Are You a Smart Phone, Tablet, or Laptop?

You Are a Laptop

 

You're the type of person who does as much as you can online - shopping, news, working, even some socializing. You don't just consume, you interact... and possibly even create. And you need to be able to type quickly to get things done! When it comes to the internet, you are a bit old school. You may use a smart phone or tablet, but you need to get on an actual computer for the important stuff. You refuse to be a passive person, especially when you're online. You're one of the few who actively shapes the online world.

Are You a Smart Phone, Tablet, or Laptop?

[Yeah...right. Pull the other leg while you're at it!] 

@ The Poisoned Pen with Ingrid Thoft and Chevy Stevens!

I have to admit that as the hour grew near to departure this past Saturday afternoon, I came very close to staying home and getting in the pool instead of heading to Scottsdale and The Poisoned Pen. Monsoon season is showing signs of rearing its sweaty head, and I don't much care for making the effort to put on makeup only to have it try to slide off my face minutes later.

But I made the ultimate sacrifice so I could see two authors, Ingrid Thoft and Chevy Stevens. I'd recently read Thoft's first Fina Ludlow novel, Loyalty, so I was particularly looking forward to seeing her.

The traffic was much lighter than I expected as I drove across town, and I have a feeling that a lot of people decided to stay home and escape the heat. I snagged my favorite parking spot and made a beeline for books and air conditioning. Several people were perusing the shelves, so I made my purchase (Shona Patel's Teatime for the Firefly, Eileen Brady's Muzzled, and Brynn Bonner's Death in Reel Time-- hey, The Poisoned Pen was having a 25% off paperbacks sale from 4 to 6 PM!) before parking myself in my preferred seat to read. Bookstore owner Barbara Peters walked in to put some prizes on the table, and as she looked around, she seemed to be a bit worried. "Trying to time these events is a crap shoot," she told me. "I'm going to go back to 2 PM for Saturdays instead of 5 PM [the time for this event]. I think too  many people have decided to stay home out of the heat by this time of day." As it happens, 2 PM suits me better-- although I had a feeling that staff would be putting out those extra chairs they had at the ready. Before she moved on to her next task, Barbara and I also chatted about calling numbers for the prizes that are often given out at these events. As Barbara moved on, she remarked, "Most authors choose the number seventeen. I have no idea why!"

The leaky blue cups...

L to R: Ingrid Thoft, Barbara Peters, Chevy Stevens

When Barbara and the authors took their seats and I fired up my camera, I immediately found another reason to be grateful for the upcoming change in time: the sun. At the angle it was shining through the bookstore window, I knew it would be a miracle if I could get any decent shots. (And I didn't.) Ingrid Thoft was sitting in a dead zone, and the light wasn't optimal for the other two either. So-- I apologize for the lousy photos I've included in this recap.

Before she introduced the two authors, Barbara let us know that there would be plenty of giveaways: four books, an American Express gift card, and a gift basket that had come all the way from Canada. The publishers had also provided tea and cookies, but she asked us to wait a bit before getting any tea: "It's been discovered that the blue plastic cups they provided are leaking, so someone's gone out to get replacements!"

Chevy Stevens

I looked around to see that the staff did have to put out those extra chairs. So far, events that Barbara has planned aimed more specifically at women have been very well attended, so something tells me that there will be more.

Peters then introduced Chevy Stevens: "This is Chevy's first visit here. She's from Canada, and she probably wishes that she'd stayed!" Everyone laughed-- including Chevy. "I spent most of the day working on my next book in my hotel room," Chevy said. "I looked outside and saw the beautiful sky and all the sunshine, so I stepped out on the balcony. I think my hair was dry in two minutes! And the heat!" (I wonder how many of us thought of that tired old line "But it's a dry heat"?)

"Somewhere north of Boston..."

Available Now!

Chevy then proceeded to give us short summaries of her previous three books: Still Missing, Never Knowing, and Always Watching. (Click on each book title for a short summary from Chevy's website-- very interesting plot summaries!) Her latest book, That Night, is about a woman and her boyfriend who were wrongly convicted of her sister's murder and sent to prison. After serving fifteen years, the miscarriage of justice is discovered, and they are released. The book is about what happens to the two once they get out of prison. It's based on a true story in Montana.

"That Night has strong elements of bullying in it," Barbara Peters commented, and Stevens agreed, but the thing that has stayed with the author the most is how it was written. Unable to write it in the order she'd intended, she remarked, "It's amazing how much individual chapters can travel in the evolution of a book!"

Ingrid Thoft nodded her head in strong agreement. "I wrote the first eighty pages of Identity rather quickly, but after I'd finished them I realized that they weren't the first eighty pages, they were actually the second eighty pages!"

Barbara wanted to know if Chevy had had any difficulties in writing when so many of her readers were Americans. "No," Chevy said. "Other than an occasional difference in spelling or changing the name of a business that's not known outside of Canada, I haven't had any. I like to think that my books are set in Canada, but they are not love letters to Canada."

After Barbara mentioned the huge tax the Canadian government adds to any books shipped from the United States into Canada, Chevy was somehow reminded of something one of her readers had told her: "In my mind, the book takes place somewhere north of Boston!"

"She sounds just like my...."

Ingrid Thoft

Since her main character is a private investigator, Ingrid Thoft took a year-long certification class so she would know how to be one. She also decided to set her series in her native Boston because, as a recent transplant to Seattle, she didn't feel as though she knew the area well enough to write about it.

The certification class went over everything. The first semester was spent with a defense attorney, the second with a criminal investigator, and the third with a civil investigator. Thoft learned crime scene reconstruction, laws... just about every single thing she would need to know to be a private eye.

Thoft's main character, Fina Ludlow, is a P.I. for her family, which runs a large successful law firm specializing in personal injury cases. "I have to admit that I was biased against personal injury law because my father is a surgeon," Ingrid said. "This certification class opened my eyes." 

