Reviewed By Liz

ISBN 1932859357
Bywater Books - Paperback

FROM HELL TO BREAKFAST- An Idaho Code Mystery - “My brother, Sam, died as he’d lived-with criminal charges pending.”

Sam Hardy is gone but not forgotten. That’s because he causes nearly as much trouble dead as he did when he was alive. A note found in his dresser taps his sister, Bil, to deliver the eulogy at his funeral, but she’d really rather not. For one thing, she’s torn between genuine grief and guilty relief. Sam was not an easy brother to love. And, she knows that her overbearing mother, Emma, had been looking forward to using the pulpit herself to deliver a stinging indictment of the criminal justice system, the war on drugs, and Sam’s juvenile delinquent loser friends who always seemed to leave him holding the bag.

Will Bil’s relationship with girlfriend Sylvie survive the family fallout? Whose life will Emma run now that Sam is gone? And how did the dead body of Sam’s favorite drug dealer wind up in an old shack on the Hardy family farm?
From Hell to Breakfast, the sequel to the boldly irreverent Idaho Code, proves that when it comes to death, anger doesn’t always give way to acceptance, but it sometimes shares a bed with humor.

Check out Joan’s web site at www.joanopyr.com.

Available at Amazon

New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the publisher.

The Clifford are taking a well-deserved holiday. We hope to return rested, refreshed, and well-read on January 8th. Sample Chapter Sunday is scheduled for next week, so please help yourselves. If there isn’t any activity, you might look through all the great posts in the archives.

See you in the New Year!

Welcome to Sample Chapter Sunday!

Sample Chapter Sunday is the cure for the boring Sunday afternoons when you have no new reading material. You can swing by here and find links to sample chapters of mysteries by favorite authors and authors you haven’t read before.

Any mystery author is welcome to put a link to their online sample chapter by leaving a comment on this post. Hopefully, they will also give us their name, title of the book, and a brief description or synopsis to pique our interest. Tell your friends to come read and your favorite authors to come show off their sample chapters!

To see the access the sample chapters that the authors have posted links to, click on the COMMENTS link below (if you are an author, this is also the place you add a comment and post your book description and sample chapter links).

ISBN 1593761856
Counterpoint - Hardcover

BONE RATTLER- A Mystery of Colonial America - Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and seeming suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners that thrusts him into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War. As the only man aboard with any medical training, Duncan is ordered to assemble evidence to hold another prisoner accountable for the deaths — or face punishment that will mean his own death. His conclusions suggest that the wave of violence is somehow linked to the “savages” of the American wilderness. Duncan’s suspicions that the prison company is to be sacrificed in the war seem to be confirmed when he learns that they are all indentured to Lord Ramsey’s estate in the uncharted New York woodlands, a Heart of Darkness where multiple warring factions are engaged in physical, psychological, and spiritual battle. Following a strange trail of clues that seem half Iroquois and half Highland Scot, mesmerized by the Lord Ramsey’s beautiful daughter, and frequently defying death in a dangerous wilderness populated by grizzled European settlers, mysterious scalping parties, and Indian sorcerers, Duncan McCallum, exiled chief of his near-extinct clan, finds the source of all evil at the site of an Indian massacre.

Check out Eliot’s web site at www.eliotpattison.com.

Available at Amazon

New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the publisher.

ISBN 0440243874
Dell - Mass Market Paperback

GETTING OLD IS TO DIE FOR - Gladdy Gold may have gone from dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker to South Florida retiree, but she’s loving every minute of it. Between poolside gossip, a hot-to-trot boyfriend, and a booming detective business, life couldn’t be sunnier—until a trip back north with her sister Evvie leads to murder and mayhem starring the usual suspects.

Unbeknownst to Gladdy, her fellow detectives are hot on her trail. Sophie, Bella, and Ida no sooner land their tootsies in the Big Apple than trouble promptly finds them. But while the girls go deep undercover, posing as bag ladies to catch a criminal, there’s another surprise awaiting Gladdy. Her boyfriend, Jack, is in town too—and he’s reopening a forty-seven-year-old cold case: the murder of Gladdy’s husband. Can Gladdy and Jack join forces to solve a decades-old crime—and maybe heal some wounded hearts in the process?

Check out Rita’s web site at www.ritalakin.com.

Available at Amazon

New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the publisher.

ISBN 0553804308
Bantam - Hardcover

THE BOOK OF OLD HOUSES - A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery - Once upon a time, Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree was a hotshot money manager to Manhattan’s rich and dreadful—until she left city life behind for a centuries-old fixer-upper in the quaint seaside town of Eastport, Maine. But even this tiny haven has its hazards—and they can be astonishingly deadly….

When a mysterious book is unearthed from the foundation of Jake’s 1823 fixer-upper, she immediately sends it off to local book historian Horace Robotham. After all, there must be a logical explanation for why the long-buried volume has her name in it—written in what looks suspiciously like blood. But all logic goes out the window when the book disappears—and Horace turns up dead.

The suspects include Horace’s spoiled daughter, who has enough credit card debt to give killing her rich daddy a certain appeal. And just about everyone’s pointing fingers at a local crackpot with a penchant for black magic and an unholy lust for its artifacts—including antique texts inked in blood. To complicate matters further, there’s a mysterious stranger in town with vengeance in his heart and a gun in his pocket.

