92. The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

listened to audible borrowed from Bosler Library
narrated by Brittany Pressley and Kirsten Potter
Unabridged audio (11:00) though my "timer" said 12:19 at the end of listening
2020 Berkley and
327 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 6/6/2020
Goodreads rating:  4.10 - 25,405 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: 1982 & 2017 Fell, NY

First line/s:  "The night it all ended, Vivian was alone."

My comments:n  A ghost story.  A real, believable ghost story - and I don't believe in ghosts.  A serial killer.  Two 20-year-old protagonists, 35 years apart. 1982 and 2017.  Aunt and niece, both following the same clues and encountering the same ghosts.  A good story.

Goodreads synopsis:  The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.
          Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn't right at the Sun Down, and before long she's determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden…

34. Heartwood Box by Ann Aguire

read the book, borrowed from Bosler Library
2019, Tor Teen
336 pgs.
YA Fantasy/SciFi
Finished 2/20/20
Goodreads rating:
My rating: 3.5/almost 4
Setting: Contemporary small town on Long Island, New York

First line/s:  "This is where hope goes to die."

My comments:  I really love the first half of the book, but then it started getting a little too weird.  Well, the first half was pretty weird, but interesting and believable in a fantastic way.  The second part weirdness was in that a group of highschoolers would do, act, and be believed in the way they were.  Oh well, I enjoyed it and it was great to pick up a real actual page and ink book for the first time in months.  I must try some more books by this author.  Very enjoyable (it was sort of "Stranger Things" in print....)

Goodreads synopsis:  A dark, romantic YA suspense novel with an SF edge and plenty of drama, layering the secrets we keep and how appearances can deceive, from the New York Times bestselling author.
          In this tiny, terrifying town, the lost are never found. When Araceli Flores Harper is sent to live with her great-aunt Ottilie in her ramshackle Victorian home, the plan is simple. She'll buckle down and get ready for college. Life won't be exciting, but she'll cope, right?
          Wrong. From the start, things are very, very wrong. Her great-aunt still leaves food for the husband who went missing twenty years ago, and local businesses are plastered with MISSING posters. There are unexplained lights in the woods and a mysterious lab just beyond the city limits that the locals don't talk about. Ever. When she starts receiving mysterious letters that seem to be coming from the past, she suspects someone of pranking her or trying to drive her out of her mind. To solve these riddles and bring the lost home again, Araceli must delve into a truly diabolical conspiracy, but some secrets fight to stay buried... 

Picture Book - River by Elisha Cooper

Illustrated by the author

2019, Orchard Books

HC $18.99

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.97 - 173 ratiugs

My rating:  Hmmmm.....4?
Endpapers:Map of the northeast, largely including the Hudson River

1^st line/s:  "Morning, a mountain lake.  A traveler, a canoe.  As she paddles out into the bluster middle of the lake, she turns for a last wave to the shore behind her.  Her journey begins.

My comments: A woman, alone paddles a canoe the entire 315-mile length of the Hudson River in New York, detailing many of her adventures, sightings, and trials.  It's a very interesting read for this adult, but I'm not sure how much it will hold a child's attention.  Definitely suited for a third or fourth (or even higher) geography/river study.

Goodreads: Caldecott Honor winner Elisha Cooper invites readers to grab their oars and board a canoe down a river exploration filled with adventure and beauty.

In Cooper's flowing prose and stunning watercolor scenes, readers can follow a traveler's trek down the Hudson River as she and her canoe explore the wildlife, flora and fauna, and urban landscape at the river's edge. Through perilous weather and river rushes, the canoe and her captain survive and maneuver their way down the river back home.
          River is an outstanding introduction to seeing the world through the eyes of a young explorer and a great picture book for the STEAM curriculum.
          Maps and information about the Hudson River and famous landmarks are included in the back of the book. 

