May 22nd's Book Beginnings and Friday 56

Not only is it a Friday, but it is a holiday weekend Friday here in the states!  I'm kicking things off with Book Beginnings and Friday 56.

This week, I'm offering a teaser from The Study of Secrets by Cynthia Kuhn.


                                                 

This is the fifth book in the Lila Maclean mystery series.  It comes out on Tuesday, and I'll be back when with my review.

In the mean time, here's how the book begins.

"Have you found any buried treasure in the study?" Bibi asked, pouring me another cup of tea.

Meanwhile, at 56% , we find:

"Back up, please.  Why did you go to the police station?"

Short and sweet this week.

Hope you have a great weekend and will come back Tuesday for my review of this fun book.

Book Review: Murder Most Fermented by Christine E. Blum (Rose Avenue Wine Club Mysteries #2)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Decent plot, setting

Cons: Weak characters, one plot element unresolved

The Bottom Line:

Buried in garden

Second book is a mixed bag

I want to like more

Halsey Discovers Where the Bodies are Buried

When I read the first book in the Rose Avenue Wine Club last year, I concluded I’d give the second one a try since I already had it.  It’s taken me this long to get to Murder Most Fermented.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t changed my opinion of the series that much.

Annie Hall, Halsey to her friends, is enjoying her new life on Rose Avenue in Mar Vista, California.  However, she’s not so sure about the gift her friends in her neighborhood wine club have given her for her birthday – a patch of dirt.  Okay, really, it’s a plot in the neighborhood garden where plots are highly sought after.  Halsey is hoping to turn her section into a very small vineyard.

She’s just trying to dig up some dirt when she makes a startling discovery, the buried body of a missing elderly neighbor.  Obviously, the woman didn’t bury herself in the dirt, but who could have killed her?  With the police once again considering Halsey a suspect, she and her friends have to dig in to find out what really happened.

The plot was definitely stronger in this book than in the first.  There are some interesting developments in the neighborhood that might or might not play into the murder, and I enjoyed seeing how everything unfolded.  There are some sub-plots, but they don’t take over from the main plot.  There was one major aspect of the plot that seems to get dropped, but the majority of things are successfully wrapped up by the end of the book.

Once again, the action takes place over several weeks.  However, this time I was expecting that, so I didn’t have any frustration trying to make a timeline work until I discovered this.

Unfortunately, I don’t feel like we get to know the characters any better than we did in the first.  Halsey is fairly well developed as are one or two others, but that’s it.  I struggled to keep all the women of the wine club straight, and it didn’t help that there are three women whose names start with P in the club.

I continue to love the Southern California setting.  While I haven’t spent much time in Mar Vista itself, I have spent time in the surrounding neighborhoods, so I can easily picture the area where the action takes place.  I always find that fun.

I don’t drink wine, but if you do, you’ll enjoy the wine list and suggested wine pairings at the end of the book.

The series continues to be a mixed bag for me.  I wanted to enjoy Murder Most Fermented more than I did, but I am glad I gave the series a second chance overall.  This book is definitely a step in the right direction.

Movie Review: Heist and Seek - An Aurora Teagarden Mystery

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Fun, solid mystery

Cons: Too many actors look similar; light dose of cheese

The Bottom Line:

Necklace is stolen

With murder soon to follow

Fun, creative film

Stealing from a Fundraiser

I miss the days when a mystery could be about something other than murder.  You know, the mysteries you read as a kid that involved theft and counterfeiting and other crimes.  While murder does appear in Heist and Seek, the new Aurora Teagarden movie from Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, the key to solving the murders is solving a theft.

The library where Aurora (Candace Cameron Bure) works is holding their annual fundraiser, and it is promising to be their best one yet.  They are borrowing some artifacts from a nearby museum that proport to have been given to Queen Elizabeth I.  Naturally, security is tight, with Lynn and Arthur Miller (Miranda Frigon and Peter Benson) on hand to help make sure nothing happens.

