Six Degrees of Separation: From All Fours to The Spellman Files

 

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 books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is All Fours by Miranda July. Although the book has been very successful, I know very little about it, so I am linking to my first book using the author's first name.

1st degree:

Linking from the author's name, Miranda July, my first book in the chain is City of Secrets (2011) by Kelli Stanley; the main character in this book is Miranda Corbie. I think Miranda is a lovely name. I haven't read this book but my husband has, and here is his brief review from Goodreads:

This excellent private eye thriller - the second of the Miranda Corbie series - weaves a genuinely sinister plot line into an evocative 1940 San Francisco setting. A strong protagonist (who drinks and smokes lots!), well drawn supporting characters, and style to burn.

2nd degree:

Using Kelli Stanley's last name, I link to a book from the Stanley Hastings series, Favor (1988) by Parnell Hall. My husband and I both read this book, but his review (at Goodreads) is much better than mine:

Stanley Hastings is a lowly-paid leg man for an ambulance chasing lawyer, a wannabe sort of private eye and writer, a self-deprecating and loving family man. In this, the third of Parnell Hall's series, we find Stanley off to Atlantic City to do a quick favor for someone who's not really even a friend. Before too long, he finds himself charged with grand larceny (the way he tries to get out of that is elegant) and in the frame for two murders. The characters are all sharply drawn, the pace is swift, the plot is complex in a good way, and there is a light tone throughout. There are nearly 20 in the series and I can't wait to get to the next one.

3rd degree:

Parnell Hall was a prolific author with multiple series. For my next link I choose a book by another author with the last name of Hall. Adam Hall was a pseudonym used by Ellestor Trevor, and under that name he wrote a long-running series of spy novels featuring Quiller, a British secret agent for a covert organization of spies, unacknowledged by the government. Quiller is a very unusual spy fiction protagonist in that he doesn't smoke, drink, or carry a gun. The Quiller Memorandum (1965) is set in the 1960s in Berlin, and Quiller has finished a long string of assignments to find Nazi war criminals and bring them to trial. He is planning to return to England the next day, but is enticed into a new assignment when another agent is killed.

4th degree:

Moving from a spy series written in the 1960s to another series written at about the same time, my next link is to Funeral in Berlin (1964) by one of my favorite authors, Len Deighton. In this story, the nameless spy (called Harry Palmer in the movie adaptations) is sent to East Berlin to facilitate the defection of an East German scientist. He must work with the Russian security-chief Colonel Stok and Hallam of the British Home Office. An elaborate plan is set up to get the scientist out of East Berlin. This book was published only three years after the Berlin Wall was constructed; in the introduction, Deighton speaks of the time he spent in East Berlin shortly after the wall went up. The setting feels very authentic.

5th degree:

Funeral in Berlin is about a defector in East Berlin. My next book, Defectors (2017) by Joseph Kanon, is about a group of American and British spies living in and around Moscow during the Cold War, after defecting to the USSR. The focus is on the relationship of the two brothers in the story, Frank, the US spy who defected to Russia in 1949, and Simon, his younger brother, who had to leave his job in intelligence to work in publishing after Frank's defection. In 1961, Simon has been allowed to come to Moscow to work with Frank on publishing his memoirs. I loved the exploration of family relationships, but the story has plenty of action also.

6th degree:

My next book, The Spellman Files (2007) by Lisa Lutz, is also about family relationships. The Spellmans are a strange and dysfunctional family who run a detective agency. Before reading the book, I had the mistaken notion that this book was primarily a humorous and cozy mystery. It is humorous but not so cozy, and sometimes does not even seem like crime fiction. I loved the writing, and I found the book hard to put down.

My Six Degrees starts in the US, moves to Berlin, Germany, then Russia, and back to the US. If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you? 

Have you read any of these books? 

The next Six Degrees will be on July 5, 2025 and the starting book will be the 2025 Stella Prize winner, Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser.

Books Read in November 2023

November was a very nice reading month. Two science fiction novels! Three novellas! A children's book set at Christmas! Two books from my Classics List! My total for the month was nine books, but that was mostly because I read three very short books and finished a book I had been reading over the last few months.

