The Hidden Effects of Climate Change
Jeanne Matthews was born and raised in Georgia, where owning a gun is required by law in certain places and “he needed killing” is a valid legal defense to homicide. Jeanne’s debut novel, Bones of Contention, published in June, 2010 by Poisoned Pen Press, features a conniving Georgia clan plopped down in the wilds of Northern Australia where death adders, assassin spiders, man-eating crocs, Aboriginal myths, and murder abound. Jeanne currently resides in Renton, Washington with her husband, Sidney DeLong, who is a law professor, and their West Highland terrier. Her second novel, Bet Your Bones, is available at bookstores everywhere.
I was chatting with a reader the other day and he told me he was about half-way through my second Dinah Pelerin mystery, which is set in Hawaii. He had some questions about one of the victims. “You know, the guy who’s found dead in the volcanic flow. What’s his name?” He looked at me expectantly, waiting for a reminder. To my considerable surprise and chagrin, I drew a blank. OMG! Had I entered some weird fugue state or was this a sign of galloping senility? The characters in that book had consumed my thoughts and haunted my dreams for over a year. How could I forget the smallest detail, let alone the name of a major player? I mean, Sue Grafton might be forgiven for spacing out the victim in “B Is for Burglar.” Dozens of bodies have piled up in the years between “B” (her second) and “V” (her twenty-second). But to date, yours truly has an oeuvre consisting of just two published books. It’s a mite worrying – ominous, even – for the particulars to have faded so soon from memory. Fortunately, the name came back to me after a few embarrassing seconds, but the episode started me to wondering. If I’m not losing my marbles, what could account for such a lapse?
Maybe it could be chalked up to Dinah’s itinerant ways. Pèlerin is the French word for pilgrim and, true to her name, Dinah doesn’t stick around in one place for very long. She is constantly waving good-bye to characters she’s become involved with and so far, she is the only recurring character in the series. Her adventures have taken her from Australia (Bones of Contention) to Hawaii (Bet Your Bones) and she’s off to Norway in the third book (Bonereapers) due out in June, 2012. Maybe I was so immersed in writing the Norway book and getting to know the new characters that the names of Dinah’s “auld acquaintance” momentarily slipped my mind. Or here’s a thought to conjure with – maybe my absent-mindedness was the result of climate change.
A winter’s day in Hawaii typically dips no lower than a balmy eighty degrees. But the temperature takes a ninety degree plunge in Bonereapers. In the Norwegian Arctic where the novel is set, the temperature in December rarely climbs above zero and the notion of “daytime” is wishful thinking because the sun doesn’t shine for three whole months. During the long polar night, the world is as black as pitch and bitterly cold. Breathing burns the lungs, blizzards rage across the barren tundra, and the earth is frozen too hard to bury the dead. Those who die must be shipped south for burial. During the months I spent writing this book, Dinah shivered and shook and ached from the cold and, vicariously, so did I. Imagining that kind of cold made me want to huddle under an electric blanket. The Arctic seemed as far away and alien to Hawaii as if it existed on a different planet – as if it had been created by different gods. And given Dinah’s fascination with the mythology of the places she visits, the spirits of the ancient Norse deities soon invade her thoughts and wipe out all memory of sunlit beaches and tropical warmth.
So it was with the author. I must have experienced brain freeze. Not the kind caused by stage fright or eating too much ice cream. The kind brought on by a fictional climate change and months spent immersed in the culture and national character of an ice-bound land at the top of the world.
January 13, 2012
Posted in: Guest Blogs 
4 Comments
Book Review: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
The Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood
Canongate, 2005
ISBN 9781841957982
Trade Paperback
And we, the twelve who were later to die by his hand
At his father’s relentless command,
Sailed as well, in the dark frail boats of ourselves
Through the turbulent seas of our swollen and sore-footed mothers
Who were not royal queens, but a motley and piebald collection,
Bought, traded, captured, kidnapped from serfs and strangers.
Capsule summary: Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, from his wife’s point of view.
Capsule review: Disappointing, until the last 30 pages or so (beginning with chapter 24) when it suddenly turns amazing. The impetus for this retelling, according to Atwood’s introduction, was the execution of Penelope’s twelve handmaidens, which gets little more than a mention in the original poem. “I’ve always been haunted by the hanged maids,” Atwood writes, “and, in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself.” Unfortunately Atwood’s rendering of Penelope is so sketchy and flat that it left me unsatisfied. It isn’t until the story tackles the aftermath of the maids’ killings and the injustice dealt them by modern analyses that the full force of Atwood’s anger reveals itself like a punch to the solar plexus:
You don’t have to think of us as real girls, real flesh and blood, real pain, real injustice. That might be too upsetting. Just discard the sordid part. Consider us pure symbol. We’re no more real than money.
