Bro Code

Looking back at the first mystery in this series, The Baker Street Letters, its hard to believe that I read it in 2009. THat being said, at the time I found it a disappointment. again I went in assuming things, my Achilles heel if I ever had one. The premise was that Reggie and Nigel Heath share law offices at 221B Baker Street, the former address of the world's most famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. Reggie is the dependable hardworking lawyer (barrister in Brit talk) while Nigel is the...how to put it delicately? Better not even try, lets stick with less than reliable barrister. His job consists of answering the letters that still arrive for Sherlock Holmes, a requirement in their lease of the building. I was expecting a good old fashioned British cozy, and what I got was more of a shoot 'em up thriller/Western mostly set in L.A. and rather depressing at points. I was reluctant to dip my toe in again, however I'm glad I did because I finally got what I was looking for the first time around.

This story had all the hallmarks of a good mystery, false identities, red herrings, car chases, gun fights, crazy people, and of course Sherlock Holmes. The descendants of Professor Moriarty show up (who knew the crazy old guy procreated)? It was fast paced, funny and there was even a particularly good scene where our damsel in distress Laura dangles from Tower Bridge, sweet huh? The characters, which were the one saving grace in the first installment come back strong, even though it is painfully obvious this book is written by a man at some points. In Robertson's defense he does try very hard to make his character seem very sensitive, even if it doesn't always work or make sense. This was my gym book for the past two weeks and I have to say it kept me on the elliptical which not many a tale can, bravo Mr. Holmes.

Blew Moon

My other copy room bookshelf find this one didn't rank quite as high as Pearl Cove did, however it wasn't too bad. I confess that the beginning pulled me in, then my interest tapered off as the book went on. Thea the heroine is seduced into running off with a fortune hunter, who then rapes her in order to ensure that she has to marry him. When her brother shows up to defend her honor and take her home, they duel and both are killed. Ten years later Thea is notorious, a wealthy woman who lives on her own. Her reputation has sullied any chance of marriage and forced her younger half sister to marry a gambler and lout (great word isn't it? I like lout). 

Enter Patrick Blackburn an American planter from Natchez, Mississippi (a less sexier hometown I've never heard of, it ain't exactly Tara) recently arrived and visiting his mother who left his father alone in America to return to her beloved London. Remind anyone of Legends of the Fall? Me! His mother is being blackmailed about a youthful indiscretion and when he goes to deal with the situation who does he run into but Thea, literally, who is also being blackmailed by her loser brother-in-law to cover his gambling debts. She runs off into the night after hitting him. By a strange coincidence someone else has it in for bad bro and knocks Patrick out and slits bro's throat. A fine pickle everyone finds themselves in, and so the story goes.

The concept is good and the story held my attention for the most part, however the character development fell off in places especially in terms of secondary characters. Often people would pop in and out with no apparent purpose and often characters would suddenly have a huge scene or play a big role in the plot but you weren't really sure why or where the hell they came from. In my opinion this hurt the story, I like to know all the gritty details, or at least feel like I know exactly where I am and what everyone is about. In this case it felt incomplete. Good general plot, but it could have been better if the characters were better.

Going Rogue

I come from Rhode Island, somebody had to. Okay I blatantly stole that from Bill Bryson in The Lost Continent, however it is, in a way, true. I have been asked more times than I care to admit if Rhode Island is the long island off New York. Seriously. If you ever needed a scathing indictment of the American education system, there it is. People don't even know that where I come from is a state most of the time, so when I see a book someone has actually written about it I have to read it.

Now I must confess that I have read other books either totally or partially set in Rhode Island that frankly are not written by anyone with a true knowledge of the place. They might have read about it or be cross referencing from other stories, but its clear they don't know the nature of the beast. Bruce DeSilva, a former writer for the Providence Journal (known by locals as the ProJo) is very familiar with the best. 

Rogue Island is a noir with a down on his luck journalist Liam Mulligan, at its center. He knows every street in the city  of Providence, and almost every person on it. He comes from Rhode Island and isn't afraid to let his freak flag fly. Investigating an ugly and dirty series of arsons in his home neighborhood of Mount Hope the story is full of wonderfully gritty realism. The framework of a traditional noir is there, the plot and the dialogue, however its crossed with a more modern streetwise flavor reminiscent of Scorsese or Tarentino. Every review I have read of this book is a hit. Fans of the genre will love it regardless of its setting, and those who live in the setting will love it even more. Its a slightly warped love letter, but then again all the best love stories are.

Gypsies, Tramps, and Theives

God bless whoever the first woman was that decided they could take something as inherantly unsexy as a gypsy (or their PC name Romany) and make it into something we pant over. THe dark hair, the broodying eyes, the definace, their rebel without a cause. They sleep out under the stars and can wear fringe and still be masculine! Hot damn. I'm pretty sure the same woman did the PR for pirates, which are pretty disgusting if you really think about it, and made it into Captain Jack Sparrow AKA Johnny Depp.

Mine Till Midnight is the first of the 2 Hathaway sister stories involving gypsies. The second Seduce Me At Sunrise I had already read, however this one was unavailable at the time and I saw it while wandering by the paperbacks. I also gave you the peep show, the cover and the insert page. Enjoy the gypsy goodness. Cam Rohan, the gypsy in question has gone civilized which makes him an outcast to his people. He tries to act the tough guy, but he's really a big softie. The only remote gypsy like personality trait he retains is the rape and pillage tendency, again not normally sexy but it works.

As always the Hathaways provide some good entertainment, and this one is especially interesting because they throw it down old style. It gives you the dirty details of the real dark days when Leo was falling down drunk and Win was half dead in the falling down bee-infested estate. The other three books are all set a few years later so it gives you a different perspective.

In terms of the romance its a little fast paced and ridiculous. If anything it seems like a much more modern anti-courtship, where Bea Hathaway gets tired of cleaning up other peoples messes and relieves her stress with dirty gypsy sex, lots of dirty gypsy sex. Not that I'm complaining, in fact its quite enjoyable. The romance itself falls to a distant second, as usual  the family drama but that is part of this series' charm. Overall a vast improvement over Love In The Afternoon with a better story and much more enjoyable character interactions.

The City That Care Forgot

I've never been to New Orleans, but then again I feel like its one of those places that you know even if you've never boon there. I've seen Easy Rider and tripped out in St. Louis cemetery No. 1, Interview with the Vampire and seen how the wealthy nocturnal citizens live. Penelope Williamson's Mortal Sins and Wages of Sin give a gritty and damp trip down every street and alley. C.S. Graham's Tobie Guiness and her weird remote viewing talents live in a shotgun in the Irish Cannel. I rode a Streetcar Named Desire with Stella, and Stanley, and Blanche. Then there was Christopher Rice's debut novel, A Density of Souls that was an eerie foreshadowing of the apocalyptic times to come in the wake of Katrina and Rita. That, we've all seen and even five years later the evidence lingers. 

That being said I have never been a huge Anne Rice fan. I saw the movie of Interview with the Vampire before I read the book and I liked it, the book I thought was really slow. I got maybe five chapters in the The Vampire Lestat (I remember siting in a HoneyDew Donuts near the URI campus reading it and eating a maple donut, weird don't ask me why the vivid memory) and got bored with it, I thought the rock star thing was just silly. I also tried to work my way through her new books (well not so new now) about Christ the Lord and frankly they still weren't good enough to hold my attention. Having read all about The Witching Hour, the first hefty tome in the Mayfair Witches saga I may give it a whirl, though every literary review warns against it. Nine hundred plus pages is a big commitment.

As for the travel guide itself, meh. She has to spend so much time explaining the geography that her actual descriptions of the locations fall short. Other than that some slight organizational make it difficult to navigate. Now I have gone this distance on sightseeing many times, my friend Alyssa is still bitter about me dragging her to the In Cold Blood house, however Joy Dickinson goes beyond stalker and I actually felt a little guilty at times reading about the author's "investigations" into the true Anne Rice stories of the city. Maybe I'm a creepy stalker to, just for reading it, whatever, if I go to the Big Easy, believe me it'll be for the beignets at Cafe du Monde.  