However, when the curtain is pulled back for the big revel, the crown is missing.  A search of the people at the event turns up empty, but the cameras caught a suspect.  When that suspect is shot before he can be questioned, it is a race to figure out who else was involved in the crime.  Will Aurora figure it out?

Of course, there are several people with had motive, so it is a matter of figuring out which of them had the opportunity and actually committed the crime.  The plot does a wonderful job of teasing us answers, confusing us, but ultimately leading to the logical conclusion.

Meanwhile, Nick (Niall Matter) is trying to find the right time to propose to Aurora.  This was a completely predictable sub-plot, but every scene that involved it left me smiling.  It was so much fun watching it all played out.

I’ve seen some complaints about the casting of this movie, and I would tend to agree.  Many of the guys looked too similar, so it was hard to tell them apart the instant they walked on the screen.  Fortunately, there were usually clues early in the scene so we could figure out which characters these were, but it would be nice if they found some different types for the next movie.

This isn’t a knock on the cast – they are all fine.  There is a bit of Hallmark cheese in the film, but it is a mild dose, and won’t bother fans of the franchise at all.

This movie was fun from start to finish.  Light, fun entertainment is perfect for right now, so be sure to check out Heist and Seek.

Book Review: Spiders from Mars by Diane Vallere (Sylvia Stryker Mysteries #4)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Strong mystery, fun characters, creative setting

Cons: Book, while logical, takes a few leaps

The Bottom Line:

Quest to free mentor

Turns into quest for killer

Mystery in space

Free Neptune!

Diane Vallere is one of the authors who consistently stretches the boundaries of the cozy mystery genre.  True, she has some that are very traditional mysteries, but she also has some that…aren’t.  The perfect example of that is Spiders from Mars, the newest in the Sylvia Stryker Space Case Mysteries.

Yes, you read that right.  This entire book, really the entire series, takes place outside of Earth’s atmosphere.  Syliva herself is half Plunian and half human and the series introduces us to a wide variety of human and alien characters.  This book resolves a cliffhanger from the previous book in the series, and there are references to past events.  But if you wanted to jump in here, you could without too much difficulty.

It’s been four months since we last checked in with Sylvia, and in that time, she’s had one thing on her mind – freeing Neptune, her mentor and friend, from prison for a crime he sort of committed.  (For more on that, you’ll need to read the previous book in the series.)  She’s come up with the perfect plan, too.  She’s going to have him declared dead so she can slip him out of prison.

However, when she goes to file the paperwork, she learns that there has been a murder in the prison and Neptune is the only suspect.  Her original plan out the window, she has to act fast to free him and clear his name before he disappears for good.  Can she do it?

As you can see, if the setting were on Earth, the mystery itself would feel very much like a cozy plot.  Yes, there are things that change due to the space setting, but the heart of the book is a mystery.  And it’s a good one.  There are so many twists and turns, I thought I was on a space flight avoiding asteroids while I was reading it.  The plot does take a couple leaps that were a little jarring but could have been smoothed over with a little editing.  Don’t worry, these aren’t major things and everything makes sense at the end.  I just wish things had been smoothed over a bit more.

The characters are wonderful.  All of Sylvia’s friends put in appearances here, and it was great to see them again.  They may be aliens, but they and their cultures are real and such fun to revisit.

And don’t let the space setting worry you.  Yes, there may be a few things you aren’t used to seeing, but they are all explained, and it feels normal before you know it.  I was fully lost in Sylvia’s world and enjoying every page of it.

This book was over all too quickly.  If you are looking for a fun change of pace, then you’ll be glad you picked up Spiders from Mars.

You’ll also enjoy the rest of Sylvia Stryker’s Space Cases.

Movie Review: Cats (2019)

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: Many of the songs are good

Cons: Bizarre looks combined with depressing story

The Bottom Line:

Famous musical

Some good songs in the soundtrack

But overall strange

Weird from Start to Finish

I have always been interested in seeing Cats, but it has never worked out to me to see a stage version.  I’ve heard mixed reviews of this musical overall, so I wasn’t sure what I would think, but I was still intrigued.  Then I started hearing how bad the new movie version was, and the trailers certainly confirmed that.  Still, I just couldn’t resist renting the DVD.  I’ve got wanting to see the musical out of my system now.

