Category: mystery

Vicki of Reading At The Beach hosts A-Z Wednesday. Today's letter is S. I'm going back to one I read in the spring of 2008. This is one of those books where the setting, Tibet, is just as important as the plot. It's a mystery, but also the story of the people and the place. I found it fascinating. The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison Winner of the 2001 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Skull Mantra was a sensation when first published and received wide acclaim from critics and readers alike. The corpse is missing its head and is dressed in American clothes. Found by a Tibetan prison work gang on a windy cliff, the grisly remains clearly belong to someone too important for Chinese authorities to bury and forget. So the case is handed to veteran police inspector Shan Tao Yun. Methodical, clever Shan is the best man for the job, but he too is a prisoner, deported to Tibet for offending someone high...

Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from...that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given. Please avoid spoilers! My teaser is from the same book as last week, three sentences this time: "The first chance the Indians had of seizing the Diamond was a chance lost, on the day when they were committed to the prison at Frizinghall. When did the second chance offer itself? The second chance offered itself—as I am in a condition to prove—while they were still in confinement." -pg. 308, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Play along. My copy was purchased. I am an Amazon Associate....

Vicki of Reading At The Beach hosts A-Z Wednesday. Today's letter is R. I'm going back to one I read in 2007. There are only three books in this series, but I loved all of them. Kooky characters and an out of the usual mystery always draw me in. The Red Hot Empress by Meredith Blevins Annie Szabo returns with another bizarre cast of characters as murder and mayhem ring in the Chinese New Year in San Francisco. Annie Szabo has discovered a miracle: Jimmy Qi, a kid from Chinatown with the power to heal using music. He's dazzling, he's a scoundrel, he's wise, and he makes a great newspaper article. Now everyone wants Jimmy. Feeling responsible for creating San Francisco's latest hot commodity, Annie enlists her mother-in-law, the audacious fortune-teller Madame Mina, to help keep Jimmy safe from his avid pursuers: an evangelist, an ex-hero with a troubled past, a tong society, a CDC doctor, a dolphin fanatic, and an FBI agent...

Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas I really enjoyed this mystery set in Victorian London. London is a beautiful city, and never more so than when it rains. The streets gleam, the buildings all take on a dappled color, and the lights from butcher shops, tobacconists, and tea shops cast a cozy shade of ochre upon the pavement. (pg. 31) Thomas Llewelyn, the narrator, is at the end of his rope when he is hired by enquiry agent Cyrus Barker as his assistant, a position that thankfully includes room and board. The two work together to solve the mystery behind the murder of a young Jewish man in London's Jewish ghetto. It's vaguely reminiscent of a Holmes-Watson relationship, with Thomas as Barker's apprentice. The strength of this novel, for me, was the characters. Barker is certainly an eccentric and surrounds himself with an odd cast of character, including Llewelyn who has a past as both an Oxford student and prison inmate. The household also...