16. Fragile Designs by Colleen Coble

listened on Audible
352 pgs.
2024
adult murder mystery 

Finished 2/27/24
Goodreads rating: 4.24
My rating: 2
Setting: Contemporary Beaufort & Savannah, Georgia

My comments: I'm afraid there were more things I disliked about the story than liked.  Very little that happened was believable.  The series of events and their numerous characters were even less believable.  The outcome was ridiculous.  Over-the-top mean, jealous sisters who instantly change their tune after many years.  And at the HEA, the baby that was adopted three years previously - a huge part of the plotline -  was not even in the picture! Absolutely no mention.  And the 70-year-old reunited twins discovered their birth mother was still alive and kicking.  On top of all that, add a whole lot of praying and I can't believe I even finished this story. So much eye-rolling during this listen.      I DID like the setting.

Goodreads synopsis:   NOTE:  This synopsis says the neighbor/co-protagonists' name is SIMON.  It's Not!  If I remember right it's Lucas.... Family secrets can be the most dangerous of all. When Carly Tucker’s police-officer husband is killed during a home break-in, she knows that her side hustle finding the antique treasures at flea markets isn’t enough to support her and their infant son, Noah. So her grandmother’s proposal to have her and her two sisters restore the family’s waterfront Beaufort home into a bed-and-breakfast--that Carly will run--is immediately intriguing. But it’s equally daunting with the animosity that exists between the three sisters. What Carly never expected as she begins to go through the attic was to find a letter in a trunk, written in her husband’s handwriting . . . dated two days before his death. Eric had discovered that Carly’s grandmother was adopted--a fact Carly is certain Gram is not aware of--and had already begun trying to track down her birth family. Is it possible that Eric’s death wasn’t random after all? With few options, Carly reaches out to Gram’s neighbor Simon—and the older brother of her high school sweetheart--who is a local homicide detective. One of the items in the trunk is an enameled egg. If it truly is a Faberge egg, the value could set Carly up for life . . . and would certainly be worth killing for. The journey to find the truth and protect her family will have Carly delving deep into the lost treasures of Eastern Europe--if she and Simon can survive that long.

17. Found Object by Anne Frasier

listened on Audible

2022
201 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 2/17/2023
Goodreads rating: 4.14
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Savannah

My comments: I really like everything I've read by this author.  An investigative reporter, after going undercover to catch an art forger (who she falls in love with) feels that his death is her fault.  She heads to Savannah , where she grew up, and keeps seeing and reliving her famous mother's horrendous murder.  The entire plot keeps you guessing and thinking and totally entertained me on my almost-5 hour flight to Vegas.

Goodreads synopsis:  A journalist begins to question everything she knows about her mother’s murder in a startling novel of suspense by the New York Times bestselling author of The Body Reader.

Culpable in an exposé gone tragically wrong, investigative journalist Jupiter Bellarose takes her boss’s advice: head back to her hometown for a fluff piece and get her world in balance. But in Savannah, the past is waiting.

Twenty years ago Jupiter’s mother, actress and celebrated beauty Marie Nova, was murdered, leaving many in her wake: Jupiter’s father, who has erased memories of his wife’s murder with alcohol. The matriarch of the cosmetics company who helped make Marie a star—and who takes every opportunity to reopen old wounds. Then there’s the fragile cop with blood on his hands, and the killer whose confession no longer seems convincing.

With so many lingering questions, Jupiter must revisit the grisly event that has influenced every decision in her life. Maybe her homecoming will bring closure.

Or maybe the worst is yet to come.

71. Stay Dead by Anne Frasier

#2 Elise Sandberg, Savannah homicide detective
listened on Audible
20014 Thomas & Mercer
310 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 7/31/2018
Goodreads rating:  4.13 - 4910 ratings
My rating:  4.5
Setting: contemporary Savannah, GA

First line/s:  "The voice on the phone was hesitant."

My comments:  I loved the unusual way this book came together...Elise surviving a harrowing kidnapping, but we don't know of any of the details of the case or the crime.  They emerge slowly, intertwined with present happenings.  Very cool, and a good way to present the story.  I love these characters - all of them, even the bad guys!  The Savannah setting, the Gullah culture, the wonderfully written characters, and the touch of will-the-or-won't-they combine to make this a terrific read!

Goodreads synopsis:  New York Times bestselling author Anne Frasier takes readers back to her dark, enchanting Savannah—a place as terrifying as it is mesmerizing.     
          Homicide detective Elise Sandburg is traumatized after her run-in with a madman the press has dubbed “The Organ Thief." As Elise takes refuge in her deceased aunt Anastasia’s abandoned plantation to investigate and recover from her ordeal, she begins to question everything—from her dangerous line of work to her complex relationship with her handsome, tortured partner, David Gould. But with a madman on the loose, and her mother’s claims to still hear from aunt Anastasia, she may have more immediate problems on her hands. In Elise’s world, where cold hard crime mixes with the local Gullah culture, nothing is ever what it seems, and no one is above suspicion—not even the dead.

42. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

read the book AND listened to on Audible...I really tried...
1994
386 pgs.
Adult Nonfiction
Stopped reading in May 8, 2018 after watching the movie and listening AND reading over 200 pages.
Goodreads rating:  3.91 - 186,079 ratings
My rating: 2.5/3ish
Setting: 1990s Savannah, GA

First line/s:  "He was tall, about fifty, with darkly handsome, almost sinister features: a neatly trimmed mustache, hair turning silver at the temples, and eyes so black they were like the tinted windows of a sleek limousine -- he could see out, but you couldn't see in."

My comments:   When this book first came out, everyone raved about it so, even though I have an aversion to nonfiction, I tried it.  I didn't get very far.  Las month, in anticipation of a trip to Savannah, I decided to try it again.  This time I listened to it, and I wonder if perhaps I wouldn't liked it better if I had read it.  I just didn't care for it.  I rented the movie on Amazon shortly before I left...although lots different from the book, I liked it better.

Goodreads synopsis: A sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city has become a modern classic.
          Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
          It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.