What little plot there is centers around a group of cats, the Jellicles, who reside in a neighborhood in London.  Our entry to this world is Victoria (Francesca Hayward), who has been dumped in their territory just in time for the yearly festival to see who will ascend to the Heaviside and be reborn into a new Jellicile life.

Right there, I’ve got issues with the plot.  We are holding a contest to see who dies and comes back to life?  While I say I don’t look at popular fiction for my theology, this entire premise didn’t sit well with me on multiple levels, one of them being the bad theology.   Not to mention it is a very dark, depressing premise.

The musical was inspired by a collection of T.S. Elliot poems on cats.  Honestly, if you just listened to some of the songs without any story or visuals, you’d understand why this musical is popular.  Many of them are fun, and they capture various cat personalities (and human personalities) perfectly.  Then there’s “Memories,” a hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking song.  Yes, the music is phenomenal, but what else would you expect from Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Likewise, the choreography is fun and inventive.  There were a few moments that made me cringe, but that is part of the entire movie’s visuals, which I will get to in a minute.

And I’m not going to fault the actors.  They are giving this production their all.  The film boasted about the all-stars in the cast, which include Judi Dench, Rebel Wilson, James Corden, Taylor Swift, and Ian McKellen.  Honestly, this is an ensemble piece, so no one gets a ton of screen time, and I didn’t recognize many of the names of those in the cast.  Everyone does a good job of singing and trying to bring their characters to life.

Then there are the effects.  I found them impossible to look away from in a train wreck kind of way.  We can see the actor’s faces, but most of their bodies are covered by a CGI cat body and hair.  The movie was filmed on oversized sets, so we get the feel of life cat-sized.  I get what the director and producers were going for here.  I really do.  And I’m not sure how you could better capture that these are cats.  But it is still that odd mix of captivating horror that just doesn’t look right overall.

I think if I had enjoyed the story more, I might have forgiven the visuals.  However, the depressing story combined with the weird look make Cats a miss for me.  Now that I’ve seen it, I have no desire to see any form of this show again since I’d have the same issues with the story no matter what the visuals were.

Book Review: Sunrise at the Mayan Temple by Sigmund Brouwer (Accidental Detectives #14)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Strong characters, exciting second half, humor

Cons: Slow to start, short story colors the book too much

The Bottom Line:

Exciting trip south

Slow start, weaker mystery

Not as good as rest

Slow Start, Fast Paced Second Half

As much as I love the rest of the Accidental Detectives series, I have never warmed up to Sunrise at the Mayan Temple despite reading it several times.  On this reread, I think I was finally able to put my finger on just way this one isn’t as good as the rest of the series.

Ricky Kidd is surprised when his younger brother, Joel, is given six tickets to spend 10 days down in Mexico.  He’s even more surprised when his parents agree to send the two of them plus his friend Mike, Ralphy, and Lisa, along with Old Lady Bugsby as their chaperon, down there.  When the group arrives, they learn they are there to be part of a dig at Chichen Itza.  It sounds great, but Ricky soon begins to get new worries.  Like why is everyone afraid of the leader of their dig?  Are the rumors of an ancient legend come back to life true?  Or is something more sinister happening?

These characters originally began life in a series of short stories author Sigmund Brouwer wrote.  Once I realized that, I began to see how the early events of each book incorporated a short story.  In this case, the short story was one that he was particularly proud of since it won an award.  Part of my issue is this short story, which is a bit of a downer.  Even more so, I feel the book overall is twisted to make this story work. In order to tie it into the story, Ricky has to let things go that he normally wouldn’t in his pursuit of justice.  That just doesn’t sit well with me even after rereading the book a few times.

Then there’s the mystery itself.  We get a very slow start to it due to a travelogue as the characters head down to Mexico.  Once it does begin, it proves to be extremely gripping.  However, in the rush to tell the story, much of it is resolved in a data dump.  Ricky has some of his usual brilliant deductions, but they only resolve a small part of the case, not the majority of the story like normal.  I love this series because of his deductions, so that is a disappointment.

