Finished IT ONLY TAKES A MOMENT

It fooled me.  The ending totally surprised me...I had been deceived!  Love it!  Good book.



I am now starting People of the Owl by Kathleen O'Neal and W. Michael Gear.  I've read a number of books by these authors.  As a matter of fact, I had so many, I thought I'd not finish them all in my lifetime, but here I am come to the last of my pile and have to order more.  This is set in the Mississippi Delta about 3500 years ago at what is now known as Poverty Point--the site of the oldest mounds in the USA.  This was also the site of the oldest city in the USA.  I hope to add some pictures of the site as it looks today to this blog in the days to come.  I am still reading the introduction.

Finished LADY CRYMSYN

Fun and inventive series (The Vampire Files) with Jack Fleming as the vampire detective along with his tall British partner set during the 1930's in a very noire style.  I enjoyed every minute of it.



I've now started a kidnapping thriller by Mary Jane Clark,  It Only Takes a Moment.  Newly moved to the morning show in New York City on the KEY network, Eliza Blake is frantic when her daughter is kidnapped in such a way for the crime to not even come to light for several hours.  Hope flags as friends gather and disturbing messages arrive at the network for Eliza.

Finished COCAINE BLUES

I'd read a couple of these and seen the TV adaptation on PBS before picking up this first book and introduction to the series.  Very satisfying little mysteries with a cast of wonderfully quirky characters.  Though very different characters, I'm enjoying these as much as I enjoy #1 Ladies Detective Agency.

Now on to a noir detective novel set during the depression staring Jack Fleming, Vampire Detective,  Lady Crymsyn by P. N. Elrod.  Jack has  bought and is remodeling and restoring an old night club when a body is found walled into the basement....  All kinds of complications present themselves:  publicity, a cop that dislikes Jack, and the possibility that finding the killer will complicate Jack's stand with the Chicago Mob community.

Finished CERULEAN SINS

The title comes from the fact that the sheets on Jean Paul's bed were cerulean blue, but that is not what the book is about--that is but a dalliance.  Musette, Belle Morte's trusted cohort, is in St. Louis--not a good thing since Belle Morte (the head of Jean Paul's bloodline) is angry with him and all his "people" (defined as vampires, werewolves and other shape-shifters, and animator).  Not only that, but someone is killing women in a horrific manner....  So when exactly is Anita finding time for dalliances?

 

Am now reading Cocaine Blues, by Kerry Greenwood, the first of the Phryne Fisher mystery.  Within the first two short chapters, she finds a mystery, journeys to Australia, makes friends of a doctor and two shady cabbies, and finds a true-blue maid.  Within the next chapter, she has found a second mystery and met several more people.  These novels are short and move rapidly while being funny and a little tense.

Finished WINTER OF THE WORLD

As I loved Fall of Giants, I also loved seeing WWII through the eyes of the children of the main characters of that first book.  It allowed us to see the war through the eyes of people involved in most countries in the European theatre and Americans involved in the Pacific, but no Japanese.  What I found especially poignant was the order things happened in Nazi Germany in light of what is going on in the world today.  The first people attacked were reporters (other dissenters were also attacked, but publications were attacked and shut down in a much more universal way.)  Second, we see it okay to kill and legislate against homosexuals.  Third, "burdens to the people"-- the mentally and physically handicapped as well as the elderly were put to death--first those who were Jewish, then everyone.  Next Jews were universally attacked.  Although the Nazis were originally brought to power by an agreement of freedom of religion and non-intervention with the Catholics, they were also attacked.  Of course prisoners of war, especially Russians, were brutalized as well.  Most average Germans never knew of the mass killings until the end of the war because the only news there were getting was what the Nazis wanted them to hear.



The trilogy will continue in Edge of Eternity which will, I am sure, chronicle the continuing lives of the families in the first two books as they cope with the Cold War.  I was surprised--though I know much more about the second world war than I had about the first, I still found the book very informative and "edge of my seat" reading.

I have now started Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton, another Anita Blake book.  Jean Claude has a very scary visitor and Anita is up to her elbows in work, it being Hallowe'en.  And, of course, her relationships remain complicated.  These books are very quick to get into....