Kraken by China Miéville

Kraken

China Miéville is such a different author he has been given his own genre called New Weird. This book is a combination of fantasy, horror, police mystery, religion, and even humor. 

Kraken opens in the natural history museum in London where the curator is giving a tour of the collection of preserved specimens to a group including a class of students. After proudly showing them the collection preserved by Darwin himself, he proceeds to take them to see the real star of the collection, a giant squid, only to discover that the animal and the tank it was in had vanished. 

The book proceeds to follow Billy as he joins with Dane (the museum guard he had seen killed) and members of the FSRC (Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit) to chase down members of the squid-worshiping sect and find out how it had been removed from the museum. The reader is treated to amazing new characters and creatures as they chase around London.

I highly recommend this book to readers who appreciate a real challenge.

The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky

The Golden Day

The Australian author, Ursula Dubosarsky, has given us this little jewel of a book, one of those that begs to be read slowly and savored. It takes place in a school for girls during the 1970s and in some ways reminded me of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. A free-spirited teacher takes her class to a park to contemplate death. A man had been hung in Melbourne that morning and she wants the girls (who don't even know where Melbourne is) to think about things. 

It did seem a particularly wicked thing to do, the little girls agreed, on such a warm and lovely day when everything in it was so alive. Better to hang a person at night when it was already sad and dark.

They meet the handsome poet/gardener (teacher's boyfriend?) there who takes them to a cave to see some examples of indigenous art. The girls are a combination of innocent, immature, and rather silly and are completely clueless what to do when their teacher vanishes. Should they tell someone? Return to school? Tell about the gardener? It's hard to tell if they are more scared about what happened to the teacher or what might happen to themselves. I had an image of a huddled group of whimpering puppies.

Treat yourself to this delicious morsel of a book if you enjoy light mystery.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel by Robin Sloan

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

This was definitely a cool book! It takes the reader from a little bookstore in San Francisco to the Google campus in Palo Alto to a subterranean library in New York City to a knitting museum and a conservatory of artifacts. 

Clay Jannon had a job designing a web site for a bagel company but unfortunately it folded and now he has to look for a job. One day as he was walking around San Francisco he sees a sign offering a job in the window of a really small bookstore. He walks in and finds that what the bookstore lacks in floor space makes up for it in wall space. Shelves full of books go up for three stories and are accessed by ladders on wheels. However, he has to agree to some very strange rules before he can have the job. He agrees to the conditions and gets the shift that runs from 10 pm to 6 am. Not surprisingly, there are not so many customers that come into the store, just a few who exchange one book for another. Clay records these visits in a log that is the newest in a set that dates back for decades. Curiosity overcomes Clay who feels that there is much more to this store than meets the eye.

I highly recommend this book to readers who love mysteries, adventure, and, of course, books!

My rating for this book:

The Night She Disappeared by April Henry

The Night She Disappeared

How can a mystery with no mystery still be suspenseful? This book is about a girl who is kidnapped and how her coworkers ignore the police who believe she is dead and work on finding her. 

Gabie works in a pizza parlor with Kayla and Drew. She is the less attractive of the two girls but has the attraction of a serial murderer. They trade nights when the kidnapper intends to snatch Gabie but he goes ahead and takes Kayla. The story is told from different points of view, including the kidnapper's, so the reader is aware that Kayla is still alive and Gabie is still in danger. Will Gabie and Drew manage to save Kayla? 

Thrillers like this are rare in the Young Adult section of the bookstore and abundant in the Adult section. It is a great introduction to a fun type of book.

My rating for this book:

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

Skulduggery Pleasant

Irish author Derek Landy gives young readers a rollicking adventure full of fights with fist and feet, swords, scythes, scepters, and magic. Lots of magic.

At the reading of Gordon's will, Stephanie Edgley is surprised to learn that her uncle has left her his mansion, fortune, and royalty to all the horror books he has written. A stranger she had noticed at the funeral, called Skulduggery Pleasant, is given a mysterious message. Her jealous aunt and uncle get a brooch and her parents a villa in southern France. 

