The Declaration of Independence - NPR

"Twenty-one years ago, Morning Edition launched what has become an Independence Day tradition: hosts, reporters, newscasters and commentators reading the Declaration of Independence." It's not the 4th of July for me unless I have the chance to listen to this reading. And, this year, I didn't get the chance to listen to it live. For some strange reason, they broadcast this reading on July 3, which doesn't seem right. I had to hunt to find the reading since I expected it today. If you'd like to listen, see the pictures of those reading, and read along, here is the link to NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106168024

(I do agree with some of the comments made this year, though. They took Bob Edwards and Red Barber out of the reading this year. I understand going with the current hosts and reporters. I don't understand dropping the history of NPR.)

Happy 4th of July!

Broken Wing by Thomas Lakeman

I recently reviewed Thomas Lakeman's Broken Wing for Mystery News. The review is reprinted here, used with permission.

Broken Wing
by Thomas Lakeman
Minotaur Books
$25.95
ISBN 978-0-312-38022-9
Hardcover
March
Thriller

In his third FBI thrillers, after The Shadow Catchers and Chillwater Cove, Lakeman brings back FBI agent Mike Yeager. Despite his planned wedding to another agent, Yeager agrees to go undercover as a rogue agent, a “broken wing”. He doesn’t realize how far the FBI will go to make him appear to be an outcast. His mission? Recover a kidnap victim whose husband, a spy, was brutally murdered.

So once again, Yeager returns to the scene of his worst screw-up, New Orleans. As eager young agents, he and his partner, Art Kiplinger, were to testify in a major organized crime trial. Instead, they received the present of a bomb, and Art took the brunt of the explosion. Now, Yeager has to return and try to get back in the good graces of Emilio Barca, head of that same Cosa Nostra family. Will Barca trust Yeager after that earlier case? Will Barca’s family ever trust the man who loved, and stole, Barca’s only daughter?

It’s a fast-paced, violent story that takes Mike Yeager back to New Orleans, just a year after Katrina. Yeager is a flawed hero, deeply scarred by his childhood, and his failures. He’s a man who has been told he should, “Care a little less. Listen a little more.” It’s not in his nature to sit back and let events happen to him.

The convoluted nature of this thriller is one of its biggest assets, and, at the same time, its biggest flaw. It is difficult to keep track of all of the characters, each with their own agenda. Neither Yeager, nor the reader, knows who to trust in this complicated thriller that pits the FBI against the Cosa Nostra, the Cosa Nostra against a gang, Rize, and brings together unnatural allies. In the end, Mike Yeager can really only depend on himself.

Rating: 4

Thomas Lakeman's website is www.thomaslakeman.com

Reprinted, with permission, from Mystery News, Volume 27, Issue 3, June/July 2009.

Gold Digger by Vicki Delany

Vicki Delany makes a departure from her contemporary mystery series set in British Columbia to take us back in time to 1898 and the Klondike Gold Rush in Gold Digger. Delany proves to be a master at the historical mystery, just as she is for the traditional mystery. She even brings humor to the settlers' harsh lives.

Fiona MacGillivray is quite satisfied with her life in Dawson, Yukon Territory. She's the owner of the Savoy, a saloon and dance hall where the most popular dancer in town performs. She's the proud mother of a twelve-year-old son, Angus. And, she considers herself the most beautiful woman in Dawson. She is a little egotistical, as evidenced when she says, "I love a good parade, as long as I'm the center of it."

And, Fiona and her wonderful son are the center of this story. Angus is a curious young man who enjoys this life more than their previous life in the east. Where else could he run wild during the day, and spend time following Constable Richard Sterling, a member of the North-West Mounted Police? Angus has ambitions to be a Mountie.

While Angus whiles away his summer days, Fiona keeps a tight grip on the dance hall and its employees. And, everything goes fine until a reporter from San Francisco shows up in town. It doesn't take long for Jack Ireland to alienate most of the townspeople. It also doesn't take long for him to end up dead on the stage at the Savoy. Fiona is afraid the RCMP might shut down the saloon or find one of her employees is guilty. It's not that she's concerned about finding Ireland's killer, since no one liked him. She can't afford to lose business. There hadn't been a murder in Dawson in the entire year, and she's not happy the body was found in the Savoy.

