Women's Reading Challenge

NO this is not just a challenge for women who read :) but a focus on women authors.

Bev Hankins at My Reader's Block just did a post that alerted me to the Women's Reading Challenge at Valentina's website. The site is not just for mystery authors but since I've been "collecting" female mystery writers over the past year, that will be my focus. That said, I'm going to aim low and try the Baby Girl challenge.

My three favourite female murder mystery writers are Malla Nunn (South Africa), Kate Atkinson (England) and Liza Marklund (Sweden).

Review: Devil-Devil, Graeme Kent (Solomon Islands)

Title: Devil-Devil
Author: Graeme Kent
Publication: New York/Soho Press, Inc.
ISBN #: 978-1-616-95-060-6
# of pages: 281
Discovered while discussing global authors with a bookstore owner
Read in paper format
Also available in e-book format
 

Ben Kella is a very talented sergeant in the Solomon Islands Police Force but he often runs afoul of his British colonial bosses as he tries to balance his police duties with those of his role as aofia, hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of his people, the Lau. It doesn’t help to have Sister Conchita underfoot. The young American nun is on her first overseas posting and she too is trying to balance what her bosses expect with what she believes is right, while proving to the locals that she has what it takes to live there. When they meet over a half buried skeleton, the sparks start flying.

 Set in the Solomon Islands in 1960’s, a mere 15 years after World War II, the local people are still feeling the effects of that war and occupation by the Japanese, as well as itching for independence from British rule. The author does an excellent job of setting up the mystery while sharing the culture, history, and challenges of this remote part of the world. Kella is reminiscent of Tony Hillerman’s Navajo detective and traditional healer Jim Chee. The characters are well developed and realistic, and the conclusion is achieved in an effective and believable manner. I particularly enjoyed the personal aspects of Kella’s life, building his home in a unique manner that is in fact typical for his people….fascinating!

 

Rating: (^_°)    Intriguing

Notable sentence: “Later, when he owned too much land for one woman to maintain, he had taken a second wife.”

I had taken some time off from blogging but I enjoyed this book so much, I just had to write a review! And thanks again to Kerrie’s Global Reading Challenge!!! I would not have been asking about authors from unusual parts of the world without her challenge. In doing the challenge, I prefer to have the author to be from the country about which they are writing, versus just having researched or visited the country. Although Graeme Kent is British, he was head of BBC Schools broadcasting in the Solomon Islands for 8 years. This book is the first in the Kella and Conchita series, followed by “One Blood” and “Killman”. I look forward to reading the rest.

 

Teaser Tuesdays - Sept 3!!!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.
Anyone can play along with Teaser Tuesdays! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read(s)
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This is my first "Teaser Tuesday" - thanks to Bev at My Reader's Block for her blog which reminded me about it.

Mine's from "Pago Pago Tango" by John Enright:

p. 57: "I never did like that place much - too many kids, gangbangers, guys on ice. But the music was good and usually you could dance and you never had to pay for your drinks."

Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley (Canada: British Columbia)

Title: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Author: Alan Bradley
Publication: 2009/Canada: Doubleday Canada
ISBN #: 978-0-385-66582-7
# of pages: 292
Discovered at mysteries in paradise
Read in paper format
Also available in e-book and audio formats
Link to author’s website: http://www.flaviadeluce.com/
 

A girl is tied up, gagged, and locked in a closet….by her older sisters. Such is our introduction to precocious eleven year old Flavia de Luce. She, Ophelia and Daphne wage a never-ending war of revenge and counter-revenge. The ace up Flavia’s sleeve is her in-depth knowledge of poisons and her well-equipped home chemistry lab and she sets to work with Ophelia’s lipstick to get even for the closet.

 Once done, Flavia heads for the kitchen where the housekeeper Mrs. Mullet is about to leave, after assuring Flavia’s father that lunch is ready.  As Mrs. Mullet opens the door, she shrieks on discovering a dead bird with a postage stamp impaled on its beak. But the reaction of Colonel de Luce is even stronger: he gasps, clutches at his throat and turns deadly pale.

This shakes Flavia profoundly; she has never seen her father so upset. She has difficulty falling asleep that evening and overhears angry voices in the middle of the night. She sneaks downstairs and spys her father arguing with a tall red haired man. Creeping back to bed before she gets caught, Flavia briefly falls asleep, only to wake up at dawn and find the red haired man dead in the vegetable patch. Could her father really be guilty of murder? Flavia sets out to discover the truth.

