Winter's End (Alaska Wild #4) by Paige Shelton: Reading Room Review

 

The Alaska Wild series by Paige Shelton is not a survivalist series, and, yet it is. This mystery/crime series set in the isolated small town of Benedict, Alaska presents a challenge where every person who lives there must respect the weather and the terrain to survive. It’s not a place for the faint of heart. It’s smart living, without smart devices. Cell phone reception is spotty and there are only a few landlines in the town. It’s a good place to get lost, or rather not be found. Beth Rivers has been counting on the isolation of Benedict to protect her from a man who kidnapped, tortured, and intended to kill her back in her home state of Missouri. That man, Travis Walker, is still on the loose and eluding the authorities. Beth has gone from her persona as best-selling mystery writer Elizabeth Fairchild to just plain Beth Rivers, another seeker of anonymity in the wilds of Alaska. Only a few people in Benedict know of her background, with just as few outside of Benedict knowing her where-abouts. In Winter’s End, Beth is seeing shadows of a man whom she fears may be her worst nightmare come to claim her.

Beth has made it through her first winter in Benedict, and it’s now springtime, the time residents do the “Death Walk” to determine who has and hasn’t been smart and lucky enough to have another winter under their belt. Although it sounds like a morbid event, it’s a time for the community to gather and see one another, after a long time of being confined to their homes. Most see it as a celebratory time. Even people who are reclusive, deliberately living away from everyone else, come to check in. Two such reclusive families are the Oliphants and the Millers, families who live in the same area of outlying wilderness and who have feuded for years. Beth knows one of the Millers, Kaye, as Beth had given Kaye one of her friend Elijah’s sled dogs when he suddenly left Benedict months before. Beth had been on a walk with Kaye and their dogs just the previous day.

On “Death Walk Day,” the residents of the town and the area arrive in Benedict and check their names off a printed list. When it appears all residents who are going to show up have, the list is perused for names left unchecked, and those people’s homes, either in town or out in the country, are visited by groups to determine their well-being. The first person found missing was 94-year-old Al, who lived by himself in an isolated cabin. Beth and Orin, the town librarian (and much more) discovered Al in his cabin but not in the best of shape. When Orin goes back to town to get help in bringing Al down the mountain to see the doctor, Orin disappears.

The other person missing on “Death Walk Day” is Warren Miller, Kaye’s husband. It’s shortly determined that his wife Kaye is also missing, and her name was checked off on the list by someone else, person unknown. When one of these two ends up murdered, a tragic story of hate and love must be untangled, and Beth is right in the middle of untangling it. Beth had unofficially worked with her grandfather in law enforcement in Missouri before he died and she started her writing career, and she had a special gift for reading a criminal scene. She’s also trying to solve the mystery of where Orin is and what he’s up to. Then, there’s another curiosity in the story, a male parolee staying at the Benedict House where Beth rents a room from Viola, the manager and person overseeing the half-way house. This is the first time a male has ever stayed there, as it’s supposed to be a half-way house for female non-violent convicts. But, he seems like a nice guy and can cook like nobody’s business.

So, there’s lots of intrigue and mystery in this latest book of the Alaska Wild series. It never seems disjointed though. It’s a smooth series of events that all end up sorted, with plenty of surprises. Paige Shelton has created and developed quite a few interesting characters for this series, and readers will learn backgrounds of several in this story that explain their current set of circumstances. Beth will personally receive a couple of big shocks that the readers will enjoy. I am wondering if the series will last much longer with the amount of plot and character forward movement here, but there is certainly room for Beth to have more mysteries to solve and more personal growth to experience. I know that I’m hoping to read many more stories in this favorite series, as I love the Alaska setting and the community of Benedict I’ve gotten to know.

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for an advanced copy of Winter’s End.

