July 2018 ~ What are you reading?

Still reading Sunday Silence by Nicci French.

Enjoying this library Playaway audiobook ~

Look Behind You: A Novel (Kendra Michaels)
by Iris Johansen, Roy Johansen

(the authors are a mother and son duo/most recent in a favorite series)

Picked up The Black Book by Ian Rankin to read during the holiday weekend here in Canada. I'm trying to read all the earlier books because I didn't discover Rankin until The Falls. I'm almost finished but I still have no idea how Rebus is going to pull the various crimes he is investigating into one cohesive solution.

I just finished the next episodes in two series I've been enjoying: SJ Rozan's Stone Quarry (not quite as good as the last couple) and PJ Tracy's Shoot to Thrill.

Finished Sunday Silence by Nicci French. Enjoyed it.

Mentioned it in a less-frequented cozy thread, but I'm chuckling my way through Digging Up Otis...an OK mystery plot that provides the underpinnings for some snort-out-loud Golden Girls type humor...showering with a cat...pink senior perms gone bad...renegade pantyhose...

Enjoying this OverDrive audiobook ~

Sting
by Sandra Brown
http://www.librarything.com/work/17367228/book/157927644

(corruption/deception/romantic suspense)

Enjoying this OverDrive audiobook ~

If I'm Found (If I Run Series)
by Terri Blackstock

(book #2/Christian suspense tale/police corruption)

Picked up the latest Lincoln Rhyme novel - The Cutting Edge and it's up to the usual standard, but I noticed a lack of white board lists in this one. Not sure why since he's always used them.

Finished The Wife Between Us - a little disappointing. I was expecting thrills and chills but did not get them. Plenty of plot twists. Not a bad read though. Starting The Day She Disappeared.

Now reading The Word is Murder, by Anthony Horowitz. Great fun so far.

I'm in the middle of Midnight Riot, which is mostly fun.

Finished The Henchmen's Book Club by Danny King. Enjoyed the conceit of the book club.

Next up is Raven Black by Ann Cleeves.

The Emperor’s Tomb by Steve Berry
#6 Cotton Malone Mysteries
4 1/2 ⭐️

Cotton Malone, a book seller in Denmark and retired DOJ operative, receives a video of Cassiopeia Vitt being water boarded. A Chinese operative has requested that he deliver something, a 2,200 year old dragon oil lamp, to ensure her safety. He doesn’t have it, or have a clue where to find it. He is desperate to help her. To that end he becomes enmeshed in a struggle to save a young boy from Chinese captors. But, he also finds out that the US and Russia are interested in this boy due to the father is a geologist whose specialty is finding oil. Upon freeing Cassiopeia, Cotton finds himself in a Chinese plot which could ultimately result in world war, if it is not stopped.

I enjoyed this book immensely. So many twists and turns. Especially interesting was China and the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor, the tomb of the terra cotta warriors. I’ve always wanted to visit Xian and this tomb. I was fascinated by this setting.

Preparing to start Crimson Snow, edited by Martin Edwards. With all the hot weather we've been getting, it will be refreshing to read winter stories.

I’m reading The woman in the window by A.J. Finn.

Just started The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry.

Ready to dive into this OverDrive audiobook ~

The Hellfire Club
by Jake Tapper
http://www.librarything.com/work/21383687/book/158207875

(1954 McCarthy era DC political thriller/narrated by Jake)

I see I've forgotten to post in this group for a while. My latest read in this category is The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths...excellent as always.

Earlier in July, I finished two from a Canadian mystery series, ones that I'd missed reading in past years:
What's Left Behind and The Winners' Circle, both by Gail Bowen.

Finished The Day She Disappeared by Christobel Kent - a good, multi-layered, psychological thriller. Back to Reed Farrel Coleman's Moe Prager series The James Deans

>16 nrmay: How is it? I am thinking about reading it.

Finished Raven Black by Ann Cleeves. Slow starter but I enjoyed it muchly. Next up is book two in the series, White Nights.

