Mama Does Time (Mace Bauer, #1)

Mama Does Time
by Deborah Sharp
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 0738713295
Series: Mace Bauer #1
Publication Date: March 1, 2009
Pages: 336
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Midnight Ink

Meet Mama: a true Southern woman with impeccable manners, sherbet-colored pantsuits, and four prior husbands, able to serve sweet tea and sidestep alligator attacks with equal aplomb. Mama's antics — especially her penchant for finding trouble — drive her daughters Mace, Maddie, and Marty to distraction.

One night, while settling in to look for ex-beaus on COPS, Mace gets a frantic call from her mother. This time, the trouble is real: Mama found a body in the trunk of her turquoise convertible and the police think she's the killer. It doesn't help that the handsome detective assigned to the case seems determined to prove Mama's guilt or that the cowboy who broke Mace's heart shows up at the local Booze ‘n' Breeze in the midst of the investigation.

Before their mama lands in prison — just like an embarrassing lyric from a country-western song — Mace and her sisters must find the real culprit.

Update for second read: Holds up to my first review perfectly; 7 years later and I still can’t keep Maddie and Marty straight in my head. Still a very good read.

I put off reading this book for a long time because it just had way too redneck-y a vibe for me to think I’d find it enjoyable. But then I read about the author being a native Floridian (as I am) and I thought, well, I should give this a go, she should be able to do “old Florida” justice with out turning everyone into caricatures.

So I was pleased to find myself thoroughly involved in this book by about 1/3 of the way in. I had to struggle a bit to keep Marty and Maddie straight, but each character very much has their own personality and for the most part, they’re colourful and likeable. Of course I love the Old Florida setting.

The plot was well done; a lot of red herrings and suspects, a lot of clues. Very strong ending.

I’ll be ordering the next books in the series, and I’m hoping for some more scenes of the chemistry sort between Carlos and Mace. 🙂

Dead as a Door Knocker (House Flipper Mystery, #1)

Dead as a Door Knocker
Rating: ★★
isbn: 9781250197429
Series: House-Flipper Mystery #1
Publication Date: February 11, 2019
Pages: 368
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks

Whitney Whitaker dreams of running her own real estate company instead of managing properties part-time for a small agency. So when one of her more difficult clients decides to liquidate a property, Whitney seizes the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to score the distressed house for a song. But when her cat Sawdust digs up a corpse in the flower bed, all bets are off.

When the investigation - led by Nashville Police Detective Collin Flynn - starts moving slower than molasses, Whitney figures an important clue must be missing. So she launches an investigation of her own before the mortgage property forecloses on the property and Whitney loses her investment. But who was composting in the garden? Who would want that person dead? And is Whitney their next victim?

Diane Kelly writes a very good series about an IRS agent, Tara Holloway, and a surprisingly decent series about a police officer and her K-9 (surprising because the dog has its own chapters).

This is not on par with those other efforts. This was just short of awful.

The characters are good, but the author has fully grown adults running around saying “the b word” but not thinking twice about haring off to the home of someone they decide must be a suspect and “interrogating” them, flinging accusations around like confetti.

The plot was well constructed but just about smothered under chapters of introspection and a detective just short of being earnestly incompetent.

Sawdust is awesome, but Kelly tends to give him slightly canine tendencies that don’t quite ring true, and frankly, no matter how endearing Sawdust is, a reader can’t help but wonder if this isn’t a marketing gimmick to appease the cat lovers out there.

Disappointing, but this won’t be a series I’ll be continuing.

Revenge in Rubies (Harriet Gordon, #2)

Revenge in Rubies
by A.M. Stuart
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781984802668
Series: Harriet Gordon #2
Publication Date: September 15, 2020
Pages: 368
Genre: Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley

Sylvie Nolan, the new and much-younger wife of Lieutenant Colonel John Nolan, has been bludgeoned to death in her bedroom. The tightly knit military community in Singapore quickly closes ranks to hinder Curran’s investigation, and Harriet realizes that her friendship with the colonel’s sister might prove useful. But to get close enough to the family’s secrets, Harriet must once again face her painful past, and Curran is forced to dredge up some long-buried secrets of his own. And when more shocking deaths occur that all seem linked to Sylvie’s murder, Harriet and Curran discover that they too are in the sights of a callous killer. . . .

My issues with this one remain the same as the first, but I realise after some thought, that I am the victim of the romantic tension trope. Possibly a willing victim, as it turns out. I understand that Stuart is bucking the trope by having the two MCs not being romantically available to each other, but alas, I don’t like it. It feels like something is missing, in spite of my not being a fan of romances. Given the time period these are set in, and the general attitude of society that a man and a woman can’t really be partners and bond on any level other than romantically – and should they try everybody accuses them of being romantically involved anyway, I can’t see this going anywhere that isn’t going to irritate me.

