Showing posts with label January 2019. Show all posts
Showing posts with label January 2019. Show all posts
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Only days left to win books and more from KRL
Only days
left to win copies of another great bunch of food and wine mysteries-"Batter Off Dead": A
Southern Cake Baker Mystery by Maymee Bell, "One Taste Too Many":
Sarah Blair Mystery by Debra H. Goldstein, "Steamed Open": A Maine
Clambake Mystery by Barbara Ross, "Wine and Punishment": A Literary
Pub Mystery by Sarah Fox, "Live and Let Pie": A Bakeshop Mystery by
Ellie Alexander aka Kate Dyer-Seeley, "Kappy King and the Pie Kaper":
An Amish Mystery by Amy Lillard
And to
win a copy of "Crewel and Unusual" by Molly MacRae and while there check
out a fun craft guest post from Molly
Also to
win a copy of "Marriage Vow Murder" by Leslie Langtry along with an interesting
interview with Leslie
And to
win books by Alexis Morgan and Diane Kelly when you check out the latest
mystery Coming Attractions,
And on
KRL News and Reviews to win a copy of "A Display of Death" by Gin Jones
And to
win a copy of "A Cold Brew Killing" by Lena Gregory
And to
win a copy of "Murder at the Harbor Village" by GP Gardner
Happy
reading,
Lorie
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Cat Lover’s Craft Book: Cute and Easy Accessor...
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Cat Lover’s Craft Book: Cute and Easy Accessor...: Reviewed by Kristin Are you crafty? Are you catty? Are you cattily crafty? Do you just love cats so much that you want t...
Mystery Fanfare: MURDER AT THE SUPER BOWL & Other Football Crime Fi...
Mystery Fanfare: MURDER AT THE SUPER BOWL & Other Football Crime Fi...: There's lots of real crime surrounding the Super Bowl : drugs, money, egos, etc. Fodder for the crime writer . So in ...
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Book Bingo!
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Book Bingo!: By popular request, we are posting some of our Book Bingo Sheets! The rules are: Read a book or complete a task and mark off the correspon...
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Monday, January 28, 2019
How I Spent My Afternoon
 |
| Photograph taken by Scott when I wasn't looking |
While the news had stories warning about the brutal cold far to our north, we had severe clear here and nearly 70 degrees. That meant there was only one thing to do.....READ OUTSIDE. Because Scott worked some magic on my iPad I can now finally check mail on that and then go back to the latest book.
By 4 we were driven inside as the southern end of the front had swept through and we had wind gusts into the 30s as the temps dropped. At this hour it is down to 42 here and blowing way harder than it was this afternoon. A freeze is predicted area wide tonight with a slight warming trend after tomorrow.
Unlawful Acts: The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
Unlawful Acts: The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
TEXAS BOOK LOVER: Monday Roundup: Texas Literary Calendar January 28...
TEXAS BOOK LOVER: Monday Roundup: Texas Literary Calendar January 28...: Bookish goings-on in Texas for the week of January 28-February 3, 2019: Special Events: Visiting Literary Scholar in Residence with Mei...
Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Lullaby Road by James Anderson
Lullaby
Road by James Anderson (Crown, 2018) is another
prose poem and unconventional crime fiction story from the author of The
Never-Open Desert Diner. It features Ben Jones, a few months after the
events of Diner. Winter started
early and a snowstorm seems to be brewing on the horizon. Ben is in a hurry to
fill his truck when he finds a large German shepherd or husky guarding a small
child in the subfreezing wind at the truck stop. The owner has conveniently
disappeared, no one else is around, and Ben can’t leave the child in the cold.
Both the dog and the toddler, who doesn’t talk, join him in the warm truck so
he can get on the road with the day’s delivery of water, propane, and other
necessities to the isolated residents of Utah’s high desert. Among them are
John, who walks the lonely state highway six months of the year carrying a huge
wooden cross, no one knows why. Occasionally Ben stops to talk to John and they
share an imaginary cigarette, as carefully rolled and lit and passed back and
forth as if it were real tobacco. Another of the damaged but harmless desert
rats is Roy, the proud creator of a solar-powered dog house made of used tires.
Others who have come to the desert to hide from the world are not as innocuous
but they all need the lifeline to the outside that Ben provides.
Searching for the child’s home is only one of
the plots in this story. John is struck by a hit-and-run driver and sustains
life-threatening injuries. There are of course no doctors practicing in that
part of the state and the nearest hospital’s sole emergency helicopter has
multiple calls for its services. Getting John to the hospital falls to Ben, as
does stopping a shooting and robbery at the local convenience store. At home,
his single-parent neighbor gives up on trying to work two jobs and go to
college while taking care of her daughter and calls her domineering mother, who
brings an aggressive boyfriend when she shows up.
Beautifully, exquisitely written, I focused on
the telling of the story with its evocative imagery rather than the story
itself for a considerable part of the tale, then began to fix on the people the
narrative brings to life. These mini-plots are vignettes wrapped into a single
book with the desert setting and the lost child as the threads that run through
it from beginning to end. For readers who appreciate good writing and
thoughtful portrayals of humanity.
