive patrons spend the last few days before Christmas celebrating in the bars and trattorias. Meanwhile, in a cluttered, dirty apartment near the Pitti Palace, the body of an Englishman is found shot to death--from behind. A. Langley-Smythe seemed to be a reclusive man who didn't even mix much with his fellow ex-patriots, but fingerprints taken from the apartment reveal that there have been numerous visitors to his shabby home. And in fact, Langley-Smythe lived a quite busy life--replacing the furniture in his apartment on a regular basis and involving himself with unsavory friends and underhanded business dealings.

Nabb does an excellent job of taking her readers to Florence. She gives plenty of detail without making the reader feel like they are on a sight-seeing tour and one instantly feels at home in the city. Her style reminds me of Simenon and The Marshal reminds me of Maigret. She is all about description and character--especially the psychology and social conditions that can lead an ordinary man to murder. She is also very good at concealing the identity of the murderer...I was absolutely taken in.

One quibble, however. This is billed as the debut of Marshal Guarnaccia. And yet--while it is true that he is ultimately the one to solve the crime--he spends most of the book in bed with the flu. Having odd dreams brought on by fever. Most of the actual police work is done by The Captain and Carabiniere Bacci working with their British counterparts from Scotland Yard. One wonders how Guarnaccia managed to absorb enough details to be able to complete the case. I'd like to read another in the series just to see if we get The Marshal for a full run. Three stars for good solid story-telling.

March Violets: Review

I discovered March Violets by Philip Kerr when I was looking for a mystery either set in Germany or written by a German author for the Crime Fiction on a Europass Challenge. One thing I found while researching was that it would seem that the hands-down winner for German crime fiction is the Third Reich era. So many of the of the novels mentioned out on the internet take place in Nazi Germany or involve spy thrillers during the World War II era. March Violets is no different.

Set during the rise of the Nazi party, this is Kerr's debut novel of a series of crime stories set in Germany. According to the blurb: Scottish-born Kerr re-creates the period accurately and with verve; the novel reeks of the sordid decade that saw Hitler's rise to power. Bernhard Gunther is a hard-boiled Berlin detective who specializes in tracking down missing persons--mostly Jews. He is summoned wealthy industrialist, Herr Six, to find the murderer of his daughter and son-in-law, killed during the robbery of a priceless diamond necklace. Gunther quickly is catapulted into a major political scandal involving Hitler's two main henchmen, Goering and Himmler. The search for clues takes Gunther to morgues overflowing with Nazi victims; raucous nightclubs; the Olympic games where Jesse Owens tramples the theory of Aryan racial superiority; the boudoir of a famous actress; and finally to the Dachau concentration camp. Fights with Gestapo agents, shoot-outs with adulterers, run-ins with a variety of criminals, and dead bodies in unexpected places keep readers guessing to the very end.

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of noir fiction or hard-boiled detectives but the synopsis of this book reeled me right in. And, for the most part, I'm glad it did. The period atmosphere is perfect. Almost too perfect, because let's face it Nazi Germany was a very depressing place to be if you have any moral scruples at all. The narrative style is marvelous. Bernie is a tough-guy private eye that I love despite not loving tough-guy private eyes. The twists and turns of the plot are convincing and they pull you in and keep you there. So, what you may ask is the part that makes you not so glad? Two things. One: I am well aware that the hard-boiled school tends to live on ridiculous metaphors. But, seriously, Bernie has more metaphors than a coon hound has fleas. (See? It's rubbed off!) And some of them are down-right horrible. Here are just two examples: "Her breasts were like the rear ends of a couple of dray horses at the end of a long hard day." and "She gave me a smile that was as thin and dubious as the rubber on a secondhand condom." Two: The penultimate scenes were a bit brutal. Heck, they were a lot brutal. That put me off a bit. Of course, I also realize that situations in Nazi Germany were a great deal more brutal than that. But it did take me by surprise.

I would like to continue reading this series. There are loose ends left at the "wrap-up" of this one that I'm curious to see how Kerr ties them up. I think I'll have to wait a bit for another dose of the mean streets of Germany, though. Three and a half stars.

The Final Solution: Review

Billed as a "suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic nineteenth-century detective story" and set with "subtle revelations [that] lead the reader to a wrenching resolution." The Final Solution is about an elderly man who is in retirement deep in the English countryside. Villagers vaguely recall that he was once a famous detective up in London. Now his door is pretty well closed to the outside world and all that interests him is his beekeeping. But then he meets up with Linus Steinman, a nine-year-old boy who has escaped from Nazi Germany--alone and apparently mute with only an African gray parrot as his companion. The bird is known for the strings of German numbers which it recites. What is their meaning? Is it a top secret Nazi code? Combinations to Swiss bank accounts? Or maybe something far more dangerous. Soon there is murder done and the bird disappears. Will the elderly sleuth get to the bottom of it?

