Reader’s Choice – Fiction

Banbury, Jen. Like a Hole in the Head. Little, Brown & Company, 1998. Jill, a part-time bookseller, buys and sells a first edition Jack London thinking that fortune has shined upon her. Unfortunately, her luck is all bad. Soon after the sale, she is visited by a very cordial assassin who wants the book back. Since the new owner of the book is also a friend, she is determined to find the book on her own--or else. Her lucky break has turned into an unexpected adventure when she is joined by what looks to be a B-movie cast in a slapstick chase across Los Angeles, Las Vegas and the Hollywood hills. Long before recovering the book and its secret, Jill will be cheated, lied to, drugged, tortured and even forced to act as a movie extra against her will. Nothing is as it appears to be. The bad guys are sometimes only out of work actors, the heroine isn’t as tough as she would like to be and the good guys have mysterious secrets. Jill knows that never again will life be the same.

Braun, Lilian Jackson. The Cat Who Went Up The Creek. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2002. In Braun's 24th Cat Who... mystery), journalist James Mackintosh "Qwill" Qwilleran ("the richest man in the northeast central United States") and his two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, find themselves in the thick of another light and lively murder investigation in rural Moose County. When Lori Bamba, the new manager (along with her husband Nick) of the Nutcracker Inn in Black Creek, complains that the old place is haunted and making her feel gloomy, Qwill agrees to spend several nights with his cats at the converted Victorian mansion. Koko's noise gets them moved from the turret room, where the cats like to watch squirrels, to a cabin recently vacated because its occupant was murdered. Koko stumbles on a clue to the murder, while Qwill locates the source of the inn's haunting. In the meantime, Qwill's need for material for his newspaper column prompts him to help promote many local activities: the production of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, a historical re-enactment of a lumberjack's rowdy evening, the opening of an antiques fair and mall, the launching of a book of photographs of scenic Moose County, the adoption of a boy orphaned by a suicide and another murder. As usual, the various mysteries and their ultimate solutions matter a lot less than the small-town doings of the author's irresistible characters, both human and feline. This gentle, entertaining tale is proof once again that Braun reigns supreme as the queen of the cat cozies.

Deford, Frank. The Other Adonis. Sourcebooks Landmark, 2001. Set in 17th-century Europe and modern-day New York City, the plot entwines the lives of a group of characters all deeply affected by Peter Paul Rubens's painting Venus and Adonis. Two of the characters, magazine publisher Bucky Buckingham and financial analyst Constance Rawlings, believe they are actually the reincarnations of the painting's subjects. They approach psychiatrist Nina Winston to see if she can prove their beliefs through hypnotism. Nina, enmeshed in her own steamy relationship with a dashing minister, Hugh Venable, agrees. During the hypnotism, however, Nina discovers a shocking truth: both Bucky and Constance were indeed Rubens's models back in Antwerp in 1635, but their roles were reversed. And not only was Constance a man who posed as Adonis, but he was in real life a serial murderer named Ollie. Nina wonders: If Constance was in fact a murderer back then, what does that say about her true nature now? Deford keeps the tone light and humorous, mixing history and crime and romance between characters who, refreshingly, are well into middle age. The drama builds to a galvanizing finale on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, then shifts down into a sweet denouement. Not the best written book, but an interesting concept and hard to put down.

Fforde, Jasper. The Eyre Affair. Viking, 2002. In 1980s Great Britain, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality and literature is taken very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the Surrealists and Impressionists, and thousands of men are named John Milton in homage to the real Milton. Amidst all this, Acheron Hades begins stealing beloved literary characters from their novels. Enter Thursday Next, Special Operative's renowned literary detective. With the help of her uncle Mycroft, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre. The Eyre Affair is a fun trip into an alternate world. Highly recommended.

