As I surfed around the Internet yesterday, I came across this great female blues artist!
A native of Australia, Kara Grainger draws inspiration from the blues of America. On Shiver & Sigh, her third solo album, the guitarist and singer/songwriter also incorporates elements of rhythm and blues and soul music in the mix.
I think Kara will have a place in my blues library! Let’s go “into the morning” watching her perform live!
September was a slow reading month (I listened to more music than mysteries. However, I’ve still been reading and yesterday finally finished Book 30 for the year Karin Slaughter’s latest Will Trent book Unseen.
Unseen is the seventh book in the Will Trent series couple that with the six books in the Grant County series and that makes a total of thirteen great books by Karin Slaughter!!
In Unseen the Grant County series and the Will Trent series continue their collision course, as Sara Litton and Lena Adams, come face to face for the first time since the surprising conclusion to the final book in the Grant County series. Beyond Reach.
The story opens with a deadly attack on Lena and her husband Jared in their Macon Georgia home. . Lena takes out two of the assailants and is stopped short of taking out a third by Wiil Trent a Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) agent working undercover in Macon. Jared is Sara’s stepson so she quickly heads to Macon at the request of Nell Jared’s mother. Soon the lives of Sara, Will and Lena are entwining and creating havoc in all their lives! The action careens through flashbacks from present events to a failed drug bust that Lena had headed!!
As always the story functions on two levels first on the events that occurred prior to and after the drug bust and the attack on Lena and Jared,and on the second level how the events affect the lives of Sara, Will and Lena. The case nearly destroy Will and Sara’s relationship, and forces both Lena and Sara to relive a period of their lives, that they would both rather forget!
Now the question is whether you can read this novel without having read any of Slaughter’s other works. Yes, you can but I don’t think you’ll enjoy it as much as you would if you had read Beyond Reach, So if you are new to Karin’s work do yourself a favor and read that one first. But at a minimum read at least one, then you’ll only have twelve more to go!!
Karin Slaughter (born January 6, 1971) is an American crime writer. She has written 25 novels, which have sold more than 40 million copies and have been published in 120 countries. Her first novel, Blindsighted (2001), was published in 27 language and made the Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger Award shortlist for “Best Thriller Debut” of 2001. Wikipedia
So Rick Murcer‘s book Caribbean Moon, the first book in the Manny Williams series, has been on my Kindle and iPhone for a long while now. The other day (while I am in the middle of The Templar Salvation by Raymond Khoury) I started reading it and I didn’t put it down until it became book 29 for 2013. You can pickup the e-book at Amazon for 99 cents and I tell you it’s well worth it and a lot more! Murcer has nor always been a full-time writer’ He lost his job in 2008 due to the crashing of the economy. He then sent out over 600 resumes and still was unable to find employment. So with unemployment benefits waning and savings nearly depleted he decided to become a full-time writer!! From his biography at his website:
I’m an older writer. I started about eight years ago and got the first story I ever wrote, Herb’s Home Run, published in Writer’s Journal. Since then, I’ve been hooked.
I lost my real job two years ago, and after 550 resumes with no luck, decided I was going to make it as a writer, and here I am. Caribbean Moon was a labor of love, and writing it taught me more about myself than I cared to know. (My wife thinks I should keep my mind a secret!)
In his quest to become a writer, he defied conventional wisdom about self publishing and took his work to Amazon in e-book form, and there he became a sensation! Caribbean Moon, Deceitful Moon, and Emerald Moon sold more than 300,000 copies between April and October 2011. Two books of the books were in Amazon’s top ten for many weeks. He has gone on to become both a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author! Way to go Rick!!
But back to Caribbean Moon Manny Williams, a Lansing Michigan homicide detective, and a group of his associates, go on a cruise with the newly married son and daughter of his boss Gavin Crosby. But the cruise is anything but a honeymoon because bodies soon start piling up on the ship, and around the Caribbean. The victims include two members of Manny’s group. The victims mostly women are in most cases are strangled and their bodies are badly mutilated. The MO is similar to a serial killer, Robert Peppercorn, who the group sent to prison a while back. Can it be Peppercorn committing these heinous crimes? Wasn’t he reformed?? Manny and the gang have to act quickly to end this brutal murder spree and the question soon becomes:What is the objective of the murderer!
The book is a light quick read with enjoyable well-developed characters including: Manny, his partner Sylvia Lee the rest of his co-workers, and of course the killer!! So check it out – I’ve already started the second book Deceitful Moon, which costs a whole $2.99!!.
