Featuring - Daryl Wood Gerber/Avery Aames

I met a new author on a couple of online book clubs this month that I want to introduce you to. I had fun getting to meet her. She writes cozies and suspense/thrillers. (She is also very generous in her giveaways.😄 ) Daryl also writes under the name Avery Ames.

About:  "Agatha Award-winning Daryl Wood Gerber writes the French Bistro Mysteries as well as the nationally bestselling Cookbook Nook Mysteries.

As Avery Aames, she pens the popular Cheese Shop Mysteries.

Daryl also writes stand-alone suspense: Day of Secrets and Girl on the Run.

As an actress, Daryl appeared in “Murder, She Wrote, Hart to Hart and Matlock." She loves to cook and has some great recipes in her books and on her blog.

As Daryl Wood Gerber

• Cook Book Nook Mysteries: There are eight books in this series (Sifting Thru the Clues just came out this week). 

  "In need of a change, Jenna Hart leaves the high-pressure world of advertising to help her aunt, Vera, open a culinary bookshop and café. Back with her family in Crystal Cove, California, Jenna seems to have all the right ingredients for a fresh start--until someone adds a dash of murder." 

• The French Bistro series: There are two books in this series.

It's always been Mimi Rousseau's dream to open her own bistro, but it seems beyond her grasp since she's been chased back home to Nouvelle Vie in Napa Valley by her late husband's tremendous debt. Until her best friend Jorianne James introduces her to entrepreneur Bryan Baker who invests in promising prospects. Now, working the bistro and inn until she's able to pay it off and call it her own."

• Day of Secrets is a stand alone novel, a supense/thriller.

"A mother he thought he’d lost. A father he never knew. An enemy that wants them dead.

At the age of five, Chase Day became an orphan. For thirty-one years, after a rebellious youth, he did his best to turn his life around and build a normal life—first as a Naval officer and then as a history professor at a boutique Bay Area college. Now, all that changes when he finds his mother, whom he thought had perished in a fire, dying from a gunshot wound. In her last breath, she urges him to find and protect the father he never knew. Where has his father been? Why has he never made contact? Can Chase discover why his family is a target before an unknown enemy destroys him?"

• Girl on the Run: A stand alone novel, suspense/thriller.

"When a fairytale fantasy night becomes a nightmare, Chessa Paxton must run for her life...but will the truth set her free?

Chessa Paxton, an event planner in Lake Tahoe, celebrates a successful night at the Happily Ever After Ball, but her dream quickly becomes a nightmare when she wakes up beside the body of her dead husband. Nauseous and confused, feeling as if she's been drugged, she can't explain to the sheriff why her princess costume is bloodied. With her father already a convicted murderer, she feels invisible shackles ratcheting onto her wrists and ankles. She runs! But she can't escape vivid flashes of memory: a massacre in a meadow; men and women in fairy tale costumes; Snow White’s dead body shielding her from bullets.

Though Chessa is a former costumer and a master of disguise, she quickly learns that hiding while trying to prove herself innocent is the most difficult task imaginable. Especially when the sheriff wants to throw her in jail and the real killer wants to silence her forever."

• The Cheese Shop Mysteries written as Avery Aames: There are seven books in this series. Daryl won an Agatha Award for Best First Novel for the first book in the series, "The Long Quiche Goodbye."

The protagonist of the series, is Charlotte Bessette. Charlotte runs the Fromagerie Bessette cheese shop (aka “The Cheese Shop”) in the fictional town of Providence, Ohio. You can find out more about Daryl and her books on her website: http://darylwoodgerber.com/ Daryl is also a contributor to a wonderful blog with seven other authors: Mystery Lovers' Kitchen. I made a cake Daryl shared the recipe for; Gooey Butter Cake and it was soooo good. I also have my eye on Curry Egg Salad. https://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/ I am looking forward to reading three of her books I now have: Pressing the Issue, Sifting Thru the Clues, For Cheddar or Worse. Please check our Daryl Wood Gerber's many books. I am sure you will find a great read.

