New Year/New Resolutions

My new resolutions are to write more regularly, read more of the books that have been languishing on shelves for years and be more organized in what I do. Not to be pessimistic but these resolutions will probably go the way of most of my others which is nowhere.

It's only the 7th of January and I'm starting one of them: I'm here writing. The others are still waiting for their turn.

I have my top ten reads of the year so I have accomplished one bit of organization. I still have to sort by country and see if I met my goals from last year. That sounds like a job for tomorrow.


I loved these first two books and I still keep thinking about them.
Watson,  S J, Before I Go To Sleep
Adler-Olsen, Jussi, The Keeper of Lost Causes


These were my next two favorites and then the others are tops to make ten in no particular order.
Nesbo, Jo, The Leopard
Meyer, Deon, Thirteen Hours

Crombie, Debora, No Mark Upon Her
Connelly, Michael, The Drop
Kepler, Lars, The Hypnotist
Hurley, Graham, Borrowed Light
James, Peter,  Dead Man's Grip

I had a really good reading year with only a few clunkers. I read 146 books or at least I remembered to enter that many in my log. Sometimes I forget and then may or may not catch it.

So far this year I've read a so-so book by Peter Lovesey, Stagestruck, which wasn't up to par for him and now I'm reading Ian Rankin's The Impossible Dead which is much better. Even though it's not a Rebus, I'm enjoying the adventures of Fox and his crew from the Complaints. The mystery is intriguing and I have no clue who the present day killer is.

I think it's time to go find out a little more about what's going on in Scotland with crime so I'm off to my book

Where Have I Been?

It's hard to believe it has been so long since my last post. The longer I waited the harder it was to do it but here I am.

Yesterday I played duplicate bridge for the first time and, once I was over my initial nervousness, really enjoyed it. I had some good cards and played some hands well and as always messed up some. The things I messed up where bridge things nothing to do with duplicate. I liked comparing what we did with what the other group did. I came in next to the bottom but I learned a lot. I need to ask how my partner had more points than I did because I don't understand the scoring.

Today hasn't been as much fun as yesterday since I've spent most of the day in the car going back and forth to and from the swimming pool. Sang in the choir for a funeral which was nice; big family, big crowd. Bridge, Kelsey, Elyse and I had lunch but even that wasn't easy. I dropped them off so they could order while I made a trip to the pool with the boys but they didn't try to get served because there was a sign that said no unattended children. They waited for me to get back and we just went somewhere else. Wonder if they would have been served if they had explained that I was returning but I guess I'll never know the answer.

I just finished listening to the Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton and really enjoyed it; however, I'm not sure I would have liked it as much if I had been the reader. There was a lot of repetition about the locks and safes. I'm reading Gallows Bird by Camille Lackberg which is also very good. I still don't know where the title came from or what it means.

Time out to pick up the boys at swimming. Arrrgh. Got half way there and they had another ride. Okay. Back home for the rest of the day because it's too hot to go anywhere. I'm ready for rain or some cooling down. This is crazy!

Must be time to read my book.

This and That

Goodness it's been almost a month since I've been here. I don't know what I've been doing but I sure have been busy doing something. I had my first Kings Daughter's Circle meeting and that took some getting ready for. For once everything was put away and the house was neat and clean. I bet my lost library book is somewhere in that "put away" place where it may never turn up again.

I'm getting ready for my trip to Santa Fe for Left Coast Crime which is just a week away. The best part will be sunshine every day; I can hardly wait. For early March it hasn't been so bad that I can't get out in the yard to clean up the flower beds but I miss the sun on gloomy days like today. Every day I have a tour: Taos, Bandolier Monument, Literary Walking tour and Chimayo wine tasting and lunch. There are some panels I want to see also but I don't know if any will fit in with my tours. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends again whom I haven't seen since my last con in October.

Then there's daylight savings time which is another story entirely. It seems too early in the month to be changing. It just started being light in the morning and now it's dark again.

Noteworthy this month was the World War I reenactment that Ty and I went to last Sunday. There were tents set up and a trench. One of the soldiers explained about the equipment that each soldier had. The gas masks didn't look very efficient but I guess they were better than nothing, maybe. The battle was especially fun with smoke from the guns and gas. The museum was surprisingly well done and very interesting.

Laura and the girls are going to Disney World this week so I won't have any driving duties except for whatever I do with Ty. I know I'm driving the carpool to school tomorrow and Ty to Best Buy Tuesday (after Mah Jong) but that's it so far. There's still kitty sitting duties but that just takes an hour or so each day. Maybe I'll take some time out for shopping.

Book news later, I have to go read The Leopard by Jo Nesbo. It's too big to carry around with me so I have to read it here. Better get busy. No editing done today

Blood From Stone by Frances Fyfield

I always forget how well Frances Fyfield writes the psychological thriller, my label for the book, until I read her next one and I'm surprised all over again. Nothing is ever as it appears and every outing is just as fresh and frightening as the one before.

In this book, Marianne Shearer, a successful but disliked defense lawyer, dresses up in a kaleidoscopic silk skirt and throws herself out of a sixth-floor hotel window. So the question becomes not who but why. Marianne leaves a wealth of clues but they are well hidden and spread among several people.