Fortunately, the characters carry this book.  They are at their best here.  There are some very funny moments, including a running gag I just loved.  It’s always a pleasure to spend time with them, and I enjoyed getting to do that once again.

Sunrise at the Mayan Temple is more of a mixed bag than usual for the series, but it is the only off book.  I definitely recommend this series, but only after you’ve met the characters should you consider reading this one.

Enjoy Ricky’s other cases with the rest of the Accidental Detectives books.

May 16th's Weekly TV Thoughts

Yes, there will be some whining below and next week.  When we are dealing with unplanned cliffhangers that won't be resolved until January or May of next year, I get to whine a little.

Disney Family Sing Along II – I was smiling just as much for this one.  I love that they included some classic mother songs since it aired on Mother’s Day, including a song I forgot about from Peter Pan.  The Houghs stole the show again.  I mean, how did they do all of that with stuff they have at home?  I’m sure they got some help, but still, wow!

Batwoman – This is all leading somewhere, and I would love to know where it is going to go.  Instead, we get the early season finale next week.  And I thought I wasn’t going to be back for next season.  I bet it will now.  Alice knows the secret?  Yikes!  Luke figured it out, but those glasses were a nice touch.  And I’m loving having Mary on the team.

Supergirl – Sean Astin and Willie Garson!  Yes, I was way too excited for the guest stars in this episode.  Again, it’s killing me knowing that next week is the season finale and we won’t really get resolutions to anything.  I suspect we will get killer cliffhangers.  They are really going to have a different show next season regardless.  I mean, blowing up the DEO?  That’s a pretty major change to everything.  I’m so glad Lena same back and realized what she’s really been doing.  I wasn’t expecting it, but I’m very happy it happened.

The Baker and the Beauty – Really?  You are going to drop that bombshell on Daniel just before you get out of the car?  That didn’t make Noa look very good.  The mother/daughter scenes fell into a cliché.  So did the father with the brother, but I really liked how that played out.  And they are going for the café.  No surprise, but I’m glad to see that.  Vanessa’s about to become a huge problem even though how Daniel and Noa met wasn’t nearly as bad as the reporter was trying to make it sound.

The Flash – I’m trying to decide if that cliffhanger was worse than normal for a season ender or not.  It’s was certainly bad, and I wish we could find out how they are going to get Iris back next week.  Who knows when they will be back filming again.  Sigh.  I will wait, but I never said I’d wait patiently.

Legends of Tomorrow – That was fun.  That’s the kind of fun this show is supposed to be and that I’ve been missing so much this season.  I’m glad to know they finished filming the season so I can relish these cliffhangers instead of wondering when they will be resolved.  Yes, the character arcs were predictable, but that’s also part of the charm of the show.

Survivor – I’m not sure how I feel about Tony winning.  As impressed as I am with Natalie making it back in the game, I’m glad she didn’t win.  Voting out first to winning it all?  No.  Just no.  I’m sorry Michelle didn’t get any votes at all.  She deserved some – she would have had mine.  But I am most impressed by the jury.  Normally, I fast forward through that part of the finale as it can get pretty bitter.  Instead, they were respectful and complimentary.  That’s a level of maturity I really can respect.  I love Amber saying what I have thought about her win.  But hey, the two of them seem very happy together, and I love seeing that.  That’s the ultimate prize.  I miss the reunion.  I was looking forward to the reunion.  But I understand why it didn’t happen.  I didn’t feel like they slowed down the finale to make it stretch for three hours, but I do think they could have trimmed some fat earlier in the season if they wanted to.  Overall, this was a great season.  Let’s do it again in the fall.

Book Review: Going Nowhere Fast by Gar Anthony Haywood (Joe and Dottie Loudermilk #1)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Intriguing plot; fun set up

Cons: A couple of the characters are more annoying than fun

The Bottom Line:

Unexpected corpse

Derails traveling couple

Twisty plot is fun

Corpse in the Airstream Bathroom

When I finished Leave No Footprints (which I reviewed Wednesday), I wasn’t quite ready to leave the National Parks.  Fortunately, I’d just been digging through the books in my condo and found Going Nowhere Fast by Gar Anthony Haywood.  It proved to be just the mystery I needed.

