Crime Fiction Alphabet: P is for Louise Penny

Continuing with my decision to feature books I've read this year, then my choice for the letter P is A TRICK OF THE LIGHT which I gave 5.0 to.

Well, actually my choice is Louise Penny, who has just published another in this fabulous Three Pines series.

Synopsis  of THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY from Amazon.

No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as “the beautiful mystery.”

But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery’s massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. One of the brothers, in this life of  prayer and contemplation, has been contemplating murder.

As the peace of the monastery crumbles, Gamache is forced to confront some of his own demons, as well as those roaming the remote corridors. Before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between.

I have a copy on my Kindle to savour some time.

There are now 8 titles in the Three Pines series and you'd be well advised to read them in order.

However you can click on the cover for THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY to be transported to Amazon to read the Prologue and the first couple of chapters.
Check them all at Louise Penny's website.

See what others have featured for the letter P in the Crime Fiction Alphabet.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: the letter P

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

This meme was run first on this blog in 2009-2010 and was re-run in 2011.

Many thanks to those who have participated so far this year. 

We have an average of about 14 participants a week.

Our journey so far
A   B    C    D    E    F   G  H  I   J   K  L  M  N O

Today we have the letter P

Here are the rules

By Friday of each week participants try to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname, or even maybe a crime fiction "topic". But above all, it has to be crime fiction.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)
You probably won't have to do a lot of extra reading in order to participate, but I warn you that your TBR  may grow as a result of the suggestions other participants make.
Feel free to use either of the images provided in your blog.

Your assistance in advertising this community meme, and pointing people to this page, would be very much appreciated.

By the end of this week  post your blog post title and URL in the Mr Linky below.
Please place a link in your blog post back to this page.
Visit other blogs and leave comments.

Check the Crime Fiction Alphabet page for summaries of previous years.

Thanks for participating.

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Review: THE BLACK PATH, Asa Larsson

• first published in Swedish in 2006
• First published in English 2012 by Maclehose Press
• ISBN 978-0-85705-032-4
• translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy
• #3 in the Rebekah Martinsson series
• 395 pages
• source: review copy supplied by Pan Macmillan Australia

Publisher's blurb

A woman’s body is found on a frozen lake, bearing the marks of grisly torture.
Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help with the case – the woman was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe.

Lawyer Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her both physically and emotionally.

Soon she is delving into the affairs of the victim’s boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with the dead woman was complex and obsessive.
Martinsson and Mella are about to uncover a dark and tangled drama of family secrets, twisted sexuality, and corruption on a massive scale.

My Take

There were a number of reasons why this book took me longer than usual to read. Apart from the fact that it is quite long, it also has quite a panoply of characters, and a multiplicity of small intermeshing plots. And characters and scenes are richly described, with details that had me re-reading paragraphs in the hope that I wouldn't forget too much.

There's a reminder at the beginning of the book about what had happened to Rebekah Martinsson at the end of the previous one in the series (#2), and I needed that, as I hadn't read the book. In fact I've read #3 and #4 out of order, which is not to be recommended. During this book however we also learn quite a bit more about Rebekah's childhood and the demons she is currently facing.

There's a global aspect to THE BLACK PATH as Kallis Mining attempts to manipulate the politics in African countries for their own benefit. I thought the scenarios showed Asa Larsson's understanding of and interest in the political and economic forces behind globalisation.

My rating: 4.5

Other Reviews to check

• The Australian Bookshelf
• Reactions to Reading
• EuroCrime (Maxine)

The series (courtesy EuroCrime)
Rebecka Martinsson, Lawyer, Sweden

• Sun Storm (apa The Savage Altar)	2006	1
• The Blood Spilt	2007	2
• The Black Path	2008	3
• Until Thy Wrath be Past	2011	4

Other reviews on MiP
THE SAVAGE ALTAR
4.7, UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST

Review: THE CORONER, M.R. Hall - audio

• Unabridged
• first published in 2009, #1 of the Jenny Cooper series
• narrated by Sian Thomas 
• length: 12 hours 29 mins
• Publisher: BBC Audiobooks 2010 
• Source: my local library

 Publisher's blurb

When lawyer Jenny Cooper is appointed Severn Vale District Coroner, she’s hoping for a quiet life and space to recover from a traumatic divorce.

But the office she inherits from the recently deceased Harry Marshall contains neglected files hiding dark secrets and a trail of buried evidence.

Could the tragic death in custody of a young boy be linked to the apparent suicide of a teenage prostitute and the fate of Marshall himself? Jenny’s curiosity is aroused. Why was Marshall behaving so strangely before he died? What injustice was he planning to uncover? And what caused his abrupt change of heart?

In the face of powerful and sinister forces determined to keep both the truth hidden and the troublesome coroner in check, Jenny embarks on a lonely and dangerous one-woman crusade for justice which threatens not only her career but also her sanity.

My Take

In this cleverly written start to the Jenny Cooper series (where there are now 4 titles), Jenny is battling her own demons that threaten to bring her to the point where she is unable to do her job.  Investigating the deaths of two young people who were drug-dependent, Jenny has to face the irony of being highly dependent on drugs herself to control her panic attacks and to keep her on an even keel.

The book also establishes Jenny's background as a divorcee with a teenage son living with his father and an ex-husband who appears to be just waiting for her to trip up. And then there is the Coroner's Assistant Alison who was in love with Jenny's predecessor Harry Marshall and doesn't want to entertain any thoughts that he might not have been doing his job as coroner properly.

This was a change from the usual police procedural, seeing events from the coroner's point of view, and I remember that this was a book that everybody was talking about 3 years ago. It is certainly a book I have been meaning to read for some time, and it didn't disappoint. I'm pretty sure I have another title in TBR.

