LJ's Top Reads of 2004

Benoit, Charles - Relative Danger

Cleverly, Barbara - The Damascended Blade

Connor, John - Phoenix

Dunnett, Dorothy - The Game of Kings

Hamilton, Sylvian - The Bone Peddler

Hamilton, Sylvian - The Gleemaiden

Karp, Larry - First, Do No Harm

Katzenbach, John - The Madman's Tale

Krueger, William Kent - Blood Hollow

McBain, Ed - The Frumious Bandersnatch

Myers, Beverle Graves - Interrupted Aria

Pawel, Rebecca -…

Copyright attorney Rep Pennyworth and his wife, Melissa, become embroiled in trying to clear their friend Peter or the murder of a man with whom his wife had just been unfaithful.

The fun of this book is the main characters of Rep and Melissa and the itinerary references. The weakness is…

A FATAL VINEYARD SEASON (Amateur Sleuth-Martha's Vineyard-Cont) – G

Philip H. Craig – 10th in series

Scribner, 1999- Hardcover

Retired policeman, J.W. Jackson, is hired to look after starlet Ivy Holiday, who is African-American, and has continued to receive letters from a stacker currently in prison.

However, a greater threat comes from a local sexist racist and whose

ex-con brother runs a protection…

THE GLASS HOUSE (Amateur Sleuth-England-1800's) - VG

Ashley Gardner - 3rd in series

Berkeley Prime Crime, 2004- Paperback

Captain Gabriel Lacey is called on by his former Sergeant, now a Bow Street Runner, to possibly identify the body of a woman pulled from the river. Although he does not know

her, he is angered by her death and determined to find her killer. When her identity associates her with both society

and The Glass…

TOP OF THE HEAP (PI-California-1950s) – G-

Erle Stanley Gardner - 13th of series

Hard Case Crime, 2004 (Reprint from 1952), Paperback

Private Investigator Donald Lam is asked to verify the alibi of wealthy John Carver Billings II. When it soon becomes clear the alibi is false, Donald decides to find out what crime

is Billings is

trying to cover.

I kept trying to view it in context of the period.…

NIGHTINGALE'S LAMENT (Fantasy/Detective) – VG

Simon R. Green – 3rd in series

Ace Fantasy, 2004 – Paperback

John Taylor has been hired to find a local diva who has cut herself off from her family. While her voice is gaining fame, it is also causing those who hear her to commit suicide.

Taylor's world is not a place one would ever want to visit: a part of London

called Nightside where it is always 3…

LAKE OF SORROWS (Amateur Sleuth/Pathologist-Ireland-Cont) – VG

Erin Hart – 2nd book

Hodder & Stoughton, 2004 – U.K. Hardcover

Forensic pathologist, Nora Gavin, goes to an archeological site to investigate the finding in a peat bog of an Iron Age Body who seems to have been a human sacrifice having been slain three ways. Then a second, recent body is uncovered

having been killed the same way. More,

similar, deaths occur…

THE LAST VICTIM IN GLEN ROSS (Police Procedural-Scotland-Cont) - G

M.G. Kincaid - 1st in series

Pocket Books, 2003- Paperback

Detective Sergeant Seth Mornay is called to investigate the murder of a woman found in the local church graveyard of the vicar with whom she was a close friend. When Mornay

learns the vicar's wife committed suicide a couple year's earlier, Mornay feels

there is a link between the two…

THE STUPIDEST ANGEL (Fantasy-Pine Cove, CA-Cont) - VG

Christopher Moore - Standalone

William Morrow, 2004 - Hardcover

Constable Theo Crowe has sworn off pot as long as his wife, Molly the Outlander Warrior Babe, keeps taking her meds. Add to them a completely off-center cast of characters and young Joshua Barker, who has just seen Santa murdered and is

praying for a Christmas miracle.

Unfortunately, the…

DANCE FOR THE DEAD (Suspense-U.S.-Cont) - VG

Thomas Perry (2nd in series)

Ivy Books, 1996-Paperback

Jane Whitefield, an expert at helping people disappear, is actually helping a small boy reappear in time to save him from being declared legally dead and his inheritance being taken over by the trustees. However, it seems someone would rather he

disappear forever. A woman asks Jane to

help her disappear from those pursuing her.…

SHADOW OF DEATH (Amateur Sleuth/Lawyer-New England-Cont) – G+

William G. Tapply - 20th in series

St. Martin's Minotaur, 2001- Paperback

Attorney Brady Coyne has been hired by the campaign manager of Democratic Senate hopeful Ellen Stoddard to locate her husband. However, when Coyne hires an investigator who is then murdered, Coyne decides to find out himself why his friend died and

where is the husband.…