It's time to whip out my 2005 book journal to see what I was reading at this time twelve years ago. Heavens, tempus certainly does fugit, so I'm not going to wax poetic. Let's get down to business!
Tombstone by Jane Eppinga is part of the excellent Images of America series. Each slender volume can pack quite a punch, with dozens of historic photographs of places all over America. I've learned that they make quite a good resource when I'm trying to get a real "feel" for a place.
Jane Eppinga has written over twenty books, the majority of them on some aspect of Arizona history. Although the Images of America series is primarily pictorial, there is text and Eppinga gives an informative, interesting overview of Tombstone's history. Here's Amazon's synopsis of the book:
"Tombstone sits less than 100 miles from the Mexico border in the middle of the picturesque Arizona desert and also squarely at the heart of America's Old West. Silver was discovered nearby in 1878, and with that strike, Tombstone was created. It soon grew to be a town of over 10,000 of the most infamous outlaws, cowboys, lawmen, prostitutes, and varmints the Wild West has ever seen. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral made Wyatt Earp and John Henry "Doc" Holliday legendary and secured Tombstone's reputation as "The Town Too Tough to Die." In this volume, more than 200 striking images and informative captions tell the stories of the heroes and villains of Tombstone, the saloons and brothels they visited, the movies they inspired, and Boot Hill, the well-known cemetery where many were buried."
I've never been disappointed with a book in this series, and Tombstone is no exception. I rated it an "A."
Thomas Perry's Dance for the Dead is another book I rated "A." It's the second in his Jane Whitefield mystery series. Here's the synopsis of the book from Amazon:
"When eight-year-old Timothy Decker finds his parents brutally murdered, it's clear the Deckers weren't the intended victims: Timothy's own room--ransacked, all traces of his existence expertly obliterated is the shocking evidence. Timothy's nanny, Mona, is certain about only one thing. Timmy needs to disappear, fast.
Only Jane Whitefield, a Native American 'guide' who specializes in making victims vanish, can lead him to safety. But diverting Jane's attention is Mary Perkins, a desperate woman with S&L fraud in her past. Stalking Mary is a ruthless predator determined to find her and the fortune she claims she doesn't have. Jane quickly creates a new life for Mary and jumps back on Timmy's case . . . not knowing that the two are fatefully linked to one calculating killer. . . ."
I've read and enjoyed all but the last two books in this series, so I really need to get back to it and catch up. Jane is a fascinating character. A talented, solitary person with a job that requires keeping everyone at a distance-- but she also longs for a more normal existence, and the series delves into the difficulties she has in trying to reconcile both her professional and personal lives. And... what Thomas Perry doesn't show you about the fine art of disappearing off the face of the earth isn't worth knowing! This series is well-written, eye-opening, and memorable.
The last book I was reading twelve years ago happens to be the third book in J.A. Jance's Walker family mystery series, Day of the Dead. I also rated it an "A."
Most people are familiar with her J.P. Beaumont series set in Seattle, her Ali Reynolds series set in Sedona, Arizona, and-- my personal favorite-- her Joanna Brady series set in Bisbee, Arizona. Her Walker Family series ranks right up there with the other three in terms of story, character, and setting.
These books are set in Tucson, Arizona, and feature different members of the family throughout the series. Jance incorporates fascinating local Native American lore in each book. Here's the synopsis from Amazon:
"Thirty years ago, the butchered body of a local Papago girl was found stuffed into a large cooler on the side of Highway 86. No one was ever charged for the crime. Few even cared. And no one suspected it was just the beginning.
Retired Pima County Sheriff Brandon Walker's work with The Last Chance—an exclusive, nationwide fraternity of former lawmen investigating unsolved homicides—has brought new purpose to his life. But a gruesome, three-decades-old cold case is leading him into a strange world at the unlikely border between forensic science and tribal mysticism—a place where evil hides behind a perfect façade. A long-forgotten murder in the Arizona desert now threatens to bring home a new horror for Walker and his family, who have already survived the dark hunger of two human monsters. And suddenly the relentless ex-cop is the only person who can still unravel a blood knot of terror and obsession before the innocent die again."
