A Holiday Reading Round-Up

Denis and I tried to do the laundry yesterday, but the washing machine decided to stop working. No available repair time until Christmas Eve, so the laundry will continue to pile up.

 

Speaking of things piling up, I've read quite a few books that I haven't shared with you. Shame on me! Let me haul out my book journal, find the right page, and start telling you about a few of them. I'm just going to give you my thoughts on each one instead of a full-blown review. If you'd like to find out more about one of the books, just click on the link to Amazon US in its title.

The Wiregrass by Adrian Hyland

320 pages

Rating: A

My Thoughts: Adrian Hyland is one of my favorite authors, and this second appearance by Jesse Redpath makes me wish all over again that this talented Australian would write faster, faster, faster. 

Redpath is in new territory and discovers a murder disguised to look as an accident. She also is determined to help Nash Rankin, a former police officer.

I always enjoy Hyland's mysteries and characters, but even more, I love the way he uses landscape and wildlife to make Australia come alive for me. (Did you know Australians call eucalyptus trees "widow makers"? Neither did I!)

Sheer Window by Diane Vallere

93 pages

Rating: A

 

My Thoughts: This short story is perfect when you're in the mood for something light, fun, and holiday-themed.  

Poly Monroe, owner of the Material Girl fabric shop, has severely sprained her ankle and has to stay off it. This is bad timing since she's hosting Thanksgiving dinner for family and friends. 

As dinner preparations commence, Poly (dressed as Grace Kelly in Rear Window) finds herself stationed at her window, convinced she's watching a crime being committed. 

This Thanksgiving tribute to one of my favorite Hitchcock films really hit the spot!

Playing Dead by Peggy Rothschild

299 pages

Rating: A

 

My Thoughts: I found myself in need of cozy comfort reading, and I was very fortunate in my choices of books. In just two books, author Peggy Rothschild has made me a fan of her Molly Madison series.

 

Molly, a former police officer and private investigator transplanted to the California coast, has the knack for taking in dogs and helping the police solve crimes. I really appreciate Molly's background because it means she's not the typical blundering cozy mystery heroine who doesn't have a clue. I also really appreciate that the dogs in this series aren't just a hook to get you to read the books and then you never see them again unless they need to be fed or walked.

 

Playing Dead has Molly continuing Harlow's agility training and Noodle's scent work. She also provides daycare for a French bulldog and takes in a boxer in hopes of finding it a good home.  If you love good mysteries, strong characters, and plenty of dogs, this is the series for you. 

Dagger of Death at Honeychurch Hall by Hannah Dennison

320 pages

Rating: B+

My Thoughts: This is one of my favorite cozy series because I like the main character, and I love how Dennison weaves threads of antiques, history, and life in a crumbling country house into her mysteries.

This tenth book in the series has a new sixtysomething vicar in town that all the older women are salivating over, as well missing military memorabilia, and Kat's relationship muddles. Either I'm mellowing in my twilight years or Kat's mother is because instead of irritating the stuffing out of me, she actually made me laugh a time or two.

This series has something for almost everyone: a fun cast, an excellent setting, plenty of humor, and learning opportunities for bits of history and antiques.

The Glass Bottom Hoax by Diane Vallere

240 pages

Rating: A

My Thoughts: In this twelfth installment, Madison and Tex go undercover on a cruise ship as a Doris Day impersonator and her manager husband in order to find thieving employees. However, things go haywire quickly when their only contact aboard ship is murdered.

This is another light, fun outing for one of my favorite characters. I sympathized with Madison because she wanted to redecorate the ship so badly, and I found myself being every bit as lost as she as she tried to find her way around the ship.

[You should have seen my face when I opened the book and found not only a Kittling Books blurb, but that the book was dedicated to me. Boy howdy...]

The Hotel Detective by Alan Russell

329 pages

Rating: B+

My Thoughts: I'd previously read two or three book in Russell's Michael Gideon series featuring Gideon and his canine partner, Sirius. I stopped reading because I got tired of Gideon consistently ignoring Sirius when his dog was trying to warn him of danger. I'm happy to say that I was much happier with The Hotel Detective.

