December Cloak and Dagger Link-Up and Wrap-ups

December Cloak and Dagger Link-Up and Wrap-ups

by Carol3 Comments
Happy December! I am looking forward to the holiday and some time off work. I'll also read a bunch of Christmas mysteries this month - anyone else? Link you Cloak and Dagger reads below or in the comments. If you have a wrap-up post, you can link it too. You are invited to the Inlinkz link party! Click here to enter We're also having an end of year giveaway for this year's participants. The prize is one book of your choice up to $25 from bookshop.org if you are in the US or a retailer of your choice if you're in another country. Just fill out the form below and I'll pick a random winner on January 15. Loading…...
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O, Deadly Night by Vicki Delany

O, Deadly Night by Vicki Delany

by Carol2 Comments
Rudolph, New York, is the place to be for Christmas - the town goes all out to welcome tourists to America’s Christmas Town. Merry once again doesn't win the best float in the Santa Claus parade, but all the shops in town are bustling. Also a new neighborhood has moved in across the street, but Mrs. D'Angelo thinks something is up. She never sees them and they won't answer the door when she tries to drop off cookies. Mrs. D'Angelo is one of those nosey neighbors and even asks Merry to mention the elusive new-comers to the police. Then Mrs. D'Angelo disappears and Merry realizes the older woman might have taken her snooping too far. Eventually, Merry finds Mrs. D'Angelo relatively unharmed - and a dead body. The killer is pretty easy to guess in this one, as is the motive, but the characters are fun to spend time with. Merry's family and friends are appropriately quirky and her dog...
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Yuletide Spirit Reading Challenge

Yuletide Spirit Reading Challenge

by Carol1 Comment
The Yuletide Spirit Reading Challenge starts today even if my own Christmas reading started a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to Michelle at  Seasons of Reading for hosting. Head over there to join in and to check out the rules. The challenge will run from today through December 31. These must be Christmas novels, books about Christmas lore, a book of Christmas short stories or poems, books about Christmas crafts, and a children’s Christmas books level! The hashtag is #YuletideSpirit. I’m aiming for the Christmas Tree level, which is 5 or 6 books. I may also watch a couple of Christmas movies, for the Fa La La La Films level. There will also be a 24 in 48 hours Readathon the weekend of December 26 - 28. It starts at 8:00 pm eastern time on Friday and it ends at 8:00 pm eastern time on Sunday. The idea is the try to read for 24 hours during that 48 hour period, but there are...
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On the Road by Jack Kerouac

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

by Carol2 Comments
I am maybe not the right audience for On the Road. I know if's a classic and definitely a product of its time. I found it a slog to get through. It's a series of road trips take by Sal Paradise (Kerouac) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) back and forth across the continent. They meet a variety of people, see a variety of towns, make money in a variety of way - and to be honest I couldn't care less. It's racist and sexist and, yes, it's the fifties and would usually overlook those to some extent, but I didn't enjoy the rest of the book enough. It's also pretentious and, at the same time, purposefully naive. I will say Kerouac has a strong voice which the narrator conveyed well in the audio I listened too. Honestly, that's probably the only reason I didn't set the book down. Well, that and I needed a "stream of consciousness" narrative for a...
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Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

by Carol1 Comment
I shouldn't actually like Cat Among the Pigeons. Spies and political intrigue are not usually my favorites, especially when it comes to a Christie novel, but this one is fun. Our set up is that during the revolution in a small Middle Eastern country, the king gave some jewels to his best friend to sneak out of the country. Those very valuable jewels end up at a girls' school in England, leading to a couple of murders and a kidnapping. Poirot doesn't show up until maybe two-thirds of the way into this one. The reader knows where the jewels are hidden but not who is after them or who the murderer is. A fun amateur sleuth puts together some of the pieces and heads off to London to ask for Poirot's help. This was a reread for me and I did remember a couple of the twists, but that doesn't make it less fun. This time I listened to the audio...
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And to All a Good Bite by David Rosenfelt

And to All a Good Bite by David Rosenfelt

by Carol3 Comments
I have to admit that the reason I read these books is Grove Gardner's narration. He is just perfect for Andy Carpenter's sarcasm and self-deprecating humor. This time around the dog-lover accused of murder is Jeff Wheeler. Two years ago, Jeff's girlfriend was killed when her office building exploded. Jeff has never made it a secret that he blamed her boss, Stanley Franklin, but now that Franklin is dead, murdered in his own home, Jeff is the main suspect. The reader of course knows Jeff is innocent, but Andy and his team need to convince the jury. The best way is to figure out who did do it, but as always that's easier said than done. The plot is put together well with a couple of nice twists. The courtroom scenes move at a good pace, but the dialogue in this series is always the highpoint. It's funny and sharp. And of course, we have adorable dogs. While the cover is adorable...
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