“Dare to Die” by Carolyn Hart

Review #80

A Death on Demand Mystery with Annie Darling and her PI husband, Max Darling



A mysterious young woman returns to the island to make amends, but a ruthless killer fears she will recall one long ago, foggy night.

Annie owns Death on Demand, a mystery bookstore in Broward's Rock, one of the idyllic South Carolina Sea Islands. This time Annie leaves her bookstore in the meddling hands of her mother-in-law, Lauren, and steps in to help her friends, Ingrid and Duane Webb, by taking care of their motel while they attend to a family crisis. One of the motel's new residents is a lonely and troubled young woman named Iris Tilford. Iris has returned to Broward's Rock after disappearing more than 10
years ago following the tragic deaths of two of her high-school friends. Annie invites Iris to a party she and Max are giving. This party happens to include some of Iris’ old friends and classmates. By the time the evening is over, Iris is brutally murdered, and the best suspects are some of those very same classmates. The Darlings vow not to get involved, but soon their own lives are in danger, and... the body count escalates.

This is the nineteenth book in the Death on Demand Mystery series and just as good as the other eighteen.

“Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe

Review #79

As far as we know this was the first novel ever written, (1719). Daniel Defoe is said to have based “Robinson Crusoe” on the true adventures of Alexander Selkirk (who spent four or five years on an island in the South Pacific) and on accounts of other castaways of the time.

The first-person narrative begins with the universal quest: the young man in Britain, torn between his safe home and his hunger for adventure, breaks away from his loving father and sails away into the unknown. After a series of harrowing escapes, he's shipwrecked on a desert island. The narrative shows how his intelligence and education help him survive for more than 30 years, and how he uses technology, including guns and tools salvaged from the ship. He sets up home, reads the Bible, finds a parrot as a pet, (a dog and 2 cats survive the wreck with him) and even devises a calendar to keep track of time. Then one day he finds a human footprint: was it someone who could save him and take him back to civilization? Or was it a “savage” who landed here?

When some "savages" arrive in several canoes, he uses his guns to get rid of them, and he rescues one of their captives, a handsome fellow with very dark skin. Delighted to have a companion at last, Crusoe names the newcomer Friday (since Crusoe saved him on Friday). (I wonder why he had to name a grown man. Didn’t he already have a name?) Crusoe teaches "my man Friday" to speak English, fire a gun, carve a canoe, and clothe his nakedness, and they live happily together. Later they rescue a white man and Friday's father from a group of "savages," and, eventually, they all return to their homes. The survival adventure is still enthralling.

I read this book as a child and decided to read it again. As a child it was a book of adventure. As an adult, it is, also, something else! An adventure, yes, but this time I found… racism and slavery indicative of that era… man finding religion but, keeping the racism…and…comedy. Read it again and see what you think. ;)

I discovered a new audio medium at the library. This book was on "Playaway". It is a credit card sized audio book. You plug in earphones and put the device in a pocket. Then, you are free to go anywhere you like while listening to the book! It's wonderful...try it! They are very expensive to buy, so check with your library. You supply the earphones.

“The Spellmans Strike Again” by Lisa Lutz

Review #78

The uproarious fourth and final installment in the "New York Times", bestselling, Edgar Award-nominated series about a kooky detective family.

Now that her parents are older, Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, age 32, has agreed to head up Spellman Investigations. She is also dating ex-boyfriend #12, an Irish bartender. Even so, Mother Olivia, determined that Izzy marry a professional, blackmails her into dating men of Olivia's choice (preferably lawyers) every other week. Youngest daughter Rae, a genius teen who's supposed to be studying for the SATs, is wrapped up in her internship researching pro bono legal cases, using any means…legal or illegal…to get an innocent man out of jail. And the whole family wants to make sure brother David marries Maggie Mason, the lawyer who oversees Rae's internship.

In addition, Izzy investigates the whereabouts of a missing valet with a checkered past and sifts through garbage for a screenwriter client. On the sly, Izzy is also tailing Rick Harkey, a rival San Francisco PI, and discovers that Harkey has left behind a trail of suspicious arrests and conveniently misplaced evidence in his career as a cop.

This book makes it FUN TIME!

(The first 3 books of the series are: "The Spellman Files”, “The Revenge of the Spellmans" and “The Curse of the Spellmans”. They are all fast paced and FUN!)

"Born On a Blue Day”       by  Daniel Tammet
Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant.

Review #77

Daniel Tammet is one of the world's 50 or so living autistic savants and is the first and only one to tell his compelling and inspiring life story and explain how his incredible mind works. He was the subject of the 2005 documentary, ‘Brainman’,

This unique, first-person account, offers a window into the mind of a high-functioning, 32-year-old British autistic savant with Asperger's syndrome.

Tammet's ability to think abstractly, deviate from routine, and empathize, interact and communicate with others is impaired, yet, he's capable of incredible feats of memorization and mental calculation, (in five hours he recited the number pi up to the 22,514th digit, breaking the European record).

