Dec 22 2017
Time for some short takes, to mostly clear the desk for the coming year. The Inexplicables by Cherie Priest. In the fourth of her five Clockwork Century novels, Priest takes a stab at telling her story mostly from the point of view of an unsympathetic narrator. Rector Sherman is an addict, hooked on the “sap,” …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/22/wrapping-up-2/
Dec 16 2017
So, full disclaimer, Ovidia Yu sent me this herself as we’ve developed a quite friendly professional relationship. I super love her Aunty Lee mystery series, feeling it’s gone from strength to strength as the series progresses, so I was quite thrilled to receive the first in Ms Yu’s new series. The setting is terrific — …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/16/the-frangipani-tree-mystery-crown-colony-1-by-ovidia-yu/
Dec 06 2017
Y’all that was messed up. I’m a fan of mysteries from way back and have read or watched nearly every type of depravity imaginable, and the reason why Cora Bender, innocuous middle-class housewife, slashes the throat of a stranger on a crowded beach still strikes me as fuuuuuuucked up, even as it is thoroughly convincing. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/06/the-sinner-by-petra-hammesfahr/
Nov 17 2017
The premise of this novel is so inherently flawed that the fact that it convinced me of Richard III’s innocence by the end is quite the achievement. Essentially a re-examining of the history of one of England’s most vilified regents, it begins because a bedridden Inspector Grant refuses to believe that such a “sensitive” face …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/17/the-daughter-of-time-inspector-grant-5-by-josephine-tey/
Nov 13 2017
I don’t think it’s weird of me to have a girl crush on Krysten Ritter after reading this book, given how phenomenally talented she is in the fields I care most about professionally: acting and writing (I would be completely unsurprised if she was also terrific at waitressing and corporate training, but then I’m just …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/13/bonfire-by-krysten-ritter/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/03/tom-sawyer-detective-by-mark-twain/
Oct 22 2017
Another excellent installment in the Gamache series, tho certainly not the best. The format is very clever: it opens in a scorching midsummer, where an unnamed defendant is on trial for a murder committed the previous winter in Three Pines, Gamache’s beloved village home. Gamache is on the witness stand as the star witness for …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/22/glass-houses-chief-inspector-armand-gamache-13-by-louise-penny/
Oct 13 2017
Okay, I love the idea of this book. And when I started reading it, it was just as charming as advertised (and who doesn’t need more Sendhil Ramamurthy in their lives?) The twists and turns are entertaining (with one very large exception that I’ll get to in a minute) and Adi Tantimedh’s inclusion of a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/13/her-nightly-embrace-ravi-pi-1-by-adi-tantimedh/
Aug 26 2017
I reviewed the entire series for work a few months back so you can imagine how startled I was to discover that I’d not only never read this but hadn’t the slightest notion of its existence till I was scrolling through my library website for the latest in the series. Given that it doesn’t really …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/08/26/the-hangman-chief-inspector-armand-gamache-6-5-by-louise-penny/
Jul 09 2017
Due diligence for work! I didn’t like this quite as much as I enjoyed the Max Revere books I’ve read so far, most likely because there is So Much Backstory alluded to here that it doesn’t feel like the start of a series but the continuation of some other book I can’t quite figure out. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/07/09/love-me-to-death-lucy-kincaid-1-by-allison-brennan/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire