August Reading (updated)

Flawless Hand Quilting from Rodale's Quilting Library. I wrote about this and the following book several weeks ago and have kept them both handy ever since. Lots of good tips in this one.

Moran, Freddy, and Gwen Marston. Collaborative Quilting. Wonderful pictures, creative approaches, interesting glimpses into the lives, styles, and techniques of these two creative women. This was a joy, and I'm still going back to it frequently for inspiration and pleasure.

Benoit, Charles. Out of Order. I really thought I'd like this one because the setting is India. The premise was good--theft of a computer program and sabotage--but the result was poor. Characters were not believable, plot unecessarily complicated with ambiguity and less than logical behavior, love interest questionable (falling in love with a pathological liar has drawbacks).

Elkins, Aaron. Unnatural Selection. Gideon Oliver is a forensics professor often called in to study old bones. While attending consortium held on the Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall with his wife, Oliver is asked to examine some bones that had been discovered by a dog digging on a beach. From the few recovered examples, he determines that they were indeed human and that the body had been dismembered.

Piercy, Marge. The Third Child. I love Piercy's poetry, but wasn't impressed by this novel.

Asensi, Matilde. The Last Cato. Don't bother. A really bad example of The DaVinci Code take offs. Really bad example.

Robinson, Peter. Piece of My Heart. Detective Chief Inspector Banks is caught up in the murder of a journalist that leads back to a murder at a rock concert in 1969. I always enjoy Peter Robinson.

Lescroart, John. The Second Chair. Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky and their San Francisco associates are involved in two separate murders that merge. When Dismas steps in to second chair Amy Wu as a result of her misguided attempts to keep a murder suspect in juvenile court, Abe is busy with a suspected serial killer who is behaving like an executioner. As always, Lescroart's characters are wonderfully drawn and believable.

James, P.D. The Lighthouse. The Baroness of Holland Park never fails to please. Commander Adam Dalgliesh investigates a suspected murder on the small island of Combe off the Cornish coast. The island confines and isolates the complex characters when a further event isolates them even further. The rather cool relationship of DI Kate Miskin and Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith develops as they are forced to work together.

Fairstein, Linda. Death Dance. Fairstein was the chief prosecutor in the Manhatten district Attorney's Office Sex Crimes Unit for twenty-five years and is now a media consultant for several networks. This is the eighth novel featuring Alexandra Cooper, who is, coincidentally, a prosecutor for the Special Victims Unit. Cooper and her long-time team of Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace investigate the death of a prima ballerina who disappears backstage during a performance at the Met. I like the camaraderie that exists among the trio of Cooper, Wallace, and Chapman and always find her novels interesting.

Eriksson, Kjell. The Princess of Burundi. The novel was named Best Swedish Crime Novel in 2002. The main character Inspector Ann Lindell is on maternity leave from the Uppsala police force when Little John, a family man and tropical fish expert is murdered. Because she has dealt with the murdered man's career criminal brother and because she misses the action of her job, Lindell finds herself drawn into the investigation. Neither particularly good or bad...

Kerley, Jack. A Garden of Vipers. A pair of detectives --Carson Ryder and Harry Nautilus--are caught up in a bizarre case in Mobile, Alabama. Involving a wealthy, influential family (but a result of Faulknerian inbreeding...or something) that has produced superficially handsome if internally twisted scions, Nautilus and Ryder find themselves in danger as they begin putting things together. This is the third novel in this series, and I will be looking for the previous two.

Tuttle, Lisa. The Silver Bough. A modern fantasy relying largely on myth. I knew within a few pages that we were dealing with a Selkie (well, coast of Scotland and all), but interestingly, not even close to the end did the word appear, although everything else was filled in. One thing I did not realize is that the word Avalon means island of apples; nor was I familiar with the mythic Kelpie. Apples play a large part in this novel and the various apple-related myths are woven throughout. A light, fun read with old myths and new takes.