Six Degrees of Separation - From Lincoln in the Bardo to 9Tail Fox

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six other books, forming a chain. Every month she provides the title of a book as the starting point.

This is my first month to join in. It is not a requirement that the books be ones I have read, but this month I have read all of the books in my chain, although I have not reviewed them all.

The starting point this month is Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. I have not read Lincoln in the Bardo but my understanding is that much of the novel takes place in the "bardo", a Tibetan term for the Buddhist "intermediate state" between death and reincarnation.

That leads me to my first book in the chain, The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. That book shows another version of life after death, and is divided between two settings. One is the City,  a sort of afterlife where those who have died reside as long as they are remembered by one living person. The second is Antarctica, where a woman is trapped alone in a research station, running out of supplies.

My next book is also set in two locations, one of which is Antarctica. This is Christine Poulson's new book, Cold, Cold Heart, in which Katie Flanagan, a medical researcher and doctor, stationed at a remote research base in the Antarctic. The second story line is set in and around Ely in the UK, where a patents lawyer investigates another scientist's research into a cancer cure.

From Cold, Cold Heart, I move to Malicious Intent by Kathryn Fox, whose protagonist, Dr. Anya Crichton, is also a doctor, in this case a pathologist and forensic physician. This book is set in Sydney, Australia, which leads me to...

A book by Katherine Howell, The Darkest Hour, also set in Sydney. In the Ella Marconi series, Ella,  a police detective, is the main protagonist, but each book also features a different paramedic who becomes involved in a crime. The author worked as a paramedic for 15 years, so the scenes with the paramedics feel very authentic. This book is primarily a police procedural, which leads me to...

...the first book in an urban fantasy series, Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovich. This is a police procedural with a difference. The protagonist, Peter Grant is a constable in the Metropolitan Police Service in London. He ends up working with Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, in a specialist unit that deals with ghosts, spirits, vampires, you name it, when they are disrupting the peace in London. A wonderfully entertaining series.

And finally I link to another novel which is blend of fantasy and police procedural, 9Tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood.

Bobby Zha, a Sergeant in the San Francisco Police Department in Chinatown, is gunned down while investigating a crime. When he awakens in the body of an accident victim who has been comatose for the last twenty-odd years, in New York City. He returns to San Francisco in his new body to investigate his death, and along the way he discovers a lot about himself.

So, my chain has taken me from Lincoln in the Bardo to 9Tail Fox. It makes sense that the chain has as much fantasy as mystery novels in it, but not what I expected.

I do hope to read Lincoln in the Bardo someday, when I encounter a copy and the time is right.

Web of Deceit: Katherine Howell

From the summary at the author's website:

When paramedics Jane and Alex encounter a man refusing to get out of his crashed car, with bystanders saying he deliberately drove into a pole, it looks like a desperate cry for help. His frantic claim that someone is out to get him adds to their thinking that he is delusional. 

Later that day he is found dead under a train in what might be a suicide, but Jane is no longer so sure: she remembers the terror in his eyes. 

Detective Ella Marconi shares Jane's doubts, which are only compounded when the case becomes increasingly tangled.

Although this is the sixth book in an eight book series, this is only the third book by Howell that I have read. I read the first two books, Frantic and The Darkest Hour.  Detective Ella Marconi is the main character in the series but each book also features a paramedic who gets involved with a crime, and the case that Marconi is working on intersects in some way with the issues in the paramedic's life. In this book, we have two paramedics featured: Alex, a single father of a teenage daughter who recently was involved in a traumatic episode at work, and Jane, his partner, who is in a troubled relationship with a married man.

Katherine Howell is very good with characterization, and I find the people in the books very realistic. So realistic, in fact, that I get irritated with them and want them to get themselves straightened out. I also like the pacing of the stories. I have read the first two books in the series, and the pacing is what pulled me in. The second one, The Darkest Hour, was very long, nearly 500 pages in my mass market paperback edition, but I hardly noticed because the story moved so well. This one is a more reasonable length, 347 pages.

In some ways, this is a typical thriller. Some of the characters end up doing very stupid things that lead to problems in their lives, and the connections between various plot threads and the ending strains belief. But the story keeps the reader (at least this one) engaged, and it is easy to get involved and suspend disbelief. Although this is primarily a police procedural, I enjoy the elements of the story that follow the paramedics in their jobs and in their off hours.

Web of Deceit is the first Ella Marconi mystery published in the US. The publisher, Minotaur Books, provided me with my copy and I was very grateful. I have found it difficult to get copies of Katherine Howell's books here. I hope they will be publishing more of her books.

I did not have any problem reading the 6th book in the series without having read the three books that went before. Based on Ella's relationship with Dr. Callum McLennan in this book, some events have happened in her life that I missed by not reading books 3 - 5, but enough background detail is included. Many reviewers of this series of novels have commented that the books can be read as standalone novels, and I agree. Especially with the addition of a new paramedic each book, each story works alone very well.

