kay's week - 1.21.17

Happy Saturday everyone!  Hope your week has been peaceful...and that's all I'll say about that.  Me, I'm all about the books.


I've been reading...

I finished 4 books this week, 3 in print/e-book and 1 on audio.  What a lovely week!

I shared The Chalk Pit by Elly Griffiths as a 'Waiting on Wednesday' selection last week.  I had been lucky enough to get an advance copy of this much anticipated new entry into the Ruth Galloway series and I decided that I indeed 'could not wait'.  This book won't come out in the US until late May and I think in the UK next month.  What I will say is that I was very happy with it!  I know that some feel that Griffiths has a little bit too much about the characters' personal lives and too little mystery.  I understand that feeling, but it's not one that I share.  Honestly, I read this series as much for the characters and their lives as I do for the crime solving.  The Chalk Pit has a lot about 'rough sleepers' or 'homeless' people.  There is a lot of compassion shown toward those individuals.  Ruth and company go below the ground into the tunnels that apparently exist from chalk mining.  There are dead bodies, bones, secrets, and 'wee Kate'.  What more could you want?  Hoping all who love Ruth and Nelson and Cathbad and Judy and Clough and 'wee Kate' will be pleased.

Next, I finished Peter Swanson's new book, Her Every Fear, on audio.  I had read this last year as a paperback advance copy, but decided to listen to it as well.  Eva Kaminsky was the narrator and she did an excellent job.  I was a big, big fan of Swanson's previous book, The Kind Worth Killing, and though I think this one was not quite as much of a favorite, it was still very good.  Kate is a person with lots of fears.  She always has been.  And then things keep happening to her - like being assaulted and stalked by an old boyfriend.  She comes from her home in London to Boston in an apartment swap with a distant cousin.  The first thing that occurs - a dead body next door.  She meets some 'interesting' neighbors and becomes more and more convinced that perhaps her cousin has some secrets.  Swanson's fascination with Hitchcock and his movies is again apparent as this book has some elements of Rear Window.  There were a couple of things here that raised the hair on my neck - very, very scary.  Pick it up.  Read it!

All Men Fear Me by Donis Casey was my next book and I loved it!  It's the 8th book in a historical mystery series that is not nearly as well known as it should be, in my opinion.  Alafair and Shaw Tucker live in Boynton, Oklahoma in the early part of the 1900's.  They have 10 living children, several in-laws, grandchildren, and are related to many people in their area, including the sheriff.  Each book has focused a bit on one or another of the children, along with the parents and crime and Alafair's ability to land herself right in the middle of things.  This book is mostly Charlie's book (age 16), though the effect that World War One has had on Oklahoma and the US in general, plus the other Tucker family members is apparent.  You know, some things never change.  I'm not sure I was aware of quite how divided opinions were about the US entering WWI, but this author has done her research and included some very pithy quotes to begin each chapter.  This book is about fear and patriotism and sabotage and murder.  This series gets better and better.

After devouring All Men Fear Me, I delved right in to the next and most current book in Donis Casey's series, The Return of the Raven Mocker, which was published earlier this month.  As I shared on Tuesday, it's set in 1918 and lets us know what's happened to the Tucker family during war time.  Mostly, it's about the flu epidemic and how it affects Boynton and Oklahoma and the Tuckers.  After my recent bout of flu, it was interesting to me.  Alafair is a farm wife and a skilled amateur healer.  She has experience with 10 children and has nursed many family members through illness.  She has her own opinions about remedies and how to best keep this severe flu from spreading.  After Alice and Walter, her daughter and son-in-law, are stricken, Alafair moves to town to nurse them, while placing her younger children and grandchildren in quarantine with Mary, another daughter.  Flu spreads rapidly through the town and people are sick and some die.  The people in the house next door to Alice have flu, but when two of them die and it turns out they were poisoned, Alafair tells the sheriff and his deputy what she has observed.  I loved this book, but will say that it was not a very complicated mystery to solve.  I enjoyed reading more about the way that a pandemic was dealt with and also was interested in some of the 'home remedies' that the author shared at the end of the book.  Remedies that I remember my own grandmother using.  Again, I love the characters and setting!


I've watched...

Still haven't watched the last Sherlock for this season.  We did record it, but there have been a lot of football and basketball games that took priority.  I've continued watching a bit of Foyle's War, but I've decided to also start watching Midsomer Murders.  I'll begin at the beginning, but there are a number of episodes that I've never watched.  I noticed that Miguel Ferrer, lately starring on NCIS Los Angeles, passed away.  My hubby and I had felt that he looked so gaunt and ill this year on that show.  He had throat cancer or so I read.  I liked him on this show and also on Crossing Jordan a number of years ago.  Always found it interesting that his mother was Rosemary Clooney, which would make George his cousin.


Personally...

A quiet week for us.  I've walked and starting working on getting things together for taxes.  I'm going to expand my volunteer work at my previous workplace, a branch of the Austin Public Library.  They need someone to shelve books one morning a week.  That should suit me just fine and will be a bit more than just working with the mystery book group once a month.  I'm also going to join the 'Friends' of another local library that I use more often to check out books.  They have a book sale twice a year that I've enjoyed attending and I've purchased many books there.  Maybe if I work the sale, I won't buy many books.  What do you think?  Probably not...Ha!  Have a great week!