Two Cozies

The Stolen Blue by Judith Van Gieson was touted by none other than Tony Hillerman as a book not to miss. So, of course, when Hillerman speaks, I listen very carefully. And I was not disappointed. I'm going to have to hunt up some more of Van Giesen's work because I loved this book. Claire reynier introduced me to the job of a rare book expert and if I had my life to do over again (God forbid!), I'm pretty sure that would be an area I'd love. Frustrating work, to be sure. But fascinating.

Claire's former professor and mentor calls her to his spread in The Blue, a virtually unspoiled area of New Mexico. He wants to donate his entire collection of books to University of New Mexico's Center for Southwest Research. Claire has a special fondness for the old curmudgeon, who is not in good health. He had hired her for her first job as librarian after graduate school and after her marriage ended recently, helped ensure she got hired at UNM as the head of library collection, responsible for buying rare books for the CSR. Claire is excited both about seeing her mentor and looking over his extensive collection. The joy ends soon, however. The day after Burke signs his will giving the collection to the Center, he is found dead in the snow outside his home. His daughter Mariah, who has only recently discovered Burke was her father, is not only named the principal heir of the Burke estate, but she also admits to helping the man commit suicide. To make matters more convoluted, when Claire returns to the university after Burke's death, one box of the books she had in her truck is stolen. Claire has to discover why the books were stolen, who took them and what they had to do with Burke's death.

Margaret Coel (another favorite author) said this book was an intricate puzzle that kept her guessing. Me, too. It was very well written. Claire is a character I liked and would like to read more about. So maybe in the next day or two, I'll be searching St. Tammany Parish Library for more books by Judith Van Giesen.

Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross was an absolutely delightful book! Here's yet another favorite to add to my list. I've got to get supper going now, so will postpone writing anything more. I have to have more time to do justice to Miss Julia.

Long time, no write

I've failed. Surprised, aren't you? LOL! I've just kept putting off writing in my blogs for various reasons, some good, some not. I meant well. I always do. But doing well... Well, that's not my best thing. Follow-through has always been one of my many, many shortcomings.

I have been reading a bit, though. Not so much as I would have liked, but reading a bit here and there, nonetheless. I didn't write down every single title I've read since the last blog entry, unfortunately. But since I'm the only one who gives a hoot, it really doesn't matter. Except to me. That failure thing, you know.

What I've Read:
In August and September, I managed to read some of the Star Trek Gateway series novels. These are crossover novels - there's one for each of the Star Trek series, including a novel focusing on the USS Challenger, a ship introduced in a series of novels taking place between the times between the first two Star Trek movies. The unifying theme involves the sudden activation of interstellar gate planted millenia ago by the Iconians, a species we meet in one episode of the original Star Trek show.

• First, the Kirk novel: One Small Step. Typical Kirk hero stuff. A fun read.
• Second, Challenger, Chain Mail. This one was very frustrating to me, because I had not read all the novels in the New Earth/Challenger series and so was unfamiliar with the characters and the situation.
• Third, Picard in Doors into Chaos. Despite the fact that I adore Jean Luc, this one was not nearly so satisfying as the Kirk book. Troi does get command of a ship, however, and that was nice.
• Fourth, Deep Space Nine, Demons of Air and Darkness. Another disappointment. I liked DS9, but I did not care for this novel.
  
  The last three in the series that I hope to read soon:
  
• No Man's Land, featuring Captain Janeway and the Voyager crew. I liked the Voyager series a lot. Hope this novel is not disappointing.
• Cold Wars, the only novel series with characters not be based on an actual Star Trek show. It's part of a series introducing a new ship, The Challenger, and a new cast of characters. I've not read any of these novels yet. I'm sure I'll be lost when I read this one in the Gateway series, but I'll probably read it anyway.
• What Lay Beyond, which is supposed to tie everything up quite neatly. A long damned time in coming, my friends! Not sure I care any more.
  

I liked the original concept - at least as I thought it was going to be before I started reading. But I was very frustrated with some of the individual books for various reasons. And frustrated that I had to wait for the last book in the series to wrap it all up. And I STILL don't own that last book!