Reviewed by Laura Taylor, December 2011, on Beyond the Blurb; reprinted here with permission.
January 12, 2012
Tags: ancient Greece, Canongate, fantasy, mythology Posted in: Full Reviews No Comments
Book Review Roundup by Gloria Feit
Known to Evil
Walter Mosley
NAL, February 2011
ISBN: 978-0-451-23213-7
Trade Paperback
Leonid Trotter McGill is a 54-year-old African-American man, an amateur boxer known to have had his “finger in every dishonest business in the city” including being a fixer for the mob, who is trying to turn his life around, now working as a private detective. He describes his marriage as “twenty years of unfaithfulness on both sides of the bed;” he has fathered only one of the two sons he has raised with his wife, she of the “gorgeous Scandinavian face.” At present both his wife and his girlfriend have taken on new boyfriends, and his two sons are involved in some kind of trouble. And that’s only his personal life.
He is hired [although insisting it will be a ‘favor,’ with no money to change hands other than expenses] by a very powerful man to find a young woman who it seems is being stalked, with no information except for an address; when he goes to that address it quickly becomes apparent that it is a crime scene where two dead bodies have been found. The ensuing investigation, by McGill and the police, is not a simple one; ‘convoluted’ would be an understatement, but one never loses interest for a minute. The woman he was sent to find was “a mystery and missing, the object of attention of a man who was as dangerous as any terrorist or government-trained assassin.”
I must admit to only having read one of this author’s prior books, which took place in an LA of earlier times. I found this novel, which takes place in contemporary New York City, more accessible, which probably says at least as much about me than about the author. But his evocation of present-day Manhattan is a vibrant one, as are his characters. His writing is enjoyable on so many levels: The frequent irony; the depiction of his protagonist as a deeply flawed man but one with his own immutable moral code; the wonderful names he gives his characters: e.g., a young man who I want to describe as a computer genius except that that wouldn’t do him justice, with the two nicknames of “Tiny” [because he isn’t] and “Bug,” [no idea]; his father was self-named “Tolstoy;” an ex-cop’s middle name is Proteus; an assassin friend is named Hush; his brother is Nikita; he himself has named his sons Twilliam and Dmitri.
The writing is wonderful. When something bothers McGill, he describes it as “a feeling at the back of my mind, something that was burgeoning into consciousness like a vibrating moth pressing out from its cocoon.” When he turned 49, the man who was a surrogate father to him gives him this wisdom: “When you hit your fifties life starts comin’ up on ya fast . . . Before that time life is pretty much a straight climb. Wife looks up to you and the young kids are small enough, and the older kids smart enough, not to weigh you down. But then, just when you start puttin’ on the pounds an’ losin’ your wind, the kids’re expecting you to fulfill your promises and the wife all of a sudden sees every one of your flaws. Your parents, if you still got any, are getting’ old and turnin’ back into kids themselves. For the first time you realize that the sky does have a limit. You comin’ to a rise, but when you hit the top there’s another life up ahead of you and here you are – - just about spent.”
Mr. Mosley has been called a master of contemporary noir, and I cannot disagree with that assessment. Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, May 2011.
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Misery Bay
Steve Hamilton
Minotaur, June 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-38043-4
Hardcover
The first page of the newest book by Steve Hamilton, which brings the welcome return of Alex McKnight, describes a scene wherein the body of a young man is found hanging from a tree branch at the edge of a bay in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. For those new to the series, McKnight is a former Detroit cop and current holder of a p.i. license, although he protests that he ‘doesn’t do that anymore’: He owns and rents out cabins to ‘the snowmobile people’ in season.
Three months after that first-page event takes place, McKnight is approached by Roy Maven, Chief of Police in “the Soo” [Sault St. Marie], who asks for his help. This from a man whose relationship with McKnight could at best be described as ‘fraught’ – as the Chief says, ‘just call it a persistent lack of liking each other.” The dead boy’s father had been Maven’s partner on the police force, and Maven wants McKnight to investigate the circumstances that could have led to what appears to have been a suicide. Having suffered horrendous personal losses himself – his partner on the Detroit police force, the woman he loved – there is no way this particular man could refuse. In what is perhaps the unlikeliest of alliances, McKnight agrees.
The place where the body was found is the eponymous Misery Bay, a fitting enough name for the site itself and for what happened there, and a five-hour drive away from McKnight’s home on Lake Superior, in a town called Paradise. McKnight once again periodically turns to his friend Leon Prudell, the once and perhaps future p.i., for his unerring ability to point him in the right direction. The investigation takes some unpredictable turns, as more lives are lost and more still endangered.
