FATAL FLAW (Legal Thriller) – Okay-

William Lashner – 3rd in series

When old law school classmate Guy Forrest is accused of murdering his lover in their Main Line love next, Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl agrees to represent him while keeping

silent about his own prior romantic involvement with the victim.

Let me start by saying I read books for character; if I don’t like the characters, it’s a good bet…

SHELL GAMES (Wildlife Investigator) – Okay

Kirk Russell – 1st book

Chronicle Books, 2003 – Hardcover

Lt. John Marques is head of a special operations unit with the California Department of Fish and Game. He is after Kline, a former drug runner now into the more lucrative

smuggling of abalone and a long-time enemy.

With the story set in my own San Francisco Bay Area, I very much enjoyed the locations…

INTERRUPTED ARIA (Historical Mystery) – VG

Beverle Graves Myers – 1st book

In late 1731, Tito Amato and fellow castrato Felice Ravello leave Naples for Tito's native Venice to sing with an opera company owned by a wealthy and powerful family. During one performance, the prima donna is

poisoned, and Felice, is jailed as the chief suspect. Tito is determined to

clear his friend and scours the Republic

of Venice for evidence…

DISSOLUTION (Historical Mystery) – VG

C. J. Sansom – 1st book

It is 1537; the English Reformation is in full swing; and Lord Thomas Cromwell, King Henry VIII's vicar-general, is busy shutting down papist institutions. When one of his commissioners is beheaded at a remote

Benedictine monastery, Cromwell dispatches a second emissary, hunchbacked

lawyer Matthew Shardlake, to investigate the murder. What Shardlake and…

UNWILLING ACCOMPLICE (Amateur Sleuth - non-cozy) – G+

Barbara Saranella – 7th book

Munch Mancini receives a call from her daughter's aunt, who wants the girl to meet her cousins. When one of the cousins goes missing soon after the meeting, Munch is drawn into finding the girl and discovers a ring of

exploited and endangered children and teens.

I didn’t feel this was the strongest book of the series and…

The East Bay Mystery Readers' Group -

6 April 2004 Meeting Recap

THE PRICE OF MURDER – VG

Bruce Alexander – 10^th and final book in series

Set in Georgian England, blind magistrate, Sir John Fielding, and his young apprentice Jeremy Proctor investigate the brutal murder of a little girl whose mother had sold her into slavery. The trail leads Jeremy

into the world of horseracing, as he joins forces with the victim's uncle,

legendary jockey Deuteronomy Plummer. The challenges of the…

BURGLARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS – G+

Lawrence Block – 1^st of series – REISSUE

Bernie Rhodenbarr is a professional burglar who has been hired to procure a blue, leather box from the desk of a off-Broadway producer.

The job is not without problems; first, there’s no blue box; second,

he’s caught by the police and; third,…

EVAN’S GATE – VG

Rhys Bowen – 8^th in series

Constable Evan Evans becomes involved with two cases of missing children; one new, one old. Although the cases are 25 years

apart, there are striking similarities in the age and appearance of the

children. Evans feels a particular

involvement as he played with the girl who disappeared 25 year’s ago and wonders

whether the two…

LORD DARCY – G+

Randall Garrett

Welcome to an alternate world where Richard the Lion-Heart did not die in the year 1199... where magic is a science and science is an art... where the great detective

Lord Darcy and the sorcerer Sean O'Lochlainn combine occult skills and

brilliant deductions to bring criminals to the King's Justice and thwart those

who plot against the Realm. Welcome to a…

As graduates of the Stonecroft Academy class of '84 prepare for their twentieth high-school reunion, only a pimple-faced reporter for the school paper notes that this class has seen more

than its share of mysterious deaths--and that all were members of a popular

clique. We only know it was someone who was spurned by girls and made fun of by

everyone, someone who dubbed his evil alter ego The…

REDEMPTION STREET – VG

Reed Farrel Coleman – 3rd in series

Moe Prager—retired New York City cop-turned-wine shop owner—still possessed of his vintage police savvy, and is, perhaps, the only Jewish licensed PI in the five boroughs, Moe wonders if he’s really meant to be

a merchant and not a cop. Redemption Street finds him in 1981, lured into the

mystery of a 1966 hotel fire—one that killed seventeen people, including…

CODEX – OK

Lev Grossman

Up-and-coming investment banker wunderkind Edward Wozny is dropped into the musty realm of medieval literature when a powerful client's commission to uncrate and organize a library. The diversion quickly becomes an

obsession after he enlists the help of the quirkily attractive scholar Margaret

Napier. Together they discover his employer, the mysterious Duchess of Bowmry,

is in a…

MANHATTAN NOCTURNE – NR

Colin Harrison

NYC tabloid columnist, Porter Wren attends a party and is sought out by beautiful Caroline Crowley, widow of film director Simon Crowley, because she has "a

little problem." After phoning his wife and lying about why he'll be

home late, Porter finds himself in Caroline's Fifth Avenue apartment and drawn

ever deeper into the life…

SO LONG AS YOU BOTH SHALL LIVE – VG

Ed McBain – 32^nd in series

Det. Bert Kling had just married beautiful Augusta Blair and was anticipating his wedding night. Augusta was waiting for him. He got out of the shower, and

opened the door, but Augusta

is gone. He’s not too worried as he had

been told of a quaint custom of kidnapping the bride on her wedding night and

his…

The East Bay Mystery Readers' Group -

2 March 2004 Meeting Recap

THE ADVENTURESS (Amateur Sleuth) - Carole Nelson Douglas - GOOD+

Diva/detective Irene Adler and her bridegroom, handsome barrister Godfrey Norton, are honeymooning in Paris when they become embroiled in an investigation: a drowned sailor's body has been recovered from the Seine, and on his chest is a…

DI Tom Thorne is up against is a particularly creepy specimen who savagely killed three victims but his fourth, Alison, has undergone a deliberately induced stroke and although all her senses are intact,

she is totally unable to move or communicate. This hideous condition, called

Locked-in Syndrome is, however, quite possibly the killer's first

miscalculation…

Amanda Witham enjoys wearing the eighteenth century garb while working as a tour guide at Williamsburg, Virginia's Melrose House. When archeologists discover two-century-old

bones in the nearby garden, Amanda received visits from the ghost of James

Grant who persuades her to uncover the truth about his untimely death. Upon

traveling to Scotland Amanda finds herself embroiled…

BOOKMAN’S PROMISE – VG

John Dunning – 3^rd in series (Investigative mystery)

Cliff Janeway former homicide cop turned antiquarian bookseller, is thrilled with his purchase of a first edition by nineteenth-century explorer Richard Burton, but the book brings more grief than it does pleasure.

After an elderly woman arrives in Janeway's store claiming that the Burton belongs to her, Janway finds himself in the middle

of a…

ONCE UPON A TIME – G+

Barbara Fradkin – 2nd in series (Canadian – police procedural)

When an old man dies a seemingly natural death, only Inspector Michael Green finds it suspicious. Talking to the man's family only increases Green's curiosity. A search of his house turns up an old tool box

with a hidden compartment containing a German ID card from World War II. Gradually,

suspects emerge, including members of the man's own…