Spinning in Her Grave

Author:  Molly MacRae
Genre:  Mystery

Five Stars

Kath Rutledge is settling in as the owner of the Weaver's Cat, a fiber and Fabric shop in Blue Plum, Tennessee.  But nothing, not even the ghost haunting her shop, prepares her for the mystery that will leave the whole town spinning...

It's time for Blue Plum's annual historical festival, and everyone-including Kath and her spunky fiber and needlework group, TGIF-is getting in on the action.  Expert spinners are being gathered, and a businessman has approached Kath about using the second-floor windows of her store for part of a reenactment.  But the reencactment ends in real-life bloodshed when local baker Reva Louise Snapp is shot-with a bullet from a modern-day gun.

Kath has her theories about who wanted to end Reva Louise's life.  But there's also talk of a sniper stalking Blue Plum, and Kath's shop is suspected of being the murderer's hideout.  Now Kath, her TGIF pals, and the gloomy ghost, Geneva, must unravel the mystery quickly, or someone else might be left hanging by a thread...

********

When the annual Blue Plum Festival heads into town, Kath and her friends are making plans to not only take part, but hope that the festival will bring business from tourists heading toward her shop.  She is soon approached by J. Scott Prescott, a businessman who not only wants to use her second story windows as part of the "pig skit," but also to purchase her building.  She says no to both, partly because she likes her shop and wouldn't sell under any circumstances; partly because Geneva, the gloomy ghost, lives upstairs and she doesn't want people traipsing through there.

Reva Louise Snapp is a half-sister of Mel, the local diner's owner.  But unlike Mel, nobody likes Reva Louise.  From the beginning, you realize the kind of person Reva Louise is, and it's not a nice one.  So when the pig skit takes place, and people are shooting (blanks) all through the town, no one notices right away that one of the bullets was real.  And has killed Reva Louise.

Sheriff Cole Dunbar, Kath's sometime nemesis, has decided the fatal shot has come from Kath's building, and closed it off as a crime scene.  Now Kath and her friends decide that they need to find the killer as soon as possible, not only to get the shop reopened, but because they realize there is more to it than meets the eye.

I loved this book.  I have always said that I enjoyed books which can draw me in right away, and this is one of them.  I didn't like Reva Louise any more than Kath or her friends (probably because we've all known someone similar to her in one way or another).  And I absolutely love Geneva.

This actually is more than the mystery surrounding Reva Louise's death: it also draws us into the mystery of Geneva.  We are given little snippets of her memory here and there; you never know what might be revealed, really without Geneva noticing that she's even telling Kath anything.  (Unfortunately, I have to wait until the next book to find out more).  That, I found, was the most interesting parts of the book.

But the mystery surrounding Reva Louise's death is just as good.  There are times when you're sure who the killer is; but you might find yourself wrong all along.  I must confess I was somewhat surprised myself, and I suggest that you don't peek at the end to see 'whodunit.'  It's a much more fun book if you don't know until Kath does.  Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Spinning-Her-Grave-Haunted-Mystery/dp/0451240642/

To Helen Back: A River Road Mystery

Author:  Susan McBride
Genre:  Mystery

Four Stars

In this fun and sassy new mystery, USA Today bestselling author Susan McBride introduces us to Helen Evans, a modern-day Miss Marple who must expose a murderer in a town full of suspects!

When Milton Grone turns up dead in tiny River Bend, Illinois, nearly all the would-be suspects have the perfect alibi: attending Thursday night's town meeting. And as Milton was hardly beloved, plenty of folks had a reason to do him in ...

Grone's next-door neighbor was furious about a fence that encroached on her property, among other wicked deeds. A pair of zealous tree huggers wanted Grone's hide for selling a parcel of pristine land to a water park. Grone's current and ex-wife both wanted a cut of the profits, which Grone seemed unwilling to share. Even the town preacher knew Grone's soul was beyond saving.

Though most of River Bend would rather reward the killer than hang him, Sheriff Biddle's not about to let this one go … and neither is Helen Evans. With a penchant for puzzles and an ear for innuendo, Helen quickly fingers the culprit before Biddle puts the wrong suspect in jail.

