Review of “A Lonely Death” by Charles Todd

Charles Todd is a pen name used by the American authors Caroline and Charles Todd. As Charles Todd, they have written thirteen books set in post-World War I England and featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge. Rutledge is secretly suffering from shell shock (inter alia) from the battle of the Somme, and I thought the [...]

Review of “The Blue Star” by Tony Earley

The Blue Star, published in 2008, is a sequel of sorts to Jim the Boy, published in 2000. In the first book, Jim Glass, the hero of both books, is ten, and in this one he is seventeen. I did not read the first book, but had no trouble gleaning the background of the main [...]

Review of “Bellwether” by Connie Willis

I discovered to my joy that I had missed this book in the Willis oeuvre, and therefore had another Willis book to read! Bellwether, published in 1996, is, like Willis’s other books, a pure pleasure to read. There is no time travel in this book by Willis. But it still features her hallmark plot devices: [...]

May 25 – Celebrate “Towel Day”

Towel Day is celebrated every May 25 as a tribute by fans of the late author Douglas Adams. On this day, fans carry a towel with them to demonstrate their love for the books and for the author, who wrote on the importance of carrying a towel around in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. [...]

Review of “The Girl in the Green Raincoat” by Laura Lippman

This is the eleventh and final [so far!] book of the Tess Monaghan detective series. The author, Laura Lippman, is obviously a movie buff as her other books reveal, and this book is a knock-off of the 1954 Hitchcock classic, “Rear Window.” Tess, a private detective with her own business, is now 35. She isn’t [...]

TLC Book Tour Review of “On China” by Henry Kissinger

Note: This book is reviewed as part of TLC Tours by my husband Jim. Chinese written history goes back more than 2500 years. Its earliest myths speak of a Yellow Emperor, who does not establish or found the civilization, but rather restores order to an already ancient kingdom. Throughout their long history, the Chinese thought [...]

Review of “Between Shades of Gray” by Ruta Sepetys

This story begins just after the invasion of Lithuania by the Soviet Union during World War II, and graphically portrays the hardships endured by those who were sent off to Soviet labor camps. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied all of the territory of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and the Red Army installed new, pro-Soviet [...]

Review of “Wither” by Lauren DeStefano

In this dystopian novel for young adults (and Part One of an intended trilogy), a third world war has destroyed all but North America. The rest of the world is now just ocean and tiny uninhabitable islands. Genetic manipulation to eliminate disease has worked miracles but has had unintended consequences: now a mysterious virus takes [...]

Review of “Dead Center” by David Rosenfelt

This is book #5 of the stand-up comedy/mystery/dog-related legal procedural series featuring lawyer Andy Carpenter and his golden retriever Tara. In Dead Center, Andy’s girlfriend Laurie Collins has left Paterson, New Jersey to take her “dream job” on the police force of her old home town in Findlay, Wisconsin. Although she hasn’t seen Andy in [...]

Review of “When Will There Be Good News?” by Kate Atkinson

This is a terrifically entertaining book that I was loathe to put down, and sad when it ended. Jackson Brodie, a detective reappearing here in his third Atkinson novel, avers that “A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen.” This story is chock-full of coincidences, and we readers plow through avidly to get to [...]