Reviewed By Liz

This book was a delightful surprise. I must admit that I was a little leery of a historical mystery featuring author Jane Austen. I have read other historical mysteries based upon real people that I didn’t find tremendously successful – but this one was very good. To begin with, Barron has populated her book with characters from Jane’s life, set it in a town (and house) where she lived, and then added a little fictional flair for a plot suited to the time period. I think that it is the fact that she keeps to the dictates of Jane’s real life that give this book integrity.

The writing style is also evocative of an earlier time, but updated so that the modern reader gets a taste of prose, but isn’t bogged down by it. And while artistic license must be taken to flesh out characters, the author uses Jane’s life as a guide. At the time this book is set, Jane was a spinster of 34 who, along with her mother and another unmarried sister, was obliged to live off the generosity of her brothers. The author explores what this situation means, both socially and emotionally, for the women and how they cope with it. And their relocation to a new house of her brother’s choosing is an integral part of the plot.

The interesting fictional twist involves a chest full of letters and journals that Jane is left by a friend (or more?) who appears in earlier books. These letters are reputed to contain the secrets accumulated in the adventurous life of a nobleman who knows where all his fellows sowed their wild oats and, as such, this chest of letters is much sought after by people who want to keep things quiet.

Favorite character? Jane’s mother. She grouses about her situation in life and is still trying to find husbands for her remaining daughters.

Did I guess it? No. But I am looking forward to reading the rest of this series. If you are tired of present day mysteries and need to step back to a more relaxing time, pick up this book and enjoy some horse and buggy travel.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

Have you ever read a book and been unable to explain why you didn’t really like it? I am having this problem with this book. It isn’t horrible. The characters are all right. The mystery is okay. It just didn’t have anything in it that grabbed me, I guess.

This is one of the series of needlecraft books featuring Crewel World store owner Betsy Devonshire. In it, her co-worker Goddy’s longtime partner has been murdered and Goddy is arrested for the crime. Betsy is told by her devoted customers to solve the murder and rescue their beloved Goddy. The customers are so insistent that they both take up a monetary collection to pay for Goddy’s lawyer and then all volunteer at the store so that Betsy has the free time she needs to conduct her investigation. Seems a little contrived, doesn’t it?

Betsy’s character isn’t gone into in much depth and doesn’t reach out to the reader (or at least to me) and Goddy is such a gay male stereotype that I frequently rolled my eyes when reading the book. You expect him to swoon at any moment. And the needlecraft theme of the book seems to get in the way, as much as anything, as Goddy laments his inability to knit socks for himself in prison.

Favorite character? Sorry, didn’t have one.

Did I guess it? Yes. Will I read more? No. I have read other books in this series and none of them impressed me, so I am done with this group.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

I am envious of Brodie Farrell’s job as a finder of things – new things, lost things, any thing someone wants. Her business is called “Looking for Something?” and is a great plot device with which to start off a mystery. In this particular book, Brodie does some house hunting for a fussy musician and manages to locate the ideal house - with the unfortunate bonus of a body buried in the yard.

The things I liked best about this book are some lovely little turns of phrase used by the author. In a few words she is able to capture a character or a feeling so aptly and insightfully that they are instantly recognizable to the reader. Who doesn’t know someone who could be described with the words “regards anything but a locked door as an open invitation.” I won’t drop names, but I’m related to that woman.

What struck me as odd about this book were the characters. They didn’t seem to me to mesh properly together. Brodie is described as a very attractive woman and is pursued by several men in the book in what seems almost like an unpopular teen’s fantasy of good looks and adoration. Her young daughter, on the other hand, is practically an afterthought. Paddy spends most of her time with the upstairs neighbor while her mother pursues her detection and matters of the heart. She appears only briefly and is never her mother’s main concern. You are left with the feeling that the characters haven’t been fully fleshed out.

Yes, I guessed it. This is one of those books in which the reader guesses early on who the killer is and reads the book knowing what important questions the police have left unasked during the witness interviews, and which pieces of evidence will yield important clues for the characters if they would only bother to look them over properly. But the author does manage to put in a twist at the end and then wrap the solution up neatly. The quality of the writing is such that I will read more and hope the characters are better developed in other books.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

Don’t be put off by the weird title, this is a fun and funny book. I love books that put their characters into unusual circumstances. Meg Langslow is an injured blacksmith who is helping out her brother while her hand heals and she can’t work at her craft. Her brother has a feeling that something is wrong at the software company he founded and wants Meg to snoop around while acting as a temporary office manager at the company. Meg is surrounded by eccentric computer and design professionals and sitting next to the company’s buzzard mascot when she realizes that the office practical joker who has been riding around on the automated mail cart pretending to be dead actually is dead.