********

Milton Grone is not well-liked in River Bend; in fact, he's pretty much hated by everyone in the town.  He's shot at his neighbor's cat and yells at the elderly woman; he mistreats his present wife and refuses to have anything to do with his ex-wife and children; and he's rich, but makes both live like paupers because of his cheapness.

He has sold some acreage to a company that wants to build a waterpark, and the townspeople are upset because it will destroy the environment in that area, yet no one knows how to stop him.  So, one night while everyone is at a town meeting, Milton is killed.  At first the sheriff and doctor thinks it might have been an accident, that Milton merely had a heart attack, fell, and hit his head on a rock, because the doctor knows that Milton had a bad heart.  Yet not too soon after, the doctor discovers something that shows Milton was murdered:  he was struck on the head with something heavy, and it was staged to make it look like an accident.

In steps widow Helen Evans.  With a mind that operates much like Christie's Miss Marple (as the sheriff says), she is trying to keep her friend Felicity, Milton's next door neighbor and the owner of the shot-at cat, from being taken in as the murderer,  and find the real killer herself.

I liked this mystery:  It was fast, detailed, and a good beginning to a series.  Helen is unassuming, yet she notices things and has a way of putting herself in the middle of the action without seeming pushy.  There wasn't a lot of character development as of yet, but since this is the first book in the series, I am hoping to see more in the next.

The only thing I didn't care for was the fact that Helen bemoans the fact that someone might injure a bird in a tree, yet sees nothing wrong with allowing her own cat to roam outdoors and kill small creatures.  I would like to see her opt to keep her pet indoors, where it would be safer and have a much longer lifespan (yes, I am a huge animal lover!).

I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a light mystery with likeable characters, and look forward to the next in the series.

http://www.amazon.com/To-Helen-Back-River-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00IRCZIPA/

Music in the Shadows

Author:  Sheri Chinen Biesen
Genre:  Performing Arts/Film/Criticism

Hardcover; Softcover; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781421408378; 9781421408385
Johns Hopkins University Press
224 Pages
$60.46; $32.95; $16.17
May 1, 2014

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Smoke. Shadows. Moody strains of jazz. Welcome to the world of "noir musical" films, where tormented antiheroes and hard-boiled musicians battle obsession and struggle with their music and ill-fated love triangles. Sultry divas dance and sing the blues in shrouded nightclubs. Romantic intrigue clashes with backstage careers.

In her pioneering study, Music in the Shadows, film noir expert Sheri Chinen Biesen explores musical films that use film noir style and bluesy strains of jazz to inhabit a disturbing underworld and reveal the dark side of fame and the American Dream. While noir musical films like A Star Is Born include musical performances, their bleak tone and expressionistic aesthetic more closely resemble the visual style of film noir. Their narratives unfold behind a stark noir lens: distorted, erratic angles and imbalanced hand-held shots allow the audience to experience a tortured, disillusioned perspective.
While many musicals glamorize the quest for the spotlight in Hollywood's star factory, brooding noir musical films such as Blues in the Night, Gilda, The Red Shoes, West Side Story, and Round Midnight stretch the boundaries of film noir and the musical as film genres collide. Deep shadows, dim lighting, and visual composition evoke moodiness, cynicism, pessimism, and subjective psychological points of view.

As in her earlier study of film noir, Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir, Biesen draws on extensive primary research in studio archives to situate her examination within a historical, industrial, and cultural context.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Since I am a huge classic film - especially noir - lover; I couldn't wait to read this book.  Ms. Biesen has written an outstanding book on the use of music in film noir, and the impact it makes.  Drawing upon such films as Gilda, Young Man with a Horn, Blues in the Night, Double Indemnity, and even The Major and the Minor - a film which uses the song "A Woman's a Two Face" sung by a cadet to Ginger Rogers (masquerading as a teenager, believe it or not) and is quite hilarious in the context it was sung - she has written a comprehensive and extensive work that is well-written and fascinating to read.

It details why these films are better with the music that has been chosen, and how it enhances them.  Can anyone imagine Laura without the haunting title music?  It's one of my favorite films, and the title song is partly the reason why.

