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Tag Archives: mystery

Mystery recommendations from Just Desserts members – February 2012

Just Desserts Logo 225Hey, mystery fans! Looking for something good to read?

At the February 2012 Just Desserts meeting, after discussing our monthly “assigned” book, we did a round robin at the table, asking attendees to share what mysteries they’d been reading lately, that they felt they could recommend. Here’s a list of the books that were hot last month with this mystery-savvy crowd:

Mysteries

  • Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman (not in library collection)
  • Delicious and Suspicious by Riley Adams (this 1st in series not in library collection, although others are)
  • Buried in a Book by Lucy Arlington
  • Still Life by Louise Penny
  • Acqua Alta by Donna Leon
  • The Virginia Rich/Nancy Pickard culinary mysteries
  • The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard
  • Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
  • The Jessica Fletcher mystery series
  • The works of Anne Perry
  • The works of Jacqueline Winspear
  • The medieval mysteries of Ian Morson
  • The works of Rhys Bowen
  • Red Mist by Patricia Cornwell
  • The St. Patrick’s Day Murders by Joanne Fluke
  • The Broken Window by Jeffrey Deaver
  • Crunch Time by Diane Mott Davidson
  • The works of Walter Mosley
  • Mice by Gordon Reece (not in library collection)
  • Kill Shot by Vince Flynn
  • Abuse of Power by Michael Savage
  • Hostile Witness by Rebecca Forster (not in library collection)
  • Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun by Lois Winston
  • Backspin by Harlan Coben
  • The works of Donna Leon
  • The Confession by Charles Todd
  • The Drop, and others by Michael Connelly

Non-Mysteries

  • Little Bee by Chris Cleave
  • Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
  • Biographies of Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne and JFK
  • Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
  • The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gail Tzemach Lemmon
  • All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader by Yona Zeldis McDonough
  • Biography of Natalie Wood
  • Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
  • Killing Lincoln by Bill O’Reilly
  • That Used to Be Us by Thomas Friedman

So…what mysteries have you been reading that you’d recommend?

Margaret Coel’s “The Silent Spirit”

Just Desserts Logo 225silentspiritWhen the Just Desserts mystery fiction group met in February 2012, we discussed a volume in Margaret Coel’s popular “Wind River” series, The Silent Spirit.

This book was discussed at the Just Desserts meeting on February 23, 2012. Whether or not you attended the actual meeting, you are welcome to share your own thoughts and opinions about this book (and series) in a reply comment to this blog post, below.

Join us next on March 29th, at South Branch Library (6:30 p.m.), as we discuss the “The Last Coyote”, an entry in Michael Connelly’s popular and long-running Harry Bosch series.

For additional reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings and/or other announcements of interest to mystery fans, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list. Or, if you’re logged into your account on Facebook, you can visit the Events page for the Lincoln City Libraries, and mark whether or not you plan to attend upcoming sessions of Just Desserts!

What do you think of The Silent Spirit?

Mystery recommendations from Just Desserts members – January 2012

Just Desserts Logo 225Hey, mystery fans! Looking for something good to read?

At the January 2012 Just Desserts meeting, after discussing our monthly “assigned” book, we did a round robin at the table, asking attendees to share what mysteries they’d been reading lately, (especially over the November/December “hiatus” that the group takes), that they felt they could recommend. Here’s a list of the books that were hot last month with this mystery-savvy crowd:

MYSTERIES

  • A House to Die For by Vicki Doudera
  • Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree by Nancy Atherton
  • The Cereal Murders by Diane Mott Davidson
  • The Apple Turnover Murder by Joanne Fluke
  • 10th Anniversary by James Patterson
  • The Do-it-Yourself series by Jennie Bentley
  • The Yellow Rose series by Leann Sweeney
  • The Cats in Trouble series by Leann Sweeney
  • Night of the Living Deb by Susan McBride
  • The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas by Blaize Clement
  • As the Pig Turns, an Agatha Raisin novel by M.C. Beaton
  • Maigret Goes Home by George Simenon
  • The Tehran Initiative by Joel C. Rosenberg
  • Tag Man by Archer Mayor
  • The Drop by Michael Connelly
  • Northwest Angle by William Kent Kreuger
  • Back of Beyond by C.J. Box
  • Acqua Alta by Donna Leon
  • Foul Play at Four by Ann Purser
  • Books by Louise Penny
  • Seven Sisters by Earlene Fowler
  • Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
  • Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues: A Jesse Stone novel by Michael Brandman
  • Books by George Simenon
  • A Brutal Telling by Louis Penny
  • Headhunters by Jo Nesbo
  • Breakdown, a V.I. Warshawski novel by Sara Paretsky
  • The Death on Demand series by Carolyn G. Hart
  • Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon
  • The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King
  • Countdown by Iris Johansen
  • The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjowall
  • The Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton
  • I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming
  • The Stieg Larsson trilogy on audio
  • The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
  • The Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz
  • Books by Henning Mankell
  • The Snowman by Jo Nesbo on audio
  • Books by Donna Leon
  • Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

