The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt

 

First Line: The morning of the day Bob Comet first came to the Gambell-Reed Senior Center, he awoke in his mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon, in a state of disappointment at the fact of a dream interrupted.

 

When retired librarian Bob Comet returns a confused elderly woman to her home in a senior center, he finds his solitary life surrounded by books becoming larger. Having decided to volunteer at the senior center, Bob becomes involved in the life of the residents in all their eccentric glory, and the more he becomes involved, the more his past and the details of his character are revealed.

 

~

 

I can see where some readers may become bored with retired librarian Bob Comet's tiny little life on the sidelines in The Librarianist, but I enjoyed it. Perhaps it's because I saw some of myself in this character as his life unfolded.

 

From the four days he ran away from home as a child to his true love being stolen to a painful revelation, Bob's character slowly opens like a flower in the spring sun. It is a rather melancholy existence to be sure, but there's also humor and an appreciation of life. At one point, Bob is asked, "Why do you read rather than live?" As The Librarianist moves to its conclusion, Bob proves that you can do both-- read and live.  

The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt

ISBN: 9780063085121

Ecco © 2023

Hardcover, 342 pages

 

Contemporary Fiction, Standalone

Rating: B

Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.

The Trapped Girl by Robert Dugoni

 

First Line: Kurt Schill dragged his fourteen-foot aluminum boat across the beach logs he’d set to minimize the scraping of the hull against the rocks.

 

When the body of a woman is found in a crab pot in the chilly waters of Puget Sound, she has to be identified before Tracy Crosswhite and her colleagues in the Seattle Police Department's Violent Crimes Section can begin to look for her killer.

 

The victim seemed to have gone to great lengths to conceal her identity, and when evidence comes to light that she may be a woman who disappeared months ago under suspicious circumstances, Tracy is reminded of her own sister's murder. Each clue Tracy and her team uncovers seems to contradict the last, but a tale of betrayal and greed slowly begins to come to light-- and Tracy is determined not to give up until she has the killer behind bars.

 

~

 

I don't know why I wait so long between the books in this series. I suppose I consider Robert Dugoni's Tracy Crosswhite mysteries to be "sure things"-- books guaranteed to be good reads so they're saved for times when I need to recuperate from unsatisfying stories. Regardless of the reason, I once again find myself vowing to read them faster.

 

Tracy Crosswhite is the type of main character you can sink your teeth into. Her life was irrevocably changed when her beloved younger sister disappeared. Tracy gave up her teaching job and ultimately became Seattle's only female homicide detective. Her goal was to find out what happened to her sister. As the years have passed, her closed-off life has begun to change-- mostly importantly by being in a committed relationship. Her experiences with her sister have made her extremely sensitive to any case involving missing and murdered women she and her team are called to investigate.

 

The woman in the crab pot is definitely a compelling story. Readers hear The Trapped Girl's story from Andrea Strickland's point of view as Tracy and her team investigate. As facts being to emerge, readers will begin to question what Andrea is telling them. Is she telling the truth? Is she lying? Or is she just leaving a lot of things out of her story? Andrea is a sympathetic character with her tragic life and her bad choice of husband. She is so shy and introspective that it's no wonder she chose to live in Portland, Oregon. You see, all the rain means that she'll be free to stay home and read book after book after book instead of dealing with people.

 

With a riveting story involving a smart, determined, reflective victim and an equally intelligent woman determined to find out what happened to her, The Trapped Girl is almost impossible to put down. If you haven't made Tracy Crosswhite's acquaintance, I would suggest starting with the first book, My Sister's Grave, because of the character development. You're in for a treat!    

The Trapped Girl by Robert Dugoni

eISBN: 9781503940406

Thomas & Mercer © 2017

eBook, 423 pages

Police Procedural, #4 Tracy Crosswhite

Rating: A-

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Lies We Bury by Elle Marr

 

First Line: Secrets never stay buried for long.

 

Now, she's working under a new name as a freelance photographer, but twenty years ago, Marissa Mo escaped a basement prison-- the only home she'd ever known. Still working through the trauma and trying to fly beneath the radar of those who stalk people like her, Marissa accepts a job that focuses on a series of murders in Portland, Oregon. 

