MISTERIOSO

by Arne Dahl - to be released July 11, 2011

The powers that be have decided to use Det. Paul Hjelm as a scapegoat following his handling of a hostage situation at the immigration office.  Although Hjelm diffused the situation, it wasn't by the book and he knows he's in trouble. 

Fully expecting to be unemployed, instead he is picked to be part of an elite team  of officers from across Sweden; hand picked because of their ability to think outside the box.  The six member team is led by Jan-Olov Hultin and has been assigned the task of trying to identify and catch the killer who has been executing Swedish businessmen.

With seven different egos to deal with, it takes the team a while to coalesce, but once they're up and running they're quickly immersed in their task.  Following the theme of many Scandinavian novels, the team's investigation finds them wading through ties to the Russian mafia as well as dealing with the national problem of the Swedish  fear and loathing of immigrants.

Ever since I read Stieg Larsson's wonderful trilogy I've discovered more authors from that chilly section of the globe.  Perhaps it's because of the long winters that force them indoors, or just that the Scandinavian publishing industry has decided to follow the coattails of Larsson's amazing success, but whatever the reason and lucky for us, intelligent and intricate Scandiavian mysteries have reached our shores in abundance.  Jo Nesbo of Norway, the writing duo of Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom from Sweden, as well as Arnaldur Indridson of Iceland have all produced solid and enjoyable mysteries and thrillers that have been translated for the English speaking market.  Award winning Swedish author Arne Dahl joins this esteemed group and MISTERIOSO is the first book in his crime trilogy. 

ISBN 978-0-375-42535-6
352 pages

DECEPTIONS

by Rebecca Frayn - May 3, 2011 release date

Julian has moved in with single mother Annie and her two children, Dan and Rachel.  Used to living on his own, Julian is trying to blend into the chaos of Annie's world as well as win over twelve year old Dan.  Before their bonding can even begin, Dan fails to return home from school one day and no one knows where he is.

DECEPTIONS deals with the terrible struggle of a mother trying to cope with the loss of a child and her desperate hope that he will be found.  As Julian tries to help Annie accept Dan's disappearance, she sinks deeper into herself, creating cracks in an already fragile relationship.

When Annie receives a call three years later that her son has been found, she finally begins to put her life back together.  Julian is less sure that the young man is really Dan and he walks a fine line trying to find out the truth and not lose Annie in the process. 

Based on a true story, DECEPTIONS is a glimpse at the horror of having a child go missing.   Unfortunately for the reader, Frayn's writing and characters are not strong enough to carry this very serious subject. 

ISBN 978-1-4391-9369-7
288 pages

HANNAH'S HOUSE RABBIT

by Loren Spiotta-DiMare - just released in softcover
Illustrated by Lisa Fenton

HANNAH'S HOUSE RABBIT is a lovely children's book written by local New Jersey author Loren Spiotta-DiMare. 

Based on Ms. Spiotta-DiMare's own childhood tale of her pet rabbit, we follow the antics of Sparkles, the lop eared bunny Hannah receives for her tenth birthday. 

Infused with handy hints about the care and training of a house rabbit, this is an early primer for anyone considering a rabbit as a house pet.  Children of all ages will enjoy this charming tale.

ISBN 978-0-9834605-0-3

Lynn's Note:  My sons had a bunny named Thumper when they were young, but unfortunately due to allergies, Thumper was confined to an outdoor cage.

THE STORY OF BEAUTIFUL GIRL

By Rachel Simon - to be released May 4, 2011

THE STORY OF BEAUTIFUL GIRL is the tale of Lynnie Goldberg and John Doe Number 42, also known as Homan.  It's 1968 and both are residents of The Pennsylvania State School for the Incurable and Feebleminded.  Lynnie is developmentally disabled and Homan is deaf, but despite their differences and finding their own way to communicate, they fall in love.

The story begins on a dark and rainy night after Lynnie and Homan escape from the institution.  They seek refuge at the remote farm of Martha Zimmer, a retired school teacher.  After hiding the infant Lynnie has just given birth to, Homan is able to escape while Lynnie is returned to the school by the authorities, but not before beseeching the childless Martha to keep the newborn safe.   

