janniethestrange's Reviews:

Mark Genevich the narcoleptic private investigator is back! This book picks up  a while after the events in The Little Sleep. The notoriety surrounding the last case has died down and the damage from the fire has been repaired. But Mark and his mom, Ellen, are on the outs. She has demanded that he get group counseling if he wants to stay in the building and continue to work as a PI. As you can imagine, Mark isn’t exactly taking the therapy to heart. He’s mucked up a recent job and the client threatens to sue, so when a fellow attendee suggests […]

My head is a little splodey right now, thanks to this book and the totally incongruous book I read just before it. Mark Genevich and Flavia de Luce couldn’t be any more different and it’s all got my head spinning a bit. But in a good way. Really. Mark Genevich is a PI in Southie, but he’s not your father’s smartass fast talking hustler. Due to a devastating accident that killed his best friend, Mark survived with a restructured face and traumatic brain injury and suffers from narcolepsy and it’s host of horrifying side effects. Not only will he just drop […]

Oh, Flavia! It’s been a few years since I first discovered this series by Alan Bradley. I read the first three or four then life and a myriad of other books encroached. Recently I was out in the world with only my kindle (I was traveling light) and had finished the current read and needed to trawl my library for something and realized I had the entire series. Saved! This novel, set in the small village of Bishop’s Lacey in 1950, introduces Flavia de Luce, a 10-year-old living in the family’s rambling home called Buckshaw with the Colonel, her widowed father and […]

Into Oblivion is the second book in the Inspector Erlendur prequel series, set in 1978 not long after he became a detective. He works here with his mentor Marion, a crotchety but infinitely crafty long-time Inspector. They make an interesting team and Erlendur’s inherent melancholy dovetails well with Marion’s curmudgeonly demeanor. A woman finds a body while soaking in a lagoon in the middle of a lava field. The water and mud are thought to have healing properties for people suffering with psoriasis, but this man is fully clothed. When they pull him from the water, he folds like a […]