Year 16 April-May 2011 2011 LA Times Book Prize Nominees Tom Franklin, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter Tana French, Faithful Place Laura Lippman, I’d Know You Anywhere Stuart Neville, Collusion Kelli Stanley, City of Dragons * * * * Time to consider some topics for the rest of the year. Titles, Authors, Places or Job descriptions. Here are a few ideas that we haven’t tried for at least 10 years. Amensia - characters with Upcoming Topics Autism and Geocaching May 11 Edgar Nominees Bad Ass Sidekicks Central and South America June 8 Chandler, Hammett and Ross MacDonald Clerical Sleuths Fair Dinkum Crime - Australia Meeting Time First Time Authors - could be done each year. Pick a month. 6:30 PM at Anaheim Central Library—upstairs Hawaii conference room New Orleans Reginald Hill For more information Senior Sleuths contact Karen at World War II Inside this issue: Reader’s Reviews 2 Ruth Checks In 3 Hardcovers due out in April and May 4-5 Edgar Nominees (again) 6 Since I am late starting this newsletter, I’m go- Gleeson, Janet – THE SECPENT IN THE ing to do the list reports…. GARDEN – 4.0 Karen Cooper Helten, Peter - HEADCASE – 5.0 Krueger, WM. Kent – HEAVEN’S KEEP Henderson, Lauren – BLACK RUBBER – 4.0 - excellent series DRESS – 4.0 Langton, Jane –THE ESCHER TWIST – Martini, Steve – THE ATTORNEY – 5.0 3.5 – checked the Mr. Auburn Cemetery Patterson, James and Gabrelle Charbon- on line… wonderful home page net – SUNDAY AT TIFFANYS – 5.0 Rankin, Ian – DOORS OPEN – 4.25 Kevin Moore Janet Woodward Martin, Nancy – LADY OF IMUCULATE Akunin, Boris – MURDER ON THE LE- DEEPTION – 3.5 VIATHAN – 4.5 - Agatha Christie type Meltzer, Brad – THE INNER CIRCLE – 4.0 mystery Cleland, Jane – SILENT AUCTION – 2.75 Barbery, Muriel – THE ELEGANCE OF Goldberg, Lee – MR MONK ON THE THE HEDGEHOG – 5.5+ - not a mys- ROAD – 3.5 – 3 murders on a roadtrip tery Corleone, Douglas – ONE MAN’S PARA- DISE – 4.0 – lawyer moves to Hawaii Marcia Frazier Evanovich, Janet – Sizzling Sixteen – Karen Bevers 3.5 aOnly 2 real belly laughs in this Boyd, Noah – THE BRICKLAYER and book AGENT X – 4.75 – Jack Reacher may Karp, Marshall – THE RABBIT FAC- have a rival TORY (#1) – 4.0 – Hollywood setting Collins, Suzanne – THE HUNGER GAMES Lowe, Dagmar – COVER UP – 2.5 – A series – 4.5 – Popular YA series turkey Gaus, P., L – BLOOD OF THE PRODIGAL Muller, Marcia – COMING BACK 3.5 – and A PRAYER FOR THE NIGHT - 2.75 - Theme scary if true. Amish Ohio setting. Taylor, Sarah Stewert – STILL AS Green Tim – FALSE CONVICTIONS – 3.5 DEATH – 4.0 Grisham, John - THEODORE BOONE, KID LAWYER – 3.0 Kids book by well known Marcia Bigelow author Akunin, Boris – MURDER ON THE LE- Lippman, Laura – THE GIRL IN THE VANTHAN – 4.0 GREEN RAINCOAT – 4.5 Shades of Rear Beaton, M.C. – DEATH OF A Window DREAMER – 4.0 – Hamish MacBeth Palmer, Michael – A HEARTBEAT AWAY series – 2.5 – not a great medical thriller Bonfiglioli, Kyril – AFTER THE PISTAL Parker, T.Jefferson – THE BORDER – DNF LORDS - DNF – too many bad guys and Brandan, Ruth – CARRAGGIO’S AN- too much woo-woo, snakes and dog bites. GEL – 4.0 Stanley, Kelli – CITY OF DRAGONS – Charney, Noah – THE ART THIERF – 3.5Author really know 1940 San Francisco 4.0 Tapply , William – OUTWITTING TROLLS Cornwell, Patricia – POSTMORTEN – – 4.5 – last of the Brady series (#25) 3.0 Tapply, William – THE NOMINATION – 4.9 Crider, Bill – MEDICINE SHOW – 4.0 – Last book – Dunn, Carolia – THE BLOODY TOWER Supreme Court nominees: – 5.0 Edgar Nominees: Tana French, Bruce De- Ewan, Chris – THE GOOD THIEF’S silva, James Thompson, Timothy Hallinan GUIDE TO PARIS 4.0 and Tom Franklin - (more later) Page 2 MRA MUSINGS Hi, but he's seen a murderer, so the murderer is following I have not read Crais, nor Connelly, nor Hamilton, him. Along the way he meets a mysterious Indian, and and the only California book I read was Penny then there's a big furious denouement and another Warmer's How To Survive a Killer Seance, which meeting with the Indian, and then a new order is estab- is set mostly on Treasure Island and at the Win- lished. Really well done. chester House in San Jose. I like Penny Warner, So there's four for three, and it was all good reading. so I like her book, but I prefer the Conner What's next? Westfall ones; these are okay, and the sense of Ruth place is good, and there's nothing wrong with the mystery, and her treatment of her early- Alzheimer's mother is good, too, so I don't know what my complaint is, but I just like the