Not knowing Lynnie's name, Homan is determined to find a way back to The Beautiful Girl.  Confined to the state school, Lynnie lives through the changes wrought by the media exposure of the deplorable conditions of these state run institutions for the handicapped in the '70s.  She never gives up on her hope of being reunited with both Homan and her child. 

Devoting her life to baby Julia, Martha has left the farm and relied on her former students to provide her with shelter so that the school authorities cannot find the baby.  Not even knowing the names of the two people who showed up on her doorstep, she nevertheless prays that some day she'll be able to reunite Julia with her parents.  Martha becomes the catalyst for change in these institutions, echoing the real life changes brought about by Geraldo Rivera's expose of the horrendous conditions at The Willowbrook School in 1972.

Ms. Simon's sweeping love story spans nearly fifty years.  Her tender handling of her protagonists reflects her care and concern for her own intellectually handicapped sister.  Nicely written, I enjoyed THE STORY OF BEAUTIFUL GIRL.

ISBN 978-0-446-57446-4
346 pages

WHO OR WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HARRIET KLAUSNER?

Double click on the picture to view a larger image and try to find Harriet! 

Picture montage by William Kimmerle

Who in the world is Harriet Klausner?

Many of you have never heard her name before, but anyone who has read a mystery book review on either Amazon or Barnes and Noble will be familiar with the name Harriet Klausner.  Harriet seems to be the most prolific reader and reviewer on our planet.  Legend has it that she actually left 44 book reviews on Amazon on just one day.

I first discovered Harriet's book reviews a few years ago on the B&N website.  Even if I had just read and reviewed an advance copy of a book that wasn't scheduled to be published for a few months, Harriet had already left a review under the pen name HARSTAN.  She certainly piqued my interest!

If you google Harriet Klausner, there are links to many blogs and web pages that question whether or not Harriet is a live person, a cottage industry, or a shill for publishers.  According to an article in Time Magazine in December of 2006, Harriet reads between six and seven books a day (this is not a typo!) and receives up to fifty free books from publishers weekly.  I pride myself on being a fast reader, but compared to Harriet, I haven't even reached the kindergarten reading group. 

The interesting thing about the reviews that Harriet leaves on both Amazon and the Barnes and Noble websites is that almost every review receives five stars.  Occasionally, you'll find one that only has four stars, but I've never ever seen less.  As most of us know, not every book we read is top notch.  How many times have you plunked down $25 plus dollars and, after reading the book, you feel like you've been swindled because it was so bad?  Not Harriet, apparently. 

It seems that in the wonderful world of Harriet Klausner, there are no bad books.  A world where every single book she reads falls into the category of fabulous!  It's startling when I see her five star review of a book and I'm about to enter my own two star review of the same book.  When I read a book that can only be labeled a dog, I feel compelled to let other people know before they fork over their hard earned cash.  The same is true for a good book.  When I love a book, I feel like I need to shout it from the rooftop!  

If Harriet is truly reading six or seven books each day, where is the pleasure in that?  When I read a really great book, one that I hate to see end, I want to live with it for a while.  I don't want to immediately break the connection with the characters or the mood; rather I want to savor the experience.   

So, Harriet Klausner.  If you really exist and you really do read more than 2,000 books each year, send me an email.  I'd love to hear from you and interview you for my blog. 

Just think about this for a moment. Harriet's photo is from the Times Magazine article of 2006. She is surrounded by mountains of books. If she were to continue to receive books at the same rate, she would have received over 11,200 books since that photo was taken. The average hardcover book weighs approximately 1.25 pounds.  Therefore, 11,200 books would weigh approximately 14,000 pounds and if they were stacked on top of each other, the pile would measure about 1,150 feet tall!  I hope for Harriet's sake that she isn't buried under that seven ton pile of books.

THE DUCKS ARE THRIVING!

I feel like my book review blog is turning into Animal Kingdom, but I wanted to keep you all updated on the ducks' progress. 

The ducks are now just over two weeks old and they're growing by leaps and bounds!  As you can see in the photos, they've doubled in size since last week.  They're now twice as tall as the soda can.  All of the ducks are healthy and thriving.  I even got them to eat poultry feed out of my hand tonight! 

