Author: Louise Penny

UPDATE: September 2, 2023

I very seldom look at the shelves when I go to the library as any books I want I usually have set aside for me. But when I returned my last book I was ready for a new one so started looking for books by some of my favourite authors. I haven’t read a lot of books by Louise Penny but I’ve enjoyed the ones I have read.

I didn’t recognize anything in the write-up but as I go into the book things started seeming familiar so I checked my book list and found that I’d already read this one. It didn’t spoil the story for me and I enjoyed it a second time.

I have now made a list of my favourite authors and the books that I’ve read and the other ones in their series so I’ll be prepared for another library visit.

July 23, 2020

A Louise Penny mystery is somewhat like an Ann Cleeves mystery – you really care about the characters but you don’t feel the need to read-ahead or binge read to find out what happens.

This is another in the Gamache series. I’ve read a few of them but not in any particular order and it doesn’t seem to matter. This one refers back to the reason why Chief Inspector Gamache has been suspended but it really doesn’t matter to the current story. And like most of the books in the series there is both a murder and a sub-plot.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Karin Slaughter

I’m not sure who suggested this book to me but I’m certainly glad they did. I could not put it down; I went to bed one night after reading a section, turned the light out, and after an hour when I couldn’t stop thinking about it I started to read again.

A gunman enters a mall cafeteria with the intention of killing his ex-girlfriend and her mother. He then expects to be shot by the police. But Laura, also a mother, steps in to save her daughter. The manner in which she deals with the gunman and her actions afterward lead her daughter, Andy, to search for the secrets her mother has been hiding.

Goodreads Rating: * * * * *

Author: Catherine Hokin

Felix is a young German living in Berlin in 1941. His father is Jewish but his mother is German; his father has been dismissed from his job and they are having trouble making ends meet. Liesl is a young and naive girl who is engaged to be married to a high-ranking officer in the SS. On a night when she is out for one last adventure before her wedding the two meet.

Liesl is not happy in her marriage to her very controlling husband and she gets no help or understanding from her parents. Felix and his father are arrested; Felix spends the rest of the war in a concentration camp.

At the end of the war Liesl and her husband are whisked away to Argentina to avoid any prosecution. Felix becomes a lawyer and is determined to bring all the criminals to trial. But he never gives up hope of finding Liesl, or Hannah as he knows her.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Alison Lurie

This book won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1985. I think, because of this award, I was expecting a much deeper story. Based on the title and the introduction of the main characters in the first two chapters I expected the affair would be between the two – I was wrong.

Vinnie and Fred are both professors at the same US college and both have been awarded grants to do research in London for publications they are working on. Vinnie loves England but lives a quite solitary life; Fred hates England because he and his wife have just separated and nothing is working out as planned.

Enter an English socialite and a Texan (need I say more) and life begins to change for Vinnie and Fred.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *