Monday, April 30, 2018

The Case of the Unsuitable Suitor by Cathy Ace: Reading Room Review


Author Cathy Ace is single-handedly responsible for me falling in love with Wales. The WISE Enquiries Agency series and Cathy's postings about her native Wales on FaceBook have put this charmingly quirky place on my must-visit list. Four women, plus an increasingly helpful Dowager Duchess, all bring different skills from different backgrounds to the small agency that usually surpasses the abilities of the local constabulary in the Welsh village of Anwen-by-Wye. Mavis, who is the call-to-order leader of the group, often has to keep things smoothed over with the police, and assure them the WISE Women aren't exceeding their authority. Of course, they are.

In this fourth book in the series, Chellingworth, home to Henry, Duke of Twyst and his wife Stephanie, now Duchess, is the site of the upcoming annual croquet tournament. There are a myriad of problems with which the anxious Henry must deal, and the WISE women, who have their business on the grounds of the estate, become involved, with Althea, the Dowager Duchess, urging them on. Moles have burrowed their way onto the grounds, and although that's not a problem the WISE agency can fix, there is another pest, or so thinks the local pub manager Tudor Evans, that seems to be of considerable concern. Huw Hughes is a local who has lived away from the village for many years and has returned to retire there, after a successful business career and three dead wives. Tudor's main worry is that Huw seems to be courting Annie, and the history of the three dead wives doesn't sit well. Of course, Tudor's interest in Annie is personal, as most everyone but Annie knows. Tudor asks Annie's fellow enquirers to check up on the charming new guy in town, and Carol's expert research reveals some questionable facts about Huw. When vandalism is found on one of the estate's out buildings, with an ominous message, and there's an occurrence of meddling at the croquet practice reception, The WISE Agency begins a more thorough investigation of all people attending, including Huw. Before any firm answers are discovered, a murder occurs, and there's no time to lose to prevent another.

There is another story going on while the WISE Agency searches for a devious murderer. Christine, another member of the agency, is on vacation with her boyfriend at her family's Irish estate, but it turns out to be anything but relaxing. She discovers something illegal going on at her family home, which leads to a slippery man called Gadfly and a ring of dangerous activity. This story interested me, as it shows Christine being a force with which to be reckoned and not just a pretty face with great contacts.

And, as with each book in this series, threaded among the murder and thugs and racing against the next disaster is the witty dialogue and humor that makes reading these books so much fun. Of course, the amusing titles are a dead (pardon my pun) giveaway to the fun within, and the covers are some of my favorites.

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Free Form Reviewing or Reviewing with a Broken Hand

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.  I've had some great reading in April, a wonderful trip back to my hometown, and a not so great or wonderful broken hand.  The blog was interrupted for my trip, which was of major importance to me personally, and then the broken hand is making typing rather challenging.  I usually do rather lengthy reviews, but I've come up with a compromise that will allow me to share some of what I've been reading and accommodate  my limited typing abilities.  I'm going to use something akin to free verse poetry, in that I will do thoughts without structure.  So, here goes, some free form reviews.


Lord and Lady Hetheridge living in temporary new highrise digs--Lord Hetheridge, Tony, retired and starting his own detective agency--Lady Hetheridge, Kate, still on the "posh" squad at Scotland Yard with Detective Sergeant Paul Bhar, who is unlucky in love once again--Kate's dysfunctional family continues to present challenges to her and Tony's life--Tony takes on a case to find the missing twin of a suicide victim and discovers the twins' connection to Sir Duncan Godington, acquitted murderer and dangerous nemesis of Tony and Kate--Kate's and Paul's case of a murdered politician brings them in the same orbit as Tony's search--witty dialogue between Kate and Tony always a treat--characters never cease to engage and evolve--the storyline is filled with action and has a dizzying ending with gasping moments of alarm--looking forward to #6.





Scot Free is the first in Catriona McPherson's new Last Ditch Mysteries (because writing two to three books a year isn't enough for this Scottish madcap author)--marriage and moving from Scotland to America isn't what Lexy Campbell had hoped it would be, major understatement--finding herself stuck in California, divorced and using her ex-husband's credit card without his knowledge to stay afloat in a run-down hotel and her marriage consulting practice with a dead client doesn't defeat Lexy--this is, as the cover of the book says, "the lighter side of the dark underbelly of the California dream--Mrs. Bombarro, the other half of Lexy's couple who has the dead person, is suspected by the police of killing her husband and is the reason Lexy missed her flight and is still in California--Lexy is determined to prove Mrs. Bombarro innocent--needing a cheap place to stay, Lexy moves into the Last Ditch Motel and finds you really can find friends in low places--the cast of characters is one of the most entertaining a reader could wish for--laugh out loud is not an overused phrase for this book, it is what you will do from the first page to the last--I am entirely smitten by this new series.



