Plain Vanilla BORING by Susan Wittig Albert

"China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual 'Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop,' always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is driven by a deadly motive, and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. 

Sheila, happy to get out from behind the chief’s desk, is investigating the death of a botany professor, a prominent researcher specializing in vanilla orchids. China is trying to help a longtime friend: the dead professor’s ex-wife and a prime suspect in his murder.  

However, there’s no shortage of other suspects: a betrayed lover, a disgruntled graduate student, jealous colleagues, and a gang of orchid smugglers. But the lethal roots of this mystery reach back into the dark tropical jungles of Mexico, where the vanilla vine was first cultivated. At stake: a lucrative plant patent, an orchid that is extinct in the wild, and the life of an innocent little girl."

A. Just. Plain. BORING. Book.

As many who frequent my book blog know, I love and adore Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles series. My loyalty for the series' is boundless. I love the mysteries, small town setting and herb shop hook. Most of all, I love the business owner/attorney duality of China Bayles' character. This series has gotten me through some hard times, as well as joyous times. So, in essence, I’m pretty tied and committed. Nothing but excitement comes out of reading a new title in this series.

Yet, here I am reading through the 27th latest entry into the series darn near sleep. A Plain Vanilla Murder was a complete and total bore! There's no way around it. I halfway want to believe Albert was trying to get back into plotting a light murder mystery. Because in the previous two books she veered away from doing so. But man, oh man. She veered Vanilla over a ravine and into a compose heap. Straight-up boredom. Still, let me get into what I found aggravating and boring about A Plain Vanilla Murder.

Week Two Prep: AUGUST BWM AUTHORS SERIES CLEAN UP

GETTING READYYYYYYYY!

My mood slaying (in a good way) these series DOWN

WEEK ONE: AUGUST BLACK WOMEN MYSTERY AUTHORS SERIES CLEAN UP

Do you ever start a mystery series and it takes you years to complete it? Or, if the series is on-going, it takes you years to catch up with the latest release? Too many books, two little time? Or is it the other way around?

Either way...

I also find myself starting new (usually exciting) mystery series each year. I also find myself juggling too many series each year. Then I find myself losing sight of one or two series each year–in favor of a new love. And, hell, each year I’m spending more money on books instead of reading what I already got! (Or that's speculation and not fact–I'll have to check my wallet.) So with all that in the air, there comes a season of buckling down and finishing what one has started ages ago. And that season is now.

So with that all in mind... here's my latest focus...

I must finish the last two books in Barbara Neely’s Blanche White series. As well, I have to finish the final book in Nora DeLoach's Mama series. Both series written by black women mystery writers. Both carrying respective protagonists sharing her unique crime-stopping traversals through the genre. I began both series years ago, and have been collecting/reading entries in each series off and on for too long. Until now–this week.

Sister Pelagia Fell in the Sea!

"The ship carrying the devout to Jerusalem has run into rough waters. Onboard is Manuila, controversial leader of the “Foundlings,” a sect that worships him as the Messiah. But soon the polarizing leader is no longer a passenger or a prophet but a corpse, beaten to death by someone almost supernaturally strong. But not everything is as it seems, and someone else sailing has become enmeshed in the mystery: the seemingly slow but actually astute sleuth Sister Pelagia. Her investigation of the crime will take her deep into the most dangerous areas of the Middle East and Russia, running from one-eyed criminals and after such unlikely animals as a red cockerel that may be more than a red herring. To her shock, she will emerge with not just the culprit in a murder case but a clue to the earth’s greatest secret."

(Plucked from my Goodreads update.  Punched into my phone via a moment of ranting.)

I'm on page 224 of 432 of Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel.  One of the most saddening DNF's I've ever experienced. The 1st book in this series was NEXT LEVEL. The 2nd book was a creepy yet gripping follow-up. And now this third book? Tsk-tsk. While the first 160 pages got my reading blood racing for more, the story derailed when the author strayed from Sister Pelagia's POV and into other characters for just a little too long. I found myself skimming and skipping around wondering what the hell happened to my girl Pelagia.  Needless to say, once I found her, I also found myself unable to continue with the book.  It was as if the momentum just slipped out the window like a plumb of sage smoke.  Or, something to that effect.  Anyway, for any book I'm stuck inside of reading for over 8 days, BAD NEWS approaches! With only three books in this series, I have to say I'm sad the ending of Pelagia's journey went down like this.  Evidently, I wasn't the only reader who felt her final book was a huge disappointment. Oh well!  Moving right along!