Just as she did in her acknowledgements in her first book Loyalty, Ingrid assured us that her own mother is nothing whatsoever like the matriarch of the Ludlow clan. "So many readers come up to me and say, 'She sounds just like my (fill in the blank)!' Mother-in-law is one of the most common fill-ins," Thoft said with a wry smile.

Available Now!

In Thoft's latest book Identity, a woman wants to sue a sperm bank in order to learn the identity of the father of her child-- even though she signed all sorts of waivers stating that she wouldn't. The conversation then segued into some of the things Ingrid learned while doing research for the book.

When sperm banks first came into being, they were not well regulated, and today some men are discovering that they've fathered up to seventy-five children. This can have huge implications in a small community, especially since there are now online databases which young people are accessing-- and learning how many half-siblings they have. In the beginning there also weren't as many tests run, which means some genetic abnormalities have unwittingly been passed on. 

"Everything I know I learned

 from crime fiction!"

L to R: Ingrid Thoft, Barbara Peters, Chevy Stevens

"Everything I know I learned from crime fiction," Barbara Peters said. When we all laughed, she did, too, but insisted, "No, it's true! I was made aware of some of this by Tony Hillerman when he explained why the Navajo wouldn't let Jim Chee marry anyone from certain clans. The Navajo were already aware that certain genetic traits could be passed on."

"Some people 'buy in bulk' so their children will be full siblings," Thoft added. (See what you can learn at these author events?) In Identity, Fina's father is gung-ho to take the woman's case. Fina is reluctant because she knows the daughter does not want to know the identity of her donor father.  "I like to write about topics that have social, economic, or political implications," Ingrid told us. When asked, she told us that she had the third book in her series written, but she wasn't allowed to talk about it.

Chevy loves to write about family dynamics, and her next book is "Those Girls," about three sisters who are very close. They escape from a very bad situation at home only to find themselves in an even worse one. This is the book that she was working on in her hotel room. 

One reader in the room asked Chevy if she had a background in therapy because she writes about it so well. Stevens replied, "No, but my mom is a psych nurse, I have a psychiatrist that I can talk with, and I read a lot of psych books."

In doing research for That Night, Stevens had to "fill out massive amounts of documents in order to learn things about the corrections system. The Canadian corrections system is not open to talking." Chevy also shared a bit about the first book she ever wrote: "It was one long monograph with no quotation marks or paragraphs. I was in real estate at the time and I had a second house. I sold that second house at just the right time, and the money from the sale gave me the breathing space I needed so I could have time to learn how to write."

Ingrid Thoft's husband has supported her writing endeavors, and she told us that one of the best learning experiences she had was taking a screenplay writing class at the University of Washington.

"With each book, you get to learn something new," Chevy said.

Ingrid told us that she and her husband live in a small condo, and her research books for Identity were stacked all over the living room. One evening when they were expecting friends over, her husband pointed to the books and said, "Do you think you could move these? I think we're sending mixed signals to our guests...." (One of the books more prominently stacked was titled Knock Yourself Up.) Ingrid looked around at the books and asked, "What's the problem?"

Research can be a problem from time to time. Chevy once tried to ask a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer about information she needed in order to write a book. It was difficult to keep her face from turning red as the man became more and more incredulous at her questions. 

"Can you imagine what someone would think if they pulled up my internet search history?!?" Ingrid exclaimed.

"I do have a good piece of advice for any of you who are thinking of writing. Retired experts are much more willing to talk!" Chevy confided.

After many things learned and much laughter, Barbara, Chevy, and Ingrid then began parceling out the goodies. What a fun evening! (And one of the numbers called was seventeen.)

The Stranger by Camilla Läckberg

First Line: What he remembered most was her perfume.

It's a matter of a few weeks until Patrik Hedström and Erika Falck are married, and Erika can't drum up much enthusiasm for wedding plans. Fortunately her sister is around to jar some sense into her. But before the two women can conscript Patrik into their bridal army, a local woman is killed in a car crash. At first thought to be a simple matter of drunk driving, post mortem results and interviews with the deceased woman's friends cast doubt on what would have been a simple closure to an investigation.

Right on top of the car crash victim's death is the death of one of the contestants on Sodding Tanum, a reality television series being filmed in town. Suddenly Patrik's got more work than he can handle, and the last thing he needs is to be given wedding errands. Although he does not want to ignore the investigation into the first woman's death, his superiors are screaming for a fast result in the case of the reality TV star. Hedström is headed straight into his toughest investigation yet. He needs everyone's help, even the new police officer who hasn't had time to be properly introduced to the area or her new co-workers.

If you are the type of reader who prefers police procedurals to remain focused on the investigation and to have little to say about anything else, Camilla Läckberg's series is not the one for you. In these Hedström and Falck novels,  the lives of the police officers are every bit as important as the investigations they work on. For character-driven readers like me, they're perfect to immerse myself in when I'm in the mood to spend time with characters who've come to feel as though they're friends. You also never know just what's going to happen, because the lives of these characters do not run smoothly.

Hedström and Falck have had to learn how to be a couple, how to juggle their separate careers, and how to be parents. Erika's sister and her two children have had a very difficult time of their own, and we get to see them adjusting to a new chapter in their lives. We know what's going on in the lives of each person who works with Patrik-- even Melberg, the boss who drives everyone insane. Melberg's private life comes into the spotlight for a while in The Stranger, and this glimpse gives him an added depth that the usual pain-in-the-neck boss just doesn't have in the typical police procedural. The individual cast members of the reality TV show also come under scrutiny since they are all considered suspects. It does sound like a huge cast, but I had no difficulties in keeping everyone straight.

The only thing that kept The Stranger from becoming one of my top reads for the year was the fact that the identity of the killer was crystal clear to me very early on. However, I certainly did enjoy watching Hedström and his team conduct their investigations into the two deaths, finding clues and piecing them together in this strongest book of the series so far.

