One Perfect Grave

What a great book!  This tight, psychological thriller kept me on the edge of my seat.  One Perfect Grave begins when the remains of two bodies are found in an open grave along a highway in Stillwater, Minnesota.  FBI Special Agent Nikki Hunt knows exactly who they are.  The bright blue jacket lying on the frozen ground belongs to Kellan Rhodes, the missing boy that she has been desperately trying to find for the last two days.  The other body is his mother Dana, who had been Nikki's main suspect.  Dana had lost custody of Kellan several years earlier due to her drug use.  Although the wounds on Dana's body suggest that she murdered her son and then committed suicide, Nikki finds evidence that suggests Dana was a victim too.  Dana was trying to regain custody of Kellan and Nikki finds boot prints at the scene that belong to someone else. When another child is reported missing, local journalist Caitlin Newport claims that the cases are linked.  Zach Reeves was taken away from his own mother in a custody battle, just as Kellan was.

This is the second book in the Nikki Hunt series, following last year's The Girls in the Snow.  I knew it would be a great read because The Girls was fabulous.  I was not disappointed.  The suspense began on the first page and continued until the ending which surprised me somewhat.  I was not expecting the plot to go in the direction that it did.  The setting is Minnesota during the winter.  This is the same setting as The Girls in the Snow and I wonder whether winter will be a theme in all of the books in the series.  The author grew up in Minnesota and is well familiar with its weather patterns.  Finding a dead body frozen in the snow is not unusual for Minnesota.  

The pace was fast but not as fast as The Girls in the Snow.  The Girls was more of a thriller than One Perfect Grave because of the pacing.  However, this one was just as good.  The clues and twists kept me guessing who the killer might be throughout my reading of the book. The Nikki character is a strong woman.  She shares custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, just as the mothers of the two missing/dead boys did.  This link to Nikki's private life was strong enough to make me think that perhaps her own daughter would go missing also  (she didn't). It certainly gave her the impetus to solve the crimes quickly. 

Highly recommended.  5 out of 5 stars! 

The Easter Sepulcre

I had already read three of Mel Starr's books in his Hugh de Singleton series before picking up this novel. Easter Sepulcher was fantastic as were the previous three books.  I really need to finish reading this series because I know that I will love them all.

Easter Sepulchre opens with several priest's clerks guarding the Easter Sepulcher, where the host and crucifix are stored between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. An Easter Sepulcher is a niche in the wall of a church where the host and a crucifix are placed on Good Friday and removed on Easter Sunday.  A velvet cloth is placed over it.  It is a privilege to keep watch over it so it is shocking when it is discovered that a priest's clerk named Odo has abandoned his post.  When the cover is removed on Easter Sunday in front of the congregation a dead man's body is there along with the host and crucifix.  It is Odo.  Surgeon Hugh de Singleton is called upon to investigate the death.  Hugh is also the bailiff to the powerful Lord Gilbert.

This story has alot of action.  There are thefts and more dead bodies piling up. Hugh organizes several all-night stakeouts in order to determine who the killer might be. The pace is quick which makes this a fast read. The characters are quite interesting, especially a homeless, mute holy man who lives in a run down cabin in the forest. At first he seems a little sketchy but it turns out that he has noticed much of what happens outside during the late hours when he goes out for walks.  Hugh's medical skills are interesting. Given that this story takes place in the medieval era, he uses poultices to draw out bacteria. The food consumed by the characters has a prominent place.  They are served meals such as sops in fennel, eels in bruit, peas and beans pottage, fraunt hemelle, dighted crab and leach lombard.  I am curious about what these meals taste like but would be afraid of tasting them if placed in front of me. The names of the foods certainly add to the medieval flavor of the novel. 

All in all, this book was a great read.  The fact that I read it yesterday, on Good Friday, added to my enjoyment.  5 out of 5 stars.

The French Paradox

The French Paradox is the 11th wine country mystery by Ellen Crosby. The mystery here involves Jackie Onassis and Lucie Montgomery's grandfather during their time together in Paris in 1949.  Jackie was there as an exchange student from Smith College.  While she was living there Jackie purchased several inexpensive paintings by an unknown 18th century artist.  Jackie also had a romantic relationship with a Virginia vineyard owner, Lucie's grandfather, which until recently was a well kept secret.