Note to Self: DO NOT PUT OFF READING TESS GERRITSEN BOOKS! Which is what I did with her book The Silent Girl, which sat on my bookshelf for a long time before it became Book 28 of 2013!
I started reading Tess Gerritsen books back in 2003 with The Surgeon, which I absolutely loved! I quickly went out and read two of her early medical thrillers and then The Apprentice (Rizzoli and Isles #2) another winner,
Since then I’ve read all the Rizzoli & Isles books. Why I put off reading The Silent Girl I can’t say, because once I started I became totally absorbed in the book and rarely put it down until I was finished.
This mystery involves Boston’s Chinatown, A severed hand is found in an alley, the body it was formerly attached to is found on the roof of the building next to the alley. The hand was attached to a red-haired woman dressed in black, her head nearly severed from her body. Two strands of silver hair – not human – are found on her body. The murder pulls her into a mystery appears to revolve around a murder-suicide that occurred nineteen years earlier in a Chinatown restaurant. A cook in the restaurant inexplicably lost it murdering four patrons and a waiter at the restaurant James Fang, James’ wife Iris is a mysterious martial arts instructor who believes that the cook was innocent and now she may be the bait to draw the real killer out! Was that woman found on the roof of Iris; studio an assassin sent to kill Iris?? Jane and Maura set out to discover how all the pieces fit together and what really happened during the night of the murders. Along the way, they are aided by a new Detective Johnny Tam and confront the mysterious Monkey King of Chinese folklore!
As always the characters are well-developed and believable and the plot has lots of twists and turns that keep the pages turning. Side stories include an appearance by Julian “Rat” Jenkins a teenager who had helped save Maura six months previously in the Wyoming mountains. “Rat” has come to spend the week with Maura and a new development in the relationship between Jane’s mom and Jane’s retired partner Vince Korsak! But the most intriguing character in the book may be martial arts teacher Iris Fang!
So check it out and I’ll leave you with these words from The Hartford Book Examiner:
The Silent Girl represents an author at the pinnacle of her storytelling abilities. Gerritsen’s plot is complex and flawlessly executed, with elements of fable ambitiously interlaced throughout. further, she explores her beloved characters in intriguing and meaningful ways. Combined with her trademark knowledge of forensics and razor-sharp dialogue, the result is a page-turner that delivers on style and substance.
Where is Tess’ latest – Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel released in paperback in June!!
Book 25 for the year is Breaking Point, the 13 the in C.J.Box’s great series and it’s another good one. I had checked the book out a couple of weeks ago, but I got immersed in two other books and it sat on the shelf. Finally, a few nights ago I picked it up and I don’t think I set it down until I was done! Box can really tell a story with believable characters and suspense that doesn’t let up!
The Story
This story revolves around Butch and Pam Roberson, whose daughter Hannah is best friends with Joe’s daughter Lucy. Butch and Pam set out to build their dream house only to be sited by the EPA for illegally filling wetands, after a year-long battle and skyrocketing fines, two EPA agents set out from the Denver office to deliver a compliance letter to the Robersons, only to end up dead on the Robeson’s property and Butch is the only suspect!! Soon there is a manhunt of epic proportions for Butch who has taken flight to the rugged woods and mountains that surround his home. Joe’s official job is to lead the group chasing Butch, but Joe’s real job to save Butch’s life so he can find out the true story about what happened!!
While the action and suspense was non-stop and I devoured the book super quickly, I did think that the portrayal of the EPA both from a compliance standpoint and the manhunt was a little over the top. As a wetlands delineator and having dealt with NJDEP for the last 25 years, I thought the whole EPA issue could have been handled quickly. But then again considering the other case The Sacketts cited in the book and the premise of this book is taken from a true story maybe not!! Either way the book is a fantastic read, so check it out!
Joe Pickett is one of my favorite characters. He reminds me a lot of Cork O’Connor in William Kent Krueger’s books. Both have been in law enforcement Joe is a Game Warden and Cork an ex-sheriff. Both are good honest men with families. Joe has a wife Marybeth, two natural daughters and one foster daughter. While Cork has two daughters and a son. Both have trusted friends that help them. Joe’s friend Nate (who makes a small appearance in this book) /Romanowski is just a tad (said with heavy sarcasm) more violent than Cork’s spiritual guide Henry Meloux! Throughout both series the well-developed characters have evolved, the children have grown up, the families have dealt with typical family problems, and both men have dealt with the gray areas involved in their pursuit of justice!
