A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

M.J. McGrath is a British author who has written several non-fiction books about the Arctic and its native cultures; McGrath makes her fiction debut with White Heat , a story set in the isolated, Inuit Canadian tundra with a half Inuit protagonist.  All murder mysteries convey a sense of urgency especially when more people start dropping dead; in the instance of White Heat , the remote, cold, and inherently dangerous environment of the arctic adds to the sense of urgency and danger--if the murderer doesn't get to you, the frigid weather will if one's not careful. Edie is the best guide on Ellesmere Island, but when she takes two American men out on the tundra for a routine hunting trip and one is shot and killed, a puzzling and dangerous mystery is uncovered --and promptly dismissed by her community's mayor.  More bodies fall in the wake of the first murder as the dead man's travel companion disappears on a later expedition guided by her beloved stepson, Joe, who also...

The Crazy School is the second installment in Cornelia Read's Madeline Dare series.   The Crazy School , both as a book and as a place, is populated by characters who are all different kinds of crazy for all different kinds of reasons.   A Field of Darkness ( Crazy 's predecessor)  started off with a killer first line/paragraph that set the bar and tone for the rest of that novel.   The Crazy School doesn't have that distinction.  However, the book very quickly hooks the reader--once the story gets going, it's very hard to put down, and the chapters fly by. It's the year after the events of A Field of Darkness .  While these events are referenced obliquely once or twice, it would be very easy for someone to jump into the series starting with this book and then catch up with the first one.  Me, I like to read a series in order.  Okay, let's just be honest: I HAVE to read a series in order, so I started with the first one and continued...