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Thus I begin my first journey with Charlaine Harris, who kindly created two series without vampires that I can read. It is time to jump upon her bandwagon if I can and see about loving her as much as so many fans around the world do! Ah, used books: what a gift. Once upon a time, when I was a highschool student in 1990, this mystery series began....

There is a lot that is well done, including an original sleuth and environment. But I hope Alan Bradley's over-indulgent writing trimmed down a great deal with exerience over time. I cannot stand excessive and out-of-place uses of words like "gentle", or dramatic use of "crimson/scarlet" when RED can simply be written!!!! Too much heaviness upon page; every description startlingly laden.

Writing is awfully overdone and indulgent. I also don't find I care for the protagonist - yet. That poses a problem, getting anything out of this! Disliking an author's writing and main character is not a good sign of taking to a novel and series I expected to love! There is no way I buy that this is a "lonely bored girl". She lives in an enormous, generously equipped manor with two sisters; one almost her age.

I really enjoy these characters and Anne Perry didn't mind putting a spotlight on the workhouse poverty of London's people. We imagine laws and persistence with education long ago eliminated horrendous situatations like those described. Her motive in taking an advocacy stance among many of her rich characters is perhaps to show there were rich who did care, most could not have known, and how poor other humans were.

I always feel I would like Anne to allow the end to simmer and to show us the characters winding down at home, after the mystery is solved and all danger is eliminated. She closes too abruptly and I hope to see that has changed by this fourth novel. However I like a start that takes us to the thick of things soon and by page 18 there was a second puzzle. She does include personal thoughts, emotions, and character.

I fall asleep before finishing as far into books as I'd like to but I am nearly done this introductory novel to Alexander McCall Smith's most well-known series. He has many others, the creative bloke! I have début novels from several and will try them later. This is far off the mystery path I expected but we love Precious and her dearest people. In my challenges: this Is for CELTIC COASTS and MY KIND OF MYSTERY!

Having argued "a cozy mystery" is not the convoluted mix of traits people think and that it is simply a lighter version of "a standard adult mystery" (Diet 7UP versus 7UP); someone asked where this book should go. I had not read it until now. It did look like it would be funny and whacky but its placement is no puzzle! Any book that discusses abuse and mourning a lost pregnancy is not light fare. Standard adult.

There are a few very unpleasant sections. They describe what happened to Precious's Mom and from whence the three important characters came: herself, her Dad, and her Dad's cousin who helped raise her. It feels like Alexander McCall Smith was figuring out his novel's shape, writing more background information than short mystery cases. The others might be very different. This volume of course lays out the series.

Let's try out this popular series. It certainly encompasses Scottish and African cultures (the author's Scotland residence today and Africa, his birthplace and series' setting). These starting pages bring to mind Pune, India's Manjiri Prabhu, who authored a zodiac mystery duology. She comprised each novel's arc of small mystery cases, instead of the usual one stretched over a whole book. A very original approach.

I am swept away unexpectedly and wish Barbara Mertz's great character and story were not in a single novel. I like time portraits and urge people to never lowball books for being published in the only year they can be: theirs. But this 1968 treat surprises me because it could script a blockbuster movie right now. Go figure, the ugly title made me avoid this in my collection for years. It is not a dud after all!

After finishing Phyllis A. Whitney's "The Red Carneilan" last night, first adult ouevre and third novel of her 100-year career; it made sense to follow with Elizabeth Peters right away. She, Barbara Merz, was not only a slightly younger contemporary of Phyllis's but they were friends. You often find on their covers, one endorsing the other. It is fun to continue with one of Barbara's earliest books, a standalone!

Finding and reading Phyllis' very first adult novel was a coup and revelation. It is exciting to see her variety. She did not write this with a gothic style, like many others that drew me to her. This is a traditional mystery, all about suspense, with palpable nervousness of police and everyone. The creative setting is a huge department store, like few now, when every job was internal: models, signage-writers...

A perfect selection for my "Gentle Spectrums" colour section! Also the earliest Phyllis. A. Whitney book I have ever read! It is no tale of a gothic mansion but a woman working in a massive department store, in 1943! Suspense and fear of a murder occur there, in Chicago, USA. Oddly, a co-worker whisks her away from the site without stopping to report it. I believe this is Phyllis's débuting adult mystery!