12. Run You Down by Julia Dahl

#2 Rebekah Roberts
read on my iPhone
2015 Minotaur Books
287 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 1/26/19
Goodreads rating: 3.76 - 1344 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary NYC and Roseville, NY, just north of NYC

First line/s: "Florida was not what I imagined.  There was no ocean where your father lived, that was the first thing."

My comments: (I wonder why, of all the possible titles this could be given, they decided on this?)  I don't remember much of the nitty-gritty of what happened in Invisible City, but I remember I liked it a lot.  Therefore, I read this book almost as a standalone.  There were a number of things that bothered me, but they didn't bother me enough to lower my rating.  The close connection - and I do mean close - between reporter Rebekah and the people of her news story was soooo impossible, but I didn't care.  I didn't mind switching back-and-forth between Rebekah and the mother who had abandoned her 20 years before, other than in a couple of places that information was revealed by Aviva and I attributed that information to Rebekah having known those details, so that was a little confusing until I figured it out.  It was an interesting story, perhaps unbelievable in spots but for some reason I didn't care.  I really enjoyed it, and the peaks into the strict Orthodox Jewish community,

Goodreads synopsis:  Aviva Kagan was a just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida-and then disappeared. Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from is a NYC tabloid reporter named Rebekah Roberts. And Rebekah isn't sure she wants her mother back in her life.
          But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, N.Y. contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn back into Aviva's world. Pessie Goldin's body was found in her bathtub, and while her parents want to believe it was an accident, her husband is certain she was murdered.
          Once she starts poking around, Rebekah encounters a whole society of people who have wandered "off the path" of ultra-Orthodox Judaism-just like her mother. But some went with dark secrets, and rage at the insular community they left behind.
          In the sequel to her Edgar Award finalist Invisible City, Julia Dahl has created a taut mystery that is both a window into a secretive culture and an exploration of the demons we inherit.

PICTURE BOOK - Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers

Illustrated by Shawn Harris

2017, Chronicle Books, San Francisco
HC $19.99 (books are getting SO expensive!)

104 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.28 - 918 ratings

My rating:  5

Endpapers:  Cut paper of the fencing around the Statue (at least I think it's from somewhere on the island)

Illustrations:  All cut CONSTRUCTION paper, and India ink.

1^st line/s:"You have likely heard of a place called France."

My comments:  I've decided that I like everything about this book.  How the text is talking directly to the reader.  The illustrations, which are created out of cut construction paper.  The message....oh yes, the message. I'm so glad I discovered this book, since our library has not (yet) purchased it....

Goodreads:  "I want to hold this book in one hand and a torch in the other and stand on an island someplace so everyone can see." —Lemony Snicket
     If you had to name a statue, any statue, odds are good you'd mention the Statue of Liberty. Have you seen her?
     She's in New York. 
     She's holding a torch. 
     And she's in mid-stride, moving forward. 
     But why?
In this fascinating, fun take on nonfiction, Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris investigate a seemingly small trait of America's most emblematic statue. What they find is about more than history, more than art. What they find in the Statue of Liberty's right foot is the powerful message of acceptance that is essential to an entire country's creation. 

55. The Girl on the Bridge by James Hayman

# 5 McCabe & Savage, Portland, ME
listened to on Audible
2017, William Morrow
368 pgs.
Adult murder mystery
Finished 9/3/17
Goodreads rating: 4.12 - 732 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Portland, ME (with flashbacks to 2001 NY state)

First line/s:  "October 2001:  Winter comes early to northern New York state.  By the third Saturday in October nighttime temperatures on the Holden College campus in Willardville had dropped to well below freezing."

My comments:  Lots of talking and very little action in this one, more telling than showing.  The same story/s seem to be told over and over again, the book could've and should've been shorter.  No surprises - hints from the very beginning (chapter 2, I think).  This is the first one in the series that I've listened to, and although it was read well, the reader's voice was too old and gruff for the Michael McCabe I had in my head.  I didn't care for the way he did women's voices, either.  It's amazing how much this changed people's personalities in my mind (this is, after all, the 5th I've read in this series and feel like I've gotten to know the protagonists a bit...)  Note to self:  READ the next one, don't listen to it.  Also, the last four or so minutes of the book were fun.

