This short story collection is set in a unified Europe ruled by a Plantangenet king. The Duke of Normandy sends his chief criminal investigator Lord Darcy and Darcy’s sorcerer assistant Master Sean to the scene of crimes ranging from missing royal agents to murder.
The short story format works wonderfully for mysteries! I suspect it’s harder on the author to make sure the information is there for the reader, but the stories themselves move right along and avoid the dragging plot problem all too common in longer fiction. The only slight flaw is that the author had to repeat in each story how this Europe was different from our Europe, but it only took a paragraph. Alternative history always arouses my suspicion, but this is fantasy-logical and I didn’t have any trouble suspending disbelief although I disagreed with some of the details (like all of Europe still being part of the Roman Catholic Church).
Strain between the court and the Temple of Amun challenges Lord Meren when a priest is killed and the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh must investigate. In spite of his tense relationship with young Pharaoh, Meren is desperate to find the pattern in several seemingly unrelated death, fearing a plot that threatens his king.
Heavier on court intrigue than clues to the murders. I don’t follow the murder mystery part of this series at all, and I really don’t know whether the author isn’t giving out the information or the setting is so strange to me that I’m not picking up on it. However, the stories are involving and keep me reading.
During the Civil War, Southerner and D.C. resident Harrison Raines is shanghaied into investigating the death in combat of a Yankee officer.
The first few chapters are utterly boring and only establish Harrison as a wimp and his love as a self-centered queen of manipulation. It got a little more interesting after that, but halfway through, I still had no compelling reason to pick up the book once I had put it down, and there wasn't a likeable character to keep me interested. I quit reading at that point.
Retired Mob boss hires PI/insurance investigator Amos Walker to find his partner’s daughter.
Standard hard-boiled PI story, which I don’t generally like and gave up on after 40 pages.
Bestselling psychology author Lucy Pym comes to speak at a women’s physical education college and gets to know the students and teachers there.
If there was more to this book, I never found it. The first 50 pages were so acutely boring that I gave up before I fell asleep.
Emotionally and physically scarred by a previous Pharaoh, Meren and his adopted son Kysen now serve young Pharaoh Tutankhamen as criminal investigators. When an unpopular royal scribe is found stabbed in the mummification center, Meren and Kysen must wade through a family from hell and a workplace just as vicious as the court to find the murderer.
Not as rich in atmosphere as The Mask of Ra but with a good deal more humor, and a solid storyline. Well worth reading.
Dispatched to Morocco to identify who has infiltrated a spy network, Mrs. Pollifax becomes suspicious of her partner when she discovers one of their targets was stabbed shortly after they found him.
As usual, fast-paced and with plenty of memorable and likeable characters. The reader has to suspend disbelief pretty hard but the storyline is worth the effort. Weak ending as usual, though, and the title is minimally related to the story.
Leaving a would-be rapist dead, Molly flees her Irish village and escapes to America by escorting another woman’s children. But their stay on Ellis Island is dangerously prolonged when a man who threatened Molly is found murdered. To prove her friend innocent, Molly determines to find the real murderer, heading foolishly into some of the most dangerous areas of turn-of-the-century NYC.
I couldn’t get into this book. I don’t mind suspending disbelief to a point, but that a naïve Irish woman, absolutely new to any city much less New York, could not only survive but find a killer that eluded the NYPD, was too much to swallow. I gave up halfway through.
Orphaned by a fire, Maelle suffers separation from her brother and sister when they are all sent to Missouri on an Orphan Train. Grown up, she is constantly searching for her siblings, but her brother is on the run and her sister doesn’t acknowledge the birth name her adopted brother flung at her before disinheriting her.
Syrupy-sweet tale of siblings facing their own problems before being reunited. But it kept me reading.
Mrs. Pargeter finds a devastating plot at a health spa when she investigates the death of a young student.
This is the only Brett series I enjoy. Mrs. Pargeter is a person “comfortable in her own skin” and so it is fun to watch her seeking justice with the aid of her late husband’s protegees. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out whodunit but there were a lot of red herrings to wade through first.
Young healer Maggie Duncan signs up as an indentured servant to travel to 1760’s America. A frontiersman purchases her contract to aid his ailing, pregnant wife, but it is their friend Tom who is likely to win her heart.
Just another sappy historical romance. As soon as I read that Maggie was incredibly beautiful and fascinated with the incredibly handsome Tom, I realized it was a romance and gave up.
The Manila police investigate the murder of a bookie at a cockfight.
I give up on this author. Too many uninteresting characters and highly annoying writing quirks, such as adding “he said” after every sentence in a paragraph of dialogue. Plus I’m not generally a fan of police procedurals. I couldn’t even stand to finish the first few chapters of this book.
In the future, a man discovers the lost art of reading, connects with a woman who has avoided the official indoctrination, and comes to the notice of a robot who runs the university.
Very dated, although it was only published in 1980. Relies on the picture of a dying society run by deteriorating robots to shock, but the story didn’t hold my attention because the people didn’t seem real.
Shanghaied to be maid of honor/organizer for THREE weddings, Meg returns to her New England hometown for the summer and lands in the middle of a murder.
I started this series because I read a short story of Andrews’ and just loved it – clever and well-written with a strong streak of humor. This series didn’t start well. Meg couldn’t say “no, I won’t do all the work for your wedding while you bully me” to her mother, her best friend (some friend), or her brother’s fiancee. And I don’t enjoy reading about wimpy characters. Her mother is truly the manipulator from hell, and I don’t enjoy reading about horrible characters, either. I made it about a quarter through, hoping it would improve. It didn’t.
Daisy’s quiet trip to Scotland to write an article becomes much livelier after Alec’s runaway daughter finds her on the train. Then she encounters an old school acquaintance and is introduced to the woman’s greedy family on their way to dance attendance on a dying rich relative. When the likely heir is found dead, Daisy helps Alec investigate.
Fast read, likably unlikable characters, plausible explanation gradually unfolding. Daisy acts much less “cute” and more responsible in this book, which made her much less irritating. I do enjoy this series! I also like Dunn's straightforward titles, since I've been suckered into reading so many awful books by clever titles.
The visitors to a paradisical Wyoming dude ranch suffer when the owner is forced to hire a Lothario as ranch hand. But who took a drastic step to end the problem?
I will try hard to wade through nearly anything with a genuine Wyoming connection, and this wasn’t even hard. Most of the people were likable, and the plot marched right along. It’s an old book, written in the 1950’s when Jackson was apparently just starting to suffer its Hollywood invasion. There was some heavy-handed foreshadowing of the “if I’d only known” variety and Parker delayed the murder until about halfway through the book, but otherwise fairly well-written and definitely enjoyable.
An overweight alcoholic cop witnesses a drug-related explosion.
I wanted to like this, since it’s set in Wyoming. But it’s a police procedural with no likeable characters, excessive backstory, and a plot that moves so slowly it might as well be frozen on the Tetons in winter. I couldn’t get through 50 pages.
A quick-and-easy pickup on Cyrus and Emily’s trip to Thailand turns dangerous when Emily finds a dead man and Cyrus is kidnapped. As she searches for him, she encounters a smuggler, a village headman, and a photographer, and she must figure out who is not what he seems.
Usual complicated plot full of interesting characters, but also a wide streak of Buddhist mysticism that weakened the storyline.
Mrs. Pargeter’s friend Joyce dies during their trip to Greece, and Mrs. Pargeter is the only person who insists it was murder. Is the mysterious package Joyce asked her to bring through Customs the key? She escapes back to England when the Tourist Police conveniently erases the evidence of Joyce’s murder, so she can investigate the past of Joyce’s late husband Chris Dover. But she returns to find another victim in danger.
Fast read, all the information is provided, well-written except the author falls back on the resolution of incompetents, a deus ex machina. Shame on you, Simon Brett!
Good ol’ Texas lawyer John Lloyd Branson and scruffy police sergeant Schroder believe a Texas oil millionaire murdered his wife. But when the lady in question turns up alive after her husband has remarried, the questions only pile up further.
There were too many utterly dislikeable characters for me to get involved in this story. The paternalistic know-it-all lawyer, the brilliant and beautiful but wimpy law student, the disheveled but determined detective, the police officer he dragoons into helping him - and that doesn’t even start of the family of the supposedly murdered woman. I haven’t liked any of D.R. Meredith’s books yet, so I suspect those who like her style will like this story as well.
