Thoughtful, character-driven mystery
596940
Many people who live in big cities have fantasies of moving to rural areas, with their close-knit communities, serene countryside, and charming eccentric characters. But in this excellent mystery set in the mountains of North Carolina in the 1980s, things go off the rails rather quickly for Della Kincaida former D. C. reporter who buys a country store. She discovers a dead young woman in the woods and doesnt for a minute buy the finding of suicide. Her friend and helper is a mentally challenged teenager named Abit, who is much wiser than he seems. We proceed with their voices interwoven, in first persona smart and effective choice on the authors part.

The mystery itself unfolds at a deliberate pace, as Della works her way through the clues. Theres a grace and thoughtfulness here thats rare in genre mysterymade vivid by Lynda McDaniels assured writing style. This story stops often to enjoy the scenery and the good things in life. It could almost be a cozygiven its perquisitesbut its serious air moves it away from that style.

If thoughtful, character-driven mystery is your cup of tea, don't miss A Life for a Life. I know that I enjoyed the heck out of it.
2502436
Tenzing Norbu (nickname Ten) is the most engaging detective I've discovered in many years of mystery reading. The offspring of a Tibetan Buddhist monk and a bohemian American seeking enlightenment, Ten became a LAPD homicide detective before striking off as a private detective. The tension between his Buddhist values and his profession make this a psychologically rich narrative but not at the expense of plot. The characters are quirky but believable. The mystery is multilayered and intriguing--more than one bad guy deserves his comeuppance!  Kudos to the author for the invention of the character of Ten, the setting in LA, and the texturing of a contemporary story well told.
4854536
This was a well-told mystery with everything mystery-lovers look for and more. I especially appreciated the nuggets of insight into the well-drawn characters in particular and the human condition in general. Will definitely look for more by this author in the future.
4460816
Watson artfully crafts a thoughtful yet suspenseful narrative. The protagonist is fleshed out beautifully: flawed, yet sympathetic. The novel addresses how precarious written knowledge--especially knowledge concerning someone's life--can be.
3233003
Good things about this book:  1) Its a well-plotted mystery, with capably planted clues, red herrings, and suspense. At all times I wanted to keep reading to see whodunnit. 2) The quilting tips and food recipes are genuine and inspiring! 3) For a short book, theres a full cast of characters that could have made the action confusing but did not. Each was handled deftly and distinctly. 4) Its clean:  no sex, no cusswords, and respect paid to God, church, and Bible reading.
What Id like to see improved:  Even a mystery can be realistic. These characters don't seem to be quite real; we don't really get under their skins. Theyre all sweetness, generosity, and even temper whereas churched folks Ive encountered over seven decades have been pretty much as faulty and conflicted as anyone. The characters problems are external, mostly caused by other people, so our protagonists don't seem to learn, grow, or change from Ch 1 to Ch 19. Indeed, the most interesting figures are the villains, although they change mostly by deciding not to get divorced as if divorce were the ultimate excuse and tragedy and not a survivable experience undergone by fully half of all readers.
4486184
I do love a mystery! And I jump at every chance to review them. Lion Hudson is one of my go-to publishers for British mysteries; they are located in England. When The Cantaloupe Thief came across my email, I was intrigued. Here was a British published novel written by an American and set in the American South. Hmm. I had to check it out. What I found was a well-written page turner with heart and soul. With its setting within a homeless community and its characters real and relatable, not stereotypes, The Cantaloupe Thief is a recommended read.

Forty-something Branigan Powers is finally at home on the family farm in northeast Georgia. Her stint as a reporter in Detroit solidified her desire to live where she grew up.  As a journalist with the local paper, Branigan is assigned the 10 year old murder case of the wealthy Alberta Resnick. The only unsolved murder in Grambling history, the case is a tangle of suspects and motives that leaves Branigan wondering just what was at its heart.

The Cantaloupe Thief is a classic mystery  a puzzling crime, multiple suspects and motives, and a determined and intrepid sleuth. I enjoyed all of that immensely. It also has a unique setting and supporting cast of characters. Unique due to the homeless aspect. Richardson-Moore is intimately familiar with the struggles of homelessness. She knows the inside story and she uses it with great effect in her debut novel. Each character is fleshed out, becoming not just a face, but a person with lost dreams and demons. In a world where we turn our faces from the homeless around us, preferring to believe they don't exist, Richardson-Moore makes the reader really look into the faces and hearts of that world. While I really liked main character Branigan, the character of Malachi Martin is compelling. Here is an invisible man, a homeless veteran who makes it his business to puzzle out the mystery. The depth of his thoughts and feelings are wonderful to behold. The author also doesnt shy away from the effects of mental illness and drug abuse in the homeless community. The mystery is finally solved with a big surprise I didn't see coming (thats a big plus with me), but I hope the stories continue.

It should be noted that The Cantaloupe Thief, while a christian novel, contains elements that some may find offensive  mild language and alcohol use. I found these things natural within the context of the novel, and they do not keep me from recommending this book.

Recommended.

Audience: adults.

(Thanks to Kregel and Lion Hudson for a review copy. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)
3441362
What a great mystery!  This book is a delight to read.  The writing style is taut and crisp, the characters (especially Peter Zak)multidimensional, and the theme profound. To what extent can we trust memories? With what confidence can someone (especially someone who has been hit in the head!) be trusted to recollect critical events? This psychological question is explored in a wonderful setting (Boston is the place, and it is beautifully described!). I really enjoyed some of the details of how psychological evaluations are conducted. Peter Zak shares with readers his myriad interests,such as Mission furniture,pottery and rowing on the Charles River. You can't put thjis book down!  If you arelooking for a fun mystery, with an interesting and engaging main character,acolorful setting and a thought-provoking theme - this is it. It would be great to discuss in book clubs.  I understand that anotherPeter Zak mystery is in the works (check the web site) and can't wait to read it!
1781865
The White Magic Five & Dime by Steve Hockensmith with Lisa Falco
The First Tarot Mystery

Alanis McLachland receives a phone call regarding her mother, the mother she hasn't had contact with in twenty years, the mother who has just been murdered. Alanis travels to Berdache, Arizona to deal with the resolution of her mother's remains and receive her inheritance (the White Magic Five and Dime- a new age store offering tarot readings) and perhaps search out justice. In so doing she encounters a threatening bailbondsman, a sullen teenager, a good looking cop, and the realization that all is not what it seems.

The White Magic Five & Dime is called a cozy and although it meets the general requirements (an amateur sleuth, small town environment-or neighborhood in big city, no graphic violence or sex) I would not classify it as a cozy. There is a tone to it; a grittiness, a harshness. This book is not a feel good story, the setting, not a place you'd like to hang out. You may be curious to visit, but I'm not sure you'd like to stay. However, while I find I can't call it a cozy, I certainly can call it a good mystery.

Alanis McLachland is not your typical heroine. She's brash, cynical, and jaded; not surprising given her upbringing. Periodically, throughout the book the authors take us back in time to see pivotal moments in her youth. We begin to understand her actions and her personality. These flashbacks give reason and show that behind the tough, non-caring exterior is a woman who does feel and ultimately does care.

Also interspersed throughout are images of tarot cards with the meanings as given by Miss Chance from the book, Infinite Roads to Knowing, the book Alanis has chosen to learn the tarot and her mother's latest con. I thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of the book as I also enjoyed the realization that while some tarot readers may be con artists the cards themselves can hold many truths.

Enter the White Magic Five & Dime with an open mind and no preconceived notions and you'll find an intriguing mystery you can enjoy.
3936523
Review: EMPTY NEST by Marty Wingate (A Birds of a Feather Mystery)

EMPTY NEST is riveting! So much so, I recommend setting aside a block of time to read it start to finish--you won't want to stop before the end. I certainly didn't. As a cozy, you're not going to get gore nor gritty, but you certainly will find plenty of mystery, plenty of genuine recognizable human emotions, plenty of twists, and a surprising and precarious denouement (precarious for the protagonist). Accomplished author Marty Wingate provides a self-aware narrator who is not afraid to analyze her own character and to examine her own emotions, and due to this, the first person narrative is lively and fitting.

