A Cup of Jo by Sandra Balzo

Review by Cheryl R. (Spuddie)

This is the sixth entry in the Maggy Thorsen “coffee shop” mystery series, which is set in fictional Brookhills, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Maggy and her team are celebrating the grand re-opening of  Uncommon Grounds in a newly refurbished train depot, with train service from the depot into the city of Milwaukee resuming at the same time. When one of the event promoters is found dead in the giant inflatable coffee cup Maggy had hired to promote the opening, she is once again thrust into the midst of a murder investigation. In this case though, she won’t have her boyfriend, Sheriff Jake Pavlik, to pump for information as he ends up being a ‘person of interest’ in the murder. When Maggy learns from the victim’s spiteful sister that Pavlik was having an affair with Jo–the victim–her world begins crumbling as she once again faces betrayal from a man she thought she knew. I didn’t even figure out the mystery ahead of time in this book as I often do–a couple of carefully placed red herrings had me looking in the totally opposite direction for the killer.

I enjoyed this book as I have all the other books in this series, and this part of the review encompasses the series in general. I will start by saying I am no lover of cookie-cutter cozy mystery series, so when I picked up the first book, Uncommon Grounds, and actually liked it, it thoroughly surprised me. The books in this series are not typical cozies–I call them semi-cozy. There is a bit more of an edge to the humor, the occasional four-letter word, adult themes are handled more directly instead of just alluding to unpleasant things, and the world more closely resembles real life where people are just people with faults and foibles–they aren’t automatically lumped into ‘the good guys’ and ‘the bad guys’ camps with the good guys always coming out on top. It’s more subtle, with shades of gray, with situations that could actually happen to real people, and those people having realistic reactions to what life deals them.

I like Maggy’s character a lot–she’s a laid-back shop owner in a wealthy suburb, a divorcee whose husband of twenty years announced he was leaving her for a younger woman on the day their only son went off to college. Maggy’s come a long way since that first book, but she isn’t invincible–she’s strong but vulnerable at the same time and she doesn’t really fit in with the Brookhills crowd, which consists of tennis-playing Barbie clones, business executives and Volvo-driving soccer moms. She lives alone in a small house with a huge sheepdog named Frank (who is a hilarious part of her circle of friends) and has a somewhat tentative relationship with the Sheriff, as mentioned above. The romance in this series is there, but it doesn’t dominate and take over the stories, which is another BIG plus for me. The secondary characters have become quite well-developed by this book too and again are not your ‘typical’ cozy characters.

I would highly recommend this series, especially for those who find traditional cozies a little ho-hum–and yet, they probably will satisfy readers of those traditional cozies too, as they aren’t overly graphic, violent or nasty. The author has an engaging writing style that make the pages turn quickly. I would recommend starting from the beginning–each book builds upon the last and a lot would be missed by reading out of order. I feel this series is vastly underrated and hope my review encourages a few people to give it a try.

Sandra Balzo‘s Maggie Thorson Coffee Shop Mystery Series:

***********************************************************************

Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman

Review by Jerseygirltoo

“Say Her Name” is a beautiful love story, but there is no happily ever after, because it’s also the story of a bereavement. The author, Francisco Goldman, loses his young Mexican wife, Aura, to a freak swimming accident while they are vacationing on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.  This sounds like a depressing topic but it’s a great book, and I definitely recommend it, especially if you’ve ever lost a partner, or know someone who has lost a partner. It helped me to understand why sometimes people can’t just “get over it” the way we want them to after a “decent” period of time has elapsed.

I’m not sure why the book is subtitled “A Novel” because I’m pretty sure every word is true.  The author gives us an insight into how it feels to lose the person you believe was the love of your life, prematurely. In this case, it was more ironic because he was much older than her, and they both assumed (considering the length of a normal lifespan) that he would be the first to go.

Goldman’s profession is writing, and he has several other published books. Aura, who was working on her PhD at Columbia University while they lived together in Brooklyn, also had ambitions of becoming a published writer. The book includes excerpts from her  diaries and short stories, which he pored over after her death.

I really admire the author for his honesty and the way he exposes his human frailties. Some of the things he tells us he did during his grieving were irrational and not at all flattering to him. We hear all about the magical thinking and strange superstitious habits that he develops after her death, in a futile attempt to somehow keep her alive and present in this world even though she’s gone.

The narrative goes back and forth from the time the couple spent together, starting with their first meeting to their last day together, to his life before meeting her, her childhood (gleaned from the diaries and stories she and other people who knew her told him) and his life as a widower  The jumps in time are not at all hard to follow, and they keep the book moving along. It’s a good tactic for holding the reader’s interest, because after all, this is not a story you are reading to find out what the ending will be.

Some parts of this book are very sad, some are frightening, and some parts are sweet and funny. Aura Estrada (and I can’t believe I got this far into the review without mentioning her full name, because the title of the book is “Say Her Name”) was a vibrant, talented, lovable, and quirky young woman. Her widower is pretty well inconsolable after losing her and after reading this book I understand why. But by sharing the story of their life together, he did ensure that she would have some form of immortality, and a lot of readers will now know who she was and not forget her name.

Assassin’s Honor by Monica Burns

Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)

Good read, action paranormal.

I found the world interesting – it uses an imaginative twist based on some Roman history.  Historically speaking, the Praetorian Guard [generally considered to be the good guys, bodyguards of the Caesar du jour].  They were officially dissolved in the 4th century by the current emperor – at a guess that was NOT done as cost-cutting measure.  The Sicarii were considered assassins and generally killed Romans and Roman sympathizers.  Since they specialized in carrying hidden daggers under their cloaks to off their targets – they were the original cloak-and-dagger specialists…

Switch to now, both groups are still around and the groups hate each other.  The Praetorians are the bad guys, fond of torturing their victims to death.  The Sicarii are the good guys, still dealers of death but specializing in monsters that the legal systems couldn’t or didn’t handle – child rapists who walk when evidence is lost, serial killers, and Praetorians of course.  But the kills are as quick and clean as they can manage.  Both groups have special powers – the Praetorians are telepaths and the Sicarii are telekinetics.

The hero is Ares.  Probably the worst thing I can say about him is he suffers from acute nobility.  [I also had trouble reading the name ‘Ares’ without chuckling, but that’s probably just me.]  Other than that he is bossy, hunky and knows his way around a sword.

The heroine is Emma.  She is a relatively normal [not many people know about her psychometric abilities] archaeologist.  Well normal if you don’t count her parents being hacked to death on a dig, and her friend and mentor meeting the same fate at the start of this book.  The worst thing I can say about her is she takes a long time to get over offing one of the Praetorians.  Now this Praetorian was planning to kill her, had already seriously wounded her to the point she would have died, but she’s upset she killed him.  She’d have been fine with Ares killing him, however.  Whining AND hypocritical – two strikes.  She does get over it eventually.

The actual plot is worthy of Indiana Jones – missing sacred object, bad guys searching for the same object, enigmatic and obscure clues, locales exotic and not.

Order of the Sicari Books:

Assassin’s Honor

Assassin’s Heart

Inferno’s Kiss

—————————————————————————————————

Bodies in a Bookshop by R.T. Campbell

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This narrator of the 1949 mystery Bodies in a Bookshop gets into a reader’s good graces by observing, “The trouble with bookshops is that they are as bad as pubs. You start with one and then you drift to another, and before you know where you are you are on a gigantic book-binge.”

But in a “curious little shop in a side-street off the Tottenham Court Road,” botanist Max Boyle finds not only recondite tomes but also two bodies in a back office filled with gas fumes. He also notices that their heads have been bashed in and that the room is bolted from the outside. Not for the first time, internal evidence says, Boyle calls the long-suffering Yard Chief Inspector Reginald F. Bishop a.k.a. The Bishop. However, Boyle’s flat mate and research mentor Professor John Stubbs horns into the investigation, which reveals a dismal world of blackmail, pornography, and theft of rare books. The suspects are sharply differentiated, the plot speeds up, and in a change of tone and pace, the reveal is outstanding.

The Bishop is skeptical of Stubbs’ use of the scientific method. He claims that forming and testing hypotheses, finding them implausible, and starting the process over and over again until the solution that fits the facts is found simply amounts to guessing and throwing explanations out until time, more evidence, and the law of averages ensure that one explanation is probably the right one. Stubbs, a loud beer-quaffing Scot, takes exception to this wording of the scientific method. But in traditional academic style, truth is found through different approaches and more or less good-natured bickering.

Author R. T. Campbell (real name Ruthven Todd) was a Scottish-born literary man who wrote a handful of mysteries. His witty writing style makes up for his jocose repetitions when describing the foibles of Stubbs and The Bishop. Also enjoyable are the superbly drawn characters and vigorous dialogue. Every setting is appropriately claustrophobic.