Jance always does an excellent job of portraying Arizona-- undoubtedly because she grew up in Bisbee. The first book in the Walker Family series, Hour of the Hunter, was the first book Jance wrote that was set here. The model for the bad guy in it was the creative writing professor who wouldn't allow females in his class. (Sometimes decisions can turn around and bite you in the behind, can't they?)
Well, that's what I was reading all those years ago. Next month, I'll be wandering down Memory Lane once again. See you then!
With the start of a new year, I thought it was time to take a look back to see what I was reading on this week in January 2005. (Twelve years ago? Yikes!) I was pleased to see that the books are all ones that I rated an "A"-- and that they are very different from each other. Let's get started!
Cut to the Quick is the first of Kate Ross's Julian Kestrel mysteries set in Regency England. The series was a mere four books along when Ross died of cancer, and it was truly a loss for the mystery community. The entire series is marvelous... characters, plot, time period... so if you enjoy historical mysteries and haven't tried these, I highly recommend them.
Here is a synopsis of Cut to the Quick:
"Julian Kestrel is the walking definition of a Regency-era dandy. He cares about little beyond the perfection of his tailoring, he lives for the bon mot, and his life has the specific gravity and the fleeting charm of a soap-bubble. At least that's what he'd like you to think. In fact, it rather suits Kestrel to be perpetually underestimated, particularly when as in this instance his weekend at a glamorous country estate is spoiled by a dead girl's body being found in his bed."
(Before I move on to the next title, I'd just like to say that I do not like the cover of this edition. That is not a portrait of a Regency woman, and I wouldn't think it would be all that difficult to find one of the proper time period!)
The Judas Pair is the first of Jonathan Gash's long-running Lovejoy mysteries which he wrote from the late 1970s to 2008. I was first introduced to Lovejoy through the television series starring Ian McShane as the title character. Unfortunately, I discovered that I'm not an Ian McShane fan (except for his voice), and-- always believing that the books are better anyway-- I quickly located this first book in the series to see what was what.
What I found was heaven for anyone who loves antiques. Jonathan Gash does an absolutely splendid job of showing Lovejoy's passion for the old and rare. If you don't care for antiques at the beginning, by the end of the book Gash could very well have changed your mind.
However, charming rogue Lovejoy of the books does not date well. I didn't get very far in the series because he likes to slap his women around-- something that they wisely left out of the television series. It's a shame because I haven't run across another author who can take literary fairy dust and make old objects glow with mystery and desire.
Here is a brief synopsis of The Judas Pair:
"Antiques dealer Lovejoy is commissioned to hunt down what he considers to be a mythical object, the Judas pair, the supposed thirteenth pair of dueling pistols made by the famous London gunmaker Durs Egg. After two murders Lovejoy is certain that the pistols do exist, and are now in the hands of the murderer."
In 1997 Natsuo Kirino wrote a mystery that made waves in Japan. When Out was translated into English and published in the U.S., the tsunami continued.
Part of the story is pretty gruesome, and I'm going to let the synopsis take care of that. For me, the gruesome bit has faded with time. What I remember most about it (in no great detail) is how horrible and nasty the disposal of the body was. My major memories are of how spellbinding and psychologically complex it was, and of how I was transported to another country and immersed in a very different culture. Little of the book has dimmed in my mind after twelve years, and I think that's a sign that I should've rated it an A+ back in 2005.
Here is a synopsis of Out:
"OUT was awarded the Grand Prix of the Mystery Writers of Japan in 1997-the Asian equivalent of an Edgar. It is a dynamic example of the work of a new breed of Asian women writers excelling in the smart, hard-nosed, well-written, and realistically plotted mystery novel. Kirino' crime story can stand comparison with the work of other top-notch Western women writers in this genre, like Sarah Paretsky and Ruth Rendell.
The story-- though a bare summary makes it seem merely brutal and bloodthirsty when it is much more than that- -focuses on four women who work together in a lunch-box factory in the suburbs of Tokyo. One of them suffers from spouse abuse and, unable to take it any longer, murders her husband and appeals to her co-workers to help her dispose of the corpse. One of these friends---the brain behind the coverup-- after cutting up the body in the bathroom of her house-- has the other two dump it as garbage. The money from the man's life insurance is then divided among them. But this is only the beginning. The successful, unpremeditated crime and the rewards it brings are the seed of other, premeditated schemes, escalating from one localized use of violence to a rash of similar deeds, with unpredictable outcomes for the women behind them.
