Mystery

The Shadow of the Wind

3 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

I wasn’t looking forward to reading The Shadow of the Wind. I kept pushing it back further on the “to be read” list. I kept picking it up and putting it down. I even read Vanity Fair before The Shadow of the Wind because I was sure this was going to be a dud. I was soooo wrong.

From the first paragraph to the last, I was totally hooked. I love the idea of a Cemetary of Forgotten Books. I loved every single character in this novel, including the “bad guys”. I loved the twists and turns and the impossible connections between the characters. I even loved the ridiculous and completely impossible coincidences.

The only thing I didn’t like was that the book ended. And I wish, I really wish, I could read Julian Carax’s novels.

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Four and Twenty Blackbirds

2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

It’s official. I’m back to avoiding my Summer Reading Challenge list and doing a darn good job of it. Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest was an excellent read.

I believe this was recommended to me by someone I know at work who recently moved to Florida. She was compiling a stack of books set in Florida and this was one of them. I think that’s how I discovered it. I certainly had never been to the author’s blog, I would have remembered that.

I thought this was a young adult book, for some reason. Probably the cover art, which is interesting but with the blackbird and the headless women, just feels like a kid book, ya know? Well it isn’t, though I am betting there are some teens around here who would enjoy it.

The reviews on the back suggested this was a really creepy read and it would give you goosebumps. Well, I didn’t find it that scarey. (Why do reviewers feel the need to exagerate?

So, the story, let’s see… a line of women, they “have magic on them”, voodoo or sorcery (whichever you prefer), John Gray and the St Augustine priests. A bad guy named Malachi who wasn’t so much bad as misled and a wee bit nuts. Chattanooga, Macon, St Augustine and the swamps of south Florida. Go read it.

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The Moonstone

8 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery, The Moonstone /

Well ladies, and gentlemen (surely there are some men lurking), I did it. Finally. It took me 10 years and many, MANY false starts but I did it. I. Finished. The. Moonstone.

I didn’t ever think I’d be able to say that. But now that I have said it, I’m quite pleased with myself. I’m not really pleased with my mother who purchased the book for my daughter 10 years ago. I’m not really pleased with my mother who rambled about how much she loved the book when she was a teenager. I’m also not pleased with my mother who has generally recommended really fantastic books in the past. I’m also not pleased with my mother who on one other occasion recommended a book in a similar way, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, and that recommendation was so RIGHT that it led me to believe that any such recommendation would also be RIGHT.

The Moonstone. Not right.

I like Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White is a very good book. I’ve actually read it two or three times and enjoyed it everytime. I would happily recommend that book to you. The Moonstone. Not so much. In fact, except for 3 pages very near the end, I wouldn’t really recommend it at all. Except of course, there’s my mom. She loved it when she was a teen (or so she said, 10 years ago – she’s waivered a bit on that over the years – that’s the dementia though, so we expect that from her now).

Anyway, I’ve finished it. I’m proud of myself for having finished it. I’m proud of myself for being able to cross book #1 off of my summer reading challenge.

Now onto bigger and better things…. The Day My Butt Went Psycho… gotta be bigger and better than The Moonstone, right?

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Farewell Legs

2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Mystery /

I’m officially moving the Aaron Tucker Mysteries to my favorites category. I thought Minivan was really amusing and A Farewell to Legswas equally amusing. OK maybe not equally, but pretty close. Remember, I just finished a Chris Moore book so anything I read immediately after that tends to be a let down. This wasn’t. It might have been the perfect book to read after A Dirty Job.

If you’re looking for an amusing mystery from the suburbs of Jersey, this is your series.

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The Wright 3

9 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

Robiehouse
We really enjoyed listening to Chasing Vermeer so I was very much looking forward to listening to The Wright 3. I am a Wright fan, TW is not so much, so that was an added bonus for me and not so much for her. We listened to it on the way to Lakeland on Friday and then on the way home on Sunday and finished it up today on the drives to and from work. It was good. Lots of fun and full of math and coincidences and art and mystery.

