Author Topic: Mystery Corner ~ 2 (Read 910658 times)

FlaJean · « **Reply #2960 on:** October 07, 2011, 12:27:05 PM »

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Pull up a comfortable chair and join us here to talk about mysteries and their authors.
We love hearing what YOU enjoy and recommend!

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Discussion Leader: JoanK

Several years ago I learned about the only "working" tea plantation in the US while reading one of Laura Childs's tea shop mysteries. It is the Charleston Tea Plantation and I've wanted to visit there since reading about it. My husband and I stopped to visit it Monday on the way home from Maryland and it was well worth the stop--so interesting. You can learn a lot by even reading a cozy.

(Hope it is all right to post this here.) I did a short 2 minute video for our forum in Seniors & Friends. In case anyone would like to see it, click on http://vimeo.com/30164926

Just completed a good English mystery "Aftermath" by Peter Turnbull. It kept my interest from the very first pages.

Frybabe · « **Reply #2961 on:** October 07, 2011, 02:05:14 PM »

Thanks for the Tea Plantation video. I looked at some of your others too. I was not aware of the Paso Fino breed until last year when I watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain in the Caribbean somewhere (Puerto Rico maybe?).

pedln · « **Reply #2962 on:** October 07, 2011, 10:49:25 PM »

Very nicely done, Flajean. I'm impressed with your production skills. Now, if you ever get that way again, I hope you'll go to Sea Grove, NC and make a video of the pottery places there. I learned about it from a mystery. Isn't it fun the things you can pick up reading mysteries.

FlaJean · « **Reply #2963 on:** October 07, 2011, 10:53:41 PM »

Thanks Frybabe & Pedln, I would love to see the pottery places also and remember reading about them also in a mystery (maybe the Deborah Knott series?). You do learn a lot from reading books by a good author--even if they are cozies.

roshanarose · « **Reply #2964 on:** October 07, 2011, 11:29:34 PM »

Flajean - I love Anthony Bourdain

Steph · « **Reply #2965 on:** October 08, 2011, 05:41:08 AM »

There are a good number of pottery places in both North Carolina and the Georgia mountains.. Can I reccomend John Campbell Folk School in Brasstown,NC if you like crafts of all types. A great place to video how much fun you can have learning a new school. MDH and I went every year to learn something new and have donated to them.
Finished the Daniel Silva. What a wild ride. A new author, I always get so excited when I find a new author I like..
I also watched the trailer for One for the Money.. Kathryn Heigl just does not make a Stephanie Plum and Debbie Reynolds is too pretty for Grandma.. and the black lady is simply not fat enough. Darn darn darn.

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #2966 on:** October 12, 2011, 04:11:38 PM »

Just finished Louise Penny's "Bury Your Dead" - absolutely fantastic. The series really has developed so well. This book manages to weave together two complicated plot lines - I usually enjoy her writing more for the atmosphere and the details of Quebec life, but in this one I was also on the edge of my seat to see what happened. And still lots of questions waiting to be answered in the next novel - can't wait to find out what happens to Inspector Beauvoir (if anyone's read the new one, please don't tell me!)

Rosemary

FlaJean · « **Reply #2967 on:** October 13, 2011, 01:39:26 PM »

I got four more Peter Turnbull English mysteries from the library. He is a very good author. My husband has already finished three of them and I am just getting started (had to finish what I was already reading). Some of them have the same main characters, but the books don't have to be read in sequence which is nice.

JoanK · « **Reply #2968 on:** October 13, 2011, 04:14:21 PM »

Sounds great, Jean. I find that if I read too many of the same author at once, I get tired of them, no matter how good they are. So I try to mix them up.

Read the latest (I think) Anne Perry Monk book. I like Perry, but she WILL have a trial in each book, and her trials are pathetic. As the daughter of a lawyer, I just cringe. No sense of standards of proof. This one hinges on a note scrawled on the back of a shopping list written by the accused's daughter. They argue the daughter might have gone to his house, left the paper there, the father picked it up and written on the back. The daughter is right there, but no one ever askes her where she left the shopping list. No one ever looks at something the accused wrote to see if the handwriting is similiar. The Defense lawyer never points out that there is NO evidence he wrote the note. The verdict depends on which of the witnesses the jury likes. AAAARRRGH

mabel1015j · « **Reply #2969 on:** October 13, 2011, 11:17:32 PM »

I just finished Illusions by Janet Dailey. It was a good read, not a great one, but enjoyable, like most books. Delaney Wescott is a security expert who is hired to protect people who have been threatened. This time it was a rock star. Interesting twist at the end that didn't see coming. My problem was that Delaney had three guys hitting on her thruout the book. Most of us are lucky to have one "eligible" person interested in us at a time and i get bored w/ "romance" going on too much in too many "mysteries". I did enjoy the logistics of protecting someone, learned some things i didn't know.