As a study in the psychology of domestic repression and the dynamics of violent crime, OUT works on several levels, gripping the reader from its smoldering beginning to the fire burst of its finale."
That's it! Three very different books, yet they're all mysteries, and each one is excellent reading in its own way. I hope I've enticed you to sample at least one of them.
Writing these monthly posts is always a trip down Memory Lane. How much do I remember about this book or that one? Do I still read this author's books? Do I even read that genre anymore? A person's reading tastes can certainly change over the years.
When I looked through my 2005 book journal to see what I'd been reading at this time eleven years ago, I discovered that I was sampling a bit of the unusual. Let's take a look--
It will undoubtedly surprise a few of you that I enjoy reading stories set in medieval Japan (probably because it's been a while since I have). This enjoyment of mine began with the excellent television mini-series Shōgun. When I learned that it was based on a novel by James Clavell, I had to read it. As a result, I became both a Clavell fan and a quasi-student of Japanese history.
Lian Hearn's Across the Nightingale Floor is the first of her "Tales of the Otori"-- a series of four books set in an imaginary, ancient Japanese society dominated by warring clans. Takeo is a young boy, plucked from his remote village, who becomes a pawn in a political scheme.
It is a fabulous story that I remember to this day-- including my delight when I learned what a "nightingale floor" was. Let's say you are a warlord with many enemies trying to kill you. You're going to need to sleep sometime, but how? You can't even trust your own men, let alone those pesky ninjas. Sleep in a room with a specially constructed floor that will squeak hideously at the slightest movement upon it... a nightingale floor.
The entire Tales of the Otori series is well worth the read if you like this sort of thing, but if you only want to "test the waters," please choose this one! (Can you tell that I rated it an A+?)
Carol O'Connell's Mallory's Oracle is her first Kathy Mallory mystery published in 1994. Kathy is not your usual main character. As a child, she was a thief living on the streets of New York City when Detective Louis Markowitz rescued her and raised her in his home. Ten years later, Mallory's early criminal instincts and her intelligence have been channeled into computer science for the NYPD. When Markowitz is found murdered, Mallory-- forced to take a leave from the department-- decides to seek vengeance on her own.
I think Mallory was one of the first main characters to be radically "different" in terms of intelligence, behavior, and how she viewed the world that I came in contact with in modern fiction. In this first book, she really doesn't have much use for humans outside of the man who rescued her, and although I have no problem with characters who are different, I never warmed up to her, and I didn't continue with the series. I rated it an extremely respectable B+, but the desire to continue just wasn't there.
No Human Involved is Barbara Seranella's first "Munch" Mancini mystery published in 1997. Seranella wrote a lot of herself into her main character, and from everything I've read and heard, she was an exceptional person who died much too soon of kidney failure.
"Munch" has been a heroin addict forced to steal and turn tricks to support her habit, but now she is determined to stay clean, earn an honest living (as an auto mechanic), and be normal-- mostly due to Asia, a little girl Munch is raising as her own.
There is so much honesty, so much heart, so much sheer will in Munch that you can't help but want her to succeed. She knows what rock bottom is, and she doesn't ever-- ever-- want to be there again.
Seranella knows how to write good, solid mysteries, but it's the powerful combination of Munch and of Seranella's bone-deep honesty and humanity that makes me mourn the author's death to this day. What an exceptional talent!
What was my rating of No Human Involved? A.
And thus endeth my look back at the unusual stories and characters I read about eleven years ago. That's some very, very good reading!
It's me-- back again with more of my reading from eleven years ago! As I've gone through this book journal of mine, it's really given me food for thought. Why did I stop reading this series? Do I still read that type of book? When's the last time I read____? It seems as though I always have an endless loop of questions running through my mind!
