A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram, #2)

A Good Day for Chardonnay
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781250233110
Series: Sunshine Vicram #2
Publication Date: July 27, 2021
Pages: 416
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Running a small-town police force in the mountains of New Mexico should be a smooth, carefree kind of job. Sadly, full-time Sheriff—and even fuller-time coffee guzzler—Sunshine Vicram, didn’t get that memo.

All Sunshine really wants is one easy-going day. You know, the kind that starts with coffee and a donut (or three) and ends with take-out pizza and a glass of chardonnay (or seven). Turns out, that’s about as easy as switching to decaf. (What kind of people do that? And who hurt them?)

Before she can say iced mocha latte, Sunny’s got a bar fight gone bad, a teenage daughter hunting a serial killer and, oh yes, the still unresolved mystery of her own abduction years prior. All evidence points to a local distiller, a dangerous bad boy named Levi Ravinder, but Sun knows he’s not the villain of her story. Still, perhaps beneath it all, he possesses the keys to her disappearance. At the very least, beneath it all, he possesses a serious set of abs. She’s seen it. Once. Accidentally.

Between policing a town her hunky chief deputy calls four cents short of a nickel, that pesky crush she has on Levi which seems to grow exponentially every day, and an irascible raccoon that just doesn’t know when to quit, Sunny’s life is about to rocket to a whole new level of crazy.

Yep, definitely a good day for chardonnay.

I really vacillated between 4.5 and 5 stars with this one. Overall, I loved the book from start to finish, and that last .5 of a star is really nit-picky personal tastes.

A Good Day for Chardonnay picks up where A Bad Day for Sunshine leaves off with a multi-story arc surrounding the mystery of Sunshine Vicram’s abduction when she was a teen-ager. It also introduced too new parallel plots: Sunshine’s investigation of an apparent bar fight gone bad involving her romantic interest, Levi, and a cold case discovered by her daughter in the attic (in the form of newspaper clippings) surrounding the unsolved disappearances of several transients that took place decades previously. There’s also a racoon wreaking havoc, a blind date gone bad, and another multi-story arc concerning Levi’s family.

There’s a lot going on, but this is Jones’ forte. She excels at writing fast-paced, multi-plot stories told with a lot of humour and only slightly less heart. After reading almost 20 of her titles, I can say while I didn’t love all of them, I was never, ever bored by any of them.

This particular book though, was amongst the best. Good mysteries, yes. Humor, yes. But this book was also an emotional roller coaster at the end; between the events of Sunshine’s daughter Auri and her friends coming to a rather explosive climax, and Sunshine’s life-long mystery coming to a satisfying conclusion, a tissue (or three) were required during the reading of this book.

Why didn’t I end up going the full 5? I was aggravated with the last page; the story ended WAY too abruptly. And Auri’s storyline. I really like Auri, and Cruz and love Auri and Cruz together as a team, but her story line was, perhaps, a tiny bit too precocious. It was handled realistically, in the sense that, IF teenagers in real life were to decide to take it upon themselves to investigate a cold case involving a serial killer, it’s easy to imagine they’d go about the same way Auri did. But as much as I like Auri, Jones walks a razor fine edge between Auri being likeable and Auri being cloyingly sweet and earnest. Her selflessness is not entirely realistic, and I can’t say I wouldn’t skim her story where I to re-read this.

And re-read it I shall, because it’s going to be a long year, or however long it takes, before the next book. And I already can’t wait.

The Vanishing Museum on the Rue Mistral (Provençal Mystery, #9)

The Vanishing Museum On The Rue Mistral
by M.L. Longworth
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780143135296
Series: Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery #9
Publication Date: April 13, 2021
Pages: 323
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Penguin Books

I never know how to describe these mysteries; they’re written just a little bit differently than the standard traditional or cozy fare, and they’re one of the few written in third person. They’re much closer to golden age in writing style than anything contemporary; no internal dialogs, no tedious descriptions of … well, almost no tedious descriptions of random things. The Bonnets are gourmands, so there’s rather a lot of eating going on, and they’re in Aix-en-Provence, so it all sounds rather amazing. But otherwise, sparse and efficient writing.

Someone has stolen an entire museum. True, it’s a small museum, but nonetheless no small feat, with no witnesses and no clues. Then a main suspect is murdered and another grievously injured and still the police are left frustrated. It comes down, in true mystery style, to pieces put together not by the police themselves, but by their family members and friends, and the while the ending isn’t shocking, it’s clever and satisfying. Enough clues are there for the reader to see the general direction things are going, but details are left for the big reveal.

These books are comfortable, relaxing and enjoyable reads.

Death in the Vines (Verlaque and Bonnet Mystery, #3)

Death in the Vines
by M.L. Longworth
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780143122449
Series: Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery #3
Publication Date: May 28, 2013
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Penguin Crime

Better than the last book; the multiple POVs here work better and Death in the Vines didn’t feel as slow to start as book 2.