The writing is wonderful – no surprise here. The long, long winter of Paradise is once again made palpable by the author: “The sun went down. The wind picked up and started howling and I knew the wind chill would be something like thirty below. Another beautiful April night in Paradise. . . [where] springtime felt like a fairy tale.” [And I loved that the author tips his hat to fellow mystery writers, both from NYC: Reed Coleman and Jim Fusilli, both police sergeants in this incarnation.]
As dark as the story line is, there is just enough humor injected into the writing and, as usual for this author, it is a sheer pleasure to read, and highly recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, July 2011.
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The Retribution
Val McDermid
Little, Brown, September 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4087-0319-9
Hardcover
[This review is based on the UK edition and the US edition is now available from Atlantic Monthly Press, ISBN 9780802120175]
In her twenty-fifth novel, Val McDermid brings back Jacko Vance, introduced to readers in The Wire in the Blood, and to television viewers in its wonderful series adaptation. As the book opens, this truly malevolent serial killer, whose resume includes “killer of seventeen teenage girls, murderer of a serving police officer, and a man once voted the sexiest man on British TV” as well as an Olympic athlete and an outwardly charming and charismatic man, has served over 12 years in prison, owing mostly to the efforts of DCI Carol Jordan and psychological profiler Tony Hill. Vance has spent most of that time meticulously planning his escape, as well as his future after its successful completion: the revenge suggested by the books title, directed toward those who had caused his imprisonment, first among them Jordan and Hill, as well as his ex-wife whose betrayal he sees as making her equally culpable. Of course, his plan for vengeance merely begins there.
Carol Jordan, as yet unaware of what is about to happen, is dealing with a shake-up at the Bradfield Metropolitan Police, where the powers that be are disbanding her Major Incident Team. In an attempt to go out in a ‘blaze of glory,’ they are faced with finding a killer who has been killing street prostitutes in gruesome ways, and branding them with a distinctive tattoo on the wrist of each. Suddenly, Jordan’s priorities change with Vance’s escape, and its implications. Tony’s priorities as well must be divided between these investigations.
The relationship between Jordan and Hill has always been difficult to define, becoming more so all the time. They are not quite lovers, although they share space, and different flats, in Tony’s house. But their emotional entanglement has always been obvious to all, even if they themselves do not admit to one. That relationship, both professionally and personally, is about to be threatened now as never before.
The author goes into more of Tony’s background, and the emotional and psychological paths that have shaped him, and caused him to work at “passing for human,” than I remembered having been done in the past. He tells a colleague “I won’t deny that the people who do this kind of thing fascinate me. The more disturbed they are, the more I want to figure out what makes them tick.” It is his empathy and his oft-times brilliant insights that have made him so successful. But this is a challenge unlike any he has ever faced.
The pace steadily accelerates along with a sense of dread as Vance begins to carry out his plans, and the resultant page-turner is as good as anything this acclaimed author has written. Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, September 2011.
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Split Second
Catherine Coulter
Putnam, July 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-15743-1
Hardcover
There are three story lines presented in the newest book by Catherine Coulter. The first appears on page one, and isn’t resolved until nearly the final page in the book: The owner of a small convenience store in Washington, D.C. is nearly killed late one night in an apparent robbery gone wrong, the latter not having counted on FBI Agent Dillon Savitch being the customer in the shop at the time. When the same man is shot in another incident shortly thereafter, leaving him seriously wounded, it would seem there is more going on than a “simple” robbery.
The second, and main, story line deals with a series of crimes involving women in their 20’s and 30’s who are picked up in neighborhood bars, brought back to their own apartments, and strangled with a length of wire, no apparent connection among them, and the crimes occurring in various large cities including Cleveland, Ohio; San Francisco; and Chicago. Autopsies show the women were drugged with Rohypnol and ketamine. One of the victims had scratched her attacker before being killed, leaving a nice sample of DNA to be analyzed and run through databases, after which it is determined that the killer is the offspring of none other than Ted Bundy, the man who kidnapped dozens of young women, raped, tortured and then murdered them before he was caught and ultimately electrocuted in Florida in 1989.
The last of the plotlines is a very personal one, having to do with a horrifying family secret just discovered by Lucy Carlyle, another FBI agent in the Washington DC office, and her attempt to put it on the back burner while joining her boss, Savitch, and her partner, Cooper (“Coop”) McKnight, in the investigation of the serial killer, whose victims number five and counting.
I had several problems with the book, starting with the fact that one of the agents, whose name is, disconcertingly, Lacey Sherlock, is never referred to or called Lacey but, always, “Sherlock,” even by her husband. As well, much of the writing felt stilted, the dialog often not what I felt one or another would be expected to utter or their actions not ringing true, e.g., a 27-year-old FBI agent “bouncing up and down” upon being given news of an important breakthrough in the case; a cup of coffee described as “dark as sin.” And would a woman who had just been told her niece had lost control of her car and been badly injured, upon seeing that niece, really say to her “Oh, you’ve got a bandage on your head!” Nor am I enamored with the supernatural in mysteries, as is the case here.