If you like to learn a bit about another country, be a part of intricate investigations, and immerse yourself in the lives of fictional characters, then I certainly recommend crime fiction written by Camilla Läckberg.

The Stranger (APA The Gallows Bird) by Camilla Läckberg

Translated by Steven T. Murray

ISBN: 9780007253999

Harper © 2012

Paperback, 418 pages

Police Procedural, #4 Patrik Hedström mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet 

The Speed Reading Weekly Link Round-Up

It's official: I'm going through books like a house afire. I'm not a speed reader, and I don't think I'm really reading any faster than I normally do; it's just that when I sit in the shady end of the pool, I can't hear politicians and other solicitors ring the doorbell, and I can't hear the phone ring (so I miss even more politicians and their recorded messages about how wonderful they are). I'm not where I can see that that window ledge needs to be dusted or that I really should run a dust mop over the living room floor. In other words, when I'm in the pool, I'm distraction-free and can really immerse myself in one story after another. Yes, I am lucky, and yes, I know it... and I'm very thankful for it.

Since I am going through so many books, I have increased the number of reviews you see here on the blog, but there's been a slight change in plan. Instead of reviewing everything I read here, whenever I have a novella, short story, or a collection of short stories, I'm going to do a quick reaction to those on my blog's Facebook page. If you're interested in seeing them but haven't "liked" my page, you can get to it from the Let's Connect section on my sidebar. I share a lot of other things there as well, and some folks have found it easier to leave comments there than it is here. Whatever floats your boat-- if you're happy then I'm happy!

Oh oh-- those danged links just tried to make a break for it! I better get 'em rounded back up so y'all can see the goodies I discovered in the past week!

Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits

• When we read fiction, how relevant is the author's biography?
• Under the Dome episode written by-- and tweaked for TV by-- Stephen King.
• More common sense, this time from the American Academy of Pediatrics: they support reading aloud to children from infancy.
• I've had a crush on Robin Ellis since he starred in Poldark. I follow his blog and enjoyed his recent post about helping a family of hedgehogs.
• One library system and the American Library Association are under fire for inappropriate computer usage.
• UK groups and authors are rallying to support reading in prisons.
• You will be shocked when you learn how often young people read.
• Organized crime focuses on book scanning in Spain.
• Mary Poppins's real-life model appears in an unseen P.L. Travers story.
• Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of Kevlar, has died at the age of 90.
• J.K. Rowling tweeting to her fans made the news.
• Marcus Redthunder talks about how A&E's Longmire gets it right. (Who's Marcus Redthunder? The real-life inspiration for Henry Standing Bear, that's who.)
• Instead of begging, a homeless man reviews books on the street and sells them.
• I went through all my skincare products after reading about microbeads.

Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones...

...or is it David Attenborough?

• Artifacts dating back 4,500 years were found atop a cupboard in Britain. Here's a second article about the discovery.
• A 4,000-year-old burial with chariots has been discovered in the South Caucasus.
• More on the sunken kingdom that is re-emerging from the sea in Wales.
• Two well-preserved dinosaur skeletons have been found in Russia.
• An explorer says he's found the shipwreck of LaSalle's ship the Griffin at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
• One of Monet's paintings of the Water Lilies fetches $55 million in an auction in London.
• Scientists are probing satellite images for the lost ark of Noah.
• A newfound horned dinosaur, the Mercuriceratops, had some pretty spectacular headgear.
• A Spanish "pit of bones" has yielded 17 remarkable early human skulls. 
• An Egyptologist has unraveled an ancient mystery.
• A great white shark has baffled the scientists tracking it off the U.S.  coast.
• A rare Roman "Nero" coin has been unearthed in England. (The next time I'm in the UK, I'm renting a metal detector and going for a walk!)

I  ♥  Lists

• 19 dilemmas every book lover has faced at least once.
• Damian Dibben's top ten  time travel books.
• 6 Caribbean writers to discover this summer.

Book Candy

• An unusual "book" coffee table from France, circa 1960.
• For anyone who does cross stitch, I found a "Read More" pattern to download.

That's all for now. Don't forget to stop by next Friday for a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure.

Have a great weekend!

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

First Line: All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota, sliced into pieces by a thousand tons of steel speeding across the prairie toward South Dakota.

Forty years on, Frank Drum looks back at the pivotal summer when he was thirteen in small town New Bremen, Minnesota. That summer's tragedies began with the death of a young boy Frank knew and as more unfolded, Frank's entire family is caught in their undertow. From Frank to his Methodist minister father to his passionate, willful mother to his musically gifted older sister to his stuttering kid brother, each family member is changed as the heat- and sun-filled days pass.

Ordinary Grace is a lyrical evocation of a time (1961) and a place (small town America). I was a child in 1961, and when I entered the world William Kent Krueger created, everything was utterly familiar to me; there were no false notes. This book is also a marvelous coming-of-age tale reminiscent of classics like To Kill a Mockingbird or Stand by Me. Frank Drum begins as a typical teenage boy who might be in trouble a bit more than he should, but as the summer progresses, he finds himself trying to make sense of the adult world of lies and secrets that he's been thrust right in the middle of.

Ordinary Grace is also a strong mystery. Frank and anyone who picks up this book wants to know who is responsible for that summer's deaths. As Frank learns more and more from his talent for being a fly on the wall, he suddenly wants to stop sneaking around to learn things and to be treated as an adult instead. As this summer of tragedy and wisdom and grace flows from one day to the next, Frank sees the members of his family in a new and more understanding light, and he is forever changed-- as are readers who have been caught in the spell of this beautiful and powerful book. Highly recommended!

