October 2013

“Kneading to Die” by Liz Mugavero

 

Book Cover - Kneading To Die copy

‘Stan’ (short for Kristan) Connor leaves Hartford, Connecticut after being unfairly downsized from her high paying, high pressure PR job. It’s time to take a breather from the fast lane and move her life in a different direction. When she arrives at her newly purchased Victorian in Frog Ledge, a town so small that everybody knows your business before you say hello for the first time, she knows she is home.

 

Her boyfriend doesn’t agree, and pressures her to get another job ASAP before she regrets her decision. Plus, he’s not happy about the commute to see her. He keeps trying to arrange job interviews for her, despite her protests. Not needed, not wanted. She has two years severance pay, after all. This pair is definitely not on the same page.

 

Stan soon finds herself in a fix when she visits the obnoxious town vet with her Maine coon, Nutty. The vet is dead; kibble sprinkled over her body, and hardly anybody misses her. Stan is a suspect in the murder, just because she found the body. Well, small town people do have to blame the outsiders, don’t they?  😉

 

As Kristan seeks to clear herself in “Kneading to Die,” she finds it hard to know whom to trust. Even her childhood friend, an animal rescuer and now the owner of Pet’s Last Chance, Nikki Manning, comes under suspicion as the case unfolds. But, then Nikki delivers some inside info about the deceased and a possible motive for the vet’s death.

 

Colorful characters (and suspects) abound, including alpaca farmers/bed & breakfast owners, a sweetshop owner, dairy farmers, gossipy townspeople, long-lost relatives, a homeopathic vet, and more.

 

Kristan bakes healthy treats for pets, made from scratch like people cookies, but without the additives usually found in commercial cat and dog food. One of my mother’s cats suffered with clumps of hair falling out, traced back to his completely canned diet. As soon as mom put him on a diet of home cooked fish and other fresh goodies, the condition cleared up. Mugavero is definitely onto something with this aspect of “Kneading to Die,” and has generously included recipes for dog and kitty treats at end of the book.

 

The hunky potential love interest, Jake McGee, owns a seemingly untrainable, sloppy, big dog that loves Stan’s treats and shows up on her doorstep at odd hours, waiting to get fed. The dog keeps throwing Kristan and Jake together, at times embarrassing them both.

 

The underlying theme of this dog-and-cat-filled cozy is advocacy for animals. Mugavero weaves the nasty side of pet sales, abandoned animals, questionable veterinarian policies, badly prepared pet food, etc. into the murder plotline and raises awareness of the real-life issues involved. Fortunately, the unpleasant side of the pet industry is balanced with the warm, caring behavior of the assorted animal lovers in “Kneading to Die.”

 

P.S. If you’ve ever owned a cat or a dog, you’ll find the descriptions of the animals in “Kneading to Die” hilarious and spot-on. I was checking a detail at the beginning of the book and reread about Nutty’s tail delivering opinions – still sooo funny. Mugavero clearly knows her animals.

 

“Kneading to Die” is the first book in Pawsitively Organic series, and happily, Kristan Connor will be back in the next.

 

Please visit www.lizmugavero.com for information about this debut author.

 

 

“Kneading to Die” by Liz Mugavero Read More »

“Misery Bay” by Steve Hamilton

 

Book Cover - Misery Bay

 

The best mysteries are great puzzles, giving us bits and pieces of the storyline, one by one until the killer is revealed and the reason for the crime becomes apparent. The lead character is compelling, likable even though flawed, and when faced with a challenge? Never walks away until the case is closed, despite the heavy toll that case may exact upon his/her soul.

 

Alex McKnight, a former cop from Detroit, sometime Private Investigator, now spends his time working on one of his rental cabins. He avoids any real contact with the world except for meals and imported Canadian beer at the Glasgow Inn. He doesn’t even own a TV. When a cold wind blows in through the pub’s doorway and a former hated colleague, Chief Roy Maven, walks in, McKnight is pretty sure nothing good will come of the visit. And it doesn’t.

