Review: The Golden Peacock by Lauren B Grossman

Rainee is an award winning novelist who has writer's block.  After finding an ID card from the Holocaust museum, she intrigued by a woman who had the same birthday as her and decided to track her down and learn her story.  Jana is a German Jew who fled the Holocaust via the Kindertransport from The Netherlands and was fostered by a family on an English farm.  Rainee meets with her and discovers she has Alzheimers and is in a nursing home.  She then finds out information from the past that endangers them in the present.

This was a remarkable read, going from Rainee in 1997 and Jana's past as a child.  It involves Nazi hunters and those groups who protect Nazis in hiding.  Very engrossing and emotional.

What happened in the past leads to a whole new future for Jana

Terri

Blog: Shows and Movies

I've been watching many great shows this week.

Tonight I watched the movie of Doc Martin. This movie shows how it all came about and why he left London. I rate this an A.

I also watched the mini-series "Decline and Fall".
This has David Suchet in it and is on acorn. I wanted something with humor and it has humor in spades. It's another A movie.

I watched a Monk Marathon which of course is not only entertaining but I can cross stitch while I listen to and watch this series A rating and with this series I find it helps me while I do a lot of stitching.

I enjoyed Criminal Minds Season Finale and I give it a B this time around.
I loved Criminal Minds "Beyond Borders" and it receives an A as does "Call The Midwife and Elementry."

I have plenty more to share with you but we are having storms so tonight I will close with if you binge watch shows I hope the characters stay with you long after the credits roll.

Happy Viewing,
Pamela

An Interview with Caroline Haines

MM: Your recent book cover is to die for. Tell us about it and your book.

St.Martin's gets the credit for the book cover for STICKS AND BONES and Thomas & Mercer gets the credit for THE HOUSE OF MEMORIES. Their art departments keep coming up with terrific concepts. 

As to the Sarah Booth book, I had this idea for a story about a real Delta b**ch. I've met a few in my day, and Frangelica "Sister" McFee is one. I do want to make a disclaimer here. Vladimir Putin makes an appearance in this story--I thought it was the most ludicrous scenario I could come up with. Just over the top. And I wrote that scene in February of 2016. Lo and behold, November rolls around and guess who is all over the news? Am I psychic or what?

MM: I love this series and want to know if you have any favorite minor characters or guest characters?

This is probably sacrilege, but I secretly hoped Sarah Booth would hook up with Hamilton Garrett. That was my original intent, way back in THEM BONES. But I've learned who Sarah Booth is, and she has control of her romantic fate, not me. I love Millie and Cece and of course Tinkie. Harold has truly grown on me. And Coleman--what can I say? He is a great guy who has also grown in his capability to see who Sarah Booth is and accept her. But Jitty steals my heart every book. She's so BAD, but so protective of Sarah Booth. I wish I had a Jitty.

MM: Do you have a fun story to tell as maybe someone dressed up as some of the characters from your books?

One of my best friends since we were five, Debby Porter Pruett, loves clothes and jewelry and the finer things of life. I've always been a tomboy--I love my farm and the horses and there's just no place for Mani-Peddies and expensive things. (I once had my hair styled very elegantly for a TV appearance but I had to feed the horses before I went. I had so much hairspray going on that some flies got trapped in my hair. Yeah, it's true. My life defies glamour!) But I love my animals more than looking pretty. But back to Debby. The character Jitty is based on Debby. She was always trying to get me to marry well so I could "support her." All of the clothes Jitty wears in THEM BONES came from Debby's college wardrobe. Velveteen hot pants. Yowza! But back then we were really cute.

MM: How many books will you write this year? 

I'll have 3 complete novels out this year )STICKS AND BONES--May, THE HOUSE OF MEMORY--June, and FAMILIAR TROUBLE--July). Two Sarah Booth short stories, and I have an essay in a collection of traditions called A YEAR IN MISSISSIPPI and a reprinted mystery story in BELLES Letters 2, Contemporary stories by Alabama women. I am that lucky person who can claim two states! One of the 3 novels is a brand new romantic mystery featuring Trouble, son of Familiar the black cat detective. It is going to be so much fun!

 MM: 2017 is here so my question is what are you looking forward to this year?

The launch of the Trouble series. Bringing back some of the older FEAR FAMILIAR books. The release of my new books--STICKS AND BONES, and also the second Pluto's Snitch mystery, THE HOUSE OF MEMORIES (I really, really love this series and the chance to write about the past and a few chilling supernatural encounters.)

 

MM: A few fun questions: Do you look forward to binge watching any Netflix, acorn or other series on television?

House of Cards is a favorite. I'm ready for more People of Earth, and I hope the Exorcist returns. I really like television and there are fabulous shows available all the time now. I love scary movies and shows. (Stranger Things was great fun.) It's wonderful to be able to watch a show whenever, but I really miss the excitement of being hooked into a show and everyone watches it at the same time and then talks about it. I miss that.

MM: How much of a people watcher are you?

I can entertain myself for hours watching people. I used to play a game with my work-study students. We'd go to lunch and pick out a person and decide who they were, what they did, the details of their lives. Then I would go and ask them. Most of the time they were happy to chat. Once or twice it didn't end pretty! But we had fun anyway.

MM: What is your favorite meal, place to travel, person to travel with and song?

I love anything Southern. I love fried foods but I try not to eat them. Ireland and Nicaragua are the best vacations I've ever had. Both very different but so incredibly wonderful. I've had some wonderful traveling companions who had every right to kill me but didn't. And I am still stuck in the singer/songwriter zone. Jesse Winchester, Townes Van Zandt, Roddy McDowell, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson. And I love the blues. Man, I love the blues.

MM: Do you have a favorite teacher or someone you would like to give a shout out?

Carolyn Nyman, my mother's best friend, and I am named for her, was my English teacher for 3 years in middle and high school (and no I didn't flunk three grades!). She introduced me to Eudora Welty's writing and it changed my life. Jean Todd Freeman at the University of Southern Mississippi was also fabulous. Sue Walker at the University of South Alabama was a great teacher and a great boss.

MM: I won't ask you to give us favorite authors that you read or binge read their books but I will ask if you have a favorite book from childhood?

The Secret Garden. I loved that story. It has everything a reader could want. Mystery, chills, secrets, characters who find their true hearts. I still love it.

MM: Let's talk about the publishing world and how it has affected you?

I never knew publishing could be so hard. Had I known 35 years ago, I might have taken a different path. Stardust falls on some writers, but most of us slog it out in the trenches everyday, striving for that great sentence or paragraph or scene. I am tougher than I ever knew I could be. And desperation is truly the mother of invention. I've reinvented myself a number of times to stay alive. But I don't regret a moment. Not a single moment.

MM: In closing leave us with some sage words of wisdom from one of your characters? Your website address and anything else you would like us to know.

Writing is solitary work. Sharing a book is such great joy. I thank all of the readers who have recommended my books to others. And just a little shout out to the fine editors I've worked with who made my books so much better. And please, spay and neuter your companion animals. It's important. Donate to programs that do this. The world doesn't have to be so hard for animals. We can make it a whole lot better with only a little bit of effort. Those are my sage words--and any character of mine would say exactly that!

www.carolynhaines.com

Carolyn

Review: Design for Dying by Renee Patrick

Lillian works in a department store after coming to Hollywood and finding she

really had not talent for acting. A friend of hers is found murdered in clothes stolen from Paramount and Edith Head becomes involved in the investigation as well. Hollywood insanity, gangsters, great clothes, wealthy parties and stars like Bob Hope and Barbara Stanwyck makes appearances.

That - AND the mystery is quite good. Nice balance of Lillian working with the police and Edith. Interesting secrets and characters and most of all - I REALLY like Lillian and her attitude and sleuthing. Definitely deserved the Agatha nomination. It is a fun romp with Old Hollywood Glamour!

