I seem to be on a short story path right now. I read Chesapeake Crimes: they had it coming, a collection of short stories by members of the Chesapeake chapter of Sisters in Crime. I bought it at the 2022 Malice Domestic.
I am not normally a huge fan of short stories but I enjoyed every one of these. Standouts include Volunteer of the Year by Barb Goffman and Safe Sex, Vampire Style by Helen Schwartz.
Have Stakes, Will Travel, by Faith Hunter, is a collection of longish stories.
The first entry, written by Beast, fills in some of the holes in Jane Yellowrock’s past. All of her usual characters are included. and we see even more of Molly, Jane’s witch friend, and her husband Evan.
The collection concludes with an excerpt from Death’s Rival. I did not know that – until suddenly the story ends. Now I was hooked and so I have begun reading Death’s Rival.
Jane is sent on another job by Leo Pellisier. A sickness is attacking the vampires. Leo asks Jane to collect a blood sample from one of the afflicted. Jane is attacked as soon as she gets off the plane and again as she leaves the wounded vampire’s lair. Beast’s quick thinking, and an emergency shift, save her life. Another winner.
I usually blog on Thursdays but, although I began my blog, life took over and I did not finish it. I did, however, continue reading.
I finally finished reading Shadowlands by Matthew Green. Besides Skara Brae, there were several cities destroyed by climate change. I thought the description of Dunwich where the towns are literally washing into the sea particularly engrossing. We have had that happen in New York and California.
Green usually give a fairly lengthy history of the particular towns. Winchelsea, for example, had vineyards and exported wine during the Medieval Warm Period. The little Ice Age put an end to that. The end of their viniculture and the silting up of the harbor finished off a thriving city.
Not all the villages were lost to the changing climate. Some lost their industry and their population soon followed (Trellich). Some, like Caper Celyn, were taken by the government and flooded to make reservoir. (Since Caper Ceylon is in Wales and the reservoir was for Liverpool, particularly egregious.) In the 1930s, the residents of St. Kilda’s were evacuation from their island home, never to return. Villages near Norfolk were commandeered by the Army during WWII, and never returned to the original inhabitants. And, of course, the Black Death finished off quite a few.
Fascinating.
I also read Easy Pickings, a fan novel based on Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock fantasies.
Jane and a character from another series, the Walker Chronicles, are transported to an alternate New Orleans. Leo Pellisser is not the vamp master of the city in this reality. With Lazarus, a demigod/magic user named Lazarus, Jane and Joanna must discover why they were brought here and solve the problem.
Lots of fun. It is quite short so it goes quickly.
Finally, I read Shadowlands by Marcia Talley.
Hannah and Paul agree to take ballroom dancing lessons with Ruth and her husband to be. Jay and Kay, who run the studio, are professionals. They are training one team for an upcoming competition and they ask Ruth and Hutch to also compete. Before they have a chance to even begin training, Ruth is attacked in the parking lot and left with a broken leg.
This was a disappointment. The setting, the world of competitive dancing, was fascinating. But the murder does not occur until more than halfway through the book and the ending seems rushed.
The first book I read this week was Book Four of the Jane Yellowrock series, Raven Cursed.
Jane is working security in Asheville, N.C. for a vamp parley. The vamps in Asheville want to set up their own territory. Evangeline Overheat, Molly’s older sister, has agreed to facilitate the parley. But a group of campers are attacked by something supernatural, and Jane realizes the two werewolves she didn’t kill have followed her to North Carolina and are on the hunt.
Then Lincoln Shaddock does not turn up at the parley and Evangeline begins changing, growing younger and prettier. What is going on?
Action packed and fun.
The second book I read was A Truth to Lie For by Anne Perry, the fourth Elena Stands mystery.
Elena is called into service again, tasked with pulling a scientist working on German warfare out of Germany. Elena calls upon her old friend for Jacob and they successfully find the scientist. But when they try to take him out of Berlin, traffic jams and roadblocks send them south to Munich. Just in time for the Night of the Long Knives; Hitler’s strike against Rohm’s brownshirts.
At the same, a young Gestapo officer, Hans Beckendorff is trying to navigate the politics of working for the Reich, and for an increasingly unhinged Hitler. In the end, he is forced to make a life-changing decision.
I had a few criticisms. The ending seems rushed. Perry relies on a few phrases over and over (I really got tired of ‘surprisingly good coffee’.) It is not really a mystery, more a thriller.
But here’s the thing. Despite the absence of blood and gore (a constant feature of the Yellowrock novels), A Truth to Lie For is absolutely terrifying. Maybe because the reader knows what is coming in the next few years, but I felt a sense of dread throughout. I was truly scared at several points in the book.
I went back to two of my favorite series this week: the Hannah Ives series and the Jane Yellowrock series.
Through the Darkness by Marcia Talley starts out with a scary premise: Hannah’s ten month grandson is kidnapped. No ransom demand arrives and the family is left to imagine the worst.
It comes at a particularly terrible time: Hannah’s daughter Emily and her husband Dante are in the process of opening their own luxury spa. As their marriage begins to fall apart, Hannah begins to investigate on her own, despite the resistance from the cops and her own brother-in-law.
This part of the mystery was great. Very captivating. BUT, the death towards the end seems tacked on, as though Marcia was told to add 50 pages. Although this was less than perfect, I enjoy this series and will continue.
The story continues almost immediately after the previous book. Campers in North Carolina have been found slaughtered. Although it appears the murders were done by the vampires, Jane scents the werewolves. The fact that only the males have been killed, while the women have been taken convinces Jane that the weres are still trying to turn females for mates.
At the same time the grindylow is tracking the wires, Turning humans is forbidden so the grindy is tasked with killing the malefactors.
Riveting as usual. I can only wonder that Faith Hunter is able to continue this series with every book exciting and fascinating.
The first book I read last week was The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves.
Vera Stanhope and her team are back. In this mystery, five friends bonded since high school, meet for their five year reunion. One of them is found dead, an apparent suicide although Vera quickly determines it was murder staged as a suicide,
Since Vera is convinced that the answer to this murder lies in the past, she questions the friends and all those who were connected, no matter how tangentially. As expected, Vera solves the mystery , resulting a shocking twist at the end.
Beginning writers are told to place the murder within the first chapter. Ann Cleeves, however, spends several chapters exploring the characters. And still, her mysteries are captivating.
The second book I read was the third Jane Yellowrock book, Mercy Blade.
Werewolves are coming to New Orleans and threatening to wrest control from Leo Pellisser. The seeds of this enmity lies in the past, 1916 to be exact. Jane’s boyfriend, Jake LaFleur is missing. When Jane searches for him, she quickly discovers he is in serious trouble.
And who or what is the Mercy Blade. Jane can see he is a magic creature but exactly what is he?
I really enjoy this series as I do the Marcia Talley Hannah Ives. The two series could not be more different but both are so fun.
Because I blogged about the Albany Book Fair (tremendous fun) on my usual day, I will do my review of my most recent books now.
The first book I read was John Dedakis’ Bullet in your Chamber.
I unfortunately read this series out of order so I already knew something terrible had happened. I had to go back and fill in. Really excellent, but pretty dark.
Lark Chadwick, finally happy in a relationship, comes across a plot to blackmail one of the president’s advisors into pressing the president into approving a drone law. There were so many possible murderers, it was hard to identify the guilty party. Several deaths later, and problems in Lark’s relationship, make for a captivating read.
Lighter but still fascinating was This Enemy Town by Marcia Talley.
I am gradually reading my way through all the Hannah Ives mysteries. In book 5, another cancer survivor asks Hannah to help with the naval academy’s production of Sweeny Todd. Feeling she cannot refuse, Hannah agrees. While there, she sees Jennifer Goodall, the woman who’d accused Hannah’s husband of sexual harassment and almost destroyed both his career and their marriage. Hannah confronts her and when Jennifer’s body is discovered, Hannah is arrested as the prime suspect.
I did not see the final twist coming and I am now on to number six.
I took a break from mysteries and read Skinwalker by Faith Hunter.
It came up on my Amazon feed as something I might enjoy. And I really did. Jane Yellowrock is a vampire hunter in a world when the ‘vamps’ have been outed and are now part of the human world. A rogue vampire is terrorizing New Orleans, draining humans and vampires alike.
Well-written and full of action. It reminded me of the Thomas Perry Jane Whitehead mysteries with a badass woman, except with an added paranormal aspect. Another series I will continue reading.
Finally, I began reading a nonfiction book by Matthew Green: Shadowlands; Britain’s Lost Cities and Vanished Villages.
Although I haven’t finished this, I read the first chapter and was immediately hooked. Skara Brae is an old old village, estimated as about 5000 years old, so older than the Egyptian pyramids and older than Stonehenge, in northern Scotland. A severe storm in 1850 washed away the sand from a beach and revealed this neolithic village on the shore.
I have seen this village on a pre-pandemic trip to Iceland. On the way home, we stopped in Kirkwald, a very northern town. From there, we took a bus to Skara Brae.
It is a village of little stone huts. Repeated storms have continued to wash away the sand and also, unfortunately, one of the houses.
Although it was the beginning of July, it was COLD.
August 29. This week I read the latest Kathy Reichs Cold Cold Bones.
A human eyeball is delivered to Temperance Brennan’s front porch. Shortly after, a head missing said eyeball is discovered. Shortly after, other victims turn up, each one mimicking a past case that Brennan worked on.
At the same time, she is worried about her daughter, Katie, who has returned from military service. Suffering from PTSD, she wants to set up a charity for veterans. She begins volunteering at a local shelter, only to disappear shortly after.
What is going on?
Enjoyable. My only criticism is that I knew who the villain was fairly early on.
The second book I read was In Death’s Shadow by Marcia Talley.
I enjoy these which are a cozy as I like to read. In this one, an insurance scam results in several murders. Insurance scams sound as though they would be very dry but I found the insurance in this book interesting. Hannah’s breast cancer, now in remission, is the theme that ties all the books together. Fun.