·
Hardcover: 320 pages
·
Publisher: Crown
(January 16, 2018)
·
Language: English
·
ISBN-10: 1101906545
·
ISBN-13: 978-1101906545
Aubrey
Hamilton ©2019
Aubrey
Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and
reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Crime Time : Twofer: DEAD IN THE WATER/MURDER ON ICE – Ted Wood...
Crime Time : Twofer: DEAD IN THE WATER/MURDER ON ICE – Ted Wood...: When Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone's booze problem cost him his wife and his job as a detective with the LAPD he went east, takin...
KRL This Week Update for 1/26/19
Up in KRL
this morning reviews and giveaways of another great bunch of food
and wine
mysteries-"Batter Off Dead": A Southern Cake Baker Mystery by
Maymee
Bell, "One Taste Too Many": Sarah Blair Mystery by Debra H.
Goldstein,
"Steamed
Open": A Maine Clambake Mystery by Barbara Ross, "Wine and
Punishment":
A Literary Pub Mystery by Sarah Fox, "Live and Let Pie": A
Bakeshop
Mystery by Ellie Alexander aka Kate Dyer-Seeley, "Kappy King and
the Pie
Kaper": An Amish Mystery by Amy Lillard
And a
review and giveaway of "Crewel and Unusual" by Molly MacRae along
with a
fun craft guest post from Molly
And a
review and ebook giveaway of "Marriage Vow Murder" by Leslie Langtry
along
with an interesting interview with Leslie
Also up,
the latest mystery Coming Attractions, along with a chance to win
books by
Alexis Morgan and Diane Kelly
Up in KRL
News and Reviews this week a review and ebook giveaway of "A
Display
of Death" by Gin Jones
And a
review and ebook giveaway of "A Cold Brew Killing" by Lena Gregory
Up on KRL
News and Reviews this morning a review and ebook giveaway of
"Murder
at the Harbor Village" by GP Gardner
For those
who prefer to listen to the podcast directly on KRL, a player for
the
latest episode is up here! It's "When Pigs Fly" by Lesley Diehl
Happy
reading,
Lorie
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Elevation by Stephen King
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Elevation by Stephen King: Reviewed by Kristin Scott Carey has a bit of a problem. He’s losing weight, though usually that would be welcome for the middl...
Friday, January 25, 2019
FFB Review: SKYLAR (1995) by Gregory McDonald Reviewed by Barry Ergang
Barry is back for this final Friday in January with
another FFB Review. Make sure your check out the full list over at Patti Abbott’s blog.
SKYLAR (1995) by
Gregory McDonald
Reviewed by Barry
Ergang
Skylar
Whitfield, now in his late teens, has spent his living and working life on his family’s
farm at Greendowns (pronounced “Grendons”) County, Tennessee. A strong and
good-looking young man who was a straight-A school student with no athletic
inclinations, he has no further academic ambitions. He’s quite content to stay
where he is, have sex with Tandy McJane, and carouse with his pal Dufus.
When
the novel opens, Skylar and Tandy are going at it instead of being where they
ought to be: at the party Skylar’s parents Dan and Monica have thrown for
friends and neighbors to celebrate the arrival from Boston of their nephew
Jonathan, a Harvard student who is recovering from a bout of mononucleosis.
Uncomfortable in the southern atmosphere with which he’s as unfamiliar as the
partiers would be up north, Jonathan nevertheless tries to mingle with other
guests, among them Mary Lou Simes, a popular local girl known for entering and
winning beauty contests and Skylar’s former girlfriend.
Eventually
Skylar gets to the party and finally meets his cousin for the first time. Their
relationship is somewhat edgy from the outset, but along with Dufus, the two ultimately
wind up at a favorite local roadhouse called the Holler. Shortly thereafter,
Mary Lou Simes comes in with three of the party-goers from Whitfield Farm.
Later on, Skylar and others observe her leave the place alone.
The
next day, Sheriff Culpepper (a.k.a. Pepp) is notified that disabled veteran Tommy
Barker has discovered what appear to be human remains in the woods, remains
that are later identified as Mary Lou’s. Not far from her body is a Swiss Army
knife, one identified as Skylar’s. Jailed as the prime suspect, Skylar is
subsequently broken out of his cell by friends so he can try to find out what
actually happened. When Mary Lou’s brother Jack who, with some friends, beat up
Skylar, is also found dead, Skylar’s troubles deepen.
It’s
been a very long time since I read the late author’s novels about newsman
Fletch (the character for whom he’s probably best known) and detective Flynn,
as well as a standalone called Running
Scared, and I no longer own copies of those novels to consult. But with the
possible exception of the standalone, I don’t remember any of them having
characters as colorful, well-delineated and complex as there are in Skylar, which is absolutely as much a
novel of character as it is a mystery story, and in which McDonald skillfully
modulates humor with solemnity. And in which surprises abound.
Strongly
recommended to readers who don’t object to some explicit sexuality and occasional
raw street language.
