February 2021 ~ What are you reading?

The new thread for the new month. Happy reading!

I am reading This Is How I Lied by Heather Gudenkauf, in which a female police detective investigates the 25-year-old unsolved murder of her high school best friend in small-town Iowa.

I am reading Medusa by the Norwegian author Torkil Damhaug, which I gave my friend for Christmas. (We usually swap our books, since we live near.) Haven't got very far yet, and I fear it may be insufficiently cosy for me.

Just finished A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight. I think it's my third book from her and while good, not perfect. There were some loose ends that had been made too much of to be left hanging. She's good at creating villains, although the biggest one didn't quite get his just desserts and I hate that. If you set them up, please tear them down. That's just me though and overall I liked it and will probably continue to read her books.

Just finished Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay and all I can say is: "Wow!" Thoroughly enjoyable read and Barclay's plotting is so intricate engaging. Definitely a 5 star for me. Highly recommended.

Still feeling the need of comfort reading, I have started the audiobook edition of Ngaio Marsh's Last Ditch...

Currently immersed inA song for the dark times by Ian Rankin and just as absorbing as any other of his books- a master storyteller.

Finished Assaulted Caramel by Amanda Flower.

I'm reading The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill.

I just finished Long Bright River a mystery set in the inner city of Philadelphia involving the opiod crisis and murder. Very good.

I have completed a couple of mysteries since my last update here -- A Red Death, the 2nd Easy Rawlins book, and Late Harvest Havoc, the 10th in the Winemaker Detective series.

Finished Unsub by Meg Gardiner, He Started It by Samantha Downing and Catch Me by Lisa Gardner all 5 stars in my opinion. Now it's on to The Fix by David Baldacci and Golden Prey by John Sandford

Finished The Sky Took Him by Donis Casey.
Starting Lethal Licorice by Amanda Flower.

Am listening to the 3rd in the Cat Kinsella series by Caz Frear - Shed No Tears lively, modern police procedurals set in London.

Getting ready to start a Hammond Innes thriller: Air Bridge.

I just finished a thriller set in South Dakota on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Winter Counts is a debut by indigenous author David Heska Wanbli Weiden. Hard drugs, not just marijuana, are coming onto the reserve. When part-time enforcer Virgil discovers his nephew/ward almost dead of a heroin overdose he is determined to make the people responsible pay. Lots of references to life on the reserve and native spirituality lift this thriller above the usual.

>16 gypsysmom: That sounds interesting! Is it a standalone or part of a series? I don't need any more series but a standalone I could handle. :-)

I recently re-read Bimbos of the Death Sun, an old favorite, as a bedtime book, and am now in the middle of the sequel, Zombies of the Gene Pool. Other than that I've been reading non-mysteries.

Just finished Don't Turn Around: A Novel by Jessica Barry, another one of Marilyn Stasio's (NYT) Ten Best Crime Novels of 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/books/review/crime-fiction-ten-best-2020.html

A good crime/thriller. Hard to put down. Cait volunteers for the Sisters of Service, a group that helps take women to abortion clinics. Cait is driving Rebecca from Lubbock to Albuquerque when a pick-up truck follows them. It is not entirely by accident that it is Cait that is driving Rebecca - both have secrets. The pick-up becomes increasingly menacing. Is it after Cait or Rebecca and why? Reasons are revealed in flashbacks but there are plenty of twists.

Will start yet another one off the list tonight: Pretty Little Children: A Novel by Sophie Hannah.

Recently finished:

The Smart Woman's Guide to Murder, by Victoria Dowd
The Cornish Coast Murder, by John Bude
The James Joyce Murder, by Amanda Cross
and The Night Hawks, by Elly Griffiths - this was a five star :)

Currently reading Death in Fancy Dress by Anthony Gilbert

>18 Jim53: I gotta hand it to Sharyn McCrumb, she is versatile! I liked her Spencer Arrowood novels, like The Rosewood Casket

Just finished The Long Call by Ann Cleeves, new series for her set in Devon. I liked her new protagonist Detective Matthew Venn and the mystery was strong as always with her.
Now starting Shadows in Death by J.D. Robb, hopefully a good one as focuses a little more on Roarke. I know they've been going for quite a while now, but I'm always swept along

