Nefarious Doings by Ilsa Evans

Momentum Books

A small Australian town called Majic is the home of Nell Forrest.  Majic has a bookstore, an art gallery, a community center, police station, a few restaurants and a rather large Richard III society.  It sounds very much like most small towns - except of course for the murder, arson, death threats, disappearances and adultery - quite bucolic.

Nell writes a weekly column and occasionally helps out at the bookstore owned by her mom.  Her husband recently left her for a younger woman but she certainly isn’t lonely.  Her home is virtually central station with the comings and goings of her five daughters, her mother, her sister and their various friends it can hardly be described as deserted. Especially after, out of necessity, her mother moves in.

Her mother’s house is torched and after her mother is rescued and the fire is extinguished the body of a neighbour is uncovered in the garage.  Since the neighbour and her mother disliked each other intensely, her mother appears to be a likely suspect for murder.  So Nell, her sister and daughters join forces to prove grandma is innocent.  Their sleuthing is more comical than professional but somehow they touch a nerve because Nell receives a threatening voice mail and another innocent soul is found murdered.  The local detective Ashley Armistead warns Nell that she could be endangering herself by not leaving matters to the police, but of course she doesn’t listen and Armistead’s warning becomes reality. 

This is a light, comical and entertaining mystery.  I loved how each chapter started with an email or note to Nell from a reader of her Middle-aged Spread column.  Some of these notes are hysterical.  I also loved how the thoughts in Nell’s head often take the form of headlines - “Local woman helps police with their inquiries. Implicates elderly mother.” And her sarcasm is sharp and witty. 

Nefarious Doings is a fun and cozy read and I am looking forward to the next Nell Forrest book, Ill-gotten Gains from Ilsa Evans.

Clean Burn by Karen Sandler

Angry Robot Ltd./Exhibit A

Janelle Watkins isn’t your typical heroine.  Gimpy leg, arms full of burn marks – many self-imposed and others not – a woman who spends restless nights haunted by dark dreams, that’s Janelle.  At times, the dreams terrify and torment her to the point that she awakens screaming and shaking.  To keep her demons at bay, she creates an insular world to protect her vulnerabilities and to hide her madness from others. 

 

A former San Francisco PD  she once helped parents with the nightmare of missing kids; she has a photo gallery of happy children reunited with their parents adorning one office wall, a testament to her success.  After leaving the police department, she became a PI and set about tracking down wayward spouses.  However, when she is presented with two cases of missing children she allows herself to be pressured into investigating the disappearances.  The investigations take her back to her home town, Greenville, the place where her nightmares began.

 

Greenville is also where her former San Francisco PD partner and ex-lover, Ken Heinz, now resides. He is the Sheriff and when Janelle arrives in town he is working on some local arson cases.  There is still an attraction between them and things start to heat up when they eventually agree to help each other with their respective cases. 

 

The quick pace of Clean Burn gets you hooked.  But it is the unraveling of the plot and the flawed characters with their twisted minds that will reel you in.  I enjoy stories that allow you inside the mind of a psycho.  And believe me, Mama, the very first character you meet, is definitely a psycho.

 

Karen Sandler has written an essentially dark story about missing children, child abuse, arson, and broken families.  There are many characters that you can’t like and aren’t meant to like.  But she also illustrates the strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities of humans, and how we develop coping mechanisms, good or bad, in order to survive. Sandler also has a keen sense of humour that she allows to gently seep in here and there to lighten the mood. 

 

Do yourself a favor and read this book even if you have to read it by candlelight.  Just be careful you don’t get burned.

Here is a link to an article on the story behind Clean Burn.
http://upcoming4.me/news/book-news/story-behind-clean-burn-by-karen-sandler

 

 

Murder on Cue by Jane Dentinger

Open Road Media

When we first meet Jocelyn O’Roarke, she is being rudely awakened by her agent with a work proposal.  Hung over and still half asleep she accepts the offer from him to be the understudy of theatre star Harriet Weldon in a new play.  Weldon’s fame is due more to her prestigious publishing family and their money, than her less than sterling acting ability.  In fact Jocelyn describes Weldon at one point as a “tedious, artsy-fartsy actor(s)” and that pretty much sums her up.  But Jocelyn (Josh) is in no position to turn down a paying job that will guarantee her rent money for the next few months.