This is written as the story of a burned girl healing and mourning with her Mom, the Dad who didn't survive an accident. That brings deep empathy but Laura's method is not the ghost adventure I look for: exploring and finding secrets. Ghosts occasionally appear like films for them. Awfully, some chapters are "a pre-ghost story": a woman emprisoned and assaulted by a psycho! I hate that topic. Stick to ghosts!

I love this journey! I waited to read "The Girl On Legare Street" so that I didn't jump in as soon as my second-hand order arrived. It took about 2 years for prices to drop in very good condition and I am awaiting Karen White's third. I hoped I would love the world I experience reading it as much as the first and I do! Ghosts, hidden messages, family secrets.... exactly MY KIND OF MYSTERY: with a heroine of 40!

I wanted this sequel a long time and am glad to be reading along with Melanie, the 40 year-old real estate agent who can see and hear spirits! A darker spirit mystery is an enticement in this book. There were readers who complained about Melanie harshly avoiding her Mother who returned after 33 years. What annoys me is her best friend, boyfriend, Dad whispering, pushing her; instead of respecting long discomfort!

She has found an ally, if she does not include young brother and Dad; whom she especially does not want thinking she is mentally unstable. Their Mom's and sister's recent passing unhinged her of course. I agree, to a point. Nearly EVERY difficult situation you ever saw on TV, film, or story largely becomes a problem, a solitary one, for not spitting it out! Stories finally get good after they tell, so tell Paul!

There could be great paranormal contact, or an atmospheric adventure. However I dislike three devices. The paranormal starts so fast, nearly page 1, we can't work up anticipation. Eve hints Mom and Sister are gone in vague pieces; again too soon to care about the protagonists and in a drawn-out style I dislike. Tell the background! Hinting is irksome! Surreal YA events don't need loss. An intact family works!

I could have stayed awake to finish this mystery, which is in its tricky and very invested denouement. Wanting to enjoy it fully is why I saved the last twenty pages. I will reprise it, very soon, even during daylight, with time and a state of full focus to really be entertained by the information and savour how Howard Engel closes his pages. He always ties them sweetly into Benny Cooperman's quiet personal life.

Howard Engel builds believeable stories with realistic people and a familiar sense of place. He is emulated St. Catherine's, Ontario. It is a few minutes from Niagara Falls and we were in both a few years ago. He doesn't zoom along so speedily that there is no personality and heart. He takes time to paint a portrait and we befriend the series through it; without any lagging or irrelevance that dwindles interest.

A non-appreciator of skilled writing might be antsy about Howard Engel taking the time for peripheral description in this novel and want him to "Make with the goods". But Benny Cooperman sticks with this case, never stops poking it, and the wonderful colour really is well-crafted. We cut back to the chase fast enough and who's to say those bits of scenery aren't educational? Dropping clues? To use his lingo. :-)

This sure got exciting.

Here I go with Ontario's dear Howard Engel! I am glad we have, with Eric Wright passed away. Now in their 80s: what masterful writers, yet funny ones, who know their way around a mystery plot and also how to keep us interested and everything moving. Best of all they make real people to whom we relate, whom we befriend. I would love to know Benny, except constantly being broke. Ruth Rendell praised Howard Engel.

We'll see what prevails at the end. I am uncertain about giving five stars any longer. After tantalizing a great lake premise, with an old family, their old secrets, and an unknown forger; we spend all our time on a small city bomb crime. We flit back to the lake and unveil the forger so hastily, so easily, without relishing any of the family dynamics that were foreshadowed. Drat. Crimes are less fun mysteries!

Sunset is early enough that I need to take advantage of it and start my nighttime reading earlier. I have been falling asleep after ten and this time, eighteen pages. That won't do. I own so many genuinely physical books and there are so many at once that I am eager to read. I'm enjoying this novel immensely. With a 110-book goal, I would like to chug along more briskly than this. I'll try a few more pages now.

I'd rather follow the disputed artist on the old family's island than a city bomber but I think we're finishing that segment soon. I don't know if they intersect or if Eric Wright wanted to sample what it was like for a police officer to have two cases to attend to, two mysteries to work out. I know it will be strongly written and humorously-penned, so that it is a journey that is easily enjoyed. I will miss Eric.