Joe and Dottie Loudermilk have turned in a traditional retirement for life on the road.  When Joe retired from his career as a police officer in Los Angeles, the couple bought an Airstream trailer and hit the road, going wherever they felt like.  An additional bonus has been the fact that they are not bothered by their grown kids who can’t quite seem to function as adults.

The couple are currently enjoying the Grand Canyon.  However, when they return from a run one morning, it’s to find that their youngest son has found them.  But that’s not the biggest surprise – there’s a dead body in their trailer’s bathroom.  Joe and Dottie certainly don’t recognize the corpse, and their son says he doesn’t recognize him either.  But he’s lying about something.  What is he hiding?  Does it have to do with the murder?

Before going any further, I should point out that this book was originally published in the mid-90’s, and I’ve had the book sitting on my shelves for over a decade.  I point this out because, even though the 90’s aren’t that long ago, it really is a different time.  For example, no one has cell phones, and they use this thing called a pay phone.  Weird, right?  The book is currently available as an ebook, and I don’t know if it has been updated at all.  Just be prepared for the trip back in time, and you’ll be fine.

Since I grew up camping in trailers, I immediately identified with Joe and Dottie.  In fact, part of me finds their life very appealing.  Of course, there’s the whole murder thing, which I wouldn’t want to find myself part of in real life, but that part intrigued me here.  I couldn’t wait to see what was going on and how they’d figure it out.  Joe may be the retired cop, but Dottie is really the one who drives the investigation here.  She does a good job of gathering clues and piecing things together while dealing with some twists I didn’t see coming.  The plotting here is excellent.

The characters, on the other hand, could have been a little better.  Joe seems to be constantly grumbling or complaining about something to the point where he’s often angry.  I’m sure it was supposed to come across as humorous, but I found it off putting.  Their son was an idiot, but I still found him amusing at times.  Neither character is so bad that I am sorry I read the book, but I wanted to like them more than I did.  Dottie, as narrator, is the most normal of the bunch, and I certainly did like her.  The rest of the cast are interesting and do their job of keeping us confused as to what is really going on.

I’m glad I finally picked up Going Nowhere Fast.  If you are looking for an offbeat mystery that will hook you until the end, this is the trip for you.

This is part of Friday's Forgotten Books.

May 15th's Book Beginnings and Friday 56

I'm back again this week with another round of Book Beginnings and Friday 56.

This week, I'm featuring Spiders from Mars by Diane Vallere.

                                              

Yes, this has a sci-fi setting, but it is a mystery at heart.  Plus it's fun.  Just take a look at how it starts.

The first thing I did was have Neptune declared legally dead.  It was an unlikely start to a rescue mission, but it was my first one, and Neptune's incarceration made it difficult to ask him for advice.

Moving on to 56% into this ebook, we get this:

Uh-oh again!  Norman must have turned on the gravity assist, because I hadn't even noticed that I was slowly gliding toward the ground!

So yes, it does have sci-fi elements.  I love getting to try out a different setting like that.

I'll be reviewing this book on Tuesday, so I hope you'll come back for it.  In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend.

TV Show Review: Murder, She Wrote - Season 4

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Fun mysteries, Jessica herself

Cons: No cons, he wrote

The Bottom Line:

Murders around her

Jessica investigates

Episodes still fun

“So You Admit That You Are a Writer.”  “Well, I’ve Never Felt the Need to Deny It.  At Least Not So Far.”

This has been a strange season in the world, and that is being reflected on TV.  Normally, April would be filled with new episodes of my TV shows as they build up to May sweeps and season finales.  Instead, it was very quiet with very little on since most shows had to end their production schedules early and networks were spreading out new episodes.  So what did I do?  I decided to jump into season 4 of Murder, She Wrote to fill the TV gap instead of waiting until mid-May like I normally would.  It was a welcome escape.