Just as in her other series, Vicki Delany creates realistic, believable characters, beginning with Fiona and Angus. Fiona is a mysterious woman, creating herself anew in a new city, after a past that is only hinted at. And, as much as people like her, even her friends are not deceived. One man tells her, "Fiona, for such an intelligent woman, you can be amazingly dense when you're blinded by your own vanity and self-obsession." Despite her own self-obsession, Fiona is a loving mother, concerned that Angus grow up educated and unspoiled. And, Fiona is a figure of humor for what could be a depressing story because of the living conditions in Dawson. "Would I have to go to jail if I lied? I couldn't imagine myself in jail. The clothes must be simply hideous, and the food doesn't bear thinking about. Not to mention the constant company of other women."

Angus is a wonderful character, a curious, energetic twelve-year-old boy. He's fascinated by the RCMP, hates his summer job in a store, and enjoys running the streets. And, he's curious enough about the murder investigation to do some spying himself.

The rough life led by the settlers is beautifully described, in detail. Delany shows the harsh conditions, the rough lives of men and women. She doesn't hide the lives women lived as whores, just trying to get by. The streets are often filled with mud, and worse. Animals, and humans, are abused. It wasn't an easy life in the Klondike. At the same time, it's interesting to see how the RCMP enforced rules about closing on Sunday, and not swearing.

For those who appreciate historical mysteries, Gold Digger should be a treat, with its well-developed characters and setting. And, once you've read this one, try Ann Parker's series set in 1879 and 1880 in Leadville, Colorado, where there was a silver rush. Parker's Inez Stannert is also a saloon owner. It's interesting to compare the books, two outstanding historical mystery series with interesting settings and characters. Vicki Delany's Gold Digger is a welcome addition to the genre.

Vicki Delany's website is www.vickidelany.com


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Gold Digger by Vicki Delany. RendezVous Crime, ©2009. ISBN 9781894917803 (paperback), 352p.

Winners and Those Sheriffs Contest

Congratulations to the winners of the last contest. Ken Bruen's Once Were Cops will go to Eileen K. of Island Lake, IL. Helen K. from Winchester, VA will receive Baantjer's DeKok and the Dead Harlequin. The books will go out in the mail tomorrow.

This week, I have ARCs by two authors who are not as well-known as they should be. And, both mysteries have to do with a sheriff's department. Choker is the latest Ike Schwartz mystery by Frederick Ramsay. While on vacation, Sheriff Ike Schwartz agrees to help a friend investigate the disappearance of an airplane, an incident that could become a national security issue. Back at home in Picketsville, Virginia, there's a mystery of missing communion silver, a missing black cat, and a possible occult group.






The Fourth Time is Murder is a Posadas County mystery by Steven F. Havill. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman has extra responsibilities while the sheriff heals from a serious injury, and she juggles those with her personal life. She has to deal with a magazine writer who wants to write about the New Mexico border county, while handling a car accident involving a police officer. All in a day's work.



Would you like to win Choker or The Fourth Time is Murder? You can enter to win both, but I need two separate entries. If you'd like to win one, email me at Email me!. If that link doesn't work for you, the email address is: lholstine@yahoo.com. Your subject line should read either Win "Choker" or Win "Fourth Time". Your message should include your mailing address. Entrants only in the U.S., please.

The contest will end Thursday, July 9 at 6 p.m. PT. Jim will draw the winners at that time. The winners will be notified, and the books will go out in the mail on Friday. Good luck!

August Treasures in My Closet

Compared to September and October, the pile of August books in my closet isn't enormous. But, as usual, there are some treasures there. Check out these titles.

Meg Langslow returns in Donna Andrews' Swan for the Money. Meg thought rose growing was a safe hobby for her eccentric parents. Little did she know rose growers are competitive, so much so they may even kill for a rose show's grand prize. At least that's how it looks when Meg finds a body.

Betsy Carter's historical novel, The Puzzle King, is based on a family legend. This story of the immigrant experience brings Simon Phelps and Flora Grossman to America before World War II. And, suddenly they were the last hope for their families' escape from Europe.

In The Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill, Dr. Siri Paiboun is curious when a corpse shows up in his morgue in Laos in 1978. His curiosity leads to investigation when he finds something unexpected - a serial killer preying on pretty girls in peaceful Buddhist Laos.

Once again, Mark de Castrique combines a literary cold case with brutal modern crime. The Fitzgerald Ruse brings back Sam Blackman, an Iraq war vet, now opening a detective agency in Asheville, NC. When his first client asks him to retrieve a manuscript she stole from F. Scott Fitzgerald, it looks easy. But a resulting murder and theft is just the start of Sam's problems.