Goodreads synopsis: From New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed McCabe and Savage series comes an electrifying new thriller of taut and twisted suspense.
          On a freezing December night, Hannah Reindel leaps to her death from an old railway bridge into the rushing waters of the river below. Yet the real cause of death was trauma suffered twelve years earlier when Hannah was plucked from a crowd of freshman girls at a college fraternity party, drugged, and then viciously assaulted by six members of the college football team.
          Those responsible have never faced or feared justice. Until now. A month after Hannah’s death, Joshua Thorne—former Holden College quarterback and now a Wall Street millionaire—is found murdered, his body bound to a bed and brutally mutilated.
          When a second attacker dies in mysterious circumstances, detectives Mike McCabe and Maggie Savage know they must find the killer before more of Hannah’s attackers are executed. But they soon realize, these murders may not be simple acts of revenge, but something far more sinister.
          The Girl on the Bridge is a compelling and harrowing tale of suspense that once read will not easily be forgotten. 

PICTURE BOOK - The Great Spruce by John Duvall

Illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon

2016, GP Putnams Sons

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.72 (122 ratings)

My rating:  4

Endpapers:  FRONT:  Pineforest green with sprills, bugs, owls, birds, and even a mouse and a snail scattered across the page.
BACK:  Same pine forest green with sprills, but with ornaments instead of fauna.  Clever!

Illustrations

My comments:  I have, in recent years, fretted quite a bit about the huge coniferous tree that has been cut each year to adorn Rockefeller Center at Christmastime.  This well-written book gives a grand message about ecology without being preachy.  Cleverly done, Mr. Duvall!  I loved the illustrations, they reminded me of some of the Golden Books I read as a child.  Not just for Christmas, but for the whole year through.

Goodreads:  Together with his grandpa, a young boy finds a way to save his favorite tree in this heartwarming Christmas tale
           Alec loves to climb trees—the little apple trees, the wide willow trees, even the tall locust trees. But his favorite is the great spruce, with its sturdy trunk and branches that stretch up to the sky. Alec’s grandpa planted it as a sapling years and years before Alec was born, and every Christmas, Alec and his grandpa decorate the tree together, weaving tinsel and lights through its branches, making it shine bright.
           But one day, a few curious men from the nearby city take notice of Alec’s glistening great spruce, and ask to take it away for their Christmas celebration. Though it’s a huge honor, Alec’s heartbroken at the idea of losing his friend. With great courage and creativity, Alec comes up with a plan to save his favorite tree in this joyful holiday tale.

45. Wolf Lake: a novel by John Verdon

#5 Dave Gurney, upstate New York detective
listened on Audible
2016, Counterpoint
375 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 8/22/16
Goodreads rating:  3.92 - 562 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting: Contemporary Adirondacks resort during a blizzard

First line/s:  "The porcupine's behavior was making no sense.  There was something deeply disturbing about its lack of logical purpose - disturbing at last to Dave Guerney."

My comments:  Number five in the Dave Guerney series did not disappoint, but I don't think any will affect me like the first, which I thought was absolutely brilliant. Intricate mystery solver, decorated ex-NY state police detective now-retired, takes on the mystery of why four people could commit suicide in the exact same manner after having the exact same frightening dream.  The cast of characters is not really large, so solving the mystery isn't hugely difficult if the reader's paying close attention.  Good story, I gobbled it up in two long sittings.  The reader (I listened to this one) was excellent. The setting is during a blizzard in the Adirondacks, which I'm happy to read about as long as I'm not enduring the actuality. A great part of this particular novel is about Gurney's wife, Madeline, who I've never really felt drawn to (I don't really understand their relationship at all, or her weird, silent attitude towards her husband and anything he does that she doesn't agree with).  However, she's drawn me in - a tiny bit more - in this story.  Now I have to wait another year for then next sequel!