Jean

Frybabe · « **Reply #2970 on:** October 14, 2011, 08:47:12 AM »

Just finished The Riddle of the Sands. I decided to not read the rather lengthy Epilogue, which appears to have to do with England's coastal defenses or lack there of and the possibility of a real invasion rather than tying up any loose ends in the story itself. The plot itself was simple, but wrapped up in lots of details involving sailing in coastal areas with lots of hidden sand bars and the need to sound and map them.

Next up is probably going to be Lindsey Davis' Alexandria which I started for a second time, got into it a chapter or two and stopped both times. It's been too long a break between Didius Falco stories. My interest appears to be flagging.

Nasty bit of weather, yesterday, in DC. I didn't hear of any injuries. It could have been worse what with it being rush hour when the "suspected" tornado struck. Hope everyone is okay.

Babi · « **Reply #2971 on:** October 14, 2011, 09:27:10 AM »

I have that problem with a lot of TV shows,JOANK. "Ah, come on!" is a typical cry of
an evening of TV. Still, it's entertaining, and I simply try to 'go with the flow' and
pretend it's all perfectly reasonable.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #2972 on:** October 14, 2011, 02:10:49 PM »

A book I am currently reading, that was recommended by one of our f2f book group members, is "Shadow Divers" by Robert Curson. This is a book that will teach you "things you didn't know" about deep shipwreck diving (as totally opposed to regular scuba diving), and the divers that participate in this. Subtitled "The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II". They discovered a U-boat that was sunk off the coast of New Jersey. The book is 348 pages but is such an interesting read, it's not seeming that long. There are a few pictures/photographs in the book. For those who really like to discover a new world through reading, this is great. The person who recommended it (a woman) said all her reading friends had passed it around among them until it was threadbare! Another great sea-going book is "Might Fitz", which I may have mentioned here before. If you've heard the song about the Edmund Fitzgerald, you will know what this book is about. It is well written, and was an awesome read.

JoanK · « **Reply #2973 on:** October 14, 2011, 06:49:34 PM »

There are several "Riddle of the Sands" available on kindle.

"Shadow Divers" is there too, and i mean to get a sample.

Frybabe · « **Reply #2974 on:** October 14, 2011, 10:32:08 PM »

Shadow Divers sounds most interesting. I forgot about the Mighty Fitz, that is one that was supposed to get onto my to get list but was forgotten. It is now officially on the list is is Shadow Divers. My list is getting as long as my physical piles of books and e-book collection.

JoanK · « **Reply #2975 on:** October 15, 2011, 08:44:00 PM »

I asked for a sample of "Shadow Divers", twice on my kindle yesterday. They said they were sending it, and it never came! First time that's happened.

But I got "The Riddle of the Sands", and so far, I love it, even though i don't understand most of the sailing manuevers. There were two versions: The $11 version, and the $1 version. I got the latter, no maps so far. But I don't care.

EvelynMC · « **Reply #2976 on:** October 16, 2011, 03:22:31 PM »

I am also reading "Riddle of the Sands" on my Kindle, the $1 version. So far it is very interesting.

i am going to look up "Shadow Divers" and get a sample of it. I usually like stories about deep sea diving.

Evelyn

JoanK · « **Reply #2977 on:** October 16, 2011, 10:57:44 PM »

The heros are trying to expose a conspiracy. At the same time, we're readfing in Plutarch about the conspiracy to murder Julius Caesar. It's my conspiracy week, I guess.

