Review: BURY YOUR DEAD, Louise Penny

Published: Minotaur Books, New York, 2010
ISBN 978-0-312-37704-552499
371 pages
Source: Local Library

Publisher's Blurb:
As Quebec City shivers in the grip of winter, its ancient stone walls cracking in the cold, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache plunges into the most unusual case of his celebrated career. A man has been brutally murdered in one of the city's oldest buildings - a library where the English citizens of Quebec safeguard their history. And the death opens a door into the past, exposing a mystery that has lain dormant for centuries...a mystery Gamache must solve if he's to apprehend a present-day killer.

My take:
Those who say this is a "must read" are not wrong. And neither are those who say this is Louise Penny's best novel so far aren't either.
But you do need to read this series in order! And in particular you must read THE BRUTAL TELLING  before you read BURY YOUR DEAD.

Inspector Armand Gamache is recovering from an event that happened since THE BRUTAL TELLING but I'll let you find out from what for yourself. But let me tell you that in BURY YOUR DEAD he solves no less than three mysteries.  And I learnt so much about Quebec's history! We learn too that Armand Gamache is not always right, and that he knows how to say sorry.
The whole book is such good reading. There is more than the police procedural and the writing is wonderful.

My rating: 5.0 and with that it slides to the top of my best reads so far this year.

1. Still Life (2005)
2. Dead Cold (2006)  aka A Fatal Grace
3. The Cruellest Month (2007)
4. The Murder Stone (2008) aka A Rule Against Murder
5. The Brutal Telling (2009)
6. Bury Your Dead (2010)


THE BRUTAL TELLING was the winner of the Agatha Award for best novel of 2009. and I'll be very surprised if BURY YOUR DEAD does not capture a whole swag of nominations.
BookPage, in the US, named BURY YOUR DEAD their Mystery of the Month for October 2010
Check Louise Penny's Reviews page.

Other titles I've reviewed
4.8, THE CRUELLEST MONTH
4.9, A RULE AGAINST MURDER

Louise Penny's website.

I'm "counting" this novel in the Canadian Book Challenge 2010-2011

Review: BLOOD ATONEMENT, Dan Waddell

 Edition: Large print edition published by W F Howes Ltd
2009
ISBN 978-1-40745-171-1
392 pages

Amazon Product Description
Katie Drake was an affluent single mother living in Queen’s Park – until someone cut her throat and tore out her tongue. Worse still, the killer has abducted her fourteen-year-old daughter, Naomi. Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster quickly sees chilling parallels with the disappearance of teenager Leonie Stamey three years earlier. With hopes fading of finding Naomi alive, he calls on genealogist Nigel Barnes to piece together the links between the families of the two girls. The trail leads Nigel back to 1890 ..... A husband and wife fleeing a terrible crime in their past, and harbouring a secret that's now having bloody repercussions in the present …

My take
Dan Waddell is one of my "finds" for 2010. I reviewed his first novel in the Nigel Barnes series THE BLOOD DETECTIVE  just over 5 weeks ago and remarked then what a great read it was. BLOOD ATONEMENT uses a similar plot device, a crime in the past that inspires crimes in the present, and perhaps that is a weakness, despite the fact that this is not really copy-cat killing. The sleuthing trio are an interesting combination: genealogist Nigel Barnes, and detectives DCI Grant Foster, and DS Heather Jenkins. Foster was quite severely injured in THE BLOOD DETECTIVE, and it helps in understanding the relationship between Barnes and Jenkins if you have read the first novel, I think.

One of the satisfying elements of this story is the way Waddell lays information before the reader, allows you to draw your own conclusion, just ahead of one of the sleuths voicing the same idea. I found it compelling reading. I'm hoping there is a third in the series. The final pages of the book seem to imply that there is.

An interesting feature of this edition of the novel is that the "voice from the past" and current investigation are given different font styles. This may be just a feature of the large print edition. If you click on the cover image that will take you to Amazon where you can read an extract from the first few pages, and, rather oddly, the complete Epilogue. You'll note that in that extract the "voice from the past" is in italics.

My rating: 4.6

I couldn't help wondering what inspired Waddell to explore this plot.
Dan Waddell explains here.
Check what Blood Atonement is at Wikipedia.

Review: HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS, Agatha Christie

First published in Great Britain by Collins 1938
aka A Holiday for Murder / Murder for Christmas
This edition: Agatha Christie Signature Edition published 2001
ISBN 0-00-712069-9
335 pages
Source: my local library

Christmas is the time for family gatherings, but, as Hercule Poirot points out to his host the Chief Constable,  they are often fraught with tension.

And families now, families who have been separated throughout the year, assemble once more together. Now under these conditions, my friend, you must admit that there will occur a great amount of strain. People who do not feel amiable are putting great pressure on themselves to appear amiable. There is at Christmas time a great deal of hypocrisy, honourable hypocrisy, hypocrisy undertaken pour le bon motif, c'est entendu, but nevertheless hypocrisy.

........

I am pointing out to you that under these conditions - mental strain, physical malaise - it is highly probable thta dislikes that were before merely mild and disagreements that were trivial might suddently assume a more serious character.

Simeon Lee gathers his family around him for Christmas, including his black sheep of a son Harry, whom everyone had assumed (or hoped) was either dead or in gaol somewhere. His granddaughter Pilar, whose mother had died the previous year, turns up as does the son of his old mining partner in South Africa.

On Christmas Eve Simeon Lee signs his death warrant by telling his collected family that he is about to change his will.

"Your mother had the brains of a louse! And it seems to me that she transmitted those brains to her children!". He raised himself up suddenly. A red spot appeared on each cheek. His voice came high and shrill. "You're not worth a penny piece, any of you!  I'm sick of you all! You are not men! You're weaklings - a set of nanmby-pamby weaklings. Pilar's worth any two of you put together! I'll swear to heaven I've got a better son somewhere in the world than any of you, even if you are born on the right side of the blanket. "

This is a locked room mystery. There are plenty of suspects. Simeon Lord is found with his throat cut on the other side of a door with the key on the inside.

I was struck right from the beginning with how Agatha Christie carefully describes the physical appearance of each of the characters. And indeed Poirot pays considerable attention to the portraits of each of the family members in the portrait gallery.