Family Secrets by Shawn McGuire and Hide Not Seek by D.E. Haggerty

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Do you recognize that quote? The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.

I feel like that has been me that past few weeks. lol I went out of town for a family wedding. Got caught in the middle of the plane fiasco and  coming back to work was like jumping on a moving train. So I am going to tell you about two books, one I listened to before my trip and the other I just finished this weekend.

Family Secrets is the first book in the Whispering Pines series by Shawn McGuire.



About:

"Sixteen years after a family feud drove her from the cozy Northwoods village of Whispering Pines, Wisconsin, former detective Jayne O'Shea returns to prepare her grandparents' lake house for sale. Once there, not only does she find that the house has been trashed, her dog discovers a dead body in the backyard.

Jayne intends to stay out of it, but when it becomes obvious the sheriff isn't interested in investigating the death, Jayne can't stop herself. Her list of suspects grows faster than the plants in the commons' pentacle garden. Could it be the local Wiccan green witch with her stash of deadly plants? The shopkeeper who slips into trances and foretells death? The visitor determined to practice black magic?

What Jayne knows for sure is that the closer she gets to solving this crime, the more the sheriff wants her to back off. And when a local fortune teller provides a crucial clue, Jayne knows it's up to her to solve this murder."

What attracted me to this series is the setting, the northern woods of Wisconsin. My family is from northwest Wisconsin and we lived there when I was young, and then we spent our summer vacation there every year, visiting grandparents and other relatives. The setting reminded me so much of it; the woods, the lake houses, cabins, small towns, small business, and no traffic. 

Within the first couple of pages, the mystery begins. Jayne finds a body in the yard of her grandparents house. Luckily, Jayne was a policewoman but now she isn't. She can't help herself from getting involved because, as the blurb says, the sheriff doesn't seem to think it is his priority. In fact, he gives Jayne a temporary job, walking up and down the village to keep an eye on things, but it is really to keep her busy. 

A good mystery, a potential love interest and a ending opening up for another book in the series. I really liked it and plan on reading the other five books in the series...if I can get this merry go round to slow down. 

I finished Hide Not Seek this weekend. It is the third book in the The Reluctant Detective Series by D.E. Haggerty. Now, I will tell you that this book isn't going to be out until April 18th. 

About:

"Pru has a secret, which she has no plans to reveal – ever. But after a woman is murdered and all clues point to her, she has no choice but to disclose her true identity. When her revelations thwart the killer’s plan to frame Pru for murder, the killer begins stalking her. With each note he sends, he gets closer. The police are stumped. Pru wants to run away. She really, really wants to run, but Ajax has found the woman of his dreams and he’s not letting her go anywhere. He can be patient. In the meantime, he’ll protect her with his life. Pru isn’t feeling very patient, and her friends, Mel and Terri, are definitely not willing to wait until the police discover who the stalker is. The three friends take matters into their own hands and jump headfirst into the investigation.

Will Pru and her friends uncover her stalker before he turns his violence on Pru?"

This book grabs you right away with the first line of the book is the first note Pru receives in a series of threatening notes from an unidentified person. Pru has a secret and has come all the way from California to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to keep that secret. (Did I mention my other set of grandparents and mother were from Milwaukee? We spent a lot of time there too.)

The book was really good, and a quick read as Pru and her friends, Melanie and Terri, try to help her discover the identity of who is sending Pru the notes. A woman is found murdered and seems to be connected to Pru but she has no idea who the woman was. As the notes become more and more threatening, and include pictures of Pru with her friends, Pru's first thought is to run away and change her identity again. But can  Ajax, a man who is clearly falling for her, convince her to stay. Is Pru next? Sure seems like it.

Fast paced, with some humor as the three friends investigate (yes along with the police). Surprise ending.

Another thing I liked about the book, is that each chapter starts with a quote from a classic book. A few are Charlotte's Web, Leminy Snicket, Doctor Zhivago, Of Mice and Men, Winnie the Pooh etc. Really an interesting way to start a chapter. 

