Garden of Lamentations by Deborah Crombie - a nanny is found dead inside a private garden and somehow Gemma James is sucked into the investigation. Meanwhile, Duncan Kincaid is greatly distracted by meeting his former boss secretly. When the man is attacked and left for dead on his way home, it starts to look like something is very wrong on the police force. The author has an unfortunate habit of trying to weave everyone the main characters have ever met into subsequent stories so there were a lot of people to remember before finally getting down to the story. The plots don't intertwine at all except to keep Duncan and Gemma at cross purposes while they try to manage family and cases. And for some reason she even throws a heart attack in for Duncan's father that serves no purpose I can see but to set up a plot line for the next book.
3 stars
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Himself by Jess Kidd - Mahoney has always believed his mother abandoned him as a baby but when he is 26 he receives information telling him his real name and where he was born. So he returns to the town of Mulderrig to find out the truth. He causes quite a stir with his good looks and charm. But some people hate him because of his mother. She was so disliked she may have been murdered. Set in 1976 and the late '40s, this is an odd combination of ghost story/murder mystery/charming Irish tale. Lots of swearing, although for some reason I don't find Irish swearing as offensive. It gets very repetitious.
3 stars
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Earthly Remains by Donna Leon - the 26th Commissario Brunetti book finds him very much in need of a break from the bleakness of his job. His wife suggests he go to her aunt's villa on one of the islands near Venice. There he meets David Casati, the caretaker of the villa. They spend many hours rowing together while Casati travels to care for his bees. Then Casati goes missing and Brunetti once again steps into his professional role. Lots of nothing happened in this book and while the mystery is solved, there is not really a conclusion. One of the enjoyable things about Brunetti books is the home life and there's not enough of that in this book. This one was pretty blah.
2 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment