Rusty Nail-A graphically violent Jack Daniels

GRAPHIC VIOLENCE WARNING. Ok, you have been warned.  I was warned by the author (thanks Mr. Konrath, I really do appreciate it!) that this book has the most graphic violence in the series.  Having been warned, I was able to blip over sections where that violence occurred.  It was pretty easy to see them coming.  So why would I even read a book with stuff I don’t like in it?  Well, I really wanted to know what happens to Jack.  I was starting to get fairly invested in her after the first two books,  Whiskey Sour and Bloody Mary, and having been told that the violence decreases after this book, I wanted to keep up with her storyline.  

The first book involved Jack’s investigation into the Gingerbread Man.  He pops up again here and let me say that he is not someone you want to deal with more than once.  Jack is once more being personally targeted by a serial killer.  Her partner is having to deal with some health issues, her mom’s in a coma, her ex-boyfriend has a new girlfriend, life is not fun. 

As with the first two, there are excellent descriptions of police work.  I like hearing about some of the nitty-gritty of an investigation, the leg-work involved.  I don’t like cases being solved purely by intuition or a sudden revelation.  We see plenty of good detective skills here.  As with the first two, there is plenty of humor.  Great one-liners, good relationships between the characters.  Jack and her partner have a real warmth to their relationship that I enjoy.  For all the things that are wrong in her life, Jack has a great group of people that like and help her.   

Bottom line-if you don’t want the violence, avoid this book.  If you can jump over it and are interested in following Jack’s story, you’ll find this quite satisfying.  

More about J.A. Konrath 

Author's suggested order of reading

• Would I pay money for it?  Maybe not this particular one because I skipped some parts but yes, the others in the serious I would
• Would I read more by this author?  yes 
• Would I recommend this to a friend? Not this particular one but I would recommend the others in the series to friends that like police procedurals

Purchased as a Kindle freebie March 30, 2013

 

My Man Jeeves-Simply ripping!

Hugh Laurie states the case admirably "The first thing you should know, and probably the last, too, is that PG Wodehouse is still the funniest writer ever to have put words on paper."  I couldn't agree more.

"I'm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare-or, if not, it's some equally brainy lad-who says that it's always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping..  There's no doubt the man's right." And so is our first introduction to Bertie Wooster.

Bertie Wooster seems destined to always have Fate sneaking up behind him with a lead pipe.  If anything can go wrong for him, it will. Overbearing relatives, friends that need rescuing, ties that don't match the suit he's wearing. Enter Jeeves, his gentleman's gentleman.  Calm, cool, and collected,  Jeeves is always able to get Bertie and his friends out of whatever scrape they have gotten into. And he's always able to make sure that Bertie is properly attired while doing it. Comis genius is the only description of what goes on in a Jeeves story.

This book, Wodehouse's earliest writings about Jeeves, is a set of short stories, several of them about Reggie Pepper, rather than Bertie.  The two characters are almost interchangeable except for the absence of Jeeves in the Pepper stories. Some of these stories were rewritten for later Jeeves books.

If you've never read P.G. Wodhouse before, his writing is almost hard to describe.  He's quintessentially British.  He's hilarious and there is plenty of slapstick humour but there is also lots of dry humour.  His vocabulary is different than anyone else I've ever read. His use of the slang of the time and his depiction of the idle upper class and the aristocracy before WWII are just fun! He's one of the five authors who's works I would take to a desert island with me. 

Some Wodehouse sites
Plumtopia (Plum was Wodehouse's nickname)
A celebration of P.G. Wodehouse
The Wodehouse Society
PG Wodehouse books-A site with some really excellent articles about Wodehouse

• Would I pay money for it?  Absolutely. I have bought many Wodehouse books.
• Would I read more by this author?  yes 
• Would I recommend this to a friend? I've been recommending him to everyone I know for years

Purchased as a Kindle freebie December 29, 2012 

The Boddy in the Snowbank-An entertaining little story

This publication shows how the changes in the publishing industry can promote new ways of telling stories and new ways for authors to get their work out to the public. This is a short story, 6 pages long, that began as a blog post from the 7criminalminds blog where they gave a writing prompt and different authors used it to create a short story. It's apparently always a freebie which would make sense at that length.  It is obviously a very quick read at 6 pages.  

The prompt was "The Clue characters are locked in a winter lodge. Mr. Boddy is found dead in a snowdrift with no visible signs of trauma. Who did it and how do you prove it using just the things in the lodge?” I don't know if the other blog posts were published for Kindle but if they were, I would read them.

I'm a huge fan of the game "Clue" so the characters were quite familiar to me but in a story as short as this there's no way to really develop them or give much backstory.  I found it an entertaining little read, reminiscent of the 1985 movie.

 

7criminalminds blog 

More about Jenna Bennett 

• Would I pay money for it?  No, too short
• Would I read more by this author?  yes 
• Would I recommend this to a friend?  If they like to read short stories, which some people don't

Jane Eyre-The ultimate Gothic romance

When I was a kid, probably late elementary or early junior high, my mom introduced me to the old movie version of this book that had Elizabeth Taylor in it.  It was a haunting movie and I was thrilled a few years later, early high school, to find the book and read it.  Needless to say, the book contains so much that the movie left out, whole storylines in fact, but it is equally haunting and quickly became one of my favorite books.