This is actually a reread for me. But other than remembering that The Final Solution was about an unnamed elderly beekeeper (who we all assume is Holmes) and a boy with a parrot, I remembered nothing else about it. So, when my Follow That Blurb Challenge journey brought me to Michael Chabon I decided to refresh my memory--and also provide a real-live review of the book since it had been read in my pre-reviewing days.

I was mildly disappointed. Oh, Michael Chabon can write. He even manages to bring off the mannered writing that goes along with Holmesian fare. But if it's a tribute (or "brilliant homage" as the synopsis claims) to the master then it falls a bit flat. I don't want to spoil anything....so let me just say that the final mystery isn't much. One expects a build up to possible Nazi codes and intrigue to actually lead somewhere. I mean, after all, this is Holmes we're talking about. Sure, he may be 89 years old but give the man a puzzle worthy of him. The clue (yes, indeed, that is clue singular) is clumsily presented and the denouement isn't all that exciting--and certainly not wrenching. I do see the overtones. I do "get" what the title of the story is referring to. But, honestly, it's quite heavy-handed in all the wrong places. I liked the interactions between the boy and the Holmes character. That was extraordinarily well done. More of that and I would be handing out a much higher rating. Three stars--just.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K LeGuin: Review

George Orr is afraid to dream. He has discovered that he has what he calls effective dreams. His dreams can change things. That pesky Aunt Julia who came to stay when he was seventeen? Suddenly she was gone and had never stayed with them at all. Not just vanished from their home--but dead in a car crash. That wasn't precisely what he wanted when he decided in his waking hours that he wanted her out of the house, but his subconscious seemed to think it an adequate solution and so he dreamed it. And it happened. And he was the only person who knew that it had ever been any different.

When George's fears reach the point that he is abusing his pharmacy privileges to try and prevent a dreaming state, he is referred to a psychiatrist for standard treatment. Dr. Haber begins by thinking he simply has to cure George of this irrational fear of dreaming. It isn't long before he realizes that George is right...his dreams can change the waking world. Haber decides to use George's unique power to make changes. He claims that it is for the greater good: to stop war, to prevent overpopulation, to wipe out hunger. But George becomes more and more uneasy with every change. Who has the power to decide what is best for all mankind? Who should have that power?

This should have been a very powerful book. The ideas behind it--just what is reality and who, if anyone, should have the power to shape it--represent very powerful and intriguing questions. However, I found the ideas getting lost in the psycho- and techno-babble that Dr. Haber spouts whenever he and George have a session. Talk of dream and sleep states and all the wondrous gadgetry of his Augementor (the machine that records and enhances George's dreaming powers), just weighed the story down. LeGuin can be an awesome writer (I love her Left Hand of Darkness and Always Coming Home), but I think she is at her best when she sticks with people--with the speculative stories of the human condition. Too much tech talk is definitely not her style. I would have appreciated more focus on George's struggle. And more straightforward discussion of the dream-power. And then to bring in the aliens and their alien terms for the power (which never get fully explained) didn't help matters at all. More explanation of how the aliens know about the dreaming power and how they helped George would have gone a long way. Two and a half stars.

The Quality of Mercy: Review

The story begins in Vienna just before Hitler and his gang seize Austria. Verity is a journalist and has been in Vienna trying to report on the state of the country as the Nazis advance. As a well-known anti-Fascist and Communist, she is one of the first to be deported when Hitler takes over. Before her enforced departure she arranges for a young Jew, Georg Dreiser, to escape certain death and flee to England. But it is in England, where he least expects it, that danger and sudden death catch up with him.

Corinth has an encounter with death as well. He is at the home of Lord Louis Mountbatten to meet his friend the Maharaja of Batiala. Edward's nephew Frank stumbles upon the corpse of Peter Gray, a painter of some repute. The police are satisfied that he died of natural causes but his niece, Vera, has reason to believe this is not the case. So, between them, Edward and Verity set about the investigation of two murders. Overshadowing the mysteries is the ever-present threat of war. And the two sleuths also find a way to do their part in saving those that they can from the clutches of the Nazis in Austria.