Simone St. James has given us some great novels with a touch of the ghost, and The Broken Girls may be the most deliciously creepy yet--story is set in two different time periods, 1950 and 2014 in a small town in Vermont--Idlewild Hall, a girls' boarding school in the 50s sits empty and decaying in 2014, but it figures prominently in both time periods--resident ghost Mary Hand has been a feared presence on the school grounds since its beginning--four girls become close friends and allies in the school for wayward/unwanted girls in 1950, but one of them will go missing on a cold December evening--Fiona Sheridan, a freelance journalist in 2014 can't let go of her sister Deborah's murder twenty years ago and the field at Idlewild where her sister's body was found haunts Fiona--after thirty years of lying in disuse, Idlewild Hall is bought by a new investor who has plans to reopen the school, and Fiona feels drawn to cover the story of its restoration--Fiona still has questions about her sister's death and covering the story gives her access to the grounds--complicating the plot further is Fiona's boyfriend is a local policeman and his father, police chief at the time, investigated Deborah's death--a discovery on Idlewild's property during renovations will be the impetus to change everything--great melding of different timelines and connecting the dots--a mystery and and a thriller and a book to keep you up and keep you reading to the haunted end.

Sunday, April 1, 2018

April Books for your TBR List

As the year began, so it continues with great new titles to look forward to this month.  I'm beginning to think that the only way I'll ever catch up is for there to be a month of no new books, but no one wants that.  Jumping into spring, we will have some great titles to sit out in the fresh air with and read to our heart's content.  So, find your favorite spot--a porch, a park bench, a bleacher at the game--and start reading.

                                                                                                                                                                          
Jacket Description: 
FOR SCOTTISH-BORN MARRIAGE COUNSELOR LEXY CAMPBELL, THE AMERICAN DREAM BECOMES A CALIFORNIA NIGHTMARE

Lexy Campbell fell in love and left her native Scotland for a golden life in California―hitched to a hunk, building her marriage counseling practice, living the dream. Six months later she's divorced, broke, and headed home. There's just one last thing. Lexy's only client―sweet little old Mrs. Bombarro―is in jail for murdering her husband with a fireworks rocket.

Lexy knows the cops have got it wrong; all she needs is a few days to prove it and somewhere cheap to sleep at night. But checking into the Last Ditch Motel brings an unexpected slice of life and a whole world of trouble.



Jacket Description:
A delightful new mystery featuring bookseller and amateur sleuth Delaney Nichols, set in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Delaney Nichols, originally of Kansas but settling happily into her new life as a bookseller in Edinburgh, works at the Cracked Spine in the heart of town. The shop is a place filled with curiosities and surprises tucked into every shelf, and it’s Delaney’s job to research the rare tomes and obscure artifacts that people come to buy and sell. When her new friends, also students at the medical school, come to the shop to sell a collection of antique medical books, Delaney knows she’s stumbled across a rare and important find indeed. Her boss, Edwin MacAlister, agrees to buy the multivolume set, perhaps even to keep for his own collection.

But not long after the sale, one of Delaney’s new friends is found murdered in the alley behind the Cracked Spine, and she wonders if there is some nefarious connection between the origin of these books and the people whose hands they fell into. Delaney takes it upon herself to help bring the murderer to justice. During her investigation, Delaney she finds some old scalpels in the bookshop’s warehouse―she and discovers that they belonged to a long-dead doctor whose story and ties to the past crimes of Burke and Hare might be connected to the present-day murder. It’s all Delaney can do to race to solve this crime before time runs out and she ends up in a victim on the slab herself.


Jacket Description: 
Olivia Kiernan's tautly written debut novel immerses readers in a chilling murder case . . . and the tantalizing, enigmatic victim at the center of it all.

In a quiet Dublin suburb, within her pristine home, Eleanor Costello is found hanging from a rope.

Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan would be more than happy to declare it a suicide. Four months ago, Frankie's pursuit of a killer almost ended her life and she isn't keen on investigating another homicide. But the autopsy reveals poorly healed bones and old stab wounds, absent from medical records. A new cut is carefully, deliberately covered in paint. Eleanor's husband, Peter, is unreachable, missing. A search of the couple's home reveals only two signs of personality: a much-loved book on art and a laptop with access to the Dark Web.

With the suspect pool growing, the carefully crafted profile of the victim crumbling with each new lead, and mysterious calls to Frankie's phone implying that the killer is closer than anyone would like, all Frankie knows is that Eleanor guarded her secrets as closely in life as she does in death.

As the investigation grows more challenging, Frankie can't help but feel that something doesn't fit. And when another woman is found murdered, the same paint on her corpse, Frankie knows that unraveling Eleanor's life is the only way to find the murderer before he claims another victim . . . or finishes the fate Frankie only just managed to escape.



 
Jacket Description:
From the acclaimed author of Her Every Fear and The Kind Worth Killing comes a diabolically clever tale of obsession, revenge, and cold-blooded murder—a sly and brilliant guessing game of a novel in the vein of Ruth Ware, Paula Hawkins, and Patricia Highsmith.

Harry Ackerson has always considered his stepmother Alice to be sexy and beautiful, in an "otherworldly" way. She has always been kind and attentive, if a little aloof in the last few years.

