What Fiction are you reading this week, July 24, 2022?

[hermetic]

Naples street.

Still reading Ian Rankin's Witch Hunt. A very detailed police/Scotland Yard procedural with well-developed characters.

About to start listening to One By One, the latest from Ruth Ware. Being snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet with a breathtaking vista and a cozy fire sounds pretty pleasant right now. From Ware, of course, we anticipate a very chilling tale.

What books are you chilling with this week?

[snowybirdie]

1. The Scholar

By Dervla McTiernan Detective story taking place in Galway Ireland. City I've spent time in a few years ago.

[hermetic]

5. That sounds like fun

I've always wanted to visit Ireland. Dervla McTiernan has 6 books out now that all sound quite good.

[Magoo48]

2. Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillerman-- Navajo Police mystery.

[hermetic]

6. Oh yay!

A new one. I love all the Hillermans' stories. This one sounds great, as usual. Thanks.

[Magoo48]

13. Yup, it started off pretty good. I too love her and Tony's work.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

[hermetic]

7. Hi Curt! Good to see you

I love Krueger's books and this one sounds really good. Thanks for sharing!

[CurtEastPoint]

15. My first. Will need to read some other. Really like his style.

[Magoo48]

14. Kool. I'll read it soon. Now waiting on his next Cork O. book. Out this summer soon, I hope.

[Tanuki]

4. Violeta, by Isabel Allende

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/inspired-by-her-mother-isabel-allende-publishes-violeta

[hermetic]

8. Oh, excellent

This is new. "Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional."

[bif]

9. "We Own the Sky" by Luke Allnutt

Just started it.

[hermetic]

10. Sounds really good

Won some awards. "A triumphant story of a father and his little boy—and a love that knows no limits."

[Staph]

11. Just finished a pair of Christopher Moore's books - Noir and Razzmatazz!

Noir:

San Francisco. Summer, 1947. A dame walks into a saloon . . .

It's not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar. It's love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an Air Force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. 'Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he's got the connections on the street.

Meanwhile, a suspicious flying object has been spotted up the Pacific coast in Washington State near Mount Rainer, followed by a mysterious plane crash in a distant patch of desert in New Mexico that goes by the name Roswell. But the real weirdness is happening on the streets of the City by the Bay.

When one of Sammy's schemes goes south and the Cheese mysteriously vanishes, Sammy is forced to contend with his own dark secrets—and more than a few strange goings on—if he wants to find his girl.

Think Raymond Chandler meets Damon Runyon with more than a dash of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes All Stars. It's all very, very Noir. It's all very, very Christopher Moore.

And Razzmatazz:

San Francisco, 1947. Bartender Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin and the rest of the Cookie's Coffee Irregulars—a ragtag bunch of working mugs last seen in Noir—are on the hustle: they're trying to open a driving school; shanghai an abusive Swedish stevedore; get Mable, the local madam, and her girls to a Christmas party at the State Hospital without alerting the overzealous head of the S.F.P.D. vice squad; all while Sammy's girlfriend, Stilton (a.k.a. the Cheese), and her "Wendy the Welder" gal pals are using their wartime shipbuilding skills on a secret project that might be attracting the attention of some government Men in Black. And, oh yeah, someone is murdering the city's drag kings and club owner Jimmy Vasco is sure she's next on the list and wants Sammy to find the killer.

Meanwhile, Eddie "Moo Shoes" Shu has been summoned by his Uncle Ho to help save his opium den from Squid Kid Tang, a vicious gangster who is determined to retrieve a priceless relic: an ancient statue of the powerful Rain Dragon that Ho stole from one of the fighting tongs forty years earlier. And if Eddie blows it, he just might call down the wrath of that powerful magical creature on all of Fog City.

Strap yourselves in for a bit of the old razzmatazz, ladies and gentlemen. It's Christopher Moore time.

[hermetic]

12. Aren't those fun?

I love Christopher Moore. Always makes me laugh.

[SheltieLover]

26. These sound like delicious mind candy!

Ty for sharing!

[TexLaProgressive]

16. Odd but I'm listening to Black Sun Rising again

Somehow It started missing the prologue and chapter 1. Last Sunday I finished it, and was doing some admin stuff with the headphones still on. The book started again. I had not heard any of that.it made much clear and dispelled some misconceptions.

[hermetic]

17. Audio books can be funny that way

I had one once that kept going back to the same chapters I had already read. I finally gave up and just got the book instead. At least yours wasn't annoying like that.

[Number9Dream]

18. Just finished "Empire of Lies" by Raymond Khoury

Thanks for the thread, hermetic. How are the new kitties doing?

A very good what-if novel. A time-traveler changes history so that the Ottoman empire conquers all of Europe in the late 1600's and maintains control through our present day. A man and a woman try to change that. If you can suspend disbelief about the time traveling, you might enjoy this one very much... I did.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43263230-empire-of-lies?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=w98S04d0Fg&rank=3

[hermetic]

20. That sounds quite intriguing

What if....? Have put that one on my list.

Kitties are doing okay but lots of trips to the vet. I was thinking of asking them if they might name and examining room after me, since I am spending so much time and money there. (jk)

[SheltieLover]

27. I hope kittirs are ok!

[yellowdogintexas]

19. I finished The Seven with the last installment "1980"

Now I have the backstory on the 7 Deschanel siblings.

The big series, Crimson and Clover has 12 novels. I have #1 and #5-8 on my Kindle. I was rummaging around in Amazon trying to decide if I wanted to go ahead and spring for books 2,3 & 4, so I read the samples for these books. I have definitely read them all but I do not have them on my Kindle or in my cloud. It's just bizzare.

Regardless, these books are quite good.


I have not finished Stone Cribs yet. This is a really good read.

[hermetic]

21. Stone Cribs sounds amazing...

"Kris Nelscott, one of the most nuanced, intelligent writers of crime fiction working today, has authored another heart-stopping, complicated novel of a country ripped apart at the seams and a lone man doing all he can to put things right." Wow.

[yellowdogintexas]

31. It's very good. The author really has a good feel for the times

pre-Roe, corrupt police, racial tensions , Nixon

I definitely want to read more books from this series

[yellowdogintexas]

30. Well I found Volumes 1-4 of the Deschanel epic

it was lurking out in the cloud somewherel. I really thought I was losing it.

My content and devices did not show it which is strange.

I have 9 - 12 which I have definitely not read yet.

[japple]

22. After a break to read Louise Erdrich's latest book, The Sentence, I am getting back to WWII

with Rebecca Donner's All the Frequent Troubles of our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler." This is a very exciting and informative read--what was going on in the 30s and early 40s in Germany seems errily similar to what is going on in this country today.

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler and called for revolution.

Historians identify Mildred Harnack as the only American in the leadership of the German resistance, yet her remarkable story has remained almost unknown until now.

Harnack’s great-great-niece Rebecca Donner draws on her extensive archival research in Germany, Russia, England, and the U.S. as well as newly uncovered documents in her family archive to produce this astonishing work of narrative nonfiction.

Many thanks for the weekly thread, hermetic. Glad to note that you are still chilling. Me, too.

[hermetic]

23. Good to see you

Thanks for telling us about another amazing book.

[SheltieLover]

24. Just started "Hidden," by Fern Michaels

[hermetic]

25. Did you see last week's post?

There was mention of Anna Gerard's Georgia B&B series of cozies. They sound like a fun read.

[SheltieLover]

28. I don't think so!

I'll go take a peek! Tyvm!



Ps - ty for these threads!

[SheltieLover]

29. Got 1!

The only e version of her work.

Tyvm again!