If you read yesterday’s comments, you saw this coming. Jeff mentioned that I haven’t featured “What Are You Reading” lately. It’s an easy post, but I like to have time to see what you’re all reading. And, when I’m out of town, I don’t have a lot of time for the blog.
I’ve just started The Sleeping Beauty Killer by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke. It’s book three in a series I really like. Television producer Laurie Moran and her “Under Suspicion” team take on cold cases, trying to determine if a suspect is actually guilty, or if someone else committed murder. This time, Casey Carter went to prison for the murder of her wealthy fiancé, all the time insisting she was asleep when he was killed. Fifteen years later, when she’s released, she still insists she’s innocent, and wants the “Under Suspicion” team to investigate.
So, what are you reading before the holiday? Please let us know!
Thanks, Lesa. I really enjoy seeing what everyone else is reading too.
First, as mentioned, there is A WIDOW'S STORY: A Memoir by Joyce Carol Oates, about the sudden illness and death of her husband of 47 years, Raymond Smith, in 2008. It's very good.
In the short story category is the latest Crippen & Landru Lost Classics book, Frederick Irving Anderson's THE PURPLE FLAME and Other Detective Stories. Can't say this is as much my cup of tea as some earlier collections, but I don't read that many stories written in the 1920s and 1930s and it's worth a try.
I discovered there was a 7th in Jonathon King's series about former Philadelphia cop turned Florida PI Max Freeman, DON'T LOSE HER, and was able to download a copy to the Kindle from the library (as with the Oates book). The 8 months pregnant wife of Freeman's best friend, who is also a federal judge, is kidnapped off the street, and he has to find her.
I started Kat Martin's SEASON OF STRANGERS yesterday and, despite some bumpy writing, I'm enjoying it so much I've almost finished it. It's a romantic suspense story with paranormal elements. A woman has an "other-worldly" encounter at the beach one afternoon–does this have any bearing on the new romance in her life? There's a lot going on in the plot–I'm interested to see how Martin will resolve the many threads she's working with.
I just finished HORROR IN GOLD : A DOC SAVAGE ADVENTURE by Kenneth Robeson. It was so much fun. Now I'm reading THE YELLOW EYES OF CROCODILES by Katherine Pancol. To feed the math nerd in me, I'm reading MATHEMATICS FOR THE MILLION by Lancelot Hogben.
Just started the new issue of EQMM. Looks like a good one, beginning with a Rick Helms story and ending with one by Paul Marks.
Thanks, everyone, for sharing & satisfying our curiosity. I think a lot of readers want to know what others are reading. I won't ask my sister, though. One of them thinks it's nosy. But, here, no one has to answer.
We're listening to the audio book of The Martian. We saw the movie but there's a lot more to the book.
Still reading JL Abramo's excellent CIRCLING THE RUNWAY. It's great to see PI Jake Diamond again after a 10 year absence, and this book won the 2016 Shamus award for best paperback original. Next up are 2 Bay area books I bought at Books Inc while visiting San Francisco: A collection of unpublished Hammett stories in THE HUNTER AND OTHER STORIES, and WHITE GINGER by Thatcher Robinson.
Jeffrey: I like Jonathon King, so I am glad to hear there is a new Max Freeman book. I will try and find DON'T LOSE HER when I get back home.
I agree, Grace, with you and Jeff. I was in Florida when Jonathon King's first Max Freeman book came out. I was an early fan. His descriptions of the Everglades were beautiful.
I'm reading The Promise, Robert Crais's latest book, that team Elvis Cole and Joe Pike up with Scott and Maggie.
Lots of Robert Crais fans here, Glen.
I'm reading Angela Thirkell's Summer Half – it was written in 1937 and is about three families leading a very middle-class life in a fictitious county of southern England. The son of one family becomes a Classics master at the school run by the father of another family, and of course there are numerous romantic entanglements It's all very light-hearted, and what i enjoy most about Thirkell's books are the details of the comfortable life people of this type used to lead. Servants, big houses, tennis parties, boating trips, children conveniently sent away to school. Professional men (lawyers, doctors) being taken to the office by their chauffeur, and only working till 5pm before coming home to sherry and a three course dinner.
The thing about sending your children away still happens in the more monied classes in the UK. I was recently reading about Simon (Sebag) and Santa Montefiore – one of London's most glam 'literary couples'. They said they 'had to' send their children to boarding school because when they were at day school it 'just didn't give one enough time to write'. These are people with a full cast of servants – housekeepers, gardeners, nannies, etc. It's a different world!
I needed something lighter so I'm reading Linda O. Johnston's To Catch a Treat. I just finished The Guineveres by Sarah Domet. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Fascinating, Rosemary. I may have to look for Angela Thirkell's books. I don't know if we're going to have them in our system.
I'm reading Call of the Cats: What I Learned about Life and Love from a feral colony by Andrew Bloomfield,
Lost Masters: Rediscovering the Mysticism of the Ancient Greek Philosophers by Linda Johnsen, and Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott.
Page, I originally read that wrong, following up Call of the Cats with "Lord Masters", and though, they definitely are.
I'm reading The Bone Tree by Greg Iles — it's a long one so I may still be reading it by Christmas.
I just started DECK THE HALLS by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. It happens to be #12 in the Joe Grey mystery series which I'm re-reading in its entirety, and this popped up at the perfect time!