The Quality of Mercy (like the previous six books in the Lord Corinth and Verity Browne series) is a very nice historical recreation of the Golden Age mysteries I love so well. Roberts has done his research and serves up a terrific offering of the class-conscious England of the 1930s. It is also obvious that he knows his Dorothy L Sayers. There are so many parallels between his books and the Lord Peter Wimsey books (particularly the four with Harriet Vane) that I have considered doing a more in-depth post on the two series. [Keep your eyes peeled--it may be in the works.] I can find no fault with his 1930s window dressing or his characterization. And he manages to weave actual historical figures into the narrative quite seamlessly. The one point that is a bit lacking is the mystery itself. It's a decent enough story, but the grand finale falls a bit short. And in one respect was down-right disappointing.

But, overall, a lovely bit of historical story-telling. Quite enjoyable and if I hadn't had to work I would have read it straight through. Three and a half stars.

Deadly Reunion: Review

Well...that was one of my more disappointing impulse grabs from the library's new arrival shelves.

When I read the blurb for Geraldine Evans' Deadly Reunion, I was entranced and just had to take it home with me. See...here's what I mean:

Loves, labours, losses and not to mention a spattering of the occult are all part of an education at the prestigious Griffin School, but when a reunion culminates in the death of a high profile former student, DI Joseph Rafferty and his ever erudite partner, Sergeant Dafyd Llewellyn, are called in to unearth the truth behind the school's picturesque facade. Murder? Suicide? Or is the chef's cooking to blame? As ever the case is never simple for this policing pair, especially with a home office official as a suspect and a budget-obsessed superintendent breathing down their necks.

And I thought, Oh boy! Another academic-type mystery to add to my collected readings! Yeah. We can say that, but I'm not so very excited about it. The mystery was fairly pedestrian. I didn't care for the protagonists. The interactions between Rafferty and Llewellyn just didn't work. Llewellyn is billed as "erudite"--a college man. But he comes off pretty much as a prig. I got a bit tired of him looking down his nose at Rafferty's fondness for pubs and a bit of bitter. And I'm not a drinking woman myself--but for heaven's sake can we not let the man have his pint? And the friction between Rafferty and his penny-pinching superior didn't really come off either. I just don't think Evans has a real way with characterization. The prose is fine--flows very nicely. But it would have helped if that nice prose had been about characters and a story that I really cared about. One and a half stars.

DeKok and Murder on Blood Mountain: Review

In Inspector DeKok's line of work, death is routine. After all, he works in the homicide section of the police department. But encountering resurrected dead men certainly is not. At the request of the Belgium police, Inspectors DeKok and Vledder discreetly attend the funeral of a murder victim. The body was fished out of Antwerp's Scheldt River, but has been brought back to Amsterdam to be laid to rest in Sorrow Field Cemetery. During the service DeKok looks around at the mourners and finds himself looking at a man long dead. Whispers of the gray sleuth's sanity are uttered and even Vledder insists he must be mistaken, but DeKok is certain of a darker, more sinister activity at play than just the ridiculous notion of ghosts. More bodies are discovered; apparently they too were poisoned and dumped into the river. DeKok must venture from his beloved city and travel to Bloedberg ("Blood Mountain"), a notorious neighborhood in Antwerp. It seems a certain Heaven's Gate Temple and the Holy Pact for the Dying hold the answers to both the living dead and the dead and buried.

DeKok has been compared to Maigret and I must say that I see the similarities. Vledder is often exasperated with him and is hard put to understand some of DeKok's deductions. Just as those around Maigret sometimes cannot understand how he operates. But I find myself liking Dekok much better. He explains more...and more quickly than Maigret does (at least in The Yellow Dog). Baantjer's prose is marvelous in translation. The descriptions of both people and places are vivid and very apt. I was quickly drawn into the story and swept along right to the end. I was completely enthralled, right up to the denouement and I loved the classic wrap-up scene at the end. I can well understand why Baantjer is the most widely read author in the Netherlands. Four stars out of five.

Shatterday: Review

It's funny where a book journey can take you. Back in June, I signed up for the Follow That Blurb Reading Challenge. In short, we were to pick a starter book, read that, then read a book by someone who wrote a blurb for that first book. And so on, for a total of ten books. Shatterday by Harlan Ellison is my 8th book. I started with a mystery. That book led me through five more mysteries. It was beginning to look like my little book trek was going to be all mysteries, all the time. Then book number six led me to a mystical, new-agey book by Lawrence Block (another mystery writer, granted--but I deliberately chose one of his books that wasn't a mystery). And that book brought me here.....to Harlan Ellison and some excellent classic science fiction.

