IN SUNSHINE OR IN SHADOW by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
6d ago
In 1908 when In Sunshine or In Shadow takes place, the Catskill Mountains aren’t the entertainment mecca that they were to become two or three decades later, nor was it yet the “Yiddish Alps,” a summer haven for Jews who were not welcome in other resorts around the state. Instead, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Catskills are home to small farms and boarding houses that welcomed guests who took trains and electric trolleys and ferries to arrive at the fresh air vacationland a few hours north of New York City.  That summer, to escape the typhoid epidemic that is spreading in Manh ..read more
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THE MAYORS OF NEW YORK by S. J. Rozan: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
1w ago
When the only son of the mayor of New York City goes missing, one would expect there would be a major search for him, using radio, television, and newspaper coverage in addition to the police.  That’s not the case, however, when teenager Mark McCann is the one that private investigators Bill Smith and Lydia Chin are hired to find. The mayor is in the midst of crucial negotiations with the city’s Detective Endowment Association, and she is concerned that calling the city’s police to find her son will make her look as if she’s a negligent single mother and thus weaken her position at the ba ..read more
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LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED by Jeff Hoffmann: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
2w ago
I’ve written frequently about secrets, how they can be dangerous and deadly for one to keep.  Now multiply one by four, and you have the plot of Like It Never Happened. The four high school friends had once been close, so close that they called each other “brother.”  It was always Tommy, Kevin, Malcolm, and Henry.  As the saying goes, it was “one for all and all for one,” as it appeared in The Three Musketeers.  But in the local edition of the paper he’s reading, Tommy sees Kevin’s obituary, and now there are only three.  And the remaining men are no longer close at al ..read more
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LEAVE NO TRACE by A. J. Landau: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
3w ago
Nothing could have been more ordinary in the minutes before the explosion.  A fifteen-year-old boy is trying to get his father’s attention away from his phone and pay attention to him.  Danny is pointing toward the water beyond Liberty Island, home of the Statue of Liberty.  He tells his father that there’s something wrong with the Park Police boat in the harbor, that they no longer use that model. His father really isn’t interested or sure that Danny knows what he’s talking about.  As his father and mother and younger sister head toward the line that will be going up to La ..read more
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DEATH UNDER A LITTLE SKY by Stig Abell: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
1M ago
Jake Jackson, a London police detective, is about to experience a life change.  Just at the time his marriage is dissolving, he receives news of the death of his Uncle Arthur and the bequest his uncle left him.  Now he has the opportunity to retire and start over. Arthur was a wealthy, eccentric man, a bachelor with no family other than Jake, so Jake is not surprised to be the recipient of his uncle’s generosity, but he is stunned when he realizes the extent of it.  In addition to a mansion called Little Sky, named after the lake on Arthur’s property in a remote corner of the En ..read more
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THE PRICE YOU PAY by Nick Petrie: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
1M ago
Peter Ash and and his friend Lewis go back a long way, and they have the kind of bond that is unbreakable.  Each man would do anything for the other, so it’s something Peter doesn’t even have to think about when Lewis enters his house in the middle of the night and asks for assistance. The two head north from Milwaukee in below zero weather to the home of Teddy “Upstate” Wilson.  Upstate had worked with Lewis and two others to do jobs that needed doing and no one else would or could handle.  Eight hours before he picked up Peter, Lewis received a text from Upstate–Bad men here ..read more
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The spring semester at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifel...
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
1M ago
The spring semester at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) begins in just over two weeks, and I’m preparing to teach WHODUNIT?:  Murder Most British. As most mystery fans are aware, there has always been a competition between the admirers of the American author Edgar Allan Poe and his French creation and those of the British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his English detective as to which author should be credited for introducing the world’s first consulting detective.  Since this will be a course on British authors, you can probably guess into which camp I belong ..read more
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LAST SEEN IN HAVANA by Teresa Dovalpage: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
2M ago
Visiting one’s childhood home often proves to be a challenging experience, especially if you have been living in the United States for years and are now returning to Cuba.  So much has changed, either in reality or in one’s imagination, that it’s not surprising that Mercedes Spivey is not quite certain how she should feel about her return. Mercedes spent her childhood with her paternal grandmother, her mamina, living in a huge ramshackle mansion in Havana.  Their home had always needed major repairs, but now it, as well as mamina, has fallen on hard times, and it is primarily Mercede ..read more
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THE RIVER WE REMEMBER by William Kent Krueger: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
2M ago
It’s 1958, and memories are long in Black Earth County, Minnesota.  It is barely a generation since World War II, and the town of Jewel is holding the annual parade celebrating its freedom and honoring its veterans on Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day.  But discrimination against Native American Noah Bluestone and his Japanese wife Kyoko is ever-present. Sheriff Brody Dern is in his office when a man enters with staggering news.  “They ate him, Brody.  They ate him right down to the bone.” The “him” is James Patrick Quinn, the largest land owner in the county and pr ..read more
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PAST LYING by Val McDermid: Book Review
Marilyn's Mystery Reads
by Marilyn Brooks
2M ago
It’s April, 2020 in Edinburgh, and the COVID era is just beginning.  So little is known about it–how long the lockdown will last, how to protect one’s self from getting the virus, exactly how it’s transmitted–that it’s a really strange time. For Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie, life in lockdown is particularly challenging.  It’s obviously difficult, if not impossible, to conduct investigations when she can’t move around the city freely and interview people as is necessary in her job in the Historic Cases Unit (what in the United States are called cold cases). Trying to deal wit ..read more
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