Do you have a book you read in school that you swore was the worst book ever? Have you ever thought that maybe your teachers weren't out to torture you, and there may have been a method to their madness after all? Then the July Challenge is for you!

Details on the challenge can be found here...check it out, and join us!

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

From the back of the book:

Business has been slow lately for Harry Dresden. Okay, business has been dead. Not undead - just dead. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry hasn't been able to dredge up any kind of work - magical or mundane.

Just when it looks like he can't afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise. A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange looking paw prints. A full moon.

Take three guesses. And the first two don't count...

My thoughts:

Ok, so I'm hooked. This is hokum, but it's good hokum. Butcher's writing is still a bit dodgy in places, and Harry Dreseden is still a chauvinist (although he does get called on it by the female characters), but even though I knew who the real bad guys were (I've just watched the TV series) the story still kept me reading to the very end. I'm not sure why I liked this book as much as I did. The romance/sex was rather contrived and emotionless, there was a little too much exposition in places, and the female lead was a little shallow, but the action scenes were great: fast and furious. I guess it is just pure escapism and good fun.

Fiction List (8/50)

42.  Careless in Red, by Elizabeth George.  623 pages.  (2008)

Grade: B

The latest volume in the series, this one follows Lyndley on a walking trip through Cornwall, where he discovers a corpse.  He is then "brought in" to help solve the case by the local Detective Inspector, who is shorthanded.  At about page 300 Lyndley's long-time Detective Sergeant Havers shows up to help as well. 

The focus on the surfing scene in Cornwall was interesting, but there just wasn't enough Havers for my taste.  I find Barbara Havers fascinating.  The end of it was just sort of hanging there, as well.

Not the best in the series by any means, but still a good read, as evidenced by the fact that I stayed up to 2:30 at night to finish it!

Book 76: High Priestess: A Tarot Card Mystery.
Author: David Skibbins, 2006.
Genre: Murder Mystery.
Other Details: 292 pages.

It's a hot weekend in early September and Warren Ritter is reading the Tarot from his corner pitch in downtown Berkeley. His client asks him "Do you believe in evil?" Ritter is somewhat taken aback by this question and even more so when this client, Edward Hightower, tries to engage Warren as an investigator into a series of accidents that Hightower believes are murders. Warren declines and suggests that it is a matter for the police or a private investigator. Then Hightower addresses him by his real name and asks "Do I look familiar? Take off a hundred pounds." With a sinking heart Warren realises that Hightower is the twin brother of his ex-girlfriend Veronique.

Hightower seems prepared to reveal Warren's past in the radical Weather Underground unless Warren helps him and his sister. Both have received warnings that they'll be the next two victims and all the deaths involve close friends and associates. A year previously Warren would have taken this as his cue to dump the identity of Warren Ritter and ride off into the sunset to begin all over again. However, now he has personal ties that he doesn't want to abandon. He also in good conscience cannot abandon a woman he'd once loved to a possible murderer.

The situation is made more complicated by the fact that Hightower and Veronique are the leaders of the Fellowship of the Arising Night, a split off group from the Church of Satan. So who might be bumping off the Satanists? A day or so later Philip Letour, Warren's mysterious mentor in the Tarot, shows up and proceeds to give him a personal reading in which Warren's card is the Fool and the High Priestess and the Tower cards also feature. Not an auspicious reading though as Philip walks away he counsels Warren not to lose hope. Warren proceeds to investigate the murders as best he can.

Warren Ritter is such a warm character and he chats away as the narrator on life, the universe and everything and is charmingly self-depreciating. He struggles with the reality of his radical past and his bi-polar disorder. As with the previous novel, Eight of Swords, this was a very readable traditional mystery given extra points for engaging characterisations and a quirky feel.

Chapters 1 & 2 can be read on David Skibbins' website.

Book 77: The Alexandria Link.
Author: Steve Berry, 2007.
Genre: Thriller. Historical Conspiracy Fiction.
Other Details: 534 pages.