It's been a long time since I've read any Ellison. I discovered him back in the day when I was on my science fiction kick. Let me just tell you straight....Harlan Ellison is not for everyone. He's not for the squeamish. Or the prudish. You want your fiction all neat and tidy and full of rainbows and sunshine and happily-ever-afters. Ellison is not your man. That's not to say he can't write a happy ending. He can. He does in this collection. But it's not your everyday, Disney happy ending....and getting there may be a bit more painful than you'd like. Ellison, as he puts it, walks through our lives and runs them through his spectacular imagination and hands them back full of all the horrors and nightmares and mortal dreads we don't want to face. No, I'm not talking about zombies or things that go bump in the night. At least not in most of the stories. "Flop Sweat" comes the closest to a nice horror-movie case of the screaming heebie-jeebies, but it's not the evil things that are the scariest. It's the idea that these things were called forth by human beings just like you and me.

And that's what makes these stories so great. Maybe we'll never climb into a space/timeship and go off to another dimension; maybe we'll never have to face a day when our self has divided and there's two of us and we have to figure out which one is real; maybe our past won't ever catch up with us and force us to do horrible things. But...then again. We can relate to the characters because somewhere, sometime there was a situation, not the same situation, but a situation nonetheless where we acted/reacted/didn't react like we should have...in just the same way. The stories show us to ourselves....and if we're brave enough we learn from it.

I had forgotten what a master storyteller Ellison is. I had forgotten his skill at twisting the everyday and making it thought-provoking. And I had forgotten what a slippery little cuss he is. Just when you think you've figured out what kind of writer he is...science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, horror, black comedy, psychological...he throws you a curve ball and does something completely different. No wonder he's racked up so many awards in so many fields. This is a fabulous short story collection. My favorites are "Flop Sweat," "The Man Who Was Heavily into Revenge," and "Count the Clock That Tells the Time." Five stars.

Random Walk: Review

Random Walk by Lawrence Block is another stop on my Follow That Blurb Reading Challenge journey. Originally written in 1987, this book is a departure from Block's usual mystery/thriller fare...something I chose deliberately. It was beginning to look like my Blurb journey was going to begin and end with mysteries. I was kind of hoping the trip would be a little more varied. So, when Block blurbed my last read (No Body by Nancy Pickard) I just kept scrolling through his work to see what might strike my fancy. And came across this unusual novel. Very unusual. I would say that 90% of the book is schizophrenic.

Yes. There are two main stories going on throughout most of the book. First, we have the story of Guthrie, a bartender who's fairly happy with his life--going along just fine--when all of a sudden one day while he's waiting on a friend who's having an abortion he hears a voice tell him to take a walk. So he does. Quits his job. Sells his car. Cleans out his bank account of all but the minimum and just starts walking East. That's all he knows--gonna head East from Oregon. Doesn't know why, other than it just feels right. Along the way, he encounters other kindred spirits who just join him. At the same time as he's getting his message from the astral plane or wherever, Sara in Fort Wayne, Indiana begins to go blind. And decides that she's meant to go blind so she can see better. She quits her job; takes her son out of school; clears out as much cash as she can; and hops on a bus headed West. So she can meet up with Guthrie and company. As they walk they pick up more and more people and all sorts of New Age-y, mystical, healing-power, find yourself, center-yourself-breathing, heal the planet stuff begins to happen. As Guthrie says, by the time they reach the East Coast the reader shouldn't be surprised if the group isn't able to keep on walking on the water of the Atlantic Ocean and go trekking through Europe.

In story number two we have Mark, a power-hungry businessman and serial killer who gets his sexual jollies from knocking off as many women as possible. He's been at it for eight years--previously taking it slow and only killing at random as he travels for business. But lately the hunger has built and he decided to up his travel schedule for the summer and see how many he can do before the cold weather hits. His path keeps circling closer and closer to that of Guthrie's group....what will happen when the New Age peace and love and healing meets such a definite evil?

Despite the serial killer in storyline number two, as I mentioned above this is NOT a thriller. We're not waiting to see if Mark gets caught and there's definitely no detecting and mystery going on (unless you count the mystery of the New Age stuff). This story is a journey. It's not about where they're going; it's about what happens while they're on their way. It's about growth and personal healing. I'm not much into the whole New Age philosophy, but there are definitely some pieces of the message in this weird book that the human race could stand to learn. That we're all in this together. That what we do to others affects us--who we are and what we are. That if we treated each other and the world we live in better, then we just might make it. And the world would be a lot better for it.