NON-MYSTERIES

  • Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow
  • Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost
  • Dirty Little Secrets by Cynthia Jaynes Omolulu
  • Killing Lincoln by Bill O’Reilly
  • Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin
  • The Wedding Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  • Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
  • Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron
  • Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
  • This Time Together by Carol Burnett
  • Pearl in China by Anchi Min
  • Flower Net by Lisa See
  • Hunting Eichmann by Neal Bascomb
  • Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
  • The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
  • Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation by Charles Glass
  • The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
  • Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
  • Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

So, what mysteries have you been reading that you’d recommend?

Earlene Fowler’s “Delectable Mountains”

Just Desserts Logo 225delectablemountainsWhen the Just Desserts mystery fiction group returned from its Nov/Dec 2011 holiday hiatus, at our first meeting of 2012, we discussed a volume in Earlene Fowler’s popular “Benni Harrper” series, Delectable Mountains.

This book was discussed at the Just Desserts meeting on January 26, 2012. Whether or not you attended the actual meeting, you are welcome to share your own thoughts and opinions about this book (and series) in a reply comment to this blog post, below.

Join us next on February 23rd, at South Branch Library (6:30 p.m.), as we discuss the “The Silent Spirit”, an entry in Margaret Coel’s popular Wind River series, featuring Father John O’Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden.

And, for additional reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list. Or, if you’re logged into your account on Facebook, you can visit the Events page for the Lincoln City Libraries, and mark whether or not you plan to attend upcoming sessions of Just Desserts!

What do you think of Delectable Mountains?

“Death Comes to Pemberley” by P.D. James

One of my favorite customer service people at the Mail Plus store on South Street called my attention to “Death Comes to Pemberley” by P.D. James a couple of months before it came out in December.

The book is a P.D. James mystery in a Jane Austen setting, a kind of sequel to “Pride and Prejudice.” While skeptical that anyone, even the fabulous P.D. James, could do justice to Jane Austen, I was intrigued. Over the holidays I began “Death Comes to Pemberley.”

James creates the setting just a few years after Elizabeth Bennett marries Mr. Darcy. As the story opens, Elizabeth’s sister Lydia arrives at Pemberley on a dark and stormy night, to announce hysterically that her husband, the notorious Wickham, has been killed in the Pemberley woods.

From there, a classic mystery evolves. P.D. James writes well, and she crafts a mystery just as well. I enjoyed reading this story. I liked the references to “Pride and Prejudice” and even to other Austen novels. But I missed two critical pieces–Austen’s light touch, and her focus on the women.

Alas, I’m married to someone who doesn’t appreciate Jane Austen’s sense of humor. I’ll often read aloud from what I consider a hilarious excerpt, and he just doesn’t laugh. But really, that humor is all over Austen. It’s in her clever conversation and observed gestures. The central act of this book, a death, squelches any chance of the light touch. The sense of appropriate solemnity at Pemberley hangs heavy throughout the story.

Much of the action revolves around Mr. Darcy, a stand-in for Adam Dalgliesh perhaps. I found myself wishing that P.D. James had instead woven the story around Elizabeth.

I don’t like what I’ve written because I wanted to love this book, and hoped to have only good things to say about something written by P.D. James.

I’ll still recommend this book to mystery readers, and even to fans of Jane Austen as an interesting accessory. I just won’t go overboard in my enthusiasm, and I’ll be clear that this is definitely a P.D. James book. And as I should have known from the start, if I want Jane Austen…then I need to read Jane Austen.