Archive for the ‘Sleuths Series’ Category

MISERY BAY by Steve Hamilton

After a wait of 5 years and 2 non-series books, including last year’s Edgar award winning THE LOCK ARTIST, Steve Hamilton has brought back Alex McKnight in MISERY BAY, the eighth book in this excellent series. While relaxing at the Glasgow Inn in Paradise, Michigan with the owner Jackie Connery and his friend Vinnie “Red Sky” LeBlanc, Alex’s evening is interrupted by a man he didn’t expect to ever see there, Chief Roy Maven, who surprisingly asks for Alex’s help. Chief Maven, the head of the nearby Sault Ste. Marie police force, wants Alex to help his old state trooper partner, Charles “Raz” Razniewski, determine why his son Charlie would hang himself in a remote part of Misery Bay, Lake Superior on the Upper Peninsula part of Michigan.

July 3, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  · Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Award Winning Author, Sleuths Series, US Midwest

HELL IS EMPTY by Craig Johnson

William Walk Sacred describes the Native American vision quest experience as a time when, “You are presenting yourself before the Great Spirit and saying, ‘Here I am. I am pitiful. I am naked.” “You’re down to the nitty gritty of who you are.” He adds, “You cannot go off the path at that point because you are now owned by the spirits. They watch you continuously. There is no hiding.” This quest to gain spiritual insights and to, in effect, travel to God, can be compared to the allegorical journey taken in Dante’s The Divine Comedy in which a soul moves through hell, purgatory, and heaven. Of course, hell (Inferno) is the most gripping. The ninth circle of Dante’s hell holds those guilty of treachery in an icy prison, with Satan encased waist-high in the center. How fitting then that Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming should find himself in a mountain snow storm with a beat-up copy of Dante’s Inferno, battling the elements, violent men, his own limits of endurance, and mysteries of the mind and spirit — in effect, undergoing his own involuntary vision quest.

June 30, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  · Posted in: Reading Guide, Sleuths Series, US Frontier West, Wild West

FUN AND GAMES by Duane Swierczynski

Imagine a kick-ass action flick–say one starring that perennial crowd-pleaser, Bruce Willis, and then imagine the source material, and you’d just about have an image of Duane Swierczynski’s latest book, FUN AND GAMES. This is the first entry in the Charlie Hardie trilogy. HELL AND GONE follows in October 2011, and the third novel, POINT AND SHOOT is scheduled for publication in March 2012. FUN AND GAMES delves into the old Hollywood story that studio fixers leap in to stabilize publicity nightmares. This legend has bounced around Hollywood for decades and still lingers over the deaths of notables such as Jean Harlow’s husband, Paul Bern.

June 20, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  · Posted in: California, Con or Caper, Sleuths Series, Thriller/Spy/Caper

STAGESTRUCK by Peter Lovesey

STAGESTRUCK is the 11th novel in the Peter Diamond detective series. I’d read exactly zero in the series when I opened the book, but the fact that I arrived late on the scene, and that I’m a novice when it comes to the facts of Diamond’s life, did not act as a deterrent to my enjoyment. STAGESTRUCK is a police procedural set in the historic city of Bath, and for its setting and focus on the very real Theatre Royal, this is a novel that is certain to be enjoyed by anglophile mystery fans. Pervasive local flavour seeps through these pages as Diamond visits neighbourhood pubs, local landmarks and soaks up the legendary ghost stories are part of the history of the Theatre Royal. Local colour is so strong, in fact, that for mystery lovers, STAGESTRUCK is a tantalizing way for visitors to Bath to prime for tourism.

June 15, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  · Posted in: Award Winning Author, Sleuths Series, United Kingdom

THE DEVIL SHE KNOWS by Bill Loehfelm

Physically, 29 year-old Maureen Coughlin is a wisp of a woman, 5’ 4” tall and 100 pounds. Emotionally, she’s a powerhouse, a person with acumen, tenacity, and a wild streak just this side of the Serengeti. She works as a waitress, the same job for the last 10 years and she’s just sick of it. It’s a nowhere job and she’s going nowhere. She lives and works on Staten Island in a faux chic bar with the emphasis on ‘faux’. She’s started college and dropped out more than once but she knows that waitressing is not where she wants to find herself down the pike. She lives alone and has no one special in her life except her mother who gives her more trouble than solace.

June 11, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  · Posted in: New York City, Sleuths Series

MISSING PERSONS by Clare O’Donohue

Clare O’Donohue knows what she is talking about in MISSING PERSONS, a satirical and amusing novel about a Chicago-based freelance television producer who specializes in true crime stories. Since O’Donohue has been a producer, she understands “the frustration, annoyance, and craziness” that go with the territory.

June 4, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  · Posted in: Job, Sleuths Series, US Midwest