Nonfiction / Books about Books

Book Lust (2003) by Nancy Pearl

This is at least my third read of this book since it first came out. The subtitle is "Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason." Nancy Pearl was a librarian for many years and obviously has read a lot of books, and books from practically every genre. This book is filled with recommendations. I reread it because my tastes have changed over time and I always see some books that are new to me in it on each read. This time I was looking specifically for books about countries all over the world, or books using those countries as a setting. Since the book was published in 2003 it is not up to date, but I have always read more older books than current books so that does not matter to me.

Fiction / Children's 

The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street  (2018) by Karina Yan Glaser

This is a middle grade children's book set at Christmas, and a very lovely read. It is the first in a series of seven books about the family. See my review.

Fiction / Horror

Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker

Many people, including my husband, have told me that Dracula is a very good read, and they were all right. The story is told through letters and diary entries and I enjoyed that format. It was much more accessible than I expected, although parts of it were challenging to read. This book is on my Classics List and I am glad that I finally read it. 

Science Fiction

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2014) by Becky Chambers

This book is an excellent space opera, the first book in a three book series called Wayfarers. See my review.

Rogue Protocol (2018) by Martha Wells

The protagonist and narrator of Rogue Protocol is a security robot that has both human and robotic parts. This third entry in the Murderbot Diaries series is a novella, as are most of the books in the series. My review of the first book, All Systems Red, is here. I would not start with Rogue Protocol because there is so little backstory for what has gone before. I have enjoyed all of the books so far and the fourth book is already on my shelves waiting to be read.

Crime Fiction

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) by James M. Cain

Cain's first novel is a noir mystery and very brief, only 120 pages long. This was another book from my Classics List. See my review.

Where There's Love, There's Hate (1946) by Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo

Translated by Suzanne Jill Levine and Jessica Ernst Powell

This was a lovely short read at 128 pages. It may turn out to be one of my top ten books of the year. The introduction by Suzanne Jill Levine describes this book as a "tongue-in-cheek mystery somewhere between detective spoof and romantic satire." See my review.

Favor (1988) by Parnell Hall

Stanley Hastings is a licensed private detective in Manhattan, but his job is to pursue leads for an ambulance chaser lawyer. In this 3rd novel in the series. Stanley does some investigating in Atlantic City, to help out a policeman friend of his. See my review.

City Under One Roof (2023) by Iris Yamashita

This debut novel is set in an isolated small town in Alaska, Point Mettier. The isolation is imposed by natural forces, a major storm that closes the tunnel that provides the only access to the city. All 205 residents in the town live in one high-rise building. The story follows three characters: Amy Lin, a teenage girl who lives with her mother; Cara Kennedy, a detective who has come to the city to investigate some body parts found on a beach; and Lonnie Mercer, an eccentric loner who has a pet moose. All the main characters were interesting and most of the secondary characters are suspicious. Just about everyone has secrets they are hiding. A second book is scheduled to come out in February 2024, and I will be reading it at some point.

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken when we were walking to the Monarch Butterfly Grove in Goleta. It wasn't the time of year for the butterflies to be there, but it was a great walk and our first visit to the area in years.

Photos were taken and processed by my husband. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Favor: Parnell Hall

This is the 3rd novel in the Stanley Hastings series by Parnell Hall.  When I was looking for a lighter book to read following a heavier read (Dracula), my husband suggested I read a book from this series.

Stanley Hastings is a licensed private detective in Manhattan, but he has no office nor does he plan to do any detecting. What he does is pursue leads for an ambulance chaser lawyer. So when Sergeant MacAullif of the New York Police Department wants to hire Stanley to look into his son-in-law, Stanley refuses. MacAullif doesn't give up because he is really worried about his daughter. Stanley ends up agreeing to do some investigating as a favor to MacAullif and takes leave from his regular job to pursue leads in Atlantic City. Stanley's wife supports him in this decision.

