Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Read The Girl in the Clockwork Collar by Kady Cross, book 2 of her Steampunk Chronicles series and am now starting part 2.5, The Dark Discovery of Jack Dandy. I have enjoyed this series so far.

My holds are still at #1 and #3, so should be available soon.

Jack Dandy was more of a prologue for book 3 than a full short story, oh well, I was planning on reading book 3 later anyway.

Since I am still waiting, I will try Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler, the first of the Bryant and May mysteries.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Since I am still waiting, I will try Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler, the first of the Bryant and May mysteries.

It's a fun series. I'm enjoying them very much and have gotten a kick out of the alternate name for the series, "Peculiar Crimes Unit".

This morning I finished reading Murder Tightly Knit by Vannetta Chapman, second in her Amish Village Mysteries series. I'm now reading The Pattern Ship by Tobias Roote, borrowed from Kindle Lending Library (Amazon Prime) as my September selection. I want to finish it quickly before I forget to pick up a book for October.

[bookaho!ic]

Am a quarter of the way through The Kill Order by James Dashner - not as good as the Maze Runner series but enjoying it all the same

[Hampshire Nanny]

I won the jackpot in the Library reserves list today. I received notices from two libraries that my reserve for The Undead Pool was now ready for checkout. Since one request was for the eBook through Overdrive, I have already picked it up. Shortly after that, I got the e-mail from my local library that they had the hardback available. Guess I won't need it after all.

[ATDrake]

So, as it turns out, reading the one AmazonCrossing maybe-glitch-freebie out of the half-dozen I actually paid for did work out, as all of Finnish author Leena Lehtolainen's Maria Kallio, Intrepid Reluctant Cop Turned Aspiring Law Student mysteries went on sale for $1.99 each in the Amazon Big Deal Sale, good until tomorrow, IIRC, which was exactly the price point at which I'd decided I was willing to pick up the rest of the series (though I wouldn't have argued against lower).

Accordingly, read my new acquisitions of Her Enemy and Copper Heart, respectively 2nd & 3rd in the series.

It's interesting to see Maria Kallio move in and out of the cop role, as the 2nd book sees her having quit the force and become an ordinary law student and investigating the murder as such, and the 3rd book sees her having taking up an assistant sheriff role in her home town as a summer job for money.

So you get a sense of what it's like to try to follow up leads as a private citizen who isn't quite amateur, and then as a small-town part-time official more used to the resources of larger cities, and I liked the way that Maria had to vary her approach in each book. (And she also tends to refer to other cultural touchstone detectives with "What Would Lord Peter Wimsey Do?" or "This Would Never Happen To Philip Marlowe" types of musing comparing her own sleuthing skills to the well-known greats.)

Once again, both murders are strongly tied to Maria's own direct close personal acquaintance circle, involving people she's met and known fairly well for some time, who have their own further ties to other persons close to Maria, and so are almost all of the suspects. There's actually a point where she picks up on this, and I've always liked it when the sleuths finally realize that they've just kind of become murder magnets.

It's like the "crossing of the return threshold" section of The Hero's Journey. Only with corpses!

(But apparently in the 4th book which is not out yet in English, Maria finally gets to investigate the death of an actual stranger. Maybe.)

Again, these are very "procedural realism" sorts of books with an emphasis on doing the legwork and uncovering the clues thusly (with a bit of aid from a few leaps of intuition) and heavily tilted towards showing you how Finnish culture (circa the mid-90s) works when murder is involved. Although there is a kind of tendency to go after the most-likely suspect in a rather impulsive and melodramatic fashion, but admittedly she did have backup for one of the times she tried it even if it did go wrong for other reasons.

Medium recommend if you think you'd like a low-key mildly retro realistic procedural book in an interestingly different (if you're not Finnish) cultural setting. I enjoyed these enough that I'll be picking up the 4th and future translated installments when they're discounted to the good sale prices.

Also read two more AmazonCrossing murder mysteries by Icelandic author Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson, who's one of the authors I picked up during that long-ago sale, but not for the particular books that I read.

