MobileRead July 2012 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

[WT Sharpe]

July 2012 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

Help us choose a book as the July 2012 eBook for the Mobile Read Book Club. The poll will be open for 4 days, followed by a 3 day run-off poll between the two* top vote getters. The vote this month will be hidden.


We will start the discussion thread for this book on July 20th. Select from the following Official Choices with three nominations each:

(1) Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

In Victorian England, A Woman Wasn't Supposed To Be An Archaeologist Or A Detective.

Amelia Peabody Was Both.

Thirty-one-year-old Victorian gentlewoman, Amelia Peabody has inherited her father's strong will as well as his considerable fortune. On her way to Cairo to indulge her passion for Egyptology, she picks up Evelyn Barton-Forbes as a traveling companion. Evelyn has a tarnished past, but both she and Amelia believe that it won't come back to haunt her. That belief is shattered when Evelyn is attacked by a walking, homicidal mummy.

Amelia enlists the aid of Radcliff Emerson, a prominent Egyptologist, to help unravel the plot against her friend and decipher the clues left by the mummy. Between grave digging and academic sparring, she manages to save his life. But with the threat of an ancient curse closing in, Amelia must resort to outrageous methods to prevent the mummy from making corpses of them all.

From fictiondb.com

(2) A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane
Inkmesh search $6.98 / Inkmesh search $7.99

Spoiler:

A cadre of powerful Massachusetts politicians offers Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro big money for a small job: find the missing cleaning woman who allegedly stole confidential Statehouse documents. But there's much more to this crime than anyone realizes. What the woman was really after was justice -- and out on the Boston streets, the truth can turn stark and ugly...

This is it: the novel that introduces the newest sensation in detective fiction, Dennis Lehane, and a couple of gritty private investigators who grew up and grew tough in blue-collar Dorchester. Kenzie and Gennaro have opened their own agency from the belfry of a Boston church-and all manner of unholiness is crossing their threshold. Like it or not, they're headed for a deadly crossfire in a case that's not just about right and wrong -it's all-out war.

Here is the original--the gripping, utterly addictive book that gained an instant audience for its brilliant young author and his unforgettable heroes.

From fictiondb.com

(3) Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

First in the Kurt Wallander series.

It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn’t present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman’s last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have—and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.

Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecutor who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.

(4) The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin
Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

When this creepy-crawly suspense tale was originally published in the UK last year, the London Times called it "a classy potboiler . . . in the best traditions of Dickens and Collins (let alone Christie and Chandler)." There may be just a touch of hyperbole there, but the novel is certainly worthy of praise. The atmosphere is first-rate: Martin does a stunning job of bringing to life the era when steam locomotives chugged from London through the British countryside. And he intensifies by giving his hero, Jim Stringer, a job on one of those trains--not just any train but the one that carries bodies from London to burial on the city's outskirts. A refugee from the poverty of Yorkshire, Jim had been reduced to cleaning women's lavatories in railway stations before getting his big break and landing on the Necropolis Railway, where he endures hostile coworkers and working conditions only slightly better than those in the toilets. Even worse is his growing suspicion that a former worker may have met with foul play. The lurid tone and Jim's growing uneasiness lead to a supremely scary climax.

This is the first Jim Springer mystery.

(5) In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard
Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

Six months after her husband's sudden death, Leonora Galloway sets off for a holiday in Paris with her daughter Penelope. At last the time has come when secrets can be shared and explanations begin...

Their journey starts with an unscheduled stop at the imposing Thiepval Memorial to the dead of the Battle of the Somme near Amiens. Amongst those commemorated is Leonora's father. The date of his death is recorded and 30th April, 1916. But Leonora wasn't born until 14th March 1917.

Penelope at once supposes a simple wartime illegitimacy as the clue to her mother's unhappy childhood and the family's sundered connections with her aristocratic heritage, about which she has always known so little.

But nothing could have prepared her, or the reader, for the extraordinary story that is about to unfold.

(6) The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner
Amazon

Spoiler:

Thanks to a bungled robbery at a fancy hotel, the already-married Eva Griffin has been caught in the company of a prominent congressman. To protect the politico, Eva's ready to pay the editor of a sleazy tabloid his hush money. But Perry Mason has other plans. He tracks down the phantom fat cat who secretly runs the blackmailing tabloid -- only to discover a shocking scoop.

By the time Mason's comely client finally comes clean, her husband has taken a bullet in the heart. Now Perry Mason has two choices: represent the cunning widow in her wrangle for the dead man's money -- or take the rap for murder.

