A Linkless Weekly Link Round-Up

 

One of the reasons I've cut back my blogging time is because I am having more trouble with my leg. New wounds opening. Lots of pain. Doctors rescheduling and relocating procedures to ensure that I spend most of my day getting shaken to bits on the Dial-a-Ride bus. If it sounds like I'm a bit down, I am. But I won't stay that way. (Too boring!)

 

I'm not about to give anyone a complete list of things I'm grumpy about, but the icing on the cake came a few minutes ago when I tried to respond to comments here on the blog. Every once in awhile, Blogger seems to delight in making its users rip out their hair. At least I seem to have found a way past its shenanigans. When it wouldn't let me reply to comments on the browser I prefer (Firefox), I simply switched to Chrome and didn't have a single problem. (Probably because Chrome and Blogger are both Google products.) I learned the wisdom of having more than one browser available on my computer from working on The Poisoned Pen Bookstore's Pinterest boards.

Anyway, I am in no mood to sit here for a couple of hours putting together a link round-up, so I'll catch you up on what I've been reading instead. Short reviews, with links to the books' synopses on Amazon US if you want to read them.

 

 

What I've Been Reading

 

 

 

Holly by Stephen King

464 pages

Rating: A+

 

My Thoughts: Holly Gibney is one of my favorite characters, and it's been a joy to watch her grow and develop. This is the story of an investigation carried out by a hypochrondriac in the time of Covid (Holly). King knows how to create villains that you love to hate, and it was easy for me to root for Holly as she slowly pieced together the clues it took to bring those killers down.

 

Moreover, I loved the last line; it gave me Holly Hope that there will be more from her. 

Death of a Dormouse by Reginald Hill

363 pages

Rating: B 

 

My Thoughts: When Trudi Adamson's husband is killed in a car accident, she soon learns that she's basically been sleepwalking through her life for years. It was mind-boggling to me how clueless she was to everything going on around her. Trudi has a steep learning curve, and as she learns who she can trust, I wondered just how much I could trust her. 

 

This was a good story, well told. I would've liked it better if I hadn't had such a strong reaction to Trudi and her blissful oblivion to the world around her. 

A Grave in the Woods by Martin Walker

289 pages

Rating: C+ 

My Thoughts: A visit with Bruno is always a pleasure, but this entry in a favorite series of mine felt decidedly lackluster. Moving on from the atrocities of World War II, cryptocurrency, climate change, disaster preparedness? Check, check, check, and check. There's a question mark about Bruno's future as well, but the most telling factor in the book was the one dinner scene-- someone else did almost all the cooking!

This may be lackluster, but I'll be eager to read the next installment in Bruno's story.

A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson

272 pages

Rating: A+

 

My Thoughts: I was in the perfect mood for this book. It was filled with twists that I didn't see coming and characters that came to life with each turn of the page. A woman afraid of heights who commits suicide by jumping off a balcony... A wife who begins to think her husband is a serial killer... The only person that wife can turn to for help... I lapped it all up. The only thing that didn't quite set well with me was the appearance of P.I. Henry Kimball as a sort of deus ex machina at the end. But I certainly do enjoy the way Peter Swanson's mind works!

Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath

320 pages

Rating: A

 

My Thoughts: I rapidly fell under Lorraine Henry's (Aunty Lo's) spell. Records clerk in the basement of the local police station, everyone who works with her goes out of their way to remind her she's an outsider. 

 

Aunty Lo identifies strongly with the Maori and any other marginalized person, and when the police don't seem overly concerned about the disappearances of two Maori children, Aunty Lo finds herself teaming up with Justin Hayes, a police officer from the city to find them.

 

Even though one of the bad guys wasn't a surprise, I loved the setting, I loved Aunty Lo, and I'm definitely looking for more from Tom Baragwanath.

 

 

Amberwell by D. E. Stevenson
222 pages

Rating: A+

My Thoughts: Written in 1955, I found Amberwell suited my mood perfectly for a charming and delightful (I know-- I don't use those words often) tale of a wealthy, eccentric family in their Scottish country house from the 1920s to the end of World War II. 

There's another book continuing with the characters, but I'm not sure I'll follow up with it. Sometimes the glow of the original is enough for me. Make sense?

 

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

400 pages

Rating: B+

 

My Thoughts: "The Cartographers is a work of fiction, but its inspiration is rooted in truth. This story is for anyone who's ever opened a map and gotten lost in it." Well, I've loved maps since I was a small child, and I can still get lost in one. As a child, I always wanted at least one road map every time my accompanying grownups would stop at a gas station. (The pleasure of sitting in the backseat and being the first one to unfold it!)