Daybreak, a current Amazon monthly "Books for $2" sale title, which is how I got it a couple of days ago, and Sun on Fire, which was an Amazon Deal of the Day last month, are the 1st & 2nd books in his unofficially untitled maybe-series (only 2 so far, but I'd be happy to read more) with Reykjavik Police detectives Birkir Li Hinriksson, a Vietnamese-born naturalized Icelander of possibly Chinese descent, and his working partner Gunnar Maríusson, an ethnic Icelander whose mother is a German immigrant.

Both of these dealt with rather unusual crimes, the 1st with a possible serial killer apparently targeting goose hunters, who seems to be taking his/her cues from The Most Dangerous Game, and the 2nd involving the essentially locked-room murder of a party guest at the Icelandic embassy in Berlin. And they also had portions of an apparent secondary crime which may or may not have truly intersected with the actual primary crime, just to make things more interesting.

Both of these had whodunnits which worked out to be rather convoluted but, at least in the 2nd, made perfect sense in the end (the 1st was a little too serial killer thriller in its motivations for my taste, although the case did hang together), with somewhat complex and carefully unfolded investigations which were a bit of a challenge to the detectives (and the Gentle Reader).

The 1st one also had more than a bit of meta with the supporting character of an author commenting on what qualities a detective needed to have to make for a good detective story (and made fun of itself a bit by claiming that the actual detectives in the story were far too boring and ordinary), as well as a cat-and-mouse game involving clues which referred to various popular mystery/crime sleuths.

While these are still rather realistically procedural, they're somewhat less focused on that aspect than the Maria Kallio books, and give more in the way of personal insights into Birkir and Gunnar and their colleagues on the Reykjavik police force than Icelandic cultural workings, though there's still a good deal of that. And it's interesting to see Birkir's interactions within the only culture he's ever truly known, having been raised in Iceland since he was a very small child and having few real memories of his refugee roots or even ability to speak his long-forgotten first language, where he's often treated as an outsider due to his visibly-ethnic physical appearance (apparently, being mistaken for Greenlandic Inuit is the least of it), and the contrast of Gunnar's acceptance, despite having stronger foreign ties as a half-German and often visibly communicating in German with his elderly mother and others.

Medium-firm recommend if you're interested in reading Icelandic not-quite-noir-but-getting-there. The 2nd book, IMHO, has a much better case than the 1st, better grounded in more understandable regular human motivations. But the 1st is pretty dramatic (and was popular enough to be made into an Icelandic TV miniseries) and it's a reasonably good read as well, especially if you can get it on sale.

Now onto more of Ian Hamilton's Ava Lee, Intrepid Globe-Trotting Stolen Money Recovering Forensic Accountant series, which I picked up the first 4 volumes of during Kobo's recent weekend sale and am liking enough to read through and scoop the 2 further volumes I'm missing from the library this week, I think.

[chookie2]

Finished the Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare- not that enamoured, so will probably pass on the rest of the series. Now reading Danika Dark's Impulse ( book 3) after I went through 1&2 in 36 hours- loving the wit and wordcraft in it. The way the protagonists dialogue fits with their perceived age and experiences is so good! I think I will stay with this series to the end if they all keep on holding my interest like 1-3 have.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

Not much reading done in the past week; didn't pick up My Cousin Rachel at all during this time, so I'm still only a third way in. I made some more headway into the Father Brown omnibus (now on to the fourth set of stories [The Secret of Father Brown])

I finally completed Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book that I started in July. I now have to review my notes and highlights which, put together, are about 1/3 the size of the book

I also completed my lone issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (June 2011) that I picked up when Fictionwise was still alive.

Other than the du Maurier book, I have no firm plans on what to read this coming week ... 'too much choice dilemma'

Ugh, my reading is now officially all over the place. This always happens when I spend more than 5 minutes digging around in my Calibre library; I see ALL the books and I want to read ALL the books ... right now! Consequently, I end up reading very little

Still no more du Maurier, but I completed the Father Brown omnibus. I also read Murder in Midwinter (by Lesley Cookman), After the Night (by Linda Howard) and my lone issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine (June 2011) which, like the AHMM above, I picked up when Fictionwise was still around.

