Finished Dying For Mercy

It was pretty satisfying.  Combination mystery/ thriller in Mary Higgins Clark style.  One of the problems with having a recurring character is that putting her in danger isn't all that suspenseful since we know she has to be around in the next book.  That said, the people around her are not so safe.  I liked the premise--that a man has found religion and has decided to commit suicide (alright, that IS a contradiction in terms) and does it in such a bizarre way that it points to clues he has left to solve a closed case crime as well as a present day criminal.  I'm not sure the end totally tied all the loose ends, but the book was certainly fun to read.



I have now started People of the Fire by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen Gear.  It has started a bit hard to follow, but only because it has switched characters a couple times and I am trying to trace the characters I met in the beginning or figure out how they fit together.  I feel certain I just have to read a bit farther and, as usual, the characters, the mythology, and the era are fascinating.  This is set before People of the Earth, and shows the same basic area and mythology, just maybe 1-2 hundred years earlier and the land is seriously changing...becoming dryer.

Finished The Vampire Files, Volume Three

The second (and last) book in The Vampire Files, Volume Three, by P. N. Elrod, is The Dark Sleep which is one of those stories that I found myself mourning the fact that I'd finished it.  It started rather slowly, but the characters were very interesting, so I didn't mind.  But it definitely built by the end and I was unable to put it down.

I have now started Dying for Mercy by Mary Jane Clark.  It was mixed in with some Mary Higgins Clark books at a rummage sale and I bought it by accident.  But, I figured, it got in the door, I might as well read it.  Well, it reads very much like Mary Higgins Clark's books:  short chapters, each chapter from the point of view of the next character in the story, sections dated.  I haven't figured out yet if it is a mystery, a thriller, or both...it is reading like a mystery, but it could develop into a thriller pretty easily.  I'm enjoying it so much, I bought four more of her books today at Half Price Books.

Finished A Lick of Frost and One Other

A Lick of Frost by Laurell K. Hamilton ended with Taranis (King of the Seelie) totally insane and Andais (Queen of the Unseelie) nearly so.  This is not really a spoiler--we've known this for several books--but they have both become amazingly difficult for our Meredith to live with.  In addition, there is good news, but this could be a spoiler...  :-)

Then I read a children's chapter book--Precious and the Puggies, by Alexander McCall Smith.  This is about Precious' first detective case solved at the age of 8.  It is written in Scots dialect, which is fun, but leaves me wondering about the connection between the dialect and a little girl who lives in Botswana...  I suppose it is up there with reading Winnie the Pooh in Latin.

Now I am reading The Vampire Files, Volume Three, by P. N. Elrod.  I have finished the first book in the volume--A Chill in the Blood-- which, as usual I thoroughly enjoyed.  It broaches the subject of the corruption of the law enforcement authorities of the '30s and explains the rock and the hard place ordinary honest citizens (and vampire detectives) find themselves between.  The second book in the volume is The Dark Sleep and I am only one chapter in.