Finlay Donovan is Killing It

Finlay Donovan is Killing It
by Elle Cosimano
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781472282248
Series: Finlay Donovan Mystery #1
Publication Date: February 9, 2021
Pages: 359
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Headline Review

When struggling crime writer and single mum Finlay Donovan accidentally finds herself employed as a local hit-woman, she suddenly finds herself living the life of crime previously reserved for her characters.

'It is a widely known fact that most mums are ready to kill someone by eight-thirty AM on any given Monday. . . ' Finlay Donovan, single mum and floundering crime writer, is having a hard time. Her ex-husband went behind her back to fire the nanny, and this morning she sent her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an unfortunate incident with scissors.

Making it to lunch with her literary agent is a minor victory but, as she's discussing the plot of her latest crime novel, the conversation is misinterpreted by a woman sitting nearby as that of a hit-woman offering her services to dispose of a 'problem' husband.
And when the woman slips Finlay a name and a promise of a large sum of cash, Finlay finds herself plotting something much bigger than her novel.
And, after all, they do always say: write what you know. . .

Finlay Donovan really is killing it . . .

I’ve seen this title thrown around a few sites, but honestly, the cover turned me off because it was such an obvious knock off of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? that it felt like the publisher was trying to ride some coat-tails. But Irresponsible Reader sang its praises in one of his posts, and I decided to give it a try.

At first, I thought maybe I’d run up against my first IR recommendation dud, because I don’t enjoy reading about people who are hanging onto life by a thread, and Finlay is definitely a big, hot mess at the beginning of this book. But I kept reading, because I couldn’t figure out how the author was going to pull off a protagonist mother-of-two who kills for money and still call the book a comedy.

When the answer to that started becoming clearer, the book started to click for me, because the deeper Finlay found herself in it, the more interested and invested I became. Coincidentally, the less of a hot mess she became. The introduction of the nanny-partner also helped, because her pragmatic personality was one I could identify with (although she takes her pragmatism further than I ever could).

What I was left with was a very well written, well plotted mystery that entertained me. Cosimano gets the bonus points for pulling off a very-plausible-for-fiction explanation for all the events that take place, and for dovetailing it all nicely together at the end.

This is the first of at least 3 books (so far) and I’m definitely interested in reading the next one. Thanks again to Irresponsible Reader!

Going Rogue: Rise and Shine Twenty-nine (Stephanie Plum, #29)

Going Rogue: Rise and Shine Twenty-nine
by Janet Evanovich
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781035401932
Series: Stephanie Plum #29
Publication Date: November 1, 2022
Pages: 324
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Headline Review

Monday mornings aren't supposed to be fun, but they should be predictable. However, on this particular Monday, Stephanie Plum knows that something is amiss when she turns up for work at Vinnie's Bail Bonds to find that longtime office manager Connie Rosolli, who is as reliable as the tides in Atlantic City, hasn't shown up.

Stephanie's worst fears are confirmed when she gets a call from Connie's abductor. He says he will only release her in exchange for a mysterious coin that a recently murdered man left as collateral for his bail. Unfortunately, this coin, which should be in the office - just like Connie -is nowhere to be found.

The quest to discover the coin, learn its value, and save Connie will require the help of Stephanie's Grandma Mazur, her best pal Lula, her boyfriend Morelli, and hunky security expert Ranger. As they get closer to unravelling the reasons behind Connie's kidnapping, Connie's captor grows more threatening, and soon Stephanie has no choice but to throw caution to the wind, follow her instincts, and go rogue. She is more shocked by the results than anyone.

I think just about everyone who might possibly read this has read Evanovich’s Plum series, and everyone knows they are the literary equivalent of slapstick comedy, and they can often be hit or miss. I’ve stuck with the series this long because at least once a year I need slapstick in my life, and because I also appreciate Evanovich’s interesting decision to embrace the status quo when it comes to Plum’s romantic life. This is a rare case of what I wouldn’t be able to abide in real life, I can enjoy in the fictional one, especially as it’s all above board.