I want to read the first two books in the series; Finders Not Keepers and Picture Not Perfect. 

There are two other books in this series and I want to read those also.

I received a free book and voluntarily provided this review.

Laura Lippman month

It was Laura Lippman month at out Mystery Book Club. I think I had heard of her series but had not gotten a chance to read any of her books. We all read any book(s) written by Laura Lippman.

From her website:

"Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working full-time and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. 

Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards.

She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade.

After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light.

Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since. She is the daughter of the late Theo Lippman Jr., a Sun editorial writer who retired in 1995, and Madeline Mabry Lippman, a former Baltimore City school librarian. Her sister, Susan, is a local bookseller."

What did we read and what did we think?

There are 12 books in the Tess Monaghan series. Tess is a former Baltimore reporter turned accidental amateur P.I. I think about half of our group read the first novel in the series, Baltimore Blues.

About: 

"In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his taste for illicit midday trysts—make the case front-page news in every local paper except the Star, which crashed and burned before Abramowitz did.

A former Star reporter who knows every inch of this town—from historic Fort McHenry to the crumbling projects of Cherry Hill—now-unemployed journalist Tess Monaghan also knows the guy the cops like for the killing: cuckolded fiancé Darryl "Rock" Paxton. The time is ripe for a career move, so when rowing buddy Rock wants to hire her to do some unorthodox snooping to help clear his name, Tess agrees.

But there are lethal secrets hiding in the Charm City shadows. And Tess's own name could end up on that ever-expanding list of Baltimore dead."

All that read it, liked it and we felt we would read more of this series. Tess is a likeable character. Good development of characters and one unlikeable character in this book. :) I had just been in the Baltimore area and it was interesting to see references to some of the suburbs, streets etc. that I had seen on my trip.

The rest of the group read some of her stand alones. One person has read all of her books in the series. 
Books read for the MBC:
The Girl in the Green Rain Coat: Tess Monaghan #11
By a Spiders's Thread: Tess Monaghan #8

Stand Alones read:
The Most Dangerous Thing
I'd Know You Anywhere
After I'm Gone
And When She Was Good
Wilde Lake
By a Spiders Thread
Sunburn
What the Dead Know
Hardly Knew Her

Seemed like everyone enjoyed the books and would read other books by Laura Lippman. We recommend her!

On the Road With Del and Louise by Art Taylor

I read On the Road with Del and Louise for the House of Clues March online book club.
It is actually a "Novel in Short Stories". Rather than chapters, the book has six stories following the escapades of Del and Louise.

About: 

"Del’s a small time crook with a moral conscience—robbing convenience stores only for tuition and academic expenses. Brash and sassy Louise goes from being a holdup victim to Del’s lover and accomplice. All they want is a fresh start, an honest life, and a chance to build a family together, but fate conspires to put ever-steeper challenges in their path—and escalating temptations, too.

A real estate scam in recession-blighted Southern California. A wine heist in Napa Valley. A Vegas wedding chapel holdup. A kidnapping in an oil-rich North Dakota boomtown. Can Del and Louise stay on the right side of the law? On one another’s good side? And when they head back to Louise’s hometown in North Carolina, what new trouble will prove the biggest: Louise’s nagging mama or a hidden adversary seemingly intent on tearing the couple apart? Or could those be one and the same?

From screwball comedy to domestic drama, and from caper tale to traditional whodunit, these six stories offer suspense with a side of romance—and a little something for all tastes.

Part of the Henery Press Mystery Series Collection, if you like one, you'll probably like them all".

I enjoyed this book and the characters. This book asks the question; can you root for a protagonist that is on the other side of the law? Yep Del did all kinds of small crimes. But we got to read his thought process and he really believed it was o.k., that he had good reasons for what he did. 