On the other hand, almost in spite of myself, I was caught up in the story, the pages turning quickly, and anxious to find out how each story line was resolved. I am obviously in the minority with my reservations about the book, since the author consistently makes the bestseller lists. This is her seventeenth book in what is termed “the FBI Thriller” series. It made for good reading, on balance, and I’m sure most readers will find it very enjoyable.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, November 2011.
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Very Bad Men
Harry Dolan
Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, July 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-15749-3
Hardcover
This new novel from the author of the acclaimed Bad Things Happen, his writing debut, has no ‘sophomore book’ problems. Very Bad Men immediately engages the reader, and one is quickly drawn into this compelling tale of murder, specifically, the murder of two men who were part of a bank robbery seventeen years ago, and the attempted murder of a third. All three men had been convicted, and served jail time of varying lengths. But what could be the motive? These three men had not seen nor contacted one another in all the intervening years. And the killer – for his identity is quickly revealed – is not a cool, professional hit man; that is immediately made clear.
David Loogan, the editor-in-chief of a mystery magazine, receives, in a plain, unmarked envelope, what at first glance appears to be a manuscript, only several pages long, bearing no signature, the first line of which reads “I killed Henry Kormoran . . . “ Loogan, who lives with his ‘significant other,’ Elizabeth Waishkey, an Ann Arbor, Michigan, detective, and her precocious 16-year-old daughter, ultimately begins a kind of parallel and unofficial investigation.
Each character in the novel is wonderfully well-drawn. These include the killer, who suffers from synesthesia, a rare affliction which results in a confusion of the senses, with words taking on dimensions far beyond their ‘normal’ printed appearance, according to his emotional reaction to them; Lucy Navarro, a young and rather endearing reporter, who comes up with a bizarre theory of the motive for the crimes; assorted politicians and their ‘handlers,’ among others. The writer invokes some wildly disparate images: Occam and his razor, Aristotle, jazz musician Charlie Parker; mystery authors Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly; and a theme: “We all want to be known. To be seen for who we really are.” There are carefully placed, and easily missed clues, and startling and unexpected twists in this rather complex and engrossing novel, which is recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, December 2011.
January 11, 2012
Tags: Amy Einhorn Books, Atlantic Monthly Press, bank robbery, England, FBI agents, Little Brown, magazine journalist, Michigan, Minotaur, mystery, NAL, New York, noir, police procedural, private detective, profiler, psychologist, Putnam, serial killer, supernatural, thriller, Washington DC Posted in: Full Reviews No Comments
On Winning the Lottery—And A Contest To Win A Book!
Lois Winston is the author of the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries published by Midnight Ink. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. The new year brings with it the release of Death By Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series. Read an excerpt at http://www.loiswinston.com/excerptap2.html. Visit Lois at her website: http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. You can also follow Lois and Anastasia on Twitter @anasleuth.
Thanks for inviting me to visit at Buried Under Books today, Lelia!
Someone asked me recently, if I won the lottery, would I continue to write? I laughed. The most I’ve ever won from a lottery ticket was $7. When it comes to raffles, lotteries, and games of chance, my luck is non-existent.
To give you an example, for several years now, my local Trader Joe’s has had a weekly drawing for a gift card for people who bring their own shopping bags. A firm believer in recycle/reuse/repurpose, I always bring my own bags with me, and each week I dutifully fill out the little slip of paper with my name and phone number. Not ONCE in all the years I’ve filled out that little slip of paper have I won!
Me, win the lottery? Fat chance! But if I did…
No, I wouldn’t stop writing. I couldn’t. I’m currently writing an ongoing mystery series, and the characters I’ve created have become too much a part of my life. In many respects, they’re my second family — just as dysfunctional at times and equally stubborn — but family all the same. And just like my real family, I couldn’t live without them.
As a matter of fact, Anastasia has become so real to me that when I was making out my Christmas shopping list last month, I added her name! 
However, unlike my real family and friends, Anastasia doesn’t take a dent out of my wallet. Too bad I couldn’t buy all those other gifts with virtual money!
Whether you’re a reader or a writer, have you ever formed a personal attachment to a character, or am I more than a little bit crazy? (Don’t worry, you won’t be the first to think so!) If you’re a writer, would you stop writing if you won the lottery?
