GREAT LINES:
That was the danger. Not that betrayals happened, not that cruel things happened, but that they could outweigh all the good. That we could forget the good and only remember the bad.
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Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Quebec has retreated to Quebec City during Winter Carnival to try and recover from a disastrous case in the company of an old friend. While spending time in a small library devoted to the history of the English in Quebec, he is embroiled in a murder case that threatens to awaken both his recent traumatic memories, and the long-standing tensions between Anglos and Francophones in Quebec. The city, with its history and charm, becomes a character. You can practically taste the café au lait and brush away the croissant crumbs. Penny always gives us lovely, flawed characters, and so it is in Bury Your Dead. But the character we most like to spend time with is the quiet Inspector with the kind eyes, Armand Gamache, who here struggles to move past memories of a case that cost him a member of his team, and almost cost him his life. Narrator Ralph Cosham does a superb job with all the voices for this series, especially Gamache, making this a rare series that I always prefer to experience in audio.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Bury Your Dead
GREAT LINES:
Any way you look at it, she’s dead, and you’re standing here a rich man on this glorious Southern California day. What I’m sayin’ is, buddy, as far as my client – and so far as I’m concerned – you’re already guilty.
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A wealthy woman hangs from a ceiling fixture, eyes wide, staring, dead. Her husband stands on the rug below while police detectives snap photographs and paramedics carry in a ladder. The suicide’s brother rushes into the room, shouting, “You! You did this to her!” Writer and artist David Lapham says he wrote his first graphic novel as an homage to classic film noir where “passions burn, shadows fall just right, and women are beautiful (and usually deadly).” And, I might add, even if the suspect isn’t guilty of the crime, he (or she) is no innocent. An old flame, blackmail, drugs, at least one murder with a big kitchen knife, and a reversal of fortune or two, Lapham made a page-turner of a noir.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Murder Me Dead
OPENING LINES:
The silence is shattered by the barking of a dog. The mother looks up from the sink and stares out of the window.
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This book, translated from the orginial Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund, fits into the category of “Scandinavian Mysteries.” It takes place in the small town of Elvestad in a rural area of Norway similar to the one where the author lives. Gunder Jomann is a bachelor and successful farm equipment salesman who becomes fascinated with the people and the country of India. When he takes a vacation to India he meets the woman of his dreams and marries her. On his return to Norway he gives her money and a ticket and she is to follow him. But on the day she is supposed to arrive Gunder is unable to get to the airport. When there is a report of a murdered foreign woman he wonders if this could be his new wife? Inspector Sejer steps in to investigate and does so in an understanding tolerant way. He is persistent and forthright asking questions from the villagers point of view and contemplating their answers to try and understand their thinking and motives. The ending is hard to predict but this book is as much about how Sejer solves the crime as it is about the solution. I am not usually a mystery lover but am embracing the idea of reading other books in this series.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Indian Bride
OPENING LINES:
Death Smiled at her, and kissed her gently on the cheek. He had nice eyes.
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Where can you be sure to find the strongest, most independent heroines? ROMANCE FICTION! It’s not just lovey-dovey these days. Not only can you find historical and sexy from mild to hot, but add paranormal, fantasy, science fiction, and crime to the mix, too. A great place to start reading romance is J.D. Robb’s “In Death” series set 50 years in the future. The series features New York Police Detective Eve Dallas: sleek, thoughtful, dedicated, and able to throw a right hook with the best of them. First try “Origin in Death”, immensely imaginative with wonderful quirky characters, some wild action and very clever twists. And amidst the legalized sexual companions, android servants, futurist technology and steamy nights you just might find an ethical and feminist message. Romance…who knew?
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Origin in Death
GREAT LINE:
The feminists had divined that, who once, when she rose to speak at a meeting, had hissed and cat-called, assuming her crowning glory to be the seductive and marketable product of an inhumanely tested bottle.
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With luck, once in a lifetime a novelist can take all the pieces and fit them together and come out with an absolutely wonderful work. Possession is one of those rare books. There is beautiful storytelling as each scene works in itself, drives the fast-moving plot forward toward solving a mystery, and reveals an extraordinary understanding of literature and ideas. It begins when two young academics discover secret love letters from a long-dead Victorian poet. There are amazing characters, including a brilliant professor who has spent a career studying that poet and has produced the definitive biography, proving that here was a great man who surely lived up to his own lofty ideals. On the side, the professor has a hobby of stealing anything he can get his hands on from the poet’s life. There is also poetry and interwoven tales that expand the inner hopes and thoughts of the characters. Most of all, it is the result of a life-long appreciation of the beauty of great writing and the joy of discovery, and also of the emptiness and cruelty of academic lives devoted to the study of beauty. This is, in all senses, a mature work by an author who has loved words, stories, books, and ideas and wants to make sense of all such love.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Possession
OPENING LINE:
Properly trained a man can be a dog’s best friend.
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This is the story of Fiona Bristow and her three dogs. She lives in a little cottage on an island off the coast of Washington state. Her dogs are trained to be rescue dogs and she runs a dog training business. This sounds like a good life. But Fiona is the only survivor of a serial killer called “The Red Scarf Killer”. That man is still in prison but he has trained another man to copy his style and this man is coming after Fiona because she was the one that got away. To complicate matters, there is also a man named Simon who has recently moved onto the island and his young dog, Jaws, needs training. Could Simon be the one to share the rest of Fiona’s life? This book is especially good for how it weaves together a murder mystery with a romance in a very interesting way.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Search
GREAT LINE:
What was it about the Bay Area, that people always stuck around? The place was a vortex, an inverted pleasure dome on the banks of the frigid Pacific.
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No One You Know is the story of two sisters, very different, but intertwined tightly, especially after the tragic death of one. The family structure disintegrates with the weight of their grief. For the surviving sister to cope, she is driven to piece together the complete story of what actually happened, not the story that was published about her family in a popular true crime tome. Her quest is compelling story, exposing the human flaws in relationships, not being truthful, and how egos get in the way. Her quest also shows great love and devotion can overcome these. As a bonus, most of the action takes place in San Francisco and around the Bay, with some real life locals appearing.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: No One You Know
GREAT LINES:
My father insisted that the boys in my life were directly responsible for my juvenile-delinquent tendencies. My mother, more accurately, assumed that I was the bad influence.
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Isabel Spellman works in her family’s private investigations firm in San Francisco and has since the tender age of 12. Growing up among PIs means privacy is something she never knew and suspicion is part of her genetic makeup. Between parental background checks on boyfriends and a little sister who goes on stakeouts for fun, 28-year- old Isabel decides she has had enough. Her parents agree to let her leave the family business if she solves one final cold case. The Spellman Files launches a four book series of comic capers, the latest of which is also apparently the final volume, The Spellmans Strike Again. If you are looking for a book that takes all the trappings of a noir detective story but adds the perfect timing of a screwball comedy, give the Spellmans a try.
Check the BPL Catalog for this title: The Spellman Files
