Thank you Amazon for the picture

“Only one thing is missing. The book comes to a neat conclusion, with all matters settled and all the characters safe. But you and I both know the story didn’t end. That it may never end.”

I went on a mystery, not any old mystery but an interactive mystery called Dracula’s Heir written by Sam Stall.

In 1897, Archibald Constable & Company published Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the most famous horror novel of all time. For reasons still widely debated by critics, the first chapter of Dracula was cut just weeks before publication. Here, it becomes the central clue in a spine-tingling interactive mystery.

Dracula’s Heir begins ten years after the horrific events described in the original novel. Jonathan and Mina Harker are happily married and enjoying life in Bixby, England. Meanwhile, their friend Dr. John Seward is tracking a string of crimes that seems eerily familiar: A 14-year-old girl sleepwalks out of her parents’ house and disappears into the night. Two “accident victims” are found drained of their blood, yet there is no crime-scene evidence to explain what happened.

As with The Crimes of Dr. Watson, Dracula’s Heir features an original novella plus several removable clues, including a private journal, a death certificate, a newspaper, and more. Once you’ve solved the mystery, you can open the final signature (sealed at the printer) to test your sleuthing skills.

All in all, this was a thrilling read for me, and it is reminiscent of Gothic mysteries in the style and manner in which it is written and presented. For all you mystery buffs this is one that you will want to try. I had a great time trying to figure out who did it. I know how good of a sleuth I am, so how good of a sleuth are you? There is only one way to find out. Get your copy and start sniffing out the truth.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Ellery Queen website for the picture

Wow you will not believe what I found in a used book store. A vintage Ellery Queen book, The Egyptian Cross Mystery; however you need not worry there is going to be a reprint and it will be available May 1, 2009.

A schoolmaster in a tiny town in Virginia is found on Christmas morning beheaded and crucified to a signpost in such a way that his body seems to form the letter “T”. The letter “T” is scrawled in blood on the dead man’s door. Ellery Queen is on the scene and notes that the letter “T” is also the shape of a “tau cross”, or Egyptian cross; this seems to lead to a nearby bearded prophet whose invented religion mixes nudism and Egyptology. The prophet’s business manager is missing and suspected of the murder. Ellery cannot solve the crime with the little information he has, but six months later in Long Island, New York, a neighbor of one of his university professors is found headless and crucified to a totem pole in the same way, in the new neighborhood of the Egyptian prophet and his followers. This corpse is clutching a red piece from a game of checkers. The third victim is a millionaire yachtsman, similarly crucified.

Ellery Queen although not as widely known as Agatha Christie is in my opinion a better choice for all you mystery buffs. Unlike Christie’s cliché attempts Queen actually makes you think. Queen has had an amazing career that spans over 40 years. The Ellery Queen mysteries were actually written by two cousins from Brooklyn New York; Daniel (David) Nathan, and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky. If you haven’t tried an Ellery Queen novel go to your local used bookstore and see if you can find one. I’m sure you will not be disappointed.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

I dug out an old favorite of mine the other day; The List of Seven written by Mark Frost.

Occult forces of evil gather in Victorian England to scheme for world dominion in this lively but unconvincing period thriller by Twin Peaks co-creator Frost. The novel opens in London of 1884, where protagonist Arthur Conan Doyle, a moderately successful young doctor, unpublished author and part-time student of the supernatural, attends a seance at the request of an anonymous lady in distress. When the evening erupts into gruesome violence and murder, Doyle finds himself on the run, engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a cadre of ruthless satanists bent on incarnating the spirit of evil. He finds an ally in the mysterious, resourceful and supremely capable Jack Sparks, on secret assignment to the Queen. Sparks’s own brother is the mastermind of the “Dark Brotherhood” they oppose, and his character will, much later, supply Doyle with the inspiration for his Sherlock Holmes. Despite the appreciable wit and inventive flourishes with which Frost invests his tale, there is too much in this fast-paced plot that simply does not make sense. Frost creates mystery through an unseemly vagueness of description, perhaps awaiting the special effects of the screen to flesh out elements of his narrative. In the novel, however, his characters never become more than clever conceits, and the prevailing attitude toward the spiritualism at its center is frustratingly wishy-washy. The much-ballyhooed shocker ending seems a tepid afterthought.

Have you ever read Arthur Conan Doyle? Well if you have you will find it parallels his novels of Sherlock Holmes. Now don’t worry if you haven’t you will still like this book. It’s a book that you will devour and wonder if there really was someone like Jack Sparks who inspired Doyle to create his world famous detective.  All I can tell you is find a copy and read it.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“This is my job, and you don’t go into it—or, if you do, you don’t last—without some natural affinity for its priorities and demands. What I am telling you, before you begin my story is this—two things: I crave truth. And I lie.”

As the weekend creeps in on us why not spend it with good company. May I suggest In the Woods written by Tana French.

