Books – Page 21 – Carol's Notebook

Review and Giveaway: A Plain Scandal by Amanda Flower

February 15, 2013March 1, 2013 by Carol15 Comments

Title: A Plain Scandal (Appleseed Creek #2) Author: Amanda Flower Published: February 15, 2013 Category: Mystery - Police Procedural Rating 3½ out of 5 Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository The people of Appleseed Creek in the heart of Ohio's Amish Country are under attack. Soon after the dust has settled on a buggy accident that turned out to be murder, an unknown assailant begins cutting off the long hair of Amish women and the beards of Amish men. New to the area, computer specialist Chloe Humphrey may not share their customs, but she is certainly alarmed over these crimes against the Amish and worries how such events will impact her growing number of friends who are more connected to that way of life. In this small community, when Chloe discovers the body of an Amish businessman who was stabbed in the back and whose beard was cut off, she knows that finding the murderer and restoring peace to Appleseed Creek is as much...

Review: An Unkindness of Ravens by Ruth Rendell

February 13, 2013February 5, 2020 by Carol5 Comments

Title: An Unkindness of Ravens (Inspector Wexford #13) Author: Ruth Rendell Published: 1985 Category: Mystery - Police Procedural Rating 3 out of 5 Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository Ravens are not particularly predatory birds, but neither are they soft and submissive. The collective noun for them is an "unkindness"...The raven is a symbol used by a feminist group whose attitude to the opposite sex is anything but soft and submissive. Detective Chief Inspector Wexford thought he was only doing a neighbourly good deed when he agreed to talk to Joy Williams about her missing husband. He didn't expect to be investigating a homicide... I actually hadn't known that a group of ravens can be called an unkindness. It was my trivia for the day I started listening to An Unkindness of Ravens. I've listened to and enjoyed a couple of others in this series and just picked this one up because my library had it available on audio. And maybe the title struck me. Rodney Williams, the...

Review (with Giveaway): Saving Grace by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

February 12, 2013March 19, 2013 by Carol5 Comments

Title: Saving Grace Author: Pamela Fagan Hutchins Published: September 23, 2012 Rating: 3½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository Katie Connell is a high-strung attorney whose sloppy drinking habits and stunted love life collide hilariously in a doomed celebrity case in Dallas. When she flees Texas for the Caribbean, Katie escapes professional humiliation, a broken heart, and a wicked Bloody Mary habit, but she trades one set of problems for another when she begins to investigate the suspicious deaths of her parents on the island of St. Marcos. She’s bewitched by the voodoo spirit of an abandoned house in the rainforest and discovers that she’s as much a danger to herself as the island’s bad guys are. As the worst of her worlds collide, Katie drags herself back to the courthouse to defend her new friend Ava, an island local accused of stabbing the senator she’s been sleeping with. For me, Saving Grace had two parts, the portions set in...

Review: Photo Finish by Ngaio Marsh

February 11, 2013July 10, 2013 by Carol5 Comments

Title: Photo Finish (Inspector Alleyn #31) Author: Ngaio Marsh Published: 1980 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound Murder in High C ... A persistent paparazzi has hounded operatic soprano Isabella Sommita until her nerves are at the breaking point. Now her millionaire boyfriend, Montague Reece, has whisked her to a New Zealand island to recover. There she plans a performance of an aria written just for her-- by her secret young lover, who, along with a bevy of envious celebrities, is also on the island. It's the perfect set-up for grand opera-- wild passions...and bloody murder. And when the great singer is found dead, a photo on her bosom, Superintendent Roderick Alleyn must find out who did the diva in... Photo Finish is the second to last in Marsh's Alleyn series and one of only a few set fully in her native New Zealand. Alleyn is on a busman's holiday. His wife, Agatha Troy, has been invited to New Zealand to paint the diva,...

Review: Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton

February 6, 2013February 11, 2013 by Carol7 Comments

Title: Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (Agatha Raisin #1) Author: M. C. Beaton First published: December 1992 Category: Mystery Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository Putting all her eggs in one basket, Agatha Raisin gives up her successful PR firm, sells her London flat, and samples a taste of early retirement in the quiet village of Carsely. Bored, lonely and used to getting her way, she enters a local baking contest: surely a blue ribbon for the best quiche will make her the toast of the town. But her recipe for social advancement sours when Judge Cummings-Browne not only snubs her entry—but falls over dead! After her quiche’s secret ingredient turns out to be poison, she must reveal the unsavory truth. Agatha has never baked a thing in her life! In fact, she bought her entry ready-made from an upper crust London quicherie. Grating on the nerves of several Carsely residents, she is soon receiving sinister notes....

Review: The Big Four by Agatha Christie

February 1, 2013February 1, 2013 by Carol12 Comments

Title: The Big Four (Hercule Poirot #5) Author: Agatha Christie First published: 1927 Category: Mystery Rating: 2 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository Hercule Poirot is preparing for a voyage to South America. Looming in the doorway of his bedroom is an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust and mud. The man’s gaunt face registers Poirot for a moment, and then he collapses. The stranger recovers long enough to identify Poirot by name and madly and repeatedly scribble the figure ‘4’ on a piece of paper. Poirot cancels his trip. An investigation is in order. Fortunately, Poirot has the faithful Captain Hastings at his side as he plunges into a conspiracy of international scope—one that would consolidate power in the deadly cabal known as ‘The Big Four.’ I've read many of Agatha Christie's books over the years, she's one of my favorites, and I felt like reading a Poirot mystery, well listening to one actually. I chose poorly with...