Seventy years later, Cricket Delacroix, Lucie's neighbor and Jackie's schoolfriend, is donating the now priceless paintings to a Washington, DC museum.  Lucie's grandfather is flying in to Virginia for Cricket's 90th birthday party which is being hosted by her daughter Harriet.  Harriet is rewriting a manuscript that Jackie left behind about Marie Antoinette and her portraitist.  Harriet is also planning on adding tell all secrets about Jackie to ensure that her book is a success.  On the eve of the party a world renowned landscape designer is found dead in Lucie's vineyard. The question is whether someone killed him for his thoughts on climate change, his connection to Jackie and the paintings.  

I had a difficult time getting interested in this novel and put it down for a few weeks. When I started reading again, it was still a little off. I noticed that the reader does not know that the landscape designer's death was a murder until the 80th page. That's is a long time to wait in a 243 page cozy mystery. There were several new characters too that probably won't be in future books. I wasn't sure if I should care about them or not but they were not memorable to say the least. Several of the usual characters did not have a role.

Perhaps I am just used to the usual formula that the author uses when writing her novels and expected the same.  I had a hard time accepting that Jackie Onassis had a connection but once I did the story then changed to a murder. The alternating plots didn't gel for me but several reviewers enjoyed the book.

2 out of 5 stars.

The Queen's Marriage

I don't usually read biographies let alone salacious ones at that. However, I have been watching Lady Colin Campbell's You Tube channel and she certainly knows alot about the royal and aristocratic families. I decided to take this book out of the library and see what new information there is inside it.  Most of the information is well known but there are a few shockers. Yes, this is a spoiler alert!  

So what's the shocking story?  When the Queen's sister Margaret was told that she could not marry her divorced love, Margaret let her sister know that her husband had been sleeping around.  The Queen not only lost her closest friend, Margaret, but felt estranged from her husband Phillip.  She fell into a deep depression and had electric shock treatments administered to her.  The Queen's advisors all said that she couldn't do her job if she was on psychiatric meds and in the 1950s shock treatment was well regarded and a fast treatment.  I find this shocking ( pun intended).  How could anyone believe that electric shock therapy was a good thing?  The Queen could have been permanently physically damaged.  What were they thinking?

The other astonishing tidbit was both the Queen and Princess Margaret were conceived via artificial insemination. Their mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, did not like sex and cut her husband off while on their honeymoon.  A reliable physician inserted King's George VI 's semen into her.  This all sounds pretty gross to me but the author said this was not unusual for aristocratic couples who could not conceive.  Sometimes a surrogate was used too.

The biography is a quick read and I enjoyed it despite having to reread the sections that seemed unbelievable. I had to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me.  5 out of 5 stars.

The Blended Quilt

The Blended Quilt is Wanda Brunstetter's 56th novel.  She created the Amish fiction genre in 1997 with the publication of her first book A Merry Heart.  She was 60 years old when that book was published! Although her ancestors were of the Anabaptist faith, her fascination with the Amish began when she married her husband, who had been raised as a Mennonite.  She is so well thought of in the Amish community that they read her books.  In addition to her Amish fiction series, Ms. Brunstetter has published 8 novellas, 7 cookbooks, 3 devotionals, 4 gift books and 14 middle grade children's novels, all set among the Amish.  She publishes between 3 and 8 books per year and began writing with her daughter-in-law Jean Brunstetter in 2016.  The Robin's Greeting was published earlier this month and next month An Amish Barn Raising will be published.

The Blended Quilt follows the life of Sadie Kuhns.  A year after returning to Indiana from a trip to Hawaii (see The Hawaiian Quilt) Sadie wants to create a quilt that blends the traditional Amish quilt with a Hawaiian quilt.  When she finishes it, a friend suggests that she write a book on the quilt. While she is writing her book, her boyfriend Wyman Kauffman becomes distant as she spends more time writing and talking about it than in paying attention to him.  He is jealous of the time that she spends with her personal pursuits and wonders if she is marriage material.  However, Sadie had concerns about their relationship before she even thought about making the quilt.  Wyman does not seem to be able to a job or profession.  Without a secure profession, Sadie doubts that he can support a wife and family.  Both wonder if there is any reason to continue their courtship.  