I am still reading off Marilyn Stasio's list of 10 Best Crime Novels of 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/books/review/crime-fiction-ten-best-2020.html

Now on Pretty Little Children: A Novel by Sophie Hannah. Beth and Dom live with their two children Ben and Zannah (Suzzanah). Beth is taking Ben to his soccer game and on a whim stops by the house of their former friends Lewis and Flora with whom they broke off 12 years ago. Beth sees Flora get out of the car with two of her children Emily and Thomas. But the children look exactly the same as they did 12 years ago when they were 3 and 5. And where is the 3rd child Georgina? This is preposterous! And not the kind of crime/mystery I usually read. But I got hooked and am still reading to see how this turns out. I won't let you know. You will have to find out for yourself.

Oh I read that one recently...vacillated between WTF and OMG throughout.

Yeah. A more succinct description of my reaction, so far.

I received a couple more Inspector French novels from the library, so I'll plunge into The Loss of the Jane Vosper today.

Started The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Saw the movie (with my parents) when it was released because John Garfield was a family favorite. I may have read it about the time Mickey Spillane was hugely popular, but now it’s official.

>27 Roycrofter: I thought that was a great book -- even better than the movie maybe, though I too am a fan of John Garfield. Have you read Double Indemnity? Another of his books that made a fantastic movie :)

The Bone is Pointed by Arthur W Upfield

I'm reading Peter Lovesey's The Last Detective. He's a new author for me. So far, so good!

North Star Conspiracy by Miriam Grace Monfredo. I believe I read her first one, Seneca Falls Inheritance, years ago ... I suppose it wasn't too memorable, but this one has has my attention. 1850's upstate New York, a town on the Underground Railroad, and the murder of a freed slave.

For me this month is a Michael Connelly Mickey Haller reading fest/feast. Began with the newest Mickey Haller, The Law of Innocence... then had to backtrack to The Crossing - cover says it's a Bosch book but Mickey Haller is a major character within, then The Fifth Witness, then The Gods of Guilt, and now another backtrack to the Mickey Haller series opener The Lincoln Lawyer. Connelly is a master at tying threads together from one book to another and keeping each book fresh.

If those five weren't enough... I have 6 Michael Connelly Bosch books in my tbr pile. I wasn't always a Bosch fan (I do prefer Mickey Haller), but Bosch is growing on me.

>28 leslie.98: It’s included in the volume of three of his novels, along with Mildred Pierce. Saw the movies, of course, but look forward to reading both.

>26 rabbitprincess:

That's series I need to get back to!

>29 Raspberrymocha:

I have a library copy of Mr Jelly's Business at the moment but won't be getting to it just yet.

I think I've wrapped up my mystery / thriller reading for the month; it was a bit of a mixed bag.

In fact I now realise that none of my reads were traditional mysteries.

At one end I read a translation of the fourth in Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin series, 813, from 1910. The series overall has taken a weird lurch thanks to a stage version which turned the originally comic Lupin into a tragic anti-hero, and the novels are still suffering from that. At least this one re-positions Lupin as a popular hero, supported in his war with the police; but it's still pretty grim with a shockingly high body-count. It also contains some material that is uncomfortable, with WWI only a few years away.

My comfort read this month was Patricia Wentworth's The Benevent Treasure, from the Miss Silver series. This is a Gothic thriller rather than a mystery, with an endangered heroine and Miss Silver investigating a missing young man.

Having read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold recently, I went back to John le Carré's Call For The Dead, his first novel and the book that introduced George Smiley. It is as much a mystery as an espionage thriller, dealing with the apparent suicide of an agent and the question of whether he was a double-agent. Brisk and effective but at this early stage, with a slight tendency to telling not showing.

Finally I read Blanche On The Lam, Barbara Neely's first novel. in which her protagonist Blanche White, running from a conviction for passing bad cheques, hides out by taking a domestic situation in the South Carolina countryside and ends up involved in murder. The novel blends its mystery with some wry humour and some not-so-funny observations about race relations in America.

>33 Roycrofter: I must get around to reading Mildred Pierce - loved the movie version with Joan Crawford!!

>29 Raspberrymocha: I love the Napoleon Bonaparte series - I have read most of them but have a few still to read. Thanks for the reminder!