© 2019 Barry Ergang
Some
of Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s work can be found at Smashwords
(some freebies here) and Amazon.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
New Issue of Crime Review
We
feature new 20 reviews in each issue of Crime Review (www.crimereview.co.uk),
together with a top industry interview. This time it’s Rebecca Denton in the
Countdown hot seat:
We’re on
Twitter at:
Crime
Review: @CrimeReviewUK
Linda
Wilson: @CrimeReviewer
Sharon
Wheeler: @lartonmedia
This
week’s reviews are:
SHELL
GAME by Sara Paretsky, reviewed by Chris Roberts
VI
Warshawski is run ragged when the nephew of her closest friend is linked to a
murder, and the niece of her ex-husband shows up desperate about a missing
sister.
COLD BONES
by David Mark, reviewed by John Cleal
DS Aector
McAvoy follows a report that an elderly woman has not been seen for days and
finds her frozen in her bath, the start of a trail that reaches far into the
past and uncovers a series of grisly murders.
POISONED
GROUND by Barbara Nadel, reviewed by Linda Wilson
London PI
Lee Arnold is still struggling to make ends meet. He’s been called in to track
down a missing fraudster and Mumtaz Hakim has gone undercover at a psychiatric
unit in an attempt to clear a former employee accused of terrorist activity.
THE RUIN
by Dervla McTiernan, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor
Jack
Blake’s suicide rings increasingly loud alarm bells in Garda Cormac Reilly’s
ears – ones he should have listened to long ago.
CAPTIVE
by Tony Park, reviewed by John Cleal
Australian
lawyer Kerry Maxwell, in Africa to volunteer alongside vet Dr Graham Baird at a
wildlife rehabilitation centre, finds herself a captive in a bloody feud on the
frontline of the war on poaching.
RESIN by
Ane Riel, reviewed by Ewa Sherman
Liv lives
on an isolated farm with her hoarder-carpenter father Jens, bed-ridden obese
mother Maria, dead twin brother Carl and mummified baby sister. She’s happy but
a bit worried, especially when she witnesses her dad killing her granny. Life
goes on but a newcomer to the area wants to find out more about the strange
family.
NIGHT
SHIFT by Robin Triggs, reviewed by Linda Wilson
The new
head of security at a mining base in Antarctica is told there’ll be nothing for
him to do, but that prediction is soon proved wrong in spectacular fashion.
THE
SYNDICATE by Guy Bolton, reviewed by Arnold Taylor
1947. A
notorious New York mobster is murdered in Hollywood. Jonathan Craine, a retired
Los Angeles policeman, is blackmailed into taking on the task of finding his
killer.
A
SNAPSHOT OF MURDER by Frances Brody, reviewed by John Cleal
Kate
Shackleton organises a photographic society outing to Haworth, the heart of
Brontë country. But when the most obnoxious member of the party is murdered,
her planned break from detection comes to an abrupt end.
SLUGGER
by Martin Holmén, reviewed by Chris Roberts
When a
priest is killed in what is made to look like a Jewish atrocity, Harry Kvist
has his suspicions. An opportunity for payback is difficult to refuse.
RUIN
BEACH by Kate Rhodes, reviewed by Linda Wilson
A march
by Mosley and his Blackshirts is held in Leeds. There is considerable violence
throughout the march and when it is over the body of a man is discovered. He
has been strangled.
BLOOD
& SUGAR by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, reviewed by John Cleal
A body
hanging on a hook at Deptford Dock, horribly tortured and branded with a
slaver’s mark, propels American war hero Captain Harry Corsham into a dark
secret at the very core of British society.
PHANTOM
by Leo Hunt, reviewed by Linda Wilson
Talented
hacker Nova is given the task of infiltrating one of the most powerful
corporations on the planet.
MOTHERLAND
by GD Abson, reviewed by Chris Roberts
Captain
Natalya Ivanova of the St Petersburg police makes preliminary enquiries when a
Swedish girl goes missing, but the case has many complications.
IN FOR
THE KILL by Ed James, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor
The
murder of a student at the University of Southwark may prove too close to home
for DI Simon Fenchurch.
STITCH UP
by William McIntyre, reviewed by Chris Roberts
Lawyer
Robbie Munro is asked by an old flame to investigate a death, while doing his best
to protect his ex-copper father who’s accused of stitching up a child-killer.
THE
CHANGELING MURDERS by CS Quinn, reviewed by John Cleal
As London
rebuilds after the Great Fire, thief-taker Charlie Tuesday’s former flame is
kidnapped on the way to her own wedding and an actress, wearing her clothes, is
found hanging from theatre scenery.
THE
BURNING HILL by AD Flint, reviewed by Chris Roberts
An
encounter between a young British soldier and a couple of street kids on Brazil’s
Copacabana beach has fateful consequences.
THE DEAD
ON LEAVE by Chris Nickson, reviewed by Arnold Taylor
A march
by Mosley and his Blackshirts is held in Leeds. There is considerable violence
throughout the march and when it is over the body of a man is discovered. He
has been strangled.
TALL
ORDER by Stephen Leather, reviewed by Linda Wilson
Dan
‘Spider’ Shepherd puts his extraordinary memory to the test when he’s tasked
with the search for the terrorists behind a suicide bombing at a football
stadium.
Best
wishes
Sharon
www.crimereview.co.uk
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