Anyway, this one was a hit for me. The plot was good, the tension was sharp, and the humor was laugh-out-loud in several spots. At one point, MT looked over at me and asked it I was going to be ok, because I was gasping with laughter. For many Lulu is what makes them laugh (and she had at least one moment in this one), but for me it’s the oldies the bring tears of laughter to my eyes. Evanovich has a way with the oldies, and I can only imagine what her family dinners must be like.

I hope these last two books are a sign of things to come, because it feels like Plum and company (and their author) have found their stride, and I’m already looking forward to #30.

The Most of Nora Ephron

The Most Of Nora Ephron
by Nora Ephron
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781804991381
Publication Date: October 6, 2022
Pages: 452
Genre: Essays
Publisher: Penguin Books

A new, revised edition of the ultimate nora ephron collection, packed with wit, wisdom and comfort, with an introduction from candice Carty-Williams.

INCLUDING:
* Nora's much-loved essays on everything from friendship to feminism to journalism
* Extracts from her bestselling novel Heartburn
* Scenes from her hilarious screenplay for When Harry Met Sally
* Unparalleled advice about friends, lovers, divorces, desserts and black turtleneck sweaters

Not quite as good as I hoped it would be. I’ve read Ephron before – Heartburn, and I Feel Badly About My Neck – and enjoyed her writing, finding her funny and astute. But this is a large collection of writing from all her different pursuits, and while I still found a lot of it funny and astute, I also found some of it un-relatable, whether because of differences in politics or faith (as in, her lack of it*, not her Jewish heritage); it just didn’t resonate with me. Still, I enjoyed it more than I didn’t, and I admire anyone who has enough courage in their convictions that they can publicly, and without apology, admit that they’ve changed their mind – as Ephron did in a couple of her essays in regard to her lost admiration for the Clintons. In fact, I admire her for a lot more than that, so even if I didn’t find this collection to be the laugh-out-loud riot I’d hoped it would be, I still can say I got a lot out of the reading of it.

*Here’s the thing: everyone’s got the freedom to believe in something greater or not – that’s their prerogative and I respect it. What irritates me beyond all redemption is when someone expresses their thoughts on the matter as fact. Atheism is not a fact, it’s a belief, and when writing about it, it should be stated as the writer’s belief, not as a fact. (Religion is also a belief, not a fact, and when I write about my beliefs (which is rarely, because they’re personal), I write to reflect that they are my beliefs, not facts.)

A Pelican at Blandings

A Pelican At Blandings
by P.G. Wodehouse
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780099514022
Publication Date: August 7, 2008
Pages: 249
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Arrow Books

Unwelcome guests are descending on Blandings Castle uaparticularly the overbearing Duke of Dunstable, who settles in the Garden Suite with no intention of leaving, and Lady Constance, Lord Emsworth's sister and a lady of firm disposition, who arrives unexpectedly from New York.

Skulduggery is also afoot involving the sale of a modern nude painting (mistaken by Lord Emsworth for a pig). It's enough to take the noble earl on the short journey to the end of his wits. Luckily Clarence's brother Galahad Threepwood, cheery survivor of the raffish Pelican Club, is on hand to set things right, restore sundered lovers and even solve all the mysteries.

Who doesn’t like Wodehouse? It’s situational and narrative humor at its best. But you really have to be in the mood for it, and even then, I’ll go so far as to say Wodehouse is best consumed in short story form. It’s hard enough to sustain the humor for a novel length book at Wodehouse’s madcap pace, but it’s been harder to sustain the laughs. After a few chapters a reader can become inured to the comedy, and start to feel a bit numb, especially when character development is necessarily thin-to-non-existent, and the plotting not much more complex than the characters. This isn’t a criticism; humor succeeds where both are pushed to the background.

Short or long length though, Wodehouse is a genius.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Are We Having Fun Yet?
by Lucy Mangan
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781788161084
Publication Date: November 1, 2021
Pages: 303
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Souvenir Press

From the deep rage of knowing where to find every single thing your husband is looking for to the joy of a friend's longed-for pregnancy, here is the pleasurable stab of fellow feeling you get over drinks with friends. Liz records her ups and downs, including the love of a good cat (up), not being able to find a babysitter (secret up) and the question of what 'we' really means when it comes to fixing the dishwasher (definitely, definitely down).