Three brutal murders just 1 week apart, all women. Two of them identical attacks of young women, but the third is an old woman showing signs of dementia. Proximity and timing make all three related but no one can find the connection. This series is, at its heart, a police procedural so the story moves along in stops and starts as new evidence is collected and more information is run-down. The unmasking was a little bit abrupt, but perhaps that’s how some cases end up, who knows?

In the midst of this we have little vignettes of the supporting characters that are mostly charming; an odd twist with Marine Bonnet didn’t quite work for me, but I suppose it worked to move their relationship a bit. But the biggest non-plot news is Verleque’s mysterious secret in his past is revealed – and it’s a doozy; in a completely unexpected way. Very interesting ground the author is treading here; the big reveal doesn’t really happen until almost the end, and it’s not followed up on, so I don’t know where she’s going to go from here, if anywhere.

But I have book 4 ready to go, so I won’t have to wait long to find out.

Gift of the Magpie (Meg Langslow, #28)

The Gift of the Magpie
by Donna Andrews
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781250760128
Series: Meg Langslow #28
Publication Date: October 20, 2020
Pages: 206
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

I loved this book. I missed out on it during the Christmas season, but it’s cold and rainy here down under, so it was the perfect atmosphere in spite of it being the last day of July.

There’s always something wonderful going on in Caerphilly, even if a lot of people get bumped off. This time it’s a Helping Hands program, started by the towns’ churches’ interfaith committee, to help out people with small (or large) projects, run by volunteers lending their individual expertise. The biggest project of them all is a notorious hoarder who is in danger of having his home condemned and his family having him declared unfit to care for himself. Meg and the mayor get the Helping Hands involved and are helping him deal with all his stuff and make repairs to his home when Meg finds him bashed in the head in his garage.

The mystery plot wasn’t one of her best, though Andrews did a great job keeping the reader in a state of reasonable doubt, but the rest of the story was just lovely. Not a word normally associated with mysteries, but it was. Though there was less emphasis on the Christmas spirit in this one, I loved the ending and I loved the surprises. The only thing that I noticed (beyond a couple of minor continuity errors) was that of all her books, this one was probably the one where the titular birds (magpies) had the smallest role. The birds have never been pivotal to the plots, so it’s barely worth mentioning. Have I mentioned how much I loved the ending?

I eagerly await the next two books.

Terns of Endearment (Meg Langslow, #26)

Terns of Endearment
by Donna Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250192974
Series: Meg Langslow #25
Publication Date: June 30, 2020
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

I read this book last year, but 2020 was a year full of cracks, and this book’s reading record and thoughts slipped through one of them. I re-read it last night to brush up my memories.

I think the thing I love the most about Meg Langslow, after 26 books is her sheer competence. Her family is quirky, and the mysteries are always good, but there just doesn’t seem to be any crisis that Meg, and the members of Caerphilly can’t handle with astonishing efficiency.

Terns of Endearment takes place on an educational wildlife cruise. Her grandfather has been lured into a series of on-board lectures, but soon after the ship sets sail, a series of events leaves the ship stranded in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Dead bodies, sabotage, and on-board illnesses slow down the Langslow family not a bit and soon enough they’re sorting out the crew, the passengers and the mysteries. It should be over-the-top, but it isn’t. It’s inspiring. I want to be Meg when I grow up.

DNF: A Dangerous Engagement (Amory Ames, #6)

A Dangerous Engagement
by Ashley Weaver
Rating: ★
isbn: 9780749024581
Series: Amory Ames #6
Publication Date: April 23, 2020
Pages: 382
Genre: Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Allison & Busby

Amory Ames is travelling to New York, excited to be a bridesmaid at her friend Tabitha's wedding, but with Prohibition in full swing, her husband Milo is less than enthused. When a member of the wedding party is found murdered on the front steps of the bride's home, the happy plans take a darker twist.

Amory discovers that the dead man has links to the notorious - and notoriously handsome - gangster Leon De Lora. While the police seem to think that New York's criminal underworld is at play, Amory feels they can't ignore the wedding guests either. Milo and Amory are drawn into the glamorous, dangerous world of nightclubs and bootleggers. But as they draw closer to unravelling the web of lies the murdered man has left in his wake, the killer is weaving a web of his own.

I tried. I walked away and gave it a few days, and tried again. I couldn’t do it. While the series started off strong, and interesting, it has bottomed out with this book, wallowing in mediocrity with bland and tedious descriptions of every little thing (they went to an automat; she describes what an automat looks like, then describes all the categories displayed, then describes Amory and Milo getting change for the machines, then getting their trays, then which food they’re choosing). It’s endless. And the paragraphs of Amory’s internal dialog outnumber actual dialog by at least 5 to 1. I have decided that the abundance of internal dialog that has become so common in most of today’s mysteries is because authors and editors are forced to assume their average reader is stupid, and so lacking in critical thinking that they must be led through the steps of the mystery like a particularly dim child. The misanthrope in me understands the likely necessity, but I am not stupid, and I’m quite capable of thinking critically, so I find the trend irritating.