Like I said, this is one weird book. I didn't know quite what to do with it. But I was compelled to keep reading. Couldn't stop if I wanted to. That must be a sign of powerful writing--even if I don't entirely agree with the message being conveyed. Three and 3/4 stars (almost four)--all for that powerful writing.

No Body: Review

No Body by Nancy Pickard is a fun and funny mystery that I picked up as part of my Follow That Blurb Challenge journey. This is the third story in Pickard's Jenny Cain series, but I had no problem stepping into the book without having read the first two. The story begins with Jenny's old sixth-grade teacher visiting the graves of her forbears only to be caught in a mud slide that reveals that her ancestors, along with 131 other "residents" of the New England cemetery are no longer resting in peace. In fact, they're not resting there at all. Following directly on the heels of this alarming discovery, the corpse of Sylvia Davis, secretary to the local funeral home, is found in the casket with John Rudolph just as his wife is preparing to see him safely stowed in the new cemetery. Rudolph's widow makes several scenes and then makes an appointment with the report Lewis Riss to tell what she knows. Before she can keep that appointment, she, too, is found murdered. It's up to Jenny to solve the two mysteries--the one with too few bodies and the one where the corpses keep multiplying.

Jenny Cain is a bright, witty character. She has a way of getting people to talk and finding out what they don't want her to know. She also makes her share of mistakes before getting to the final answer and this makes her very human. The writing is brisk and easy going down--making for a fun, quick read. There is enough humor to offset the rather depressing subject matter of funerals and funeral homes and graveyards. The mystery has enough twists in it to keep the reader guessing till the end. Three stars for a nice, pleasant afternoon read.

The Prop: Review

Peeky Kane plays poker for a living. She's pretty good at it. She has learned to read what a player will do based on the twitch of an eyebrow, a swift movement of a lip, or an intake of breath. She's a pro...a prop player at an Arizona casino owned by the Santa Cruz tribe. So far she's been able to make a nice little living off the people who come to the Casino Santa Cruz card room. But then things begin to go wrong. First Peeky finds herself in a fixed game, bringing home about $7,000 in one night's work. Then a gang of clown-masked robbers manage to run off with a million of the casino's dollars--killing four people in the process. Peeky recognizes one of the gang as a casino employee and then finds that another robber is much closer to her than that. Added to the mix is the revelation from her son-in-law that her daughter Jaymie has a drug habit--one that she's been supporting by raiding her mom's stashed money. Can things get any worse? Peeky is called upon by one of the most powerful members of the Santa Cruz tribe to help him get to the bottom of the troubles at his casino. She will have to use her gambling instincts and powers of observation to help her save the casino, her daughter, and herself.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I love the character of Peeky. She's strong, sassy, engaging, and flawed. She's human enough that you're immediately on her side. The writing is just as addictive as if the reader had been bitten by the gambling bug. There's plenty of action and double-dealing. That's the pluses. On the negative side, there's an awful lot of killing--more than I usually like in my mysteries. And the murders are so senseless. It's also a bit more noir than I'm used to. And all the things that happen to Peeky....well, I felt like it was enough already. Three and a half stars for great writing and terrific characters.

Heartless: Review

Heartless is the latest in Gail Carriger's series starring Lady Alexia Maccon, formerly Alexia Tarabotti. She is a preternatural--born without a soul who lives in an alternate Victorian era where vampires, werewolves and other supernatural creatures have been accepted into mainstream British society. In this outing Alexia is approached by a mad ghost, babbling about a threat to the queen. Even though she is well along in her pregnancy (she waddles, for heaven's sake!), Alexia is soon on the trail--following clues that lead her into her husband's past. Added to that, she must deal with a sister who has joined the cause for votes for women, Madame Lefoux and her latest invention, and a plague of homicidal zombie porcupines, the latest in the vampires' efforts to kill her unborn child (and incidentally Lady Maccon as well). Will Alexia get to the bottom of the plot to kill Queen Victoria? Will she survive the plots against her own life? And just what sort of child will she give birth to--if she's given the chance?

It may well be that the bloom is off the rose on this series. Either that or Carriger is gearing up for another good one in Timeless (due out in March 2012). Soulless was really good. Blameless was good, but not great. Changeless was fabulous. And now Heartless is just okay. Alexia and her Lord Maccon are still marvelous characters. I could "listen" to their dialogue all day. But the action and story line in this one just isn't quite up to snuff. I found myself forcing my way to end...I shouldn't have to do that. I'm also not entirely sure that I like the way Carriger ended things in this one. It's really hard to write a decent review when everything you want to talk about is a spoiler....Let's just say that I'm giving this one a bare three stars and leave it at that.

