Sunday Salon: Happy Mother's Day and International Migratory Bird Day!

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! Also submitted to It's Monday; What Are You Reading? at Book Journey, and  Mailbox Monday hosted by Abi at 4 the LOVE of BOOKS.

If you are looking for a Mother's Day theme in crime fiction, here is Janet Rudolph's list: Mother's Day Crime Fiction/Mother's Day Mysteries. Lovers of mystery novels won't find this alarming! There are mystery novels to fit almost every theme!

Today is also International Migratory Bird Day and there are bird watching events happening all over the country. Want to read a few bird mysteries or a birding novel? Here are a few:

The first one is a mystery and The Guide to the Birds of East Africa  is a novel set in contemporary Kenya with its 1,000 species of birds. Click on the book covers to get more information.

We went birding at Magee Marsh near Lake Erie last Saturday, a pretty cool but sunny day and we saw more migrating warblers than we had last year. Or maybe we are just getting better at finding the birds on the ground and among tree branches low and high. It was a fun day and we saw birds that were new to us, such as the beautiful yellow and black hooded warbler. I learned the names of many of the birds we saw; birders are eager to share what they know.

American Goldfinch in our backyard 

We were so excited that this goldfinch visited. Seems we have been getting more birds we haven't had in the backyard before. For the first time ever, I saw an Eastern Towhee, the American Goldfinch, and Dark-eyed Juncos. Maybe that long winter made them want to come out in force!

Back to books - ARCs that arrived last week:
Dark Diversions by John Ralston Saul; Pintail Books
A Half Forgotten Song by Katherine Webb; William Morrow/HarperCollins
Siege and Storm: Book 2 of the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo; Henry Holt

Books that arrived:
Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher; Penguin
Down London Road by Samantha Young; Penguin UK
Agorafabulous by Sara Benincasa; William Morrow/HarperCollins

Mother's Day brunch later on, then maybe back to the park! Happy Mother's Day and hope you have sunshine and laughter!

Book Review: The Boreal Owl Murder by Jan Dunlap

When I found this free on Kindle, free for a time anyway, I thought it would be a good book to get ready for the bird watching season around Lake Erie, during the annual warbler migration in May.  I really enjoyed the book.

In Minnesota, high school counselor Bob White finds a Boreal owl researcher's body in the deep woods. Bob had gone in the middle of the night to the nature preserve to catch a glimpse of the elusive owl.  After discovering the body, Bob becomes a target too for someone who wants to keep him away from the owl's habitat deep in the woods.

I liked the plot, especially since I could not guess the real culprits or the motives. It kept me reading along. There is also a lot of humor in the dialogue, which lightens up the book quite a bit. I only wish the cover had a better drawing of the owl! I hope to find and read more in the series.

Book description from goodreads: "Birding, the gentle pastime of watching birds, can at times become a competitive sport. Even at its worst, though, when birders don't give out information of their sightings and try to sidetrack other birders, it seldom rises to the level of serious harm, usually. But when Bob White, a mannered school councilor and dedicated weekend birder, finds a body on a birding trip, the idea that there's an exception to every rule gets hammered home."

Title: The Boreal Owl Murder: Bob White Murder Mystery #1 by Jan Dunlap
Published September 1, 2008; Kindle edition
Source: free on Kindle

Here is the Cornell University photo and description of the Boreal Owl:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology 

"A small owl of boreal and montane forests, the Boreal Owl is found throughout Alaska and Canada, and across northern Eurasia, as well. It is found in the lower 48 states only in the mountains of the West, in extreme northern Minnesota, and as an occasional winter visitor to the northern states."

Boreal: Of or relating to the forest areas of the northern North Temperate Zone, dominated by coniferous trees such as spruce, fir, and pine. (definition from the Free Dictionary).

Submitted to Saturday Review of Books

Best Mystery and Humor books

Need a good laugh combined with a good mystery read? Try one of the books below.

Left Coast Crime will have its 20th Mystery Convention March 11-14 in Los Angeles.

One of its awards is THE LEFTY - for the most humorous mystery published in a particular year. Lefty winners:

2009: Greasing the Pinata by Tim Maleeny
2008: Murder With Reservations by Elaine Viets
2007: Go to Helena Handbasket by Donna Moore
2006: Cast Adrift by Peter Guttridge

2005: We'll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews and Blue Blood by Susan McBride
2004: Mumbo Gumbo by Jerrilyn Farmer
2003: The Hearse Case Scenario by Tim Cockey and Pipsqueak by Brian M. Wiprud
2002: Dim Sum Dead by Jerrilyn Farmer and Fender Benders by Bill Fitzhugh
2000: Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews
1999: Four to Score by Janet Evanovich
1998: Three To Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich
1996: The Fat Innkeeper by Alan Russell

I read the 2000 winner, Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews, some years back, and it is truly hilarious. I recommend it if you need a good laugh while you wonder who dunnit.

Tamar Myers books

As the World Churns, a Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery with recipes, by Tamar Myers, though I prefer her Den of Antiquity mystery series, one of which, Death of a Rug Lord, I just finished. Tamar Myers by the way, according to her website, is the child of Belgian missionaries who had her while they were living in the Congo. Now this may be true or it could be a made up story, much like the ones she creates in her Den of Antiquity books. I suspect, however, that her web page gives her true history, which is as interesting as some of the characters in her novels.

Death Shoots a Birdie by Christine Goff, review

Mystery readers may already know there is at least one Birdwatcher Mystery series out there, one written by Christine Goff.

Her latest paperback, Death Shoots a Birdie, ( Berkley Prime Crime Books, 2007) is about a group of birdwatchers (who else?) who travel from Colorado to a birding festival on the Georgia coast to see "prime habitat" for painted buntings, those flashy birds with red, blue, and yellow-green feathers.

The birders discover the area is also home to a rare woodpecker, and this of course, sets the stage for murder and mayhem. There are even alligators involved in the unfolding of this drama.

Ms. Goff has written four other birdwatcher mysteries. The first was Death of a Songbird, which I also enjoyed reading, followed by A Rant of Ravens, A Nest in the Ashes, and Death Takes a Gander.

Another mystery series involves birds of a different kind.<Murder with Peacocks, originally published as a hardback by Donna Andrews, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. It's one of the funniest books I've ever read, and I think it is her best. Since the plot revolves around a wedding, romance readers might enjoy it as well.

Ms. Andrews' second book, Murder with Puffins, was somewhat disappointing. Her subsequent mysteries might be more rewarding. Her latest, The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, is doing much better.