Book Beginning: Last Words by Rick Zahradnik

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.

Last Words: A Coleridge Taylor Mystery by Rich Zahradnik
Published October 1, 2014; Camel Press

Book beginning:

The dead sitting on his desk could wait.
Instead of going back to the office, Coleridge Taylor stopped at the newsstand on 23rd Street and looked at the front page of the daily news. MAYHEM IN QUEENS spelled out in two-in ch type. Another story that should have been his. The Times led with a dull speech by President Ford. It made him mix Nixon. Nothing like a crook in the White House to sell papers. He spent a nickel on a pack of Teaberry gum, folded a stick into his mouth, pulled his field jacket tight against the wind, and turned east toward Bellevue. 

page 56:

"Does he fight with your husband a lot?"
"He fights with everyone a lot. Me. Con. His teachers. He's smart. Too smart for his own damn good....

Book description:
"In March of 1975, as New York City hurtles toward bankruptcy and the Bronx burns, newsman Coleridge Taylor  is looking for the story that will deliver him from obits, his place of exile at the Messenger-Telegram. Ever since he was demoted from the police beat for inventing sources, the 34-year-old has been a lost soul.

A break comes at Bellevue, where Taylor views the body of a homeless teen picked up in the Meatpacking District. Taylor smells a rat: the dead boy looks too clean, and he's wearing a distinctive Army field jacket. A little digging reveals that the jacket belonged to a hobo named Mark Voichek and that the teen was a spoiled society kid up to no good, the son of a city official.

Taylor's efforts to protect Voichek put him on the hit list of three goons who are willing to kill any number of street people to cover tracks that just might lead to City Hall. Taylor has only one ally in the newsroom, young and lovely reporter Laura Wheeler.  If he doesn't wrap this story up soon, he'll be back on the obits page--as a headline, not a byline. 

Last Words is the first book in the Coleridge Taylor mystery series."

What do you think? Is this a mystery novel you would read?

Book Review: The Iris Fan by Laura Joh Rowland

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB.

Title: The Iris Fan: A Novel of Feudal Japan (Sano Ichiro #18)by Laura Joh Rowland
Published December 9, 2014; Minotaur
Genre: historical mystery

First chapter, first paragraph:

Prologue
Slow, hissing breaths expanded and contracted the air in a chamber as dark as the bottom of a crypt. Wind shook the shutters. Sleet pattered onto the tile roof. In the corridor outside the chamber, the floor creaked under stealthy footsteps. The shimmering yellow glow of an oil lamp diffused across the room's lattice-and-paper wall.The footsteps halted outside the room; the door slid open as quietly as a whisper. (from an advance readers copy; final copy may differ)

My comments: This is the last planned book in the San Ichiro historical mystery series set in Japan. I have enjoyed many in the series and followed the feudal detective on his adventures and investigations under the Shogun in feudal times.

Though this is a stand alone novel, I would recommend that new readers first read at least the previous novel in the series, The Shogun's Daughter, as the Iris Fan seems to be a continuation of incidents in that book.

I am sorry to see the end of a series that has had some brilliant books, but I can see how Sano Ichiro would want to retire eventually.  I look forward to other books by the author in the future!

Book description:

Japan, 1709. The shogun is old and ailing. Amid the ever-treacherous intrigue in the court, Sano Ichirō has been demoted from chamberlain to a lowly patrol guard, and a bizarre new alliance between his two enemies Yanagisawa and Lord Ienobu has left him puzzled and wary. Sano’s onetime friend Hirata is a reluctant conspirator in a plot against the ruling regime. Yet, Sano’s dedication to the Way of the Warrior—the samurai code of honor—is undiminished.

Then an almost inconceivable crime takes place. In his own palace, the shogun is stabbed with a fan made of painted silk with sharp-pointed iron ribs. Sano is restored to the rank of chief investigator to find the culprit. 

This is the most dangerous, investigation of his career. If the shogun’s heir is displeased, he will have Sano and his family put to death. Sano finds himself at the center of warring forces that threaten not only his own family but Japan itself. The Iris Fan is the triumphant conclusion to Laura Joh Rowland’s brilliant series of thrillers set in feudal Japan. (publisher)

See Tour schedule for other reviews

About the Author

Laura Joh Rowland is the author of sixteen previous Sano Ichiro thrillers set in feudal Japan. The Fire Kimono was named one of the Wall Street Journal’s “Five Best Historical Mystery Novels”; and The Snow Empress and The Cloud Pavilion were among Publishers Weekly’s Best Mysteries of the Year. She currently lives in New Orleans with her husband.
Please visit Laura’s website. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Thanks to Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and the author/publisher for a review ARC of this book.

Sunday Salon: Current Reads

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday: What Are You Reading hosted by Book Journey, and Tynga at Stacking the Shelves.

A few new review books to share.....