The Law vs Justice

Dixie Flannigan is another new favorite character for me. She's a former assistant district attorney who had been dedicated to bringing about justice. But, of course, in real life in court, law does not always equate with justice. As a matter of fact, too often legal battles leave a lot of justice still to be desired. So, when she gets fed up with the lack of jsut in the justice system from the prosecutor's perspective, Dixie decides to take another tack and becomes a bounty hunter. Having developed and nurtured a reputation as a hard-ass attorney, she takes that bitch factor and now applies it to rounding up those trying to outrun the long arm of the law.

The story begins two days before Christmas and Dixie is in no mood for hunting down yet another criminal making a run for it. But when she finds out that Parker Dann, on trial for killing a child in a drunk driving accident and not even remembering the event, may well be on the run during the holiday court break, she decides to make the trek from Houston to North Dakota in a blizzard to bring him back to finish his trial. Dixie has a serious axe to grind with child predators and she is eager to get this one back to Houston to face the jury and his receive justice for the little girl he allegedly mowed down.

When she does her own investigation before court resumes, however, Dixie is shaken to her core. Could it be that Parker Dann is not guilty of hit and run drunk driving? Is Betsy Keyes' accidental death is linked to the accidental drowning death of her sister Courtney? Is the baby sister Ellie is in danger as well? Dixie has to act quickly to save not only an innocent man, but possibly an innocent child.


I like Dixie. She's doesn't come across to me as a simplistic cardboard character, but is complex and intriguing. She is hard as nails when it comes to criminals and bail jumpers. But she has a soft side for her family and for abused children in general, having been abused herself as a child before having been adopted by a loving family she credits with having saved her life. Dixie's sister, brother-in-law and nephew are fun to read about, too, and I got a kick out of their interactions. They're about the only people on the planet who can get under Dixie's skin. But in spite of that weakness, or maybe because of that love and support, Dixie is a strong woman with a singular devotion to the truth, no matter how painful and unsettling it might be. Besides, I can't help liking anybody willing to stand up for abused children.

Bitch Factor was a little intense, so I'm probably going to wait a bit before getting the next one. But I'm pretty sure I'll be reading Rage Factor and Chill Factor before too long.

More Wanda Nell

In Bring Your Own Poison, Wanda Nell Culpepper, waitress and overworked, overstressed single mom, gets involved in yet another murder in Tullahoma. This time she is eyewitness to the death of police officer Travis Blakely at his own bachelor party attended by virtually every other police officer in the area. No one is truly surprised that Travis met a grisly end. He is a very unpleasant, misogynistic jackass who was suspected of having killed his first two wives, although no one could ever prove anything. But that history did not seem to stop one of the town's most beautiful young women from agreeing to marry the cop. Travis' younger brother Gerald becomes the prime suspect for two reasons. One, he had dated the bride and objected loudly to Travis' lewd comments about her at the party. Two, he was found holding an empty vial right after Travis keeled over.

This particular story was a bit complicated. There is a lot going on in Wanda Nell's life besides investigating a murder. She meets an old flame who has changed most unpleasantly, she has to confront homophobic attacks against her son and his partner that cause her pain and worry, one daughter is sick and the other pregnant again and unmarried, Jack propsed to her, and Jack's sister claims she is being stalked by a homicidal cop.

When state police Master Sergeant Bill Warren arrives at the Kountry Kitchen to investigate Officer Blakely's sudden death, Wanda Nell is surprised and pleased to recognize the shy boy she dated back in high school. But Bill is no longer the nice kid Wanda Nell used to know. He bullies Gerald from the get-go and Wanda Nell feels compelled to come to Gerald's aid. She calls Tuck, the lawyer who is also her son T.J.'s life partner. When he arrives at the Kountry Kitchen, Bill makes a vile homophobic comment and Wanda Nell decks him. Later Bill uses that incident, plus threats to her son, to try to intimidate Wanda Nell into changing her testimony to incriminate Gerald. Wanda Nell knows something is fishy with Bill's obsession, so she feels compelled to invetigate that part of the mystery as well.

