Week of May 21

I read three good books this week, all purchased at Malice in April.

First up, Watch her by Edwin Hill.

The second Hester Thursby mystery. Hest, and her friend Detective Angela White are at a university function when another guest, Jennifer Mason, mentions their mansion has been broken into. Hester and Angela investigate and Hester begins to doubt the Matsons’s story. Investigation into finances connected to the university reveals financial malfeasance. How are they linked? A murder ramps up the urgency.

I really enjoy these mysteries, not least because Hester does a lot of research (she is a researcher) that reminds me strongly of library reference work.

The second book I read is An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris. I have enjoyed all of her works and this one does not disappoint.

The former United States has been broken up into five regions: Britannia (still allied with Great Britain), Dixie (the Southern States), Texoma (Texas and environs), New America, and the Holy Russian Empire (California, Oregon and Washington State). Lizbeth Rose is a gunnie from Texoma, a hired gun that signs onto crews tasked with transporting refugees from Texoma through the a bandit-ridden land to New America. This trip goes sideways and she is the only one remaining of the crew. She rescues the cargo and gets all of them but two alive to New America. Home again, she is hired for another job by rigors (Russian magic users) to find a descendent of Rasputin. A gory adventure. Highly recommended.

Finally, I read The Bone Track, the second in Sara E. Johnson’s New Zealand mysteries.

Alexa Glock is on vacation with her brother Charlie hiking in Fiordland National Park. They are independent hikers, hiking from hut to hut, under rainy conditions with regular landslides.

If that were not excitement enough, Alexa, running from a landslide, stumbles across a body revealed by the shifting early. She goes into forensic investigator mode and photographs the skeleton and takes evidence. While she is so involved, a helicopter carrying a bag of bulk rocks tries to kill her by dropping the bulk bag on her.

Simultaneously, one of the luxe hikers is missing. Alexa and her brother find it smashed on the rocks below a swing bridge over a gorge. Then Alexa discovers the marks of hiking poles used to push the victim off the cliff in her back.

Highly Recommended for both the mystery and the setting.