She and her mother visit the house one day and due to circumstances, she ends up spending the night alone in the house. Nothing strange there! What is unexpected is a call to her dead uncle's phone, followed by someone banging on the door demanding entrance. He eventually breaks in and demands a key from Stephanie. Luckily Skulduggery is there to save the day and start her on an amazing adventure.

Hard to see in the picture of the cover is a line at the bottom reading "AND HE'S THE GOOD GUY. Skulduggery is the character on the cover, a dapperly dressed skeleton with a fist full of fire. I have had this book on my shelf for three years and I can't for the life of me remember buying it. I'm sure I didn't realize it was written for middle school aged children and up. But I did have fun after slogging through the first part of the book full of character introductions. Once the reader has met everyone, it's a non-stop roller coaster ride.

I would recommend this for seventh grade readers and older.

My rating for this book:

The Lark's Lament (2007)

Taking place in the early 13th century, this book by Alan Gordon takes us into the world of jesters (fools) who were organized into an organization known as the Fools Guild. In this series of mysteries we meet a traveling family of jesters. They are visiting a monk who is a retired member of the guild when a brutal murder of another monk takes place and a line from a song is written on the wall using his blood.

Theo and Claudia travel with their infant daughter, Portia, and young apprentice, Helga. Along the way they entertain with puppet plays, skits, and songs. They go around France following clues about who wrote the song and why.

"Let me get this straight," said Grelho when he returned from escorting my wife and apprentice. "You have traveled a hundred miles to track down an obscure song that may contain an obscure reference to an obscure someone who is probably dead because an obscure someone else killed another obscurity so he could splash some blood on some books."
"Yes," I said. "Although when you put it like that, it seems like a waste of time."

I really enjoyed this book. There are so many series of mysteries that take place in new venues, times, countries which give the readers a glimpse into a new world and this one is definitely a new world for me. I will definitely be looking for back episodes of this series.

My rating for this book: +++ 1/2

Death at La Fenice (1992)

This book is part of a series of murder mysteries by Donna Leon featuring Guido Brunetti in the marvelous city of Venice. In this story, the artistic director of La Fenice opera house, is found dead, apparently of poison.

One of the things that sets this series apart is that the lead character has a happy marriage and good home life. What a change! He also employs a deadpan sarcasm with his superior that adds a touch of humor.

"So you've finally come," Patta said, suggesting that Brunetti was hours late rather than on time. " Thought I'd have to wait all morning for you," he added, which Brunetti though was overplaying the role. When Brunetti made no response to either remark, Patta demanded, "What have you got?"
Brunetti pulled that morning's Gazettino from his pocket and answered, "The paper, sir. It's right here on page one." Then, before Patta could stop him, he read out, "'Famous Maestro Found Dead. Murder Suspected.'" He offered the paper to his superior.
Patta kept his voice level but dismissed th paper with a wave. "I've already read that. I meant what have you found out?"

I look forward to reading more stories from this series.

My rating for this book: +++

Shakespeare's Counselor (2001)

This is another in the Lily Bard series by Charlaine Harris. I didn't enjoy it much but I have to admit that I may not have given it the best of circumstances. I read it on my plane ride home. I was jammed in the middle of two seats, annoyed by the flight attendant, disappointed that they were showing a Miley Cyrus movie, and I was achy and cranky, coming down with a little bug.

Lily finds a flyer inviting anyone to join a group of rape victims to try and live with the mental anguish of surviving an attack. She decides to give it a try and meets other women from the town of Shakespeare who are survivors and the counselor, herself a victim of a stalker.

When it becomes apparent that the stalker has followed the counselor, Lily helps discover who he is and why he is torturing her.

I love strong female roles and Lily is one of the strongest I've come across in a while. I may not be fair in my assessment of this book which failed to move me as much as it might have, but it may just have been my mood. I'll will try more of the other books in the series.

