Over and over I read comments from readers saying they didn’t want to read a book with the pandemic in it. When it was time to write the next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery, I wasn’t sure what to do.
When I wrote End of the Trail, number eighteen in the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, I thought that would be the last one. After all Tempe retired, so time to retire the series. Wrong.
Covid 19 has changed all of our lives in many different ways. Some have kept to their homes, leaving only for essentials or not at all, only ordering what was needed by phone or the Internet. So many of the events we all looked forward to have been cancelled. And the list goes on.
It begins with something that happened long ago, but quickly jumps to present time, and the heroine Joanna, a realtor, who has been given the task of readying a beautiful old house for sale.
Sunny Davis is visited by a vision of her best friend Gina moments before receiving a phone call of Gina’s suicide. Sunny receives the news with horror and disbelief and even guilt because of the two women’s last conversation. Sunny finds it difficult to believe that Gina would leave her three sons in such a horrible manner.
What a perfectly titled book. The young woman and heroine, Chessa Paxton, is accused of murdering her husband, and run she does, and run and run and run. Not only is she running from the detectives on the case, but from many of those who might be the real killer.
Frankly, I absolutely loved this tale. Author Edith Maxwell has done a magnificent job of weaving historical information, interesting information about the Quakers’ beliefs and culture, and a bit of romance into a fascinating mystery.
If you love horror and vampires, this is the book for you, however, it has a several different twists than most books featuring vampires.
Infernal has the addition of a major player ? the devil. Yes, the entity sometimes called Satan. He cavorts around as a well-dressed, cigar smoking human. He taunts a priest, and directs the vampires. The vampires attack a monastery and invade the Central Valley, concentrating on Clovis and Kingsburg.
This is a most unusual group of stories that will give you insights into different cultures and times. "Angelina," the first one, is about a young girl wounded during World War II.
There is a lot to love in this Austin Starr mystery.
The setting is mainly Vancouver, but also Seattle in 1969 and focuses on the women’s liberation movement which is an integral part of the plot. Having vivid memories of all that went on during the late ‘60s, I have to say Kendall has done a great job weaving all of the emotions of the times into the story.