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

ISBN:  9781451645859

Atria Books © 2013

Paperback, 336 pages

Literary Mystery, Standalone

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet 

Hell Hole by Chris Grabenstein

First Line: It's almost 1:00 AM on a Saturday and the partiers inside the rental house at the corner of Kipper Street and Beach Lane are chanting like drunken sailors chasing a runaway keg of beer.

Danny Boyle is working the night shift with a part-time summer cop when they get a complaint about noise. When they arrive at the rental house, they can hear why neighbors can't sleep. A houseful of Army Rangers are celebrating, and they want everyone to know it. Their celebration is cut short when it is discovered that the one person who was late has been found dead in a bathroom stall at a highway rest area.

Out of Sea Haven, New Jersey's jurisdiction, Danny has to watch incompetents trample over a crime scene and totally misread the evidence right in front of their faces. As far as they are concerned, the guy committed suicide, but fortunately Danny filed away things that didn't seem right to him, and he managed to take a couple of photos with his cell phone. Now it's time to get together with the man he looks up to: John Ceepak. What the two piece together points to a dead man who may have been privy to information on a conspiracy leading all the way back to the Middle East. And to prove their suspicions and to do what's right, Ceepak and Boyle are going to find themselves on the wrong side of some very nasty people.

My love affair with this series and with the characters of Ceepak and Boyle continues. In this fourth book, Danny is beginning to show how much he's learned from the veteran Ceepak, whose stepson sometimes thinks of him as a combination overgrown Boy Scout/ Dudley Do-Right. Danny is beginning to shed his lackadaisical beach dude - good time boy persona. Oh, he still wants to have a good time, but he's finding that he has a knack for being a good cop, and he wants to be an even better one. Even Ceepak has mellowed a bit with the change in his home life, and readers get to see why he's been estranged from his father for so long.

This series has a lot of heart, and a lot of humor. It has two characters who can easily charm their way into readers' hearts, and these two do not remain static; they've been gradually changing from book to book. Heart, humor, characters-- and action sequences that grab you by the throat and don't let you go until they're good and ready. Add all those to a first-rate "locked stall" mystery filled with twists and turns and characters that are difficult to decide if they're in the Good Guy or Bad Guy categories.

My only complaint is that these books read much too quickly. Once I start, I don't want to stop, and when I come to the end, I immediately want to grab the next one and sink right down into the pages. You can start this series anywhere, but if you love marvelous characters like I do, you're going to want to start at the very beginning (Tilt-a-Whirl) so you can watch Danny Boyle grow up and John Ceepak mellow. Whichever path you choose to take, all I really recommend is that you read one. You'll be glad you did.

Hell Hole by Chris Grabenstein

ISBN: 9780312565619

Minotaur Books © 2009

Paperback, 304 pages

 Police Procedural, #4 Ceepak and Boyle mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet

July 2014 New Mystery Releases!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting a lot of prime reading done so far this summer. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I get to sit out in the shady end of my pool while doing so. If I had a heated pool and could read out there all year long, I'd probably develop webbed fingers and toes. Well... at least toes!

I'm definitely making dents in my to-be-read shelves, but you know me-- I'm always on the lookout for new books to read.

These are my picks for new mysteries arriving throughout the month of July. They are sorted by release date, and I've listed all the information you'll need to find them at your favorite book procurement sites. Book synopses are courtesy of Amazon.

Happy Reading!

=== July 1 ===

Title: The Prime Minister's Secret Agent

Author: Susan Elia MacNeal

#4 in an historical mystery series featuring Maggie Hope, typist-turned-spy, during World War II

ISBN: 9780345536747

Publisher: Bantam

Paperback, 320 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "World War II rages on across Europe, but Maggie Hope has finally found a moment of rest on the pastoral coast of western Scotland. Home from an undercover mission in Berlin, she settles down to teach at her old spy training camp, and to heal from scars on both her body and heart. Yet instead of enjoying the quieter pace of life, Maggie is quickly drawn into another web of danger and intrigue. When three ballerinas fall strangely ill in Glasgow—including one of Maggie’s dearest friends—Maggie partners with MI-5 to uncover the truth behind their unusual symptoms. What she finds points to a series of poisonings that may expose shocking government secrets and put countless British lives at stake. But it’s the fight brewing in the Pacific that will forever change the course of the war—and indelibly shape Maggie’s fate."

Title: Be Careful What You Witch For

Author: Dawn Eastman

#2 in the Family Fortune cozy series set in western Michigan

ISBN: 9780425264478
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Synopsis: "Leaving a traumatic police career behind, Clyde Fortune has returned to her seemingly quiet hometown of Crystal Haven, Michigan. In spite of the psychic powers of its residents, there’s no telling what trouble is brewing in this burg…

The highlight of this year's fall festival in Crystal Haven is a bonfire with a witch’s cauldron resting over it. Clyde’s best friend, Diana, leads a ritual to divine the future, but it seems no one foresees that one of their own will drop dead—or that Diana will be a prime suspect.

Clyde already has her hands full with her eccentric family, runaway nephew, and burgeoning secret romance with a hunky homicide detective. But after another coven member is attacked, Clyde suspects there’s a witch hunt afoot and focuses her psychic and sleuthing skills to clear her friend’s name and catch a killer."

Title: Ill-Gotten Panes
Author: Jennifer McAndrews
#1 in the Stained Glass cozy series set in New York state
ISBN:  9780425267950
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Synopsis: "After a banking scandal loses Georgia her job and fiancé, she decides that a change of scenery will help piece her life back together. But escaping to her grandfather’s house in the old-fashioned, brick-making Hudson River hamlet of Wenwood, New York, turns out to be less relaxing than she expects. Not only is the close-knit community on edge about their beloved brickworks being turned into a marina to draw in tourists, one of those most opposed to the project winds up dead—cracked over the head with a famous Wenwood brick.

Georgia wouldn’t be broken up over the news except for the fact that the main suspect is the deceased’s biggest adversary—her grandfather. Now, to remove the stain from her grandy’s record, Georgia will have to figure out who in town was willing to kill to keep the renovation project alive, before someone else is permanently cut out of the picture…"

Title: The White Magic Five and Dime
Authors: Steve Hockensmith, Lisa Falco
#1 in the Tarot Mysteries set in Arizona
ISBN: 9780738740225
Publisher: Midnight Ink
Paperback, 336 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "Much to Alanis McLachlan's surprise, her estranged con-woman mother has left her an inheritance: The White Magic Five & Dime, a shop in tiny Berdache, Arizona. Reluctantly traveling to Berdache to claim her new property, Alanis decides to stay and pick up her mother's tarot business in an attempt to find out how she died.
With help from a hunky cop and her mother's live-in teenage apprentice, Alanis begins faking her way trough tarot readings in order to win the confidence of her mother's clients.  But the more she uses the tarot deck, the more Alanis begins to find real meaning in the cards ... and the secrets surrounding her mother's demise."

=== July 8 ===

Title: The Dead Will Tell

Author: Linda Castillo

#6 in the Kate Burkholder police procedural series set in Ohio

ISBN: 9781250029577

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Hardcover, 320 pages

Synopsis: "Everyone in Painters Mill knows the abandoned Hochstetler farm is haunted. But only a handful of the residents remember the terrible secrets lost in the muted/hushed whispers of time—and now death is stalking them, seemingly from the grave.

 On a late-night shift, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called to the scene of an apparent suicide—an old man found hanging from the rafters in his dilapidated barn. But evidence quickly points to murder and Kate finds herself chasing a singularly difficult and elusive trail of evidence that somehow points back to the tragedy of that long ago incident. Meanwhile, Kate has moved in with state agent John Tomasetti and for the first time in so long, they're both happy; a bliss quickly shattered when one of the men responsible for the murders of Tomasetti’s family four years ago is found not guilty, and walks away a free man. Will Tomasetti be pulled back to his own haunted past?

When a second man is found dead—also seemingly by his own hand—Kate discovers a link in the case that sends the investigation in a direction no one could imagine and revealing the horrifying truth of what really happened that terrible night thirty-five years ago, when an Amish father and his four children perished—and his young wife disappeared without a trace. 

And, as Kate knows—the past never truly dies . .."

=== July 15 ===

Title: The Bone Orchard

Author: Paul Doiron

#5 in the Game Warden Mike Bowditch series set in the wilds of Maine

ISBN: 9781250034885

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Hardcover, 320 pages

Synopsis: "In the aftermath of a family tragedy, Mike Bowditch has left the Maine Warden Service and is working as a fishing guide in the North Woods. But when his mentor Sgt. Kathy Frost is forced to kill a troubled war veteran in an apparent case of "suicide by cop," he begins having second thoughts about his decision.

Now Kathy finds herself the target of a government inquiry and outrage from the dead soldier's platoon mates. Soon she finds herself in the sights of a sniper, as well. When the sergeant is shot outside her farmhouse, Mike joins the hunt to find the mysterious man responsible. To do so, the ex-warden must plunge into his friend's secret past—even as a beautiful woman from Mike's own past returns, throwing into jeopardy his tentative romance with wildlife biologist Stacey Stevens.

As Kathy Frost lies on the brink of death and a dangerous shooter stalks the blueberry barrens of central Maine, Bowditch is forced to confront the choices he has made and determine, once and for all, the kind of man he truly is."

Title: Herbie's Game

Author: Timothy Hallinan

#4 in the Junior Bender P.I. series set in Los Angeles, California

ISBN:  9781616954291
Publisher: Soho Crime
Hardcover, 400 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "It’s everyday business when Wattles, the San Fernando Valley’s top “executive crook,” sets up a hit. He establishes a chain of criminals to pass along the instructions and the money, thereby ensuring that the hitter doesn’t know who hired him. Then one day Wattles finds his office safe open and a single item missing: the piece of paper on which he has written the names of the crooks in the chain. When people associated with the chain begin to pop up dead, the only person Wattles can turn to to solve his problem is Junior Bender, professional burglar and begrudging private eye for crooks.

But Junior already knows exactly who took Wattles’s list: the signature is too obvious. It was Herbie Mott, Junior’s burglar mentor and second father—and when Junior seeks him out to discuss the missing list, he finds Herbie very unpleasantly murdered. Junior follows the links in the chain back toward the killer, and as he does, he learns disturbing things about Herbie’s hidden past. He has to ask himself how much of the life he’s lived for the past twenty years has been of his own making, and how much of it was actually Herbie’s game."

Title: World of Trouble
Author: Ben H. Winters
#3 in the Last Policeman trilogy set in New Hampshire
ISBN: 9781594746857
Publisher: Quirk Books
Paperback, 320 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "Critically acclaimed author Ben H. Winters delivers this explosive final installment in the Edgar Award winning Last Policeman series. With the doomsday asteroid looming, Detective Hank Palace has found sanctuary in the woods of New England, secure in a well-stocked safe house with other onetime members of the Concord police force. But with time ticking away before the asteroid makes landfall, Hank’s safety is only relative, and his only relative—his sister Nico—isn’t safe. Soon, it’s clear that there’s more than one earth-shattering revelation on the horizon, and it’s up to Hank to solve the puzzle before time runs out . . . for everyone."

=== July 22 ===

Title: Remains of Innocence

Author: J.A. Jance

#16 in the Sheriff Joanna Brady series set in Bisbee, Arizona

ISBN:  9780062134707

Publisher: William Morrow

Hardcover, 400 pages

Synopsis: "Sheriff Joanna Brady must solve two perplexing cases that may be tied together in New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance’s thrilling tale of suspense that brings to life Arizona’s Cochise County and the desert Southwest in all its beauty and mystery.

An old woman, a hoarder, is dying of emphysema in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In cleaning out her house, her daughter, Liza Machett, discovers a fortune in hundred dollar bills hidden in the tall stacks of books and magazines that crowd every corner.