My rating for this book: ++ 1/2

The Ape Who Guards the Balance (1998)

This is the tenth book in the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters about a family of archaeologists at the turn of the 20th century. Amelia is the matriarch, Professor Emerson is her husband, Ramses is her son, Nefret her niece, and David, an Egyptian who is as close to Ramses as any brother could be. As I read this book I thought that all of them were always aware of each others' location and occupation like our body is aware of the location and occupation of each of its parts. The point of view alternates between Amelia's and "Manuscript H" which lets us see what is going on with the family members when she is not there to observe.

There was no warning, not even a knock. The door flew open, and he forgot his present aches and pains in anticipation of what lay in store. The figure that stood in the door was not that of an enemy. It was worse. It was his mother.

They are all very proper and very British in their actions and interactions with others. The Professor is given permission to dig in a location that does not hold any promise and he must use all of his best control to not interfere with another archeologist's more exciting dig especially since he knows that the other dig will not be correctly recorded in the rush to unearth new riches. They are all on guard for a master criminal known as Sethos who, despite his six foot height, is also a master of disguise. There is another villain, Bertha, who takes advantage of Amelia's crusade to educate Egyptian girls to better their circumstances.

I really wanted to like this book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I started with the beginning of this series. After all, it has an undeniably intriguing mix of mystery and Egyptology. I think I will try to find the earlier adventures to see if I like the series better.

My rating for this book: +++

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008)

It is always a little odd reading a book that just about everyone has already read and went totally gaga over. One wonders if they are OK if they don't like it as much as everyone else. Well, this book by Stieg Larsson, did not fail to meet expectations. For me, it was as riveting as everyone says.

Lisbeth Salander is the girl in the title and she is a fascinating character.

Blomkvist was watching her. With her slender body, her black camisole, the tattoos, and the rings piercing her face, Salander looked out of place, to say the least, in a guest cottage in Hedeby. When he tried to be sociable over dinner, she was taciturn to the point of rudeness. But when she was working she sounded like a professional to her fingertips. Her apartment in Stockholm might look as if a bomb had gone off in it, but mentally Salander was extremely well organised.

Blomkvist is the other main character in this book. He was the publisher of a business magazine and was sued for libel over an article he published about a billionnaire business man and lost the suit. He was approached by another billionnaire, Henrik Vanger, with a proposal to write a story of his family. In reality he was most interested in the disappearance of his niece, Hariet.

This book is a murder mystery as well as a story about business intrigue and espionage, sexual abuse, and maybe one of the most dysfunctional families portrayed in a long time. I highly recommend this book to readers of thrillers.

My rating for this book: +++++

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag (2010)

This is the second book in the series by Alan Bradley about the highly intelligent 11-year old Flavia deLuce. She continues to follow her passion for chemistry and poisons and befriends a puppeteer and his assistant after their van breaks down in her town of Bishop's Lacey. While their van is being repaired, they camp out on the grounds of a neighboring farm and promise to put on two shows for the residents of the town. At the end of the second show, the puppeteer is electrocuted. Flavia uses her unique knowledge to help the local constabulary find the guilty party. She is able to flit about the village and learn stuff because few take her seriously.

"You are unreliable, Flavia," he said. "Utterly unreliable."
Of course I was! It was one of the things I loved most about myself.
Eleven-year-olds are supposed to unreliable. We're past the age of being poppets: the age where people bend over and poke us in the tum with their fingers and make idiotic noises that sound like "boof-boof" -- just the thought of which is enough to make me bring up my Bovril. And yet we're still not at the age where anyone ever mistakes us for a grown-up. The fact is, we're invisible - except when we choose not to be.

They are starting to take notice of her, however.

"Dammit!" Inspector Hewitt shouted, leaping to his feet. "Sorry, Vicar. But why haven't we found these things out, Sergeant?"
He glared from one of his men to the other, including both in his exasperation.
"With respect, sir," Sergeant Woolmer ventured, "it could be because we're not Miss de Luce."

Now the long wait for the third book in the series.