Freedman, Benedict and Nancy. Mrs. Mike. Berkley Books, 2001. This is the love story of a young girl from Boston. When she goes to live with her uncle in Canada she meets Mike-the tall, handsome Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman. His next assignment, their home, is in wilderness territory where he is police- man, doctor, vet and whatever else is needed. We learn how hard it was to adjust to those living conditions but also how rewarding. Read this and then read the recently released sequel, Search for Joyful, the story of one of Mrs. Mike's children.

Hamilton, Lyn. The Etruscan Chimera: An Archaeological Mystery. Berkley Prime Crime, 2002. The sixth in a series of archeological mysteries revolving around the adventures of Lara McClintoch, an antique storeowner from Toronto, The Etruscan Chimera: an Archaeological Mystery, delves into the world of international antiquities and intrigue. An invitation to meet the legendary and reclusive billionaire and antiques collector Crawford Lake, in Rome, will plunge Lara into a series of dangerous and deadly adventures involving ancient and invaluable Etruscan artifacts. After finishing her annual antique tour through Europe, Lara agrees to meet with Lake and to attempt to obtain a rare Etruscan sculpture from a collector in France. Nothing is, as it seems, however, as a cast of characters chases the Etruscan artifact from France to Italy, with Lara thrust in the middle of a perilous plot involving deception and deadly greed. In the end, Lara must rely on her wits and knowledge of ancient artifacts to solve the puzzle and bring about justice. This mystery is recommended for those who enjoy solving a complex mystery with a classical twist.

Henry, Sue. Cold Company. Morrow, 2002. Jessie Arnold loves her life in Alaska. When her home burned she decided to rebuild on the same spot. When a body is found in the excavation site, unsolved murders and murder suspects are 'revisited'. Throughout the story Jessie watches her new house under construction and watches her back in case the murderer is still about.

Holm, Jennifer. Boston Jane: An Adventure. HarperCollins, 2001. Jane grew up in Philadelphia and studied etiquette-how to be a proper young lady- in 1854. She learned how to fit into Philadelphia society-how did this help her when she sailed to the Pacific Northwest? How did this help when living among trappers, traders and the Chinook Indians. A good read for young adults and adults.

Karon, Jan. The "Mitford" Series. Penquin Books. Jan Karon has written seven heartwarming stories set in the small town of Mitford in the mountains of North Carolina. Well, actually, A New Song, number five in the series, takes place in Mitford and Whitecap Island on the coast of North Carolina. Each novel features Father Tim Kavanagh, an Episcopal Rector, his spirited wife Cynthia, and a host of other colorful characters. Among the seven novels, A Common Life is the weakest. It recounts the wedding of Tim and Cynthia and seems rather out of place among the others. The remaining six are delightfully entertaining. Readers fall in love with the setting and the characters and find themselves longing for a place like Mitford to call home. In chronological order the "Mitford" novels are: At Home in Mitford; A Light in the Window; These High, Green Hills; Out to Canaan; A New Song; A Common Life; and In This Mountain.

Kidd, Sue Monk. Secret Life of Bees. Viking, 2001.Lily Owens , 14, is an emotionally abused white girl living with her cold, uncaring father on a peach farm in rural South Carolina. She has shaped her life around one devastating, blurred memory - - the afternoon her mother was killed when Lily was four. Since then, her only real companion has been a fierce hearted black woman Rosaleen who has been hired to care for her. When Rosaleen insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily knows it is time to spring them both free. She and Rosaleen take off for a town called Tiburon, South Carolina, a name Lily found on the back of a picture amid the few possessions left by her mother. They are taken in by three black, bee keeping sisters. Lily enters their mesmerizing secret world of bees and honey. While racial tensions simmer around them, this household of strong wise women helps Lily accept her loss and learn the power of forgiveness.

Koontz, Dean R. One Door Away From Heaven. Bantam Books, 2001. Michelina Bellsong sees herself as a loser and life has little meaning until nine-year-old Leilani Klonk moves in next door. Lani, as she likes to be called despises the sympathy people show when they see her deformed leg and the brace that she wears. She radiates a spirit that inspires Mickey. When the girl and her family disappear, Mickey sets out on a quest that will change her outlook on life forever. In the meantime, aliens and typewriting dogs and the FBI and UFOs abound in this almost over the top Koontz story.