I have only read 4 other books by Wanda Brunstetter.  I am not sure why since her books are so well written.  At one time I was only interested in political mysteries but I believe I have let myself down by not reading her entire bibliography of books.  I loved The Blended Quilt and must make a determination to read through her book list.  As a feminist I was put off by Wyman's insistence on being center stage in Sadie's life.  Perhaps that is impractical given Sadie's Amish life but he annoyed me. Sadie, however, is a woman after my own heart.  Wanting to create a new type of quilt is impressive.  Writing a book about it is even better (in my view). Being a strong woman was not looked upon well in her community. Neither was travel, something Sadie has done while single.  She would like to return to Hawaii but never expects to be able to afford it.  While I realize that this is Amish fiction, I cannot wrap my head around the fact that being strong and proactive is considered a negative trait in a woman. 

5 our of 5 stars.

Haunted Hibiscus

Haunted Hibiscus is the 22nd Indigo Tea Shop mystery by Laura Childs.  I have loved this series since it began but in the last several years the books have been hit or miss for me.  This particular installment of the series is a miss.  I think that because the author writes three different series concurrently and pushes out 3 books per year, she is getting lazy with her writing.  I will explain more fully below but here is the publisher's summary of the novel:

"It is the week before Halloween and Theodosia Browning, proprietor of the Indigo Tea Shop, and her tea sommelier, Drayton, are ghosting through the dusk of a cool Charleston evening on their way to the old Bouchard Mansion.  Known as the Grey Ghost, this dilapidated place was recently bequeathed to the Heritage Society, and tonight heralds the grand opening of their literary and historical themed haunted house.

Though Timothy Neville, the Patriarch of the Heritage Society, is not thrilled with the fund-raising idea, it is the perfect venue for his grandniece, Willow French, to sign copies of her new book, Carolina Crimes & Capers.  But amidst a parade of characters dressed as Edgar Allen Poe, Lady Macbeth, and the Headless Horseman, Willow's body is suddenly tossed from the third-floor tower room and left to dangle at the end of a rope.  Police come screaming in and Theodosia's boyfriend, Detective Pete Riley, is sent to Willow's apartment to investigate.  But minutes later, he is shot and wounded by a shadowy intruder.

Timothy begs Theodosia to investigate, and shaken by Riley's assault, she readily agrees.  Now, she questions members of the Heritage Society and a man who claims the mansion is rightfully his, as well as Willow's book publisher and fiance, all while hosting a Sherlock Holmes tea and catering several others." 

Perhaps I have become tired of this series. The exact same things happen in the exact same places in the novels. You always know what Timothy Neville's reactions will be. The Heritage Society is always about to go under.  There is no variety to the series.  While all of the prior books in the series could have been standalone novels, this one isn't.  There is no background information on the characters.  Also, Theodosia seemed quite angry throughout the story.  She is normally a sweet, polite southerner.  A few of the phrases in Haunted Hibiscus that annoyed me in include:

• the front door da-dinged
• I only have time for drive-by kisses and hugs
• He's as wide as a soccer mom's van
• Holy cats, what a mess
• Floradora Florist
• Being young and dipped in folly, I fell in love with melancholy

I think that I will check out from this series.  I doesn't do anything for me.  I am rating it 2 out of 5 stars because the plot premise was good.  It just wasn't executed well.

Book of the Month: March

Comic book Primer is my favorite book for this month.   It is a fun, lighthearted book featuring superheroine Ashley Rayburn. When Ashley is sent to a foster home with parents Kitch and Yuka Nolan, she finally finds a family where she fits in.  Yuka is a geneticist and brings home the bacon. Kitch is an artist and has a 1960s vibe that Ashley is attracted to as she loves art too.  When Yuka brings home and hides a secret weapon that looks like paint canisters, Ashley finds it and thinks it's a birthday gift for her. When she uses the paints, Ashley becomes powerful. She feels like a superheroine and decides she needs a superheroine name.  Primer is chosen because the "paints" are primary colors. Now she can use her skills to prevent accidents and fight evildoers.