MobileRead May 2014 Book Club Nominations

[John F]

I'll nominate Alone by Lisa Gardner.

From goodreads:

Alone . . . Massachusetts State Trooper Bobby Dodge watches a tense hostage standoff unfold through the scope of his sniper rifle. Just across the street, in wealthy Back Bay, Boston, an armed man has barricaded himself with his wife and child. The man’s finger tightens on the trigger and Dodge has only a split second to react . . . and forever pay the consequences.

Available at libraries everywhere.

[CRussel]

I'll nominate the first in the Phryne Fisher series, Cocaine Blues, by Kerry Greenwood. It's only $.99 on Amazon.com, is available in audio format as well, and is the start of a simply delightful series.

Set in Melbourne Australia in 1928, the Cocaine Blues features The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, along with a wonderful (and increasing over the series) cast of characters. The writing is elegant and witty, the characters very fleshed out, and it's truly one of my favourite series. The description from Amazon:

Spoiler:

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.

Kobo link. It's $1.03 at Kobo Canada, but couponable.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I'll nominate the first in the Phryne Fisher series, Cocaine Blues, by Kerry Greenwood. It's only $.99 on Amazon.com, is available in audio format as well, and is the start of a simply delightful series....

Seconded.

[sun surfer]

I second The Broken Shore and third In Pale Battalions, and that's all my votes gone.

[issybird]

Third The Broken Shore.

[BelleZora]

Second Fast One.

[Synamon]

I'll third Cocaine Blues, it might generate some good discussion.

[msjo]

All three oif the following nominations are available from Kobo and Amazon in Canada and the US. The reviews provided came from the metadata search results in Calibre.

Nomination 1: From the Golden Age of British Mysteries: The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham.

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.

Nomination 2: The Water Room by Christopher Fowler

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.

Nomination 3: Still LIfe by Louise Penny

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.

[issybird]

Allingham is always unfairly overlooked when people invoke the big three doyennes of English mysteries and Tiger in the Smoke is excellent. But because I've been meaning to try Penny for a long time, Still Life gets my last nomination. Seconded.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by msjo

All three oif the following nominations are available from Kobo and Amazon in Canada and the US. The reviews provided came from the metadata search results in Calibre.

Nomination 1: From the Golden Age of British Mysteries: The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham.

Nomination 2: The Water Room by Christopher Fowler

Nomination 3: Still LIfe by Louise Penny

Those all sound interesting, especially the first two, but since I have but one vote left, and I'm at the age where I can easily identify with elderly protagonists, I second The Water Room by Christopher Fowler.

Here are a few links:

Amazon Ca
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Barnes & Noble (US)
Kobo (US)

[BelleZora]

Third Still Life.

Here are some links:

Amazon CA
Amazon UK
Amazon US
B&N
Kobo US

[Mims]

I'll third The Water Room. Nice to find a "new to me" series.

[Billi]

I second this one:

Originally Posted by msjo

Nomination 1: From the Golden Age of British Mysteries: The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham.

[treadlightly]

I'll third The Tiger in the Smoke.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by msjo

Nomination 1: From the Golden Age of British Mysteries: The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham.

Thirded. Allingham is always a pleasure.

ETA: Too late. treadlightly got there before me.