My thoughts:

• These mysteries are not exactly cozies, but they are light in tone and told in a humorous way. They are often about serious subjects: prostitution, drug dealing, blackmail.
• Favor was published in 1988, thus the protagonist does not have the advantages of current investigators. And that is exactly what I like about books written in the 1980s and 1990s. No cell phones and no internet to look things up instantaneously.
• This is a fast-paced story, which I enjoy, but it is Stanley's character I keep coming back for. The story is told in first person, which I like. Stanley has a lot of good luck, but he also has a lot more skill than he realizes. He is a dedicated family man, with a wife and a young son. His relationship with his wife is a strong point in the series, although she does not show up much in this story. She is always supportive and has more faith in Stanley than he does in himself.

My husband is a huge fan of this series and has read 12 of the books at this point. Here is Glen's review of Favor at Goodreads:

Stanley Hastings is a lowly-paid leg man for an ambulance chasing lawyer, a wannabe sort of private eye and writer, a self-deprecating and loving family man. In this, the third of Parnell Hall's series, we find Stanley off to Atlantic City to do a quick favor for someone who's not really even a friend. Before too long, he finds himself charged with grand larceny (the way he tries to get out of that is elegant) and in the frame for two murders. The characters are all sharply drawn, the pace is swift, the plot is complex in a good way, and there is a light tone throughout. There are nearly 20 in the series and I can't wait to get to the next one.

-----------------------------

Publisher:  Donald I. Fine, 1988.
Length:      249 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Stanley Hastings, #3
Setting:      Manhattan and Atlantic City, New York
Genre:        Mystery
Source:      Borrowed from my husband.

Short Story Wednesday: Stories by Parnell Hall

My husband is a fan of the Stanley Hastings series by Parnell Hall, and is also reading the Steve Winslow series, which Hall wrote under the pseudonym of J.P. Hailey. I have also read a couple of Stanley Hastings books, so I decided to try some of his short stories. As far as I can tell, they are all only available in print in various anthologies, but some are available as Kindle short stories. These are mystery short stories where the emphasis is on humor and I enjoyed reading them. 

I started out with "Lethal Luncheon," a Puzzle Lady story. I read this story to see if I might want to read some of the Puzzle Lady mysteries by Hall. I have always liked crossword puzzles; my father did them also and he sent me a crossword puzzle from the newspaper every week when I was a freshman in college. 

Cora Felton, the main character, has a syndicated crossword puzzle column, but only she and her niece know that she really has nothing to do with creating the puzzles. 

In "Lethal Luncheon," Cora is going to a charity luncheon where she will give a talk on crossword puzzles. She is not happy about this since she is a fraud and knows nothing about crossword puzzles. Fortunately for Cora, a guest at the luncheon dies before she has to give her speech, and she is able to help the police with the crime.

The story was fun. At the beginning, I thought she was too crotchety and a pain in the ass. She smokes, which also bothered me a bit at first and I don't know why. But soon I saw that she was funny and quirky and I will give the first Puzzle Lady novel a try sometime soon.

I then tried stories from Hall's other two series.

"Deal Me In" is a Stanley Hastings story. Stanley is an investigator working for a negligence attorney, Richard Rosenberg. Rosenberg is part of a group who play poker together once a month. On this particular night, one of the players dies during a poker hand. Stanley is called in to the scene of the crime by his boss so that he can be included when all the members are interviewed by the police. The players in the game are a "cross section of Manhattan's elite who had been gambling together over twenty years." The police investigator is Sergeant McAullif, who has worked on cases with Stanley before. After much discussion, Stanley is allowed to sit in on the interviews, and later helps to solve the case.

In "The Witness Cat," Steve Winslow is a court-appointed lawyer for an older man accused of murdering his rich employer. The defendant was the caretaker of the dead man's estate, and the primary witness against him is the dead man's nephew. Fortunately the dead man's cat helps him clear his defendant of the charge.

This story reminded me a lot of the cases on the original Perry Mason TV series. And that reminded me that I had read that Parnell wanted to continue the Perry Mason series. 

From the Parnell Hall website:

My Steve Winslow series came from a lifetime of reading Perry Mason. Indeed, The Anonymous Client, begun shortly after Erle Stanley Gardner died, was begun as a Perry Mason novel and completed as a Steve Winslow novel after Gardner’s widow refused to give up the rights.