Assistant Manager Am Caulfield is "given other duties as assigned" when the Hotel California's security director abruptly leaves. He is quickly overwhelmed when a murder mystery weekend and a Bob Johnson convention descend on the hotel at the same time. 

This is a light, fun mystery that gave me plenty of laughs and smiles. The Hotel Detective is definitely geared towards people who have dealt with the public during their working lives (which I did for over forty years), which means that things I found spot-on and funny might not seem so to you if you've never been on the other side of the counter. 

I'm going to stop at six. I don't want to tucker you out, and I've been sitting here at the computer long enough. Besides... I have a book I have to get back to! 

Here's something from my virtual closet before I go...

Happy Reading!

Kinglake-350 by Adrian Hyland

 

First Line: We were lucky at first.

 

Adrian Hyland's Kinglake-350 is the riveting account of Black Saturday, February 7, 2009-- the day the most devastating wildfire in the country's history swept through "the great fire triangle of south-eastern Australia... the most fire-prone location on Earth."

Hyland is a master craftsman who knows how to tell a tale. I became a fan of his mysteries Moonlight Downs and Gunshot Road and soon learned to get my hands on anything he's written. 

 

Hyland brings his considerable skill in fiction to Kinglake-350. I am no stranger to the subject of this book. Arizona has had more than its share of devastating wildfires, but I couldn't believe the sheer amount of information in the pages of this book. (And they weren't presented as dry, yawn-inducing facts.) Caught in your house during a wildfire? Don't shelter in the bathroom. Dirt can, and does, catch fire. Yes, there is such a thing as black rain. Hyland also goes into climate change, global warming, weather patterns, and government agencies trying to shift blame. I can see your eyes start to glaze over with those last topics, but this man weaves all that into the narrative in such a way that my interest never flagged. 

However, the backbone and the towering strength of Kinglake-350 lies in the people that devastating fire touched. There were many heroes that day; Acting Sergeant Roger Wood was only one of them. I think one of the vignettes that I remember best was the woman who, trying to keep the fire from destroying buildings, took pity on a shocked and staggering kangaroo, giving it a cooling shower with her hose. It's these personal details that made my heart beat faster. That made me try to turn the pages as fast as the fire was consuming everything in its path. 

Kinglake-350 is absolutely marvelous, and one of the best books I've read this year. Adrian Hyland has done it again.

Kinglake-350 by Adrian Hyland

eISBN: 9781921834738

The Text Publishing Company © 2011

eBook, 272 pages

 

Non-Fiction

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland

First Line: She heard the siren scream out over the valley and her father came hopping from the workshop, pager in one hand, boot in the other.

 

Young Adam Lawson had a devil-may-care grin that could charm anyone as he searched for fun and adventure in his small-town Australian world. Although he'd had more than one scrape with the law, police officer Jesse Redpath likes Adam and believes that he is finally turning his life around. 

 

When word comes to her that Adam is dead and that local law enforcement thinks he murdered his girlfriend Daisy Baker and then killed himself, Jesse doesn't believe it. She takes some time off from her job in the dry Northern Territory and heads down to Victoria and a very different landscape in Canticle Creek.

 

Jesse has proven she has an eye for the telling detail that's often overlooked by everyone else. She spots inconsistencies, and her seemingly endless awkward questions soon ruffle quite a few feathers there in Canticle Creek. As the temperatures rise, the land bakes, and the wilderness encircling the town becomes a tinderbox, Jesse is about to learn how the dark pasts and long-buried secrets she's uncovering can explode into a firestorm. 

~

Over ten years ago, I fell in love with two books by Adrian Hyland featuring half-white, half aborigine, Emily Tempest, an amateur sleuth who solved a couple of crimes in the Australian Outback. These books were Moonlight Downs (APA Diamond Dove) and Gunshot Road. How good were they? When no further books by Hyland made an appearance, I went into a sort of prolonged mourning. When I stumbled across a review of Canticle Creek on Kerrie's Mysteries in Paradise blog, I was stunned. Once I'd recovered, I hurried to get my hands on a copy of the book.

Oh, Adrian, how much I've missed you!