To complicate matters, Wanda Nell's boyfriend Jack Pemberton pops the question and Wanda Nell surprises everybody, but mostly herself, by saying yes right away. Then she discovers that her daughter Miranda, who has a toddler whose daddy is unknown and long gone, is pregnant again. As if there's not enough things for Wanda Nell to be worried about, Bill Warren starts to threaten her family. Plus Jack's sister turns to Wanda Nell and Jack to help her stop the cop she claims is stalking her.

Wanda Nell Culpepper's life is never easy even in the best of circumstances. She's a widowed single mom who works two jobs as she struggles to make ends meet while raising two daughters and a grandson in a small town in Mississippi. Folks who live on the edge of financial disaster can relate to her constant problems and worries. But Wanda Nell always meets life headon, with courage and wit. I like Wanda Nell. She's somebody I'd want as a next door neighbor and friend. She has a good heart and a good head on her shoulders.

String of Lies

I just finished reading Mary Ellen Hughes String of Lies, the second book in her Craft Corner Mystery series, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I usually like to read series in order, but somehow I missed the first in this series, Wreath of Deception. I plan to rectify that as soon as possible so I can move on to the third book, Paper-Thin Alibi. The books obviously can be read separately since I don't feel as though I missed anything by not having read the books in order. But still, I'll have to read the first one before I can move on to the third. I'm anal like that, unfortunately.

After Jo McCallister's husband died in an automobile accident, she moved to a small town in Maryland and opened an arts and craft store. In this book Jo's Craft Corner is beginning to prosper and Jo is feeling a little more secure. But then she finds that a local developer has been buying up some of the stores on her block. Is hers one of them? Her landlord is out of state and try as she might, she can't get in touch with her landlord to find out. Her attempts to contact the developer personally get nowhere, so she decides she has no choice but to try to catch him at one of his work sites. She finds him there, but unfortunately, the man has been murdered. And to complicate Jo's life further, her contractor friend Dan and his employee Xavier are both suspects. Xavier, a legal immigrant with a pregnant wife who's due to deliver just any day, becomes the scapegoat. If Xavier is arrested and prosecuted, her friend Dan's business will suffer even more as more people cancel their jobs. So Jo enlists the aid of her regular craft group to ferret out the truth.

This is a cozy, so we aren't really expecting terribly complex characters, but Jo and her fellow crafters felt real and they reminded me of some of the folks I knew from my own small hometown. I especially enjoyed her portrayal of folks my age (60+) and older! We're witty, smart, caring, and still involved in our communities. Sounds about right to me!

One of my pet peeves regarding mysteries is the portrayal of a vicious adversarial relationship between the police and the amateur sleuth. Disagreement on the case is believable and mutual disapproval is expected. After all, we know very well that our heroine is not a detective. That's the whole point of a cozy, isn't it? But sometimes the fighting between amateurs and professionals gets downright nasty and not only becomes tiresome and irritating, it interferes with the story. If that happens, I usually quit reading and sometimes drop the author from by TBR list.

That was not a problem with String of Lies, I am very happy to report. I appreciated the fact that Jo wasn't constantly being harangued and/or belittled and demeaned by the police for her investigative efforts. There were the obligatory comments about letting the police do their job, but no serious rancor or disrespect in either direction.

On the other hand, since my dad was a state trooper, I appreciate that the police didn't come off as bumbling idiots, either. I thought this book had a nice balance and I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series.

Pre-Printing Press Challenge

Pre-Printing Press Challenge

As I said yesterday, this Pre-Printing Press Challenge really resonates with me and I'm so glad I came across it. Here are the rules:

1. All books must have come out before 1440, when the printing press was first invented.
2. Books chosen for this challenge can overlap with other challenges.
3. Books can be translated into the language of your choice.
4. All the books you've chosen must be read by April 30th 2010.
5. You can read 1-3 books, 4-6 books, 7-9 books or 10 or more books if you're feeling particularly ambitious.
6. The choice of books is up to you. There are no set reading lists, and you don't have to set one when you join.
   