On a northern vacation, Simon and Deborah discover that a vicar she had met in London was poisoned by a local herbalist, presumably by accident. Lynley investigates but finds himself confused by a sexually active 13-year-old girl, a love pentangle including the constable who investigated the death and the poisoner, mother/daughter witches, and the vicar’s late wife and child that might have had some bearing on the his death.
Deborah’s and Lynley’s romantic problems make a page-wasting background to the main storyline. Otherwise, this tightly-written story has plenty of clues and red herrings.
Mrs. Reed-Pollifax leaves new husband Cyrus to travel to Hong Kong, hoping to aid the young Chinese man she previously helped escape. She finds Interpol agent Robin posing as a millionaire to track down missing diamonds and a murdered honest policeman. As new friends and old hunt for details of a planned terrorist attack, Mrs. Pollifax again winds up in deadly danger.
As long as the reader is willing to ignore the disbelief that an American grandmother can figure out what the professional spies haven’t – and anyone who isn’t willing wouldn’t have gotten this far in the series – it’s a logical progression and Gilman gives the reader the clues to figure it out. A bit scarier than previous books but Pollifax fans will no doubt enjoy it.
Charlotte Graham, an aging but famous actress, is visiting friends off the Maine coast and learns about Midsummer witch rituals, book collecting, and bookbinding.
Supposedly this was a murder mystery, but if so, it took WAY too long to set up the murder. Neither Charlotte nor any of the other characters were interesting enough to keep me reading.
Restless in her perfect-mother-perfect-wife world, Kate takes off for a week-long Tai Chi camp. Although Kate wants time alone, best friend Sonia decides to come along. While Sonia pursues the sexy instructors and Kate feels guilty for dreaming about fellow student Ben, left-at-home husbands Jeffrey and Tim try to cope with misbehaving children and out-of-control au pairs.
Started well, but deteriorated into dragged-out will-they-or-won’t-they that quickly palled. I got halfway through and then skipped to the end and found that the theme had been “adultery revives marriage” which is hogwash. I haven’t liked anything yet by this author and I don’t think I’ll bother with any more of her books.
When Mrs. Pargeter moves into a small subdivision favored by up-and-comers, her curiosity about the previous owner leads to a grisly discovery. But, as usual, her insistence on investigating will put her own life in danger.
This is the only one of Brett’s series that I have enjoyed. Mrs. Pargeter is quite a character, and while there is an element of deus ex machina about the help she elicits through use of the late Mr. Pargeter’s address book, it is consistent and reasonably logical. The identity of the murderer here is VERY nicely set up; I even identified a couple of items pointing that way, although I didn’t put the information together correctly. The title was a stretch but the book was a fast, enjoyable read.
Carstairs sends Mrs. Pollifax behind the Bamboo Curtain to locate a man in need of rescue, with strict instructions to let an unknown co-agent get him out of the country. Initially doubtful about each other, Mrs. Pollifax and her co-agent learn to trust and rely on each other. But in a Communist country, they discover they have to watch out not only for the official security, but for someone else who may be on their tail.
This is the first book in the series in which Mrs. P is intended to have an active role. Prior novels just used her as a courier or photographer, although of course she always managed to do more than she was assigned. Logical enough EXCEPT for a big Deus ex machina resolution, a disappointing copout on Gilman’s part. Her normal wildly improbable endings are still different from a flat-out out-of-nowhere solution. If she uses one again, I will probably give up on the series.
Carstairs sends Mrs. Pollifax to Zambia to take pictures on a safari that will include a mysterious assassin. But a personal ad placed to find her old cohort Farrell raises suspicions everywhere and may get her killed.
For some reason, I never want to start a Mrs. Pollifax book. But once I get into it, I can’t put it down. The situations she gets into are so wildly unlikely that the books should be classified as fantasy rather than thrillers. This one follows the familiar formula: completely impossible and utterly engrossing.
Aahz and cohorts go after someone posing as Skeeve and running up bad debts.