Most people know the basic story line, poor mistreated orphan makes good, but that is a very simplistic way to summarize this novel. The dark, heavy, brooding atmosphere is so perfectly done that this is the ultimate gothic romance for me.  I hope there were never real adults of such  evilness and cruelty as the adults in young Jane's life.  I felt every unkindness and petty cruelty with her.  It's still difficult sometimes to read through the opening chapters. The deep mystery of Thornfield Hall drew me in completely.  You feel every shadow of that huge stone mansion.  The characters were real and have stuck with me as if they were people I have met somewhere along the way in life. The book feels intensely personal. 

Other books have used similar story lines to Jane Eyre but none have done them as successfully.   This is the epitome of gothic romance and gothic horror to me. Unlike some books proclaimed to be a classic, it is very easy to see why this one is.

This book is one of my most highly recommended ever.  And that goes for the 1943 movie version of it also!

More about Charlotte Brontë 

If you're studying this book in school, here are some helpful notes.  Sparknotes on Jane Eyre

Would I pay money for it? I have paid for print versions in the past

Would I read more by this author? absolutely

Would I recommend this to a friend? I recommend it to everyone I know who reads and I have been recommending it since I first read it years ago

 
Purchased as a Kindle freebie December 28, 2012

Invisible-light, fluffy, inoffensive little mystery

Invisible is a quick cozy mystery read that seems to have reviews all over the map, from one star to five.  It is an overtly Christian mystery and the summary on Amazon does not mention this. I'm sure that accounts for some of the review disparity. 

If you are taking it just as a cozy mystery, it would fall on the very light and fluffy end of the spectrum.  Ivy Malone is an older widow who feels like she's pretty much invisible to most people these days due to her age. She still has a lot of curiosity and energy and wants to be doing something so when a mystery happens right in her neighborhood, she begins investigating on her own. 

I had a really hard time getting into this one and almost quit on it. Like most readers, I hate to give up on a book and it did get much better as I read. It started out feeling very shallow. The Christian viewpoint is quite noticeable and even though I'm a very committed Christian, it felt a bit heavy-handed at times. Good Christian dialogue must be very difficult to write. I rarely see it done where it feels natural to me. The mystery was not difficult to figure out.

Even with the problems, I was enjoying the book by the end. I enjoyed the characters as I got to know them. Not a must-read but not a waste of time. I'll finish the series if I run across them but I probably won't actively seek them out.

More about Lorena McCourtney

Would I pay money for it? Probably not

Would I read more by this author? If I run across it as a freebie or at the library

Would I recommend this to a friend? Depends on how light and fluffy they like their mysteries

Purchased as a Kindle freebie February 23, 2013

Bloody Mary-Life is never easy for Jack Daniels

Life is never easy for Jack Daniels and in this second book in the series, it just gets a little weirder.

I like this series. It's hard to describe why. It's much bloodier than a cozy, which is what I usually read and yet, it's light. It is somewhat reminiscent of Stephanie Plum and yet quite different. It's a police procedural with humour. It's a bit of a whodunit but this particular book tells you whodunit about halfway through. Jack's personal life plays in very heavily. Even writing about it sounds like a jumble of discordant elements and yet, for me, it works really well. I should just stop trying to compartmentalize it.

Jack is once again on the track of a killer that seems to be taunting her personally.  When her handcuffs turn up on a victim, it's definitely personal.  But as in the first book, Whisky Sour, it's not just her professional life that's giving her fits.  Her personal life has taken a strange turn.  Jack finds out that her mother is sick and brings her to Chicago so she can keep an eye on her. Her mother's name happens to be Mary and she happens to be an ex-cop.   I think any time you put an adult character's mother into the mix, you're going to come out with something interesting.



Just two books in and I'm already feel like I know Jack well. Even though it's bloodier than I care for, I'll be starting the next one in the series right away.

More about J.A. Konrath 

Other Jack Daniels books reviewed 
Whisky Sour
Rusty Nail

Would I pay money for it?Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes I will

Would I recommend this to a friend? Depends on their level of tolerance for graphic violence

Purchased as a Kindle freebie February 9, 2013

Whiskey Sour-And so we meet Jack Daniels

This is the first Jack Daniels novel I've read and my first by J.A. Konrath. The author says that you don't have to read them in order, they are each written to be stand-alone but if you want to read them in the author's recommended order, you can find it here. I'm one of those people that doesn't like to run willy-nilly through a series so I'll be reading them in order. 

Jack Daniels is a lieutenant with the Chicago PD. Her love interest has just left her so her personal life is a mess.  She's chasing down a serial killer called the Gingerbread Man who's  taunting the police and Jack so her professional life is rather messy also.  The story goes back and forth between her point of view and the killer's.  I'm not normally a fan of alternating view points but it didn't bother me too much in this book.

I very much enjoyed the style of writing, the humour, the mystery and the detective work, but it was more graphic than I normally like so consider that if you care about that kind of thing. It wasn't enough to put me off from the series which I will definitely continue to read.

I'm familiar with Chicago so I enjoyed the talk about the scenery and geography. I was able to see the action pretty clearly. I've already read the next one in the series and look forward to the rest of them.

More about J.A. Konrath 

Would I pay money for it?Yes

Would I read more by this author? I already have and plan on reading more

Would I recommend this to a friend? Depends on their level of tolerance for graphic violence

Purchased as a Kindle freebie February 28, 2013