The Land of the Blind by Barbara Nadel
Last night I finished reading The Land of the Blind by Barbara Nadel. It’s part of a series about a Turkish cop, Ikmen, and his colleagues. I find this series both brilliant and fascinating. It’s an opportunity for me to travel without leaving my house.
This particular book starts with a Greek archaeologist being found dead, presumed murdered, inside an ancient Byzantine building. She has recently given birth but the baby is missing.
Soon Ikmen is lead to an old Greek house with an old woman, her likewise old Turkish servant and a younger man who is supposedly her formerly lost son returned after forty years from abroad.
At the same time, a motley crew of gays, lesbians, trans people, Muslims against Capitalism and an assortment of others, have gathered in a park in Istanbul to protect it from developers. For a while it becomes almost like a carnival, but then the police gathers – and that’s not the educated Istanbul police, but what are referred to as young men coming from ‘some nameless hole’ on the Turkish/Anatolian mainland. Barely literate, they are loyal to the Islamic regime and are looking forward to clearing out the progressives.
Unfortunately for Ikmen he has a trans cousin and a son in the park and his new sergeant has a sister who as a nurse finds it hard to leave people at the protest, as long as they need her.
Many fascinating characters come to life in this book, and a number of old mysteries are dug up.
This is a well written, fascinating book which makes it clear that the author knows Turkey extremely well and has the ability to make it come alive for the reader. I’d definitely recommend it to someone who enjoys a good mystery with many historical facts.
Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
I just finished reading Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich. As the name hints, it’s the nineteenth book in the series about Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter in New Jersey.
This book actually felt a little more serious than the others. No less humorous but still, it dealt with some really serious and creepy issues.
Stephanie is busy chasing a man who’s disappeared from the hospital, just after it was found out that he’d embezzled money from the home for the elderly where he worked. The old people weren’t happy so there was no shortage of potential killers. However, it turns out he’s at least the fourth person to disappear without a trace from the same hospital in the past couple of years.
That’s not all, though. Ranger wants Stephanie to be his ‘date’ for a dinner and later on to be matron of honor on a wedding between a former ‘brother-in-arms’ of his and his wife. In other words, Stephanie is to provide additionally security for the bride-to-be.
She’s forced to endure a horrible pink bridesmaid’s dress and on that first dinner she also gets poisoned. A psycho leaves threatening messages everywhere and it seems the psycho is targeting Ranger, his old buddy and their loved ones.
The book is still funny, as I mentioned above, and the creepiness never takes over, but it felt a little different from the other even more lighthearted books in the series.
And I’m still having fun, so I’m going to read the next book. If that too lives up to my expectations, I might continue with the whole series. Fun is important, especially in times like these.
The Chocolate Kiss-Off by Heather Haven
I just finished The Chocolate Kiss-Off by Heather Haven. Just like the two earlier books in the series, I found this one interesting and well written.
As usual, someone has been found murdered under slightly ‘odd’ circumstances, in this case drowned in a big pot for making chocolate – what a waste ;). The murder victim was the owner of the chocolate factory or shop. Apparently, she sold both wholesale and directly in her shop.
In this book New York has been hit by a blizzard and is very cold and it’s a bit hard to get around. Percy (the main character) is on her own, because her father, and only colleague in the private investigating business is away on a war-related case – trying to find a group of spies. She already has two cases when a really good friend of hers, who makes chocolate, is accused of murdering his boss. So she hires another friend, or in this case the father of her son’s friend, to take over the older cases.
I won’t mention more about the actual case, but in this book, her eight-year-old son wants to know more about his father, who Percy thinks of as Leo the Louse (which tells you something about him). She’s forced to take time out of her busy schedule to find out where he is and what he’s doing. Again, I won’t go into what she learns, but anything to do with her ex a sensitive topic for her.
I have probably said this before about this series, but if so I’ll say it again – I like that it’s historic. The dialect or jargon reminds me of old movies I’ve seen and that’s fun.
Maybe I should add a few things I don’t like quite as much. To begin with, as many of my followers know, I’m a vegan and Percy is exceptionally fond of meat in all forms. She basically hates anything else. I know this is part of the historic context, that people ate a lot more meat, so I’m trying to ignore it. The other thing is that Percy is a little bit full of herself. She feels superior to her mother and sister, for instance and tends to make snap decisions about people she meets and if they fail her high standards, she will think less of them.
To some extent, I can understand that, but I do feel she’s a little unfair to her mother. Of course it is a bit weird to cook such odd mixtures of candy and potatoes or fruit and vegetables. Some people like that sort of thing, so I suppose it’s not completely unheard of. I’d find it odd, but since Percy’s not about to start cooking for the whole family, maybe she should give her mom a break. Also, her sister Sera is only just 20. Percy is about 35. Of course she find Sera immature and tiresome at times. That doesn’t have to mean that Sera is a bad person. I think Percy should give her sister a break too, but that’s just me.
