Murder at the PTA

Murder at the PTA by Laura Alden

First in a projected series, Murder at the PTA has believable characters and situations and a truly surprise ending. The story is set in upstate Wisconsin with many characters including the deceased principal very involved in sports.  Anyone who has seen the famous cheese heads on sports TBV knows how critical the rivalries are. I was taken by the comparison of PTA members, and Board of Education members. Beth Kennedy, new divorced mother of two small children and owner of a children’s bookstore, finds herself involved in solving the murder of an unpopular elementary school principal.  Even after the principal is dead, Alden succeeds in rounding out the woman’s character through interaction with other people and disillusioned relatives.  Beth is further hampered by an almost obnoxiously pushy friend who embroils her in dangerous situations through her mainly thoughtless blog.  Checking on details in northern Wisconsin requires a short six hour drive which thankfully happens before the snow falls. Beth comes to life in her deep connection to her children including giving in to the request for a dog, her interest in a new man, and her ideas for making the children’s school even better.

This book was easy to read although solving the mystery was not that easy.  Modern technology played an important part in the detective work which was quite interesting.  This book felt very modern day.

Laura Alden graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a BS in science.  She spent 25 years surveying and engineering. Those talents came into play in not only the proposed new construction of a school in the mystery but also some of the clues.  Two more books in the series have been published on in 2011 and another scheduled for a July 2012 publishing.  A fourth book is in the works.  I will definitely read more. 

Pineapple Grenade by Tim Dorsey

Pineapple Grenade is the latest offering of renowned author Tim Dorsey which is set in hot and steamy Miami, Florida.  Readers are introduced to the ongoing character Serge Storms who is a vigilante serial killer of sorts and his stoned out friend Coleman.  The 15^th in the series by Tim Dorsey, readers immediately get a feel for the quirkiness of the writing with the washing up of an artificial limb on the shore and a body that has been disposed in a forensically very interesting way (don't want to be a spoiler).  As Wendy and I set out to read stories in states where place was important as the characters, this book fit the bill.  I rambled the stacks in the mystery section of the bookstore and wound up with this book as the next in line of my journey. However, as an avid mystery reader, I am often choosing a book in the middle of the series. You can often pick up threads of the past in the first chapter or two that help you move through the book.  It’s those story bits that leads you back and connect the people to really motivate a reader new to your series.  This book provided none of that.  I began stark and new and clueless.

The lead character Serge seems to be an appealing enough guy with the bumbling stoned out sidekick Coleman.  I am unsure if I am supposed to like these people or finding their brand of vigilante killing something to care about.  The blurbs about Dorsey's books often include the word humor, so I was looking out for those moments.  Maybe I just didn't recognize humor when I saw it, but what do I know? Serge and Coleman insinuate themselves into a group that is protecting the dictator of a fictitious banana republic who is coming to Miami for a summit. Serge becomes a secret agent of sorts that helps the dubious factions and winds up playing mind games among the players.   They all wonder who Serge really is and who does he work for?  And as Serge goes along his merry way with Coleman in tow (who really does that much drugs), he kills a few people with what seems to be a familiar mantra…” I always leave a way out…” but in this book none of Serge’s victims survive.  I will say Serge is ingenious.  But Dorsey as an author lost me.   This reminds me that maybe this character is the love child of Dexter the serial killer and Carl Hiaasen type characters.  But I am really not sure I want to know more or revisit the previous 14 to find out how these characters came to be.  It’s obvious Dorsey has a huge following, but while I didn’t hate the book, I am likely not to read another unless I come across one at a library sale or swap table. Sorry Mr. Dorsey.