Post a comment, and you could win one of 5 signed copies of Death By Killer Mop Doll I’m giving away as part of my blog tour this month. The full tour schedule can be found at my website, http://www.loiswinston.com, and the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. In addition, I’m giving away 3 copies of Death By Killer Mop Doll on Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/15173-death-by-killer-mop-doll
Also, for anyone attending The American Library Association’s Mid-Winter conference January 20-24 in Dallas, Midnight Ink will be raffling off the hand-crafted mop doll shown in the photo during the opening reception Friday evening. Register for the drawing at the Midnight Ink booth #1459.
Leave your comment below to enter the
drawing for a copy of Death By Killer Mop Doll.
Winners will be announced in late January 2012.
January 10, 2012
Posted in: Contests/Giveaways, Guest Blogs 20 Comments
Understanding Authors
James Fouché lives in the Garden Route area of South Africa with his wife and their two Jack Russell terriers.
While researching characters James spends a lot of his time in the fresh produce departments of local supermarkets, or frequenting coffee shops and other retail outlets, where he takes pleasure in examining housewives and businessmen alike to document their behavioural patterns.
When he is not writing, James also works as a financial adviser.
You can contact the author on jackhangerbook@yahoo.com
I have to admit that most people have difficulty comprehending the life of an author. Many people do not see writing as a work. Let me explain my dilemma, being on the writing side of the spectrum.
I’m married to a lovely woman who is an absolute gem. She is a disciplined thinker and a very structured person, working according to notes and memo’s and reminders. You see, her father was a rose farmer for a couple of years and is a man who knows his way around a car engine, a drill and refrigerators. I don’t, and I probably never will. On paper I can explain the inner-workings and the intricacies of all manner of mechanics – given the benefit that I could research it for three months and that it would be relevant to a character I am writing.
For the longest time my wife struggled intensely with the fact that she was married to someone who goes into a coffee shop and sits there for 
seven hours straight, then strolls out with two thousand words for the day. She couldn’t understand how easily things could distract me from completing a scene or why I had to be in a specific mood to tackle a specific scene. She couldn’t picture my ramblings and she couldn’t detach herself enough from life to imagine my fiction.
It’s only when she finally read my first novel, when she finished that last page and looked up at me with tears in her eyes, that my apparent madness became apparent ability. She finally understood what writing was all about, that seven years of slaving on a project could result in an end product, much like a farmer’s goods are finally packaged and sold at markets.
Authors tend to do a thorough research and our reasoning could be intense. We reason, we analyse, we deliberate and we write it all down. How often have authors stumbled upon economic and business solutions or resolved political disputes by merely writing about it?
That’s just a little something about how people might struggle to see writing as a true vocation.
January 8, 2012
Posted in: Guest Blogs 4 Comments
Book Review Trio by Patricia E. Reid
The Ridge
Michael Koryta
Little, Brown and Company, June 2011
ISBN No. 978-0316053662
Hardcover
Chief Deputy Kevin Kimble is making an early morning drive when he receives a very strange and disturbing phone call. The call is from Wyatt French one of the stranger residents of Kimble’s county. Wyatt lives on a hilltop known as Blade Ridge. Wyatt is famous for his heavy drinking and his residence. Wyatt lives in a lighthouse that lights up the hills surrounding his home. Wyatt’s call is to ask just one question of Kimble and that is if Kimble would rather have a homicide to investigate or a suicide. Kimble finally responds with the answer of suicide.
Kimble’s early drive is a strange one. He makes a monthly visit to prison to visit Jacqueline Mathis. Mathis is serving time for the murder of her husband. Jacqueline also severely injured Kimble although she claims not to remember that she shot him. Kimble thinks that his visits are not common knowledge but his telephone conversation with French reveals that French is well aware of these trips.
Audrey Clark is the owner of a big-cat sanctuary and is in the process of moving the animals to her new location on Blade Ridge. The cats are restless and seem to be dissatisfied with the new sanctuary.
Kimble’s return home after his prison visit finds him faced with the discovery of Wyatt French’s body. French’s death appears to be a suicide but Kimble keeps going over the statements made by French in his phone call and the strange items revealed in the search of French’s lighthouse home.
Between the investigation of French’s death and the trouble stirring at the cat sanctuary it seems that Blade Ridge is a dangerous place to be. Roy Darmus is a newspaper reporter whose newspaper has just closed down but Roy also becomes interested in French’s death and Blade Ridge. Kimble and Darmus work together to uncover the mystery that surrounds the Ridge.
Digging into the past finally reveals the history of Blade Ridge and the very real dangers that lurk there – dangers that Wyatt French attempted to fight.
I enjoyed this author’s The Cypress House and So Cold the River. This one is even better than the first two. The three books are all stand-alones.
Reviewed by Patricia E. Reid, June 2011.