Goodreads synopsis:  Could a nightmare be used as a murder weapon? That’s the provocative question confronting Gurney in the thrilling new installment in this series of international bestsellers. The former NYPD star homicide detective is called upon to solve a baffling puzzle: Four people who live in different parts of the country and who seem to have little in common, report having had the same dream—a terrifying nightmare involving a bloody dagger with a carved wolf’s head on the handle. All four are subsequently found with their wrists cut — apparent suicides — and the weapon used in each case was a wolf’s head dagger.
       Police zero in quickly on Richard Hammond, a controversial psychologist who conducts hypnotherapy sessions at a spooky old Adirondack inn called Wolf Lake Lodge. It seems that each of the victims had gone there to meet with Hammond shortly before turning up dead. 
       Troubled by odd holes in the official approach to the case, Gurney begins his own investigation — an action that puts him in the crosshairs of not only an icy murderer and the local police but the darkest corner of the federal government. As ruthless as the blizzard trapping him in the sinister eeriness of Wolf Lake, Gurney’s enemies set out to keep him from the truth at any cost — including an all-out assault on the sanity of his beloved wife Madeleine.
       With his emotional resources strained to the breaking point, Gurney must throw himself into a deadly battle of wits with the most frightening opponent he has ever faced.
       Wolf Lake is the page-turning new work by a writer hailed by the New York Times as “masterly” — and it furthers the adventures of Dave Gurney, a detective reviewers have compared to Sherlock Holmes.

55. Peter Pan Must Die - John Verdon

#4 David Gurney

2014 Crown Publishers

442 pgs.

Adult murder mystery

Finished 9/5/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.90

My rating:  4.5 Loved it

TPPL

Comtemporary upstate New York

  

1st sentence/s: (from prologue)  "There was a time when he dreamt of being the head of  a great nation.  A nuclear power."
(from Ch. 1) "In the rural Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, August was an unstable month, lurching back and forth between the bright glories of July and the gray squalls of the long winter to come."

My comments:  Ah, yes, another satisfying John Verdon mystery.  I love his intricate plotlines and the way you really do need to keep guessing the whole way.  I'm still unhappy with the relationship between Gurney and his wife, Madeleine.  It's not like any relationship I can relate to.....and I guess it's because I don't really like her.....at all!  I realized it's not a major part of the story, but it is a large minor part (ah, semantics!).  This creepy killer reminds me of some of the characters that M. E. Kerr has written about in her fabulous YA stories a few years back - not at all "normal" or "average" in appearance.  Which keeps me thinking about the evil in this guy - how much does odd appearance mold our personality?

Goodreads book summary: In John Verdon’s most sensationally twisty novel yet, ingenious puzzle solver Dave Gurney brings his analytical brilliance to a shocking murder that couldn’t have been committed the way the police say it was.
          The daunting task that confronts Gurney, once the NYPD’s top homicide cop: determining the guilt or innocence of a woman already convicted of shooting her charismatic politician husband -- who was felled by a rifle bullet to the brain while delivering the eulogy at his own mother’s funeral. 
          Peeling back the layers, Gurney quickly finds himself waging a dangerous battle of wits with a thoroughly corrupt investigator, a disturbingly cordial mob boss, a gorgeous young temptress, and a bizarre assassin whose child-like appearance has earned him the nickname Peter Pan.
          Startling twists and turns occur in rapid-fire sequence, and soon Gurney is locked inside one of the darkest cases of his career – one in which multiple murders are merely the deceptive surface under which rests a scaffolding of pure evil. Beneath the tangle of poisonous lies, Gurney discovers that the truth is more shocking than anyone had imagined.          And the identity of the villain at the mystery’s center turns out to be the biggest shock of all

23. Gingersnap - Patricia Reilly Giff

2013, Wendy Lamb Books, Random House

147 pgs.