I loved the Father Brown mysteries (though Sherlock Holmes is more my ideal detective-type); I enjoyed the writing and appreciated much of the theological insights scattered therein.

Murder in Midwinter bordered on mediocre. It's the third book in the Libby Sarjeant series and it was pretty much a yawn. I barely remember any of the details of the first two books (I read them a couple years ago) and I don't much care for Libby and Fran's style of sleuthing. It's just so, IDK, bumbling and disorderly. Maybe this is supposed to be the charm/the point? The trouble is, I got the first book free, and went on to pick up what was the rest of the series at the time - 9 books at $0.99 each, and now I'm stuck with them. If I'd just taken the time to read the first book, well, first, I'd never have bought the others

After the Night is an old favorite and I reread it yesterday in just about one sitting. Rereading a favorite book has to be one of the best indulgences in the world

I liked all the stories in the Asimov magazine issue but I especially liked the cover story (Kiss Me Twice), which features homicide detectives Scott Huang and his AI partner, Metta. I would've loved this to be a full-length novel.

As I seem to be in the mood for bits and bites, I'll root around in my Calibre for a short story collection to nibble on (though I'm leaning heavily towards Saki) while I decide what to read next (and hopefully complete My Cousin Rachel soon ) We'll see

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finished Plan B, now circling back to Fledgling before continuing with I Dare. I may well do Saltation before I Dare as well, but haven't decided. The two arcs have interleaving timelines (and later, story lines) so that it becomes tricky to decide exactly what order to use. And overall? It doesn't really matter, I'm enjoying the heck out of this combined audio/eBook re-read.

Finished Fledgling, nearly finished with I Dare, and moving on to Saltation. But I think I'll take a break first, and read one or two of the books I've gotten recently, including A Call to Duty, a new arc in the Honorverse by David Weber and Timothy Zahn. I've also got the first of the Ava Lee books, The Water Rat of Wancha, and I really want to give this series a try.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I've also got the first of the Ava Lee books, The Water Rat of Wancha, and I really want to give this series a try.

It may be a bit of an acquired taste, but they're rather enjoyable books, IMHO. I just finished #2-4 which I bought at Kobo during the recent sale (couponable for Canadians! and they lowered the price even more right after I paid for them!), and I'm about to head out later to the not-so-local library to get #5-6 off their shelves.

Anyway, read Ian Hamilton's The Disciple of Las Vegas, The Wild Beasts of Wuhan, and The Red Pole of Macau, in his Ava Lee, Intrepid Globe-Trotting Stolen Money Recovering Forensic Accountant series, in quick succession.

One of the things I like about this series is that even though Ava's forensic accountant job works out to being a quasi-legal debt collector for stolen money, it varies how the money was lost and in which way, which in turn requires varying her approach to tracing it down and trying to get it back. This gives it a bit of variety and makes the series feel less formulaic than it otherwise might.

So far, there's been real estate fraud, art forgeries, gambling, food supply shenanigans (I learned a lot more about how packagers lie and cheat on prawn weight than I'd ever thought I would), etc.

As well, Ava's continuing interpersonal relationships, both on her friends and family side, and her working connections, continue to develop, adding a sense of continuity to the books which while the cases can kind of be read standalone without spoiling details of the individual whodunnits, they really do flow into each other and should be read in order (minus the prequel novella, which was written later and is standalone enough to be slotted in between any of the regular novels).

Once again, these are investigative mysteries rather than murder ones, although there's a certain amount of violence that goes with the job, which looks like it might be escalating as Ava keeps going after more and more potentially dangerous fish, with possibly a gradual corruption of her originally fairly pure helping-the-cheated-helpless purposes in store. I'm really interested to see where her character development arc is going.

Partially as a result of this, some of the tactics Ava resorts to become greyer and darker, and she's encountering more in the way of moral not-quite-dilemma, but certain contemplation and reflectiveness as to cost of what she's doing in order to accomplish what's going to be done. Also, she's becoming less insulated from certain things which she previously had been due to "Uncle"'s mentorship and running interference and is beginning to have to deal with having to make and maintain more useful connections of her own, or deal with the consequences of not doing so.