Sophie Littlefield will be appearing at the Velma Teague Library in August to promote her debut crime novel, A Bad Day for Sorry. Stella Hardesty runs a sewing shop in rural Missouri, but, on the side, she helps battered women get rid of their abusive others. When she agrees to help Chrissy Shaw, though, the woman's abusive husband disappears with their two-year-old son. Now, Stella has a tough battle on her hands.



Bridegroom is the latest Stone Creek novel by Linda Lael Miller. Undercover agent Gideon Yarbro usually stops outlaws, but he finds himself stopping a wedding, and marrying the bride himself in order to save her.

Priscilla Royal takes readers to 13th century England in Chambers of Death. When Prioress Eleanor and her party seek shelter at the home of the Earl of Steward, they find a powerful family, a murder, and a sheriff willing to arrest the wrong person, forcing Eleanor to take action.

It's the third case for TV reporter Charlotte McNally in Hank Phillippi Ryan's Air Time. When she goes undercover in the glamorous world of high fashion, it doesn't take her long to find that investigating counterfeiters can be deadly, and no one in the fashion world can be trusted.

"A body in a bathtub is the last thing Sylvia Thorn expects her mother's travel club to find when they check into their Laughlin, Nevada hotel rooms." Can a group of elderly investigators stir up trouble from Florida to Nevada to Arizona? They can, in Patricia Stoltey's The Desert Hedge Murders.

There's going to be heavy promotion for Carolyn Wall's debut novel, Sweeping Up Glass. Olivia Harker Cross will have to face down her mother, her daughter, her neighbors, and wolf hunters in Kentucky, as she tries to come to grips with her own bitter history.

The treasure pile may not be large, but there are some special books here. Place your orders now at your local bookstore, or your favorite public library.

Winners of Dads And Grads Giveaway

Congratulations to the winners of the Dads and Grads Giveaway from Hatchette Book Group. Five people will receive the entire set of books. The winners are: Audrey J. from Hamilton, ON, Lisa A. from Knoxville, TN, Barbara W. from Rolling Meadows Library, Rolling Meadows, IL, Lesley F. of NY, NY, and Ceil Smith of Three Rivers Regional Library System, Brunswick, GA.

There are still a few more days to enter the Summer Beach Books Giveaway. Send me your name and address at lholstine@yahoo.com, if you'd like to enter.

Books Read During June

June was a terrific month for books. I read a couple of the books that might turn out to be on my favorites of 2009 list. And, I had time to read a number of books.

So, here's the list.

Probable Claws by Clea Simon - While investigating poisoned cat food, journalist Theda Krakow becomes a murder suspect when she's found with a body.

Choker by Frederick Ramsay - Sheriff Ike Schwartz takes a vacation, but ends up helping a CIA friend investigate a crash, an "accident" that could become a national security issue.

The Cold Light of Mourning by Elizabeth J. Duncan - Debut mystery introduces Penny Brannigan, manicurist in a small Welsh town, and the last one to see a bride-to-be before she disappears.

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan - The final book of the first Camp Half-Blood series finds Percy Jackson and his friends battling the Titans and monsters in New York City for control of the world.

Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce - The second Beka Cooper novel takes her undercover to investigate the counterfeiting of silver coins.

Killer Summer by Ridley Pearson - Sheriff Walt Fleming is prepared for someone to hijack a rare wine, but not to hijack a private jet with his nephew on board.

Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson - Juvenile fiction - Book 4 of the 39 Clues series takes Amy and Dave Cahill to Egypt in the search for clues.

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer - A confirmed bachelor falls for the companion to a spoiled rich girl in a Regency romance.

Mind Scrambler by Chris Grabenstein - In Atlantic City, Ceepak and Danny Boyle investigate the murder of one of Danny's friends, and investigation clouded by a magician's illusions.

The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson - Reggie Heath follows his brother to LA when he takes off on the trail of a letter written to Sherlock Holmes, leaving a body in his office.

Greedy Bones by Carolyn Haines - Sarah Booth Delaney returns home to Mississippi when her business partner's husband becomes deathly ill after visiting a local plantation.

Driftwood Summer by Patti Callahan Henry - Three sisters reunite at Palmetto Beach, GA, to celebrate their mother's birthday, a bookstore's anniversary, and try to get past the issues that tore them apart.

