Four-star review of Murder on the Flying Scotsman by Lee Stauss

I’ve enjoyed Strauss’s cozy mysteries before. This one, in the Lady Ginger Gold series, is as good as the others. A head has been found in the mail car aboard the Flying Scotsman train taking Ginger and her new husband, Inspector Nigel Reed, for their honeymoon in Edinburgh. All of the first class passengers become suspects as the jewels of one of them are stolen. Those cars are separated from the rest of the train, and the Reeds assist the York police in solving the crimes, which are related to the 1855 Gold Robbery.

Tuesday Book Reviews on Wednesday

Five-star review of Killing Fog by Jeff Wheeler

Quite a bit different from the Kingfountain series by the author I’d read over the years, and even more engrossing. I enjoyed reading about Young Bingmei, her connection to the Phoenix Blade, her freeing of the Dragon King and all the other people involved in her story. First in a series, this novel was full of action, tension, world- and character-building. According to the author, his visits to the glaciers in Alaska and to China gave him the ideas for this story and that shows. The fight scenes are reminiscent of Martial Arts movies, especially when Bingmei flies over her opponents and performs well-practiced maneuvers with staff and sword. I look forward to the other titles in the series. 

 

Four-star review of The Emotion Thesaurus second edition by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

An improvement over the last version of the book I used a few years ago. Expanded to 130 entries so you can find most emotions you can think of, and for each a long list of physical signals and behaviors as well as shorter ones of internal sensation and mental responses. Acute and long-term responses are also addressed. This is a good reference book for when you want to show a characters emotional response to something that occurred.

Tuesday Book Reviews on Wednesday

Four-star review of The Pythagorian Solution by Joseph Badal

This was an exciting story set on the Greek island of Samos. Lots of action and good descriptions of the beautiful island. The good guys are well developed but, though there are short chapters about what the bad ones are planning, their characters are all charicatures. I could have done without the rape scene too. The basis for the story, that a fisherman has such a good understanding of geometry that he can leave the clue to leads the good guys to find a treasure aboard a Turkish boat that sank at the end of WW II, is a leap. But the tension built throughout, so this book was a page-turner.

Tuesday book review on Wednesday

Short one this week for a shorter book

Four-star review of Trixie Finds Her People by RJ the Story Guy

Cute book of dog stories for kids about how a dog adjusted to a new family and the real and imaginary adventures she had. Partly told through the eyes of the brown rescue dog. Good descriptions of the dogs behavior with emphasis on how much scent plays in a dog’s perceptions.

Tuesday book review on Wednesday

Although this was slow to build up to the event that shaped the lives of so many people, especially when we know one of the five teens will die, the second half of the book was full of action and suspense. Secrets kept for twenty years come out one by one. The method of writing each chapter from the POV of each of a few characters works here. A few of the deaths seemed unnecessary. I’ve always enjoyed Scottoline’s work, starting with the series and more recently a few of the thrillers, but this didn’t quite measure up to the rest.

Tuesday book reviews on Wednesday

4-star review of Cyberspace by Matthew Mather

I was eager to read this near future novel since I’ve enjoyed all of Mr. Mather’s books I’ve read, including the first in this series, Cyberstorm. As I read it, I realized I didn’t remember the last parts of that novel. This one was full of the same kind of suspense and I do care for Mike and his family and friends and what happens to them, but I didn’t see much character development. Here he is going through yet another world-wide catastrophe and he doesn’t learn anything new about himself. But I learned a lot of neat stuff from the discussions about how many satellites are orbiting our world, ane what would happen if they were damaged, turned off or brought down by a physical or cyber attack. The most important for me was the explanations about how the time signals they send are used in diverse ways, since that relates to my own novels.

Three star review of The Valcourt Heiress by Catherine Coulter

I’ve read several of Coulter’s FBI thrillers, but this was the first historical romance. Set in King Edward’s regency, the story of Merry, the titular character, and Garron of Kersey included a few page-turning sections, wast mostly very wordy. That he didn’t realize at first that the Merry who joined him at court was not his Merry didn’t sit right with me. And a twin? How cliché. I almost didn’t care whether Arthur was dead or alive. Some sections were better written and developed than others, especially the beginning, but it sort of fell apart toward the end.