On this week in 2005, I read three very different books. Each was a very enjoyable read, and each was a mystery. There's something for everyone in crime fiction, which is probably why I have yet to tire of the genre.
What was I reading back then? Let's take a look!
It's hard to describe a book by one of my favorites, Jasper Fforde, so I'm just going to give you the synopsis of this first in his Nursery Crime series, The Big Over Easy:
"It’s Easter in Reading—a bad time for eggs—and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself.
But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced, a sentiment not shared with their superiors at the Reading Police Department, who are still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody.
And on top of all that, the JellyMan is coming to town . . ."
Hopefully what you got from that synopsis is that Fforde likes to take something very well known-- like a nursery rhyme-- and turn it on its head using brilliant word play, a wickedly silly plot, and some well-drawn characters. The word play and situations keep you laughing, and-- wonder of wonders-- there's actually a good mystery to be found. I love Fforde's imagination and rated this one an A+.
Troy Soos is a talented writer who has a series of historical baseball mysteries that my husband enjoyed and another historical series of only four books that I really enjoyed. The Gilded Cage is the second in the Rebecca Davies and Marshall Webb series set at the turn of the twentieth century. Here's the synopsis:
"In the riveting Island of Tears, Troy Soos introduced dime-novelist Marshall Webb and reformer Rebecca Davies. Now, the critically acclaimed author plunges readers once again into the gritty underside of turn-of-the-century New York, as Marshall and Rebecca reunite to take on Tammany Hall and the city's ruthless elite. A cholera epidemic has forced New York's immigrants into quarantine, and fear and panic ripple through the city. Amid a shaky economy, Rebecca Davies' father cuts off funding for her woman's shelter. Rather than turn these destitute women out onto the cold, dangerous streets, Rebecca seeks investment help from Lyman Sinclair, a remarkably successful young banker. But when Sinclair is found dead--an apparent suicide--and Rebecca's money is nowhere to be found, the police refuse to investigate further. Determined to recoup her money, Rebecca approaches her friend, writer marshall Webb. Together, Rebecca and Marshall unravel a web of corruption that runs from the top levels of Wall Street, through the lavish theaters of Broadway, to the mean streets of the Bowery. At its heart is a massive cover-up, marked by unquenchable ambition and greed that could shake the very foundations of New York City."
I really appreciated Soos's grasp of the historical context of the books. The period came to life as I read each one. Of course, the mysteries were also good, but the author's characters really put the sparkle on these stories. Rebecca Davies comes from a privileged background which gives her entrée into areas of society where freelance reporter and dime novelist Marshall Webb cannot go. Both are strong, intelligent individuals with plenty of common sense, although Rebecca can be a bit more adventurous than Marshall. There's also a growing attraction between the two that is never fully realized in this short series. I rated The Gilded Cage an A.
Pardon me for sharing this hideous cover for Judith Cutler's Staying Power, but I could not find the cover of the edition that I read. Yikes. That thing is scary!
Cutler is one of my favorite crime fiction writers. She has a knack for creating female characters that are complex and fascinating-- and her sense of humor (check out her two Josie Welford mysteries) keeps me laughing. Although there are flashes of humor in all her books, most of her series are not played for laughs. Her Kate Powers series is an example. Here's the synopsis:
"Detective Sergeant Kate Power is on her way home from a trip to Florence when the textile importer sitting on the plane next to her strikes up a conversation. Days later he is founding hanging from a bridge in Birmingham - with Kate's card in his pocket the only means of identification. What follows includes a scam to forge ecstasy tablets, bondage, long firm fraud and domestic violence - and Kate's in the middle of it all."
Besides the fast pace and intriguing mysteries, the thing that impressed me most about Cutler's Kate Power series (written from 1998 to 2003, six books total) was her depiction of what it was like to be a female police officer in Birmingham, England at that time. If you're a fan of British police procedurals and strong female characters, Judith Cutler's Kate Power series is definitely one you should check out. I rated Staying Power an A.
There you have it-- three more books that I read way back in 2005. Whatever will be next? Your guess is as good as mine!
I'm still paging through my old 2005 book journal where I kept (rather poor) notes on the books that I read that year. It's not all that surprising; 2005 was pre-book blog. Now I'm more organized and keep much better notes-- not to mention spreadsheets! (If only I could keep up on writing reviews....)
