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MobileRead Book Club
May 2014 Nominations

Help us select the book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for May, 2014.

The nominations will run through midnight EST April 30 or until 10 books have made the list. The poll will then be posted and will remain open for five days.

Book selection category for May is:

Mystery/Thriller

In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).

How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.

How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a poll at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.

How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.

How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.

How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.

When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations. Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.


Official choices with three nominations each:

(1) The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)
Amazon Au / Amazon Ca / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Kobo US

Spoiler:

From Amazon:

When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case.

Strike is a war veteran - wounded both physically and psychologically - and his life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger . . .

A gripping, elegant mystery steeped in the atmosphere of London - from the hushed streets of Mayfair to the backstreet pubs of the East End to the bustle of Soho - The Cuckoo's Calling is a remarkable book. Introducing Cormoran Strike, this is the acclaimed first crime novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

(2) Rules of Prey by John Sandford
Amazon US / B&N / Kobo / Overdrive

Spoiler:

"Making his fiction debut, 'Sandford,' a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist using a pseudonym his real name is John Camp, has taken a stock suspense plot--a dedicated cop pursuing an ingenious serial killer--and dressed it up into the kind of pulse-quickening, irresistibly readable thriller that many of the genre's best-known authors would be proud to call their own."

(3) Baltimore Blues (Tess Monaghan #1) by Laura Lippman
Amazon Ca / Amazon US / Kobo (US) / Overdrive

Spoiler:

In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz’s death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer’s notoriety—and his taste for illicit midday trysts—make the case front-page news in every local paper except the Star, which crashed and burned before Abramowitz did. A former Star reporter who knows every inch of this town—from historic Fort McHenry to the crumbling projects of Cherry Hill—now unemployed journalist Tess Monaghan also knows the guy the cops like for the killing: cuckolded fiancé Darryl “Rock” Paxton. The time is ripe for a career move, so when rowing buddy Rock wants to hire her to do some unorthodox snooping to help clear his name, Tess agrees. But there are lethal secrets hiding in the Charm City shadows. And Tess’ own name could end up on that ever-expanding list of Baltimore dead.

(4) In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddarda
Amazon (UK) / Amazon (US) / Kobo / Overdrive

Spoiler:

Six months after the sudden death of her husband, Leonora Galloway sets out on a trip to France with her daughter Penelope. At last the time has come when secrets can be shared and explanations begin... Leonora takes her daughter to the battlefields of WW1, where her father is commemorated on the Thiepval Monument. But the date of his death is surprising, and reveals that Captain John Hallows cannot possibly have been Leonora's real father.

This is only the start of a series of revelations that span three generations of a distinguished aristocratic family who are not what they seem. Penelope must piece together a tale of war, of loss, of greed, deception and vice - and the perpetrator of a murder left unsolved for more than half a century...

(5) The Broken Shore by Peter Temple
Amazon (CA) / Amazon (UK) / Amazon (US) / B&N (US) / Kobo (AU)

Spoiler:

Named by The Times as one of the top ten crime novels of the decade and winner of the Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie Dagger, the Ned Kelly Award, the Colin Roderick Award and the H.T. Priestly Medal, The Broken Shore is a masterpiece.

Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you've come so close to dying. For Cashin, they included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up. Now all he has to do is play the country cop and walk the dogs.

Then prominent local Charles Bourgoyne is bashed and left for dead. Everything seems to point to three boys from the nearby Aboriginal community; everyone seems to want it to. But Cashin is unconvinced. And as tragedy unfolds relentlessly into tragedy, he finds himself holding onto something that might be better let go.

Peter Temple is the author of nine novels, including four books in the Jack Irish series. He has won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction five times, and his widely acclaimed novels have been published in over twenty countries.

