Sunday Salon: Fireflies on the Lawn

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit Mailbox Monday.

I was distracted from the fireworks on TV tonight by the natural fireworks going on outside my window - fireflies on the lawn. I actually enjoyed them just as much as the televised show. 

I finished reading these two books last week:
1.  Scents and Sensibility: A Chet and Bernie Mystery  by Spencer Quinn, to be released July 14, 2015, ARC compliments of Atria Books.

My comments: Humor, mystery, suspense, pathos in Arizona. Chet the dog and his human partner Bernie nearly broke my heart in this latest novel. I'd like to see at least one more adventure before the two retire from the PI business, if they do.....in London, maybe. Five stars to this mystery novel!

2.  X (Kinsey Millhone #24) by Sue Grafton, to be published August 25, 2015; a win - ARC compliments of Putnam. 

My comments: Kinsey tackles three problems at the same time, all three unrelated. This means the reader works at keeping the characters and situations separate, but the novel, as all her others, comes out as far more realistic than many mystery books. In this one, she tries to bust some stereotypes about the wealthy and about the elderly. I gave this 4 stars!

Arrived in the mail:

The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy E.Reichert, to be released July 21, 2015; novel compliments of Gallery Books.
YOU'VE GOT MAIL meets HOW TO EAT A CUPCAKE in this delightful novel about a talented chef and the food critic who brings down her restaurant—whose chance meeting turns into a delectable romance of mistaken identities.

I'm eager to start this one, but first......books for tours, which I am also enjoying..!
Bum Rap by Paul Levine, July 13 book tour
The Festival of Insignificance by Milan Kundera, July 16 book tour

What are you reading? 

U Is For Undertow by Sue Grafton, review

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

A good plot and an engaging detective in the person of Kinsey Millhone means another winner for mystery writer Sue Grafton in her 2009 thriller, U is for Undertow.

Grafton's mystery series features the personable PI and follows her life; each new book in the series advances the story of Kinsey, her deceased parents, and the ongoing relationship with her mother's wealthy family who had disowned Kinsey and her parents many years ago.

In this latest book, P.I. Kinsey Millhone is 38. She is asked to investigate a murder that took place in the 1960s, when a four year old girl was kidnapped and never returned, though ransom was paid.

Kinsey takes the case after she is approached by 27 year old Michael Sutton, who had a sudden flash back to 1967 when he saw two men in the woods behind a house, burying a bundle wrapped in a blanket. Michael is sure the bundle was the body of the kidnapped girl and wants Kinsey to help him locate the house and the burial place behind it.

However, Michael's estranged family thinks he is making up stories and fantasizing. Kinsey doesn't know what to think, but promises to take the case for one day. When Michael swears he has recently seen one of the men from the 1960s burial, Kinsey stays on the case.

Having to deal with her own family crisis as well, Kinsey is pulled in multiple directions. Her mother's family and her aged grandmother now want Kinsey back in their lives after years of estrangement. They have invited her to a family gathering, but she is reluctant to attend because of past slights.

I haven't read all the books in the series, but Sue Grafton readers have known Kinsey and have been following her story since the letter A, when she was much younger and just starting out as a private detective in A Is For Alibi. I gave the book four out of five stars.

Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book.

Friday Finds: U Is For Undertow by Sue Grafton, mystery

Friday Finds is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

My Friday Find is U Is for Undertow, a brand new book by Sue Grafton, Putnam Books, in the alphabet mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Kinsey Millhone.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter I:

Chapter I:

My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private detective, female, age thirty-seven, with my thirty-eighth birthday coming up in a month. Having been married and divorced twice, I’m now happily single and expect to remain so for life. I have no children thus far and I don’t anticipate bearing any. Not only are my eggs getting old, but my biological clock wound down a long time ago. I suppose there’s always room for one of life’s little surprises, but that’s not the way to bet.

I work solo out of a rented bungalow in Santa Teresa, California, a town of roughly 85,000 souls who generate sufficient crime to occupy the Santa Teresa Police Department, the County Sheriff’s Department,
the California Highway Patrol, and the twenty-five or so local private investigators like me. Movies and television shows would have you believe a PI’s job is dangerous, but nothing could be farther from the truth . . .
except, of course, on the rare occasions when someone tries to kill me. Then I’m ever so happy my health insurance premiums are paid up.
Threat of death aside, the job is largely research, requiring intuition, tenacity, and ingenuity. Most of my clients reach me by referral and their business ranges from background checks to process serving,
with countless other matters in between. My office is off the beaten path and I seldom have a client appear unannounced, so when I heard a tapping at the door to my outer office, I got up and peered around the corner to see who it was.

Through the glass I saw a young man pointing at the knob. I’d apparently
turned the dead bolt to the locked position when I’d come back from lunch. I let him in, saying, “Sorry about that. I must have locked up after myself without being aware of it.”

“You’re Ms. Millhone?”

“Yes.”

“Michael Sutton,” he said, extending his hand. “Do you have time
to talk?”

SUE GRAFTON

Publication date is December 1. Excerpt courtesy of Putnam's Sons.