Never mind that Jake’s just taken a sledgehammer to her ancient bathroom. Or that she forgot she’s set to host a party for Eastport’s most treasured teacher. She’s also about to lose her beloved housekeeper on account of her father’s hasty marriage proposal…and her son, Sam, has just taken his first tentative steps toward sobriety.

But all that will have to wait, because when two more victims turn up in a town better known for its scenic views and historic homes than its body count, she and her comrade-in-sleuthing, Ellie White, need to go on the prowl to find someone who may believe that the pages of an ancient book are the blueprint for a perfect murder.

Available at Amazon

New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the publisher.

ISBN 193075499X
Durban House - Paperback

LOCATION LOCATION - A Margot O’Banion Mystery - Location Location takes film editor Margot O’Banion and director Max Skull to steamy Panama to make their first independent film. Accompanying them are a celebrated American actor, a guide from the spiritual sect he has embraced, his powerhouse agent intent on separating him from this sect, two British financiers and a burgeoning legion of would-be money-men bent on getting in on the action. Filmmaking takes second place on the set as the players scramble for position in a murderous game of multiple upmanship. The beautiful, exotic country of Panama, the backdrop of Kit Sloane’s latest sexy romp of a mystery, takes its place on the platform of her pages as well, showing U.S. readers the awesome scenery of this vibrant country and its cosmopolitan peoples.

Check out Kit’s web site at www.kitsloane.net.

Available at Amazon

New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the publisher.

Welcome to Sample Chapter Sunday!

Sample Chapter Sunday is the cure for the boring Sunday afternoons when you have no new reading material. You can swing by here and find links to sample chapters of mysteries by favorite authors and authors you haven’t read before.

Any mystery author is welcome to put a link to their online sample chapter by leaving a comment on this post. Hopefully, they will also give us their name, title of the book, and a brief description or synopsis to pique our interest. Tell your friends to come read and your favorite authors to come show off their sample chapters!

To see the access the sample chapters that the authors have posted links to, click on the COMMENTS link below (if you are an author, this is also the place you add a comment and post your book description and sample chapter links).

Howdy! You may remember me. My name is Liz. I haven’t posted a real message here for a while because we have been having a little excitement on the home front. In addition to the usual winter colds, intermittent internet connection, and ice storms, both of our cars died within two days of each other. Since Bob would rather have all of his teeth pulled out than shop for cars, this produced much angst. But we finally have that resolved and are ready to brave the Michigan winter with two new vehicles.

But when we came back to the real world, we discovered that we have two looming issues - Christmas and vacation. Christmas is now less than a week away and I still haven’t hauled out my stash of presents to see what else I need to get or started wrapping. Christmas cards? Not this year. Holiday baking. Mom and I baked a ton of Rugelach a few weeks ago - does that count? Christmas tree? We set the three footer on the living room table and plugged it in. It is small but festive. The big question is whether I can find the box with the stockings in time to hang them by the fire with care.

And right after Christmas, we leave on vacation. We will again be trekking to the frozen north this year. While everyone else in Michigan heads for warmer climes, we will be staying at the cottage in Canada. No TV, no computer, no video games. Just the three of us and Christmas toys, puzzles, and books. Do we have enough books to take on vacation with us? If I remember correctly, I read 17 books on vacation last year. Bob and Em each took a half dozen or so to read. I don’t think we have enough books on hand for everyone. This could be a crisis! Forget Christmas shopping, get me to the library!

Okay, deep breath. There will be enough books for vacation. I have several ARCs from authors to read and review. The library will be open and there are two used book stores in Goderich. Next question - how big a suitcase do I need for our vacation books?

So today’s question is… if you were going to the cottage for a snowbound week of reading, what books would you take with you? Would you reread your favorites or take new and different ones?

ISBN 0758207034
Kensington - Hardcover

ST. PATRICK’S DAY MURDER - A Lucy Stone Mystery - Not many people in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, knew Old Dan Malone. The grizzled barkeep’s social circle was limited to the rough-hewn lobstermen and other assorted toughs that frequented his bar, a derelict main street dive called, appropriately, the Bilge. But when his body is found bobbing in the town’s icy harbor, Lucy Stone, ace reporter for the Pennysaver newspaper, makes getting to know more about Old Dan a priority. And apparently, there’s lots to learn.
Like the fact that local musician Dave Reilly insists Old Dan conned a winning lottery ticket worth five grand from him. And that handyman Brian Donohue claims that Old Dan stiffed him for repair work he’d done at the bar. There are even whispers about some connection to the Irish Republican Army. The confusion surrounding the death is only compounded by the arrival of actor Dylan Malone, Old Dan’s brother and a prominent, if fading, attraction of the Dublin stage. Dylan has come to direct the production of “Finian’s Rainbow,” the featured event at Our Lady of Hope’s annual St. Patrick’s Day extravaganza. He’s also come to help his brother renovate the Bilge, turning the dingy tavern into an authentic–if decidedly upscale–Irish pub.

Was Old Dan killed by someone he’d cheated, someone he’d loved, or someone who just couldn’t stand the idea of losing their favorite watering hole? While Lucy can’t be sure, one thing is abundantly clear–the stage is set for a murder mystery with a killer ending!

Available at Amazon

New book releases are a feature provided for our readers by reviewedbyliz, but are not written by us. Where available, the descriptions of the books are those provided by the publisher.