This is the second novel written by Berry featuring retired US Justice Department operative Cotton Malone. Five years previously Cotton became the sole protector of the Alexandria Link. Now someone has broken into secure government files and discovered his role. His son is kidnapped and his wife ordered not to contact the authorities but to travel to Copenhagen to advise Cotton of the kidnapping and demand that he reveal the whereabouts of the Alexandria Link. The link itself relates to the lost library of Alexandria, a repository of ancient knowledge including texts that could prove explosive to the Middle East situation.

Jack Bauer move over! The pace of this book is just break-neck and yet it never loses focus. Malone and his associates have to race against time and evade various assassination squads to unravel the mystery. Again there are links to the historical mysteries explored in the first book, The Templar Legacy. Having established a strong set of main and supporting characters here Berry uses them to develop the labyrinthine plot in several locations. The author's note at the end delineates what was historical reality and what he made up. I was surprised at some of the parts that were based in history.

Really someone should be making these books into films. I'm really impressed with Berry and have lined up other of his works to read in the near future.

Chapter One can be read on Steve Berry's website.

I've read a whole bunch of books but I really wasn't excited about most of them, which is making updating unexciting, which is making the books build up, which makes updating even less exciting. Book by book, eh?

Iceblood by James Axler (who doesn't actually exist) was alright. It was better than the first novel in the volume, which had me sort of confused until the internet informed me that James Axler doesn't exist and that Iceblood was actually written by a completely different person than the first book. I talked about the concept at length previously. It's a post-nuclear-apocalyptic world and, in this one, a whole bunch of people zap around the world with a little alien trying to stop some other people from putting together a stone that'll do something or other.

... wow, that was probably the worst review ever.

The next two are graphic novels, which means I don't count them, but they're still worth mentioning to those of you who DO count them and are looking for recommendations.

About a week ago I was wandering idly around Borders with the boyfriend when I happened upon Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness. It was a moment of odd surreality. Apparently there really is a series about Marvel comic characters who have turned into zombies. Apparently there is a spinoff in which they have to fight Ash, from Army of Darkness. It was hilarious. What made the whole experience even MORE weird was that NOBODY was excited when I told them about it.

"So apparently there's a graphic novel about Spiderman and the X-Men and everything, TURNED INTO ZOMBIES AND FIGHTING ASH," I'd say.

"Huh." They'd say.

I also read Wanted, another graphic novel on which the movie of the same name is apparently based. It was dumb. It was about super villains, having beaten all of the super heroes years ago, squabbling amongst themselves. Very well drawn, but generally pointless.

Of Fire and Night is the fifth book in the Saga of the Seven Suns, which means anything I say about it will spoil the former books. I enjoyed it more than the fourth, though, I think because I left more time in between. Things happened. New enemies surface. It seems that, after the third book in the series, every faction must be fighting at least four other factions simultaneously, so if one faction is defeated or reaches a truce with one or two of the other factions, a new faction must spring up. Remains good sci-fi, though suffers from a bit too much summarization.

Hercule Poirot has always been my favorite detective of the murder variety, though I was pretty sure I'd read all of his mysteries years ago (this is Agatha Christie, by the way). When I found a pile at a garage sale, I took them gleefully home, hoping that I'd forgotten who the murderers were in the intervening 14 years. The first book, of which I had no recollection, was Poirot Loses a Client. Though I did not remember, at any point, having read it before, I did figure out who the murderer was a disappointing thirty pages from the end. It was, nevertheless, enjoyable, with Poirot being his usual condescending Belgian self and Hastings being HIS usual stupid Briton. It never fails to boggle the mind how Hastings can be all irritated with Poirot one moment for not being a "proper detective" who wears disguises and sneaks about on dark nights, and then will switch to being irritated with Poirot for listening at a keyhole because it isn't NICE. Stupid Hastings.

48/75

I promise I'll be back to my bubbly self in time for my next update. Please excuse my crankiness.

Book#7 Original Sin by P.D. James

I hardly read any detective stories or murder mysteries anymore as they seem the same to me. And I guess this was not so different. Only the style of language was not so common for the murder mysteries I have read so far. It took me quite a few pages to realize what deacade we are on as the style of the writing was more early 1900 than the 90's.

I was little dissapointed in the end as the motive for murder was a bit irrelevant to the story itself. Also I found some characters like Mandy a bit too loose for the story. The book starts we her, but in the end she is just outsider and not at all relevant to the plot.

