Entries from Westport Public Library BOOK blog tagged with 'cozy'
Death on a train
The phenomenal success of the Phryne Fisher series is no doubt due in part to author Kerry Greenwood’s vision of her character: “Phryne is a hero, just like James Bond or the Saint, but with fewer product endorsements and a better class of lovers. I decided to try a female hero and made her as free as a male hero, to see what she would do. Mind you, at that time I only thought there would be two books.”Next Sunday, the 29th, at 2 p.m., the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will be discussing the 3rd book in the series, Murder on the Ballarat Train.Mutual admiration
“Librarians are my favorite people and libraries, my favorite places to be.” Kind words from one of the finest traditional mystery writers around. The Author's Note from Katherine Hall Page’s latest (and 18th) Faith Fairchild title, The Body in the Sleigh, is her thank-you letter to librarians everywhere. It is so nice to be appreciated. If you would like to meet Katherine Hall Page, stop by the McManus Room Monday night, November 2nd, at 7:30 when she will speak about the new book. Copies will be available for purchase and signing after the talk. It has a holiday theme, so this may be the perfect gift for some of the mystery readers on your list.Scary Stuff
Jane Wheel makes half of her living as an antique picker searching high and low at estate sales and antique shops and reselling her finds to other collectors. She makes the other half as a private detective, because she’s just as talented at digging up secrets. In Scary Stuff, the sixth book of the Jane Wheel series by Sharon Fiffer, Jane returns to her family’s home – just in time for Halloween – to straighten out a mess her brother has gotten himself into. He says he's been verbally attacked three times by men who accused him of swindling them on eBay. It becomes obvious that he has a doppelganger, which fans out into a family drama that takes on Hitchockian airs. Jane finds that besides finding delight in plowing through the accumulations of peoples’ lifetimes, you sometimes uncover secrets that others wish to remain hidden, at all costs.Evil for Evil
Evil for Evil finds Billy Boyle in late 1943 in Northern Ireland investigating the theft of 50 automatic rifles and 200,000 rounds of ammunition from a U.S. Army depot. The body of a slain IRA man is found a few miles away and Billy's military superiors fear the stolen weapons will be used in a Nazi engineered IRA uprising. Booklist says "author James R. Benn continues to create fascinating behind-the-scenes mysteries from little-known facets of World War II history … A solid series that keeps getting better." Benn will be joining us at the Westport Library on Sunday, October 25 at 2:00 pm along with Peter Lovesey, the award-winning author of over thirty-five crime novels, including the contemporary Peter Diamond series and the Victorian era Sergeant Cribb mysteries.
The Sterling standard
What am I bid on another fine "antiques mystery" series? Sterling Glass is a small-town Virginia antiques appraiser. In Stealing with Style, her first case, she becomes embroiled in a plot involving several prestigious families, valuable antiques, and con men at some of New York's leading auction houses when a number of rare objects show up in a Goodwill store. The Library Journal review called it "a fascinating look at the world of antiques” which is probably due to the fact that its author, Emyl Jenkins, is a longtime antiques appraiser and has written numerous popular books on the subject.In the cauldron, boil and bake
In his critically acclaimed first mystery novel The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: the wickedly brilliant eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a penchant for poison. One reviewer called her a “curious combination of Harriet the Spy and Sherlock Holmes.” It is 1950, at the beginning of summer. A dead bird has been left on the doorstep with a postage stamp pinned to its beak at Buckshaw, a decaying English mansion that is the de Luce ancestral home, and then, just hours later, Flavia finds a dying man in the cucumber patch. Flavia is both appalled and delighted. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”Killer historical mysteries
The 2008 Agatha nomineeshave been announced and author Kathy Lynn Emerson’s book, How to Write a Killer Historical Mystery, is on the Best Non-fiction list. The core of the book is Emerson’s personal take on writing and selling historical mysteries, but it also includes practical advice, anecdotes, and suggestions for research from over forty other historical mystery writers and insights from assorted editors, booksellers, and reviewers. As the author of two popular historical mystery series, the Face Down Mysteries featuring Elizabethan gentlewoman herbalist Susanna, Lady Appleton, and the Diana Spaulding Mysteries, set in 1888 in various U.S. locations featuring journalist Diana Spaulding, she certainly knows her stuff.Have Faith
Katherine Hall Page is the author of seventeen Faith Fairchild mysteries, the first of which received the Agatha Award for best first mystery. The fifteenth book, The Body in the Snowdrift (2005), won the Agatha for best novel. Page also won an Agatha for her short story The Would-Be Widower. She is the first person in the history of Malice Domestic to win all three of these awards and was the Guest of Honor at Malice in 2006. Good news for Page’s fans. The Body in the Sleigh – book number eighteen – is promised for October, 2009. Katherine Hall Page will also be joining the group of authors assembled for the Murder 203 mystery festival to be held on April 18th-19th.CSI: Sarasota?