I would love to live in the Robie… as a kid I always preferred the Fallingwater house but now I think the Robie would be more interesting. It would probably drive me nuts before the first dust bunnies settled under the bed though.

Oh and speaking of coincidences… I didn’t realize Florida Southern was in Lakeland or that there were Wright buildings there… was it a coincidence or was there some hidden meaning… we didn’t find a talisman or a copy of The Invisible Man so probably just a coincidence…

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Hollow Chocolate Bunnies

1 Comment / 2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

When I blogged about Over Easy I got a really great book recommendation from Fausti – Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. I immediately reserved it at the library and it’s been in the house for several months now (thanks to the magic of online renewal!).

I finally picked it up a couple of days ago. Read the first chapter and thought hmmmm, is this suppose to be good? TW said it was very good, she read it last month. So I picked it up again and read another 100 pages the next day and yes, it was good! (I think the lack of nicotine on day 2 of my quit caused the lackluster first chapter) I had trouble putting it down today, it was that good. And definitely better than the Nursery Crimes book of Ffordes’!

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I don’t like sock monkeys

3 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Fiction, Mystery /

I’m not a fan of sock monkeys and I wasn’t all that thrilled with “Dickie” the sock monkey in Penn Jillette’s (yes from Penn & Teller) Sock. What a weird book. Weird isn’t generally a bad thing and it was probably the weird that made this worth reading. I mean sock monkeys. NYC police diver. Gay hairdresser. Serial Killer. Lots of dead people. And Proust. If that isn’t a weird combination then I don’t know what is.

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Minivans – Bad!

2006, Books in Bed, Mystery /

For Whom the Minivan Rolls was funny! Really funny actually. Maybe it’s just me though, has anyone (besides TW) read it? Work from home dad who is a freelance writer. Special needs son. Cute daughter. Sexy lawyer wife. Small somewhat snobby NJ town. And all of a sudden someone wants him to be a detective and find a missing wife? Ha, funny!

I’d almost suggest this as a beach read, even though I don’t really understand that phrase very well. I don’t read at the beach, maybe that’s why I don’t understand it? If you’re looking for a funny mystery with twists and turns that while predictable in places are still a wee bit quirky then this is a good one. Sort of like Dexter but without the blood and gore and stuff – almost spoofy. I think if you’ve read Dexter, you’ll understand what I mean. If you haven’t read Dexter, well do that and then read Minivan!

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Email Murders

2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Mystery /

I spend a lot of time searching for audio books for children and young adults. Prince J prefers to listen to books rather than read them and E just plain likes them. RJ use to complain about E’s book listening when they shared a room but she quickly began to complain that she didn’t have a CD player on which to listen to audio books! (We’ve solved that, after letting her stew over it for awhile and reminding her of how often she complained about E’s audio books.)

The Email Murders was one such audio book picked up at the library a few weeks ago. I didn’t know anything about it or about P.C. Hawke mysteries. I just knew the author Paul Zindel and figured it was worth a shot.

I put the first cd into the cd player in the car a couple of weeks ago and we all started listening as we drove to church. And then we never pushed play on the cd player again. Forgot all about it. Til yesterday on the drive home from Atlanta when I discovered the iRiver had not charged fully and we were out of power.

I pushed play and the Email Murders began. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great either, though. I probably won’t bother tracking down any other P.C. Hawke mysteries and I probably won’t send it upstairs for the kids to listen to either. I don’t think they’ll like it much. Not “kid like” enough for them. And not adult either. Sort of an adult mystery trying too hard to be for kids. Something gets lost in all of the trying.

I was glad the book was still in the car yesterday, though. It was a nice way to spend a few hours of the drive home.

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Weddings are Bad

2006, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Mystery /

See I told you weddings were bad. You get married and bam someone poisons your champagne…. or was it your wife’s champagne? Either way, you’re wed and dead and buried! Wed and Buried was definitely not church-like (see my previous read about The Peabody Sisters) and it was definitely not great chick lit either.

Nice break from the Unitarians but I don’t want to read any more of that stuff! Moving along, and quickly!

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