Review: Buried by Ellison Cooper

Format: Hardcover
Pub Date: July 16, 2019
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Length: 356 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: Review copy courtesy of the publisher

An FBI agent and his working dog stumble across a cavern filled with human bones. And discover that fresh bodies are also being deposited in the site.

SSA Sayer Altair gets assigned to the case which would ordinarily require a task force. Only one problem: the FBI is being investigated and resources are scarce. She cobbles together a small team to help her investigate the horrendous crime scene, while also worrying about the political fallout in Quantico that is, partially, her fault. 

The complicated subplots dilute what should be an utterly terrifying book. The chapters that deal with an anonymous, powerful psychopath and the shitshow at the FBI headquarters don't serve the plot or the book at all. 

This is clearly a mid-series book with threads that lead to the book before and presumably the next book in the series. If you like every thread neatly tied up, this book will annoy you to no end. I actually liked the various subplots, some tied up and some left hanging. My main complaint was the flatness of the characters. I wanted to know more about them. Instead, they felt flat and didn't add much to the story. 

It's a decent book, but could have been excellent with tighter editing and character development. Recommended, but check it out from the library.

My Grade: C

The Blurb:

Senior Special Agent Sayer Altair studies the minds of psychopaths. But even she didn't expect to uncover a killer within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rooting him out and exposing internal corruption got her a bullet wound and six months of desk duty. Now, she’s finally back in the field, called in when an off-duty FBI agent and his cadaver dog fall into a sinkhole filled with human bones. 

Found deep in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, the skeletal remains date back almost two decades, the same time a beloved local teen disappeared. The cold case quickly heats up when Sayer's team finds two fresh corpses among the bones. When a gruesome clue ties these new bodies to a woman recently kidnapped along with her young daughter, Sayer has to uncover the connection between the old bones and the new bodies before the mother and child become the next victims. 

But the killer is one step ahead, attacking her team and sabotaging their efforts. With Sayer's investigation compromised and unsure of who to trust, she receives unwanted help from Subject 037, one of the anonymous psychopaths she is currently studying. She has the chilling realization that he’s someone powerful in Washington D.C.―and he is not about to let a mundane serial killer jeopardize his own ominous agenda for Sayer…

Review: Black and Blue by David Rosenfelt

Format: Hardcover
Pub Date: March 2019
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Length: 290 pages
POV: 1st, present
FTC: Review Copy courtesy of the publisher

This is the second Doug Brock thriller books I've read, and despite being written in the one tense and POV combo I despise, I really enjoyed it.

Doug Brock is a New Jersey state police officer with shooting related amnesia, which is a real drawback whenever he has to revisit a past case he can't remember, although it's a plus in his personal life, as it's allowed him a "do-over" with his one-time fiance, Jessie.

This new case is a serial sniper, and figuring out the connection between victims requires lots of interviews with family and witnesses: which is ten levels of awkward when you don't remember most of your past cases. I liked how tight the chapters were, how methodical the police work is. I liked the supporting characters, especially Jessie, which is why I wish the book were 3rd past instead of 1st present. I wanted more of her thoughts and feelings.

My only real issue with the book is the nonstop fat shaming of Doug's partner, Nate. It's constant and unnecessary.

Overall, a solid police mystery.

My Grade: B

Blurb:

Doug Brock hasn't had it easy since his getting shot in the line of duty as a New Jersey state police officer. Between the amnesia and having to solve two murder cases, it hasn't been the most restful recovery. He’s slowly earning back the trust of his girlfriend Jessie, since he doesn’t remember their breakup, and has focused on new crimes with his partner, Nate. 

But now an old case of Doug’s has resurfaced, and it’s up to Doug to retrace his steps – steps he can’t remember – to solve the case. Eighteen months ago, Walter Brookings was shot through the heart. With no clear motive and no similar murders, the investigation stalled and became a cold case. 

When another man is murdered in the same fashion and the ballistics come back as a match, Doug begins to reinvestigate, and starts to question his own actions from the previous investigation.Finally, what Doug uncovers may be more dangerous than any case he’s faced yet.

