Freefall, by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams

So, I need to get the next book in the series. That's one of the problems with these--you really HAVE to read the next one because they leave off literally with stuff hanging. Will Chester get home? How will the Styx find Will (because you know they will)? Are there native inhabitants of the area of the Second Sun? What's up with Drake? And Celia--is she going to recover?

AAAARGHHHHHHH!

The Scottish Prisoner, by Diana Gabaldon

Hmm, I need to reread the "Companion" to see how this fits in and to figure out...a bunch of stuff. Anyway, this is about Lord John and Jamie going to Ireland to stop an Irish plot to restart the rebellion that ended at Culloden. A bit silly, but the story is less important than John and Jamie equalizing their relationship. This is also prior to John's marriage, so Jamie is still living at Helwater as the (paroled) prisoner of the title.

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.

Chelsea Mansions, by Barry Maitland

Good, as usual. About a remnant thread of the Cold War coming back home to roost, so to speak.

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.

A Certain Justice, by P.D. James (on CD)

I have no idea how I missed this one when it came out ten years ago, but I'm glad I read it finally. It reminds me a bit of another of hers in that it ends in a non-solution, although we do find out "whodunnit." This one, however, involves the death of an attorney in her locked "room" (office) with a judge's wig and blood on her head.

And there are plenty of suspects; this was not a woman that anyone found anything much good to say about. She's actually one of those characters who rather 'deserved to die.' And so when one of the suspects turns out to have had a great deal to do with her death, it's a shame that the character turns out to be much more likable than the victim was.

Lots of twists and turns, as usual in all James' books.

A Lost Adolescence : Surviving the Blitz, by Joy Aavang

Self-published and not without some problems, but a well-told story of what it was like living with bombs dropping regularly. I was never transported back in time as a good writer can do, but it's good to have this documented. And because I know the author passing-well, I could hear her voice telling the stories.

The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise, by Julia Stuart

This Body of Death, by Elizabeth George

Sigh. I totally love these books. Lynley is (sort of) back.

The Counterfeit Crank, by Edward Marston

The troupe has a new author, as their regular writer Edmund Hoode has come down with a mysterious illness.

Lord John and the Private Matter, by Diana Gabaldon (on CD)

In spite of not particularly liking the character or the story, I can't quite stop myself from reading this series. Gabaldon is such a good storyteller that it somehow doesn't seem to matter that I don't care a whit about what happens. And Lord John is much more agreeable here than in the Jaime books.

Dark Mirror, by Barry Maitland

Creepy. Poison kind of freaks me out a little. Lots of stuff about libraries. I'm wondering if it really is this easy to look at the borrowing records of people in UK libraries? Cuz--and this is key--this book would NEVER work in the US because we don't keep a list of what people use, nor will librarians voluntarily (i.e., without a warrant/subpoena) give up to the police any requests made by patrons.

Deeper, by Roderick Gordon, and Brian Williams

Sequel to Tunnels.

Tunnels, by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams

Started listening to the recording of this in November and ended up checking the book out to finish it this week.

Fun book. Will and his father spend their time together excavating London, making discoveries about the city's past. Then his father disappears after some mysterious tunnels are found, and Will follows him into an underground city built several hundred years ago.

Quite creepy in parts, and the first of a series, so I will have to go find the second book now.

The Frost Fair, by Edward Marston

This is a volume in Marston's series that follows Henry Redmayne, architect, who is helping to rebuild London just after the Great Fire (in 1666). In this one, his brother is accused of murdering his former fencing instructor and thrown into Newgate Prison. Also, Henry has developed a relationship with a young woman, which is placed in jeopardy because of his brother's arrest. He must clear his brother's name as well as his own while continuing to pursue his career.

Which, of course, he does, with help from his Puritan friend, Jonathan Bale. Fun.

The Bawdy Basket, by Edward Marston

So, Edmund falls deeply in love with a wealthy woman who wants him to quit the theatre, Nicholas gets involved in helping to redeem the name of another player's father who was hanged for a murder he didn't commit, the King's Men nearly disband due to their patron's bankruptcy, and I still don't know what the hell a bawdy basket means in slang!

Other than that, quite a good book. Lots of plotlines and good new characters.

Bucket Nut, by Liza Cody

I may have read this before, but it was fun. Bit difficult if you're not familiar with London slang, but I do like Cody.

Banishing Verona, by Margot Livesey

Excellent book, as long as you buy into the doggedness of the main male character, Zeke.

Zeke, though it's never spelled out, is autistic, probably has Asperger's Syndrome. His parents are greengrocers and want him to take over the shop now that he's approaching 30. He wants nothing to do with it; he enjoys his handyman jobs. His life is far from 'normal' but it fits him fairly well.

He's busy painting in a house whose owners are out of town on holiday when their visibly-pregnant niece shows up at the front door ready to spend the night. Of course, she's really not their niece, and he knows something isn't quite right, but he is taken by this strong but needy woman and she does spend the night. Then she disappears.

He can't forget her. He knows they have a connection and he is determinded to hold on to that connection no matter what. No matter if his father has just had a heart attack, his mother is intent on running off with her lover, his business is going to suffer...no matter, in fact, that he is terrified of flying and ends up flying to America on the basis of a 2 minute phone call from Verona.

It's quite a weird book, yes, but once I got inside Zeke's (and to a lesser extent, Verona's) head, all the choices they make are perfectly in character. I'd call this kind of book Literate Chick Lit.

[Autism is clearly the current Darling of the Literary World--I've read or heard about dozens of books on the subject in the past couple of years.]

Lost, by Michael Robotham (on CD)

Three years ago, Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz tried to trace a girl named Mickey Carlyle who was kidnapped from her apartment steps. Although a body was never found, a man in her apartment building was arrested and jailed for murder on the strenghth of a bloody towel and lots of pictures of children on his computer. Somehow, Ruiz never was able to put the case behind him.

Then he wakes up in the hospital with a bullet wound in his leg, a missing finger, and anmnesia having been pulled out of the Thames near a blood-covered boat. He was carrying a photo of Mickey Carlyle.

Slowly as his memory returns, he works his way through the previous month, tracing his footsteps and trying to sort out why someone wanted--and still wants--to kill him. In the process, he loses his job, watches a fellow officer's spine get broken by a suspect, prowls the sewers under London, and is forced to admit in court that he never really believed the jailed man really killed Mickey.

Great story, fairly violent, rather unbelievable at points, but good. I've left out the bits about his mother--a WONDERFUL character in every sense!--his childhood and brother, the Nazis, and his psychologist friend with Parkinson's. Lots to chew on in this thriller.