Oh, and speaking of irritating trends: wonder of wonders, she’s pregnant, only she doesn’t know yet, even though it’s obvious even to someone like me, who has never so much as had a scare. I’m willing to bet .50 cents that Milo will figure it out before she does.

And speaking of Milo – he’s an ass. I’m assuming the author is going for something akin to insouciance, but really, just an ass. He talks down to Amory more often than he ever has anything nice to say to her, and she just takes it. It’s all way too stiff-upper-lip for my patience.

It’s a shame to see this series go to the dogs, but after this one I can’t imagine it rebounding in my eyes, unless Amory were to ditch Milo in some spectacular fashion, and that isn’t going to happen, so instead I’m going to ditch the series and re-claim valuable bookshelf space.

Lady Julia Grey Novellas 6-9

These have been sitting in my TBR on my iPad for … years? And after my recent re-read binge of all the novels, I thought I’d knock these out too.

They’re all about what you’d expect from a novella; too short to get into any character development or conflict, just short, happy little mysteries with tidy endings, but they’re fun to read and one or two loose ends from the main body of the series are wrapped up.

Death Comes to the Rectory (Kurland St. Mary Mystery, #8)

Death Comes to the Rectory
by Catherine Lloyd
Rating: ★★½
isbn: 9781496723253
Series: Kurland St. Mary Mystery #8
Publication Date: January 26, 2021
Pages: 262
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Kensington

Lucy and Robert's joy in christening their new daughter, surrounded by extended family and loved ones who have gathered in the village of Kurland St. Mary, is only enhanced when Robert's aunt Rose--now the second wife of Lucy's father Ambrose--announces that she is with child. However, not everyone is happy about the news, in particular Rose's adult daughter Henrietta and her husband, who fear for their inheritance.

Following the christening, Rose's disagreeable son-in-law Basil Northam threatens to turn afternoon tea in the rectory into an unsightly brawl. The next morning, he is found in the rector's study, stabbed through the heart with an antique letter opener, clutching a note that appears to implicate the rector himself.

Tedious. While I’ve enjoyed this series up until now – enough to re-read a few of the books – I found this one tedious.

If I’m being completely fair, I imagine some of this is because I’ve just come off a re-reading binge of Deanna Raybourne’s Lady Julia Grey series, and the tone and writing are altogether different from the Kurland St. Mary series. It would probably have been better to cleanse the reading palette in between.

Even if I’d had, I’d still have found it tedious to a degree. The author over plays her characters: her villains are entirely too villainous; her suspects entirely too cryptic, the clues completely chaotic. The tension between the two MCs was altogether irritating.

Buried beneath all this unfortunate tediousness is a rather clever murder plot though. I almost DNF’d the book early on because I was certain the murderer was too obvious, and all due credit to Lloyd, she completely fooled me until I got much closer to the end.

I’m not completely turned off the series, but I have to admit my enthusiasm is diminished. Whether or not I read another book (should one be forthcoming), will come down to my mood and my memory.

Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)

Dead Until Dark
by Charlaine Harris
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 2008-01-02
Series: Sookie Stackhouse #1
Publication Date: January 2, 2008
Pages: 312
Genre: Urban Fantasy

I read this for the first time in 2008, when it came out, but find I don’t have any notes or reviews of it; obviously I was only lurking and shelving on GR back in 2008. I remember really liking it back then, and I’ve read all but the 13th and final novel since.

However, upon a second read many years later, I find the writing doesn’t hold up. Sookie is naive and a bit simple (not simple-minded), as she is supposed to be, but the writing too feels naive and simple, which left me impatient.

It’s possible later books are better written, but so far I have not the urge to find out.

A Wicked Conceit (Lady Darby, #8)

A Wicked Conceit
by Anna Lee Huber
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780593198445
Series: A Lady Darby Mystery #9
Publication Date: April 6, 2021
Pages: 374
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley

Now, this one was much more interesting for me. Kiera and Gage are back in Edinburgh awaiting the birth of their first born. And Bonnie Brock Kincaid is back too, which always ratchets up my enjoyment factor; I like a dark horse, especially when the author makes a place for him without creating any triangles.

There’s been a tell-all book written about gang-leader Bonnie Brock and his Robin-Hood-esque adventures under the nose of the Scottish authorities, and Keira and Gage are in it too. This causes a lot of tension between all the characters, as nobody is all that keen to be in the pubic eye, so the race is on to find the man behind the poison pen.

The book also allows a massive tension to ignite between Kiera and her sister, one that started in the previous book but really blows up in this one. So does the issue of paternity that was also introduced previously. In the former, I think the author could have created a better dynamic behind Alana’s motivation, but as the story is being told from Kiera’s POV, I suppose I understand the logic. The latter was handled better, I think. There was a blow up when the truth was discovered, but it wasn’t drawn out and beaten into the ground, and resolution was quick but reasonable.

In general, a story I enjoyed quite a bit more than I did the previous book, but that’s likely down to personal tastes. As Kiera has had the blessed child, I’m looking forward to their next adventure, hopefully after they’ve hired a nursemaid.