Review: FOR BETTER OR WORSE, Donna H. Murray

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• source: review copy from author
• #8 in the Ginger Barnes series
• File Size: 2305 KB
• Print Length: 238 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publication Date: January 10, 2018
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B076DCGPWZ

Synopsis (Amazon)

Finally back to her spunky self after the loss of her husband, men have once again become an issue for amateur sleuth Ginger Barnes—men who mistreat their wives, men accused of murder, and men who ask her out.

While working on a DIY project at her newlywed daughter’s house, a bag of bricks is thrown from the neighboring third-story window. Next, pops that sound like muffled gunshots have Gin racing for her phone. Eric, who lives in the house with his grandmother, claims she’s obsessed with mystery novels. Yet after the septuagenarian falls down a flight of stairs, she’s so frantic to keep Eric away that Gin must intervene. Was the fall actually attempted murder?

In her husband’s eyes, Cissie Voight can’t do anything right. Gin occasionally helps the frazzled young mother, and when she needs a dresser carried upstairs, Gin brings Eric along. Bad move! The electricity between the two new acquaintances sparks a chilling premonition. This time Gin’s good intentions will produce grave consequences—for everyone involved.

My Take

I spent my time in this book exasperated by Ginger Barnes and her tendency to interfere in the lives of others, and in admiration of her willingness to do so.

There is another plot strand: Ginger agrees to take on some childminding while a young mother seeks work. However the child's father is at first opposed to the scheme and then reluctant in his agreement. Gin has the feeling that he is following her and watching her.

The three main plot lines intermingle nicely with the connecting point being Gin's daughter.

There is a lot in this book about how men treat their wives, some thought provoking stuff.

A good read. Probably better if I had met Ginger Barnes before.

Due for publication January 10 2018, available for pre-order. (Amazon)

My rating: 4.3

Biography

Donna Huston Murray's eight cozy mysteries feature a woman much like herself, a DIY headmaster's wife with a troubling interest in crime. FINAL ARRANGEMENTS, set at Philadelphia’s world famous flower show, achieved #1 on the Kindle-store list for both Mysteries and Female Sleuths. The first in Murray’s new mystery/crime series, WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU, garnered Honorable Mention in the 23rd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards.

At home, she assumes she can fix anything until proven wrong, calls trash-picking recycling, and, although she should probably know better, adores Irish setters.

Donna and husband, Hench, live in the greater Philadelphia, PA, area.

Review: THE NEIGHBOUR, Lisa Gardner

• this edition published 2009
• printed in Australia by Griffin Press
• ISBN 978-1-4091-0103-1
• 369 pages

Synopsis (author website)

This is what happened …

It was a case guaranteed to spark a media feeding frenzy-a young mother, blond and pretty, disappears without a trace from her South Boston home, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter as the only witness and her handsome, secretive husband as the prime suspect.

In the last six hours …

But from the moment Detective Sergeant D. D. Warren arrives at the Joneses’ snug little bungalow, she senses something off about the picture of wholesome normality the couple worked so hard to create. On the surface, Jason and Sandra Jones are like any other hardworking young couple raising a four-year-old child. But it is just under the surface that things grew murkier.

Of the world as I knew it …

With the clock ticking on the life of a missing woman and the media firestorm building, Jason Jones seems more intent on destroying evidence and isolating his daughter than on searching for his “beloved” wife. Is the perfect husband trying to hide his guilt-or just trying to hide? And will the only witness to the crime be the killer’s next victim?

My Take

In the  "About the author" at the end of the book, Lisa Gardner is described as a research junkie. There are definite signs of that in this book, in fact, I think, a little too much of the research about computers, the internet, and deleting files has found its way into the book. Perhaps back in 2009 when it was all a bit new, this went down well with readers. But today it all feels a bit too much.

The other thing which the author tried to do I think was trick the reader too much and too often. There were just too many red herrings. I've read a couple of "missing wives" books this year: A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE, Shari Lapena and DON'T LET GO, Michel Bussi, and I think both created more credible scenarios than this one did.

Nevertheless, I did read it to the end, and there was a final twist.
I just think the plot wandered in places, and perhaps too many devices were used.

It also appears that the novel is 3rd in a series (9 novels?). Perhaps I would have fared better with an earlier introduction to D.S. D.D. Warren.

