Shake Bouchon was livin’ the dream. For years, he’d been a wheelman for the Armenian mob, but he’d gotten away clean. He bought restaurant on the beach in Belize, where he hoped to start fresh. The location was postcard-perfect, sea breezes and tiki torches and tourists with credit cards. Should have been everything he needed for a perfect retirement in… Read more
Yesterday, I reviewed 1222 by Anne Holt, the first book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series. Blind Goddess jumps back in time, back before the shooting the left Hanne in a wheelchair. This gives us more background on Hanne and what she was like as a detective, before she became the bitter woman we met in the first book. There’s an interesting mystery… Read more
The first thing I thought when I read the blurb for 1222 was, “Oh! It’s a Norwegian And Then There Were None.” I love a good mystery, and a good locked room mystery? Even more fun. Put that locked room in a snowed-in resort high in the mountains? Love it. The interesting thing about this is that Anne Holt’s detective, Hanne… Read more
This is definitely a vintage crime novel. It’s got an old-fashioned feel to it from the very first chapter. No cell phones, no computers, no fancy hardware, just guys with guns figuring out what other guys are gonna do. In general, I like those kinds of stories and there is a lot to like about Killing Them Softly by George V. Higgins (originally… Read more
I think I’m over the whole “novel told in stories” idea. I tried not to let that influence me when I read Triburbia by Karl Taro Greenfeld. It’s a decent novel. It meanders a bit, tells the stories of the lives of a group of Tribeca residents. The stories are identified by address, with a lot of overlap and some surprising… Read more
It’s always a good thing to discover a new series that you really enjoy. A while back, I reviewed the third Dirty Business Mystery, Dead Head by Rosemary Harris, I immediately picked up the first book, Pushing Up Daisies and made sure to keep my eyes open for new installments in the Dirty Business series. I devoured Slugfest on my recent vacation. Paula… Read more
Someone needs to option this for a movie! Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell is an engaging thriller that would make a terrific movie. It’s set in a not-too-distant future where global warming has radically changed the surface of the planet. Caribbean islands are completely underwater, the Arctic tundra has become prime real estate, and nation-states fight over dwindling natural resources. A… Read more
“After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper.” Michael Cox pulls no punches with the beginning of The Meaning of Night: A Confession. You are immediately drawn into the story of Edward Glyver, and you have absolutely no reason to like him. After all, the man just committed a cold-blooded murder. In addition… Read more
One of the best reasons for joining a book club is that it encourages you to read books you wouldn’t have picked up otherwise. Several years ago, I read The Known World by Edward P. Jones for a book club and counted it as a gem that I would probably have never read otherwise, and I would put Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth… Read more
One thing I was reminded of while reading this book: I really need a new pair of classic black pumps. First of all, Women from the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us by Rachelle Bergstein is really a book about women’s shoes. There are mentions of men’s shoes, but not many — let’s face it, men’s… Read more