The Overdue Life Of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms

 

Three years ago Amy Byler's life fell apart.  She had what she thought she wanted, marriage, two kids and a house in the suburbs.  But then John, her husband, went overseas to Hong Kong for business and called her to tell her he wasn't coming back.  Suddenly she was left a single mother who hadn't worked in quite a while.

Amy did the best she could.  She found a job at the children's pricey private school which gave her a tuition discount.  She worked, looked after kids, fell into bed exhausted and did it all again the next day.  John not only wasn't there, he wasn't sending money.  

Now, Amy pretty much has things back on track.  She is tired most of the time but the three of them are doing well.  Cori is talented in diving and thinking about full rides on a sports scholarship.  Joe is a science and math brain and Amy knows he will do great at whatever he picks out.  Then she goes to a drugstore and sees John.  He has come back.

John hasn't come back for Amy, but he does want to get to know his children again.  He talks Amy into letting him have the children for the first week of summer vacation.  She signs up for a librarian conference in New York and calls her best friend from college for a place to stay.  When Amy gets there, her friend Tallia has a plan.  She runs a fashion magazine and they want to do a makeover on Amy.  Once they are through, Amy looks years younger and much more chic.  When John asks for the summer with the children, she reluctantly agrees and stays in New York.

Part of the makeover is dating new men and Amy follows through on the plan.  But her interest has already been piqued by Daniel, a man at the conference all the women call the hot librarian.  He is interested in Amy as well and soon Amy has to decide if this new relationship has any chance of working with him living in New York with his daughter and her in Pennsylvania with her children.  Can things work out?

This is my first novel by Kelly Harms but it won't be my last.  Amy is relatable to any woman with kids and a job.  That translates into exhaustion and putting your own needs after those of the children and your husband.  Starting over and recapturing your youthful dreams seems unlikely if not impossible.  Harms was a literary editor before she started writing and she captures the hopes and feelings of mothers everywhere.  This book is recommended for readers of women's literature.

The Memoirs Of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller

 

Sven grows up in Stockholm and can't wait to leave.  He is an introvert and lives the life of the mind, not finding fellow souls in his social circle.  He leaves to take a mining contract in Svalbard but a cave-in leaves him disfigured and without an eye.  Fleeing further, he first works as a cook for the miners and hunters and then with the help of a trapper, flees humanity for an isolated fjord where night comes for four months and people are not to be seen.

This then, is the story of Sven's isolation.  He occasionally sees sailors bringing him supplies but can go months without a human face or voice.  He has a dog for company and there is enough game that he need not ever go hungry.  His friends write and sometimes send books and Sven is content.

Then one day a boat arrives and he is shocked to find his sister's daughter arriving with a baby.  She is determined to stay with Sven and he agrees although he doesn't think for a minute she will be able to handle the isolation.  But she stays for several years, finally going but leaving her child behind for Sven to raise.  

This is a debut novel and I'm interested to see what the author will do next.  This book is based on a true story of a man who lived in isolation for almost his entire life in the Artic Circle.  Few of us can imagine such a life although the recent shutdown due to covid gave many of us a taste of it.  We now read stories of how depression has risen in our young people due to that isolation and most had their families around them so it is hard to imagine how Sven handled this for years of his life.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

City Of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

 

General Turyin Mulaghesh was retired and living by the sea.  She was renowned by some as the hero of the battle of Bulikov and as a war criminal by others.  Her last battles had left her without one of her hands and although she has adjusted to her prosthetic, it's time to give up war.  But the government has other plans.  They send her to the city of Voortyashtan, known as the City of Blades.  Her cover story is that she is there to find out what happened to a government agent who disappeared but the real mission is to find out what those living there are mining and why its being kept a secret.

The city, also known as The City of Blades, was the location of the Divine of war and death.  Turyin arrives to find an old friend is the leader of the city.  Another old friend, Sigrud, has a daughter who lives there and is overseeing the opening of the harbor, which has been closed since the battle that killed the Divine.  She arrives to find that there is a brewing war between the tribes of the coast and those of the mountains, and that everyone seems to be keeping a secret.  As she starts to investigate the mines, news of ritual murders emerge.  Sigrud arrives and Turyin, he and his daughter, join forces to discover all the secrets and save the city and the world from the trouble that is brewing.