See other reviews:

• Web Of Deceit received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly
• Shellyrae's review at Book'd Out
• Kerrie's review at Mysteries in Paradise
• Bernadette's review at Fair Dinkum Crime

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Publisher:   Minotaur Books, 2015 (orig. pub. 2013)
Length:      347 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Ella Marconi #6
Setting:      Sydney, Australia
Genre:       Police procedural
Source:     Review copy provided by the publisher.

Reading Summary for February 2016

I read a wide variety of books this month but the total was not very high. Not that this is a competition but I do usually like to read at least five or six. I have lowered my goal at Goodreads this year to 52 (to make more room for reading short stories) so four or five a month is a good average, and I did meet that.

I did read one graphic novel, The Secret Service: Kingsman.

Summary at Goodreads:

A British secret agent feels guilty about never spending time with his deadbeat sister and takes his wayward nephew under his wing after he's arrested in the London riots. The boy is heading straight for a jail cell until his uncle steps in and tries to give him a new life, training him to be a gentleman spy.

It was an interesting concept, but there wasn't a lots of depth. I will be watching the movie adaptation and then reviewing them together.

Now for the four crime fiction books I read this month:

Web of Deceit by Katherine Howell

Although this is the sixth book in an eight book series, this is only the third book by Howell that I have read. I read the first two books, Frantic and The Darkest Hour. (I liked all three of them.)

From a post at Petrona:

In one sense, the books are police procedurals, as Detective Ella Marconi and her colleagues investigate the crime that forms the basic plot of the book. In another sense, the books are “slice of life” dramas about the city’s paramedics, given great authenticity by the fact that the author was a paramedic before she became a full-time writer.

Maxine also mentions the pacing in the books, which is the element that drew me in when I read the first book. And I forgot to mention that Howell is an Australian author and the book is set in Sydney.

13 at Dinner by Agatha Christie

13 at Dinner is the seventh novel featuring Hercule Poirot. It was first published in the UK in 1933 as Lord Edgware Dies. Poirot is approached by the well known actress, Jane Wilkinson, to mediate for her to convince her husband, Lord Edgware, to give her a divorce. She states very openly that things would be much better for her if he was dead. A couple of days later, Lord Edgware is murdered. The rest of the book has Scotland Yard Inspector Japp and Poirot following leads to discover the murderer.

This was not my favorite Agatha Christie book but it was still very entertaining. Hastings narrates the story and there are lots of interesting characters. My full review here.

What is Mine by Anne Holt

This is serial killer book about the abduction of children, not the kind of book I normally seek out. And, to tell the truth, I don't know if I knew the subject when I bought it (10 years ago).  But, even so, I liked the book a lot. I liked the way the story was told, and I liked the characters. The setting in Norway is also a plus. So this one was a winner for me.

What is Mine was the English language debut of Anne Holt, a Norwegian author, and the first book in the Vik and Stubo series. Several novels in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series were published prior to this one in Norway, and most of the books in both series have now been translated into English and published in the US and the UK.

Kissing the Gunner's Daughter by Ruth Rendell

This was Ruth Rendell's fifteenth Inspector Wexford book, and it has a very good reputation. Based on reviews I had read, I had very high expectations, and unfortunately was disappointed. Not to say that this was a bad book; we are talking about Ruth Rendell here. As usual, Ruth Rendell is a good storyteller and very adept at creating interesting characters. Except for the policemen, the characters were not very likable, but that is fine. My full review here.

The Crime Fiction Pick of the Month meme is hosted at Mysteries in Paradise. Bloggers link to summary posts for the month, and identify a crime fiction best read of the month.

My pick this month is What is Mine by Anne Holt. I will be reviewing it soonish, but for now you can check out Bernadette's review at Reactions to Reading and Rebecca's review at Ms. Wordopolis Reads.

The Darkest Hour: Katherine Howell

From the author's website:

Paramedic Lauren Yates stumbles into a world of trouble the night she discovers a killer and his victim in an inner Sydney alley. When the killer threatens to make her life hell if she tells the police what she’s seen, she believes him – he’s Thomas Werner, her sister’s violent ex, father to Lauren’s niece, and not a man to cross.
                But when another victim of a stabbing reveals to Lauren with his dying breath that Werner attacked him, too, she finds herself with blood on her hands and Detective Ella Marconi on her back. Ella is keen to cement her temporary placement in the homicide squad and views Lauren as the perfect witness for this latest murder because she can testify to the victim’s last words.
                Ella soon realises Lauren is hiding something, however, and while her colleagues label her suspicion an obsession, she begins her own investigation. But the harder Ella pushes, the more Lauren resists, and the worse the threat from Werner becomes, putting them both in increasingly serious jeopardy.

You can tell from the description above that the story is fairly complex. It is actually even more complex than the summary implies. The nearly 500 pages of the novel are packed and I have no complaints about that.