The characters have so much depth that you appreciate even the ones you don't care for like the Lover and Thomas. I found the last person she defended, Rick Boyd, so scary that I was hesitant to pick up the book because I was afraid to find out who he was going to torture or kill, only to find he wasn't the worse person involved. Hen(rietta), her parents, and Peter were at the other end of spectrum: ordinary but strong.

It's just a good read with strong characters and a lot of tension. I gave it a 4.5 out of 5.

Bits and Bobs and A Small Death in the Great Glen

It's been so long since I last wrote that I hardly know where to start.  Guess writing about a book I just read is as good a place as any.

I finished A Small Death in the Great Glen, a first novel by A D Scott, set in the Scottish Highlands. For starters the name of the editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper is McAllister which was my grandmother's maiden name. I belong to the McAllister clan which is huge here in the US. That caught my attention right away. The characters and the setting  are very well done. The book is set in the 1950s, so there's not all the modern methods solving crime. It takes more leg work and digging into files. The plot involves a couple of "accidental" deaths and finally a strangling. The local cop is a bully who hates anyone who is a foreigner which leaves the detecting to the newspaper staff.  The ending is a little weak but for a first effort not bad. I really liked it.

Next up is the mess in my house which seems to be getting worse instead of better. So far the painter has done the Great Room, the kitchen and dining area as well as two closets and the halls. He has the stairwell and the pantry left to do this week. I'm not sure if he'll be back after he recovers from an operation or next week to do the bedrooms and the family room. I suppose I should ask him when he returns tomorrow. If he is coming next week, I'll have to quickly decide on some colors for the bedrooms because I want some variety in those room; however, I like my off-white which, I think, has a green tinge that we just used. Not sure anyone would agree with me on the green.

Most of the mess comes from the books that I pulled from the bookcases that I'm trying to organize into two groups of read and unread (these are just the shelves in one room). It takes a long time to dust, check and sort. Then there are the pictures to be rehung and everything to be washed before it's replaced. Darn, I can spend a lot of time doing this.

Can't let it interfere with my reading, working out, and social life so it may be slow going, and to add to those difficulties it's springlike and I want to be outside cleaning up the flower bed and yard. It may be going to rain tonight but at this point, it is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the snow is melting, and it's warm enough not to need a jacket. Wow! How long can it last?

I got my granddaughter an upgrade on her phone yesterday and now she can't do her email and I have no internet. Guess we're headed back to the A T & T store to get them fixed. It was my upgrade that we used so the guy probably garbled something. Irritating to say the least!

Mutterings about Powerful Books and Endings

When I finished the eleventh adventure of Faraday and Winter, Borrowed Light, by Graham Hurley, I was so distraught that I had to call a friend who had just read the book. It helped calm me down to talk to her (thank you Bobbie) because she felt the same way I did and it was fun to share the book and our feelings. This series and these characters are faves for  both of us.

I would never give away an ending of a book, I hope, so I'll just say that I hadn't seen it coming. I thought the author played fair with me and I wasn't upset with him but the book was so powerful and I was so in tune with these characters that I could not accept the ending. In fact, at that point there was no way I could start to read another book because all I could do was moan and say omg, omg.

Having this experience made me think about authors who have made such an impact on me and so far I've only come up with two others in the past several years. One of those was J K Rowling and one was Louise Penny. I felt the same way when I finished The Brutal Telling as I did with Borrowed Light, and I sobbed my way through Bury Your Dead. I have never for a moment believed that Dumbledore is really dead. I have no answer why these authors impacted me so much except they are powerful writers and their characters are real people to me. If I were the only one who felt this way, I'd feel that I was a little weird writing that but fortunately I"m not the only one.

Needless to say I needed a comfort read after the Hurley discussion and so I chose the latest Ian Rutledge adventure, A Lonely Death, by Charles Todd. I thought this was one of the best in the series and it was a wonderful antidote for my sadness with the Hurley. I wonder if authors like to be considered comfort reads? Next thought to ponder.

Death on the Marais

Death on the Marais by Adrian Magson, 2010, Allison & Busby, 382 pp

"She was going to die. She could feel it, her life ebbing away as surely as fine sand through fingers." This is the beginning of the first book in a new series written by Adrian Magson. 

As part of a 1963 nationwide initiative, Inspector Lucas Rocco finds himself working in the usually quiet village of Poissons-Les-Marais, Picardie, France under his former army CO now Commissaire Francois Massin. Marais means marshland which can be as dangerous as a murderer, a security force, and a local who deals with left over World War II bombs and grenades.


Lucas, an outspoken cop noted for his single-mindedness and tenacity in solving crimes, is aided by Claude Lamotte, the local cop, who knows the people and his way around the area.  

On his first day in the village, Lucas finds a dead woman in a wet Gestapo uniform lying in a British military cemetery. When the as yet unidentified woman is removed from the police mortuary by war hero and industrialist Philippe Berbier, the drowned woman is identified as his daughter. The crimes are set in the present but revert back to a resistance cell and a member of the SOE in W W II. 


I liked both the characters and the setting in this book and I   look forward to solving more crimes with Lucas and Claude, and finding out more about their previous lives. The plot has enough twists and red herrings to satisfy.