November Books

I did better this month than last, despite feeling restless much of the time.  I started a few large books that have since been idling on a table.  But here's what I did finish:

The Lost Boy  -  Camilla Lackberg

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd  -  Alan Bradley

The City Baker's Guide to Country Living  -  Louise Miller

Fifty Days of Solitude  -  Doris Grumbach

Bodies in a Bookshop  -  R. T. Campbell

Bear  -  Marian Engel

Turn Right at Machu Picchu  -  Mark Adams

The Princess Bride  -  William Goldman

The Skeleton Road  -  Val McDermid

Hiss and Hers  -  M. C. Beaton

You can see a trend here toward mindless reading, comfort books, things that don't require too much attention.  I started and discarded a couple of books.  Life's too short.  I can't imagine December's list will have much more depth.  We'll see.

August Books

It's been so long since I posted anything that I've almost forgotten how to do it!  The day's not over, but here's my list of books finished in August.

Juggling  -  Barbara Trapido

The Judas Cat  -  Dorothy Salisbury Davis

A Chill Rain in January  -  L. R. Wright

Murder and Mendelssohn  -  Kerry Greenwood

Moranthology  -  Caitlin Moran

The Hidden Child  -  Camilla Lackberg

Heaven's Keep  -  William Kent Krueger

The Thai Amulet  -  Lyn Hamilton

There were some decently entertaining books in the group and several that didn't measure up.  As you can see, I was escaping into mysteries once again.  Those are my comfort reads.

I can't believe that summer's almost over.  This weekend is Labor Day which, to many of us, signals the end of summer.  It shouldn't for me since I'm all but retired.  It's hard to shake those old habits, though.  At this time of year, I'm always gripped by the urge to buy pencils and notebooks and other school supplies, even though I haven't seen the inside of a school for almost fifty years.

I will, however, be glad to see an end to the high heat and humidity that ruined the summer for me.  My body has never been able to deal with those things.  I melt into a moaning heap.  I long for some cool breezes and cloudy weather.  Our city house has no outdoor space to speak of.  I long for big trees and rustling leaves, shade, peace and quiet.

The Drowning - Camilla Lackberg

A responsible family man disappears one morning before work.  The police haven't been able to find him.  Foul play?  Or did he intentionally disappear?  His body, frozen in the ice, is found by a dog.  The man has been stabbed several times.  Why?

Patrick Hedstrom is the police detective in charge and he and his team have come up with nothing.  His wife, Erica Falck, very pregnant with twins, has been working with a local author who's written a best seller.  She discovers that he's been receiving anonymous threatening letters.  He doesn't want to go to the police, but he was a friend of the murdered man and Erica feels there's a link.

Erica digs into the author's past and finds some horrifying information.  She has to hand it over to her husband to help him in his investigation.  They find that others have received letters, too.  All of them are friends.  They all swear that they have no idea who is sending them or why.  But that's not true.

The solution caught me by surprise, although I had started to suspect.  However, I had forgotten that Lackberg ends her books in this series with cliffhangers - and what a doozy this one is!  I want to leap to the next book in the series, but I'm in the middle of some other books and I also realized that I skipped book number 5.  This is a series that is best read in order.

July Books

I've had an extraordinary reading month.  Maybe because it's been too hot and humid to go outside.  This weather makes me physically sick.  I feel faint if I'm out very long.  It's so frustrating.  I'm going cabin crazy!

But I've read a lot of books this month and they span several genres, not just my usual list of mysteries.  I'm happy I've read so many books, but I'd gladly read fewer if only I could have some cooler weather!

