39. Caught by Harlan Coben

listened on Chirp
388 pgs.

2010
Adult mystery
Finished 4/30/24
Goodreads rating: 4.01
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary NJ

My comments:   A TV journalist/reporter investigates an alleged pedophile's crimes after his murder.  She goes on to investigate him and his four Princeton college roommates, coming up with more and more information that doesn't add up.  And then it finally does.  There are a few places that I had to withhold belief, but 80% of the story is decent and believable. I guess.  Maybe.  I read this in bits and pieces whilst falling asleep over the last month. 

Goodreads synopsis:  17 year-old Haley McWaid is a good girl, the pride of her suburban New Jersey family, captain of the lacrosse team, headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams her doting parents can pin on her. Which is why, when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before, and three months quickly pass without word from the girl, the community assumes the worst.

Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission, to identify and bring down sexual predators via elaborate—and nationally televised—sting operations. Working with local police on her news program Caught in the Act, Wendy and her team have publicly shamed dozens of men by the time she encounters her latest target. Dan Mercer is a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens, but his story soon becomes more complicated than Wendy could have imagined.

35. Redeeming Vows by Catherine Bybee

#3 MacCoinnich Time Travels

listened on Kindle Unlimited Audio/Audible

narrated by David Monteath

Unabridged audio (9:42)
2010
314 pgs.
Adult Time Travel/Romance
Finished 4/9/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.25 - 1781 ratings
My rating: 3.5/4
Setting: Contemporary LA and 16th century Scotland

First line/s: "Liz snapped out of her daydream with Simon's voice ringing in her ears."

My comments: Most of my review was erased!!!  all that was left was: "they were able to return with the help of a modern-day druid and a lunar eclipse...."  This one was about Finn and Lizzie.

Goodreads synopsis:  For her own safety, modern day, single mom, Lizzy McAllister is forced to bow to the medieval men who surround her when she's thrust back in time to the sixteenth century against her will. When Lizzie finds herself trapped in time with Fin, the one man she finds both irresistible and maddening, she agrees to combine forces with him to rid Scotland of the evil witch, Grainna. Finlay MacCoinnich's attraction to Lizzie sizzles the very air they breathe. Tearing down the solid walls the woman has built around her won't be easy, but he's willing to do anything to keep her by his side. When a spell cast by their deadliest foe throws them forward in time, will they manage to find their way back in time to save their family from peril? And will Lizzy willingly stay in his time, or abandon him altogether?

34. Silent Vows by Catherine Bybee

#2 MacCoinnich Time Travels

listened on Kindle Unlimited Audio/Audible

narrated by David Monteath with GREAT accents and voice tones

Unabridged audio (9:35)
2010
302 pgs.
Adult Time Travel/Hist. Fiction
Finished 4/8/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.18 - 1924 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Contemporary LA/1570's Scotland

First line/s:  "My life is over.  Myra MacCoinnich sat astride her horse, marching toward death, death of her life, as she knew it.  Why?"

My comments: The second installment focuses mainly on Myra, the 21-year-old Scottish sister of Duncan and Todd Blakely, the young, fit cop that she meets when she is sent back to the 21st century.  Tara and Duncan are still on the scene, but background characters.  Lizzie and Finn come to a little more proinence, as do Simon and Kieran and Amber, sibling of Myra, Duncan, and Finn.  Gwen, the bad "witch," ges stronger and stronger and viler and meaner.  HEA.  Book 3 to come will be good.  This romance was steamier than the first, could've done with a little less. I don't know how the narrator keeps all the different accents and tones of voice he uses separate, but he does a great job!

Goodreads synopsis:  Myra, a medieval virgin druidess, flees five hundred years into the future to escape death at the hands of a cursed witch and lands in the arms of a handsome but cynical twenty-first century cop. Officer Todd Blakely knows Myra is hiding something, but can't resist her innocent charms. Destiny throws them both into a world of intrigue and mysticism. Can Todd be the true white knight she needs? Or will magic and the winds of time tear them apart?

