The Woman in the Library

 

 

 

By: Sulari Gentill
Narrated by: Katherine Littrell
Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 06-09-22

 

 

Publisher's Summary
Ned Kelly award winning author Sulari Gentill sets this mystery-within-a-mystery in motion with a deceptively simple, Dear Hannah, What are you writing? pulling us into the ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library.

In every person's story, there is something to hide...

The  tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards  take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until  the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the  all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass  the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or  her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning―it just  happens that one is a murderer.

Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated  nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous  weapons of all.

 

I don't want to talk about this book

 I liked this book too much to spoil it for others by talking about what happens in the story or by talking about the characters or the plot twists; there is enough already in the publisher's summaries to figure out if it is your kind of story.  I liked the structure -- a novel within an epistolary novel (this much I am willing to spoil, just to get you hooked).  It is what makes this novel a stand-out. It is not your everyday cookie-cutter murder mystery.  

Lean Mean Thirteen

 

 

 

By: Janet Evanovich
Narrated by: Lorelei King
Series: Stephanie Plum, Book 13
Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 06-01-07

 

 

Summary

New secrets, old flames, and hidden agendas are about to send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most outrageous adventure yet!

MISTAKE #1 Dickie  Orr. Stephanie was married to him for about fifteen minutes before she  caught him cheating on her with her arch-nemesis Joyce Barnhardt.  Another fifteen minutes after that Stephanie filed for divorce, hoping  to never see either one of them again.

MISTAKE #2 Doing  favors for super bounty hunter Carlos Manoso (a.k.a. Ranger). Ranger  needs her to meet with Dickie and find out if he's doing something  shady. Turns out, he is. Turns out, he's also back to doing Joyce  Barnhardt. And it turns out Ranger's favors always come with a price...

MISTAKE #3 Going  completely nutso while doing the favor for Ranger, and trying to apply  bodily injury to Dickie in front of the entire office. Now Dickie  has disappeared and Stephanie is the natural suspect in his  disappearance. Is Dickie dead? Can he be found? And can she stay one  step ahead in this new, dangerous game? Joe Morelli, the hottest cop in  Trenton, NJ is also keeping Stephanie on her toes―and he may know more  than lets on about her…It's a cat-and-mouse game for Stephanie Plum,  where the ultimate prize might be her life.

 

 

A fun 7 hours

Evanovich is the antithesis to Sue Grafton (which I stopped reading somewhere around K; lost interest). Where Grafton is dark and edgy,  Evanovich is laugh out-loud funny, like reading a comic book. The "Stephanie Plum" series  is "cozy" without the heavy dose of saccharine I find in a lot of the hard-core cozies; too much sugar in the diet is not a good thing. The characters are a hoot, caricatures, really but good people when all is said and done (except for the bad guys, who are rotten to the core, of course). Fun to read every now and then but don't look for me to be binge-reading the entire series -- even if I do have two Stephanie Plum's scheduled for Halloween Bingo. File this one under "necessary roughage."

Three stars

 

Taking Out the Trash: August

 

A new month and I'm still in the "I'd rather read than write" mode.  Hence, another edition of "Taking Out the Trash." Although I was moved to write two full reviews for books I have read this month, which is a step in the right direction.

VINTAGE MYSTERY

Let's start with Ellery Queen. Yes, I know some of you are rolling your eyeballs but I like Ellery Queen and I read two of them. The first one was Halfway House. It is one of the better Ellery Queen's that I have read. I enjoyed this one because part of the setting was not too far from where I grew up. It was fun listening to the story and then trying to figure out how long it really took to get from place to place and what roads would have  been used in the days before the Interstate highways were built.  The second book was The Door Between.  Twisted characters. Twisted plot.

Ngaio Marsh's The Nursing Home Murder was "positively delightful," (I quote myself) so much better than Christie at the same point in her career (book 3). So was the finish of M.L. Longworth's Verlaque and Bonnet series that I mentioned in the July edition-- delightful, that is. It wasn't better than Christie or Marsh; let's be clear on that. A fun choice for HB: Cozy if you are looking for something new.

Ever since Cyril Hare came up in an Agatha side-reads poll and I read An English Murder, I have wanted to read more books by the author. I'm bummed that there aren't many available to me on audio -- as in just three. I had a $20 coupon from Audible and used part of it to buy Untimely Death. Another good read. Very lawyerly. (As I was writing this blurb I paused to do a thorough search of the 8 library consortia I have access to with my library card. Only number 8 had a audio edition of anything Hare and fortunately, it was the one I was looking for. It was the only Hare they had at all. Needless to say, I borrowed it on the spot).

At the end of July, I circled back to re-read Death on the Nile, this time the Branagh reading. I decided that given a choice of Branagh or Suchet that I preferred the Branagh edition. Then, a few days latter I read Appointment with Death. I just want to say that Mrs. Boynton came equipped with wheels.

THE SERIES, PLURAL

I read two more of Peter Lovesey's Inspector Diamond mysteries. Killing with Confetti reminded me of Day of the Jackal and the ending was a real surprise. Never saw it coming.  Stagestruck kept me guessing as well. I liked that it took place in a theater. The books are set in Bath; I keep wondering if we'll run into MikeFinn. I must admit that I enjoy reading books that are set in places that I have visited. (Both books were read by Simon Prebble. He's on my "You can read me the phone book list."  He has so many voices in his bag of tricks.)