A new novel to be published December 20, 2014 by Galley Books, The Life Intended is a romance and women's fiction about a widow finding a new life again, a second chance.

Book description: 
Kristin Harmel weaves a heart-wrenching tale that asks: what does it take to move forward in life without forgetting the past?

After her husband's sudden death over ten years ago, Kate Waithman never expected to be lucky enough to find another love of her life. But now she's planning her second walk down the aisle to a perfectly nice man. So why isn't she more excited? At first, Kate blames her lack of sleep on stress. But when she starts seeing Patrick, her late husband, in her dreams, she begins to wonder if she's really ready to move on.

Is Patrick trying to tell her something? Attempting to navigate between dreams and reality, Kate must uncover her husband's hidden message. Her quest leads her to a sign language class and into the New York City foster system, where she finds rewards greater than she could have imagined (goodreads)

Cozies for review, due out in early January:

Snow Way Out is a Snow Globe Shop Mystery, first in a new series. I have a few Christmas snow globes out so am looking forward to this one. Curio shop manager Camryn Brooks thought she’d seen every kind of snow globe—until she saw one depicting a crime scene…

For Whom the Bluebells Toll: Deadly thorns lurk among the roses in this Bridal Bouquet Shop Mystery.  Florist Audrey Bloom, co-owner of the Rose in Bloom, creates fragrant bouquets for brides. But when a wedding goes fatally wrong, it’s up to Audrey to sniff out a killer...

Feta Attraction is a new Greek To Me Mystery series and bound to be a hit for those who love Greek food. Georgie Nikolopatos manages the Bonaparte House, a Greek restaurant and historic landmark in beautiful upstate New York rumored to possess ghosts and hidden treasure. But when her husband disappears and her main competitor is found dead, it’s up to Georgie to solve a big fat Greek murder.

What's on your holiday desk for reading?

What I'm currently reading:

A police procedural and thriller set in Miami-Dade County. It's pretty gripping so far. Who dunnit, and why frame the prosecutor for the crime?

What's YOUR current read?

Book Beginning: Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also, Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.

Book beginning:

June 12, 2014 Cambridge, Massachusetts 

Copper flashes like shards of aventurine glass on top of the old brick wall behind our house. I envision ancient pastel stucco workshops with red tile roofs along the Rio dei Vetrai canal, and fiery furnaces and blowpipes as maestros shape molten glass on marvers. Careful not to spill, I carry two espressos sweetened with agave nectar.

page 56: 

"There's no room in a homicide investigation for personal problems."

Publisher:
FLESH AND BLOOD ( November 11, 2014, William Morrow)
 It’s Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s birthday, and she’s about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge house. Is this a kids’ game? If so, why are all of the coins dated 1981 and so shiny they could be newly minted?

Her cellphone rings, and Detective Pete Marino tells her there’s been a homicide five minutes away. A high school music teacher has been shot with uncanny precision as he unloaded groceries from his car. No one has heard or seen a thing.

In this 22nd Scarpetta novel, the master forensic sleuth finds herself in pursuit of a serial sniper who leaves no incriminating evidence except fragments of copper. The shots seem impossible, yet they are so perfect they cause instant death. The victims appear to have had nothing in common, and there is no pattern to indicate where the killer will strike next.

First New Jersey, then Massachusetts, and then the murky depths off the coast of South Florida, where Scarpetta investigates a shipwreck, looking for answers that only she can discover and analyze. And it is there that she comes face to face with shocking evidence that implicates her techno genius niece, Lucy, Scarpetta’s own flesh and blood.

Book Review: Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

Title: Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes #2) by Anthony Horowitz
Published December 9, 2014; Harper
Genre: mystery

My review:
In the first Sherlock Holmes mystery by Horowitz, Moriarty dies in a confrontation with his enemy Sherlock at the Reichenbach Falls and is replaced by a new criminal mastermind. This new novel is told by Frederick Chase, a senior investigator with Pinkerton Detective Agency in New York. He it is who tries to trace the truth of what happened at the falls that day.

But what really did happen? The novel ends with a delicious twist that will have Sherlock Holmes fan waiting for the next in this series.

'We cannot be certain that this is Moriarty,' I suggested. 'You were quite correct when you said that I could not identify him. But can you?' (from ARE chapter 2; final copy may differ)

Lovers of Sherlock Holmes will love this new series that began with House of Silk. 

Publisher description:
The game is once again afoot in this mystery from the author of The House of Silk, sanctioned by the Conan Doyle estate, which explores what really happened when Sherlock Holmes and his arch nemesis Professor Moriarty tumbled to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. A riveting tale of murder and menace, Moriarty breathes life into Holmes’s dark and fascinating world.

Anthony Horowitz of London s the author of  The House of Silk and the New York Times number one bestselling Alex Rider series for Young Adults. As a television screenwriter he created both Midsomer Murders and the BAFTA-winning Foyle’s War, both of which were featured on PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery. In January 2014 he was awarded an OBE for his services to literature. Visit his website and connect with him on Twitter.

