Seventh Street Books

Leslie Budewitz: Between a Wok and a Dead Place

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Spice Shop #7

As I hadn’t read this series before, it took me a minute to navigate both characters and setting, but once I did, I was all in.  Set in Pepper Reece’s spice shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, the setting in this book was a character all on its own.  This book focuses on the “CID” (I had to look that up), or Chinatown International District during Lunar New Year celebrations, and Pepper is enjoying them with her buddy Seetha.  She runs into an acquaintance (connected to her present boyfriend in a labyrinthine manner), Roxanne, who is coming out of a building looking completely freaked out.  She’s found a dead body. read more

Terry Shames: A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary

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This is the first Samuel Craddock mystery I’ve read, largely on the advice of other readers I met at Left Coast Crime this year.  As when I had a bookstore, the best recommendations often come from fellow readers, and I decided to give this one a try.  I was intrigued when I sat next to Terry at a panel and she told me this was a police series, by far one of my favorite sub genres.  This is a softer police story than say, one by Michael Connelly, but it’s still a police novel and a very good one. read more