I had avoided this book for some time just because I didn’t like the title (still don’t). That was a mistake because this was a delightful book with a very different heroine. Flavia reminds me of Anne of Green Gables…with a twist: like Anne, precocious and curious to a fault, and (unlike Anne) vengeful, at least towards her sisters. It was great fun picturing her upstairs in her lab, rubbing her hands together and plotting poisonous plans. Her intrepid detecting gets her into some tight spots and although she seems quite grownup at times, her solutions for getting out of these spots come from a young girl’s mind. For once, the police officer is not incompetent, although perhaps at times, he is more tolerant of Flavia than many officers might be. I liked that the family is down on their luck, despite the big manor home, so Flavia isn’t just the rich little girl who everyone feels they have to help. And is there more to what happened to her mother Harriet? Can’t wait to read more of this series.                Rating: (^_°)       Intriguing

Although the story is set in 1950s England, the author was born in Ontario, worked in Saskatchewan and retired to British Columbia. Since he wrote the book in B.C., that is the province to which I have assigned it for the Canadian Book Challenge.  Bradley worked in media for many years, including a stint teaching Script Writing and Television Production. In addition to the (so far) six book Flavia series, he has written two other non-series books, one of which proposes that Sherlock Holmes was a woman (co-written with  Dr. William Sarjeant)…now added to my “To Be Read” pile!

Review: The Red House Mystery, A.A. Milne (England)

Title: The Red House Mystery
Author: A.A. Milne
Publication: 1922/UK: Methune
ISBN #: 978-0-09-952127-3
# of pages: ???
Discovered as a free book on my Kobo
Read in e-book format
Also available in paper format, audio CD, illustrated paperback, large print paperback
 

Pretty parlour-maid Audrey Stevens is having a bit of a gossip with her aunt, the cook-housekeeper, about their employer Mark Ablett and his black sheep brother Robert Ablett. None of the household had heard of this brother and now he was due any minute, back from Australia after more than 15 years’ absence. Robert soon arrives and Audrey shows him to the office. A few minutes later, she hears shots which she and the other staff quickly realize came from inside the house. They lock themselves together in a room just as someone starts banging on their door.

 

Help soon arrives in the form of Antony Gillingham. Gillingham got off the train here on a whim and when he learned his friend Bill Beverley was a guest at the Red House, he decided to visit him. He arrives to find a man pounding on a door. The man, Mark’s cousin and secretary-cum-companion, Matthew Cayley, is in a panic because he heard the shots too and can’t get into the office. He is worried about Mark’s safety so the two of them run outside to find another way to access the office. When they finally get into the room, they find Robert dead on the floor and Mark missing.

Shortly afterwards, the house guests – Bill Beverley (young man-around-town), Major Rumbold,  actress Ruth Norris, a painter’s widow Mrs. Calladine, and her daughter Betty – return from their golf game, closely followed by the police. Being curious and between jobs, Gillingham decides to investigate, with Bill acting as his “Dr. Watson”.

This is a classical British manor house mystery! Well-paced with good twists and turns, the book seems written with a light hand: by that, I mean, it has a humorous undertone, as if laughing at itself. The author specifically sets Gillingham and Beverley up as mirrors of Sherlock Holmes and Watson. At first, you wonder if Gillingham has the ability to detect; his jobs have consisted of a bit of this and that but not much of anything. He turns out to an excellent observer of both people and situations. The final scenes, especially Bill’s description, are quite suspenseful and the solution is very creative (although Raymond Chandler apparently felt it was implausible). It was a compelling book to read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The book ends with an inviting sentence that suggests a sequel but this is the only mystery book the author wrote.     Rating: (^_°)       Intriguing

This is written by THE A.A. Milne, the author more famously known for his Winnie the Pooh books. Why a mystery book? In his dedication, he explained: “To John Vine Milne My Dear Father, Like all really nice people, you have a weakness for detective stories, and feel that there are not enough of them. So, after all that you have done for me, the least that I can do for you is to write you one. Here it is: with more gratitude and affection than I can well put down here.” A.A. M.    I wonder if his father enjoyed it – I certainly did!

Review: Once Upon a Time, Barbara Fradkin (Canada: Ontario)

Title: Once Upon a Time
Author: Barbara Fradkin
Publication: 2002/Toronto: RendezVous Press
ISBN #: 0-929141-84-9
# of pages: 254
Discovered at Crime Writers of Canada
Read in paper format
Also available in e-book format
Link to author’s website: www.barbarafradkin.com

 Despite the cold Ottawa winter, an old man waits in the car while his wife attends her hospital appointment. By the time she returns, he is face down in the snow, dead.

