Read Recently -- November -- Mysteries
A Fool and his Honey: an Aurora Teagarden mystery by Charlaine Harris
When Roe married her husband Martin, she took on a lot more family than she was used to, he being older than her and previously married to boot. When his niece shows up with a baby no one in the family will admit to knowing she had, and then just as mysteriously disappears, leaving behind the baby and a corpse that turns out to be her husband, Roe can't help but feel that this is taking family too far. She and Martin have to take care of the baby and investigate what happened to the niece. Can this case be resolved without tragedy? If you don't want to know, don't read my write-up of the next book in the series, below. Recommended.
The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez
Empire City is the city of the future, at least if you live in the thirties or forties. There is mad science, robots, flying cars, robots, walking cars, robots, and mutants (or, in Marvel Comics terms, mutates--people who started out normal but gained strange powers and sometimes physical distortions from exposure to the afore-mentioned mad science and industrial waste), and did I mention the robots?
Mack Megaton is a robot. Built by a mad scientist to destroy the city, Mack somehow developed free will and turned against his creator. Now, still working his way towards citizenship, he drives a cab and lives a rather boring life, spending most of his off-duty time staring at the wall to avoid having to pay too much for power. His only friends are a fellow driver, a talking gorrilla, and the woman next door, who ties his bowtie for him each morning, Mack's fingers not being up to such fine manipulation. One day, though, the family is obviously being threatened by a stranger and Mack breaks it up; the daughter, a precognitive, gives Mack a picture that he attaches to his fridge. He never thinks to look at the back of the picture until an unexpected attack trashes his apartment and throws him into next door, which is empty and dark. On the back of the picture, the girl has written, "Find Us", which Mack sets out to do. Of course, things are not that easy on the mean streets of Empire City, and the problem turns out to be about something deeper than a missing family . . .
Martinez writes marvellous light prose that I don't feel comfortable referring to as humour any more; like Terry Pratchett he has moved beyond that simplistic label. At the same time, you certainly wouldn't call this drama, either. I'd be willing to just go with 'great'. Highly recommended.
Last Scene Alive: an Aurora Teagarden mystery by Charlaine Harris
After the death of her husband at the end of the last book, Roe returns to Lawrenceton and settles down to mourning. I can't really find anything inthe book that suggests how long it's been since Martin's death, but the back of the book says it's been over a year. Anyway, she just wants to go on living her quiet life, but it seems she isn't going to get a chance to: her old friend and sometime boyfriend, author Robin Crusoe, is coming to town and he's bringing a film crew with him. It seems that his moderately successful book based on Roe's first adventure is being filmed for a TV miniseries, and they plan to shoot on location. Despite herself, Roe gets sucked into watching the filming . . . and then the actor who was playing the role based on Roe is murdered.
Added complications are Roe's boss's new secretary, who just seems to not like Roe, and the fact that Martin's lazy, money-grubbing actor son is in town with a minor role in the film.
Like the rest of the series, recommended.
When Roe married her husband Martin, she took on a lot more family than she was used to, he being older than her and previously married to boot. When his niece shows up with a baby no one in the family will admit to knowing she had, and then just as mysteriously disappears, leaving behind the baby and a corpse that turns out to be her husband, Roe can't help but feel that this is taking family too far. She and Martin have to take care of the baby and investigate what happened to the niece. Can this case be resolved without tragedy? If you don't want to know, don't read my write-up of the next book in the series, below. Recommended.
The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez
Empire City is the city of the future, at least if you live in the thirties or forties. There is mad science, robots, flying cars, robots, walking cars, robots, and mutants (or, in Marvel Comics terms, mutates--people who started out normal but gained strange powers and sometimes physical distortions from exposure to the afore-mentioned mad science and industrial waste), and did I mention the robots?
Mack Megaton is a robot. Built by a mad scientist to destroy the city, Mack somehow developed free will and turned against his creator. Now, still working his way towards citizenship, he drives a cab and lives a rather boring life, spending most of his off-duty time staring at the wall to avoid having to pay too much for power. His only friends are a fellow driver, a talking gorrilla, and the woman next door, who ties his bowtie for him each morning, Mack's fingers not being up to such fine manipulation. One day, though, the family is obviously being threatened by a stranger and Mack breaks it up; the daughter, a precognitive, gives Mack a picture that he attaches to his fridge. He never thinks to look at the back of the picture until an unexpected attack trashes his apartment and throws him into next door, which is empty and dark. On the back of the picture, the girl has written, "Find Us", which Mack sets out to do. Of course, things are not that easy on the mean streets of Empire City, and the problem turns out to be about something deeper than a missing family . . .
Martinez writes marvellous light prose that I don't feel comfortable referring to as humour any more; like Terry Pratchett he has moved beyond that simplistic label. At the same time, you certainly wouldn't call this drama, either. I'd be willing to just go with 'great'. Highly recommended.
Last Scene Alive: an Aurora Teagarden mystery by Charlaine Harris
After the death of her husband at the end of the last book, Roe returns to Lawrenceton and settles down to mourning. I can't really find anything inthe book that suggests how long it's been since Martin's death, but the back of the book says it's been over a year. Anyway, she just wants to go on living her quiet life, but it seems she isn't going to get a chance to: her old friend and sometime boyfriend, author Robin Crusoe, is coming to town and he's bringing a film crew with him. It seems that his moderately successful book based on Roe's first adventure is being filmed for a TV miniseries, and they plan to shoot on location. Despite herself, Roe gets sucked into watching the filming . . . and then the actor who was playing the role based on Roe is murdered.
Added complications are Roe's boss's new secretary, who just seems to not like Roe, and the fact that Martin's lazy, money-grubbing actor son is in town with a minor role in the film.
Like the rest of the series, recommended.