One does not usually think of Sarasota as a hotbed of criminal activity, but there is not just one, but two, popular mystery series set in this southwestern coastal Florida city. Stuart Kaminsky’s transplanted northerner Lew Fonesca is “an unlicensed peeper, bargain basement dick and process server living out of his office overlooking the Dairy Queen on 301. “ Although they have their lighter moments – mainly due to an entertaining assortment of odd characters – these books are generally dark in tone, and psychologically complex, dealing with questions of grief and depression. And then there is Blaize Clement’s sleuth Dixie Hemingway who has given up her stressful job as a sheriff's deputy in Sarasota to become a professional pet sitter. Although definitely lighter than the Kaminsky novels, Clement’s books should not be dismissed out-of-hand as just another humorous feline mystery series. According to Publishers Weekly “Clement blends elements of cozy and thriller to produce an unusual and enjoyable hybrid.”What exactly is a cozy mystery?
In a cozy mystery, the tone is light and the characters rely on their instincts and wits rather than professional training. Some authors in this genre prefer the term "traditional" mysteries. Cozies feature amateur detectives, generally accompanied by cats, knitting gear, pots of tea, and other domestic accoutrement, living in suburban or country settings, althought there is a sub-genre, the "edgy" cozy that often has an urban setting and a greater element of suspense because the protagonist's safety is in jeopardy. According to Cozy-Mystery.com, the best website devoted to the genre, “Cozies don't usually involve a lot of gory details or explicit ‘adult situations’ either.”Animalistic behavior
There have always been a host of canine and feline mysteries to keep animal-loving readers occupied. There are two new zookeeper detectives of note.
In Betty Webb’s forthcoming Anteater of Death, Lucy, a pregnant giant anteater from Belize, is blamed for killing the man found dead in her pen. California zookeeper Teddy Bentley must find the real culprit before Lucy is shipped to another zoo. Teddy's search puts her at odds with her boss, a lecherous zoo administrator, and many of the local residents resent her “nosing” around. In Marilyn Victor and Michael Allan Mallory’s Death Roll, zookeeper Lavender "Snake" Jones and her husband Jeff – an Australian herpetologist who bears a striking resemblance to the late crocodile hunter Steve Irwin – investigate when the director of the Minnesota Valley Zoo ends up as a crocodile snack.A Mainely man
Kate Flora’s Portland, Maine, homicide detective Joe Burgess perseveres in his investigations despite his personal demons and he never quits until the guilty party is brought to justice. Flora’s latest book, The Angel of Knowlton Park, received a starred review in Booklist, which said “Flora excels at portraying the police as real people with strengths and weaknesses who unite to bring some measure of justice to the dead and living alike. Flora's thought-provoking second police procedural marks her as one of the best in the genre.”Whiskey a Go Go
There are two somewhat intoxicating mystery series on the shelves these days. Nina Wright’s Whiskey Mattimoe is a recently widowed real estate agent in a small resort town in Michigan. She made her debut in Whiskey on the Rocks (2005) which received a starred review in Library Journal. J. A. Konrath’s Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels is with the Chicago Police Violent Crimes Unit. When we meet Jack in Whiskey Sour (2004) her live-in boyfriend has left her for his personal trainer, chronic insomnia has maxed out her credit cards with late-night home shopping purchases, and a frightening killer who calls himself "The Gingerbread Man" is dumping mutilated bodies in her district.Geezer Lit
The AARP Bulletin a while back had a small piece about the increasingly popular mystery genre – what best-selling thriller author Harlan Coben calls “geezer lit” – which features the 70 plus sleuth. One of the hottest new series features 75 year old Gladdy Gold, Florida’s oldest private eyeOn the Vineyard
The late Philip R. Craig was the author of nineteen novels in the Martha's Vineyard Mystery series, including the recently released Vineyard Chill. He loved the Vineyard and lived there year-round with his wife, Shirley. Craig’s protagonist is J.W. “Jeff” Jackson who has retired -- more or less -- to the Vineyard. His family gets by on his Boston PD pension and his wife’s income as a nurse, living on the cheap with furniture salvaged from the town dump and a fourteen year old Landcruiser. J.W. often puts dinner on the table by fishing and clam digging, and is a superb cook. The Jacksons are a refreshing change of pace.Beach reads
Last Wednesday night I was at Borders in Fairfield for a panel of authors -- several being mystery writers -- who shared their favorite beach reads.Murder by number
Sometimes it seems as if everybody's got a gimmick. Janet Evanovich has used numbers in her Stephanie Plum novels, starting with One for the Money, although the brand new Fearless Fourteen is actually the seventeenth book in the series. Visions of Sugar Plums, Plum Lovin’ and Plum Lucky got shuffled into the run along the way. Stephanie is a Trenton based bounty hunter.And the winners are …
This year’s Best Novel Edgar went to John Hart for Down River. Quite an achievement, as this is only his second published work. His first book was The King of Lies which was nominated for a Best First Novel Edgar. Both books made the New York Times Bestseller list. This year’s Best Novel Agatha went to Louise Penny for A Fatal Grace, which is the second title in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, preceded by Still Life and followed by the recently released The Cruelest Month.More nominees
The Agatha Awards are literary awards for mystery and crime writers who write novels in the traditional method exemplified by Agatha Christie, the best selling mystery writer of all time. This year’s nominees in the Best Novel category are: The Penguin Who Knew Too Much by Donna Andrews; Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen; Hard Row by Margaret Maron; A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny; Murder with Reservations by Elaine Viets.Déjà vu all over again
In Linwood Barclay’s new suspense thriller, No Time for Goodbye, a Milford woman whose parents and brother vanished during the night from their family home twenty-five years ago decides to take her story to a popular crime-stopper program on national television. She then fears that her husband and child may be taken from her in the same fashion when it becomes clear that there is much more to their disappearance than she ever imagined.See Jane run!