My rating: 4.5

THE CORONER was nominated for the Crime Writer's Association Gold Dagger in the best novel category in 2009.

Other titles to look for
2. The Disappeared (2009)
3. The Redeemed (2011)
4. The Flight (2012)

In Action: Thrill Week September 1-8

As I indicated in an earlier post, this week is Thrill Week which Marce, one of my blogging friends, is hosting for the second year running, for Bloggers and Authors who love to read and write Thrillers, Mystery, Suspense and/or Horrors.
The goal is to find new blogs and bloggers with similar interest in those genres and of course add to our huge TBR and Wishlists.
Click on either of the images to be transported to Marce's blog and find out what other's are contributing.

Below are the answers to some of Marce's Thrill Week Questionnaire.
I am not a good responder though...

Introduce yourself
If you are new to my blog, I am that sad species - a crime fiction addict - and I live in Australia.
I have been reading crime fiction almost exclusively for several decades now.
Every year I try different reading challenges to make my reading branch out a little.

What have been your top 3 reads this year?  Link your reviews
If you cast you eye across the top of the page you'll see links to a heap of pages.
2012 Reviews shows what I've read this year in the order of the rating I've given them.
The top rated books have been

1. 5.0, GONE, Mo Hayder
2. 5.0,  A TRICK OF THE LIGHT, Louise Penny
3. 5.0, THE QUARRY, Johan Theorin
4. 5.0, THE BROTHERHOOD, Y.A. Erskine
5. 5.0, A FEW RIGHT THINKING MEN, Sulari Gentill
6. 5.0, THE CALLER, Karin Fossum
7. 5.0, DEATH OF THE MANTIS, Michael Stanley 
8. 5.0, COP TO CORPSE, Peter Lovesey

4 and 5 are Australian authors if you are looking for some.

What are you currently reading during Thrill Week?
Today I hope to finish THE BLACK PATH by Asa Larsson that seems to have taken me forever to read, although it is a very good read. Just long.
Here are my other plans

• then - BLACKOUT, John Lawton
• THE OTHER CHILD, Charlotte Link
• next on Kindle - TRUE MURDER, Yaba Badoe
• Australian - A DECLINE IN PROPHETS, Sulari Gentill
• Australian - MILES OFF COURSE, Sulari Gentill
• COLD GRAVE - Kathryn Fox
• on audio - THE CORONER, M.R.Hall
• also on audio - LONG TIME COMING, Robert Goddard
• next Agatha Christie: THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS (aka MURDER WITH MIRRORS)

What debut author(s) or new to you author(s) have you read within the last 12 months that have impressed you?
I try to read lots of new authors each year and actually keep a list of them in my records.
So far this year I've read 34. Last year I read 60

What popular author(s) have you NOT read but is on your Wishlist?
I think you are talking about my TBR here - a bookshelf full of new books (200+) to be tackled sometime...

Other than blogs, share with us what other tools you use or subscribe to in order to keep up with the latest news on authors, new releases, book tours, etc? 
I do run some weekly Google Alerts but I belong to various mailing lists.

What is most important in these genres to you?  Plot, characters, location, dialogue, red herrings, narrator or what mix of them?
Hard to choose really. Interesting plot is essential but the characters have to be well drawn too.
I get impatient with really long books or ones that take me more than 3 or 4 days to read.

If you'd like to be in a draw for a book of your choice via Amazon or similar, leave a nice comment about a feature of my blog that you like, plus your email address so that I can contact you if you win. 

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month August 2012 - a meme

Crime Fiction 2012

Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for August 2012, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post, even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.

That will be what you will list in Mr Linky too -
e.g.
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - MiP (or Kerrie)

You are welcome to use the image on your post and it would be great if you could link your post back to this post on MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

Check out Pick of the Month contributions for previous months in 2012:
January   February   March   April   May  June  July 

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Forgotten Book: A GREAT DELIVERANCE, Elizabeth George

For many of my contributions this year to Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books I am focussing on the books I read 20 years ago in 1992. By then my reading diet was almost exclusively crime fiction.

So my recent posts for this meme have largely been about authors that I "discovered" in that year.

A GREAT DELIVERANCE, published in 1988, is the first in Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series.

From the author's website

A baby's cry echoes on lonely nights through Keldale Valley in Yorkshire. Three hundred years ago, when Cromwell's raiders swept through a village in this valley, not a living creature was to be found on its fog-shrouded streets. The entire population had taken refuge in Keldale Abbey. But then, as the legend goes, an infant began to cry-and the villages knew they had escaped Cromwell's ravages only to be betrayed by a babe. So they smothered the child to silence it.

To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys.

Now, into this pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes New Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley. Accompanied by Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a particularly savage murder which has stunned the peaceful countryside.

Fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found, clad in her best silk dress, seated in the great stone barn beside her father's decapitated corpse. Her first and only words were: "I did it. I'm not sorry." She has refused to speak since. The priest who found young Roberta insists the girl is innocent. The villagers, who have known the girl all of her life, concur. The local police, however, maintain that she's guilty of the brutal slaying of one of the region's most respected citizens.

As Lynley and Havers wind their way through Keldale's dark labyrinth of scandals, they uncover a series of revelations that will reverberate through this tranquil English valley-and in their own lives as well.

In A Great Deliverance Elizabeth George probes the delicate motivations of the heart against a backdrop of buried scandals, unresolved antagonisms and dizzying ambiguities. It was her debut novel, the winner of the Agatha and Anthony Awards for best first novel as well as France's Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere. It was nominated for both a Macavity and an Edgar. It has been optioned for television by the BBC.

There's another fascinating reference to it at Mystery Page Turners.

I have enjoyed the series, particularly the mixture of historical threads with current themes, but also the character development that has threaded the books together.

My review of the most recent in the series, #17, BELIEVING THE LIE.