Thursday, February 9, 2023
Tuesday, January 3, 2023
Tracy Clark's New Series Book Release Has Arrived
"When a young red-haired woman is found brutally murdered in downtown Chicago, one detail stands out: the red lipstick encircling her wrists and ankles.
Detective Harriet Foster is on the case, even though she’s still grieving the sudden death of her partner. As a Black woman in a male-dominated department, Foster anticipates a rocky road ahead acclimating to a new team―and building trust with her new partner isn’t coming easily.
After another victim turns up with the same lipstick markings, Foster suspects she’s looking for a serial killer. Through a tip from a psychiatrist, Foster learns about Bodie Morgan: a troubled man with a twisted past and a penchant for pretty young redheads with the bluest eyes. As Foster wades into Morgan’s sinister history, the killer continues their gruesome assault on Chicago’s streets.
In her desperate race to catch the murderer before they strike again, Foster will have to confront the darkest of secrets―including her own."
Now the issue is pulling myself out of a jagged reading slump to reclaim all the readings that I… well… I’ll stop here…
Regardless, I always show my support by buying books and going from there. I am a borderline book hoarder at this point. But I forgot to care.
Happy New (NEW) Release, Tracy Clark. Detective Harriet Foster is officially here. (Though I still want to know what is the future of Cass Raines.)
Friday, July 2, 2021
#FridayReads Features the New Tracy Clark Mystery, Runner
Welllllllll, Tracy Clark's fourth Chicago P.I. Mystery called Runner, featuring our sister Cass Raines, is officially OUT. When I write OUT, I mean OUT! As in me walking out of work for the weekend so I can sit down somewhere (I honestly hope it rains so I can order out as well) and read it over the weekend. This is a series I look forward to for a new release each year, and so far we're in year four with a hopeful five down the slide.
Seriously, I want this series to be one of those long-running private-eye series where long into the future I can profess how I was a DAY ONE reader. Corny notions, but it's how I feel.
Evidently, Runner is going to be one of those winter-based chilly kinds of mysteries.
Friday, April 16, 2021
#FridayReads: Cordelia Gray Has Risen...
Oh, I plan on doing some duel reading (more on the other book later).
50 pages a day. Something like that. Not my usual gig, but I don't want to lose
steam with my second offering…
Therefore, first up is…
The Skull Beneath the Skin by P. D. James. This is the
second and final entry in James's Cordelia Gray detective agency series.
Shamefully, I started this book ten years ago, after
reading the wonderfulness of the first book in the series, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. So why am I just now picking up Gray's second and final mystery?
You want to know the truth? I had a dream about it and, in that dream, I was Cordelia Gray. Blame it on the Benadryl, but I tell you no
lies. I laid my ass down one night and dreamt about reading this book, as I, in
the dream, was Cordelia Gray solving a mystery involving crows. Maybe that was
guilt for not completing this book working through my subconscious. Yet, needless to say, I took the hint. Dreaming about unread books has happened to me before.
But just in case, I have to list what made me stop the
book ten years ago about a quarter ways through:
1.
As I've stated over the years, I can't stand mysteries
involving theatres, movie lots, television sound-stages, scripts, and
curtains—basically, entertainment business stuff. Don't ask me why because I
don't even know why these set-ups annoy me. Nevertheless, in the case of The Skull Beneath the Skin, an actress is receiving poison-pen letters. Heading
toward a performance on an island somewhere in Britain, said actress's husband
employed Gray to go undercover as her secretary-companion. Gray's job is to
stealthy find the culprit of these letters before he or she exacts their
desired threats upon the actress. Naturally, a pile of bodies will help Gray
toward the truth.
2. I bailed as the chapters moved further away from Gray's perspective and into others. I'm used to this now from James. Her mysteries have strength and resonance because of her ability to brighten her characters with personalities, nuance, secrets, and motives (not to dismiss her incredible literary writing qualities applied to her mysteries). When she hops perspectives, you get first-hand observation to play inference with her mystery-writing game. But as I've always said about James, you MUST read between the lines of her dialogue. That's where she can really trip you up.
At the time of my initial attempt at the book, I was new to James. I had yet to even start her Adam Dalgliesh series. Which, thankfully, I stand at a six-out-of-fourteen down as of writing this. So I found Skull to be tepid and laborious than my experience with the first Gray mystery. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman was shorter, and darn-right airtight with its clever mystery and pacing. Nevertheless, reading the wonderfulness of Dalgliesh has grounded away those regards for James's work.
And so, ladies and gentleman, that's why I'm here. It's
finally time to give Cordelia Gray her proper due. I don't know why Storm from X-Men came to mind, other than I feel all powerful and activated and ready to handle my business by giving this series a proper closing. I'm over 50 pages in already and ready to GO! Only then can I knock on the doors of the eight books I have left in the Dalgliesh series.