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Dead Man’s Switch
Tammy Kaehler
Poisoned Pen Press, 2011
ISBN No. 978-1590588819
Hardcover
Tammy Kaehler’s debut novel Dead Man’s Switch introduces Kate Reilly. Kate loves racing and although she has had some experience, she is looking for a full-time position with a racing crew. When she pulls into the track at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut where the American LeMans Series is racing on the 4th of July weekend she pulls into a dead man. Or maybe a better phrase would be that she pulls over a dead man.
The corpse under Kate’s car turns out to be Wade Becker, a corvette driver for ALMS. The driver’s death was a shock to everyone but not necessarily counted as a loss since Wade seemed to have a number of enemies in the racing world.
When Kate is offered the position of filling in for Wade, she is thrilled but uncertain how she will be accepted. She finds that the detective in charge of the investigation is suspicious of Kate since she not only discovered the body but also has taken over Wade’s driving position.
The author takes the readers behind the scenes of racing and puts you behind the wheel with Kate. Kate is trying to concentrate on her driving as well as attempting to clear her name and prove that she is innocent.
Strong characters and a lot of excitement make this book a great read and you don’t have to be interested in racing to enjoy the book and learn a lot about the sport.
Reviewed by Patricia E. Reid, August 2011.
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The Burning Edge
Rick Mofina
Mira, December 2011
ISBN No. 978-0778313014
Mass Market Paperback
“Jennifer, I love you.” No, this is not a love story. These four words are the last words spoken by a young FBI agent as he lay dying next to Lisa Palmer, recently widowed, single mother. At the request of the agent, Lisa had tried to reach his gun so that he would have a chance at the robbers but the gun slipped and attracted the attention of one of the robbers who immediately shot the FBI agent and held a gun to Lisa’s head. Lisa escaped death but didn’t escape the terror of living through the robbery and the fear that the robbers would somehow find her.
Although Lisa has two small children to protect, she does agree to do everything she can to cooperate with the FBI in their search for the criminals. For FBI agent Frank Morrow this case is extremely important. Morrow is facing his own death sentence and is determined to conclude the case and allow him time to spend with is family before his health problems take their final toll.
Jack Gannon, a reporter for World Press Alliance, is given the assignment and pressured to land an exclusive. Gannon’s current boss, Dolf Lisker, is nothing like Melody Lane, his former boss, who has taken a one-year leave of absence. Lisker had never worked the streets or followed a lead and had no patience whatsoever. Lisker demanded immediate results and had no patience with Gannon who had an anonymous tipster he was attempting to catch up with and obtain further information about the robbery and its purpose. Gannon feels that the robbery had been carried out by well-trained men and the purpose of the robbery was more than just a chance to grab some fast money.
The story jumps back and forth from Gannon’s quest for more information, Lisa Palmer’s fears and her determination to keep her family safe and be sure the robbers are captured, and the point of view of the robbers and their reasons for needing a large amount of cash in a short amount of time.
Jack Gannon is a professional and the inside story of how a reporter chases down leads keeps the pages turning rapidly. If you have not read the previous Jack Gannon novels this fast-paced book will be sure to make you want to read each book in the Gannon series.
Rick Mofina is a former crime reporter and writes from his own experience.
Reviewed by Patricia E. Reid, November 2011.
January 7, 2012
Tags: big cat sanctuary, Connecticut, crime reporter, FBI, journalist, Kentucky, Little Brown and Company, Mira, mystery, Poisoned Pen Press, police procedural, racecar driver, thriller Posted in: Full Reviews No Comments
How I Got Closer To The Finish Line
Like her sleuth, Hazel Rose, Maggie King earned a B.S. in Business Administration from Rochester Institute of Technology. Also like Hazel, she grew up in New Jersey and lived in Los Angeles for many years before reversing her transcontinental move. Unlike the much-married Hazel, Maggie made one trip to the altar when she married her husband Glen and they continue to enjoy wedded bliss twenty-plus years later.
Maggie is a member of Sisters in Crime and the American Association of University Women. She has worked as a retail sales manager, customer service supervisor, computer programmer analyst, and administrator. She and Glen live in Richmond, Virginia where she contracts with the Virginia Department of Health Professions. Her interests include reading, computers, walking, cats, theatre, concerts, film, and travel.
A cold wind blew through Arlington National Cemetery on December 17, 2011, the first anniversary of the death of Lt. Col. Henry Edward Gabler III (Eddie). As I stood in front of his grave, I reflected on Eddie’s life and how he touched so many in so many ways, as a son, father, friend, Vietnam War veteran awarded the Bronze Star, attorney …
… and a great brother to me and my sisters.