However it is a book that people took notice of when it was published:
Awarded Best Hard Cover Novel from the International Thriller Writers – July 2010
Top 10 of Best Books of 2009 – Suspense Magazine
Best Adrenaline Novel 2010 Reading List – American Library Association
Best Thriller of 2009 Nominee – Library Journal
Awarded Grand Prix des Lectrices de ELLE 2011 : prix du policier – “La maison d’à côté” – Elle Magazine


My rating: 3.9

Review: DARK PLACES, Gillian Flynn

• this edition published by Random House 2009
• ISBN 978-0-307-34156-3
• 349 pages
• source: my local library
• author website

Synopsis (publisher)

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben.

Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

My take

Libby Day's life has been a disaster - at 7 years of age she testified that her brother Ben, then 15, had killed her mother and and two sisters. The murders were horrific and Libby, the youngest of the family, was left traumatised. She first of all lived with her aunt and then in foster homes. Ben went prison for life and has been there for 25 years. Libby, haunted by the possibility that she was wrong in her testimony, has never wanted to visit him.

When Libby is contacted by Lyle from the Kill Club, she is not sure what he wants. She agrees to visit the club and finds that many of its members think that Ben was innocent of the crimes and certainly of the other things that Ben was accused of. To her own horror, she finds that she wants to know the truth, and paid by money provided by members of the Kill Club agrees to visit Ben in Gaol and then to track down people who might know what actually happened.

There is a lot of tension generated in the book as we read on two time frames: the present mainly through Libby's eyes, and a chronology of what happened in the last days and hours before the murders.

In places this is a very noir read, a truly nasty picture of what growing up in an impoverished family in Kansas in the mid 1980s was like. This book did remind me of Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD, also set in Kansas, and left me wondering if it was based on a true story. I'm still wondering: the Kill Club certainly exists. The novel also reminded me of SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE which I read a month or so back.

From Wikipedia: The novel deals with class issues in rural America, intense poverty and the Satanic cult hysteria that swept the United States in the 1980s. Dark Places was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and won the Dark Scribe Magazine Black Quill Award for Dark Genre Novel of the Year. It was also listed on the New York Times Best Seller List for hardcover fiction for two consecutive weeks. A film adaptation of the novel was released on August 7, 2015.

My Rating: 4.5

I've also read
4.8, GONE GIRL
4.2, THE GROWN UP 

Review: THREE WEEKS TO SAY GOODBYE, C.J. Box

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 834 KB
• Print Length: 363 pages
• Publisher: Corvus; Main edition (May 1, 2010)
• Publication Date: May 1, 2010
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1848872917
• ISBN-13: 978-1848872912
• ASIN: B003MQM782

Synopsis (Amazon)

They're so sorry...
They've made a terrible mistake...
There's nothing they can do...
They have to take your daughter away.

You have three weeks to say goodbye.

After years of trying for a child, Jack and Melissa McGuane adopted a beautiful baby girl. Nine months later, a call from the adoption agency plunges them into every parent's worst nightmare: the father never signed away his parental rights, and now he wants his daughter back.

The biological father is a sullen eighteen-year-old with gangland connections, and, even worse, is the son of a well-connected federal judge who is prepared to use the full weight of his influence to get what he wants. Together they wage a harrowing campaign of intimidation and harassment aimed at destroying the McGuanes before they can fight back.

Jack and Melissa know that the boy has no love for his daughter, but what they don't know is why he and the judge want the girl so badly. With three weeks until they must legally hand over.

My Take

This is one of the titles that has been sitting on my Kindle for a number of years. C.J. Box is one of those authors I have heard mentioned often - he has captured many awards - but I have never read anything by him. THREE WEEKS TO SAY GOODBYE is a standalone.

The central theme is why would the federal judge who is the biological grandfather want to take on a baby when his son has no interest in the child. Why is he fighting so hard to get her?

This scenario truly would be the worst nightmare of adoptive parents who think they have everything sewn up, and who have fallen in love with their adopted child. Then add in friends and relatives who are literally prepared to do anything to help, and the mix becomes explosive.

For the most part the book held me. However the plot does illustrate how the most peaceful of people can be driven to violence when pressured. In a way the final stage of the plot was inevitable and logical, considering all that happened, but somehow I was disappointed.

The book has whetted my appetite for more by this author.