other se- ries better. Picky, picky. I have read books set out west, though, like Dana Stabenow's Though Not Dead, and it was very Alan Bradley’s A Red Herring Without Mustard is good, of course. Kate Shugak is Old Sam the third in the Flavia de Luce series, and the eleven- Demienteff's heir, and he wants her to find his year-old sleuth is learning lots about herself and the father, he says in his last written words. So she mother who’s lost to her even as she searches for sets out to do so, and finds herself on the trail of friendship and for answers to the mysteries all Sam's father, and a valuable icon, and a valuable around her. manuscript, as well. She also finds herself owner Kate Atkinson’s much-heralded Started Early, Took of some property she didn't know about. It's very My Dog brings back private detective Jackson Bro- well done, with flashbacks and other narratives, die, in search of a client’s past life; his search inter- and in the meanwhile Jim Chopin is finding his own sects with an abused dog, an ex-WPC who’s bought a father, and mother, as well. Kind of inconclusive little girl, and an aging actress at the end of her ca- ending, with the reader knowing more than Kate. reer. It’s complex, and predictably wonderful. Then there was Steven Havill's latest, Double Laura Lippman’s The Girl In the Green Raincoat, is a Prey, which is the 17th in his Posadas County se- novel which has overtones of “Rear Window” and The ries, and it's just as good as you would expect. A Daughter Of Time. It was serialized in The New boy is snake bitten, in the eye, and then his York Times Magazine and is now available in trade brother is found dead, with his ATV shot out from paperback, and is (of course) Lippman at her best. under him, and while Estelle Reyes-Guzman is in- Tess is with child, home-bound and curious, and just vestigating this crime, Bill Gastner is making plans see what happens. to retire from his job as agricultural inspector, David Rosenfelt’s On Borrowed Time is a stand-alone and Estelle's gifted musical son needs to attend a thriller about pharmaceutical beta testing with a musical conservatory, and she is losing her nanny, very personal twist—it’s a real page-turner. So is the and a whole bunch of other quotidian things are late William G. Tapply’s final novel, The Nomination, changing, including the composition of the Posadas about a Supreme Court nominee whose life doesn’t Sheriff's Office. Havill juggles all this so effort- bear close examination at all. It’s sad to realize that lessly! Wonderful series. Tapply is gone; our only consolation is the marvelous Then there was a newish author, Richard A. body of work he left behind. Thompson, and his book, Big Wheat: A Tale of In paperback, Sofie Kelly’s Curiosity Thrilled the Bindlestiffs and Blood. Set in 1919, when a young Cat and Lorraine Bartlett’s A Crafty Killing are both man has a fight with his father and goes to follow a cut above most of the paperback fare that’s coming the wheat harvest up into Canada. He hooks up down the pike lately, with a group of itinerant mechanics, repairing combines and threshers along the harvest route, Page 3 MRA MUSINGS April 2011 Mourning Gloria [China Bayles #19] by Susan Wittig Albert The Sixth Man [Sean King & Michelle Maxwell #5] by David Baldacci Running on Empty [Main Street #1] by Sandra Balzo A Pizza To Die For [Pizza Lovers #3] by Chris Cavender Mobbed [Regan Reilly #17] by Carol Higgins Clark The Law of Angels [Abbess of Meaux #3] by Cassandra Clark Guilt by Association [Rachel Knight #1] by Marcia Clark I'll Walk Alone [NS] by Mary Higgins Clark Deadly Threads [Josie Prescott Antiques #6] by Jane K. Cleland Red on Red [NS] by Edward Conlon The Fifth Witness [Mickey Haller #4] by Michael Connelly Night on Fire [Kevin Corvelli #2] by Douglas Corleone A Dark and Stormy Night [Dorothy Martin #10] by Jeanne M. Dams Crunch Time [Goldy Schulz #16] by Diane Mott Davidson Nightshade [Hugh Corbett #16] by P.C. Doherty [1st US edition] Potsdam Station [John Russell #4] by David Downing [1st US edition] The Hanging Wood [Lake District #5] by Martin Edwards The Jackal Man [Wesley Peterson #15] by Kate Ellis The Bone House [NS] by Brian Freeman Knockdown [Home Repair #14] by Sarah Graves Merely Players [Peach & Blake #15] by J.M. Gregson Afraid of the Dark [Jack Swyteck #9] by James Grippando Where Shadows Dance [Sebastian St. Cyr #6] by C.S. Harris Slugfest [Dirty Business #4] by Rosemary Harris A Hard Death [Dr.