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Newsletter #129 March — May, 2020

Who Dunnit–Short
Mystery Reviews
by Mary McKinley

        As the cataloging of used hardcovers and trade paperbacks continue, we’re finding more oldies but goodies. Check our listing on Abebooks.com.

        Let’s talk about Cozies for a bit. Do you read them? Why? For the recipes and/or patterns? Because they’re quick and usually not too bloody or violent? Or did the title or animal on the cover draw you in? I’ve decided my next dream job would be to write titles for cozies….. I do have a few favorite authors previously mentioned - Nancy Atherton’s Aunt Dimity, Donna Andrews Meg Lanslow, and any of Elizabeth Peters. I admit I read them for the recipes - knitting is still magic to me, and people that can read the patterns - I admire them.
        Which brings me to Murder with Cherry Tarts ($7.99) by Karen Rose Smith. This is book four in her Daisy's Tea Garden Mystery Series, preceded by Murder with Lemon Tea Cakes ($7.99), Murder with Cinnamon Scones ($7.99), and Murder with Cucumber Sandwiches ($7.99). I love cherry tarts, and looking at this cover all day makes me hungry. I have not read the previous books, and found that I didn’t need to - there’s enough of a recap threaded in to be able to know who is who. I found the writing very readable and could hear the distinct voices of the characters as the story progresses. And what a story! Daisy is the owner of a local Tea Shop in a tourist area, and one of her employees has started taking home the leftover pastries and soup each night. Concerned, Daisy follows her to a less than touristy part of town (aka the bad part of town) and finds that she’s giving the food to a widower, Keith, and his daughter who are living in his van. To make matters worse, Keith becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a local shop owner. Daisy, of course, has to help and then runs into her own troubles. It seems that the real killer doesn’t want to be found, so measures are taken to prevent Daisy from clearing the name of the suspect and finding the real killer including vandalizing her business van and attempted murder. This was fast paced, moved right along, and had a bit of a surprise ending. Overall, a very satisfactory read and another series for me to start at the beginning! And cherry tarts for dessert...

        M. C. Beaton, the author of the Agatha Raisin and Hamish McBeth series, died December 2019. She was a prolific writer and her above mentioned characters became TV shows. I’ve heard from some readers that the shows were vastly different from the books, which really isn’t any great revelation. So in the interest of science, I decided to find out for myself. The most recent book is Beating About the Bush ($26.99) and is the 30th in the Agatha Raisin series. Aggie continues in her anti-heroine role, irascible, argumentative - all-in-all a rather unpleasant person. So it comes as a surprise when she falls in love with a murder suspect that is very similar to her, except that the suspect has four legs….. If you’re already a fan of Agatha, you’ll love this book. If you’re new to her, you’ll soon be a fan. If you want the books to be like the TV show, you’ll be disappointed - the books are so much better! More depth, more characters, less “nice” Agatha, and much funnier! Reading about her love life and mishaps makes me quit complaining about mine. For all her lack of tact and brashness, she does have (deeply buried) a heart of gold and good friends. We have a good share of Beaton’s previous books in both new and used and in various formats. Become a fan!

        And speaking of popular series taken from books - I have to give a shout-out to Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series. I had forgotten how rich the books are - in depth, descriptive, and overall more satisfying. We generally have most of them in stock either new or used and while they don’t have to be strictly read in order, the first few do. Cocaine Blues (tpb, $15.00) is the first and covers our introduction to the Hon. Miss Fisher, and how she decided to move back to Australia. We also meet Dot and both of the Butlers - that’s right - Mr Butler is married. We also have Introducing the Honorable Phryne Fisher: Cocaine Blues / Flying Too High / Murder on the Ballarat (tpb $24.99) which combines all of the first three. That should get you ready for the release of the Phryne Fisher movie on February 27 - “Miss Fisher and The Crypt of Tears”. Some of the later books have Mr. Butler’s cocktail recipes in the back - some of them sound downright yummy.

        Moving on to a more serious vein, The Confessions of Frannie Langton (hc, $26.99) by Sara Collins provides a wonderful character study. The setting in London in 1826. Frannie is a servant accused of the double murder of her employers. She was born a slave in Jamaica, and at age 7 was taken into the house and taught to read by the Lady of the House - a bored white woman - the most dangerous kind according to the cook. As she grows up, she is taken under the wing of her owner to help him in his experiments. His goal is to prove that slaves - African Americans - aren’t human - and performing horrible tests on them to prove his hypothesis. After a huge fire, he takes Fannie to a colleague of his in London and leaves her to be a maid for the wife. Slavery had been abolished in Britain by then, so Frannie was a servant - unpaid and still subject to abuse, but theoretically free. When asked why she didn’t leave, she replied that no one told her she could. This book has been described as Gothic and compared to Jane Eyre and while there are similarities, they tend to be more in how women, especially women of color, were perceived and treated. There’s the obligatory opium, the obligatory forbidden love, and the missing memory of whether or nor Frannie really killed the couple. In many respects, this is a very powerful, well told story. It kept me turning the pages until the very end, which I found a little disappointing - everything was tied up neatly, and a little too rapidly. Overall, however, it was a fascinating story and I could almost see it happening as a true story.