My rating: 4.3

About the author
C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over twenty-two novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, the Barry Award (twice), the Western Heritage Award for Literature, and 2017 Spur Award for Best Contemporary Western. The novels have been translated into 27 languages. Open Season, Blue Heaven, Nowhere To Run, and The Highway have been optioned for film and television. Millions of copies of his novels have been sold in the U.S. alone.

Box is a Wyoming native and has worked as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, a small town newspaper reporter and editor, and he owned an international tourism marketing firm with his wife Laurie. In 2008, Box was awarded the "BIG WYO" Award from the state tourism industry. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He served on the Board of Directors for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo and is currently serving on the Wyoming Tourism Board. He lives in Wyoming. 

Review: THE RESISTANCE MAN, Martin Walker

• format: Amazon (Kindle)
• File Size: 2238 KB
• Print Length: 352 pages
• Publisher: Quercus (June 6, 2013)
• Publication Date: June 6, 2013
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1780870736
• ISBN-13: 978-1780870731
• #6 in the Bruno Chief of Police series

Synopsis (Amazon)

In south-west France, WW2 casts the longest shadow when some rare bank notes are discovered, notes that may have links to the legendary Neuvic train robbery in 1944 in the sixth internationally-bestselling case for Bruno, chief of police

In St Denis, Bruno, chef de police, can't get a moment's rest. Some rare bank notes have come to light that may have links to the legendary Neuvic train robbery in 1944. The investigation is fraught with issues.

Bruno is also dealing with a wave of local burglaries, which have brought his old flame, Isabelle - and their complicated history - back to the town.

Worse is to come. Tasked with piecing together these past crimes, Bruno now finds he has the more pressing matter of a body on his hands. He must now trace the links between past and present to restore peace in St Denis.

My take

This is quite a lengthy series now, and this title comes in about the middle. Once again, as I often do with a series, I recommend that you read the titles in order. There is a development of characters and scenarios that have "history" and you will really get the best out of the book if you know what has gone before.

These are a different sort of "police procedural" simply because the French justice system works differently to that of the UK and the USA.

The books are rich in culture and descriptive recipes, as well as strong character development.

In this one the past meets the present when an elderly resistance fighter dies and an old banknote from a train robbery is found in his possession. Burglary mixes with murder and terrorism giving the plot of very modern flavour.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read
4.6, BRUNO, CHIEF OF POLICE 
4.6, THE DARK VINEYARD
4.6, THE CROWDED GRAVE
BRUNO and LE PERE NOEL: a Christmas Short Story
4.5, THE DEVIL'S CAV

Series

Bruno, Chief of Police Investigation
1. Bruno, Chief of Police (2008)
     aka Death in the Dordogne
2. The Dark Vineyard (2009)
3. Black Diamond (2010)
4. The Crowded Grave (2011)
5. The Devil's Cave (2012)
5.5. Bruno and the Carol Singers (2012)
     aka Bruno and le Pere Noel
6. The Resistance Man (2013)
7. Children of War (2014)
     aka The Children Return
7.5. A Market Tale (2014)
8. The Dying Season (2015)
     aka The Patriarch
9. Fatal Pursuit (2016)
10. Templars' Last Secret (2017)
11. A Taste for Vengeance (2018)

Biography

Former foreign correspondent in USSR, USA, Europe and Africa for the Guardian (UK), author of histories of the Cold War and 20th century USA, and of studies of Gorbachev, Clinton, the extreme right etc.
Now I write mystery stories set in the Perigord region of rural France, home of truffles, foie gras, great cheeses and wonderful wines.
In 2013, I was made a chevalier of foie gras, in the confrerie of pate de Perigueux, and also an honorary Ambassador of the Perigord, which means I get to accompany the traveling exhibition of the Lascaux cave as it goes on display at museums around the world. I also help promote the wines of Bergerac at international wine fairs, and was chairman of the jury for this year's Prix Ragueneau, the international culinary prize,
The hero of my mystery stories is Bruno, a French country policeman and former soldier who was wounded while serving it UN peacekeepers during the siege of Sarajevo. Bruno hunts, cooks, tries never to arrest anyone and, hates to carry his gun (but sometimes must. He loves his basset hound, his horse and a complicated array of firmly independent women.
The Perigord also contains more medieval castles per square kilometre than anywhere else on earth and is home to the prehistoric paintings of the Lascaux cave. Most of what we know of prehistory comes from this valley of the river Vezere, where humans have lived continuously for some 70,000 years or more. Devoted to the area and his adopted home of the small town of St Denis, Bruno instinctively understands why our ancestors chose this spot

