The Old Gray Wolf, by James D. Doss

I've really come to enjoy these books, which are really good stories (mysteries) while also being full of silliness and general amusement at the ridiculousness of people. This is supposedly the "final novel in the series," and that makes me very sad. I'm fairly happy for Sarah, though.... :-)

Poison Flower, by Thomas Perry

I really enjoyed this book, but I'm in a bit of a quandary about whether I like the ending or not: on the one hand, Jane does the right thing (of course), and on the other hand she has made a seismic shift in the lengths she will go to to keep her runners safe. The very last line is extremely unsettling.

I wonder if Perry will have the nerve to follow that change through to its logical (to me) conclusion in the next books, or if this is it for Jane Whitefield. If the latter, I'm sad. I liked her. I admired her, in fact, and I'm not sure I do anymore.

Finny, by Justin Kramon

This was a gift from a friend who loved it, which I just rediscovered. And it turns out to be a very good book following Finny Short from age 13 or so until her mid-30s. It's a sweet, potentially sappy story that manages to avoid getting treacly.

I'm donating my copy to the library, since no one in our consortium owns it.

Miss Zukas and the Library Murders, by Jo Dereske

Had to read this, since Miss Z is a librarian. It wasn't worth going any further, though...

Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay

Wow! The horrifying hook in this book about the Holocaust is that is tells the story from the point of view of a ten-year-old Parisian girl named Sarah rounded up with her parents by the French police in 1942. Because she doesn't know what is going on around her, she locks her little brother in a hidden cupboard in their house, sure that she'll be back in just a few hours to let him out.

Of course, she isn't back in just a few hours, or days, or weeks.

This story is interspersed in the story of Julia, an American researching this event for a French magazine as she navigates the pitfalls of her marriage and family. That part was far less interesting to me.  I did end up feeling a little gypped in the end because I wanted to hear more about Sarah's life and less about Julia's. In the end, my outlook on the French didn't exactly improve.

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.

Camouflage, by Bill Pronzini

Why did I stop reading this series? Things have changed appreciably since I stopped: the agency has...wait, there IS an agency now! With more employees. The cases here involve finding a client's ex-wife to sign some papers, except it turns into a WHOLE OTHER deal involving murder. And one of his employees is investigating the apparent abuse of his girlfriend's child. The cases don't intersect, but they do parallel each other in terms of divorce wreaking havoc, and the injection of new blood helps a lot.

No Rest for the Dead (ed. by Andrew F. Gulli and Lamia J. Gulli)

This is one of those serial novels that I'm such a sucker for: each chapter written by a different author, including some Big Names along with some folks I've never heard of. The story centers on the execution of a woman convicted of murdering her husband ten years ago by stuffing him into an Iron Maiden. And again we have the necessary suspension of belief, because there is no way a wealthy woman with no skeletons would lose every appeal on a case like this and be executed inside 2 years of her crime being committed.

BUT ANYWAY. Her husband was a skunk, a womanizer, a thief, a con-man...definitely deserved to die. But from the beginning you're sure she didn't, couldn't, do this. So, what really happened? Ah, that's what these 26 authors duke out in the pages. Pretty fun.

Mountain Ice, by R. E. Derouin

One of the books I bought last summer while we were in Ouray, and another in the series starring David Dean as the owner of a B&B in Ouray. This one is about a 19th century diary and a guest who appears to be trying to escape from an abusive husband. When the husband dies, there's no shortage of suspects.

The Diviner's Tale, by Bradford Morrow

Good book. A little heavy-handed in the explanation of the work "divine" but a good mystery told somewhat backwards in that the further you get into the book, the further back (and deeper) you go in the narrator's life.

Good.

Winter's Child, by Margaret Maron (on CD)

I think one of the main reasons I like listening to this series is the reader (C.J. Critt). She may not get the accents or voices right, but she certainly nails the tone.

This one is about the death of Dwight's first wife.

Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King

So humdrum = excellent stories from an engaging author telling tales to keep you on the edge of your seat. Wonderful. The best part is that the good guys almost always win, and the bad guys get what they deserve. Usually.

The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction, by Wendy Northcutt

People are completely stupid sometimes. The joy of this book is that it is equal opportunity about Teh Stoopud--the author tells a nearly-award-winning story on herself.

Radiance, by Alyson Noel

Interesting concept of what happens after death, with the idea that personal growth doesn't end then.

Happyface, by Stephen Emond

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

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.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeffry Lindsay (on CD)

Since we've been watching the TV show on DVD, I picked this up to see if the books are different. They are, somewhat, though only in superficial ways. The whole first season of the show is the first book, so of course there was a good deal of padding and rearranging of elements, but Dexter is far creepier in print than on TV. No shock, really. Part of the creep factor is that sense of wanting to hate Dexter--he is, after all, a murderer--while at the same time admiring him for ridding society of other killers in a completely rational way. Talk about a deeply flawed narrator!

The Spider's Web, by Margaret Coel

I love this series about Father John O'Malley and Vicky Holden on the Wind River reservation in Wyoming. This time, we have a very unstable young white woman who gets caught up in the midst of a burglary ring gone wrong. Vicky agrees to represent her so she doesn't get railroaded as an outsider on the rez, but in the meantime other people are much more likely to be guilty of everything from lying about what they know to murder.

I like the series because there's not one person who is perfect; everyone makes poor choices over the course of the series, all of the characters are flawed, and sometimes in pretty damaging ways. But there is a spirit of forgiveness and acceptance that runs through it. Nice.