Julia Lanchester, daughter of celebrity bird watching expert Rupert Lanchester, is employed as director of the Tourist Information Center in a small Sussex village. Temporarily housed at the manor till mold in her antique cottage is eradicated, Julia becomes part of the scene, although neither quite family or staff. But the return of the heir precipitates a death, Julia is keen to uncover facts, while simultaneously coping with a distance relationship and her own fear of commitment.

The author generously provided a review digital ARC via NetGalley, At no remuneration.
405243
satisfying mystery, with good twists and turns...I recommend it
300486
From the opening words of the novel, "Leave No Footprints" sets up a mystery that grabs your attention and keeps you turning each page.  But a single mystery isn't enough for author J.D. Shaw:  while you're trying to figure out exactly who protagonist Beth is and what she's running from, you find yourself swiftly and skillfully drawn into the mysteries in which Beth finds herself unwillingly caught up once she arrives in the beautiful, seemingly idyllic, summer resort town of Beaumont.

In the hands of a less-skillful author, the competing mysteries would be jarring, distracting from each other, lessening the over-all tension.  Not so in "Leave no Footprints" where the mysteries serve to complement each other, instead.  There are a number of characters and situations in the book that could be trite or by-the-numbers, and each time Shaw manages to pull off the unexpected, subverting your expectations and giving a fresh, original spin to the material.

I agree with other reviewers who have said the book can hold an adult's interest, as well.  Mystery fans will find much to enjoy, here.

There is one problem, minor though it is.  The book is too short.  Never mind that it is close to 500 pages.  Those pages fairly fly by, and you are left wanting more.  I would have loved one more scene between the primary romantic pairing, and a longer explication in the closing pages to explore more completely the motives of the villain, whose menace is palpable on every page.  And while the mystery of Beth's identity is solved in one way, in another, that solution sets up another puzzle that I really wish the author had spent a few pages in an epilogue solving.  In the scheme of things, those are small quibbles.

"Leave No Footprints" is an engaging read that you won't soon forget.
2164140
This was a great, gentle read. I especially loved the character and story development. I do not often read mysteries, but I enjoyed this one immensely. The foibles of human nature can often complicate our lives and the lives of others as this mystery so aptly demonstrates. If you are looking for a mystery that is both engaging and relaxing, this is the book for you.
2976570
This mystery is satisfying in so many respects,  Yes, it's a very satisfactory who-done-it driven by complex characters. But it also provides a setting that is so well realized, I found myself back on Florida's "Redneck Riviera," an area I have not visited in many years.  Functioning as an undercurrent -- though not a distraction -- is the community's anxiety over the effects of the BP oil spill.  Larue Panther's family is represented through the layers of four generations, a device that coaxes out the complexity of the family's relation to place.  Larue's loyal friends, Laura and Madonna, provide moral support and humor. And I haven't even mentioned the love interest yet.
  Larue's stubborn instance on clearing her name of unjustified accusations puts her in jeopardy more than once and "Cutting Loose" becomes a real page-turner.  I am eager for a sequel.
3066880
(The author kindly sent me a copy of this book.  I've followed Sally Wright for several years and would have read her newest book and reviewed it at five times the price.)

Behind the Bonehouse is a mystery, pitting good against evil on a very human scale.  As a mystery it is completely successful,  even to the extent that it contains a twist I've never seen before.  There are conflict, good and bad guys, a puzzle, and a tense climax.  The reader knows who the bad guys are, almost from the start.  This suggests that Sally Wright's main purpose is something besides the mechanics of a mystery.  As successful a mystery as Behind the Bonehouse is, it's the good against evil and the very human scale that distinguish it as a novel.

