Thursday’s Tale: Please, Malese! by Amy MacDonald

by Carol2 Comments
Today's Tale is a retelling of a story from Haiti. The back of the book explains that in Haiti, the trickster is known as Malese, derived from the French "malice". Sometimes Malese is evil and sometimes he is mischievous, but above all, he enjoys taking advantage of people, including his friends who can't seem to catch on to his cunning ways. This story was adapted from the original, "The Magic Island", written in 1929 by W.B. Seabrook This book is just pure fun. The pictures are gorgeous, simply drawn but full of vibrant colors. Malese tricks his neighbors into giving him everything from shoes to rum for a cake. The end up throwing him in jail for a month, but of course Malese is pretty sly. By the end, not only is he out of jail, but his neighbors are fixing up his house for him—for free of course. At first I thought it's kind of a shame that Malese never learns...
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The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

by Carol6 Comments
Now this was a good one. I already knew I liked Cormoran Strike, the detective, from his first outing, The Cuckoo's Calling. He's the same basic guy here. The publicity from that case has worn off a little, but business is going well, even if he's working mostly divorce cases or for rich guys he doesn't really respect. It's money. And we do get to see a bit of him working on the other cases, not enough to distract from the plot, but enough to remind us that he doesn't just have one case to focus on. Robin, his assistant, is starting to come into her own, we're learning a bit more about her, what she wants and what she's capable of. Then a plain, poor-looking woman, asks him to find here missing husband, author Owen Quine. He's gone missing after his latest, as yet unpublished, novel was leaked, a book that is going to make a lot of people bad. It's...
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Caught Dead by Andrew Lanh

by Carol4 Comments
I like this mystery a lot. Mysteries are often not only about the whodunit, but about the issues and cultures surrounding the case, and this one is as much about the Vietnamese community as it is about who killed Mary and why. The older Vietnamese, mostly immigrants, are trying to hold on to their culture, while their grown children are losing the connection to the traditional ways. Rick is not fully accepted by the community, but Hank, his sidekick, is and it is at Hank's family's request that Rick is investigating. The characters are the strong point of the book for me. Mary and her family are not rich, but her sister and her sister's American husband certainly are. The children, in their late teens and early 20s, are a mixed lot, mostly self-centered, unwilling to cooperate. In the end, though, greed and love are what it comes down to - and fear. Each has his or her own goals, secrets, and ambitions. For...
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Thursday’s Tale: Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman

by Carol7 Comments
Love, love, love this Halloween kids book! We read our copy so many times when Amber was young that it started falling apart. We went to the pumpkin patch this Sunday and while we were picking out our pumpkins, we had to repeat the catch phrase - "It’s big and it’s mine, but it’s stuck on the vine, and Halloween’s just hours away.” The rhythmic, repetitive text is perfect and I love the monsters. There’s the must have Halloween visitors, the witch herself, a ghost, a vampire, a mummy and a bat, but the story focuses on how they all end up working together. It's got a great message of teamwork and friendship. And then they all get to share the pie. A definite Halloween treat. It's a perfect read-aloud with plenty of repetition and rhyming and fun voices. Just then, along came a vampire. “Big pumpkin,” said the vampire. “It’s big and it’s mine, but it’s stuck on the vine, and Halloween’s...
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A Wedding and a Killing by Lauren Carr

by Carol5 Comments
Earlier today, you got to read a bit about Mac Faraday's life from his point of view. My first meeting with him and Archie Monday, his girlfriend was in A Wedding and a Killing. At #8 in the series, it worked fine as a stand-alone for me, although I may have enjoyed it a little more had I known the characters longer. I find that with a lot of series books, they work on their own, but they work better as a whole. I have to admit that when I saw this was touring, I decided to read it because I enjoyed Lauren Carr's  guest post in May, "My Mother Isn’t a Psychopath, She’s a Mystery Writer," so much. It was funny and true and gave me high hopes for her stories. A Wedding and a Killing was a quick read and I really like Mac. He's a good guy, a little gruff around the edges, but a hear of gold,...
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A Demon Summer by G. M. Malliet

by Carol5 Comments
Good points - I like Max. He's a good guy with a true calling who doesn't judge others. For a not necessarily "Christian" mystery, I think it's better at presenting religious lessons than some of the preachier ones. He makes sense as a detective, too, since he's former MI5. It's reasonable that the bishop would send him to investigate. The abbey is a good setting and the nuns are an interesting lot. Each has a past, but those don't count anymore, since they've joined the sisters. The nuns are walking a fine line between being separate from the world and making money by selling their products and having guests stay. Max's relationship with his pregnant girlfriend, Awena, stays in the background. I was afraid it would dominate this one after the end of #3, but it didn't. Awena's a great character, very in touch with nature and the seasons, but I don't necessarily like an overly complicated romance to intrude on a mystery. The...
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