Written for Middle grades

Finished 5/2/2014

Historical Fiction

Goodreads Rating: 3.37

My Rating: Liked it - with reservations (see below)

TPPL

Setting: 1944 Brooklyn, NY

1^st sentence/s:  "I'll be right there, Rob," I called.  Did my brother hear me?

My comments:  :This was a good story, but there were several weird additions and subtractions that keeps it only "good."  The protagonist, Jayna, has a ghost accompany her once in awhile throughout the story.  Why?  For me it was unbelievable and pointless.  And finding a long-lost grandparent or extremely close friend-of-the-family?  Even in the 1940's if there was a death in the family, survivors would be sought, contacted....  Then there was the useless, confusing-a-that-point prologue.  The finding-a-new-family and the setting of Brooklyn were wonderful and could have been more deeply explored.  Oh well.  On to the next....

Goodreads Summary:  It's 1944, W.W. II is raging. Jayna's big brother Rob is her only family. When Rob is called to duty on a destroyer, Jayna is left in their small town in upstate New York with their cranky landlady. But right before he leaves, Rob tells Jayna a secret: they may have a grandmother in Brooklyn. Rob found a little blue recipe book with her name and an address for a bakery. When Jayna learns that Rob is missing in action, she's devastated. Along with her turtle Theresa, the recipe book, and an encouraging, ghostly voice as her guide, Jayna sets out for Brooklyn in hopes of finding the family she so desperately needs.

45. The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards

2011, Viking

377 pgs.

Finished September 30, 2013 (much of it read on Southwest, traveling back and forth between PA and AZ)

Adult CRF

Goodreads Rating: 3.18

My Rating:  Liked it a lot (4) 

Acquired: TPPL

Setting: Contemporary upstate New York, with forays into 1911-1930ish  history of the same area

My comments:  The Lake of Dreams is the name of the (fake) town in upstate New York where this book takes place, somewhere in the area that contains Rochester and Seneca Falls.  I've been up there a number of times, it's beautiful country (in the summer) and I could picture this all in my mind, as the setting is a huge part of the story. Family history, family mysteries, unwinding stories, long-lost love and the growing-up-together kind of love, reminiscing about the past and making life-changing discoveries and decisions -- all are a part of this very interesting story.

Goodreads Review:  Lucy Jarrett is at a crossroads in her life, still haunted by her father's unresolved death a decade earlier. She returns to her hometown in Upstate New York, The Lake of Dreams, and, late one night, she cracks the lock of a window seat and discovers a collection of objects. They appear to be idle curiosities, but soon Lucy realizes that she has stumbled across a dark secret from her family's past, one that will radically change her—and the future of her family—forever.

8. Let the Devil Sleep - John Verdon

Dave Guerney #3
2012, Crown Publishers
Murder Mystery for Adults
Finished March 10, 2013
Goodreads Rating: 3.80
My rating:  4/ Liked it a lot
Acquired: TPPL
Setting: Upstate New York, end of winter/beginning of spring
First Sentence/s: "She had to be stopped.  Hints had not worked.  Subtle nudges had been ignored.  Firmer action was called for.  Something dramatic and unmistakable, accompanied  by a clear explanation."

My Comments:  It took me awhile to get through this, but I had a lot going on and very little time to read. Another good tale from a cracker-jack storyteller. I love the wonderful words he uses, very upper-end vocabulary, which might actually be off-putting to some readers. I actually had some insight to solving the crime (but not the WHO part) way earlier on than in his first two books, but the resolution was still very satisfying. Great author - hope he's fast at work on another Dave Guerney. I need more insight into the relationship Dave has with his wife, Madeline -- I can't quite get a handle on it...

There's one passage that I loved...Guerney is talking to his difficult sort-of-friend, a curmudgeon cop who helps him out once in awhile - begrudgingly.  

"Gurney though back to the request he'd made that morning.  'The first one being the history of Mr. Meese-Montague?'"     'Actually, Mr. Montague-Meese, but more about that anon.'     'Anon?'     'Yeah, anon.  It means "soon."  One of William Shakespeare's favortie words.  Whenever he meant "soon," he said "anon."  I'm expanding my vocabulary so I can speak with greater confidence to intellectual dicks like you.'"

