This mystery by Sara Driscoll is a stand-alone story. My previous exposure to her books was in her FBI-K9 series. Echoes of Memory is a different type of mystery/police procedural but equally great reading. Quinn Fleming, the lead character, is a young woman (in her late 20s or so) who works in a flower store …
This is the third Carlene O’Connor book I have read in two different series. I would not have read a second, much less a third, if I did not enjoy them immensely. Murder at an Irish Chipper (think of a shop that sells the British food staple, fish and chips) is book 10 in the …
I am a sucker for historical fiction based on fact, particularly if it involves World War II. Add to that mix, people who make their living dealing with books, such as booksellers and librarians and I will jump on the book. Alan Hlad has written just such a book. The title is The Book Spy. It …
No matter how you look at it, The Holocaust was, and remains, a stain on human existence. Many authors have tried, via fiction and nonfiction, to portray what Jews, and others considered as “non-human” by the Nazis, went through while that evil was in control of Germany. None more eloquently than Lucy Adlington in her …
I read a book by Michelle Gable entitled The Bookseller’s Secret. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to try A Paris Apartment by the same author. It is one of the author’s earlier works. Like my first Gable book, this is based on fact but is a novel. The apartment existed. Marthe de Florian existed. …
In Sept. 2011, I first discovered Mary Lou Longworth and her first mystery (Murder at the Chateau Bremont) set in Aix-en-Provence. I waited, impatiently at times, for her follow up books. It is worth the wait. [The second in the series is Murder in the Rue Dumas. The ninth book was published in 2021.] Professor …
In the last ten months, I have devoured four books by [Bremerton, WA] author Gary McAvoy. His series is called The Magdalen Chronicles. Book 4 is entitled The Vivaldi Cipher that includes a cameo appearance by composer Antonio Vivaldi. [Here is the link for Book 1: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781954123021 ] The story opens, briefly, in The Vatican …
When I attended college in the early 1960s, I majored in history and minored in art history/appreciation (no drawing classes). When I saw a mention of An Exquisite Corpse by art historian Helen A. Harrison, I was hoping I would like it. In a word, it was awesome. The story takes place in New York …
I cannot believe that it has been five years since I read a Steven Berry novel. “So many books, so little time” is the quote of the day. The Malta Exchange is the book I just finished reading. As in most of Mr. Berry’s stories, there is an element of real history. In this case, …
I have been reading books since the early 1950s and reviewing/posting the reviews for the past decade. I do not know how I missed Blake Pierce for all of those years. I have just read book one in the European Voyage Cozy Mystery series entitled Murder (and Baklava). It has two components that I am …