Still, the mysteries are good, and the Singapore setting is threatening to become trendy. The characters are growing on me in spite of the lack of oomph. The plotting is intricate enough, though one scene gave away the villain just a few pages before the big reveal.

I’ll definitely read a third one and who knows, maybe the character dynamics will go somewhere interesting without all the silly angst.

Killer Wedding (Madeline Bean, #3)

Killer Wedding
by Jerrilyn Farmer
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9780380795987
Series: Madeline Bean #3
Publication Date: June 7, 2000
Pages: 256
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: HarperCollins

Although not about to say "I do" anytime soon, hip party-planner Madeline Bean is no stranger to the phenomenon known as the LA wedding; the good, the bad and the kind where the party lasts longer than the marriage. Still, Maddie never expected to be the guest of Vivian Duncan, the West Coast's grande dame of wedding consultants, at a lavish affair held amidst the dramatically lit fossils in the Nature Museum's Hall of Dinosaurs.

While checking out the glittering event, Maddie, with her keen event planner's instinct, realizes something is not quite right, but what? The groom is on time. The bride is beautiful. And a corpse wearing a Cartier bracelet is dangling from the triceratops skeleton. Ah, yes.

That. With people disappearing and the bride in tears, Maddie just may be the next species to become extinct...unless she can reveal the murderer fast.

Quicker than she can whip up a white chocolate wedding cake, Maddie follows the trail deep into dark jungles---urban and otherwise---amid tantalizing tales of smuggled gems, while fending off a nervous bridegroom, a crazed carjacker, and a half-naked ice-sculptor and his trusty chainsaw. Along the way, she discovers something old, something new, something deadly and something a wedding pro should never, ever do.

I love this book, it holds up so well to re-reading. Part of what makes the story so fascinating is what the author shares in her acknowledgements at the start of the book. A chance meeting with a fascinating gentleman in a crammed hotel breakfast room, and the background of this book is born.

Maddie and friends are temporarily shut down while they battle a non-compete clause being upheld by the company that bought out their now defunct catering business. The premiere wedding planner in LA wants out and thinks if she acts like Maddie is buying her out, then Maddie actually will. All of this culminates in Maddie and co. being invited to a wedding at the Natural History Museum, where she finds a dead body draped over the main dinosaur display. Trying to be nice and lend a helping hand to the deceased’s family, she stumbles on an amazing story involving smuggling and a fabulous treasure, of sorts.

What also makes this a great story is that it was written at a time when a cozy could be a cozy without being so far up its own prudish backside that it doubled as a See Jane Run story for children. Sex scenes are modest, but the author isn’t afraid to use f bombs judiciously and where they’re most effective. This book’s characters read like they could be real people in the real world, and they’re the kind you’d see yourself liking.

It’s nice to see an old favorite can remain a favorite after 20 years.

Immaculate Reception (Madeline Bean, #2)

Immaculate Reception
by Jerrilyn Farmer
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9780380795970
Series: Madeline Bean #2
Publication Date: April 30, 1999
Pages: 256
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Avon Books

The Pope is coming to breakfast, and Madeline Bean's got frittatas on the skillet. What a coup for gourmet caterer Mad Bean and her company, the event-planning wizards, chosen to mastermind L.A.'s official welcoming extravaganza. Pulling off the early morning meal for His Holiness, and two thousand high profile bigwigs, sounds like great fun for the unflappable Ms. Bean.

But things quickly go from serene to sinister when a young priest turns up dead in the bed of an uninhibited Hollywood star, and a yellowed page of Latin scrawl, found tucked in an old book of mouthwatering Church recipes, reveals a mysterious Jesuit Brother's shocking past. Even the course of Madeline's ragged love life gets a jolt as charming Xavier Jones, the man who left her at the alter ten years ago, reappears and still won't explain why he bugged out. With the Pope arriving any day, it's up to Madeline to sort out this unholy mess of burnt brioche, tantalizing treasure, pesky naked starlets, and homicidal caterers-or a party that should go down in history could be history before it even begins.

I read this book when it first came out over 20 years ago, and I loved it. I’ve re-read it since a couple of times, but never after I started writing my thoughts down, so I picked it up again this week and I have to say it ages perfectly. Farmer was a talented writer who wrote great mysteries and very real characters you’d be happy to call friends.