Review: YOU WILL KNOW ME, Megan Abbott

• first published 2016 by Picador
• ISBN 978-1-4472-2636-2
• 344 pages
• source: my local library
• Author website
• A finalist for International Thriller Writers Best Novel of 2017 

Synopsis  (author website)

Katie and Eric Knox have dedicated their lives to their fifteen-year-old daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful. But when a violent death rocks their close-knit gym community just weeks before an all-important competition, everything the Knoxes have worked so hard for feels suddenly at risk. As rumors swirl among the other parents, revealing hidden plots and allegiances, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself drawn, irresistibly, to the crime itself, and the dark corners it threatens to illuminate.

You Will Know Me is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of desire, jealousy, and ambition.

My Take

YOU WILL KNOW ME takes to reader into a world that few of us know much about - that of competitive gymnastics.This is a world of sacrifices, where the family's whole life is dedicated to one goal, and even Katie and Eric's son Drew is affected by the need to give everything to Devon. It strikes you that this is what must happen in the lives of so many elite sporting hopefuls.

But then an apparent hit and run results in the death of a popular member of the gymnastic community and most are only too willing to blame someone who has been in trouble before. All important gymnastic trials are only a few weeks off and nothing must be allowed to disrupt final preparations.

The novel asks some serious questions about the nature of sacrifice and explores the social and psychological pressures behind what is, after all, a sport. What lengths will parents go to to achieve their daughter's potential, but what is actually their own ambition?

A very good read.

My Rating: 4.7

I've also read
DIE A LITTLE
4.7, BURY ME DEEP
4.5, THE END OF EVERYTHING

Review: PAST CRIMES, Glen Erik Hamilton

• this edition published by Harper Collins Publishers 2015
• ISBN 976-0-06-234455-7
• 324 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

The Anthony, Macavity, and Strand Critics award-winning debut from Glen Erik Hamilton

When his estranged grandfather is shot and left for dead, an Army Ranger must plunge into the criminal underworld of his youth to find a murderer and uncover a shocking family secret in this atmospheric and evocative debut thriller.

Van Shaw was raised to be a thief, but at eighteen he suddenly broke all ties to that life and joined the military—abandoning his illicit past and the career-criminal grandfather who taught him the trade. Now, after ten years of silence, his grandfather has asked him to come home to Seattle. But when Van arrives, he discovers his grandfather bleeding out on the floor from a gunshot to the head. With a lifetime of tough history between him and the old man, Van knows he’s sure to be the main suspect.

The only way he can clear his name is to go back to the world he’d sworn to leave behind. Tapping into his criminal skills, he begins to hunt the shooter and uncover what drove his grandfather to reach out after so long. But in a violent, high-stakes world where right and wrong aren’t defined by the law, Van finds that the past is all too present . . . and that the secrets held by those closest to him are the deadliest of all.

Edgy and suspenseful, rich with emotional resonance, gritty action, and a deep-rooted sense of place, Past Crimes trumpets the arrival of a powerful talent in the mold of Dennis Lehane, Robert B. Parker, and John D. MacDonald

My Take

For ten years Van Shaw's grandfather had not attempted to contact him, but now the message in Gaelic is not just a request, almost a command, and Van knows that his grandfather would not be asking if he didn't need him urgently.

He arrives at his grandfather's house to find Dono on the floor bleeding from a gunshot to the head. Some one flees the house just as he comes in. He has ten days leave from the army, just ten days to find out who shot Dono and why Dono had asked him to come home.  A lot happens in the next ten days and all the action adds a sense of urgency to the novel, as his grandfather lingers in a coma in hospital.

Van finds that he still has some of the skills that his grandfather had taught him in his teens and the army has given him strength and resilience.

A good read that moves at a breathtaking pace. Apparently the first of a series featuring Van Shaw.

My rating: 4.4

About the author
A native of Seattle, Glen Erik Hamilton grew up aboard a sailboat, and spent his youth finding trouble around the marinas and commercial docks and islands of the Pacific Northwest. He now lives in Burbank, California, with his family, punctuated by frequent visits to his hometown to soak up the rain.