This writer can set a scene with a mere sentence or two that can transport you directly to Australia: "A flock of rainbow lorikeets burst out of a scribbly gum and whirled overhead" or "... a weatherboard church that had gone to meet its maker." I loved reading Jesse Redpath's reactions to a climate in Canticle Creek that is so much different than the one she's used to in the Outback.

Even more, I loved her observations of the people she met, their behavior when answering her probing questions, and what signs she found in the landscape around her. Through Jesse, Hyland can even answer the question, "Can dirt burn?" Another favorite part of Canticle Creek? A forthright teenager everyone calls Possum. She's going to be a force of nature when she grows up. I was firmly planted in Jesse Redpath's world each and every time I opened this book and began to read.

If you've read and enjoyed books like Jane Harper's The Dry or Chris Hammer's Scrublands, I think it's a safe bet that you're going to like Adrian Hyland's writing. He is incredibly talented at blending compelling stories with memorable characters and vivid settings. If only he wrote more!

 

Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland

eISBN: 9781761150357

Ultimo Press © 2021

eBook, 309 pages

 

Police Procedural, Standalone

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Celebrating Mysteries: Africa and Australasia

 

We share a lot of reading DNA, so I know that many of you also love reading mysteries with a strong sense of place. You may enjoy reading such books because you're reminded of a place you visited and loved, or you may enjoy reading them because it's a place you've never been and you want to learn more about it. For whatever reason, books with a strong sense of place can really take us out of our daily grind.

I've decided to write a series of posts that shine a spotlight on mysteries that exhibit such a strong sense of place that you almost feel as though you're there as you turn the pages. This week, I'll be focusing on Africa and Australasia. Clicking on the link in the book title will take you to my review of that book.

Let's get started!

Botswana

If you're interested in excellent mysteries and strong characters-- as well as learning about the landscape, customs, and food of Botswana, you can't beat reading Michael Stanley's Detective Kubu mysteries. 

A Carrion Death, the first Detective Kubu mystery

The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu, the second in the series

Death of the Mantis, the third book

This series currently has seven books.

Ghana

Kwei Quartey is another author I've been following since his first book. I first got hooked on his police procedural series featuring Darko Dawson, and now he's begun a new series with a female private investigator named Emma Djann.

Wife of the Gods, the first Darko Dawson mystery

Children of the Street, the second in the series

The Missing American, the first Emma Djann mystery

The Darko Dawson series has five books.

The Emma Djann series currently has two books.

South Africa

Sally Andrew has a marvelous series featuring Tannie Marie, who lives in the Klein Karoo of South Africa... and she certainly knows how to cook! 

Recipes for Love and Murder is the first book in the series.

The Satanic Mechanic is the second book.

There is a third book in the series, Death on the Limpopo, but it only seems to be available in South Africa, which does not make me happy.

American Samoa

John Enright introduced me to American Samoa, and I was hooked. His Detective Sergeant Apelu Soifua is an excellent guide to the area, and I love Enright's poetic descriptions of the landscape.

There are four books in the Jungle Beat series:

Pago Pago Tango

Fire Knife Dancing

The Dead Don't Dance

Blood Jungle Ballet

I wish he had written more!

the Solomon Islands

Graeme Kent's Native police sergeant Ben Kella and American nun Sister Conchita had me living in the Solomon Islands during the 1960s as I read the books.

Devil-Devil is the first book in the series

One Blood is the second book

In researching this post, I was thrilled to discover that there's a third book in the series, Killman, and I immediately bought it.

Australia

When it comes to the crime fiction of Australia, there are several wonderful authors, but Adrian Hyland and Jane Harper are two of my particular favorites. 

 

Adrian Hyland wrote a much too brief  two-book series featuring part-white, part-aborigine Emily Tempest who lives in the Outback. These two books give a very different perspective of the Land Down Under.

Moonlight Downs is the first book (APA Diamond Dove)

Gunshot Road is the second

 

Jane Harper has written a (so far) two-book series featuring Federal police officer Aaron Falk and a couple of standalone thrillers. All of them take you right to the heart of Australia.

