Another Thing To Fall..

Of course, the day after I post a blog about being too busy because my child won't take a morning nap, she wakes up at 7 am and then takes a morning nap.  Woot.

Another Thing to Fall is the 10th book in the Tess Monaghan series by Laura Lippman.

A tv show is filming in Baltimore and Tess gets hired to watch the bratty star, Selene Waites after a series of accidents/fires have happened on set. 

Tess learns some film trade secrets and becomes disillusioned by the industry, while Lloyd gets an unpaid-intern gig and falls in love with the industry.

Tess of course can't JUST watch Selene, she needs to know who / what is behind the fires on set.  There is the usual community members pissed because they aren't being utilized by the production company and the usual, get out of my neighborhood groups, but who could really not want Mann of Steel to succeed?

I of course, was a fan of yet another one of Lippman's books about Monaghan, the private investigator who started out just having a lot of dumb luck and has sense gotten better.  However, I'm not sure if I missed a few key details because I only read this while pumping or if it was supposed to be inferred or I was just not paying close enough attention because there were a few explanations at the end of the book that I was like huh? And I am not a fan of when parts of the mystery aren't shared with the reader but then the character shares stuff and that connects the dots.  If that makes sense.

I'm kind of sad that I am almost all caught up on her series.  I guess I will have to find a new one soon!!

And I do apologize.. the poll for October's Group Read is going up today through Tuesday, sorry it will be delayed this month!!

And.. what series should I pick up next?

No Good Deeds

Crow, being Crow, befriends a young black man and invites him home for dinner.  Of course, this couldn't be a simple dinner date.  Oh no, Tess and Crow's guest attempts to help himself to Tess's car, computer and a marijuana stash after the couple goes to bed.

Tess can't leave it alone, especially since the kid reacted to the name of a dead federal prosecutor.  So, Tess being Tess, uses an elaborate setup with her pal Whitney to track down her former house guest and get him to spill his beans.

And spill his beans he does.  He tells them details about the murder of said prosecutor that would be of much interest to the public and so they call in their reporter friends to get his scoop.  What Tess wasn't banking on, was pissing of a head honcho at the paper who drags her into a messy situation where she and her family are threatened.

I really liked this book and am still a fan of the Tess Monaghan series by Laura Lippman.  I am almost caught up, which will make me sad like all of my series that I enjoy, but I shall just have to find another!

What would you do if you came into a large sum of money?

By A Spider's Thread

Tess Monaghan, private detective, is approached by Mark Rubin, a very very conservative Orthodox Jew whose wife and children are missing but the police have determined that it isn't a case for them. Rubin is insistent that their marriage was a good one, there was no abuse and he has no idea why his Natalie would leave him and take their children. The only thing he can come up with is maybe she was trying to save him from something?

The ever skeptical Tess, is skeptical. She figures Rubin to be a controlling arse of a husband, which he was to an extent, but a typical Orthodox husband if you come to think of it. Tess agrees to take the case because she needs money and he has lots of it.

Bit by bit Tess learns that Mark hasn't been that forthcoming with information as she learns details that make his perfect life and perfect wife sound not so perfect at all. Russian immigrants, lying about religion, prison deals, what else will Tess learn before she can find Natalie and the children? Will she find Natalie and the children? Are they even alive?

I of course, loved this one too! You can really see Lippman's writing getting better and better, the further into the series you get. Tess's love life gets a spotlight as does her Aunt Kitty's and those snippets lead me to believe Tesser is finally growing up in her mid-thirties! ;)

Have you ever dated someone else as a back up when the one you wanted was unattainable?

The Last Place

Laura Lippman sucked me in again. I think mystery books are my favorite of the summer.  Probably, because they are easy to get into and lack the flowering descriptions of the more literary picks!

In The Last Place, Tess is given a list of people by one of the boards that Whitney is a part of, who have been killed by a partner/spouse and needs to find out if they local police flubbed the investigations.  Seems easy enough, right?

Well, Tess screws up first by not looking at autopsy reports and then she arrives at a house to find a supposed dead victim alive????

Someone is messing with her and apparently has an agenda that Tess must figure out before anyone else dies.

I really liked this installment in the Tess Monaghan series until it got towards the end and there was a scene where people were fighting to basically see who was going to live.  It got a little gruesome and I kind of gagged at the visual painted.  Ewwwww. 

Overall, Tess is growing as an investigator and some of her dumb slips from before have gotten better and I think my favorite sub-plot was where she and Whitney may have used Nair on a guy who was trying to roofie girls drinks. ;)  Don't mess with them!

Has anyone else started this series since I started gushing about how much I love it?