 

I loved all the information about cartography, but... as the real identity of each character was revealed, I wasn't surprised, and I really didn't buy into the "reality" of a little town called Agloe.

I feel a bit guilty about these short reviews, but I hope you enjoy them anyway. Have you read any of these books? Which ones? Did you have the same reactions to them as I did? Inquiring minds would love to know!

It's time to get this leg up. Enjoy your weekend!

A Fairly Dangerous Thing by Reginald Hill

First Line: Joe stood, dramatically outlined against the sky, on a rocky eminence above the Bosporus, and laughed mockingly as Cyril Solstice and Miss Onions were bound back to back (no; make that front to front, nothing was too bad for them) thrust into a sack and hurled into the swirling waters.

Joe Askern, teacher in an English village day school, has three obsessions: (1) concocting dire scenarios in which to put the two people in charge of the school, (2) Averningerett House, a stately home, and (3) female mammary glands. With the aid of a particularly hopeless student and the student's father, Joe is set up to learn just what can happen when obsessions collide.

In no time at all, Joe finds himself blackmailed into being a participant in the master heist of Averningerett House. Unable to finagle his way out of the mess, Joe agrees to navigate the caper. What none of them know is that it's going to be much more difficult getting out of the house than it was to get in.

Since I am a fan of Reginald Hill's Dalziel & Pascoe police procedural series as well as his standalone, The Woodcutter, I thought I'd enjoy A Fairly Dangerous Thing. For the most part, I didn't. What part did I enjoy? The caper itself. I've always liked a good heist/caper book or film, and Hill's book fulfilled this particular requirement.

What didn't I enjoy? Once, just once, I'd like to see someone who's being blackmailed say, "Damn the consequences, I'm turning these buzzards in!" I know. Then there wouldn't be much of a book. (It would, however, be quite refreshing.) I found Joe's dithering-- which only wrapped him tighter in the blackmailer's web-- tiresome, and even more wearying was his almost open drooling over women's breasts. Put a good-sized pair in front of certain men and you can do anything you want with them. But guess what? It's boring. Dolly Parton isn't the only woman who's happy that Dolly Parton jokes are a thing of the past.

So... a very good heist story involving an exasperating main character. Written by almost anyone else, I would not have finished it. Of course, your mileage may vary.

A Fairly Dangerous Thing by Reginald Hill

eISBN: 9781504057820

Open Road Integrated Media © 2019

Originally published in 1972.

eBook, 190 pages

Humorous Mystery, Standalone

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

 

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill

Title: The Woodcutter
Author: Reginald Hill
ISBN: 9780062060747
Publisher: Harper, 2011
Hardcover, 528 pages
Genre: Thriller
Rating: A+
Source: Amazon Vine

First Line: Summer 1963; Profumo disgraced; Ward dead; The Beatles' Please please me top album; Martin Luther King having his dream; JFK fast approaching the end of his; the Cold War at its chilliest; the Wind of Change blowing ever more strongly through Colonial Africa, with its rising blasts already being felt across the Gate of Tears in British-controlled Aden.

Wolf Hadda's life seems to be a fairy tale: he began life as a humble woodcutter's son in a wild and remote area of Cumbria in England, and he's now an extremely successful businessman worth millions and happily married to the woman he fell in love with while in his teens. Hadda knows differently. It took a lot of hard work to get where he is. What he doesn't realize is how quickly it can all be taken away.

A knock on the door of his London home one morning eventually sends him to prison, penniless and reviled by one and all. Abandoned by family, friends and business associates, Hadda retreats into silence until seven years later when prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo makes a breakthrough. Hadda begins to talk, and with Ozigbo's support, he is paroled and returns to his family home in rural Cumbria.

Certain people are made uneasy by his release, and they should be. During a very mysterious period in Hadda's youth, he left his home and was known by his employers as The Woodcutter. The Woodcutter is back, and he's searching for the truth, and for the identity of those who framed him. To Hadda, revenge would be very sweet indeed.

I made the mistake of reading this book in the pool, and it held me spellbound for so long that I nearly turned into a 5-foot 9-inch tall prune. Hill convinced me almost immediately that Hadda had been framed, and it was very skillfully done because Hadda does not wear a halo. I knew that he had a bad temper, rough edges, and had cut a corner here and there in his business, but I also knew that he was not guilty as charged.