This is the second novel in the Divine Cities trilogy.  Bennett is known for his fantasy works and this trilogy is the first that brought him to the notice of fantasy readers.  Readers will remember Turyin and Sigrud and their determination to do whatever it takes to save the world around them even when it antagonizes friends and family.  At the end of this book, Sigrud sails away in disgrace and Turyin vows to return to her retirement.  This book is recommended for fantasy fans.

Third Degree by Greg Iles

 

Things are not good at the Shields house.  Warren is a doctor and Laurel is a teacher and they have two healthy children and a great house.  All should be well but things are happening.  Warren has been acting strange for a while and Laurel awakes to find that he has been up all night, desperately looking for something he won't disclose.  His partner has been scamming the government and the due date has come; there is an investigation headed their way.  Laurel has her own problems.  She just found out that she is pregnant and doesn't know if it is Warren's or her lover Dan's child.

Things get worse as the day progresses.  Laurel leaves work early with a migraine.  She arrives home to find that Warren is still there and even worse off after no sleep for forty hours.  He confronts her with a love letter and demands to know the identity of her lover.  Laurel has no intention of telling him that and soon finds herself a prisoner.  When the children come home from school, Warren now has three hostages.  

Greg Iles is known for his suspense novels and for writing about his home state of Mississippi.  This novel is full of thrills and the reader doesn't know from one page to the next what will happen next.  Dan is ex-military and the standoff between those locked in the house and the police outside is full of excitement and thrills.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

Yellow Dog by Martin Amis

 

Martin Amis uses the lives of several men to explore what passes for morality in a violent world.  There is Henry, king of England, married to a Queen who is in a coma and forced to give up his latest mistress.  He is facing a scandal from pictures of his fifteen year old daughter in the bath, pictures that he is being told will soon be released.  A novelist, Xan Meo, is attacked while out at a pub, causing him head injuries that change his entire personality.  There is a gang leader who calls for the attack on Xan because he mentioned his name in his latest book.  Then there is Clint, a journalist at a scandal sheet who practices yellow journalism; there is no limit to how far down he will go or what lies he will report.

Amis asks if morality has changed from a time before.  Is our time more violent?  More driven by scandal?  Has the role of men changed?  While he seems to come to the conclusion that we are facing a new reality, looking back I see nothing but violence and scandal, hardly a new environment.  Perhaps every generation thinks theirs is the most violent just as they think the young of their era are clueless and won't come to anything.  Has the male role changed and is it risible to think a man can protect his family?  When even the King of England is faced with his impotence in the face of scandal, the average man can hardly hope to do better.  But is the role changed or is there just new forms of attacks to be thwarted?

Martin Amis has gained prominence as one of Britain's most famous novelists and as the son of Kingsley Amis, a novelist from the generation before.  Martin's work has received two Booker nominations and this was one of them.  This novel was longlisted for the Booker in 2003.  The writing style is breezy and the characters seem to tumble from the pages.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

The Saga Of Tanya The Evil, Volume 1 by Carlo Zen

 

A salaryman in Japan dies.  He is astonished to find himself brought back and even more astonished to find he is now an eleven year old girl named Tanya.  Tanya has been recruited into the army and quickly shows an aptitude and willingness to do whatever it takes to win that surpasses her adult peers.  She is promoted and soon is in charge of a battalion of mages.  But as she rises, her superiors are bothered by her cold analysis of events, her willingness to regard her soldiers as nothing more than another resource.  Is she truly suited for leadership?

This novel is the book version of a highly successful manga series that extends to nineteen issues.  Tanya is a survivor and will do whatever it takes to be sure that she does.  The action is fast and furious and the reader will have to decide if they are on Tanya's side.  This book is recommended for young adults and manga readers.

Noonday by Pat Barker

 

This is the third in a trilogy of books written about the lives of the English during World War II.  It follows three former art students.  Elinor and Paul are married while Kit is back in London following a divorce while his former wife and child are in the United States.  All three met as students at the Slade School Of Art.  Both men fell in love with Elinor but Paul won her heart.

The three are involved in the nightly fight against the bombings by Germany.  Elinor and Kit are ambulance drivers while Paul is part of the teams that search the rubble after the nightly bombing for survivors.  It is grueling, exhausting work and during their days they only want to sleep.  When Paul and Elinor's house is also bombed, they drift apart, Elinor going into the country to stay in a cottage while Paul stays behind and falls into an affair with a woman he works with.  When Elinor discovers this, she comes back to London and takes a flat without Paul, determined to paint and live life on her own.  But Kit sees this as his chance and attempts to win Elinor.

