Los Angeles
Q1 / 2022 Reading Recap
Well, as it turned out 2022 began as 2021 had ended — all work and no play, albeit with the addition of a hospital detour to boot. (Nothing serious, just way more painful and, all told, protracted, than it had any right to be.) So I’m back to posting one summary post for the first […]
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Raymond Chandler: The Little Sister
Blurb: “So you need help. What’s your name and trouble?” Private investigator Philip Marlowe’s latest client is Orfamay Quest. She’s come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin. Or at least that’s what she tells Marlowe, offering him just 20 dollars for his trouble. Feeling charitable, Marlowe accepts — though […]
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Sue Grafton: “A” Is for Alibi
Blurb: When Laurence Fife was murdered, few mourned his passing. Plenty of people had reason to want him dead. But the police thought his wife Nikki , with motive, access and opportunity, was the #1 suspect. The jury thought so too. Eight years later and out on parole, Nikki hires Kinsey Millhone, a gutsy P.I., […]
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Denise Hamilton: Savage Garden
Blurb: Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond has been looking forward to a romantic date with her new love, Silvio Angila, including an opening night at the theatre, cocktails, and the night ahead. But when the play’s leading lady, Catarina Velosi, fails to appear, Eve learns that she and Silvio share a complicated past. Despatched […]
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Amanda Quick: The Girl Who Knew too Much
Blurb: Amanda Quick (Jayne Ann Krentz) transports listeners to 1930s California, where glamour and seduction spawn a multitude of sins. At the exclusive Burning Cove Hotel on the coast of California, rookie reporter Irene Glasson finds herself staring down at a beautiful actress at the bottom of a pool. The dead woman had a red-hot […]
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Denise Hamilton (ed.), Various Authors: Los Angeles Noir
Blurb: Stories by: Michael Connelly, Janet Fitch, Susan Straight, Hector Tobar, Patt Morrison, Robert Ferrigno, Gary Phillips, Christopher Rice, Naomi Hirahara, Jim Pascoe, Scott Phillips, Diana Wagman, Lienna Silver, Brian Ascalon Roley, and Denise Hamilton. A reliable entry in the Akashic Noir series, though given the setting I’d have expected slightly more (especially more of […]
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Michael Connelly: The Dark Hours
Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE Festive Tasks, Door 3 — Light(s): Read a book with the sun, or festive lights on the cover, or a book that’s set somewhere sunny. Connelly’s (to date) most recent book of the Harry Bosch universe takes us back almost exactly a year, to NYE and early January […]
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April 2021 Reading Recap
First things first: The persistent bug preventing followers / readers to comment on my posts straight off the post (i.e., other than by using the WP Reader) has finally been weeded out, thanks to my hosting service’s IT team … so you can, at last, comment even if you’re not using the WP Reader. (I […]
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An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “O”
This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE. Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete. As always, the only thing linking the two items mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the […]
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Favorite Rainy Day Reads
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Bonus Task: List / tell us about your favorite rainy day reads. I suppose it only takes one look at my list of read books this year to determine my favorite rainy day books, as 2020 was essentially one extended rainy day: Golden Age mysteries and […]
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Michael Connelly: The Night Fire
My bingo pre-read and a very welcome return to Los Angeles — or at least, the version thereof that constitutes the world of Connelly’s characters, which however only ends up making the city a major character of its own in addition to the humans living in it. Harry Bosch may not officially be a cold […]
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Halloween Bingo 2020: The First Week (+1 Day)
This year’s Halloween Bingo started a lot more promising than last year’s with a strong joint entry in Michael Connelly’s Bosch and Ballard series, and in fact, not one of the books I read earned less than a four-star rating — with the standout being Nicholas Blake’s The Beast Must Die, which turned out to […]
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My Rainy Day Reads
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Task 1: List / tell us about your favorite rainy day reads. Any- and everything that — with or without a mug of hot tea and some chocolate or other snacks — makes me feel all warm and comfortable (while still engaging my brain cells, […]
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Bingo Call: 10/20/2019 – Classic Noir
Reblogged from: Obsidian Blue Classic Noir: mysteries published prior to 1980 with noir elements, including authors like Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich and Dashiell Hammett. Book list linked here. Mystery square. Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/1973348/bingo-call-10-20-2019
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/13 (Day 13): New Releases?
One recommendation and three expectations: Ann Leckie – The Raven Tower: That rare beast of a newly-released book that worked for me on every level despite all the hype attached to it. Fantasy / supernatural, but without the usual menagerie of magical beasts: instead, an alternative early medieval society and its (very much alive) gods, […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/09 (Day 9): Book Suggestions for the New Squares? Part 1: “Paint It Black”
Today’s prompt is for favorite horror reads; that not being much of my thing (outside, perhaps, the gothic classics and anything more edifying or funny rather than scary), I think I’m going to leave that prompt to Char, Bark’s Books (aka Bark at the Ghouls), and the site’s other horror fans. Instead, I’m going to […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/01 (Day 1): Mystery or Horror?
Mystery, definitely. For one thing, I’m a total chicken — I can’t look at blood (not even, or rather, especially not my own, e.g. in medical procedures); and anything shocking, spooky, or otherwise unnaturally unsettling just has me running for the rafters. That’s particularly true at night — which is when I’m doing a […]
Read MoreBooks With a Difference
Responding to Moonlight Reader’s “call for papers (= titles / authors)” — there are quite a number of excellent lists out there already; anyway, here’s my contribution … or a first draft, at least. Links go to my reviews (or status updates / summary blog posts / author pages) to the extent I’ve posted any. […]
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My Personal Literary Canon, Part 2: “Veteran” Readership
24 Festive Tasks, Door 5, Task 3: Tell us: What author’s books would you consider yourself a veteran of (i.e., by author have you read particularly many books – or maybe even all of them)? The authors by whom I’ve read the most books don’t coincide exactly, but substantially with those that I’d also consider […]
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Michael Connelly: Two Kinds of Truth
24 Festive Tasks: Door 14 – Hanukkah, Book: Read a book about light, miracles, characters who are Jewish or books set in Israel. OR: Hanukkah commemorates the re-dedication of the second temple in the second century; read the second book in a series or a book with the word “second” or “two” in the title. […]
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