The Dry is the first Aaron Falk mystery

The Lost Man is a standalone thriller

I hope I've piqued your interest in these books and authors and that I've added to your Need to Read lists. But this is a two-way street. As far as Africa and Australasia are concerned, which mysteries do you turn to that have not only excellent stories but a strong sense of place as well? Inquiring minds would love to know!

Next up at a future date: Europe!

Another Look at Moonlight Downs by Adrian Hyland

The following review was first posted in May 2009.

======

First Line: I parked my little white ute on the outskirts of the camp and sat there, looking out at the scatter of corrugated iron hovels.

When I finished this book, I was speechless. I was smiling. I was in awe. And I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do what I'd just read justice in a review. I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

After years of traveling the world, Emily Tempest, half-Aborigine, half-white, has returned to Moonlight, the community in the desert of Northern Australia where she grew up. Within hours of her arrival, respected community leader Lincoln Flinders' body is found, and all signs point to an Aboriginal sorcerer as his murderer. With the help of the police, Emily is determined to find Lincoln's killer, for the dead man held a very special place in her heart:

And how had Lincoln drawn me into this world? By stories. Stories and songs. With Lincoln a journey of any description was a rolling dialogue with the country. A track by a waterhole or an unusual rock, a tree shaped like a woman or a circle of stones, the subtlest change in the landscape, any of these things was enough to get him going: he'd tell you the tale of the ancestral beings that had made it, the songs they'd sung, the paths they'd carved in the Dreaming. For a wide-eyed five-year-old he'd made the country come alive.

Although the mystery is intriguing, and the bad guy slips deliciously into the picture at the end, the strength of this book lies in its characters and its depiction of the landscape and its people. Hyland's language is earthy, sometimes profane, and often very funny. Fortunately for many of us, there are glossaries in the front of the book which decipher the slang. (I made regular use of them at the beginning.) Hyland portrays the life of these people as it really is. He doesn't use politically correct euphemisms; he doesn't try to sugarcoat anything, and the book is all the more powerful for it.

Emily is such an in-your-face creature. Her ambivalence about the aboriginal and white worlds that she's a part of is a strong theme in this novel. She makes me laugh. She certainly doesn't mince her words, and she doesn't know the meaning of the word "quit". She's just the type of character I want to read more about.

After reading Moonlight Downs, not only did I feel supremely entertained, but I felt as though I knew a bit more about a totally different culture thousands of miles away from my comfortable home in metropolitan Phoenix. This book is sitting pretty on my Best Reads of 2009 list.

Moonlight Downs by Adrian Hyland
ISBN: 9781569475263

Soho Press © 2008

Paperback, 352 pages

Amateur Sleuth, #1 Emily Tempest mystery
Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

======

 

Give me a couple of days to recuperate from vacation, and Kittling: Books will be back to normal! 

Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland

Title: Gunshot Road, An Emily Tempest Investigation
Author: Adrian Hyland
ISBN: 9781569476369, Soho Crime, 2010
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, #2 Emily Tempest mystery
Rating: A
Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.

First Line: I closed my eyes, felt the ragged harmonies flowing through my head.

Working as an Aboriginal Community police officer, the half-Aboriginal, half-white Emily Tempest is working the harsh land of northern Australia. It doesn't take long for her to encounter her first dead body-- an old prospector she knew as a child. Trouble is, her boss has already figured out who the murderer is and wants Emily to mind her own business and work the night shift in town like a good little Abo girl. Emily believes the old prospector-- and the man they have thrown in prison--deserve much better than that, and she goes her own way, conducting her own investigation. Emily has never been afraid of getting into a fight, but during the course of her travels along Gunshot Road, she finds the hard knocks to be much worse than she'd anticipated.

This is an excellent follow-up to Hyland's first book, Moonlight Downs (published elsewhere as Diamond Dove). Emily is most definitely an amateur detective; she leads with her heart instead of her head, and she has a tendency to make mistakes. If she's lucky, the mistakes aren't painful, but she's not always lucky. In fact, if you have a strong aversion to violence against women, there is one scene in this book that you will want to avoid. For that matter, Emily's world is dirty and rough. People don't always bathe as often as they should, they use whatever language they feel like using, and violence is often a way of life. Expect grit and realism as you read about Emily.