Spiky, charming and most of all loving, it's a hilarious skewering of the sweetness and nightmare that is modern family life.

This book is the literary equivalent of those visual illusions that psychologists try to hang meaning on depending on what you see – like the one that’s either an old woman or a candlestick. Or is it an old woman / young woman? Anyway, whatever, you know what I mean.

As someone who is voluntarily childless, this book was a hilarious – and I mean laugh-out-loud hilarious – justification that my decision to stick with the furry and feathered walks of life, rather than replicating my own DNA, was the right decision for me (and MT, who came to the same decision long before we met). Her kids are hysterical, but they’re hard work and are constantly opening up avenues of conversation that I’d hurt myself to avoid having. Mangen’s descriptions of child birth should be required reading in human development classes as psychological birth control. I was made to be an Aunt.

There was another – unintended, I’m certain – consequence this book had for me, one that is again tied, I’m equally certain, to our choice to stick with non-human family members, and that’s the lack of suppressed rage that lies as an undercurrent in Liz and Richard’s marriage, that I recognise in the marriages of my friends with children. It’s not all chocolates and roses here at chez zoo by a long shot, but without the stress and pressure of making new humans that will hopefully treat the world better than we have, MT and I have experienced more fun than festering resentment. Of course, I also recognise the near-miracle that he’s one of the 1 in 100,000 men who seem to have been raised without the ingrained gender biases and learned helplessness most are saddled with when it comes to matters of home keeping. Still, the book really gave me a few moments of “do you really appreciate how lucky you are? really, truly?“, which I think constitutes healthy self-reflection.

Putting all that aside, I have to figure out how to get my sister-in-law to read this, because, as the mother of 2, she will appreciate this book for all the opposite reasons: because Lucy Mangen wrote her truth, and she will laugh as she nods her neck stiff in righteous agreement of the trials and tribulations of an all-human family of 4.

I read so much of this out loud to MT (honestly, it’s almost been a nightly story-time around here lately) that he actually insisted I rate this 4.5 stars. As he said, it made us both laugh out loud and the writing was excellent (which gives you an indication of how much I read out loud; he was able to judge the quality of the writing). I’d been thinking more 4 stars, but since he put up with all the reading out loud, I acquiesced.

If you need a laugh, you won’t go wrong with this one.

This Charming Man (Stranger Times, #2)

This Charming Man
by C.K. McDonnell
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781787633384
Series: Stranger Times #2
Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Pages: 499
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Bantam Press

Vampires do not exist. Everyone knows this. So it's particularly annoying when they start popping up around Manchester . . .

Nobody is pleased about it. Not the Founders, the secret organisation for whom vampires were invented as an allegory, nor the Folk, the magical people hidden in plain sight who only want a quiet life. And definitely not the people of Manchester, because there is nothing more irksome than being murdered by an allegory run amok. Somebody needs to sort this out fast before all Hell really breaks loose - step forward the staff of The Stranger Times.

It's not like they don't have enough to be dealing with. Assistant Editor Hannah has come back from getting messily divorced to discover that someone is trying to kidnap a member of their staff and while editor Vincent Banecroft would be delighted to see the back of any of his team, he doesn't like people touching his stuff - it's the principle of the thing.

Throw in a precarious plumbing situation, gambling debts, an entirely new way of swearing, and a certain detective inspector with what could be kindly referred to as 'a lot of baggage' and it all adds up to another hectic week in the life of the newspaper committed to reporting the truth that nobody else will touch.

Still a lot of fun, but not as enthralling as the first book, The Stranger Times. Part of that, I suspect, is that it’s hard to maintain momentum over 500 pages. The story never dragged, but it just lacked the snap the first one had.

