Murder in the Latin Quarter by Cara Black

The latest offering in Cara Black’s Aimee Leduc series takes place in the 5th arrondissement of Paris and, as in all the titles in this series, Paris itself is as much a character as security expert and investigator, Aimee Leduc.  If the reader has visited Paris, Black’s maps and descriptions will bring a Parisian’s eye to the little café where you stopped for coffee after wandering aimlessly through the narrow streets of Latin Quarter or remind you of the peculiar light breaking off the Seine at night.  If you’ve never been to Europe’s most romantic city, these books will give you an intimate look at the Paris tourists don’t see. 

In Murder in the Latin Quarter, Leduc, searching for a woman claiming to be her sister, becomes involved the Paris’ Haitian community, political corruption, and, of course, murder. Unfortunately, the book does not live up to its promise. The mystery doesn’t quite take off, the characters are blurred or formulaic, and Black has her protagonist tearing through Paris streets and alleys in a confusing tangle of chase scenes and suppressed emotions.  Clouding the already obscure plot is Aimee’s relationship with her godfather and her ongoing search for information about the mother who abandoned her. 

The series itself is worth the read.  The earlier books introduce a range of brilliantly drawn criminals and a set of returning characters both sympathetic and interesting. By the time you get to Murder in the Latin Quarter, keeping up with the travails and loves of Aimee Leduc will have become so addictive you’ll forgive Black this less than stellar outing.

Vicky – York                             ISBN  9781569475416

The Convict and Other Stories by James Lee Burke

A hundred years from now, I can only hope author James Lee Burke’s books survive as a chronicle of the real history of the South.  From the urine stained streets of New Orleans to the oil fields of Texas, Burke paints a vivid tapestry of the people, history, and culture that make up today’s South.

 The Convict and Other Stories is a collection of short stories showcasing Burke’s trademark juxtaposition of lyricism and brutality. Revisiting the earliest years of some characters from his popular series, exploring the emotional wastelands and quiet courage of generations of ranchers and farmers, paying homage with a steadfast honesty to the compassionate and anguished lives of ordinary people, Burke produces a montage of exceptional stories about unexceptional lives.

 Despite the limitations of the short story, Burke is able to draw complex and sometimes compelling characters while piercing the layers of avarice, mendacity, and love we recognize as daily life. Each of these stories is a quick shock to the conscience, a light in a dark corner and a lesson in redemption. 

Vicky – York                           ISBN   9781416599258

Murder in the Dark: A Phryne Fisher Mystery by Kerry Greenwood

If you haven’t met the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, you are in for a treat and if you are acquainted with Kerry Greenwood’s indomitable and aristocratic detective, you will find her latest investigative adventure to be among her best. 

In Murder in the Dark, Phryne leaves her “bijou residence” in a suburb of Melbourne to attend the Last Best Party of 1928, a four day extravaganza which promises all manner of fun.  Surrounded by the acolytes of twins Isabella and Gerald Templar, supplied with superb food and refreshing beverages, and entertained by fascinating jazz musicians, Phryne sets out to solve a series of kidnappings which threaten to disrupt the party and the lives of her friends. As always, the well-dressed Phryne encounters an intriguing group of characters who try to assist and thwart her investigations but her wit and courage prevail in the end.

 In addition to its polished style and satisfying mystery, Murder in the Dark gives us glimpse into the hedonistic revelry of well-heeled flappers at the end of the roaring Twenties. A friend once described the Phryne Fisher series as “Nancy Drew for grown-ups” and Greenwood’s latest book doesn’t disappoint. 

Vicky – York                           ISBN  9781590584392

Dori Sanders’ County Cooking: Recipes and Stories from the Family Stand by Dori Sanders

When I was growing up, someone always made the trip down the mountain for South Carolina peaches. Visits from cousins and the homemade peach ice cream, warm peach cobbler, and chilled peaches and cream made up for the work of canning all those bushels of fruit. It was memories of those hot summer days and my grandmothers’ kitchens which caused me to pick up Dori Sanders’ 1995 book, Dori Sanders’ Country Cooking. And it was discovering Ms. Sanders’ memories of family and farms that kept me reading. 

Oh, and the food. 

Each section in the elegantly illustrated book begins with a story. With her inimitable, haunting style, Ms. Sanders takes us from hidden slave gardens to the tradition of silver teas with grace and good food—recipes included. I was thrilled to find a recipe much like my great grandmother’s spring favorite, wilted creasie greens and onions, and delighted to find instructions for my favorite peach cobbler. Sanders’ instructions are clear and easy to follow, the ingredients are readily available, and every dish turns out company-perfect the first time. Most impressive! 

In her introduction Sanders, a York County native and author of Clover and Her Own Place, writes, “Our original family home no longer stands…..But the precious recipes are still intact, and the tastes and smells of the food of my childhood let me know that I can go back again.”  

Sanders took me back to my childhood, too, and that is the best recipe of all.

Vicky – York                             ISBN  1565121171

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

Sometimes nothing will do but an old favorite.  That was how I found myself re-reading Alice Hoffman’s 1995 novel, Practical Magic. The story of the Sally and Gillian Owens is American magical realism at its best. Hoffman weaves a perfect tale of family and love and the strange twists that sometimes bring us home.