Several times the reader is given an update of the progress of the investigation, so we are given most of the information that Inspector Sugden, the police officer in charge of the case, has as well as Poirot's thinking. In the end though, of course, it is Poirot who comes up with the explanation.

A great read, particularly at this time of the year.

My rating: 4.7

Read as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge.

Weekly Geeks 2010-36 Readers Advisory

This week's Weekly Geeks task has prompted me to release, a couple of days early, a meme that I was going to run anyway where I invite readers to suggest crime fiction books we could give for Christmas.

This meme, called Give Books for Christmas 2010,  invites you to add links to a "Mr Linky" for books you've read or reviewed and have no hesitation in recommending to others, or to a page on your blog where you have a list of recommendations.

For myself, I'll probably just link to my "books read" in 2010, where my list is ranked in rating order, so there is no doubt about which ones I thought are the best.

My own suggestions for Give Books for Christmas 2009 were really just my best reads for the year.

If you look in the right hand side of my blog you'll see that I have linked to this post to help you find it easily in the future once you have decided what you can add to Mr Linky. And there is no limit to how often you can come back and add a link!

Review: BLACKLANDS, Belinda Bauer

WINNER of Gold CWA Dagger 2010

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 493 KB
• Print Length: 352 pages
• Publisher: Transworld Digital (January 22, 2010)
• I bought this one myself.

In Steven Lamb's house where he lives with his gran, his mother, his little brother, and a succession of "uncles", there is a room that has been a shrine for nineteen years. It is his Uncle Billy's room. Steven is 12 years old and his Uncle Billy disappeared on a trip to the corner shop when he was just a little younger than Steven. 

For three years Steven has been digging on the moor behind his house. The authorities had assumed that Billy had been killed by paedophile Arnold Avery, but Billy's body was never found, while a number of Avery's other victims were. Avery was charged with six counts of murder, but not Billy's. However Steven is convinced that he will be lifting a burden from his gran if he can find Billy's body.

Steven decides to write to Avery, now serving a life sentence in Longmoor prison, to see if he can learn where Billy is buried. When Avery replies to Steven's letter, the game subtly changes.

It is not often that the suspense in a book literally gets to me, but BLACKLANDS almost gave me palpitations at the end. I really can't reveal any more, other than to highly recommend this debut novel.

I had resolved to be very parsimonius in meting out any more perfect scores this year, but BLACKLANDS gave me no choice: my rating: 5.0

Belinda Bauer says in her Author's Note at the end:

Blacklands was never intended to be a crime novel. I thought it was going to be a very small story about a boy and his grandmother.

Read Chapter 1 from Blacklands

Blurbs and reviews to check

• Simon & Schuster (publishers)
• Highly recommended for a CWA Debut Dagger 2009
• Guardian review by Laura Wilson

This is book 100 for this year.

Review: THE MONSTER IN THE BOX, Ruth Rendell

Published by Hutchinson 2009
ISBN 978-0-091-93149-0
279 pages
#22 in the Wexford series

All of his working life Reg Wexford has thought he has known of an unconvicted killer. When he was a young police officer, a young woman, Elsie Carroll, was found murdered. Her husband George, who always proclaimed his innocence, was charged with her murder, brought to trial, convicted, and then freed on appeal because of the judge's misdirection of the jury. Wexford's bosses were convinced they had got the right person, but Reg Wexford thought he knew better. He was convinced that a smug little man, Eric Targo, was the real murderer. Reg just didn't know why. When another woman was found murdered, again Reg was convinced Targo had something to do with it, he just couldn't work out the connection.

This was the beginning of a strange relationship between Wexford and Targo. Wexford becomes convinced that Targo is stalking him. And then Targo disappears from Reg's life. Now Targo has come back.

THE MONSTER IN THE BOX has an interesting structure. Much of it consists of a conversation between Wexford and his deputy Burden, in which Wexford describes all of the times Targo has apppeared his life and why he became convinced that Targo was stalking him. The author uses the novel as a vehicle to reveal to the reader a lot of personal detail from Wexford's life: his early days in the police force, his courtship of his wife Dora. The time frame must go back nearly four decades, and times when Burden has been part of that timeline are pinpointed. As the timeline gets closer to the present, it is clear there will be a more modern incident involving Targo. Wexford is convinced he is a psychopathic killer.

I found the time layers of this novel a little confusing.
The following passage Wexford and Burden getting together for the first time for Wexford to relate his story:
They chose the Olive and Dove, the little room called the snug which over the years they had made almost their own. Of course others used it, as the yellow-stained ceiling and lingering smell of a million cigarettes bore witness. In a few years' time a smoking ban would come in, the walls and ceiling be redecorated, new curtains hung at the clouded wondows and ashtrays banished, but in the late nineties there was no hint of that. Outside the window it was mostly young people who could be seen sitting at the tables under coloured umbrellas on the Olive's veranda, for the evening was as mild as the day had been, while their elders crowded into the saloon bar. All those people or those who succeeded them would ten years in the future be obliged to huddle on that verandah, rain or shine, snow or fog, if they wanted ot smoke.
I re-read this passage several times to make sure I had got the time frame correct. I've put the clue I picked up in bold.

In fact, Rendell had me reading a few passages in THE MONSTER IN THE BOX several times. That might get the thumbs down from some readers.

Ruth Rendell announced last year that THE MONSTER IN THE BOX is her last Wexford novel. If it is, then I am disappointed, because even though it does survey all of Reg's life, it doesn't feel to me he has gone out on the high that I wanted.

Mind you, it is still a good read. My rating 4.7

You might like to check this post: Forgotten book: FROM DOON WITH DEATH.

Other reviews to check:

• Petrona:
  "the strength of this author’s writing is such that it does not matter if some elements of the novel are a bit predictable, because it is so full of rich (but lightly presented) detail, with so many very astute observations about the changes in society over the past 50 years during which this series has been written, that one is simply held to the pages, until the last one is turned."
• Random Jottings:
  "this book ... has an elegiac quality to it"

Other titles reviewed on this blog

• FROM DOON WITH DEATH
• PORTOBELLO

Want the full list of Ruth Rendell novels?: check Fantastic Fiction.
Don't forget she writes as Barbara Vine too.

