Crime/Woman
detective/Private Detective
Lethal Genes
Linda Grant
Scribners 0684826534
Catherine Sayler is one of the most charming female sleuths to enter the scene since Kinsey Millhone. Living with her teenage niece and a running private investigations firm in the San Francisco Bay area provides lots of venues for her to shine. A university science lab specializing in corn mutations has been experiencing sabotage. When Catherine is hired to stop the sabotage the deaths start. The first victim apparently of natural causes, the second done-in in a brilliantly conceived way that none-the-less does not stop Catherine from pursuing it as murder not accident. Niece Molly provides a sympathetic and realistic glimpse at teen age life. The people who she works with and some that she encounters as she works on the crime are fascinating making the reader want to know more.
This is a tantalizing mystery that plays fair with its readers. The bits that the reader catches on to before the sleuth leave one impatiently turning pages to find all the answers that have remained hidden.
Click on Grant's name above to go to her homepage from whence you can get to an excerpt. Beware! Don't do this late at night when the bookstores are closed because once you start reading Lethal Genes it is next to impossible to stop.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Sports
Tangerine
Edward Bloor
Harcourt Brace & Company 015201246X
Twelve year old Paul Fisher comes of age in this hauntingly realistic tale set in a surrealistic town where muck fires burn continuously, plagues of mosquitoes and termites harass the populace, and his older brother, the football hero, is the embodiment of evil. So skillfully written, the reader smells the fires and the citrus groves, feels the ice of a killer freeze, and the viscous mud that sucks a middle school into the bowels of the earth.
This one is a real page turner, not just because something new is happening all the time but because Bloor breathes life into the characters forcing the reader to care. A must read. Definitely a Best Book.
Romance/Regency
Folly's Reward
Jean R. Ewing
Zebra Books 0821756214
Scottish governess Miss Prudence Drake is ready to risk all to keep her orphaned young charge, Bobby, Lord Dunraven safe. At the behest of his grandmother they are in hiding from the Marquess of Belham, Bobby's legal guardian who is suspected of wanting to murder the child. Fleeing from mysterious strangers they team up with Hal, a gorgeous man who Bobby found washed up on shore and thought was a silkie of legend. Hal, who remembers not even his own name, has a head filled with an amazing amount of verse and talents that surprise him. On the way to Oxford, Prudence and Hal are constantly thrown together as they experience danger and adventure.
Folly's Reward, like Ewing's previous regencies, is a riveting read that is at the pinnacle of its genre. The author creates multi-dimensional characters who step off the page much like Jane Austen's heroines. The story reaches outside the familiar confines of most regencies. White's and Almack's aren't even mentioned. The heroine is not an ingenue experiencing a season in London amidst the ton but is a fully realized human being who loses her heart to a man without a past who we, the readers, make discoveries about as he does himself. The setting, a journey from Scotland to Oxford by unconventional means, adds dimension and depth to the world we only glimpse at in most regencies.
This compelling story will ensnare the reader in its web of love, suspense, and excitement.
Adventure/Technothriller
Medusa's Child
John J. Nance
Doubleday 0385483430
Another disaster averted mega-thriller from the author of Pandora's Clock. Scott McKay's struggling air cargo company is threatened by a mix up in loading that puts the wrong crate on his converted Boeing 727. Along with his two man crew, a scientist accompanying her atmospheric research to Denver, and a woman making a delivery to the Pentagon for her sadistic late ex-husband, Scott must try to avert a disaster that could knock out every computer in North America as well as cause the deaths of millions in a thermonuclear holocaust.
If Nance continues to write like this he can be expected to enter the top bestselling ranks along side King, Koontz, Grisham, Steel, and Clancy. Medusa's Child is not only an edge of the seat thriller but also a powerful story of romance, mystery, and overcoming adversity.
Crime/Suspense
Missing Pieces
Joy Fielding
Doubleday 0385485212
If you have places to be or things to do don't pick up this book because once you start reading you will be unable to stop until you reach the shattering climax. Master of suspense Fielding once again takes her readers so much into the lives of the characters that they become real.
Told from the viewpoint of family therapist Kate Sinclair, we know from the get go that something horrific has happened to her family and that her rebellious teen daughter Sara, her trashy sister Jo Lynn, and a serial killer are involved. As the events slowly unfold, one is enthralled by Jo Lynn's obsession with angel-faced killer Colin Friendly, Sara's increasingly dangerous exploits, the descent into dementia of Kate's mother, and the sexual lure of Kate's high school flame. Missing Pieces is not to be missed.
While you wait to get your hands on this you may want to read some of Fielding's previous books. My favorite is See Jane Run where a woman suddenly realizes that she doesn't even know her own name and that under the coat she is wearing that has $10,000 stuffed in the pockets, she is covered in someone else's blood.
Romance/Science
Fiction/Psionic Powers
Quicksilver
Pam McCutcheon
Love Spell 0505521415
Terran psychiatrist Juelle is shocked to find herself falling for the incredibly masculine councilman Eron who does not want his isolated planet to have anything to do with the advanced technology Earth is trying to bring to bucolic Delphi.
A delightful diversion.
Young Adult/Stories
The Dog in the Freezer:Three
Novellas
Harry Mazer
Simon & Schuster 0689807538
Even though this collection of novellas is aimed at a young audience and is in fact a terrific middle school book, dog lovers of any age will enjoy it. In "My Life as a Boy" Einstein and Gregory switch places a la Freaky Friday and the ensuing riotous events lead to great insights on many fronts. The title story is a pungent tale of a kid who just can't see a dead dog, no matter how obnoxious in life, thrown in the garbage and must rescue him for a decent burial. In "Puppy Love" fatherless Lucas finds himself at the epicenter of several relationships when he spends the summer with his uncle.
This outstanding collection should appear on several "best" lists. If my beloved Grandpa were still alive I'd be rushing out to buy a copy for him.