Finally, the cover art is a bit amateurish, I’m sorry to say, but maybe I pay more attention because I’m in the business, no matter how modestly.
None of this is enough to spoil my enjoyment of the series as a whole. If you enjoy historic mysteries that aren’t too scary or gory, then I think you’d like this series too. I love this old-fashioned world where people are nice to each other most of the time, despite all the meat eating and smoking and so on.
Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
I just finished Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich and all I can say is that this was just as funny as most of the other books. The book starts out with a ilttle mystery. Stephanie has just returned from Hawaii where she had a little trouble – guy trouble. You don’t know exactly what’s happened until later in the book, but I’ll just say it’s not that surprising when you do find out. Just funny.
A case sort of follows her from Hawaii and from then on Stephanie is tailed by a multitude of real and not so real FBI agents. That too, gets a bit funny.
But those men are not the only ones stalking Stephanie. She has to put up with unwanted company from a number of other people, but that too, of course, leads to funny situations.
Which is basically what this series is all about. There is of course a case and some bounties to collect, but to me this series is all about the humor and it works. It’s about the only thing that can make me laugh these days and I’m really grateful for that.
So, like I usually say, this isn’t primarily a series of books for the mystery or thriller lover but for those who like the idea of a sort of mystery that is really, really funny. Or I guess, for anyone wanting to laugh.
It is quite a bit about sex too, but there’s nothing explicit so I think most people won’t have a problem with it.
Smoking Seventeen by Janet Evanovich
I just finished reading Smoking Seventeen, by Janet Evanovich, which as you can probably guess is the seventeenth book in the series about Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter.
In this book, Stephanie is helping her boss Vinnie to find out who is burying dead bodies where his bounty hunter business used to lie – it is now being rebuilt, or at least that’s the assumption.
Stephanie has a new or almost new problem to deal with too – her off and on boyfriend Joe Morelli’s grandmother has put the evil eye on her. In this case it means Stephanie is going to start smelling like cabbage, get boils all over her face and get ‘vordo’ which apparenty means becoming sexually insatiable. Unfortunately, it looks as if grandma Bella is actually successful. Stephanie does get sauerkraut in her hair when she’s with Lula getting lunch and a huge zit appears on her forehead looking a lot like a boil waiting to happen and – for whatever reason – she does experience a change in her libido.
There isn’t all that much more to add to my earlier reviews of these books. The book was funny. I love that, because I really, really need to laugh right now.
The only downside was that this one was a bit predictable. It was really easy to guess who the killer was, but since the actual criminal case isn’t all there is to a book like this, it doesn’t matter too much.
Dark Fire by C J Sansom
I just finished reading Dark Fire by C J Sansom. Since I love historic books, I really liked this one. It was well written and well researched (at least it seems that way, I can’t say I have enough knowledge to be absolutely sure).
The main characters are likeable enough (at least Matthew Shardlake, the ‘main’ main character). There’s a new guy working as his assistant, and he’s a bit brusque and rude at times, but after a while I got more used to him. It turns out he had good personality traits too.
Matthew Shardlake is once again (like in book 1) forced to help Cromwell with an important matter, but he also investigates another case. The latter is a very dark and serious case, and I must admit that I found it hard to read about, since it involves something I have a lot of trouble handling. To avoid any spoilers I won’t say more about that or for that matter the Cromwell case either.
It’s just a very interesting book from a turbulent time that I haven’t read all that much about in the past so it was fun to learn more about it.
I read the first book several years ago, in Swedish translation and I found it rather dull then (despite being a historic book), but maybe that was due to the translation or – I don’t know. This just seemed a lot more interesting, despite the upsetting subject matter.
Iced Diamonds by Heather Haven
I found this series last year, I think and I liked it. It’s historic which is always something I appreciate. The main characters are more or less sympathetic which is another plus as far as I’m concerned. Finally, the cases aren’t too predictable which is a big problem to me. Some Swedish bestselling books, particularly mysteries are extremely predictable, but after I was told that if I criticize them, I’m ‘envious’ of these bestselling authors (which for the record I am not), I’m not going to mention their titles or the name of the authors.
So, anyway, this book is set just before Christmas in New York in the 1940’s (during WWII). Percy Cole, the private investigator, gets a case that promises some much needed money for herself and her family. An elf has been found murdered, not in the store where he was working, but in another. The daughter of the man who owns the store (where the body was found) is accused of the murder. The store owner hires Percy to keeph is daughter out of jail. So far everything’s very simple. Of course there’s a bit more to the case than that, but after putting some effort into it, Percy manages to solve it.
This book could have done with a bit more proofreading, because I found almost as many errors as I would in an ebook, but other than that I don’t really have anything negative to say about it.