V is for Vengeance  -  Sue Grafton
Temples of Delight  -  Barbara Trapido
Extra Virgin  -  Annie Hawes
The Blue Castle  -  L. M. Montgomery
Dreamthorpe  -  Chet Williamson
A Cathedral Courtship  -  Kate Douglas Wiggin
Cimarron  -  Edna Ferber
The Suspect  -  L. R. Wright
Walking Home  -  Simon Armitage
Death of an Old Goat  -  Robert Barnard
The Drowning  -  Camilla Lackberg
There's a Porcupine in My Outhouse  -  Michael J. Tougias

The Stranger - Camilla Lackberg

I think I stumbled on this series because of an Amazon e-book sale.  This is the fourth book in the series, preceded by The Ice Princess, The Preacher, and The Stonecutter.  I've read them all in order.  That helps because there is a story and character progression that might be hard to follow otherwise.    The Stranger is also known as The Gallows Bird.  As of now, there are nine books in the series.

The series takes place in Sweden.  The protagonist is Detective Patrik Hedstrom.  When a local woman is killed in a single-car crash, seemingly a drunk driving accident, Patrik's gut tells him there's more to the story.  He discovers that the woman was a teetotaler and that she'd been forced to drink / inhale a bottle of vodka.  There are tape marks around her mouth, with a hole in the middle for a bottle neck.  He also finds that there are more deaths similar to hers across Sweden.  Patrik searches for a connection and finally realizes that the solution is uncomfortably close to home.

He aslo has to contend with a group of obnoxious young people who are on a reality program like MTV's Real World.  They drink, they have sex, they do drugs, they have fights.  They're out of control and being filmed and paid for behaving badly.  One of the girls on the show is murdered.

And there's Patrik's home life.  He and writer Erica are about to get married.  Erica is depressed and tired.  She hasn't lost the weight she gained while pregnant with their daughter Maja.  She's worried about her sister Anna, who lives with them with her two children.  Anna is traumatized by the domestic violence she and her children were subjected to before she killed her husband.  She sleeps all day and is non-functioning.

Patrik has his hands full.

The Stonecutter - Camilla Lackberg

Sometimes when my reading gets stuck, I need a fast-paced, contemporary mystery to get me going.  I've been stuck in two books that I've been reading for months.  I want to finish them, but I want to read other books first.  I read so many mysteries that I'm starting to feel like I'm on a diet of oreos (which are, in fact, vegan, so I could eat these overly sweet cookies until I'm sick and not compromise my ethics).  Not that there's anything wrong with mysteries, or even a diet of mysteries.  Lots of them are very well written.  I like the excitement they provide.  I like the danger without the risk.  I need the bad guys to get theirs, unlike in life when many don't.

I read Camilla Lackberg's previous books, The Ice Princess and The Preacher, and had The Stonecutter on my Kindle.  I also have The Stranger, the next book in the series.  I'm glad because The Stonecutter ends with a cliffhanger to be resolved, I hope, in The Stranger.

The Stonecutter weaves two stories together.  Then there's a third story pretty much unrelated to the action in The Stonecutter.  One thread is the back story of a one of the characters.  The other story is the murder of a little girl, drowned, with traces of ash in her stomach and lungs.  Detective Patrik Hedstrom must find the killer and figure out the significance of the ashes.

To make it worse, the dead girl is the daughter of a friend of Patrik's girlfriend, Erica.  He's seen the little girl, too, so seeing her body is a shock.  He and Erica are having problems because they just had a baby.  Erica is staying home with the baby and Patrik is having all the fun.  Everyone needs to make adjustments.

The dead girl's parents, Charlotte and Niclas, have been having problems, too.  They've just moved in with Charlotte's mother, Lilian, and stepfather.  The stepfather is very sick, confined to his bed.  Lilian is self-centered but loves caring for her sick husband.  She's not kind to her daughter, though, always criticizing her weight and the way she does everything.  When their daughter is murdered, things get worse for everyone.

There are so many suspects.  Charlotte's mother and the next door neighbor have been carrying on a ridiculous feud.  They seem to enjoy the fight.  The next door neighbor has a son with Asperger's who spends days in his cabin in the back yard, writing programs for computer games.  The next door neighbor also has a secret.  Doesn't everyone?

I can't say much more without giving away too much information.  This was very enjoyable book.  There's lots of action.  It took me until just before the murderer was revealed to figure out who the culprit was.  I'll be reading the next one in the series shortly.