Reading Summary for September 2021

September was another very good reading month. This month's reading was all crime fiction. Two books of the eight I read were spy thrillers, but I count those in crime fiction. 

Crime Fiction

The Lady Vanishes (1936) by Ethel Lina White

The Lady Vanishes was originally published as The Wheel Spins in 1936. Two years later the book was adapted to film by Alfred Hitchcock, with the title The Lady Vanishes, so many editions of the book have the same title as the film. I had seen the film many times, and now I am glad that I have also read the book. The book is more suspenseful and serious, with more realistic characters, but both are good. See my full review here.

Murder (1987) by Parnell Hall

Murder was the second book in the Stanley Hastings series. Stanley is a bumbling private detective (sort of). His primary work is following up on accident reports where people want to sue for damages, but in the two books I have read, he gets involved in investigations on the side, helping people who need favors or at the request of his wife. This is a humorous series where Stanley handles serious crimes and helps people out. See my review here.

The Chinese Shawl (1943) by Patricia Wentworth

The fifth Miss Silver mystery by Patricia Wentworth. I love the Miss Silver series, and this one was especially good, with the wartime setting. I am trying to finish all the books in this series set during the war or immediately afterward before I move on to later ones or Wentworth's novels that don't feature Miss Silver.

Blackout in Gretley (1942) by J. B. Priestley

This is the second book I have read by Priestley. My husband got it recently and liked it very much. The setting and genre were perfect for me, World War II espionage fiction, with the protagonist trying to locate Nazi spies in a Midlands town in England. 

A Siege of Bitterns (2014) by Steve Burrows

This is the first book in the Birder Murder Mystery Series; the main protagonist is DCI Domenic Jejeune. He is the new DCI in the Norfolk town of Saltmarsh. A TV presenter and ecological activist is murdered, and Jejeune is heading the investigation. Birding is big in the area, and Jejeune is a birder. I loved the passages about birds and the ecology of the area and the mystery was handled well too. Check out Rick Robinson's review at Tip the Wink.

The Stranger Diaries (2018) by Elly Griffiths

This is a modern mystery story with gothic elements. I have never been a big fan of gothic stories, but I enjoyed this one. For me it was a slow read, but I was always eager to get back to reading the book. I liked the structure of the book with the story told from the viewpoint of three characters, and the book framed by a ghost story, which is slowly revealed throughout the book. This was the perfect read for R.I.P. XVI (Readers Imbibing Peril).

Home to Roost (1976) by Andrew Garve

Andrew Garve is a pseudomym of Paul Winterton, who wrote over 40 detective and adventure books between 1938 and 1978. Home to Roost isn't a straightforward mystery or detective story, more of a suspense novel, told in first person by a successful author who writes adventure novels. This is the first book I have read by this author, and I will be reading more of his books. The novel was published in 1976 and is the first book I read for the 1976 Club. 

Catch a Falling Spy (1976) by Len Deighton

Originally published in England under the title Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy. Len Deighton is one of my favorite authors, and this is a cold war spy novel. The narrator is nameless, although I am not sure he is the same nameless spy as in Deighton's earliest novels. The action starts and ends in Algeria, with hops to France, Ireland, and several locations in the US. A very complex story, not for everyone but perfect for me. Another book I read for the 1976 Club.

The plant shown immediately above is Veronica (Spiked Speedwell). The plant shown at the top of the post is Tibouchina heteromalla (Silver leafed Princess Flower). Both are entirely new plants to me, and we bought them to plant in our yard this year.

Murder: Parnell Hall

Murder was the second book in the Stanley Hastings series by Parnell Hall. My husband is a big fan of that series and I am slowly catching up. Stanley is a bumbling private detective (sort of). Actually, most of the time he does quite well at it, he just doesn't have confidence in himself. 

His primary work is following up on accident reports where people want to sue for damages, to supply evidence for his boss, attorney Richard Rosenberg, who is a piece of work. It sounds like a terrible job. But inevitably he gets involved in a real murder that he has to solve. I enjoyed this entry in the series a lot.