Meg’s brother is goofy, her father delightfully morbid, her mother slightly pushy, and her boyfriend is both sexy and supportive. Meg is strong, intelligent, and nice. I like these characters, I like the situation, and I want more of these slightly offbeat books.

Did I guess it? No. Andrews gave us lots of possible suspects and a big loony finish, which made up somewhat for the weak motive of the murderer. The book is well written, fun, and addictive. More, please.

Mystery Book Reviews by http://Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

Buy it from Amazon!

I despise mysteries in which psychic pets communicate the solution to their humans. Fortunately, this isn’t one of those. The cat in question is quite normal and the object of a reasonable amount of affection, but not so much as to be cloying.

The humans, on the other hand, are quite interesting. The main characters are two female actresses of a certain age who are currently between stage productions in London. When they come to the aid of a fellow actress whose favorite pet has died, they become embroiled in both her current play and a murder investigation.

While the solution to the mystery is predictable, I did enjoy this book. None of the characters are tremendously deep, but we do get some glimpses into the world of the professional theater and enjoy the characters’ accumulated knowledge of it and all of the glamorous, witty, tragic, and outrageous personalities the theater produces. This book is a fast and easy read and I will read more by this prolific author. If you are looking for a lighthearted read to while away an afternoon, pick this one up.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

This book would have been a much better read if I had read it while connected to the Internet. Why? Because it is set in France and has a great deal of French words in it, no definition of terms, and the world’s smallest map. I realize that I am approaching middle age and my vision isn’t what it used to be, but the publisher should be embarrassed at not bundling a magnifying glass with this map. Since you can plainly see this is a street map pieced together with tape, I suspect the map was a last minute addition to the book at the insistence of either the author or a peeved proofreader.

But I think the blame for the lack of definition of terms must fall squarely on the shoulders of the author. She has flavored this book, set in France in 1995, with a great deal of French words. Most of them are secondary to the story and are words that non-French speakers can figure out like thank you, Miss and Mr., good morning, and the like. But there are two words that annoyed me throughout the entire book – mec and flic. Mec is a word used to describe various characters, all men. But it is never clear what a mec is. Is the author describing the men as workmen, bums, toughs, as being from a particular ethnic group or having some common physical characteristic like swarthiness? I never knew.

And a flic is some form of law officer, perhaps a beat cop. But because you don’t know for sure, you spend the entire book trying to decipher the hierarchy of the police department. Imagine reading a book in which the local police, sheriffs, state police, FBI, and CIA all appear, but their departments and roles are never explained. My kingdom for a glossary!

Which brings us back to the map. This book is filled with interesting descriptions of the main character’s travels through Montmartre, a neighborhood of Paris traditionally frequented by artists, in an effort to help a friend accused of murder. These histories of buildings, cemeteries, neighborhoods, and artists are extremely interesting and dispensed freely and frequently and you really want to put them all into context with a map. I was left with the feeling that I could have gotten so much more out of this book if only I had been given a little more information.

Did I guess it? Yes. The mystery is unexceptional – this is one you read for the flavor of a foreign land. Try it out, but remember to have a better map and a French dictionary available.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed Liz.com ©2006

I like the Blackbird sisters. They are cursed with widowhood at an early age and their parents have done a bunk and left the country one step ahead of the taxman, but the sisters are coping. Libby, the eldest is pregnant again and looking for a birth coach and Emma is trying to get back into training horses after two injuries and her husband’s recent death, but is drinking more than is good for her. And main character Nora is trying to keep both the family and the family home intact and hold down her first job as a society columnist.

The three sisters have very different personalities and outlooks on life, but are devoted to each other and work through widowhood, new romances, murder, jewel theft, stalking, and a little breaking and entering together. Add a dark and dangerous man into the mix for Nora and you have a fun read.

This book is set in Philadelphia and the reader gets a glimpse into high society there through Nora’s work as a newspaper society columnist. Her new poverty forces her to become creative with her wardrobe and she constantly raids her grandmother’s vintage couture collection. I thought at first that the quantity of wardrobe information would turn me off, but you quickly adapt to it because it is integral to the character.

Did I guess it? Yeah, it is kind of predictable. But read it anyway for the flavor.

Favorite character? Who can resist Tempeste Juarez’s up-front manner and zest for life?