Characters, the family, family-owned businesses, and our culture are at the heart of Behind the Bonehouse.  From her first novel, Publish and Perish, Sally Wright has focused on, and excelled at, character development.  Her books are dramatic in the oldest sense: the action seems to result not from the will of the writer but as an inevitable result of the nature and choices of the characters.  In this respect, Wright is in the tradition ranging from Sophocles, to Shakespeare, and beyond.  In Behind the Bonehouse, even the most incidental of characters is given a memorable identity.  (Jo Grant's horse and dog are invested with personality and character.  They provide Jo with comfort and affection, and she takes strength from their uncomplaining endurance of physical distress.)  Wright's characters are part of equally believable families.  These families experience loss, success, and failure.  They are involved in three businesses in bluegrass Kentucky: a developer, manufacturer, and distributor of pharmaceuticals for horses; a builder of horse trailers; and a horse farm for brood mares.  Finally, the book shows us the larger community, with law enforcement and the mass media playing essential parts.  Thus, Wright gives us a believable microcosm of our culture.  The warp and woof of America is the matrix within which the action takes place.  Within that matrix some characters think of others before themselves, while some are self absorbed, self deluding, and self serving.  As in real life, the latter are the source of trouble.  So, while Behind the Bonehouse is a mystery, I think Wright has two major concerns beyond writing a good mystery.  She shows us how characters who are absorbed with self are the fertile ground in which evil sprouts and almost strangles good.  And she makes the resulting conflict (mystery) grow and spread through a recognizable society, ours.

The centrality of family businesses in this book deserves further comment.  Sally Wright has said that no American writer has dealt with America's primary engine, business, as a positive force and an honorable callingor, to borrow Wright's word, a cause.  We hear or read about malfeasance in business all the time.  But what about all the people who apply their gifts to an enterprise with an honest and useful product and the good of their workers and communities at heart?  We know these people exist and are unsung; Wright makes them her protagonists.

I hope it's clear that I love this book.  It is rich in the qualities of good literature while providing a cracking good mystery. The writing is never overwrought, but there are phrases and sentences that almost take the breath away.  William Kent Krueger uses words like elegant and graceful to describe Sally Wright's prose, and Krueger is no mean stylist, himself.  I'm not enough of a literary critic to say that Wright is inventing a sub-genre; yet that may just be the case.  Her rich invention of characters, families, businesses, and communitya milieu in which bad things happen to good peoplemakes fascinating and rewarding reading.

Very highly recommended
John
2188843
I love a mystery story that turns corners without warning; raises puzzles and speculations with each turn; and resolves explosively by exposing the cryptic clues.  This is a captivating mystery for your enjoyment, filled with frames of observational acuity and intriguing detail by the author, and markedly current.  The modern political scene is the context, contrasting decay vs. vision from the most local to the most national and universal.  The central character is a journalist, thoroughly human and perceptive.  She goes turn by turn from a personal commitment to her father on his deathbed, into a whirlwind of intrigue and conflict.  Even a vision of an idealized world is contrasted to reality.  I couldn't resist reading-on to the last.
3735145
Fun, thoughtful characters with great world-building.
3877477
Under the guise of the cozy mystery, the unfolding life of Chief Inspector Gamache and the characters he encounters provide the author a way to communicate about life, death and the choices made in the space between. Ms. Penny has a gift for illuminating the way choices made under duress define a life. The murders that structure the books are solved by understanding the relationships or isolation of the people involved. Since many of the murders in this series take place in the Canadian village of Three Pines, we readers get to know an array of characters both from the village and the law enforcement community. Representing good and evil and the vast array of complexity existing in between the inhabitants of these books reflect tolerance and intolerance. They talk about art, music, food, sports, religion and curruption and reflect on matters philosophical. Particularly moving to me is the ongoing meditation on art and genius that surrounds a women named Clara who in the previous installment of the series is is shown struggling with her artistic muse. In this tale Clara is shown wrestling with her artistic vision with growing clarity. The focus on art is a theme that occurs in Penny's first mystery "Still Life" and runs throughout the series providing context for an ongoing examination on the nature of perception. Also ongoing is the fallout on Gamache his colleagues and family from a past case combating corruption in in the law enforcement community.
This specific mystery deals with the bizarre death of an exceptionally unpleasant person. What sets Louise Penny apart in her genre is everything she allows us to contemplate along the way. I highly recommend this series.