Jo and I had a bit of a reaction to our Shingrix vaccinations. My arm was slightly tender but Jo had considerable pain in her arm for a couple of days. Much better yesterday and she seems even better today. While she was sleeping this morning I took the dogs out for a bit of a drive to check out the local Little Free Libraries. I dropped off a few books and picked up some at the same time.
Oh, the Blue Jays are so very frustrating at the moment. It seems that the pressure of trying to win a wild card spot is getting to them. Their starters are doing a great job, but their bats have dried up and the bullpen seems to have faded. You never know whether they are going to shut down the opposition or blow another save opportunity. *sigh* That's what happens when you cheer for a team, eh?
So, anyway, I'll provide the synopses of the new books I discovered on my wandering today. I'll also continue with my look at women authors whose work I've been enjoying.
New Books
"No longer willing to wait for the international community to stop its neighboring enemy, Israel brings down Iran's billion-dollar nuclear program in an ingeniously conceived operation. The attack leaves a radioactive tomb and environmental disaster in its wake, and has Iranian president Amatullah calling for blood --- American blood. Seeing opportunity where others fear reprisals, Mitch Rapp devises a brilliant plan to humiliate Iran's government and push the nation to the brink of revolution. But when a back-channel meeting between CIA director Irene Kennedy and her Iranian counterpart goes disastrously wrong, Rapp is locked in a showdown with a Hezbollah mastermind in league with Amatullah --- and he is given twenty-four hours to do whatever it takes to stop unthinkable catastrophe."
"A string of suspicious
deaths points to a potential serial killer who has turned his eye toward
Fjällbacka and her dark forests, where two children vanished decades
before.
A local woman is killed in a tragic car crash, but it
isn’t a clear-cut drunk driving case. The victim’s blood contains high
alcohol levels, yet she rarely drank a drop. Meanwhile, a new television
series begins shooting in Fjällbacka, and as cameras shadow the stars’
every move, tempers start to flare. When a drunken party ends with an
unpopular contestant’s murder, all eyes turn to the cast and crew. Could
there be a murderer among them? The ratings spike as the country tunes
in to a real life murder mystery.
Detective Patrik Hedstrom finds
himself increasingly unable to focus on the strange circumstances of
the first case, but what if that holds the key to a series of other
unsolved cases across Sweden? Under the unforgiving media spotlight,
Patrik tackles his most challenging investigation yet."
"Five stories of Ursula
K. Le Guin's world-renowned realm of Earthsea are collected in one
volume. Featuring two classic stories, two original tales, and a
brand-new novella, as well as new maps and a special essay on Earthsea's
history, languages, literature, and magic.
The Finder
Darkrose and Diamond
The Bones of the Earth
On the High Marsh
Dragonfly"
"Martha Andersson may be seventy-nine-years-old and live in a retirement home, but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to stop enjoying life. So when the new management of Diamond House starts cutting corners to save money, Martha and her four closest friends—The Genius, The Rake, Christina and Anna-Gretta (a.k.a. The League of Pensioners)—won’t stand for it. Their solution? White collar crime!"
"When she stumbles
across the ad, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems
like too good an opportunity to miss—a live-in nannying post, with a
staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at
Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious “smart” home fitted
out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands,
and by this picture-perfect family.
What she doesn’t know is
that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead
and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.
Writing to her
lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the events that led to her
incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the home’s
cameras, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with
booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It
wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the
immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t
even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults
around apart from the enigmatic handyman.
It was everything.
She
knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post,
and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s
not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least
not of murder—but somebody is."
Women Authors I've Been Enjoying - Karin Fossum
Norwegian author Karin Fossum was born in 1954. While she has written some standalone mysteries, she's best known for her Inspector Sejer series. Since 1995, she has written 13 books in the series. I've enjoyed one so far and it seems I've acquired another six books in the series. I'll take a look at 4 to give you a feel for the stories.Karin Fossum
"When two teenagers steal
a purse from a stroller, it results in an infant’s death. Unaware of
the enormity of their crime, Zipp and Andreas are intent on committing
another. They follow an elderly woman home, and Andreas enters her house
with his switchblade. In the dark, Zipp waits for his friend to come
out.
Inspector Konrad Sejer and his colleague Jacob Skarre see
no connection between the infant’s death and the reported disappearance
of a local delinquent. And so while the confusion outside mounts, the
heart-stopping truth unfolds inside the old woman’s home.
Unflappable
as ever, Sejer digs below the surface of small- town tranquility in an
effort to understand how and why violence destroys everyday lives."
"Eva is walking by the
river one afternoon when a body floats to the surface of the icy water.
She tells her daughter to wait patiently while she calls the police, but
when she reaches the phone box, Eva dials another number altogether.
The dead man, Egil, has been missing for months, and it doesn't take
long for Inspector Sejer and his team to establish that he was the
victim of a very violent killer, but the trail has gone cold. It's as
puzzling as another unsolved case on Sejer's desk: the murder of a
prostitute who was found dead just before Egil went missing.
While
Sejer is trying to piece together the fragments of a seemingly
impossible case, Eva gets a phone call late one night. A stranger
speaks, then swiftly hangs up. Eva looks out into the darkness and
listens. All is quiet."
"A boy arrives - breathless and aghast - at his police station, to report the discovery of a horribly maimed body outside an isolated house in the woods. Yet there was another person in the woods that day - standing nearby, hidden within the trees, was the mysterious figure of the local misfit, Errki. The next morning a bank in the nearby town is robbed at gunpoint. The gunman takes a hostage and flees. As his plans begin to come apart he, unlike his passive hostage, rapidly loses control. Meanwhile the search for the killer has developed into a manhunt - everyone is looking for the enigmatic Errki."
"Reinhardt and Kristine Ris, a married couple, are out for a Sunday walk when they discover the body of a boy and see the figure of a man limping away. They alert the police, but not before Reinhardt, to Kristine’s horror, kneels down and takes photographs of the dead child with his cell phone. Inspectors Konrad Sejer and Jakob Skarre begin to make inquiries in the little town of Huseby. But then another boy disappears, and an explanation seems more remote than ever. Meanwhile, the Rises’ marriage unravels as Reinhardt becomes obsessed with the tragic events and his own part in them."
The complete listing of Fossum's works can be found at this link. Have a great week. Stay safe and get vaccinated. 😷
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