If you have somehow missed this 1980’s classic, it follows Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury).  While trying to get over her grief of losing her husband, she decided to write a mystery.  It became a best seller, and her second career was born.  However, she also finds herself involved in real life murders, wherever she goes.  Fortunately, she is able to notice the little things and solve the cases, clearing her friends and family in the process.

Over the course of the twenty-two episodes that make up this season, Jessica finds murder at a fashion show in Paris, she gets a lesson in TV writing when the plot of one is her books is stolen for an episode of a TV show, Jessica’s cousin Emma (also Angela Lansbury) finds herself solving a murder after reconnecting with an old flame, Jessica must clear her niece and nephew-in-law of murder that could spell trouble for their marriage, a visit with a playwright friend in Georgia leads to murder, and a visit to meet her nephew Grady’s fiancée (Michael Horton and Michael’s real life wife Debbie Zipp) ends in murder at a restaurant.

Of course, fans of the show live for the episodes set in Jessica’s hometown of Cabot Cove, Maine.  It’s there that we get the closest things we have to recurring characters in the form of Sherriff Amos Tupper (Tom Bosley) and Dr. Seth Hazlitt (William Windom).  We get five cases set in Cabot Cove this year.  A hitchhiker dredges up an old murder case.  When the deputy’s wife is murder one night, all kinds of secrets in town come to light.  The annual Founder’s Day celebration is interrupted when a Native American shows up claiming to own the land where the town has been built.  Amos’s sister arrives for an unannounced visit, and her in-laws are right behind her.  Finally, the death (by natural causes!) of a citizen sparks rumors of a treasure possibly connected to Benedict Arnold.  Seth gets an extra episode as he and Jessica travel to DC and reconnect with his brother along the way.

I’ve been keeping track of the Cabot Cove episodes as I rewatch the show, and this year was not kind to my stats.  Of the 86 murders that Jessica has solved over the course of four seasons, we now have fifteen and a half that took place in Cabot Cove.  That’s five new ones this year.  Making things worse, four of them involved residents of town, and only one involved people from out of town.  That brings those totals to nine murder involving residents and six and a half involved people from out of town.  The numbers were pretty even until this year.

On the other hand, Cabot Cove started to be fleshed out this year.  For the first time, we see the beauty parlor.  This is also the first season we meet realtor Eve Simpson (Julie Adams).  While it wasn’t acknowledged this season, this would be the final season with Tom Bosley as Amos Tupper since he’d go on to star in his own TV mystery show – the Father Dowling Mysteries.

In case you couldn’t tell by how I’ve rambled on about it, I love this show.  The mysteries are always top notch.  Yes, it is often obvious when they are showing us the clues, but I still don’t always remember what those moments means.  Although I did find a string of episodes where I did remember things as I was watching them.  I wouldn’t remember an episode as I got started, but we’d hit a certain scene, and I’d know exactly how the rest of the plot was going to play out, including the important clue that had just happened.  Since it’s been years since I watched these episodes, that amazed me.

And it’s fun just to watch Jessica in action.  Angela Lansbury is excellent here.  She can make Jessica be as sweet and innocent as could be or tough, depending on what the situation calls for.  She does it without missing a beat.  And the character is always sharp.  People dismiss her at their own peril, which I love.  It’s also fun to see who will pop up as guest stars in any given episode.  This season, we get Robert Reed, Janet Leigh, Dean Jones, Dean Stockwell, Frank Gorshin, and Shirley Jones.  Those are at least the names that meant something to me.

The twenty-two episodes of this season are collected on DVD on five discs in their native full frame picture and stereo sound.  This isn’t a show that will challenge your system at all, but it is a TV show from the 80’s, so this is just how it originally aired.  The only extra is a bonus episode from season five.  I’m not sure why this particular one was included, and it seems rather silly now since all seasons of the show are available on DVD.

Whether I remember the plot of an episode or not, it is always a pleasure to be in Jessica’s presence, so I enjoyed every minute of season 4 of Murder, She Wrote again.  This is a light, fun mystery show that will keep you entertained for every episode.