Review: A RULE AGAINST MURDER, Louise Penny

Alternative title: THE MURDER STONE
Published 2008, Minotaur Books
#4 in the Inspector Armand Gamache series
322 pages
ISBN 978-0-312-37702-1

Publisher's blurb (from Louise Penny's site)
Wealthy, cultured and respectable, the Finney family is the epitome of gentility. When Irene Finney and her four grown-up children arrive at the Manoir Bellechasse in the heat of summer, the hotel's staff spring into action. For the children have come to this idyllic lakeside retreat for a special occasion - a memorial has been organised to pay tribute to their late father. But as the heat wave gathers strength, it is not just the statue of an old man that is unveiled. Old secrets and bitter rivalries begin to surface, and the morning after the ceremony, a body is found. The family has another member to mourn.

A guest at the hotel, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache suddenly finds himself in the middle of a murder enquiry. The hotel is full of possible suspects - even the Manoir's staff have something to hide, and it's clear that the victim had many enemies. With its remote location, the lodge is a place where visitors come to escape their pasts. Until the past catches up with them...


This is another fine offering from Louise Penny. (see my review of THE CRUELLEST MONTH which I rated at 4.8)

I've written before about detectives whom I enjoy renewing acquaintance with - Reg Wexford, Guido Brunetti, Precious Ramotswe, and just recently I added Bennie Griessel and Kubu Bengu to that list - well, Armand Gamache is one of those. I also enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about his personal life, and to strike up a better acquaintance with his wife, Reine-Marie.
One of the things that I like about Armand is his strength of character. There's a touch of humour in A RULE AGAINST MURDER when some of the Finney family write him off as a shopkeeper, well below their social status. Most of them are very surprised to find out his true identity.
He reminds me a lot of Maigret, and I'm not sure whether that is not his "Frenchness" coming out.

The plot of A RULE AGAINST MURDER is beautifully constructed, and apart from Gamache himself there are some very interesting characters such as the chef Veronique, the child Bean, and the owner of Manoir Bellechasse, Madame Dubois. There's something a little cozy about the construction, something Poirot-ish about Gamache too. In many senses it is a locked room mystery - someone in the house party must have committed the murder.

The other aspect of the book that struck me is how it builds on our knowledge of the characters from the village of Three Pines whom we may have met in earlier books. Even if you haven't read any of the earlier books, do get this one.
And here is some information to make you find the earlier ones:

• Agatha Award  Best Novel winner (2007)  : Dead Cold
• Barry Awards First Novel winner (2007) : Still Life
• Anthony Awards First Novel winner (2007) : Still Life
• Agatha Award Best Novel winner (2008) : The Cruellest Month

My rating: 4.9
Read the Prologue and Chapter One online at Amazon
At the moment Amazon is selling the hardback at an amazing $US3.78!

Other reviews to check:

• Lesa's Book Critiques
• Books to the Ceiling
• Ms Bookish

The list courtesy of Fantastic Fiction:
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache
1. Still Life (2005)
2. Dead Cold (2006)  aka A Fatal Grace
3. The Cruellest Month (2007)
4. The Murder Stone (2008) aka A Rule Against Murder
5. The Brutal Telling (2009)
6. Bury Your Dead (2010)

My earlier mini-reviews

STILL LIFE: my rating 4.6
Louise Penny's first novel was runner up in the Crime Writers' Association's Debut Dagger Award in 2004, in manuscript form.
In the early morning of Thanksgiving Sunday, 76 year old Jane Neal is found dead in the woods of the small Canadian village of Three Pines. She has been shot through the heart by a hunter's arrow - was it an accident or is it murder? There are many secrets in this village and this case gets a distinguished detective from Surete du Quebec, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Jane had recently entered a revealing village 'portrait' into the village art competition. Her great friend Timmer Hadley had also recently died. Were the events connected? Most enjoyable, but not for the impatient, one-more-title-to-add-to my-list, reader. Be prepared to spend some time sifting the clues.

DEAD COLD: my rating 5.0
#2 in the Armand Gamache series. In the little Canadian village of Three Pines another death has occurred. A female spectator, the hated CC de Poitiers, has been electrocuted while out on the ice watching the annual Boxing Day curling match. This has to be murder but no-one saw anything. Coincidentally the victim has been living in the house that was the centre of the last murder in Three Pines, Gamache's case a year ago, the focus of Penny's debut novel STILL LIFE. Gamache renews old acquaintances in the village and we learn more about him. Do read these books in order if you can.

Review: THE WHITE GALLOWS, Rob Kitchin

IndePenPress 2010
ISBN 978-1-907499-37-1
322 pages
Many thanks to the author who kindly supplied a copy for review.

One of the characteristics of working in the 21st century appears to be that, despite all the technology that is supposed to help us work smarter, workloads are increasing. If you are in law enforcement, it doesn't help if the crime rate appears to be spiralling out of control either. As in many other professions early retirement by burnt out workers is reducing the number available to do the work.

That's the situation that Detective Superintendent Colm McEvoy finds himself in. McEvoy works for Ireland's National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the branch of the Gardai that investigates the country's most serious crimes. He's looking at the body of a young man, discovered on the banks of the River Boyne, when his boss contacts him about a suspicious death. An old man, 91, has been discovered dead in his bed. The local doctor says natural causes, but an observant policeman has his doubts.

It's not just the detectives who are stretched either - so are the technical crime scene people, and the pathologist, who are too often required in a number of places at once.

THE WHITE GALLOWS is not just a police procedural. Kitchin manages to build into it a number of elements - a story about German immigration to Ireland after World War II, another about modern gangs who are determined to see that the forensic evidence against them never makes it to court even if it means murder, and Colm McEvoy's own struggle to be a single father after the death of his wife from cancer only a year before.

I like McEvoy. He's a workaholic, but in his situation he needs to be - it is the only way he can cope. He often rubs people up the wrong way, and he's a bit worried that one of his female officers has designs on him. So there is a very satisfying "human element" to this novel, in addition to the mystery element.

The style of THE WHITE GALLOWS reminds me a lot of Susan Hill, Pauline Rowson, and Charles Todd. If you like any of them, then I think you'll like this.
THE WHITE GALLOWS is #2 in Kitchin's series, and I can see I really must get my hands on the first THE RULE BOOK. The references in THE WHITE GALLOWS to the case that is central in THE RULE BOOK are intriguing.

My rating: 4.6

Other reviews of THE WHITE GALLOWS can be found at Reactions to Reading, Crime Scraps,  International Noir Fiction, Mack Captures Crime, just to name a few.