Eddie retired from the N.J. Attorney General’s office in December of 2009, planning to continue pursuing his many interests. Notice I said “continue.” He didn’t wait until he retired to become certified to judge amateur boxing matches. Nor did he wait to start acting in community theatre, most memorably as Dr. John Spivey in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He loved military history and genealogy and discovered an 
ancestor in our tree who was a turncoat during the Civil War.
Eddie enjoyed a few good post-retirement months until the day he learned he had a brain tumor, an especially aggressive one that took his life seven months later.
So what does this have to do with writing? Actually, a lot. For more years than I care to admit I’ve been working on my mystery. The plot and characters have evolved so much over time that there’s little resemblance between my current story and the original one. Other reasons for my book’s long birth include this danged day job (let’s see, how many years until I can retire?), a perfectionist streak, and, let’s face it, a well-honed procrastination habit.
That all changed a year ago. Oh, I still have the day job and the perfection/procrastination issues, but most days I don’t let them get in the way. Writing helped me deal with my grief, but something more was moving me forward. With my brother’s passing my mortality loomed too close for comfort and time was no longer a luxury I could take for granted. Mystery author Sunny Frazier guest blogged here a while back and shared her insight: “Don’t piss away opportunity, talent or time.”
And so I got cracking on that book. By October I presented a draft to my two readers—thank you, Lelia and Alyson—and now I’m rewriting, and 
rewriting … and rewriting some more! Nowadays when I come up with new ideas and characters I tell myself “next book, next book.”
I hope you enjoy my debut book, tentatively titled Death in River City. Newly published author Carlene Arness is poisoned during a meeting of her book group. By her own hand or someone else’s? She left a suicide note, but why would she kill herself? Besides her publishing success, Carlene had just dropped hundreds at a spa weekend, plus she was planning a trip to Costa Rica. Okay, there was her recent split with her husband, but by all accounts she wasn’t too fazed about that. But maybe she did have reasons to do herself in—on the evening of her death she had acted agitated, making cryptic references to being haunted by a huge mistake.
But who would kill such a refined and accomplished woman? As it turns out, there are no dearth of suspects, including Hazel Rose, who just happens to be the former wife of Carlene’s estranged husband and who doesn’t buy the suicide story.
Book groups can be dangerous places.
And, so, this is Eddie’s gift to me: treat every day like it’s my last.
January 6, 2012
Posted in: Guest Blogs 13 Comments
Book Review: The Affair by Lee Child
The Affair
Lee Child
Delacorte Press, September 2011
ISBN 9780385344326
Hardcover
Jack Reacher fans celebrate! Step back in time to read the case that separated the man from the military. Uncover secrets and lies and do so in the unique Child style we’ve come to expect. Reacher is the intelligent, tough guy with Sherlock Holmes type deductive reasoning. He’s patriotic, no nonsense, and determined to see a case through to the end, letting the chips fall where they will.
It’s 1997. Major Jack Reacher is assigned to go undercover in a small northeastern Mississippi town where a woman has been raped and murdered. Reacher is to make nice with the local police to monitor the investigation, especially in relation to the nearby military base where there is no shortage of suspects. Almost immediately upon arriving in town, Reacher meets the county sheriff, Elizabeth Deveraux, former Marine and beautiful woman. She understands Reacher’s role because she’s familiar with how the military operates. With no word from the investigator on the base, Reacher and Deveraux begin sifting through anomalies and clues in the case. Soon, Reacher must deal with not one dead woman, but three, all murdered in the last nine months. While military personnel do everything to cover their backsides, Reacher uses logic, his subtle but steady investigative process and his contacts in Washington, D.C. to ferret out the truth.
If you’re a veteran to Child, you know this one is going to be another good one. His unique writing style is logical, clinical, precise. Child’s portrayal of the military is truthful, unabashed, and his humor is well-timed. He knows how to slowly peel back the layers revealing a little at a time. If you’re new to Child, then be prepared to set aside large chunks of time to read. The Affair is one of those types of stories where you’ll want to continue nonstop to the end, then blank your memory and start over again. This is another winner.
Reviewed by Stephen L. Brayton, November 2011.
January 5, 2012
Tags: Delacorte Press, humor, military police, Mississippi, mystery, thriller Posted in: Full Reviews No Comments
Book Review: Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
Incarnate
Jodi Meadows
Katherine Tegan Books/HarperCollins Publishers, January 2012
ISBN 978-0-06-206075-4
Hardcover
Eighteen-year-old Ana has spent her entire life abused and reviled because she is a nosoul, born without a past into a world in which everyone else has been continually reincarnated for 5,000 years. Those who are reborn remember all their past lives and those of other people. Ana was born when Ciana died and not reborn and most people believe she stole Ciana’s rebirth. Ana has left the uncaring Li, the mother who hates her, setting out to find the answers about who and what she is and why she was born. She must go to Heart, the city where all but a few live, and it is a journey filled with bitter cold and the deadly attacks of sylphs whose burns never heal.
