Independence Day

Happy Independence Day! My heart is full on such a day of what the Founding men and women did for this country. What an amazing accomplishment.

Today's Blog/Website of the Day is Gumshoe Review found at http://www.gumshoereview.com/. Lots of mystery info can be found there.

Almost done with TO KILL OR CURE by Susanna Gregory. Again, much convolutions of following clues and non-clues to the point of saying "GET ON WITH IT ALREADY", and now the end is in sight; the solutions are near. I love the world building and the main characters so I get over that impatience eventually. Mostly. So I should finish this tonight and move on to something else. Some possibilities include the next in series by Deborah Crombie, or Patricia Wynn, or Deryn lake, or the new one by Caro Ramsay, or maybe something completely different like a nonfiction or fluffy.

I posted my June reads on 4MA the other day but neglected to do it here so ...

June 2009 reads (in reverse order)

• THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE by Steig Larsson 2nd of Millenium Trilogy featuring "journo extraordinaire Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, the Lara Croft of the land of the midnight sun" (Kirkus Reviews). I enjoyed it as much as the first one for its complexity of story.
• A MOMENT OF SILENCE by Anna Dean 1st of 2 in series featuring amateur sleuth Dido Kent in 1805 England. A good historical mystery series in the Jane Austen era that doesn't get too cutesy; the interspersal of letters carries the conversation and thoughts well.
• THE AWFUL SECRET by Bernard Knight 4th of 13 in series featuring Sir John de Wolfe, the crowner (coroner), in 12th century Devon, England. Gilbert de Rideford is a Knight of the Temple of Solomon, and an old acquaintance from Crowner John's crusading days. He claims to have come into possession of a secret that could shake Christendom to its foundations - and he desperately needs John's help to escape from the secretive order of warrior monks. Very good historical mystery series.
• DEATH OF A SQUIRE by Maureen Ash 2nd of 4 in series featuring Bascot de Marins, a Templar Knight recovering from imprisonment in the holy lands, in the early 1200s, in England.When a squire'sbody is found hanging from a tree, Templar Bascot de Marins is given the task of unearthing the truth before an unprecedented meeting of kings at Lincoln Castle. Another good historical mystery series.
• THE ACCIDENTAL BESTSELLER by Wendy Wax (nonmystery, non-series). Once upon a time four aspiring authors met at their very first writers' conference. Ten years later they're still friends, survivors of the ultra-competitive New York publishing world. Kendall's once-promising career is on the skids—and so is her marriage. Her sales are dismal, her neweditor detests her work. Barely able to think, let alone meet her final deadline, Kendall holes up in a mountain cabin to confront a blank page and a blanker future. But her friends won't let her face this trial alone. Together they collaborate on a novel using their own lives as fodder, assuming no one will ever discover the truth behind their words. No one is more surprised than they are when the book becomes a runaway bestseller. But with success comes scrutiny and scandal…as these four best friends suddenly realize how little they've truly known each other. Interesting look inside publishing world, a little fluffy.
• AND JUSTICE THERE IS NONE by Deborah Crombie 8th of 13 in series featuring Duncan Kincaid, a Scotland Yard superintendent,and Gemma James, a sergeant. When someone does in Dawn Arrowood, the young, pregnant wife of a wealthy antiques dealer, in her Notting Hill home, Inspector Gemma James is put in charge of the investigation. A solid entry in the series.
• TAVERN IN THE MORNING by Alys Clare 3rd of 12 in series featuring Abbess Helewise and Sir Josse d'Acquin, a French knight, at the Hawkenly Abbey in England during the 12th century. When a man dies of poisoning at an inn known for the quality of its food, Josse investigates. This series is a little lighter than I prefer in historical mysteries, but a good one nonetheless.
• THE ONLY TRUE GENIUS IN THE FAMILY by Jennie Nash (nonmystery, stand alone) Though she lives in the shadow of her legendary landscape photographer father, and is the mother of a painter whose career is about to take off, Claire has carved out a practical existence as a commercial photographer. Her pictures may not be the stuff of genius, but they've paid for a good life. But when her father dies, Claire loses faith in the work she has devoted her life to—and worse, begins to feel jealous of her daughter's success. Then, as she helps prepare a retrospective of her famous father's photographs, Claire uncovers revelations about him that change everything she believes about herself as a mother, a daughter, and an artist. Interesting.
• THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (nonmystery, stand alone) The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de plume IzzyBickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunnyside of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet'sname in a used book and invites articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their stories, the book's epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back in the path of war stories about the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German occupation. Juliet's quips are clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so enchanting and the small acts of heroism so vivid and moving. Wonderful and charming.
• THE KING JAMES CONSPIRACY by Phillip Depoy (stand alone) What if, in the original Hebrew gospels, there were secrets so shocking that revealing them could be disastrous for the Church of England? And what if there had been a fiendish conspiracy to prevent the creation of the King James Bible, a conspiracy of men so desperate to keep the buried secrets from being exposed that they would stop at nothing, not even murder? That's the premise of this exciting and thought-provoking novel, set in 1605 and featuringa large cast of real-life characters. The only completely fictional character is Brother Timon, who is hired by the translators to find out who is trying to stop the translation. Timon is a compellingly multilayered character (we spend mos tof the book trying to decide if he's a good guy or a villain). Like Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, which also involves murder and religion, the novel is a splendid mixture of history and mystery, with vibrant characters and some solid twists and turns. Love the concepts but somehow the execution was lacking.
• THE MERCHANT'S PARTNER by Michael Jecks 2nd of 28 in series featuring Simon Puttock, medieval West County bailiff, and Sir Baldwin Furnshill, ex-Templar Knight, in Devon, England. When the mutilated body of midwife and healer Agatha Kyteler is discovered in a hedge one frozen wintry morning, it at first appears the lack of clues will render the crime unsolvable -- until a frightened local youth inexplicably flees his village and a hue and cry is raised. Sir Baldwin Furnshill, however, has doubts about the boy's guilt and enlists Simon Puttock in the hunt for a murderer. But what they seek lies somewhere on the darker side of the village of Wefford, beneath layers of jealousy, suspicion, and hatred -- and the buried truth could prove fatal to anyone who disturbs it. Solid historical mystery series with many many books to go which is always a good thing.
• THE SCARECROW by Michael Connelly 2nd featuring Jack McEvoy, a reporter, and Rachel Walling, an FBI agent, in Denver, Colorado, and Los Angeles. When Jack is laid off from the L.A. Times with 14 days' notice to tie up loose ends, he decides to go out with a bang. What starts as a story about the wrongful arrest of a young gangbanger for the brutal rape and murder of an exotic dancer turns out to be just the tip of an iceberg. FBI agent Rachel Walling, with whom he worked on a serial killer case in 1996's The Poet, soon joins the hunt. I always love Connelly's voice, this was interesting look in today's journalism, the ending was a bit coincidental/easy/quick.

Tomorrow I would like to get down to my office and put some more books on paperbackswap. I want to clean out that excess books mess in there.

Been a bit more home productive today: getting laundry done and I made lemon bars from a mix to add to our quiet festivities of hamburgers and potato salad and watermelon. Foot/ankle is getting better and putting more weight on it to almost walk rather than hobble but not quite there yet. Soon though. Otherwise, I've been doing more of the same, ho hum.

I don't think there's anything riveting on tv tonight; maybe we could pop in a movie or something. Later maybe I'll go out on the deck and watch the neighborhood fireworks. We have so many going off all around us on the 4th that one doesn't know where to look and it goes late so there's no trying to sleep tonight until midnight. Oy.

It looks like it may be clouding up out there so maybe we'll get a storm before the evening is over.

Enjoy your day!

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster