1. Crime of Privilege - Walter Walker

audio cd back & forth from school January 2016
audio read by Stephen Hoye
11 cds/14 hours
2013 Random House Audio
432 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 1/22/16
Goodreads rating: 3.30
My rating: 3/ definitely kept my attention, got tired of the protagonist
Setting: Cape Cod, Massaachusetts

First line/s: "Almost everyone had heard of the family mansion on Ocean Boulevard, but very few had been there."

My comments:  It did seem like there were some cumbersome/drawn-on-too-long places, but overall, this was a very good read.  I never really liked the protagonist especially (maybe it was the way he was read) and although there were no real surprises, I enjoyed listening to how the story unfolded.  I know the story was a parody of the Kennedy family (I know there were all sorts of scandals and secrets) but I hated to put them in the place of this Gregory family, for some reason.  I guess I really like the Kennedy family....

Goodreads synopsis: A murder on Cape Cod. A rape in Palm Beach. 
All they have in common is the presence of one of America's most beloved and influential families. But nobody is asking questions. Not the police. Not the prosecutors. And certainly not George Becket, a young lawyer toiling away in the basement of the Cape & Islands district attorney's office. George has always lived at the edge of power. He wasn't born to privilege, but he understands how it works and has benefitted from it in ways he doesn't like to admit. Now, an investigation brings him deep inside the world of the truly wealthy--and shows him what a perilous place it is. 
Years have passed since a young woman was found brutally slain at an exclusive Cape Cod golf club, and no one has ever been charged. Cornered by the victim's father, George can't explain why certain leads were never explored--leads that point in the direction of a single family--and he agrees to look into it.
What begins as a search through the highly stratified layers of Cape Cod society, soon has George racing from Idaho to Hawaii, Costa Rica to France to New York City. But everywhere he goes he discovers people like himself: people with more secrets than answers, people haunted by a decision years past to trade silence for protection from life's sharp edges. George finds his friends are not necessarily still friends and a spouse can be unfaithful in more ways than one. And despite threats at every turn, he is driven to reconstruct the victim's last hours while searching not only for a killer but for his own redemption. 

45. Summer of the Gypsy Moths - Sara Pennypacker

2012, Balzer + Bray/ Harper Collins
275 pages
for: Middle Grades (ages 9-12)
rating:  5

1st line/s:  "The earth spins at a thousand miles an hour.  Sometimes when I remember this, it's all I can do to stay upright --- the urge to flatten myself to the ground and clutch hold is that strong."
Setting:  Current day Cape Cod, at the Linger Longer Cottage Colony.
OSS:  11 year-old Stella and 12-year-old Angel, both foster children , secretly run the Linger Longer Cottage Colony when Stella's great-aunt dies and they bury her in the garden, pretending she's still around, so that they won't be sent back to the foster care system.

It's quite a premise, but written beautifully and believably.  The girls have no way to get to a grocery story, so they almost starve.  Little glimmers of help come in unexpected ways - people leaving food in the refrigerator and cupboards when they leave their rental, digging clams on the beach, using the great-aunt's credit card to order pizza delivery.  They have no problem cleaning the four cottages and dealing with the cottage's problems - Stella has been a Heloise and her Hints addict for years.  And George, the fisherman-owner of the cottages checks in every so often to mow the lawn and take care of any problems that the girls can't handle. Stella even figures out how to take care of the garden that her aunt Louise planted, including her much-loved blueberry bushes, saving them from the infestation of gypsy moths.

SPOILER:  Even the death of Louise is handled in a believable way, from what it looks like, what it smells like, and how they figured out what to do with her body. This is a delightful story.  It has somewhat of a "pat" ending, but it's totally believable, too.  (And thank goodness Stella's flighty, possibly bipolar does NOT have a miraculous recovery in order to be able to care for her child.)

This was a wonderful story, about how friendship grows and what the real meaning of "family" is.