And here's another that made me think...and exemplifies the kind of writing that you discover, once-in-awhile, in Verdon's writing:

     "How bland the morning felt --- in the way that mornings often felt bland, unthreatening, uncomplicated.  Each morning --- assuming that some minimal intervention of sleep had demarcated it from the day before --- created the illusion of a new beginning, a kind of freedom from the past.  Humans, it seemed, were truly diurnal creatures, not simply in the sense of being non-nocturnal but in the sense of being designed for living one day at a time --- one separated day at a time. Uninterrupted consciousness could tear a man to pieces.  No wonder the CIA used sleep deprivation as a torture.  A mere seventy-two hours of uninterrupted living --- seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking --- could make a man wish he were dead." 

Goodreads Review:  The most decorated homicide detective in NYPD history, Dave Gurney is still trying to adjust to his life of quasi-retirement in upstate New York when a young woman who is producing a documentary on a notorious murder spree seeks his counsel.  Soon after, Gurney begins feeling threatened: a razor-sharp hunting arrow lands in his yard, and he narrowly escapes serious injury in a booby-trapped basement.  As things grow more bizarre, he finds himself reexamining the case of The Good Shepherd, which ten years before involved a series of roadside shootings and a rage-against-the-rich manifesto.  The killings ceased, and a cult of analysis grew up around the case with a consensus opinion that no one would dream of challenging  -- no one, that is, but Dave Gurney.  

Mocked even by some who’d been his supporters in previous investigations, Dave realizes that the killer is too clever to ever be found.  The only gambit that may make sense is also the most dangerous – to make himself a target and get the killer to come to him.

To survive, Gurney must rely on three allies: his beloved wife Madeleine, impressively intuitive and a beacon of light in the gathering darkness; his de-facto investigative “partner” Jack Hardwick, always ready to spit in authority’s face but wily when it counts; and his son Kyle, who has come back into Gurney’s life with surprising force, love and loyalty

71. Fragile - Lisa Unger

Audio read by Nancy Linari
Books On Tape, 2010
10 unabridged cds
11 hrs. 35 min.
327 pages
Rating: 2

The last two disks were not needed. The book went on and on....and on. Yes, it was a mystery, but not the gritty type of mystery that I usually like, where clues mount up until they all fit together. This is not a cozy, but one of the more nicey-nice "thrillers." Sorry, it didn't seem too thrilling to me.

Set in small town The Hollow, New York, where everybody knows everybody and what they had for dinner, we meet the Cooper family: Jones and Maggie and their son, Ricky. We meet Maggie's mother, retired HS principal and a parade of interwoven characters that only a small town could dream up. Ricky's girlfriend Charlene disappears, and it brings back uncomfortable memories for most of the players - when a high school girl named Sarah was murdered 20 years previously. (Like what was kept under wraps for 20 years with this crowd would REALLY be kept under wraps....mmhmm) The blurbs made it sound really intriguing. But....it's ultra-predictable. It's told from different points-of-view and gets a little laborious. Perfect Maggie is the perfect wife, mother and psychologist. Son Ricky is the rebellious though super-smart son that will, of course, go to a major college without too much protesting, husband Jones is the super handsome dynamic cop who was the high school super star....and most of the other characters are damaged pretty much beyond repair or really, really good. There's supposedly redemption at the end, but everything becomes way too pat. Come on!

I've spent a couple of weeks listening to this as I drive back and forth to school. It was pretty endless, I've got to admit. Guess I've got to stick to police procedurals or private eye whodunnits when I look for my mysteries from now on. I'm sure there's a great audience for this book out there, but it's not the genre for me. I wonder how I should separate the mystery genre. Cozies (I know these aren't my cuppa tea), police procedurals, private eye whodunnits, and these mysteries that unfold without cops and private eyes. It's the private eye wodunnits that I really enjoy.