A Secret Gift, by Ted Gup

This book has garnered all kinds of plaudits, and it's a well-deserved recognition for a topic that is pretty unique. However, it would have been even more delightful to read if the author and his editor had really worked together on tightening up the story: make sure people's names are spelled correctly (e.g., Brownlee or Browning? Same family, two entirely different names). There was just enough of this sort of thing to distract me from the whole point of the story: that Gup's grandfather anonymously gave 150 Canton, Ohio, families money at Christmastime 1933, a story no one but his grandfather and grandmother told anyone until much later. Gup tracks down a fair number of the recipients' families and interviews those willing to talk to him. Another couple of months of editing and this would be prize-winning.

Fire and Ice, by J.A. Jance

This is another mashup of the two main series characters Jance writes about, Joanna Brady and J.P. Beaumont.

Pretty good: about illegal immigration and the Mexican mob, and a nursing home investigation.

Hard Row, by Margaret Maron (on CD)

I have somehow missed reading about Judge Deborah Knott up to this point. This is apparently the 13th book in the series. I'm debating whether I should add the series to my list of books to read. The prime motivator, besides being a generally good, character-driven story, is that I have family in the general area.

This one finds Deborah presiding over several interrelated cases: a domestic abuse case, a nasty divorce, and immigrant-worker issues. Her husband, Dwight, is the sheriff and has some icky remains turning up to figure out as well as a missing elderly man. Meanwhile, on the home front they are both trying to integrate their 2-month marriage along with learning to deal with an 8-year-old 'instant son' who used to live with Dwight's first wife.

Good story with lots of local color in the best sense. You really get a sense of the community and of North Carolina people. I think Maron is probably going on The List.

Midnight Cactus, by Bella Pollen

This is one of those books that involves the landscape as a character in the story. Alice brings her two children from London to Temerosa, Arizona, ostensibly to start rehabbing the ghost town her husband has been saddled with. The plan is to turn it into a retreat or a spa-town.

Within days, she finds herself adjusting to life on her own. The contractor she hires on the advice of the town's caretaker seems to hate her very presence and his employees, she discovers, change daily. They also don't speak English, and she quickly comes to suspect him of trafficking in illegal Mexican workers.

As the story unwinds, the real story becomes more complicated on just about every level: personal, political, emotional, and physical. Alice comes to see how very challenging the geography and interpersonal contacts are, and things certainly don't turn out well. This is a story about the difference between people who have plans and those who don't plan at all.