Marissa's blood runs cold when she sees eerie similarities between the murders she's covering and what she lived through all those years ago. Soon she's playing a cat and mouse game with a killer who forces her to relive the past she's worked so hard to bury. But how many of her memories are true... and how many are lies?

~

I think the most important thing I carried away from Lies We Bury is the impact a traumatic experience like Marissa's can have on a person's entire life and the monumental effort it takes to overcome it all. As Marissa investigates the crime scenes she's been hired to photograph, readers see a true amateur sleuth. She has no real clue how to investigate, she's easily distracted and prone to run off on tangents. 

The author has created a layered portrait of Marissa's life, including a few interesting tidbits of Portland history as well as the memories of the people who survived that basement prison with her. When readers finally get to meet the man who kept these women and children locked in his basement for years, his beliefs as to what he can achieve if he's released from prison are mind-boggling.

Lies We Bury is well-paced and engrossing, but it's not the type of book readers can easily fall in love with. It's edgy and unsettling with uncomfortable subject matter. For me, it boiled down to my uneven track record with unreliable narrators. Marissa is a sympathetic character whom readers learn cannot be entirely trusted. How well you relate to her will have a great deal to do with how much you like the book.

Lies We Bury by Elle Marr

eISBN: 9781542026192

Thomas & Mercer © 2021

eBook, 291 pages

 

Thriller, Standalone

Rating B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

The Clincher by Lisa Preston

First Line: This guy was always such a faker, acting like I'd killed him, broken his leg, whatever.

Twenty-something high school dropout Rainy Dale has had a tough life so far, and she's got a lot of secrets that she wants to keep buried. But she's determined to Turn Over A New Leaf.

She's worked her way through farrier's school, tracked down the beloved horse that was sold away from her, and now she's trying to build a client base and a new life in Cowdry, Oregon-- ranching country where horses still reign supreme and all their owners need a reliable horseshoer. 

But her new life is put in jeopardy when one of her clients turns up dead and she becomes a suspect. If she truly plans to put down roots in her new town, she's going to have to clear her name-- and there's a killer out there who isn't going to be happy to find out that Rainy has the attitude and determination needed to get the job done.

Picking up a mystery with a female horseshoer may sound like an odd choice, but when you love horses like I do and when a man from your little hometown was a farrier for one of the teams of Budweiser Clydesdales, the choice suddenly doesn't seem strange at all. I often say that I am a character-driven reader-- and I am-- but I also read for "voice." If the main character speaks in a way that draws me right into the heart of the story, 90% of the battle is won as far as I'm concerned. Rainy Dale has that voice. She's a Texan with a colorful way of speaking-- and I'm not talking swear words here. Rainy has sworn off using bad language; it's a part of her Turning Over A New Leaf. She's made some really bad decisions in her short life, but she's got the gumption to change all that. In The Clincher, she begins to realize that the hardest thing she's going to have to do is to change her (very low) opinion of herself.

Anyone who loves horses is bound to love this book for the equine lore alone. Even if you don't love horses, if you like learning about new things, chances are good that you'll find this book a winner, too. Horseshoeing, a sport called Ride & Tie, learning to get along with a talented chef who wants more from Rainy than she wants to give... all these things and more play parts in a strong, fast-paced mystery. Character, mystery, and setting are the winning trifecta here.

I'd barely begun reading when I knew I needed more, so I already have the second book in the series, Dead Blow, on hand, and I see that the third is scheduled to be released in September. If you love characterization and that elusive "voice" as much as I do, please give Lisa Preston's The Clincher a try.

The Clincher by Lisa Preston

eISBN: 9781510732742

Skyhorse Publishing © 2018

eBook, 288 pages

Amateur Sleuth, #1 Horseshoer mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

 

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

First Line: You're supposing that you hold in your hands a manuscript.

Suffering from an untended gunshot wound, former New York City resident Alice "Nobody" James is taken to Portland, Oregon's Paradise Hotel by Max, one of the black Pullman porters.

Her sanctuary turns out to be the only all-black hotel in the city, and its lodgers are none too happy about having a white woman on the premises. As she recuperates, she becomes acquainted with the residents and begins to understand why they dread her presence. The Ku Klux Klan has arrived in great numbers-- burning crosses, inciting violence, and brutalizing blacks. It's their presence that makes searching for a missing black child extremely difficult, but Alice insists on helping to find the boy.

