Wednesday, January 1, 2020

The Thistle & Twigg series by Mary Saums

(1) Mighty Old Bones (Thistle & Twigg, #2)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Southern Ghost Hunter series by Angie Fox

(1) The Haunted Heist (Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, #3)

(2) Deader Homes and Gardens (Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, #4)

(3) Sweet Tea and Spirits (Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, #5)

(4) Murder on the Sugarland Express (Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, #6)

(5) Pecan Pies and Dead Guys (Southern Ghost Hunter Mysteries, #7)

(6) The Mint Julep Murders (Southern Ghost Hunter, #8)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Agatha Raisin series by M.C. Beaton

(1) Beating About the Bush (Agatha Raisin, #30)

Raisin Investigations has been called in by Morrison’s, a local engineering company, to look into the possibility of industrial espionage at their plant. The R&D division had recently experienced a fire of a suspicious nature that gutted their building and hampered their ability to move forward on developing a revolutionary new automobile battery.

Agatha Raisin and her business partner, Toni Gilmour, take on the case and immediately get the feeling that something is just not right at the place. Their primary contact, Mrs. Dunwiddy, Mr. Morrison’s right hand, is knowledgeable and helpful but is oddly afraid of the plant security detail. And when leaving the facility one afternoon, Agatha and Toni discover a severed leg, wearing a stocking and shoe similar to the ones worn by Mrs. Dunwiddy, tossed into the brushy undergrowth on the side of the road. Although the leg turns out to be a fake, the true meaning behind its being left for Agatha to find is clear: someone wants to discredit Raisin Investigations and frighten Mrs. Dunwiddy. But, rather than scaring anyone away, the incident only spurs Agatha on to greater effort.

Then one evening at the plant’s welcome back reception for the owner’s wife (she’d been at a facility to break an alcohol problem), Agatha finds Mrs. Dunwiddy’s body in the stable yard, apparently bashed in the head by the wife’s pet donkey. But Agatha, charmed by the frightened animal, realizes it didn’t trample the woman, and this is a case of murder.

Well, I put off reading this book because there aren’t going to be any (or many) more, and I am just not ready for the series to be done. I admit that my reading experience is probably colored by the reality that M.C. Beaton is forever gone. This author, in all her pen names, has been my all-time favorite from the first book I picked up by her (a Regency romance, no doubt). But of all her characters, Agatha Raisin became my best “book” friend over time, and I cry to think she, too, will not be having any further adventures or misadventures. However, I see that there is at least one more Agatha book in the making with an expected publication date of December 25, 2020. (Happy Christmas.)

However, Agatha is on her game in this adventure. She has all her quirks, but there’s a bit more reflection in her dealings with Toni (who shares many of Agatha’s traits) and Sir Charles Fraith. James Lacey is mentioned a few times, but it felt like Agatha has really come to terms with the real James and not the dream man she’s kept on a pedestal all these years. In addition, there are appearances by other well-known faces such as Mrs. Bloxby, Bill Wong, and Roy, and the introduction of a new nemesis and a new romantic interest as well.

The story is a solid what-the-heck-is-going-on one, and as usual, Agatha susses out some of the details and blunders into the others, making for a delightful book from start to finish. The things that happen to this woman go from funny to harrowing but never stray from being plausible. This is one of Agatha’s better cases. I recommend this series and this installment, and I especially enjoyed the Audible Audio narrated by Penelope Keith. (She’s terrific.)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

(2) Hot to Trot (Agatha Raisin, #31)

The Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris

(1) Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse, #11)

(2) Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse, #12)

(3) Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse, #13)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Miranda Corbie Mystery series by Kelly Stanley

(1) City of Secrets: A Mystery (Miranda Corbie Mystery, #2)

(2) City of Ghosts: A Mystery (Miranda Corbie Mystery, #3)

(3) City of Sharks: A Mystery (Miranda Corbie Mystery, #4)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer

(1) Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Kitty Pangborn series by Linda L. Richards

(1) Death Was in the Picture (Kitty Pangborn, #2)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Forager series by Peter R. Stone

(1) Infiltrator (Forager, #2)

(2) Expatriate (Forager, #3)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Dr. Siri Paiboun series by Colin Cotterill

(1) The Merry Misogynist (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #6)

(2) Love Songs from a Shallow Grave (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #7)

(3) Slash and Burn (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #8)

(4) The Woman Who Wouldn't Die (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #9)

(5) Six and a Half Deadly Sins (Dr. Siri Paiboun #10)

(6) I Shot the Buddha (Dr. Siri Paiboun #11)

(7) The Rat Catchers' Olympics (Dr. Siri Paiboun #12)

(8) Don't Eat Me (Dr. Siri Paiboun #13)

(9) The Second Biggest Nothing (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #14)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Bernie Rhodenbarr series by Lawrence Block

(1) The Burglar in the Rye (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #9)

(2) The Burglar on the Prowl (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #10)

(3) The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #11)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Angela Masters Detective Novels series by Mike Worley

(1) Grand Jeté (An Angela Master Detective Novel, #2)

(2) Entitlement (An Angela Master Detective Novel, #3)

(3) Ghost (An Angela Master Detective Novel, #4)

(4) Fire Storm (An Angela Master Detective Novel, #5)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Shinobi Mystery series by Susan Spann

(1) Flask of the Drunken Master (Shinobi Mystery, #3) - February 4, 2020

(2) The Ninja's Daughter (Shinobi Mystery, #4)

(3) Betrayal at Iga (Shinobi Mystery, #5)

(4) Trial on Mount Koya (Shinobi Mystery, #6)

(5) Ghost of the Bamboo Road (Shinobi Mystery, #7)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

The Jimm Juree series by Colin Cotterill

A great series I've left hanging in the wind (even though the first novel in the series, Killed at the Whim of a Hat, was totally awesome!), is the Jimm Juree mystery series by Colin Cotterill. I enjoyed it so much that I shared this one with my father who passed away before getting around to it. The book remains in his TBR pile in the living room and I see it every time I visit my stepmother. She's not a fiction reader and it will languish there until it is given away.

Here is the blurb for book one -

Jimm Juree was a crime reporter for the Chiang Mai Daily Mail with a somewhat eccentric family—a mother who might be drifting mentally; a grandfather—a retired cop—who rarely talks; a younger brother obsessed with body-building, and a transgendered, former beauty pageant queen, former older brother. When Jimm is forced to follow her family to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she’s convinced her career—maybe her life—is over. So when a van containing the skeletal remains of two hippies, one of them wearing a hat, is inexplicably unearthed in a local farmer’s field, Jimm is thrilled. Shortly thereafter an abbot at a local Buddhist temple is viciously murdered, with the temple’s monk and nun the only suspects. Suddenly Jimm’s new life becomes somewhat more promising—and a lot more deadly. And if Jimm is to make the most of this opportunity, and unravel the mysteries that underlie these inexplicable events, it will take luck, perseverance, and the help of her entire family.

(1) Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach (Jimm Juree, #2)

(2) The Axe Factor (Jimm Juree, #3)

(3) The Amok Runners (Jimm Juree, #0.6 prequel)

#FinishingTheSeries2020

<b>Japanese Literature Challenge 17</b>

JAPANESE LITERATURE CHALLENGE 17 #JapaneseLitChallenge17 #JapaneseLiterature This year I plan on participating in Dolce Bellezza's ~for...