103. In Plain Sight by Linda Castillo

#10.5 Kate Burkholder, Ohio Amish Country Chief of Police
listened on my iPhone - own on Audible
narrated  by Kathleen McInerney
Unabridged audio (1:51)
2019 Minotaur Books
67 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery in a series - short story
Finished 10/22/19
Goodreads rating: 4.01 - 954 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: contemporary Painters Mill, Ohio

First line/s: "Darkness pressed down on him with an almost physical force."

My comments:
A straight-forward, simple-to-solve short story /novella set in familiar Kate Burkholder territory in Amish Country/Painters Mill, Ohio.  In this one it's nice to discover that the victim, for once, doesn't die, despite horrific injuries.  In this one, an Englisher high schooler and an Amish boy on rumspringa are dating.

Goodreads synopsis:  From Linda Castillo, the New York Times bestselling author of A Gathering of Secrets, comes a new Kate Burkholder short mystery, In Plain Sight: a story of star-crossed love and murder in Amish country.
          Seventeen year old Amish boy, Noah Kline, is struck by a car as he walks alongside a dark country road late one night in Painters Mill. Seriously injured, he lapses into a coma. Initially, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder believes it’s a straightforward hit and run, a driver that panicked and fled. But evidence soon emerges that the incident wasn’t accidental at all--and Kate uncovers a story of teenage passion and jealousy that may have led to attempted murder.

Picture Book - Time to Pray by Maha Addasi

Illustrated by Ned Gannon

2010, Boyds Mill Press, Honesdale, PA

HC $17/95

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  .10 - 122 ratings

My rating:  4.5

1^st line/s:  "In the darkness, green lights winked at me from the minaret of the nearby mosque.  I heard the voice of the muezzin calling, 'Come to pray, come to pray.'  It was my first night at Grandma's house."

My comments:  Young Yasmin goes to visit her grandmother in a Middle eastern country (doesn't say which one). It looks like she goes all by herself!   Impressive....  She hears the call to prayer five times a day, and her grandmother teaches her all about the different prayers and rituals surrounding them, makes her a "proper" outfit for praying, and takes her to the mosque.  Each double-page spread includes a page of English text and the Arabic translation.  When she returns home (to America, I'm guessing - or maybe Canada), she shares her new knowledge with her parents and feels continually connected to her grandmother when she looks at the miniature mosque that Teta sent home with her.  There's an explanation of the five praryer times at the end of the book.  The illustrations are gorgeous - no white at all.  One of our  visiting Muslim families, when returning the book, told me they've taken this book out several times for their 4 and 6-year-old kids and really enjoy it.

Goodreads:  Yasmin is visiting her grandmother, who lives in a country somewhere in the Middle East. On her first night, she's wakened by the muezzin at the nearby mosque calling the faithful to prayer, and Yasmin watches from her bed as her grandmother prepares to pray. A visit with Grandmother is always special, but this time it is even more so. Her grandmother makes Yasmin prayer clothes, buys her a prayer rug, and teaches her the five prayers that Muslims perform over the course of a day. When it's time for Yasmin to board a plane and return home, her grandmother gives her a present that her granddaughter opens when she arrives: a prayer clock in the shape of a mosque, with an alarm that sounds like a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. Maha Addasi's warm and endearing story is richly illustrated by Ned Gannon. Features a text in English and Arabic, and includes an author's note and glossary.

PICTURE BOOK - Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman

Illustrated by  Rick Allen
2011 Newbery Honor
2010. Houghton Mifflin

HC $16.99
32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.97 - 1853 ratings

My rating:  4

Endpapers:  solid royal purple

Illustrations:  Woodprints?

My comments:  Sophisticated poetry about some of the creatures that creep in the woods at night, illustrated with lovely prints by Rick Allen.

Goodreads:

Welcome to the Night

To all of you who crawl and creep,
who buzz and chirp and hoot and peep,
who wake at dusk and throw off sleep;
Welcome to the night.

To you, who make the forest sing,
who dip and dodge on silent wing,
who flutter, hover, clasp, and cling:
Welcome to the night!

Come feel the cool and shadowed breeze,
come smell your way among the trees,
come touch rough bark and leathered leaves;
Welcome to the night.

