Seven days in the book world with Sue Cox

Sue Cox is the author of “The Man on the Washing Machine” which won the 2014 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime novel competition. Sue’s varied career has included being a reporter, a fund raiser for a non-profit and public relations for a safari park. She admits to passing the English tea exam whilst flunking coffee 101.  San Francisco and Florida are regular haunts, check out her web site susancox.net for upcoming events and appearances.

Sue's week in her own words.

'I read a lot, but last week seems to have been a particularly book-ridden one:

Two Catherine Aird mysteries I’ve enjoyed in the past: The Religious Body (her first), and Parting Breath.

Fatal Shadows, the first in a male/male romance/mystery series by Josh Lanyon. (Surprising, witty and hot.)

Lessons from Madame Chic by Jennifer L. Scott. (Made me resolve to live with more purpose, chic and formality.)

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson (I think I’ve read everything of his; I love his gentle humor.)

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Col. Chris Hadfield (Former Commander of the International Space Station)

I started to read John Adams by David McCullough, but still working on it.'

Sue's week in a nutshell

Religious Body (1966)

Parting Breath (1977)

Fatal Shadows (2012)

Lessons from Madam Chic (2011)

Road to Little Dribbling (2016)

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth (2013)

John Adams (2001)

N.B The Man on the Washing Machine 9781250065803 is out now.

Midnight Sun, Jo Nesbo

The past has finally caught up with Jon Hansen, he isn’t a killer and that’s a bit of a hitch as he’s the fixer for a notorious drug dealer known as ‘The Fisherman’ and his two ‘kills’ have just been exposed as fakes. Jon goes on the run, boarding a bus in the dead of night and arriving in the isolated Sami town of Kaslund. Here he changes his name to Ulf and poses as a hunter.

But The Fisherman’s new fixer is closing in and he never gives up until he sees a body…

N.B This is a standalone novella.

Seven days in the book world with Wendy Foster Leigh

Wendy is a retired English teacher and administrator (I really wish that she had been my English teacher!) She runs one of TKE's bookgroups, the Armchair Travel Mystery group. An anglophile and cat lover, Wendy and husband can be found in San Francisco, Salt Lake or Central London, depending on the time of year. Here's what she read last week in her own words.

"Right now I an reading the works of Ann Cleeves.  Her writing appeals to me because she creates a place and characters which are compelling.  I have discovered that I want to read every book in her two series.  I finished book one of the Vera mysteries (The Crow Trap) and would like the detective, Vera, to be a friend who would share her own strengths and weaknesses with me.  I am on the 6th book in the Shetland series (Thin Air).  Jimmy Perez, the detective in this series is a vulnerable man with the patience to sit silently and listen to others.  The setting in both the books is important--Newcastle and Northern England and the Shetland Isles. The plots are complicated and the characters well developed. 

I did finish Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan and am rereading The Minotaur, Barbara Vine, for the book group."


Wendy's week in a nutshell


Crow Trap, Ann Cleeves (1999)
Thin Air, Ann Cleeves     (2014)
Green Island, Shawna Yang Ryan (Feb 23rd 2016)
Minotaur, Barabara Vine  (2005)

An occasional series

A not unusual customer question at the bookstore is 'tell me what you're reading right now'. My stock answer to that one is 'how long have you got' because I can give them one book idea or I can give them five or ten depending on if they're on their way to dinner or stopped in for a leisurely browse.

Combine that with a conversation my husband and I had the other day about one book leading to another (or book cascades as I call them)and Brian Grazer's book on curiosity and it occurred to me that it would be cool to get a snapshot of what people are reading (and loving) right now. Old, new, much loved, classic?

Here's an example, last week I read Stiletto (June 2016), reread Good Omens (1990) reread The Witch of Painted Sorrows (2015) and started reading The Secret Language of Stones (July 2016)

You know what I'm reading because I blurb what I read. I, however don't know what you're reading and I want to. If you are interested reply in the comments and I'll explain how this works. Who knows maybe we can turn it into book lunch. I think we'll call it 'Seven Days in the Book World'

 

Language of Secrets, Ausma Zehanat Khan

Khan’s second novel featuring Detective Esa Khattak. The action starts with the thoughts of a dying man, Moshin Dar. His death at a terrorist training camp in Algonquin State Park puts a Canadian security forces operation in jeopardy. Esa Khattak is brought in to mollify Dar’s father, a vocal activist with a radio show and an axe to grind.

Khattak is deliberately kept at the periphery of the investigation only told that the dead man was an informant and that is what got him killed. Dar was a friend of Esa’s and he wants justice done so he sends in his partner, Rachel to infiltrate the mosque Dar attended. As Khattak and Rachel begin piecing together what is really going on it becomes clear to Khattak that not only is he being used, but the picture he is building up of his former friend isn’t the one he was expecting and more personal than his masters at INSET could ever realize.

Some parts of the narrative are loosely based on the true story of the ‘Toronto 18’ in 2006.

Little late but...

Happy 2016 to all my readers! As the title of this post says, a little late but being flat out with a cold will do that to a girl. There are many things to look forward to this year including Eric Larson at TKE (well Rowland Hall) 7 p.m. Monday April 18th. You'll need tickets to get in but you get those with a copy of Dead Wake in paperback, easy peasy.

For those new to this blog, feel free to comment on the reviews or just do what everyone else does, email or in person at the store.

After The Crash, Michel Bussi

‘Miracle on Mt. Terrible’

That was the headline after a plane crash in the Jura mountains in 1980. One survivor, a baby girl, thrown clear of the wreckage. Two families come forward to claim her, they both had grandchildren on the flight. The De Carvilles are moneyed and lawyered up to their perfectly manicured eyeballs. Of course their granddaughter Lyse-Rose survived the crash. The less well-off Vitrals don’t agree because the baby is their granddaughter Emilie. Of course DNA could’ve solved the mystery, if DNA had been around in the eighties.

The ensuing court case puts both families under the microscope and although one family gets Lylie (a hybrid of Lyse-Rose and Emilie) neither walks away intact.

Eighteen years later former mercenary turned PI, Crėdule Grand-Duc is about to mark his crushing failure to establish Lylie Vitral’s true identity with a bullet in the head. Then he has an epiphany, makes a phone call and hours later he is dead, the only clues to who killed him written inside the journal he sent to Lylie and she has vanished. It falls to Lylie’s brother Marc to follow the trail and unmask Grand-Duc’s killer.