2 mystery reviews, and and some book links

    This sounds so interesting: Over at BBC online site, Ann Morgan, a writer, set herself the challenge of reading a book from every UN-listed country, in a year.  196 books in 365 days.  Here is a link to the bbc article.  She talks about what she learned during her year of reading, and what it was like to read a book from each country.

   Over at Book Marks magazine online site, I found a link to some Great Mysteries vol 2, a selection of some of the very good mysteries, featuring international,  contemporary hardboiled and noir, and psychological authors and books. I am happy to see that I have read some of the authors featured, and several I have been meaning to start reading.
                                           
Two book reviews: 
   Now You See Me - S.J. Bolton - The first Lacey Flint mystery.  It is excellent. Lacey is a Detective Constable, who when the book opens is investigating an unrelated crime when a woman falls into her, stabbed and dying.  The crime is not in her district, but because she is an eyewitness and the only one, she is brought over to the other division, putting her right in the middle of the investigation.  She is an interesting character, smart and yet vulnerable and young, and makes mistakes during the progress of the investigation.  She is also a character who doesn't want to draw attention to herself, and during the book this is slowly revealed why.  Although I was ready for some of the ending, some it came as a huge shock, breathtakingly audacious of the author.  Brilliant.  Jack the Ripper also features, as does the faintest hint of a romance, sharp dialogue, and some of the best mystery plotting I've seen in a long time.  Suspenseful, a police procedural that has interesting secondary characters, and a real pleasure to read.  I will be looking for book 2, Dead Scared, this weekend.  Here is a review I did last fall about another of her books, Blood Harvest.  She is definitely a writer worth seeking out.

The Girl on the Stairs - Louise Welsh - This is one of  the books my husband brought back from England for me earlier this month.  I was anxious to read it, since some reviewers, like this one over at the Guardian site, links it to Daphne Du Maurier's Don't Look Now, a movie that I love (and am scared to watch), and a book I am looking for.  I read it once, and have seen the movie a few times.  Don't Look Now is a ghost story and a love story and a scary story, all at once.  Both are set in foreign countries - Don't Look Now in  Venice, The Girl on the Stairs in Berlin, and this atmosphere of not being able to communicate clearly, of being cut off from the main stream of life going on for other people, pervades both. It takes a certain kind of person to be able to live in a foreign country, and not feel like people are watching you for being different.   Both the main characters in each novel are in a numinous space - John Baxter has lost his young daughter before going to Venice to recover, and Jane Logan, whose last name we only are given later in the book, is heavily pregnant when she arrives in Berlin to start her new life with her partner.  This emotional instablility increases the unsettling space in each book, leaving the characters open to perceiving things that may or may not be there.

Would The Girl on the Stairs live up to its billing?  Oh yes, it did.  It is not like Don't Look Now in the psychic sense, which disappoints me - I am always on the look out for books like that.  It is  however a creepy book,with a modern gothic sensibility, and dark.  As the Guardian reviews says, the danger isn't just where Jane finds herself - it's what she could do to those around her. It is deeply unnerving, and I found myself yelling at Jane to not do what she does, at the end. " No Jane, don't go! " I said out loud. I was glad I wasn't on the bus at the time.  But Jane goes, and the ending is devastating.  And frightening.  It would be perfect for RIP.  There is real horror here, but you see it sideways, at a glance, and it's only later, after the book is done, that parts of it creep back and say, look.   Very good, and suspenseful.  Don't Look Now is the scarier book, by far, though.  Eerie, too.  The Girl on the Stairs is  psychologically dark.  Both are very good books.

I am beginning to wonder if there is such a thing as a modern Gothic atmosphere in literature. A kind of gothic sensibility in literature today.  It would feature weird and wonderful things, creepy things, like southern gothic films often do.   I think there is.  Movies like The Skeleton Key,  books by Karen Russell, Charlene Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series, Sharyn McCrumb's Nora  Bonsteel series (the ballad series), are just a few.  I enjoy these atmospheric books and movies.  Do you, Gentle Reader?  Do you have a favourite or new 'gothic' book or movie you love?  Flannery O'Connor was one of the first, and of course William Faulkner.  That's southern Gothic.  Is there a gothic author where you live?

Books to help me recover

             I received a phone call three weeks ago. "Your date for surgery is Feb 14," the secretary said.  Feb 14!  Ever since then, I've been feeling anxiety build. I've been reading much less, and cleaning more.  Cleaning!  The floors are sparkling, the windows are clean (on the one warm weekend day we had since New Year's), and tonight the stove top is shining.  I wish I could settle and read, but I'm not able to.   It's gall bladder surgery, so not super serious, but still - any abdominal surgery is a frightening prospect.

