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Kindred Spirits–stolen art with deadly consequences
Kindred Spirits
by Jo Bannister
Gabriel Ash, formerly a security analyst with the British government, has recently been released from mental health care. He has opened a second hand book shop, Rambles with Books. He has also been reunited with his two sons after a four year separation as a result of his wife’s illegally taking the boys. All should be relatively smooth sailing in the Ash household, but that is not the case. Ash’s good friend, Constable Hazel Best, drives to school to pick up the boys, and she sees them and their nanny being accosted in what appears to be a kidnapping attempt.
The plot of Kindred Spirits rapidly becomes complicated as the older boy, Gilbert, insists that only the nanny was being forced into the van. This fast-moving police procedural by Jo Bannister puts on display not only how the police investigate crimes, but also the behind-the-scenes politics. Neither Hazel nor Detective Inspector Dave Gorman are armchair detectives. The same can be said about Ash when those he cares about are personally threatened. All three are motivated by doing what is right. When an old case clashes with the events of a new case, they refuse to turn a blind eye. The results are dangerous, and you won’t want to stop reading until the mystery is resolved.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Severn House for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery, Police Procedural
Notes: #5 in the Hazel Best and Gabriel Ash Mystery Series. This was the first book in the series for me to read, and I had no problem catching up with the background.
Publication: September 1, 2018—Severn House
Memorable Lines:
Perhaps he was the last man in England—the last man in the civilized world—to enjoy the sensation, both sensual and intellectual, of paper pages curling away under his fingers. Of words, and the ideas they encoded, waiting for him to find them—and staying close at hand after he’d read them, in case he needed to flick back a page or two to check something.
She had less and less patience with hard feelings and petty jealousies. She did her job, and did it well; being liked was an optional extra. It wasn’t something that she’d ever struggled with before, but if it came to a choice between being popular and doing what she believed to be right, she had broad shoulders.
Gorman knew that Jerome Harbinger was sixty-eight. If he hadn’t known, he’d have thought he was ten years older than that. His craggy face was savaged by deep lines that had nothing to do with laughter and everything to do with bitter unhappiness.
Mad Cow: A PTSD Love Story
Mad Cow: A PTSD Love Story
by Meredith Shafer
Despite its subtitle, Meredith Shafer’s Mad Cow: A PTSD Love Story is not a mushy romance. It is the hard-hitting tale of a woman who has lived in the trenches and struggled to scramble out for her own survival and that of her children and her husband nicknamed Mr. Wonderful in the book. “Mad Cow” does not refer to the feared Mad Cow disease; it is the nickname Meredith has given to the struggle her husband faces every day. He is a veteran retired on a medical disability and Mad Cow is a triangle of asthma, PTSD, and traumatic brain injury and all of the associated problems that often accompany these disorders including issues with depression and sobriety.
Mad Cow is not a timeline biography, and it does not detail Mr. Wonderful’s war injuries or his specific medical issues. Instead, this memoir shares the struggles of this hot mess, circus-like, crazy family of six, led by a spunky mama and a wounded warrior as they navigate life, crises, and the VA medical system. We learn of financial struggles and family issues. We discover how survival fueled by faith, trust, and God’s love becomes more important than a perfect house, after school activities, and productivity.
Meredith brings her background as a musician, lawyer, mom, writer and speaker, a devotee of leopard, shoes, coffee and bling, and most especially a lover of Jesus to this book. She shares openly from her heart; there is no fakeness in this book. You will find humor scattered liberally throughout. There is one particularly funny chapter called “The Casita” which describes how the family of six lived temporarily in a 150 square foot house. Under the humor though is the pain of trying to save a husband who is past being able to save himself. Under the humor is a woman’s heart as she leans into her Father relying on Him to restore her family.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Memoir, Christian Nonfiction
Notes: You can find my review of Meredith Shafer’s first book, My Pink Champagne Life here
Publication: 2016
Memorable Lines:
You can’t really go back, though. You can only move forward, which we are trying to do with generosity of spirit and good humor and grace, a whole truckload of grace. Wow, that’s hard.
I’ve decided that potty training a fiery redheaded she-child is kind of like training a wild tiger to dance to show tunes. It’s a delicate yet frightening process that requires infinite patience, a death wish, and multiple costume changes.
I guess thirty days off and three counseling appointments post deployment aren’t nearly enough. The military way, though it’s not written in any of their field manuals, is to soldier on. Self-medicate with alcohol if necessary as that is the acceptable method of of soldiering on.
Dead Calm–murder-suicide?
Dead Calm
by Annelise Ryan
Dead Calm centers around Mattie Winston, a medicolegal death investigator who works in Sorenson, Wisconsin’s medical examiner’s office. She is newly married to Steve Hurley, a local homicide detective. Receiving twin middle of the night phone calls from their bosses, they are summoned to the scene of an apparent murder-suicide at a motel on the outskirts of town where rooms can be rented by the hour for liaisons.
Annelise Ryan has written a mystery that moves quickly from one situation to another with lots of threads and clues along the way. How could a pharmaceutical coverup tie in? Are the victims’ spouses culpable? Has a construction crew uncovered the skeleton of an alien on Mattie and Hurley’s proposed home site? Ryan keeps the reader guessing all the way to a surprise resolution.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Mystery
Notes: #9 in the Mattie Winston Mystery Series, but it reads well as a standalone. There is a lot of backstory, but the author does a good job of relating it quickly.
Publication: February 27, 2018—Kensington Books
Memorable Lines:
The land is out in the country; the mosquitos were apparently having some sort of convention out there all weekend, and I was on the menu for every meal.
For starters, my relationship with Emily was iffy at the time, iffy being a euphemism for a barrel of TNT connected to a short, lit fuse.
So far, our road to marital bliss has been as smooth and painless as petting a porcupine.
Murder on a Midsummer Night–no sparkle to this mystery
Murder on a Midsummer Night
by Kerry Greenwood
In Murder on a Midsummer Night, there are two major non-connected mysteries and one minor mystery. A man with no apparent reason to commit suicide is found drowned, and Phryne Fisher is hired to discover what really happened to him. Simultaneously she takes on a case to find a person who was given up for adoption many years prior. A mother has died and her will indicates that this person should be included in receiving monetary benefits. At the end of each chapter is a brief part of yet another tale. It appears very disconnected from the main plot lines until the very end of the book at which time it is tied into one of the threads. Rather than being clever, I found it distracting.
This is the first Phryne Fisher mystery that I have not totally enjoyed. In addition to the dangling mini-mystery, the characters did not have the pizazz that they normally have. The author relates the actions the characters take rather than allowing the reader to watch the action, participating vicariously. I regretted that Phryne’s family members as well as other regulars in the series are present but not very active. The result is a flat feeling to the story. In addition there are a number of truly distasteful characters in this book. Phryne doesn’t like them, and the reader has no reason to like them.
I am a big fan of the Phryne Fisher Mystery Series, but this mystery was disappointing. If this were my first experience with the series, it would probably be my last. Knowing the usual quality of the books in this series, however, I will be back.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Poisoned Pen Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 3/5
Category: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Notes: #17 in the Phryne Fisher Mystery Series
Publication: February 6, 2018—Poisoned Pen Press
Memorable Lines:
There was never any point being cross about weather, it was like politicians: to be born patiently, because it was compulsory.
She didn’t care what anyone said about the association of Phryne and Lin Chung, especially James, who was leaning against the white-painted wall, looking exquisite and drinking his third glass of the revolting port. That appeared to be the sum total of his social skills but Phryne supposed that he might have hidden depths.
But then, every country has its mistral, its meltemi, its own terrible wind.
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