The mystery really begins with a bang when a masked intruder bursts into Blubber B Gone ( a weight loss chain) and murders the owner.
Camerin Torres takes a new job with Trend magazine and although assigned to copyediting, begins to investigate the murder. She soon realizes that murders always follow visits by Terry Mangel, and his body positivity traveling group, and the murders are always of people associated with weight loss businesses. Since Camerin herself has unresolved issues surrounding weight and weight loss, she is drawn further and further in to the investigation, even traveling to Philadelphia to visit the most recent stop of Mangel’s show. Her impulsive action puts her in legal trouble and her life in danger.
An unexpected romance blossoms between Camarin and Trend’s owner, who has secrets of his own.The romance distracts a bit from the mystery, but the central theme of this society’s focus on weight was captivating. The list of research materials at the end was also very interesting. A mystery that makes one think.
Mornings on Horseback, by David McCullough, is a selective biography of Theodore Roosevelt. McCullough does not discuss in depth Roosevelt’s political career, although of course it is touched on in several places.
Instead, McCullough concentrates on Roosevelt’s childhood and youth, and the family which had so much influence on him. His father, Theodore Roosevelt Senior, was almost a god in his children’s eyes. As with many of the wealthy, Senior was a philanthropist, something that influenced his son.
The family was almost unbelievably wealthy and the children enjoyed every privilege. That did not, however, prevent serious health issues. Anna (Bamie), the eldest daughter, was born with a twisted spine. Elliott suffered from seizures (possibly epilepsy) and died young from alcoholism. (He is Eleanor’s father). Theodore himself suffered throughout his life from asthma and McCullough compellingly makes the case that Roosevelt’s interest in the outdoors, the open spaces, the hiking, hunting, birding and so on, stemmed at least in part from an early treatment for his asthma.
Hooker Avenue, by Jode Millman, takes place in Poughkeepsie, New York. Since I live close by, have lived in the Hudson Valley most of my life, and attended college in Poughkeepsie, this is familiar territory.
The mystery follows several characters. Jessie Martin, Det Ebony Jones and Lissie Sexton. Jess, a disgraced lawyer, sees a shiny flash in her headlights one rainy night. Lissie is trapped in a storm drain and in danger of drowning. This event begins a chain that links the three women together in the hunt for a serial killer.
Lissie in particular is a captivating, although not particularly likable, character. Severely beaten, she narrowly escapes the killer. But, as a prostitute with a rap sheet, she is dismissed until Ebony ties the beating to a string of missing women.
Exciting and enjoyable. My only criticism is that the wrap up could have been tightened up.
The Changeling Queen, by Kimberly Bea, begins with the English folk song, Tam Lin. For those unfamiliar with the song, Tam Lin, an earthly knight, is the lover of the Faerie Queen. He is destined for the teind, a fee Faerie pays to Hell. But Janet, a human woman who is carrying Tam Lin’s child, pulls him from his horse and holds on through the magical changes the Queen throws on him. (A snake, a burning brand etc.)
The Faerie Queen, determined to win, tells Tam Lin and Janet her story. She hopes to trick them into surrender.
The Queen was raised by a human midwife and given a human name, Bess. For a time, Bess chooses to remain in the human world, working as a healer, and falling in love with Thomas Shepherd, the bastard son of a noble. But he chooses to marry a human woman and Bess, hurting and vulnerable to the machinations of the Dark God Amman, returns to the faerie realm.
Recommended. I enjoyed this. A better book in my opinion that deals with the Faerie Realm and the teind is The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope. The Elizabethan world is believably depicted and the Faerie Realm and Faerie Queen carry an aura of menace. I reread this book regularly; it is that good.
The Red Queen is the 26th entry in the Richard Jury series. And what a disappointment.
Tom Treadnor is shot through the window in a local pub, The Queen. When Jury investigates, he sees someone has edited the pub’s name to The Red Queen. When he begins investigating, he discovers everyone has a different opinion of the victim. Jury sends his friends Melrose Plant and Gerrard Gerrard to the Treadnor estate to do some undercover investigating. I was never sure why this section was included since it offered nothing to the mystery.
About halfway through, Jury’s sergeant suddenly leaves Scotland Yard to look for a sister that disappeared five years ago and has suddenly reappeared. (In past novels, the sister is believed dead.)
I’ve read almost all of the Grimes’ mysteries and yet I felt as though I’d gone to a party where I knew no one, but they knew each other. There was almost no back story to help put the reader in the know. There was, however, an awful lot of empty banter. And the murder mystery was not very good. But at least there was an ending, albeit not a very plausible one. Wiggins’ story feels half-finished with several unanswered questions.
This past week I read Dachshund Through the Snow by David Rosenfelt. I love these books. They are funny and with good mysteries as well.