For more book reviews and the book tour schedule, visit TLC Book Tours.
I received an advance readers edition of this book for review. 

Book Review: Fog Island Mountains by Michelle Bailat-Jones

Fog Island Mountains

Fog Island Mountains by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Published November 4, 2014; Tantor
Genre: literary fiction

There are two dramatic stories going on in this novel set in the Fog Island Mountains in southern Japan: a mortally ill South African man waits in vain for his Japanese wife to return home so they can confront together the expected diagnosis of the doctor at the local hospital. Alec's wife, however, is unable to confront the reality of  the imminent loss of her husband and seeks escape in several ways.

The second story is that there is a massive typhoon heading towards the town and these mountains. The inhabitants of the small town must seek shelter at the same time as look for the missing Alec and his wife Kanae, both of whom disappear separately.

Interwoven into these two stories is the storyteller who describes the town's events as well as shows us a wild fox she rescued and healed, and the fox-spirit, the kitsune in Japanese folklore, that has cunning, stealth and other human qualities.

Engrossing literary novel - a moving story of love, fear, and reconciliation, beautifully written.

About the author:
Michelle Bailat-Jones is a writer and translator. Fog Island Mountains won the Christopher Doheny Award from the Center for Fiction in New York City. She translated Charles Ferdinand Ramuz s 1927 Swiss classic Beauty on Earth. She is the reviews editor at the web journal Necessary Fiction, and her fiction, poetry, translations, and criticism have appeared in a number of journals, including the Kenyon Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, the Quarterly Conversation, PANK, Spolia Mag, Two Serious Ladies, and the Atticus Review. Michelle lives in Switzerland.

Publisher description:
What if you could rewrite a tragedy? What if you could give grace to someone's greatest mistake?
 Huddled beneath the volcanoes of the Kirishima mountain range in southern Japan, also called the Fog Island Mountains, the inhabitants of small town Komachi are waiting for the biggest of the summer’s typhoons. South African expatriate Alec Chester has lived in Komachi for nearly forty years. Alec considers himself an ordinary man, with common troubles and mundane achievements until his doctor gives him a terminal cancer diagnosis and his wife, Kanae, disappears into the gathering storm. Kanae flees from the terrifying reality of Alec’s diagnosis, even going so far as to tell a childhood friend that she is already a widow.

Narrating this story is Azami, one of Komachi’s oldest and most peculiar inhabitants, the daughter of a famous storyteller with a mysterious story of her own. A haunting and beautiful reinterpretation of the Japanese kitsune folktale tradition, Fog Island Mountains is a novel about the dangers of action taken in grief and of a belief in healing through storytelling.

For more reviews and for the book tour schedule, visit TLC Book Tours for Fog Island Mountains.
Thanks to the publisher and TLC for a review galley of this book.

Sunday Salon: A Post Without Pictures

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday: What Are You Reading hosted by Book Journey.

I'm engrossed in reading The Visitors by Sally Beauman, a novel set in 19th century Egypt about the discovery of the tomb of the boy-king Tutankhamun. I am also reading a library find, Blood Rubies by Jane Cleland, an antiques mystery.

Book tours are coming up next week for Fog Island Mountains set in typhoon-prone northern Japan, and for Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz, a novel about the infamous archenemy of Sherlock Holmes.

Thanks to the publishers for the following review ARCs and books - fiction and nonfiction:

Hush Hush: A Tess Monaghan Book by Laura Lippman - private detective Tess Monaghan, introduced in the classic Baltimore Blues, in an absorbing mystery that plunges the new parent into a disturbing case involving murder and a manipulative mother.

Flesh and Blood: Kay Scarpetta #22 by Patricia Cornwall -  high-stakes series starring Kay Scarpetta—a complex tale involving a serial sniper who strikes chillingly close to the forensic sleuth herself.

Driving the King, a novel by Ravi Howard - A daring  new novel that explores race and class in 1950s America, witnessed through the experiences of Nat King Cole and his driver, Nat Weary

A Bowl of Olives: On Food and Memory by Sara Midda - From the author of the international bestseller In and Out of the Garden and the wondrous sketchbook Sara Midda’s South of France comes a long-awaited treasure of a book. Drawn from the artist’s wealth of impressions and memories, it is a book for lovers of food and art and fine gift books—a book for anyone who, upon arriving in a new town, seeks first the local market, or who believes the best thing to do on a given night is to share a table with friends. 

Russian Tattoo: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova - An exquisite portrait of mothers and daughters that reaches from Cold War Russia to modern-day New Jersey, from the author of A Mountain of Crumbs—the memoir that “leaves you wanting more” (The Daily Telegraph, UK).

What books are new on your desk?