The longer she stays, the more Alice learns. The Paragon Hotel is chockful of secrets, and nightclub singer Blossom Fontaine seems to be at the center of all of them.

In my travels east of the Mississippi, I'd often wondered at the proliferation of places called "Dew Drop Inn" or "Step Right Inn," mostly because there wasn't a thing about them that looked like an inn, hotel, motel, or bed-and-breakfast. All these places looked like bars or saloons to me. Well, thanks to Lyndsay Faye's The Paragon Hotel, I now know about the Raines law of 1896 and why so many bars and saloons changed their names. Other than this (and learning about Bayer's heroin tablets-- oh my), I found the book to be a mixed bag of blessings.

With sentences like "Losing a safe space...carves a canyon through a person," or "Watching like a sea captain's wife searching the shores after a storm," it's obvious that Faye certainly knows how to turn a memorable phrase. She also knows how to do her research on Harlem in New York City or the slang used in 1921 or Oregon's long association with racism. Memorable characters are also a forte. You've seldom met anyone like Alice James, who prefers to be called "Nobody," and the residents of the Paragon Hotel are fascinating, especially since they've all had to learn how to live a secretive life in a city (and state) where it is illegal for blacks to reside. You'd think that, with all those people in the hotel, you'd be constantly confused, but Faye effortlessly keeps them all straight in our minds.

The way the story is told is what tripped me up. This double-pronged tale is like two cats fighting in a bag. We have to be told Alice's backstory growing up poor in Harlem, and we have to be told the present-day story in Portland. It's too much. I could've done without all the backstory and having the sole focus be on the hotel and its residents. And the 1921 slang dialogue used throughout? While it's nice to know how many people spoke then, it was too much of a good thing even though I found none of it unintelligible. Like Alice's backstory, the slang served mainly to keep me from being drawn into the story-- and I really didn't want to be an outsider. Not at the Paragon Hotel.

There's an awful lot of good to be found in the pages of this book. If only I hadn't been put off by how the tale was put together. I seem to be in the minority with my opinion, so keep in mind that your mileage may definitely vary.

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

ISBN: 9780735210752

G.P. Putnam's Sons © 2019

Hardcover, 432 pages

Historical Thriller, Standalone

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.


 

Arsenic With Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde

First Line: A gentle late-spring breeze ruffled the tender leaves of the maple and cherry trees on Reed College's front lawn, flirted with the skirts of the graduates' robes and tugged at the edges of their mortarboards, then swirled up three stories to tease Emily's upswept hair as she stood at her open office window.

When fifty-one-year-old Emily Cavanaugh inherits a fortune, her first thought isn't of spending it all. Instead she goes to Stony Beach, Oregon, to live in her late aunt's wonderful old Victorian home that's chockful of nooks and crannies. Emily has not only inherited the house called Windy Corner, she now owns a large portion of the entire town's real estate. There's a clandestine plan in the works to develop Stony Beach into a major resort, and little does Emily realize that her inheritance is needed for the plan's success. 

Emily knits and reads Jane Austen's Persuasion while getting to know the town's quirky inhabitants and getting reacquainted with her longlost love, Sheriff Luke Richards. It doesn't take long for her to hear rumors that her aunt might have been murdered, and when another suspicious death and her own near-fatal accident occur, those rumors would certainly seem to be confirmed. The more Emily helps Luke with the investigation, the more she discovers that there is enough festering resentment in Stony Beach to shock even Jane Austen herself.

For the most part, Arsenic With Austen is a very enjoyable read. The author has created main characters that are both likeable and interesting. Emily in particular shows that she is not the usual inheritor of a fortune by the way she goes about dealing with the money and property she now has at her disposal. Much of her character is revealed in how she treats the other residents of Stony Beach. 

The identity of the killer is rather obvious here, but it's the motivations that are at the heart of the mystery. One thing that did startle me however was the sudden religious piety that appeared at the end of the book. Yes, Emily behaved as a true Christian would throughout the book, but to start talking a great deal about God and concepts like divine pity when nothing like this had ever been spoken of before was jarring. It made me wonder if too much editing (or not enough) had been done.

