Blog Post
Historical Mystery Series Fan Alert
by cecile
Here is a mystery series perfect for curling up in a comfortable chair with mulled cider in your favorite 16th century outfit.
Fiona Buckley’s Ursula Blanchard mysteries take place in Queen Elizabeth I’s court and begin with Ursula’s introduction in To Shield the Queen. Here we meet the recently widowed Ursula as she is summoned to court by Elizabeth to become one of her attendants. Elizabeth, it seems, likes Ursula because her mother was nice to Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn. Ursula helps Elizabeth unravel the murder of Sir Robert Dudley’s wife.
Ursula learns how to be a spy in The Doublet Affair, goes to France on a dangerous mission trying to thwart a civil war in Queen’s Ransom, uncovers a plot to blackmail Elizabeth in To Ruin a Queen, A Pawn for a Queen finds Ursula undercover working in a pie shop to stop an attempted murder of Elizabeth, Ursula gets mixed up between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots in The The Fugitive Queen ,and in The Siren Queen once again becomes embroiled in the Mary vs. Elizabeth saga.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #128
by muffy
The Black Tower* is a FFF of a different sort. This is not Louis Bayard's first novel. It is not even his first historical novel.
The mystery behind the identity and survival of a man-child who might be the lost son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette fuels this rich, layered and energetic historical, and introduces to mystery readers Eugene Francois Vidocq, a colorful, resourceful and notorious criminal who became the world's first modern detective.
In real life, Vidocq, a fugitive from French justice before offering his services as a police spy and informer, was later named the first chief of the Sûreté. He was credited with:
a. being the first to introduce record keeping, criminalistics, and the science of ballistics into police work;
b. the first to make plaster-of-paris casts of foot/shoe impressions;
c. the first to patent indelible ink and unalterable bond paper;
d. founding the first modern detective agency and credit bureau.
Cleverly weaving historical details with conspiracies; webs of murders and intrigue with humor and heart; real-life as well as fictional characters; this intelligent and engaging thriller will keep you guessing after the last page is turned.
* = Starred reviews
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #127
by muffy
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo* is the hot Swedish thriller (with 5.5 million copies sold across Europe) that features "one of the most original heroines to come along in years" - a young, prickly tattooed computer hacker, who teams up with an embattled and discredited journalist facing a jail term, to investigate the disappearance of an heiress 40 years ago. Talk about a cold case!!!
Debut novelist Steig Larsson who died of a heart attack in 2004, was an investigative journalist. Girl, (originally published as Män som hatar kvinnor = Men Who Hate Women) is the first of a 3-part series. Highly recommended. Readers might also like to check out another FFF Nordic mystery Redbreast by Jo Nesbo.
* = Starred Reviews
Blog Post
Stalking Susan
by detra
Julie Kramer has written a debut novel that is filled with wit, suspense and well developed characters.
Stalking Susan is about a television reporter named Riley Spartz who is recovering from the death of her husband when a longtime friend (and former policeman) drops a file in her lap while at a movie theater. The file contains two cold cases involving women named Susan. These women are being murdered on the same day, one year apart.
While investigating the Susan murders, Riley discovers the killer has moved personal effects from one victim to the next victim. As part of her well-thought out plan to draw the murder out, she stages an on-air act that could threaten her life and career.
The killer’s motives will surprise you!
Blog Post
What are you reading?
by Clarence Cromwell
If you're searching for a good mystery, Robin Agnew would like to make a couple of suggestions.
Robin is the vice president of the Kerrytown BookFest (which takes place this Sunday, Sept. 7). What's more, she and her husband Jamie own Aunt Agatha's, the peculiar book shop at 213 South Fourth Ave. that specializes in mystery and detective books.
They founded the store in 1992, after Jamie, also a bookworm, spent some time working for Borders, another book store that originated in Ann Arbor. The choice to sell mystery and detective fiction was natural, Robin said. She worked her way through Nancy Drew in elementary school, and in middle school she read every one of Agatha Christie's mystery novels. She's remained a mystery reader ever since.
Robin is usually on the lookout for new authors to share with other book lovers, and this year she's telling people about Cornelia Read, after being impressed with her first novel, A Field of Darkness. She emailed us last week that the book was "terrific," and the writing "beautiful."
Now, here's what she has to say about Cornelia Read's latest novel, The Crazy School:
"Cornelia Read's series character, Madeleine Dare, is a young woman from a very advantaged background who has married and lived first in Syracuse and now lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, where she works at a school for disturbed teenagers. Her present penny pinching lifestyle has been somewhat resolved (for her) in the first novel; this second novel is more directly concerned with her job, as the husband in question (with the interesting job of working on a device to shave railroad tracks to extend their life) is kept mainly off canvas. He fulfills the job a lot of wives had in older detective novels - he's the warm space the heroine comes home to while she figures out what's going on (he even cooks).