Review: Blood is Blood by Will Thomas (Barker and Llewelyn)

Format: Hardcover
Pub Date: November 2018
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Length: 308 pages
POV: 1st person, past
FTC: review copy courtesy of the publisher

I haven't read a lot of historical mysteries in 1st person, so this was a bit of a change for me. This book is also in the middle of a series, so I'm not sure I'd have had the same reading experience if I'd been following the series all along.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I really liked the overall mystery and the setting and characters. On the other, I felt like it was missing some emotional depth, which is likely because I'm a character-centric reader. I want their thoughts and feelings on the page, and the emotions in particular were largely absent here, which I found weird considering the emotional events that form the focus of the book.

I have never read Will Thomas, nor had I heard of this series before, but I love historical mysteries and decided to give it a chance. The book begins with a bit of the Monday blues and an absentminded groom-to-be not listening to his fiance, then promptly devolves into chaos as the office of Barker Private Inquiries is blown to smithereens.

Review: Fast Falls the Night by Julia Keller (a Bell Elkins novel)

Format: Trade Paperback
Pub Date: July 2018, copyright 2017
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Length: 286 pages
POV: 3rd alternating past
FTC: review copy courtesy of the publisher
CW: drug overdose

I read this months ago, and posted a brief mini review on Instagram here, but I felt like I hadn't really covered what I wanted to cover about this book. I read a lot, I mean A LOT, and I'm still thinking about this book six months later. Partly because my region just experienced a smaller version of what happens in the novel, and partly because it was such a unique and timely book which was sadly, inspired by a real 24 hour period of mass overdoses in West Virginia.

The novel takes place over the course of 24 hours, and while I was never a fan of the series, 24, I can see the appeal of using that time constraint to serve as a narrative structure. It works incredibly well here, as we watch events unfold through a variety of points of view: Bell Elkins, a prosecutor, the EMS and hospital staff, the families of those saved and those lost. Each chapter begins with a time, and as the novel progresses, the reader feels Bell's growing horror over the escalation of deaths as more and more overdoses happen on her turf.

Also mixed in is some back story about Bell's childhood, which (probably because I haven't read any other books in the series) feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the narrative. But the events of the past mix with the events of the present to add further stress to an already overwhelmed Bell.

This isn't a long book, but Keller manages to squeeze a lot of tension into it and a lot of nuance about life in poverty. I was very impressed by how even secondary characters are fleshed out and felt believable. Even if they didn't spend a lot of time on the page.

My only quibble, and this comes 100% from my personal preference, is that the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger. The primary mystery is solved, sort of, but the threads are left hanging in an obvious sequel baiting way that I found unsatisfying. 

I wish we saw more authors like Keller who avoid using cliches about the poor and really dig deep into what drives people to make the decisions they do. I was very impressed with the nimble way she switched from character to character while making the reader care about all of them. No shortcuts, no easy fall back onto tired stereotypes. It's not often that I read a mystery with written with such obvious care. For that, and for the timely topic, I recommend this book!

My Grade: A-

The Blurb:

Based on a real-life event, Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Keller’s latest Bell Elkins novel Fast Falls the Night takes place in a single 24-hour period, unfurling against the backdrop of a shattering personal revelation that will change Bell’s life forever.
The first drug overdose comes just after midnight, when a young woman dies on the dirty floor of a gas station bathroom. To the people of the small town of Acker’s Gap, West Virginia, it is just another tragedy. It is sad—but these days, depressingly familiar.
But then there is another overdose. And another. And another.

Prosecutor Bell Elkins soon realizes that her Appalachian hometown is facing its starkest challenge yet: a day of constant heroin overdoses from a batch tainted with a lethal tranquilizer. While the clock ticks and the bodies fall, Bell and her colleagues desperately track the source of the deadly drug—and engage in fierce debates over the wisdom of expending precious resources to save the lives of self-destructive addicts.