Tracing the money’s origins will take Liza on a journey that will end in Cochise County, where Sheriff Joanna Brady is embroiled in a personal mystery of her own. A man she considers a family friend is found dead at the bottom of a hole in a limestone cavern near Bisbee. And now there is the mystery of Liza and the money. Are the two disparate cases connected? It’s up to Joanna to find out."

=== July 24 ===

Title: The Bone Seeker

Author: M.J. McGrath

#3 in the Edie Kiglatuk series set in the Canadian Arctic

ISBN:  9780670785803

Publisher: Viking

Hardcover, 352 pages

Synopsis: "In the third novel in this highly praised mystery series, Edie Kiglatuk works as a summer school teacher in the Canadian arctic. When one of her female students is found dead in nearby Lake Turngaluk, Edie enlists the help of Sergeant Derek Palliser to pursue the case, promising the girl’s Inuit family that they will uncover the truth. Meanwhile, lawyer Sonia Gutierrez investigates the toxicity of the lake and suspects that there might be a larger conspiracy involved. As the three clamber over rocky terrain under twenty-four-hour daylight they start to unearth secrets long frozen over—risking their own lives in the process. With stunning prose, M. J. McGrath delivers another thrill ride through a hauntingly beautiful landscape."

=== July 25 ===

Title: I Can See in the Dark

Author: Karin Fossum

Standalone thriller set in Norway

ISBN: 9780544114425

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Hardcover, 224 pages

Synopsis: "Riktor doesn’t like the way the policeman storms into his home without even knocking. He doesn’t like the arrogant way he walks around the house, taking note of its contents. The policeman doesn’t bother to explain why he’s there, and Riktor is too afraid to ask. He knows he’s guilty of a terrible crime and he’s sure the policeman has found him out. 

But when the policeman finally does confront him, Riktor freezes. The man is arresting him for something totally unexpected. Riktor doesn’t have a clear conscience, but the crime he’s being accused of is one he certainly didn’t commit. Can he clear his name without further incriminating himself?"

=== July 29 ===

Title: Ghost Month

Author: Ed Lin

Standalone thriller set in Taiwan

ISBN: 9781616953263

Publisher: Soho Crime

Hardcover, 336 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Synopsis: "August is Ghost Month in Taiwan—a time to commemorate the dead: burn incense, visit shrines, honor ancestors, and avoid unlucky situations, large purchases, and bodies of water. Jing-nan, a young man who runs a food stand in a bustling Taipei night market, doesn't consider himself superstitious, but this August is going to haunt him no matter what he does. He is shocked to the core when he learns his ex-girlfriend from high school has been murdered. She was found scantily clad and shot on the side of a highway where she was selling betel nuts to passing truck drivers. Beyond his harrowing grief for his lost love, Jing-nan is confused by the news. "Betel nut beauties" are usually women in the most desperate of circumstances; the job is almost as taboo as prostitution. But Julia Huang had been the valedictorian of their high school, and the last time Jing-nan spoke to her she was enrolled in NYU's honor program, far away in New York. The facts don't add up. Julia's parents don't think so, either, and the police seem to have closed the case without asking any questions. The Huangs beg Jing-nan to do some investigating on his own—reconnect with old classmates, see if he can learn anything about Julia's life that she might have kept from them. Reluctantly, he agrees, for Julia's sake. But nothing can prepare him for what he learns, or how it will change his life."

Wow-- what a month! Any time there's a new Joanna Brady mystery, I think it's Christmas... and then there's the final installment of Ben Winters' marvelous Last Policeman trilogy... and Timothy Hallinan... and... and... 

Got. To. Read. Faster!

What about all of you? Do any of these titles make your Need to Read lists? Do tell!

Hell to Pay by Garry Disher

First Line: On a Monday morning in September, three weeks into the job, the Tiverton policeman took a call from his sergeant: shots fired on Bitter Wash Road.

Three weeks ago Constable Paul "Hirsch" Hirschhausen was demoted and transferred from the booming metropolis of Adelaide to the sleepy one-horse town of Tiverton three hours to the north. The tiny town suffers from isolation, racism, and a stagnant economy, and its size is misleading because even though its population is small, there's more crime than one police officer can handle safely.

Hirsch is a disgraced cop, and his reputation preceded him to Tiverton. His fellow officers believe he informed on his mates in Adelaide and want nothing to do with him. Internal investigations believe Hirsch is crooked and are determined to convict him of something-- even if they have to plant evidence on him. This man has more than he can deal with just from everyone else on the police force. When the body of a local 16-year-old girl is found at the side of the road, the situation in Tiverton heats up, too. Is Hirsch tough enough to deal with it all?

I've enjoyed other books by Garry Disher, and Australia has always been a favorite destination for my armchair travels, so I picked up Hell to Pay anticipating a good read. What I didn't foresee was how quickly Disher would hook me with his main character and how deeply I would be drawn into this story. Even before the author relates the mess in which Hirsch was embroiled in Adelaide, I was on his side. It's the way Hirsch carries out his duties as a police officer, and it is in the way he treats the people who live in Tiverton and the surrounding area. Disher knows that actions often speak much louder than words.

Perhaps I also sided with Hirsch so quickly because I normally prefer the underdog. The few characters who like him seem to be ones who can't do him much good-- and I wanted Hirsch to have some good in his life. Few people would be able to withstand the sort of verbal and mental abuse that he has to deal with every single day. Yes, Disher has put a fascinating character right in the middle of a first-rate mystery, and if it didn't sound overblown I'd say it was an honor to watch Hirsch solve the young girl's murder despite everyone who's against him.

The setting is perfect for the story. Hirsch is out in country with sparsely settled land spreading in all directions under a limitless sky. Turning the pages, readers can almost feel themselves squinting into the sun while wiping dust and sweat off the backs of their necks. The country Hirsch finds himself in may be big, but it's been made to feel small and claustrophobic by shattered dreams and hatred. It's land turned minefield by the secrets of the people who live there, and even though I picked out whodunnit early on, it didn't matter. Constable Paul Hirschhausen is a character I'll remember for a good long time. I recommend all of you to make his acquaintance, too.

Hell to Pay by Garry Disher

ISBN: 9781616953959

Soho Crime © 2014

Hardcover, 320 pages

Police Procedural, Standalone

Rating: A

Source: publicist 

What Is Your Intellectual Virtue?

Your Intellectual Virtue is Knowledge

You love deep contemplation but not until you have all the facts and details. Unlike most people, you don't jump to conclusions. You look at every angle before you start thinking. You are open to changing your mind if new facts come up. You don't get stuck in an intellectual rut. You believe that learning is a process and a journey. Your knowledge is always evolving, and there is no end point.

What's Your Intellectual Virtue?

@ The Poisoned Pen with Donis Casey, Eileen Brady, Kate Carlisle and Jenn McKinlay!

I walked into The Poisoned Pen Saturday afternoon and stood still for a moment, savoring the air conditioning and letting my eyes adjust from the intense sun outside. It's always hard to gauge how many people will want to battle 110°F (43°C) heat to go to an author event, but I could see that The Poisoned Pen staff had put out quite a few chairs-- and made room for several more just in case.

The bookstore was busy, and people were already circling the chairs, so I made a dash over to throw my "Crime Has No Time Zone" tote bag on the chair of my choice before going back to make a purchase and put in an order. (Okay... I can hear the questions! I purchased Colin Cotterill's The Axe Factor and Ingrid Thoft's Loyalty. I put in an order for Scott Graham's Canyon Sacrifice. Happy now?  *wink*)

I sat down with my goodies, and in no time flat began chatting with a woman across the aisle who was visiting from Palm Springs. Her husband dropped her off and headed for the mall, and my husband was at work-- and did we ever talk up a storm about books! And while we talked, more and more people came in, and the staff did indeed have to put out those extra chairs. Yippee! I always love it when an author event is so well attended. Double yippee because not only was it a Cupcake Cozy Afternoon, it was Author Afternoon at the Pen-- in addition to the headliners (Donis Casey who writes the splendid Alafair Tucker historical mysteries; Kate Carlisle, author of the Bibliophile series; Eileen Brady, new author of Muzzled, the first of the Kate Turner DVM mysteries; and Jenn McKinlay, the Traditional Mystery Series Queen), there were at least two other authors in the audience: Frederick Ramsay and Betty Webb. There were probably even more, but I wasn't going to try to shift around and gawk like a tourist... especially since Mr. Ramsay was sitting right behind me!

She dresses like what???

Having fun! L to R: Kate Carlisle, Eileen Brady, Barbara Peters, Donis Casey

Host and bookstore owner Barbara Peters quickly mentioned Donis Casey's hot-off-the-presses Hell With the Lid Blown Off, saying, "Who knew tornadoes would be in the news right now?" (The book features one.) Donis smiled and replied, "Well, the books are set in Oklahoma, so I knew that tornadoes would be topical!" Barbara then went on to explain that she would sit in with the authors to chat with Casey and Brady, two of her Poisoned Pen Press authors, then she'd give up her chair so Jenn McKinlay could assume chat responsibilities, since she and Carlisle are published by the same house.

Eileen Brady

Barbara Peters told us that Eileen Brady was the winner of the Poisoned Pen Press Discover Mystery Contest, and her first book, Muzzled, was just released in May. Then it was Eileen's turn to tell us a bit about herself. She was a veterinarian for over twenty years and now is in charge of management and sales for the practice. Her main character, Dr. Kate Turner, just happens to be a vet who does house calls, so Eileen is able to draw upon all the eccentric clients and animals she treated over the years. In Muzzled, Turner stumbles on a murder during a house call while twenty-six King Charles Spaniels are creating chaos inside.

While we were still dazed with our mental pictures of twenty-six dogs running amok, Barbara said that Brady had a very "Agatha Christie-style" element in the book. "Often when reading a Christie novel, you knew the identity of the first person to be killed because they were the nastiest one in the bunch," Peters said. "That's what happens in Muzzled."

Available Now!

"I don't know how many of you know this," Peters went on to say, "but James Rollins is a vet, too, and he wrote a blurb for Eileen's book." Eileen got a big smile on her face. "I couldn't write a better one myself!" she laughed.

Asked by someone in the audience about her next book, Brady told us that the working title is "Unleashed"-- but she didn't know if Barbara was going to let her keep it. When someone looked a bit puzzled, Peters (who also owns Poisoned Pen Press and is one of the editors) said, "Only a handful of authors have cover and title approval on their books." (So it does no good to complain to an author that you don't like the book cover or title-- it probably wasn't their choice!)

"Unleashed" is set in the Hudson River Valley where Brady had her practice. One of the characters in the book is "a woman who dresses like her Chihuahua." (Call me strange, but just that one tidbit made me want to read the book!) Brady does work with a critique group, and often after she's read one of her favorite scenes aloud, her group will tell her, "You need to take that out!" Barbara smiled in agreement. "Authors often fall in love with the worst parts of their books," she said.

"I made a list of everyone I've killed."

Donis Casey

"I fell in love with Donis Casey's titles from the very first book," Barbara Peters stated. (The Old Buzzard Had It Coming) "And the title of the second, Hornswoggled, was a word that I'd heard my parents and grandparents use."

Donis smiled and nodded. She does get a lot of comments on the titles of her books. "I usually wait for one of my characters to say something," she said in response to a question about how she comes up with such memorable ones.

