nomadreader

Welcome to Day Three of My Best of 2015 Reading Round up!  As always, my Best of the Year lists cover what I read in 2015, which includes books published in any year. Today, I'm sharing my favorite mysteries. Yesterday, I shared  my favorite comics . Monday I shared  Hawthorne's favorite board books . (Want to look at past year's lists. They're all linked  here .) 10. All Dressed in White  by Mary Higgins Clark & Alafair Burke ( my review ) This book, the second in Clark and Burke's Under Suspicion series, was a delightful page turner. I thoroughly enjoyed the wide cast of characters, the exploration of Amanda, a fascinating character, and the setting. If you're looking for a fun, escapist pageturner, All Dressed in White is a great choice. 9. The Governor's Wife  by Michael Harvey ( my review ) The Governor's Wife, the fifth in Michael Harvey's Chicago P.I. Michael Kelly series,   is a compelling page-turner. I loved the reading ...

The backstory: Neely Tucker's first mystery novel featuring Sully Carter, The Ways of the Dead , was one of my favorite reads last year . The basics: Murder, D.C.  picks up shortly after the events of The Ways of the Dead , and it contains some spoilers from that novel. Here, Billy Ellison, the only son of DC's most influential black family is found dead in Frenchman's Bend, an unsavory part of town with deep historical roots. Veteran journalist and former war correspondent Sully Carter uses his connections to solve the crime and write the story. My thoughts: Sully Carter is a fascinating and complicated character. Much like Harry Bosch, he's an antihero of sorts. I find myself rooting for him most of the time, but I did wince at him a few times in this novel. I appreciate his complexity because it mimics the mystery itself. A whodunit can seem simple, but murder isn't typically committed in a vaccuum. Knowing who did it is only part of the story. In Murder,...

Today, in honor of the paperback release of Neely Tucker's first mystery novel, The Ways of the Dead , I'm reposting my review from last fall. It made my Best of 2014 list (#6!) I'm also thrilled to offer a copy of the paperback to one lucky reader in the U.S. The second Sully Carter mystery , Murder, D.C. is out June 30, 2015. Look for my review on June 29th! The backstory:  The Ways of the Dead  is the debut mystery by Neely Tucker, a veteran journalist and memoirist. The basics:  Set in the late 1990's,  The Ways of the Dead  opens with the murder of Sarah Reese, the fifteen-year-old white daughter of a U.S. federal court judge. Veteran newspaper reporter Sully Carter, who like Tucker himself spent years covering foreign wars, notices a pattern of other dead young women on the same block, but the others are poor and not white. While the police actively pursue Sarah's death and mostly ignore the other deaths, Sully uses his contacts and press badge to...

2014 was quite a year. I had a baby . And I kept reading (it's possible! It wasn't even hard!) I somehow managed to read 139 books this year (and no, that doesn't count any of the children's books I read to Hawthorne.) I read (significantly) more books in 2014 than I did in any other year in which I've kept track of my reading. In September, I hit 100 books . I've spent a lot of time thinking about why  I managed to read so many books this year, and I think it comes down to making reading more of a priority. I didn't watch nearly as much television in 2014 as I did before. And I didn't even see as many movies. I read. If a book wasn't working for me, I set it down and picked up another one. Sometimes I picked it back up again, but sometimes I didn't. And I gave up review obligations. I still read plenty of books from publishers, but I didn't commit to reviewing them on specific days. When I picked up a book, it was because I wanted to read it...

The backstory:  The Ways of the Dead  is the debut mystery by Neely Tucker, a veteran journalist and memoirist. The basics:  Set in the late 1990's,  The Ways of the Dead  opens with the murder of Sarah Reese, the fifteen-year-old white daughter of a U.S. federal court judge. Veteran newspaper reporter Sully Carter, who like Tucker himself spent years covering foreign wars, notices a pattern of other dead young women on the same block, but the others are poor and not white. While the police actively pursue Sarah's death and mostly ignore the other deaths, Sully uses his contacts and press badge to follow the whole story. My thoughts:  I majored in journalism in college, and although I ultimately opted not to make my career in the field, I am drawn to tales of journalism, both in fiction and in non-fiction. As a journalist writing a novel whose main character is a journalist, Tucker brings great authenticity to the character of Sully. I loved the details...