Deader Homes & Gardens, by Joan Hess (on CD)

Burn Out, Marcia Muller (on CD)

I always, always confuse Sharon McCone with Kinsey Millhone. They are simply too much alike, except they have grown so differently. This one should probably cause me to keep them separate.

Sharon has sunk into a deep depression caused by her near death in a previous book. She's camped out at Hy's ranch avoiding everyone at work until she is drawn into the family drama of the caretakers when their niece is murdered, another niece disappears, and their mom runs off. Lots of family skeletons are eventually dug up, and Sharon (of course) gets her act together by getting back on the detecting gig.

Pretty good story.

Kill My Darling, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

I love Slider, but I haven't read one of these in years. This reminded me of why I like them: the in-jokes, the clever repartee, the slang...and Slider and his team being smart and politically adept within the department. In this book, we've got a missing (and eventually found murdered) woman with a horrific background who is surrounded by people who could have had reason to kill her. By the end, the murderer is found, but it's so sad and wasteful and horrible that it makes me glad I'm not a cop.

The Noon God, by Donna Carrick (on Nook)

OK, a quick and cheap Nook purchase that had a great story outline, but was a little light in editing and those sorts of niceties. Still, a good story, fast-moving and clever, though I knew who the murderer was after about 25 pages.

The Grave Tattoo, by Val McDermid (on CD)

Another case of the reader making the book so much better, in this case a difficult task as the book is already pretty darn good.

The case superficially revolves around a recently discovered body in the marshes in the Lake District, but really it's about Jane Gresham, a scholar from the area currently supplementing her small teaching stipend by waiting tables in London, who is determined to find out whether this body is that of Fletcher Christian--of H.M.S. Bounty fame--and whether his return to his birthplace in the Lake District led to his friend William Wordsworth's writing of a "lost" epic poem about him. Murder ensues. Are academics really this amoral?

I knew fairly early on who the Bad Seed was. I stuck with the book primarily because of the side-story of a neighbor of Jane's in London, a 13-year-old girl named Tenille, who is all that a neglected, poor, project-raised girl would be as well as being quite smart and very into poetry, especially 19th-century poetry. What an interesting mix of personality traits! And because of her background and some ill-timed bad choices, she is on the run in connection with the death of her aunt's boyfriend.

Running Scared, by Lisa Jackson (on CD ... and paper)

I bailed on this CD near the end simply because I couldn't stand listening to it anymore. But I had to find out how the plot tied up. A little too neatly for my liking. Reminded me why I don't read romantic suspense novels very often. Ugh.

Happyface, by Stephen Emond

Grave Surprise, by Charlaine Harris (on CD)

Grave Sight, by Charlaine Harris (on CD)

This is a series by the woman who created the Sookie Stackhouse characters (i.e. True Blood on TV), but this is about a woman who was hit by lightning and can now tell by touch how someone died. That's all; she can't see beyond the moment of death or injury.

She makes her living searching for missing people and trying to resolve family pain over issues such as 'what really killed Aunt Mabel, the surgery or the heart attack?' Of course, she is also asked to find out how murder victims died, which she can't do; she can only tell that they were killed. This is a problem since people refuse to see that her vision isn't limitless. And people dislike that she is earning money off of 'other people's pain' which she points out over and over again is just the way she earns a living.

Interesting concept. The reader wasn't great, but the characters are fascinating. Arkansas doesn't come off looking too friendly in this one at all. And I knew what the "key" was to the mystery REALLY early on.

Asta in the Wings, by Jan Elizabeth Watson

One of the better portrayals of children I've read in awhile. Asta and Orion and "isolates" discovered living with their mother in Maine. Their mother is clearly unstable, but not necessarily a Bad Mother, just not 100% capable of properly caring for her children. What happens when the family is split into three parts is fascinating.

A Faint Cold Fear, Karin Slaughter

A horrific series of events swirl around the ME in a small Georgia town, her former husband, and the local college. A little too much going on here to be believable, but hard to put down in terms of the whodunnit factor.

U is for Undertow, by Sue Grafton

Another of the series, which is now up to 1988. This one is about a murder that took place in 1967, so it's REALLY confusing to have two historical periods to keep track of, plus Grafton tells this story from four different points of view. It's mildly confusing, but she did a very good job differentiating all the people, both by description and by name, so it wasn't horrible to follow. More difficult was the story itself; some really unpleasant scenes in the book which have nothing to do with murder but are icky in the extreme.

I loved her detailed description of the Polk and Haines directories. I forget that 90% of the general population doesn't have a clue, but they are such basic tools to me that it was a bit odd to read two LONG paragraphs explaining how they work.

Good book.

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield (on CD)

Very gothic (in the 19th-century "Jane Eyre" kind of way) with a wink at modern lit-crit. Wonderful complex story about complicated and rather unlovely (and normal) people. Discusses the essence of who we are based on who the world thinks we are vs. our experiences. And a mystery inside a riddle inside a puzzle. There's also melodrama and some romance (but not very pleasant, so be warned).

WONDERFUL!! There are two narrators on this recording, which went a long way toward making it memorable. I think I may go back and read the hard copy (i.e. the paper) because I want to do some flipping back and forth. This is a problem when 'reading' with your ears--you can't go back and reread what happened in chapter three before continuing with the paragraph you're listening to in chapter twelve.

This book makes me want to read Trollope and the Brontes again, not to mention Thomas Hardy and Henry James.

Chasing the Bear : A Young Spenser Novel, by Robert B. Parker

Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon, Debbie Fuller Thomas

I think this is the last book from last year's ALA swag pile. A nice story about kids who were switched at birth which is only discovered when one is diagnosed at about 12 with a genetic disease that doesn't run the family she has lived with. When one family sues, the other girl is ordered by the courts to move in with her biological family. That's where the book starts. A little preachy, but heartwarming, if you can believe that.

When Madeline Was Young, by Jane Hamilton (on CD)

I really do like the way Jane Hamilton writes. This story is about the most untraditional family you could probably come up with, a family that is also as loving as a family could be. The MacIvers are a fairly traditional family in the late 1950s except for the fact that Aaron's MacIver's first wife, Madeline, lives with them. She was in an accident months after her wedding and sustained a brain injury that has left her with the capacity of a young girl.

But yes. It's a surprisingly happy book about the importance and love a family brings to us.