Which makes it sounds back-handed, and I don’t mean it to; the book may have been 500 pages, but I devoured it over two days. The writing was excellent, the plot was really good – relevant, creepy in both a supernatural and natural way – and the characters continue to charm (or not) with their eccentricities. Because the story is told from multiple perspectives (3rd person always), the reader is able to connect a few dots before the Stranger gang can as they investigate why vampires are suddenly springing up all over Manchester when everyone agrees they’re the one thing that doesn’t exist, but not so much as to be frustrating – and when it all comes together, it’s all rather more appalling that I was expecting.

The author leaves plenty of scope for the third book; the editor of the paper is left hanging with a haunting message from beyond the veil, and nobody knows, or wants to know, what Stella is, except for Stella herself. And the newspaper still has no bathroom.

Lots to look forward to in the next book, unfortunately, I’ll be looking forward until sometime in 2023.

The Stranger Times (Stranger Times #1)

The Stranger Times
by C.K. McDonnell
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780552177344
Series: Stranger Times #1
Publication Date: January 6, 2022
Pages: 425
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Books

There are dark forces at work in our world (and in Manchester in particular), so thank God The Stranger Times is on hand to report them . . .

A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but mostly the weird), it is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable.

At least that's their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and foul-mouthed husk of a man who thinks little of the publication he edits. His staff are a ragtag group of misfits. And as for the assistant editor . . . well, that job is a revolving door - and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who's got problems of her own.

When tragedy strikes in her first week on the job The Stranger Times is forced to do some serious investigating. What they discover leads to a shocking realisation: some of the stories they'd previously dismissed as nonsense are in fact terrifyingly real. Soon they come face-to-face with darker forces than they could ever have imagined.

Ok, I wasn’t sure I’d like this, but it was a lot of fun.

I’m always drawn to stories about a ‘ragtag band of misfits’ (I love The Awkward Squad series and am anxious for a third one to be published in translation), and the premise of a newspaper dedicated to the weird and wonderful happenings in the world was a definite draw. But I know nothing about C.K. McDonnell, and though I thoroughly enjoy the dry British sense of humour, I was hesitant about what a male comedian might do with it. Let’s face it: the British can do great ha-ha humor, but they also excel in humor with a nasty, violent edge to it.

I needn’t have worried. There’s an edginess to the writing that’s reminiscent of Guy Ritchies early movies (Snatch) but it’s balanced with laugh-out-loud moments more reminiscent of Yes, Prime Minister. There were excerpts I couldn’t help but read out loud to MT, leaving him a bit miffed; he has no tolerance for the supernatural in his reading, otherwise he’d be reading this next.

The story bounces between the staff at the newspaper and the doings of the shady American in town, the former completely in the dark about what’s going on, and the latter driving them. It all dovetails into a climax that’s awfully close to a Scooby Doo episode, but it was all good fun.

The writing was good, but McDonnell excels at the dialog, which is acerbic, crackling and fast-paced. There’s a second book out, This Charming Man and I eyed it when I bought this one, but decided to be cautious. I had a feeling I’d regret that, and now I’m off to find out how soon I can get my hands on it.

The Big Over Easy Re-read (Nursery Crimes, #1)

The Big Over Easy
by Jasper Fforde
Rating: ★★★★★
Series: Nursery Crimes #1
Publication Date: January 1, 2005
Pages: 398
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

My original review pretty much sums up my general feelings about this book. I still think it’s the most highly quotable book I’ve read, I still think the satire is spot-on, both of the media and murder mysteries and I still think Prometheus adds just that little something of surprise depth to the narrative, if only briefly.

Re-reading it, it’s held up perfectly. Fforde’s amazing at writing these intricate plots and clever dialog, but it’s all the small details that continue to leave me gobsmacked. The excepts at the opening of each chapter, the small jokes and wordplays scattered in the text, and the “ads” at the back of the book all are unnecessary to the plot, but make the book all the richer for their inclusion.