Ana meets a young man, Sam, who saves her life and shares with her a love of music while not seeming to be overly concerned about who she is. Sam leads her to Heart, a city with a huge temple and soaring white walls that pulse with heat and perhaps life. There she finds enemies and friends and those who would fight dragons and she begins her search to answer the questions that obsess her. Why was she born? Did she steal Ciana’s life? Is she the only nosoul—or newsoul—or just the first and what will happen to her when she dies? Will she be allowed to stay in Heart or is solitary exile her destiny?
Incarnate is the first entry in the Newsoul trilogy and is based on an intriguing concept, that of endless reincarnation and memory. It’s difficult to define, really, as it has elements of dark fantasy and science fiction as well as romance but that is not a flaw because it will have crossgenre appeal. Ms. Meadows develops her characters nicely and, at the end of the book, I found myself wanting to know what will happen to them all, not just the “good” ones. An odd thing happened as I didn’t always care very much for Ana, becoming rather tired of her self-pity, but that feeling faded soon after I finished and I now believe she is a character who will stay in my mind for quite a while.
One last note—the cover of Incarnate is one of the most striking I have seen in all my years as a reader and a bookseller and I’m pretty sure booksellers in brick & mortar stores will shelve this face-out and in their windows for maximum effect.
Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, January 2012.
January 4, 2012
Tags: dark fantasy, HarperCollins Publishers, Katherine Tegan Books, romance, science fiction, young adult Posted in: Full Reviews, My Reviews No Comments
Food for the Holidays
Kathleen Delaney, author of And Murder for Dessert and other books, retired from real estate to pursue writing full time. Her long time love of small towns sent her looking through the Carolina’s for a new place to settle, Gaffney. Limestone College, a delightful historic district, and a great library immediately drew her in. She lives in a wonderful 100 year old house, with a wrap around front porch, where she and her dogs can while away a summer afternoon, and a big office, lined with bookcases, where she can spend her days writing. And, as always, reading.
I have just spent another couple of hours pouring over my recipe books and the cardboard box I keep my loose recipes in. Why, I’m not sure. My children are grown. I should have long since left behind this compulsion to feed everybody in sight, especially during the holidays. But, one of my daughters and her kids are coming for the New Year’s weekend.
I got up early this morning and put an old-fashioned applesauce cake in the oven. I’ve been making this cake for years. My kids grew up snacking on it and now it’s my grandkids turn. I’ve decided to make Balsamic chicken for dinner tonight. Tomorrow we’ll have Daube, the one in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It’s another long time family favorite. I have planned a pasta dish for Sunday, which I know we won’t need, especially after what I’ve got planned for breakfast, and then there’s lunch, and I’ve got some snacks…. There will be enough leftovers to feed all of us plus the 5th army. But, I’ll make it anyway. You never know. I can always send some home with my daughter. I always send some home with her. Stephanie Plum’s mom has nothing on me.
Why? Why do I, and thousands of other women, do this? Unlike Stephanie Plum, all of my daughters are excellent cooks. They feed their families well, and deliciously. And, they bring stuff when they come. Good stuff, too. So, why?
I think its because the food you prepare, and that you offer to your family or guests, symbolizes so much more than just eating. You can grab a hamburger from any fast food place and eat it in the car or at your desk, but it’s not the same. That only keeps your stomach from growling. But dinner, at the table, with your family around, is an event, an occasion to be savored, to be shared, and holiday meals are the most special of all.
Holidays are when we bring out the tablecloth that has to be ironed, the best plates, the silver we keep tucked away in a silver chest, the crystal that can’t go in the dishwasher. This is when we teach our grandchildren the difference between a salad and dinner fork, that butter has its own special dish and that the basket for rolls gets it own cloth napkin. Its when we carefully bring out the cut glass serving dish that was on the table when we were children and then retell the story about how the children’s great aunt passed out at the dinner table one Thanksgiving just as the 
dish was being passed to her. No one ate the mashed potatoes that year. It’s when we set out white linen napkins and actually instruct the children to use them.
Why do we do it? The hours planning, the more hours preparing the food, the meticulous table setting? Because the table should befit the work we put into the meal we are about to eat, the meal we labored over, that is one more loving gift we give to, and share with, our family and friends. That’s why. Is it worth it? You bet.
May you share many happy meals with family and friends this coming year, and may you know the joy of preparing a lot of them.
Who writes cozy mysteries with lots of descriptions of food and meals.
And Murder For Dessert
Murder Half-Baked
January 3, 2012
Posted in: Guest Blogs 8 Comments
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