Having a foot in two worlds, Emily has reaped some of the benefits of the white world: she has furthered her education, and she is a world traveler. However, she cannot and will not ignore injustice, especially to the Aboriginal people among whom she spent her childhood.

Each character in this book seems to fit perfectly into the hot and dusty land, and as much as I enjoy Hyland's plot, pacing and characters, one of the main reasons why I love his books is because of the landscape. It reminds me of my own chosen one:

I wasn't paying a huge amount of attention to the road, I admit-- a nasty habit I've acquired since coming back out bush. Sometimes I even read while I'm driving. Nothing heavy, mind you-- crime, perhaps, maybe a magazine. I'm not the only culprit, I'm sure. Meeting another vehicle out here is an event of such magnitude you tend to get out and talk about it.

Like the Australian Outback, there are places here in the Arizona desert where you can drive all day long and never meet another living soul outside of a snake and a lizard or two. If you do meet someone out in this vast emptiness, you acknowledge each other. You are no longer in the city, and anonymity can get you killed. Although Hyland's territory is an exotic one, it does feel familiar to me even if I don't always understand the lingo.

Story, pacing, characters, setting... these are four very important things to any book, but Hyland adds yet another element that makes his writing stand out: the Aboriginal culture. As much as I enjoyed this book, one sentence engraved itself on my mind because it voices something I've felt for a long time without ever putting it into words: "He bin say you not from here. You move too fast: more better you slow down, take time for the country to know you."

Take time for the country to know you. In Gunshot Road, that is important advice from a people who have learned to live in rhythm with a very special land. Outside of Gunshot Road it is excellent advice for us all to follow.

If you haven't tasted a book written by Adrian Hyland, you've been missing a banquet.

Moonlight Downs by Adrian Hyland

Title: Moonlight Downs
Author: Adrian Hyland
ISBN: 9781569475263/ Soho Press, 2008
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, #1 Emily Tempest mystery
Rating: A+

First Line: I parked my little white ute on the outskirts of the camp and sat there, looking out at the scatter of corrugated iron hovels.

When I finished this book, I was speechless. I was smiling. I was in awe. And I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do what I'd just read justice in a review. I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

After years of traveling the world, Emily Tempest, half-Aborigine, half-white, has returned to Moonlight, the community in the desert of Northern Australia where she grew up. Within hours of her arrival, respected community leader Lincoln Flinders' body is found, and all signs point to an Aboriginal sorcerer as his murderer. With the help of the police, Emily is determined to find Lincoln's killer, for the dead man held a very special place in her heart:

And how had Lincoln drawn me into this world? By stories. Stories and songs. With Lincoln a journey of any description was a rolling dialogue with the country. A track by a waterhole or an unusual rock, a tree shaped like a woman or a circle of stones, the subtlest change in the landscape, any of these things was enough to get him going: he'd tell you the tale of the ancestral beings that had made it, the songs they'd sung, the paths they'd carved in the Dreaming. For a wide-eyed five-year-old he'd made the country come alive.

Although the mystery is intriguing, and the bad guy slips deliciously into the picture at the end, the strength of this book lies in its characters and its depiction of the landscape and its people. Hyland's language is earthy, sometimes profane, and often very funny. Fortunately for many of us there are glossaries in the front of the book which decipher the slang. (I made regular use of them at the beginning.) Hyland portrays the life of these people as it really is. He doesn't use politically correct euphemisms; he doesn't try to sugarcoat anything, and the book is all the more powerful for it.

Emily is such an in-your-face creature. Her ambivalence about the aboriginal and white worlds that she's a part of is a strong theme in this novel. She makes me laugh. She certainly doesn't mince her words. She doesn't know the meaning of the word "quit". She's just the type of character I want to read more about.

After reading Moonlight Downs, not only did I feel supremely entertained, but I felt as though I knew a bit more about a totally different culture thousands of miles away from my comfortable home in metropolitan Phoenix. Without doubt, Adrian Hyland's book will be one of my top reads this year.