I finished my first book of April, one I'd started mid - March. I've accordingly started one more. I'll update those for your viewing pleasure and continue with my look at the Mystery genre, American PI sub-genre, part 13.
Just Finished
It's been 5 years or so since I visited the forensic world of Temperance Brennan by Kathy Reichs. I thought she'd been kind of going through the motions with the book I read at that time. I just finished Break No Bones, the 9th book in the series, and I'm sorry that I've been neglecting the series. This was quite excellent.
Temperance is leading a class of archaeology students at a Native American dig on an island near Charleston, SC to ascertain whether there are archives of any sort there. A developer plans to build homes on the site and the dig is necessary to ensure no historical relics are being disturbed. While there, her students find a body, a recent one. This is the start of an interesting mystery.
Tempe is asked to help the local coroner, a friend of hers, Emma Rousseau, as Emma is dealing with the effects of treatment for lymphoma. She asks Tempe to help with the case and as more bodies begin to crop up, Tempe becomes the lead for the coroner's office. This is a complex, entertaining story. Tempe's ex-hubby, Pete, a lawyer, arrives in town to investigate the financials of a local religious group. Ryan, Tempe's current boyfriend, also shows up and while there is steady friction between the two men, he helps Tempe with the investigation. Throw into the mix, local sheriff Gullet, who is somewhat distrustful of her involvement and you've got an all-round entertaining story.
There are many twists and turns in this story; there are threats to Tempe. There is the involvement of a missing PI who seems to be checking out a local medical clinic as part of an investigation into the missing daughter of a local well-to-do. As more bodies show up, Tempe and the others investigate whether there are links between them. Tempe also tries to deal with her feelings for her two beaus and also with her concern for Emma's health.
I enjoyed this story very much. I liked all of the characters. I have always liked Tempe, she's spunky, irritable, hard - working, funny, just one of the great characters. As always, the forensic aspects of the add to the interest. It's a tensely developed story and the intensity grows as the story moves to the climax. Most enjoyable. (4 stars)
Currently Reading
"For Inspector Roderick Alleyn, the trip was to be official; for his family, a Mediterranean romp. But a plot torn from the pages of a Gothic novel soon engulfed them all. Alleyn's son was kidnapped. A very wealthy spinster was murdered. And in an eerie chateau, carved out of the Riviera mountainside, Alleyn faced the ultimate jet-set cult."
My Ongoing Look at the Mystery Genre, American PI's #13
In my last entry I looked at Mette Ivie Harrison (Linda Wallheim) and Lyn Hamilton (Lena Padget).
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| Greg Iles |
"Raised in Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows from his father, Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor has been accused of murdering the African-American nurse with whom he worked in the 1960s. Now Penn is determined to save his father no matter the cost.
The quest for answers sends Penn deep into a dark conspiracy involving the vicious Double Eagles, an offshoot of the KKK controlled by some of the state's most powerful men. With the aid of a local reporter and his fiancée, Penn uncovers a bloody trail stretching back forty years, and is forced to confront a wrenching dilemma: does a man of honor choose his father or justice?"
"Shattered by grief and dreaming of vengeance, Penn Cage sees his family and his world collapsing around him. The woman he loves is gone, his principles have been irrevocably compromised, and his father, once a paragon of the community that Penn leads as mayor, is about to be tried for the murder of a former lover. Most terrifying of all, Dr. Cage seems bent on self-destruction. Despite Penn's experience as a prosecutor in major murder trials, his father has frozen him out of the trial preparations--preferring to risk dying in prison to revealing the truth of the crime to his son.
During forty years practicing medicine, Tom Cage made himself the most respected and beloved physician in Natchez, Mississippi. But this revered Southern figure has secrets known only to himself and a handful of others. Among them, Tom has a second son, the product of an 1960s affair with his devoted African American nurse, Viola Turner. It is Viola who has been murdered, and her bitter son--Penn's half-brother--who sets in motion the murder case against his father. The resulting investigation exhumes dangerous ghosts from Mississippi's violent past. In some way that Penn cannot fathom, Viola Turner was a nexus point between his father and the Double Eagles, a savage splinter cell of the KKK. More troubling still, the long-buried secrets shared by Dr. Cage and the former Klansmen may hold the key to the most devastating assassinations of the 1960s. The surviving Double Eagles will stop at nothing to keep their past crimes buried, and with the help of some of the most influential men in the state, they seek to ensure that Dr. Cage either takes the fall for them, or takes his secrets to an early grave.
Unable to trust anyone around him--not even his own mother--Penn joins forces with Serenity Butler, a famous young black author who has come to Natchez to write about his father's case. Together, Penn and Serenity battle to crack the Double Eagles and discover the secret history of the Cage family and the South itself, a desperate move that risks the only thing they have left to gamble: their lives."
The remaining books featuring Penn Cage are-
- The Quiet Game (1999)
- Turning Angel (2005)
- The Devil's Punchbowl (2009)
- The Death Factory (2014)
- The Bone Tree (2015)
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| Karen Kijewski |
"Katapult is the 2nd book in Karen Kijewski's Kat Colorado mystery series. Kat is a PI working out of Sacramento CA. In some ways she reminds me of Kinsey Milhone, but so far I think the stories I've read have been grittier than the Alphabet books. Both series are both entertaining and fun reads though. Both PI's also have a coterie of friends who help make their lives better and safer and who have their backs.