Be that as it may, I did enjoy Arsenic With Austen, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the next Crime With the Classics mystery.
  

Arsenic With Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde

ISBN: 9781250065476

Minotaur Books © 2016

Hardcover, 320 pages

Cozy Mystery, #1 Crime with the Classics mystery

Rating: B+

Source: the publisher  


 

Slayed on the Slopes by Kate Dyer-Seeley

First Line: You're an idiot, Meg.

A little over six months ago, Meg Reed talked her way into a job working for Portland's Northwest Extreme magazine-- a job she was woefully under-qualified for. Now she's at Mt. Hood's remote Silcox Hut covering Oregon's elite high-altitude rescue team, the Ridge Rangers. Meg has beefed up her skills, but she still hopes to spend some time by the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate.

Instead she's outside in a blizzard when she hears gunshots. No one believes her until the body of Ridge Ranger Ben Rogers is found the next day. Now the entire group is snowed in, and Meg has to find a killer-- fast!

When I read the first book in this series, Scene of the Climb, I have to admit that I wondered how far this series could go if Meg's duplicity and lack of qualifications for her job continued to be stressed. I am happy to say that they aren't in this second book. In fact, Meg spent the entire summer working on her athletic skills, so that earns her a lot of points in my book. She also doesn't put herself in needless jeopardy as often this time around. More points scored!

Meg is still impulsive, and-- at the age of 23-- she has a tendency to think she's bullet-proof, but that goes hand-in-hand with youth. What we do have is a story that puts her mother and father in a different light from the previous book, and the author also does a marvelous job of putting us right in the middle of some of Mother Nature's best scenery. 

Another thing that I enjoyed while reading Slayed on the Slopes is being shown how Meg puts her article together: the writing, the photography, and how she used social media. All this really gave me a feel for being a magazine journalist.

The mystery is also a good one, with the locked room aspect of being snowed in high on a mountain, and the author does a first-rate job of shifting the focus from one suspect to another. All in all, Slayed on the Slopes improved on the promise of the first book, and I look forward to seeing what sort of mess Meg gets herself into next.  

     

Slayed on the Slopes by Kate Dyer-Seeley

eISBN: 9781617730016

Kensington Books © 2015

eBook, 340 pages

Cozy Mystery, #2 Pacific Northwest mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.  


 

The Impersonator by Mary Miley

First Line: I felt his eyes before I saw him.

Vaudeville actress Leah Randall is out of work and has no prospects, which is the only reason why she pays any attention to Oliver Beckett. Beckett's niece, Jessie Carr, disappeared seven years ago, and dear uncle has cooked up a clever little scheme. Leah is a dead ringer for Jessie. He wants Leah to go to the family home in Oregon, impersonate Jessie, and in six months after his niece's twenty-first birthday, split Jessie's $10 million inheritance with him. 

At first the gig is just a test of Leah's skill as an actress, but the more she gets to know Jessie's family, she realizes that someone killed Jessie. Leah's motive has changed from larceny to justice, but she'd better work fast. There's another person besides Uncle Oliver who knows Leah is an imposter: Jessie's killer.

I have long been an admirer of plots revolving around an impersonator-- like Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar-- so I looked forward to reading this book with a great deal of anticipation. I was not disappointed. Mary Miley has written an exceptional book filled with the history of vaudeville, the sights and sounds of the 1920s, and one very fascinating character in Leah Randall. 

As the novel begins, Leah is very much a product of her vaudeville upbringing: free from prejudice, fast off the mark with the latest slang or quip, quick at reading people and at thinking through the consequences of her actions... well, most of the time. Her jobless situation makes her desperate enough to underestimate the slimy Oliver Beckett. Desperation can do that to even the most honest of people. The Impersonator works because Leah is always such a believable and sympathetic character. She may have the lead role in "She Stoops to Con," but she remains truthful to herself about what she's doing.  

As Leah stays at the family compound in Oregon, she disappears more completely into her role as Jessie, and her speech and a few mannerisms begin to change. Her attitude towards some of the family members begins to change as well-- including how she feels about Jessie, whom Leah knows must be dead: 

"I had come to think of myself as her stand-in, her understudy, called up to take the part she couldn't finish. Jessie had crept under my skin. I cared for her. I wanted to know who had killed her. I wanted someone to pay for the crime." 