Rob Kitchin has 2 copies to give away of THE WHITE GALLOWS, and if you read this before July 1, you might just be in time to enter. Rob blogs at The View from the Blue House.

Locate a copy at

bookdepository.co.uk - http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781907499371/

bookdepository.com (US) - http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9781907499371/

amazon.co.uk - http://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Gallows-Kitchin-Rob/dp/1907499377/

Review: B - VERY FLAT, Margot Kinberg

PublishAmerica 2010
ISBN 978-1-4489-7121-3
202 pages

Serena Brinkworth is a dedicated music student at Tilton University, and a very talented violinist. Her dream is to win a competition that will make her the concertmistress in the Young Artists' Orchestra. She has been working very hard towards that end, and if she wins, the world will be her oyster.

But life at Tilton University is a lot more dangerous than Serena imagines. On the night of the competition she dies from anaphylactic shock, brought on by contact with peanut flour. The detectives investigating her death are convinced by Serena's partner, backed up by Dr Joel Williams from Tilton's Department of Justice, that they should be considering murder. And then the autopsy confirms that it was no accident.

But who wanted Serena dead? The detectives find that there is actually quite a list of suspects.

In true Agatha Christie style the reader is led to consider a range of evidence, to discount the red herrings, and work out who is not telling the truth.

B - VERY FLAT is #2 in Margot Kinberg's Joel Williams mysteries. A former cop who is now a lecturer in criminal justice is an approachable and intuitive detective who seems to be able to see what others haven't seen.

B - VERY FLAT is an entertaining read, and both it and Margot's debut novel PUBLISH OR PERISH deserve to be popular not only with mystery addicts like me, but also with those who are developing their addiction.

My rating: 4.5

Margot Kinberg was born and raised in Pennsylvania, where she graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and later, received her Master's Degree from LaSalle University. After teaching at the University of Delaware for several years and earning her Ph.D. there, Kinberg moved west. She taught at Knox College in Galesburg, IL, and is currently an Associate Professor at National University in Carlsbad, California. Kinberg currently lives in southern California with her husband, daughter and two dogs.

She blogs at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist

Other reviews to check
Petrona calls it a "perfect mystery novel".
DJs Krimiblog
The Thrill of It All
9mm: An interview with Margot Kinberg (Crime Watch)
Reactions to Reading: a delightful whodunnit with a plethora of clues, red herrings and potential suspects.

Review: THE DARKEST ROOM, Johan Theorin

2009 Random House, translated by Marlaine Delargy, 438 pages, ISBN 978-0-385-34222-3

THE DARKEST ROOM is set on the island of Oland of the east coast of Sweden. On the eastern side of Oland are the twin lighthouses of Eel Point, one giving off a red light at night, the other a white light that rarely seems to work. Near the lighthouses just inland is the manor house built 150 years ago from the timbers of shipwrecks.
Katrine and Joakim Westin have bought the manor house and are in the process of moving permanently to the island from Oslo with their two children. Coincidentally Katrine's mother has also lived in this house and extracts from a journal she wrote lead us through the house's history.

Remember, when you take over an old house, the house takes you over at the same time.

This house has many stories to tell, many memories are hidden here, many names are inscribed on its timbers. Some of the stories are as old as the house itself.


On the night that Joakim goes back to Oslo to collect the last of their belongings tragedy strikes and one of their family dies.

But this isn't just the story of the Westins, but also of a young policewoman Tilda Davidsson who has been posted to Oland to provide a policing service. Through her taped interviews of one of the island's residents we piece together some of the episodes from the past.

This is one of those novels which is very difficult to review because there is so much in it. It requires the reader to at times set aside disbelief in the paranormal. You need to accept that there are times when the past can reach out into the present.

One of the fascinating things about this book is the way Theorin has built it from the founding of the manor house, and developed a chronology of the tragedies the house has witnessed from then to the present day. He interweaves historical episodes from Katrine's mother's journal with current chronology. The result is a patchwork of folklore, community memory, and modern day realism. The result is engrossing.

My rating: 5

Other reviews you might enjoy:

• It's A Crime (or a Mystery) 
• Petrona 
• Crime Scraps 
• DJsKrimiblog 
• International Noir Fiction
• Reviewing the Evidence

Read the first chapter of THE DARKEST ROOM online.
Read my review of ECHOES FROM THE DEAD - my rating 4.9

Review: THE BRASS VERDICT, Michael Connelly

Allen & Unwin, 2008, ISBN 978-1-74175-544-2, 422 pages

The murder of his old colleague Jerry Vincent is a stroke of luck for defense lawyer Mickey Haller. Jerry has left instructions that Mickey should take over all his clients. There are over 30 cases on Jerry's books including a very high profile murder case: a Hollywood film mogul accused of the double murder of his wife and her lover.

After a bout of drug addiction and 12 months rehabilitation and slow recovery Mickey has been considering whether he is ready to go back to work, but now he has to hit the ground running. As he takes up the reins, he finds LAPD Harry Bosch sniffing around the edges. But is he interested in Jerry Vincent or Walter Elliot, the movie mogul?

This is a book full of twists and turns. There is no doubt that Mickey Haller is a clever lawyer. A slight complaint I have is that though it is written from Mickey's point of view, the reader is not entirely in his confidence. Connelly uses Harry Bosch to sling a few other arrows into the mix, and so right until the end you don't really know the full story.

THE BRASS VERDICT is #14 in the Harry Bosch series (even though for the most part Harry's role seems minor) and #2 in the Mickey Haller series. #1 was THE LINCOLN LAWYER, and my mini-review is below. The pair will meet again in NINE DRAGONS.

In 2009 THE BRASS VERDICT won the Anthony Award for Best Novel, and all I can say is that I can really see why: interesting story tightly plotted, good characters, keeps the reader interested right to the end.

My rating: 5

Check Michael Connelly's own site for complete lists, blurbs etc.