Growing up in Oklahoma, tornadoes are a fact of life, and you get used to paying attention to the weather and the sky, Donis told us. "When I moved to the Phoenix area, it soon occurred to me that my shoulders had relaxed because I was no longer living in tornado country." She started writing Hell With the Lid Blown Off (a phrase that means something is about as bad as it can get) shortly after Joplin, Missouri, was hit by a twister, and when she told her sister what she was writing about, her sister advised her not to forget about PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), which would definitely be a factor for her characters in the tornado's aftermath.

Available Now!

"I always have to figure out how Alafair gets involved in each book," Donis said. "This is a woman with ten children; it's not like she's sitting around looking for something to do! Usually the mystery involves one of her children because Alafair knows no boundaries when something concerns one of her children."

"Now Alafair's children are getting married, and grandchildren are coming. Time is passing," Barbara Peters observed. "I'm not sure I want this series to deal with the Dust Bowl though." Donis agreed-- she doesn't want to cover that period of Oklahoma history either. "Come to think of it, Donis's book has the same Agatha Christie tie-in," Peters continued. "The worst character in the book-- Jubal Beldon-- is the one who dies. And that's not a spoiler!" 

"No, it's not," Donis agreed. "The very first sentence of the book tells everyone that he dies." Thinking a bit about Agatha Christie's tendency to kill off thoroughly nasty characters, Donis said, "You know, I made a list of everyone I've killed. [Lots of laughter] Most of those who died weren't really nasty characters-- except for The Old Buzzard Had It Coming-- so I thought it was time to throw in a bad one."

"Murder by X-ACTO Knife"

At this point in the proceedings, Barbara ushered in one of my favorite people, Jenn McKinlay, author of five different traditional mystery series (a more preferred term than "cozy"). Since she and Kate Carlisle are both published by Berkley-- and since one of Jenn's series involves a cupcake bakery-- Jenn was now officially hosting this "Cupcake Cozy Afternoon." In fact, there were so many people attending that one of the staff had to make an emergency dash for more cupcakes!

Kate Carlisle

Jenn introduced Kate Carlisle, author of the Bibliophile mysteries which feature Brooklyn Wainwright, a bookbinder who specializes in restoring rare books.

"I'd been writing quite a while before I learned there was something called a 'hook' and that it wasn't the last sentence of the chapter," Carlisle told us with a smile. "Hey, what did I know? I was working for lawyers at the time. But I reached a point when I was finally receiving good rejections, and these rejections would say things like 'Good characters, good story, no hook.' Having a bookbinder as my main character became my hook."

"What led you to writing traditional mysteries?" McKinlay asked. 

"I like having a main character who's an amateur sleuth," Kate replied. "And the colorful secondary characters. Brooklyn is surrounded by people I love to write about because they're the type of people I'd love to visit. I also like the fact that the murders occur offstage."

Available Now!

"Definitely," Jenn replied. "You're not writing 'Murder by X-ACTO Knife' with blood splatter and everything." There was a slight pause while we all agreed that she'd just come up with a good book title.

The Book Stops Here is Carlisle's latest Bibliophile mystery. Brooklyn has been asked to be an appraiser on 'This Old Attic'-- a television show very similar to Antiques Roadshow-- and she appraises a very valuable copy of A Secret Garden with ensuing mayhem.

Kate then told us about her new series. The first book, A High End Finish, will be released in November and features a building contractor in a seaside northern California town who specializes in Victorian architecture. Members of Kate's own family are in the business and helped supply technical knowledge. I'm definitely going to be on the look-out for that one!

Moms and Commas

Jenn McKinlay and Donis Casey

The rest of the event was spent in free-flowing questions, answers, quips, and laughter from the authors at the front of the room, and everyone in the audience-- especially the authors sitting in the Peanut Gallery. I loved it!

Jenn McKinlay confessed that she's been asked many times if she personally bakes all the goodies in her Cupcake Bakery series. "Noooo... my mom bakes all of them," she admitted, hanging her head a bit and laughing.  This led to a bit of Mom Talk by two of the other authors.

"My mom is a professional mother," Donis Casey said. "I was the oldest and my youngest brother is eighteen years younger. Growing up, I got to see a lot of Mom's tricks for raising kids."

Eileen Brady said, "My mother is a professional mother, too, although she did go to college at the same time I did."

From there the conversation morphed in a very strange direction: Commas. Some of the authors Barbara Peters edits have a difficult time with commas. At this point, we didn't know if they used too many or didn't use enough.

Available Now!

"I need to hold a Remedial Comma Class," Barbara announced.

Right behind me, a voice declared, "If you've seen one comma, you've seen 'em all!" (Remember I told you that author Frederick Ramsay was sitting behind me?)

Donis Casey joined right in: "I always know when Barbara's just finished editing one of Fred's books because she takes all the commas out of mine!"

All the authors in attendance were asked what was the most difficult part of their writing. 

Donis Casey: Knowing when to stop re-writing.

Kate Carlisle: Getting started!

Jenn McKinlay: The saggy middle. Definitely.

Betty Webb: I need to be careful because sometimes I write Lena [main character Lena Jones] as too mean, and sometimes I write her as too cute. At least that's what Barbara says!

Frederick Ramsay: Commas!  [More laughter]

Eileen Brady: Grammar.

Donis Casey: I also have to be careful because my characters speak in dialect. Not a lot. Just enough to give the flavor of the way people spoke back then. There's no dialect in the narration but as I'm writing, in my head I'm speakin' Okie, and it's easy to forget to stop!  [Even more laughter]

Barbara Peters then mentioned a website called The Vocabula Review for words and grammar. Talk then veered towards travel, with Jenn McKinlay mentioning the trip she took to London for researching her Hat Shop series (and claimed on her taxes) and Betty Webb being pointed out for the research trip to Iceland that she took. Donis Casey looked at both these authors, then out at us. "I've gotta write something that's not set in Oklahoma!" 

And with laughter and high spirits, we all adjourned for tea and cupcakes!