FlaJean · « **Reply #2978 on:** October 22, 2011, 10:16:34 AM »

I am reading Albert's latest and last book in the Beatrix Potter series "The Tale of Castle Cottage". Sometimes this series is a little too "wordy" but I have enjoyed them, especially the first several. So far I have never tired of the China Bayles series but I believe Albert is smart to end this one with Beatrix's marriage. However, Albert is a thoughtful author who treats her geographical areas honestly and her protagonists are realistic enough without being too realistic LOL. I once read a book by an author who described a tall mountain in Florida--too much fiction there. I never read another of her books.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #2979 on:** October 22, 2011, 12:35:58 PM »

I'm reading a funny mystery by Ralph McInerny, Infra Dig. I have no idea what that title means, but the story is funny. A widowed young woman has inherited the responsibility of her croachety, almost-wheel-chair-bound father-in-law. Recently he has tried to show off for a wpman friend by using his crutches more often. While preparing for a dr's appointment, the DIL inadvertantly runs over him and kills him. She has complained about him so much that she irrationally attempts to hide the body for fear of being suspected of having killed him deliberately, and presents a story of his having just disappeared. The rest of the book, at least to this point, has been various people trying to get rid of the body.

Could be depressing and ghastly, but it's not, it's funny. This is my weel for humorous books. I'm also reading Better Than Chocolate, a novel about what happens to a couple when the husband has invented a no-calorie chocolate and the company takes over their lives.......see more detail in "Library"...... Jean

marcie · « **Reply #2980 on:** October 22, 2011, 11:49:19 PM »

Jean, the Infra Dig has an imaginative plot. It does sound like it could be quite funny.

I just finished the latest Preston & Child book featuring Agent Pendergast, COLD VENGEANCE. It ends with a cliff-hanger so I'll have to wait for the next one in the series. Pendergast is more of an action hero in this one, shooting his gun and killing bad guys, than he's been in the previous books. I'm not sure what to think. I'm still attached to his character.

Babi · « **Reply #2981 on:** October 23, 2011, 08:35:19 AM »

I was watching an old John Wayne movie the other day, FLAJEAN, and saw a mountain
scene I could swear I've seen in other old movies as well. I begin to wonder if
it's a well-used studio setup. Since it was supposed to be in Texas, I'm fairly
confident it wasn't filmed on site.

JoanK · « **Reply #2982 on:** October 23, 2011, 05:53:49 PM »

In "All the President's Men", supposedly occuring in Washington DC, There is a brief shot of a palm tree in one scene.

JoanK · « **Reply #2983 on:** October 23, 2011, 05:57:59 PM »

Just finished an odd book by Simon Brett in the "Blotto and Twinks" series. He's trying to imitate P.G.Wodehouse: Blotto is a Bertie Wooster character, twinks his flapper sister with the brains. Somehow, the humor didn't come off for me, although it was funny that cricket saved the day. Do any of you know the series.

MaryPage · « **Reply #2984 on:** October 25, 2011, 09:26:59 AM »

No, but I read every single Wodehouse book back when I was a teenager and in my twenties. How I laughed!

I don't think I'll try a copy cat.

It is a scream about that palm tree! Wowzer! We sure DO NOT have those in these parts! I am so near Washington, D.C. that I read their newspaper and watch their television channels and listen to their radio stations. Well, anyway, we do not have a national newspaper here in Annapolis, just a very local one. We have no TV channel operating from here, and only 1 radio station: WNAV. I guess you can guess the NAV stands for Navy! It is a very, very local station!

pedln · « **Reply #2985 on:** October 25, 2011, 10:56:00 AM »

Babi, there has to be mountains. How can the good guys and bad guys hide from each other if there aren't any high up big rocks?

I tuned into Morning Joe this morning in the middle of their interview with John Grisham about his new book -- The Litigators, taking on the pharmaceutical industry. Sounds like one for the TBR list.

MaryPage · « **Reply #2986 on:** October 25, 2011, 01:56:49 PM »

I watch Morning Joe first thing every weekday morning.

Babi · « **Reply #2987 on:** October 26, 2011, 08:55:10 AM »

Yes, PEDLN, there are mountains in Texas. They're all found in Big Bend and
along the border with New Mexico. I haven't visited them, but I understand some of them are quite beautiful.
Somehow, tho', I don't think they would match up with the scene I think I saw in a couple of John Wayne movies. Maybe I can find out where most of his outdoor/Western mountain scenes were filmed.