Winter of Secrets by Vicki Delany - Constable Molly Smith & Sergeant John Winters investigate when a car goes into the river in Trafalgar, British Columbia, but one of the young men was already dead before the accident.

The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner - When a young mother disappears, everyone from her husband to a student is a suspect.

Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich - In a typical Stephanie Plum novel, Lulu is followed by 2 killers after she sees a chef decapitated, and Stephanie goes undercover to help Ranger.

Dial Emmy for Murder by Eileen Davidson - When a body falls at her feet during the Daytime Emmys, soap star Alexis Peterson gets involved in the murder investigation.

The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal - A chef, badly injured from a car accident, suffers in body and soul, but puts all her efforts into opening a restaurant in Aspen.

Gold Digger by Vicki Delany - In 1898, in Dawson, Yukon Territory, Fiona MacGillvray happily runs a dance hall and raises her twelve-year-old son, until a newspaperman disrupts the town, and is found murdered in her dance hall.

Terrific month for reading!

In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

I recently reviewed Stefanie Pintoff's In the Shadow of Gotham for Mystery News. The review is reprinted here, with permission.

In the Shadow of Gotham
by Stefanie Pintoff
Minotaur Books
$24.95
ISBN 978-0-312-54490-4
Hardcover
May
Historical, New York, 1905/Police Detective

In the Shadow of Gotham was the winner of the first Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America Best First Crime Novel competition, and deservedly so. Pintoff portrays New York City in 1905 vividly, in all of the gritty details of everyday life.

After his fiancée died in the General Slocum ferry disaster, Detective Simon Ziele left the New York City police force, hoping for a quiet career in law enforcement in the small Hudson River town of Dolson. But, when Sarah Wingate, the niece of a wealthy local family, is found brutally murdered in her own bedroom, Ziele is thrust into the toughest investigation of his career.

To Ziele’s surprise, the day after the murder, he’s contacted by Alistair Sinclair, a professor at Columbia University. Sinclair, who specializes in criminal law, claims to have a suspect in the murder. One of Sinclair’s research subjects, Michael Fromley, has had conversations that indicated an uncanny resemblance to the murder. Since Sinclair is researching how past behavior and thoughts can indicate future crimes, he’s positive Fromley is the killer.

Despite Ziele’s suspicion that Sinclair is hiding something, he’s interested enough in the criminologist’s new field of study to follow the professor’s suggestions. Ziele is an unusual policeman for his times, interested in new scientific methods. At the same time, his job is to find a murderer, not be led astray by educational theories.

Before Ziele can find a killer, he’s caught up, not only in scientific exploration, but back in the crime world of New York City, where the worst criminals can do a favor, and appearances can be deceiving.

Pintoff’s debut mystery is a complex story, combining history, a memorable police detective, a new criminology science, and action. It’s an outstanding historical mystery in which the story doesn’t bog down in details. Pintoff’s debut is a success.

Rating: 4.5

Stefanie Pintoff's website is www.stefaniepintoff.com


I was impressed enough with this book to ask Stefanie if she'd allow me to interivew her. The interview was May 15, here.


Reprinted, with permission, from Mystery News, Volume 27, Issue 3, June/July 2009.

The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal

Barbara O'Neal's debut novel, The Lost Recipe for Happiness has one of the worst covers I've seen this year, for one of the best books I've read. The cover is so inappropriate, indicating it's fluffy chick lit. This book needs a warm, suitable cover such as that on Erica Bauermeister's The School of Essential Ingredients. The cover should draw people in to this serious romance for those of us who love sensuous literature. Instead, serious readers will think this is light material, and not pick it up. I'm afraid this book might not find its audience.

O'Neal gives readers the story of mature characters, lost in their past, and struggling to find a love that will allow them to move on. There are ghosts, sensual moments of taste and smell and touch, the richness of wonderful food, and tragedy. Sarah Addison Allen's review for the New York Times summarized it beautifully, "As dark and deep and sweet as chocolate."

Elena Alvarez has been searching for a home her entire life. There were short periods of home, and family, but her youthful home with cousins and her grandmother was destroyed by a tragic car accident when she was just seventeen. Elena suffered a broken back, broken ribs and hip. But her favorite cousin, her boyfriend, and two other cousins were killed. Since then, Elena sought homes in restaurants, studying in Paris, working in London, San Francisco and Vancouver. When her romance with the chef in Vancouver blew up in her face, she found herself fired, without a job. "This was not how she had imagined her life would turn out, that she would be nearly forty and still husbandless, childless, rootless."