"In any case, while Madeleine hopes she is helping the children she works with, she's not sure, and several things about the school disturb her. It's "crazy" on more than one level, with the students probably being on the lesser end of the crazy scale. It's run by a man named David Santangelo whose main concern seems to be the helipad he's building on campus; meanwhile some of the students (who are paying the equivalent of a college tuition) are living in buildings so infested with rats it's the job of some of the students to set out poison for them every night. The teachers are all forced to go to counseling - something Madeleine sees as completely bogus, especially when one of the counselors tells her she's sure Madeleine had been abused as a child because she sits up so straight. (Obviously this counselor was never sent to ballroom dancing school).
"Madeleine becomes more involved with the students while at the same time becoming more suspicious of the administration - something that becomes even more baffling when she's offered a higher level job seemingly out of the blue. When two of the students turn up dead the rest of the school is sure it's a suicide, but Madeleine, who's pretty sure she herself has been poisoned, is certain they've been murdered. Working with an unusual group of "helpers" - and Read is able to twist and change your expectations of certain characters - she's able to find a solution to the deaths, but it comes at a high price. What Madeleine Dare might be doing in the next novel is anyone's guess, but I feel sure that after you read this book you'll want to find out what it will be."
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #123
by muffy
This chilling and mesmerizing procedural/cozy debut from the creator of the UK cult award-winning television mystery series Silent Witness introduces Deputy Chief Inspector Mark Lapslie, who suffers from a rare neurological condition.
In Still Waters*, it appears that a clever and ruthless serial killer with keen knowledge of garden plants is targeting little old ladies. Money does not seem to be the motive. They were all poisoned, and what about those missing fingers on their right hands?
Nigel McCrery worked as a police officer before attending Cambridge University. Still Waters is the first in a projected series.
For fans of psychological thrillers of Minette Walters and Val McDermid, and the Inspector Morse and Miss Marple television series. AND a great readalike for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
* = Starred Review
Blog Post
The Little Friend
by jaegerla
Donna Tartt's second novel is brimming with keen descriptions of human behavior, multiple struggles for revenge, and the ripple effect of addiction. The Little Friend is a study of how the past blends into the present, and how unresolved prior events echo into the future. Tartt pulled from her experience growing up in Mississippi to make the south come to life in this novel.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #122
by muffy
Set in St. Louis, MO., Assistant District Attorney Jack Hilliard appears to have it all: intelligence, good looks, a great job, and a solid marriage with his wife, Claire. While he subscribes to the ideal of TELL NO LIES*, when he finds himself simultaneously seduced by a dream job and a sexy colleague, his moral compass starts to falter and he soon learns that bad decisions have even worse consequences. . .
"Compton's debut is a taut, tense cautionary tale complete with courtroom drama and a surprise ending" ~Kirkus Reviews. For fans of legal thrillers and the likes of the 2 Johns - ( Grisham and Hart ).
St. Louis native Julie Compton earned degrees in law and English literature. She worked as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in Wilmington, Delaware. This is her first novel.
* = Starred Reviews.
Spoiler Alert!!! - If you don't like a cliffhanger of an ending - skip this one.
Blog Post
Hurry For Late Summer Mystery Reading Nirvana!
by cecile
Want to fall in love with a character, stay up late reading his exploits, all the while knowing in the back of your mind that the AADL has several books in the series?
Then the one-legged Moscow cop Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov is the guy for you.
Stuart Kaminsky created this character who delights as he solves murders and other crimes all the while successfully mastering the post-Soviet politics of his department. He knows his office is bugged by his superior, and his superior knows he knows; this allows for a very interesting level of communication between the two.
Try Death of A Dissident, Death of a Russian Priest, Hard Currency and The Dog Who Bit a Policeman.
Then after some kvass, blini and caviar work your way through Fall of a Cosmonaut, Murder on the Transiberian Express and the newest: People Who Walk in Darkness.
Pust' sbudutsya vse tvoi/vashi mechty!
Blog Post
August 13th - Happy Birthday Alfred Hitchcock!
by darla
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899, in Leytonstone, London, England. One of the best-known and most popular filmmakers of all time, he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. Here at the AADL our DVD department is stocked with lots of classic Hitchcock films and television shows for your viewing pleasure. Watching Psycho, probably his best known film, will always make your next experience in the shower one to remember. My personal favorite has always been The Birds (love that schoolyard scene!), but we also have lots of other faves like Dial M for Murder, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Rebecca, which won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1940, Spellbound and Vertigo. Fans of Hitchcock's old television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents will find season one and two on our library shelves and, for anyone not familiar with Alfred Hitchcock, check out the Dick Cavett Show where he was featured as a guest way back in 1972. Hitchcock died from renal failure in April 1980, just four months after he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in the New Year's Honours.