        I’m a non-native Minnesotan (nevermind that I’ve lived here most of my life) and I have yet to get used to winter (did I mention I moved here in 1972?). So along about midwinter, I find that reading books set in warmer climates helps - which is why I love Tim Dorsey (recently reviewed), Carl Hiaasen, Randy Wayne White (previously reviewed), John D. MacDonald (needs no review), Laura Morrigan (previously reviewed), and Elaine Veits Dead End series. Of those, so far Tim Dorsey has been my favorite - how can you not love an altruistic psychopath? Veits is another cozy writer and I’ve enjoyed her books too. We have all these writers in stock in various formats and conditions - check our website for used or call or come in.

        Hiaasen is a popular writer - I’ve seen his books come and go with regular frequency, so I figured it was time to pick one up and read it. His books are non-series, so off our used paperback shelf, I grabbed Razor Girl, in part because it has a redhead in a convertible on the cover. Merry Mansfield has a highly specialized job - she kidnaps people for the mob and has a pretty decent technique for getting to them - she rear-ends them and then asks for a ride. Most people are glad to oblige, in part because her technique/excuse is that she’s shaving while driving - an intimate area. Her latest mark is an accident in more ways than one - he’s not the one she’s looking for. He is an innocent bystander who gets kidnapped and is “disappeared”. Merry and Andrew Yancy, an ex-cop, go on the search for Lane Coolman, hoping to rescue him before it’s too late. Along the way they meet an interesting assortment of characters, including giant Gambian pouched rats, reality TV stars who believe in themselves too much, illegal beach sand selling - you name it, Florida has it. I found myself laughing throughout the book, and may have a new favorite Florida writer.

        On a sadder note, Mark Schweizer, the author of the Liturgical Mysteries (previously reviewed) also passed away last November. His books, in order, are The Alto Wore Tweed, The Baritone Wore Chiffon, The Tenor Wore Tapshoes, The Soprano Wore Falsettos, The Bass Wore Scales, The Mezzo Wore Mink, The Diva Wore Diamonds, The Organist Wore Pumps, The Countertenor Wore Garlic, The Christmas Cantata, The Treble Wore Trouble, The Cantor Wore Crinolines, The Maestro Wore Mohair, The Lyric Wore Lycra, and The Choir Director Wore Out. We do have all these in stock, some signed copies, and they are worth the read. Funny, well plotted, and if you like music, you’ll love these and learn a lot. All are at $12.95 new.

        “The Peculiar Crimes Unit”. Doesn’t that conjure up deep mysteries and intrigue? Christopher Fowler has written a series of books about this unit which is located in London. Bryant and May are pretty much the last detectives working in the unit and they are rapidly aging out. I decided to start at the beginning with Full Dark House ($17.00). I found it strange that the book opens with a bang - the PCU is blown up by a bomb, killing Bryant. But wait - you ask - how can there be a series if the character is dead? May knows he has to find out who killed Bryant, and the trail leads back to the London Blitz and their first case together. A dancer in the new “Orpheus” is found without her feet - odd in itself, but more bodies turn up in the theatre district and, in a London that’s still scarred by war, everyone is terrified. The overall tone of the book is dark - there is some humor but even that is dark. The timeline switches from the ‘40s to the present day, and we see how the odd couple (think Scully and Mulder) grew up together and honed their talents from rookies to grumpy old detectives. There’s a touch of paranormal, but not as much as the Peculiar Crimes Unit seemed to evoke. Instead, it’s more of a police procedural - a “how-to” of tracking down criminals and bringing them to justice. In order, the books are: Full Dark House, The Water Room, Seventy-Seven Clocks, Ten Second Staircase, White Corridor, The Victoria Vanishes, Bryant & May on the Loose, Bryant & May off the Rails, The Memory of Blood, Bryant & May and the Invisible Code, Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart, Bryant & May and the Burning Man, Bryant & May: London’s Glory, Bryant & May: Strange Tide, Wild Chamber, Hall of Mirrors, and The Lonely Hour, most of which we have in various new/used selections from $15 to $28.

        Minnesota has been my adopted state for years - I tried leaving it once and got sucked back into it, largely because of the quality of life and the rich culture - museums, theaters, authors, gaming….. Monkeewrench ($8.99) by the mother/daughter duo P. J. Tracy covers two of those areas. Monkeewrench is a gaming company that has released a Beta version of Serial Killer Detective game where the players are given access to all the details and forensic evidence of twenty murders, the first two of which have been committed in real life. Meanwhile, in Calumet, WI an older couple is executed in church. Is there a relationship between the two events? And if so, what? Grace McBride and the rest of the Monkeewrench gang have to decide if they need to ‘fess up to the police about the similarities or ignore the clues and watch 18 more people die. The problem is that going to the police will out them as having created new identities ten years ago, for reasons they would rather not share with others. The authors are tricky - just when you think you’ve figured out who the culprit is, you find that you’re way off base. I loved the characters - they are real humans - not a chiseled jaw in sight. There’s humor, sometimes dark, sometimes laugh-out-loud, and it kept me on my toes formulating and then discarding theories and waiting for the dead couple to match up with the serial murders. One caveat is that it starts slow as each character (and there are many) gets introduced and placed into the story, but stick with it and it starts to flow. The book came to a satisfactory conclusion and I’m off to read the next in the series. They are: Live Bait, Dead Run, Snow Blind, Shoot To Thrill, Off the Grid, The Sixth Idea, Nothing Stays Buried, The Guilty Dead, Ice Cold Heart.



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