But there's a major impediment to Leah's finding Jessie's killer: she can't investigate her own murder. Part of the enjoyment in reading The Impersonator lies in watching Leah invent reasons to do things that will help her in proving the murderer's identity. You see, it's not that difficult to deduce who did it. The problem-- and the danger-- lies in proving it. 

I enjoyed this book from first page to last, and I look forward to reading more of Leah Randall's adventures. From working with vaudevillians the likes of Jack Benny and Milton Berle to impersonating an heiress. What next? Hollywood?
 

The Impersonator by Mary Miley

ISBN: 9781250028167

Minotaur Books © 2013

Hardcover, 368 pages

Historical Mystery, #1 Roaring Twenties mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet

Scene of the Climb by Kate Dyer-Seeley

First Line: My fingernails dug into the soggy dirt as my body lurched closer to the sheer cliff face.

Unemployed journalist Meg Reed is camping out on her best friend's couch when she gets the opportunity to apply for a position at Northwest Extreme magazine there in Portland, Oregon. Lying through her teeth about her outdoor sports skills, she gets the job and eventually finds herself scrambling up steep trails to cover a reality TV adventure show.

Climbing a 2,000-foot mountain peak absolutely terrifies her, but when she witnesses someone plummet off the cliff, Meg discovers that she has a murder to investigate-- because the killer thinks Meg has seen too much.

This is the beginning of a new cozy series that shows a lot of promise. Meg is a good-hearted, and sometimes bumbling, young woman fresh out of college who's always wanted to follow in her talented father's shoes as an investigative journalist. Her best friend Jill has a nice apartment in Portland and is more than willing to put up with Meg's slovenly ways. There are suitable romantic interests for our heroine, and Dyer-Seeley has created a cast that should stand up well to future adventures even if it does contain my least favorite character-- the impossible mother.

The Portland setting with nearby sites and hiking trails made me want to go up there and experience it for myself. Scene of the Climb is a nice blend of the traditional cozy and an adventure with an edge to it, and the series should do well-- especially if a couple of things are addressed.

Meg being a couch potato who has to go out there and learn outdoor skills is going to have a wide appeal among readers; however, I found two of her behaviors to be rather disturbing. She doesn't seem to have a complete understanding of the word "deadline" although she certainly has time to go out for coffee or meals with her friends. This might just mean that I haven't fully recovered from being one of those Type A personalities, but the other thing well and truly drives me up a wall. Without going into too much detail, she knows that her life is in danger, but instead of exercising at least a bit of common sense and caution, Meg just keeps going out to test her luck.  Not. Good.

The other thing that bothered me is something I normally do not mention, but I feel I have to here. Incorrect punctuation a time or two, the wrong word in a sentence... if they happen less than five times in a book, I ignore it. But it happened over and over and over in this book. The proofreading and editing were abysmal. Countless instances of missing or extra words, "air" being used instead of "err," and a scene in which Meg was called first thing in the morning to meet someone who was an hour away. Meg left almost immediately, but as she was driving non-stop to her destination, the sun had set. 

As I said before, this series has a lot of promise. I'm hoping that Meg locates her common sense, and that the next book is edited more carefully because then the promise will begin to be realized.
 

Scene of the Climb by Kate Dyer-Seeley

ISBN: 9780758295316

Kensington © 2014

Mass Market Paperback, 299 pages

Cozy Mystery, #1 Pacific Northwest mystery

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen. 

The Christmas Carol Murders by Christopher Lord

First Line: No one was dead: to begin with.

Like everywhere else in the country Dickens Junction, Oregon, was hit hard by the economic crisis. Everyone is hoping that there will be lots of shoppers spending lots of money this Christmas season. Some business owners have already given up and left; others are hanging on by a thread.

The only exception to the rule is Simon Alastair, owner of the bookstore Pip's Pages. His great-grandfather and grandfather were timber barons and built the small town of Dickens Junction, basing it on many of the principles found in the writings of Charles Dickens. Although far from being a millionaire, Simon is comfortably well off and able to afford to stock his bookstore with only the titles of books he's read. (He admits that he doesn't much care for contemporary fiction, so don't beat a path to the door of Pip's Pages expecting to find a signed copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.)

