Book Buzz

ANTHONY E. ZUIKER

Brilliant concept. Cybernovel. (They have copywrited the term Digi-Novel.) Every twenty pages or so the book refers you to the web page level26.com with a code to see a video of what is happening. The videos are generally well produced. Zuiker was the creater of CSI series so he has access to top quality production. But not all of the videos add to the story and the story is not gentle. Level 26 refers to the fact that law enforcement personnel have a code that categorizes evil on a scale of twenty five levels. Level 25 refers to the sickest murderer-torturers. For this new serial killer they had to create a new level : 26. It is definately adult reading and not for people with queasy stomachs.

Not particulary well written but it is a bit of a page turner. If you can stand the gore. Again set up for the sequel.

Daniel Browning Smith is creepy as all hell as evil incarnate in the video. He is also know as rubber boy the contortionist. Google his name.

DEBORAH GRABEIN

I have been doing some rather heavy reading of late so I wanted something trashy. I found it in this mystery in my latest library stash. The fun part is backstage and behind scenes of a popular rock and roll band. Blacklight is a successful band, now aging and doing comeback tours for its many die hard fans. A tabloid sleaze journalist, Dillan, is planning a no holds barred, unauthorized biography. All the dirt and of course there is dirt. But on opening night of the North American tour, his body is found in lead guitarist, JP Kinkaid’s dressing room. Kinkaid’s long term girlfriend (he never got around to divorcing his wife), found the body.

Trashy but fun and light. Just what I needed.

LOUISE PENNY

A dysfunctional but rich family has a reunion at a lodge in Quebec. One of the siblings, the black sheep, meets an untimely demise. Which one of the other family members executed her is such a symbolic way?  It just happens that Chief Inspector Gamache is vacationing at the lodge with his wife so the investigation starts immediately.

Lousise Penny is a good writer. The insult “slid off his back landed on the floor and disintegrated.” However it took Penny 89 pages to get to the murder. I found this title from CBC’s Canada Reads Blog. August was the month to discuss mysteries and their authors. Worth the read but not great.

ANTHONY BIDULKA

On his way home from his engagement and trip to Hawaii, Saskatoon PI Russell Quant stumbles upon a treasure map and a murder. Intrigued by both he can’t let them go until he solves them. Beach book for the summer by gay Saskatoon author.

STIEG LAWSON

Mystery within mystery. Journalist Blomkvist, recently discredited in a libel suit, is hired by a industrialist to solve the forty year old disappearance of his niece. Fascinating to see the different levels of research and studying he does as he proceeds. Blomkvist is given permission to write a history of the family. But then questions whether the shadows he uncovers should be revealed to the public. The second mystery is ferreting out the truth about the executive who won the initial law suit and how to reveal the truth. As for the tattoo? And Swedish attitudes about sex? You’ll have to read the book. It is a bit of a page turner.

(Having thought the cover totally stupid I borrowed this image from: http://hubpages.com/hub/DragonTattoos&usg=__SMPDEBmXXsuRJ8DPniEGiNwe1Tw=&h=291&w=260&sz=15&hl=en&start=19&tbnid=kQkcZXNFRBq7MM:&tbnh=115&tbnw=103&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgirl%2Bwith%2Bthe%2Bdragon%2Btattoo%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG)

ERIC STONE

Not a great book by any means, almost trashy but an interesting theme. Great for an asiaphile. IMPORTS centers around the illegal trade of Cambodian antiquities. How these jewels of cambodian culture are stolen and sold by Khemer Rouge, the same people who so decimated the population and the country years ago. How much of the Khemer Rouge leadership was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris. All this is told through the story of Ray Sharp, an American expat living in the East. He stumbles on this illicit business while perusing a Chinese Art supply store in Hong Kong.

BENJAMIN BLACK

Black writes interesting and unusual mysteries. His Christina Falls has been reviewed previously in this blog. In Lemur, journalist John Glass is contracted to write the biography of his powerful and wealthy father-in-law. But when he hires a researcher, the researcher is swiftly found dead, a bullet in his eye. What is being covered up?

Again this mystery has little police involvement. Not great but worth reading.

GAIL BOWEN

Light and fluffy as all Bowen’s mysteries are. This one mixes politics, prostitution and lawyers caught where they should not be at. It is actually one of her better books.

NEIL GAIMAN

“The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor.” Intriguing first line. That knife and the hand that holds it switfly kills all the people in the house except the baby who is nowhere to be found. The baby has miraculously vanished into the graveyard. Knowing that the child is being hunted the ghosts of the graveyard resolve to raise the child with one particular couple to be his parents. For many years Nobody Owens has little contact outside of the graveyard.

The book is quite a page turner. Definitely not for young readers but for teens. For a scary book set in a graveyard it actually quite life affirming. “I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands.” “There was life and Bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open.”