So I guess if you like this style and murder mystery, this book is worth the time. I am not very inclined to read more of P.D. James.

Book 69: The Pale Blue Eye: A Story of Murder..
Author: Louis Bayard, 2006.
Genre: Historical Murder Mystery. (19th Century).
Other details: 432 pages.

"April 19, 1831. In two or three hours, I'll be dead."

So opens the last testament of Augustus Landor, a retired New York police constable. With his wife passed away and daughter having run off with a man, Landor now lives on the Hudson River close to West Point Academy. One day he is summoned to the academy by Superintendent Thayer who asks him to investigate a death by hanging on the grounds. While it is considered a suicide, the cadet's body was mutilated after death and his heart cut out. Landor is to be assigned a cadet as his inside source into the closed world of the academy. He asks for Cadet Edgar Allen Poe, who had impressed him when they met briefly earlier. The two work together on the investigation and forge a friendship. There are further incidents in the area that suggest a satanic cult may be responsible. The case is further complicated by Poe's romantic attachment to the sister of a suspect.

I recently read Poe: A Life Cut Short by Peter Ackroyd and intended to read this mystery at the same time but got distracted. Still that foray into the details of Poe's life and personality helped me to appreciate how well crafted Bayard's fictionalised account of Poe's short time at West Point is. Aside from an intriguing mystery, Bayard does a superb job of capturing the prose of the period and weaving in Gothic details that offer a fictional solution for Poe's literary inspirations. While I found the opening chapters a little stodgy once I got used to the faux 19th century style and Poe made his appearance as Landor's assistant things took off and I found it very hard to put down. This was another murder mystery with some amazing twists and turns that kept me guessing to the end.

34. Revelation, by C. J. Sansom. 546 pages. (2008)

Grade: A-

It is the spring of 1543, and London lawyer Matthew Shardlake is trying to keep a client in Bedlam (the hospital for the insane), as the alternative may be burning him as a heretic. The Bishop of London is on a crusade against "reformers," the Lutherans and proto-Puritans who seem to make up half the city. Archbishop Cranmer is afraid that he might "fall" from Henry VIII's favor, possibly to his death.

Oh yes, and there's a serial killer on the loose - one with a real thing for the book of Revelation.

Great book, excellent series.

Book 68: Dissolution.
Author: C. J. Sansom, 2003.
Genre: Historical Murder Mystery (16th Century).
Other Details: 456 pages.

I always enjoy finding a good writer whose work I haven't encountered before and Dissolution was a double treat as it is set during the Tudor era, a time period I have always been very interested in. This first novel is set in 1537 during the time of the dissolution of the monasteries after Henry VIII had declared himself Supreme Head of the Church. At the monastery of Scarnsea on the Sussex coast Robin Singleton, the commissioner appointed by Thomas Cromwell to investigate this particular monastery, has been found beheaded. The same night the high altar of the church has also been desecrated and an important holy relic stolen. Matthew Shardlake, lawyer, hunchback and long-time supporter of Reform, is sent by Cromwell to investigate the murder and to continue Singleton's task. Matthew is accompanied by his young assistant Mark Poer, who is currently in disgrace after a dalliance with one of the ladies of the court. As winter sets in the claustrophobic atmosphere of the monastery is heightened and as often is the case in whodunits there are further deaths.

Sansom has done a brilliant job of capturing the atmosphere of the period and it came as no surprise to discover he has a PhD in history. While that alone is no guarantee of a good storyteller it does mean there is a great deal of historical accuracy in the presentation. Happily Sansom is also a good storyteller and in Matthew Shardlake has created a very likeable character. Shardlake is deeply idealistic and also finds the memory of witnessing Queen Anne Boleyn's execution the previous year continues to haunt him.

This is the first in a series of historical mystery novels featuring Matthew Shardlake which makes me very happy. I was also delighted to read that the BBC has an adaptation of Dissolution in development. What a perfect way to re-cycle the costumes from The Tudors!

Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Bill Bryson
Pages: 574
Genre: Non-fiction

Summary:
What on earth is Bill Bryson doing writing a book of popular science--A Short History of Almost Everything? Largely, it appears, because this inquisitive, much-travelled writer realised, while flying over the Pacific, that he was entirely ignorant of the processes that created, populated and continue to maintain the vast body of water beneath him. His investigations deal with seven topics, all of enormous interest and significance: the origins of the universe; the gradual historical discovery of the size and age of the earth (and the beginnings of the awesome notion of deep time); relativity and quantum theory; the present and future threats to life and the planet; the origins and history of life (dinosaurs, mass extinctions and all); and the evolution of man.

My Thoughts:
This was fantastic. I know some it's probably out of date now, as it was written in 2003ish, but none the less it was absolutly fascinating. Stuff that I was never the remotest bit interested in - physics, chemistry, geology [don't even get me started on that one], he made seem the most interesting subject ever. Definaetly reccommend this one!

I'm going to cheat and do 4 books in one here, cause I'm lazy.
Title: The Magic In The Weaving; The Power In The Storm; The Fire In The Forging; The Healing In The Vine
Author: Tamora Pierce
Pages: 820 collectivly, about 200 each separatly.
Genre: Fantasy

Summary:
4 children who don't know they have magic are brought to the Winding Circle by Niklaren Goldeye to be trained. The stories follow each of them as they battle earthquakes, pirates, forest fires and a new disease together.

My Thoughts:
I love everything by Tamora. I love her writing and her characters. These have always been my least favourite but I still like them a lot, haha.

Title: The Shakespeare Secret
Author: JL Carrell
Pages: 480
Genre: Fiction/historical. Maybe?

Summary:
A woman is left to die in a burning theatre. Another woman is drowned like Ophelia, skirts swirling in the water. A doctor has his throat slashed open on the steps of Washington's Capitol building.
A deadly serial killer is on the loose, modelling his sickening murders on Shakespeare's plays. But why is he killing? And how can he be stopped?

My Thoughts:
This was a radom impulse buy from Tesco's 2-for-£7 offer to make up the two books. The BEST impulse buy have got for quite a long time! I LOVED this book. At the moment I want to know as much as I can about Shakespeare, and I love books like this that weave in history with an interesting story, as I get bored to quickly with textbook-types! I guessed one of the plottwists fairly early on in the book, but the other one took me by suprise. As it as supposed to I guess! Read this book!

( This years books )

Total Books: 39
Total Pages: 14, 751
Currently Reading: Nothing
Next Up: Not sure yet

I want your reccommendations for books about Shakespeare please!
I've already read Bill Bryson's, but anything else! Fiction or non-fiction, doesn't matter, just so long it's a good read!

THE ABORTIONIST'S DAUGHTER
Elisabeth Hyde
285 pages.



This is a murder mystery. Who killed the "baby-killer" in town? It wasn't totally predictable, but a lot of sections were. Also, the author's moral values were clear throughout the book. Although it was clear that bad decisions often led to bad consequences, the decisions seemed to be endorsed by our omniscient narrator. I enjoyed the book - the mystery was in my head for most of the day when I read it - but some of it bothered me. It's not a must-read, but it's not a bad book, either.

Books: 3/50 - 6%
Pages: 1,206/15,000 - 8.04%

Next up: ???

( List )

32. The Queen's Man, by Sharon Kay Penman. 270 pages. (1996)

Grade: B

In the winter of 1192-1193, Justin de Quincey is nearly robbed and murdered on the road from Winchester to London, and becomes the recipient of a blood-stained letter to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Intrigue and murder follow.

A nice historical mystery. My only real complaint was that it was too short.

 

12 / 50 (24.0%)

I have to be forgetting a book or two, it's been so long since I updated. I'll check my stack when I get home and add any stragglers later.

Book #5 was An Instance of the Fingerpost by Ian Pears

From the Publisher:
We are in Oxford in the 1660s - a time, and place, of great intellectual, scientific, religious and political ferment. Robert Grove, a fellow of New College is found dead in suspicious circumstances. A young woman is accused of his murder. We hear about the events surrounding his death from four witnesses: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion; Jack Prescott, the son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause determined to vindicate his father; John Wallis, chief cryptographer to both Cromwell and Charles II, a mathematician, theologican and inveterate plotter; and Anthony Wood, the famous Oxford antiquary. Each witness tells their version of what happened. Only one reveals the extraordinary truth.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is a magnificent tour de force: an utterly compelling historical mystery story with a plot that twists and turns and keeps the reader guessing until the very last page