Review: The Echo Killing by Christi Daugherty

Format: Hardcover
Pub Date: March 13, 2018
Publisher: Minotaur (St. Martin's)
Length: 353 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: Review copy courtesy of the publisher

After two recent mysteries fell a little flat for me, it was a bit refreshing to see some solid characterization and emotion again. I'm primarily a romance reader, although I've always read mysteries and urban fantasy, too.  I tend to gravitate towards the books that show rather than tell. Those that grip you by your emotions. This book is one of the good ones.

This is Daugherty's first adult book, having previously written YA under a different name. You couldn't tell if you hadn't read the author's bio. She does an excellent job with the grit and gore of two messy crime scenes without playing up the shock factor. I appreciated that. Enough detail to get the point, without wallowing in the carnage.

Harper McClain is a a local crime reporter in Savannah. She listens to the scanner and spends her nights chasing down crime scenes and hoping for a page one story. What most of her friends and colleagues don't know is that her mother was murdered over a decade ago, and she was the one to find the body. The emotional scars and inevitable fallout of the murder both fuel her passion for covering crime, and make her leery of forming close attachments. Until a similar murder happens on her beat.

Review: Fade to Black by David Rosenfelt

Format: Hardcover
Pub Date: March 2018
Publisher: Minotaur Books (St. Martin's)
Length: 309 pages
POV: Alternating 3rd/Past and 1st/Present
FTC: Review copy courtesy of the publisher

Another new-to-me author this week. I've never read David Rosenfelt before. Never even heard of him, but the concept of an amnesia stricken protagonist was too good to pass up. Even more shocking for those who know me, it's mostly written in 1st person, present tense, and I didn't toss it out a window.

That's not to say the tense combo didn't irritate me. It REALLY did. It felt like the author was trying for an old school noir feel by having the narrative unfold this way, but it never quite succeeded.

I'm a character reader, so I have a difficult time with stories where the characters aren't fully fleshed out. That was the case with this book. The first/present choice meant that we really don't get any insight into the other characters because we spend so much time inside our protagonist, Doug Brock's, head. We get to see his thought processes, but not what makes the other characters tick. And we definitely don't get to see how they feel.

The amnesia angle was more boring than I expected. Likely because Brock is just...irritated by the gaps in his memory. We rarely get an emotional reaction other than frustration from him. No deep emotion at all over something I would imagine is incredibly traumatic.  I found it incredibly weird that the main character was so one-note.

Unlike some of the mysteries I've read recently, I absolutely DID get stumped by this one. The question here is not whodunnit, but what they are doing, and I was kept guessing until the very end. That hasn't happened in a VERY long time, so kudos for that.

My issues with this are largely the tense/POV combo and the fact that I'm a character-centric reader. If you're not as sensitive to present tense, and you aren't as focused on characterization, this one might work for you better than it did for me.

My Grade: C+

The Blurb:

After getting shot in the line of duty, New Jersey state police officer Doug Brock has been busy rebuilding his life. He’s reunited with his fiancé and started to get some of his memories back. He hopes he can continue to recover with the help of an amnesia support group and that the damage from his past isn’t permanent. 
 
It isn’t until fellow group member Sean Conner approaches him after a meeting that Doug realizes the trouble is just beginning. Sean has discovered in his attic what can only be called a scrapbook of a murder victim, but he has no recollection of the girl’s identity or why he might have gathered this information. Doug agrees to help and convinces his captain to open what had been a cold case. When he discovers that he had a personal connection to this case, suddenly he’s questioning everything he thought he knew about the case, about Sean, and about his own past.

Review: The Third Victim by Phillip Margolin

Format: hardcover
Pub Date: March 2018
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Length: 319 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: ARC provided by the publisher free of charge

I've been avoiding ARC reviews for about a year now,  after the reading slump of doom. The cure for me turned out to be going back to reading mostly print, and switching it up with more mysteries and urban fantasy. So...I decided to accept a few advance readers copies of mysteries. Although I'm a mystery reader,  I've never read Phillip Margolin before, and I'm not usually a legal thriller reader. My cuppa runs more to historical mystery and the funnier caper style stories.