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."

(Stripped from my Goodreads review.  Plunked into my cell phone in a moment of ranting.)

Boring. Unexciting entry. Terribly convoluted, confusing and contrive (why has her editors not checked her on this by now!?). Too many characters, with little to no character. Repetitive (sick of the dogs jumping in lakes, ransacked break-ins, squeaking young woman sidekick, stupid fist fights, prejudice-ass Mr. Contreras, one-dimensional politicians/goons, whiplash pacing). All the characters are either angry or spastic AND angry. Nothing worth investing into, really. 

NEW RELEASE ~ Borrowed Time by Tracy Clark (Spotlight on Sisters in Crime)

Gurllllll, Mrs. Clark got me getting off my tail to make (errr, upload) a video.  Anyway, we're back with Clark's former cop turned PI Chicago-based crime fighter, Cassandra (Cass) Raines in Borrowed Time.  Good times, baby.  Good.  TIMES!  Welcome to a second book, Mrs. Clark.  We're rooting for a 3rd.  4th.  5th.  6th.  7th.  Hell, all the way up to 82!

Tracy Clark's Cass Raines Chicago Mystery Series on Amazon 

Mini Amazon synopsis...

"Sitting in cold cars for hours, serving lowlifes with summonses . . . being a P.I. means riding out a lot of slow patches. But sometimes the most familiar paths can lead straight to danger—like at Cass’s go-to diner, where new delivery guy Jung Byson wants to enlist her expertise. Jung’s friend, Tim Ayers, scion of a wealthy Chicago family, has been found dead, floating in Lake Michigan near his luxury boat. And Jung is convinced there’s a murderer on the loose . . . "

What have I been up to lately on my blog Comic Towel?  Check these links out!

1.  GUEST POST: How to Always be on the Lookout for New Inspiration by Kelvyn Fernandes

2. CHOP IT UP: Call Numbers by Syntell Smith 

3.  David Weber's Honor Harrington Series HYPE (Yeah, a Book Haul of Sorts)

2 Popular Cozy Mysteries I'm CANCELLING| #MarchMysteryMadness

Don't cuss me out, Sis.  But life is life, 'cause life is life.  And things of that nature.  LOL.  No, seriously.  I just couldn't get with these books.  Tell me where I went wrong, okay?

1.  The Long Quiche Goodbye (Cheese Shop Mystery Book 1) by Avery Aames

Welcome to the grand opening of Fromagerie Bessette. Or as it's more commonly known by the residents of small-town Providence, Ohio-the Cheese Shop. Proprietor Charlotte Bessette has prepared a delightful sampling of bold Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, delicious tortes of Stilton and Mascarpone, and a taste of Sauvignon Blanc-but someone else has decided to make a little crime of passion the piece de resistance. Right outside the shop Charlotte finds a body, the victim stabbed to death with one of her prized olive-wood handled knives.

2.  Knit One, Kill Two (Knitting Mysteries, No. 1) by Maggie Sefton

Kelly would be the first to admit her life in Washington, D.C., is a little on the dull side. But coming back to Colorado for her beloved aunt’s funeral wasn’t the kind of excitement she was seeking. The police are convinced that her Aunt Helen’s death was the result of a burglary gone bad, but for the accountant in Kelly, things just aren’t adding up. After all, why would her sensible, sixty-eight-year-old aunt borrow $20,000 just days before her death? With the help of the knitting regulars at House of Lambspun, Kelly’s about to get a few lessons in cranking out a sumptuously colored scarf—and in luring a killer out of hiding...

IT IS WHAT IT IS!  BOOOOOMMMMMMM!  GOTTA JET!