Immaculate Reception is the re-imagining of the very real happenings of the Catholic church in the 1930’s, specifically a document called Humani generis unitas (On the Unity of the Human Race). This document was a draft for an encyclical planned by Pope Pius XI before his death on February 10, 1939. It condemned antisemitism, racism and the persecution of Jews. Because it was never issued, it is sometimes referred to as “The Hidden Encyclical” or “The Lost Encyclical.” Farmer also ties some Nazi stolen treasure stories into the mix for a breathtaking ending. This might all sound over the top and Indiana Jones, but it’s definitely not. But it’s a great story that can leave invested readers questioning the line between heroism and villainism. It’s also – in between all that – a fun, lighthearted book.

Pocket Apocalypse (InCryptid, #4)

Pocket Apocalypse
by Seanan McGuire
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 0756408121
Series: InCryptid #4
Publication Date: March 15, 2015
Pages: 368
Publisher: DAW Books

Australia is a cryptozoologist’s dream, filled with unique species and unique challenges. Unfortunately, it’s also filled with Shelby’s family, who aren’t delighted by the length of her stay in America. And then there are the werewolves to consider: infected killing machines who would like nothing more than to claim the continent as their own. The continent which currently includes Alex.

Survival is hard enough when you’re on familiar ground. Alex Price is very far from home, but there’s one thing he knows for sure: he’s not going down without a fight.

The second of Alex’s books, and the best of the two by a clear margin. This one takes place in Australia, and the author nails the setting, while taking the mickey about (northern) Australia’s natural population’s inherent desire to kill everyone. Half-off Ragnarok struggled to get this cultural uniqueness right, in my opinion, so it was a relief to see the improvement here. Shelby still remained elusive as an individual, but her family members more than compensated.

Shelby’s family is why I didn’t like this book even more; they’re over-the-top asses to Alex and it teetered on caricature.

The plot was good; while I wasn’t shocked by the turn of events, I didn’t see them coming, either. I love how the author and Alex brought in the wadjets, using this angle to work in the injustice of ‘otherness’, though the Yowie’s (who I loved) circumstances turned what was a subtle but effective highlight on that injustice into something more like a sledgehammer.

The Aeslin mice are here but I did not appreciate the turn of events the author took with them. Maybe she’d argue it was necessary to the story line, but she’d never convince me. Luckily it was a relatively short scene.

With every book of McGuire’s I’ve read, I have both enjoyed them and found them problematic. That I mostly keep coming back (I’ve skipped a few) for more Price family antics suggests she gets it right more often than she doesn’t.

Singapore Sapphire (Harriet Gordon Mystery, #1)

Singapore Sapphire
by A.M. Stuart
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781984802644
Series: Harriet Gordon #1
Publication Date: August 6, 2019
Pages: 367
Genre: Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

First in a series taking place in Singapore in 1910, about a woman convicted in England for her suffragette activities who flees to Singapore to assist her brother, a headmaster at a school for British boys. As her post is unpaid, she advertises for secretarial jobs on the side, and discovers her first commissioner brutally murdered.

It’s a compelling start to a series, but this first book leaves the characters’ dynamic with each other unsettled at the end, so I didn’t like it as much I would have otherwise. Still the plotting was strong and well thought out, though some aspects of the puzzle were obvious to the reader, either because they were telegraphed early on, or because the reader has read too many mysteries not to see what was coming. The characters not having the benefit of 100+ years of mysteries to tap into, their slowness to pick up on what was going on was understandable, if sometimes tedious.

I have the second book in hand on my TBR, and I’m looking forward to seeing the character development in that one. That will decide me as to whether to go on with the series or not. (Assuming it continues past book 2, of course.)

A Bad Day for Sunshine

A Bad Day for Sunshine
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780349427171
Series: Sunshine Vicram #1
Publication Date: April 7, 2020
Pages: 390
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group

Del Sol native Sunshine Vicram has returned to town as the elected sheriff, expecting nothing more than a quiet ride. But now a teenage girl is missing, a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of this is reminding Sunshine why she left Del Sol in the first place. Add to that the trouble at her daughter's new school, plus a kidnapped rooster named Puff Daddy, and, well, the forecast looks anything but sunny.

But even clouds have their silver linings. This one's got Levi, Sunshine's sexy, almost-old flame, and Quincy Cooper, a fiery-hot US Marshall. With temperatures rising everywhere she turns, Del Sol's normally cool-minded sheriff is finding herself knee-deep in drama and danger.

A long time fan of Jones’ writing, I was excited to hear about this new series after her Charlie Davidson series came to an end, but also hesitant, as the premise for this new series sounded like quite a departure in a lot of ways.