 

At one point Harriet suddenly becomes ill and Jocelyn steps in and proves herself to be better in the part than Harriet.  Other members of the troupe see how good the play could be with Josh instead of Harriet and tensions start to rise. Once Harriet returns Jocelyn resumes her minor part in the play but when the leading lady is suddenly murdered, Josh finds she has been cast in the role of leading suspect.

Jocelyn then must prove her innocence and the story evolves through her meetings and talks with other cast members or people from their past.  Detective Phillip Gerard is also in pursuit of the killer and ends up in pursuit of Jocelyn as well.  Their romantic attraction is cleverly understated and adds nicely to the story without taking center stage and overshadowing the main plot line.  You want to know where their relationship is going but you also want to know how Josh will get safely out of the situation.

The conversations Jocelyn has while trying to prove her innocence take you into the world of theatre – the gossip, the backstabbing, the alcohol, the drugs, broken relationships, and secret love affairs – all get honorable mentions as part of character and plot development.  Strewn throughout are a number of lines from famous plays which theatre lovers should enjoy.

 

This is a fun and entertaining read.  You may or may not figure out whodunit and there are enough red herrings thrown in to make you second guess yourself. Jane Dentinger writes with a sharp sense of humour that I really enjoyed and that adds to the character of Jocelyn in particular. 

This is a soft mystery and the first in a series of six theatrical mysteries starring Jocelyn O’Roarke.  Murder on Cue was originally released in 1983 and holds up well over time.  It still comes across as contemporary and is now available in ebook format. I received my copy through NetGalley.

A Dangerous Fiction by Barbara Rogan

PENGUIN GROUP Viking

The description for A Dangerous Fiction states that this book “will delight fans of Janet Evanovich, Lisa Lutz, Alan Bradley, and ABC's Castle”.  Well I’m a big fan of both Evanovich and ABC's Castle and I wasn’t delighted.

The story centers on Jo Donovan who owns an influential literary agency in New York.  She worked her way up in the world from a meager childhood in Appalachia to marrying one of the world’s most successful authors.  For Jo, theirs was a fairy tale romance and she is devastated by his sudden death. 

 

After his death, she focuses on her life as the owner of one of the top literary agencies in New York and Jo is living a life she loves, surrounded by friends, co-workers and clients that adore her.  But one rejection slip too many is issued by her agency and a stalker enters her life.  The stalker’s threats don’t scare her until her clients and friends become entangled in the web and everything she has worked so hard for is suddenly at risk.  The police are called in and this is when Tommy Cullen, NYPD detective and an old flame, enters stage left.  At the same time as this threat to her is happening, a biographer is intent on writing a book about her former husband, and he starts to uncover parts of the past that Jo has been denying, especially to herself.

 

Most of the story takes place inside the agency or her apartment.  However, you do get a feel for the hustle and bustle of New York City.  A trip in rural New York State, the scenes in Santa Fe and the scenes in Central Park are all well depicted and a nice contrast to the pace of the city, you get a real sense of the surroundings.  However, for me the book just fell flat. 

 

Other reviewers have stressed how much they enjoyed learning about how a literary agency works, I didn’t.  There was just too much of this for my liking.  I also didn’t enjoy the name dropping and references to high fashion.  Yes I get it; this was all done to paint a picture of the type of individuals Jo mingled with and her lifestyle, but a little bit of this goes a long way with me. I would have preferred to have been reading deeper descriptions of some of the secondary characters.

 

This wasn’t a page turner for me.  I figured out “whodunnit” and why, less than half way through, so there wasn’t much mystery or thrill for me.  But if you enjoy a soft mystery and want to find out about literary agencies and how books get published then read on.