In this one, Andy Carpenter is persuaded by his wife and by a Christmas wish from a young boy, to bring his father home. But he doesn’t want to be found. He knows he is suspected of a murder that happened long ago, a murder he assures Carpenter he didn’t commit.
As he investigates, Carpenter begins to believe the young man is telling the truth. Especially after several people assigned to watch Carpenter are murdered. Then another man who was asking questions.
Sure enough, the case is way more complicated than it first appears. But Andy pursues it to the end and justice is served.
I regularly read nonfiction. (A lot of research material, but I don’t blog about that.) This past week I read two nonfiction books just from interest.
When I started this book, I thought it would be about Woodrow Wilson but it turned out to be primarily about William Bullitt. An energetic politician, Bullitt was active right about to the Nixon years. Bullitt was active during World War II, was given a medal by DeGaulle, and also served as an ambassador to the Soviet Union.
The book was only slightly about Wilson. It began with a few chapters, focusing especially on a psychological workup of Wilson by Freud and ended with the release of that workup. So a break of almost forty years. Bullitt waited until Wilson and his wife were dead.
Bullitt was an interesting character. Super smart. His assessments of the Nazis and the Soviets was spot on. I was disappointed there was not more about Wilson, however. And I feel the psychological assessment reached in some cases. So, an interesting book, but not a total success.
Now for a complete change of pace. This book is a history of the video game industry from the early 2000s. I love video games and have played many, many, right up to the Burning Shores ( from the Horizon Forbidden West franchise), Mario smash brothers, Hollow Knight and Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. (Not a fan. The game felt clunky and old-fashioned to me.) I have not played all the games discussed. Shovel Knight, for example. I have played Assassin’s Creed, although not Unity. (I’m glad since apparently the game kept glitching and one of the NPC’s face would explode. Disturbing to say the least.) Huge fan of Dragon’s Age and Witcher 3. Even bigger fan of The Last of Us, one and two, but this game was not included in the book.
I may go back and look up some of the games I missed. Yes, I still have my PS4 as well as my PS5.
I am even more amazed, after reading about all the trouble these teams went through, that my friend Thomas Happ developed Axiom Verge BY HIMSELF. The first was released in 2015, after five years of development. The second installment came out in 2021. Both were considered among the best games of those years.
Our Lady of the Overlook, by R.L. Carpentier III is a police procedural.
Mike Ellis is a rookie cop, working under the shadow of his father. Charles Ellis had been the police chief in the little town for years.
Now it looks like history is repeating itself. Mike Ellis finds the body of a woman murdered, at the overlook, just like his father had forty years ago. Although Mike’s investigation takes a heavy toll on him, he pursues it to the end. Mike’s character evolves and changes as he faces truths that are, at best, uncomfortable.
The mystery takes a little while to get started but once it does, I couldn’t put the book down. I’m glad Carpentier has planned a trilogy as I have already ordered the second one in the series.
I am a big fan of the Shetland mysteries (Vera and Jimmy Perez.)Several years have passed and Jimmy has settled into his new home in the Orkneys with his partner Willow Reeves.
One night, during a terrible storm, a close friend disappears and is found murdered. A Neolithic story stone is found next to his body. Jimmy is heartbroken. Archie Stout was as close as a brother. And Jimmy is too close: questioning Archie’s wife and family is difficult.
And rumors – about Archie’s relationship with a young artist, as well as concerns about a television star and his wife, swirl about the island. But Jimmy, assisted by Willow, preserves to the tragic solution.
Amy Patricia Meade is becoming one of my favorite authors. In this outing, she offers us Rosie the Riveter.
Rosie has taken on the job at the Brooklyn shipyards, along with several other women, because of the pay. The more ‘ladylike’ jobs do not pay as well and Rosie is supporting her widowed sister and baby. The male riveters don’t want the women there but Rosie is managing.
When her foreman makes a pass at her, promising a promotion, she clocks him in the head with the telephone. The next day his body is discovered in a nearby alley. Rosie is the prime suspect. She begins to investigate, finding a surprise ally in the police lieutenant investigating the case.
Roșie discovers several people wanted the foreman dead. The solution rests in a very nice twist. I would love to read the sequel but unfortunately it is unavailable.
Highly Recommended.
I also read Million Dollar Baby by Meade. Marjorie, an attractive mystery writer, catches the eye of wealthy British heir, Creighton Ashcroft. The house he is renovating is the site of a suicide, a mysterious death, and a missing diamond. When Ashcroft invites Marjorie to tour the house, they find a body.
A handsome policeman arrives to investigate – and Marjorie is immediately interested. Ashcroft is jealous and annoyed, but the three must work together to solve the mystery.
