Murder in Alaska
I just finished the first two Kate Shugak mysteries by Dana Stabenow—A Cold Day for Murder, and A Fatal Thaw. Stabenaw started publishing this series in 1992, so I don’t know how I have completely overlooked it until… Read More
The pinnacle of Schwab
There are a few authors whose books I pretty consistently love and will always read, and V. E. (Victoria) Schwab is one of them…with a caveat. She writes adult books and she writes for young adults, and I… Read More
A World of Curiosities
I was late to the party reading Louise Penny’s most recent in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series—they reliably drop in the fall of each year (although this one, coming out in November, was later than the usual… Read More
Manufactured mystery
I tried out a new mystery writer, D. D. Black, on the recommendation of someone on “What Should I Read Next?” and I’m feeling a little conflicted about whether to continue after the first two books. On the… Read More
Zig-zag
I recently discovered that Elly Griffiths, who writes the Ruth Galloway mysteries and has three volumes in a fairly recent story line starring Harbinder Kaur, has yet another series, called either The Brighton Mysteries or Stephens & Mephisto,… Read More
The essence of a genre
As I discuss in my genre lecture in my readers’ advisory class at UCLA, crime fiction accounts for as much as a third of the fiction published in English worldwide. If you regard that statistic you must conclude… Read More
Over the top is okay!
The latest installment of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan series dropped on January 31st, and I started reading it a few days later when I discovered it on my Kindle (I had prepaid for the e-book dump and then… Read More
Hiatus, nostalgia, TV
I haven’t published anything here for a while because I started reading Demon Copperhead, the new book from fave author Barbara Kingsolver, and it has been taking forever. I am enjoying the voice of the protagonist and the… Read More
Atmospheric
For my first two reads of 2023, I chose mysteries set in the Shetlands, by new-to-me author Ann Cleeves. I got Raven Black as a Kindle deal, and then followed up with White Nights. There are six more… Read More
The books we keep
I live in a pretty small house, and I have a LOT of stuff, including books. I have always hung onto most of my books, but as I am looking to clear out some space, I’m drastically revising… Read More
The Book Adept 