While I don’t think that you necessarily need to read the earlier books to enjoy this one, I think that once you read it you’ll want to find out more about Joe and his friends, particularly Nate, Joe’s mother-in-law Missy and Joe’s problems with his vehicles!!! Enjoy!!
Once upon a time I knew a young man who was semi-literate. He read books by Alexander Solzhenisten, John Fowles, Norman Mailer and James Baldwin among others. He loved the Marx Brothers and read about George S Kauffman, Alexander Woolcott and the rest of the members of the Algonquin Wits, including Dorothy Parker. But through the years as that young man aged, he found escape from the drudgery of work not in great literature, but in mysteries and thrillers, not that they aren’t good reads, but hey, saving the world from serial killers and nuclear annihilation isn’t the same as questioning the meaning of life!
He did though along the way, find that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is _____. You’ll have to find that out yourself! So back to this aging man….. it seemed as though he was DE-evolving to the point where, his wife would tell his children that she “married him for his mind” and his children would laugh uncontrollably! I assume that you probably surmised, fairly early in this post that the young man was me, and that the old Neanderthal, is also me….. I think a lot of my reverse evolution revolves around MY internal concept of who I am, which rather than revolving around my four great children, for which I give my wife most of the create, is based on my job. The problem is that I don’t see my job in a very good light for the last 30 years for the majority of th time I was digging holes and examining dirt, oops, soil throughout New Jersey for the purpose of designing in-ground sewage disposal systems. It’s tough sometimes to keep up a positive self-image when one of your bosses calls you “Eddie the Shit King”! The rest of the time I was trudging through woods trying to define that elusive line where wetlands turn to uplands so that somebody could build something!! Both of these roles while providing a steady income that almost got us by, I say almost because like most folks our credit debt has risen through the years, really weren’t what I set out to do with my life. So now I sit here reviewing my life and wondering, “Where do I go from here!” Right now I don’t know the answer, but I think to move forward in a positive direction, I need to go back and reconnect with that young man and while not recapturing that youth, take those values, ideals and intelligence (I know it’s still in there somewhere, I just forgot where I left it), and move them back to the forefront of my life. So that as I move forward, I can travel in the right direction, or at least in one where I feel positive about myself!!
Now the reason, that I mention all this, including the Algonquin Wits is that Book 22 for 2013 Farewell, Dorothy Parker by Ellen Meister, as I wrote before an atypical book for me to read. While it may not have been the greatest literature it, did deal with life’s problems. The heroine, Violet Epps, had to deal with death – the loss of her sister and brother-in-law in a car accident that left her niece Delaney an orphan, and life, as Violet has to move forward and fight for custody of Delaney from her grandparents! Along the way, Violet gains strength and find her personal inner voice to match her professional movie critic voice, with the help from the spirit of Mrs. Dorothy Parker!! Violet discovers that Mrs. Parker’s spirit has never crossed over into the light, but still resides in the guest book of the Algonquin Hotel, and when the book is open she materializes. Violet discovers this when the book ends up in her bag and in her house after a hectic scene in the Hotel! The book gives the reader some insight into the life of Mrs. Parker, including many of her caustic one-liners, as she humorously tries to help Violet, catch her man, win custody of her niece and find her lost inner voice!!
All in all, it was a fast and funny read that brought back memories of those who sat around that table at the Algonquin Hotel and maybe just maybe will help me regain that inner me that I miss!
As I browsed the library shelves a couple of weeks ago, i couldn’t pass up a book titled Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi, and I’m so glad I didn’t! Brian Leaf’s wonderful book, subtitled My Humble Quest to heal my Colitis, Calm my ADD and Find the Key to Happiness has become Book 19 for 2013. As I read the back cover of the book a quote from Kathryn Buid, author of The Women’s Health Big Book of Yoga pretty much sums it up!
Brian Leaf is like the Bill Cosby of Yoga – recounting common emotions and situations on a yogi’s path in a way that makes you laugh with acknowledgment. His story is so graphic I felt like I was practically holding his hand!
His eight simple keys to happiness sprinkled throughout the book follow an experience in his life that led him to discover that key. Most of the time the experience is quite funny and I would frequently laugh out loud and then like Kathryn said – nod my head with acknowledgment!