Scot in a Trap (Last Ditch Mystery #5) by Catriona McPherson: Reading Room Review

 

Just in time for Christmas giving, to yourself and others, is the publication of the fifth book in Catriona McPherson’s The Last Ditch Motel series, Scot in a Trap.  Inserting humor into a murder mystery successfully takes some skill, and this author lets the main character, Lexie Campbell, just be herself to achieve this.  You might say it’s an organic sort of humor, one shared by both the character and the author of being Scottish and living in the United States.  Lexie is still learning the difference between how things work in America as opposed to Scotland.  For example, you don’t call a newborn baby ugly in America, whereas in Scotland, it’s perfectly acceptable to note that there are flaws in the wee one.  Scot in a Trap is set in 2021, when the country is still suffering from the effects of Covid, but many of the restrictions have been lifted.  The continuing presence of Covid has its effect on some of the actions the characters take, but the pandemic is not a focus.

Thanksgiving Day is, of course, that uniquely United States holiday where the food is all too often embarrassingly abundant, and families gather, whether they should or not.  Therapist Lexie Campbell has adopted the quirky characters who live full-time at the Last Ditch Motel in Cuento, California as her family, and so it is this community of unlikely friends who gather for the big Thanksgiving dinner.  Lexie is still acclimating herself to her American surroundings, and she is stunned that the communal dinner for the residents has at least seven pies on offer and not one of them with meat and gravy in it.  Her suggestion to cut up some pears to include a lighter choice is not met favorably by Noleen, the owner and operator of Last Ditch Motel.  This Thanksgiving is a day of waiting, too.  Della, another full-time resident, is past her due date to have the baby that she and Dylan are expecting.  The couple are staying on Lexie’s houseboat because they want a home birth, not wanting to go to the hospital where Covid is still monopolizing the health care system.  But, Thanksgiving dinner and its many pies, so many pies, is uninterrupted by a birth, sending the Last Ditch community off to bed with full stomachs and continued anticipation.  

Lexie is awoken in the middle of the night by a strange sound, and her fiancé Taylor isn’t any help with recognizing it either.  The mystery sound is followed by the unmistakable sound of a baby crying.  Della has had her baby and there’s a mad dash for Lexie’s houseboat.  Diego, Maria’s son, names the new baby girl Chihiro, and everyone gushes over her.  Well, everyone gushes except Lexie, who manages to stick her foot in her mouth by mentioning the baby’s birthmark on her forehead.  On the way back to their rooms, Lexie admits to the others that she wasn’t impressed with the baby’s appearance, which ends up earning her the disdain of the group and early morning breakfast service to the only guest they have at the moment.  Lexie takes her punishment well.  How hard could scrambled eggs and toast be?

Well, the fixing of the breakfast that Lexie has to deliver to the motel’s only overnight guest is the easy part.  The discovery that the man who ordered the breakfast is lying in his bed with a bullet hole in his forehead is a little more complicated.  The fact that the dead man is Lexie’s first true love from Scotland, the true love that dumped her years ago, is a lot more complicated. Lexie hasn’t set eyes on Menzies Lassiter for close to twenty years before finding him resting in permanent peace at the Last Ditch.  While Lexie and her friends wonder if it could be suicide by a man who was riddled by guilt about his previous actions toward Lexie and other women, Sgt. Molly Rankinson doubts a bullet in the middle of the victim’s forehead means anything other than murder.  But, what connection does he have to the United States other than Lexie.  Yep, Lexie, who has opportunity and possible motive.  And means?  Well, that shows up later.  Our Lexie is not one to sit around fretting and waiting for the handcuffs to be clicked on.  She will go all out to prove her innocence, even dumpster diving.  She is the only one who has all the pieces to put together for a resolution.  However, proving her innocence will mean acknowledging some truths that Lexie has avoided for many years. 

The Last Ditch Mysteries are a brilliant work of hilarity and substance.  What drew me to this series was the guffaw factor, a chance to read the hilarious adventures, or misadventures, of a delightful Scottish character who comes to America after a whirlwind romance with a dentist from California and finds herself divorced and with no home.  The authenticity of this scenario is guaranteed, as the author herself found her way from Scotland to California to live, and who is one of the funniest people I know (but not divorced and has a home).   But, as I’ve noted in reviews of earlier Last Ditch books, Catriona McPherson shows readers what is important in living their best lives with her stories in this microcosm of the world called Last Ditch Motel.  She infuses humor into a message of acceptance and compatibility between people of vast differences.  However, McPherson isn’t through yet.  She also manages to present a murder to be solved that is entwined with an important issue, such as misogyny or sexual abuse.  So, you read these books laughing (or guffawing as I just pointed out) at the witty dialogue and Lexie’s unique observations and the offbeat characters, but you gain insight you weren’t expecting, too.  Catriona McPherson is one clever author, and Scot in a Trap is one must-read book. 