From Audible.com

(7) Heat Wave by Richard Castle
Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

A New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death on a Manhattan sidewalk. A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kill trot out their alibis. And then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy. Secrets that prove to be fatal. Secrets that lay hidden in the dark until one NYPD detective shines a light.

Mystery sensation Richard Castle, blockbuster author of the wildly best-selling Derrick Storm novels, introduces his newest character, NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat. Tough, sexy, professional, Nikki Heat carries a passion for justice as she leads one of New York City's top homicide squads. She's hit with an unexpected challenge when the commissioner assigns superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook to ride along with her to research an article on New York's Finest. Pulitzer Prize-winning Rook is as much a handful as he is handsome. His wise-cracking and meddling aren't her only problems. As she works to unravel the secrets of the murdered real estate tycoon, she must also confront the spark between them. The one called heat.

(8) Carved in Bone by Jefferson Bass
Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

There is a patch of ground in Tennessee dedicated to the science of death, where human remains lie exposed to be studied for their secrets. The real-life scientist who founded the "Body Farm" has broken cold cases and revolutionized forensics . . . and now he spins an astonishing tale inspired by his own experiences.

Renowned anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton has spent his career surrounded by death at the Body Farm. Now he's being called upon to help solve a baffling puzzle in a remote mountain community. The mummified corpse of a young woman dead for thirty years has been discovered in a cave, the body bizarrely preserved and transformed by the environment's unique chemistry. But Brockton's investigation is threatening to open old wounds among an insular people who won't forget or forgive. And a long-buried secret prematurely exposed could inflame Brockton's own guilt--and the dangerous hostility of bitter enemies determined to see him fail . . . by any means necessary.

(9) The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen
Amazon / Kobo Books

Spoiler:

"Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it’s packed to the gills with action, explosions, and gunfire. In fact, Gunplay is so loud that no one notices the killing of Monte Field. In a sold-out theater, Field is found dead partway through the second act, surrounded by empty seats. The police hold the crowd and call for the one man who can untangle this daring murder: Inspector Richard Queen.

With the help of his son Ellery, a bibliophile and novelist whose imagination can solve any crime, the Inspector attacks this seemingly impenetrable mystery. Anyone in the theater could have killed the unscrupulous lawyer, and several had the motive. Only Ellery Queen, in his debut novel, can decipher the clue of the dead man’s missing top hat."

(10) Thin Blood by Vicki Tyley
Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

Craig Edmonds, a successful stockbroker, reports the disappearance of his wife, Kirsty. What starts as a typical missing person's case soon evolves into a full-blown homicide investigation when forensics uncover blood traces and dark-blonde hairs in the boot of the missing woman's car. Added to this, is Craig's adulterous affair with the victim's younger sister, Narelle Croswell, compounded further by a recently acquired $1,000,000 insurance policy on his wife's life. He is charged with murder but, with no body and only circumstantial evidence, he walks free when two trials resulting in hung juries fail to convict him.

Ten years later, Jacinta Deller, a newspaper journalist is retrenched. Working on a freelance story about missing persons, she comes across the all but forgotten Edmonds case. When she discovers her boyfriend, Brett Rhodes, works with Narelle Croswell, who is not only the victim's sister but is now married to the prime suspect, her sister's husband, she thinks she has found the perfect angle for her article. Instead, her life is turned upside down, as befriending the woman, she becomes embroiled in a warped game of delusion and murder.

The fine print:
*Should the first vote produce a 3-way or more tie for first place, or 2-way or more tie for second, the second poll will have more than two choices.

[Asawi]

Hmmm... difficult... I can see myself reading about half of them. But which to choose?? I have to think about this a bit!

[JSWolf]

We do have a number of good choices this month. My vote has been cast.

[Nyssa]

Voted.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

Voted.

I hope you voted for the same one I did.

[banjomike]

I've voted for "xxxxx" because it has been on my reader for at least a yonk.

[WT Sharpe]

I've voted for "xxxxx" because I'm such a huge fan.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I've voted for "xxxxx" because I'm such a huge fan.

Me too, I like porn...

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by banjomike

I've voted for "xxxxx" because it has been on my reader for at least a yonk.

"...at least a yonk." - I don't think I have ever heard that phrase before!

However, its the same reason I voted for my choice.

[orlok]

I've voted for one I didn't actually nominate, as I like the sound of it, and have read the one I nominated anyway...

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Me too, I like porn...

You ain't right!

[Synamon]

I have 4 of those on my Kindle. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe....

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Me too, I like porn...

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

You ain't right!

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

"...at least a yonk." - I don't think I have ever heard that phrase before!

It is the singular of "yonks".

[WT Sharpe]

But the word somehow does seem to validate Format C:'s take on our comments!