Kerrie over at Mysteries in Paradise has a cool meme going, where she lists the 10 books she would give as presents this year. The 10 books are the 10 best mysteries she has read this year. Her post is here.
I think this is a super idea. The 10 best books read, or you could do 10 best books in a genre, or whatever you like. So I was looking through the list of books I've read this year - 78 so far, including 34 mysteries - and this is the list of books I would give as Christmas presents this year. I don't do a points rating like Kerrie does, I go by how I remember the stories and if they have a hold on me still. And how much I enjoyed them!
Susan's 10 Mystery books for the Christmas tree
1. Like This, Forever - Sharon Bolton. LOVED this mystery. Review here.
2. The Detective's Daughter - Lesley Thomson. Reviewed here last week. I just gave a copy to my mother for her birthday (so already given!).
3. Talking To the Dead - Harry Bingham. Another different main character, she suffers from Cotard's disease, where she thinks at one point earlier in her life she is dead. Now recovering, Fiona Griffiths starts working as a constable. Very interesting character, and the other characters are good. Really enjoy the second one, as well, Love Story, With Murders.
4. True Murder - Yaba Badoe. Chilling. Suspenseful. Wonderful characters, and creepy in places. Highly recommended. Unforgettable gut-clenching ending.
5. The Man on the Balcony - Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Number 3 in the Martin Beck mystery series from Sweden. A chilling story of the abduction and murder of young girls, and how the police have to hunt for him with very few clues. Will they find him, or not? A mistake is made early on by Beck, which makes the reader (at least I did!) spend my time going, "come on Martin! Think!" The painstaking investigation is representative of a true policeman's work. Very good and suspenseful.
6. To Darkness and Death - Julia Spencer-Fleming. Reviewed here.
7. Invisible City - Julia Dahl. Reviewed here last week.
8. The Magus of Hay - Phil Rickman. Reviewed here.
9. White Bones - Graham Masteron. Reviewed here.
10. The Outcast Dead - Elly Griffiths. The latest in the Elly Griffiths mystery series, as good as all the others. This series is consistently good with all the characters, though sometimes the plot can be a little uneven. Not in this case. A set of bones is uncovered during an excavation, and Ruth is called in. She identifies a female skeleton and a child's skeleton. The female skeleton has a hook for it's arm. Norfolk just happens to have a historical figure of a woman in the Victorian century who ran an orphanage for unwanted children, and several disappeared. She was hung for the murder of them. Is this her skeleton? Dark, disturbing, and at the same time sad. Ruth doesn't believe in the folktale told about Mother Hook who sold her children to the resurrection men for money. For, along with the bodies, she uncovers a journal. Very good mystery, unputdownable as ever with Elly Griffiths. Several side stories also advance, which I love to see in a mystery series. And we discover a little more about Ruth herself and her relationships in her family. A solid mystery with several macabre elements. Highly recommended as they all are in this series.
Bonus mystery:
I really wanted to add the first Anna Dean mystery, Bellfield Hall, featuring Miss Dido Kent, though I couldn't think of who likes Jane Austen type writing as much as I do. If you know someone who loves Jane Austen, then this is the mystery book for them. Fun, and as close to Jane Austen as we can get if she were to write a mystery.
I liked doing this so much, I think I will do a separate list tomorrow that includes the other different genres I read this year, as I read some good fantasy and non-fiction and found a new poet I love.
So there you have it. What would you give as a Christmas present that you really enjoyed this year?
Showing posts with label Julia Dahl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julia Dahl. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 December 2014
Wednesday, 3 December 2014
Advent Calendar of Books
So, as blogging has been so difficult for me this year, and reading so terribly hard since Oct 22, I wanted to do something a little different in the run-up to Christmas. Instead of having a chocolate advent calendar, I thought I would write every day about books. Either a book review of a book I've read and particularly liked, or thoughts on reading, or books I want for Christmas, or anything bookish that catches my eye. So, it will be a surprise every day for 24 days.
Of course, I have already missed two days, so you get a triple treat today. Three bookish things!
Day One: Book Christmas Advent Calendar: In which I review a book
The Detective's Daughter by Lesley Thomson
I read this book in March of this year. Stella Darnell is a policeman's daughter. Jack is the son of Kate Rokesmith, an unsolved murder from 30 years ago, that haunted Stella's father. Upon DI Darnell's death, Kate begins sorting through her father's papers to prepare to empty his house. She comes across a book of papers and realizes her father never got over not solving Kate's death.
This isn't a simple murder mystery, however. Stella is a little different, although it is not spelled out in the book, I suspect she is Obsessive-Compulsive to a high degree. She runs a cleaning company and everything has to be spic and span or else....everything in her life is run the same way. It is interesting in this novel to see what happens when she meets Kate Rokesmith's son, Jack who was 4 when his mother was murdered. He was the only witness. The story that Thomson weaves around grief, parents who are oblivious to their children's wants, and coming to terms with loss, and the slow uncovering of who killed Kate, made for a fascinating mystery novel. I liked that Kate had to feel compulsive about her cleaning, and how she changes when she meets someone more damaged than she is, is enjoyable and realistic. I liked the characters, and the mystery, very much. If you want a good mystery with some emotional glimpses and growth in characters, this is one to get.
Day Two: Book Christmas Advent Calendar: surprise! another book review! hurray!