The night's a sea of dappled dark,
the night's a feast of sound and spark,
the night's a wild, enchanted park.
Welcome to the night!

64. Fields of Corn by Sarah Price

An Amish Christian Romance (believe it or not!!)
read on my iPhone
2010 published
272 pgs.
CRF - I have read that Amish Fiction is now considered a genre on its own
Finished July 18, 2018
Goodreads rating: 4.25 - 641 ratings
My rating:  2.5
Setting:  contemporary Lancaster County, PA

First line/s:  "The horse, a brown Morgan with a thick black mane, trotted down Musser School Lane, effortlessly pulling the black, box-like buggy."

My comments:  There's a fascination and pull towards the simplicity of the Amish life that more-than intrigues me, especially as I know live near numerous Amish communities.  But my sprirtual beliefs and those of the Amish are so very different that it makes books like these particularly difficult to digest.  The last quarter of the book pulled my rating way down, very hard for me to take.  Or understand.

Goodreads synopsis:  Shana Slater doesn't realize that her life is about to change when she pulls into the Lapp farm in Leola, Pennsylvania, to inquire about renting a small apartment over a mule shed. Yet, the price is right and the rolling fields of corn present a peaceful place for her to retreat when she is not working in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
          Her curiosity about the Amish way of life is piqued when she befriends Emanuel Lapp, the son of her landlord. As she learns about the Amish through his eyes, she quickly realizes that the Amish way of life is more than just religion and a plain way of living. She also discovers that the more she learns, the more she is unexpectedly falling for much more than their plain and simple lifestyle. When two worlds collide, which will survive and at what cost?
          Based in part on the author's experience living on an Amish farm, Fields of Corn presents a sweet and authentic love story.

41. Crime on the Fens by Joy Ellis

DI Nikki Galena #1
listened on Audible
2010 Joffe Books
285 pgs.
Adult Mystery - Police Procedural
Finished 5/1/18
Goodreads rating:  4.19 - 3407 ratings
My rating:  3.5
Setting: Contemporary Lincolnshire, England

First line/s:  "A night wind blew along the alleyway, bringing with it the smell of ozone and red diesel. Nikki Galena leaned back against the rough brickwork of the derelict warehouse and wondered how many other women of thirty-six would feel quite so comfortable in such unpleasant surroundings."

My comments:  Read with a thick lilt and including a few references I was unsure of, (the cabra?  Cabra?  since I read it I didn't know if it was a proper noun place or an improper noun place) I enjoyed this mystery (not loved, but liked). Perhaps not the most exciting or surprising that I've ever read, but entertaining nonetheless, more in the characterizations than anything else.

Goodreads synopsis: 
THE DETECTIVE DI Nikki Galena: A police detective with nothing left to lose, she’s seen a girl die in her arms, and her daughter will never leave the hospital again. She’s got tough on the criminals she believes did this to her. Too tough. And now she’s been given one final warning: make it work with her new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she’s out. 
HER PARTNER DS Joseph Easter is the handsome squeaky-clean new member of the team. But his nickname “Holy Joe” belies his former life as a soldier. He has an estranged daughter who blames him for everything that went wrong with their family. 
THEIR ADVERSARY is a ruthless man who holds DI Galena responsible for his terrible disfigurement. 
The town is being terrorised by gangs of violent thugs, all wearing identical hideous masks. Then a talented young female student goes missing on the marsh and Nikki and Joseph find themselves joining forces with a master criminal in their efforts to save her. They need to look behind the masks, but when they do, they find something more sinister and deadly than they ever expected . . . 
THE SETTING
The Lincolnshire Fens: great open skies brood over marshes, farmland, and nature reserves. It is not easy terrain for the Fenland Constabulary to police, due to the distances between some of the remote Fen villages, the dangerous and often misty lanes, and the poor telephone coverage. There are still villages where the oldest residents have never set foot outside their own farmland and a visit to the nearest town is a major event. But it has a strange airy beauty to it, and above it all are the biggest skies you’ve ever seen.