Maybe it’s me – since I’ve read this series from the beginning – but this book seemed to drag. It was an interesting enough premise but didn’t hold up, maybe because I’m familiar with the characters and the chief villain was just a whiny megalomaniac. I got about halfway through and then skipped to the end. Not the best of the Myth series.
NYPD Detective Jane Bauer, a month away from retirement, is assigned to a team investigating old unresolved cases.
Utterly boring. Jane looks for clues to an old murder and avoids her sticky-fingered team member in between checking on her sick father and moving apartments. No interesting people and no interesting plot. Maybe fans of police procedurals would enjoy this, but I sure didn’t.
Four Christmas-themed novellas by noted Christian romance writers, each focusing on one of four 27-year-old women who had been high school friends.
Christian romance tends to have the same drawbacks as standard romance: impossibly beautiful heroines swept off their feet by impossibly handsome men, with lots of revealing blushes and weak knees. I’ve always thought women’s fascination with romance stories was part of the reason for the mushrooming divorce rate. What real man, with normal flaws, can stand up to comparison with the considerate woman-centered but completely masculine hero of the average romance novel? These stories do have that flaw, but if you must read romances, at least these feature women (and men) wanting God’s direction in this very important decision.
Skeeve interrupts his study-sabbatical when a sheeplike Wuhs asks him to free Wuh from the tyrannical rule of the Pervect Ten.
Asprin & Nye approached the story differently in this book, alternating Skeeve’s learning more about the Pervect Ten and cutting them off with the Pervects’ actions as they realize someone is actively opposing them. It is also more than a little confusing that this is not the first "Myth Alliances" in the series; it is also the title of an omnibus of three books from the first series. Not the best of the Myth series, but enjoyable and with most of my favorite characters present.
Waitress and aspiring actress Nikki impresses a customer enough that he offers a job as sales director of his winery. But the job interview turns into a murder investigation when Nikki finds the winery’s winemaker strangled.
First, I have to say I am not a wine-lover so I don’t know if the wine information is correct or not. It sounds real enough. But I couldn’t finish the book anyway. Another story about two very damaged people, surrounded by vicious, unlikeable “friends” and relatives. Nikki and winery owner Derek are nice enough but multiple flashbacks about their sordid pasts kept interrupting the story any time it threatened to become interesting. Damaged people can engross the reader, but not if the author keeps hitting the reader over the head with how they were damaged.
Narratives by experienced nurses of what they learned, sometimes in their first year, sometimes not.
This should have been a slam-dunk for me. I’m a nurse and always willing to learn more about nursing. Unfortunately, one can be a good nurse without being a good writer (or, apparently, a good editor). These stories are unfocused and not very interesting. Plus, since it includes narratives that were NOT from the nurse’s first year, the title is misleading.
Natalie has finally bought the coastal Maine inn she has always dreamed of running, but Bernard Katz’ plan to build a multimillion dollar resort will bankrupt her as well as depriving the endangered terns of their nesting place. When Katz is found dead, the police and townsfolk all think Natalie killed him.
I couldn\'t get into this story. I don\'t like everyone-against-the-heroine books, and most of the ancillary characters were unlikeable to boot. Add excessive food and clothing descriptions and it just wasn\'t worth reading.
Phryne prevents a traincar of people from dying from chloroform, but when one is found outside with a broken neck, the daughter hires Phryne to find the killer. By the time Phryne has figured out whodunit, she has also acquired two orphans.
I can’t complain that this book had a slow start; Phryne wakes to the suffocating smell of chloroform on the first page, and the book continues as a fast read. Greenwood indulges in a convoluted storyline rather than red herrings, but it is well-done and holds the reader’s interest. I wish Phryne wasn’t such a slut, though.
In 19th century NYC, midwife and former society girl Sarah Brandt meets NYPD Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy on a murder scene, and it’s dislike at first sight. As they investigate a girl’s murder, they irritate each other further.
I didn’t like this book, and I’m not sure why. Something just struck me as phony. Maybe there was just too much emotional baggage – both Brandt and Malloy were so weighed down that it was hard to focus on the current story.