Newbery Award Winner

MARK RICHARD ZUBRO

I couldn’t resist the title, the book isn’t that good. The mystery begins when the first of the singers of Boys4U the hot new boy band for teenyboppers is murdered. Who would want to kill one of these sweet, rich, straight, young men? Could it be the recorded executive who only allows men into the band who perform on the casting couch. But it turns out he is an equal rights abuser. He treats his female singers with the same scorn and humiliation. Could it be the well build security man whose job it is to protect the band. Or any of the many others in the band’s entourage.  It becomes more serious when another band member is killed.

Silly light mystery.

DAVID WALTNER-TOEWS

Canadian Mennonites in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In the early 80’s western governments were pouring alot of money into Indonesia trying to save it from communism even though president Suharto was violently suppressing freedom of speech and democracy. Abner Dueck is a veterinarian working on a project that is bring milk cows to Java. One asks why since drinking milk is not part of the South East Asian diet or culture. But some cows die under peculiar  circumstances. Dueck meets a seductive young Chinese woman who he thinks is looking for marriage as a way out of the country. Two friends turn up dead – murdered. He wants to find out why.

An interesting mystery. Good description of the local. 

I love reading about places I have visited. It brings back so many memories.

ANDREW DAVIDSON
A man burned beyond recognition, a beautiful stranger come to be his saviour add up to a page turner of a book. Some of the descriptions of the healing of burn victims are nasty but at the same time interesting. Descriptions of monastic life in a nunnery in medieval Germany also captivating, especially the scriptorium. A sculptress, in a trace, laying on stone waiting for the gargoyle trapped within to reveal itself to her so she could release it. The couples’ love waiting 700 years for fulfillment. I always hate to say too much other than I loved it. It was hard to put down.

Lee Jackson

is a near future thriller. The US frightened enough by terrorism has cut back nearly all civil liberties. The story opens with Ben Trinity, a former college professor arrested for funding a terrorist group, hitchhiking to the west coast. Storm-stayed in a small Montana town, Redemption. Word about his past soon is common knowledge. Locals fear Trinity, speak out against his living there and even threatening his life. But there is always this undercurrent knowing of innocence.

The political ending swirls in far too fast. But it is still a good read and an author to keep an eye open for.

CHRISTOPHER RICE

A psychological thriller Blind Fall tells a military-themed story of redemption and revenge with the Iraq war as a backdrop. The protagonist John has many ghosts in his past: his brother who committed suicide, his estrangement from the sister who raised him, the mistake he made in Iraq that resulted in the near death of his captain, Mike. Knowledge that Mike is gay had complicated John’s feeling’s for Mike who he once adored. But the long over due visit does not turn out well. It is a compelling read.

DANIEL KALLA

The dicsouvery of a lake under 3 miles of ice in Anarctica is thought of a gold mine by investors. How can it be used? In France there is an outbreak of BSD, mad cow disease, and its human equivalent.  Are they connected? Author Kalla is an emergency room doctor in Vancouver. Interesting medical science mystery but not great.

JOSE LATOUR

Elliot Steill is an English teacher in Havana. Abandoned by his American father as a child he is just getting by. But a friend of his deceased father comes to help him escaped to Miami. The America he discovers is not the stuff of dreams. But it is an interesting contrast. Recommended
This Cuban writer has moved to Canada since publishing this book in 1999.

Susan Hubbard

Ariella Montero is a twelve year old with much on her mind. She has been raised and home schooled by her father. As she gets older, she realises that not all is what it seems to be in her family. She has so many questions about her mother but all anyone will tell her is that her mother disappeared soon after the birth. When the housekeeper notices that Ariella seems to be struggling with something, she invites her to come home with her and meet her children, Katherine and Michael. Ariella soon feels like she has found a second family.But, tragedy strikes in the form of murder and Ari finds herself with still more questions and the only way to get the answers she seeks, is to find her mother.

 I appreciated the slow way the author revealed her family secrets as she finds answers to her questions.

Brian 

 Nairne Holtz 

Sam is trying to solve the mystery of her sister’s death. To accomplish this she needs to explore the underworld of Montreal, discern  the truth about a conspiracy theory and unearth family secrets. It is a lot packed into one small book.

Brian 

Secrets and lies! An unusual mystery in that it does not involve the police and detectives. It is the story of two son and their all-powerful father. It takes place in Ireland and the Irish enclave in the new world, Boston. It pits brother vs brother and the older generation vs the younger. It made me think of the film Madelaine Laundries. 

  Saskatoon’s gay PI is off traveling the world solving mysteries again. This Russel Quant Mystery Series is light and easy to read. I think its fun to read about places that I know in Saskatoon, my home town. Tho’ Bidulka say that his US readers find Saskatoon, Saskatchewan an exotic local! The series does quiet well in internet sales. I also enjoy the foreign aspect that the last books of the series has incorporated. Parts of Sundowner take place in South Africa.  “Sundowner” is cocktails and snack served before the evening meal as the sun sets. Ubuntu is the philosophy similar to “it takes a village to raise a child” that everyone looks out for everyone else. “We are all the same.” A beautiful mysticism.  If you are looking for a light mystery with a difference, these are fun.