Catching up

I have been seriously negligent about posting reviews of books I have read recently. I blame it all on the broken foot. I mean it is really hard to type with a broken foot! In an attempt to get back up to date, here are mini-reviews of my recent reads:

           

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman: This is number four in the Thursday Murder Club mysteries. Once again the crime-solving seniors - Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim - put their skills to work on solving a murder. The twist is that this time the victim was a friend of theirs, an antique dealer who was murdered after he was given an old box that turned out to contain heroin. The elderly detectives are not concerned about the heroin, only about who killed their friend. They are determined to find the answer and get justice. In fact, they won't rest until they do. My rating: 3 of 5 stars.

                             

The Hunter by Tana French: Tana French is one of my favorite writers of mysteries and her detective, Cal Hooper, is a favorite character. Cal took early retirement from the Chicago Police and moved to rural Ireland in search of peace. He found it but he's also found that murder can invade even this idyllic setting. Cal has made the teenager Trey Reddy his project as he tries to rescue her from her rather feral existence. In this one, Trey's wastrel father returns and he's brought with him an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold. What could possibly go wrong? My rating: 4 of 5 stars.

Findings by Mary Ann Evans: This is another in the archaeological mystery series featuring archaeologist Faye Longchamp. Faye is at home at Joyeuse, the family plantation in Florida that she is painstakingly restoring. Her joy at doing the work she loves is interrupted when thieves break into the home of her friend and mentor Douglas Everett and kill him. Inexplicably, they do not take any of the treasures in his home, but they do take Faye's notes from her latest dig that she had given to Douglas. What could be in those notes that the thieves/murderers wanted? My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Floodgates by Mary Ann Evans: This one finds Faye and her assistant Joe Mantooth working in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. They find a body in the house where they are working and the police at first think it is a victim of the hurricane but Faye begs to differ and shows them that the body was actually planted there. Faye and Joe must use their archaeological expertise to help solve the mystery of what was, in fact, a murder. My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Pay Dirt by Sara Paretsky: This is number 22 in Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski series and I've read all of them all the way back to 1982 and Indemnity Only! I've enjoyed every one of them (some more than others, of course) and V.I. is another of my favorite fictional detectives. In this one, Angela, V.I.'s protege who attends college at Northwestern, is concerned that one of her roommates, Sabrina, has gone missing and she asks V.I. to find her. She does find her, close to death at a drug house and that's where the trouble really begins. My rating: 3 of 5 stars. 

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And that brings us up to date to what I'm presently reading and that review will be posted in a few days. Stand by!