Inadvertently, I read this one out of order; this is number four so I will have to go back and fill in with the third.
I have been a long time fan of the Jane Whitefield mysteries by Thomas Perry. This week I read the latest, The Left Handed Twin.
Jane disappears people. Abused wives, people on the run from the mob, witnesses who fear Witness Protection won’t keep them safe: they all find their way to Jane.
In this one, Jane takes on a young woman who testified against her boyfriend for murder. Jane takes her on and begins training Sara (who becomes Anne) how to survive as someone different from herself. But the story takes a sudden turn when the Russian mob become involved. They are not interested in Jane’s client; they are interested in Jane. They pursue her across the country and then across the 100 mile hike in Maine.
Perry’s style is not the smoothest but the action keeps one captivated.
The second title I read was Undercover Amish by Ashley Emma.
Like the excellent Linda Castillo Kate Burkholder mysteries, Olive leaves the community after a trauma but returns to solve a mystery. Other murders, two fires and a kidnapping all figure in the plot as Olivia deals with her feelings for her long ago flame, Isaac. Olivia, like Kate, has become a cop.
I felt the representation of the Amish was not as compelling or as believable as Castillo’s mysteries and Olivia herself is not as interesting a character as Kate. This series is billed as romantic suspense, which the Castillo mysteries are not, so I may not have liked this as well because of the genre.
I did not like this as well as the Kate Burkholder series.
I went on a much needed vacation last week; a Disney cruise to the Caribbean. I don’t think traveling to the Caribbean in August is the best plan but it was fun.
Anyway, waiting for planes in airports and then the flights gave me a lot of time to read. I’d read about The Devil’s Own in a previous book so I decided to read it.
It tells the story of a teacher hired to teach in a small English town that, unfortunately, follows devil worship and other unsavory practices. This was written many years ago and I found it extremely slow moving until about half way through.
I followed it with a cozy, Kibbles and Death by S. A. Kazlo.
Samantha Davies discovers the body of the local kennel owner, bashed in the head and lying amongst scattered kibble. Her dachshund Porkchop begins nibbling on a bone, the murder weapon used to bash the victim in the head. Samantha begins investigating and soon discovers Calvin has been blackmailing a number of town residents.
The arrival of a new detective suggests the possibility for romance for the divorced Samantha.
Charming.
I went darker again with Fake, by John Dedakis.
The third in the Lark Chadwick series, we find Lark involved with the occupants of the White House. Lark has begun interviewing the First Lady for a biography and thus witnesses her sudden collapse and death. At first Lark believes Rose has died from the pancreatic cancer that is slowly killing her but the truth is much more serious, involving politics on the world scale. This is a murder mystery and a political thriller with romantic overtones.
The Ninja Betrayed was next.
This is the third and final (Unfortunately) Lily Wong. Lily travels with her mother to Hong Kong for an important meeting with her grandfather’s company. Not so much of a murder mystery but more of a story of financial malfeasance, it describes riots and unrest in Hong Kong. Lily’s romance with Daniel Kwok continues – but has several startling turns. I really enjoy Lily and wish the series had continued.
Finally, I read a Talent for Murder by Andrew Wilson.
Agatha Christie’s marriage is breaking down; her husband Archie is involved in an affair with Nancy Neele. Agatha disappears, registering at a hotel as Teresa Neele. This much is true. In the novel, Wilson suggests a much darker explanation for her disappearance than her upset over the impending divorce. A Dr. Kurs approaches Agatha and, by threatening her daughter Rosalind, involves her in a plot to murder his wife.
At the same time, a young girl, Uma Crowe, investigates Agatha’s disappearance.
I found this book interesting with its mix of true and fictional. Not exactly a murder mystery but captivating for its depiction of Agatha Christie and the world she came from.
This past week I read two great books, both very different.
The first one is The Hidden one by Linda Castillo, the newest in this series.
Kate receives an appeal from three men from a far away Amish community asking her to come and help. Jason Bowman, her first flame, has been accused of murdering the Bishop of this village eighteen years ago. Kate hesitates. She will be out of her jurisdiction and with none of her support network. But she agrees to look into it.
Once she is attacked in her motel room, she knows her investigation is upsetting someone. Instead of being intimidated, she is more determined than ever to resolve this case.
Her research takes her to Minnesota, and to a failing bar outside the Amish are. She soon begins to see that the Bishop was not the man everyone thought.
I did not guess the ending. Another wonderful mystery.
The second book I read was A Killing in Costumes.
Cindy and Jay, once married soap stars, came out as gay. They remained good friends and have set up a store of movie memorabilia Hooray for Hollywood. Facing financial ruin, they are offered a way out in the offer of a valuable movie collection from an old star. But a larger company is also trying to handle the sale. After meeting with the salesman from Cypress, he is found dead and Cindy and Jay are the prime suspects.
And what’s up with the old star’s creepy son? Lots of fun.