Since they've outgrown the plastic bin we originally kept them in, we've moved them to a cage in the lower garage to keep them safe and warm.  They're quickly outgrowing their current cage, as well as getting too smelly, and our plan is to move them into the shed in the yard this weekend.  My husband created this entire system when we first raised ducks a few years ago and it's certainly working.  There's plenty of room for the ducks in the shed and we'll keep them penned in until they're fully grown and mature enough to be let loose.

Once the ducks are given their freedom, predators are a problem as I mentioned in my earlier blog.  We've always been worried about coyotes and foxes, but we now have a new concern.  On Monday evening there was a very large black bear in our yard.  By the time I found my camera, the bear had already moved downstream and this was the best picture I could get.  The bear is the dark lumpy looking blob in the upper stream bed.  We always knew that there were bears in the area, but this is the first one we've had visit our house.

I grew up in Newark, New Jersey where the yards were either non-existent, plain old dirt or cement, and not on a farm, so it's not like any of this animal husbandry is natural for me.  But even for a city girl, it's pretty amazing to watch the different stages the ducks go through before they reach adulthood.  I have to give my husband credit, he does one hundred percent of the work and I get to pet the ducks and take the pictures.

Our original flock of ducks seemed to work out a great system to protect themselves.  They all huddled together to sleep on the stream bank, but one or two always stayed awake to guard the rest.  If an animal approached, they'd signal a general alarm and suddenly all of the ducks would jump into the water, quacking and flapping their wings to drive the intruder away.  Their alarm system worked for us as well, since they quack and flap whenever someone pulls into the driveway!  Hopefully our new flock will have the same instincts. 

Happy Easter everyone, or as Dewey, Louie, Huey and Daisy would say, "QUACK, QUACK!"

DRAWING CONCLUSIONS - Guido Brunetti Series No. 20

by Donna Leon - just released in hardcover and eBook

Commissario Guido Brunetti has been called to the apartment of Costanza Altavilla, a widow whose neighbor found her dead in her apartment.  The medical examiner has ruled that a heart attack was the cause of death, but there are marks on Signora Altavilla's body that suggest something worse.  Although it's not an authorized investigation, Brunetti cannot rest until he finds out if there was foul play. 

After questioning Altavilla's neighbors and son, Brunetti discovers that Signora Altavilla has been providing shelter to battered women, as well as visiting people in a nursing home.  Brunetti and Inspector Vianello are further assisted in their investigation by Signorina Elettra, the assistant to Guido's superior, Vice-Questore Patta. 

Ms. Leon gives the reader a glimpse of Italian life and the political system through the eyes of her protagonist.  Brunetti is a happy, complex man, despite his struggles with his superior and his conscience when accepting information gleaned illegally by the ever resourceful Signorina Elettra. 

Buoyed by his love for his family and the City of Venice, Ms. Leon brilliantly paints Brunetti with a cynical brush while maintaining his humanity and love of beauty.  Intelligent and insightful, DRAWING CONCLUSIONS is another wonderful book in the Brunetti series. 

ISBN 978-0-8021-1979-7
260 pages

PANDIGITAL IS A NICE COMPANY

Along with not accepting advertisements, I don't do product endorsements in my blog.  But sometimes a company can give you such good service that you just have to rave about them and this was my recent experience with PANDIGITAL.

Most of the time when you deal with large companies, the customer service can only be described as less than adequate.  All you have to do is call your phone or cable company with a question about your bill and you know what I'm talking about. 

I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised when I called PANDIGITAL this week.  Between my travels to Pennsylvania and Connecticut during the last month I lost or misplaced the charger for my eReader, the PANDIGITAL NOVEL. 

Like any electronic device, it's totally useless if you can't recharge it.  In our new electronic age, most of us have a new junk drawer somewhere in our homes, one that's filled with miscellaneous chargers that don't fit anything we own, outdated cell phones and MP3 players that don't have their chargers and computer and printer cables that don't work with anything.  After my search online to find a new charger for sale came up empty, I decided to do what I should have done in the first place.  I called Pandigital customer service.

