All Day and a Night is the latest Ellie Hatcher mystery novel and personally I think it's the best. Admittedly, I always think the last one I've read in a good series is the best and this is a good series. Burke creates great characters we can all relate to.
Ellie Hatcher is a cop who is living with a prosecutor and how she feels about it is sort of illustrated by the fact that she has yet to tell her mother. Her brother lives in her old apartment and covers for her. Prosecutor Max Donovan, her boyfriend, suddenly springs a new assignment on Hatcher and her partner J. J. Rogan. Hard to tell who is more unhappy about it.
The case involves correspondence insisting that Anthony Amaro who is serving life without possibility of parole (cop slang: all day and a night) is innocent. He had been convicted of one murder but assumed to have killed five women in Utica, NY. Now there has been another murder in New York City accomplished and staged identically. A highly publicity-conscious attorney has taken the case, and she has hired a lawyer to work the case with her. Carrie Blank also happens to be the sister of one of those victims. Why is she involved in trying to clear her sister's killer? In fact, she left a prestigious firm, a job most young lawyers would consider their ticket to a great future, to do this.
There are several characters in this book who fairly walk off the page and into your life. You can't help getting caught up in their struggles and feelings. That's a good thing for a reader but not if you want to solve the mystery before the reveal. I love Hatcher's relationship with her partner, and also the evolving relationship with Donovan. I laughed at the contrast between big city and small town as the city cops and lawyers converge on Utica investigating the old crimes.
This book will keep your interest up throughout. Don't miss it.
Highly recommended
Source: Amazon Vine
Looking for a mystery novel with a charming hero and an intriguing plot, danger galore, and lots of motive for what happens? Add to the mix a beautiful private investigator, a billionaire, and the California coast and you have Detective Lessons.
Schmitty is the star of the story, a cop working harbor patrol which mostly means driving a boat 5 mph around the harbor intercepting drunk and/or stupid boaters to keep them from killing themselves. His partner is a woman on a career track, he is a guy whose future is iffy so he sort of drifts along, living in a loft over a collection of classic cars (not his), with a sort of pie in the sky dream of finding treasure. He's likable and honest, a good guy I cared about.
When he and his partner save the life of an older man, he recognizes him as Mac Whelan, father of a classmate in high school. The next day Whelan calls wanting to hire him to find his missing son. He's only been missing for 24 hours but that just doesn't happen and Whelan doesn't want to involve the police officially, for good reason as we soon discover. Schmitty takes a couple days off to find Jimmy Whelan, then discovers Whelan has also hired a P.I., Megan McCann, to partner with him. Hence, the detective lessons.
As you might imagine, the case turns out to involve more than just Jimmy disappearing, and it puts Schmitty and McCann into serious danger as well. As in all good stories, this one will change Schmitty's life. There are important consequences for everyone involved, so you finish it with satisfaction along with some sadness for the things people do to one another in life.
I hope you'll read Detective Lessons. Bill Larkin is a writer I'll continue to watch for and I kind of hope I'll encounter Schmitty again in a future book.
Highly recommended
Source: Partners in Crime Book Tours
This is the latest volume in the William Monk series, a series that never disappoints. He is commander of the River Police and happens to be out on the Thames with one of his detectives when a party boat ahead of them suddenly explodes. It is a night of horror as the pleasure boat was crowded and the only people with any hope of survival are out on the deck. Even if they manage to escape, the water is enough to kill them. In Victorian England the Thames was a swill of sewage, bodies both human and animal, and God knows what else. Most people who had the misfortune of being dunked in the river died of disease or infection very soon. The wealthy party goers below had no chance whatsoever.
He and his detective do their best to rescue people. In the morning after cleaning up, they begin to work on the case. This was no accident. However, that very morning the case is taken away from them and given to a sort of special prosecutor who, how ever well meaning, knows nothing of the river. Monk, his men, and his wife Heather keep trying to solve the case, and it becomes obvious to them that corruption in high places, perhaps involving the newly opened Suez Canal, is behind this awful crime.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian man is tried and convicted, sentenced to be executed, but then that is changed to life. Since he is dying of disease anyway, why bother? Monk is certain that this is the wrong man. When he uncovers evidence of his claim, the case is reassigned to him. What in the world is going on with the powers that be? The answer is quite interesting.
Monk is in danger, both physical and professional, throughout. That kept me turning pages, although I was sorry when I finished the book. I like Anne Perry's England, a time of hints of change shining through Victorian mores. Hester Monk is a brave, intelligent woman, generous to the teenage orphan they've taken in and a loving wife to Monk.
If you like historical mysteries, you would do well to try this series. You'll be so glad you did.
Highly recommended
Source: LibraryThing win
Originally I was told this biography was to be published October 14th but now I see it won't be out until May 2015. Since the print edition will be 992 pages long and this book is dense with facts of history, I can see why it might take longer to publish. Still, it is available to pre-order now. If you are at all interested in the Third Reich, this is well worth the time to read.
Author Peter Longerich is a professor at Royal Holloway College of the University of London. He was aided by a group of psychoanalysts in Hamburg, Germany since his major source was Joseph Goebbels' own diaries written for publication. Therefore, how to tell the truth from the man's delusions of glory. I can't imagine the difficulties Longerich faced in trying to sort out other accounts and documents to get at the true story. Where he can't do that, he reminds readers that the information is based only on the diaries.