(Forgive all spelling and grammatical errors. I seriously have an essay to write, so I'm making this one quick.)
Saturday, February 6, 2021
My #ReadSoulLit Start-Ups
Friday, January 22, 2021
Monday, January 11, 2021
Friday, January 1, 2021
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
TWO Up-Coming 2021 Black Mystery Releases...
Naturally, I have these books sprinkled all over my virtual book-buying carts in anticipation. But just as a friendly reminder, here's what we all have to look forward to (all links are Amazon/author's website affiliate)...
Runner (A Chicago Mystery #4) by Tracy Clark
"Chicago in the dead of winter can be brutal, especially when you're scouring the frigid streets for a missing girl. Fifteen-year-old Ramona Titus has run away from her foster home. Her biological mother, Leesa Evans, is a recovering addict who admits she failed Ramona often in the past. But now she's clean. And she's determined to make up for her mistakes–if Cass can only help her find her daughter.
Yet, it seems Ramona doesn't want to be found. Ramona is holding secrets dark enough to kill for, and anyone who helps her may be fair game. And if Ramona can't run fast enough and hide well enough to keep the truth safe, she and Cass may both be out of time."
I am so, so glad Tracy Clark and her P.I. Cass Raines [see labels] is back. Four years. Four books. And a thousand or so more to go will do me just right. The only hard part is the wait! But, as always, I remind myself not to rush life. Cheers for another Cass book to start the summer off with.
~.~
Murder by Page One: A Peach Coast Library Mystery from Hallmark Publishing by Olivia Matthews
After one of her friends becomes a suspect, Marvey sets out to solve the murder mystery. She even convinces Spence, the wealthy and charming newspaper owner, to help. With his ties to the community, her talents for research, and her fellow librarians’ knowledge, Marvey pursues the truth. But as she gets closer to it, could she be facing a deadly plot twist?"
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
FINALLYYYYY! An Update on Marcia Muller's Next Sharon McCone Mystery
Soooooo, y'all know I take the time every other day to look for new releases from authors I love. And nothing is more punishing than waiting years between releases. So I thought Marcia Muller was done with her Sharon McCone P.I. mystery series, after 2018's release of The Breakers. Low-key... I was panicking a little about the woman and whether or not she was coming back. You know, given how we lost Grafton four years ago. Grafton's passing was the reason I buckled down in 2018 and read through the entirety of Muller's McCone series. And, hell, I finished the series excited for more. Sooooooooo, here we are YEARS later (and at the tail end of this craziness of 2020) with the announcement of the next Sharon McCone mystery. I, naturally, just hate to wait until August for it. UGH! Anyway, I and many Muller readers finally got our answer in McCone's 35th case, Ice and Stone.
When two women are brutally murdered in northern California, their deaths are the latest atrocities in a surge of violence targeting indigenous women in the area. Despite all evidence to the contrary, local officials rule the deaths isolated incidents, and they soon join the ranks of other unsolved homicides, quickly forgotten by law enforcement.
Private Investigator Sharon McCone knows better, and so does the organization known as Crimes Against Indigenous Sisters, who hires Sharon to go undercover in Eiwok county, a tiny region on the mountainous Oregon border, to uncover the murderer.
In an isolated cabin in the freezing, treacherous woods, Sharon must unravel a mystery that is rooted in ignorance, profound hatred, and vengeance -- before another victim is claimed."
Thursday, May 28, 2020
The 3rd Cass Raines Private-Eye Book is OUT NOW!
"Wealth. Power. Celebrity. Vonda Allen’s glossy vanity magazine has taken the Windy City by storm, and she’s well on her way to building a one-woman media empire. Everybody adores her. Except the people who work for her. And the person who’s sending her flowers with death threats . . .
As Vonda’s bodyguard, off-duty cop Ben Mickerson knows he could use some back-up—and no one fits the bill better than his ex-partner on the police force, Cass Raines. Now a full-time private eye, Cass is reluctant to take the job. She isn’t keen on playing babysitter to a celebrity who’s rumored to be a heartless diva. But as a favor to Ben, she signs on. But when Vonda refuses to say why someone might be after her, and two of her staff turn up dead, Ben and Cass must battle an unknown assailant bent on getting to the great lady herself, before someone else dies.
Cass finds out the hard way just how persistent a threat they face during the first stop on Vonda’s book tour. As fans clamour for her autograph, things take an ugly turn when a mysterious fan shows up with flowers and slashes Ben with a knife. While her ex-partner’s life hangs in the balance, Cass is left to find out what secrets Vonda is keeping, who might want her dead, and how she can bring Ben’s attacker to justice before enemies in the Chicago Police Department try to stop her in her tracks . . ."