As Alva Ozigbo, the prison psychiatrist began working with Hadda, it was amusing. She's young, very talented and intelligent, and knows just what she has to do in order to make Hadda see the error of his ways so he can be cured and released. What she doesn't know is that-- where intelligence is concerned-- Hadda runs rings around her. Once Ozigbo starts to understand what's really going on, her greatest fear is that Hadda will carry his quest for revenge too far.

I could go on and on about the unfolding of the complex plot, but it's always my policy to say as little as possible about it. Why read a book review to find out everything that happens in a book? What I will say is that the plot kept me in its clutches from beginning to end, and Wolf Hadda is one of the most complex and fascinating characters I've come across in a long time. If you're looking to be lost in a good book for a considerable length of time, open The Woodcutter and begin to read. My only recommendation is to stay out of the pool while you do.

July 2011 New Mystery Releases!

Summertime, and nothing beats sitting out in the pool with a cold drink and a good book. At least not here at Casa Kittling!

Most publishers hope that we spend some of that book money during these summer months, so they really pile on the new releases. There were several I added to my wishlist for July, and I had to do some judicious pruning on this post so that it wouldn't be more than two miles long!

The titles are grouped by release dates, and I've included the information you'll need to find them at all your favorite book spots.  I hope you're able to read one or two of this titles in glorious summer weather, too!

===July 5===

Title: Skirting the Grave

Author: Annette Blair

Series: #4 in the Vintage Magic series set in Mystick Falls, Connecticut

ISBN: 9780425242223

Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

Mass Market Paperback, 288 pages

"Maddie Cutler thought she was taking on a new design intern for her boutique. But instead she finds her dead at the train station under suspicious circumstances. Now, Maddie is determined to iron out the wrinkles of this mystery."

Title: A Spark of Death
Author: Bernadette Pajer
Series: #1 in the historical Professor Bradshaw mysteries set in Washington State
ISBN: 9781590589052
Publisher: The Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 250 pages

"Can death bring a man back to life? When UW Professor Benjamin Bradshaw discovers a despised colleague dead inside the Faraday Cage of the Electric Machine, his carefully controlled world shatters. The facts don't add up—the police shout murder—and Bradshaw is the lone suspect. To protect his young son and clear his name, he must find the killer.


Seattle in 1901 is a bustling blend of frontier attitude and cosmopolitan swagger. The Snoqualmie Falls Power Plant lights the city, but to most Seattleites, electricity is new-fangled and dangerous. The public wants a culprit—they want Bradshaw behind bars. The killer wants Bradshaw dead."

Title: Books Can Be Deceiving
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Series: #1 in the Lindsey Norris Library Lover's mysteries set in New York State
ISBN: 9780425242186
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

"Lindsey is getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a New York editor visits town, creating quite a buzz. Lindsey's friend Beth wants to sell the editor her children's book, but Beth's boyfriend, a famous author, gets in the way. When they go to confront him, he's found murdered-and Beth is the prime suspect. Lindsey has to act fast before they throw the book at the wrong person." 

Title: Hollywood Buzz
Author: Margit Liesche
Series: #2 in the Pucci Lewis, US Women Airforce Service Pilot and undercover agent in World War II, series
ISBN: 9781590589083
Publisher: The Poisoned Pen Press
Paperback, 250 pages

"Pucci Lewis was used to ferrying fighter planes and undercover work. But it's the dark hours of WWII, and Hollywood's biggest stars, studio moguls, and Washington bureaucrats are working hand-in-glove to merge entertainment and propaganda. Pucci has been dispatched to the First Motion Picture Unit.  

Pucci is stepping in for a sister-WASP, now hospitalized in critical condition after an all-too-deliberate plane crash. But who's the saboteur? Why the cover-up? Pucci is drawn into a high-profile homicide. A big-name director has been murdered, possibly by Nazi operatives. Military intelligence wants Pucci to learn what she can from her inside position.

Bela Lugosi is a frequent visitor to the Beverly Hills mansion where Pucci is temporarily billeted. His niece, a rising starlet and also the housekeeper, has a history with the Hungarian resistance. But Pucci doesn't trust the girl. Can Pucci steadfastly maneuver through movie land and its narcissistic denizens, finally unraveling the uncertainties to prove she has the right stuff?"