I have over the last forty years been an on and off again self-taught student of yoga. First through Richard Hittleman, then books on Ivengar yoga, and finally Kundalini yoga. I spent one year meat free and several doing kriyas and chanting Sikh mantras and for the most part it was great. But somehow it all slipped away. For the last year or so, I’ve done an exercise routine that includes some Kundalini movements coupled with weights and resistance bands and some Hatha yoga on off days. Any time that I do yoga on a consistent basis, I catch myself zipping through work, being more organized and feeling great ( especially when I do a kriya called Master of Your Domain) and then I think to myself, oh yeah, you’ve been doing yoga!! So after reading Brian’s book, and Happiness Rule #1, which is: Do you, and if you do yoga do more yoga! I am making a commitment to do just that!! More yoga, maybe I’ll even check out a book on Kripalu yoga, which is the yoga that Brian finally committed to, and see how I like it!!
Anyway, I you want to read a wonderfully funny memoir with great insight in the search for Happiness, read Brian’s book. As for me, I’m going to do more yoga and try to apply Brian’s Keys to my life. I’ve already looked up some websites on Ayurveda , so that I can apply Rule # 3, which is: Apply at least three pieces of Ayurvedic wisdom to your daily schedule! I’ll let you know what happens!!
This morning is was thinking about reading and books that “Rocked your world”, well maybe not rock your world, but those that opens your eyes, maybe make you see the world in a new light.
Books that touch you! One of the first books of mine that came to mind was, Jonathan Kozol’s Death at an Early Age. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read but I remember at the time, this book revealed conditions that I really didn’t know existed and I remember being so touched by Kozol’s actions!
Just recently that’s what Stones into Schools did for me. It smacked me in the face with the conditions that people live under in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and their need for and their thirst for education particularly for their daughters!
The Imperial Cruise did it, too, by opening my eyes to US actions both in Hawaii and the Philippines!
As I thought about this topic two other books that came to mind were Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha and Narcissus and Goldmund. While I loved both books, I remember that Narcissus and Goldmund was my favorite. For those of you who don’t know the book, here is a synopsis from Wikipedia:
Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of a young man, Goldmund, who wanders around aimlessly throughout Medieval Germany after leaving a Catholic monastery school in search of what could be described as “the meaning of life”, or rather, meaning for his life. Narcissus, a gifted young teacher at the cloister school, quickly makes friends with Goldmund, as they are only a few years apart, and Goldmund is naturally bright. Goldmund looks up to Narcissus, and Narcissus has much fondness for him in return. After straying too far in the fields one day, on an errand gathering herbs, Goldmund comes across a beautiful Gypsy woman, who kisses him and invites him to make love. This encounter becomes his epiphany; he now knows he was never meant to be a monk. With Narcissus’ help, he leaves the monastery and embarks on a wandering existence. Goldmund finds he is very attractive to women, and has numerous love affairs. After seeing a particularly beautiful carved Madonna in a church, he feels his own artistic talent awakening and seeks out the master carver, with whom he studies for several years. However, in the end Goldmund refuses an offer of guild membership, preferring the freedom of the road. When the Black Death devastates the region, Goldmund encounters human existence at its ugliest. Finally he is reunited with his friend Narcissus, now an abbot, and the two reflect upon the different paths their lives have taken, contrasting the artist with the thinker. Full Wikipedia Article
Now as I think about the book and read the reviews at Goodreads: Narcissus and Goldmund I think I want to read the book again. I’m sure it would be interesting to read after all the life experiences that have occurred since that first reading!
So the question of the day is: What Book “Rocked Your World” and why??
Oh, another book that popped into my mind that I read in college at the height of the Vietnam War that had an impact was Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun
In 1905 Theodore Roosevelt sent the largest diplomatic mission in US across the Pacific to Asia. The mission was led by his Secretary of War William Howard Taft and the group included his daughter Alice. James Bradley’s book about this mission The Imperial Cruise is Book 17 of 2013. During the trip Taft on Roosevelt’s behalf negotiated a series of secret agreements – which were unconstitutional – that laid the groundwork for future Japanese actions over the next 30-40 years. The details of these agreements remained secret until after Roosevelt’s death and really have been absent from history books.
The book details many stops along the way and American actions throughout the trip. Included are discussion of the US annexation of Hawaii as well as US actions in the Philippines. The more I read, the less I liked the actions of my country. I don’t ever think we were taught as much about the perceived belief held by Roosevelt and the politicians of his day, that only white Anglo-Saxons were capable of understanding democracy and self-government and it was our duty to spread that democracy westward across our continent and then on across the Pacific to Asia. Since Americans knew nothing about Hawaii or the Philippines, they were portrayed as Pacific Negroes and several pictures in the book provide illustrations showing Filipinos dressed in Jungle-like garb..