    I haven't bought many books, surprisingly, for my recovery.  I still have a stack of mysteries, biographies, and assorted science fiction and fantasy to read - a huge towering pile, to be honest.  So I didn't want to buy a lot.  However, there was absolutely no way I was facing surgery without something  sparkling and brand new to cheer me up when I get home from the hospital.  With any luck it will be day surgery only, and I will be in and out the same day.  I will be on pain meds for the first several days after, and not able to do much.  What better than to have a stack of dvds ready to hand, and, even better, new books to read that are so new that I am still at the  'picking up and admiring that they are mine ' stage still?

                                                 

Reading the Pre-Raphaelites by Tim Barringer was a splurge at the National Gallery of Art, the first book bought to cheer me up,  two weeks ago.  It has some lovely paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites that I have never seen before.  Along with that, I found to my wondering gaze that our Art Gallery also had a book on the Tate paintings, Introducing the Pre-Raphaelites by Jason Rosenfeld. 
                                                         

This has larger pictures of paintings, plus houses, photographs, and a bit on the lives of the Pre-Raphaelites.  I have been hard-pressed to not sneak more than a glance at these books since they came home, but I have promised myself they are for my recovery, so they are mostly unread still.  At the least, if I am very uncomfortable, I can just gaze at the art and forget where I am for a little while.
    
I also found at the Art Gallery a little book on the life of Charlotte Bronte for $6.99:  The British Library writer's lives: Charlotte Bronte, by Jane Sellars. 

 Again this is mostly a photograph book of places she lived and a brief history of her life. I love Yorkshire and miss it very much, and the pictures in this book will go a long way to soothing me and bring up memories for me.  I went to Haworth when I lived in England in 2000.  I loved seeing the village and the house where Charlotte and her sisters grew up and lived on and off as adults.  Seeing that bleak and wild beauty that Yorkshire is famous for, helped me understand how the sisters could write such wild passionate books. So even though not a big book, I think it will help soothe me over the coming days.
                                         
I did buy two other books last Friday, two mysteries.  I was out with one of my friends from work, and she was raving about a new-to-us series by a Canadian writer she had just found out about from another co-worker.           

 So I bought one of Ian Hamilton's books, The Water Rat of Wanchai, the first one in the Ava Lee series.  She is supposed to be a little like Lucy Liu, and is a forensic accountant.  It looks like great fun, and she gets to travel all over the world, so even though I will be house-bound for the first week or more, I can still go places in my books.

The other book I bought was one that I'd been thinking about for a couple of weeks:  Now You See Me, by S.J. Bolton.  I heard that S.J. Bolton's first Lacey Flint mystery features  a copycat killer to Jack the Ripper, and is very good according to Kay at Purple Sage and Scorpions, here.  Since her review of SJ Bolton, I have read Blood Harvest, and been looking and thinking about Now You See Me.
                                                                          
                                                        

 I broke down and bought it, because so far every book I've read by Bolton has been intriguing, absorbing, a bit thrilling, mysterious, and with good characters.  I'm really looking forward to this in the next couple of weeks.

Jack the Ripper seems to be making a come back in the past few years - Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star is an eerie take on the history - I first mention it here., still have to do a review. (I feel very badly about this, the book is very good!). 'Ripper Street' on tv is a new show from the UK set in Whitechapel the year after Jack the Ripper killed his victims. I am enjoying it. 

So, there you have it.  I broke the Double Dare Challenge, as the surgery date was so unexpected.  I thought it would be much later in the year.  I do intend to keep to this challenge in the weeks around the surgery/recovery period, but for two weeks while I recover, I think that sparkly new books are just the thing this bookworm needs to recover.  Don't you?

Have you read any of these?  Can you recommend anything for the next few weeks?  I will let you know that all went well as soon as I can after Thursday.

Happy late blogiversary to me! and some mystery reviews

It feels like ages since I posted here.  My life is still a bit crazy, with still sorting out what to do about the foundation and estimates. I am thrilled to say that I have been on a reading binge since my last post, and I have some quick book reviews for you tonight.  Before then, I wanted to give a quick update:  I once again passed my blogiversary!  This is the third year in a row that I missed it, and I'm perplexed.  I spend most of the year waiting for it so I can talk about cake and what blogging means to me and all the wonderful people I have met who love books as much as I do, and then every year something has happened in my life and I am never here on Oct 1!!! 

Here is the link to my very first post, five years ago.  Yes, my blog is 5 years old now!  5 wonderful, exciting, magical, sad, and challenging years for me.  Through it all, my blog has kept company with me.  I have read many more books per year since joining the online community, and I have found so many books I wouldn't have read otherwise, because of you, dear Readers.  Most of all, is you, all of you.  My conversations in my life are peppered with 'my book-twin in Korea', Ana in Portugal, Geranium Cat, Bride, and Cath in England, Debi and Chris and Eva in the US, Carl, Jeanne......Kelly here in Canada with me.....Kay, Wendy, Stefanie.....so many wonderful conversations about books, and about our lives as we share them, and grow along with one another.  My life, as tumultuous as it has been these past five years (and I'm really hoping it will settle soon), has also been made more joyous because I've met and come to know all of you through the years.  Our sad loss of Dewey, which still haunts all of us who had time to know her before she left this world. Some of you have dropped from blogging alot to just checking in, as your lives have changed.  Certainly my blog has reflected my life, as the last two years I was barely able to maintain it, and yet that love of books,and missing talking with you about books, kept bringing me back.  So it hasn't been an easy 5 years, though I suspect this will be one of those times in my life when I look back a few years from now and think, "Gosh I learned so much!' 

