aunt_agatha

After the Great War

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This wonderful essay comes to us from occasional contributor Nancy Shaw.

The wait is over. The recently-released Maisie Dobbs mystery, The American Agent, puts her in the middle of the London Blitz on ambulance runs, bringing her back to the scenes of wartime carnage that molded her life into “psychologist and investigator,” the job she created after nursing in France in World War I. Jacqueline Winspear makes the trauma of war her major subject through her beloved series. Shell shock lingers in the lives of Brits and pops out in a variety of malignant ways, volume after volume. read more

Louise Penny: A Better Man

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This is one of the more stripped down narratives Louise Penny has delivered.  Stripped down for Penny, that is.  The essential story is a simple one that drives her narrative, but being a complex writer and thinker, she’s made the simple complex.  There are two threads.  One concerns the disappearance of a woman who happens to be the goddaughter of a Surete officer.  Gamache, who has returned to work with a demotion (he’s head of homicide, not the entire Surete) accompanies the officer to the village where the woman lived. read more

William Kent Krueger: This Tender Land

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While this wonderful novel bears all the hallmarks of William Kent Krueger, it’s not exactly a mystery. There are some mysterious – or criminal – elements and the fact that it’s not a straight up mystery should keep no reader away. Written as a companion to Krueger’s classic, Ordinary Grace, it is a spiritual companion but it’s not a sequel or a prequel or anything like it. It’s very much its own country.

Set in 1930’s Minnesota, it’s the story of Odie, his brother Albert, and their friend Mose, who doesn’t speak. All of them are young and living in an “Indian” boarding school. At the time (and up through the early 70’s) native children were taken from their homes and put in these harsh schools where they were allowed little to no contact with their families and were forbidden – even punished – if they spoke their native language. They were given western style haircuts and forced to anglicize their names. read more

Annelise Ryan: Needled to Death

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This book has a cozy look, but I wouldn’t say it’s a cozy. It’s kind of a half cozy, but if you shop by cover art, the cute dog isn’t going to quite give you the picture of what’s inside. I’m a fan of Ryan’s Mattie Winston series because of the complex characters and situations, and this book, the first in a “new” series, actually features a character introduced in the last Mattie Winston book, Hildy Schneider.

Hildy is a hospital social worker who leads a grief group. As the book opens, the group is meeting, and a new member to the group has lost her son to addiction, a sadly unremarkable story. What’s different is that the woman insists her son wasn’t involved with drugs and that he was murdered. The cops are skeptical and have closed the case – the young man was found with a needle hanging out of his arm, and after all, does a parent always know what their child is up to? read more

August Book Club: A Double Life

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Our August book club will meet Thursday, August 15, 6 p.m at the Classic Cup Cafe.  We’ll be reading Flynn Berry’s A Double Life.  It’s available on our store page at a discount. The publisher’s description:

A gripping, intense, stunningly written novel of psychological suspense from the award-winning author of Under the Harrow

Claire is a hardworking doctor leading a simple, quiet life in London. She is also the daughter of the most notorious murder suspect in the country, though no one knows it. read more

Titles Read in Aunt Agatha’s Book Club

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This is list of books we’ve read in our book club (updated in June of 2019), and it might be a good reading journey if you are looking for a new one.  Titles with an asterisk indicate a book the group was especially passionate about.  Fun trivia:  we’ve read 4 books by one author who writes under several different names and there are two father & daughter pairs, as well as one husband & wife pair. Happy reading!

Abbott, Megan (author appearance) The Song is You
Abbott, Megan You Will Know Me
*Adler-Olsen, Jussi The Keeper of Lost Causes
Ahmad, A.X. (author Skype call in) The Caretaker (Tori B. asked great questions)
Airth, Rennie River of Darkness
Akunin, Boris The Winter Queen
Alexander, Tasha And Only to Deceive
Alexander, Tasha Death in the Floating City
Allingham, Margery Sweet Danger
Allyn, Doug (author appearance) A Dance in Deep Water
Andrews, Donna (author appearance) Murder with Puffins
Arruda, Suzanne Mark of the Lion
Atkinson, Kate Case Histories
Ballantyne, Lisa The Guilty One
Bannister, Jo No Birds Sing
Beinhart, Larry The Librarian
Bell, David (author call in) Somebody I Used to Know
Black, Cara (author appearance) Murder in the Marais
*Bolton, Sharon (S.J.) Sacrifice (Linda A. brought in a book of Shetland Island Photos)
Bowen, Rhys Murphy’s Law
Box, C.J. Open Season
Branch, Pamela The Wooden Overcoat
Brand, Christianna Fog of Doubt (very small turnout, great discussion)
Brogan, Jan A Confidential Source read more

Stephen Mack Jones: Lives Laid Away

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This book came out around the time we closed the store and I didn’t read it at the time, being deep into comfort re-reading of Agatha Christie and Patricia Wentworth.  However I thought the first book, August Snow, was wonderful and a great and much needed injection of diversity and vitality to the private eye genre.  This second book is even better, more intense and focused.  I recently interviewed Stephen who mentioned Robert B. Parker as an influence, and I can sure see it in this tight, funny, fast moving story. read more

Dianne Freeman: A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder

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What does an American-born aristocrat do when she becomes a young widow? Why, introduce her heiress niece to London society, start playing match-maker for other young American heiresses, and solve murders, of course.

In this lighthearted second installment in the Countess of Harleigh series, Frances has a serious problem. When her cousin Charles decides it’s time to look for a wife, Frances introduces him to her acquaintance Mary Archer. The romance doesn’t work out and soon after Charles and Mary part company, Mary is found dead, and Frances is determined to keep Charles from being accused of murder. read more

Casey Cep: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

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As evidenced by its extended title Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee is really three interrelated stories. The first, and impetus for the rest, is the murky tale of a murky man, the Reverend Willie Maxwell, an itinerant preacher and laborer whose immediate family members had the unfortunate habit of dying under mysterious circumstances. Whether the Reverend was unlucky or not depends on your perspective, because it always turned out that said family members were insured to the hilt, with the beneficiary being, unsurprisingly, the Reverend himself. He was found innocent the only time he was tried for his losses, and eventually (no spoiler here, it’s on the jacket copy) shot in church during the funeral of one of his alleged victims. read more

S.J. Rozan: Paper Son

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Eight long years and a change of publisher later, Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith have returned. They have been missed! Rozan’s series is one of the best private eye series around, with the fresh take of shifting narrators between books. One book will be Lydia’s, one Bill’s. This one is Lydia’s. She’s summoned to Mississippi to get a never met cousin out of jail for murdering his father.

First of all, what? Mississippi? What’s hard core New Yorker Lydia doing in the Mississippi Delta, and who knew she had cousins there, much less that Chinese grocery stores are/were a fact of life in small Mississippi towns. Lydia’s scary (and entertaining mother) is sure her cousin Jefferson cannot be guilty, because he’s family. read more