Goebbels began keeping a diary in 1923 and stayed with it until his death in 1945. There are 32 volumes of them. He was born in 1897 and by the time he began his first diary he was poor, unemployed, an unsuccessful writer, and in a failing relationship with a woman. He was lame from being born with a clubfoot and needed an orthopedic device to walk. Yet he saw himself as a bit of a Don Juan. There would be a series of affairs with women the rest of his life, even during his marriage. After he became director of propaganda for the Nazi Party and close to Hitler, he doesn't seem to have realized that a big part of his attraction to women was the power they assumed he had.
He went to college to avoid military service and his studies led to a crisis of his Roman Catholic faith. He finally discovered the Nationalist Socialist movement and writing for its publications began to build a reputation among its members. It was only in 1924 that he found Hitler, and if that sounds like "he found God," that's because it was that kind of an experience for him. He idolized Hitler for the rest of his life. Although they didn't always agree, Hitler always had the last word. Goebbels never understood Hitler's political maneuvering.
Meanwhile, his anti-Semitism had taken over his life. Such a man who fails at everything he tries but has an ego as big as all Germany must find a scapegoat to blame. In Goebbels' case it was the Jews and it became a consuming belief. Anti-Semitism wasn't uncommon in Europe at the time but few people were radically against the Jews. Goebbels took his bigotry to the height of truly believing the future of Europe depended upon ridding the continent of Jews. He even called President Franklin Delano Roosevelt a Jew and head of a Jewish conspiracy. We can see the fallacy in his thinking but he absolutely believed his own propaganda.
That is one thing I came to understand as I read this biography. Goebbels was taken in by his own lies. When Hitler came into power in Germany, one of the first things they did was take control of the press and radio. Goebbels told the newspaper editors what they could and could not publish, and then basked in the effusive reporting of his own speeches and rallies.
One other item of interest to mention since I can't possibly include everything fascinating about this man is that Hitler also fell in love with Magda, Goebbels' wife, and spent much time alone with her. The Goebbels had six children together, all given names that begin with H, and all of whom were taught to adore Hitler. Longerich seems convinced that somehow Magda was a wife to both men and I had the impression that at least some of the children might have been Hitler's. Meanwhile, Magda was a very unhappy woman who wanted to have a position in government, but was forced by both men to remain wife and mother. They told her it would be highly inappropriate for her to have any other job. She was never reconciled to this, but her poor health would probably have prevented her from fulfilling her wishes anyway. At the end, she and her husband killed all six children before taking their own lives after Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide. They believed life after Hitler wouldn't be worth living, even though Hitler had named Goebbels as his successor.
I wish I could go on and on with revelations from this wonderful biography. I began reading it in hopes of understanding why Goebbels became such a monster. At this point I do have more of an understanding than I did previously, but realize that there is just no way I would ever be able to fully understand the path his life took. I also learned quite a bit about Hitler despite the fact that I've been reading about him and his Nazi Party for years. This was another side of him that I hadn't seen before.
Highly recommended for history buffs
Source: Random House/Netgalley
In the Prologue of this scary novel we are witness to an accidental death and a horrific murder that gives me the creeps just to remember it. Obviously the murderer in this story is obsessed with something and not real attached to reality.
The tale continues more than 20 years later with another killing that seems totally unrelated except for the way it's done. A young man is the victim, killed while using a pay phone to talk to the girlfriend he regrets breaking up with. He of course doesn't show up to see her but she refuses to believe he has run off. Her best friend, a beautiful neighbor who cares more about sexy clothes and expensive gifts than her friend's missing boyfriend, tries to talk her into dating a shrink but he keeps standing her up. She isn't interested anyway.
Throughout the book I was relieved that the main character has a Doberman named Zeus who is of course protective of her. Most of the time she doesn't believe she's in danger and I kept talking to her (out loud) about her lack of brains. She's a college student and yet she acts too bubble-headed to be real to me.
There are several candidates for the title of creepy bad guy here and actually I dismissed him as fairly harmless but the big clue was staring me right in the face. Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to call someone else bubble-headed, eh?
I have a hard time coming to a decision about Prey of Desire. I suppose the modus operandi here is clever for a mystery writer but I struggled with it, still do actually. I've already mentioned my difficulty with the main character too but on the other hand if she hadn't acted as she did, there wouldn't be much of a story to tell.
Recommended with caveat about method of murders
Source: Partners in Crime Book Tours
Catherine O'Brien and her partner Louise Montgomery are the bickering, immensely funny feature characters in this series. They are police department detectives in St. Paul, MN but this reminds me of cozy set in London with the odd characters and the plot. Catherine is married and thankfully has a patient and loving husband who only gets upset at her long hours on the job when she's in danger. Louise is beautiful, enough so to distract both other cops and witnesses, but she's the one who is calm and tactful.
In this story a couple have been murdered in their own home and their college age son came home to find them dead. A neighbor is looking after him until relatives can take him away from the scene. The wife was stabbed in the living room but strangely enough the husband was shot in the attic where he kept his prized train sets. No defensive wounds on either. Then there is a crazy niece and a suspicious looking sister and brother-in-law. Inherited money is an issue and there is the matter of the death of a wealthy grandmother in upstate Minnesota several years earlier.
Neighbors they question are hilarious, for instance the one who thinks she's cracked the case but gives them such a vague description of the car she saw that it could be any car in town. She claims not to be nosy but has binoculars on the windowsill and knows everything about everyone on the block. We all know the type and that's what makes it so funny. They have the usual problems with the media too which is a hindrance.
Reading any book in this series is like settling down with old friends who tell great stories. I know I'll have a good time when the author is Stacy Verdick Case. If you aren't already a fan, you will be if you read An Intimate Murder.
Highly recommended
Source: Author via Netgalley