The Third Victim reads more like a drama than a mystery. We get little vignettes from a handful of characters, but the main mystery surrounds the defense of an accused serial killer and his lead defense attorney. The drama is that the attorney is experiencing early onset dementia and in denial about it. Her recent hire, Robin, isn't familiar enough with her to be 100% sure her boss is having issues, but grows increasingly worried as the case moves on. The huge ethical issues about whether the defense is compromised are complicated by the worry that their client is really guilty.

I'm a character reader, so I was a bit disappointed we didn't get more time with Robin and some of the supporting characters. And what we got of Regina as she struggles with denial about the early onset dementia symptoms is oddly detached. I wanted more emotion. More guilt. More...something.

As for the mystery itself, I had it figured out halfway through. Since I haven't read Margolin before, I'm not sure if we were supposed to be stumped. The foreshadowing is extremely heavy handed, so maybe whodunnit isn't supposed to be a plot twist. I hope that's the case, because it definitely isn't surprising in the least.

Even with all of that, I kept reading because it was a unique take on a legal thriller about issues that are profoundly important. It was also a little alarming, because I had never considered how vulnerable people are to counsel who are experiencing some kind of cognitive issue, or how dependent we are on them self-reporting any conflicts.

My Grade: B-

The Blurb:

A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural Oregon—tortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky one—two other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead.

The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive and the owner, Alex Mason—a prominent local attorney—is arrested. Although he loudly insists upon his innocence, his wife’s statements about his sexual sadism and the physical evidence found at the scene, his summer home, is damning.

Regina Barrister is a legendary criminal defense attorney, known as “The Sorceress” for her courtroom victories. But she’s got a secret, one that threatens her skill, her reputation, and, most of all, her clients. And she’s agreed to take on the seemingly impossible task of defending Alex Mason.

Robin Lockwood, a young lawyer and former MMA fighter, has just left a clerkship at the Oregon Supreme Court to work for Regina Barrister. The Alex Mason trial is her first big one, a likely death penalty case, and she’s second chair to Regina. Increasingly, she’s worried her boss’s behavior and the details in the case against their client don’t quite add up.

TBR Challenge Review: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

Format: mass market, but newer editions appear to be trade
Pub Date: orig. 1994, mmpb 1996
Publisher: Bantam
Length: 405 pages
POV: 1st/past
FTC: purchased myself

Not only am I a day late with my TBR review, I'm stretching the theme just a bit. This month's theme is "a series you're behind in." Well...this is book 1, and I haven't read any of the others...So I'm claiming it qualifies as a series I am (way, way) behind in.

I found this book in a sad, neglected box in the depths of the garage a few weeks ago. A box that has sat, unpacked, since our move in 2004. I used to read quite a bit more mystery back in those days, and I'm quite sure I picked this one up from a library used book sale somewhere. It's...weathered.

It is also, in case the pipe on this weird cover doesn't give it away, a Sherlock Holmes book.

Tardy TBR Challenge Review: Stitches in Time by Barbara Michaels

Format: mass market
Pub Date: 1995 (this edition, 1999)
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (Harper Collins)
FTC: Purchased used so long ago I can't remember where
Length: 387 pages

This month's TBR Challenge theme was Old School (at least 10 years old), and I had actually read a book in preparation for it. Alas, the reality of having two active boys at home interfered once again and the post never got written. No posts have been written all summer, which is a personal worst for me. But at least I'm still reading. The slump hasn't crept back.

Barbara Michaels holds a special place in my heart. Her books, along with Piers Anthony, were some of the first adult titles I read as a young teen. They were shelved in mystery, but they are actually pretty close to romantic suspense. Some are out and out gothic with all of the creepy little atmospheric touches. She was also Elizabeth Peters, one of my favorite authors of all time, but I have not read a Michaels book in at least 20 years, so revisiting her style under this pseudonym was fun.

Review: Fountain Filled With Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Format: ebook
Pub Date: April 2010
Publisher: Minotaur (Macmillan)
Length: 348 pages
FTC: Purchased myself

Yes, I'm very late to the Clare Fergusson series. I read In the Bleak Midwinter three years ago, but hadn't picked up any other book in the series. When the Reading Slump That Will Not Die grabbed ahold of me this last year, I decided it was time to bring back mysteries to my reading and the blog. So naturally, I thought of this series and purchased book 2.