So, enough of comparing the series. What about Katapult? The book definitely involves Kat's extended family. She receives a call from her 'grandmother' Alma (not biological, but the woman who raised her) and discovers that Johnny, her cousin (related through Alma) has been murdered. Alma wants Kat to investigate the murder and also find her other 'cousin', Michaela, Johnny's sister. Lots of familial estrangement, lots to do with the father of the two.
So this is how Kat's investigation begins. She also finds herself involved with a teenage prostitute who wants Kat to look into the murder of one of her friends. So two ongoing cases and lots of interesting characters. Threats to lives, Kat's and Michaela's, are thrown into the mix. It's at times a scary, frightening case and very well described.
Kat is a level-headed, for the most part, individual, a quality she needs in abundance, considering some of the people around her in this story. Lots of shouting and bad feelings that she needs to sort through if she is to solve the case. But she also has excellent friends, her boyfriend (Los Vegas cop Hank), Charity (good willed and able to take control when necessary) and Henley, the cop working the murders, who is gruff but likeable.
The story is, as I said, gritty and at times had me on the edge of my seat as Kat works her way out of scary situations. The case was interesting and even though I had some ideas, there were enough twists to keep me more than satisfied. Enjoyable series so far. (4 stars)"
"Katapult is the 2nd book in Karen Kijewski's Kat Colorado mystery series. Kat is a PI working out of Sacramento CA. In some ways she reminds me of Kinsey Milhone, but so far I think the stories I've read have been grittier than the Alphabet books. Both series are both entertaining and fun reads though. Both PI's also have a coterie of friends who help make their lives better and safer and who have their backs.
So, enough of comparing the series. What about Katapult? The book definitely involves Kat's extended family. She receives a call from her 'grandmother' Alma (not biological, but the woman who raised her) and discovers that Johnny, her cousin (related through Alma) has been murdered. Alma wants Kat to investigate the murder and also find her other 'cousin', Michaela, Johnny's sister. Lots of familial estrangement, lots to do with the father of the two.
So this is how Kat's investigation begins. She also finds herself involved with a teenage prostitute who wants Kat to look into the murder of one of her friends. So two ongoing cases and lots of interesting characters. Threats to lives, Kat's and Michaela's, are thrown into the mix. It's at times a scary, frightening case and very well described.
Kat is a level-headed, for the most part, individual, a quality she needs in abundance, considering some of the people around her in this story. Lots of shouting and bad feelings that she needs to sort through if she is to solve the case. But she also has excellent friends, her boyfriend (Los Vegas cop Hank), Charity (good willed and able to take control when necessary) and Henley, the cop working the murders, who is gruff but likeable.
The story is, as I said, gritty and at times had me on the edge of my seat as Kat works her way out of scary situations. The case was interesting and even though I had some ideas, there were enough twists to keep me more than satisfied. Enjoyable series so far. (4 stars)"
"She's a hard-boiled Sacramento P.I. with a soft spot for the unlucky, the unloved, and one special cop named Hank. Her name is Kat Colorado and in her line of business curiosity can be more than an occupational hazard -- it can be murder.
She said her name was Paige Morrell and she came to Kat Colorado hoping to untangle the twisted mystery of her past. She was a twenty-one-year-old "orphan," a poor little rich girl on the verge of inheriting a wealthy old river estate -- and some very nasty surprises. But when Kat set out to solve the case, she found herself following a thread of lies, greed and deceit that led straight to the corpse of a key source to Paige's past. Now the Sacramento private eye was about to learn that in the California Delta some family secrets were better left buried . . . because uncovering them could be murder."
"It was a matter of principle that prompted Amanda Hudson to blow the whistle on the company that employed her - and manufactured a defective, potentially lethal product. It was a matter of pride that made Amanda hang on to her job with stubborn determination, despite the harassment, anonymous threats, and attacks that terrified her. And, by the time her hot-headed husband hired P.I. Kat Colorado, it was matter of life and death. For Amanda and Jude Hudson. For Kat, who would learn some hard - and deadly - lessons about vengeance, justice, and love."
"Kat is still reeling from the loss of her beloved Hank. But when Sara Bernard insists that her husband is trying to kill her -- a claim seemingly backed up by the murder of her best friend -- Kat finally agrees to investigate. The problem is not only that Jed Bernard, a police officer, has a clean record and glowing testimonials from everyone in town. It's also that the erratic, elusive Sara Bernard sometimes seems more dangerous than the man she's trying to avoid. And when Kat finds herself going undercover at a stylish rehab clinic, it seems that there's far more to this case than a marriage gone bad..."
The remaining Kat Colorado mysteries are -
- Copy Kat (1992)
- Alley Kat Blues (1995)
- Honky Tonk Kat (1996)
- Kat Scratch Fever (1997)
Well, finished just in time, the 3 Chicago series are about to start..
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