Yup, yet another cozy mystery. This one set in the Scottish Highlands, in the village of Lochdubh (pronounced Loch-doo), at the Lochdubh School of Casting: Salmon and Trout Fishing. A varied cast of characters has come to the little village for some relaxation and fly fishing. Except for one of the party, nasty old Lady Jane. She’s come to stir shit and chew gum, and she’s all out of gum. Lady Jane is horrid to everyone, and seems to have some dirt on every person […]
Phryne Fisher Part Deux
A few months have passed since the conclusion of Cocaine Blues. In the interim, Phryne has been burnishing her reputation as a private investigator in Melbourne. She’s also found a house, and is in the process of moving out of the hotel and settling permanently in Australia. A very high strung lady approaches Phryne with a commission – she thinks her son is going to kill his father, and she wants Phryne to stop it. So Phryne goes off to the son’s flying school (planes […]
300 Pages of Blah.
For CBR5, I read — and enjoyed — Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave, the first book in a proposed trilogy about an alien invasion that threatens all of humanity. This book is the second in the series. And I did not like it. At all. This was 300 pages of nothing. Filler that could have been condensed down to a few chapters. Ugh. We still have the very unlikable Cassie as the heroine in this tale. And suddenly, she’s everyone’s last hope. Other than the fact […]
The Beginning of Something
Detective and former cop Kinsey Millhone is employed by Nikki Fife after serving her sentence for the murder of her husband eight years prior. She hires Kinsey to find out who really murdered the bastard, a very successful divorce lawyer and philanderer. Her investigation reveals another death eight years ago using the same murder weapon (ground oleander-spiked medication), and leaves a trail of bodies in its wake, natch. Millhone also works for California Fidelity, investigating small claims insurance fraud in exchange for her office space. […]
Must-Read Sci-Fi
One of my favorite books of 2014 was Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice. It’s a sci-fi novel that won pretty much every prize awarded for that genre and features one of the coolest protagonists I’ve ever encountered in literature: Breq, an “ancillary” or corpse soldier who has been untethered from the collective consciousness of her ship but retains amazing physical and cognitive powers. As one character states in book 2, “[Breq] is pretty fucking badass.” In book 1, Breq was on a mission to reach the […]
The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall and Rise of Butch Walker
I’ve been a long time fan of song writer, producer, guitarist, and singer Butch Walker and have had this book on my “To Read” list for quite a while. I’m happy to say it didn’t disappoint. For those who don’t know him, Butch was the lead singer/songwriter for the 90’s one-hit-wonder band Marvelous 3. You may have heard their great single “Freak of the Week” back in the day or the 2 excellent albums they put out (Hey Album […]