I've put Mona in the Promised Land aside for a while and started Spillover, which is about zoonotic diseases. Topical.

Added Water Memory by Daniel Pyne to my rotation.

Finished Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah. I have to hand it to the author...Despite the implausible premise - two children appear not to have aged in 12 years - she kept me reading to find out how it was resolved (No, it is not fantasy or science fiction). I did think the resolution was strained and the end of the book turned into a gab fest as the premise was explained. Still, it was certainly an original plot.

I felt the same about that one jwrudn - she strung me along and then the end was a bunch of spaghetti on the wall.

Anyway, just got The Never Game from the library as an audio and I like it so far. The premise is at least slightly different from the usual gamut of cops and P.I.s - this guy goes after rewards. Specifically to find and rescue people who have been abducted. After years of reading Deaver's Rhyme novels, this is a nice change. And Colter isn't such a jerk as Lincoln is.

>35 lyzard: I just finished my second reading of A Legacy of Spies and now want to go back through all the other Smiley books!

Verse and Vengeance by Amanda Flower

The Profession of Violence by John Person

The Survivors by Jane Harper

>45 raidergirl3: I am impatiently waiting to rise to the top of the library holds this for this one!

Started Double Indemnity by James M. Cain last night. It was so easy, all I had to do was turn two pages and Fred MacMurry was talking about selling insurance.

>37 leslie.98: I do enjoy Napoleon Bonaparte mysteries. I've got several on my shelves. Readers just have to remember that the series started in 1928 and ran through 1964, with the last book published in '66. It was a different time and the civil rights movement hadn't really taken hold. So, often Bony deals with being what was then called half caste.

The Sixth Idea PJ Tracy (Monkeewrench series)

I think I have given up on Medusa but I discovered a series new to me at the library: it starts with At Risk and follows a woman working for MI5 in London. I thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly as the locations are local to me. Gives me a reason to get out and about again once lockdown is over.

Couldn't finish Water Memory by Daniel Pyne. Not my cup of tea. Added The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds by T E Kinsey instead.

>50 sarahemmm: Considering who Stella Rimington is and that she can write, not much surprise that the series is good :) You may want to pick her memoir as well - it almost reads like a novel as well :)

>17 rosalita: So far it is just one book but I get the feeling from the end that there might be more forthcoming.

>53 gypsysmom: Well, if I see it at the library I'll pick it up and take my chances. :-)

Now this month I have also read The Last Flight by Julie Clark. It's the story of two women who each have a reason to want to disappear. They meet in JFK Airport and swap identities. One heads off to California and one gets on a flight to Puerto Rico but that flight crashes making everyone think the woman who was supposed to be on it is dead. The woman who is supposed to be dead is the wife of a powerful man who physically and mentally abused her. He is about to declare to run for Senate and a dead wife serves his purpose.

I finished Lovesey’s The Last Detective and after a slow start, it really picked up in the second half and I’ll definitely read more in the series.

Now I’m reading a book in another new to me series/author, Death of a Dustman by M C Beaton.

>48 Raspberrymocha: Good warning to those unfamiliar with Upfield. Personally, part of what I like about the books is that it does capture a different time & culture (which sadly includes bigotry & racism as acceptable behavior).

>40 jwrudn: and >41 Bookmarque:

I agree about Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah. Overall, I enjoyed it, and at least she writes well :)

>52 AnnieMod: I have that on my list ;)

Currently reading Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout, and thoroughly enjoying it.

Currently reading the third Enola Holmes book, The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets, by Nancy Springer.

I finished Bright Orange for the Shroud by John D. MacDonald, the 6th book in MacDonald's classic Travis McGee series.

Starting Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain. I am enjoying these books and look forward to reading more from this author.

Finishing off the month with The Moth Catcher, by Ann Cleeves.

I did squeeze in one more for February, The Adventuress, part of Arthur B. Reeves' Craig Kennedy series (Kennedy was the first "scientific detective"). In this one the head of a munitions firm is murdered and the plans and model of an experimental electrical device for automating warfare are stolen. Various "suspicious foreigners" are on the scene (it's WWI so the attitude is understandable), but the victim's feuding family are also suspect. Not well written, though the novel's critical attitude to the arms manufacturers is interesting.

March thread - https://www.librarything.com/topic/330225#unread