This time the subject matter was pretty serious (prostitution and pornography, but with no graphic violence or sex). A woman has been blackmailed into working as a prostitute, and needs help to get out of a difficult situation. Stanley's wife knows her, sympathizes, and asks Stanley to help. He has a hard time saying no to his wife, so he gets involved.

Some readers complain about the series being dated. Murder was published in 1987, and Stanley has to respond to a pager and hunt around for a telephone booth to make a call from to get his assignments for his job. But that is exactly what I like about books set in the 1980s and 1990s. No cell phones and no internet to look things up instantaneously.

I like humor in mysteries, but I prefer the subtle approach. In the past, I have avoided mysteries that are written specifically with the intent to be funny, but my enjoyment of all types of humor in mysteries is broadening. In the Stanley Hastings series, the humor is present in every interaction, but my favorite parts so far are Parnell Hall's descriptions of Stanley's day-to-day job of meeting with applicants who want to sue for damages after an injury. He usually has much sympathy for the applicants because they are often living in bad situations with low-paying jobs, but he also describes the rough neighborhoods he has to go to to meet the clients, the dangers involved, and his fear of that part of the job. 

The stories are told in first person narration by Stanley. I like that style of storytelling, and it works well here. We get the whole story from Stanley's point of view. The stories are also fast-paced and keep my interest from beginning to end. This was a fun book and I hope it doesn't take me so long to read book 3 in the series.

This is my husband's review on Goodreads, from 2013. Since then he has read seven more books in the series and has enjoyed them all.

This second volume in Parnell Hall's Stanley Hastings detective series is every bit as good as the stellar original. With a witty, self-deprecating protagonist (who, amazingly, has a home life and is personally undamaged) and an intricate clockwork plot (although the ending does feel a bit rushed) you really can't ask for a more entertaining read. Since I came late to this long-running series I anticipate more reading pleasure ahead.

This is my second book read and reviewed for the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril event.

-----------------------------

Publisher:  Donald I. Fine, 1987.
Length:      256 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Stanley Hastings, #2
Setting:      New York, New York
Genre:        Mystery
Source:      Borrowed from my husband.

Bookshelf Traveling for Insane Times No. 12

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme, hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.

This week I am returning to my husband's bookshelves in the glass-front bookcase. This image shows two series that he reads. If you click on the image of the shelf, you will be able to read more of the titles.

Starting from the left...
The Jack Yu series by Henry Chang:

This series features American-born Jack Yu, who is one of only a few Chinese officers in the NYPD. In the first book in the series, Chinatown Beat, Jack Yu is assigned to the Chinatown precinct. In the second book, he has been transferred to another precinct,which he prefers because he has too many personal ties in Chinatown. But, with his background, he ends up getting involved with cases in Chinatown anyway.

See my reviews of Chinatown Beat and Year of the Dog.

Those are the only two books I have read in the series. My husband has read all five books.

Here is Glen's review of the 4th book, Death Money at Goodreads:

It's been a few years since Henry Chang has published a NYPD Detective Jack Yu procedural and this, the 4th, is a welcome return. Here, Yu is assigned (seemingly based on ethnicity alone) to investigate the death of an unidentified young Asian man found in the Harlem River. Just like a solo private eye (this book reads like a noirish private eye thriller), Yu is basically on his own (he has no partner and calls on only minimal police assistance) as he searches for the identities of killer and victim. There's no pyrotechnics or strong action here, just methodical, well-plotted police work with strong characters (especially Billy - Yu's good friend, tofu shop owner. and sort of loose cannon).

The series on the right is Parnell Hall's Stanley Hastings series. Glen has two reviews on Goodreads that give a good picture of the series so I am including those:

Glen's review of Murder, #2 in the series, at Goodreads:

This second volume in Parnell Hall's Stanley Hastings detective series is every bit as good as the stellar original. With a witty, self-deprecating protagonist (who, amazingly, has a home life and is personally undamaged) and an intricate clockwork plot (although the ending does feel a bit rushed) you really can't ask for a more entertaining read. Since I came late to this long-running series I anticipate more reading pleasure ahead.