Book #6 was Wrestling with the Angel: Faith and Religion in the Lives of Gay Men, edited by Brian Bouldrey

From the publisher:

In Wrestling with the Angel, twenty-one authors - gay men who are Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, and Mormon - explore in moving and powerful essays the paradox at the center of their faiths: If God creates each of us in His own image, then how can that image be "wrong"? In vivid descriptions of their paths toward spiritual and sexual identity, such eloquent contributors as David Plante, Mark Doty, Lev Raphael, Alfred Corn, Andrew Holleran, Frank Browning, Michael Nava, Brad Gooch, Fenton Johnson, and Felice Picano reveal the joys and frustrations of communicating with one's excommunicator or, in some cases, of constructing a faith of one's own. Heightened by the urgency of this brutal age of AIDS, their essays are both intensely personal and partisan. They rise off the page like rambunctious prayers, reflecting not only the spiritual hunger brought on by the new millennium, but also the fact that we can no more choose our God than we can our sexuality. 

Book #7 was Tales of the Lavender Menace : A Memior of Liberation by Karla Jay

From the Publishers Weekly:

Jay writes with wry humor and astute historical analysis in this memoir of her early days as a feminist and gay liberation activist. Currently the director of women's and gender studies and professor of English at Pace University, she was raised in a middle-class Brooklyn home by an emotionally disturbed mother and a father who didn't believe she was his daughter. Jay's political life began in 1964 when she entered Barnard College; by 1969 she was a member of the Redstockings radical feminist collective and a leader in the newly formed Gay Liberation Front. With a canny eye for detail, she creates a vivid, realistic portrait of early 1970s feminist and sexual radicalism, from communal living to group sex to the watershed feminist protest in the offices of Ladies' Home Journal. She charts how women's and gay liberation were made possible by the black civil rights and antiwar movements and is careful not to idealize or whitewash complex, sometimes petty and factional, political struggles, while clearly expressing the joy and excitement she felt in the moment. Nor does she hesitate to contradict the memoirs of luminaries such as Rita Mae Brown and Betty Friedan, taking them to task for what she considers historical misrepresentation. Jay has turned out a political and personal memoir that succeeds in its aim to convey "what it was like to live then and what some of us did to forge social change." Photos not seen by PW. 


Book #8 was Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present by Lillian Faderman

From Amazon.com:

First published in 1981, this feminist classic began modestly as an academic essay on Emily Dickinson's love poems and letters to her future sister-in-law, Sue Gilbert. In her original introduction, Faderman recalled her surprise at finding these records of an erotic attachment between women that showed no evidence of guilt, anxiety, or the need for secrecy. Yet 60 or 70 years after they were written, the original letters had been bowdlerized by a niece of Dickinson's, who clearly found them too shocking for publication. Why, Faderman wondered, was passionate love between women, once almost universally applauded in the Western world, now almost universally condemned? She learned that the love between Dickinson and Gilbert had many precedents, and that it was only in the late 19th century that medical literature and antifeminism combined to rank women who loved women "somewhere," as she puts it bluntly, "between necrophiliacs and those who had sex with chickens." For this new edition, Faderman explains that she has resisted the urge to update her text, hoping that her exploration of romantic friendship, from French libertine literature through the dawn of feminism through the lesbian panic of the 1920s will still serve as "solace and ammunition" for those hoping to find "a usable past.


Book #9 was Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Divine Feminine by Sue Monk Kidd

From Amazon.com:

The author's journey to capture her feminine soul and to live authentically from that soul makes a fascinating, well-researched and well-written story. Kidd's successful pilgrimage from her Southern Baptist roots and away from the patriarchal and fundamentalist Christian religious systems surrounding her is an account of anger turned to courage, creativity and love. A mid-career realization that she had lived without "real inner authority" and with "a fear of dissension, confrontation, backlash, a fear of not pleasing, not living up to sanctioned models of femininity" produced in Kidd the new mindset that made her journey possible. Additionally, her extensive knowledge of many subjects, including theology, mythology and the arts, made possible the copious references and cross-references that will prove invaluable for readers who wish to follow her in this same search. While Kidd cautions that each woman's path will be unique, there is no question but that many women will find in her book a mirror of their own present conditions and a hopeful call to self-discovery


Book #10 was Standing at Water's Edge: Moving Past Fear, Blocks, and Pitfalls to Discover the Power of Creative Immersion by Ann Paris

From Amazon.com

UK Title

Book 58: The Shakespeare Secret (US Title: Interred with Their Bones).
Author: J.L. Carrell, 2007.
Genre: Literary Murder Mystery, Conspiracy Thriller.
Other Details: 480 pages.