 

 

 

50 Below Zero by Robert Munsch

Illustrated by Michael Martchenko

Annick Press

50 Below Zero is typical Munsch.  The author's wild sense of humour is obvious in this one. 

 

Jason has a dad who tends to sleepwalk and Jason awakens in the night to find his dad in the strangest places.  He finds himself with the challenge of not just getting dad back to bed but also back in the house.

 

He’s a smart kid though and he solves the problem in an original manner.  Fun read.

The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler

Gallery Books

Chic lit isn’t a genre that I normally read.  However, a book about a bookstore with a charming British girl for the main character piqued my interest.  The description of the book describes the bookstore as an all-night haven for some quirky characters.  I do love quirky characters.  So I figured, why not?

Esme Garland is a young British woman who has come to Columbia University to do her PhD in art history.  As intelligent as she is, Esme is naïve about life in general and love in particular.  Her social skills aren’t always the greatest either. She falls for Mitchell who is also scholarly and intelligent.  He is charming and romantic and plays Esme like a fine violin.  The only words I can think of to describe him are obnoxious, contemptible and schmuck.  He is definitely a grade A highbrow schmuck, but a schmuck nonetheless.

Essentially the story centers on Esme’s unplanned pregnancy and how she deals with her life suddenly veering off course.  Anyone who has herself been or had a friend in this position is familiar with the range of emotions and decisions that Esme deals with as part and parcel of the circumstance.   Many of us also know someone who has been dumped by a lover, more than once, yet will return to the relationship at any given opportunity.  That’s Esme – there are times you just want to shake her so she will wake up.  But you can’t and she doesn’t - until she becomes a mother. 

In order to be able to support herself once the baby arrives, Esme gets a job at the Owl, a second hand bookstore.  This is where we meet a handful of secondary characters that come and go through the story.  This aspect of the book you are either going to love or hate.  Personally, I enjoyed the diversions provided by these characters but I suspect others may see them as detractors from the main event. 

Being privy to Esme’s thoughts, her quick wit and occasional lack of filters makes for an endearing character and an amusing read.   I enjoyed how Meyler uses Esme’s knowledge of art, Luke’s (works at the bookstore) knowledge of music, and George’s (bookstore owner) knowledge of literature to contrast and compare different ways of looking at life in general and in detail.   There are numerous references to great works of art and music and numerous literary references threaded through the dialogues, but you don’t need to be familiar with these references to understand the points that are being made, at least I don’t think so.  After all this is chick lit, an examination of womanhood not of philosophy or the classics. If you like, allow your eyes to glaze over, yawn or flip the page at these parts; that’s what I always do when things get too sappy in a book. 

Overall this is an enjoyable read from a new author who shows potential. 

For those who are interested, I am providing two links:.

The first is to Bookshipper, a blog written by a friend who loves chick lit.

http://bookshipper.blogspot.ca/
 
The second link is to a short article in USA Today about this book and a brief bio on Deborah Meyler.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/08/14/deborah-meyler-the-bookstore/2608937/

 

 

The Man with the Violin by Kathy Stinson

Illustrations by Dušan Petričić

Annick Press

Ah, the power and beauty of music. 

This story is based on the social experiment that was conducted by the Washington Post in a busy Washington subway station during the morning  rush hour in January 2007.  Renowned violinist Joshua Bell played a set of classical masterpieces on a Stradivarius worth millions of dollars while commuters rushed by.  The point of the experiment was to see if people would recognize the beauty in what was happening at was an inappropriate moment.

Some of the thousands of commuters that poured through the station that morning had probably been amongst those who had paid about a $100 each to a sold out concert to hear Bell only two days prior to the experiment.  There were a few people who stopped and listened and a few who threw money in his hat, but most people were too intent on the demands of their busy day to pay any attention to Bell.  Not so difficult to believe how many people just rushed by captives in their insular little bubble.