Pat Barker is best known for her World War I trilogy about the men and women who fought this war and the toll it took on them.  This trilogy centers on World War II and she has also written one about the women of the Trojan war.  While set during wars, her novels focus on the everyday lives of those caught up in lifechanging events that affect entire nations.  Although this book of part of a trilogy, I found it works as a stand alone novel as well, although it left me with the desire to go back and read the first two in the lives of Kit, Elinor and Paul.  Of all the wartime novels I've read, this one gives the reader the best idea of what it was like to live in London during the nightly bombings where any day one might wake up and find their home or their family gone forever.   This book is recommended for readers of historical fiction.

The Lost Kings by Tyrell Johnson

 

Everything changed when her mother died.  Jeanie and her twin, Jamie, were taken in by their aunt and uncle since her father was off in the war.  When he was discharged, it was to take them off without any warning to a remote cabin in the woods of Washington, near the coast.  There he disappeared every day into the woods, drinking and shooting his guns.  Jeanie and Jamie were free to explore the woods and seashore and there they met Maddox who became their best friend.  

Then came the night when Jeanie awoke to find her father coming through the door with blood on his hands.  He sent her to bed but the next morning he was gone along with Jamie.  Jeanie holed up in the cabin, anxiously waiting for them to return but they didn't.  Eventually her situation was discovered and she was returned to her aunt and uncle.  Her friendship and budding romance with Maddox was cut off although they tried to keep it alive.

Now Jeanie is living in Oxford, England, where her mother lived.  She left money so Jeanie is able to buy a house, but that's the only stable thing in her life.  Ignoring her intellectual gifts, she drops out of Oxford and works in a pedestrian job, drinking too much, having an affair with a married man and sleeping with other men to have some semblance of closeness.  Then Maddox appears telling her he has found her father.  Will Jeanie finally get answers?

Tyrell Johnson burst on the literary scene a few years ago with his book, The Wolves Of Winter.  This book has that same strong writing that pulls the reader along and makes them care about the characters Johnson has created.  Jeanie has never gotten over her childhood, pushing away everyone who cares for her, rejecting them before they can reject her.  She has a hole in her heart for Jamie and a longing to know what happened that night he and her father disappeared.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

 

This is a postmodern novel unlike most novels I've read and I suspect, most readers have encountered.  It is a layered work.  At the heart lies a house free of time and space limitations, where one might start down a short staircase and have it lengthen until it takes eight days to get to the bottom.  A hallway may extend until it takes days to travel.  The owners of the house and his friends go on expeditions to try to ascertain what is happening and the story of their explorations makes up the Navison Record, which is in turn, written by a blind man named Zampano.

A man studying to be a tattoo artist tells the story of finding Zampano's text.  His name is Johnny Truant and he tells the story, mostly in footnotes, and mixed with his fight with drugs, sex with various people he meets, and other self-destructive acts.  The text is full of references to scholarly works and is thrown on the page, sometimes upside down or diagonal, maybe one sentence in a page followed by pages of close-written text.  It is a challenge to read and a many layered story that makes the novel one that the reader feels a sense of accomplishment in finishing.  As unlikely as it may seem for such a surprising novel, it is Danielewski's debut novel.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

The Disappeared by C.J. Box

 

Joe Pickett, game warden, has a reputation.  He was able to help the last governor with several issues and now people think he is a detective of sorts.  When the new governor asks for his help, Joe is very reluctant.  This governor is a very sort than the last, a man who got the office because he was a wealthy man who could buy votes.  He doesn't ask for help, he demands it and Joe doesn't know why he wouldn't just use the police forces at his disposal.

A wealthy English woman has gone missing and it has made headlines internationally.  She was a guest at the fancy guest ranch where Joe's daughter is working.  She was seen leaving the ranch but never arrived at the airport to catch her flight.  Joe packs up and goes to the town nearby and starts to look.  The game warden in that area has suddenly disappeared and that is another mystery.  Can Joe find her?

This is my first exposure to the Joe Pickett series.  He and his friend Nate manage to solve most mysteries by talking to people and relying on the game warden network.  Joe is a happily married man and that is a strength to him and to his character.  Readers who liked the Longmire series will likely like this one as well.   This book is recommended to mystery readers.

The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham

 

They were best of friends, these twelve year old boys.  Keith Rudy and Hugo Malco were the stars of the baseball team and they were sure they would be friends forever.  But as they grew older, their paths diverged and by the time they were grown they were barely speaking.