Charlotte runs a maid-for-a-day service in New Orleans’ Garden District. When the husband of one of her clients is killed, she keeps stumbling over clues that eventually reveal the murderer, with the help of her son the doctor, her niece the detective, and her nephew the attorney..
Good picture of class distinctions in New Orleans, with Charlotte’s illegitimate son now a prominent physician and cohort of some of her cleaning clients. But Charlotte’s deadbeat sister is irritating enough to almost put me off the book. Meanwhile, Charlotte tries to not be nosy or gossipy but can’t help observing pieces of information that may lead to the murderer. Interestingly, the story doesn’t end after the killer is unmasked. And it’s nice to see an affectionate family in a book.
Claire attends a “murder weekend” hosted by a former pupil of her late husband but is displeased that Peter shows up as well. When a staged murder turns real and the hostess is arrested, Claire is determined to find the real killer.
I thought the title was a typo, but it isn’t. Workmanlike cozy mystery, with the seemingly-required developing romance. I guessed the wrong murderer but the real one was on my “suspicious” list.
Bleak, depressing story of a French female PI investigating the murder of an elderly concentration camp survivor.
I can’t blame Aimee for obsessing about her father being killed inches from her, or not wanting to go back to the type of cases they used to handle together, but it didn’t make for enjoyable reading. Great as an example of grey prose, but not much else.
While Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Darcy are out of the country, their five daughters explode on the London season, attracting fortune hunters as well as the attentions of their “fast” Aunt Lydia.
A number of authors have tried writing sequels to “Pride and Prejudice,” but this is the first one I’ve read that even starts believably (as long as the reader is willing to accept the basic premise that most of the Darcy daughters are not only headstrong but silly). Unfortunately, the believability evaporates too quickly. The twins, left at Pemberley to pursue their schoolwork under a governess, appear in London; the alarmist oldest daughter sees every catastrophic possibility in the most harmless activities; and Lydia Bennett Wickham (widowed at Waterloo) has managed to snare a rich husband and now travels in the Prince Regent’s social circle. If Mr. & Mrs. Bennett managed to raise two sensible daughters out of five, it defies possibility that nearly all the Darcy daughters would be so self-centered and ignorant. I gave up halfway through—whoever these girls are, they are NOT Darcys.
Sheriff Tony investigates the murder of an out-of-towner while wife and quilt designer Theo gathers pieces of the puzzle from local gossip.
I couldn’t get into this book. Most of the characters weren’t overtly unlikeable, but they were so precious as to become unrealistic but definitely annoying. And there was more information supplied on Sheriff Tony’s headaches and acid stomach than the murder victim. The quilting connection was extremely tenuous and didn't salvage the uninvolving story.
Widowed literary agent Jane Stuart is surprised and angry when her nanny Marlene suddenly leaves. As she tries to find the girl out of loyalty to an old friend, she uncovers a number of dark secrets hiding in the peaceful little town.
Interesting characters and Jane solves one red herring after another. But Marshall didn’t give the reader information to identify the real murderer. Also, Winky's involvement is extremely peripheral; anyone hoping for a Qwill-type advisory feline will be disappointed.
Air Force wife Ellie is trying to unpack her house and adjust to a new town when a senior officer’s wife dies unexpectedly. Ellie finds evidence that the woman was murdered and keeps stumbling across other pieces of information.
Workmanlike mystery with the reader finding out information as Ellie does, lots of red herrings. I had narrowed the murderer down to two possibilities and it wasn’t either of them.
Prior to the fall of apartheidist South Africa, government agents are trying to kidnap an escaped anti-apartheid writer for an unspeakable purpose.
I didn’t finish this for an unusual reason: it was too scary for me. More of a political thriller than a whodunnit.
A Canadian news translator in Paris finds himself in an expatriate social circle as a mysterious “Jack de Paris” kills a series of young women.
The focus on the interactions of the people, while the murders seem distant and unrelated, is unusual and the soap-opera-like interpersonal dramas will only interest those who like soap operas. I don’t and gave up after the first four chapters.
Ruby sees her missing daughter Violet in a TV commercial and heads to Hollywood to find her, accompanied by half of the little town of Divine, Texas.