(6) Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher #1) by Kerry Greenwood
Amazon US / Kobo

Spoiler:

The Amazon description:

From Publishers Weekly
The growing American audience for Phryne Fisher, Australian author Greenwood's independent 1920s female sleuth, will be delighted that her diverting first mystery is finally available in the U.S. Fisher's off-the-cuff solving of a high society jewel theft leads her to her first professional engagement when a witness to her brilliance asks her to investigate a possible poisoning-in-progress. The detective's admirable willingness to intervene to help those in distress involves her in a variety of other puzzles, including identifying the King of Snow, who has taken over the Melbourne drug trade. Many of the members of Fisher's entourage familiar from later novels make their debuts as well.

From Booklist
Australian Greenwood has been exporting her outstanding Phryne Fisher series to the U.S. for the past several years, but the books haven't arrived in chronological order. Finally, we have the series debut, which explains how the irrepressible flapper (the series is set in the 1920s) became a detective. Phryne fans will relish the chance to see how beloved characters like Bert, Cec, Dot, and Inspector Robinson wandered into Phryne's life, and newcomers will enjoy getting to know ultrafashionable Phryne, who's wealthy enough to do whatever she wants but whose previous poverty has created a strong empathy for the working class. In Melbourne to investigate the mysterious illness of the daughter of a family friend, Phryne stumbles into a case involving two of the 1920s' signature evils: cocaine and back-alley abortions. Banding together with a crew of colorful local characters, and finding time to indulge in some erotic fun with a sexy Russian dancer, Phryne soon leaves her mark on Melbourne. From beginning to end, Greenwood infuses her series with evocative settings, multidimensional characters, and satisfying mysteries.

(7) Still Life by Louise Penny
Amazon US / B&N / Kobo (US)

Spoiler:

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.

(8) The Water Room (Bryant & May #2) by Christopher Fowler
Amazon Ca / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble (US) / Kobo (US) / OverDrive

Spoiler:

Traditional mystery buffs with a taste for the offbeat will relish British author Fowler's wonderful second contemporary whodunit featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit and its elderly odd couple, Arthur Bryant and John May (after 2004's Full Dark House). A former colleague asks the eccentric Bryant, whose lack of polish coupled with a razor-sharp mind will remind many of Carter Dickson's Sir Henry Merrivale, to investigate his sister's death. Incredibly, the victim was found dead in her basement, apparently drowned, despite the absence of any moisture on her body or her surroundings. Bryant rapidly loops in his more down-to-earth partner, May, who has also been looking into a mystery with a personal connection—the unusual nocturnal ramblings of a disgraced academic who has begun probing London's underground rivers. More strange deaths follow before the unmasking of the surprising murderer. The author's black humor evokes Peter Lovesey's Peter Diamond series, and his successful revival of the impossible crime genre is reminiscent of John Sladek's superb Thackeray Phin novels, Invisible Green and Black Aura. Best known for his horror fiction (Rune, etc.), Fowler should win a whole new set of readers with these fair-play puzzlers.

(9) The Tiger in the Smoke (Albert Campion #14) by Margery Allingham
Kobo Ca

Spoiler:

London, 'the Smoke' to Cockneys and the hipsters who appropriate their slang, is living up to its nickname: an unusual cold snap has combined with the fug from coal-fires to produce the 'Great Smog', blanketing the city in choking shadow. And lurking in those shadows is Jack Havoc, a killer with a particular fondness for knives. Havoc is by far the most dangerous villain that Albert Campion has ever encountered, and his startlingly realistic menace, combined with the light touch common to all the Campion novels, gives the book a modern feel, as it straddles a line between Golden Age detective fiction and contemporary psychological suspense.

(10) Fast One by Paul Cain
Munseys (free)

Spoiler:

It is said to be the hardest of '30s hardboiled detective novels.

Some more detail from an Amazon review:

This extremely fast paced story traces the activity of Gerry Kells, gentleman gangster, as he plies his trade in and around Los Angeles. There are no heroes in this novel. Only thieves, gamblers, gunmen, blackmailers and corrupt political bosses.