Other reviews to check:

• Caribou's Mum: fast-paced and gripping, with twist and turns that will keep the reader guessing until the end.
• Petrona: a superb novel. It is Michael Connelly’s nineteenth, displaying all the hallmarks of an author at the peak of his powers.
• Crime Scraps: a very well constructed not too complicated legal thriller ... an excellent holiday read

My mini-reviews of other Connelly titles

THE CLOSERS (2005) my rating: 5
After 3 years of retirement, Detective Harry Bosch is once again on active duty with the LAPD, this time assigned to the newly formed Open-Unsolved Unit. His former partner Kizman Rider and he are charged with using new technologies to find the answers to previously unsolved murder cases. A DNA hit has found a link between a weapon used to kill a beautiful mixed-race teenage girl seventeen years earlier and a man with White Supremacy ties. Although there were too few clues to solve the murder when it occurred, Bosch and Rider, using modern police resources, now uncover evidence that leads them to suspect and pursue several potential murderers before they arrive at the truth.

ECHO PARK (2006) my rating: 4.9
#12 in the Harry Bosch series. For 13 years Harry has kept in mind the disappearance of Marie Gesto. Marie disappeared when she left a supermarket. Harry has kept in touch with her parents but they all long ago gave up hope that they would ever see Maria alive. Now in the LAPD Open Unsolved Unit, Harry gets a phone call from the District Attorney: a man accused of killing two other people has put his hand up to Maria's murder. Since then he has murdered 9 others. Apparently the killer contacted Harry's partner at the time and they missed making the connection to Maria's murder. Harry does not like the guilt being laid on him. An excellent read. Just when you think you have it all worked out, the plot takes another turn. I'll certainly be looking for the next one (due out May 2007)

THE LINCOLN LAWYER (audio CD) (2006) my rating: 4.5
Los Angeles defence lawyer Mickey Haller gets his first high-paying client in years when a Beverly Hills rich boy is arrested for brutally beating a woman. His case quickly falls apart and Mickey is under personal pressure which makes him dangerous to work for. The CD case says this is an abridged version. The gravelly voice of the reader Michael Brandon took a bit of getting used to.

THE OVERLOOK (2007) my rating: 4.6
Harry Bosch has recently moved from LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit to the prestigious Homicide Special squad. He has a new partner, a youngster Ignacio Ferras, who regards him as a bit of a dinosaur, and this is their first case. A body has been found at the overlook above the Mulholland Dam, and it's rather obviously a murder. The victim is a medical physicist who supplies a radio active substance called cesium for use in medical procedures that use radioactive therapy.
Alarm bells go off for Harry when FBI agent Rachel Walling turns up at the scene of the crime. Rachel is attached to one of the FBI's Homeland Security operations called the Tactical Intelligence Unit. The body is easily identified and once the fact that a large quantity of cesium is found to be missing, the case becomes a tussle between the LAPD and the FBI. The FBI are saying this is a possible terrorist killing.
My full review: THE OVERLOOK

Review: SKELETON HILL, Peter Lovesey

Sphere, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84744-333-5, 326 pages

Celebrating and re-enacting a battle that took place on Landsdown Hill during the English Civil War over three hundred and fifty years earlier, two of the Royalist dead share a beer and discover a bone they think is probably human. At the end of the day one will get home safely and the other, a university history lecturer, will disappear.

His disappearance is reported to Bath CID. The bone discovered during the battle is re-discovered by three rescue dogs, and is found to belong to a headless corpse. Forensics tells Peter Diamond, Head of Bath CID, that not only are the bones not old, but the skeleton is female, murdered and buried within the last two decades.

Within days there are reports of a vagrant trying to break into cars at the Bath racecourse. A few days later he comes to police attention again when he tries to steal food at a market. And then he too is found dead.

SKELETON HILL is a fascinating insight into how evidence can be built up.
There were so many things I enjoyed about this book, it is hard to know where to start. The story is quite plausible. I've always liked the idea of battlefield re-enactments, and the opportunities they provide for crime cover-up are legion.
SKELETON HILL is #10 in the Peter Diamond series,and once again Peter Diamond comes over as very human, very real. He is not above getting his hands dirty. In fact his boss doesn't think he delegates enough. I enjoyed the glimpses of the inter-relationships with his team. He is a good leader and an intuitive detective. In the long run the case is solved through a combination of sheer grunt, meticulous investigation, and lateral thinking.

My rating 5.0

Other reviews to check:

• Books to the Ceiling: "everything a mystery should be"
• Do You Write Under Your own Name: "Reading a novel by Peter Lovesey is rather like settling down to watch a favourite tv show or film, in good company and with a bottle of wine and box of chocolates within easy reach. You just know you are going to have a good time."

In Best Reads for 2009 that I am collecting, 4 contributors have listed SKELETON HILL among their top 10.

Review: TRUTH, Peter Temple

Text Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-921520-71-6, 387 pages.

The publisher's blurb:

At the close of a long day, Inspector Stephen Villani stands in the bathroom of a luxury apartment high above the city. In the glass bath, a young woman lies dead, a panic button within reach.

So begins Truth, the sequel to Peter Temple’s bestselling masterpiece, The Broken Shore, winner of the Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Best Crime Novel.

Villani’s life is his work. It is his identity, his calling, his touchstone. But now, over a few sweltering summer days, as fires burn across the state and his superiors and colleagues scheme and jostle, he finds all the certainties of his life are crumbling.

Truth is a novel about a man, a family, a city. It is about violence, murder, love, corruption, honour and deceit. And it is about truth.

TRUTH is really only the sequel to THE BROKEN SHORE in the sense that one book follows another. Joe Cashin, the focal point of THE BROKEN SHORE, makes only an occasional appearance in TRUTH. But perhaps the "sequel-ness" lies in other things.

Stephen Villani is the head of the Victoria Police Homicide Squad, and this novel is about him as much as it is about the crimes his squad tries to solve. The primary rule that governs and ruins his life is HCF, the same rule that governed the life of his predecessor and role model Singo. HCF stands for Homicide Comes First, and for Villani it boils down to a dysfunctional family, including a 15 year old daughter out of control and somewhere out on the streets.

As Villani struggles to cope with the present his mind is filled with flashbacks, times when he and those around him have crossed the line, accepted handouts, called in favours, and at the same time tried to do right by victims of crime. Criminal investigations are hindered by political agendas, and Villani is feted, cajoled, flattered, and threatened by those who want him to sweep their secrets under the carpet. There is no doubting his power to do this if he wishes - he is after all the head of the Homicide Squad. Sure he answers to those higher up the feeding chain than he, but they like him live on the knife-edge of investigative success.

The media is always waiting for a slip, circling like sharks, ready for a feeding frenzy, ready to cut down the tall poppy. Villani's career appears to be on the line several times during TRUTH.