7. Post your blog address where you'll be posting your comments on your choice of books in the comments of this post when you join, and tell me how many books you've chosen. I'll set up a link to participating blogs from here.
8. Above all, Have fun.

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I'm going to start with Eusebius' The History of the Church. A couple of weeks ago I pulled it off my bookshelf and put it in my TBR pile with the firm intention of actually reading the whole thing this summer. I read bits and pieces for various classes when I was working on the master's in religious studies I never got to finish at KU. So now I hope to cross that one off my list.

At the same time, I also pulled out books containing translations of the works of Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich for the TBR pile. My master's focus was women in monasticism, so this challenge should help inspire me to get back to reading and studying. I'm excited about the prospects.

If I were more ambitious, I'd try to read a couple of manuscripts in Greek. But my Greek is a bit rusty! Still, I may put one or two Greek texts on the list at some point even if it takes me til the 2010 deadline to finish even one short document, let alone a complete book. I may be retired, but the brain still works reasonably well. And research has shown that language study keeps the brain agile.

100+ Book Challenge

100+ Book Challenge
I'm definitely looking forward to this 100+ Book Challenge. I read a lot of fiction, especially mysteries, but I read a lot of other types books, too: history, spirituality, theology, politics, etc. I feel as though I'm getting 'credit', so to speak, for all the books I read, especially the nonfiction books, even if I don't blog about them or review them.

Here are the rules from J. Kaye's blog:
The 100+ Reading Challenge will be hosted here this year. Here are the guidelines:

1) You can join anytime as long as you don’t start reading your books prior to 2009.

2) This challenge is for 2009 only. The last day to have all your books read is December 31, 2009.

3) You can join anytime between now and December 31, 2009.

4) If you don’t have a blog, please join our Yahoo Groups.

5) When you sign up under Mr. Linky, list the direct link to your post where your 100+ books will be listed. If you list just your blog’s URL, it will be removed.

6) All books count: children’s, YA, adults, fiction, non-fiction, how-tos, etc.

7) Feel free to post in the comment section or on Yahoo Groups your monthly progress as well as your favorite books that month.

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Here's my starting list. They're mostly mysteries since those are already listed on this Book Nook blog.

1. The Clovis Incident, Pari Noskin Taichert
2. Assassin: A Lady Grace Mystery, Patricia Finney
3. Best Served Cold, Jimmie Ruth Evans
4. Beware False Profits, Emilie Richards
5. Blessed Is the Busybody, Emilie Richards
6. Dead in the Water, Connie Fedderson
7. A Dilly of a Death, Susan Wittig Albert
8. Dragon's Lair, Sharon Kay Penman
9. Dying to Sing, Margaret Chittendon
10. Endless Chain, Emilie Richards
11. Keepsake Crimes, Laura Childs
12. Let There Be Suspects, Emilie Richards
13. Lincoln's Dreams, Connie Willis
14. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
15. Queen's Ransom, Fiona Buckley
16. Roman Blood, Steven Saylor
17. Shadows in Bronze, Lindsey Davis
18. Silver Pigs, Lindsey Davis
19. Some Like It Hot-Buttered, Jeffrey Cohen
20. The Sunne in Splendour, Sharon Kay Penman
21. Tilt-a-Whirl, Chris Grabenstein
22. Wedding Ring, Emilie Richards
23. Wildcat Wine, Claire Matturro
24. Windows on a Lost World, V. E. Mitchell
25. The Way of Wyrd: Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer, Brian Bates
26. Work of the Angels, Kat Goldring
27. String of Lies, Mary Ellen Hughes
28. Crime Brulee, Nancy Fairbanks
29. Bring Your Own Poison, Jimmie Ruth Evans
30. Bitch Factor, Chris Rogers
31. Tears of the Giraffe, Alexander McCall Smith
32. Mew Is for Murder, Clea Simon
33. The Dark Interval: Toward a Theology of Story, John Dominic Crossan