Well it sounds a jolly good premise doesn't it? A young woman becomes involved in a quest to find one of the lost plays of Shakespeare while an unknown baddie also on the trail of the play racks up an impressible body count modelling these on deaths from the plays of Shakespeare. Sort of Theatre of Blood meets The Da Vinci Code with hefty dollops of Shakespearian material thrown in for good measure. The author is a Shakespearian scholar and that aspect of the novel is very well presented as she integrates an impressive amount of material into the text about Shakespeare, Shakespearian scholarship and the various 'who wrote Shakespeare?' debates that exist. If only she could write fiction!

USA Title

The main problem is that her heroine, Katherine (Kate) Stanley, is a Mary Sue of the first order. A beautiful, brilliant American Shakespearian scholar, the opening sees her directing a new production of Hamlet at the Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London. Her former Harvard mentor, Rosalind Howard, comes to visit her with the enticement of an adventure to unearth a secret linked to Shakespeare. Kate isn't tempted because after all she is directing at the Globe though later the same day someone decides to burn down the Globe on the anniversary of the original theatre's 1613 fire and murder Roz to boot in the style of Hamlet's father. Suddenly Kate's diary is cleared to run off around the world on this adventure based on a slight clue left her by Roz. She sheds nary a tear shed over this death and is unwilling to talk to the pesky police investigating the crime. The lack of affect over this and other deaths bothered me though I'll be kind and give that Kate may have been in a state of perpetual shock.

There also seems nothing that Kate can't do and she also seems to be able to live on air with no sleep. I understand the need to convey a sense of urgency but this frantic bouncing from place to place began to get wearing. The scene that had me ready to say 'this is a silly book' had Kate driving a car in the middle of the night on a road that "had shrunk to a narrow ledge clinging high on a mountainside." If this wasn't hair-raising enough Kate is driving with the headlights off in case they were being followed and very fast because they only have a few hours to get to their destination. OK, possible but then incredulity was further strained by Kate and her passenger having an intellectual discussion about the lost play. Kate even starts visualising images from a poem as he reads aloud from his laptop. I was expecting a plunge down the mountainside any second.

( Then there are the murders (no spoiler for whodunit just my frustration) ) The book concludes with an author's note that gives details on how she came to write the novel as well as where she modified historical personages and places to suit the narrative.

I was so hoping this novel would be more, which is why I felt disappointed by it. I am glad I read it for the Shakespearian aspects which I couldn't fault. Yet although the background and overall premise of the book was very good, I felt it was seriously let down by weak characterisation in main and supporting characters and sequences that just didn't work for me as noted above. The frustrating thing was that the feeling that this could have been an excellent thriller and there were times when it was obvious this was trying to break through. Still it's topped best-seller lists and gained quite a number of good reviews though someone should advise Carrell that quoting a rave review from the UK's tabloid The Daily Sport on her MySpace page isn't really a point in the book's favour. I also read there that the success of the first book means that Kate Stanley will be returning in a sequel. Even with all the above snark I probably will read it for the Shakespearean bits alone. Plus, as I've noted before the occasional 'so bad that it's good' book or movie can be fun in their own way.

Interestingly after I spoke about this book at my local library reading group, one of the members came up to me afterwards and waved a copy of Michael Gruber's The Book of Air and Shadows under my nose asking 'seem familiar?'. From the blurb it is another recently published book with a premise that echoes The Shakespeare Secret in combining a Da Vinci Code-style thriller with Shakespeare. I shall be reporting on it in due course.