Glen's review of Favor, #3 in the series at Goodreads:

Stanley Hastings is a lowly-paid leg man for an ambulance chasing lawyer, a wannabe sort of private eye and writer, a self-deprecating and loving family man. In this, the third of Parnell Hall's series, we find Stanley off to Atlantic City to do a quick favor for someone who's not really even a friend. Before too long, he finds himself charged with grand larceny (the way he tries to get out of that is elegant) and in the frame for two murders. The characters are all sharply drawn, the pace is swift, the plot is complex in a good way, and there is a light tone throughout. There are nearly 20 in the series and I can't wait to get to the next one.

My husband has read eight of the twenty books in the series and liked them all. I have only read the first one and I should read the second one soon.

Planned Parenthood Book Sale, Part 2

My husband bought eleven books at the book sale. He is much more in control of his book buying impulses than I am. But he was very happy with most of the books he got. This is a sample.

Whispering Bodies by Jesse Michaels

About the author:

Jesse Michaels is an artist, musician and writer from Berkeley California. Over the years he has played in bands, created fanzines and illustrations, and written fiction. He was the singer of the punk bands Operation Ivy, Big Rig, Common Rider and Classics of Love. He has created art for Neurosis, Green Day, Christ on Parade, Filth, The Criminals, Spencer Moody, Pretty Girls Make Graves and many others.

Description of the book at the author's website:

Whispering Bodies is a comic novel which employs a mystery frame to tell the story of a reclusive man who must leave the safety of his isolated world to clear the name of a woman he has fallen for.

A comment on the back of the book suggests this book is like The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien, so Glen picked up a copy of that one also.

Unfortunately, Glen did not enjoy that book at all. Here is his review at Goodreads:

The unnamed narrator of this book is a failed farmer and pub keeper who finds himself increasingly under the thumb of John Divney, a hired man who - over time - considers himself part owner of the farm and pub. Divney needs money and his solution is to enlist the (very passive) narrator in murder and robbery. The murder takes place and so far so good. Then the book decides it will be an "Alice and Wonderland" - with a quest for a box possibly filled with loot, nonsensical and surrealistic dialog, a visit to eternity, and endless discussions on bicycles - and it is then that it becomes a slog (and only 206 pages!) for me. Many readers really (really!) like this book but I'm afraid I found it a great struggle to finish.

London After Dark

From Kirkus Reviews:

Addenda to his earlier Fabian Of The Yard fills in the picture of crime in England and works its way from general exposition on various types of illegalities to specific cases. From night haunts, guarding royalty, gambling, dope, sex, perverts, unlawful pictures and satanic practices, he goes on to the crooks themselves, the informers, the rackets, and winds up with 14 examples of the painstaking police activities that untangled varying iniquities. This dossier has a very moral tone to its yarning, and its expertising, by an ex-superintendent of the Yard, offers solid, dependable -- and interesting material for the true crime fancier.

Ghosts by Gaslight

From a review at Deseret News:

Ghosts by Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Supernatural Suspense edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers, is a collection of all new ghost stories, inspired by the likes of Edgar Allen Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle. The stories, by established authors, infuse a modern fascination with old-fashioned technology into a Victorian setting in a genre called steampunk. While not every contributing author is a short story specialist, each story has some unsettling or haunting aspect to it.

From the reviews I read, the biggest criticism of this book was that not all stories had steampunk elements. As in any collection of short stories, some are better than others, and this depends on the reader's taste.

Blackmail by Parnell Hall

This is the ninth book in the Stanley Hastings series.

From Goodreads:

Complications arise when Stanley Hastings handles a blackmail payment involving pornographic pictures. Not only does he fail to stop the blackmailer, but everyone he talks to dies.

“Every page quivers with comic frustration and the result is an absolute joy.”—Kirkus (starred)

“Parnell Hall succeeds in making Stanley Hastings one of a kind …. BLACKMAIL is pleasantly reminiscent of an earlier era, when detectives like Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin brought some humor to their chores.”—The Wall Street Journal 

The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

The description below is from Boing Boing. There are also lots of photos at that post of WW II workers in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians — many of them young women from small towns across the South — were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is, until the end of the war—when Oak Ridge’s secret was revealed.
Drawing on the voices of the women who lived it—women who are now in their eighties and nineties — The Girls of Atomic City rescues a remarkable, forgotten chapter of American history from obscurity.

