First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

14Jan. Kindle.

I bought this a long time ago. The writer is/was local and someone recommended her. I don't think I managed to finish it - it was just barely short of pornography. My sister read it and liked it enough to buy the next book in the series, so I gave it another shot.

Basically, I still think it isn't very far from pornography, but I managed to read past that and finish it. It had some merit - in terms of setting (Albuquerque) and characters. Charley (Charlotte) Davidson sees dead people - and chats with them. Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas merely sees them, but they follow him around. Charley's dead people follow her around and talk to her. To converse with them in public, she pretends to be talking on a cell phone. The recently dead tell her what has happened, which makes her a real whiz at solving murders.

Then we get into the super-supernatural and - shades of "Ghost Whisperer" - her job is to help them pass over to "the other side." This is also the subject of many cute punny asides.

Oh well, I probably will go ahead and read book two - but I intend to read another more conventional mystery or two first.

Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge

12Jan. Kindle.

The center book of the Eliot trilogy and my favorite. Typically the middle book of a trilogy is like the development section of a piece of music - an awful lot happening, but no real conclusion. This one is so much the strongest of the three that I have wondered if it was actually the first one written - the wiki says no. There were eight years between The Bird in the Tree, 1940, and Pilgrim's Inn, 1948, and yet another five before The Heart of the Family in 1953.

Warning Signs by CJ Lyons

10Jan. Kindle.

I have figured it out. Reading these books is like watching ER or Hill Street Blues: ensemble cast and high drama. The central character this time is the fourth year med student, Amanda, who, among other problems, is the baby child and only daughter of a very Southern family in South Carolina (?) who can't understand why she would go away to Pittsburg to study medicine. They persist in thinking it is just a phase she is going through and that eventually she will come to her senses and return home to be a proper Southern Belle and the light of the Junior League. A priceless bit is the call she receives from one of her brothers trying to bring her to her senses as she is sitting in her demolished car after surviving a murder attempt.

I was hoping that the obnoxious resident would turn out to be the murderer and that they could get rid of him. No such luck. Hope that isn't too much of a spoiler.

The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge

8Jan. Kindle.

Usually I reread this more often. It is a very, very nice book without being cloying. Yes, I was thinking of the Jan Karon book that we will be discussing at book club this month. Maybe cloying is a bit strong - but not much. I suppose that a weakness in Goudge is the idealization of children. Even the brats are rather idealized. Still, I can't help liking the people and the descriptions of the setting make me want to go there, although I am not fond of damp climates at all.

Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod

6Jan. Kindle.

It has been years since I read this, what a blast. My sister has rediscovered MacLeod and told me that this one reminded her of me in the initial events. It seems that Dr. Peter Shandy's college has a tradition of elaborate Christmas decoration in the faculty residential loop. Shandy has resisted all pressure to participate for eighteen years, but finally decides to avenge himself for all the annoyance. He arranges to have his house decorated with the gaudiest and most annoying display imaginable - including loud music - locks the program in --- and leaves town. Sort of the inverse of the first year we lived in this house. We had been away for Thanksgiving and returned home to find our street ablaze with light and sound - except for one dark space.

And so it goes. When Shandy's cruise ship develops engine trouble and puts in to port for repairs, he returns home to the monstrosity he created - and finds the body of the chief annoyer in his living room. The parodies of academia are priceless.

Unnatural Causes by P. D. James

5Jan. Kindle.

A colony of writers in a remote corner of England - an obvious setting for a murder. One of the writers, who actually remains rather aloof from the others, is Adam Dalgliesh's Aunt Jane, which puts Dalgliesh on the scene. In fact, Dalgliesh himself is a writer and has published a couple of volumes of poetry. Aunt Jane writes scholarly works on birds and birding. The mystery writer is the one who ends up dead.

This is an extremely convoluted plot, even for James. In essence it is a "country house" murder - limited pool of suspects with interrelated motives. And, classically, the least likely character (setting aside Aunt Jane) turns out to be the murderer. Of course, the murder of a mystery writer gives James the opportunity to insert all sorts of jabs at mystery writers as a group - good fun.

The Third Hill North of Town by Noah Bly

3Jan. Kindle.

Didn't like it. Pointless. Plotless.

Have to hand it to the author - he has a degree of arrogance that is truly monumental. First he compares this piece of idiocy to Huckleberry Finn - the only similarity that I noticed was that there were two boys, one white and one black. Then, not content with that bit of hubris, he announces that it is similar in its fundamental nature to Cervantes' Don Quixote. Well, one of the central characters is crazy ---

Through a endless sequence of improbabilities, leaving a trail of death and mayhem behind them - quite inadvertantly, of course - with flashbacks to the crazy lady's childhood, she and the two boys travel to the site of her childhood home - and the scene of the trauma which, improbably, she had blocked for forty years. No surprises; it was all completely telegraphed by the flashbacks.

No surprises at the ending that is. All the other deaths and general distruction seemed completely unnecessary and pointless.

White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

1Jan. Kindle.

After my comment that Dragonflight stood up well in the reread, I hate to report that this one didn't. Of course, being on antibiotics and feeling generally rotten may have had something to do with my attitude. My general feeling is that it was too long and too diffuse. There were several plot lines that could have been central, and somehow none of them were. It just seemed to ramble on. Another problem may be that it seemed to me to require the background provided in the Harper Hall books which overlap this trilogy. A host of characters appear which are developed in the Harper Hall series without any introduction to speak of. Curiously, the Harper Hall books do not seem to be available for kindle - and they are not where they should be on my shelves, either.

I do like the way she changed the central characters in each. Still, while Jaxom is an appealing character, he doesn't stand up well to Lessa in the first book or F'nor in the second.

My Mother's Ring by Dana Cornell

29Dec. Kindle.

This is a dreadful excuse for a book. I wish that Amazon would flag self-published garbage, although, in all fairness, it only took me a couple of minutes to figure it out once I realized what I was dealing with. I suppose I am going to have to add that bit of research to future purchases. I had actually taken a look at the reviews - my, how they glowed! This woman must have a lot of friends and relatives. So why did I actually read it all the way through? A friend asked me to. She had read it and wanted someone to discuss it with. I honestly don't think she liked it much - and wants me to tell her why.

I can tell her several whys, I suppose. Some months ago one of my book clubs read a self-published book by a friend of a member. It was frustrating for its failure to develop the potential of the story material. This one does not have even that going for it. The "story," such as it is, is trite and hackneyed, told many times and told much better. It is the recital of events in the life of one of the sheep of Warsaw, who ignored the warnings to escape Poland and then tamely marched off to Auschwitz. It appears to be a sort of amalgam of many accounts of the atrocities of the holocaust - poorly narrated. And a number of "reviewers" thought it was a true story - in spite of the writer's quite proper disclaimer. I suppose that is a lesson to me about Amazon reviews.

In the book of my friend's friend, one of our complaints was that the dialogue was stilted and pedantic. At least that book had some dialogue. This one is endless narration with no dialogue to speak of. As Alice says, "What is the use of a book with no conversation and no pictures?" (I should check that quote.) It was intended, maybe, to be the deathbed ramblings of the survivor - I forget his name - thus, logically, it would be narrative not dialogue. If that was the intent - the frame should have been fleshed out with interaction with the receiver of the narrative. She could even have done the old trick of starting a "telling" and slipping into a direct action passage. Most likely, she simply can't write dialogue.

There was very little plot and what plot was there was painfully predictable; characterization was weak: I couldn't bring myself to give a damn about the guy - and there weren't really any other characters. Our "hero" doesn't bother to learn the names of those who share his fate in the camps.

A complete waste of time and money. An observation: I seem to have a lot more to say about books I didn't like than ones I did.

Renovate or Die by Bob Farr

27Dec. Paper. Loan.

This is not my usual thing at all. The subject is "fixing" churches, specifically United Methodist Churches. Preacher wants to use this for a church-wide study. I'm not so sure, but it will depend on the delivery. I thought he was a little vague about overall strategy. And when he started talking about NCLB and PLCs, I nearly threw the book across the room. He was just using them as analogies, but what dreadful analogies!

Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey

27Dec. Kindle.

I've read these enough to remember most of the main events, but I still find bits and pieces that I never quite registered before. I really believe that if a book is worth reading, it must be worth reading again. And that doesn't mean it has to be "great literature."

McCaffrey has a real gift for characters. Hers always seem to be believable and engaging. I am not likely to reread books with no characters that I care about.

I do think the situation with the "oldtimers" went south a little too fast to suit me, but it was solidly plotted.

Rainbow Valley by L. M. Montgomery

27Dec. Kindle.

I really hadn't intended to continue the series immediately, but this was just there on my computer. It is cold at my desk and I have not been sitting here as much - so the books on my kindle and my new kindle have been getting more attention. At least, that's what I thought - my kindles are not communicating well, so I have a different book on each - and paper in the bathroom.

This was more like the earlier books - maybe Lucy herself recognized the lack of children as a problem. There were certainly enough children in this one. The minister's four children - the "manse" children - and Anne and Gilbert's six (yes, six) and the orphan girl that the manse children adopt. Sufficient crowd to create all sorts of craziness. The minister's daughter Faith carries the Anne-ishness on most "faithfully" I think. She always has the best of intentions ---

Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery

23Dec. Kindle.

Still a satisfying reread, although perhaps they are waxing just a bit too sentimental. On consideration, there just didn't seem to be quite enough human errors to give this one quite the same kick as the others. No children - maybe that's the problem.

Still, the side characters were interesting.

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

23Dec. Kindle.

I found this by accident on my Kindle. I'm not sure which one of us bought it. Couldn't resist. It is a three-in-one - so I'm sure the other two will appear here soon.

It is always nice when an old favorite holds up under multiple rereadings. Lessa is still one of my all-time favorite characters.

A Mind to Murder by P. D. James

20Dec. Kindle.

Nothing like a psychiatric hospital for a murder setting. Of course, the motive turns out to be one of the classics, no mad axe murderers for James.

Dalgleish develops some. The suggested relationship with Deborah Riscoe from the first book (Cover Her Face) continues, but very tentatively. Let's see if she turns up in the next one. There is more development of his "Watson" - his detective sergeant, Martin. Somebody should do a study of the Scotland Yard detective sergeant in fiction - maybe I'll start taking notes. Would require some seriously enjoyable rereading, anyway. And what about the British detective sidekick in general: Bunter? Watson? Hastings? Do they have significant commonalities with the police detectives? Oh well, that for another day.

I found this one a little slow starting - but not as slow as the start of the first one. But once things picked up, they really picked up. I am anxious to revisit the third book.