 

The Chief has a friend, Raz, whose son has just committed suicide. The man wants to know why. An impossible question to answer, but McKnight is being asked to spend some time looking into it in order to ease the father’s mind. McKnight connects with Raz because of a shared need to do something about a death that could not be explained, and because the case is a reminder of his own past that troubles him.

 

McKnight conducts some light inquiries, chats with the son’s former classmates, and then heads back to report his findings, however slim. Except that Raz is dead. And his death is no suicide.

 

McKnight and Chief Maven have never liked each other and that dynamic is perfect as they work together to convince the FBI investigators that there is a killer on the loose and that the case is not closed. They bully each other as they search for answers, defying the FBI orders in the process, but more effective in their tenacity. The body count rises and connections and motivation must be found before the next victim dies. Even they are at risk.

 

No plot spoiler here, but clues to the ’why’ begin early on. There’s nothing to tie them to the story, so we wonder why they’re there, dangling, causing us to twitch with curiosity. Patience, dear reader.  😉

 

The Michigan Upper Peninsula winter is a character in the book; as the backdrop in the first paragraph, and a recurring theme. The landscape and the weather each play a part in the initial case and the dramatic climax to “Misery Bay.” I’ve never been so cold while reading a book. I reached for sweaters as the six or eight inches of snow fell every day and the wind blew and ice formed everywhere. When Hamilton wrote, “By the time the end of March rolls around, everyone’s just a few degrees past crazy,” I believed him.

 

There is a haunting scene when McKnight sees the spot where the first body was found overlooking Lake Superior. What a bleak, cold, lonely way to die, hanging by a rope from a tree next to a frozen lake, alone. But, there are many haunting scenes. The “I am bleeding” passage is riveting, harrowing, masterful.

 

This is a dark book, touching upon past crimes against McKnight and those close to him, old injuries, old demons. There is little that is cheery about it, few soft edges. Even the ‘thought about’ romance is sad, tinged with regret and what McKnight isn’t ready for right now. Maybe later, but not now. The man is suffering, in a dark place, and still can’t go into the cabin where a tragedy occurred in his own life months before. His friends try to help, but he can’t quite turn the page on his sadness, can’t quite release his guilt. Yet, the man has a sense of humor that relieves the tension periodically, and a warm, caring, dedicated strength that generates loyalty and respect from even those who dislike his rule bending actions.

 

“Misery Bay” is the eighth in the Alex McKnight series and the first I have read. It can be read as a stand-alone, but the references to past cases are so intriguing that it won’t be my last.

 

Bestselling author Steve Hamilton is a two-time recipient of the Edgar award as well as several other very cool crime writing awards. Please visit www.authorstevehamilton.com to learn about the rest of his novels.

 

 

 

“Misery Bay” by Steve Hamilton Read More »

“Harvest” by Tess Gerritsen

 

Book Cover - Harvest

A young, talented surgical resident, Dr. Abby Di Matteo, is recruited to become a future member of Bayside Hospital’s organ transplant team. Seems perfect – a dream job where she will be doing something she loves while working with her fiancée.

 

The catch? She and Chief Resident, Dr. Vivian Chao, take a heart listed in a donor registry for their dying teenage patient, but somehow slated at the last moment for a wealthy woman who is number three on the donor list. The husband of the rich patient is incensed and tries to ruin Dr. Matteo’s career. Terrible murder accusations are made, but no one believes in her innocence except Chao who did the organ harvest with her. Matteo wonders whom she can trust, especially when the origin of the transplant heart becomes suspect. 

 

This action packed novel is full of surgical detail along with personal, legal and professional drama. A parallel story of potential transplant donors (involving the Russian Mafia) is tragic and horrifying at the same time.

 

Organ harvesting is certainly not new, but in 1996, when this book was first published, the medical community in the U.S. was undergoing yet another review of the process of matching donors with recipients. It had been legal to donate organs for over thirty years, but as transplants of all types became routinely successful, doctors of the gravely ill sought more donors. It became important to establish a national clearinghouse for the available organs, ranking potential recipients by need for the organ, not by income level. This ranking eliminated questions of unfairness, but wasn’t foolproof. Enter a new phase for the medical thriller.

