by Finzzzz
As I sit here rooting for the Red Sox in the
home stretch, I have some great picks for you for
September, all by first time authors who deserve your
attention!
 Forty Words
for Sorrow
by Giles Blunt
A riveting portrayal of two monstrous sociopaths and the
cops who track them, Forty Words for Sorrow is
tense and terrifying as it crosscuts between the cops in
pursuit and the killers toying with their latest victim.
When the badly decomposed body of thirteen-year-old Katie
Pine is found in an abandoned mine shaft, John Cardinal
is vindicated. It was Cardinal who'd kept the Pine case
open-insisting she was no mere runaway-and Cardinal who'd
been demoted to the burglary squad for his excessive
zeal. But Katie Pine isn't the only youngster to have
gone missing in the rural town of Algonquin Bay, and
Cardinal is now given the go-ahead to reopen the files on
three other lost kids. When another youth is reported
missing, he begins to see a pattern that screams
"serial killer." Meanwhile, the brass have
partnered him with Lisa Delorme, newly shifted to
homicide from the Office of Special Investigations, and
Cardinal can't help but wonder if she's been sent to keep
tabs on him. A guilty conscience makes him think so.
Superbly paced, with fully fleshed characters and utterly
convincing police detail, Forty Words for Sorrow
is also a novel of place that transcends genre. Blunt
puts us in a small Canadian town in the dead of winter
and makes us feel the cold, then turns the cold into a
metaphor for the destruction of young lives. A superb
debut by this Canadian author kept me up all night!
Wonderful plotting and pacing makes this a must read!! I
can’t wait for the sequel.
 Open Season
by C.J. Box
The debut of a writer hailed by Tony Hillerman as "a
great storyteller"-the first book in an engaging and
gritty mystery series featuring Wyoming game warden Joe
Pickett. Few first mysteries have been welcomed as
enthusiastically as Open Season, or with better
cause. "When a high-powered bullet hits living
flesh, it makes a distinctive -pow-WHOP-sound that is
unmistakable even at tremendous distance." And so it
begins for Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden who, with
the shot of a rifle, is thrust into a race to save not
only an endangered species, but also the life and family
he loves. C. J. Box knows the wilderness and he knows how
to create a wonderfully authentic, vividly alive sense of
place. Most of all, he knows how to create a memorable
new hero: a man who is full of failings, but strong and
honorable. This is mystery writing at its best-and the
beginning of a brilliant new career. I was floored by the
excellent writing and characterization in this novel.
Game warden Joe Pickett is a guy with many faults, much
like all of us and the way he makes his way through this
mystery, protecting his family and trying to do what is
right, is both heartwarming and gut-wrenching. Definitely
the best first mystery of the year!
 Carter
Beats the Devil
by Glen David Gold
America in the 1920s was a nation obsessed with magic.
Not just the kind performed in theaters and on stages
across the country, but the magic of technology, science,
and prosperity. Enter Charles Carter -- a.k.a. Carter the
Great -- a young master performer whose skill as an
illusionist exceeds even that of the great Houdini.
Fueled by a passion for magic that grew out of
desperation and loneliness, Carter has become a legend in
his own time. His thrilling act involves outrageous
stunts carried out on elaborate sets before the most
demanding audiences. But the most outrageous stunt of all
stars none other than President Warren Harding and ends
up nearly costing Carter the reputation he worked so hard
to create. Filled with historical references that evoke
the excesses and enthusiasm of postwar, pre-Depression
America, Carter Beats the Devil is the complex
and illuminating story of one man's journey through a
magical -- and sometimes dangerous -- world, where
illusion is everything, and everything is illusory. I
can’t read serial killer/mystery books all the
time..I may break! I am a sucker for a good
magician/Roaring 20’s book and this book fits the
bill. Absorbing, funny, magical, mysterious you’ll
love this book and the way Gold throws some
sleight-of-hand the reader’s way! (Plus, the cover
art is superb!)
GO RED
SOX!! See ya next month when we’ll have a holiday
shopping list for you.
Finzzzz@aol.com
HOT
OFF THE PRESS
congratulates the winner of our August drawing:
tktwrtr
She has won this "The Key To Life" mini book,
and it's HOT permanently-attached bookmark with a little
key on the end.
WTG
tkt!
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