Bone Harvest: Review

Bone Harvest by Mary Logue is a bit more of a thriller than I usually read...it's also American and more recent. But I'm very glad that the Follow That Blurb Reading Challenge led me to it. It is a very absorbing read--quick-paced and well-written.

The story takes us back and forth between modern-day Wisconsin and the same town 50 years ago. In that small-town half a century ago, an entire family was murdered in a remote farmhouse. The town rocked from the impact of the horrible deed and eventually came to terms with the fact that the killer was never brought to justice. But one person never forgot what happened that day. And now, fifty years later, he wants the truth to come out. And he's willing to do some very dreadful things to see that it does. The modern portion of the story begins with a robbery at the local farm co-op. A large quantity of two very dangerous pesticides are the only things missing. And the thief has left a strange calling card: a tiny finger bone from a child long dead. Soon the pesticides are put to use--killing the flowers in front of the sheriff's office, poisoning a local farmer's chickens, and finally being mixed up in a deadly batch of lemonade at the annual Fourth of July Festivities. And with each occurrence another bone is left. Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins is put in charge of the case and finds herself in a race against time to unravel the past before the next stage of the game.

Logue handles the parallel stories in a very deft manner. Her writing is fluid and quite beautiful, even when describing very horrible deeds. Her characters are strong, smart, and well-defined and she makes the reader care about the inhabitants of Pepin county. She even makes the culprit a very sympathetic character. The interludes where she shows us what he is doing and allows us to understand his character are just enough. Much more would have been too much. I enjoyed this story a lot--even though I recognized the culprit well before the end. Four stars out of five.

The Mystery of the Third Lucretia: Review

I got onto The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt courtesy of the Follow That Blurb Reading Challenge. This is a middle grade mystery which stars two fourteen year old girls who are best friends and interested in art. Kari Sundgren has a mom who writes for a magazine which sends her on assignments to other countries. Lucas Stickney comes from a wealthy family who doesn't mind if she flits off on these journeys with Kari and her mom. The mystery begins when the girls are at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and a snarky painter tells them to "Go A-Way!" The man is doing a copy of one of Rembrandt's famous Lucretia paintings and makes it clear he doesn't want anyone peering over his shoulder while he works. Then Kari's mom gets assigned to a story in London and the three make a trip to Britain. Kari and Lucas are very surprised to the Gallery Guy (as they dubbed him) in disguise and painting away in front of Rembrandt's companion piece. They are sure that he's up to no good and decide to do some detective work to try and figure out what he's up to.

After an adventure that involves multiple disguises, the release of a harmless snake, and an intense argument with Gallery Guy, the girls finally see enough to reproduce his work in a painting of their own. It isn't until the next trip (scheduled for France and Italy) that they see an article about a recently discovered "third Lucretia painting by Rembrandt" which was found in the Netherlands. The girls convince Kari's mom to take a detour to Amsterdam where the adventure really begins. Young mystery lovers will enjoy the excitement that follows Kari and Lucas and trying to figure out exactly how they're going to help catch the master art criminal.

This book tells me why I don't read young adult and middle grade books much. It is a perfectly good middle grade novel. I am quite sure that young readers will love it. And I'm quite sure that I would have if it had been around when I was in my Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden phase. But I just can't get myself into the young reader mindset anymore. That's one reason why I keep thinking about rereading Nancy, but then I don't. I'm afraid I won't enjoy her anymore and I'd rather remember the books with great fondness than to be disappointed now.

I'm going to give this one three stars. The rating is for good clear writing. An interesting mystery and believable characters. The wrap-up is exciting and well done. Recommended for the young mystery lover in your life.

The Case of the Deceiving Don: Review

Much like another reviewer on Goodreads, I first got interested in this one because I thought perhaps the "don" in the title referred to a British academic (and you know how I love me an academic mystery). But it winds up that we're talking Don like Don Corleone. Like the Mafia. Like messing with the "family." So, okay...I need this book for my Follow That Blurb Challenge--gotta go with this one or else I'll have to start the whole darn journey again. So, I brought it home from the library anyway. And, boy, am I glad I did.