Although the focus of TRUTH is Villani, and he and those around him question why they do this job, the central story is on a much broader canvas: Victoria in the grip of bushfires, a government teetering on the brink of an election, men with money and dreams, Villani's own history and a forest that means almost more to him than anything else in the world.

Peter Temple is the master of a clipped and terse literary style, where dialogue feels like real conversation. There are times when he uses a word rather than a sentence, in some ways the style reminds me of a former Australian great - Patrick White.

I'm very glad to have begun 2010 with such a good book: my rating 5.0
It won't surprise me if TRUTH is a standout nominee for the 2010 Ned Kelly Award.

Sites to check

• A review in The Australian
• Petrona: Finished reading Truth
• Petrona's Review
  
• Reviews on Text Publishing

I began 2006 and 2007 in a similar fashion when I gave Temple's THE BROKEN SHORE a rating of 5 at the beginning of each year. Here are my mini reviews:

2006:
Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you've come so close to dying. For Cashin, they included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up. Now all he has to do is play the country cop and walk the dogs. And sometimes think about how he was before. Then prominent local Charles Bourgoyne is bashed and left for dead. Everything seems to point to three boys from the nearby Aboriginal community; everyone seems to want it to. But Cashin is unconvinced. And as tragedy unfolds relentlessly into tragedy, he finds himself holding onto something that might be better let go.

2007:
(re-read) Joe Cashin was once a hot shot homicide detective in Melbourne. But he went with his gut feeling once too often and a young policeman ended up dead and Joe himself was left in critical condition. Now he has been sent to his home town, where nothing ever happens, to be in charge of a small police station, so that he can work while recuperating. A prominent local is bashed and left for dead in what appears to be a burglary gone wrong. All the signs point to local aboriginal youths and the town is only too ready to assume they are responsible. Bringing them in results in tragedy and Joe is suspended, but that doesn't mean he stops working. 2005 Ned Kelly Award winner.

Review: PUNTER'S LUCK, Peter Klein

New Holland Publishers, 2007, ISBN 9781741105711, 304 pages

Finding Wombat's sister Judy dead was the last thing Punter had expected when Judy phoned him about his old surfing pal Wombat's apparent disappearance. Judy usually saw her brother Vinnie (aka Wombat) at least a couple of times a week, but he hadn't been around for at least a week, and when he failed to turn for a regular Friday night hook up she had got worried.

John Punter, former strapper and son of a well known trainer, makes his living by betting at the races, and to a large extent can do as he pleases. Through a racecourse detective Punter learnt that there were some heavies looking for Wombat. Rumour said that Wombat had been betting big and losing heavy and that the loan sharks were after him. Wombat was employed as a strapper and his room at the stables had been trashed and it looked very much like he'd done a runner.

The search for Wombat leads Punter and his friend Kate, an investigative journalist at the Age, from Melbourne up the coastal road as far north as Brisbane, uncovering connections with big money and illegal drugs.

PUNTER'S LUCK is Peter Klein's debut crime fiction entry. (I read and reviewed the second, PUNTER'S TURF a month or so ago). Klein is certainly an Australian writer to watch.
There are many characters in PUNTER'S LUCK who reappear in the second novel: Kate the journalist, Punter's father DJ and his brother David, Beering the racecourse detective, Punter's cat Chan, even a reference to big Oakie White who is a central character in PUNTER'S TURF

There's an Australian flavour to this novel that comes from the settings, places, and colloquialisms. You come away feeling that Klein has laid an excellent foundation on which to build a series. His writing is polished and assured, and story flows easily. A satisfying read.

My rating 4.4

Review: THE SERPENT POOL, Martin Edwards

I read an ARC copy of THE SERPENT POOL on my Kindle. The copy came to me via Net Galley.
Publisher Name: Poisoned Pen Press
Imprint: Poisoned Pen Press
Pub Date: 1 Feb 2010
ISBN: 9781590585931

One of the unsolved crimes that always worried DCI Hannah Scarlett's former boss Ben Kind was the drowning of Bethany Friend in the Serpent Pool, a shallow lake not very far from where Hannah and her partner second hand bookseller Marc Amos now live. Bethany's death went down on the books as suicide, but Ben Kind always thought she had been murdered.

DCI Hannah Scarlett is head of Cumbria's Cold Case Review Team, but as so often happens, cold cases may have links to current ones, although these are not be obvious at first.

The shocking death of one of Marc's best customers, burned to death in a converted boathouse filled with priceless books, reveals connections between Marc and Bethany Friend, and Hannah wonders why he has never told her that he knew Bethany. The seed of mistrust, ever present in long term relationships, grows when Marc turns to an attractive colleague for solace. Just to complicate matters, Daniel Kind, Hannah's historian friend (and son of Ben) returns from overseas and gets in touch with Hannah.

THE SERPENT POOL is one of those stories is characterised by careful groundwork that then gathers breathtaking pace in the second half. I enjoyed the book very much. My rating: 4.8.

It is #4 in Edwards' Lake District Mysteries series, and while for those who have read earlier titles it is another very satisfying instalment, those who have not read earlier ones need not worry about whether they have missed too much of the backstory. I think Martin Edwards treads that fine line marvellously well. Those new to this series will find themselves hunting for the earlier titles. Among good news relayed earlier this year was that the first, COFFIN TRAIL, is being re-issued.

The titles to look for: Lake District Mystery
1. The Coffin Trail (2004)
2. The Cipher Garden (2005)
3. The Arsenic Labyrinth (2007)
4. The Serpent Pool (2010)

Links on my blog:

• MYSTERIOUS PLEASURES
• THE ARSENIC LABYRINTH
• WATERLOO SUNSET

Martin Edwards' Blog: Do You Write Under Your Own Name

Review: DEATH WORE WHITE, Jim Kelly

Michael Joseph, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7181-4951-2, 390 pages.

A line of eight cars is trapped in a blizzard on a Norfolk coast road in the intriguingly named Siberia Belt between Cromer and King's Lynn. They've been diverted into this by-road by an AA road works sign that mysteriously disappears. The passage of the truck at the head of the line is blocked by a fallen tree, showing all the signs of having been deliberately chopped down. And three hours after the blizzard began Harvey Ellis, the driver of the truck, is dead. And no-one saw anything. But Harvey Ellis has been murdered.