 

I received a book from the author and Severn House, and my review is an honest and unbiased one.

 

 

Peril in Paris (Her Royal Spyness #16) by Rhys Bowen: Reading Room Review

 

Oh, to be in Paris now that spring is here. Well, the spring of 1936 might not be the best spring to visit, although things were, relatively speaking, normal as to what they would be when the Nazis seized control in a few years. Peril in Paris takes place when the dangers of what is to come is trying to be averted by those who work undercover, behind the scenes of the beauty and thrill of a Paris spring. Peril in Paris is a title that covers so much in the story. While the Royal Spyness (Lady Georgie) mysteries have a pleasant and often humorous leaning, there is always something going on underneath that delight that involves murder and mayhem. Paris and this story could be interchangeable metaphors for one another. It’s rather like taking the good with the bad, but under Rhys Bowen’s deft hand, it’s always spellbinding.

Lady Georgie finds herself in Paris in March 1936. Three months pregnant, her morning sickness has finally subsided, and her dashing husband Darcy has asked her to accompany him to Paris. For Darcy it will be work, and certain to be spy work, but for Georgie, she will visit with her best friend Belinda. Belinda is working as an intern under Coco Chanel, furthering her designing skills and enjoying life in Paris. Since Darcy will be working, Georgie is staying with Belinda so they can better catch up with one another. However, Belinda is swamped with work for Coco’s new fall collection preview taking place in a few days. Georgie, who already knows Coco, becomes involved in the show, too, as Coco designs an elegant maternity dress for Georgie and insists Georgie model it in the show. Georgie is worried about the modeling part because she can barely walk in the tight-legged skirt, and the memories of falling on the runway in a previous modeling stint she did for Coco still haunt the expectant mother.

As it turns out, modeling the maternity dress isn't the only thing Georgie has to worry about at Coco Chanel’s show. Darcy needs her help. There is a German delegation, known Nazis and their wives, in Paris for a few days, and that delegation includes Hermann Goring’s wife and her friend, Greta Goldberg, who has a Jewish husband. That woman is trying hard not to be noticed, but she and her husband are secretly part of the effort to undermine Nazi Germany. Frau Goldberg has some documents and microfilm to pass to Darcy, but she is being constantly watched, which makes it hard for Darcy to obtain the documents. The German women are going to attend the fashion show, and Darcy must ask Georgie to take the hand-off of materials in a plan he devises. The dress and the hand-off are causing this newly pregnant Georgie quite a lot of stress, and there’s an unexpected presence that makes it all just a little harder. Georgie’s narcissistic mother, Claire, is with the German women and eager to buy some Chanel garments to take back to Germany where she is now living with her rich industrialist German fiancé. As if that weren’t enough, Wallace Simpson shows up. With Georgie’s cousin David now King, Wallace is flouting her new status as the woman who will become Queen. Of course, she won’t, and nobody realizes that more than Georgie’s mother, who has never missed a chance to put Wallace in her place.

When the murder of an American woman occurs at Coco’s show, Georgie quickly realizes that the German woman she was to receive the documents from was the actual target. Georgie is in a bad position of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the French detective is looking very closely at her as a suspect. There’s so much at stake now-Darcy’s opportunity to gain information that could be used against the Nazis, the German woman having a target on her back, and Georgie needing to prove she was not involved in the American woman’s death. The resolution to the murder is not an obvious one, and the hate behind it is steeped in a twisted deception.