I've mentioned before that Hamilton tends to write her as a bit of a Modesty Blaise-ish super-gifted hyper-competent favourite action heroine at times, and he does. But Ava does make real failings, with real mistakes that come from a variety of reasonably realistic sources, such as overestimating her own capability, misreading situations, underestimating an opponent's resources, etc. without feeling too much like they're contrivances meant to Make Our Heroine's Life Difficult For Two Chapters Before The Victorious Resolution.

As always, the books are chock-full of exotic travel destinations (not just the ones you'd expect from a Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant doing debt collection for a Hong Kong-based entity, but also as far afield as Denmark and the Faroe Islands, which I quite enjoyed because I have this inordinate fondness for cultures which produce dragon boats, so I really like seeing the Nordic countries as well as the East Asian ones), and very many observations on culture and food, which may or may not be to the Gentle Reader's taste.

Medium-firm recommend if you think you'd like this kind of thing. It's pretty refreshing to have a non-murder (at least, not deliberately murdered for the purposes of investigating the murder; why don't we just pretend those dead bodies never happened…) mystery series where there actually is a real investigation and legwork procedure for tracking down where the money went and how best to get it back, in addition to the more action thriller-y moments which I should add, do not dominate the books.

I'm really liking these, but they're a bit unusual for their crossover genre, IMHO, not being action-y enough to constitute exotic adventure thrillers, but at the same time not murder-y enough to be the typical sort of sleuth crime mysteries. And they're also kind of travel porn, so YMMV.

[CRussel]

All things that led me to think I might like them. Plus I at least can be sure that the resolution won't hinge on some person of male gender saving the damsel in distress. Seriously, that is a significant part of the appeal. IAC, I figure it's worth a try.

[bfisher]

Starting to read An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris, a novelization of the Dreyfus Affair. Harris is excellent at setting a sense of the time and place, and the action is moving along briskly.

[John F]

I read The Undead Pool and The Witch with No Name back to back and John D MacDonald's The Green Ripper (A Travis McGee novel), and I'm currently reading Everythings Eventual by Stephen King.

The King book had an interesting preface with how he tried the digital world with Riding the Bullet.

I'm than going to read either more King, or the last three books of Le Guin's Earthsea books. That's the plan. Decisions, decisions.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by John F

I'm than going to read either more King, or the last three books of Le Guin's Earthsea books. That's the plan. Decisions, decisions.

Dude, it's October. Go with the King!

I've been spending much of this week writing instead of reading, but I've still gotten through most of Unidentified Funny Objects, first of three (so far) annual anthologies devoted to SF/F humor. Some of the tales are quite short, and while I like the cartoons that appear between some stories, I wish they were larger and clearer on my Glo. Once I'm done with that, I'm thinking hard about rereading King's Skeleton Crew; it's a classic collection, and now that I've got the ebook...

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next: Fantasy Magazine: Women Destroy Fantasyl by Lightspeed Magazine. From their Women Destroy SF! Kickstarter earlier this year, just delivered.

And an excellent collection of new and reprint fantasy stories it was too. Most enjoyable.

Now: Lightspeed Magazine for October 2014.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by bfisher

Just read J.R.R. Tolkien's "Letters from Father Christmas". Amazing book, I wish we had had this when our kids were young.

Every year in the 1920s-30s Tolkien wrote a letter from Father Christmas to his children describing events at the North Pole while preparing for Christmas. The letters generally include the activities of the North Polar Bear, and sometimes elves. He included coloured drawings, and the letters (and envelopes) use a elvish-looking script, so it's best viewed on a tablet rather than eink.

Tolkien also wrote an illustrated book "Mr. Bliss" for his children, but it wasn't published until after he died (apparently it was too costly to print in 1936 because of the colour illustrations). Unfortunately, "Mr. Bliss" doesn't seem to be available as an ebook.

I don't think I've ever read Mr. Bliss but I do have a copy (in paper) of the Father Christmas letters and I agree Mr. Tolkien had quite the imagination. Of course the postman added that little extra touch of reality to the stories by 'delivering' the letters from Father Christmas I'm sure. Christmas is a magical time when you're little. I wish I'd had yearly letters from him when I was young.