Just finished spook street by Mick Herron 4th book in the Slow Horses series. As always an excellent, well written, fast paced read

Presently reading Twelve angry librarians by Miranda James.
It's not making me want my old job back but I love the Maine Coon cat in the story.

Couldn't sleep last night b/c my house was too hot, so I read and quite enjoyed this thriller: Give Me The Child by Mel McGrath.

The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry
#7 Cotton Malone Mysteries
4⭐️

Cotton Malone, a retired DOJ operative, and Cassiopeia Vitt decide to have w weekend of theatre and dining in NYC. Unfortunately, Cotton receives a text from his former boss, Stephanie Nelle, that puts him in jeopardy. Cotton runs to another hotel to foil a plot to assasinate President Danny Daniels. Behind the plot is a cadre of modern day privateers, pirates, with with a letter of Marque dating back to the Revolutionary War. To make things worse, Cotton’s former boss, Stephanie, has been kidnapped. The President cannot trust any of his security agencies to find Stephanie, as there are traitors hiding within the agencies. It is up to Cotton and Cassiopeia to save Stephanie, and find the would be assassins.

I really enjoyed this fast paced story set in the US. I also loved the way Oak Island, of treasure hunting fame, was thrown into the mix.

Finished Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards.

Now starting Witness the Dead, by Craig Robertson.

Just finished The Child Who by Simon Lelic and found it very interesting.

Digging up Otis by T. Dawn Richard
#2 May List Mysteries
3 ⭐️

This is my first to read of the May List Mystery series. I must say I was laughing out loud at the opening lines. However, the laughs and gags started to get old as the book went on. It wasn’t a bad read, but it won’t be in my favorites for the year, either. Most of the comedy was centered around the foibles of the elderly retirement community friends/detectives of May List. She and her physician husband recently moved to Spokane, but were called back to Waning Years Estates in California. Seems a resident of the condos went missing. May flies to California. Her old friends give her a tour of the senior citizen community, as it has vastly changed since May moved up north. After touring the new athletic facility they retired to the bar ( no liquor license as of yet) which has a glass wall for pool viewing. When the night swim lights go on in the pool, a dead body floats to and bumps into the glass near May’s table. It looked to be the missing resident named Otis Culpepper. Fanny, one of May’s cohorts, runs out of the bar and to the pool. She dives in to help the local rescue team retrieve Otis. The body looked like Otis, but something was wrong. The widow identified the body as Otis, but May’s friends realized that the body didn’t have a tattoo. They were bound and determined to prove who was the dead man, even if it meant a trip to the cemetary to “dig up Otis.” It was a cute read with a few twists and turns. However, the quirky characters got on my nerves after a while. They weren’t unlikable, they just irritated me. I doubt that I’ll read another of this series; I won’t go out of my way at any rate.

>29 Raspberrymocha: Just finished Digging Up Otis a couple of weeks ago and, like you, I laughed till I hurt the first few chapters. I won't go to great lengths to dig up (pun intended) others in the series, but if they land in my lap...

>30 gmathis: the whole “cat in the shower” thing was hilarious. I usually try to purchase the whole series, but won’t bother. I’d read others if they were free, but not going out of my way. Some of May’s crew were way over the top and irked the heck out of as the story progressed, especially Fanny. I like May, but she needs a better cast of friend characters.

Finished The James Deans.

Finished White Nights by Ann Cleeves and started the next book in the series, Red Bones.

Finally, after all these years, I read the very first Joanne Kilbourn mystery in Gail Bowen's long running series: Deadly Appearances. Too bad Bowen didn't keep the main character as realistic and flawed as she is here in her first appearance-she is so perfect at everything in the later works that she really grates on my nerves. In this one, Joanne is pretty bitchy at times, says the wrong things and definitely is not Miss Perfect.

>33 seitherin: I am just starting White Nights!

