HONORED DAUGHTERS

Honored Daughters

Laura Kate Plantation Series Book 2

Author: Gerrie Ferris
Publisher: Desert Breeze Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Suspense/Mystery
Length: Full / 183 pgs
Heat: Spicy
Rating: 4 Books
Reviewed by Snapdragon

Laura Kate O’Connell is a super-star of a clever southern bell with quick wit and a nice way with horses.
Honored Daughters is truly more mystery than romance, but the romance matters and readers will really enjoy Jack Rhodes when they finally meet him. It won’t be a painful wait though, as from the first moments, interest and intrigue build.
Overall, the quality of the story is excellent. Epic-like adventures – and love – befall our heroine, who seems pulled in several directions most of the time. Her personal life, her decisions and future plans are complicated; Jack Rhodes is her distant, if still true love. He seems to envision an ordinary, predictable sort of future for the two of them, a future Laura Kate isn’t enthused about at all. (Although after meeting him, we do realze he’s more insightful than Laura Kate gives him credit for.)
Before we even get to questions of romance; Agent Nyan Hill complicates her life, with his desperate effort to see the murder of his niece Dari solved. Nyan & Laura Kate’s antagonistic relationship, and occasional sharp dialogue, really make reader’s admire our heroine. She’s nobody’s fool, but is at heart a caring, almost driven person.
Ferris has a distinctive voice, giving Honored Daughters a continuous, rather evocative aura. She creates a time, a place, and a series of characters that seem utterly original, yet also familiar and appealing. There are some seriously suspenseful moments, as well as more tender times; and the mystery is a real mystery, both intriguing and heart-wrenching from the start.
I don’t give it top drawer on rating, only because sentence fragments and frequent odd turns of phrase slow this story one too many a time. It may be a stylistic thing, but it’s annoying and often grammatically incorrect (one example: Moving away from the window, she dressed in riding breeches and … one can't do both things at once, yet this is what this sentence implied).
Although this is contemporary, there is a certain historic feel to it. The horses, the hunt club, the southern-bell comments, and Honored Daughters School itself. Although contemporary, it all has an old, old feel to it. Fans of any southern-style epic will really love this story; perfect reading by a cozy fire.
Finally, Kudos to the artist that got this cover so perfect for the story.

BIG WHEAT - a Carl Brookins Review

Big Wheat
By Richard A. Thompson
Poisoned Pen Press 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59058-820-8

World War I is done and Charlie Krueger’s older brother is never coming
home. Charlie, his sister and their mother must cope with an increasingly
abusive drunken father and husband. The summer of 1919 wanes and vast
acreages of the Middle West prairies are thick with ripening grain. Up the
long reaches from the banks of the Platte and the Missouri come the contract
threshing crews and their machines, most followed by raffish bindlestiffs to
supplement a farmer’s friends and relatives. The crews are often peopled by
men of questionable backgrounds and are occasionally eyed with suspicion by
local sheriffs who rarely chase criminals beyond their county boundaries.

When Charlie Krueger has a final confrontation with his father, he leaves
behind a sorrowful mother and sister and the local girl he thought he’d love
forever. He becomes a bindlestiff, traveling from farm to farm, learning
the threshing business and nurturing his love for machines.

The machines are new, complicated and prone to breakdowns. Charlie hooks up
with a marvelously conceived traveling machine repair crew that becomes his
new family. But lurking in the background is a killer, a killer who
believes Charlie saw his latest brutal deed. He seeks to find and murder
Charlie. Meanwhile, the sheriff of Charlie’s home county has developed
leads which point him toward Charlie as a murderer.

This then is the roiling plot which moves the story forward. Carefully
constructed and set against the vast reaches of the plains states, the novel
evokes a time and place and the attitudes of the people and the land in a
powerful and moving way. Readers will smell the dust, drip sweat and
shrivel under the burning sun right along with the threshing crews. They’ll
feel a clutch in the night as the sheriff and the murderer draw closer and
they’ll empathize with the casual corruption and the surmounting goodness of
the characters the author has created.

A fine, exciting and unusual well-written novel I am pleased to recommend to
all readers of crime fiction.

Carl Brookins
http://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

BIRD LIVES! - A Carl Brookins Review

Bird Lives!
Author, Bill Moody
Publisher: Walker
ISBN: 0-8027-3327-1pub. date: 1999
248 pages, Hardcover

Another fine novel in the Evan Horn series. A smoothly written psychological thriller. it’s tight, fast-paced, and should greatly please fans of this type of novel. It will also please fans of jazz music which today have nearly faded into oblivion.