Keith Rudy's father was a successful lawyer and Keith's mentor.  When his father became the district attorney, Keith was left to run the office as he had become a lawyer also.  His father was determined to clean up Biloxi, to close down the clubs that were havens for prostitution, drugs, gambling and other crimes.  

Hugo Malco was part of that club scene.  His father, Lance, was the king of the Biloxi crime scene and Hugo couldn't wait for the day when he could take over for his father.  He got that chance when Jesse Rudy put his father behind bars for nine years.  Surrounded by muscle and killers, he was determined to get retribution for his father's jailing and it didn't take long.  Far from being best friends, the two men were now enemies, both determined to end the other's way of life.

John Grisham is known for his legal thrillers and this book is marketed that way.  But the underlying story is that of a friendship that started in childhood and how the two boys grew into men who became enemies.  There is lots of legal action for those interested in how the law works but this seems more of a story of how revenge can ruin so many lives.  This book is recommended for readers of legal thrillers and literary ficiton.

God's War by Kameron Hurley

 

Nyx is a former Bel Dame, a paid government assassin made up entirely of women.  The men are all at war, a war that has lasted centuries and wiped out entire generations of men.  No one really remembers what started the war but everyone agrees there is no stopping it.  

But Nyx has always been a rule breaker, living on the edge.  When she does something the Bel Dames consider over the limit she loses her Bel Dame affiliation and is sent to jail for a year.  Now she is just a bounty hunter, considered one of society's lowest creatures, fighting with other bounty hunters to bring in those with a price on their head.

She has a band of helpers.  Khos is a shapeshifter, able to turn into a large dog at will.  Anneke is another mercenary whom Nyx stole from her greatest rival.  Taite is a gay man who handles their communications.  He has brought his sister, Inaya, over the border, heavily pregnant and judgemental of everyone's lives.  Rhys is from the other side, a man who would have been a mullah if he had stayed but left rather than go to the front of the war.  He is the team's magician.

Nyx is summoned by the queen and offered a commission that would see her wealthy and able to retire and might even give her back her Bel Dame license.  An alien woman is here and wants to gain this world's knowledge to enable her people to rule the universe.  Nyx needs to bring her in.  But with so many enemies gunning for her, can she do it?

This is my first read by Kameron Hurley but it won't be my last.  I finished this book today and immediately bought the next two in the trilogy.  Hurley does a fantastic job of world building, a world that is half destructed, torn apart by war. Insects are used as weapons and protection, an entire society built on their powers and those who can control them. Boxing is also a big part of the world and those successful in the ring are honored.   Nyx is not a typical hero; she uses everyone she meets in her quest to complete missions and lives her life as she chooses without worrying about the opinions of others.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.

Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs

 

Dr. Tempe Brennan is in Guatemala with a forensic team from that country, uncovering and documenting victims killed by military during the civil unrest twenty years ago.  They are concentrated on a well in a small village where twenty three bodies, women and children, are found.  The work is draining both physically and emotionally but Brennan feels a need to document what was done there.

The violence isn't over.  Two of Tempe's colleagues are attacked, one killed, one left in a coma.  Young women are disappearing in Guatemala City.  Four have vanished and one is the daughter of the Canadian ambassador.  Is there a serial killer at work?  Tempe is approached by the police and asked t consult on the case.

This is the fifth book in the Temperance Brennan series.  Readers will learn about forensic techniques along with a suspenseful uncovering of missing girls and what has happened to them.  Tempe has two love interests in the story and it is unclear which man she will pick.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout

 

The small New England town of West Arnett is not sure what to make of their minister.  When Tyler Caskey arrived with his family, the congregation couldn't believe their luck.  He was a large man, full of love for his God and fellow man and was a breath of fresh air after their last minister who had grown old in his job.  The congregation wasn't as sure about Tyler's wife as ministers' wives shouldn't be that beautiful but came to like her.

But things have changed.  Tyler's wife had become ill and died, leaving him with two young daughters to raise.  The youngest was just a baby and is living with his mother, coming to visit on the weekends.  Katherine, his older daughter, is not speaking or at least not at school.  But she is screaming, and writing notes about how she hates her teacher.  Tyler is called into the school but refuses to believe that his daughter is anything but a grieving child.  

The teacher starts it.  She is upset that Tyler didn't take her word for his daughter's condition and tells her friends he was rude to her.  Then the organist becomes angry that Tyler won't support her wish for a new organ or that he doesn't follow up when she comes to him for counseling.  Soon the town is abuzz with rumors about him and when he finds out, the grief he has suppressed takes him over and he is unsure if he can remain in such a place as this.

