A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

In Bitter Chill is the debut novel by Sarah Ward; it's the first book in the DC Connie Childs series.  I didn't realize this was the start of a series when I started reading it.  Just as when I read and finished The Dry by Jane Harper, I didn't realize that too was the start of a series.  I'm not sure how I feel about starting more book series.  But then the book series that I followed, I haven't been reading anyway, so maybe it's time for some new book series.  This series is set in Derbyshire, England.  And while the prologue didn't really grab me, once I read the first couple chapters, I was sucked in. While there is a mystery in the present day story, it's very much tied to an unsolved kidnap from 1978.  The present day chapters are sparsely intercut with chapters that flash back to 1978.  Were it not for the kidnap case in 1978, there wouldn't be a present day mystery to solve. In 1978 when Sophie Jenkins and Rachel Jones are kidnappe...

Still Life is a Canadian production that stars Nathaniel Parker.  It's an adaptation of the book by the same title by Louise Penny that is the first in Three Pines Mystery series.  I reviewed the book almost five years ago on this book, click here to read that review. When a beloved, retired teacher is shot through the heart by an arrow and left for dead in the woods near her home in tiny Three Pines, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is dispatched to the scene to determine if the incident was an accident or a homicide.  He is accompanied by his crack team that includes his second in command, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Agent Yvette Nichol, a less experienced law enforcement agent.  This tiny, idyllic Quebecois village that has become a haven for artistic types won't be same when Gamache's investigation concludes. The investigation is initially hampered by the victim's next of kin, a real piece of work, who refuses to allow the police to search the victim's...

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie is the first of the book series from which the British TV series, Grantchester is adapted.  Both major and minor details of characters, relationships, and mysteries change in the adaptation from book to screen.  Having watched the series before reading this book, I can say that both book and TV show are equally engrossing. Shadow of Death is not a novel, instead it's a collection of short stories that take place successively over the course of a year that follows Sidney Chambers, the bachelor vicar of the Anglican parish in Grantchester near Cambridge in England; these particular stories are set in 1953 and 1954.  In the book Inspector Keating and Chambers are already friends and acquaintances when Chambers is called upon by a mourner who believes that the suicide of their loved one was not a suicide at all.  Unfortunately once Chambers begins meddling in solving mysteries and crimes, these matters encroac...

Books To Die For: The World's Greatest Mystery Writers on the World's Greatest Mystery Novels is a collection of essays edited by two of Ireland's top mystery writers, John Connolly and Declan Burke, both of whom also contribute essays to the collection. Ever wonder what seminal mystery works inspired, influenced or otherwise shaped your favorite mystery novelists?  This volume gives insight in to mystery writers, mystery novels, and the mystery genre itself.  This is a great way to find out what other mystery writers have read and to find some new mystery titles to add to your own reading list.  The essays' subjects range from Scandinavian mysteries to Irish mysteries to American mysteries to South African mysteries and the essays' authors are just as varied as the subjects.  Any longtime, hardcore fan of the mystery genre will want to pick up this volume. --Reviewed by Ms. Angie

I did a short internet search for an inkling on who her next novel will focus on--none of the narrators from the previous novels made any cameos in this one.  And man, if the next one features that slimy greaseball Quigley I'm jumping ship on this series.  On the surface the Dublin Murder Squad series (as Amazon has started calling it) is a crime mystery series; each book features a different narrator whose life usually goes to hell in a hand basket over the course of one twisty, complicated investigation.  The end of the novel isn't your typical, everything-tied-up-in-a-bow, 'happy' ending either. In this latest installment, Broken Harbor , Detective Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, who had a brief appearance in the previous novel, is the narrator.   Broken Harbor is so named for the seaside village Kennedy's family used to vacation in until one summer when tragedy found them there and changed their lives forever. Kennedy is called to the new development, ...

This is the fourth Virgil Flowers novel by John Sandford, and it's called Bad Blood .  When I got to page 179 I found a nasty surprise: half of that page was missing.  And the wait list for the book still had eight people on it.  I finally just broke down and read around the part that was missing and continued on with the book.  I couldn't wait for months until it came in to finish it--patience is not one of my virtues. This is Flowers' biggest case since the bodies that were dumped at various veterans' memorials, and this case is much bigger and much nastier.  A county sheriff calls Flowers in to investigate the suicide of a teen boy being held in her jail for the murder of a middle aged farmer, who, upon closer inspection, turns out to be far from the upstanding citizen most people thought he was.  When the correctional officer on duty at the time of the boy's suicide also turns up dead, it becomes clear this case is bigger than a single murder.  F...

Rough Country is the third installment in the adventures of Virgil Flowers, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension super agent. The series is written by John Sandford. Flowers, the BCA's go to guy for cases that are especially difficult or in need of a quick turn around, is on a much needed vacation in the wake of the events that closed the previous Flowers novel.  (This shouldn't deter one from jumping in feet first mid-series; although it's smart to start at the beginning anyway because you'll go back to the beginning to read the ones you missed.)  Those events have also made Flowers a minor celebrity due to a New York Times Magazine article series the wannabe writer wrote about the investigation that was subsequently picked up and run by every local paper in Minnesota, and Flowers isn't sure he likes being a minor celebrity. Flowers' vacation is interrupted by a phone call from his boss who pulls him off vacation to investigate a murder nearby in a co...

I'd previously read John Sandford's first Virgil Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon , a few years back and found it to be a quick, well written read.  Recently I discovered he has since written three more Flowers titles and decided to start with the second title and read through to the fourth and most recent one.   Heat Lightning is the second Flowers installment.  The darkness of the crimes committed that must be solved in the novel are leavened by the lighter presentation of Flowers and the story.  It works well together--a dark crime doesn't always need dark prose to back it up. Virgil Flowers is Lucas Davenport's go to man in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension when there's a sensitive, tough or otherwise puzzling case to solve.  Flowers has a high clearance rate and can often turn around a case in about a week.  This  particular case is especially perplexing with quite a few red herrings thrown into the mix to throw everyone--Flowers and...

It's been a long, long wait for Tess Gerritsen's latest, Ice Cold .  Throughout my wait I've been obsessing about the massive spoiler revealed in the jacket blurb.  Is it for real or will it turn out to be a fake out because who puts that kind of major development involving a character upon which the series focuses on the book jacket instead of saving it for the mother of all shocking story lines for the unsuspecting reader?  That is the conundrum I've been pondering for several months ever since Amazon posted the blurb on the book's page. The first few chapters seem off to a slow start that's compounded by the slight awkwardness of the diction in the first chapters describing what is surely (one way or another) the end of the affair for Dr. Maura Isles and her beloved Father Daniel Brophy (a Catholic priest with whom she's been having an affair for over a year!).  Then the story and the suspense crank up into a scary, thrilling page turner that's hard...

This is Tana French's third novel.  You can always count on French to turn in a spectacularly written and plotted novel.  I've read all of her novels thus far and I've never been disappointed.   Faithful Place follows Frank Mackey, who made his first appearance as Detective Cassie Maddox's old undercover boss who pulls her back in for one more undercover operation that ends in disaster.  Just where Faithful Place 's story is in the chronology in relation to The Likeness and In the Woods , I'm not sure--there aren't any clues that give it away and none of the other characters from previous novels make any cameos in this one.  If there were clues in The Likeness that hinted at the placement of Faithful 's chronology, well, I read that one over a year ago and I don't remember them anymore.  Right now is about the time I start wondering and digging around for clues as to what French's next novel will entail.  Will it be about an entirely new char...

I just finished Spider Bones --the latest release in Kathy Reichs' Dr. Temperance Brennan series.  It was on my own personal list of (in some cases very highly) anticipated summer blockbuster book releases.  I look forward to some book releases with a higher degree of trepidation, anticipation and excitement than I do most movie releases.  In some cases (this means you Karin Slaughter, S.J. Bolton, John Connolly and this summer, Tess Gerritsen), I'm nearly beside myself with obsessing over what the next book will be about and what will happen to the characters (this is especially true for the series I read). This summer was an especially busy summer of book releases.  It began in May with Brunonia Barry's The Map of True Places , her follow up to The Lace Reader (which in the end didn't live up to her debut but was still good nonetheless).  Then came Broken by Karin Slaughter--it did not disappoint.  Karin Slaughter never disappoints.  John Connol...

Before I begin the formal review there are a few things I need to get off my chest in the wake of finishing this book; I'll do so without giving away too many (or any) spoilers. The OUTRAGE!: the identity of Detective Lena Adams' new beau; the low depths to which Grant County's interim chief has sunk and brought the police force down with him; agent Will Trent's wife, Angie's, sixth sense/nasty habit of reappearing in his life just when he's slipping away from her. Thank God for small miracles though because while Angie was certainly referred to during the book, the broad didn't make an appearance. One sign that I've become way too invested in these characters is that I'd like to employ John Connolly's odd pair of assassins, Louis and Angel, to contract out a hit on Angie; do you think Karin Slaughter and John Connolly could work out a special cross over? Hallelujah: Dr. Sara Linton and agent Will Trent are both back. There is no hallelujah fo...