Now this is the way books about private investigators ought to be written. It's fun and tongue-in-cheek, with just enough of the hard-boiled patter to make it right. (After all, our hero uses Chandler and Hammett and all the rest as his PI handbooks.) PI Sean Sean (yes, that's his name) is a not-so-hard-boiled detective operating in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. He may not be tall, but he's got a big heart and is willing to go the extra mile when a case interests him (or when someone needs the help). He wears red Keds and rarely packs heat. He's just starting to figure out the mysteries of computers and the internet and hasn't quite talked himself into a cell phone yet. He's a gumshoe just beginning to burst into the 21st century.

The book begins with a bang--quite literally. As Sean is making his way home one evening, he comes upon a murder scene. An elderly patient of the local nursing home was out for a regular trip around the block when his wheelchair exploded--directly across from Sean's home. At first, Sean is interested merely because of the proximity. But then a couple of large toughs hire him to investigate and his interest becomes professional. With the help of a feisty fellow resident of Sheltering Limbs (the nursing home), Sean soon discovers that there was more to the dearly departed than meets the eye. Not to mention some of the activities of the Director of the home. Things really get interesting when the FBI gets involved and then someone begins taking potshots at Sean. Is he getting too close? And just exactly who is getting skittish about that?

This is a delightful read. Fast-paced and smooth. It goes down like Sean says a single malt does (I'll have to take his word on that). Lots of action and interesting characters. I absolutely love Sean's interaction with Blanche, his contact in the nursing home. And Sean is a very likeable protagonist. I look forward to trying more of the series. Four stars.

Roseanna: Review

Not too long ago I read my first Martin Beck book by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö--The Man on the Balcony. That book was a little intense for me (it involved the murders of children...something I have a really hard time reading about), but I enjoyed the writing so much, I wanted to give the series another try. So, I went back to the beginning and picked up Roseanna from the library.

Roseanna tells the story of a nameless young woman whose body is found in Sweden's beautiful Lake Vattern. The canal leading to the lake had clogged up and needed dredged. During the dredging process the machines brought up more than the crew bargained for. The woman was naked and had been strangled and sexually assaulted. Beyond that, Martin Beck and his fellow officers had little to go on. They didn't know who she was, where she came from, how she got there, or who might have put her there. Before they can catch a killer, they need to know who the victim was. By the end of three months, they know very little more--her name was Roseanna, she came from the US, and had taken a cabin on the cruise ship Diana. Any of the 85 passengers and crew could be the murderer....or it's possible that one of the deck passengers (those who join the boat for a day or so and ride for only part of the trip) might be the culprit. Slowly, the team gathers evidence and work up a picture of the guilty party. Will Beck catch him before he kills again?

This book (and the remaining books in the series of ten) is said to have changed the way crime novels were written. Sjöwall and Wahlöö broke with the trend of using stereotypical characters and gave their audience real men and women. Beck is no super-cop, he has no "little grey cells" to call upon. He's a real man--depressed with a difficult home life--who happens to be good at his job and very patient. Patience would seem to be the driving force of this novel. It takes a lot of patience to keep pursuing the case after months of little to no progress. Just waiting for a little break to start the ball rolling again. The writing is spare and clean, yet very gripping. Even though there is a lot of waiting in this story, the reader is never bored. A top-notch rendering of the police procedural. Three and a half stars.

Hot & Bothered: Review

Thanks to the Follow That Blurb Reading Challenge I have discovered a new academic mystery series starring tenured professor Bel Barrett and her mid-life detective sidekicks. In Hot & Bothered by Jane Isenberg citizens of Hoboken, New Jersey are trying to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the horrifying attacks on the World Trade Center. Bel is determined to continue life as before and not to live in fear. As she moves on with her life, she is bothered by a seemingly never-ending kitchen renovation and dismayed to find herself coping with her partner Sol's steady disintegration from post traumatic stress. There is also the annual neighborhood block party to plan, arguments to settle over the disbursement of a local scholarship, and her new Faculty Development Seminar to organize and run. Then one of her colleagues and fellow scholarship judge is found stabbed to death. Eunice Goodson was a young, promising new instructor at the River Edge Community College in Jersey City and a member of Bel's seminar. She was also moonlighting as an exotic dancer at a club in Manhattan.

With a police force still coping with the aftermath of 9/11 as well as many false alarms over anthrax and other terrorist "sightings," little time is given to the death of a stripper. And the cops seem ready to take an easy suspect--the disgruntled young woman who did not receive the scholarship and who believes Eunice was to blame. Bel is determined to seek the truth--not only because she wants her friend's killer caught and doesn't want an innocent girl charged with the crime, but also because Sol is taking an interest and she hopes it will help him with recovery. With the help of her friends--Illuminada Guttierez, a private detective, and Betty Ramsey, the Executive Assistant to RECC's president--Bel begins examining Eunice's connections both at school and in the city. Their search will lead them to a clergyman with a secret, a sister with a problem, a jealous scheduler at the club, a faculty member doing a little extra "research" at the cub, and a neighbor who may not be what he seems.