Van Shaw Mystery
1. Past Crimes (2015)
2. Hard Cold Winter (2016)
3. Every Day Above Ground (2017)

	Anthony Awards Best First Novel winner (2016)
	Barry Awards Best First Novel nominee (2016)
	Edgar Awards Best First Book nominee (2016)
	Macavity Awards Best First Book winner (2016)

Review: LOST IN NEW YORK, J.J. Henderson

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• Series: The Lucy Ripken Mysteries (#5)
• Paperback: 158 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (June 16, 2016)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1533615373
• ISBN-13: 978-1533615374
• source: review copy from the publisher

 Synopsis (Amazon)

No matter how many murders she solves, Lucy Ripken never can seem to crack the case of happily ever after. Her bank account is nearly empty, her on-again off-again DEA boyfriend is off-again, and her estranged alcoholic father and enabling mother seem to exist mostly to prey on her weary conscience. It’s enough to make her feel that even New York itself has turned on her, and she might not be wrong. There’s too much money, and too many things people will do for that money. Her friend Patricia is part of the problem; easily seduced by wealth and fame, she’s always with the wrong guy. But this time is different, this time she thinks she’s found the one, and in a way, she’s right: she found the one who killed her. Sure, the coroner’s report says “drug overdose,” but when Lucy reads it all she sees is “Killed by rich jerk. Go get him, Lucy.”

My Take

Lucy Ripken is a photographer in her mid 30s, living in a loft in New York on the corner of Broome St and Broadway with her dog Claud. When Patricia's phone call comes she is ready for some human contact. Patricia has met a wonderful man, a Gulf War Vet, a self-made millionaire. Patricia is one of New York's beautiful, chasing a glitzy New York life, millionaires in particular. From the moment Lucy meets Patricia's latest, she feels he is not to be trusted. He appears to know all the right people, but all Lucy's instincts are screaming danger. And then when Patricia is killed by a drug overdose, she is sure that he is behind it all.

From the beginning, I felt perhaps this was a "younger person's" book, well, younger than me anyway. But the depiction of New York nightlife was absorbing. Lucy is engaged by a magazine to take photographs of a new night club with Russian connections and overtones.  This assignment eventually helps her track down Patricia's killer.

I noted that this is the 5th in the Lucy Ripken series, so there was obviously some pre-history that would have added to my enjoyment of the book. Lucy's personal life is cleverly advanced by other events, and so her character is not quite the same at the end as it was when the story started.

Other books in the series appear to be
1. MURDER ON NAKED BEACH
2. MEXICAN BOOTY
3. THE X-DAMES
4. LUCY'S MONEY
6. SEX AND DEATH: THE MOVIE
7. UTAH

My Rating: 4.1

About the author
Along with the Lucy Ripken series of mysteries, author J.J. Henderson has written nearly a dozen books on architecture and interior design, and travel guides to the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Oaxaca and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, and Los Angeles. A native of southern California, Henderson lived in both New York City and Sayulita, Nayarit, Mexico before settling in Seattle, where he currently resides with his wife, photographer Donna Day, his daughter Jade, and Ziggy the Dog.

Review: THE GIRLS SHE LEFT BEHIND, Sarah Graves

• this edition published 2016, Bantam Books New York
• ISBN 978-0-553-39043-8
• 238 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

Sure to thrill readers of Jenny Milchman, Linda Castillo, and Lisa Gardner, The Girls She Left Behind marks the return of ex–Boston homicide detective Lizzie Snow, the new sheriff’s deputy in Maine’s Great North Woods.

For Lizzie Snow, the ice and snow of her first punishing North Woods winter are dreadful enough. But near the small town of Bearkill a stubborn forest fire now rages out of control, and as embers swirl dangerously in the smoke-filled air, a teenage girl with a history of running away has dropped out of sight again. The locals and the law both think Tara Wylie is up to her old tricks—until her mother receives a terrifying text message.

Equally disturbing: Henry Gemerle—a kidnapper and rapist who once held three girls prisoner for fifteen years—has escaped, and may be lurking in Bearkill. As the fire closes in, Lizzie teams up with her boss, Sheriff Cody Chevrier, and state cop Dylan Hudson to search for the missing girl and the wily fugitive. But they’re blocked by Tara’s mother, a frustrating teller of needless lies and keeper of dark, incomprehensible secrets.

Following a trail of grisly clues—a bloodstained motel room, a makeshift coffin in a shallow grave—Lizzie is drawn ever closer to the flames in her race to save an innocent and corner a monster. Someone else also wants to find Tara Wylie and Henry Gemerle, though, for reasons that have nothing to do with mercy or justice. And when they all meet, the inferno threatening Bearkill will pale in comparison to the hell that’s about to break loose.

