eBook – Page 23 – Carol's Notebook

Murder on Valentine’s Day by P. Creeden

February 14, 2018 by Carol2 Comments

I have to assume that I'm not the only person out there who's perfect read for Valentine's Day includes a murder, right? "Murder on Valentine's Day" was a good choice. Emma, our amateur sleuth, is sent to the home of the richest person in town to pick up a cat, even though she tends to be allergic to them. I sympathize with her; I love cats but they make me sneeze and my eyes itch and swell. The cat's owner is dead, apparently of a heart attack, but of course it was actually murder. This is a short story, so we only have a couple suspects, but the author does a good job at planting the clues, even if the motive was a little weak for me. Emma manages to put the clues together, and convinces her dad, the sheriff, whose house he needs to search, but she does put herself in a bit of unnecessary danger. I like Emma. Like...

The Matter of the Crown by Linda Ferreri

January 18, 2018January 29, 2018 by Carol8 Comments

First I have to mention that the Crown of the Andes is real. It's currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The rest of The Matter of the Crown is entirely fiction, but I really liked having the image of the Crown in my head as I read about it's fictional theft and about the murder, kidnapping, intrigues surrounding it. I tend to love books combining art and mysteries and this one full of twists and turns and interesting characters was as good as I was hoping. I also like the bits of religious history that were thrown in. The book started out a little tough for me. There are several characters that are introduced and it's tough to see how it's all going to pull together. Eventually, though, once I got into, I couldn't wait to see what happened next. Baldo, a retired Italian policeman who along with an American art lawyer, Claire determined to get to the bottom of the...

Murder on New Year’s Eve by P. Creeden

January 5, 2018 by Carol8 Comments

Murder on New Year's Eve was a fun, short mystery, perfect to start the year with. If you read the blurb above, you know it was murder, of course. Emily's youngish, 20, but her dad, who she has lived with since her parent's divorced when she was about 11, is the local sheriff, so she's been around crime scenes and cops most of her life. When she's helping solve the case, she's intelligent and observant. When she's working with her foster dog, a St. Bernard, she's patient and caring. When she's thinking about her crush, Colby, she seems like she's 13 and I want to roll my eyes, but maybe that's part of being 20 in a small town, shelter by a sheriff father. Given that it's only about 40 pages, I though the mystery was well done. There were enough clues and it was pretty clever. It wrapped a little quickly, but it had to. The characters were well-developed, we...

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

November 30, 2017November 29, 2017 by Carol2 Comments

While I grant you that The Turn of the Screw is not really a Christmas story, it does have the tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve as its framework, so I'm counting it as part of my seasonal reading. The Turn of the Screw is fascinating and creepy and leaves you not knowing what the heck was going on. Our narrator is reading the story to folks around the fire, so it's not his story. A governess is hired for two children who are under the care of their uncle. The uncle lives in town while the kids live at the country house, where the governess will be in charge. The uncle basically wants to have to deal with them as little as possible. The governess has written her story down, so everything we know and see is from her point of view. Even she admits that she has a vivid imagination and is “rather easily carried away.” So we've got...

I’m Scheming of a White Christmas by Kate O’Keeffe

November 28, 2017 by Carol4 Comments

Do you ever get to the end of a story or book and think wow, I'm glad that was a freebie? That's how I felt about I'm Scheming of a White Christmas. The blurb made it sound like a cute holiday romance, and while there aren't many reviews on Goodreads, they're positive. My two stars will drag the average down a little. Tilly had potential as a character. She's finally living and working in New York City. She has a job that fits her well and working in a department store is a perfect set up for a Christmas story. When the guy she had a crush in high school shows up, she gets tongue-tied, nervous, the whole nine yards. Happily, he invites her to a party in spite of her awkwardness. The catch is that even though now she's beautiful, in high school she was a bit of a nerd and he was incredibly mean to her. She and her roommate...

Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan

November 22, 2017November 24, 2017 by Carol6 Comments

It's probably no surprise that I enjoyed Murder for Christmas. It ticks off all the boxes: √ Vintage murder mystery √ English manor house √ Eccentric set of characters √ Christmas celebrations √ Amateur detective with a romantic streak Benedict Grame always throws a large house party for Christmas and this year is not exception. It's an interesting collection of people. There's the usual household, Grame and his assistant Nicholas Blaise, his old friend Jeremy Rainer and Rainer's ward, a lovely young woman and her suitor. Grame also has a spinster sister who lives with them and another relative he assists, a gambler with a penchant for practical jokes. There's also a visiting scientist, a politician, a glamorous woman who both Grame and Rainer are attracted too, a couple from the village, and of course Mordecai Tremaine, our amateur detective who has been specially invited. It should be a fun, traditional Christmas. Of course the merriment is interrupted by murder - Father Christmas dead under the decorated...