Kathy Stinson created young Dylan, a boy who tries to get his mother to stop and listen with no success.  Later, when Dylan and his mom are home fixing supper and listening to the radio, the music that Dylan had heard in the station plays and the radio announcer talks about the musician and why he had been playing the music in the station that morning.  Only then does his mother stop to listen and they enjoy the music together. 

Dušan Petričić illustrates the sounds heard in the station with great imagination and a masterful use of color. 

Of interest to parents or older readers is a short biography of Joshua Bell and his comments on music and that morning in the subway station following the story. 

Here is a link to the book trailer (provided by Bookshorts) with an interview with the author and illustrator and Joshua Bell's beautiful music as background.
 http://www.movingstories.tv/the-man-with-the-violin

Here is a link to a video of the experiment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw 

Updated - link to new video October 5, 2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/10/04/violinist-joshua-bell-washington_n_5933018.html

Multiple Exposure - by Ellen Crosby

Book Review

Published by Scribner

Even though the basic story line isn’t particularly original – wife left to prove her husband isn’t guilty of the crimes for which he is accused and she has to fight off the bad guys – it does work.  The addition of a little art history and some history about Russia is smoothly incorporated into the story.  It works because the writing is fluid and the plot is well thought out.  Yes, you can figure out who the real perpetrator is and even predict some of the story line.  However, the main character, Sophie Medina a photojournalist, is what holds the story together. 

Sophie is a strong, independent, likeable woman who is also a believable character. She has no super powers, no eccentricities and no comic sidekicks.  Just the firm belief that her husband is innocent and they will reunite. 

She returns to Washington, D.C. to be near family and friends and to start her life over.  But since her husband’s enemies are convinced that she knows where he is they watch her every move. She is soon running from them in an effort to save her life.

Multiple Exposure is the first in a new series by author Ellen Crosby and I am looking forward to reading the next installment.

The Mayor of Hollywood by MB Brophy

Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) Members' Titles

Lucy Cassidy was a teenage Hollywood star, famous for her work on Malibu Cove, think 90210 and Orange County. Despite the fact that she and her manager mother had a contentious relationship, her money was well managed leaving Lucy financially comfortable and able to pursue other interests when she was of independent age.

 

Studying history becomes Lucy's passion and she earns a doctorate degree in history and continues to do some occasional movie work.  When the body of a Hollywood agent, who has a link to a dark secret in Lucy's past, is found murdered beside the body of a reporter on the same site as a famous old Hollywood murder case, Lucy’s life takes a turn for the worse.  She now has a stalker to deal with, who not only attempts to terrorize her, but also puts both of her careers in jeopardy. She and her boyfriend, detective Mark Adamson, must find the connection between the two murders and the identity of the stalker before it is too late.

 

By linking a 1930 murder to a current day murder, the author explores some of the problems and dangers in the Hollywood of wannabees and successful stars.  The hazards related to the “director’s couch”, prescription and non-prescription drugs, eating disorders, power and greed, and the power of the press, are part of the stories past and present. 

 

If you aren’t a big Hollywood junkie, you should find some of the historical tidbits about Hollywood in the 30’s and how one can become the Mayor of Hollywood, an honorary position, interesting.  My guess is there is nothing new here for hard core junkies, but I found I learned a few things about Hollywood that were interesting and sometimes amusing.

 

All in all MB Brophy has created a solid and enjoyable read with likeable characters and enough twists and turns in the plot to keep the reader interested and surprised. 

Carrot by Vanita Oelschlager

Vanita Books

Illustrated by Kristen Blackwood

This is a cute little book about a cat named Carrot.  One day while she is roaming around, she spies a princess-like cat sitting on a pillow on the deck of a yacht apparently living a pampered life.  Carrot is envious of how wonderful this life looks.  She goes home and imagines herself as the pampered cat and how her life would be different.  After mulling things over, she realizes things are probably not as good as they look and her life is pretty good after all.

 A learning to want what you have book for kids, with beautiful illustrations.