No Mark upon Her marks the beginning of yet another new mystery series for me. I was unfamiliar with Deborah Crombie, but she has apparently written a whole shelf full of novels featuring two interesting detectives, Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. The newly-married couple are both police officers (Gemma is a Detective Inspector and Duncan is a Superintendent with Scotland Yard)… Read more
I really wanted to love this book. I definitely loved Heads You Lose, the wonderfully fun and zany novel that Lisa Lutz wrote with her ex-boyfriend. (Read my review here.) And I have to say that Trail of the Spellmans is pretty entertaining, for the most part. It’s a continuation of The Spellman Files, a series of novels about a rather… Read more
This Will Make You Smarter is a challenging book that leaves you with a lot to think about. The essays are short — some shorter than a single page — that cover interesting scientific concepts, new and old ideas to help us think about the world. The founder and publisher of the online science salon, Edge.org, John Brockman, does a great… Read more
Happy Wednesday — it’s time for some new words! You know how this works – share a few words from your current book that you had to look up, then head over to Bermuda Onion’s Weblog to learn some new ones. I wasn’t sure I was going to have time to post, as the trip to Sheffield has been keeping… Read more
Carry the One has a dramatic beginning: it’s the evening of Carmen and Matt’s wedding and they are surrounded by their family and friends. It’s a non-traditional, very Bohemian wedding at a farmhouse owned by Alice, Carmen’s sister, and Jean, both artists. In the wee hours of the morning, several party guests — drunk, stoned and sleepy — are making their… Read more
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is intriguing as soon as you look at the cover — it took a second or two for me to realize the little girl on the cover (her name is Olive, by the way) is floating. Floating. And such an odd expression on her face! She made me want to open the book and turn the… Read more
This is my first Bailey Weggins mystery! Bailey is a fun character — a true-crime journalist, based in Manhattan, writing for a celebrity magazine and getting seriously involved with a hot new boyfriend. There’s all kinds of material there for fun stories, and Kate White delivers the goods in So Pretty It Hurts. Bailey’s boyfriend is out of town (and… Read more
In Burnedby Thomas Enger, Henning Juul is a veteran investigative reporter, returning to work after a series of personal tragedies left him changed and fragile. An apartment fire killed his son, ended his marriage and left him physically disfigured. He is struggling to deal with his fears and a case of PTSD that has left him unable to work for more… Read more
Joe O’Loughlin is an unlikely hero. He’s a psychologist with a failing marriage, serious health problems a troubled relationship with his daughter. He’s in a holding pattern, not sure if he’s looking for a safe place to land or just circling until he runs out of fuel and crashes. He makes some bad choices in Bleed for Me, but it’s… Read more
There is something I find really intriguing, at least in novels, about a female criminal. Their motivations seem so different from most male criminals — it never seems to be just about greed or power. It’s something more subtle. In The Face Thief by Eli Gottlieb, Margot is a promising young journalist. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that… Read more