In A Strange City

In this installment of my new series craze by Laura Lippman, Tess is visited by a John Pendleton Kennedy who wants Tess to unmask the Poe Toaster over a stolen bracelet.  Tess declines the job, but decides to stake out the cemetery that the Poe Toaster visits each January out of her own curiosity.  Who is this Poe Toaster? Just some random guy who appears each January at the Baltimore cemetery where Edgar Alan Poe is buried and leaves champagne and flowers.  Yeah, odd

So what happens when Tess watches the Poe Toaster? Another Poe Toaster arrives and is shot dead.  Enter the dramatics.

The guy who is killed is linked to the gay community and to possibly being involved in a string of robberies.  Tess integrates herself into the investigation even though no one has hired her.. yet.

I liked the Poe references and enjoyed learning more about Baltimore local history.  I really think I need to visit it soon! I did read the other book that was in the series before this, but I read it in the hospital and I really have no recollection of it, but I know I liked it! ;) Still going strong on the series.

Do you like Poe? What is your favorite Poe?

In Big Trouble

So, my library came through for me and through inter-library loans I got to pick up In Big Trouble by Laura Lippman on Thursday night and flew through it, just like the others.

In this book, Tess gets a newspaper clipping with a picture of Crow (her ex boyfriend ) with the words In Big Trouble above his head.  With a little push from Kitty, she calls his mom and ends up headed to Austin, Texas to figure out what the heck is up with Crow.

When she gets to Austin, she can't find Crow but does run into a former band member of Poe White Trash.  With tips from him she ends up stumbling upon a dead body.  This is just the beginning of her new friendship with various Texas police departments and not the only dead body she finds while in Texas.

What Big Trouble is Crow in? Who is this mysterious Yoko Ohno who he is hanging with? You should probably read it and find out!

This one made me giggle a few times with some good one liners.  Definitely recommend and with 4 books into the 11 book series, I am still liking it. ;)

Have you ever been to Texas? How's the Mexican food where you live?

Don't forget to vote on June's Group Read... Will be posting the winner tomorrow!

Butcher's Hill

How predictive am I? I find a series and start plowing through.  The sad thing is, my library randomly doesn't have book number 4.  They had 2, 3 and they have 5 and 6 and I haven't ventured further to see what else they have and don't but who doesn't have the 1st book and the 4th??? Seriously.  So, now I am on the wait list for it to come from another library, and am on a Tess Monaghan hiatus. 

Butcher's Hill is the beginning of Tess Monaghan's private investigator business all on her own.  Well, she has a silent partner and Tyner to help, but she is doing it on her own.  Yay, Tess.  Her first customer is the Butcher of Butcher's Hill.  He was recently let out of prison after 5 years for killing a young boy who was a neighborhood hoodlum.  He wants Tess to find the hoodlums friends to see if they need any money and to apologize to them.

Her next client, Mary Browne, wants help finding her lost sister.  Or does she?

The suspense heats up when the kids Tess has been hired to find start ending up dead after someone broke into her office, and Mary Browne is not Mary Browne. 

I really liked this one and have definitely seen that Lippman's writing has improved from the first book.  Looking back the first book was kind of clunky and since they have streamlined into less random details and more focused writing.  Can't wait to read the next one!

The book also had an interesting insight into the welfare/adoptive/foster care system and how much people get paid for help.  Like for a welfare mom she would get say 200 a month, foster care 500 and to adopt people pay like 10,000.  Quite interesting.  How much is a kid worth? Sad.

Any book series I should check out now that I am waiting for the next book?

Charm City

The second book in the Tess Monaghan series by Laura Lippman did not disappoint either! I read this in basically one day.  I stayed up til after midnight to finish. ;)

I never realized the first one was kind of clunky with over info until I read this one and realized it was much better written.  Practice makes perfect.

In this installment, Tess is hired by the Beacon-Light to try to find out who put the un-authorized story on the front page of the paper.  A side drama, also involves her inheriting a greyhound after her Uncle Spike is beaten into a coma during a robbery at his bar. 

I really find Tess to be a likable enjoyable character who is real.  She makes mistakes, she isn't perfect and she gets her heart broken every now and then.  My kind of character. 

If you like Stephanie Plum books you will definitely like the Tess Monaghan series!

What are you reading right now?

(The poll for the June Group Read will be put up later today!)

Baltimore Blues

I may have a slight obsession with reading series.  I hate when you read a good book and it is over.  No more.  The character you've cried with, laughed with, felt for is no longer a part of your life.  I hate that feeling.  With a series, you keep getting more and more of your favorite people!