My rating for this book: ++++

The Dogs of War (2010)

This mystery by Conor Fitzgerald takes place in modern Rome and starts with the murder of an animal activist who had recently produced a film about illegal dog fights. He was discovered by his wife, a senator, and his young son shortly after his murder. His mistress, the daughter of a crime boss, left minutes before the murderer arrived. Alec Blume, an American born Roman police detective, is called in to supervise the investigation. He reminded me of another literary detective, Arkady Renko in the book Gorky Park who was also non-native born, single, singularly dedicated to his work, and skating through the politics of various different police agencies.

The story is told from the viewpoint of the murderer as well as Blume so the reader knows who the perp is but not his motive. The intervals between the alternate POVs is a little awkward and disorienting even though the date and time is given at the top of each chapter. Another small gripe I had with this book is that I was not given an explanation or translation of the names of the agencies or the titles of individuals. Since Blume was originally English speaking, it would have been easy to give us a tour of Roman crime fighters.

It was a rather dark mystery punctuated by Blume's sarcasm and occasional lack of respect for fellow policemen and interviewees. We get a view of the dog fighting world and the repulsive manner they keep and train dogs and we are introduced to a very old dog breed, Cane Corso, a kind of Italian pitbull bred strickly for fighting and consequently antisocial. It is no surprise that the case is solved but there is a rather unexpected and satisfying twist at the end.

This book is for serious mystery readers.

My rating for this book: +++ 1/2

The Edith Wharton Murders (1997)

I had so much fun reading this mystery by Lev Raphael and I am going to keep my eyes open for more of his books.

Nick Hoffman is a professor at SUM (State University of Michigan) and lives with his lover Stefan, a writer who also works at SUM. At a department meeting it is proposed that the university host a conference about Edith Wharton. Nick had published a bibliography about her and is named as the perfect person to organize it. He would love to get tenure and fears that refusing this task would ruin his chances at getting it. One of his reservations about this conference is that Wharton scholars are polarized into two opposing groups; the Edith Wharton Association and the Wharton Collective. As it happens, this should have been the least of his fears.

The writing of this book is intelligent and clever without being condescending and has a delightful sense of humor, possibly due to the fact that the main character is gay.

I wanted to smile when I listened to the paper given by Gustaf Carmichael. He ignored Wharton entirely to discuss an unknown Swiss woman novelist, Greta Inderbitzen, who was Wharton's contemporary and might even have met her in Paris. Around the small room I could sense how baffled and jealous the audience was. Carmichael was doing the ultimate act of academic one-upmanship by chamioning a writer no one had heard of or read.
He could make whatever claims for Inderbitzen's novels (all thirty-eight of them!) he wanted and no one could challenge him. It wasn't any more sophisticated, really, than a little kid sticking his tongue out and mocking his peers with a singsong "Nanny, nanny poo-poo!"
He was such a weasel in his leather pants and Vatican City T-shirt.

I liked Nick and his friends and I appreciated how he struggled with strident homophobes and the competitive life of a university professor. I hope other mystery fans will get as much of a kick out of this book as I did.

My rating for this book: +++ 1/2

Britten and Brulightly (2009)

This graphic novel by Hannah Berry is wonderful. It has a dark, noir quality from constant dark rain and a wonderful voice-over kind of narration you hear in detective movies. Britten is a private detective who prefers to refer to himself as a "researcher". His companion, sidekick, conscience, and friend, Brulightly, is a tea bag. (Take a moment to think about that.)

Britten is hired to investigate a suicide and finds blackmail, intrigue, and incest. This is the book's opening line: "As it did every morning with spiteful inevitability the sun rose."

The story was very convoluted but the serious language and the tea bag had me laughing out loud. This conversation between Britten and Brulightly takes place outside in the rain after being chased up a tree.

Bloody hell!
I know.
Bloody HELL!
I know.
Listen, Fern ... when you jumped
into that ditch ...
I think I ... uh ...
Look I'm sorry: I infused in your
waistcoat.

I highly recommend this especially to newcomers to graphic novels.