PICTURE BOOK - The Girl With a Brave Heart: A Tale from Tehran by Rita Johanforuz

Illustrated by Vali Mintzi

2010, Barefoot Books, Cambridge, MA

avail in HC and paper - and at Bosler

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.37 - 112 ratings

My rating: 3

Endpapers- a solid muddy brown

1^st line/s: "On a quiet street in the city of Tehran lived a little girl called Shiraz."

My comments:  Another Cinderella Story - this time from Iran.  Shiraz lives in Tehran and loses a ball of yarn in a very strange woman's garden.  I would have loved a little more cultural "stuff" from Iran, but some of the illustrations give hints about this.  The title seems a little misleading, too, since they never talk - at all - about Shiraz being brave, only being loving and kind.  Excellent for comparing and contrasting several different Cinderella stories.

Goodreads:  After showing kindness to a strange old woman, Shiraz receives the gift of beauty but her lazy and unkind stepsister, Nargues, suffers a less pleasant fate in this adaptation of the Grimm's fairy tale, Mother Hulda, reset in Tehran, Iran.

7. The Gray and Guilty Sea by Jack Nolte - now using his real name, Scott William Carter

Garrison Gage #1
Listened on Audible
Audio read by Steven Roy Grimsley
2010 Flying Raven Press
268 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 2-13-17 while unpacking my house
Goodreads rating: 3.82 (3087 ratings)
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Oregon coast - small town tourist community

My comments:  This book was a nice discovery.  It had a really interesting external mystery as well as the protagonist's internal turmoils about his past, present, disabilities, and relationship hangups.  Garrison Gage has a curmudgeonly wit and a really good detective's way of looking at evidence and coming up with numerous possibilities.  I also really enjoyed the writing - there were super descriptions without being tedious; similes and metaphors that made me smile; and some really beautiful language.  I look forward to the next in the series, not only to see if and how his previously-retired private investigations will continue, but what he's going to do about the burgeoning relationships that have been forged in this book.

Goodreads synopsis:  A curmudgeon. An iconoclast. A loner. That's how people describe Garrison Gage, and that's when they're being charitable. After his wife is brutally murdered in New York, and Gage himself is beaten nearly to death, the crippled misanthrope retreats three thousand miles to the quaint coastal town of Barnacle Bluffs, Oregon. He spends the next five years in a convalescent stupor, content to bide his time filling out crossword puzzles and trying to forget that his wife's death is his fault. But all that changes when he discovers the body of a young woman washed up on the beach, and his conscience draws him back into his old occupation, forcing him to confront the demons of his own guilt before he can hope to solve the girl's murder.

63. Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood

read on my Kindle
2010 Australia, 2015 USA
304 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished 11/9/16 (read in one day)
Goodreads rating: 3.77 - 2898 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting: Contemporary suburban Sydney, Australia

First line/s:  "There's this girl I know.
I know her by heart.  I know her in every way but one: actuality.\
Her name is Estelle.  I yearn for her."

My comments:  Loved this book!  A believable 15-year old male protagonist with wit, humor, hormones, flaws, and gumption....I was entranced! Tickled with every character, an extremely believable plot, and a setting in Australia, I didn't want this to end.  I laughed aloud...actually guffawed...in four different places.  I've known so many young men like this, and I'm really glad to see a ya novel written from the male perspective!

Goodreads synopsis:
In this charming story of one guy's efforts to get it together when his life is falling apart, award-winning author Fiona Wood introduces an irresistible voice and a delightfully awkward character who is impossible to forget.
1. Kiss Estelle.
2. Get a job.
3. Cheer my mother up.
4. Try not to be a complete nerd/loser.
5. Talk to my father when he calls.
6. Figure out how to be good.
          Nerd-boy Dan Cereill is not quite coping with a reversal of family fortune, moving, new-school hell, a mother with a failing wedding cake business, a just-out gay dad, and an impossible crush on Estelle, the girl next door. His life is a mess, but for now he's narrowed it down to six impossible things…
          In this charming story of one guy’s efforts to get it together when his life is falling apart, award-winning author Fiona Wood introduces an irresistible voice and a delightfully awkward character who is impossible to forget.