I first heard of the Tess Monaghan series probably in November/December of last year when I read my first book by Lippman and decided that I must try out this series.  Now another pet peeve, when the local library has PARTS of a series but not the whole series.  Yeah, they had the second-whatever but not the first book in the series.. Umm what?? So one day I just ordered it off Amazon because dangit, I wanted to start the series!

I finally got around to it, and I must say Baltimore Blues did not disappoint! It was a good mystery, with a bit of humor and introduced likable enjoyable characters.

Tess Monaghan is an out of work reporter who has been an out of work reporter for 2 years, when the newspaper she worked for went under.  Since then she has worked at a bookstore her aunt owns and does some freelance work for her uncle.  Besides that, she rows every morning.  A pretty low key life.  Oh and she randomly sleeps with an ex boyfriend. ;)

When her best rowing buddy, Rock, comes to her with a proposition (30 dollars an hour!!) she of course jumps at it.  Even though, it entails trailing Rock's girlfriend, Ava to see if she is cheating on him.  This starts the beginning of the drama, where she follows Ava to a hotel, catches her shoplifting and ultimately leads to a dead body, with Rock to blame.

Tess is thrown into a new 'career' of private investigator and finds that she really likes it.

I really liked that there were lots of pieces thrown around but all neatly connected to the main mystery and not too over done.  I would say out of the 2 other Lippman books this was my favorite.  I am definitely starting the next in the series, Charm City, after I finish typing this.

Have you ever been to Baltimore? (Another reason I liked this is because of all the details of the Baltimore area.. Lippman worked in Baltimore and it makes me want to visit!)

To The Power of Three

This is the second book by Laura Lippman that I've read and while I am not a gushing fan of hers, I do enjoy her mystery writing.

Josie, Kat and Perri have been inseparable since the third grade until the start of senior year when Perri stops talking to Kat and directs everyone to ask her why they are no longer friends, only for Kat to respond, ask Perri. Not even Josie knows why the rift started, only that she can't bare to lose Kat too.

The book starts with a girl preparing to take a gun to school. The next thing we know we are dropped into a high school in early June that is bustling, getting ready for the end of the year and graduation when a shooting takes place in the girls room. Shot? Kat, Perri and Josie. Only one is conscious and talking.

The book goes back and forth between present time and back into snippets from the past 10 years of friendship. From the beginning in third grade, to middle school dramas to early high school woes to college worries and the present time.

In the end, the community will be and is shocked by the outcome of what appeared to be an isolated singular incident between three friends.

My only complaints would be the bogging down of sooo many characters and minor characters and information that sometimes was a little irritating when you really wanted to know why the heck the girl brought the gun to school and what exactly happened in the bathroom!

Who is your favorite mystery writer?

Don't forget to vote for the April Group Read, poll closes tomorrow!

I'd Know You Anywhere

This was a really interesting book. Eliza is a stay-at-home mom and wife that has just recently relocated with her family to Maryland, near where she grew up. This move home brings memories of the year she was 15 forefront in her mind and in the minds of others.

When she was 15, Elizabeth Lerner was abducted and kept by Walter Bowman for close to 40 days. The whole relationship between Elizabeth and Walter is strange complex and a little weird. Elizabeth finally was found when they were pulled over by a state trooper for driving too slow.

Now that she is a mother herself she constantly worries about her children and how to make them feel safe. They have a security system that they religiously use, they never sleep with windows open and she constantly knows where they are. They have no idea what happened to their mother when she was 15 and Eliza would like to keep it that way.

However, Walter finds her and thinks Elizabeth may be his one way to avoid the death penalty, because his third appointment with death is quickly approaching and he will do anything to be spared his life. He finds Elizabeth and makes contact with her. Eliza responds because she knows Walter only gets more dangerous when he is ignored and she doesn't want her new identity/story exposed.

Overall, I enjoyed the book but there were some parts where I just think it was a little 'eh.' The build up for what Eliza remembers that night makes you think something HUUUGE and then you get to that part and you are like, uhhh what? Yeah, that was a bit of a disappointment. However, it was fascinating to see how they communicated and how Elizabeth has a 15 year old knew how to handle Walter to keep her safe. But it also made you wonder why she never ran away and why she was a little too forgiving and a little too willing to let Walter re-enter her life. But then again, she didn't want her children or her life to be disturbed.

This is definitely a book for those who like a little suspense but really isn't 'just a mystery' it shows how the characters are impacted by crime. You learn little back stories about secondary characters and even if they weren't a main player in the crime how they were affected.

What's the last book you read that was slightly related to real events?

I received this book from Crazy Book Tours, but all opinions/thoughts are mine.