Ooohhhh - I forgot about Dennis Lehane! I second jaylynn’s recommendations!
Also, Thomas Perry has a great series about a Native American woman (Jane Whitfield) who helps people in trouble “disappear.” She plucks them out of danger, helps them form new identities, and teaches them how to survive in their new realities…with varying degrees of success. Highly recommended!
NM, was also going to recommend Linwood Barclay - my H and I are on a binge of his books. I also like Donna Leon’s Brunetti series as recommended by zeebamom.
I think I got the recommendation on CC, but Tana French’s Dublin books (there are 5) are really good, too. Each book focuses on a different member of the Murder Squad.
Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths
Carter Ross series by Brad Parks (very light, but not quite as light as Janet Ivanovich’s Stephanie Plums)
Nic Costa series by David Hewson (but these can be very dark)
Roma series by Gabriel Valjan
Dave Gurney series by John Verdon (also can be very dark)
@alwaysamom, my H and I spend a lot of time talking about where to live when he retires - the other day he said, “I know where I DON’T want to live! Promise Falls!”
@Tiredofsnow, haha! I agree! The Barclays are just around the corner from us. Nothing like Promise Falls.
Skipping many pages, so sorry if this has been said, but next month’s book club read is “The Bookman’s Tale”. So far it’s great fun.
Right! The Bookman’s Tale is the College Confidential Book Club’s current selection. Discussion starts on February 1.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19185779#Comment_19185779
Just finished Moby Dick for the first time
RIP Captain Ahab #DeathToMobyDick
I signed up for a Moby Dick class in high school because I thought it would be good for me. (And I also loved that particular English teacher.) I ended up loving the book to my surprise.
@NorthMinnesota , Laura Lippmann, Evanovich, Grisham, Margaret Maron, Sharyn McCrumb.
NM–mysteries are my guilty pleasure too. Here are a few mystery writers you might like (in no particular order) :
Dorothy Sayers, PD James, Patricia Highsmith, Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, Tess Peters, Elizabeth George, Sara Paretsky, Ellis Peters, Lee Child, and Michael Connelly.
Thank you again! I have been able to find some new series thanks to your suggestions! I wrote them all in my phone so I can begin the hunt. Very excited!!!
A new series (two books so far) by author Rachel Howell Hall
Land of Shadows
Skies of Ash
Just some FYI:
Can also put a plug in for Peter May. Have read two of the three Lewis Man trilogy books and they are two of my all time favorite books. I’m being stubborn and waiting for Audible to get rights for the third. The narrator is great.
@NorthMinnesota and other mystery/thriller fans: Don’t know if these were mentioned elsewhere, but Lisa Scottoline writes legal thrillers and also standalone mystery novels, usually set in and around Philadelphia. Greg Iles sets his novels in Natchez, MS and has a series with recurring characters as well as standalones. I have enjoyed most of their books, was just OK with a few, and honestly could not make my way through a handful.
I prefer the standalone novels of James Grippando’s and Laura Lippman’s to their Jack Swyteck and Tess Monaghan series, but the series are quite popular. And if you didn’t see the movie last year to spoil the suspense, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is one of the creepiest, impossible-to-put-down mysteries that I have ever read.
I have read and enjoyed several of Lisa Scottoline’s books.
If you like sci fi many of Lois McMasters Bujold’s Vorkosigan books are mysteries. (The series, at least up until the one where Miles finally gets married is also kind of a bildungsroman.) New one coming out soon, kindle available already!
Can’t wait, @mathmom! I have been dealing with a family emergency with lots of sitting around time, and have been re-reading many of the Vorkosigan books over the past few weeks.
At my suggestion my bookclub is reading Heft by Liz Moore. The main character is literally unlike any one I have seen before. I am getting enthusiastic responses from clubbers that aren’t usually. It’s a story that could have gone sappy but didn’t.
Okay, those of you who like mystery/suspense novels - I just read one that’s really, really good: Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin. It’s about a 16-year-old girl (Tessa) who escapes from a serial killer and who, 18 years later, is awaiting the upcoming execution of the man accused of her abduction (and the murders of 3 other girls). There are questions about his guilt/innocence as well as unresolved issues in Tessa’s past.
The writing is good, the story is gripping - I read the whole book in two days, even though I wanted to slow down and savor it. I found the book on the 2015 Lariat List, and it doesn’t disappoint.
The Washington Post review: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/black-eyed-susans-is-a-masterful-thriller-that-shouldnt-be-missed/2015/08/10/143b3764-3f67-11e5-bfe3-ff1d8549bfd2_story.html
I just finished reading “Ardennes 1944” by Anthony Beevor, about the Battle of the Bulge. I thought I knew something about it (my dad fought in that as part of the 3rd Army, was part of the Bastogne relief column), but it opened my eyes to a lot of things and in some ways differs from the standard accounts, for example the impression generally given is that Bastogne was in desperate shape when Patton “rescued” it, when they had it pretty well secured, and when the Germans demanded that McAuliffe surrender, even they knew it was ridiculous, among other things the Germans didn’t have enough troops or tanks at Bastogne to hope of taking it, McCauliffe knew that too.
What made the book more vivid to me is the profiles of the people involved, it wasn’t too friendly towards Bradley, whom they paint as being out of touch, Montgomery single handedly nearly broke up the alliance (the book argues he comes off as being kind of high functioning autistic), but it also paints the sheer misery of it, the stupidity, the waste, along with the bravery and more than a few acts of humanity in a brutal, brutal time and place. It talks a lot about the massacre at Malmedy and how that changed the tenor of the fighting (among other things, it may have actually lengthened the fighting, the German soldiers, when they heard what happened, were afraid, not without reason, that the US soldiers may not be taking prisoners). People who think war is full of black and white, good and bad guys might be surprised at this, like how in the end many of those responsible for unbelievable atrocities ended up not paying much of a price for it, including the person responsible for Malmedy and many atrocities against civilians, who ended up getting off pretty scott free because of the efforts of certain politicians in the US who clamored that he and the others were not given fair trials, etc (the guy responsible for Malmedy did finally get some kind of justice, he was living in France in the 70’s, and ex members of the French resistance tracked him down and killed him).
Overall, it is a book I wish people who still see war as something to be glorified would read, it isn’t that war isn’t necessary at times, it is, but it also shows the real horrors and costs of it, it also explains a lot to me of why my father was so anti military, when you read about the stupidity, the unwillingness to listen to reason and how many were killed for no reason whatsoever, it makes sense.
@scout59, Sounds very intriguing. I will check it out. One question. Are there any graphic violence since it deals with a serial killer? I cannot do any graphic tortures.