“The Summerhouse” 

               By Jude Deveraux                                                                                                           

2011 Book Review # 114

Book List Review

Serendipity brings three career women together at the DMV in New York City on their twenty-first birthdays. Ellie, cute and perky, is a hopeful artist. Leslie is an aspiring dancer, and Madison is in New York to pursue a modeling career.

Nineteen years later, Ellie, a successful popular fiction writer who hasn't written for three years, asks the other two to meet at a summerhouse in Maine to find out if their lives went as wrong as hers.

Beautiful Madison tells the group about giving up modeling to nurse an ungrateful husband and Leslie talks about leaving the dance world to marry the boy back home, who now may be cheating on her. But neither is as bitter about men as Ellie, whose ex-husband has taken all her money and her self-confidence.

The catharsis achieved by their confessions is helpful, but what really changes their lives is the mysterious Madame Zoya, who promises to let them relive any three weeks of their lives and to choose a new path or remain with the old.

Deveraux is at the top of her game here as she uses the time-travel motif that was so popular in A Knight in Shining Armor (1996), successfully updating it with a female buddy twist that will make fans smile.

My Thoughts:  A different kind of book for me, but I liked it.  No blood or gore, but plenty of human feelings and a little magic.  It’s interesting to see what choices are made in these women’s lives when they are given a "second chance". 

“The Great Taos Bank Robbery and Other Indian Country Affairs”

  By Tony Hillerman

 

2011 Book Review #108

Summary from back cover

The two inept bandits who staged the Great Taos Bank Robbery got away, though empty-handed -- and ended up panhandling downtown, somehow overlooked by the police hunting them everywhere else. They thus entered the annals of local lore -- along with the Great Flood of 1935, a three-day drizzle that caused an epidemic of leaky adobe roofs in the usually arid Taos.

These stranger-than-fiction true stories are from master storyteller Tony Hillerman's own collection of favorite anecdotes.  Reading the stories himself, he captures the quirky character of Taos and other areas of New Mexico as only a loving resident… and great writer… could, skillfully using regional tales to comment wryly on the most universal of human foibles.

My Thoughts:  Hillerman tells short stories about the area of Taos and the Navaho with humor and affection.  I listened to the audiobook which is only 90 minutes long.  Love Hillerman and his tales!

"The Devil's Teardrop"
  By Jeffery Deaver

2011 Book Review #13

Booklist Review

 In "The Devil's Teardrop," a genius/madman/psychopath slaughters dozens of innocent people at a subway stop in Washington, D.C., and threatens to continue the bloodshed every four hours until his demands have been met.

Deaver's signature plot technique is to focus on a particular crime-solving method (it was forensics in The Bone Collector, 1996).  Here an FBI handwriting expert tries desperately to stop the murderer by decoding the hidden symbols in his demand letter.

To add to the suspense, the clock ticks mercilessly, and the diabolically brilliant criminal has set up a series of false leads and mazelike traps, forcing the agents to waste precious time and grow increasingly agitated.  Indeed, it seems that the suspect has actually infiltrated the FBI team.

Deaver is at his best here, slowly revealing layer after layer of a twisting and turning plot and building in suspicion and tension very carefully, so that eventually there seems to be something suspicious about each character.

My Thoughts:

I loved this book!  I love everything Jeffery Deaver writes. This one has more twists and turns than most…right up until the end!

"Worth Dying For"  by  Lee Child

2011 Book Review #11
A Jack Reacher Mystery

            Summary

There's deadly trouble in the corn country of Nebraska . . . and Jack Reacher walks right into it. First he falls foul of the Duncans, a local clan that has terrified an entire county into submission. But it's the unsolved case of a missing child, already decades-old, that Reacher can't let go.

 The Duncans want Reacher gone-and it's not just past secrets they're trying to hide. They're awaiting a secret shipment that's already late-and they have the kind of customers no one can afford to annoy. For as dangerous as the Duncans are, they're just the bottom of a criminal food chain stretching halfway around the world.

 For Reacher, it would have made much more sense to keep on going, to put some distance between himself and the hard-core trouble that's bearing down on him. For Reacher, that was also impossible.

Worth Dying For is the kind of explosive thriller only Lee Child could write and only Jack Reacher could survive-a heart-racing page-turner no suspense fan will want to miss.

My Thoughts!  I agree...you won't want to miss this episode of Jack Reacher's life.

                             Love Lee Child's books!

MY FAVORITE AUTHORS

The 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge has caused me to think about what I read, what I have read and what I will read in the future. I have decided to share my favorite authors with you….whether you want me to or not! ;)

Following is a list of my 32 top favorite Modern Authors. By Modern Authors, I mean those that were not part of my school experience such as, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, etc…I enjoyed many classics in my younger years, but haven’t read any lately. There are other books and authors I have read, but they are not authors I read all the time. (I read about other things besides mysteries.)

As I started to prepare this list, I realized I would never be able to list all the authors I have read and liked since I started reading...62 years ago, so I limited my list to the authors I have enjoyed, over and over, in the past 20 years! I have probably forgotten some, but that’s alright. If I have forgotten them, you probably don’t want to read them anyway. So here goes:

AUTHORS AND THEIR MAIN CHARACTER(S)

J. D. Robb .....Lt. Eve Dallas..... Futuristic Police Lt.
James Patterson .....Alex Cross..... Detective
Lee Child .....Jack Reacher..... ex-military cop, drifter
Patricia Cornwell .....Kay Scarpetta ..... Coroner
J. A. Jance .....J.P. Beaumont..... Seattle investigator AND .....Joanna Brady.....Sheriff
Iris Johansen.....Eve Duncan.....Forensic sculptor
Johathan Kellerman.....Alex Delaware.....Psychologist consultant
Faye Kellerman.....Peter Decker..... LAPD Lieutenant
John Sandford.....Lucas Davenport.....Detective
Sara Paretsky.....V.I Warshawski.....Private Eye
Stuart Woods..... Stone Barrington.....Lawyer AND ..... Holly Barker..... CIA Agent
David Baldacci..... Oliver Stone..... Government Watchdog
Jeffery Deaver..... Lincoln Rhyme..... Quadriplegic Detective
Clive Cussler..... Dirk Pitt....Underwater research Director
Sidney Sheldon..... Multiple
John Grisham..... Multiple
Agatha Christie..... Hercule Poirot......Detective AND .....Miss Marple..... Elderly Lady amateur sleuth
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle..... Sherlock Holmes .....Detective extraordinare
John Mortimer..... Rumpole..... English Barrister
Dick Francis..... Multiple
Tami Hoag..... Multiple
Sue Grafton..... Kinsey Millhone..... Private Eye
Rita Mae Brown/ Sneaky Pie Brown..... Mary Minor Harristeen.....Farmer
Janet Evanovich.....Stephanie Plum....Bail Bonds Enforcer
M.C. Beaton..... Agatha Raisin..... Retired PR Exec turned sleuth
Emily Brightwell..... Mrs. Jeffries..... Housekeeper for the Inspector
Carolyn Hart..... Bailey Ruth..... Ghost sleuth (comes back to help) AND ..... Annie & Max Darling.....Book store owner & husband
Patricia Ryan..... Nell Sweeney..... Governess
Donna Ball..... Raine Stockton..... Dog Trainer and Kennel owner
Shirley Damsgaard..... Ophelia Jensen.....Good Witch, Librarian
C.S. Lewis..... All of Narnia!
J.K. Rowling.....Harry Potter.....Young Wizard (Good Wizard!)