Two bodies are separately found at low tide in the coastal cockle pits. As these bodies are identified DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine discover they have connections with people in the line of stranded cars.

Jim Kelly is an established author with 5 novels already under the belt (the Philip Dryden series), and in 2006 he won the 2006 CWA Dagger in the Library for the series. DEATH WORE WHITE is the beginning of a new series, with a second title promised for 2010.

Not only has Kelly created an interesting puzzle in DEATH WORE WHITE - who kills Harvey Ellis if no-one saw anything - but he has created a fascinating new detective duo in Shaw and Valentine. These two already have a history. Valentine worked with Shaw's father Jack, on a case which spelled the end of Jack Shaw's career, and saw Valentine demoted. Peter Shaw comes into the series already fully fledged as it were - the new style of detective, careful, determined not to make his father's mistakes, but an artist who can draw his own identikit pictures, and a boatie with a hovercraft licence.

You've probably detected that I found this a very enjoyable read, and I'll certainly now try to get hold of the Philip Dryden titles, as well as look out for the next in the Shaw and Valentine series: DEATH WATCH.

My rating: 4.9

Lists courtesy Fantastic Fiction:

Philip Dryden
1. The Water Clock (2002)
2. The Fire Baby (2004)
3. The Moon Tunnel (2005)
4. The Coldest Blood (2006)
5. The Skeleton Man (2007)

DI Peter Shaw and DS George Valentine

1. Death Wore White (2009)
2. Death Watch (2010)

Other Reviews to check:

• It's a Crime: With Death Wore White, Jim Kelly brings a cool modern twist to the traditional locked room murder mystery... a book you don't want to finish, but you know you must.
• Do You Write Under Your Own Name: I shall certainly be reading more Jim Kelly.

Review: THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST, Stieg Larsson

MacLehose Press, 2009. Translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland. Originally published in Sweden in 2007. Author Stieg Larsson died in 2004 at the age of 50.
ISBN 978-1-906694-16-6
I read my copy on my Kindle.

The story opens with Lisbeth Salander's admission to Emergency at the Salengrenska hospital in Goteborg with a gunshot wound to the head. At the same time a second patient, her father, is to be admitted with severe axe wounds.
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST, the third in the Millenium trilogy, is a close sequel to the second in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE.

In fact, if you haven't read FIRE, and even the first, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, then I think little of HORNET'S NEST will make sense. The explanations for what is happening in HORNET'S NEST are firmly rooted in both the previous novels, but most definitely in FIRE.
(If you are looking for an overview of each, try this page at Petrona)

Lisbeth Salander's fight to prove the charges against her are wrong results in the unveiling of a conspiracy that has existed for a decade and a half, where the rights of a 12 year old girl were sacrificed for "the good of the state."

In the face of so many other excellent reviews and commentaries on HORNET'S NEST such as those you'll find on Reactions for Reading, DJs krimiblog, Euro Crime, Crime Scraps, Detectives Beyond Borders, and Mack Captures Crime, just to name a few, I'm struggling here to say anything original.

For me, Larsson's women's rights agenda was stronger in this novel than in the other two. Right from the beginning we have an image of Salander as some sort of warrior. The opening paragraphs tell us about the six hundred women who served in the American Civil War, and then later we are reminded of the Amazons, and then the women's army that existed among the Fon of Dahomey. It is hard not to see Advokat Annika Giannini, Salander's lawyer in this role too. She turns out to be a courtroom lion whom the proecutors severely underestimate.
The other theme that comes through strong and clear is the power of the press to make or break a government, and even more the role/duty of a journalist to seacrh out the truth.

But enough, I'm not going to tell you more, otherwise I'll reveal too much.

The criticism others have made of the earlier two books is that they were still in need of some editing, that they were too long. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST is in reality no shorter. In fact it probably could have done with tighter editing, but I really came to accept that as Larsson's style. He just had to make sure that the reader has all the required detail to get the right picture. For me the last section which ties the ends off was just a little too long. But that was probably because I was anxious to finish. According to my records it took me 12 days to read, rather than the 4 days or so I usually allow.

As I remarked the other day, HORNET'S NEST has made it into my top 10 books published in 2009, but it won't make it into my final top 10 read in the year.

My rating: 4.6

My other reviews:
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (rated 4.8)
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE (rated 4.7)

Review: THE BARRED WINDOW, Andrew Taylor

I listened to this as a download from Audible.com
According to Fantastic Fiction it was published in 1993, the same year in which the book is set.

Quite a long book, and I spent much of the time wondering if it was actually crime fiction, although in my heart of hearts I knew it was.

You know, for example, that nasty things have happened in Finisterre, the house Thomas inherited from his mother. People have died, including his father, his baby cousin Lizzie, and his wife Lillian. The room his father and Lizzie died in is referred to as the Death Room. It is not an accident either than Finisterre rhymes with Sinister.

The tension mounted in the last hour or so of the book, and I really began to question who was telling the truth. The eventual truth is horrifying, but you are still left wondering about which version to believe.

On his site Andrew Taylor says
"THE RAVEN ON THE WATER and THE BARRED WINDOW both explore the relationship between now and then: as a writer I'm fascinated by the fact that if you want to understand the present, you have to go back to the past. Both novels use a double narrative technique, in which the distant past and the recent past unfold together until they converge in the present. Both deal with the long shadows cast by old crimes.

THE BARRED WINDOW was widely reviewed as mainstream fiction. It is set in Cornwall and uses many of the conventions of the Gothic novel. One of its themes is the blurred dividing line which sometimes exists between predators and victims."

Read a few pages of THE BARRED WINDOW here. Listen to a sample here.

My rating 4.5

I haven't read as many of Andrew Taylor's books as I would like.
He was the winner of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2009 for "sustained excellence in crime writing."
His blog site. Books listed on Fantastic Fiction.

Here are some mini-reviews from my database.

CAROLINE MINUSCULE (1982), my rating 4.2
William Dougal has had a nasty shock. When he went to see his lecturer in medieval languages Doctor Gumper, there he was lying inconsiderately on the floor of his study, not only dead but garrotted! William decided not to become involved in any way and removed any evidence of himself from the scene, and then departed, leaving it to the next person to discover the body to report the murder. Imagine his surprise when, as he leaves the college by the side entrance, a stranger joins him from the shadows, saying "I've been waiting for you. I'd like to have a chat". CAROLINE MINISCULE is the beginning of the Dougal series.