Steph · « **Reply #2988 on:** October 27, 2011, 07:15:30 AM »

Read a nice mystery.. The Doublet Affair by Fiona something.. Am looking for more of hers. Also a brand new author for me. Sarah Shaber. Her protagonists is a man.. A very very nice bright professor of history. What a change. Not many women have males for the heros.. But he is truly nice guy..

Babi · « **Reply #2989 on:** October 27, 2011, 09:09:04 AM »

I just picked up a light mystery by an author who is apparently being re-issued. Her pen name
is Catherine Aird, but her real name is Kinn Hamilton McIntosh. Unusual name. I'm reading her
first book, "The Religious Body", set in an English convent with the death of a nun. Not what
you would call deep, but a pleasant read.

FlaJean · « **Reply #2990 on:** October 27, 2011, 06:04:08 PM »

The Doublet Affair sounds interesting. Just finished my library book so will look for that in my library.

Steph · « **Reply #2991 on:** October 28, 2011, 07:09:50 AM »

I remember Catherine Aird.. Wow, that was years ago. Not sure how many books she wrote.
It is Fiona Buckley and she wrote a bunch about the lady in waiting.. I enjoyed the one I read, which is the second of the series. I have found the first and will read that as well.
Daniel
Silva is a compelling writer. He pulls me in and that is the first spy guy for years that does.

Babi · « **Reply #2992 on:** October 28, 2011, 04:44:10 PM »

I guess I really am going to have to take a closer look at Daniel Silva. I have a vague impression
of having read one of his books, and found it okay but not esp. memorable. I'd hate to have to
rely very much on that "vague impression", tho'.

Steph · « **Reply #2993 on:** October 29, 2011, 06:33:01 AM »

Silva.. He has some stand alones, but mostly they are about Gabriel
Allon, who is quite a complicated human. Silva has wonderful continuing characters and you find yourself mentally saying, oh now he must bring in and naming some of the characters yourself. Plus of course many european cities are characters in the books.. Venice is a real star in at least two books and I will never feel the same about Switzerland.

Babi · « **Reply #2994 on:** October 29, 2011, 08:21:09 AM »

"..never feel the same about Switzerland"? Is that good or bad? I know so little, really, about
the country. It is very mountainous, stays neutral in war, thrives on banking...that's about it.
And of course, was the beautiful background for the Heidi stories.
Oh, yes! Forgot. Cheese, watches and CHOCOLATE!

rosemarykaye · « **Reply #2995 on:** October 29, 2011, 01:45:35 PM »

But I believe it didn't allow women the vote till something like 1972, and for a western country, its approach to women's rights is, I have heard, pretty poor.

JoanK · « **Reply #2996 on:** October 29, 2011, 06:26:00 PM »

" "..never feel the same about Switzerland"? Is that good or bad? I know so little, really, about
the country. "

To me, it will qalways been the country where I fell off a bus.

Steph · « **Reply #2997 on:** October 30, 2011, 06:40:48 AM »

Actually Silva is writing about Switzerlands role in hiding the money that the Nazis accumulated and also not giving Jews the money that their ancestors hid before the war. Also the Swiss are very very nosy neighbors so to speak. It is considered good in Switzerland to keep a firm eye on the neighborhood..My husbands grandparents came from a tiny town in Switzerland and when we visited years ago. The whole town knew who we were within 20 minutes. Amazing.

Babi · « **Reply #2998 on:** October 30, 2011, 09:19:57 AM »

Why, JOANK, was it because the bus was in an incline? I do hope you had some better
memories from a trip to gorgeous mountain scenery.

I read a book that had a good deal to say about that same subject, STEPH. I don't recall which
book it was, tho'. Possibly it was the Silva book.

Frybabe · « **Reply #2999 on:** October 30, 2011, 01:00:17 PM »

Quote

My husbands grandparents came from a tiny town in Switzerland and when we visited years ago. The whole town knew who we were within 20 minutes.

Steph, that could probably be said for a lot of close knit towns, especially smaller ones. When we visited with my Grandmother in Mom's home town in Wales strangers would call to us from across the street and welcome us. Yes, it was amazing and surprising. I suppose that if the strangers weren't thus accounted for, they would be watched with some curiosity and suspicion.

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Author Topic: Mystery Corner ~ 2 (Read 910658 times)