Maron, Margaret. Bootlegger’s Daughter. Warner Books, 1993. This first novel in Maron's Imperfect series, which won the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 993, introduces heroine Deborah Knott, an attorney and the daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger. Known for her knowledge of the region's past and popular with the locals, Deb is asked by 18-year-old Gayle Whitehead to investigate the unsolved murder of her mother Janie, who died when Gayle was an infant. While visiting the owner of the property where Janie's body was found, Deb learns of Janie's more-than-promiscuous past. Piecing together lost clues and buried secrets Deb is introduced to Janie's darker side, but it's not until another murder occurs that she uncovers the truth. The trail wends past a local pottery run by a gay couple; the costume rack at the little theater playhouse; and the home of her ex-sister-in-law. Then two more die; Deborah and her primary opponent are smeared in a poison-pen campaign; marijuana greenhouses are shut down; and Deborah speeds after the murderer.... A keen view of families, southern-discomfort style. (Leslie West)

Maron, Margaret . Bootlegger's Daughter. Deborah Knott runs for district judge of Colleton County, N.C. but her energies are mostly spent investigating an 18year old unsolved murder case. The victim's daughter wants to know what really happened. Get to know Deborah and how she thinks and acts. This is a mystery series which you will enjoy. (Beth Hutcheson)

Maron, Margaret. Southern Discomfort. Warner Books, 1993. The changing North Carolina landscape provides a setting for murder in Margaret Maron's Judge Deborah Knott series. Southern Discomfort brings Deborah back for her second appearance after being introduced in Bootlegger's Daughter where she balances roles as lawyer/daughter/sister/aunt/ and now judge as she struggles to address issues like over development in her much loved home. Backyard barbecues, church, home, and family--the backbone of Southern culture--provide the backdrop for another haunting tale. As Bootlegger's Daughter closes, Deborah has become a district judge and in Southern Discomfort she is delivering on a commitment to provide housing for battered women. After her niece is assaulted at a building site her attacker is murdered, and Deborah finds herself investigating murder in the family when her niece becomes the murder suspect. Maron's plot device of "pragmatist" v. "preacher," her personal chatterbox, is delightful as she struggles to explore both sides of issues, an important characteristic for a judge. Maron has borrowed from her Southern roots to create a strong woman of the South in a giant of a mystery. The mystery as morality play, the struggle between good and evil, is nowhere better played than in America's genteel South.

Maron, Margaret. Shooting At Loons. Mysterios Press, 1994. In the third installment of the Deborah Knott series, Deborah travels to the coastal town of Beaufort, the site of many happy childhood summers, to fill in for a fellow judge who's ill. Shortly after arriving, she discovers the bullet-riddled body of a fisherman who was active in the local war among the pro-status quo natives, the commercial fishermen whose livelihood is threatened by new regulations, and the big-bucks real estate developers. When Deborah finds a second body, she decides it's time to figure out what's really going on under the idyllic surface of Beaufort. Maron's usual humor and charm do much to overcome her occasionally preachy spiels on the effects of commercialism, tourism, and other "isms," but while this third entry in the series is certainly worth buying, it isn't quite as much fun as the earlier ones.

Martin, Steve. Shopgirl. 40 Share Productions, Inc., 2000. Mirabelle is a shy young shop girl in the Neiman-Marcus store selling things that nobody buys anymore. She is charming because of what she does not possess rather than what she does. Not drop dead gorgeous but quietly lovely, not flirtatious but sweet, Mirabelle is irresistible. She captivates Ray Porter, an aging businessman. As they begin a tentative relationship, both struggle to find the meaning of love and both experience consequences that are both comical and heartbreaking. Mirabelle and Ray eventually learn from each other and from later relationships that we do not always know what we want, but sometimes we get it anyway. Steve Martin writes much better than expected and has put together a very interesting story with great character development.