I'm a very secular person. I don't attend church. Any church. Ever. And I tend to intensely dislike even the hint of infidelity in my reading. Which is what makes it so improbable that I'd like this series so much, but I really, really do.

Clare Fergusson is an Episcopal priest living in rural New York. A retired army helicopter pilot, she's attracted the danger of Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne's work. She's also reluctantly attracted to the man behind the title...the very married man. To complicate things further, he is reluctantly attracted to her as well. It's there. They're aware of it. But so far (this is book 2, after all) are doing their damnedest to avoid acting on it while trying to stay friends. Because they do click on a personal level that neither one wants to give up.

Review: Binary Witness by Rosie Claverton

Pub Date: May 2014
Format: ebook
Publisher: Carina (Harlequin/Harper Collins)
Length: 213 pages per Amazon
Why I picked it up: Recommended by several people on Twitter
FTC: Paid for by me

In my continuing efforts to thoroughly vanquish this reading slump, I'm switching up my genres. I recently asked for mystery recs on Twitter, my go-to place for peer recommendations, and several people responded with this series by Rosie Claverton.  After safely making it through the Kindle sample, I bought it. And I managed to read it in 3 days which these days is something of a miracle. Gone are the days I can read a book in a few hours. There's simply too much on my plate to have that much uninterrupted time.

I had hoped to keep up my good luck by sticking with print, but this book is a digital-first one, which means no print copy is available as of yet (if ever).

Although I liked the book, my biggest irritant was not really the book's fault: I kept getting distracted by the British slang throughout the story. I'm a devoted Sherlock watcher. Well, BBC mystery anything, really. I can usually puzzle out most British figures of speech without pausing, but there was so much of it (understandable given the nationality of the author (British) and the setting (Wales) that I was repeatedly dragged out of the story. It broke my reading flow, which in turn caused me to get distracted by the million other things I have going on. Which is why it took me three days to read 200 pages.

In Progress Review: Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line Audiobook

Format: Audio Download
Length: 8 hrs 42 minutes
Narrator: Kristen Bell

Since life has gotten ridiculously out-of-control busy the last few months, I'm left with just listening to audiobooks to wind down at night. No time to actually read. As a fan of the series, and of mysteries, I was excited that they were coming out with a Veronica Mars mystery. I mean, the series is noir already, right? Unfortunately, it doesn't translate to audio well.

Set just after the recent Veronica Mars movie, the book opens with Keith Mars still recovering from his car accident and Veronica holding down the fort. It's not going well and cases are few and far between. Until the local Chamber of Commerce hires her to find out what happened to missing college coed on Spring Break.

As far as mysteries go, the missing Spring-Breaker isn't all that original. I must have read the same set up a dozen times over the years. I really wanted a lot more character interaction than I've gotten so far. It's dragging! (I'm a little over 3 hrs in).

The absolute biggest mistake the production team made was having Kristen Bell narrate this. No offense meant to Bell. It's not that her voices stink (although they do), it's that the book is written in the third person. After watching 3 seasons and a movie of Veronica Mars being told with Kristen Bell's first-person voice-over, this switch just doesn't work.

I'm not sure if I'm going to finish this book or not. Right now, it's an excellent way to fall asleep, but not really all that compelling otherwise. Meanwhile, I'm hoping that I can actually read a book on the plane to the RT Convention in New Orleans.

Barbara Mertz ( aka Barbara Michaels / Elizabeth Peters ) Passes Away at Age 85

Sad news from William Morrow this morning:

It is with great sadness we relay the news that our beloved author, Barbara Mertz, (a.k.a. Elizabeth Peters) passed away this morning at the age of 85.
Under her pseudonym as Barbara Michaels she has written twenty-nine novels of suspense. As Elizabeth Peters, she had produced more than 35 mystery-suspense novels, many of them set in Egypt and the Middle East, featuring the intrepid Amelia Peabody. Under her own name, she authored several nonfiction books about ancient Egypt, still in print today.

