Salvation in Death by J. D. Robb (In Death, Book 27)

With 26 earlier books in J. D. Robb’s In Death series, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from Salvation in Death and Robb delivered on all counts.

Eve Dallas is a homicide lieutenant in the New York Police and Security Department in 2060 and each book contains a case for her to solve, while juggling issues from her past and the roles as wife to multi-billionaire/owner of damn near everything under the sun/Irish sex god Roarke and friend that confuse her on a daily basis.

Father Miguel Flores was performing a funeral service when he dies in front of the grieving family from cyanide poisoning after drinking sacramental wine. Signs of a tattoo removal and plastic surgery as well as a silver medal inscribed with the name Lino suggest that the victim wasn’t really a priest. Eve has to find out who he really was and why he chose this particular parish to minister, in the hopes of finding clues to his murderer.

A televangelist who regularly hits the vodka and cheats on his wife takes a drink from a vodka-laced bottle of water onstage and collapses dead in full view of his audience. (more)

Red Dust by Fleur McDonald

BOOK GIVEAWAY: Read on for a chance to win a signed copy of Red Dust. The contest ends midnight on Wednesday, December 23 AEST.

Fleur McDonald’s debut novel evokes the rugged beauty of the Australian outback through the eyes of a strong protagonist, but this might not be enough for genre readers.

If there’s one type of contemporary romance I’d like to see more of, it’s the good old outback romance. I don’t mean generic romances set in the outback where the hero is a land baron with money to spare. I mean romances set in the harsh landscape of rural Australia, where people struggle against the vagaries of nature, and where I can feel the hot dust on my tongue as I read the story.

If there’s one thing Red Dust does well, it’s capturing the beauty and roughness of outback Australia.

When Gemma Sinclair’s husband dies in a plane crash, she takes on the task of managing Billbinya, their 100,000-hectare sheep station. Although she’s managing to stay afloat (more)

Dark Country by Bronwyn Parry

BOOK GIVEAWAY: Read on for a chance to win a free copy of Dark Country. The contest ends midnight on Friday, December 11 AEST.

Bronwyn Parry’s second novel is a much more intricate thriller that balances romance and suspense in a way that should appeal to the broadest possible audience.

Dark Country opens with Morgan ‘Gil’ Gillespie’s return to Dungirri, hinting at his troubled past and discomfort at returning to a place that holds nothing but bad memories. He’d been involved in a fatal car accident that landed him in prison, so he’s not expecting a warm welcome from the town. Along the way, he meets police sergeant Kris Matthews. Gil is wary of cops, but an incident sparked by old grievances puts him under Kris’s care for the next 24 hours.

The next day, a dead woman is found in the boot of Gil’s car, and as violence escalates, Gil realises he’s endangering the people he cares about and that it may be impossible to walk away from the town this time around. (more)

Cold Front by Ann Somerville (Pindone Files, Book 4)

Because who could resist that cover? Seriously.

When I was offered the chance to read an M/m romance by Australian author Ann Somerville, I scrolled through her website and the book with the shirtless man in tight black pants with his hands cuffed behind his back brought out my inner cover tart.

Then, when I read that it was along the lines of an M/m BDSM paranormal CSI, I was even more interested in the story because just one of those would have been enough to attract my attention. The book contains two prequel novellas, One Brief Encounter and A House is not a Home, followed by the novel Cold Front, which is the focus of this review.

One Brief Encounter

One Brief Encounter is told mostly from Dekan hon Cerimwe den Tsikeni’s point of view. Dek met Rensire hon Parmin den Vizinken in a bar while visiting Ren’s home region for police training and they had an immediate connection. (more)

Read on for a chance to win a copy of Dying For Mercy. The contest ends midnight on Sunday, August 9 AEST, and it’s open to anyone, including readers overseas.

Although I usually hang around the romance shelves in the bookshop, my serious love for reading started with mysteries*, and I’ll always have room in my shelves for the odd crime fiction. So when Book Thingo was offered a chance to give away 2 copies of Mary Jane Clark’s new release, Dying For Mercy … I couldn’t say no.

What the book is about

I was sent a book description, which I thought I’d post in full to give you an idea of what the book is about and if it appeals to you:

When death shatters the serenity of the exclusive moneyed enclave of Tuxedo Park, New York, Eliza Blake, cohost of the country’s premier morning television show KEY to America, is on the scene. While attending a lavish gala at her friends’ newly renovated estate, Pentimento, Eliza’s host is found dead—a grotesque suicide that is the first act in a macabre and intricately conceived plan to expose the sins of the past involving some of the town’s most revered citizens.