I read Katherine Howell's first book, Frantic, in one day, which is very unusual for me. This book was longer and I had less available time, so it took two or three days, but it still had good pacing and kept me eager to come back for more.

I like the format of the Ella Marconi series. Ella is the protagonist, but each book has a new paramedic as a main character. In these first two books, I do see a pattern of romance being an element in the paramedic's story, and I usually don't care for that aspect in mysteries. In this case it did not bother me.

These are definitely thrillers, but not so thrillerish as to be unrealistic. From the beginning we know the identity of the murderer, so the mystery is how the investigation will play out and how Lauren's family will fare as long as Thomas Werner is free.

To recap, the elements I like most are the fast pacing and the two storylines of the policewoman and the paramedic. The two main protagonists are strong women. Both are dedicated to their jobs and concerned about keeping their jobs. That is something I can understand.

Katherine Howell is an Australian crime writer who worked as a paramedic for 15 years. Per the author's website, Tell the Truth, the eighth book in the Ella Marconi series, will be released in Australia on 1st February 2015.

See other reviews at: Reactions to Reading, Mysteries in Paradise, and Petrona. 

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Publisher:   Pan Books, 2009 (orig. pub. 2008)
Length:      495 pages
Format:      Paperback
Series:       Ella Marconi #2
Setting:      Sydney, Australia
Genre:       Police procedural
Source:      I purchased this book.

New To Me Authors, October - December 2013

Today I am joining in on the meme for the best new-to-me crime fiction authors at Mysteries in Paradise. This meme runs at the end of each quarter. Check out other posts for this quarter.

Between October 1st and December 31st in 2013, I read eight books by authors that I had never read before.

1. Frantic by Katherine Howell
2. Dead Before Dying by Deon Meyer
3. The Last Clinic  by Gary Gusick
4. The Hanging Judge by Michael Ponsor
5. Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis 
6. The Man-Eater of Malgudi by R. K. Narayan
7. Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos
8. The Holiday Murders by Robert Gott

I liked all of these authors for different reasons, and it is very hard to make a choice of best new crime fiction author (for me). But that is the name of this game, so I will narrow it down to ... Katherine Howell, an Australian author.

Frantic (2007) by Katherine Howell is the first in a series of thrillers set in Sydney, Australia. There are two main characters per book (roughly, as I understand it from reviews). The detective, Ella Marconi, is a constant throughout the series. The second character in each book is a paramedic, and that character changes from book to book. I think this is a very clever strategy, because it allows for variety and spices up the mix of characters. But, most of all I liked the pace of the book. It just did not let up. The excitement level in the story kept me reading and I did not want to put the book down.

I think I first heard of this author at Margot's blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist... This In the Spotlight features a later book in the series.

I was also very impressed with both of the non-crime fiction authors I read in this time period: R. K Narayan and Oscar Hijuelos. I plan to read more books by both of them, so I am taking small steps toward broadening my reading choices.

  

Frantic: Katherine Howell

Frantic (2007) by Katherine Howell is the first in a series of six books, set in Sydney, Australia. There are two main characters per book (roughly, as I understand it from reviews). The detective, Ella Marconi, is a constant throughout the series. The second character in each book is a paramedic, and that character changes from book to book. I think this is a very clever strategy, because it allows for variety and spices up the mix of characters. I will see as I continue reading this series.

I was lucky when I started reading this book. It was a day that I could read all day (very unusual in my life). I was immediately hooked in by the story and the characters, and I did finish the book in one day. And enjoyed it very much.

The title of the book describes the pace of the book.  This could be a criticism, but I found that the pace and the excitement level in the story kept me reading and I did not want to put the book down.

The book centers around the story of one paramedic and some events that happen to her family (her husband and child). The paramedic is Sophie Phillips and she and her husband Chris are experiencing marital problems. I am not going to go into much more detail than that regarding the plot. In the course of the paramedic's work, the emergency events are very fast paced and I felt the urgency of each rescue attempt.

Ella Marconi, the detective, is an interesting character but does seem to be in the background in this book. She is frustrated in her job (sounds familiar for detectives) and feels she has been passed over for plum assignments in the past. I will be interested in seeing how she develops in future books in the series.

A small (very small) quibble. I did get irritated with the married couple, because both assumed they knew what the other was thinking (wrongly) and made bad decisions based on this. I know this is a common plot device to keep a story interesting, but it is a pet peeve of mine. I also did not find this book to give me much sense of Sydney, the city in which they are based. That, however, is not a criticism from my point of view, just a comment in case that is specifically what the reader is looking for.

The author "worked as a paramedic for fifteen years and uses that experience in her books," per her website. The page on that site about this book has a sample chapter and some interesting comments on how the series started.

Please see these reviews...
at Ms. Wordopolis Reads and All the Books I Can Read (lots more detail at this one).