Elizabeth Strout writes books set in her native New England which delves into relationships and how people manage to get through life with all its disappointments and blows.  Her work has won awards such as the Pulitzer and Orange Prize.  While her writing is spare with no added flourishes, it lays bare the human emotions and small kindnesses that allow us to get through life.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

The Midnight Child by Karen McQuestion

 

Sharon Lemke thought her life would be quiet now that she is retired.  But she soon finds out differently.  The first big change is when her daughter asks her to give a foster child, an eighteen-year old named Nikki, a room for a few days.  Sharon reluctantly agrees but after she meets Nikki the two decide to make the change full time.

The second change involves Sharon's neighbors in the back.  The Flemings moved to the neighborhood a few years ago.  The father is a doctor and the mother looks like a society woman, always dressed to the nines and hair and makeup just so.  They have one son, Jacob, who is in high school.  But if that is so, why did Sharon see a small girl washing dishes one night at eleven?

She and Nikki decide to investigate.  After a couple of attempts when the Flemings denied a small child being in the house, they decide to turn the case over to the social services department.  But when that agency starts to investigate, the Flemings panic, worried that their dirty secrets will come spilling out?  Is there really a child there and what will become of her?

Karen McQuestion has written a novel that delves into dysfunctional family relationships and how easily some children can fall through society's cracks.  There is drug abuse, hidden secrets and a woman's rage that controls all those around her.  This is my first book by the author.  She started in self publishing and was the first self-publisher to sign an Amazon contract that led to a movie deal.  Since then she has written numerous books that have a large audience.  This book is recommended for mystery and women's fiction readers.

Confederates In The Attic by Tony Horwitz

 

Tony Horwitz grew up enchanted by the Civil War.  Although he grew up in the city, he imagined being on the battlefields.  Like most little boys, he put his childhood games aside as he grew up.  But he found himself still interested and in the late 1990's, he decided to spend time visiting the South and the sites of the war.

He spent a year or so visiting all aspects of the war that tore the nation apart.  He visited battle sites and visited with people who still spend their time caught up in the war, glorifying their ancestors' parts in it.  He lived for a weekend with some hard-core re-enactors who insist on wearing authentic uniforms and living on the meager supplies that the Confederate army had to rely on.  He visited those who glorify the Confederate flag, both as a symbol of the men who fought under it and as a tool to signify racial divide and hate.  He spent time at hospitals and prisoner-of-war camps and he got into the controversy surrounding the Confederate statues that dot the South, although this book is too soon to see the recent removals of many of those statues.  He visited with representatives of the historical societies that keep the records of those times, both the male and female versions.  

Although I grew up and live in the South, I learned a lot from this book.  One of the largest hospital camps in the South is about forty-five minutes from me and I never knew that.  I learned that the Confederate flag was never a governmental flag but was only ever a battle flag, but these days it has received different meanings and most people don't want to be associated with it.   Horwitz's description of his time on the battlegrounds sent chills up my spine and hope that we will never be that divided again.  This book is recommended for readers of nonfiction books.

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

 

The economy has collapsed, leaving Stan and Charmaine living in their car once both their jobs disappear.  Roving gangs of thugs are always an issue, ready to use violence to get any money or food they can find.  Stan is despondent while Charmaine tries to make the best of things which is also irritating to Stan.

The couple can't believe it when they are asked to come and test for a new living community named Consilience.  If they are accepted, they will be given a house inside a walled community and provided with food and safety.  There is a prison in the community and the scheme works this way.  Every house is shared by two families.  One month the first couple is on the outside working a job provided by the community while the other couple spends the month in prison doing work that benefits the prison.  The next month the two couples trade places.  Once you are in, you cannot leave.  Stan and Charmaine eagerly accept.

At first, it's like a dream come true.  Then doubts start to set in, especially when Stan finds out that Charmaine has been meeting the other couple's man on switchover days for an affair.  The longer they are there, the more they start to see things going on in the prison that aren't right.  Things like people who disappear.  Things like Charmaine's job which is to administer a final shot to those whose time is up.  Soon they realize that they have signed up for a nightmare but how to escape when every move and word they speak is monitored?