My Take

Lizzie Snow has recently moved from Boston to the rural area of Bearkill and she is not sure that she is going to stay. She seems to be having difficulty in settling in.

The novel begins with a Prologue that describes how two girls are abducted after a local dance. One of the girls, Jane, eventually escapes, believing her friend Cam is dead. And then she does her very best to forget everything. The main action of the novel takes place 15 years later when three women  who have been imprisoned by her abductor are released from a cellar. On television footage Jane recognises Cam among those released.

Meanwhile Lizzie Snow is investigating the disappearance of 14 year old Tara Wylie. Her mother says she has gone off like this before, but there are aspects that are making her think that Tara has come to harm.

This main story is told by several narrators with sometimes only bare clues about who is talking. It also often involves several time frames and more than once I was confused about the sequence of events. For the reader there are mysteries to be solved and in the background is the threat of summer wild fires.

My rating: 4.3

About the author
Sarah Graves lives with her husband in Eastport, Maine, one remote rural road away from the Allagash wilderness territory and the Great North Woods. She is the bestselling author of the Home Repair Is Homicide series, as well as two novels featuring Lizzie Snow.

Review: TROUBLE IN ROOSTER PARADISE, T.W. Emory

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 2131 KB
• Print Length: 256 pages
• Publisher: Coffeetown Press (June 18, 2015)
• Publication Date: June 18, 2015
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0100Q4ZUO
• Source: Review copy provided by the publisher

Synopsis (Amazon)

Recuperating from an injury and prompted by an eager young nurse, old-timer Gunnar Nilson looks back at one of his big cases as a private eye in 1950.

At that time memories of World War II were still fresh, and Seattle was a cultural backwater. The Ballard neighborhood where he hung out his shingle teemed with working-class folk of Scandinavian descent. Gals with hourglass figures and gimlet eyes enticed men in gray flannel suits with cigarettes dangling from their lips.

The case he recounts involves the murder of one of these beauties. Gunnar’s business card is in her pocket, but she’s no client. She’s just a gal he met at the movies; he gave her a ride home and helped her lose the creep who was tailing her. It’s none of Gunnar’s business who killed her, not until he discovers she dated the godson of a wealthy client, a man who’s willing to pay big bucks for Gunnar to nose around. Nose around he does, in the perfumed rooms of Fasciné Expressions, a “rooster paradise” that employed the murdered girl and is frequented by the godson. Schooled to be class acts by a former showgirl, these fine-feathered hens know how to inspire a man to spend big on gifts for his lady. Gunnar believes the victim was killed by one of her customers, but the heady fragrance of perfumed female can make it awfully tough for a guy to think clearly, especially when the killer is also breathing down his neck.

My Take

After a fall from his roof, breaking his leg, Gunnar Nilson (who must be at least in his late 70s) is spending some time in an assisted living home in Everett, Washington. The date is Monday June 2 2003. He aqppears to have been in the home for a week or two.

His new caregiver is young Kirsti Liddell, working at the home for the summer. Kirsti finds out that Gunnar was once a private investigator in Seattle. She persuades him to spend time with her when she is off duty telling her about one of his cases. She proposes to make a written record of her interviews which she can submit for an extra credit paper in her college course.

Gunnar chooses an investigation into a murder that began over 50 years earlier, June 7, 1950.

This provides an interesting plot construct. Kirsti records Gunnar's story on a tape recorder so that she can transcribe it. Their interviews take place over a number of sessions.

Seattle has changed a lot in 50 years, and of course in 1950 the second World War is only just over, so Gunnar is able to talk about how the war affected various people, and what life was like then. The novel is filled with interesting characters particularly those who live in the boarding house where Gunnar resides.

This is a debut title. 

My Rating 4.2

About the author
T.W. Emory was born in Seattle, and is of Swedish-Norwegian heritage, which helps explain the little bit of Scandinavian flavoring to his post WWII Seattle-based detective novel, “Trouble in Rooster Paradise.” He lives and experiences his workaday world north of Seattle. He is an avid reader, and in addition to writing mystery fiction in his off-hours, he also cartoons as a hobby.
For more information, go to twemoryauthor.com. 