 Reared by their elderly, witchy aunts (whose garden any plant lover will envy), Gillian and Sally learn early that things are rarely what they seem and that one must be ever wary of the duplicity of desire. Adulthood finds the sisters moving as far as possible from their aunts and the legacy of Owens women.  Sally, practical and responsible, runs to marriage and children.  Wild, outrageous Gillian simply runs. It takes years for circumstance and fate, the loss of marriage and the failure of running, to bring Gillian and Sally back together in a tangle of love and trouble that only the aunts and their magic can make right.

 Hoffman is an adroit narrator but it is her ability to transform the mundane into the wondrous which makes this book outstanding.  The first time I read Practical Magic I wanted to be adopted by the aunts.  I wanted to live in their house where “the green-tinted window glass was so old and so thick that everything on the other side seemed like a dream, including the sky and the trees.”  I wanted to learn their spells and wander in their garden. But Hoffman’s novel offers a different and better gift as I found reading it again all these years later. The wisdom, advice, and undiluted strangeness of the Owens women seep down into your psyche and change you in small but remarkable ways.

Vicky – York                                       ISBN 9780425190371

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes and 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell

Julie Powell, a young woman living in New York City, is about to turn thirty.  She has a job that gives her little fulfillment, she’s lost interest in the dreams of her youth, and she’s searching for something to give her life a focus.  When her husband suggests that she cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s classic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year and document the process in a blog, she accepts the challenge. And challenge it is!  She describes her adventures tracking down hard-to-find items like marrow bones and learning to de-bone a duck as well as cooking with stick after stick of butter in a world very different from the one Julia Child cooked in. But most of her story involves her day-to-day life and her relationships with family, friends and co-workers.

 Interspersed throughout the book are imagined vignettes involving the early relationship between Paul and Julia Child.  These scenes explore how Julia Child’s interest in food and cooking may have developed and what may have inspired her to begin writing the cookbook that taught so many Americans how to appreciate food. 

While I enjoyed this book, it wasn’t quite what I expected.  I would have preferred more description of the actual cooking, but the book was primarily about Julie Powell’s life and feelings.  The scenes with Julia Child were interesting but, again, I wanted more about the cooking.  There was also a great deal of profanity – perhaps understandable coming from someone trying to cook involved recipes in an apartment kitchen – that some might find offensive.  I would recommend this book to readers interested in modern life in New York City more than I would recommend it to readers interested in cooking and Julia Child.

Molly – York                                ISBN  031610969x

The Foreigner by Francie Lin

The book opens with the devoted Emerson Chang, a mild-mannered, single 40-year-old financial analyst who meets his overbearing, match-making mother every Friday night for dinner.  Mama Chang, a Taiwanese immigrant, views American life as corrupt, and Emerson has not been allowed to embrace American life as fully as he would like.  Growing up in San Francisco, in the Remada, their family-owned hotel, Emerson has felt like a foreigner in San Francisco, his place of birth.  When Emerson’s mother dies suddenly, Emerson is shocked to discover she has left part of the inheritance to his long lost brother, Little P.  So Emerson travels to Taiwan, not only to scatter his mother’s ashes but in hopes of tracking down Little P to negotiate with him about the terms of their mother’s will.  Emerson doesn’t speak Chinese, so he becomes a foreigner once again.  Here in Taiwan is where most of the action takes place, and shady brother Little P, along with some nasty looking cousins and a mysteriously ill uncle, lure Emerson into their Taiwanese criminal underworld.  His uncle’s karaoke bar seems to be a front for something much more sinister.  Some of the revelations eventually uncovered about his family are horrifying.  However, Emerson isn’t about to give up the inheritance and legacy of his mother until he uncovers the past and tries to save his family.  Told in the first person, Lin’s dramatic, suspenseful debut novel will be enjoyed by general fiction and thriller readers alike.  I enjoyed the fast moving plot and the humor she throws in that offsets the darkness of the Emerson’s discoveries.

Jennifer L. – York                                ISBN  9780312364045

Burned by David Hagberg

Burned begins as Patti Monroe and her husband, David, arrive in Moscow from the U.S. to try to repair a business deal that has gone sour.   Patti’s world is turned upside down when their Russian business partners shoot David and kidnap Patti at gunpoint.  Patti is taken to a rundown dacha twenty miles outside of Moscow where her captors, along with brutal Islamic terrorists, try to ransom her.  

In an atmosphere full of violent mistrust and political hatred, American FBI agents must work closely with Russian security forces.  Only the agents’ burning desire to rescue Patti will hold the operation together.

Burned is a fast paced thriller that is based on the real life horrifying ordeal of an Austrailian woman named Yvonne Bornstein.  Yvonne and her husband were kidnapped in Russia in the 1990s by Islamic terrorists and held for ransom.  Yvonne was tortured, starved and abused by her captors and Burned captures the spirit of Yvonne’s resistance and ultimate triumph.

Mary Beth – York                                  ISBN  9780765317957