The holiday season is a special time of year in Dickens Junction, and Simon ponders three things as he walks over to take part in the annual Christmas tableaux: (1) the stranger who's been visiting all the businesses on the square, (2) the sudden run on Ayn Rand titles in his shop, and (3) Zach, a handsome magazine reporter who's just come to town. The tableaux come to a screeching halt when the stranger is found dead-- hidden underneath a costume right in front of Simon.

Since the killer almost has to be one of Simon's friends and acquaintances, Zach decides to stay and persuades Simon to go around interviewing everyone to see who has an alibi and who doesn't. Simon doesn't need much encouragement: he cares deeply for the town and the people who live there, and he doesn't want harm to come to either. When a second murder occurs, it becomes even more important to find the killer before anyone else dies.

The Christmas Carol Murders is a good, solid beginning to the Dickens Junction mystery series. Simon is an interesting character who seems content to stay in his beloved small town rather than move out to create a life for himself in a city. This behavior has already cost him two long-term relationships, and it's also made him extremely leery of beginning anything with Zach. Simon often trades literary quips with his friend, George, and it's one of the highlights of the book--as are Simon's eccentric methods of running a bookstore.

The rest of Simon's friends and fellow business owners are a fine cast to draw from in future books, but I did find two or three things that blunted my enjoyment of the story. This, for all intents and purposes, is a cozy mystery, but the second murder is so gruesome that I became a bit queasy as I read the scene. (And I do have a strong stomach.) This is so unusual in a genre known for its offstage violence and lack of graphic depictions of blood and gore that it startled me.

The other two things that proved distracting for me both concerned the author's wealth of description. For the first quarter of the book almost every male character has his teeth described in some fashion. (Yes, I kept track.) It made me wonder if there were dentists in the author's family tree. Fortunately the toothsome portraits didn't continue throughout the book.

The other thing that proved distracting for me (and it may very well be a personal quirk of mine) concerned how each character was described when he or she made an appearance: age, build, coloring, detailed clothing inventory, type of makeup, how it was applied (or lack thereof)... it was just too much. Had the BBC's What Not to Wear come to Oregon's version of Cabot Cove?  All this did was pull me away from a very good mystery.

Yes indeed, the mystery is a very good one with a surprising reveal at the end, and despite being distracted several times in this first book, I look forward to seeing what happens next in Dickens Junction-- and what happens to the characters living there.

The Christmas Carol Murders by Christopher Lord

ISBN: 9780985323608

Harrison Thurman Books © 2012

Paperback, 276 pages

Amateur Sleuth, LGBT, #1 Dickens Junction mystery

Rating: B-/C+

Source: Publicist

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

Title: The Sisters Brothers
Author: Patrick DeWitt
ISBN: 9780062041265
Publisher: Ecco, 2011
Hardcover, 336 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction, Western
Rating: A+
Source: Publisher

First Line: I was sitting outside the Commodore's mansion, waiting for my brother Charlie to come out with news of the job.

The year is 1851. The California Gold Rush is at a fever pitch, and the Commodore has his little corner of the universe in Oregon City, Oregon nailed down tight-- due in part to the efforts of his two hired guns, brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters.

The Commodore sent another of his employees down to San Francisco to keep an eye on someone who severely displeased him. Now it is up to Eli and Charlie to go down there and kill the man.

They pack a few provisions, saddle up their horses, and set out... only nothing on this trip seems to go smoothly. Every time Charlie gets near a saloon, he has to get drunk, and they're losing time because of his hangovers. Eli has nothing but trouble with his horse, and every single person they meet along the way seems to be more than a bit strange.

This picaresque novel is a pure delight. The tale is told by younger brother Eli, and as the pages turn, it's easy to begin to wonder how on earth he could be one of the infamous Sisters Brothers-- killers that most people cross the street to avoid. Eli is so honest and forthcoming about himself and what happens along the way that when I did find out that he, indeed, did come by his reputation honestly, I was in a bit of a shock.

It is easy to fall into a line of work and be good at it whether you like it or not, but Eli's had enough. He wants to turn over a new leaf, take the money he's saved up, set up shop, and become a storekeeper. Even though his brother Charlie thinks that idea is hilarious, I was rooting for Eli every step of the way.

DeWitt makes every paragraph of his tale look as easy as falling off the proverbial log. Every character comes to vivid life (even Eli's horse) and the action flows as smooth as can be. By book's end I honestly felt as though I'd experienced life during the Gold Rush in all its grimy, scary, funny, thought-provoking glory.

My only complaint is that I finished the book far too quickly, and I'm left feeling like Oliver Twist. Please, sir-- may I have some more?

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Lead-Pipe Cinch by Christy Evans

Title: Lead-Pipe Cinch
Author: Christy Evans
ISBN: 9780425233887
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime, 2010
Mass Market Paperback, 256 pages
Genre: Cozy, Amateur Sleuth, #2 Georgiana Neverall mystery
Rating: B+
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: "Let's get a move on, Neverall," Sean Jacobs, the crew foreman, said as he gestured toward the muddy bottom of the trench.

As this second book of the series opens, apprentice plumber Georgiana Neverall finds herself building a moat-- part of a state-of-the-art castle for a retired Microsoft engineer. Almost before she can blink an eye, her ex-boyfriend has shown up to take care of the security system for the property. Since this is the same ex-boyfriend who sold her company out from under her, his body being discovered at the bottom of the moat doesn't bode well for Georgiana. When the law seems to be eyeballing her a lot-- and moving very slowly at the same time-- what's an apprentice plumber to do but set out to prove her own innocence?

Just as important as the whodunit in this book are the evolving relationships between Georgiana and her family and friends. Her mother's boyfriend is acting strangely, and Georgiana has to decide if she should tell her mother what she knows.

In addition, this murder has opened a whole can of worms. When Georgiana was sold down the river, she left San Francisco vowing never to look back and to make a completely new and different life for herself. She is making a lot of progress on that new life, but at the cost of a lot of secrecy. Another decision facing her: does she want to continue to keep her friends in the dark to salve her pride, or does she want to place her trust in them?

As ever, the mystery and the plumbing tips are first-rate, but what really makes this series shine is its main character and the small select group of people she is gathering around her.

The third in the series, Drip Dead, has just been published, and I look forward to reading it. Do these books stand alone well? Yes, they do, but (as always) in the case of a series that depends so much upon characterization, I recommend that you read the series in order.

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Sink Trap by Christy Evans

Title: Sink Trap
Author: Christy Evans
ISBN: 9780425230794, Berkley Prime Crime, 2009
Genre: Cozy, Amateur Sleuth, #1 Georgiana Neverall mystery
Rating: B+
Source: purchased at The Poisoned Pen

First Line: "Georgiana? Georgiana Neverall, is that you under there?"

Former computer security expert Georgiana Neverall is now a plumber's apprentice and is enjoying every minute of it until she finds Martha Tepper's favorite brooch clogging a drain in an old warehouse. No one else seems to think it's a big deal, so Georgiana decides to do a bit of sleuthing on her own. It's not long at all before she needs more than a bit of plumber's tape and a wrench to keep out of danger.

This is a light, fun mystery with plenty in it to bring me back for more. Georgiana isn't afraid of hard work and brings a welcome sense of humor to her new profession: "Plumbers, in my limited experience, spent an inordinate amount of time underneath sinks.... Lately, I identified everyone by their shoes." She's coming down from the high anxiety of her former business and learning to like the woman she's becoming. She's enjoying life being owned by her two Airedales, Daisy and Buddha, and after all those childhood summers camped out in the mystery section of the local library, Georgiana has learned to be observant and notice significant details.

The only two real drawbacks to me were Georgiana's nagging, fault finding mother, and the plain and simple fact that everyone else took so long to figure out that Martha Tepper hadn't retired to Arizona.

It's common for most cozy mysteries to have some sort of theme and recipes or helpful tips. To be honest, for the most part, I tend to skim over them all because they hold very little interest for me. I have to make an exception for Sink Trap. I found Evans' plumbing tips to be interesting and worthwhile.

A main character I'd like to invite over for coffee (and not to take a look at that dripping faucet), two great dogs, a fun cast of secondary characters, an interesting whodunit to solve and free plumbing tips? Where's the next book in this series?