The autopsy states the death was from natural causes, an elderly person in poor health with nothing but a small gash on his forehead. Staff Sergeant Sullivan of the Major Crimes department attended the scene and agrees with this result.  But his friend and boss Inspector Green is bored, despite the stack of paper on his desk and this small gash bothers him. Or maybe it just distracts him from bureaucratic paperwork that he doesn’t want to do.

Green decides to take a small break and make a few inquiries. In doing so, he manages to upset the pathologist, the deceased man’s family and his staff sergeant. He can’t find a logical explanation for the gash and combined with a witness to a possible second person in the car, Green decides he must continue to pick away at these few threads.

He is also supposed to be helping his wife Sharon organize their son’s first birthday party but as the investigation heats up, his work time quickly eats into his personal life. Green knows he needs to better balance the two as he has already been through one divorce as a result of his singular focus on his job but the case starts to become personal and he is soon caught up in events that occurred many years before, in Poland during World War II.

The author starts each chapter with a tantalizing poem, dating back to WWII. This is part of her strong character development. All the characters seem real, people who could be your next door neighbours. The book weaves the past and the present together well, leaving the motive in doubt until the end. Green’s struggles with both his work and family roles ring true, and you like him, despite his flaws.

Several interesting aspects of WWII are explored, particularly the life altering decisions ordinary citizens had to make, choices that sometimes are only horrific with the (apparent) clarity of hindsight. As one character says “No one is a saint who survived the ghettos. All the saints died."

This book caught my attention from the beginning and challenged me to the end. I can`t wait to read more of this series.     Rating: (^_°)       Intriguing

Author Fradkin was a child psychologist for many years before retiring to write full time, a pastime she had started at the tender age of six. The Inspector Green series totals nine books so far, two of which have won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis award for Best Novel. ("Once Upon a Time" was shortlisted for the award.) She has also written numerous short stories, started the Cedric O`Toole mystery series for reluctant or emerging adult readers, and is a member of the Ladies’ Killing Circle which edits short story anthologies.

 

 

Review: Last to Die, Tess Gerritsen (USA)

Title: Last to Die

Author: Tess Gerritsen
Publication: 2013/New York: Ballantine Books
ISBN #: 978-0-345-51552-0
# of pages: 423
Discovered by my brother who let me and my mother fight over who got it next!
Read in paper format
Also available in e-book format
Link to author’s website: Tess Gerristsen
 

Some teenagers have it rougher than others. Claire Ward just wanted to hang out with her friends but her foster parents tracked her down late one night…and almost got her killed. Teddy Clock lived in a wealthy neighbourhood with all the material benefits….and barely survived his foster family’s slaughter. Once Detective Jane Rizzoli hears about both cases, she is sure they are linked, even though they occurred in different cities. Her friend, Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, has a safe place for Teddy to stay while the two of them try to work out what is happening and determine if the events can possibly be connected.

Rizzoli also has to contend with her newly engaged mother’s wedding plans and her father (but not quite ex-husband) who is bent on derailing them. And if that wasn’t enough, the senior detective, Crowe, completely disagrees with Rizzoli’s assessment of the Clock case and will not assign her the resources she needs to explore her theory. Then a third case pops up that increases the urgency of solving the case…or more people will die.

As a keen follower of the “Rizzoli & Isles” TV series, I was curious to read one of the books in the series. It was a bit confusing at first as some of the characters are different (for instance, the mother’s fiancé in the book is Rizzoli’s ex-partner in the TV series).  This story had more substance than the TV shows; as much as I like them, they really are entertainment fluff. It was challenging trying to work out how the cases might be connected and who was behind the murders. The scenes at the special school were also interesting: even children with a major challenge in common still find a way to divide up into the “cool kids” and the “nerds”.  However, the plot was rather over the top and  the support Rizzoli gets from a senior officer is unlikely to happen in the real world. That said, I enjoyed the story, great bedtime reading.            

Rating: (°_°)      Worth reading

Author Gerritsen is a retired physician who began writing romantic thrillers while on maternity leave. Ten years later, she switched to medical thrillers, one historical thriller and finally to the Rizzoli and Isles series in 2001, of which there are currently 10 books. She is now writing full time.