In a review of the book that appeared in the New York Times The Queasy Side of Theodore Roosevelt’s Diplomatic Voyage written by Janet Maslin in November of 2009,. In the article Maslin writes:
If racism is nothing new, Mr. Bradley’s readers may still be surprised at the xenophobic ugliness of the photos, letters, cartoons, lyrics and political speeches cited here. And if, for instance, American use of waterboarding against turn-of-the-century Filipino prisoners is not unknown (it was the subject of a New Yorker article last year), neither is it common knowledge. Nor, perhaps, are the lyrics to “The Water Cure,” a vintage United States Army marching song: “Shove in the nozzle deep and let him taste of liberty/Shouting the battle cry of freedom.” The toughest parts of this book re-reveal things we should already know.
On of the main themes of the book was that Roosevelt’s belief that only the Japanese understood dg government like Anglo-Saxon whites and that his belief that the Japanese should have a Monroe Doctrine like control over Asia led to World War II. Maslin writes:
“Here was the match that lit the fuse, and yet for decades we paid attention only to the dynamite,” Mr. Bradley writes. The flame to which he refers is Roosevelt’s secret diplomacy with Japan and his encouragement of Japanese imperialism. (“I should like to see Japan have Korea,” he once declared.) In a far-reaching book that also addresses Roosevelt’s misconceptions about Korea, Hawaii, China and the Philippines, Mr. Bradley places critical emphasis on the dangerous American-Japanese relationship that, he says, Roosevelt helped create.
While Bradley might have gone too far in his dislike for Theodore Roosevelt and his policies that may have set the stage for Japanese expansion and the war, he did tell me a lot about the US actions in Asia that we were never taught about in school. In addition, similarities between American actions in the Philippines were eerily similar to Iraq. What reading this book has done is piqued my interest in both Theodore Roosevelt and this time period, in fact I have started another book about the time period The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 by Even Thomas
Here’s a review from USA Today that points out some of the negatives of the book:‘Imperial Cruise’ hits rough waters in attack of Roosevelt
So check out The Imperial Cruise and see what you think!
There are several mystery characters in mystery series that make me laugh, but two stand out first there’s Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum and secondly there’s Parnell Hall’s Stanley Hastings. Stanley’s latest caper Stakeout is Book 16 of 2013..
Stakeout is the 18th book in the series that I started reading in 1991! Like all the others this one is a fine caper, which had me out laughing out loud on more than one occasion!
The Washington Post Book World says this about the series:
“The charm in Stanley Hastings lies in his chummy, loquacious, self-deprecating commentary as the narrator of his adventures”
While Marilyn Stasio of the The New York Times Book Review writes:
“The Stanley Hastings mysteries depend on subversively sly wordplay. In Caper catching criminals is all very well, but in the violently verbal world he inhabits, Stanley would be happy just to win an argument”
and from Mystery Scene
“This is the 18th installment in Parnell Hall’s long-lived and enjoyable Stanley Hastings series…The whole novel is told through dialogue–not so easy a trick. The writers who are really excellent at this make it look simple–Robert B Parker and Steve Hamilton spring to mind. Hall shares that gift…As Stanley lurches and jolts toward a final “aha” moment in a crowded courtroom, you’ll be rooting for him to come out, more or less, on top.” –
In Stakeout Stanley is hired by a beautiful wife to follow her husband to determine whether he is cheating on her. Stanley follows him and stakes out the motel where has rented a room. When no one shows up, Stanley decides to check out the room. When he opens the unlocked door, big surprise, he finds the husband dead!! Quickly the police arrive and Stanley is fingered for the crime. The rest of the book revolves around Stanley trying to find out who committed the crime and mostly just digs himself deeper in a hole!! It is a very quick and enjoyable read, with the usual cast of characters including Stanley, his wife Alice, police officer MacAullif, and Stanley’s boss personal injury attorney Richard Rosenberg. Here’s a typical discussion between Stanley and MacAullif:
“A vampire?” MacAullif said.
There is no way I can do justice to the skepticism, sarcasm, and mistrust with which MacAullif managed to imbue the word.
“That’s right.”
“You want me to find a vampire?”
“I’d be relieved if you could. I’m afraid he might be dead.”
― Parnell Hall, Crimes by Moonlight: Mysteries from the Dark Side
So if you enjoy a good mystery with a lot of great humor check out any of the Stanley Hastings mysteries by Parnell Hall or if you prefer Puzzles check out his puzzle lady books.