I can recommend this series to anyone who likes historic straightforward old-fashioned mysteries.
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
These books are lifesavers. Even now when I’m not in a very good mood, most of these books can still get me in a better mood at least for a time. In fact, this might be one of my very favorites among the Stephanie Plum-mysteries. Actually, as anyone who’s read even one of these books knows, they’re a bit more comedy than mystery. Sure there’s action too, but it’s not the kind of action that has you on the edge of your seat. The reason this is probably one of my favorites is that there is a LOTR connection. I’ll just mention one word HOBBITS!
Other than that, Stephanie’s boss at the bonds office/bounty hunter headquarters, Vinnie the pervert, has been abducted, but that turns out to be just the beginning of everyone’s troubles.
Also, Stephanie has inherited a supposedly lucky red glass bottle, so that gets taken along on all assignments for a while. That’s not all there is to the bottle either but you only find that out at the very end.
Stink bombs also play a part in this book.
As most of the other books in the series, this one is full of fun, sex and action. I don’t think I’ll need to go into more about the plot because as you might know, plot is the least part of these books. Sure, it works fine, there’s nothing to complain about when it comes to the plot, but there’s so much more to the series than that.
If you need cheering up read one book or more in this series. In fact, even if you don’t, you’ll probably enjoy it anyway. I might not want to continue reading this series forever, but so far I haven’t found any reason to stop, so I’m going to read the next couple of books as well, at least.
The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
I always intended to review these two books (I’ll do them together, since it’s series), but I had a feeling I hadn’t done it yet and I was right.
So, here goes.
I love this series of books, even though I have only read the first two books so far. Hopefully, I’ll soon be able to read more.
This ‘universe’ is absolutely wonderful. I’ll just mention a few fantastic aspects of it:
Literature, books and authors are taken very seriously. There are gangs that clash because they favour two different authors, like football hooligans. The police has a special department (a huge one) that deals with literary fraud. Classic theatre is also huge – they have fan plays, played by fans who love the play and the shows run for years on end.
There’s time travel and the plots deal with time paradoxes.
Some lucky people can enter a book (the plot, not merely the physical copy) and visit or live out their lives in between the major plot points.
However, there are few things that I don’t love quite as much. For instance, there are vampires and werewolves. Not my thing at all.
The main character, Tuesday Next, is – well, to be honest, before I really got into the book, I automatically assumed she was a guy. She doesn’t come across as a female character.
Not that any of this takes away from the enjoyment of the books.
Some people find it hard to classify exactly what genre these books belong to. To some it seems to be a weird sort of mystery, others see it as fantasy or science fiction. I was a bit concerned about the style – in some cases, where books are very hyped and seem to belong to a special or different sort of genre, I have actually hated the writing – such as the Lemony Snicket series. But this, really works. Even though there’s a sort of literary or fandom-related reference in almost every sentence, it never bothers the flow of the plot. If I get it (I don’t get all of them, I think) I love them. But the plot still moves at a fast pace.
My advice is that if you think you might enjoy this type of book, try to read an excerpt on Amazon or wherever you usually buy your books. If you like the first chapter, you’ll love the rest of it too. I imagine that most book lovers would, but it’s actually quite hard to tell. Since I joined the specific book sites online, I’ve come across many people who love books as much as I do, but still love completely different genres or writing styles, so apparently there’s a huge difference between one book lover and another.
In any case, I love these books, so if you have liked my other reviews, you might enjoy this series too, that’s my best guess.
Finger-Lickin’ Fifteen by Stephanie Plum
It’s been a while now since I finished Finger-Lickin Fifteen by Janet Evanovich and I thought I’d post some impressions.
I’ll start out with the blurb:
New Jersey bail-bonds office worker Lula is a witness to celebrity chef, Stanley Chipotle, losing his head, literally. Now Lula and Stephanie Plum, a bond enforcement officer, are on the hunt to identify the killers before Lula is next on the chopping block. Meantime, security expert Carlos Manoso, aka Ranger, has recruited Stephanie for a top secret mission. Someone on the inside at Rangeman is leaking client information, determined to bring the company down. Can Stephanie hunt down a killer, a traitor, and keep her Grandma out of the sauce?
Most of these books are extremely funny and distracting. This one was no exception. It may not be one of the best in the Stephanie Plum series, but it was at least good enough to keep my thoughts occupied while I read it.
I’ve had a bit of bad luck with these books lately. Twice I’ve made a mistake and bought the same book over again. Twice also, I’ve found that a book I’ve bought wasn’t quite as funny as most of the others. Still, no harm done, at least in the latter case. Like I said, they’re at least funny enough.
As far as the plot is concerned, they’re all quite similar, and they’re more humor than mystery, but that’s ok. I really enjoy reading this series and I’m glad I’ll be able to keep reading it for a while more.
If this sounds appealing, then I can really recommend this series.
