Ahira's Hangar

Some recent mystery reads:

Tim Myers ~ A Flicker of Doubt, fourth book in his Candlemaking Mysteries. Harrison Black was aimlessly drifting through life until he inherited a candle making store from his great-aunt. The business gives him an outlet for his creativity, and managing a small business and trying to earn enough money so that the business and he can both survive becomes a time consuming and passion generating center for his life. In the fourth book of this series, Harrison has the misfortune of finding his former girl friend's body floating in the river that runs by his store. The county sherriff declares it to be a suicide. Harrison believes that her death was a result of foul play, and sets out to prove it.

Alan Gordon ~ Thirteenth Night, the first in his Fools' Guild Mysteries series. In the Middle Ages, the fools and troubadors of Europe and the Mediterranean were members of a very secret society whose primary goal is to foster peace throughout the continent and surrounding regions - this is the premise behind this quite wonderful mystery series. In the first book, Gordon writes a sequel to Shakespeare's Twelth Night, where the Fool who was a character in that story is sent once again to the city of Orsino to investigate the death of one of the important nobles of that story. Malvolio is, of course, the prime suspect!

Alan Gordon ~ Jester Leaps In, the second book of the Fools' Guild Mysteries. After the events of Thirteenth Night, Theo (also known as Feste the fool) and his new wife/apprentice are sent on a very dangerous mission to Constantinople, where all of the fools and troubadors have gone missing and are presumed dead. Thye must somehow survive the deadly Imperial politics while trying to solve the mystery of the vanished fools - and while back in Italy, a Crusade prepares itself for invasion and bloodshed.

The Gordon series is wonderful, and I have every intention of tracking down the remaining books!!!!!!! ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I have just finished reading one of the finest mystery books I have ever read ~ Maisie Dobbs by Jaqueline Winspear.

Masie Dobbs is a brilliant young woman who has just opened up her own detective agency in London in the year 1929.

Her first case seems to be a fairly easy one - determining whether or not a young wife is cheating on her husband.

But that case is much complicated than that, and opens up a rich glimpse into Maisie's past - where she worked as a battle field nurse for Britain in World War I.

Maisie is a wonderful character - cool and intelligent but very compassionate. She views detective work as a way to make the world a better place. <i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 10/21/06 10:06 pm
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It took a long time to track down a reasonably priced copy (the average of the used copies at Amazon has been hovering around $40 and there were no new ones, and it wasn't available through my local library), but I finally got my hands on the third of Alan Gordon's Fool's Guild Mysteries, called A Death in the Venetian Quarter.

Interestingly enough, it is a library book from the Cincinnati/Hamilton County library system. I've gotten used library books from Amazon before, but they have always had stamps on them saying they were removed from circulation. this one has no stamp. I am hoping that it is not a hot library book that someone liberated and then sold on the internet!

Anyway, as the story begins, our favorite fools are in the city of Constantinople as the fleet carrying the Fourth Crusade arrives. This is the first crusade to feature Christians against Christians. As the fools and minstrels of Europe and surrounding areas all belong to a guild that supports and promotes peace throughout the royal courts, I am sure it will not take them long to get up to their necks in trouble. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I am reading the fourth book in Alan Gordon's Fool's Guild Mysteries, called The Widow of Jeruselum. While Theo the fool is travelling with his wife, he tells her a story from his past, about the Third Crusade, and his part in it. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I recently read the fifth book in Alan Gordon's Fools Guild Mysteries, An Antic Disposition. The Fools Guild has been driven out of their Italian Guild Hall by the Church. They have taken refuge in Germany. they continue to treach and entertain each other. One of the guild leaders tells the true story behind Shakespeare's Hamlet, from the point of view of the Folls involved. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I have now read the second book of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs books, called Birds of a Feather. A very wealthy man hires Maisie to track down his daughter, who has run away from home. His daughter happens to be about Maisie's age, in her early thirties. The case soon becomes very complicated, as some women who were friends of the missing woman when they were younger, turn up murdered. Is the missing woman running for her life, or running away from her crimes? Why is someone murdering the women who were once part of a high school clique so many years later when they no longer seem to be in much contact with each other?

And -- YAY!!