Anyone who is interested in film noir would find this indispensable as a reference - after all, who can forget Dooley Wilson in Casablanca crooning 'As Time Goes By?'  She covers both well-known and not so well-known films - Christmas Holiday being one of my favorites - Gene Kelly and Deanna Durbin in a dark noir film, both playing against character  (I suggest you try to find a copy; it will definitely be worth your while) - and offers a description of the Musician's Strike of 1942, which has long since passed into history, yet spawned some of the greater singers of the century (Frank Sinatra among them).

A highly recommended book for both film fans and music lovers alike; after all, who can go wrong with a book that has the sultry Rita Hayworth as Gilda on the cover?

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Shadows-Noir-Musical-Films/dp/1421408376/

Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman

Author: Robert L. O'Connell
Genre:  Biography, History

Five Stars

America’s first “celebrity” general, William Tecumseh Sherman was a man of many faces. Some of them were exalted in the public eye. Others were known only to intimates—his family, friends and lovers, and the soldiers under his command. In this rich and layered portrait, Robert L. O’Connell captures the man in full for the first time. From his early exploits in Florida, to his role in California at the start of the Gold Rush, through his brilliant but tempestuous generalship during the Civil War, and to his postwar career as a key player in the building of the transcontinental railroad, Sherman was, as O’Connell puts it, the “human embodiment of Manifest Destiny.”

Here is Sherman the military strategist of genius, a master of logistics whose uncanny grasp of terrain and brilliant sense of timing always seemed to land him in the right place at the most opportune moments. O’Connell shows how Sherman’s creation of an agile, improvisational fighting force—the Army of the West—helped turn the tide of the Civil War and laid the foundation for modern U.S. ground forces. Then there is “Uncle Billy,” Sherman’s public persona, a charismatic hero to his troops and quotable catnip to the newspaper writers of his day.

Here, too, is the private Sherman. He was born into one powerhouse family—his grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence—and was adopted into another. His foster father, Thomas Ewing, was an influential politician and cabinet member who helped provide key opportunities for Sherman throughout his career. But Sherman’s fraught relationship with Ewing, coupled with his appetite for women, parties, and the high life of the New York theater, certainly complicated his already turbulent marriage to his foster sister Ellen, a relationship O’Connell likens to a mix of “gunpowder and gasoline”—altogether a family triangle that might have sprung from the pages of a Victorian novel.

As he peels away the layers of the Sherman persona, O’Connell dispels a number of common misperceptions about his subject. He sheds new light on Sherman’s relationship with Ulysses S. Grant, and also on his struggle against Nathan Bedford Forrest and the insurgency that was the other half of the Civil War along the Mississippi. Later he reveals Sherman’s fabled march from Atlanta to the sea not as a campaign of unmitigated destruction, as it is often portrayed, but the careful execution of a necessary piece of strategy calculated to scare the South back into the Union. O’Connell’s Sherman is no Attila, but a complicated soldier/statesman—perhaps the quintessential nineteenth-century American.

Warrior, family man, American icon, William Tecumseh Sherman has finally found a biographer worthy of his protean gifts. A masterful character study whose myriad insights are leavened with its author’s trademark wit, Fierce Patriot will stand as the essential book on Sherman for decades to come.

********

I am extremely interested in The Civil War, and of course, the generals that commanded during that time.  So, that is what initially drew me to this biography.  But what I came away with was a greater understanding not only of the man himself, but why he chose to do the things he did in the way he did them.  For all of you who only know of 'Sherman's march to the sea,' I will tell you that after reading this book, you will see him in a different light.

It begins with his being adopted into the politically powerful Ewing family, along with his brother John, how he was sent to West Point and continues on to his long and illustrious military career.  He was aligned with the Ewing family in more than this; he married daughter Ellen, and proceded to have several children; he genuinely loved his family.  The book details his desolation at the loss of his son, yet he continues on with his duty as a soldier even so; through his periods of what was considered insanity but which probably was not, and his alliance with another great Civil War general.