>35 rabbitprincess: I'm enjoying the series. Plan to read all of them over the summer.

>35 rabbitprincess: >36 seitherin: So glad to see you both enjoying this series! The tv show is very good, too, although somewhat different (which is good, imho). Beautiful scenery, too.

I just started Game of Mirrors by Andrea Camilleri. It’s been a while since I’ve read any of the Inspector Montalbano series and they are always fun.

>37 Copperskye: I've already watched the TV show. Didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I like the books so far.

I just finished Pulp by Charles Bukowski. The book features a private detective in Los Angeles who is working a number of cases. When I picked it up, I thought it was kind of a send up to the genre, and it was in some ways, though it has Bukowski's trademark dirty old man sensibility and crudeness about it. It also has a number of either supernatural or hallucinogenic elements and the plot doesn't really add up in any straight forward kind of crime novel resolution sort of way. I wouldn't recommend the book to those looking for a good mystery or crime novel because it isn't really that at all. If you like Bukowski's other work, or you are open to someone from outside the genre playing around with conventions of that and several other genres, then maybe you would enjoy it. I had read somewhere that Bukowski was very sick when he wrote this novel, and the novel makes a lot more sense if you realize that he was probably coming to terms with his own mortality and eventual death while writing this book. In that way, the novel managed to feel poignant and moving in its way.

Finished Red Bones by Ann Cleeves. Liked it.

Started The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn. Having a hard time putting it down.

In the opening chapters of The Dante Club. Too soon to tell about this one...I liked one of Matthew Pearl's, The Last Dickens, but The Last Bookaneer felt a little too contrived.

I've finished White Nights and am now substantially changing pace by picking up a re-read of The Honourable Schoolboy, by John le Carré.

I just finished The Serpent's Tale, late twelfth-century Britain, and started To Dwell in Darkness, the sixteenth (I think) in Deb's Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series.

The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler
#7 Isaac Bell Novel
4 1/2 ⭐️

A fast paced tale of the beginnings of the Prohibition era in the United States. Isaac Bell, of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, drops his boss, Joe Van Dorn, off at a Coast Guard vessel that is patrolling the NYC Harbor for rumrunners. Unfortunately, a black sleek boat attacks the slow Coast Guard ship. Joe helps out by taking over a gun, but is shot. He is rushed to the hospital in very bad condition. Isaac is left in charge of the gen you and his first duty is to find whoever shot Joe Van Dorn. Isaac has to find some former agents to help in the search, as the Agency is low on detectives due to WWI. Isaac directs the agents to find the black boat, which leads to the Russia connection of Russian Revolutionaries operating in the US trying to subvert the country. The Russians are using rumrunning to support their activity. The action runs from NYC to Detroit and downnto Miami. I found the fast pace refreshing after reading the past two slower moving books in this series. The series appears back on track.

Adding Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves to my reading rotation.

Listening to this OverDrive audiobook ~

An Expert in Murder (Josephine Tey Mysteries Book)
by Nicola Upson

(London 1934, JT is a crime novelist & playwright &
crime solver/book #1)

Finished Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves. Enjoyed muchly.

Finished A Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn. Terrific, psychological thriller. Starting Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1940s: Laura / The Horizontal Man / In a Lonely Place / The Blank Wall (Library of America). I read In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes as a stand alone. When I was lamenting that her other books were not available, someone on LT suggested this. Incidently, In a Lonely Place was made into a movie (with a different ending) with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Graham. Graham, played by Annette Benning, is the subject of the recent movie Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool.

I really enjoyed this thriller: The Liar's Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard.

Just finished Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, before that The Death of Mrs. Westaway. Also Island of the Mad and--more June than July--The Thirteenth Tale. Trying to find something worthwhile to fill the hole in August where I usually sit back with a new Three Pines book from Louise Penny.

Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith

Added Dead Water by Ann Cleeves to my reading rotation.

AUGUST THREAD: http://www.librarything.com/topic/294419