Many of you are familiar with Pandigital because of the electronic picture frames they've been producing for years.  Not as familiar is their Pandigital Novel.  Jokingly known to some as the "poor man's iPad", their full color eReader is a terrific bargain and has every feature imaginable.  I've been more than happy with the one my husband bought me for Christmas.

Even more spectacular than their products is their customer support.  My first experience with Pandigital's customer service was back in January when I had a problem with my Novel.  Since my sons are grown and not living at home, I can't turn to one of them as easily to untangle my electronic problems and we don't have any neighbors with teenagers.  After calling Pandigital customer service and reaching a live person located in California rather than some remote region of the world, the rep was able to quickly walk me through the problem and my Novel has been working perfectly ever since.  AND there was no charge for their assistance (are you listening DELL?).

Back to the charger....how many times have you had to call a company for a new part or lost accessory and the charge with shipping costs almost rivals the original purchase?  WHEN I finally called PANDIGITAL customer service directly this week, not only are they sending me a new charger, they aren't charging me for it (no pun intended) and didn't even want payment for the shipping costs.  What an uncommonly nice surprise!

Thank you and kudos to PANDIGITAL for providing old-fashioned customer support and service that doesn't require you to have your credit card in your hand before placing a call to them!

ONE SUMMER

by David Baldacci - to be released June 14, 2011

It's the holiday season and Jack Armstrong is dying from an unspecified, incurable terminal illness.  He's determined to hang on until the holidays for his wife Lizzie and their children, but he's totally bedridden.  He makes it all the way to Chrismas Eve only to have his wife die in a car accident on her way to pick up his medication. 

In the blink of an eye, Lizzie's parents spring into action, farming the children out to Lizzie's family.  They sell the Armstrong family home and Jack is placed in a Hospice facility to await death, alone. 

Suddenly, there is a miracle!  Jack has totally recovered and rehab brings him back to the man he used to be, albeit one without a home or income.  Lizzie's plan for the summer was to take the children to her childhood home on the beach in South Carolina; a place her family has avoided since the death of Lizzie's twin years earlier.  The rest of ONE SUMMER has Jack and his children facing the future in typical chick lit fashion. 

I've been a longtime fan of David Baldacci and have read all of his books except for one. I have a personal aversion to my favorite mystery and thriller writers venturing into the realm of sappy chick lit, so I skipped THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN published in 2002 (the cover was enough to send me to another shelf in the bookstore).  After reading multiple solid thrillers or mysteries by the same author, it feels fake when they decide to take a stroll down primrose lane.

When I received the ARC for ONE SUMMER, I decided to give it a try. My earlier mentioned aversion proved to be true, this novel from Baldcci is a sappy formulaic tearjerker, but I'm sure it will be a big beach read this summer.  The cover alone is cute enough to sell it and it would look great on the end table in your beach house.

ISBN 978-0-446-58314-5
288 pages

THE NIGHT SEASON

by Chelsea Cain - available in hardcover and eBook

Heavy rains have caused the Williamette River in Portland, Oregon to flood the city.  Det. Archie Sheridan has just learned that one of the recent drowning victims actually died from poisoning before going into the rising water. 

When the medical examiner discovers that more of the presumed drowning victims actually met the same fate, Sheridan finds himself in a search for a serial killer.  The killer is using a very unusual way to harm his victims, a deadly toxin from an exotic octopus sting. 

Sheridan heroically rescues a young boy from the floodwaters, only to have the boy disappear from the hospital.  As Sheridan races against time to find the killer, he believes the child is tied into the case.  Having lost her day job, reporter Susan Ward follows Archie throughout the investigation.  It's obvious that there is an attraction between Sheridan and Ward, but since I haven't read any of Cain's other novels, it's hard to tell what the connection is. 

The murder weapon in Ms. Cain's novel was just a little too far-fetched to be believable.  However, THE NIGHT SEASON is a well written light mystery and I liked that Cain incorporated the true story of the Vanport Flood on Memorial Day in 1948.

ISBN 978-0-312-61976-3
322 pages