Irish author French expertly walks the line between police procedural and psychological thriller in her debut. When Katy Devlin, a 12-year-old girl from Knocknaree, a Dublin suburb, is found murdered at a local archeological dig, Det. Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, must probe deep into the victim’s troubled family history. There are chilling similarities between the Devlin murder and the disappearance 20 years before of two children from the same neighborhood who were Ryan’s best friends. Only Maddox knows Ryan was involved in the 1984 case.

French sure knows how to grab your attention what with politics; flawed heroes; murder and repressed traumas. This book has a lot to offer. This is a book worth looking into, so take a day all to yourself lock everything up curl up on the couch and read the weekend away.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“At half past ten on that Saturday morning, Commander Adam Dalgliesh and Emma Lavenham had an appointment to meet her father. To meet a future father-in-law for the first time, especially with the purpose of informing him that one is shortly to marry his daughter, is seldom an enterprise undertaken without some misgivings.”

What makes a great mystery writer? Do you have to be paranoid? Maybe you see a potential murder everywhere you go. Well whatever the qualifications are I don’t have them. The biggest mystery that I will ever solve is; where did my car keys go? I think I will leave the big mystery solving to professionals like P.D. James who just so happens to be releasing her new book The Private Patient on November 18, 2008.

Cheverell Manor is a lovely old house in deepest Dorset, now a private clinic belonging to the famous plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. When investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn arrived there one late autumn afternoon, scheduled to have a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar removed, she had every expectation of a successful operation and a pleasant week recuperating.

Two days later she was dead, the victim of murder.

To Commander Adam Dalgliesh, who with his team is called in to investigate the case, the mystery at first seems absolute. Few things about it make sense. Yet as the detectives begin probing the lives and backgrounds of those connected with the dead woman—the surgeon, members of the manor staff, close acquaintances—suspects multiply all too rapidly. New confusions arise, including strange historical overtones of madness and a lynching 350 years in the past. Then there is a second murder, and Dalgliesh finds himself confronted by issues even more challenging than innocence or guilt.

P. D. James has gained an enviable reputation for creating detective stories of uncommon depth and intricacy, combined with the sort of humanity and perceptiveness found only in the finest novelists. The Private Patient ranks among her very best.

If you want great reading don’t hesitate to pick up a novel by James, she has a great gift for this genre her plots are deep and full of twists and turns right up until the very end. Her characters are both charming and believable; it’s hard to put one of her books down once you have started.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“Forest Park was pretty in the summer. Portland’s ash sky was barely visible behind a canopy of aspens, hemlock, cedars, and maples that filtered the light to a shimmering pale green. A light breeze tickled the leaves. Morning glories and ivy crept up the mossy tree trunks and strangled the blackberry bushes and ferns, a mass of crawling vines that piled up waist-high on either side of the packed dirt path. The creek hummed and churned, birds chirped. It was all very lovely, very Walden, except for the corpse.”

It’s cold, it’s rainy and it’s the perfect day to curl up under a blanket and grab a good thriller off of the shelf; and I did just that. What did I indulge in today why that would be Sweetheart written by Chelsea Cain.

When the body of a young woman is discovered in Portland’s Forest Park, Archie is reminded of the last time they found a body there, more than a decade ago: it turned out to be the Beauty Killer’s first victim, and Archie’s first case. This body can’t be one of Gretchen’s–she’s in prison–but after help from reporter Susan Ward uncovers the dead woman’s identity, it turns into another big case. Trouble is, Archie can’t focus on the new investigation because the Beauty Killer case has exploded: Gretchen Lowell has escaped from prison.

Archie hadn’t seen her in two months; he’d moved back in with his family and sworn off visiting her. Though it should feel like progress, he actually feels worse. The news of her escape spreads like wildfire, but secretly, he’s relieved. He knows he’s the only one who can catch her, and in fact, he has a plan to get out from under her thumb once and for all.

This is the second book in her series that features Gretchen and Archie. Sweetheart is fast paced; edge of your seat won’t let you go until you finished; thriller. If you are a Cain fan you should love it, if you are not you should still love it. If you do love it, try her other books.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

I dug out an old movie favorite of mine the other day Who Framed Roger Rabbit? O.k. so it’s not a classic but did you know it was actually based off of Gary Wolf’s book Who Censored Roger Rabbit? Don’t look so surprised, a lot of movies that you wouldn’t think of are based off of books.

Enter a world where cartoon characters, known as Toons, live and laugh side by side with humans. Meet Roger Rabbit, up and coming comic strip star, his sexy wife Jessica, lusty thirty six year old Baby Herman with his three year old dinky, and hard boiled private eye Eddie Valiant.

Now don’t be fooled by the movie it only has the basics of this book. The book is…well let’s just say it’s not a family type of book. The only thing besides the bare bones of the book Disney put into the movie was Baby Herman’s famous “I have a 36 year-old lust and a 3 year-old dinky”. Gary Wolf tackles Censorship, Racism, Alcoholism and Pornography all set in a 1930’s detective mystery that involves Toons. If you have not read this book, go and search for a copy. I know you will like it.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on the same day–which was something of an irony under the circumstances. The old policeman was sitting with his coffee, waiting, expecting the call.”