McMurtry, Larry. Boone’s Lick. Simon & Schuster, 2001. Master storyteller Larry McMurtry unfurls a short, bright banner of a book following the fortunes ofthe Cecil family as they travel from Boone's Lick, Missouri, to the Western frontier. Though the story is narrated by her oldest son, 15-year-old Shay, the real hero of the book is Mary Margaret, the mother. Her husband, Dick, has left her and their four children in Boone's Lick while he seeks his fortunes in the West. Mary Margaret lives contentedly with the children and Dick's brother, Seth, until one day she decides she's had enough of playing the estranged wife and packs up the entire household. And so the Cecil family leaves their little town (where Wild Bill Hickok makes a cameo appearance) and travels by wagon to Wyoming, accompanied along the way by a huge priest and a Shoshone. They do find Dick, and they also arrive in Wyoming just in time for the 1866 Fetterman Massacre. Once again, McMurtry brings the American west alive, and this resurrection is sweeter and happier than anything in his earlier books. McMurtry's wagon full of frustrated Missourians makes a fine narrative vehicle: we get a first-hand account of the Native American wars; we get the perspective of the women left behind in the opening of the West; we get a wagon's-eye view of the hard journey of the settlers; and, ultimately, we get an insightful family romance. All that, and scalpings too!

McMurtry, Larry. Buffalo Girls. Simon & Schuster, 1990. In a letter to her daughter back East, Martha Jane is not shy about her own importance: "Martha Jane -- better known as Calamity -- is just one of the handful of aging legends who travel to London as part of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in Buffalo Girls. As he describes the insatiable curiosity of Calamity's Indian friend No Ears, Annie Oakley's shooting match with Lord Windhouveren, and other highlights of the tour, McMurtry turns the story of a band of hardy, irrepressible survivors into an unforgettable portrait of love, fellowship, dreams, and heartbreak. McMurtry creates another incredibly alive, loveable, bigger than live female character. Entertaining look at the real wild, wild west!

Mitchell, Jane. And Grace Will Lead Them Home. Writers Club Press, 2001. In this compelling Southern mystery, two women confront the effects of a friend's death and the flux of their own lives. Following the murder of their childhood friend, Grace Ann, Elliott-a single, 40-something librarian-and her roommate, Rosie-a divorced mother of three-confront the effects of her death and the flux of their own lives. Set in North Alabama and Birmingham, this richly detailed mystery unfolds a story of obsession, past loyalties, love, murder, and saving grace. Old Time Music, hits from the '60s, and the spirit of Elvis provide a harmonious backdrop. An added plus to those of us who know and worked with Jane at Birmingham Public: read the book and see which characters might just sound like someone you know!

Patterson, James. Violets Are Blue. Little, Brown, 2001. Washington, D.C., police detective Alex Cross returns with two new cases of disparate quality. The first case, which dominates the story, takes place within America's vampire underground. The second, in which Cross at last defeats the nemesis known as "the Mastermind," feels tacked on only to knot loose ends. In San Francisco, two joggers are slain, seemingly by both tiger and human teeth, and their blood drained; then an upscale couple is killed similarly in Marin County deaths suggestive of an earlier Cross case, prompting the detective's old pal Kyle Craig of the FBI to ask for his help. Craig's plea plunges Cross not only into a fetishistic netherworld in which thousands play at being vampires and a handful actually do kill for blood, but into personal turbulence as he alienates his family by his dedication to work, and as his always troubled love life takes further dips and flights, the latter in the company of SFPD Insp. Jamilla Hughes, who joins him on the cases. We know the good guys' immediate quarry, but they don't: two golden young men, brothers and self-styled vampires, with a pet tiger at their side. But who is the Sire, their ultimate leader? Meanwhile, the Mastermind, a brilliant homicidal maniac, plagues Cross with threatening phone calls. The action reels around the country, from D.C. to California to Las Vegas to North Carolina, and readers will be swept away by it and by Patterson's expert mixing of Cross's professional and personal challenges.

