Perdition U.S.A. by Gary Phillips
I’ve written it in other reviews and I know it can come off as pandering so forgive me but one of racism’s many sins is that the Ivan Monk series isn’t more widely available. Yes it does have a certain niche following among those of us who peruse mysteries. But good God, I go to a mystery section at my local Barnes and Noble and there’s so…much…dreck (and Agatha Christie reprints which — to be clear — is not dreck but that estate really doesn’t […]
San Francisco Homicide Inspector 5-Henry-7 by Frank Falzon, Duffy Jennings
As a homicide inspector in San Francisco during the 1970s and 80s, Frank Falzon investigated some of the most famous crimes of the decade, including the Night Stalker serial murders and the Moscone-Milk assassinations. I came to this book in a pretty serendipitous way. I’d just listened to an episode of My Favorite Murder in which the one of the hosts covered a case discussed in this book, which she’d come across because her cousin was a colleague of Falzon’s. Just a day later, when I […]
Frontier Grit: The Unlikely True Stories of Daring Pioneer Women by Marianne Monson
The Paper Daughters of Chinatown by Heather B. Moore
Frontier Grit – 3.5 stars In this book we meet twelve women who traversed the American frontier in search of their dreams, though what these dreams were and the paths they took to them vary extraordinarily. As a child I devoured Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. Though I’ve have quite a lot of bubbles burst about her depiction of her childhood (check out Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires to learn more), my interest in those so-called pioneers who tried to ‘tame’ the Wild West still persists, […]
Bolero by Wyatt Kennedy
The rating I am giving for Bolero is a bit complicated. It is a 3 for the story and a 4 for art. There is a 2 for the obvious shock for shock value and a 2 for some oogy bits. There is another 4 for this is not an easy book, and I was not always in the moment, but I know I could be if the circumstances were more ideal towards reading. Therefore, it is a very solid three that had its moments […]
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
CBR Bingo – Dwelling I am a huuuuuuuge fan of Taylor Jenkins Reid. The first book of hers I consumed was the audio version of “Daisy Jones and the Six” which I loved 5000; the same can be said for everything else of hers I’ve read. She is pure MAGIC, an author who is so talented and adept at making historical fiction seem like non-fiction that I’m a little suspicious she may have gone down to Georgia and fiddled against the devil in order to […]
Watch the Girls by Jennifer Wolfe
Whew. This book is something. Don’t know if I loved it or hated it but I know I won’t forget it! I almost quit it five times and yet I couldn’t put it down. I can usually handle bleak, depressing crime fiction but oh man, this one is bleak!* It mostly works until it doesn’t…but the ending kind of comes together but it doesn’t? I really need more people to read this so I can parse it out. A few more points… -Loved: Jennifer Wolfe […]