New (to me) Mystery Authors, January - March

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.

In the first quarter of 2013, I read ten books by authors I had never read  before. That is a lot of new authors. Twice as many as in the last quarter. So, even if I am not getting through series that I have started, I have read some new authors that have been in my TBR pile a long time.

This is my list of books by new (to me) authors:

1. Publish or Perish by Margot Kinberg
2. The Smoke by Tony Broadbent
3. The Case of the Angry Actress by E. V. Cunningham
4. Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
5. Amuse Bouche by Anthony Bidulka
6. Detective by Parnell Hall 
7. The Loyal Servant by Eva Hudson
8. Forty Words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt
9. Deadly Appearances by Gail Bowen
10. A Stone of the Heart by John Brady

All of the books on this list were well-written and entertaining. I plan to read more books in each of the series.

Forty Words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt was a serial killer novel with too much graphic violence for my tastes. However, the characterization was so strong in that book, and the plotting and setting are so vivid, that I have to try the next in the series.

Margot Kinberg's Publish or Perish is an entertaining mystery that combines elements of amateur detective, police procedural and takes place in an academic setting. What more can you ask for?

It is hard to believe that it took me so long to read the first book in Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series, Devil in a Blue Dress, which was published in 1990. It has an interesting setting:... 1948, post WWII, a black neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins is a black man who moves to Los Angeles, California from Houston, Texas to look for a better life after serving in the military during World War II.




There were two books in this group that did not fit in my usual guidelines. Both were light, humorous private detective stories. Detective by Parnell Hall is set in New York City. Amuse Bouche by Anthony Bidulka is set in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Normally I shy away from humor in mysteries, but I am discovering that it really depends on the writer, and both of these writers won me over.

A Stone of the Heart by John Brady is another winner. I am really into police procedurals at the moment. This one is set in Dublin, Ireland during the 1980's. I know very little about Ireland or Northern Ireland during this time and I want to know more.

Detective: Parnell Hall

This is an easy review to write. I liked this book from beginning to end. And the more I find out about the author, the more I like him.

Stanley Hastings is a private detective, but really he has never done any detecting. Nor does he have any confidence in his ability to do so. What he does is pursue leads for an ambulance chaser lawyer.

So, when he is offered a real job, by a guy in trouble with drug dealers, he turns him down. And then, he inevitably gets involved in the case.

This is the second private detective novel I have read in a row, and both had humorous elements. This one is definitely intended to be funny.  I enjoyed Detective more for the story and Stanley's character. It is told in first person, which I like. Stanley has a lot of good luck, but he also has a lot more skill than he realizes.

Based on the bio at Mystery Writers of America, Parnell Hall is a versatile and interesting person. In addition to writing books and screenplays, he is an actor, and he has been a private detective.

At Mystery Fanfare, there is a video he put together which is very entertaining.

I would never had read this book if my husband had not discovered the series. Parnell Hall also writes the Puzzle Lady series, and my assumption was that I was not going to like anything he wrote. There, I have revealed my biases. I avoid cozy mystery series with a theme. This has caused me to miss good series (well, at least one) in the past and I should know better, but that bias is still there. (So if anyone has some suggestions for good, well-written cozy series with a theme that I may have mistakenly missed out on, please let me know.)

He discovered the book via the Kindle app, and that is a plus for buying an e-reader. I still am not really comfortable reading in e-format, but we sure have found a lot of new and old authors that way. He liked the book so much he bought a reasonably-priced hardcover edition, and also a hardcover of the second novel in the series, so you can see the Kindle is not keeping us from buying books.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, with caveats. If you like light, humorous books and you don't mind strong language and somewhat graphic violence. There is not a lot of violence taking place on the page, but some of the crimes are unappealing. We are dealing with particularly vicious drug dealers here.

Will I read more of this series? Again, yes, with caveats. From reviews and descriptions of the books that I have read, I get the impression that Stanley doesn't change much over the series. I generally prefer growth and / or change in a series. I will definitely pursue this series, but if there is a lot of sameness to each story, I will put some time between each one. Which is fine, I have a lot of books to read.