Showing posts with label September 2024. Show all posts
Showing posts with label September 2024. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 01, 2024
Bitter Tea and Mystery: A Great Reckoning: Louise Penny
Bitter Tea and Mystery: A Great Reckoning: Louise Penny: Louise Penny's Armand Gamache series is now up to 19 books, with the latest book due to be published October 29, 2024. When I began read...
Monday, September 30, 2024
SleuthSayers: Scaring Myself: The Challenges of Writing a Dual Time-Line Thriller
SleuthSayers: Scaring Myself: The Challenges of Writing a Dual T...: It's always nice to know many fellow mystery authors, either personally or at least via social media, because then I often can contact s...
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Clock Struck Murder: A Lost in Paris Mystery by Betty Webb
Betty Webb is a former investigative
journalist who turned to mystery writing. She used her journalism background in
her first series about Lena Jones, an Arizona private investigator. Each story
conveys a great deal of information about a social issue wrapped into a
competently plotted and tightly written mystery. Desert Wives, the second in this often dark series, highlighted the
ongoing problem of child marriage and polygamy within more extreme sects of the
Church of Mormon. Webb’s journalism in this area helped lead to the arrest and
conviction of Warren Jeffs in 2011.
Her next series is a light-hearted set of
stories about a zookeeper in California and the animals in her care including a
red panda, an anteater, and a llama. Despite the fun setting, these books are
as soundly plotted as any mystery I have read.
Webb’s newest venture is set in Paris in
the 1920s, where artist Zoe Barlow has set up a studio and is settling into the
expatriate community. In this second book of the series Paris is especially
busy as it is hosting the 1924 Olympics immortalized by the award-winning film Chariots
of Fire (1981). Zoe supplements her meager income by hosting weekly poker
games, where she outplays nearly everyone who attends. At one of these
evenings, someone knocks over a fragile clock and breaks it. He has the grace
to offer to replace the piece so Zoe goes back to the flea market where she
found it. The sellers offer several attractive clocks, she selects one, and
then later decides she wants a second one.
She visits the flea market and finds the
seller with the clock she wanted is not working. She walks to the storage area
she knows the seller uses, only to discover the body of the seller. The police
are busy with the increased crime brought on by all the visitors and the
security needed for the dignitaries from participating countries. They don’t
intend to give the murder of a nonentity much time. So Zoe undertakes her own
investigation, to the dismay of her police officer lover.
Surprisingly the seller had made a number
of enemies, most of whom did not appreciate Zoe asking questions. Webb
skillfully employs misdirection right up to the last few pages where the killer
becomes clear. Great references to the Lost Generation, clothing of the time,
and the athletes participating in the games, including Johnny Weismuller, who
would later play Tarzan in a series of movies, and surfer Duke Kahanamoku. For
fans of historical mysteries.
·
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (April 9,
2024)
·
Language: English
·
Paperback: 320 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1728269938
·
ISBN-13: 978-1728269931
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Y2CgQb
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Little Big Crimes: Satan's Spit, by Gabriel Valjan
Little Big Crimes: Satan's Spit, by Gabriel Valjan: "Satan's Spit," by Gabriel Valjan, in Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024. edited by Heather Grah...
SleuthSayers: Musing on Mitty
SleuthSayers: Musing on Mitty: At the just-completed Nashville Bouchercon, I was on the panel "Is It Over Now?: Bringing Characters to Life in Short Stories." ...
Saturday, September 28, 2024
KRL This Week Update 9/28/2024
Up on KRL this week reviews and giveaways of 4 more fun mysteries for your fall reading-"Quilty as Charged" A Measure Twice Sewing Mystery Book Two by Maggie Bailey, “No Paw to Stand On" A Bookmobile Cat Mystery by Laurie Cass, "The Grim Steeper" A Witches Brew Mystery #3 by Gretchen Rue, and "Murder at the White Palace" by Allison Montclair https://kingsriverlife.com/09/28/crafts-cats-historical-witchy-mysteries-for-your-tbr/
And a review and ebook giveaway of "The Con" by Jackie Layton along with an interesting interview with Jackie https://kingsriverlife.com/09/28/the-con-by-jackie-layton/
And our first spooky short story for the Halloween season, "Sky Without Stars" written by mystery/horror author Jane Gwaltney https://kingsriverlife.com/09/28/sky-without-stars-a-spooky-short-story/
We also have the latest Mystery Coming Attractions from Shawn Stevens. Sadly, this will be Shawn's last column. We really appreciate all that she has done in writing this column for KRL. However, we will have a new person taking on the column starting next month so it's not going away https://kingsriverlife.com/09/28/mystery-coming-attractions-october-2024/
During the week we posted another special midweek guest post, this one by mystery author Leslie Budewitz about her historical mystery anthology "All God's Sparrows" https://kingsriverlife.com/09/25/five-reasons-i-love-reading-and-writing-historical-fiction/
Up on KRL News and Reviews this week, a special midweek guest post by mystery author Joe Cosentino about the audiobook release of his novella "Finding Giorgio" https://www.krlnews.com/2024/09/finding-giorgio-by-joe-cosentino.html
And a review and giveaway of "Murder in an Italian Cafe" by Michael Falco https://www.krlnews.com/2024/09/murder-in-italian-cafe-by-michael-falco.html
Up on KRL News and Reviews this morning a review and giveaway of "Echoes of Memory" by Sara Driscoll https://www.krlnews.com/2024/09/echoes-of-memory-by-sara-driscoll.html
And a review and giveaway of "Sick to Death" by Andrew Welsh-Huggins https://www.krlnews.com/2024/09/sick-to-death-by-andrew-welsh-huggins.html
Happy reading,
Lorie._,_._,_
A Writer's Life....Caroline Clemmons: CONTEST WINNERS AND A BIT MORE
A Writer's Life....Caroline Clemmons: CONTEST WINNERS AND A BIT MORE: By Caroline Clemmons Thank you to all who entered my birthday contest. Although I value each of you, I promised only 5 gift cards for $5 eac...