Determined to find out the truth, Eliza and her KEY News colleagues—producer Annabelle Murphy (more)

The Tail of the Tip-Off by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown (Mrs. Murphy Mystery, Book 11)

First it was sheep detectives, now it’s cats and dogs. Are we humans that stupid? (Ahem, rhetorical question.) I borrowed The Tail of the Tip-Off from the library not because it appealed to me in any way, but because a certain toddler would not let go of it and had a fit when I tried to return it for shelving. And having read Wandergurl’s post on Three Bags Full, I figured if she could read about sheep, I could read about cats. Maybe it’s because I’m not much of an animal lover, but it was a real struggle to finish this book.

The Tail of the Tip-Off by Rita Mae Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, is a cozy mystery featuring amateur sleuth Harry (short for Mary Minor Haristeen) and her assortment of pets. When one of the locals in their town of Crozet dies of an unknown toxin, Harry and her menagerie set out to find the killer.

I think I can understand why people might like this book, but it’s not my cup of tea. It takes forever to get to the actual murder, and the first chapter does nothing to make me care about any of the characters, of which there are many. (more)

As Darkness Falls by Bronwyn Parry

The first I heard of As Darkness Falls by Australian author Bronwyn Parry was a small blurb in the Dymocks Booklovers catalogue. I was intrigued because it sounded like a romance (just because the catalogue says it’s romance doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be genre Romance), it’s set in Australia, and it looked meaty. When I finally got my hands on the book, the cover promises: “If you enjoy reading Nora Roberts you will love…” That is a big call, I thought, especially since it’s the author’s first novel. But after reading As Darkness Falls, I think it really is a book that Nora Roberts fans might like. It’s a shame, then, that so few Australian romance bookstores have it in their catalogues.

As Darkness Falls centres on Detective Isabelle O’Connell, who has isolated herself from society to recover from some serious personal trauma resulting from an investigation into a child killer. Not only had she been unable to find the killer in time, she had been unable to protect a local suspect from falling victim to an angry mob. But when she receives a visit from Detective Chief Inspector Alec Goddard informing her that another girl has gone missing in her hometown of Dungirri, Isabelle is compelled to go back home and help solve the case. (more)

Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann

Straight off, I will say: This is a book about sheep. Yes, you read it right. Sheep. It’s a sheep detective story. It’s about a flock of Irish sheep who try to solve the murder of their beloved shepherd, George. Along the way you find out a lot of things about him, about the people in their village, and nothing is what it seems. I know this sounds strange but it is so well crafted that the sheep don’t appear to be doing anything out of the ordinary–they eat clover, they walk around, stare at clouds, stand on cliff edges–but somehow they manage to solve the mystery and make themselves known not through some cheesy miracle or by suddenly speaking, but through something a bit more creative than that. (I’ll let you read the book!)

I will warn you that this is not a typical book. You have to be willing to suspend disbelief in that sheep are not just woolly, uniform grass-munching creatures but have their own individual personalities. Once you do that you are in for a wonderful, witty adventure featuring characters such as the smartest sheep in Glennkill, possibly in all the world, the dark black sheep with two sets of horns and who has a mysterious past, the dreamy sheep obsessed with clouds, the memory sheep who remembers it all, and a cast of others that make this book truly engaging. (more)

Hosted by Marg from Reading Adventures and Kailana from The Written World

This is Book Thingo’s contribution to the 2008 Blog Advent Tour, hosted by Marg from Reading Adventures and Kailana from The Written World.

You may think this post is late for the Advent Tour, but I’ve looked it up and it’s still Saturday in some parts of the world, so phew! I just scraped through.

In the tradition of Advent calendars, I thought I’d offer up some surprise goodies for everyone. Since this is a book blog, I’ve come up with a list of free stories for you to sample.

(If you know me at all, you’ll realise that the reason this post is late is because I was compelled to read each story first to, uh, make sure that, erm, they’re of a sufficiently high quality. My motives were entirely selfless. Ahem.)

Anyway, you guys are in for a treat because these freebies are fantabulous. I’ve included a link to each author’s website so you can check out more of their work if you’re interested. (more)

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

It’s been a while now since I’ve read a book that has stayed with me for days. I finally read The Godfather for the first time, and … wow. I loved the first two movies (can barely remember the third–I only watched it once), and I wanted to see if it’s one of those rare times when the film version of a story surpasses the book. No, it doesn’t. But it is one of those even rarer times when the movie changes the book just enough to make it great in its own right without taking anything away from the book. On balance, I think the storytelling in the movie is much more sophisticated, but the book gives a far better insight on the characters.

I wouldn’t consider the book to have the greatest storytelling I’ve ever read. In some parts, the exposition is awkward, and maybe I’ve been spoiled by having read some fabulously written romances recently, but at some points in the novel, I wished Puzo would tell less and just show, show, show, because there’s so much opportunity for showing that there rarely seems a real need to tell. But there are also times when he gets the balance right and produces something exquisite. (more)