There is so much Jane Austen buzz these days. Book clubs are still dissecting Karen Joy Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club -- the film version of which opens today -- and people are still queuing up for Becoming Jane, which is making the rounds at art cinemas. PBS is launching an Austen extravaganza in mid-January 2008 when Masterpiece Theatre will begin airing adaptations of all six of her novels. There are two mystery series which arise from the Austen legacy. Stephanie Barron has a series in which Austen herself is the detective and Carrie Bebris has a series where Austen's fictional characters Fitzwilliam Darcy and his wife Elizabeth (née Bennet) do some genteel sleuthing.That's Mrs. Raisin to you!
Marion Chesney is a popular and prolific author. She has written numerous successful historical romance novels under her own name, as well as an Edwardian mystery series featuring Lady Rose Summer, a charming debutante with an independent streak, and Captain Harry Cathcart, an impoverished aristocrat. Under the pseudonym M. C. Beaton, she has written two immensely popular mystery series featuring Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin.A bottle of red, a bottle of white
There is a new true crime paperback series from the folks who bring us 48 Hours, the CBS prime-time news series.
The first title in the series, Nightmare in Napa, relates the chilling story of the murders of two women on Halloween night, 2004.
There is a good selection of cozy mysteries set in Napa California wine country if the real thing is too scary for you.
For the birds ...
... and humorous mystery fans!
Donna Andrews readers will be happy to hear that blacksmith (yes, blacksmith!) Meg Langslow, her boyfriend Michael, and the other odd characters who make for one clever and entertaining mystery series, will return shortly in their latest outing, The Penguin Who Knew Too Much.
Location, location, location!
Although there is a certain appeal in exotic locales, I truly enjoy a story set in a place that I know well.
There are many mysteries set in popular summer travel destinations.
Martha’s Vineyard is home to Cynthia Riggs’s character Victoria Trumbull, an astute 92-year old Vineyard native and deputy police officer as well as Philip R. Craig’s Jefferson “J. W.” Jackson, a 30-something ex-Boston cop.
How does your garden grow?
Ms. Boxer and Ms. Thyme ... say hello to Mr. Hemmings and Mr. Kingston.
If you are hooked on the delightful Rosemary & Thyme television mystery series and want more, more, more gardening lore then you might want to give Peter Pringle's Day of the Dandelion a try.
I am of two minds about this
Sometimes phrases just jump out at me while I am reading reviews.
I recently saw a character referred to as “a combination of Uma Thurman and Jennifer Garner.”
Kristin Van Dijk is a 17-year-old nomad traveling the road of life with her father. When he is murdered in a pool hall by a biker gang and she is beaten and raped and left for dead after the building is torched, she sets out to avenge her father and herself in a Kill-Billesque manner that is, interestingly enough, described in another review as “a made for the movies page turner.”
Finely tuned mysteries
Here are a few musical mysteries for mystery fans who want to keep pace with the excitement of this year’s Westport Reads which features Mark Salzman’s The Soloist.
Think Key West …
If the Kafka’s Soup wasn’t enough to warm you up, why not try a taste of Key Lime Pie … Murder?
Let Joanne Fluke’s latest mouthwatering Hannah Swensen mystery take you away! Actually, it is set in Minnesota, but it is summer there and the mosquitoes are buzzing, so you are still ahead of the game.
Meow-steries!
The book review journal Kirkus Reviews featured mysteries and thrillers in its February 1, 2007 issue, and listed what they referred to as “The 10 Biggest Brands.”
The “brand” that really caught my eye was “Kitty Sleuths.”
Ever since Mr. and Mrs. North's cat Pete helped solve a mystery all the way back in 1939, feline flatfoots have grown in popularity.
Teardown of the day …
Did everyone see the New York Times piece Murder Most Suburban in the Connecticut section yesterday?
I am halfway through McMansion, one of the titles mentioned. It is the fourth installment of Justin Scott’s Ben Abbott series.
Kosher cozy
Trouble is brewing at Temple Rita, and Ruby, the Rabbi’s widow, is, as usual, caught in the thick of it in her latest mystery Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Choir.
Didn’t she see it coming?
Psychics are very popular in mysteries these days, both in print and on screen.
The latest in the Louisa May Alcott mysteries by Anna Maclean, Louisa and the Crystal Gazer, has Louisa May attending séances at the home of Boston's most famous crystal gazer and then investigating the medium’s mysterious death.
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