I plan to keep on blogging, as I have tried to write much more often this year, than in the past. It hasn't always been easy, but it is fun, and I always, always love coming to read what you are saying and thinking about books and life.  So, here's to my 5 year anniversary!  Here is a picture of one of my favourite cakes to make, Nigella Lawson's Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake, with a link to her recipe in case you are tempted.  


 MMMMM  I might have to make it soon......even a diabetic deserves a treat now and then!!! Happy 5 years, and thanks so much for sharing it all with me.  I hope you'll come along with me in the coming years, there are more books to read and discover........

All right, to the quick book reviews:

Blood Harvest - S.J. Bolton - fabulous dark mystery thriller.  I couldn't put it down.  A family moves into a house in a small village, and strange things start happening to the children.  A girl's figure is seen in the cemetary that surrounds the house....but is she real or is she a ghost?  Several little girls have died in the past several years, is she one of them?  And why can the boys in the house hear her, but no one else does?  Perfect read for RIP VII.  5/5  ***thanks to Kay at Purple Sage and Scorpions for her review here of S.J. Bolton's other books, which led me to checking to see what my library had.
   
Driftnet - Lin Anderson - first in a Glasgow mystery series, featuring Rhona MacLeod, a forensic scientist. A young boy is found dead, in a room, a rent boy.  Prostitute.  He looks surprisingly like Rhona MacLeod, who gave a baby up for adoption at his birth, and so who has a personal interest in discovering what happened to the baby she gave up.  Is this where he came to be, on her table, murdered?  A very good first mystery novel in a series that has 7 books now in the series.  I enjoyed it very much.  4.5/5 

The Twilight Time - Karen Campbell.  Another first mystery in a growing series.   It is set in Glasgow again, and is about as gritty and realistic a portrayal of modern policing as I've come across yet.  Anna Cameron is assigned to the Flexi Unit, and the story opens with her first day on the job.  She is leading the unit, and already some of the officers resent her before she even starts.  This is realistic dialogue, tensions, setting, with the Flexi Unit patrolling the worst drug -and- prostitute-addled street in Glasgow.  An elderly man is murdered, and in the investigation Anna is wounded by  someone who is stalking prostitutes and slashing them.  Along the way Jamie's wife Cath (an ex-police officer herself) gets involved, and all through the novel we have the police work, and the private lives, laid out, so we are living through the investigation with these three characters.  Highly recommended.  I've already ordered the second book with Anna, Shadowplay.  I've just discovered that Jamie has his own book, After The Fire, so I have to see if I can find that here. 5/5

Dark Fire- C.J. Sansom  - Second book in the Matthew Shardlake series.  I read this in the summer, when it was as hot out for us as it was in London in this book - a record-breaking drought for us, record-breaking drought and heat for that time in England.  Shared misery!  This was a slow mystery to get into, with Matthew dragged into defending a girl accused of murdering her cousin through the goodness of his heart.  He is mostly concerned with Dark Fire, a legend about a fire that wasn't fire, that could burn water.  Was it real? The Greeks thought so, and someone in London has told the King that they have the secret, but before it is brought before the king, the person is killed, and the workshop broken into.  Thomas Cromwell orders Shardlake to find the Greek Fire, hoping this will restore him to the king's favour.  He is slipping, as the Seymours slip in around the king, dangling Jane Seymour in front of him.  Shardlake can't refuse.  While the search for the Dark Fire was interesting, and the court politics and intrigue fascinating - especially because we know what happened with Jane, and Cromwell - the real heart of this story is whether Elizabeth killed her cousin, and what would cause a girl to do so.  A very dark horrific secret lies at the heart of this mystery, and it's not one that you would think of.  It still gives me the shivers to think of.  This was the highlight of the book, and makes it perfect for RIP VII also. The mystery part is good, though a bit confusing with the two storylines, and not quite as gripping as the first book in the series, Dissolution.  Still, among the best mystery series, and highly recommended. 4.7/5  **Cath at Read-Warbler read this last year, her post is here. (She does an excellent job explaining the plot also)  What's fun is that she thinks Dark Fire is better than the first one!  What do you think, Gentle reader?  Have you read this series?  Do you agree with me (Dissolution slightly better), or Cath?

  I am getting set to read the next one, Sovereign, which is set in my favourite city of York.  I have to add that the historical setting, dialogue, atmosphere, descriptions, are impeccable.  This is historical writing at its best. 

I would recommend all of these mysteries for RIP VII, in case you are looking for something that's not horror to read for Carl's challenge.