Reading in Reykjavík

I found the first two books in this series at the library, and dearly hope they will buy the remaining six in the series. I feel I need to read these books because I think that while Viehl has done a good job of making the spin-off Kyndred books that I have been reading independent of the Darkyn books, I feel I need to know more about the world and background they take place in. Year published: 2005 Series and no.: Darkyn, #1 Genre: Urban fantasy, paranormal romance Setting & time: Chicago and New Orleans, USA, with scenes in Rome, Italy; 2000’s Chicago reconstructive surgeon Dr. Alexandra Keller repeatedly refuses to see an out-of town patient despite his increasingly urgent and generous offers of reimbursement, because she doesn’t want to leave the patients under her care for the time it would take to examine him and do the surgery in New Orleans, which he is not willing to leave. But Michael Cyprien is not used to people saying ‘no’ to him and has her kidnapped and brought to...

He had found his damsel in distress, but it wasn't sweet Verity. It was the difficult, angry, beautiful Charles. At this point in the story, the heroine, disguised as a man, has kidnapped the hero, who has seen through her disguise but decided not to embarrass her by revealing that he knows she is a woman. I have always enjoyed reading cross-dressing historical novels, although I am fully aware of the difficulties of successfully disguising either sex as the other. However, there are plenty of true stories about the subject, mostly about women who chose to dress and act like men and got away with it. Sometimes these real cross-dressers may have been transgendered (of both physical sexes) and in some cases they were women who chafed at the restrictions put upon them by a patriarchal society, but the most common stories are of women following their men to war and dressing as men to avoid being sent home or becoming the victims of sexual violence. However, writers, and especially roma...

I must admit up front that I have a soft spot for Josephine Tey, so you may expect some prejudice in the review ;-) Year of publication: 1949 Genre: Mystery Type of mystery: Kidnapping Type of investigator: Lawyer Setting & time: England, contemporary A teenage girl accuses two women of having kidnapped her and held her against her will for a month. The case seems to be solid, but solicitor Robert Blair, retained by the accused to speak for them, is convinced of the innocence of his clients and sets out to prove it. This is the second Tey novel I read that effectively breaks one of S.S. Van Dine's detective story writing rules , and I admire her for making it so readable, because it is rule no. 7 that is broken: There shall be but one crime, and that crime is murder (my rephrasing). It is difficult to sustain reader interest in a mystery without a corpse for nearly 300 pages, but Tey not only pulls it off, she does it so well that I could hardly put the book down. It is w...

When the publishing date of this book was pushed forward, it left Lynn Viehl’s publisher unable to print and send out advance reading copies (known in the publishing industry simply as ARCs), Lynn decided to take matters into her own hands and offered the readers of her blog, Paperback Writer a chance to read the book by sending out e-ARCS, in exchange for reviews (the offer has now expired). This book will be in bookshops on October 6th. This is the first book in a spin-off series from the Darkyn books by Viehl, featuring some characters readers of that series will be familiar with. Year published: 2009 (coming in October) Genre: Urban fantasy Series: The Kyndred (#1) Setting & time: (mostly) Atlanta, Georgia; contemporary. For those who want to be totally surprised by this book: potential SPOILERS coming up. …. … .. . .. … …. The Story: Jessa Bellamy has a psychic talent that has helped her build a business that screens job applicants for companies, but someone has discover...

Michael Innes is best known for his Appleby series, but this is a non-series book, albeit one that takes place in the same world. Appleby is even mentioned once in the book, and it is stated that he is no longer with the police. The detective in the story is one of his successors at the Yard. Year of publication: 1949 Genre: Mystery, thriller Type of mystery: Kidnapping plot, murder Type of investigator: Police, special agent and amateur Setting & time: England and Ireland, contemporary (to publication) Story: Respectable, elderly private tutor Richard Thewless is hired to accompany the 15 year old son of Britain’s most respected nuclear physicist on a summer visit to relatives in Ireland, when the first choice for a tutor cancels his appointment unexpectedly. Only he didn’t really cancel, he was murdered (unknowingly to the boy and his father), and Detective-Inspector Thomas Cadover wants to know why. The boy, Humphrey Paxton, seems to be both nervous and given to telling st...

I decided to review these two Christmas themed crime novels together, as they were written by the same author team and belong to the same series, or actually two series, one by each author. I think Mary started writing her Christmas novels with Silent Night (which I haven’t read), but the first one I read was All Through the Night , which I think is her first Christmas novel to feature lottery winner and amateur sleuth Alvirah Meehan. The subsequent Christmas novels have been written in co-operation with her daughter Carol, who is a writer in her own right. Deck the Halls appears to be their first collaboration, but since then they have written a number of Christmas novels together, featuring Alvirah together with Carol’s series sleuth, Regan Reilly and her boyfriend (later husband) Jack. These two (and All Through the Night ) are not mysteries, but rather suspense novels with caper elements. The reader knows the whole time who the criminals are and the viewpoint swings between the s...

Year of publication: 2000 Genre: Romantic thriller (with brief and mild descriptions of sex; some paranormal elements) Setting & time: USA (mostly), S-America, Taiwan Story: Rich and powerful John Logan forces dog trainer Sarah and her trusty search dog Monty to help him find a missing person. Unlike a previous book where the person was dead, this one is alive and has been kidnapped by Logan's arch-enemy, his former brother in law who could never forgive Logan for taking his sister away from him. There is also the small matter of having been sent to prison in a Thailand hell-hole for 15 years by Logan. (If you think this is a spoiler, think again – this all comes out early on in the story). The man is wreaking systematic revenge on Logan by destroying people and places he cares for, and once he discovers that Sarah is helping Logan, he incorporates her into his plans for total revenge. Here is where the SPOILERS start. Review: Reading this book feels like reading a story ...