Title: A Killing in Antiques

Author: Mary Moody

Series: #1 in the Lucy St. Elmo Antiques mystery series set on Cape Cod

ISBN: 9780451234186

Publisher: Signet Books

Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages

"Treasure hunting is not for the faint of heart. Luckily, Lucy St. Elmo, owner of the Cape Cod antiques shop St. Elmo Fine Antiques, has more than enough heart. What she needs to improve are her tracking skills-or else the wrong man could be convicted of a one-of-a-kind murder."

===July 12===

Title: Children of the Street

Author: Kwei Quartey

Series: #2 of the Darko Dawson series set in Ghana

ISBN: 9780812981674

Publisher: Random House

Paperback, 352 pages

"In the slums of Accra, Ghana’s fast-moving, cosmopolitan capital, teenagers are turning up dead. Inspector Darko Dawson has seen many crimes, but this latest string of murders—in which all the young victims bear a chilling signature—is the most unsettling of his career. Are these heinous acts a form of ritual killing or the work of a lone, cold-blooded monster? With time running out, Dawson embarks on a harrowing journey through the city’s underbelly and confronts the brutal world of the urban poor, where street children are forced to fight for their very survival—and a cunning killer seems just out of reach." 

Title: Original Sin

Author: Beth McMullen

Series: #1 in the Sally Sin, ex-spy and stay-at-home mom series

ISBN: 9781401324216

Publisher: Hyperion

Hardcover, 304 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

"After falling in love and making a quick exit from her nine-year career in the USAWMD (United States Agency for Weapons of Mass Destruction), ex-spy Sally Sin does her best to become Lucy Hamilton, a stay-at-home mom in San Francisco. No one, not even her adoring husband Will, knows about her secret agent escapades--chasing no-good masterminds through perilous jungles, escaping evil assassins, and playing dangerous games of cat and mouse with her old nemesis, Ian Blackford, a notorious and dashing illegal arms dealer. 


In her new life as Lucy Hamilton, she squeezes inside forts crafted from couch cushions by her three-year-old son Theo, makes organic applesauce, and frequents the zoo. But sometimes her well-honed spy reflexes refuse to lay low. She can't help breaking into her own house to check on the babysitter or stop herself from tossing the yoga instructor who gets on her nerves. And when Ian Blackford, who is supposed to be dead, once again starts causing trouble for the USAWMD, the agency becomes desperate to get Sally back on the job.

How can Sally or Lucy or whatever her name is save the planet while at the same time keeping her own family's world from spinning out of control?"

===July 19===

Title: Killed at the Whim of a Hat

Author: Colin Cotterill

Series: #1 in the Jimm Juree series set in rural southern Thailand

ISBN: 9780312564537

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Hardcover, 384 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

"Jimm Juree was a crime reporter for the Chiang Mai Daily Mail with a somewhat eccentric family--a mother who might be drifting mentally; a grandfather--a retired cop--who rarely talks; a younger brother obsessed with body-building, and a transgendered, former beauty pageant queen, former older brother. When Jimm is forced to follow her family to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she's convinced her career--maybe her life--is over. So when a van containing the skeletal remains of two hippies, one of them wearing a hat, is inexplicably unearthed in a local farmer's field, Jimm is thrilled. Shortly thereafter an abbot at a local Buddhist temple is viciously murdered, with the temple's monk and nun the only suspects. Suddenly Jimm's new life becomes somewhat more promising--and a lot more deadly. And if Jimm is to make the most of this opportunity, and unravel the mysteries that underlie these inexplicable events, it will take luck, perseverance, and the help of her entire family."

===July 26===

Title: The Woodcutter

Author: Reginald Hill

Standalone

ISBN: 9780062060747

Publisher: Harper

Hardcover, 528 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books.

"Wolf Hadda’s life has been a fairy tale. From his humble origins as a Cumbrian woodcutter’s son, he has risen to become a hugely successful entrepreneur, happily married to the woman of his dreams. 

A knock on the door one morning ends it all. Universally reviled, thrown into prison while protesting his innocence, abandoned by friends and family, Wolf retreats into silence. Seven years later, prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo makes a breakthrough. Wolf begins to talk, and under her guidance he is paroled, returning to his family home in rural Cumbria. 

But there was a mysterious period in Wolf’s youth when he disappeared from home and was known to his employers as the Woodcutter. And now the Woodcutter is back, looking for the truth—and revenge. Can Alva intervene before his pursuit of vengeance takes him to a place from which he can never come back?"

It definitely looks like a lip-smackin' gooood month of reading! Are you eagerly awaiting some of the same titles? Which ones? You know how I love to compare notes!