31. Blood Oath - Christopher Farnsworth

#1 Nathaniel Cade, President's Vampire
listened to in the car from Tucson 'cross country May 27& 28, 2016
2010 Putnam Adult
390 pgs.
Adult Fantasy/Mystery
Goodreads rating: 3.92
My rating: 4
Setting: mostly Washington, DC

My comments:  This was pleasantly different than the books I've been reading/listening to lately.  Differing points-of-view, which I always seem to enjoy.  A good mystery.  Humor.  But, throw in a vampire, national security, and the POTUS and what do you get?  Blood Oath!  Zach Barrows, the vampire's "human handler" is a riot!  Cocky, sarcastic, and quick-witted.  Flashbacks to 1867 when Nathaniel "became" a vampire give details that make Cade more believable and real.  I will read the next in the series.

:Goodreads synopsis:  Zach Barrows is an ambitious young White House staffer whose career takes an unexpected turn when he's partnered with Nathaniel Cade, a secret agent sworn to protect the President. But Cade is no ordinary civil servant. Bound by a special blood oath, he is a vampire. Cade battles nightmares before they can break into the daylight world of the American dream, enemies far stranger-and far more dangerous-than civilians have ever imagined.
Blood Oath is the first in a series of novels featuring Nathaniel Cade-the President's vampire. 

29. Worth Dying For - Lee Child

Jack Reacher #15
Listened to audio cd in the car
2010 Delacorte
400 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 5/19/16
Goodreads rating: 4.20
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary rural Nebraska

First line/s:  "Eldridge Tyler was driving a long, straight two-lane road in Nebraska when his cell phone rang."

My comments:  Jack Reacher was a little disconcerting in this entry, at least until the very end.  He seemed particularly ruthless and ...blood-thirsty... in this one, much more than usual.  But a tiny bit more is revealed just before the very end of the book that made my "thumbs up, Reacher" attitude return.  Reacher is his usual foot-loose and fancy-free self in this one, making quick friends and enemies in an isolated small town in Nebraska where one family rules without question.  And they aren't a nice family.  Of course Reacher discovers what everyone is hiding, how to outsmart one heck-of-a-lot of hoodlums, and end up on the winning side...something you never doubt for a moment.  As always, an enjoyable audible treat on my drive back and forth from work.

Goodreads synopsis:  There’s deadly trouble in the corn county of Nebraska . . . and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it’s the unsolved, decades-old case of a missing child that Reacher can’t let go.
 
The Duncans want Reacher gone—and it’s not just past secrets they’re trying to hide. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they’re just the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world. For Reacher, it would have made much more sense to put some distance between himself and the hard-core trouble that’s bearing down on him. For Reacher, that was also impossible.

10. The Map of True Places - Brunonia Barry

(read the actual hard cover book!)
2010, William Morrow & Co.
402 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 2/13/16
Goodreads rating:  3.64
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Salem, Mass.

First line/s:  "In the years when her middle name was Trouble, Zee had a habit of stealing boats.  Her father never suspected her of any wrong-doing.  He let her run free in those early days after her mother's death.  He was busy being a pirate reenactor, an odd leap for a man who'd been a literary scholar all his life."

My comments:  This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long time - purchased because I'd read The Lace Reader, the first book Barry'd written.  The intricate, weaving plotline goes from story to story of the major players - always rejoining the protagonist, Zee Finch.  The setting, Salem, Massachusetts; Boston; Marblehead - encompassing both the maritime history of Salem as well as the witchy history - were familiar and memory-inducing.  However, there was a darkness to this book that was quite depressing, with elements of great discomfort for me.  Zee is now caring for her dad, who is quickly succumbing to Parkinson's as it crosses over to Alzheimer's.  Now a psychologist, she deals with bipolar patients - and we quickly realize that her own mother's suicide was induced by her own bipolar disorder.  There are lots of secrets that keep coming to the surface, some perhaps a bit too coincidental, but they worked for me.  I think if I had realized there was so much depression and sadness in the book - especially  Parkinson's - I might have never read it.  I'm glad I did...but it's going to take me awhile to get over it!