General Sherman was a brilliant strategist, and aligned with the above-mentioned general, Ulysses S. Grant, we have two of the strongest military figures in history.  Referred to as 'the drunk and the crazy,' together there is no doubt that they saved the Union and ended the war between the states.  That Grant trusted him above all others, and they understood each others' strengths and weaknesses speaks volumes.

Mr. O'Connell has put together a well-researched and extensive book on W.T. Sherman, and it should be an essential book to have for anyone who interested in the Civil War and the history behind its leaders.

http://www.amazon.com/Fierce-Patriot-Tangled-William-Tecumseh/dp/1400069726/

Lethal Lily

Author:  Jim and Joyce Lavene
Genre:  Mystery

Five Stars

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Part-time garden shop owner/part-time forensic botanist Peggy Lee is trying to discover if the death of Ann Fletcher 20 years ago was an accident - or foul play. In return, she hopes to receive more information about her late husband's death. She knows John Lee was murdered, but questions have arisen as to why he was killed.  She is working with a private detective who stumbles across his own feet, but her Internet friend, Nightflyer, says that Harry Fletcher has the answers.  When Harry is murdered by convallatoxin, from the lily of the valley plant, Peggy begins to understand her role in everything. Now she has to stay alive long enough to prove her theories - and keep her son, Paul, out of trouble, too!

********

 Peggy Lee owns a garden shop and is also a part-time forensic botanist with the ME's department, and gives lectures at the local university.  When she receives information that her late husband, John, was murdered and did not die accidentally, Peggy knows she needs to find out the truth, since she has always suspected the same.  But the answers have to come from a hapless private detective, Harry Fletcher, who wants something in return for the information he may have on John.  He wants her to prove that his late wife Ann did not commit suicide and was murdered also. 

So when she finds out that in order to gain access to the files, which are at a storage unit and up for auction, she arrives ready with checkbook in hand.  But she is outbid by another person, Arnold Hauck, who has his own reasons for wanting the files.  It seems Ann was Arnie's sister, and he thinks that Harry murdered Ann, and wants Peggy to go through the files to find out the truth of that...and therein lies the beginning of Peggy's troubles.

Peggy is thrust not only into the problem of finding out the truth about John; while her now-husband Steve, an FBI agent that John was working with, wants her to leave it alone; her son Paul wants the answers in his own way; John's partner Al wants her to let it go but knows she won't, and if that's not enough, she's being stalked and threatened and knows that she's getting close to the truth and must continue with her investigation even if she doesn't want to.

I absolutely loved reading this book; so much so that I read well into the night until I finished.  The authors know how to draw the reader in and keep them interested all the way through the book.  The plot has twists and turns that the reader needs to keep abreast of, because otherwise you will find yourself going back to check pages you've read for the clues. 

When I finally got to the end, I only wanted to read the next book in the series to find out how everything turns out.  A highly recommended read for everyone who likes mysteries; even for those who aren't interested in gardening.  A superb book.

http://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Peggy-Garden-Mystery-Volume/dp/1499295952/

Boiled Over

Author:  Barbara Ross
Genre:  Mystery

Four Stars

For Julia Snowden, the Founder's Day summer celebration in Busman's Harbor, Maine, means helping her family's clambake company to prepare an authentic taste of New England seafood. Any Mainer will tell you that a real clambake needs wood for the fire . . . so why is there a foot sticking out of the oven?
The townspeople want to pin the murder of the RV park owner on Cabe Stone, a new employee of the Snowden Family Clambake Company--who bolted from the crime scene and disappeared. Julia knows having another murder associated with her family's business is a recipe for disaster . . . but who is the killer? Cooking up a proper investigation doesn't leave much time for the rest of Julia's life, and this is one killer who'll do anything to stop her from digging up clues . . .

********

Julia Snowden has returned from Manhattan to her home in Maine to help run the family's sea food business.  When her brother-in-law Sonny is preparing his "claminator" for the local Founder's Day celebration, body parts are discovered falling out of the woodpile used to cook the food.  Once it is discovered who the dead person is, Julia finds that she is in the middle of a murder investigation, due to the fact that the suspected murderer is an employee of hers.

Not believing the man guilty of such a crime, Julia sets out to clear him.  But an unforeseen chain of events makes that harder than she would ever imagine.  Even though her faith in his innocence never wavers, it seems everything keeps pointing toward him.  And the more she tries to prove him not guilty of the crime, more and more keeps pointing toward him.

Add to this the fact that her personal life is taking a hit as well: her relationship with her high-school-crush-turned-boyfriend is getting serious and she's not sure if she wants it to or not; she is finding out that she needs to make some hard decisions that may very well change the entire course of her life, something she's not sure she wants to do.

I found this book quite delightful to read, and even though I haven't read the first in the series, Clammed Up, I definitely plan to read it when I get the chance.  The characters are not one-dimensional, and the townspeople are exactly what you would expect:  they realize they live in a tourist town and that is how they make their living, but they keep themselves to themselves and have their own little camaraderie between them, silently loyal to each other while careful not to alienate the tourists (living in a tourist town myself, I can relate). 

At the last, I wasn't sure how to take the ending.  While the book itself is good, I never like it when I'm left "hanging in the air."  I know this is the author's way to ensure the next book gets read, but for me, I like resolution.  Which isn't to say don't read the book - I am sure you'll like it because it is written well, and I didn't put everything together at once (in fact, for awhile I thought someone might have been the killer but it was a red herring - and those are interesting themselves anyway).  I suggest you do read the book, because I fully intend on reading the next in the series.  I just wish I didn't have to wait for the next one to be published.

I was given a free copy of this in return for an honest review, but this in no way affected the above.

http://www.amazon.com/Boiled-Over-Maine-Clambake-Mystery/dp/0758286872/

Antiques Chop

Author:  Barbara Allan
Genre:   Mystery

Three Stars

 

Brandy Borne and her dramatically ditzy mother, Vivian, are stars of the new reality show, Antiques Sleuths.  The season opens in a perfect location - a quaint old house echoing with the unsolved whispers of a 60-year-old axe murder.  But when the show's producer meets a similarly grisly end, Brandy and Mother must chop around for clues, axe the right questions, and get the edge on a murderer's mysterious motives.  Otherwise our sharp-witted sleuths may face cancellation-on the cutting room floor!

 

********

 

Okay, I know I've said this before, but does any author ever read the blurb on the back of the book?  Brandy and her mother do not have a new reality show; they are asked to start one, but before it can even get off the ground, the producer is indeed murdered, so there's no question of cancellation at all.  That being said, I will add the book is well-written, and the plot is nicely knitted together, in the fact that I wasn't sure who the killer was until the very end.  This is what you definitely want in a mystery.  I felt that there were really no clues to point to the killer until about then anyway.

 

Brandy and her mother are approached with the idea of a reality show based on their past experiences with solving murders.  The producer decides the best place to host the show would be an old murder house in town, which they can turn into an antiques shop and use while the show is not filming.  It sounds ideal to Vivian, and Brandy, as usual, just goes along with it.  When the producer is murdered practically the next day and a friend of theirs is accused of doing it, Brandy and Vivian feel the only way to clear him is to find the killer themselves.

 

It was Brandy's son Jake who found the body, dismembered; and what I don't get, is the fact that he's like 'it's no big deal,' through the rest of the book.  He's not traumatized; he has no bad dreams; he acts like it's an every day occurrence to see this and just goes on with his day-to-day life.  I know kids are resilient, but really?  Not even one teeny tiny nightmare?  Nothing?  Just go on a picnic and go hiking?

 

I didn't like the fact that the book read like you were watching a documentary: Brandy, her mother, and her son Jake are all narrating as if we're sitting in a room with them and they're telling their story to a police detective or something.  (Right along with notes from their editor).  Some people might enjoy that, but I don't.  I also wasn't too pleased with the ending.  Brandy's choice in men sucks, and she needs to get a dating service or something.  I don't like Brian at all, he doesn't really even seem to like Brandy all that much. 

 

But in the end, if you enjoy this series, you'll probably read this and the next book.  I myself just don't really care for the style in which it is written, nor the ending,  and that is why I felt I could only give it three stars.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Antiques-Chop-Trash-Treasures-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00IV1JYCU/