At this point in September eleven years ago, I read four books that I'd like to talk a bit about. These books may be old favorites of yours, or they may be titles that you've never heard of before. Either way, let's get started!
The first book I'd like to bring your attention to is the first book in K.J. Erickson's Marshall "Mars" Bahr police procedural series set in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mars (also nicknamed "Candy Man" because people have altogether too much fun playing around with his name) is a detective serving as a special investigator reporting directly to the chief of police.
Third Person Singular was nominated for a couple of awards for Best First Novel, and I can see why. K.J. Erickson really has a way with his plots, his pacing, and-- above all-- his characters. I absolutely loved the Candy Man. Mars is tough; he's tender; and he's an excellent investigator. This first mystery hooked me on the series. I read each of the four books, and I still wish there were more. Just the perfect combination of character and mystery for me. I rated Third Person Singular an A+.
Since Mark Billingham's first Tom Thorne police procedural set in London, I've seen stories about locked-in syndrome both in print and film. But Sleepyhead was my first introduction to this terrible condition.
I really enjoyed Billingham's pacing and his main character, the middle-aged Detective Inspector Tom Thorne. The story was also excellent, but to this day, the "voice" of Alison-- the young woman with locked-in syndrome-- is still firmly entrenched in my memory. For me, she is the true star of this book.
I rated Sleepyhead an A+, but I didn't stay with the series for very long. Why? Because Billingham mashed one of my hot buttons. There aren't many of them, but when an author finds one, it's best not to try to obliterate it.
I can't remember if this occurred in Lazybones or The Burning Girl, but in one of those books, Tom Thorne gets the idea that one particular person is responsible for the crime he is investigating, and he works as hard as he can to make the evidence fit his theory. I tried to finish reading the book, but I was so angry that I couldn't-- and I haven't read another Tom Thorne book since. However, I do highly recommend Sleepyhead!
Have any of you had a similar reaction to a book/series? Do tell-- you might just save many of us from grief!
Kathy Lynn Emerson now writes the modern- day Liss MacCrimmon series under the name Kaitlyn Dunnett, but back in 2005 I was reading the very first of her "Face Down" series, Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie.
Her "Face Down" series follows the exploits of Lady Susanna Appleton, a herbalist in Elizabethan England. Besides the usual trials and tribulations of tripping over corpses (or finding them in their food), Lady Susanna is trying to stay out of man trouble and trying to write a definitive work on herbs. Sometimes this last effort gets her in trouble because the superstitious automatically think she's a poisoner.
I really enjoyed Emerson's knowledge of plants and of the time period, and she certainly has a way with humor, plots, and pacing-- so much so that I intend to give her MacCrimmon series a try. There are eleven books in the Face Down series, but I have to admit that somewhere around book seven, I began to lose interest in the series primarily because it felt as though the author was, too. I rated Face Down on the Marrow-Bone Pie an A.
The last book I want to share with you is Robert Hick's The Widow of the South, which is based on the life of Carrie McGavock, a woman who allowed her plantation to become a burial ground for 1,500 soldiers who died during the Battle of Franklin.
Carrie McGavock became known as "the Widow of the South," and when Oscar Wilde toured America, he insisted on coming to Tennessee to see her.
I had a specific reason for reading this book: my great-great-great-grandfather, James Henry Brown, was killed in the Battle of Franklin. There are family legends about bringing his body home for burial. I'd read historical accounts of the battle, but I'd never heard of Carrie McGavock, and I was in the mood to see what fiction could do with one of the bloodiest-- and quickest-- battles of the Civil War.
In the end, I rated The Widow of the South a B+. It's a good, solid piece of storytelling, but I felt that it succeeded as history much more than it did as a novel.
How about it? Did any of these books and/or series tickle your fancy? Which ones? Do you know of any books that are similar that you think I'd want to read? Inquiring minds would love to know!
Here I am, still having fun going through my old book journals. I'm being reminded of series that I really enjoyed, series that I meant to keep reading (and didn't), and series that I stopped reading. This week has examples of all three, so let's get started!
