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An Italian Treat: Rounding the Mark

September 7, 2021 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

With 28 books in the series, I feel like I should have run into Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano Mysteries before now! These are English translations of the original Italian, a series of Police Procedurals set in Sicily, full of sensory and culinary detail. Rounding the Mark is book #7 in the series. While Inspector Montalbano is threatening to resign, I would assume by the fact that there are 21 more books following this one, that he never quite gets around to retiring.

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Follow Flavia’s adventures in A Red Herring Without Mustard

August 31, 2021 / 3 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Flavia is a rather morbid child (age eleven) with a fascination with chemistry, poisons, bodies, and murder. She is very handy in her chemistry lab and although she often gets in the way of the local constabulary, she is also usually ahead of them in solving murders that take place in the local village (and in this case, even on the de Luce family property.)

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Take your time with This Tender Land

August 24, 2021 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

This Tender Land is not part of the Cork O’Connor series. It is an epic travel-across-the-country-during-the-depression story, with four orphans escaping a residential school and trying to get themselves somewhere safe. I see a few reviewers complaining that it is a children’s story, but it certainly is not. It isn’t a mystery like the Cork O’Connor series. Teens and other YA readers who enjoyed Hatchet, The Journey of Natty Gann, of Huck Finn might enjoy it, but it is not for the very young.

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Puppies and poison in Dead in Dublin

August 17, 2021 / 3 minutes of reading / 1 Comment

Dead in Dublin is the first book in The Dublin Driver Mysteries, which surprised me when I looked it up today. There is lots of backstory summarized in Dead in Dublin, and I assumed that there were probably three or more books before it in the series. So this book may leave you a little hungry for more details of “what happened before,” but it is a fine standalone mystery and I’m sure the author will reveal more about Megan Malone’s origin story throughout the next two books in the series. I will definitely pick up the others as they become available through my library app.

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Jump right into Body of Lies

August 10, 2021 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

This week I am just coming to the end of Iris Johansen’s Body of Lies, the fourth book in the Eve Duncan series. I don’t know whether I’ve read any of the other books in the series before, but it is easy to follow the characters and the action without having read the rest. There is plenty of backstory and explanation to allow you to follow the basic history of the characters.

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The Night Sister is a creepy read

August 3, 2021 / 2 minutes of reading / 1 Comment

I picked up this week’s read, The Night Sister, from the mystery shelf without realizing that it is classified as “ghost suspense,” so I was a little surprised with the direction that it went in, but that didn’t detract from the book. I still found it quite interesting and engaging. If you are the type who loves to share creepy ghost stories around the campfire, this might just be the book for you.

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Personal Power in Fiction

July 29, 2021 / 7 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

books, to tell the truth) is that of personal power. What does Reg (or another character) do when faced with an insurmountable obstacle? In Reg’s case, being a paranormal setting, it may be something as big as a magical being intent on taking over the world. That’s a pretty big obstacle. But in other series, it may also be Chloe’s struggle with homelessness and a traumatic history. Or Renata’s ongoing battle with mito and paranoid schizophrenia.

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Experience The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

July 27, 2021 / 3 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

This week’s book is not one of my usual genres, but is a little book that lives somewhere at the nexus of Winnie the Pooh, Narnia, and Buddha. Read it as a children’s book, explore the purpose of life, meditate daily on your impact on others. It’s one of those gems that is bound to live long on the shelf beside your bed or your favorite chair.

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Investigate A Willing Murder

July 20, 2021 / 3 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

A Willing Murder is well-written, and I would not have guessed that it was written by a romance author. The characters and relationships are good, but there is nothing racy and no sex scenes. One kiss, I think. The foundation for the murder mystery is solid and the characters are able to get from one clue to another without anything too unbelievable and without breaking too many laws.

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Listening to The Sound of Broken Glass

July 13, 2021 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

Last week, I was listening to the audiobook for The Sound of Broken Glass, book 15 in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Novels series by Deborah Crombie. I think that I may have read a book or two in this series before, but I’m not sure. There is definitely enough backstory included in the book that you are not last as to what the people’s relationships and histories are. As with most mysteries or police procedurals, they are episodic and you can jump in and read one even if it isn’t the first in the series.

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