The Absence of Mercy by John Burley 328 Pages

Dr. Ben Stevenson medical examiner for the small Midwestern town of Wintersville is called in when the body of a teenager is found  murdered. Ironically enough Stevenson had moved his wife and two sons from the dangers of big city living in Pittsburgh to the relative safety of a small town where everybody knows everybody else. Or so he thought. When another teen is attacked, Dr. Stevenson’s investigation will eventually uncover long buried truths and secrets that will alter all their lives forever. A great debut novel. A book that hangs around long after the last page is read. 

Hard Going by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles 236 Pages

I do love a good mystery. Strangely enough though I don’t care for all  the violence or gore. Just tell me there’s a body and a mystery to solve and I’m good. Which is one of the reasons why the Bill Slider series is one of my favorite police procedurals. That and the strong focus on the characters and their interactions with each other, the author’s command of the English language, the laugh out loud humor and the complex plots.

In this latest offering, DI Bill Slider of the Shepherd’s Bush Metropolitan Police has to solve the murder of Lionel Bygod a retired solicitor who spent most of his time helping others and who seemingly didn’t have an enemy in the world. But things are rarely what they seem and the deeper they dig the more suspects they uncover and the more secrets are revealed.

Gone Missing by Linda Castillo 277 pages

Gone Missing is the fourth installment in the Kate Burkholder series. Kate is the Chief of Police in the small, mostly Amish town of Painters Mill OH. When BCI Agent John Tomasetti calls and asks her to consult on a missing Amish teen case in a neighboring town (Kate is ex Amish) they find links to other cold cases dating back several years. Things get a bit tricky though when a body is found and then another teen –this one really close to home goes missing as well.

This is a well written, edge of your seat, lots of plot twists and turns kind of a series. The only thing I don’t like about them is the horrendous and detailed nature of the crimes that are committed.

The Courier by Andrew Britton 469 pages

As military thrillers go, this one was okay.  It is certainly full of mystery and intrigue.  It is also full of LOTS of technical information and middle eastern names and locations.  Ryan Kealey is a spook.  His uncle was a spook who during World War II was instrumental in preventing the Germans from transporting a nuclear device via submarine.  Now that device has been found in the Artic.  Ryan forms an unlikely partnership with a young Farsi-speaking nuclear physicist to track down the device before it can be used.  However, he cannot do this without old school help from his Uncle Largo.  An interesting read, especially for some one who enjoys lots of tech speak and details.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, 400 pages

Fans of fantasy fiction will enjoy this tale set in modern day London. In the story, Richard Mayhew moves to London from Scotland as a young professional.  His first 3 years in London are pretty uneventful, he works, he has friends and he has a fiance, Jessica, who is a bit of a tyrant but Richard doesn't seem to mind.  One night, while walking to a restaurant with Jessica, Richard stops to help an injured  young woman.  Jessica wants Richard to leave the crumpled looking homeless girl and move on, but Richard refuses.

He ends up taking the injured girl home and his life is never the same.  The next day Richard cannot get anyone in London to see him, it's as if he no longer exists. He makes his way to London Below, where the young woman, Door, lives to try and find a way to get his life back.  

Lady Door, as she is formally known, is on the run from very bad men and trying to find out why her family was murdered.  Richard can no longer live in London Above, but is at a loss at how to survive in London Below.  Lady Door allows him to come along on her search for answers, along with the sketchy Marquis de Carabas and a fearsome female body guard named Hunter.

I enjoyed the wit, the humor, the quirky characters, the bad guys and the whole trip.  

Adore by Doris Lessing 70 pages

This is a short book and looked like it might be racy and entertaining, a romp.  The blurb on the cover reads “two friends, two sons, two shocking and intense love affairs”.  However, my impression, after finishing the book, was that all characters were sad and confused and not sure why they were doing what they were doing.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd 359 pages

I almost did not read this book.  It is set in South Carolina in the early 1800s and deals with slavery, a tough subject, to say the least.  However, I kept to it and am so very glad I did.

This story is of girl named Sarah who is given ownership of a slave named Hetty/Handful, when she turns eleven years old.  The story is not only of their relationship over the years but of Sarah’s dislike of the institution of slavery.  The scope of the story is wide, there are twists and turns as the characters grow and mature.  It is difficult to put this book down once you start reading it.

Sarah has dreams, even at a young age, of getting an education like her brothers and becoming a lawyer.  She soon finds that she will not be following that path and says, “My aspiration to become a jurist had been laid to rest in the Graveyard of Failed Hopes, an all-female establishment.”  As you can see, there is some humor, despite some of the gruesome stories told in the book.

(A lot of us, including myself, know very little about the daily life of a slave at that time in our history.  I did not know, for instance, that each family member had a slave appointed or “given” to him/her and that that slave would sleep on a quilt on the bare floor outside the owner’s door all night long.  At any time of the night, that slave was to do the owner’s bidding.  There are many such descriptions of the life of the slave and the owner that add to the depth of this book.)

I was overwhelmed when I finished this book.  I recommend it highly.

Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen 252 pages

Rebecca Winter was once a famous photographer with a full life in New York City, but now finds herself with reduced income, living in a rented home in the country.  She is responsible for her aging parents and for her son and is not sure how she will make ends meet. How she copes with the change from city to rural life, the new people she meets, and the associations she discards along the way, make a good story.

This book is the sixth book by Anna Quindlen that I have read. Usually I enjoy her characters, and her dialogue is almost always impeccable.  However, I felt that the beginning of this book was mired down by a lot of description which was hard to slog through, before the meat of the story and her writing skills shone through. 

This was not my favorite of her books but I would still recommend it.

The Boy Detective by Roger Rosenblatt 257 pages

Roger Rosenblatt wrote Making Toast, one of the best books about grief I have ever read.  Since then I have tried to read other things he has written, and have been disappointed every time.  This book was also a disappointment to me.

I enjoyed the descriptive parts about New York City and the references to fictional and real characters who lived in different parts of the city.  However, there was a lot of drifting and exploring of tangents that I did not enjoy or understand, or see that they connected to any theme. 

The jacket blurb says this “treads the line between a novel and a poem”, but I think he should have tried one or the other, and not both.  On the other hand, maybe the fault was with the reader.

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans 336 pages

Michael Vey is not your average fourteen-year-old boy. Michael has Tourette’s syndrome and the only way you can tell is that he blinks a lot. However, that is not what makes Michael special. He has an electrical power that when he touches a person or an object, he electrifies it. Taylor Ridley, a cheerleader at Michael’s school also has a special power. She can restart a person’s brain.

While researching Michael’s and Taylor’s powers, they set off a chain of events that no one could imagine. Taylor is taken by Dr. Hatch to a facility that houses other children like Michael and Taylor. At the same time, Michael’s mother is kidnapped and taken to an unknown location. Michael and his best friend Ostin must travel from Idaho to California looking for his mother.

Michael and his friends must use their powers and wits to overcome Dr. Hatch and his guards. 

This was read by Fred Berman.