I needn’t have worried; A Bad Day for Sunshine has everything I loved in the Charlie Davidson series (save the outright paranormal plots), only slightly more polished. Where the snark and jokes in the CD series could sometimes be a tad overdone (naming ever in animate object), here it was perfectly balanced. The multiple plots were here too, without quite the manic pace, and the friendships and dialog were bang on perfect. Levi too is the version of Reyes one could take home to their more liberal parents. In many ways, as much as I loved the Charlie Davidson series, Sunshine Vicram feels more polished.

Plotwise, there are many different irons in the fire and all were good, though a few were telegraphed ahead of time to varying degrees. I knocked half a star off because the multi-book plot feels transparent. I still can’t say who did it, but I feel confident about who didn’t and what role the character played in the crime. Whether I’m right or not, it left me feeling frustrated with the lack of resolution at the end, and doubly so when I found out the next book doesn’t come out until July 2021. But A Good Day for Chardonnay will definitely be pre-ordered.

Murder at Queen’s Landing (Wrexford & Sloane, #4)

Murder at Queen's Landing
by Andrea Penrose
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781496722843
Series: Wrexford & Sloane #4
Publication Date: September 21, 2020
Pages: 362
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Kensington

The murder of a shipping clerk…the strange disappearance of trusted friends…rumors of corruption within the powerful East India Company…all add up to a thrillingly dark mystery…

When Lady Cordelia, a brilliant mathematician, and her brother, Lord Woodbridge, disappear from London, rumors swirl concerning fraudulent bank loans and a secret consortium engaged in an illicit—and highly profitable—trading scheme that threatens the entire British economy. The incriminating evidence mounts, but for Charlotte and Wrexford, it’s a question of loyalty and friendship. And so they begin a new investigation to clear the siblings’ names, uncover their whereabouts, and unravel the truth behind the whispers.

As they delve into the murky world of banking and international arbitrage, Charlotte and Wrexford also struggle to navigate their increasingly complex feelings for each other. But the clock is ticking—a cunning mastermind has emerged . . . along with some unexpected allies—and Charlotte and Wrexford must race to prevent disasters both economic and personal as they are forced into a dangerous match of wits in an attempt to beat the enemy at his own game.

I’ve really enjoyed the first three books in this series, and though I enjoyed this one too it was a bit heavy on the sentimentality.

Penrose crafts her plots around fictionalised versions of real historic events, and this time around it’s mathematical machines and financial shenanigans that may or may not involve the East India Company. Her historical knowledge always adds an extra depth to the story, and a well plotted mystery makes it even better.

Charlotte has built quite a scooby gang around her and Wexford, and the characters are fully fleshed and they’re easy to care about and cheer for. But the dynamic between Wexford and Charlotte has become increasingly sentimental to the point of down right syrupy. The sentiments are lovely, but just a little too much for my tastes. I was also getting aggravated at the overuse of the word ‘dastards’.

I’m still a fan, but I’m hoping the next book will regain a little of the edge the first couple had.

Silverhill

Silverhill
by Phyllis A. Whitney
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: May 1, 1969
Pages: 192
Genre: Suspense
Publisher: Fawcett Crest

From the day Malinda Rice first comes to Silverhill -- her mother's home -- her hope turns to fear. But she will not run. For the beauty of Silverhill's setting hides more than one family's secrets. And Malinda must fight for both her sanity and her life before she discovers the full, horrifying truth about the past evil and present terrors that may engulf her....

One of Whitney’s earlier publications, this one still has the intricate plotting and surprises that are missing in her later titles. Conversely, it’s one of the less evocatively atmospheric of hers I’ve read so far.

The thing a reader has to accept about Whitney is that her whole raison d’être in writing was to thrust heroines into the most unwelcome home she could imagine and have her persevere in spite of all stumbling blocks. It’s formulaic, definitely, but each of her earlier novels becomes unique in the setting, the secrets and the mystery.

Silverhill absolutely fits the Whitney formula, and it made me a bit impatient at the start as all the usual hurdles, cruelty and heartache were presented along with the future insta-love (these books were written in the 50’s and 60’s when apparently if it took you longer than 48 hours to decide you’d met your One True Love, you might as well not bother).

But one all of that was gotten through, the story was a surprise. I thought I knew where it was going, and I was sort of right, but the salient detail of the whole thing blindsided me when it was revealed. So much karma getting doled out to everyone. And, of course, a happy ending for our heroine.

When a good Whitney comes along, they are a pure indulgence to a much more innocent, yet horrific, form of story telling for readers who like their suspense served in tandem with romance, and a touch of gothic for garnish.