Monday, May 11, 2020
Muller & Paretsky Short Story Haul
Monday, November 11, 2019
Let's Buy Some Newly Released Mystery Books!
Motherless Child (An R. J. Franklin Mystery Book 2) by V. M. Burns
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
50 Pages a Day Keep the Good Reading... I Don't Know What Goes Here...
"When V.I. Warshawski gets word that her close friend and mentor Lotty Herschel’s nephew has become a murder suspect, the legendary detective will do everything to save him. The cops found Felix Herschel’s name and phone number on the unknown victim’s remains, but Felix insists he doesn’t know why. Soon Vic discovers that the dead man was obsessed with Middle Eastern archaeology—the first clue in a bewildering case.
But the trouble multiplies when Vic’s long-lost niece, Reno, goes missing. Reno is harboring a secret that may cost her her life. V.I. can hear the clock ticking on her niece’s safety and is frantic in her efforts to find her. She won’t leave any stone unturned until these very personal cases are cleared—a complex investigation that will entangle the Russian mob, ISIS backers, rogue ICE agents, a nefarious corporation preying on the poor, and a shady network of stock scams and stolen antiquities stretching from Chicago to the East Indies and the Middle East."
Monday, September 23, 2019
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Current & Future BWMW Series Reading Plans
Down the line I have Charlotte Carter’s jazzy Nanette Hayes series to finished. Years ago I ended up reading the second book in the series, Coq au Vin, thinking it was the first book. And, well, now I have the proper first book, Rhode Island Red, and the third and final book, Drumsticks, available for later consumption.
There's also a fourth book, but evidently it never got published. BOO! Anyway, it's been a long time since I read a book featuring musician/amateur sleuth Nanette Hayes book. Color my ass excited to revisit this lady.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
He's... READYYYYYYY...
I come with receipts! LOL. |
ICON! And reasons WHY! |
PEACE!
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
{What This Chile's Been Reading} Sisters in Crime Situation
Hel-looo-oooooooo. What's up, y'all? What is everyone over yonder reading? Trust you're all doing well out there in this heat.
All right...
Books/Authors Mentioned (links are all Amazon affiliate)...
A bit of blog postie on my little reading "project" at Comic Towel
Most of you guys are familiar with these ladies, but for those in the back...
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Brush (the Hell) BACK by Sara Paretsky
"Chicago's V. I. Warshawski confronts crooked politicians and buried family secrets in the gritty new novel from New York Times - bestselling author Sara Paretsky.
No one would accuse V. I. Warshawski of backing down from a fight, but there are a few she'd be happy to avoid. High on that list is tangling with Chicago political bosses. Yet that's precisely what she ends up doing when she responds to Frank Guzzo's plea for help.
For six stormy weeks back in high school, V. I. thought she was in love with Frank. He broke up with her, she went off to college, he started driving trucks for Bagby Haulage. She forgot about him until the day his mother was convicted of bludgeoning his kid sister, Annie, to death. Stella Guzzo was an angry, uncooperative prisoner and did a full twenty-five years for her daughter's murder.
Newly released from prison, Stella is looking for exoneration, so Frank asks V. I. for help. V. I. doesn't want to get involved. Stella hated the Warshawskis, in particular V. I.'s adored mother, Gabriella.
But life has been hard on Frank and on V. I.'s other childhood friends, still stuck on the hardscrabble streets around the dead steel mills, and V. I. agrees to ask a few questions. Those questions lead her straight into the vipers' nest of Illinois politics she's wanted to avoid. When V. I. takes a beating at a youth meeting in her old hood, her main question becomes whether she will live long enough to find answers."
Monday, March 25, 2019
Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski Ebay Lot Sale Unboxing
Anyway, I made this purchase off Ebay–just as I did for my 2018 Marcia Muller Sharon McCone Project. And just as with that one, I'm reading the entirety of the fictional female private-eye (Chicago-based) detective work of V.I. Warshawki this year.
Have begun the project with book #9, I'm currently almost through book #11, Blacklist. This leaves me with 9 entries (only pillar release and no short stories) left. But I'm taking them on a book-by-book bases; breaking whenever I need to. So long as I get them all done before the end of 2019 to fulfill my project–I'm good. Nevertheless, I'm doing so happily because I love challenging myself as an endurance reader. And like with my reading of McCone, I'm taking on Warshawski in honor of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone. These are her peers, after all.
Okay, done babbling.
BOOK 10. Total Recall (2001)
BOOK 11. Blacklist (2003)
BOOK 12. Fire Sale (2005)
BOOK 13. Hardball (2009)
BOOK 14. Body Work (2010)
BOOK 15. Breakdown (2012)
BOOK 16. Critical Mass (2013)
BOOK 17. Brush Back (2015)
BOOK 18. Fallout (2017)
Random BOOK - Nightseer by Laurell K. Hamilton