I read two more in the Inspector Rutledge series. Racing the Devil and Hunting Shadows. They are dark and deep; they are all dark and deep. Rutledge could only have been written as an historical novel. PTSD was swept under the rug after both World Wars. Popular fiction was written to entertain. Those who suffered psychological damage in the war had to hide it-- stiff-upper lip and all that. They suffered in silence. One Audible reviewer asks, "Does Inspector Ian Rutledge Ever Get a Grip?" and goes on to say, "the relentless misery he carries around with him is getting old." Wow, she doesn't get it. That's the point of the whole series: PTSD doesn't just go away. (BTW, this series might do for HB:Psych -- especially if you want a more cozy entry).

 The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas. I started the The Good Thief's Guide series a few years ago and for some unknown reason decided it was time to read another one. Really, you have got to go into this series with all disbelief firmly, firmly suspended. It was a good light read if you are looking to laugh out loud at just how preposterous the whole thing is. Yes, I'm sure I will read more of these when the mood strikes.

Walt Longmire. With Daughter of the Morning Star I have now read all the books in the series that have been published with the exception of one that I have decided I don't want to read (kidnappings and drug wars don't do it for me). Johnson has a new book coming out this year that builds on some things learned in this book. I'm waiting patiently! (HB: Johnson works Native American supernatural beliefs into his stories -- ghosts, spirit dreams, etc. -- especially the later stories).

ONE-OFFs

Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest gets an honorable mention simply because it is a possible contender for anyone trying to put together a COZY Halloween Bingo card. The MC is clairvoyant. Could also work for amateur sleuth.

 

Last but not least, the best of the month: A Gentleman in Moscow. I don't know what to say that has already been said.

 

The Appeal

 

 

 

By Janice Hallett
Narrated by Daniel Philpott, Aysha Kala, Rachel Adedeji, Sid Sagar
Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 01-25-22

 

 

The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Hayward and his wife Helen, the play’s star. Their young granddaughter has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and with an experimental treatment costing a tremendous sum, their castmates rally to raise the money to give her a chance at survival.
 
But not everybody is convinced of the experimental treatment’s efficacy—nor of the good intentions of those involved. As tension grows within the community, things come to a shocking head at the explosive dress rehearsal. The next day, a dead body is found, and soon, an arrest is made. In the run-up to an appeal, two young lawyers sift through the material—emails, messages, letters—with a growing suspicion that the killer may be hiding in plain sight. The evidence is all there, between the lines, waiting to be uncovered.

 

JUST WHO IS THE BAD GUY IN THIS STORY? Glad I stuck with it
 
My daughter recommended this one. It the only reason why I didn't quit after the first 20 minutes because this book doesn't work well as an audiobook. I had to accept that fact and move on. It helped that in spite of the medium issues, the book was well written and caught my interest.

The Appeal is an interesting twist on the epistolary novel, told in e-mails rather than actually letters, there being a difference in the conventions between the two modes of communication, length being the most noteworthy. My immediate reaction was that the author chose the epistolary style out of laziness. That's what I thought when I was looking for excuses to downgrade the book. Still, listening to e-mails read out loud headers and all can be tedious. Where a reader would skim the headers, an audiobook has to read out all of the words on the page-- and it gets repetitive very quickly.

As I said, I quickly came to see just how wrong I was about the author being lazy. It's harder to do character development well, not easier, when you are limited to the words your characters would put down on paper and what other people have to say about those characters in their e-mails. There are multiple narrators, some of who are reliable and others of who are not. The reader has to work out who is reliable and who isn't, even as the characters in the book have to work out who is reliable and who isn't as they exchange e-mails.

All in all, it turned out to be a twisting, turning mare's nest of a well written mystery. It is halfway through the story before the name of the victim is revealed and even further into it until you learn whose conviction is being appealed. Janice Hallett, while a first time novelist, is a former magazine editor, a journalist, a playwright (NetherBard) and a screenwriter (Retreat). Her maturity and experience showed.

I'm giving this one just shy of four stars -- and can't wait until January for her second novel to be published.

July, 2022 Reads

YTD:  145 Books Read, 1385 Hours Spent
Goal: 100 books and 1500 hours

This Month: 23 Books Read, 188 Hours Spent

Wow, that was a fast July

What I would have expected to be a slow, lazy month just flew by. Maybe because I really enjoyed most of the books that I read -- and consumed them like candy or movie popcorn, one after another. July was yet another month where no books stood out as either particular annoying or particularly stellar. There is nothing here to rave about but still plenty to choose from if you are looking for something new or different to read.

 

 

 

Death on the Nile  --  Agatha Christie  --  Re-read
Murder on the Rue Dumas  --  ML Longworth  --  NEW110
Death in the Vines -- ML Longworth -- NEW111
Tempest-Tost -- Robertson Davies -- NEW112
Murder on the Ile Sordou -- ML Longworth -- NEW113
Enter a Murderer -- Ngaio Marsh -- NEW114
Mrs. Pollifax Pursued -- Dorothy Gilman -- NEW115
Daughters of Cain -- Colin Dexter -- NEW116
Mystery of the Lost Cezanne -- M.L. Longworth -- NEW117
The Door Between -- Ellery Queen -- NEW118
The Secret of the Bastide Blanche -- M.L. Longworth -- NEW119
A Noel Killing -- M.L. Longworth -- NEW120
The Vanish Museum on the Rue Mistral -- M.L. Longworth -- NEW121
Halfway House -- Ellery Queen -- NEW122
The Nursing Home Murder -- Ngaio Marsh -- NEW123
Killing with Confetti -- Peter Lovesey -- NEW124
Miniatures -- John Scalzi -- NEW125
The Spirit of Steamboat -- Craig Johnson -- NEW126
Upon a Dark Night -- Peter Lovesey -- Re-read
Untimely Death -- Cyril Hare -- NEW127
Racing the Devil -- Charles Todd -- NEW128
Death on the Nile -- Agatha Christie -- Re-read
Stagestruck -- Peter Lovesey -- NEW128