Most of the characters are whiny, self-centered, and completely unlikeable. Ruby’s sister wants Ruby to wait six weeks until she can get tickets to The Price Is Right. The missing woman’s mother-in-law wants her son to head to California so she can follow and be famous through Violet. I forced myself through the first three chapters but couldn’t take any more.
Tricia quietly runs a bookstore in Stoneham, a pretty New Hampshire town. But when the owner of the cookbook store next door is murdered, the self-serving sheriff and her boyfriend are sure Tricia did it.
What is it with mysteries featuring unlikeable characters? Tricia is surrounded by hostile store owners, a selfish and overbearing (but gorgeous) sister, and a smarmy real-estate agent. I only got about halfway through before I couldn’t take the unpleasant characters any more.
Maisie is a Victorian-era lady investigator who mimics her targets to understand how they feel and why they do what they do.
Definitely different, but that didn’t make it interesting. Way too much telling the reader what Maisie thinks instead of showing us, and the story wasn’t involving enough to overcome that handicap. Maisie's superior attitude of knowing what was best for both client and target irritated me; she was neither likeable nor admirable.
Adelia is sent from 12th century Salerno, where women are unofficially allowed to study medicine and even become coroners, to England, where Henry II wants someone qualified to investigate the horrific murders of four children. Adelia learns about the killer from the bodies while she hides her skill to avoid being burned as a witch. But when she and her companions use what she has learned to identify the killer, he strikes back.
Amazing story, with a wealth of detail about a little-known time in history, and most of the characters are believable. But there is one major flaw. It's not Adelia; Franklin makes it clear that a woman studying medicine was highly unusual and typically forbidden, and that Adelia is a lonely exception who has to guard herself carefully against accusations of witchcraft. Educated women were rare but not unknown; Henry II's queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was not only literate but a poet in several languages. But medieval Europe did not have the concept of cause-and-effect during this time of little learning. The Arab world did, and Adelia could have developed it during her studies, since the book makes it clear that Salerno was not limited to European viewpoints. But there was no way the rest of the characters, including Henry II, would have had a chance to develop it. The plot is slow-moving (took me nearly a week to read) but worth it if you like tautly-written mysteries. Ordinarly I object to flashbacks, but these were snuck in cleverly enough that I didn’t remember until writing this review that the author had used any.
Widowed physician Serena tries to raise her teenaged daughters, help her daughter’s pregnant friend, and resist handsome Carson. A violent anti-abortionist threatens her own clinic and everyone’s peace of mind.
Christian romance, but not the usual drivel. As the women face family and man problems, they are able to let God heal old hurts. A bit simplistic, but still better than usual for this genre.
Biography of Nelle Harper Lee, the publicity-shy author of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and childhood friend of Truman Capote.
Any biography that starts with an explanation of why the subject refused to participate has problems. Why does the author feel it necessary to apologize? Most biographies are written after the subject is dead and unable to participate anyway. The book itself reaches new lows of disjointedness. The author skips around not only between Nelle as teenager, child, and adult living in NYC, but also between the histories of her parents and grandparents, and even the history of her agent and her agent’s downstairs neighbor. I have a feeling there is an interesting story buried here, but the author’s lack of focus makes it impossible for the reader to find.
First-person book of an Indian man born at the moment India became independent. Sorry that’s all I can say about it, if there was an actual story I completely missed it.
Rambling stream-of-consciousness non-linear novel(?) that I never made sense of. I don’t enjoy stream-of-consciousness, I think part of the author’s job is to make sure there is a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. This book utterly failed. Characters that advance the plot (preferably likeable) are also essential, but missing here. Rushdie has such a great reputation as an author that I was expecting a much more readable book, but this book suffers the same lack of coherence or cohesiveness as James Joyce’s work (who is also considered a great author). Needless to say, I did not find this book interesting or manage to finish it.
Asprin and Nye start a second Myth series – sort of - with this collection of short stories of varying quality. One of the best showed off Spyder and Pookie, but a couple featured Aahz but totally changed his voice. Uneven and really only for hard-core Myth fans.
