Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 Like a Charm. By Karin Slaughter, a collection of short crime stories by various American and Brit writers.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 'Can't Wait to Get to Heaven' by Fannie Flagg. It's a sequel to 'Standing in the Rainbow', returning to the town of Elmwood Springs, Missouri. 'Standing in the Rainbow' ended around 2000, 'Can't Wait to Get to Heaven' is set sometime in the 2000s - 9/11 has happened. Elner Shimfissle falls from her fig tree and dies, beginning a journey into the afterlife and to heaven, meeting people she never thought she'd see again. Meanwhile, back in Elmwood Springs, we see how the news of Elner's death affects her family and friends, and how in life she touched and affected so many other lives. There's also the mystery of why Elner had a gun hidden in her house. It's a lovely book, the parts with Elner in heaven/the afterlife are reminiscent of two books I loved - 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' and 'The Lovely Bones', and it's great to catch up with the characters from 'Standing in the Rainbow' too. On audio I'm listening to 'Hell Hole' by Chris Grabenstein. It's the fourth book featurning Sea Haven, NJ, cops Danny Boyle (young, wisecracking) and John Ceepak (ex-Army, strict moral code, older and wiser). They're investigating the case of a soldier recently returned from Iraq who apparantly commits suicide in a rest stop bathroom.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 'Welcome to the World, Baby Girl,' by Fannie Flagg. It's set in New York City and the small town of Elmwood Springs, Missouri, between the 1940s and 1970s. Dena Nordstrom is a beautiful young woman trying to make it in the news world of NYC, and the story of her cousin, Norma Warren, Norma's husband Macky, and their family and friends in Elmwood Springs Missouri. Dena's past is a mystery, her future uncertain, her present a mess.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 I'm currently reading Fatal Shadows by Josh Lanyon. It's the first in his Adrien English Mystery. I haven't gotten that far into it but I'm liking what I'm reading so far. The book deals with Adrien trying to find out who murdered his employee and friend before the police arrest him for the murder.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 'Done Gone Wrong' by Cathy Pickens. It's about a female lawyer, Avery Andrews. She used to work the defence side of medical malpractice cases, but was fired after she went after her own witness in court because he was lying. She went back home to the small town of Dacu, South Carolina. Now she's back in Charleston, South Carolina, working with another lawyer but this time on the prosecution side on a case against a drug company. She agrees to meet with a young doctor named Mark Tillman who seems to have something on his mind (something potentially connected to the case) but he dies in a suspicious car accident before they can meet. Avery starts looking into his death. It's really good so far, has a very Southern feel, good murder mystery with a cozy feel but also a sharp edge.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 I just finished reading "Your Heart Belongs to me" by Dean Koontz and I'm a bit disappointed, not that the book was bad (I read it in two days), but I expected much more.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 I just finished reading 'A Redbird Christmas', a short novel by Fannie Flagg. Oswald T. Campbell is a down on his luck guy living in Chicago. He has emphysema and his doctor tells him he won't survive if he stays in Chicago for the winter, and recommends he visit the town of Lost River, Alabama. Oswald goes to Lost River and quickly becomes part of the lives of it's inhabitants who are an odd mix - there's his landlady, Betty, and her crazy mother, her neighbour Frances and her sister Mildred who likes to dye her hair weird colours and read trashy novels, Roy the store owner who has a pet redbird named Jack, a little crippled girl named Patsy, and the Creoles across the river. It's a lovely book about hope, love, loss, forgiveness, friendship, Christmas, and redbirds. As with all of Flagg's novels, there's a bit of a mystery/undercurrent going on as well. Now I'm reading 'The Blood Detective' by Dan Waddell. DCI Grant Foster and his partner Heather Jenkins are working the case of a horrifically mutilated body found in a Notting Hill graveyard. An odd carving on the vic's chest turns out to have connections to genealogy and family history research, and the detectives enlist the help of family historian Nigel Barnes. Apparantly, the case eventually turns out to have links to a Victorian serial killer, though I haven't got to that bit just yet. Am loving it so far though, mainly because as part of my job I help people do basic family history research, so some of the references Nigel makes I am familiar with, and I can identify with some of his experiences, for example, his attempts to avoid being collared by 'a soap-dodging amateur keen to swap stories about an elusive ancestor who had lost a leg at the Somme'. Oh, I know that feeling! It does seem that a lot of folk who want to research their family history are either a) very old or b) smell to some degree. Not always, but really quite often. It's cool to see something I do literally on almost a daily basis (though not to the specialist degree Nigel does, as a library type I just direct people to the correct family history resources and do the odd bit of basic tracking for them) in a book.