We aren't talking about fusion jazz or the highly commercialized, big-venue stuff. In fact, the practitioners of those kinds of highly commercialized music are the targets of a killer, the killer who forces piano player Evan Horne to become a detective, on pain of more killings. Horne is reluctant but he allows himself to be cajoled into taking on the assignment, first by Cooper, his detective friend, then by the FBI which cannot match Horne’s knowledge of jazz, a key element in the story. Horne is really trying to make a comeback as a piano player after a serious injury. Cops and Robbers is not a gig he wants to play right now.

The book is a compelling look inside the life of the performer who works the small clubs, as well as into the mind and psyche of a killer.

The title refers to Charlie "Bird" Parker, arguably one of the greatest saxophone players whoever lived. Moody evokes memories of a time when acoustic jazz was played in small smoky clubs all over the world to audiences of deeply dedicated fans who were as obsessed with their music as hip-hoppers are today. It was a time with roots from early Armstrong, from Coleman and Coltrane, when Brubeck and Joe Williams, Count Basie and singers like Chris Connor and Anita O'Day were on the charts.

But, whether the music and the artists draw you, or whether you like well-written crime fiction in any setting, here's a story that will draw you in and satisfy your need. Moody is a knowledgeable master of his element. I give this one a firm positive recommendation.

Carl Brookins
http://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

Happy Chanukah and a Revisit with Harry Kemelman's Rabbi David Small

Chanukah usually falls around Christmas, but since Judaism follows the lunar calendar it arrived early this year. It will be celebrated December 1 through December 9.

Several years ago, I gave my husband eight Harry Kemelmans, one for each day of Chanukah. After the second gift, he knew what the third, fourth, etc. was going to be, and he checked my book shelves to see if he hadn't received recycled Kemelmans. No way.

He got brand new copies

I read them all, starting with FRIDAY THE RABBI SLEPT LATE, published in 1964. I was a big Agatha Christie fan and somehow the rabbi series fell in with the tenor of her mysteries.

In FTRSL, Rabbi David Small of Bernard's Crossing is suspected in the murder of a nanny which happened not far from the synagogue. That first novel, an Edgar best first novel, set off a run of best sellers. Rabbi Small, and I'm sure Harry Kemelman, warmed the hearts of millions with his erudite wit and wisdom.

Mr. Kemelman passed away shortly after THAT DAY THE RABBI LEFT TOWN was published, but I revisit the series from time to time, like I do Agatha and P. D. James, and a host of other favorites.

Happy Chanukah, one and all.

Gerrie Ferris Finger
THE END GAME
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

TOO MANY CLIENTS - A CARL BROOKINS REVIEW

Too Many Clients
By David Walker
ISBN: 9780727869302
Published by Severn House,
2010, 214 pgs.
Another sparkling crime novel in the Wild Onion series. It’s always a
pleasure to open a book knowing you are in the hands of an experienced storyteller. Author David Walker has been around the block a few times and he has the accolades to show for it. His latest does not disappoint. Here we have a pair of wise and witty practitioners who are married to each other. In less sure hands, the marriage of two characters often lets a lot of steam
out of a relationship and sends readers searching for other divertissements.
Not this time. Private investigator Kirsten, married to uber-relaxed lawyer
Dugan, takes on her husband as a client, after a bad cop is found murdered.
Dugan, never a careful person, has blundered into the thing in such a way he
becomes a suspect. And while Dugan can act odd at times, almost the
antithesis of the hard-driving lawyer of many crime fiction novels, he is
far from the only character. There’s Larry. Larry Candle is a partner in
Dugan’s office. He just doesn’t come off as someone whom you’d want to
represent you in court for anything more serious than a mistaken parking
ticket. Yet Larry manages to get the job done all the while irritating
nearly everyone around him
As the days pass, Dugan and Kirsten continue to collect new clients who
somehow all want them to locate the killer of this bad cop. To Kirsten and
Dugan’s collective thinking these new clients don’t seem to be entirely
above suspicion, either. Meanwhile the cops continue to zero in on Dugan.
Gradually, as Kirsten digs deeper into the people who knew or knew about the
dead cop, the story takes on wider and wider implications, tangling mob
figures with international activities, a prominent churchman and….well, you
get the idea. Twists on top of fascinating complications.
The novel is well-paced, complicated, and a truly fun read. I look for more
cheeky stories in Walker’s wild Onion series.
Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

NANCY LYNN JARVIS-Realtor turned Murderer

Author Nancy Lynn Jarvis has been a Santa Cruz, California, Realtor® for more than twenty years. She owns a real estate company with her husband, Craig.
After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager of Shakespeare/Santa Cruz.

Nancy’s work history reflects her philosophy: people should try something radically different every few years. Writing is her newest adventure. She invites you to take a peek into the real estate world through the stories that form the backdrop of her Regan McHenry mysteries. Details and ideas come from Nancy’s own experiences.