Days before his college graduation, Alice calls with shocking news. His father is dead and the police think it’s suicide. Devastated, Harry returns to his father’s home in Maine. There, he and Alice will help each other pick up of the pieces of their lives and uncover what happened to his father.

Shortly after he arrives, Harry meets a mysterious young woman named Grace McGowan. Though she claims to be new to the area, Harry begins to suspect that Grace may not be a complete stranger to his family. But she isn’t the only attractive woman taking an interest in Harry. The sensual Alice is also growing closer, coming on to him in an enticing, clearly sexual way.

Mesmerized by these two women, Harry finds himself falling deeper under their spell. Yet the closer he gets to them, the more isolated he feels, disoriented by a growing fear that both women are hiding dangerous—even deadly—secrets . . . and that neither one is telling the truth. 



Jacket Description:
For the Fairy Tale Cupcake crew, wedding bells turn to death knells in this latest mystery in the New York Times bestselling series.

With Angie and Tate's wedding just around the corner, it's a happy time for Melanie Cooper and the bakery crew. Not only are they finessing the last minute details of the big day, but their bakery, Fairy Tale Cupcakes, has just been hired to bake cupcakes for the blockbuster book signing of a controversial author who wrote a steamy bestseller filled with juicy local gossip.

But one by one, the people Angie has hired to work at the wedding begin turning up dead. As the body count rises, the bestselling author is the next to bite the dust. Mel quickly realizes she needs to figure out how the murders are connected and why--before the killer brings the entire cupcake crew crumbling down. After all, Angie and Tate deserve their sweet happily ever after.





UK Publication Date, April (U.S. is Oct.)
Jacket Description:

Sharon Bolton returns with her creepiest standalone yet, following a young cop trying to trace the disappearances of a small town's teenagers.

Florence Lovelady's career was made when she convicted coffin-maker Larry Grassbrook of a series of child murders 30 years ago in a small village in Lancashire. Like something out of a nightmare, the victims were buried alive Florence was able to solve the mystery and get a confession out of Larry before more children were murdered.

But now, decades later, he's dead, and events from the past start to 
repeat themselves. Is someone copying the original murders? Or did she get it wrong all those years ago? When her own son goes missing under similar circumstances, the case not only gets reopened... it gets personal.
In master of suspense Sharon Bolton's latest thriller, readers will find a page-turner to confirm their deepest fears and the only protagonist who can face them.




Jacket Description:
A suffragist is murdered in Rose Carroll's Massachusetts town

Excitement runs high during presidential election week in 1888. The Woman Suffrage Association plans a demonstration and movement leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes to town to rally the troops, one of whom is Quaker midwife Rose Carroll. But the next morning, Rose finds the dead body of the group's local organizer.

Rose can't help wanting to know who committed the murder, and she quickly discovers several people who have motives. The victim had planned to leave her controlling husband, and a promotion had cost her male colleague his job. She'd also recently spurned a fellow suffragist's affections. After Rose's own life is threatened, identifying the killer takes on a personal sense of urgency.



Jacket Description:
Agatha Award-winning author G. M. Malliet has charmed mystery lovers and cozy fans with her critically acclaimed mysteries. In Prior's Wood, featuring handsome spy-turned-cleric Max Tudor, won’t disappoint.

Newly returned from investigating a murder in Monkslip-super-Mare, handsome Max Tudor wants nothing more than to settle back into his predictable routine as vicar of St. Edwold’s Church in the village of Nether Monkslip. But the flow of his sermon on Bathsheba is interrupted when the lady of the local manor house is found in a suicide pact with her young lover.

Lady Duxter’s husband rallies quickly from the double tragedy―too quickly, it is murmured in the village. Lord Duxter already has offered his manor house to a motley crew of writers, including Max’s wife Awena, for his writers’ retreat, and he insists the show must go on.

When a young girl goes missing and a crime writer becomes a target, DCI Cotton asks Max to lend his MI5 expertise to the investigation.

Many suspects emerge as the scope of the investigation widens beyond the writers to villagers who had crossed swords with the insufferably smug crime author. But Max begins to wonder: was the attack on the writer only part of a broader conspiracy of silence?



Jacket Description:
The twenty brand new crime stories in this book have been specially commissioned to celebrate the tenth anniversary of CrimeFest, described by the Guardian as "one of the 50 best festivals in the world." Contributors come from around the world and include the legendary Maj Sjöwall who, together with partner Per Wahlöö, was the originator of Nordic noir. The editors are Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller. Martin Edwards is responsible for many award-winning anthologies and Adrian Muller is one of the co-founders of CrimeFest.

Contributors to Ten Year Stretch are:

Bill Beverly, Simon Brett, Lee Child, Ann Cleeves, Jeffery Deaver, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Peter Guttridge, Sophie Hannah, John Harvey, Mick Herron, Donna Moore, Caro Ramsay, Ian Rankin, James Sallis, Zoë Sharp, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Maj Sjöwall, Michael Stanley and Andrew Taylor.