I’m pleased with the way Rhys Bowen has brought the Lady Georgie series to the current events involving France and Germany and the UK, the years leading up to WWII. It had to be addressed because of the time frame, and this story was a perfect fit, as Georgie already had a connection to Coco Chanel, and Coco Chanel was accommodating to the German clientele who were Nazis. It was an excellent place to show the beginnings of German encroachment into French life. I’m not a fan of Coco Chanel. I think she was strictly an opportunist who cared only about herself and her business surviving, and her fraternization with the Nazis was deplorable. But again, to introduce the stirrings of a world that was rapidly moving towards war needs a stage that touches upon the disbelief that an iconic city like Paris will change. Chanel’s showing of her fall line in spring represents the expectation that life will continue as usual, with the Nazis mostly an annoyance.

The challenge the author faced of keeping the charm of this series alive while an unprecedented dark cloud hovered was a hard one, but Rhys Bowen was able to do just that. Lady Georgie is Lady Georgie, and her personality and less serious problems are going to be there, even amidst the world changing. I was still able to enjoy the essence of Georgie and Darcy, their relationship and their smaller world. Daily life does go on in a vacuum of sorts, but, of course, at this time in history, all the characters’ lives are facing major shifts when daily life shares in common all too many hardships. I heartily applaud Rhys Bowen for the transitions she has successfully started for the coming war. Peril in Paris is a book that is going to appeal to a wide range of readers, and although there are some nuances between characters that might be missed, I think this book can be read as a fascinating stand-alone. Well done, Rhys Bowen.

A World of Curiosities (Armand Gamach #18) by Louise Penny: Reading Room Review

 

“He held the younger man’s eyes, inviting him to set aside for a moment the great brutality that existed and to remember the acts of greater courage.  Of integrity and decency.  Of self-control.  Of forgiveness.”

 

I have to confess that the beginning of A World of Curiosities was a hard read for me.  The subject matter of the child abuse, sexual abuse, distresses me.  I was tempted to quit reading, but it came down to a matter of faith in Louise Penny’s stories, in her ability to tell the horror of something with hope, of making the look at evil have meaning.  I knew she had something important to tell me, and it’s the repercussions of the abuse that figure into the story.  It’s not a book focusing on the abuse or even describing the abuse.  Only the evidence that something had occurred is there, not the occurrence.  So, I continued to read, and it won’t surprise anyone who has read this book or read any of Louise’s books that I made the right decision.  Louise Penny digs deep into the darkness to shine a light on it, exposing it and knowing it can’t be ignored, just as she has created Armand Gamache to do.   

What so many Chief Inspector Gamache fans will be very happy with is that we finally get a front row seat to Armand Gamache finding Jean Guy Beauvoir in the basement of a Surrette detachment station and bringing him into the light of day and the heart of an investigation.  (Nobody uses dark and light better than Louise Penny.)  Their first meeting could have easily been the last, but Gamache sees past  Beauvoir’s surly behavior, at his observational skills and passion to get things right.  Inspector Gamache has been called from Montreal to a desolate place where Lac Plongeon sits, hours northeast of Montreal.  A dead woman has been discovered in a shallow part of the lake, who carries pictures of herself and her two children in her wallet.  The identification is easy due to a driver’s license and her reputation around the small town as a prostitute. Delivering the news of her death to Clotilde Arsenault ‘s children, Fiona, 13, and Sam, 9, Gamache discovers that the children have been left alone for the few days after their mother was reported missing, and he is outraged by this oversight of the surette officer in charge at the detachment station.  This oversight is only the first and least of the outrages Gamache and his team will uncover in this case and at the detachment.  By the end of this visit to the past, Jean Guy Beauvoir has become a member of the homicide team out of Montreal.    

 

“It seemed like a coincidence, but in Gamache’s experience, almost everything that happened was the end result of a series of apparently unconnected events.  Often set in motion years earlier.  Remove one, and the thing did not happen.”

 

Repercussions and reverberations.  Interspersed into the narrative about Gamache’s and Beauvoir’s first case together is the current timeline.  We join Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache as they prepare to attend a graduation ceremony of some personal significance in Montreal at the École Polytechnique, an engineering school.  Fiona Arsenault, the girl who was one of the two abused children in the pivotal case for Gamache and Beauvoir, has earned her engineering degree.  It is due to Armand Gamache’s intervention that Fiona Arsenault has been able to attend the classes and obtain her degree.  Armand and Reine-Marie have served as sponsors for her and are happy to see this day arrive.  Harriet Landry, the niece of Three Pines’ bookstore owner and former psychologist, Myrna Landry, is also graduating this day. 

