Category: Book Reviews
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THE CAT WHO ATE DANISH MODERN Lilian Jackson Braun, The Cat Who series #2 In The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern, we travel back to Chicago to find Jim Qwilleran down and out: he must move out of his apartment, aka “homeless;” the moths are putting holes in his favorite neckties, aka “tieless;” he has…
DEATH AT LA FENICE Donna Leon, Guido Brunetti #1 We travel to Italy for this next murder mystery, Death at La Fenice, and look into the world of opera and talented well-known musicians and the death of an internationally well-known conductor. Donna Leon describes Venice, the canals and waterways, and the life of the police…
A IS FOR ALIBI Sue Grafton, Kinsey Millhone #1 Sue Grafton wrote a series of murder mysteries based in Southern California – Santa Teresa and areas surrounding Los Angeles (at least in this first novel). The titles of her novels begin with a letter of the alphabet – A Is for Alibi, B Is for…
THE CATER STREET HANGMAN Anne Perry, Charlotte and Thomas Pitt #1 Anne Perry wrote another murder mystery series featuring Charlotte and Thomas Pitt. In the first book of the series, The Cater Street Hangman, the two were not an item. Charlotte Ellison lived with her wealthy family in an elite part of London. She was…
EVERYWHERE THAT MARY WENT Lisa Scottoline, Rosato and Associates #1 The Rosato and Associates series by Lisa Scottoline takes us to Philadelphia and is a bit different in that the main character, Mary DiNunzio, is a lawyer. It focuses mostly on justice rather than the detective work we have been reading about in the other…
THE COLD DISH Craig Johnson, Longmire #1 We are not traveling too far with this week’s review, but we are returning to Wyoming. This trip takes us again to the Big Horn Mountains, the Powder River, a different county (Absaroka), and a different town (Durant). The characters, too, are different: Walt Longmire is the sheriff,…
IRON LAKE William Kent Krueger, Cork O’Connor #1 From the high country of the Guadalupe Mountains, this week’s book review takes us to Aurora, Minnesota, in St. Louis County, just this side of the border with Canada. Like the mountain ranges of Texas, this county is rough and wild. Krueger does an excellent job, in…
TRACK OF THE CAT Nevada Barr, Anna Pigeon #1 Anna Pigeon had a nature-lover’s dream life: a Law Enforcement ranger in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas. Her assignments involve wandering the high country for days searching for evidence of specific wild animals – high country that includes deep canyons, ponderosa pines, limestone walls, the…
POSTMORTEM Patricia Daniels Cornwell, Kay Scarpetta #1 This series takes us back to the United States, specifically, Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Kay Scarpetta had just been appointed as the Chief Medical Examiner (CME) for the State of Virginia just two years earlier. The call that came in at 2:33 on an early Saturday morning was letting…
THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot #1 Back in England, Agatha Christie introduces Hercule Poirot, the indomitable detective from Belgium, along with detective-in-training, Arthur Hastings in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. It is unclear exactly the time period in which Ms. Christie begins her tales involving Poirot, but it seems to be…