O.k. September is a hot month for book releases, on September 16, 2008 Stieg Larssons’s book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is being released in the North America. This is the first in his trilogy that unfortunately was cut short due to his tragic death in 2004.

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse, no witnesses, no evidence. But her uncle, Henrik, is convinced that she was murdered by someone from her own deeply dysfunctional family. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist is hired to investigate, but he quickly finds himself in over his head. He hires a competent assistant: the gifted and conscience-free computer specialist Lisbeth Salander, and the two unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

For those of you who have been in a country that has already had the book released, I have heard nothing but high praise, but PLEASE don’t tell me how it ends; if you do I will be very, very sad.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“Pitt felt a little stung. “Who is Cahoon Dunkeld?” he asked, avoiding looking at Narraway. He had a reverence for Queen Victoria, especially now in her advanced age and widowhood, even though he was perfectly well aware of her reputed eccentricities and the fact that she had not always been so popular with her people. She had been in mourning too long, retreating not only from joy but also from duty. And he had gained some personal knowledge a couple of years ago of the extravagance and the self-indulgence of the Prince of Wales, and knew he kept several very expensive mistresses. Pitt had been superintendent of Bow Street then, and the conspiracy around the Prince had cost him his job and very nearly brought down the throne. That was why Pitt was now working for Victor Narraway in Special Branch, learning more about treason, anarchy, and other forms of violence against the State.”

So many books and so little time; or at least that’s what it feels like. I had a very lazy type of day today so lazy in fact that I sat by my window in my comfy reading chair and watched the thunderstorm in between chapters. Hey! I’m good at multi tasking, it’s true…ok enough about that back to the book, which happens to be Buckingham Palace Gardens written by one of the best Victorian mystery author’s Anne Perry

The Prince of Wales has asked four wealthy entrepreneurs and their elegant wives to the palace to discuss a fantastic idea: the construction of a six-thousand-mile railroad that would stretch the full length of Africa.  But, alas, the prince’s gathering proves disastrous when the mutilated body of a prostitute hired for a late-night frolic (after the wives have retired to bed) turns up among the queen’s monogrammed sheets in a palace linen closet.

With great haste, Thomas Pitt, brilliant mainstay of Special Services, is summoned to resolve the crisis.  The Pitt’s cockney maid, Gracie, is also recruited - to pose as a palace servant and listen to the guests’ conversations, scan their bedrooms, and scrutinize their troubled faces for clues to hidden rivalries and attachments that could have led to murder.  If Pitt and Gracie fail to find out who brutally murdered the young woman - as seems increasingly likely - Pitt’s career will be over, and the scandal may just cause the monarchy to fall.

I have been a fan of Perry’s for a while now; I am particularly fond of the Pitt series, Perry has a way to bring you into the story, she breathes life into her characters so much that you share in their joys, disappointments and you forget that they are only alive in the imagination and words of Perry.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“Lauren Dayson was sleeping soundly when some small noise in the front room of the apartment disturbed her. What actually awakened her was the sound of Mojo barking. Mojo, an unlikely cross between a Chihuahua and a chow, was a pint- sized, laughable dog, but this time she was barking in her ferocious big-dog voice, and Lauren knew what it meant. Rick Mosier was here. Somewhere in her apartment. Somewhere in her home. He had broken in and he was coming for her.”

I’m back! What? You didn’t even notice I was gone? O.k. so I took a mini vacation from all of the drama that makes up my life. I slept in, ate cookies for breakfast and sat in a lawn chair all day reading. My choice for the mini vacation was Damage Control written by J.A. Jance.

On a beautiful sunny day in the Coronado National Monument, an elderly couple’s car goes off the side of a mountain and into oblivion. The terrain is so rocky that a helicopter must be flown in to retrieve the bodies, and to make matters worse, a thunder-storm is looming on the horizon. Hours later and miles away, the subsiding rain reveals gruesome evidence: two trash bags containing human remains.

It’s just another day in the life of Cochise County sheriff Joanna Brady.

Back at home, Joanna has a newborn baby, a teenage daughter, a writer husband, and a difficult mother to deal with. But in the field, it turns out that she has much more on her hands. The remains are those of a handicapped woman who had wandered away from a care facility with a suspicious track record. Another resident, with whom the woman may have been involved, has also been reported missing.

Meanwhile, a note is found in the glove compartment of the car lying twisted down the mountainside, stating that its occupants intended to take their own lives. Yet a contradictory autopsy report surfaces, and when the deceased’s two daughters show up to feud over their inheritance, Joanna knows there is more to this case than just a suicide pact.

And she will go all out to find the truth—no matter where it leads.

Jance has done it again in her 13^th installment of her Joanna Brady series. She has kept with her theme fast pace, stay right where you are, can’t sleep until it’s done. Another hit for this amazing author.

Happy Reading

Sarah