Genre: Paranormal romance Year of publication: 2004 Setting & time: Toronto, Canada; present day Some themes: Love, jealousy, madness, sex Story: Rachel Garrett has been stuck on the night shift in the morgue for three years and thinks it sucks. A madman is stalking Etienne Argeneau and trying to kill him, 1) out of professional jealousy and, 2) because Etienne is a vampire and the stalker has watched too many episodes of Buffy . One night, after a nearly successful assassination, Etienne is brought to the morgue with a bullet in his heart and Rachel saves his life by pulling it out. The second time they meet is when he is again brought in, and this time the stalker has followed and when he tries to behead Etienne, Rachel gets in the way and is mortally wounded and Etienne turns her into a vampire to save her life. At first she is incredulous and thinks she must be comatose and dreaming, but then she begins to accept what has happened and she and Etienne enter into a sexual re...

Year published: 2004 Genre: Thriller Sub-genre(s): Fantasy (not Fantasy fantasy, just unrealistic enough to be called one) The Story: Seven women with something to avenge have formed a Sisterhood of revenge, aided by a former MI6 operative. In this second book in the series, Dr. Julia Webster, the wife of a senator who is about to be announced as the running mate to the next Democrat presidential candidate, serves up her revenge cold. The philandering husband has infected her with HIV and isn't even aware he has it. She also wants to punish the owners of an HMO who have been avoiding paying their subscribers' claims, resulting in the deaths of many who would have lived had they got the proper treatment. The party where the candidate will announce his running mate is the perfect place to grab the bad guys and start the punishment. But there is one snag: the former boyfriend of one of the women thinks they were involved in the disappearance of a woman who murdered her daught...

Author: Arthur Upfield Series detective: Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte No. in series: 20 Year of publication: 1956 Type of mystery: Murder, missing person Type of investigator: Police Setting & time: Nullarbor Plain, Australia, 1950’s Number of deaths: 1 Some themes: Kidnapping, fame-seeking, sexual power and it’s misuse, justice Story: Bony is sent to try to find a murderess who was recently acquitted of the murder of her husband because she managed to win over the jury. She was last seen on a train going through the Nullarbor Plain, an arid, desolate area on the edge of the Australian desert, and then she disappeared mysteriously in the middle of nowhere. There is evidence that she may be involved in espionage and therefore Bony disguises himself and sets out into the Plain, ostensibly to check on some dingo traps, but really to look around for signs of the missing woman and to try to locate a mysterious helicopter known to have been in the area that night. What he disco...

This time around I read three books for the review. Patricia Wentworth wrote about the same number of non-series mysteries/thrillers as she did Miss Silver books, but all I managed to get my hands on are Miss Silver stories, so the author review is based on them alone. (Typically, I came across some at the flea market on the weekend after I wrote the book reviews, but I’ll review them independently when I feel like reading them). Title: Grey Mask Series detective: Miss Maud Silver No. in series: 1 Year of publication: 1928 Type of mystery: General crime Type of investigator: Amateurs and private detective Setting & time: London, England, 1920’s Some themes: Blackmail, kidnapping, theft, murder Story: Charles Moray returns to England four years after his fiancé, Margaret Langton, jilted him, a week before their wedding. He discovers that she is a member of a secret society and that some of its members are planning to cause an heiress, Margot Standing, to lose her inheritanc...

I read three of Peters’ books: two non-series romantic mysteries, and the first book in the Amelia Peabody historical mystery series. I think I have got a pretty good sampling of her work. Peters also writes suspense stories under the name of Barbara Michaels, and I have one of those books in my TBR stash that I plan on reviewing. Title: Crocodile on the Sandbank No. in series: 1 Series detective: Amelia Peabody Year of publication: 1975 Availability: In print Type of mystery: Supernatural (?) Type of investigator: Amateur Setting & time: (mostly) Egypt, 1880’s Some themes: Archaeology, stalking, mummies, adventure, feminism, romance Story: Amelia Peabody, a spinster in her early 30’s, is left a considerable fortune by her father and decides to go on a Grand Tour of Europe and Egypt. In Italy she rescues a young, destitute English lady, Evelyn, who has been “ruined” (loss of sexual innocence without the blessings of marriage was a big deal for women in those days) and cru...

Author: Mary Janice Davidson Year published: 2004 Pages: 255 First in a series. The Story: Elizabeth “Betsy” Taylor is a talkative, shallow shoe-addict with an attitude that comes her in good steed but also causes problems when she is struck by a car and rises two days later as a vampire (read the book to find out why). The discovery that her stepmother has stolen all her designer shoes and intended to bury her wearing a pink suit (a colour she hates) and cheap shoes initially upsets her more than being dead. Everything indicates that she is the new Queen of the vampires: she can enter churches, touch crosses and say “God” without any discomfort; instead of burning her, holy water only makes her sneeze; daylight just makes her sleepy; and dogs and people are attracted to her like iron filings to a magnet. Not to mention that men get horny just looking at her, something she has never experienced before. She soon discovers that there are two vampire clans in the city: Nostradamus’s c...