Title: Death in Holy Orders
Author: P.D. James
Pages: 429
Rating: 3/5

From the back of the book: On the East Anglican seacoast a small theological college hangs precariously on an eroding shoreline and an equally precarious future. Then, the body of a student is found buried in the sand, and the boy's influential father demands that Scotland Yard investigate. Adam Dalgliesh, the son of a parson, once spent happy summers at the school. A detective who loves poetry, a man who has known loss and discovery, Dalgliesh is the perfect candidate to look for the truth in a remote, rarified community of the faithful - and the frightened. For when one death leads to another, Dalgliesh finds himself steeped in a world of good and evil, of stifled passions and hidden pasts, where someone has cause not just to commit one crime, but begin an unholy order of murder...

My thoughts: I'm still not sure how I feel about this book. It was interesting, and I wasn't ever really bored with it. It was a good storyline, though I feel it lacked that "aha!" moment where everything suddenly came together for me. I found the priests (most of them) to be lovable old men, caught up in events that they couldn't possibly have foreseen. I honestly didn't care about ANY of the students at the school, and none of the deaths made me sad. I was struck by the callousness of a couple of the characters - their utter dismissal of the faith, and of the lives that the faithful had chosen. In their minds, that wasn't important, and wasn't to be respected. They saw them as foolish choices of vocation and a waste of time. But I guess that just showed what little heart they had - because if you care about someone, you don't dismiss something that encompasses their entire life. So...it was an interesting murder mystery, but there were no real shockers for me. The end picked up when all the loose ends were being tied up, but I also found the little bit of romance at the end a little forced. I mean, I could see it coming, but I didn't really think there was enough character interaction in the book to warrant it.

Book #39 -- Peter Abrahams, Delusion, 297 pages.

An interesting murder mystery in that it is told from the point of view of a small town housewife who is becoming increasingly convinced that people she knows and loves are involved in the crime. As such, she doesn't really *want* to know, but can't seem to help herself from digging deeper. This results both in some very interesting effects as well as a certain amount of frustration when what is going on becomes obvious to the reader, but the narrator is still floundering around because of her unwillingness to believe that the people she has known for 20 years could possibly do such a thing.

Progress toward goals: 127/366 = 35.0%

Books: 39/150 = 26.0%

Pages: 11244/50000 = 22.5%

2008 Book List

cross-posted to 15000pages, 50bookchallenge, and gwynraven

28. Deadly Decisions, by Kathy Reichs. 368 pages. (2000)

Grade: B

Dr. Tempe Brennan gets involved in a war between rival motorcycle gangs in Montreal, after one of their collateral victims (a nine-year-old girl going to her ballet lesson) ends up on her autopsy table.

I liked this one better than Deja Dead, and about as much as the other two I've read.

26. Death du Jour, by Kathy Reichs. 451 pages. (1999)

Grade: B

Dr. Tempe Brennan is attempting to locate the remains of a 19th-century Canadian nun, currently being pushed for sainthood by her order, when she is interrupted by the news of a horrifying house fire with several corpses.

I enjoyed this one.

25. Deja Dead, by Kathy Reichs. 532 pages. (1997)

Grade: B

The first book in the Temperance Brennan series (on which the TV series "Bones" is based). Dr. Brennan is spending a whole year in Montreal for the first time, her daughter wants to drop out of school, and she thinks she has a serial killer on her hands.

I liked this one, but not quite as much as Bare Bones.

19. Murder in the North End, by P. B. Ryan. 278 pages. (2006)

Grade: B-

Set in 1870 Boston.

I think I would have rated this one higher if I had read the earlier books in the series ("Gilded Age Mysteries"), as I believe this is the sixth, and makes many references to events in books in the series I haven't read. Still fun, and a nice period atmosphere.

I think this might be Linda Greenlaw's first foray into fiction. I read her Hungry Ocean and went to a book signing for Lobster Chronicles, so when my mother-in-law got Slipknot as a Christmas present. (with a note from my aunt warning her it was fiction, in case she couldn't read the front of the book which is clearly labeled "Novel."

( Oh yeah, the story )

[Books 1-4]
[Books 5-7]
8. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
9. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
10. Doctor Who 5: Only Human by Gareth Roberts
11. Persuasion by Jane Austen (Audiobook)
12. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

First things first - HAPPY EASTER! :)

( Cut for potential spoilers )