Bunny and Guido investigate pilferage at a magic factory; Chumley follows Tananda on a collection job; Massha and Vic redesign a hotel; Aahz takes Skeeve along to help Quigley, who is having some major job problems; and Gleep and Nunzio guard a shipment that an awful lot of people seem to want. A definite change from the previous Myth books, with multiple storylines and emphasis on the other characters, but still enjoyable.
A Myth-tery! What really happened to the vampire for whose murder Aahz was framed? Skeeve, Massha, and Guido have to find out before Aahz is executed! With or without the beautiful Luanna's help ...
Grim, depressing novel of a writer/PI who tries to find the crack-addicted secret daughter of his dead love.
What an awful book! The main problem with this collection of stupid and/or vicious and/or hypocritical characters, none of whom rang true, is that only one was murdered. I will definitely not be reading any more of this series.
Set time-wise between Myth Direction and Hit or Myth, Asprin says he wrote this to get him back used to writing about Skeeve and his cohorts after a long break. Eager to learn more about dimension travel, Skeeve waves a treasure map in front of Aahz' greedy nose, and they are off. But (as usual) there is more to the treasure map than meets the eye! Fast-paced as usual, and if Skeeve seems more knowledgable than he really should have been at that point in his career, I won't quibble.
Skeeve applies for the position of Court Magician, and with Aahz' coaching and his skills at illusion, he is awarded the job. But King Roderick expects Skeeve to stop an army with magik alone! Fast-paced and clever.
When Skeeve takes on the dimension of Perv in order to apologize to Aahz, he acquires some unusual allies, including a Djinn, a Pervect cabdriver, and a shady character guilty of the terrible Pervish crime of sidewalk sales. A bit more psychology and less humor than typical for this series.
This story focuses on Guido and Nunzio, the Mob bodyguards assigned to guard Skeeve, when he sends them to join the Possiltum army to ferret out a threat. Their expertise with weapons overwhelms the misfits making up the rest of the squad and may threaten the sergeant in charge of training!
Tanda and Skeeve try to steal a local icon, but the burglary goes awry and Tanda is captured. To free her, Skeeve and Aahz put together a sports team to vie with the locals. Not quite as funny as some of the other books except for the Big Game, but still enjoyable and each character runs true to form.
Interesting book! Includes activities for each month, from lawns & shrubs to flowers and vegetables to water gardens. Also has a zone chart of Wyoming. I just skimmed it but I'll check it out again when I have a raised bed to garden in.
Chick-lit meets sci-fi and both genres lose. An ER nurse turns out to be part human and part one of the "Monere," whose females are "Queens" with unusual powers served by sexy-but-submissive males. Strictly for those readers who will read anything with lots of sex scenes and don't demand an intelligent storyline.
This was supposedly a book of love stories by famous authors. If this represents what they think love stories are, I feel sorry for them. The stories I read were depressing, experimental failures, or both. Don't read it if you are looking for a love story, rent "You've Got Mail" instead.
No complaints about a slow start here, by page 2 the story is moving along at a good clip. Alternately tender and harsh, the book is written from the POV of a young man whose sister winds up in a persistent vegetative state after a diving accident. As a profile of a family falling apart after a tragedy, it's right up there with Ordinary People, but with a less depressing resolution. Each family member is uniquely defined and believable. There are times the book goes over the top, such as when the killer of a neighbor's little girl is revealed. But it is mostly a realistic testament to the value of hope. As I read, I was concerned because I couldn't see how Strause could bring off either a happy or sad ending. The finale isn't quite up to the rest of the book, but it's okay.
Unsurprisingly, this story from the daughter of the former President is as much political thriller as murder mystery. Since I don't care for political thrillers, I wound up skipping the second half. But it is well-written enough for those who like this genre.
One of the American Girls series, this focuses on a Nez Pearce girl in 1764, and really seems to present her life from her own viewpoint, not that of a 21st century American. Definitely for the elementary set.
This story of a child and then woman who experiences an unbelievable sequences of horrible events, culminating with being left to die in a locked room in an abandoned mental hospital, is told from her point of view as she interprets the events with her own lack of understanding. Interesting challenge from a writer's point of view, but very depressing from a reader's, and there is no resolution offered at the end. I understand the goal of showing us a different POV, but it helps to have an involving story as well, which this book lacked. Not recommended.