Goodreads synopsis:  Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats—a talent that earned her the nickname Trouble. She's now a respected psychotherapist working with the world-famous Dr. Liz Mattei. She's also about to marry one of Boston's most eligible bachelors. But the suicide of Zee's patient Lilly Braedon throws Zee into emotional chaos and takes her back to places she thought she'd left behind.     
          What starts as a brief visit home to Salem after Lilly's funeral becomes the beginning of a larger journey for Zee. Her father, Finch, long ago diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, has been hiding how sick he really is. His longtime companion, Melville, has moved out, and it now falls to Zee to help her father through this difficult time. Their relationship, marked by half-truths and the untimely death of her mother, is strained and awkward.
          Overwhelmed by her new role, and uncertain about her future, Zee destroys the existing map of her life and begins a new journey, one that will take her not only into her future but into her past as well. Like the sailors of old Salem who navigated by looking at the stars, Zee has to learn to find her way through uncharted waters to the place she will ultimately call home.

6. The Janus Stone - Elly Griffiths

#2 Ruth Galloway
2010 Quercus Pub
read on my iPhone
327 pgs.
Adult murder Mystery - archaeological forensic pathologist
Finished Feb. 8, 2016
Goodreads rating: 3.90
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Norwich, England

First line/s:  "A light breeze runs through the long grass at the top of the hill.  Close up the land looks ordinary, just heather and coarse pasture with the occasional white stone standing out like a signpost."  

My comments:  I enjoyed this second-in-the-series book very much.  It did follow a similar plotline to the first, and I will definitely read a third to see if it strays or sticks to the same sort of plot.  I like Ruth Galloway.  I haven't been to many places outside of the US, but I have been to Norwich (nowhere near the salt marshes, though) so I can somewhat picture that part of the setting.  I look forward to seeing what the relationship between Ruth and Nelson will be like once the baby's born.....

A Goodreads review (liked it better than the Goodreads synopsis):  This is the second in the Ruth Galloway series and I liked it very much. Ruth is a forensic archaeologist in Norfolk, England. Ruth is around 40, chubby, and very good at what she does. She is also pregnant from a one night stand. Her parents, staunch Christians, are horrified.
          Ruth lives in an isolated salt marsh and just outside her front door are archaeology sites. I am fascinated by this. The newest find is a Roman village and a new professional digging it out, Max Grey. There is a spark between them.
          A child's skeleton is found at a redevelopment project and Ruth is called in as an expert to determine how old the bones on. Harry Nelson, police detective, is brought into contact with her as is Cathbad, a druid. The spectacle of Cathbad running around in a purple robe brings a smile to my face.
          This is a great series. Ruth is a competent woman who knows her own mind. She's not drop dead gorgeous yet she attracts a few great men. Maybe intelligence is not such a bad thing. I can't wait to read the next one.

70. Deception - Jonathan Kellerman

Alex Delaware #25
audio read John Rubenstein
cd back & forth from school and back & forth from Reagan Airport....
2010 Ballantine
338 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 12/27/15
Goodreads rating: 3.95
My rating: 3.5?  It held my interest...
Setting: Contemporary LA
First line/s:  "The woman had haunted eyes."

My comments:  These Kellerman mysteries keep me involved and thinking, though I appreciate the detective, Milo Sturgis, much more than Alex Delaware, the supposed protagonist, who only seems to be along for the ride.

Goodreads Summary:  Her name is Elise Freeman, and her chilling cry for help comes too late to save her. On a DVD found near her lifeless body, the emotionally and physically battered woman chronicles a long ordeal of abuse at the hands of three sadistic tormentors. But even more shocking is the revelation that the offenders, like their victim, are teachers at one of L.A.’s most prestigious prep schools. Homicide detective Milo Sturgis is assigned to probe the hallowed halls of Windsor Prep Academy, and if ever he could use Dr. Alex Delaware’s psychological prowess, it’s now. As the scandal-conscious elite close ranks around Windsor Prep, Alex and Milo push to expose the dirty secrets festering among society’s manor-born. But while searching for predators among the privileged, Alex and Milo may be walking into a highly polished death trap.

