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Tag Archives: mystery
Jacqueline Winspear’s “Maisie Dobbs”
During our March 2010 meeting, we discussed Jacqueline Winspear’s historical mystery Maisie Dobbs; the first in her series featuring a young woman from a working-class British family who, after serving as a nurse during World War I trains to be a private investigator in London.
This book was discussed at the Just Desserts meeting on March 25, 2010. Whether or not you attended the actual meeting, you are welcome to share your own thoughts and opinions about this book in a reply comment to this blog post, below.
Join us next on April 29th at South Branch Library (6:45 p.m.), as we discuss Shirley Rousseau Murphy’s, Cat Fear No Evil. Additional titles for upcoming months’ discussions can be found on the Just Desserts section of the Book Groups page of BookGuide.
And, for reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list.
Recent mystery recommendations from Just Dessert members – February 2010
Hey, mystery fans….looking for something good to read?
At the February 2010 Just Desserts meeting, after discussing our monthly “assigned” book, we did a round robin at the table, asking attendees to share what mysteries they’d been reading lately that they felt they could recommend. Here’s a list of what genre books were hot right now with this mystery-savvy crowd:
- Aunt Dimity Down Under and others in the Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton
- Whisper in the Blood and other early volumes in the Kate Shugak series * by Dana Stabenow
- The Lee McKinney mystery series by Joanna Carl
- Key Lime Pie and others in the Hannah Swensen mystery series by Joanne Fluke
- The Harper Connelly mystery series by Charlaine Harris
- Cold Country by Sue Henry
- The Kevin Kerney mystery series * by Michael McGarrity
- Fire and Ice on CD, a Joanna Brady/J.P. Beaumont crossover * by J.A. Jance
- The Return of Solar Pons by August Derleth
- Watchlist – a collaborative serial thriller by Jeffery Deaver and 21 other thriller writers
- Talking Detective Fiction by P.D. James
- Sacrifice by S.J. Bolton
- What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
And finally…one of our members said he’d read a review in the new issue of Cat Fancy magazine of Shades of Grey, the latest in the Dulcie Schwartz cat-themed mystery series by Clea Simon (not currently in the libraries’ collection)
So…what mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?
(* – series that we’ve used for a past Just Desserts discussion)
Sean Doolittle’s “The Cleanup”
During our February 2010 meeting, we discussed Nebraska author Sean Doolittle’s 2006 Omaha-set mystery/thriller The Cleanup; a stand-alone novel, featuring down-on-his-luck Omaha cop Matthew Worth, sentenced to providing security at a local grocery store. When Matt steps up to be the knight in shining armor to a young sales clerk who’s been badly beaten by her boyfriend, he doesn’t realize what a mess he’s gotten himself into. Combine the Polish mafia, corrupt cops, a dead money runner and one of the worst snowstorms to hit the Omaha area in years, and you’ve got a contemporary noirish/hard-boiled thriller.
This book was discussed at the Just Desserts meeting on February 25, 2010. Whether or not you attended the actual meeting, you are welcome to share your own thoughts and opinions about this book in a reply comment to this blog post, below.
Join us next on March 25th at South Branch Library (6:45 p.m.), as we discuss Jacqueline Winspear’s, Maisie Dobbs. Additional titles for upcoming months’ discussions can be found on the Just Desserts section of the Book Groups page of BookGuide.
And, for reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list.
Dana Stabenow’s “A Deeper Sleep”
During our January 2010 meeting, we discussed Dana Stabenow’s 2007 Alaska-set mystery/thriller A Deeper Sleep; part of her Kate Shugak series. This particular volume featured Kate and her State Trooper boyfriend Jim Chopin investigating the death of a misogynistic, wife-abusing bully, who may or may not have been the killer of the local barkeep’s wife and son — all while Kate tries to avoid being forced into a position of authority in the local Native association by her “aunties”.
This book was discussed at the Just Desserts meeting on January 28, 2010. Whether or not you attended the actual meeting, you are welcome to share your own thoughts and opinions about this book in a reply comment to this blog post, below.
Join us next on February 25th at South Branch Library (6:45 p.m.), as we discuss Nebraska author Sean Doolittle’s mystery/thriller, The Cleanup. Additional titles for upcoming months’ discussions can be found on the Just Desserts section of the Book Groups page of BookGuide.
And, for reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list.
The Works of Leslie Charteris
During the Nov/Dec 2009 hiatus between meetings of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group, we encourage regular attendees to participate as a group in a virtual way. While we may not have an actual meeting scheduled during these two months, we want to use this blog to keep everyone active with their mystery reading and discussions.
We encourage Just Desserts participants to read a book by Leslie Charteris (the creator of Simon Templar, “The Saint”, as well as many other novels) at some point in November or December 2009, then come back here and leave a comment about whichever Charteris book they read, as a comment post in response to this message.
As a bit of background, here are some links to Leslie Charteris information:
- The Official Leslie Charteris homepage (site www.lesliecharteris.com currently offline)
- Leslie Charteris entry at Wikipedia
- The Saintly Bible: A Guide to the Immortal Works of Leslie Charteris and the Saint Saga
We look forward to seeing your comments here over the course of the next two months!
Scott C. – Just Desserts coordinator