When I started to become serious about reading crime fiction, Marianne Macdonald's Dido Hoare series was one of the first that I sampled and enjoyed. Ghost Walk is the first book in the series.
Dido is a dealer in rare books, a single mother, and-- at the beginning of the series-- a daughter who shelters her scholarly father's tender sensibilities. Besides the milieu of the book world, I liked Macdonald's plots, her characters, and in particular the way the character of Dido's father grew over the course of time.
There are eight books in the series, which were written between 1996 and 2006, and I was sorry to see it come to an end.
One of the things that I remember about this series was constantly telling people how to pronounce the main character's name. She certainly has one of the most unusual monikers in the business!
How did I rate Ghost Walk? It was an "A."
Giles Blunt's Forty Words for Sorrow is the first book in the John Cardinal police procedural series set in Ontario, Canada. The six books have won multiple awards, and I can see why just from having read the very first one, which I rated an "A."
John Cardinal was demoted to the burglary squad for his excessive zeal in pursuing the missing persons case of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine, but when her badly decomposed body is found, he's given the go-ahead to re-open four cases-- because Katie isn't the only child to go missing in the rural setting of Algonquin Bay.
Forty Words for Sorrow has a profound sense of place, a strong plot, and multi-faceted characters. I have no idea why I didn't continue with this series, but I can tell you that I have ordered the second book, The Delicate Storm.
See? There's more than one reason for taking a look back from time to time!
Owen Parry's Faded Coat of Blue was one of my "A+" reads for 2005. The main character, Abel Jones, is a Welsh immigrant and a veteran of some bloody battles as a former soldier in Britain's Indian Army. Now he's recovering from wounds suffered during the first battle of the American Civil War, and more than a little shocked when General George B. McClellan takes him off desk duty to investigate the murder of a Union soldier.
Parry's sense of time and place is fantastic, and he does not use revisionist political correctness which can sometimes throw me right out of a story when I know the time period well. When Jones assesses people, he does so with typical period attitudes toward national or racial backgrounds. However, the man is such a lion for justice for all humankind I can easily forgive him for not thinking in accordance with my twenty-first century attitudes. Faded Coat of Blue was an excellent start to the adventures of Abel Jones, and I enjoyed every one of the six books in this series.
John Burdett's Bangkok 8 (rated "A") was my first introduction to crime fiction set in Thailand, and it made quite an impression-- in fact, the opening scene of the book is still stuck in my brain! This six-book series is told from the point of view of Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a police detective in Bangkok, and this immerses you in Thai culture without making you feel as though you're drowning.
Well, I didn't feel as though I were drowning for the first three books, but one thing I did notice as the series progressed was a growing disdain for all farang (those of European ancestry no matter where they come from). Normally it does not bother me to read books that are critical of my national or racial background, but this element kept growing and growing until I reached my saturation point at the beginning of the fourth book.
Part of me feels a bit guilty at abandoning the series because it is very good. One of these days, I may recover my equanimity and go back to reading these books. It's not easy to write from the point of view of a character of another race and culture. John Burdett does it well, and I can't help feeling deprived by not reading about the investigations of his Thai police detective.
Have any of you read any of the books in these series? If so, what did you think? Or... are they new to you... and have I persuaded you to take a look for yourself? Inquiring minds would love to know!
I'm still having fun going through my old book journal, so I thought I would share with you the books that I read during this same week in 2005. Ready... set... GO!
First up is one of Earlene Fowler's excellent Benni Harper series set in the ranching country of central California. Benni Harper is an ex-rancher who now curates a folk art museum. Early on when she met the man that she would eventually marry, I disliked him so much that I almost stopped reading the series. What a macho jerk! But I've had similar reactions to friends' boyfriends/husbands, and just because I couldn't stomach their partners... well, that didn't mean that I threw away the friendships. I handled Benni's husband the same way, and I certainly didn't regret it. I even got to like her abrasive grandmother, Dove. To have not one but two characters in a book or series that rub my fur the wrong way normally means that I stop reading the book. It says something about Earlene Fowler's writing that I kept right on through to the end of the series. (And I still wish she'd write more.)