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

I feel sorry for any reader who makes this book their first foray in Davidson’s series. This book is both long and awful to read. I sometimes enjoy reading a book in which the main character struggles with weighty issues. In this book, caterer Goldy Schulz’s abusive ex-husband is accused of murdering his girlfriend. This wouldn’t be a big problem for Goldy, except that their 14-year-old son wants her to help his father. An interesting situation, except that the angst goes on FOREVER – this book is 400 pages long. The characters are under stress and do things they shouldn’t, leaving the reader angry with them.

What kinds of things annoyed this reader, you ask? The cop husband who feeds his wife information about the case that he shouldn’t, Goldy saying she knows better than to mess up evidence and tamper with witnesses and then goes ahead and does it, nobody taking any serious safety precautions when her crazed ex-husband is on the loose, and Goldy not just telling her son that his father is an abuser who she has no interest in helping – instead she hides his attacks on her to save her son’s feelings.

Now, while the characters are doing all these bad things, Davidson does manage to distract us briefly with food. Do not read her books while you are hungry! Although I was less tempted by the recipes in this book than in previous books, I still found my mouth watering and wondering what I had in the pantry. And speaking of pantries, does Goldy ever shop? Food seems to miraculously appear in her fridge and then stay fresh forever. I wish my fridge could do that.

Did I guess it? No. Frankly, I was just glad it was over and I could move onto something else. Trust me, her other books are better. Skip this one.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

I got a recommendation for this book from a “read-alike” list for Janet Evanovich’s books. And yes, if you like the Stephanie Plum series, chances are good that you will like this one, too.

Wollie Shelley is a charming and funny character who is trying desperately to buy her greeting card franchise store. She has to pass the secret shopper inspections and come up with the money. Which leads to the dating experiment. A romance talk show host is trying a dating experiment with strict rules with a group of women scattered around the country. If Wollie can follow the rules and date 40 men in 60 days, she gets the last of the money she needs for her shop. But somehow, things never quite go as planned.

Wollie’s brother is a paranoid schizophrenic who is temporarily off his medication due to injury. When she receives a call from him about a murder at the mental hospital, she doesn’t know what to think. But, being a dutiful sister, she does head out there in the middle of the night with aluminum foil for her brother to wrap around his teeth and ears – and stumbles over a dead body. And then she meets up with a mysterious stranger trying to rescue someone from the hospital and two gunmen and… Let’s just say that things progress. The book is charming, funny, awkward, sexy, and makes you realize that it is possible to end up robbing graves in the middle of the night if your family needs you to.

Did I guess it? No, the story had lots of different ways it could go. I think of this book as more of an adventure than mystery.

Favorite character? Probably Doc. I just love those dark, smoldering, mystery men.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

Ellie Haskell and her housekeeper Mrs. Malloy are mistaken for private detectives and asked to locate a missing person by a woman named Lady Krumley. It seems that Lady Krumley had fired her pregnant maid 30 years before and has recently had a rash of unusual deaths in the family due, she believes, to a vow of vengeance the maid made before dying several months after her dismissal. She wants the two sham detectives to find the maid’s daughter Ernestine so she can make amends for her actions 30 years ago.

I am having a hard time figuring out how to describe this book. It is a parody, sort of. It is a throwback in time to an earlier style of mystery, sort of. I liked it, but it is still hard to describe. The suspension of disbelief factor is very high, but the book is very enjoyable. Much of the book is very tongue-in-cheek as the detectives feel their way through their roles and draw from an assortment of mystery styles and genres – from the gritty film noir private eyes, to the frolicking society detectives, and back again for classic plot twists straight out of Sherlock Holmes. If you have enjoyed mysteries since their inception, this will be a delightful trip down memory lane.

One of the strange things about the edition I read is the typos. Or what appear to be typos. Because of the style of the book, you are never quite sure if they are intended or not. Tell me what you think. Look for Mugglesby, micro-cousin, peak, and creak appearing where Mucklesby, microcosm, peek, and creek would be appropriate.

One of the great things about this book is the treatment of an overused mystery theme – the long-lost/illegitimate child. As most dedicated mystery readers know, this concept is tired. But Cannell manages to make it interesting. She peppers the book with Ernestine candidates and lots of red herrings that keep you guessing until the end.

Favorite character? Mrs. Malloy. An eccentric woman who has an outfit for every occasion and detective personality.

Did I guess it? Well, there are really two mysteries in this book. One I did get fairly quickly, but the other involves that old Sherlockian plot twist… Good luck!

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006