Besides being able to effortlessly multiply and divide huge sums in his head with the speed and accuracy of a computer, Daniel speaks 9 languages and learned the Icelandic language (one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn) in a single week. He also experiences synesthesia, an unusual neurological syndrome that enables him to experience numbers and words as "shapes, colors, textures and motions."

His adult achievements include teaching in Lithuania, achieving financial independence with an educational Web site (http://www.optimnem.co.uk/) and writing some of the clearest prose anyone has ever read. He tells his story with such concentration, precision, and simplicity that his familial poverty, schooling as a mainstreamed student, self-realization as gay, and embracing of Christianity prove as enthralling as they are, ultimately, normal.

His ability to express himself clearly and with a surprisingly engaging tone (given his symptoms) makes for an account that will intrigue anyone who hears his story.

I found that, occasionally, he became overly descriptive of his subject and lost me (especially in the math department). ;) But…I was so engrossed with Daniel Tammet’s story that I listened to the entire book in one day! Although Daniel did not do the audio himself, I recommend getting the audio tape of this book so you can experience the feel of his telling you in person about his life!
The book is entirely in first person prose!

Tammet has written a second book,"Embracing the Wide Sky" and is writing a third, has a personal blog, http://www.optimnem.co.uk/blog/index.php, and his official website, http://www.optimnem.co.uk/.

"Exit Wounds”   by J.A. Jance

Review #76 

A Sheriff Joanna Brady novel

The heat is a killer in Cochise County, Arizona, with temperatures over 100 degrees.

It's the Fourth of July, and Brady is racing from event to event, unofficially campaigning for re-election, when she learns that a woman has been found dead in a mobile home, surrounded by 17 dead dogs. The dogs died of the blazing desert heat, but Carol Mossman was shot.

Then...Joanna receives reports on two more female bodies that have turned up in a nearby county in New Mexico. Ballistics reveal that the same gun was used in both crimes.

Meanwhile, Joanna and her husband are delighted to learn that she's pregnant. Morning sickness and eating aversions play a larger role in Sheriff Brady's day than she would like, but she struggles on with the minutiae of a sheriff's life.

Clues to the three murders are slow in coming, but eventually Joanna learns that Carol's father, Ed Mossman, belonged to a cult called the Brethren for many years, and the two women who were murdered in New Mexico were in the midst of producing a report on the publicity-shy group.

Joanna starts to believe that the more she learns about the Mossman family and the Brethren, the closer she'll be to solving the murders.

Joanna Brady's life is never simple, always busy, and full of questions large and small about human nature.

J.A. Jance has given us another great story!

"Rooms”   by James L. Rubart

Review #75

This is a tale of a man’s unexpected journey to finding his true self, his true life and God.

Twenty-five-year-old Seattle software tycoon, Micah Taylor receives a mysterious letter from his great-uncle Archie informing him of a home he has had built especially for Micah. He never knew this uncle who has been dead for 12 years (the house was built 5 months ago!) and who his father says was ‘loony toons’. However, his interest is piqued so, Micah takes off from Seattle for Cannon Beach, Oregon to visit his newly acquired 9,000-square-foot house on the beach (providing it really exists)!

At first, he thinks maybe, a house in Cannon Beach would be a perfect weekend getaway place or maybe, he would sell it. He arrives to find...it does exist! It's big and beautiful! But, once he settles in, strange things start happening... things Micah can't explain...things he can barely believe. Strange rooms keep appearing. Rooms he knows were not there when he first arrived! And…each of these rooms has a unique purpose.

What he finds is a shape-shifting, mind-boggling revisiting of his past that jeopardizes his future. With only a handful of letters from Archie as a guide and a new friend, Rick, Micah tries to summon up the courage to face old wounds that somehow are connected to these special rooms.

This is not listed as a science fiction novel, but the ‘Twilight Zone’ writers would have been proud to call this book their own. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a powerful and moving story. It just makes it more intriguing.

It's an excellent book and I would recommend it to anyone!

"Something Wicked”   by  Carolyn Hart

Review #74

A Death on Demand Mystery with book store owner, Annie Laurance and PI Max Darling.

Mishaps and murder occur on the set of the Broward Rock Players production of Arsenic and Old Lace in the high school auditorium. When one of the cast members, womanizer Shane Petree winds up shot to death in the boiler room, a pompous prosecutor tries to pin the murder on Max Darling, Annie Laurance's fiancé. (Annie just wants a simple, quiet wedding but, her soon to be mother-in-law, Laurel, is helping to plan it and her elaborate, “International” suggestions are driving Annie nuts!)

Annie checks the greasepaint and glitter of backstage life and with her friend,Henny’s help, uses the methods of her favorite fictional sleuths to solve the crime. If she isn’t careful, she'll be the next to star in a death scene because this murderer doesn’t play fair!

I have never read a bad Carolyn Hart book! Charming characters, interesting plots and funny moments make them all worth reading.

In addition to the Death on Demand series, Carolyn Hart has a series based on amateur sleuth Henrie O and another on ghost detective, Bailey Ruth.