39. Down to the Wire - David Rosenfelt

listened in the car
2010
294 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 6-5-15
Goodreads rating: 3.74
My rating: 3.5
Setting:  contemporary New Jersey

First line/s: "If you're a corpse, you should get your name in the paper."

My comments:  A pretty decent story, the surprises weren't totally surprising but the whole plot kept you guessing...right, wrong, right wrong.....and I actually think the protagonist, Chris Turley was a little naive.  But it worked great for passing the time back and forth to school when I couldn't wait for school to get out.  Yes, I'd read another by this author.

Goodreads synopsis: A reporter for the Bergen News, Chris Turley could never measure up to his father. Edward Turley, a combination of Bob Woodward and Ernie Pyle, was one of the last great investigative reporters and a difficult man to impress. While stuck covering press conferences and town hall meetings, Chris, his father’s legend in mind, has always dreamed of his own Pulitzer, however unlikely it seems.
          Then one day while he’s waiting to meet a source, a giant explosion takes out half of an office building next door. Shocked into action, Chris saves five people from the burning building. His firsthand account in the next day’s paper makes him a hero and a celebrity.
          And that’s not all. The source’s next tip delivers a second headline-grabber of a story for Chris, and suddenly his career is looking a lot more like his dad’s. But then it seems this anonymous source has had a plan for Chris all along, and his luck for being in the right place at the right time is not a coincidence at all. What seemed like a reporter’s dream quickly becomes an inescapable nightmare.
          Down to the Wire, David Rosenfelt’s shocking new thriller about an ordinary man who gets exactly what he’s always wanted at a price he can never pay, is an intense thrill ride that will have readers racing through the pages right up to the end.

15. The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths

#1 Ruth Galloway, Norfolk (England) forensic archeologist

Audio read by Jane McDowell

8 unabridged cds (8:27)
2009 AudioGO

2010 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

320 pgs.

Adult murder mystery with archaeological overtones

Finished 2/14/2015

Goodreads rating: 3.85

My rating:    4 - Loved it

TPPL

Setting: Contemporary Norfolk, England

1st sentence/s:  "They wait for the tide and set out at first light.   It has rained all night and in the morning the ground is seething gently, a mist rising up to join the overhanging clouds."

My comments:  I'm quite excited to have found a new mystery series, and it seems to have pulled me right in! Ruth Galloway, in her late thirties, short and overweight (12 1/2 stone, but I'm not at all sure how much that is) lives by herself with her cats in a small cottage in the salt marshes near Norfolk, England.  I can't quite picture this salt marsh, where people who are walking along can get swallowed up and die/drown, or easily get pulled out to sea.  I really want to see this place!  I think I've actually been quite close, taking the train from Cambridge to Norwich a few years ago - while looking for Norfolk on a map of Britain, it seemed quite close.  Ruth's relationship with Inspector Harry Nelson was really interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it's going to develop in later books.  Their working relationship and respect for each other is strong, but the personal relationship that's begun certainly has some far-reaching possibilities. Although resolution of the mystery was, indeed, pretty easy to figure out, I'm expecting some good things from books-to-come in this series.  This was just setting them up!

Goodreads book summary:  When she’s not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in a remote area called Saltmarsh near Norfolk, land that was sacred to its Iron Age inhabitants - not quite earth, not quite sea.
      When a child’s bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help. Nelson thinks he has found the remains of Lucy Downey, a little girl who went missing ten years ago. Since her disappearance he has been receiving bizarre letters about her, letters with references to ritual and sacrifice.
      The bones actually turn out to be two thousand years old, but Ruth is soon drawn into the Lucy Downey case and into the mind of the letter writer, who seems to have both archaeological knowledge and eerie psychic powers. Then another child goes missing and the hunt is on to find her. 
      As the letter writer moves closer and the windswept Norfolk landscape exerts its power, Ruth finds herself in completely new territory – and in serious danger.
     THE CROSSING PLACES marks the beginning of a captivating new crime series featuring an irresistible heroine.