Preston, Douglas and Lincoln Child. The Cabinet of Curiosities. Warner Books, 2002. Fans of Douglas Preston and Child, get ready. The duo's latest novel, The Cabinet of Curiosities, is a wild ride and a wild read, set in the creepily atmospheric New York Museum of Natural History fondly remembered by fans of the previous novels Relic and Reliquary. In Cabinet, the excavation of a construction site reveals a chamber of horrors--piles of bones that are the work of a serial killer from the late 1800's. However, the killings begin again in the present day. Is it the work of a copycat killer who had read the news item, or something even more sinister? In Cabinet, Preston and Child reunite several characters from previous novels: archaeologist Nora Kelly, journalist Bill Smithback, always in pursuit of the story that will land him the Pulitzer Prize, and the mysterious Special Agent Pendergast of the FBI. One particularly effective sequence has Kelly being pursued through a remote portion of the Museum archives by the killer: anyone who has ever wandered through row after row of shelving in a large library until all sense of direction is lost can easily appreciate Kelly's panic when she realizes she is not alone in there. The Cabinet of Curiosities is not recommended as a "beach read" because the reader is likely to forget all about the sun and burn to a crisp while absorbed in the novel. This one is a must for fans of Preston and Child.

Sandford, John. The "Prey" Series. G.P. Putnam & Sons. John Sandford is the pseudonym of the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist John Camp. He has written thirteen Prey novels featuring policeman Lt. Lucas Davenport. Each of these novels is set in the Minnesota/Wisconsin region and has a deranged serial killer as the villain. The stories are full of blood, gore, and plenty of action and suspense. Lucas sometimes gets roughed up but always prevails in the end. And he always manages to find a romantic interest to add a little spice to the story. In chronological order the "Prey" novels are: Rules of Prey; Shadow Prey;Eyes of Prey; Silent Prey; Winter Prey; Night Prey; Mind Prey; Sudden Prey; Secret Prey; Certain Prey; Easy Prey; Chosen Prey; and Mortal Prey.

Sawyer, Robert J. Flashforward. Tor, 1999. In 2009, at CERN, Geneva's Large Hadron Collider, physicists Lloyd Simcoe and Theo Procopides attempt to find the elusive Higgs boson by smashing particles together at colossal energies. But at the instant the experiment begins, the entire world blanks out for about two minutes. When consciousness is restored, millions have died in accidents. Nearly everyone else experienced a hallucination or vision. This was, it emerges, a genuine glimpse of the year 2030. Lloyd is very disturbed; he's due to wed the beautiful Miko, who’s daughter died in the Flashforward, but his vision showed him happily married to another woman. Others foresaw sexual encounters and so seek out the partners revealed in their visions; still others have foreknowledge of investments or lottery numbers. But poor Theo had no vision; he'll be dead and must solve the problem of his own murder! Lloyd, still reluctant to commit to Michiko, believes the future to be as immutable as the past. He's proved wrong, however. An attempt to replicate the Flashforward fails, but Lloyd and Theo do detect the Higgs particle. They discover that the Flashforward was caused by their experiment's interaction with a neutrino shower from a distant supernova. So, the third attempt is timed to coincide with another neutrino shower. Theo finally learns how and why he was murdered. But this Flashforward is a disappointment, leaping far into a future when only a handful of immortals still survive. Intriguing ideas are presented…although the ending is somewhat disappointing after so much build-up.

Willis, Connie. Passage. Bantam Books, 2001. A thought provoking story about what’s waiting for us on the other side. Joanna Lancer is a medical researcher who specializes in near death experiences. When her research isn’t progressing as quickly as she likes, she teams up with a doctor who uses a drug that simulates a real death experience. When Joanna decides to become a test subject and crosses over, she is amazed to find herself on the Titanic at the moment the ship hits the iceberg. The story has a shocking ending. What Joanna discovers about death and the human spirit on the other side will haunt the reader long after the story ends.

June 12, 2002