Book 12: Split

My latest book was the final Tara Moss that I had not previously read. It is the second in the Makedde Vanderwall series and filled in a few gaps for me that were referred to in later books. This books takes Mak back to Vancouver where she is still doing a bit of modelling and photo shots but essentially using the work to pay for her Ph.D. studies in forensic psychology. Needless to say she comes in contact with a psychopath again - though it is not what you first think!

It took me a while to get into this title and think that maybe it is not her best and a bit pedestrian in places. However, once I got into it the tension built and I found the need not to put it down until I finished! So I look forward to her next one which she says is finished!

Song for Library Lovers Day

Today is Library Lovers' Day so great day to watch and listen to LibrarianIdol's song!

Book 11: Strangers in company

The latest book I completed is also an old favourite cosy thriller, Strangers in company by Jane Aiken Hodge which appeared as the paperback above and also in a Hodder hardback. Jane Aiken Hodge, sister of children's author Joan Aiken, was a prolific writer of historical and contemporary thrillers who died in 2009. You can read about her in the Wikipedia article or on Goodreads. I also regularly reread her Private life of Georgette Heyer which is a great book about one of my all time favourite authors. Hmm maybe that's another I could read soon?

Strangers in company wasn't written as an historical novel though some might find it so now. It is set in the Greece of the Hounta, the Colonels' Greece, and written in 1973 contemporaneously. I lived in Greece soon after the fall of the Hounta and find it nostalgic rather than historical though many of my young friends and staff would not have been born then. I love reading fiction set in Greece and enjoy the places in which this book is set.

The story is that of Marian who embarks on a bus tour of classical Greece as the paid companion of a young woman, Stella. Marian had been feeling paranoid in London as though someone was watching her and was she ever right! I love the familiarity of Athens, Delphi, Sparta, Mycenae, Tiryns, Nafplion and other places I travelled around close to the time the book is set. I hadn't read Strangers in company for a long time but I still found it both gripping to read and comfortable to put down and take up again. I've been very tired and busy recently so it was great. Jane Aiken Hodge is a good writer who creates a great sense of place and suspense. The leadup to and scene in Mystra is a good example of this. A nice little touch is one of the characters reading My brother Michael by Mary Stewart, another novel set in Greece which I always enjoy immensely.

Book 10: Forbidden fruit

If you like cooking, cats and crime (three special things for me!), Kerry Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series is for you! Forbidden fruit (Allen & Unwin, 2009) is the fifth book in the series about Corinna, the baker and reluctant investigator, and the amazing group of people who live in her Insula in the Melbourne CBD. The book is redolent of smells of baking and other types of food and cooking and drinking and eating and I just love the cat characters, Horatio, The Mouse Police, Belladonna and the other minor cat players. The author obviously knows cats and I enjoyed finishing the last couple of chapters in bed this morning with Hecuba and Xena who had retired for post-breakfast naps. Serena the flower-selling donkey also plays quite a part in this story set in the lead-up to Christmas, as do other traditional (and nontraditional) crib animals.

The storyline may be a bit slight and I did work out part of the plot in advance, but it is a good cosy crime read set in a city I know and in places I enjoy recognizing such as the Abbotsford convent, the Collingwood Children's Farm and the old CUB site. As always with Greenwood novels, the sense of place this book conveys is an important part of my enjoyment. The scene is a sizzling Melbourne in the lead-up to Christmas: Corinna hates Christmas and the hype but carols, Christmas cooking, freegans, vegans, a crazy religious cult, gypsies and two young runaways all have a role to play as the plot unfolds and all ends happily on Christmas Day. Dion Monk is only a minor character in this book but I always savour his character and particularly the wordplay which creates his name. Vale ADP! The wordplay is such a fitting trigger to memories of one whose way with words was legendary.

And, of course, there are recipes included so you can try your skills. I always like the good press Kerry gives to public libraries and Forbidden fruit is no different. In the recipe section (p. 299) she advises: "Borrow an armload of vegie cookbooks from the library and see which one makes you hungry as you read." What great advice!

I've been slack about this series. I really enjoyed the first, Earthly delights, and loved Dion Monk there but I hadn't read any others until now when Forbidden fruit leapt out asking me to buy it while I was browsing on the Benn's Books stand at Sisters in Crime on Friday. I had better get on to the other ones and find out what some of the allusions in this one refer to. Don't be put off by that! This book forms part of a series but is perfectly able to be read as a stand alone story. Meanwhile, I have another three books to put on my "to-read" list: Heavenly pleasures, Devil's food, and Trick or treat!

Kiss of Death book trailer

Now I haven't quite read this one yet but it is on my "To read" list, particularly after seeing PD Martin at the Sisters in Crime event last night!

Book 9: The Seventh sinner

Yeah right, I am reading. I simply cannot imagine trying to live up to @ladymidnight's aim this year of 365 books! Gulp! I am up to nine and she must be well into 30s. And yes it's still a bit of the old favourites. I can't remember when I first read this Elizabeth Peters which is the first in her series about Jacqueline the librarian. I love this book - as an archaeology loving librarian - and as a mystery reader. I've been to San Clemente - not long after this book was published in 1974 - and I was living at the British School at Athens when it came out so a lot of the stuff is very familiar. I'm not going to do a spoiler and tell the story. Just note that, if you like archaeology, Rome, librarians and crime, it's a great read. There are a number of other Elizabeth Peters books which feature Jacqueline - in various guises.

When I was reading The Seventh sinner I was struck by the following statement by Jacqueline explaining why she read so many mysteries: "Detective stories are among the few types of literature you can pick up and put down a dozen times per day" (The Seventh sinner p97 ). Jacqueline was explaining how she had read them when she was working in a quiet small town US public library. I have never worked in a quiet public library nor have I ever had time to read mysteries on the job, but I do know that when I am stuffed picking up an old favourite mystery is very relaxing and I can pick it up and put it down quite a few times!