Although the series starts out well (each book being named after a well-known quilt pattern), it really hits its stride in book six, Mariner's Compass. Fowler's plots took on more complexity, her characters grew more and more nuanced, and she even started writing serious action scenes that put my heart in my throat and tears in my eyes.
Earlene Fowler has been "on sabbatical" as she calls it for about five years now. I've had the privilege of meeting her twice, and she's smart and funny and such a pleasure. I do wish she'd start writing again, but if she doesn't, at least she's given us fifteen Benni Harper mysteries.
Kirk Mitchell may be better known for his time travel, alternate history, and historical fiction, but this former law enforcement officer also wrote five books in one of my favorite mystery series. This series features two main characters: Emmett Quanah Parker, a part-Comanche, part-white agent for the Bureau of Indian Affairs; and Anna Turnipseed, a part-Modoc, part-Japanese special agent for the FBI. The series started out in the Southwest but soon began to move around the country.
Emmett and Anna had quite a dynamic between them. Their relationship is the type that makes you keep looking for the next book. The mysteries are strong as are the settings, and I appreciated being able to learn more about the lifestyles and customs of various Native American tribes. Do I wish Mitchell were still writing his Parker/Turnipseed mysteries? Yes, I do! Five are definitely not enough.
Skye Kathleen Moody's Venus Diamond mysteries are books that make me wish I'd taken better notes back in 2005. (Funny how blogging changes your note-taking habits!)
Venus Diamond is a US Fish and Wildlife agent in Washington state, and I'm remembering that she was pretty, quirky, smart, and kick-ass before kick-ass females were really acceptable. Venus has an almost James Bond-like quality to her, which is one reason why photojournalist Moody's mysteries were so interesting to read.
Another reason why I enjoyed them a great deal (besides the wonderful settings) is because each book centered around a strong environmental theme, so they were a matter of strong central character, intriguing mysteries, and plenty to learn about the natural world. Win-win-win as far as I'm concerned!
I think Tamar Myers' Den of Antiquity series set in Charlotte, North Carolina (and then Charleston, South Carolina), was the first cozy series I read with titles that were plays on words. Now titles like this are almost de rigueur.
Main character Abigail Timberlake is a little bitty thing, but she's got more Southern sass than women who are head and shoulders taller than she. I really liked learning a bit about antiques-- and the cities of Charlotte and Charleston-- and Myers has a very well-developed funny bone, which is one of the main reasons why I read the series.
I didn't finish reading the Den of Antiquity books though. I came to the series late, got my hands on all the books that had been written to that point, and read them... almost one right after the other. I don't do that anymore. Haven't done for years. If I read series books too close together, humor can fall flat, characters can start annoying me, and plots can start feeling too formulaic. It has to be an unusual circumstance for me to read series books close together.
Myers has two other series, one that I enjoyed, and one that I didn't. The one that I didn't continue reading was her Pennsylvania Dutch mysteries. Why? For the simple reason that the main character was so nasty and abrasive I decided she could take her ill-temper out on some other reader.
The third series that Myers wrote is a four-book one featuring Amanda Brown, a young American missionary in the Belgian Congo in the 1950s. These books are based on the author's own childhood. I not only liked the plots of the books, I also enjoyed the humor, the setting, and the customs of the natives that the young Amanda was learning to live among.
Back in 2005, I read quilt-titled mysteries that were solved by Benni Harper. Now I read mysteries that are solved by members of the St. Rose Quilting Bee. Back in 2005, I read Kirk Mitchell's mysteries that have strong Native American characters and themes. Today I read M.J. McGrath, C.M. Wendelboe, and Margaret Coel. Back in 2005, I read mysteries with an environmental aspect. Today I still do, reading Nevada Barr, Pamela Beason, and Paul Doiron. Back in 2005, I was reading cozies with catchy titles set in North Carolina. Today, I still am-- with authors like Lucy Arlington, Ellery Adams, and Brynn Bonner.
It's always good to see that some things just never seem to go out of fashion.
How about you? Have you read any of these series? Which ones? Did you like them? Any recommendations for me for future reading? This inquiring mind would love to know!