 

A bit of literary trivia: “Harvest” mentions a paralyzing drug, succinylcholine. This drug is widely used by anesthesiologists to induce muscle relaxation during surgery, but in the wrong dose can cause wide-awake paralysis. If you enjoy medical thrillers, you might remember the same drug used in Cook’s “Foreign Body” (published in 2008) with very different results.

 

Please visit www.tessgerritsen.com for more information about Gerritsen’s many bestsellers, including the Rizzoli & Isles series upon which the TV show is based.

 

 

“Harvest” by Tess Gerritsen Read More »

“Baltimore Blues” by Laura Lippman

 

Book Cover - Baltimore Blues

 

Tess Monaghan is an out-of-work investigative reporter who relies on the kindness of relatives to get by. She works a few hours a week at her Aunt Kitty’s bookstore in exchange for a third floor room in her house. Uncle Donald pays Tess out of his own pocket to do paralegal work for him. It’s been two years since she drew a legitimate paycheck, her unemployment benefits have run out, and she gets free meals by winning head to head rowing competitions with her pal, Darryl Paxton, the ‘Rock.’ The ‘Rock’ lets her win. Her friends rarely let her pick up the tab.

 

One day, Darryl says he’ll pay Tess to use her investigative skills to uncover why his fiancée has been acting strangely. Tess doesn’t like Ava, so she’s looking forward to making some cash while digging up some dirt, and find dirt she does. When Tess confronts Ava with the information, life takes a nasty turn for Darryl – he is arrested for murdering Ava’s boss, Abramowitz. Abramowitz, who put accused rapists back out on the street, is nobody’s favorite guy, but Tess is hard-pressed to find anybody else who looks as good as Darryl for the crime.

 

She is willing to break into places to get the answers she needs, and can make the most creative excuses to justify her behavior. She blackmails security guards with exposure of their wrongdoings, while blithely carrying out some criminal capers of her own. She gets away with it because of her former connections to journalism and present loose connection with a lawyer defending her best pal. Taking advantage of romantically inclined friends is not beneath her. At all.

 

The deftly tied together assortment of she said/she said encounters, heart-breaking murder, extortion, fraud, deceit, shattered hopes, and revenge take place in Baltimore, ‘the city that bleeds.’ One storyline allows us a glimpse into the secret life of a wealthy Baltimore family, another reveals the rigors facing a competitive rower, along with wonderful descriptions of old neighborhoods long since abandoned by polite society. This is home to Tess and she loves every raw scent of the ethnic communities that make up the whole. We know that she would never leave, and that Tess’ loyalty to Darryl is based on something more than free blueberry pancakes and races on the Patapsco. He pushes her to do more with her rowing, to be more present in her life.

 

Tess’ complex personality is deliciously likable. Who among us doesn’t attempt to justify our daily misdemeanors? Who wouldn’t try to undo the damage done by a well-meaning slip of the tongue? Tess just does it against the background of murder and other felonies. While quoting poetry and humming patriotic songs.

 

The fabulous cast of characters is as diverse as it is real. Her colorful aunt, the luscious former boyfriend, the serial killer, two VOMA members, and more… The subplots evolve naturally and the nasty types play nicely against Tess, never quite sure what she does and doesn’t know. The sparring matches reveal as much about Tess as they do about both victims and survivors.

 

“Baltimore Blues” is a great beginning to the eleven book (so far) series. I just downloaded the second title, “Charm City.”

 

New York Times bestselling author, Laura Lippman, is the recipient of the Anthony, Edgar, Shamus, and Agatha Awards.

 

Please visit www.Lauralippman.com for more information about Ms. Lippman, the rest of the Tess Monaghan series and her stand-alone books.

 

 

 

“Baltimore Blues” by Laura Lippman Read More »

Scroll to Top