But, the owner of that restaurant, film producer Julian Liswood, offered her the chance of a lifetime, and the chance to change her life. Liswood offered her the job as executive chef in his new restaurant in Aspen, with the opportunity to hire her own staff and set her own menu. She was given one year to get the restaurant off the ground. Elena poured herself into the job, and, despite the rivalries in the kitchen, the aches of her body, and her troubled dreams, she thought she found a refuge.

Elena has ghosts in her life, the people she loved who died in the accident. She can live with the ghosts because she finally has her opportunity. But, Julian Liswood has ghosts of his own, including his mother's murder. After four divorces, two to the same woman, he is a lonely man, who wants to be a good father to his fourteen-year-old daughter. So, he moved her to Aspen. In Elena, he found a chef for his restaurant, but he also found another soul haunted by tragedy. He also found a woman afraid to love.

Through most of the book, Elena's true passion is food, and O'Neal brings the kitchen and restaurant to life in the flavors and scents, the richness of this book. It's a sensual book, filled with color and emotion. It's a book to be savored.

There's a dog on the cover of The Lost Recipe for Happiness, and there is a wonderful dog named Alvin in the book. But, this book isn't about Alvin. The cover is all wrong. This book is about passion. This is a book for fans of Sarah Addison Allen and Barbara Samuel. This book is food, and color, and passion, and ghosts of the past. Don't look for chick lit when you read The Lost Recipe for Happiness. Look for characters who suffered tragedy, and survived.

Barbara O'Neal's website is www.barbaraoneal.com


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The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal. Bantam Books, ©2008. ISBN 9780553385519 (paperback), 447p.

Sunday Salon - Dial Emmy for Murder by Eileen Davidson

Eileen Davidson's second "Soap Opera Mystery", Dial Emmy for Murder starts more dramatically than many cozies, but, of course a mystery set in the world of soap operas should start dramatically. And Davidson's mystery uses many of the soap opera formulas.

Alexis Peterson recently moved from one soap opera to another. As the star of The Bare and the Brazen, she's popular on the red carpet before the Daytime Emmys. She's just as popular with the paparrazi after her co-presenter's body falls from the rafters at the Kodak Theater, dripping blood on her before he tumbles to the stage. She's already familiar with the police detective who shows up, Detective Frank Jakes, so its easy for him to ask her to work with him, probing into the world of soaps. Alex takes the murder seriously, but quickly gets caught up in the detective business, thinking, "I was in amateur detective mode and he was spoiling my buzz." And, Jakes, who has fallen for Alex, allows her to accompany him on his investigations, as they discover that the dead man looks quite a bit like a few other recently dead actors.

I started by reading this book as a cozy mystery, thinking it was not well done, using every overused, cliché in the book. Then, I realized if I read it as it says in the series title, as "A Soap Opera Mystery", it's a funny send-off of those shows. Take an actress who can't make up her mind between two men, one a police detective. He's a hunk, sexually harassed by his boss. Throw in the best friend, a gay hair dresser. There's an embezzler ex-husband, out to take away the soap star's darling daughter, when he reappears from nowhere after a three year absence.

And, Davidson throws in all of the plot formulas that readers dislike in mysteries. Alex goes off on her own to talk to a suspect without telling the cops. When she gets to his place, and finds the door ajar, she has three choices, get out, call 911 or open the door. Naturally, she'd pick number three, and we all know what happens when a heroine opens the door! Body in the bathtub! Of course, there's the scene when someone tries to run Alex off the road. And, a combined satire of the cozy genre and soap opera has to have a terrible stage mother with a wimpy son.

Eileen Davidson's Dial Emmy for Murder is either a poorly written cozy, or a terrific take-off, combining soap formulas with the cozy genre. I prefer to read it as a clever take-off, or I would have been very unhappy with the comment, "You look...severe. Like a librarian." But, it's my guess that Davidson is clever, poking fun at the soap opera world she knows so well, since she starred in The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, and Days of Our Lives.

Eileen Davidson's website is www.EileenDavidsonBooks.com


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Dial Emmy for Murder by Eileen Davidson. Obsidian, ©2009. ISBN 9780451228253 (paperback), 294p.