This is a lesser known Atwood novel but it fits in the dystopian genre and as a message against governmental authority.  Everything is exaggerated but sometimes that is what it takes to make a point.  There are sexbots, knitting circles, men and women who dress up like either Elvis or Marilyn Monroe and whose time can be rented, organ transplants for sale and lots of other plot points that demonstrate what happens when one trades freedom for security.  This book is recommended for readers of science fiction and dystopian fiction. 

The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

 

The Wayfarer has seen better days.  It is a tunneler ship, one that patches wormholes for other ships to use to locations that don't have them, a purpose that means long journeys without seeing civilization.  Luckily, the crew has become something of a family.  There is Ashley, the captain who sets the tone and makes sure everything is moving along.  Sissix is the reptilian pilot.  Kizzy and Jenks are the techs; Kizzy is outgoing and Jenks is in love with the AI that runs the ships communications.  Doctor Chef feeds everyone and makes sure they are healthy.  There is a man who maintains the fuel and a dying navigator.

Ashley has been trying to do the work of several individuals for years and he finally hires an assistant.  Rosemary Harper is running from her family's past and soon settles into the crew.  The Wayfarer has accepted a new job that will set them up for years but it involves creating tunnels into a place no one has gone before and to a location that has warlike inhabitants.  Will they make it?

This is the first book in the Wayfarers series which won the Hugo for Best Series.  This book was also nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction as well as many other awards.  It is the start of an engaging series.  Each crew member has an interesting background.  There are love affairs, clashes with the law, enemy forces who are determined to end the mission and the love and cooperation between a diverse set of individuals to attain a worthwhile goal.  This book is recommended for readers of science fiction.

Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen

 

Annamarie Zimmer had been a teenager on her way to the Olympics the last time she rode.  That was the day her horse broke his leg in competition, throwing Annamarie.  Her horse, her love was put down and Annamarie was left paralyzed, in a coma.  When she emerged, it was to months of paralysis and physical therapy until finally she was able to walk again.  But she has never gotten on a horse since that day.

Now Annamarie is in her forties, going through a divorce.  When she hears that her father had a fatal disease, she takes her daughter, Eve, with her.  Eve has been affected by the divorce and has turned into a sullen teenager who is not shy about her anger.  Annamarie's father has ALS and is losing more bodily function each day.  Annamarie decides that she and Eve will stay and run their riding academy so that her mother can concentrate on helping her father.

But she isn't the manager her mother is.  She is still torn about her ex-husband and seeing her high school boyfriend, Dan, who is now the local vet doesn't help.  She forgets to order hay and feed, alienates the stable hands and clashes with the customers.  All that is nothing once she sees a horse that Dan rescued from a kill pen.  The horse, damaged, looks so much like her former horse that Annamarie believes he has to be a brother to her horse.  Can she find out about the horse and can she find a new life on her childhood stable home?

Sara Gruen has centered her writing on stories about animals and how they affect the lives of the humans who care for them.  Readers will remember her big hit, Water For Elephants, and she has written numerous others.   This novel is the first in a series of two.  I'm not sure I really liked Annamarie who seemed to alienate those around her and was still in a battle with her parents in her forties but it was interesting reading about her journey.  This book is recommended for readers who enjoy novels about family relationships.

Murder Book by Lissa Marie Redmond

 

Things are going well professionally for Lauren Riley.  She recently accepted a job in the cold case division of the homicide bureau and she is enjoying the work.  There is not as much time pressure and she doesn't miss being called out in the middle of the night to view a body with all the signs of violence a murder brings.  She has a partner, Shane Reese, who she gets along with.  At home, she has an empty nest as her daughters are grown and gone but she's learning to live with it.

One case that has haunted Lauren is that of a teenage immigrant who was shot and killed on the street a decade or so ago.  The case was investigated closely at the time but no suspect was ever identified.  Lauren and Reese are looking at the case.  When Lauren stays late one night to work on it, she hears someone behind her.  Before she can turn around, she is knifed, then kicked in the head as she falls to the floor.  

When she wakes up in the hospital, she can remember little about her attacker.  But who could it be in the middle of the police station?  The files on the case she and Shane were working or what they call the murder book is missing from her desk.  Why would that case be so important to someone else?  Could her attacker be another policeman?

This is the second book in the Cold Case Investigations series.  Lauren is an interesting woman, a professional who has put romance aside to concentrate on her career.  It is a police procedural focusing on an area that many police units have created, the cold case area where cases from years ago can now be solved using modern police investigative tools and forensics such as DNA analysis that was not available at the time of the crime.  The book also highlights the disgust that other police feel when they find a corrupt officer in their ranks.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.