This was a fun, fast read. Very likeable characters and even though I've managed to dive in right in the middle, I felt right at home with Bel and her friends. Having a loved one who has gone through post traumatic stress, it was easy to sympathize with Bel and Sol and the struggles they faced. This made the characters very real to me. The mystery was complex enough to keep me interested...although the solution seemed a bit forced. A few more clues dropped along the way would have helped. But overall, a good solid mystery. Three and a half stars.

This also counts as my "Blurb" entry for the Take a Chance 3 Challenge.

The Herring in the Library: Review

Ethelred and Elsie are at it again--this time taking their sleuthing skills to the old country manor house and investigating The Herring in the Library. L. C. Taylor's third installment in his comic mystery series once again provides readers with a send-up of Agatha Christie and her Golden Age contemporaries. We have a gathering of dear old chums at a dinner party given by Sir Robert "Shagger" Muntham at his newly acquired country home. Nearly everyone on the guest list has a reason to be glad when Muntham mysteriously leaves the dinner table and, quite literally, never returns. Muntham is later found strangled in the library with all the doors and windows locked from the inside. The classic locked room mystery. Given the circumstances and the word of two doctors in the party, the police are all set to list the death as suicide. But the "grieving" widow isn't about to accept that...not with an insurance policy hanging in the balance. She asks Ethelred to use his crime writer's skills to get to the bottom of things and soon he finds that he has more clues than he knows what to do with. Is someone leading him up the garden path? And what about the mysterious notes that Shagger has left for Ethelred? There's one more to be found that just might hold the answer to everything....

The Herring series is an absolutely wonderful take on the Golden Age of mysteries. I love how Tyler takes all the conventions, stands them on their heads, and still manages to make a terrific crime novel out of them. All that was missing from this country house outing was the snow storm to trap them all while the murderer ran amok. But not to worry, Tyler is still on the top of his game and I'm sure he's got the whole deck of vintage cards up his sleeve and ready to produce when the time is right. Again (as with The Ten Little Herrings), if you're looking for a fun and funny mystery novel, this is the one for you. Four stars.

The Last Matryoshka: Review

I picked up The Last Matryoshka by Joyce Yarrow purely because her last name starts with a "Y" and I needed a "Y" mystery author to help me complete the alphabet in the A-Z Mystery Author Challenge. I'm also using it as a launching pad for the Follow That Blurb Challenge and one of the Take a Chance 3 categories.

This is an American mystery starring Jo Epstein, a performance poet and private investigator. She uses her New York street smarts to outmaneuver a master Russian criminal on his own turf. The story begins with her Russian-born stepfather, Nikolai, who needs help escaping a blackmailer who can frame him for a particularly brutal murder committed in the elevator of Nikolai's building. It soon becomes clear that there is more to the plan than simple blackmail as threats arrive inside not-so-traditional Matryoshka (nesting) dolls. The dolls have been altered and contain symbols from the honor code of the vory (Russian criminal caste). Jo and her stepfather have never been bosom buddies--but she is willing to help him for her mother's sake. But can she trust him? It doesn't help that it is obvious that he is keeping information from her. Jo's investigation will take her from the height of fashion in NYC to the Vladimir Central Prison in Russia. From a lonely backroom knock-off shop to the dark Russian forest and from the Moscow Criminal Police headquarters to the monasteries of Suzdal. In the end she will race the clock to solve crimes committed on two continents.

I have to say that in the normal course of things this isn't a book that I would have picked up and brought home with me from the library. A. It's current--published in 2010. B. It's American (I'm a Brit Lit girl). C. It's about the Russian underworld and I'm not all that into organized crime. This is a decent mystery. A nicely done plot about long-term revenge. I really like Jo Epstein as a character. She's well-rounded and she is very believable as a private investigator. I do wonder a bit about her actions in Russia, however. Without giving too much away, I just think that as a PI with her experience that her alarm bells should have been going off on several occasions. But maybe we should chalk that up to her inexperience with the culture. And to be really honest, my favorite part of the whole book is the poem that appears at the front of the book (untitled) about detectives and poets.

An action-packed mystery. Well-written and an interesting back story for the characters. Not my usual cup of tea...but I'll give it three stars for a good, solid read.