NEW TONY HILLERMAN!!
His new novel is called The Shape Shifter and is a Joe Leaphorn story. Leaphorn is now retired from ther Navajo tribal police. An aquaintance from the old days calls him to tell him that a priceless - and cursed - Navajo rug, long believed to have been destroyed in a fire - has turned up in Flagstaff. That fire was believed to have killed a drifter who was wanted by the FBI on many charges of robbery and murder. And now, many years later - the rug turns up in the mansion of a mysterious man. Leaphorn's friend decides to find out more about the rug and then promptly vanishes. His wife asks Leaphorn for help, and he heads off to Flagstaff and a world of trouble. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Read Jane and the Barque of Frailty by Stephanie Barrons, the ninth book in her mystery series featuring authoress jane Austen as the sleuth. In this installment, Jane is staying with her brother Henry and his wife Eliza, in London, as the publisher prepares Sense and Sensibility for the presses. At a nearby home belonging to a Lord active in politics, a Russian princess is found with her throat slit. While most of Polite Society thinks that the unfortunate woman harmed herself, Jane is not so sure... ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Sharyn McCrumb wrote a mystery book called If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him. It tells the stories of some clients of a tiny law firm in rural Virginia. Some fifty year old men in the community are having midlife crises and are behaving badly. They are then turning up dead. Their ex-wives or wives are suspects and the law firm must defend them, or prove them innocent if applicable. While it was morbid, it was also pretty funny in places (though I am not sure many middle aged men might find it to be very funny). ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I have read the third and fourth books in the Maisee Dobbs series by Jacqeline Winsoear.

In Pardonable Lies, Maisie Dobbs, private investigator and psychologist who works in London in the late 1920's and early 1930's, is hired to find out the true fates of two English soldiers thoght to have died in France in WW1. In traveling to France, Masie must face down her own nightmares and dragons as she was once a battlefield nurse in France during the War.

In Messenger of Truth, Maisie Dobbs is hired to investigate the death of an artist on the eve of a very important art show in London in 1931. The death has been ruled accidental, but one of his family members has serious doubts so hires Maisie as a private investigator. The more Maisie researches the case, the more cans of worms she opens up. And when she finally finds the truth, it is devastating. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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SMOKE IN THE WIND by Peter Tremayne is a mystery book set in Wales in the seventh century AD. In those days, women in Ireland were legally the equals of men. They could be rulers, judges, lawyers, or Christian priests. This story tells of an Irish woman lawyer who is traveling through Wales with a friend (a male Saxon lawyer) and is asked by the king of Dyfed to solve a mystery involving a suddenly abandoned monastary, with all of the monks vanishing into seemingly thin air. Near the monastary, a young girl has been raped and murdered. Sister Fidelma comes to believe that the two mysteries are linked, and she and her friend risk life and limb to find the answers. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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DEATH A L'ORANGE by Nancy Fairbanks is the third book in her Culinary Mysteries series. Carolyn Blue loves food, and is a nationally syndicated food writer. Her husband is a chemistry professor and she travels with him when he goes to conventions and consultations - and while he works - she eats! At all of the finest restaurants in town, espeically ones that feature regional specialties. And she solves mysteries while she is going around eating, as well. In this outing, Carolyn and her husband and their son are touring France. The descriptions of the food, especially in Normandy, make you drool! And the mystery is also pretty good! The author somehow makes you feel sorry for the culprit and despise the target. And you really want to eat a Norman apple pastry! ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Crewel World by Monica Ferris is the first book in a mystery series. Unemployed and freshly divorced, middle aged Betsy Devonshire leaves California to live with her widowed sister in a small town in Minnesota. Margot owns and operates a very nice little needle work store named Crewel World. Everything is going really well until one night Margot, a true sweetheart who does not have an enemy in the world, is murdered in her store. Betsy frantically tries to find out who killed her kind sister...

Looking for something goofy and fun, I have been reading a little mystery novel called The Mournful Teddy by John J. Lamb. It is about a former San Francisco homicide detective who had to retire due to debilitating and permanant on the job injuries. He and his wife have moved to rural Virginia, where she grew up. They have started a business making artisan teddy bears. On the morning they are due to enter their first big teddy bear show, they discover a deceased man floating down the river that runs through their back yard. When the local sherriff acts very strangely about it, it looks like it might not only be murder, but the local cops look like they are covering it up. What does murder have to do with the apparent theft of a teddy bear that is worth some $170,000? Why would the crooked local police force be hiding the fact that a murder even happened? And how is the local pastor involved in all of this?

Finished reading an Arc of The Bordeaux Betrayal, a mystery set in the Virginia wine country. One of the wineries is having a charity auction, and someone donates a very rare bottle of very old wine - originally purchased in France by Thomas Jefferson for the table of George Washington. But in seperate incidents, two women interested in the bottle turn up murdered, and the winery is vandalized. Do these crimes have anything to do with the rare bottle of wine? Or is there something else entirely going on? It was OK, but something in the writer's style just did not click for me...