Invisible City by Julia Dahl
I came across a review of this book in one of the mystery review magazines I occasionally buy. I read it this past July. It is a debut mystery, featuring a female reporter who has arrived in New York City from Florida. The catch? Her mother is from New York City, and was one of the Hasidic Jews. Rebekah Roberts doesn't remember her mother, her mother abandoned her and left her father when she was a baby, and disappeared. Rebekah has come back to New York City to find what happened to her mother, while she works as a stringer newspaper reporter. She is called out to cover the story of a dead woman discovered at a building site. The woman is a Hasidic Jew. One of the men who arrive on the scene from the Jewish community is a man named Saul, who recognizes Rebekah because she looks so much like her mother. Her Hasidic background gives her access to the community, with some members willing to talk with her because she is one of them.
I thought this was an excellent debut mystery. I was drawn to it because of the Hasidic Jewish storyline, which is rarely featured in general fiction. In this novel (as in real life), it is a culture closed off to much of the Western city around it, functioning, with the permission of the city fathers, with its own laws and customs, which Rebekah learns about and questions because she has not been raised in the Hasidic tradition. We learn much on the way along with Rebekah. Fascinating. There are few stereotypes in the characters we meet, the mystery is decent and heart-breaking as we get to know the family members, and at the heart of it is what Rebekah learns of her mother and why she might have left her all those years ago. Highly recommended.
Day Three: Book Christmas Advent Calendar: in which I confess, I was finally able to look at some used books.
This is what I bought: and they are NOT for my Christmas box of books!!! I'm a little naughty, aren't I? Plus, still reading every so slowly. Two books finished in 6 weeks, with another almost done now. However, I can look at books again in a store so this is a big improvement for me.
Because I'm reading so slowly, and haven't been able to shop much for Christmas, I don't have much of a Christmas list done yet. I'm just beginning to look at what books are out now. Do you, Gentle readers? What books are you really wanting for Christmas? Have you done any secret book buying that is not a present for anyone this year, but is for you and just because you love books and they are irresistible?
Of course, I have already missed two days, so you get a triple treat today. Three bookish things!
Day One: Book Christmas Advent Calendar: In which I review a book
The Detective's Daughter by Lesley Thomson
I read this book in March of this year. Stella Darnell is a policeman's daughter. Jack is the son of Kate Rokesmith, an unsolved murder from 30 years ago, that haunted Stella's father. Upon DI Darnell's death, Kate begins sorting through her father's papers to prepare to empty his house. She comes across a book of papers and realizes her father never got over not solving Kate's death.
This isn't a simple murder mystery, however. Stella is a little different, although it is not spelled out in the book, I suspect she is Obsessive-Compulsive to a high degree. She runs a cleaning company and everything has to be spic and span or else....everything in her life is run the same way. It is interesting in this novel to see what happens when she meets Kate Rokesmith's son, Jack who was 4 when his mother was murdered. He was the only witness. The story that Thomson weaves around grief, parents who are oblivious to their children's wants, and coming to terms with loss, and the slow uncovering of who killed Kate, made for a fascinating mystery novel. I liked that Kate had to feel compulsive about her cleaning, and how she changes when she meets someone more damaged than she is, is enjoyable and realistic. I liked the characters, and the mystery, very much. If you want a good mystery with some emotional glimpses and growth in characters, this is one to get.
Day Two: Book Christmas Advent Calendar: surprise! another book review! hurray!
Invisible City by Julia Dahl
I came across a review of this book in one of the mystery review magazines I occasionally buy. I read it this past July. It is a debut mystery, featuring a female reporter who has arrived in New York City from Florida. The catch? Her mother is from New York City, and was one of the Hasidic Jews. Rebekah Roberts doesn't remember her mother, her mother abandoned her and left her father when she was a baby, and disappeared. Rebekah has come back to New York City to find what happened to her mother, while she works as a stringer newspaper reporter. She is called out to cover the story of a dead woman discovered at a building site. The woman is a Hasidic Jew. One of the men who arrive on the scene from the Jewish community is a man named Saul, who recognizes Rebekah because she looks so much like her mother. Her Hasidic background gives her access to the community, with some members willing to talk with her because she is one of them.
I thought this was an excellent debut mystery. I was drawn to it because of the Hasidic Jewish storyline, which is rarely featured in general fiction. In this novel (as in real life), it is a culture closed off to much of the Western city around it, functioning, with the permission of the city fathers, with its own laws and customs, which Rebekah learns about and questions because she has not been raised in the Hasidic tradition. We learn much on the way along with Rebekah. Fascinating. There are few stereotypes in the characters we meet, the mystery is decent and heart-breaking as we get to know the family members, and at the heart of it is what Rebekah learns of her mother and why she might have left her all those years ago. Highly recommended.
Day Three: Book Christmas Advent Calendar: in which I confess, I was finally able to look at some used books.
This is what I bought: and they are NOT for my Christmas box of books!!! I'm a little naughty, aren't I? Plus, still reading every so slowly. Two books finished in 6 weeks, with another almost done now. However, I can look at books again in a store so this is a big improvement for me.
Because I'm reading so slowly, and haven't been able to shop much for Christmas, I don't have much of a Christmas list done yet. I'm just beginning to look at what books are out now. Do you, Gentle readers? What books are you really wanting for Christmas? Have you done any secret book buying that is not a present for anyone this year, but is for you and just because you love books and they are irresistible?
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