AN AIR THAT KILLS (1994), my rating 4.3
The bones of a baby are discovered in a disused privy as workmen demolish an old inn in a small market town on the England/Wales border in the 1950s. Newly arrived Detective Inspector Thornhill is called in to investigate what appears to be an old Victorian murder case. This is the first of Taylor's Lymouth series. It reminds me of Dorothy Simpson's Inpector Thanet series. Thornhill and Thanet have a lot in common. A fairly placid cozy.

DEATH'S OWN DOOR (2001), my rating 4.5
#6 in Taylor's Lydmouth series. Edith, wife of D. I. Richard Thornhill of Lydmouth, returns to nearby Trenalt for the funeral of Rufus Moorcroft, someone she knew when she was much younger. The funeral draws a number of her 'old crowd' back together, first to the funeral, and then as part of the investigation surrounding Moorcroft's death. The plot thickens when the elderly and decidely odd Cicely Caswell is found dead on the railway line, and events that occurred decades before become important. Edith has a little fling with a former flame, set against the larger backdrop of her husband's much more serious affair with Jill Francis, editor of the Lydmouth Gazette. (I wish I'd read this series in order though)

CALL THE DYING (2004), my rating 4.4
Love and need make unexpected bedfellows, and both are blind. As the grip of a long hard winter tightens on Lydmouth, a dead voice calls the dying in a séance behind net curtains. Two provincial newspapers are in the throes of a bitter circulation war. A doctor finds his Nemesis and an office boy loses his heart. In Lydmouth, it is the year when the fog is particularly bad - and when the rats are fed on bread and milk, a gentleman's yellow kid glove is mislaid, and something disgusting is happening at Mr Prout's toyshop. It's also the year when Jill Francis returns to Lydmouth as editor of the Gazette. There's no pleasure left in the life of DCI Richard Thornhill. Only a corpse, a television set and the promise of trouble to come. 7th in the Lydmouth series. Quite tightly written.

Review: THE COMPLAINTS, Ian Rankin

Orion Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7528-8952-8, 381 pages.

Malcolm Fox, Foxy, works in the Dark Side of the Complaints and Conduct section of Edinburgh's Lothian and Borders Police HQ. Their job is to keep the cops honest - investigate grievances about cops, hints of corruption, smells of backhanders. Foxy and his colleagues are not popular, as you can imagine, and they've just had a result. They've had Glen Heaton under surveillance for months. It's Friday and now Heaton is under suspension, and the paperwork has gone to the Procurator Fiscal for prosecution.

So there's always someone out for revenge, and if you work for the Dark Side you have to be extra careful to keep your nose clean.

On Monday Fox is asked by another section, this time Child Protection, to begin an investigation into Jamie Breck, a policeman working in the same station as Heaton. His boss is ok with him doing some low key investigation.

On the same day he hears that his sister Jude has been beaten up yet again by her boyfriend. This time she has a broken arm. Jude's boyfriend Vince appears to have disappeared.

The further Inspector Fox gets drawn into Vince's disappearance and into investigating Jamie Breck, the more he finds that things aren't what they seem, and he gets drawn further into a complex web that challenges not only his personal safety but also his career.

THE COMPLAINTS has all the hallmarks of the beginning of a series. There was a lot of speculation about what Rankin would find to do when he retired John Rebus. And so he produced Mark Mackenzie in DOORS OPEN. That didn't feel like the beginning of a series like THE COMPLAINTS does. In this novel Rankin spends a lot of time giving the reader background to Fox and his colleagues, establishing the parameters by which the Dark Side operates.

My rating: 4.7

Other reviews for you to consider:

• BooksPlease: I was absolutely engrossed in this book from the beginning to the end; one of the best books I’ve read this year.
• Crime Always Pays: on the other hand was a little disappointed.
• Pat Austin on Euro Crime: This is good, intelligent crime writing.

Review: LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS IS MURDER, Mike Befeler

This book, #2 in the Paul Jacobsen Geezer-Lit Mystery series, is the first book I've completed reading on my new Kindle. I noticed also that this book is available as an audio from Audible.

Finding that it was available on Kindle was great because the paper versions don't appear to be available yet here in Australia, and the US versions are quite expensive.

I read and reviewed the first in the series, RETIREMENT HOMES ARE MURDER, earlier this year after we had been to Left Coast Crime in Hawaii and met the author Mike Befeler there.

The background to the series is that 85 year old Paul Jacobson has short term memory loss. Like most elderly people he remembers things from the past very well, but most of them will be thankful they don't have his peculiar affliction - sleep wipes the slate of his memory perfectly clean. So if he takes a nap, all that preceded it is gone, and overnight sleep erases the previous day. To counteract that, in the first in the series, Paul's granddaughter got him to write a daily journal so that he can read it the following day and and least get some idea of what he has been doing. In RETIREMENT HOMES ARE MURDER, Paul was living on Hawaii in a retirement home, but his son Denny thought that was too far away and has persuaded Paul to come to live with his family in Boulder Colorado. The idea is really to keep a better eye on Paul, who always seemed to be getting into serious trouble in Hawaii.

But Paul's move to Boulder doesn't start too well - the man he is sitting next to on the plane rather inconveniently dies, and that's just the start of a succession of serious situations for Paul.
Like the earlier title LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS is an irreverent poke at the lives of the elderly. You'll discover for example that there is one thing that Paul can do that seems to prevent his memory loss, but is it a sustainable solution? Paul's son Denny is worrying that his memory may be going the same way, his daughter-in-law Allison is amazingly welcome, and his 12 year old granddaughter is delightful, a sleuth and lawyer in the making.

I kept thinking of what an amazing job the author Mike Befeler does of keeping his wires uncrossed. We, the reader, basically see the world through Paul Jacobson's eyes, and of course we can remember a lot of what he has forgotten. Just occasionally I felt like poking Paul, to tell him that we had already discovered the answer to that question - why the heck didn't he write it down!

You can probably tell from my tone that I thoroughly enjoyed reading LIVING WITH YOUR KIDS IS MURDER. I think Mike Befeler has hit on a story line that the elderly will find enjoyable too. It's not a long read - the hardcover version is 261 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1594147616.

My rating : 4.4