My Amelia Peabody reread soldiers on, but I'm a little depressed to know that Amelia's adventures are complete. Pith helmets off in respect to this pioneer of both the romance and mystery genres. 

The Flawed Heroine: Amelia Peabody, Racism, and the Modern Historical Romance

Source: Wikipedia/British Museum

 

I'm one of those shallow readers who do not really like flawed heroines in my romances. I don't want them Pollyanna perfect, but I also don't want them to be truly unlikeable. And yet...I adore Amelia Peabody.

I've been tweeting my ongoing Amelia Peabody reread the last month or so. A reader on Twitter recently shared that the Amelia Peabody series, or —more specifically— Crocodile on the Sandbank made her uncomfortable because of all of the stereotyping of Egyptians. And then pointed to a novel by Mary Jo Putney as an example of how a historical novel set in the Middle East could avoid that.

I will be honest: The stereotyping in the Peabody series doesn't bother me. Or at least, I can understand why it's there. It serves a purpose.  Aside from the story being told in the first person, a not insignificant difference from most romances, we as readers are supposed to view Amelia as flawed. She's supposed to be irritating, snobby, racist, bossy, and completely self deluded about her own personality flaws. We're supposed to recognize her stereotyped observations of Egyptians and understand that she as a character represents the upper class, British sensibilities of the time.

The Amelia Peabody Summer Re-Read!

I've been a little disillusioned by the romance genre's offerings lately and decided to try a mystery. Sadly, none of the new mysteries appealed either. Enter, the summer reread. And not just any reread. It's the Amelia Peabody reread.

Beware, if you haven't read these books, they are highly (highly!) addictive. If you have read them, but not recently, don't start your reread unless you're prepared to neglect every other book on your TBR for a few weeks.

There are 19 books set from 1884 to 1922 and written by Elizabeth Peters from 1975 to 2010.  They are a hilarious blend of mystery, romance, family saga, adventure novels, and historical fiction. Set mostly in Egypt, although a few are set outside of it, these books are the (mostly) first person account of Amelia Peabody's life as an Egyptologist during the heyday of Egyptian exploration preceding the discovery of King Tut's tomb.

I'm on the 4th book, but anyone is welcome to read along! I'll be chronicling my adventure mostly on Twitter using the #Peabody hashtag, and occasionally the title of the book I'm currently on. Each book has a self-contained mystery, but the characters age and grow over the course of the series, so reading in order is important! (Completely unrelated, but I adore the titles in this series. They always have some bearing on the story, they are original, and they are easy to remember. Take note, Romancelandia)

The first book is Crocodile on the Sandbank.

The rest of the series (by series order not publication date)
Curse of the Pharaohs
The Mummy Case
The Lion in the Valley
Deeds of the Disturber
The Last Camel Died at Noon
The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog
The Hippopotamus Pool
Seeing a Large Cat
The Ape Who Guards the Balance
Guardian of the Horizon **
A River in the Sky **
Falcon at the Portal***
He Shall Thunder in the Sky
Lord of the Silent
The Golden One
Children of the Storm
The Serpent on the Crown
Tomb of the Golden Bird

**Published out of order as "lost seasons" books. They are shown above in the correct chronological order based on when they are set.
***Huge cliffhanger book. You'll want to have He Shall Thunder in the Sky close at hand.

Audio Review: Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Title: Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Format: Audible download
Length: 8 hrs
Narrator: James Marsters*
Original Release Date (CD): 2002

A few months ago, I asked people on Twitter for audiobook recommendations for my husband. He listens to many of my romance audiobooks, but he really likes Fantasy and Urban Fantasy. The Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher came highly recommended.

Fast forward a few months.  I purchased the first in the series, Storm Front, on Audible. And while my husband has so far not been interested in listening to it, I decided to give it a try.

I was surprised by how much this book read like a detective novel. Not quite Columbo with a magic staff, but close. Told in the first person, we follow along with Harry as he attempts to solve a case as a consultant for the Chicago PD, and as he takes a side job working as a wizard-for-hire.

TBR Challenge Review: No Mercy by Lori Armstrong

Format: Mass market paperback
Pub Date: Dec 2010
Publisher: Pocket (Simon and Schuster)
Length: 379
FTC: picked up for free at RT 12

This month's theme is "something other than romance." And since I originally started the blog as a romance AND MYSTERY blog, I thought it was time to review a mystery. Most of my TBR pile is still in boxes from some room switching we did this spring, but I had my RT Convention books handy. And in that pile was No Mercy by Lori Armstrong.

I've read Lori Armstrong in her Lorelei James persona, but wasn't really sure what to expect of her writing as a mystery author. For starters, the styles are nothing at all alike. There are those authors whose books you would recognize regardless of who they are writing as or in whatever genre: Armstrong is not one of them. If I didn't *know* these were written by the same person, I'd never connect the two. Honestly? I prefer the James stories. And not just because they're filled with sexy cowboys and happily ever after.

Hump Day Movie: Thunderheart (1992)

This is one of those movies that surprises you. You think you're going to get a standard thriller with some cultural appropriation, and instead you get a thoughtful exposé on real events that happened during the 1970s in South Dakota.

Thunderheart stars Val Kilmer, Sam Shepard, and Graham Greene. I think this is one of the first movies I ever saw Greene in, and it's definitely the one where I developed my crush on him.

Kilmer plays an FBI agent in the 1970s sent as a liason to an Sioux Reservation to investigate a murder because he is 1/4 Sioux. The problem is that he doesn't identify with his Native American heritage, and to the people on the rez, he's just another white man in a suit. Once he arrives, he discovers that there is far more going on than a "simple" murder. He steps into the middle of a war, and some machinations by greedy people that have turned the South Dakota Badlands into the murder capital of the country.

There is a bit of "Hollywood" to the story, but enough heart remains to make this one of the more memorable Kilmer movies. It's one I recently re-watched on Amazon Instant Streaming, and it's held up just fine. It's also available on DVD for around $6.

It is very violent, however, and more than a little disturbing given the subject matter. If you haven't seen it, you've missed out.

Review: In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Format: ebook, mass market paperback
Pub Date: 2003
Publisher: Minotaur
Length: 370 pages
FTC: Purchased myself

In an effort to read more mysteries this year, I picked up Julia Spencer-Fleming's much lauded first Clare Ferguson novel, In the Bleak Midwinter. Featuring a female Episcopal priest and a police chief, the novel is a mixture of genres that pushes a few buttons, surprises, and ultimately satisfies. With a few eye rolling episodes excepted (more on that later).

Clare Ferguson is the new priest for Millers Kill, a smaller town in upstate New York. Used to warmer climes, Clare is woefully unprepared for northern winters, and thus is constantly without warm boots, warm jackets, or a suitable car for the snow. Her day to day challenges are placed on the back burner when she finds an abandoned baby on the steps of her church. An event which causes her to cross paths with Russ Van Alstyne, the chief of police.

Review: Joanne Fluke's Lake Eden Cookbook

Format: Hardcover, ebook
Publisher: Kensington
Pub Date: October 1, 2011
Length: 320 pages
FTC: Review copy courtesy of the publisher

I've seen a few cookbooks based on popular series come and go over the years, but this is the first one that I can say did a good job capturing the feel of the series on which it was based.

There are zero pictures in the Lake Eden Cookbook. It is, instead, a hardcover copy of what one would expect from a real community cookbook. The kind you buy from churches or as a fundraiser where everyone contributes a recipe or two and the notes/serving suggestions are delightfully informal. There's even a full color map of the town on the endsheets.

The recipes themselves are mostly baking ones (in line with what Joanne Fluke's readers would expect). There are a few, homey recipes for main dishes as well. This book has all of the recipes from the series so far as well as about a dozen new ones. The only thing that bugs me is that the butter used is "salted" and I'm an unsalted butter purist. *Shrug*

Bottom line: This is a well done series tie-in book. It might not fit the bill for those who want photos to work from, but it will make an excellent holiday gift for any culinary mystery fan. Well done.

My Grade: A-