Friday, June 23, 2006

Some Recommended Detective series--

I recently read celebrity librarian Nancy Pearl's book More Book Lust and came away with a short list of detective series to consider reading or remember for others. More Book Lust is the follow-up to the successful Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason and would be very handy to keep or to use to find books which cover a huge range of topics. For more information about More Lust, I wrote a book review for PLCMC.

I'll mention three series here and more another time.

Author Lee Child is recommended as one "too good to miss." His official website would likely agree. Child's biggest fame has come from a series of books with his character Jack Reacher, a former military policeman. Pearl suggests reading in this order The Enemy (a 2004 title), Killing Floor, and Persuader. After that, she says that the order doesn't matter although she cautions about intense violence in the books.

And Child was just mentioned to me by another librarian as an author who she has recently started reading. I've read about him but have yet to read one of his books.

Another writer is Donna Leon with the Italian detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti. Pearl comments how her character's "love of good food and despair about political corruption in his native land play prominent roles in each book." Uniform Justice is recommended as a particularly good title, the story is about Brunetti's investigation of a murder of a military academy student and how officials repeatedly undermind his investigation.

Finally, author Ellis Peters is mentioned by Pearl as "the best pure mysteries featuring a member of the clergy." Set in 12th century England, Brother Cadfael, a Bendictive monk, is involved in mysteries during the bloody battles between King Stephen and the Empress Maud for the rule of Britain.
Pearl writes one should start with the first book, A Morbid Taste for Bones and read in order.

Get Rewarded for Summer Reading


PLCMC is hosting a "Relax and Read: adult reading club" this summer. It asks for participants to read five books to quality for a weekly--even some random--prize drawings. To be eligible for prizes, you must be a resident of Mecklenburg county or a PLCMC library card holder.

For those tackling summer reading, this could be well worth your time to check out. This program ends Saturday, August 19th.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Book Club Meeting (6/8)--

George Pelecanos' Drama City was the book for discussion and the book received a mildly mixed reaction. The book, which is a strong character study of individuals in certain Washington D.C. neigbhorhoods, was appreciated for what it offered. The characters grow on you and root for them to succeed. And to be honest, the people highlighted in the novel are working in possibly dangerous and likely shunned jobs (a human society enforcement officer and a parole officer--I have short book review on the library's Reader's Club web site). All the same, you respect the characters who are hard working and need extra patience and prayers to finish the workday.

What was missing in the book was any true mystery story. It was a good crime noir story but that was it. That frustrated us as readers (it was an Edgar nominee this year) and one book club attendee stopped reading after one or two chapters since it didn't appear to be a mystery. Oh well. We'll repeat the process in a few short weeks with a new book.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Now available at a new location--

This blog is now available at the South County Regional Library webpage on the PLCMC web site (plcmc.org). Go to "Library Locations" located to the left (the eighth entry down under "For Teens") on the PLCMC main library webpage. Otherwise, click on the "South County Regional Library" link to the right to see the webpage.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

New on DVD today--

Last fall I received movie passes in the mail for a modest feature starring Robert Downing Jr. and Val Kilmer Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The movie is actually described as containing a mystery story and that's good and seemingly rare for Hollywood these days. I was pleased to get those passes because I had heard about the movie and concluded they would be ideal for the book club. I was also very pleased to learn the book club was recognized outside the library walls.

The movie passes came from a marketing firm in Atlanta. However, I also had a great disappointment with the movie passes--they arrived too late to be used.

But to make the long story short, the book club does get movie passes now and again on a timely basis. And the movie that we missed has been released DVD today. A commentator on CNN Headline News said today that hopefully the movie will find an audience on DVD as it did not as a motion picture release. He described it as a mystery with a lot of humor.

And of interest to those in the Charlotte area, the DVD will soon be available at the public library. It is rated R for language, violence, sexuality and nudity.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Mystery novels set in and near Charlotte--

Sunday's The Charlotte Observer book section featured two new titles which are set in and near Charlotte, N.C. The first is a debut mystery by John Hart titled The King of Lies. It features a Salisbury (N.C.) lawyer named Jackson Workman "Work" Pickens who is going through a tragically hard time. His father has just been murdered and he becomes a suspect along with his sister. Thomas Dunne Books is the book publisher. Next is a first-time novel by Mark Ethridge Grievances. Reporter Matt Harper, of a fictional Charlotte newspaper, pursues a sensitive story and risks his job to unravel a 20-year-old murder in a remote South Carolina community. The book publisher is NewSouth Books.