Del made me think of the brother and the uncle in the movie Napoleon Dynamite. While they didn't commit crimes, you just had to shake your head at how their minds worked. Louise reminded me of a the female character in a movie I just watched with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, High Sierra. Ida plays Marie who is already literally just hanging out with a couple of goof balls headed for trouble. When Humphrey Bogart shows up to run the big caper, Marie falls for him because she likes how he takes control and seems so smart...really going places. Oh brother. 

Louise actually tries to keep Del under wraps, de-escalate situations when needed. Except when she finds herself shoplifting, which leads to something a bit more serious. They are both so misguided and warped in their thinking, and don't want to hurt anyone that I had to like them. I had to laugh at some of the things they said and did. Now in real life, I probably wouldn't hang out with them.

This book won an Agatha Award in 2015 for Best First Novel and finalist for an Anthony and McAvity award.

Art Taylor: Art Taylor is the author of On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. He has won three additional Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, two Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer Awards for his short fiction, and his work has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories. He also edited Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Anthology or Collection. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University, and he contributes frequently to the Washington Post, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and Mystery Scene Magazine.

Film Noir on TCM

Are you familiar with Noir Alley on TCM? I think I mentioned it last year. It was on hiatus for winter, but returned this month. 

What is Film Noir? I am sure you will recognize some of these movies but just in case, per Wiki:

"A cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1920s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression."

The host of Noir Alley is Eddie Muller: Muller is the founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation. He is co-programmer of the San Francisco Noir City film festival, Muller is considered a noir expert and is called on to write and talk about the film genre, notably on wry commentary tracks for Fox's film noir series of DVDs and introducing Turner Classic Movie's weekly "Noir Alley" movie block. 

His debut novel, The Distance, earned the Best First Novel “Shamus” Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. Muller is a two-time Edgar Award nominee from the Mystery Writers of America and has earned three Anthony Award nominations. (I did not know that.)

This show is on Saturday nights at midnight and replays Sunday at 9 a.m. central time. Here's what's coming up. You may or may not recognize some of the main actors. I don't recognize them all but when I watch some of these old movies, I usually recognize the actors, once I see them. You will often see Robert Mitchum and Humphrey Bogart hanging around Noir Alley.

March 23, 2019: Lady in the Lake starring Robert Montgomery (Elizabeth Montgomery's father). 1946

The lady editor of a crime magazine hires Philip Marlowe to find the wife of her boss. The private detective soon finds himself involved in murder.

March 30, 2019: Border Incident starring Ricardo Montalban. 1949



Mexican and American federal agents tackle a vicious gang exploiting illegal farm workers in southern California. 

April 6, 2019:  99 River Street starring John Payne, Evelyn Keyes (Gone with the Wind) 1953


A former boxer turned cab driver has to hide from the police when his badgering wife is murdered by the jewel thief she was having an affair with

April 13 2019: Nobody Lives Forever 1946 starring John Garfield

G.I. Nick Blake, a never charged con man in his pre-military life, has just received an honorable discharge from the army on medical reasons. Rather than return to his old life, he plans to settle down in New York, his hometown, with his girlfriend Toni Blackburn and the small cache of money he amassed prior to the war: $50,000. When that plan does not pan out, he decides to head to Los Angeles with his con man friend Al Doyle and live it up until he decides on a more permanent course for his life.

April 20, 2019: Woman on the Run 1950 starring Ann Sheridan Dennis O'Keefe

Frank Johnson flees police after becoming an eyewitness to murder. He is pursued around scenic San Francisco by his wife, a reporter, the police, and... the real murderer.

April 27, 2019 M 1951 starring David Wayne



Apparently this is a remake of a 1931 film. 

"When the police hunt for a child killer cramps their style, the criminal underworld tries to track him down."

This one doesn't appeal to me and I probably won't watch it, but since this post is about Noir Alley, I am posting it.

If you think you may want to keep up with Noir Alley, here is the link to the webpage. I like a lot of these movies, but some of them are too gritty and edgy for me.

http://noiralley.tcm.com/