Take it away, Nancy.


OK. You seem nice. You seem like someone I could talk to, like someone who would understand. I have a confession to make. I like to kill people sometimes.

Until about three years ago I sold houses — that’s right — I was a Realtor. But then the market tanked and I took a break from real estate. I got bored pretty quickly and started having these fantasies about murdering people.

It’s not that much of a stretch, real estate agents and murder, I mean. Realtors really do find bodies — sometimes dead bodies, sometimes just naked bodies — people don’t always get notified when their houses are going to be shown — but it’s an interesting business. And after twenty years I had seen a lot of things to feed my fantasies.

So I decided, just as a way to fill time, to write mysteries from a real estate agent’s perspective. I figured I could tell you about some of the things I had seen — some of the funny or crazy things — and about the bodies.

It turns out murdering people is fun. Instead of just taking a time-out from being a Realtor, I’ve retired…or moved on…and am killing for a living.





I have three books out now and am working on the fourth. I can’t tell you too much about the books because they are mysteries, but you’ll like reading about killing people the way I do it. I’m not big on graphic gore, although I do enjoy researching ways to get rid of people. I guess that’s not surprising — I do like CSI — but I’m more of a fan of the Mentalist. I like the way Patrick Jane solves mysteries: by noticing things others overlook, asking questions others aren’t asking, and by reading people. That’s how my protagonist, Regan McHenry solves mysteries and murders, too.

I just had a great idea. I know how I can introduce you to my books without giving too much away. Why don’t you go to my website and take a look? Read the beginning chapters of my books. You can do it for free. You’ll start to see how my mind works and get a better sense of how I write than by reading anything I can say here. (But since book four isn’t ready to be posted yet, I will have to tell you about how it will begin.


It starts on Halloween with a person dressed as death passing out cards to partygoers. All the cards have future dates on them except for one man’s. His has a time on it, a time just about an hour in the future.)

Oh, and there’s a recipe for Mysterious Chocolate Chip Cookies on the website in case you’re into chocolate with your murders. Come on — just between us — I bet you are, aren’t you?

Nancy Lynn Jarvis
http://www.goodreadmysteries.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ReganMcHenryRealEstateMysteries?ref=ts

SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE - a Carl Brookins Review

Set The Night On Fire
By Libby Fischer Hellmann
ISBN: 978-0-98406-5-7
Trade Paperback from
Allium Press, Chicago, 2010
346 pages.

Every so often a novel comes along that connects with the reader in such a
visceral way that it is like a punch in the stomach. This is such a story. If you lived through the nineteen-sixties and your memory is reasonably intact, or you learned even a small amount about those turbulent times, you will connect with this story.

On one level this is the story of Lila Hilliard. Forty-some years after a particular series of spectacular and dangerous events in Chicago that revolved around a nasty far-off war and a political convention, a mysterious fire has robbed her of the only family she has ever known. At about the same time, a man named Dar Gantner, just released from prison, returns to Chicago from prison to reconnect with a few of his former companions from the same era. One, a woman named Rain, tells Dar that another of their mutual friends has just met with an odd fatal accident. It is clear in their conversation that Rain doesn’t entirely believe that it was an accident.

From that moment on it becomes apparent that dark and unknown forces are at work. But why? Who are these people we meet at the beginning of the book, who targets them and why? Through a series of small and then progressively longer flashbacks we are transported to a time when young people believed the rhetoric, that they could indeed change the outcomes of momentous happenings, that they could affect the course of the most powerful nation in the world. Some of those players, whatever they believed, moved on to build calm and substantial lives of commerce, and politics, and contemplative existences. They don’t want to relive any part of that time.

Most readers alive today will have memories of the Chicago convention of 1968, or of the riots and will begin again to remember the emotions of the time. And even if not, the measured, artful, portioning out of connections, of information, will bring those emotions to the surface. On another level, this is the telling of the great events of the late sixties, the crimes and the abuses and the trails that descended from them, not from the newspaper headlines or the televised reports, but through the eyes and hearts of some of the young people at the center of the conflicts. But this is no polemic, nor is it an attempt to change the record. What the author has done is produce a cracking good thriller that grips a reader by the throat and doesn’t let go until the final pages. One after another the revelations keep coming, and as the central characters struggle to stay alive long enough to solve their mysteries, the author maintains our interest in the love story, the history and the dynamics of the times.

It doesn’t matter your political beliefs, then, or now; the characters and their trials will reach off the pages of this fine novel and touch you in ways that are basic to our existence as human beings. This is a fine, fine novel that well deserves the accolades it will surely receive.

Carl Brookins

http://www.carlbrookins.com/,

http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/

Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!