77. Snow Angels - James Thompson

#1 Kari Vaara, Finnish (Lapland) chief police inspector

Read on my iPhone

2010, G. P. Putnam

264 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 12/20/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.70

My rating:   4.5 Top-notch

Contemporary Finland

1st sentence/s:  "I'm in Hullu Poro, the Crazy Reindeer, the biggest bar and restaurant in this part of the Arctic Circle.  It was remodeled nolong ago, but pine boards line the walls and ceiling, like an old Finnish farmhouse.  Nouveau rustic decor."

My comments:  I've always been fascinated with the "idea" of Lapland - the Scandinavian winter (not the cold, harsh, DARK realities, but the pristine white ones), and complimentary artistry of Jan Brett.  This story takes us into the Arctic Circle at the very darkest time of year and gives it all the twist of a brutal murder from the point-of-view of the cop that has to solve it.  The twists and turns in the story are believable and were well appreciated. Believable characters, particularly the protagonists.  Kari Vaara's wife, Kate, an American expat who happens to be pregnant, is beginning to feel the depression of the 24-hours nights, which adds to the tension of the crime-solving. Searching for more information on American James Thompson in anticipation of more in the series, I discovered that he died suddenly a few months ago. Bummer.

Goodreads book summary:  Kaamos: Just before Christmas, the darkest time of the year in Lapland, above the Arctic Circle. The unrelenting darkness and extreme cold cause everyone to go just a little bit insane, whether or not they’ve just killed someone… 
          A beautiful Somalian refugee-turned-actress is found murdered on a reindeer farm, gruesomely mutilated, a racial slur carved into her chest. Inspector Kari Vaara, head of the rural police force, is under great pressure not only to solve this crime himself, without the help of the big-city cops from Helsinki, but also to keep the potentially explosive case out of the news. Sufia Elmi had become a tabloid fixture, and her death—not to mention the awful way she met it—is sure to send shock waves across this insular, secretly racist country. Was this murder a hate crime, a sex crime—or both?
          Kari is dealing with culture shock at home, too. His wife, Kate, is a young American woman, newly pregnant with their first child. She doesn’t understand much about Finnish customs or the Finns themselves and is struggling to come to terms with her new home. Kari himself is haunted by his rough childhood and his past, and even as he tries to shape a new life with Kate, the past keeps biting at his heels: the rich man his ex-wife left him for years ago may be Sufia’s killer. 

74. Chill of the Night - James Hayman

#2 McCabe & Savage, Portland, Maine

2010 Minotaur Books

340 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 12/9/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.85

My rating: 4

TPPL

Setting: Contemporary Portland, Maine

1st line/s:  Portland, Maine/ Friday, December 23:  "Had Number Ten Monument Square been set among the skyscrapers of New York, or even Boston, no one would have noticed it.  In a town like Portland it stood as one of the defining features of the skyline.  Twelve stories of reddish brown granite with black windows set between vertical piers, Number Ten towered arrogantly over the east side of the square, a big player in a small town.  At its top, large white letters proclaimed to anyone who cared to look that the building was the headquarters of Palmer Milliken, the city's largest and most prestigious law firm."

My comments:  I think I liked this one better than the first!  The major part of the setting is Portland, Maine; this time it forayed off onto an island just five minutes by ferry from the Portland dock.  This one had to do with the murder of a gorgeous, young lawyer, and included a schizophrenic 20-something, and a sanctuary for teenagers that have been sexually abused.  I particularly like that the lives of the police officers - mainly Mike McCabe and Maggie Savage (ah...a good Maine name.....) are so nicely intertwined with the story, their foibles, their insecurities, their characters.  Good mystery.  Very good.  I'm looking forward to more.

Goodreads book summary:  Glamorous young Portland attorney Lainie Goff thought she had it all—brains, beauty, and a fast-track to a partnership in a top-ranked firm that was going to make her rich. But then one cold winter night she pushed things too far, and her naked frozen body is found in the sub-zero temperatures at the end of the Portland Fish Pier.
          The only witness to the crime: a mentally disturbed young woman named Abby Quinn who mysteriously disappears the very same night.
          With the discovery of Lainie Goff ’s body and the disappearance of Abby Quinn, Portland homicide detective Michael McCabe finds himself on the trail of a relentless and clever killer. A killer he must find before another life is lost.