Pearls of Wisdom

So working in a new school you need to find your way around. Granted there are only a few really necessary things you need to locate : a working toilet, a refrigerator, a microwave, the supply closet, and the copy machine. While scoping out the copy machine I scanned the inevitable collection of crap that tends to accumulate over the years in such a communal space. Scrap paper, really old magazines, catalogues for those terrible at home parties (Tastefully Simple, Pampered Chef, etc.), angry notices about how to change the toner, and a bookshelf. Such bookshelves are a treasure, because they are the home of the lost book. Some are discards from the school library that have been salvaged, some are donated, others simply are picked up from the hallway floor and make a home their. I love these kinds of bookshelves, and it is where I found Pearl Cove.

I had read one other Elizabeth Lowell novel, or rather closer to a novella called Outlaw. Not being much for cowboys I wasn't blown away by it, and found the repressed sexuality as a result of date rape a little heavy, incongruously heavy for the subject matter. I must confess however that I really like Pearl Cove. First aside from either the romance story between Hannah and Archer or the mystery of who murdered Len, Hannah's husband and Archer's half-brother or the thriller-style race to find the missing Black Trinity necklace...I just found it an interesting book to read in terms of back story.  

Romances are notorious for being cookie cutter, falling into neat categories; Regency, Western, Paranormal, Medieval... the list goes on and on. Trends come in and out of fashion, however when you're writing something as mundane as boy-meets-girl and they have sex and fall in love, what sets it apart are the details. I'm never one to put a book down because of historical or factual inaccuracies (regardless of how much they irritate me) however it definitely colors my opinion of the work as a whole. Going in I knew nothing about pearl farming or the pearl trade and I have to say I was very impressed with the amount of research that Elizabeth Lowell must have done, because it was so real and so exact that it almost eclipsed the other elements of the story. Bottom line, it was fascinating to read, because she got the details right, or at least damn close. 

Having not read the other Donovan family stories I can't say how Pearl Cove compares, however it seems like a solid set of ideas for a series, even if the Donovans aren't quite as cool as Jo Beverly's Mallorens. There is a certain spy school, trained assassin element that at time is a little far fetched but Lowell doesn't overplay that hand too much. The romance runs hot an cold, but it is eventually satisfying and there is a rough-and-tumble, thunder down under appeal to the sex. The line "if you want sex or protection press six" is also a real winner in my estimation. In the end Pearl Cove is a sailboat book, its not about the destination, its about the journey to get there. The way the story develops along the way is this books greatest strength, and character development, while slow is eventually pretty solid. I'm tempted to have another go at Elizabeth Lowell, I'll have to do some more shopping in the copy room.

Every Time A Bell Rings....

It cannot be understated, Mary Balogh must be doing some serious thinking about the dichotomy of good and evil, because the angel-devil obsession in this novel is enough to send you over to the dark side. I have to admit, it has not been a good year for me and romances so far, and this was nothing different. Though a look at other reviews seems to show I am not alone. Cassandra, our heroine, is a widow who barely survived an abusive marriage and was accused of her husband's murder and cut off without a penny by his heir. She and her rag tag group of followers (companions, maids, illegitimate children, one eyed dogs, clowns... no wait were there actual clowns?) are on the verge of being out on the street. So she remakes her old dress, Scarlett O'Hara style (minus the drapes) and goes off to find herself a rich protector.

Stephen, an earl and the title angel (who by the by is way less cool than Clarence in It's A Wonderful Life) is blonde and wealthy. He stumbles over Cassandra (literally) and get pulled into her web of lust and deceit. However he regains his conscience after a bout of very lackluster sex (I think they enjoyed it, I'm only speaking for myself, I found it very lackluster) and sets about saving her and making an honest woman out of this soiled dove.

There were really no redeeming qualities to this book. Every word that came out of their mouths sounded like a public service announcement, protesting for equal rights and challenging sin. The Regency detail was non-existent, in fact much of the story was historically off base, some of it by decades. The character's were frustrating and had few endearing qualities and the central mystery, of who killed Cassandra's husband... well to be honest I don't think anyone, even those involved gave a shit. I'm not one for saying books are worthless, but for Seducing an Angel, I'll make an exception. If Stephen had been the angel assigned to George Bailey, I guarantee he would have jumped.