Though I gave it, and stand by doing so, 5 stars, the heinous plot revealed in the mystery is gross in that way that British humor excels at. Gross and sublimely silly. Which makes the story better, in spite of the “UGH, yuck!” moments towards the end.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2021’s Noir square. It’s not a traditional fit, but there’s a clear argument that along with satirising mysteries and the press, there’s a very noir-satire vibe in the story,

Agnes and the Hitman re-read

Agnes and the Hitman
by Jennifer Crusie
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780312363048
Publication Date: August 21, 2007
Pages: 368
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

I recently read Wild Ride by the same two authors for a Halloween Bingo square, and it made me want to re-read my very favorite Crusie of all time. I reviewed it back in 2014, which can be found here, but even then it was a re-read and I don’t have any notes from my original reading.

But it really doesn’t matter, because this book is just as good the 5 or 6th time as it was the first time. Hilarious, not at all realistic, yet believable, and at its heart, endearingly sweet in a way that only a mafia related killing spree can be.

Agnes is engaged and they’ve bought the house of her dreams from her BFF’s mother, where she and her soon-to-be are going to write cookbooks and cater fabulous events. The first event is part of the mortgage contract: throw a fabulous wedding at the house for Agnes’ goddaughter and the previous owner’s grand-daughter in exchange for the first 3 months of payments.

Easy, until someone comes in one night to steal her dog at gunpoint. Agnes, who has a history of anger management issues, hits him with a frying pan, knocking him through the wall into an unknown (to her) basement. She calls her old friend Joey (the Gent) who, hearing what happened and seeing the basement, calls in his nephew, Shane, a government black-op. He comes to protect Agnes and find out who wants the dog, and why.

Meanwhile, the bride’s grand-mother seems determined to relocate the wedding to the country club, and everything that can go wrong with the wedding preparations does. Through it all Agnes just keeps cooking and planning and fixing, refusing to allow anything to stand in her way of having this wedding, not even the dead bodies.

It’s a fast paced read, with no slow spots. It’s a huge amount of fun, and as I said before it’s not at all realistic, but the relationships are feel believable. Even the instant attraction between Shane and Agnes. I continue to absolutely love this book as one of the ultimate comfort reads on my shelves.

I re-read this just because I wanted to, but it fits for Halloween Bingo’s Terror in a Small Town square, so I’m going with that. It’s set in Keyes, South Carolina a tiny (fictional) town that’s home to half the Jersey mob’s family (the retired half) and is beset with a string of murders that leaves a body count somewhere around 7.

Wild Ride

Wild Ride
by Bob Mayer, Jennifer Crusie
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780312533779
Publication Date: March 15, 2010
Pages: 351
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

This was the last book Jennifer Crusie wrote that I hadn’t yet read (except for the Temptation books; I started Welcome to Temptation and something turned me off and I never finished it). It’s a co-wriiten book with Bob Meyer, and their previous effort Agnes and the Hitman is one of my all time favourite good-time reads.

But I avoided this one for years because I’m not a fan of carnivals and amusement parks as story settings. Stephen King might have ruined this for me, but there’s just something WAY too creepy and seedy about them in books. Nevertheless, I had bought this and after years of languishing in a forgotten corner of the TBR, I found it just in time for Halloween Bingo, and the setting was perfect.

Mary Alice (Mab) is just finishing up a massive restoration of an early 1920’s amusement park, putting on one of the last touches, when she’s attacked by a giant iron clown that calls her by name. The owners of the park seen unsurprised, though they pass it off as a hallucination. Soon, however, there’s no escaping the truth: the park is the prison for 5 untouchable demons (all from the Etruscan mythology, it seems) and two have escaped. It’s up to Mab and her fellow Guardia to re-capture them and keep the other three from escaping.

Believe me when I say there is nothing deep or philosophical about this book. It’s pure silliness and funnel cake fun. It’s not nearly as well plotted or written as Agnes and the Hitman, but it’s well written enough that it kept me reading and the eye rolling only happened a few times.

I doubt I’ll ever re-read this again, though it did make me want to climb that ladder to grab Agnes for a re-read.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2021. It’s a perfect fit for the Creepy Carnivals square, which is really my Stone Cold Horror square – I used my Transfiguration Spell card, as it’s chock full of demons (including minions that possess teddy bears and characters ripped completely from Small World) and it takes place entirely within the grounds of the Fun Fun Amusement Park.