My rating for this book: ++++

Thereby Hangs a Tail (2010)

This is the second in the series by Spencer Quinn about a P.I. named Bernie and his dog, Chet, who just missed completing police dog school. It is told from Chet's point of view which is endearing most of the time and annoying part of the time.

Back home, Bernie took the rifle out of the safe. I tried not to jump up and down. Loved the rifle, hadn't seen it in ages. We went out, got in the Porsche, Bernie sliding the rifle behind the seats. "Had a drill instructor once," Bernie said. "Know what he told me?" No clue. First mention of a drill instructor, as far as I could remember; didn't even know what one was. We had a drill in the tool kit, of course, but had anyone ever come over to show Bernie how to use it? Might be a good idea. "He said, 'Don't bring a spoon to a knife fight.'" Hmmm. I
thought about that the whole ride, once or twice got the feeling I was real close to figuring it out.

Chet excels at loyalty to his friend and is a good one to have on your side in a fight. One thing he did learn at the school was how to attack someone holding a gun. One thing he did not seem to completely grasp was the difference in importance between an edible item and something that would help in an investigation. At first it bothered me that he dug up a box of his favorite treats that had been buried right next to a car (VW bug) buried with a corpse inside. Then I realized that he was not trained as a cadaver dog and was able to forgive what I thought was a gaff. Luckily Bernie found the car.

I would recommend this series to lovers of dogs and mysteries. Good stories for both genres.

My rating for this book: +++ 1/2

Murder in the Latin Quarter (2009)

This book is the ninth in a series by Cara Black featuring a detective name Aimee Leduc and taking place in Paris. I thought for sure this would be a book for me but I couldn't finish it. First of all, I don't know what French gun laws are but I doubt seriously that a Swiss Army knife would be considered a weapon of choice by any self-respecting detective.

In almost any book, a reader has to suspend belief, especially when reading fantasy or science fiction. However, the author has to stay in bounds sometimes. The following is the passage that pushed me off the page. She is in the catacombs below Paris.

Shuffling sounds came from ahead. She froze. The yellow flare of a match sputtered, illuminating a man's face. Lined and craggy. Philibert the ghost who wandered forever in the quarry?
Then she saw blue jumpsuits, the flash of silver badges. Not ten feet away stood two catablics, the IGC who patrolled the underground.
She shut off the headlamp, blew out the candle. Edged back, trying to melt into the stone. Somehow, they hadn't seen her.

Somehow, indeed!

I can't recommend this book.

My rating for this book: +

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (2009)

11-year old Flavia de Luce is bright, clever, brave, and is like no other 11-year-old I have ever met. Alan Bradley's book had me smiling the whole time I was reading it and I even laughed out loud a few times by Falvia's antics. She lives with her father and two older (and not nearly so clever) sisters in England in 1950. A man shows up at her house one day, argues with her father and then dies in their garden, apparently of poison. By an odd coincidence, Flavia has a fascination with poisons since teaching herself organic chemistry and goes on to investigate this murder.

Having pointed out the body, I watched in fascination as Sergeant Woolmer unpacked and mounted his camera on a wooden tripod, his fingers, fat as sausages, making surprisingly gentle microscopic adjustments to the little silver controls. As he took several covering exposures of the garden, lavishing particular attention on the cucumber patch, Sergeant Graves was opening a worn leather case in which were bottles ranged neatly row on row, and in which I glimpsed a packet of glassine envelopes.
I stepped forward eagerly, almost salivating, for a closer look.
"I wonder, Flavia," Inspector Hewitt said, stepping gingerly into the cucumbers, "if you might ask someone to organize some tea?"
He must have seen the look on my face.
"We've had rather an early start this morning. Do you think you could manage to rustle something up?"
So that was it. As at a birth, so at a death. Without so much as a kiss-me-quick-and-mind-the-marmalade, the only female in sight is enlisted to trot off and see that the water is boiled. Rustle something up, indeed! What did he take me for, some kind of cowboy?

Her investigation leads her to information about the first U.K. stamp known as the Black Penny. Being a stamp collector I found this aspect of the book interesting. Flavia reminds me of Eloise from the series of books by Kay Thompson. She had no fear of grownups and no compunction of sticking her nose in grownup business.