Review: GIRL MISSING, Tess Gerritsen

• format e-pub
  
• source: my local library
• this edition published 3 Dec 2009
• aka PEGGY SUE GOT MURDERED published 1994

Synopsis (Amazon)

THE FIRST BODY IS A MYSTERY.
She's young. She's beautiful. And her corpse, laid out in the office of Boston medical examiner Kat Novak, betrays no secrets - except for a matchbook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside.

THE NEXT BODY IS A WARNING.
When a second victim is discovered, Kat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the streets. The police are sceptical. The mayor won't listen. And Kat's chief suspect is one of the town's most prominent citizens.

THE FINAL BODY . . . MIGHT BE HERS.
With the death toll rising, Kat races to expose a deadly predator who is closer than she ever dreamt. And every move she makes could be her very last.

My take

This is quite a page turner. I was surprised (later) to find that it is a reprint of a much earlier novel.
It appears to be a stand-alone, with a likeable Boston medical examiner as the central character.

The bodies of young girls begin to turn up, apparently dead from a drug overdose. The bodies are found in the slum streets of one of the poorer Boston suburbs where the ME herself grew up, so she feels an affinity with them. However the drug they are dying from is still in the trial stage and not yet released for human usage. Kat Novak wants the police department to put out an alert, warning drug users that there is something lethal being sold but she meets all sorts of opposition. The town is on the brink of its bicentennial and the mayor does not want anything to rock the boat.

Meanwhile she meets a man who is looking for his daughter.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read
THE SURGEON
4.8, ICE COLD

Review: THE LAST ACT OF HATTIE HOFFMAN

• this edition published by Quercus UK January 2017
  published in the USA as EVERYTHING YOU WANT ME TO BE
• 337 pages
• ISBN 9-781784-295936

Synopsis (Quercus)

No one keeps more secrets. No one is better at hiding them.

Haunting, evocative and beautifully written, THE LAST ACT OF HATTIE HOFFMAN will grab you and not let you go until the last page. Full of twists and turns, with an ending you will never see coming and characters that will stay with you long after the book is finished, THE LAST ACT OF HATTIE HOFFMAN is a gripping psychological mystery perfect for fans of Emma Cline's THE GIRLS and Clare Mackintosh's I SEE YOU.

Eighteen-year-old Hattie Hoffman is a talented actress, loved by everyone in her Minnesotan hometown. When she's found stabbed to death on the opening night of her school play, the tragedy rips through the fabric of the community.

Sheriff Del Goodman, a close friend of Hattie's dad, vows to find her killer, but the investigation yields more secrets than answers: it turns out Hattie played as many parts offstage as on. Told from three perspectives, Del's, Hattie's high school English teacher and Hattie herself, The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman tells the story of the Hattie behind the masks, and what happened in that final year of her life. . .

Wonderfully evocative of its Midwestern setting and with a cast of unforgettable characters, this is a book about manipulation of relationships and identity; about the line between innocence and culpability; about the hope love offers and the tragedies that occur when it spins out of control.

My Take

Each chapter has a heading like this: HATTIE / Saturday, March 22, 2008.
The first part of the heading tells the reader who is telling this part of the story, and the second, of course, is the date of their telling. Quite often I ignore chapter headings but in this case they are the clue not only to the timeline of the story, but also to who is speaking. Part of the reader's job is to get the timeline in order.

We see the action and events from three points of view, and of course the character who is speaking doesn't always know what the other characters know. This lets the reader fill in the gaps and accumulate what looks like a complete picture.

Hattie Hoffman has always envisaged that she will escape the claustrophobia of her home town . She wants to become an actress and go to New York. In a sense she has always been an actress: she herself recognises that she is always playing a part, changing like a chameleon according what her audience, her friends, her parents, want or expect to see.

So this is the story of Hattie's coming of age, but even as Hattie falls in love, she is playing a part, and tries to manipulate those around her, seriously underestimating the impact she is having on those around her. Her own expectations are a combination of immaturity and her growing sexuality. Hattie has a lot of secrets, and those closest to her are amazed at what comes out when Sheriff Del Goodman investigates the circumstances surrounding her death.

And just when I thought the plot was sorted, there was a very peculiar twist.

My rating: 4.5

About the author

Mindy Mejia was born and raised in Minnesota, and has held a succession of jobs, from apple orchard labourer to global credit manager. THE LAST ACT OF HATTIE HOFFMAN is her first novel to be published in the UK. Find out more at www.mindymejia.com