Another person being honored this graduation is a special friend of Armand’s, Nathalie Provost, who, thanks to Armand, survived the Montreal Massacre, where fourteen women were killed and thirteen women were injured at this school, a tragedy born from the malevolence of misogyny.  It was the day that Armand Gamache decided to make homicide his path of service in the Sûreté du Québec.  It’s an emotional day, but a day to celebrate, and Three Pines is doing so with a community-wide party. 

Unfortunately, Sam Arsenault, Fiona’s younger brother shows up for the graduation and for a stay-over in Three Pines, which concerns Gamache.  Gamache has seen the evil emanating from Sam Arsenault as a child, and as a young man, he hasn’t changed.  Sam appears charming to others, but Gamache had him pegged when encountering Sam that first time.  Sam knows this and hates Gamache for it.  Seeing Sam again after all the years since his mother’s murder, brings sharply into focus how that level of malevolence works its way past Gamache’s barriers in his mind and preys upon him.  Only Sam and the serial killer John Fleming have been able to get inside Gamache’s head.

Things are about to get twisted in Three Pines.  Myrna and her significant other Billy would like to move in together, so they are looking to either move from her bookstore or miraculously make more space there.  A letter from Billy’s stonemason ancestor that comes into Billy’s possession reveals another room in Myrna’s house/bookstore, a room that has been bricked up since 1862.  Upon opening this space, a huge painting greets those present, a copy of the famous Paston Treasure, also known as A World of Curiosities, with its many depictions of objects found in the time of the 1800s when it was painted.  However, this modern copy of the painting includes items found in current times.  As murder and other unsavory events start to occur, the painting is studied by Gamache and his team, as connections between objects in the painting and events emerge.  A deadly game is underway, and no one has more to lose than Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.   

No review would be complete without comments about the characters whom we readers of this series have come to love over 18 books.  Fans of this series know that the characters are second to none in their development and reader investment.  They have become friends, those friends whom we don’t see every day, but when we see them again, we pick up right where we left off.  Armand, Jean Guy, Reine-Marie, Annie, Ruth, Clara, Myrna, Gabri, Olivier, Isabelle, and Billy, share their thoughts and emotions with us, and we are buoyed by the community attachments they’ve all formed.  Even crotchety old Ruth with her cursing duck inspires us.  Of course, Ruth’s poetry quoted throughout the book and often by Gamache is moving and memorable.  Technically, Jean Guy and Annie and their children and Isabelle don’t live in Three Pines, but the people who do live there readily adopt them as their own. The magic of Three Pines is the characters who “All having discovered a village only ever found by people lost” gain strength from each other and discover the best of themselves.  And, as we read the heart-warming scenes of the meals they share at one another’s homes in Three Pines, we gain strength from such, too.   

The newest character to Gamache’s homicide team is Amelia Choquet, who readers first encountered in A Great Reckoning (#12) where she was an unlikely cadet in the Sûreté Academy.  Amelia is still tattooed and unconventional, but she has shed the anger which consumed her then and become a trusted member of the team.  Armand Gamache is a great giver of second chances, and he has once again struck it rich with Amelia Choquet.  Louise Penny is purposeful in showing the value of people who might otherwise be discarded by society.  Hopefully, readers carry that message into life with them.

A World of Curiosities is a story of increasing danger to Gamache and his family, both those related and others in his circle of care.  It is a journey of frayed nerves and horror-filled expectations.  A World of Curiosities is by far the most suspenseful book I’ve read this year, and it goes to top of my list now when recommending suspense reading.  Edge of the seat sounds so trite, but that phrase seems to have been made for this book.  The nefarious, twisted forces trying to destroy Gamache have no boundaries of evil, and the worst seems inevitable. Tears will likely be waiting to spring. This may be Louise Penny’s best book yet, and with seventeen previous solid-gold hits, that’s saying something.

 

Thanks to Minotaur Books for an advanced copy of A World of Curiosities.