Review: Kamusari Tales Told at Night

Kamusari Tales Told at Night by Shion Miura
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Enjoying this series very much--in the first book, Yuki was sent by his parents to work in the forestry industry in the mountains of Japan. He was at loose ends with no plans for the future and no healthy activities in the present. To get him away from the Yokohama urban scene and hoping to see him mature they shipped him out. In that book we see this city boy of around 18 feeling lost and homesick. He has no experience in the field, is living in a village with no other young people and no cell phone service, no cinema, no real transportation to anyplace that has those things. He is miserable and the butt of good natured kidding my his fellow foresters. By the end, he has come to value his learning and accomplishments in the cedar woods, he has discovered one other resident close to his own age--the young schoolteacher down the mountain-- and his holding his own in the community.

In this second story he has turned 20 and feeling much more secure and at home, he discovers that he loves the village, its residents and their traditions. He has more time to really absorb the beauty of the area and what it means to the people who live there. He is aware of a feeling of belonging--to the people who have come before him there and those who will come after he and the friends he's made are gone. Plus, he's desperately in love with the resistant teacher, Nao. He is becoming the man his parents hoped he would become and he is a joy to listen to as he writes his exploits for an audience he does not believe exists--but we do! Plus Grannie and the others in town are paying attention, too!

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Review: Moonflower Murders

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Foyle's War and Midsomer Murders on TV and their creator turns out to be an excellent author as well. The Susan Ryeland two books are each two books in one and sometimes that is confusing to read.

In this one, Susan comes back from Greece where she's gone after the death of Alan Conroy, an author for who she acted as editor. She is with her lover, who has proposed, but she isn't ready to accept. She has been away from London long enough--she is living in Paradise but it isn't challenging enough and helping to run Andreas' hotel is boring and tedious and it isn't doing well financially.

Just as she is feeling trapped and miserable she receives a request from a guest and his wife. Come back to London and help them find their daughter who has disappeared without a trace. Their last contact with her is a phone call is which she says the murderer of one of THEIR guests 8 years ago has been identified in his novel. Who wrote the novel--Alan Conroy--and it is a book Susan edited They cannot figure out the clues supposedly found in the book. Would Susan come back with them and figure out the mysteries?

The money offered is good and would help Susan and Andreas repair their hotel and update its appliances. Going back to England will give Susan distance to evaluate her relationship with Andreas and determine where she wants to live--back in London or on Crete? So she accepts and goes off on her next mystery. To figure it out--we must with her, read Alan's last book--a mystery within a mystery--two books for the price of one!

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Review: The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America's 16th President⁠—and Why It Failed

The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America's 16th President⁠—and Why It Failed by Brad Meltzer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Meltzer and Mensch do it again-- they have produced an interesting, exciting and thoroughly researched report on a significant period in American history. Their writing and the use of short chapters made covering almost 400 pages of intrigue and chaos almost easy.

Imagine, if you will, Lincoln's assassination in Baltimore Md on his way to his first inauguration. Traveling from Springfield, Ill to Washington DC on a carefully planned route that covers the border States into the Northeast and then South through Maryland, rife with Southern sympathizers AFTER South Carolina has seceded, a plot to kill him becomes known to Allan Pinkerton and his agents.

Now, somehow, Lincoln must get through Baltimore safely but he has speaking obligations and ceremonies he is unwilling to vacate. How the development of the plot occurs, the investigation steps taken that reveals it and the tactics taken to avert it keeps the reader rapt until the moment of the inaugural speech. But, the authors don't stop there, though reader and they take a breath, before finishing up with the aftermath that leads to the actual assassination in Ford's theatre almost 4 1/2 years later. This is review of a copy provided by BookBrowse for discussion

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Review: A Killer’s Game

A Killer’s Game by Isabella Maldonado
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A group of 12 mercenary killers are invited to help an unknown client develop a special ops training program that will be conducted almost entirely virtually. Once they arrive at an unknown location in a desert-like location, they find themselves in a seven story underground maze the corridors and rooms of which are controlled remotely by the baritone voice of an unseen master. And they are not there to help him develop any training program.

All the questions are answered by the end--Who is this man? What is this set up if not a training program? Why does he seem to have as his end game the death and destruction of each of the participants? How is he reaching his goal? And Where the Hell are they? When will anyone come to rescue them? After all, one of their numbers is an undercover FBI Agent and another is a man who she and her fellow Agents have turned into her ally.

Throw in a little Hispanic female Ranger who is smarter, tougher and stronger than any of the thugs who make up this team or the guy who is manipulating them and you have the requisite minority gal who can do anything her male counterparts can do, only better. Oh, sure, the spandex suit she is wearing is adequately described to let the reader know that she has all the feminine bodily allure that some of the men might notice. And, she has a few emotional moments, when she reacts momentarily to the deaths of her fellow captives or has memories of her backstory or interactions with her younger brother and sister. But, for all intents and purposes, she is just one of the guys in a book where most of the characters, including Dani, are called and referred to by surnames only--Vega, she is.

The theme is similar to The Naked Prey and The Most Dangerous Game in which humans are hunted prey and the heroine is similar to Erin Carter in the Netflix show--Who is Erin Carter--Vega just doesn't get gut shot or have as much hand to hand combat but the incredible survival skills shown usually by men in such shows and books is the same for her.

Not terribly original and having a definite agenda, still the book is riveting and the ending has a good hook.

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Review: The Winter Girls

The Winter Girls by Roger Stelljes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the surface the plot involves the kidnapping of a young girl from a cabin in the wintery woods of Minnesota. But as the story develops there is so much more than such a simple, though heartbreaking event. International sex-trafficking, money laundering and murder. Keeps Tori Hunter and Will Braddock on their toes, and involves their connections to many other law enforcement agencies. Steak and Eggs get their fair share of the action, too! Lots of action and interwoven threads--an exciting and eye-opening read.

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Review: What She Found

What She Found by Robert Dugoni
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Solving mysteries with Tracy Crosswhite, Faz and Del is always a treat. Wish I could get an invite to the back room of Fazzio's--Italian food and wine and good friends!

Daniella is growing up and Tracy and Dan's marriage is a partnership extraordinaire.

Amnesia must be so scary--I cannot even begin to imagine. Despite that, Tracy gets the job done.

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Review: The Late Show

The Late Show by Michael Connelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Never read anything by this author though I really enjoy the TV adaptations of Harry Bosch and The Lincoln Lawyer. Took a couple of chapters to get into the rhythm of his writing but well worth the effort. The characters are so multidimensional you can almost see them and hear them. Renee in particular is clear-cut: driven, determined to solve her cases at all costs and willing to take on cases not her own. She has been shunted to the night shift, where she and her partner pick up the cases and then, come morning, after documenting their parts, they turn them over to other detectives to work.

Her partner, being a long time detective, is perfectly happy with that arrangement--his days are his own with no need to spend hours away from his family. For Renee, however, it is frustrating. She has only her dog and a Grandmother up the coast that she returns to when she has week-ends off. She made waves when a superior sexually harassed her and, though the rank and file, for the most part, took her side, he was powerful enough to side line her. Even her former partner, turned his back on her and is now the superior's right hand man.

Much of this turns around, once some of the pieces of the major crime, a murder of three big time losers in a nightclub, start to fall into place. She's been kept out of it but the former partner is right in the thick of it. In the meantime, she has her own case to tie up--the brutal attack on a transexual male prostitute--and almost loses her life doing it.

Good, dramatic, fast paced sleuthing all around.