Review: Fogged Inn by Barbara Ross

Julia is woken up early by the owner of the Restaurant downstairs to be told there is a dead man in the walk in freezer. Though she had seen the man the prior night, nobody knows who it is or why he died and in the freezer no less. So she starts asking questions and finds a mystery dated years in the past. This was a nominee for the Agatha, and though it did not win, it is well worth a read. Julia is interesting and it is a works well with the police balance that I liked in my cozy sleuth! Terri

Guest Blogger: Alice Duncan

Yay for May!

Okey-dokey, so my neighbors and I were chatting about stuff a couple of evenings ago. I recommended they watch The Knick, which was a Cinemax series starring Clive Owen as Dr. John Thackery, a sort of early-days House, if you’ve ever seen that series. House starred Hugh Laurie, whom I still think of as Bertie Wooster, but that’s not his fault. Anyway, my neighbor began watching The Knick and is enjoying it. He doesn’t mind gore as much as I do.

All this contemplation of early medical practices and cures got me to thinking about why I write historical novels. The reason, I concluded, is that I like to think of the 1920s as somehow nicer than the 2000s. I’m wrong, of course, and one only needs to think about what was and wasn’t around back then to realize it.

For instance my mother, who was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1913, remembered cholera epidemics, flu epidemics, dysentery problems and all sorts of other conditions we hardly consider these days. So I started Googling (Google wasn’t around in the 1920s either, natch). By the early 1900s people routinely got vaccinated for smallpox, thanks to Edward Jenner. Jenner noticed that people who contracted cowpox didn’t come down with smallpox, and the realization prompted him to invent a vaccination for smallpox. But other than that, there was no penicillin, no other antibiotics, and the only pain reliever people knew about until the mid-1880s was either laudanum or morphine, both derived from the opium poppy. Unless, of course, you wanted to go out and find the right kind of willow tree and gnaw on the bark thereof. Not too many people knew about the pain-killing properties of willow bark, however.

By the way, my mother’s father, William Jones Wilson, a circuit-riding Methodist minister, died two days after my mother was born in November of 1913. The family’s regular doctor was away from Roswell, and the substitute thought my grandfather was suffering from sympathetic labor pains. He wasn’t. He had a ruptured appendix. But that’s a story for another day.

Here’s a fun semi-medical fact: Dr. Pepper was originally touted as a “brain tonic” (I could use one of those, but I don’t care for Dr. Pepper). The drink was first bottled and distributed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World’s Fair, in 1904. From 1889-1914, its advertising slogan was the “King of Beverages”. And people still drink it today. Well, except for me, since I don’t like it. However, I don’t believe it ever contained any actually medicinal properties.

A guy named General John Pemberton, a former Confederate surgeon, invented Coca-Cola after the Civil War (actually, he’d probably have called it the War of Northern Aggression) in the 1870s or 1880s as a cure for his own morphine addiction. He formulated the original product in his Eagle Drug and Chemical House in Columbus, Georgia. Coca-Cola originally contained a combination of caffeine and cocaine. Coca-Cola was intended to be a patent medicine, but folks found other uses for it. It still has the caffeine, bless its heart, but somewhere along the way the cocaine was dumped. Probably disappointed a whole lot of people, as it undoubtedly gave folks a happy lift. Don’t have a clue if it helped cure Dr. Pemberton of his morphine addiction. Oh! And when my mom was a kid and got an upset stomach, her mother would give her Coke syrup. Don’t even know if you can get that stuff these days (or even what was in it).

Laudanum, an opiate, was routinely sold over the counter for people who suffered from any kind of pain. I know for a certified fact that if I’d been around in the early 1900s (providing I could afford to buy the stuff) I’d have been a laudanum addict because I’ve had so much trouble with various painful conditions for most of my life. That’s kind of a lowering reflection, but it’s true. People could also obtain morphine OTC for many years. In the series House, Dr. House was addicted to Percocet or Vicodin (can’t remember which). In The Knick, Dr. Thackery is addicted to morphine and cocaine. Some things never change, I reckon. Anyhow, Dr. Thackery is delighted to discover heroin because he believes it will be a cure for his addiction. After all, since heroin is sold by the Bayer Company, it has to be safe, right? Well… Maybe not. 