Twilight by Nancy Pickard

What could be more Massachusetts then walking trails, charitable foundations, tiffs between conservationists and businesses and particularly fall festivals on the common? The lengths to which human beings will go to assuage guilt and protect loved ones are common motivators for plots. In Twilight, Nancy Pickard combines these to make for a fast-reading mystery with believable and interesting characters.
The center of the controversy was God’s Highway, which immediately made me think of the Appalachian Trail. Three people had been killed in unexplained accidents where the trail intersected a main road. Families of victims wanted it closed or made safer and conservationists were willing to go to extreme and possibly illegal lengths to keep it open. A stop sign should have prevented these incidents but somehow it did not.
Heroine Jenny Cain plans a fall festival to get her newly organized foundation recognized and bring much needed revenue to her town. A small city commission stands in the way. All these issues are familiar to New Englanders. Pickard puts them all together to tell a story that is hard to put down. There are no murders here although it was tempting to think so while reading. What Pickard serves up is another modern day issue concerning health which should remain unnamed at this point. Pay attention to the behaviors of the main characters – there is a hint there.
Twilight marks the end of the Jenny Cain series nevertheless it has inspired me to read the series from the beginning and truthfully it did not feel like the conclusion.
Many mystery awards have been given to Nancy Pickard for her short stories and novels including an Anthony Award, a Macavity Award and nominated for an Edgar Award. She is a former reporter and editor and past president of Sisters in Crime.What could be more Massachusetts then walking trails, charitable foundations, tiffs between conservationists and businesses and particularly fall festivals on the common? The lengths to which human beings will go to assuage guilt and protect loved ones are common motivators for plots. In Twilight, Nancy Pickard combines these to make for a fast-reading mystery with believable and interesting characters.

The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron

Set in rural Maine, this was a natural choice for my next trip through the mystery United States.  My parents and aunts and uncles are all from Maine and I grew up with most childhood trips and holidays spent there.  This story takes place in the rural northwest part of the state near the Canadian border that I knew nothing about.  The story is about game warden Mike Bowditch who is drawn into a murder that supposedly his father Jack, a local game poacher has committed.  Mike puts his career on the line to defend his father and often runs a foul of the law himself in trying to figure out who actually committed the murder of a local cop and another local man. Mike has grown up around a deep woods subculture of people who hunt not only for sport but to survive.  You find out that being a game warden is a tough job.  The position is basically a woods police force.  Bowditch is checking licenses and making sure drunks don't travel the waterways just to name a few mundane jobs.  In one scenario he had to kill a bear that had wandered into a home and the owner maimed trying to defend himself.  It's a gritty hard tack life for many of these people, but most would not change it.  An interesting side note is that there were Nazi prisoner camps in these deep woods during WWII.  At Seboomook, Maine a camp was developed for about 250 prisoners from Rommel's Afrika Korps.  Prisoners were put to work cutting trees and literally feeding in to the Maine paper industry.  This was a small back ground story to this book but as a first novel from Doiron, this fit nicely into my attempt to make a sense of place as important as the mystery itself.  You find yourself really seeing and understanding what this area of the state looks and feels like with this adjunct story.  This is a fast paced novel and Doiron kept you guessing with a variety of red herrings.  He develops his characters carefully and everyone has his/her purpose.  You follow Bowditch as he continues to try to find evidence of his dad's innocence even as you found out he's a hard life man with a problem with alcohol and women..  But largely Mike is the only person who thinks Dad didn't do the crime.  The conclusion is explosive and I won't spoil it for you.  I will admit I didn't see it coming but it's good and ties the plots nicely. . I highly recommend this great book and I look forward to reading his next book.  If you are a fan of authors like Craig Johnson, Joseph Heywood, or Nevada Barr and you like a character with guts and compassion and a love of the wilderness, this is your newest author.

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb

The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb
As with all McCrumb’s novels, setting is off paramount importance. Just the name, “Dark Hollow”, Tennessee sets the mood for a haunting but regionally realistic murder. Mix an old woman with “site” into the future, an old man dying due to environmental pollution on a gigantic scale, with a newcomer preacher’s wife (he’s been called to the Mid-East), an understanding sheriff, vulnerable children and four brutal murders and the recipe results in a page turner in true McCrumb style. As always, McCrumb begins each chapter with an appropriate quote from Appalachian songs, poems, essays. All add to the sense of foreboding building to the climax of the story. Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter is one of nine ballad novels which combine legends, nature and modern day issues in a mystery at once believable and possible. McCrumb’s characters deserve mention for their reality. Lead characters are developed with great detail not only to attributes but to weaknesses as well. They grow, change, lie, sneak, are brave, scared, just generally cover the gamut of human experience.
This is not the first McCrumb novel I have read and is certainly not the last. In addition to a huge amount of fiction including, NASCAR Novels, Elizabeth MacPherson novels, Jay Omega novels, short stories and reams of contributions to anthologies and literary magazines, McCrumb is a prolific non-fiction writer provide amazing amounts of information of the Appalachian Mountain land and people of North Carolina and Tennessee. To see her long list of awards and complete list of writing, visit: http://www.sharynmccrumb.com/bio.html. Her books, including audio versions, are widely available nationwide at public libraries and at retailers such as independent books stores and online.
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The Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman

Sinister Pigs, Navajo customs, drug dealing, exotic hunting and a stalled love affair made this book by prolific author Tony Hillerman a real education as well as entertainment.
Although the characters and some parts of the plot (Navajo customs and love affair) are part of a continuing saga, the book is perfectly understandable as a stand alone. Set in New Mexico on the Mexico border, everything about the setting adds to the interest of the story. Drug running in Mexico is a big story in the news as is the violence associated with it. The Navajo customs and personality traits, make the characters believable.
Hunting for fun and profit is not an American Indian trait and secrecy about a ranch specializing in the sport draws the attention of at least one border patrol officer, to the detriment of her personal safety. While her former boss becomes more and more convinced of the danger faced by his almost love and former fellow officer, scoundrels abound from as far away as Washington, D.C. Add to this a variety of corpses, unlikely retirees returning to work and it sums up to a great adventure and the mystery of who exactly the villain is remains a secret to the end.
But it was the pigs that amazed me the most. These are not the type of pigs that grace many a dinner table, but rather those that in mechanical form are threaded through pipelines to ensure the line is clear. Enough said. More details in this high adventure tale, will explain how this is critical.
Author, Tony Hillerman, has won every possible award in the mystery genre. The shear number make it impossible to list them all but a visit to Harper-Collins website will tell the story. Hillerman has published 29 books, 17 featuring Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn. To read the series in order, visit http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/ click on “H” on the author tab and the books will be listed by year. These books are readily available in most libraries and at locations such as Amazon.

"Death Roe" by Joseph Heywood

Dear blog readers, if you can indulge me a short story...at a book show 2-3 years ago I was getting signed books from this guy called Charlie Moore who wrote about fishing.   I had no clue who this guy was and just helping out my bookstore owner friend to get signed books.   After talking to people and viewing an entourage worthy of a Hollywood celebrity I met fisherman and tv personality Charlie Moore, who could not figure me out.   I basically told him "I don't fish."  After some smiling brightly and putting me on camera with the book, I got a couple books and one signed to my brother-in-law who does fish and was thrilled with the gift.  In choosing Death Roe by Joseph Heywood, I wasn't sure I really wanted to read about fish. This series dubbed the "Woods Cop Mystery" series, you find yourself in the upper peninsula of Michigan wedged between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan.  Grady Service is a detective for Michigan Upper Peninsula's Department of Natural Resources.  The story begins on the Carp River in Mackinac County, Michigan. He gets a tip that valued salmon roe is being mixed with poorer quality bait roe in order to be sold high on the dollar in markets around the world.  Adding to the subterfuge, the roe is supposedly contaminated with a chemical that can cause cancer.  Service is paired with a younger female detective named Denniger who is scrappy, capable, and attractive.  She creates some sexual tension with Service throughout the book, but is never realized.  Back to the notion that I don't fish, this is a well written mystery adventure that is as much about the beauty and natural resources of the upper Michigan peninsula. While the characters occasionally went out of the region to work the crime, it still remained true to the place and returned to it like a homing beacon.  Author Heywood, takes you on an interesting journey that includes the real world of fish poaching and how serious the government takes this crime.  This is the 6th in this series and I feel comfortable reading another and seeking the earlier books.   It is advertised for fans of Nevada Barr and Dana Stabenow.   As, I read the book, those authors immediately jumped into my head without the publisher's prodding.  I highly suggest you check out Heywood's webpage and blog.  The webpage http://www.josephheywood.com/ is a comprehensive and well written page with a lot of backup materials that support the stories.   Also Heywood writes a blog called joeroads.com.  That is more of a travelog and  I even found fish recipes.   I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.  I found it fast paced and even though I still don't fish or want to, I would enjoy the exploits of Brady Service and will to find out what happens next.  This version was published by Lyons Press in Guilford, CT ear. Like many authors the paperback of the latest book comes out ahead of the newest hardcover. Check out yout local library and independent book stores for this great series that will take you to northern Michigan and a rich and beautful landscape with a great set of stories and characters.