I highly recommend this book to mystery lovers.

My rating for this book: ++++

A Monstrous Regiment of Women (1995)

Laurie R. King's series of detective stories feature a young woman, Mary Russell who develops a deep relationship with Sherlock Holmes. She is very bright and uses her tomboyish looks to dress as a man and get into places women cannot.

In this story, she is intrigued by a group of women who meet for spiritual and inspirational meetings. Danger lurks, however, and several members of the church mysteriously meet fatal ends after changing their wills, leaving everything to this church.

Holmes helps her discover the truth and their relationship reaches a new height.

These books are fun diversion and I will continue to slowly make my way through them as I find old copies in used book stores.

I recommend this book to mystery lovers who have a special attraction to Sherlock Holmes stories.

My rating for this book: +++

Gone (2006)

I used to read crime mysteries by the dozen but this book by Jonathan Kellerman has made me wonder why. Halfway through the book I found the rhythm of each chapter opening with Alex Delaware, a psychologist who helps the L.A. police solve murders, and his police friend, Milo, interviewing or reinterviewing someone for half of the chapter and then the two of them having a conversation full of maybes, perhaps, might haves, and other signs of red herrings. Next chapter, next interview.

The other thing that got me was the lack of subject in many sentences, and not just in the conversations.

"Over the years I've accompanied Milo to lots of taverns and beer joints and cocktail lounges. A couple of gay bars as well. It's an illuminating experience watching him function in that sphere.
This was a new dive, a narrow, dark tunnel of a place called Jody Z's, at the southern edge of Pacific, just above the Marina. Arena rock on the jukebox, silent football rerun on TV, tired men at the urethane bar, rough paneling and fishnets and glass globes.
Plastic sawdust on the floor. What was the point of that?"

This murder mystery takes place in Los Angeles and does nothing to dispell the notion that L.A. is full of nutcakes; very rich, very bizarre, very egocentric nutcakes. I quickly lost interest in these characters. I neither warmed to them nor was I glad when the perp was arrested, just very relieved I finished the book. I am very familiar of Mr. Kellerman's name but when I read through the list (a quite long one) of titles, I could not remember if I had read any of them or not.

Mr. Kellerman is a very popular writer with many fans. Maybe I didn't read this book at the right time or I have just read my fill of mysteries and this one was the overflow.

My rating for this book: ++

Dog On It (2009)

I read once that a dog appearing on the cover of a book means the dog dies by the end but I didn't think of that when I bought this book by Spencer Quinn and luckily that maxim didn't hold true this time! Chet tells the story of how he and his master, Bernie Little, solved the case of a missing teen-aged girl named Madison. Luckily Chet understands a lot of human words and can relate their conversations to the reader. We also learn a lot about his world through smells and sounds.

We learn that his favorite things are steaks, riding in cars, and Bernie, who adopted Chet when he failed to get his K-9 certification.

"'What's with you right now?'
Nothing, nothing was with me: stoned out of my mind, that was all. I got my tongue back in my mouth; it was all dried up from the wind, felt more like one of those towels I sometimes found on the laundry-room floor. I liked burying those towels out in the backyard near the big rock, but burying towels was never easy. The chew strips - that was another matter, easy to bury and - Whoa! At that moment I had a very faint memory of burying one that I hadn't dug up yet, near the orange tree by old man Heydrich's fence. Maybe it was still there! I was gazing up at the moon and making plans when we turned in to a driveway and came to a stop behind Cynthia Chambliss's car."

Chet is an amazing dog, quick to respond to Bernie's commands and independent enough to end up in all sorts of predicaments, like time spent in a dog pound. That was a close one! Like most dogs, he doesn't have the best memory except when it comes to scents and can be easily distracted by things to eat or chase.

I give this book a hearty recommendation to people who love dogs and mysteries, two of my favorite things! And no, Chet doesn't die because Mr. Quinn is writing more books! I can't wait!

My rating for this book: +++++