Murder on the Red River, first in this series, fires on all cylinders, as a hard as nails crime fiction novel, as women’s fiction, as an historical novel, and as Native American fiction (although that part reads pretty damn real). It’s the ‘70s and Cash, a 19-year old Chippewa survivor of the foster care (what…
The newest, and yes (sob) final novel in Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen mystery series, this one set in an all-boys school, which has to be fun. Here are some thoughts on previous titles. Jane lives! And so does Byron in this tenth novel in the Jane Austen series by Stephanie Barron. On their way to…
Impossible to find someone who cares less about football than me, but I remembered how much I liked the first in this series (It Had to Be You), and then John Charles and Barbara Peters of The Poisoned Pen Bookstore both recommended this one to me so I succumbed to the hand sell. Not for…
A novel that is based on the life of a true-life midwife who lived and worked in post-Revolutionary War Maine. The author is well aware of Chekhov’s dictum that if there is a gun in the first act, it has to go off in the second. I had to go back and reread that earlier…
Gargantuan novel (almost 1000 pages) but don’t let that scare you. A young man has been seduced into a cult and his father hires Robin and Strike to get him out. Robin goes in undercover and Galbraith could give Jordan Peele lessons in how to creep us out. I think she’s nailed how hard it…
Great action adventure trilogy about an unspecified and unexplained Event that picks up present day Nantucket Island and US Coast Guard tall ship Eagle, who just happen to be cruising off shore at the time, and sets them down again in 1250 BC. Rameses II is on the throne of Egypt, Agamemnon is on the…
Fifteen years before nine experienced hikers went missing in a blizzard. Only six bodies were recovered immediately following the event, all in bizarre circumstances never explained. Some obviously died of exposure but what drove them from their tent into a storm in the first place? In the present day two more victims are discovered by…
Five people in present day Tokyo have come to crossroads in their lives and find their way to their local library, where reference librarian Sayuri Komachi felts objects while she listens to their stories and then creates a list of books for them to help them on their way, along with a felted object of…
So we can’t regret their triumph here in taking over the annual Christmas pageant, even if they all smoke cigars, even the girls. And not forgetting the ham. Merry Christmas, everyone!
First, a homily from The First National Bank of Dad by David Owen, lightly edited: Children who are read to regularly from early ages develop lifelong skills that can’t be acquired from the Disney Channel. They become better listeners and find it easier to pay attention in school. Their vocabularies grow rapidly. They develop the…