Scott's Take: Titans: Beast World by Tom Taylor, lIlustrator Ivan Reis
Titans:
Beast World by Tom Taylor
and illustrated by Ivan Reis, is the first, according to DC Comics, ever Titans
centric crossover. I am not sure that is entirely accurate, but okay. One could
read volume 1 of the Titans new series to be familiar with some
early story references, but it is not necessary. There is also a tie in
collection book called Titans: Beast World Tour which one could
read, but is unnecessary. The tie ins in that read are a very mixed bag with
some decent stories and some pretty bad ones. The main event book, Titans:
Beast World, is fun and full of action.
In this story,
the Titans attempt to stop Necrostar (giant alien with spores) from destroying
humanity. Beast Boy of the Titans turns himself into a Starro (a giant alien
with spores also) to defeat it. Starro is allegedly the only being in the
universe who can beat it.
The government
agent known as Waller, leader of the Suicide Squad, interferes to prevent the
heroes from saving the day in order to blame the heroes for the failure. Her
interference causes millions of humans alongside several of the world’s heroes
to be turned into animal human hybrids who are now attacking their loved ones. The
Titans have to rally the remaining noninfected heroes to save the planet while
Waller continues her attempts to frame the heroes of the world. She wants the
public to turn on them and she just might get her way.
Being generally
familiar with the Titans characters would be very helpful for this story as
this should not be the first Titans book read. This is a fun read if the idea
of Black Adam being turned into a giant lion and going on a rampage appeals to
you. The Titans have a lot of cool moments and show how powerful and skilled as
heroes they are.
Several
characters that would be helpful in this event just don’t appear in the tie ins
or the main event. Most of the magic users are also noticeably absent. Several
heavy hitters that would be helpful such as Superman (Clark), Wonder Woman, and
Martian Manhunter are just not very relevant to the plot for some reason. They
appear, but the author does not have them do much.
Spoilers--
Batman is taken off the board early so Nightwing can stay as the main leader because
Batman is turned into a wolf. He has been turned into a giant bat before, more
than once, so this time he gets to be a six-foot tall plus wolf. The only non-titan
characters with big roles are Batgirl (Barbara) and Superman (Jon). Also,
Detective Chimp (he is a talking monkey who dresses like Sherlock Holmes and
solves mysteries) has a unique perspective on the new hybrids. As always, the
DC universe is weird.
There are a lot
of epic action scenes, great art, cities being torn apart, character
development, humor, in a highly entertaining read. This book sets up the future
of the DC universe for a while. There are a lot of implied casualties and
several deaths are depicted on screen. Waller, Peacemaker, a cult leader, the
Starro Beast Boy, and Dr. Hate, all make trouble for the heroes. Of course, it
is a given the heroes will save the day, but how the Titans save the world
leads to consequences for the superhero community as a whole.
The Titans are
allowed to step up into the big leagues as the Earth’s protectors. They are
powerful, experienced, and skilled. They are a family, but will they save the
world in a way that the world will be happy with them afterwards? The Justice
League disbanded after Dark Crisis awhile back and left the younger heroes in
charge. Did they make the right call?
Also, expys (an
expy for people who don’t know is a character who, either for copy right
reasons or other reasons, are basically a specific character that is changed just
enough to not be copyrighted and yet is clearly that specific character) of
President Biden and Jill Biden appear. Jill Biden’s DC version is turned into
an otter at one point so in the future people will clearly be able to know when
this was made. As the infection and what type of animal you become is implied
to be linked to your personality, someone at DC thinks Jill is like an otter. Would
have been interesting to see what the convicted felon running for the highest office
of the land would have been in this universe.
Overall, I highly enjoyed this Titans event. But, if one is expecting a lot of crossover with other heroes than one would be disappointed. This is a Titans led crossover that does not want other heroes to play much of a role.
Amazon Associate
Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3X2ZUKC
My reading copy
came by way of the Hoopla App and the Dallas Public Library System.
Scott A. Tipple
©2024
Friday, September 27, 2024
Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 91 Calls for Submissions in October 2024 - Paying markets
Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 91 Calls for Submissions in October 2024 - Paying ...: This October there are more than seven dozen calls for submissions. All of these are paying markets, and none charge submission fees. As alw...
Beneath the Stains of Time: His Burial Too (1973) by Catherine Aird
Beneath the Stains of Time: His Burial Too (1973) by Catherine Aird: Kinn Hamilton McIntosh is a British mystery novelist, known as " Catherine Aird ," who started her writing career in the sixties w...
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Suffrage Song: The Haunted History of Gender, Race and Voting Rights in the U.S. by Caitlin Cass
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Suffrage Song: The Haunted History of Gender, Race...: Reviewed by Kristin This graphic novel packs a lot about the right to vote in the United States into its pages in a very accessible fo...
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