Then there’s cocaine, which was used for lots of medical problems. Nobody thought anything about it. After all, it was medicine, right? Again, maybe not. I found this ad when I was browsing:

Oh! We definitely shouldn’t forget acetylsalicylic acid. In 1899 the Bayer Company made pills out of the ingredients and began marketing it to the general public as a product called Aspirin. Prior to the Bayer Company’s naming and marketing of the drug, one could buy salicylic powders, dump some into a glass of water or another beverage, and drink the resulting concoction. It must have tasted vile, but it was a heck of a lot less dangerous than morphine or heroin. However, by the time aspirin came along, people like me would have been laudanum or morphine addicts for decades. Or dead. I’d certainly have been dead because when I was twenty-two or -three, I got hellishly sick, was headed toward encephalitis or meningitis, and was only saved from extinction by the administration of antibiotics. Which, by the way, were prescribed for me by Dr. Benjamin, who is a frequent visitor in the Daisy Gumm Majesty books.

If I’d had that illness before the accidental discovery of penicillin by a Scottish gent, Sir Alex Fleming, in 1928, I’d have been a goner. Penicillin wasn’t available for general consumption until the mid to late 1940s. Luckily for me I got sick in the 1970s. Back in the olden days (1970s and before), you got a shot of penicillin, took two aspirin tablets, and called the doctor in a day or two. These days, antibiotics are generally prescribed in pill or tablet form. Times have unquestionably changed.

Then there were the so-called “operating theaters”. In The Knick’s days, the operating theater really was a theater!

And we’d better not forget X-rays. Invented in 1895 by German (well, really, he was a Prussian, but there’s no Prussia any longer) mechanical engineer and physicist, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, X-rays revolutionized medicine. Doctors could see inside a human body using Röntgen rays (or X-rays). Back then no one knew that a person needed to be extremely cautious when using these electromagnetic wavelength rays. Sometimes things went wrong and patients (and sometimes technicians) suffered severe burns or even death. Gotta be careful with that stuff.

At any rate, times have definitely changed since the early 1900s. Because I have such honestly terrible back pain, I’m kind of sorry one can’t just waltz into a pharmacy and buy a bottle of heroin anymore, but I’m sure I’m wrong to think that way. Probably. Or perhaps not. Phooey. Don’t suppose it matters. I’m sure not going to hang out on street corners and pray a drug dealer strolls past.

Anyhow, I’ll be in touch with the winners of April’s giveaway book, UNSETTLED SPIRITS, individually. At the end of May, Bam-Bam, my winner-picking wiener dog, will select winners of SPIRITS REVIVED. SPIRITS REVIVED is Daisy Gumm Majesty’s seventh adventure, but since I can’t get the rights back from the original publisher, it’s sort of languishing out there in publishing limbo and there’s a hole in the Daisy series. Maybe one of these days all of the books can reunite and Daisy will throw a big party. Or maybe not.

If you’d like to enter the contest, just send me an email (alice@aliceduncan.net) and give me your name and home address. If you’d like to be added to my mailing list, you may do so on my web site (http://aliceduncan.net/) or email me (you won’t be smothered in newsletters, because I only write one blog a month, and that’s an effort). If you’d like to be friends on Facebook, visit my page at https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925.

Thank you!

Review: Better Late Than Never

Better Late Than Never: By Jenn McKinlay
Series Mystery Hardcover
Library Lover's Mystery

Briar Creek Public Library is holding it's first overdue amnesty day they didn't expect such a crowd and so many returns.

The crafternoon ladies pitch in and help sort the books. They also check books in but when one book is twenty years overdue and the person who checked the book out was a teacher. Candance Whitely checked the book out the day she was murdered.

Candance's killer was never caught and Lindsay wonders if the book might provide a clue as to who killed Candance.

The glitch is that no one knew who brought the book back. Lindsay carefully with a little help from her friends and staff tries to right this cold case.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER by Jenn McKinlay is as carefully plotted as a rare book.
Each character lends to the plot with each turn of the page the wheels of justice are set in motion to a riveting conclusion.
I give this mystery 8 out of 10 stars.
Pamela James