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 'Southern Fried' by Cathy Pickens. It's the first book in the Avery Andrews series. Avery was a medical malpractice defense lawyer in Charleston, North Carolina, but after goading her own witness into exploding in the courtroom after he lied to try and win her own case, she was 'downsized' (i.e. fired) and has returned to the small town of Dacus, South Carolina. She soon finds herself involved in a case at a local factory, as well as having to deal with her somewhat eccentric mother and her meddling in her life, her equally odd great aunt Letha, and an old high school friend who keeps pulling odd stunts to win her love (she's definitely not interested!) On audio, I'm listening to The Sentry by Robert Crais. It's the third novel in his Joe Pike series, though Elvis Cole makes appearances too. For those unfamiliar with the Cole/Pike books, Elvis Cole is an LA P.I. and Joe Pike his partner. Joe Pike is a Marine, a former cop, a former mercenary, but a very upstanding, loyal, good guy, but also violent and dangerous for those who cross him or threaten those he cares about. In this book, Pike becomes involved with Wilson Smith and his niece Dru Raine, formerly of New Orleans. Pike steps in when Wilson is attacked in his own sandwich shop in what at first seems a shake down/robbery, but Wilson doesn't want his help, and a local detective, as well as the FBI, don't appreciate Pike's getting involved either. Wilson and Dru are obviously running from more than just post-Katrina New Orleans, and the victims of more than just a shake down/robbery, and then they disappear, and Pike finds himself a target too...On the 'personal' side, Pike, who usually avoids significant personal relationships because of the violent nature of his past and the dangerous men he has taken down, finds himself attracted to Dru. As with all of Crais' books, it's brilliant. I am so in love with Joe Pike! I like Elvis Cole lots too.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 'Blood on the Sun' by Stuart M. Kaminsky. It's the second CSI: NY book. Mac and Danny are investigating the murder of a family in a suburban neighgourhood in Queens. The mother, father, and daughter are all dead, but the family's teenage son is missing, and the girl's boyfriend appears to be on the run. Flack, Stella, and Aidan are investigating the murder of an Orthodox Jewish man in Brooklyn. They suspect members of a fundamentalist group, whose leader keeps stonewalling them. It's good, I especially like the more in-depth personal bits about the characters, especially Mac. On audio, I'm listening to Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris. Harper Connelly has a psychic ability where she can sense where dead people are and how they died (though not by who or why if they were murdered). Along with her step brother Tolliver, who acts as her manager/bodyguard, she is investigating the murder of two teenagers in a small Ozarks town, and soon finds herself involved in other deaths that have happened in the town. It's good so far, the first one I've read by this author.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 ^ the Harper Connelly series is very good , i haven't read any of the true blood novels by Charlaine Harris .
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 I finished 'The Memory Collector' and now I've started 'The Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins.
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 The State of Me http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Me-Nasim-Marie-Jafry/dp/1906321051
Re: What Are You Reading?-#3 I have just started the second Harper Connelly book, Grave Surprise. Only up to Chap. 4 but it's good so far. Harper and Tolliver are called to a graveyard in Tennessee, by a professor planning to expose Harper's abilities as a fraud. He's proven wrong of course, and Harper finds a grave where she senses two bodies are buried, one a dead man from decades ago, and one a young girl, buried much more recently. When the grave is opened up, the body of a missing girl Harper failed to find 18 months ago is discovered. I'm listening to the first of the 'True Blood' books on my Ipod, Dead Until Dark, and though I've never been interested in the series, or into vampires, I'm enjoying it. The narrator is very good and has an accent to match the Louisiana setting. The basic plot is about a waitress, Sookie Stackhouse, who happens to be telepathic, which causes her some problems in socializing/relating with people. Sookie has always longed to meet a vampire. Vampires now exist as part of everyday society, they're considered a race (though a minority one) like any other. 'True Blood' is a synthetic blood invented by the Japanese (i think) for vampires, allowing them to live more openly. Sookie meets a vampire called Bill, and is intrigued by him, especially as she can't read his thoughts, and he's the first vampire to live (openly at least) in her small Louisiana town. She and Bill grow close, and Sookie begins to learn a bit about the vampire world, not all of it good. There is also the problem of deaths occuring that may be linked to vampires.... Really enjoying it so far.