nomadreader

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,...

The backstory: This spring I've flown through all of Allison Leotta's Anna Curtis series, starting with her debut mystery  Law of Attraction , and continuing with the e-short story  Ten Rules for a Call Girl , and the novels  Discretion , and Speak of the Devil . With this week's publication of A Good Killing , I'm left waiting for Leotta to write more and pondering which mystery series I'll dig into next. The basics: A Good Killing  opens shortly after the events of Speak of the Devil . A frantic phone call from a friend in Anna's Michigan hometown alerting Anna to the death of their town's beloved football couch. Her sister, Jody, is the lead suspect. Anna flees for Holly Grove to help Jody and escape the chaos of her life. My thoughts: A Good Killing  is a departure from the earlier Anna Curtis novels in many ways. I'm so glad Leotta changed things up with this novel, given the state of Anna's life in D.C. Perhaps the timing was convenient, ...

The backstory: Speak of the Devil  is the third book in Allison Leotta's Anna Curtis legal mystery series, which begins with Law of Attraction , continues with the e-short story Ten Rules for a Call Girl and Discretion . The basics: As Speak of the Devil  opens, Anna is proposing to Jack. Simultaneously, detectives, armed with a search warrant Anna signed, are about to raid a brothel. Unbeknownst to them, a vicious gang, led by El Diablo, the titular devil, is also storming the brothel. My thoughts: While it's hard to call any of federal sex crimes prosecutor Anna Curtis's case happy, this case is particularly horrid. I winced several times in the first ten pages, but Leotta hooked me from the very first page. She manages to set up a complicated story quickly, and I couldn't devour this book fast enough. One of the things I most appreciate about Leotta's books are how much happens in both Anna's professional and personal life, both during each book an...

After enjoying Allison Leotta's first mystery novel featuring Anna Curtis, Law of Attraction , I was eager to continue with this series. Ten Rules for a Call Girl  is an e-short story that introduces a character who will appear in the second Anna Curtis mystery,  Discretion . I'm typically wary of this new trend for authors to write e-short stories that take place between novels in a series. For the most part, I think if it's part of the novel, then it should be part of the novel. But this one was free, which made me actually take time to read it between books one and two, and I'm so glad I did, as it allowed me to learn more about the world of high-end call girls in D.C. before   reading Discretion . The concept of Ten Rules for a Call Girl  is pretty clever. It slowly unveils the ten rules as the reader gets to know Caroline, a reluctant new high-end call girl. She's also a student at Georgetown University. Ten Rules for a Call Girl  is racy and well-wri...

The basics: Law of Attraction  introduces Anna Curtis, a driven, bright young lawyer whose dark family history in Michigan causes her to prosecute domestic violence crimes in D.C. My thoughts: I gravitate to mystery series about female lawyers written by female lawyers (see: Alafair Burke , Linda Fairstein , and Marcia Clark . I've read all of their books.) Like Anna, Leotta worked as a federal prosecutor handling domestic violence in D.C. Anna is new to her job, and the reader gets to learn about it along with her. She's also new to D.C., and I appreciated her realistically humble apartment and utter lack of work-life balance. I found Anna to be a particularly interesting character because she isn't perfect. She makes mistakes. She makes tough choices. She doubts herself in realistic ways rather than in annoying ones. She's flawed but still inspiring, and I found myself both rooting for her and wanting to be her friend. Law of Attraction  balances introducing and...

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...

The backstory: I've been racing through Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels and loving them. I decided to read all of his novels in the order in which they were published rather than just the Bosch novels. The Poet  is the first non-Bosch mystery. The basics: When Jack McEvoy, a Denver newspaper journalist, hears his twin brother, a police officer, committed suicide, he doesn't believe it and starts investigating his death as a possible murder. My thoughts: The best stand-alone mysteries are the stories that couldn't be told the same way if the usual crime-solver caught the case, and The Poet  is a stellar mystery. Admittedly, I'm a fan of journalist-fiction, and McEvoy is a smart, savvy journalist (and character) to root for. In many ways The Poet  is the best of both worlds: solving mysteries inside and outside of law enforcement. McEvoy has access to some clues that may have been missed, while he also relies on law enforcement at other times. The result i...

T he backstory: A Crime in the Neighborhood  won the Orange Prize in 1999. It was Suzanne Berne's first novel. The basics: The novel begins with the murder of a young boy in a wooded area by a mall in Washington, D.C. in 1972. Then Berne steps back from this tragedy and shifts the tone and focus: we enter the lives of the Eberhardt family through the eyes and voice of 10-year-old Marsha. My thoughts: Marsha is an interesting child narrator. As the book continues, it becomes clear Marsha is narrating from the present time (the events are in the 1970's), but this foreshadowing (future-shadowing?) is minimal. As the reader is put into the crumbling marriage and ensuing family drama of the Eberhardts, the death of Boyd Ellison takes a different turn. The first chapter of this novel felt like a crime novel (and I enjoy crime novels), but the abrupt shift to Marsha talking about Boyd in the context of her interactions with him (now containing more significance) and a highly emot...

The backstory: Freedom is popping up on just about everyone's Best of 2010 list . The basics: At the risk of oversimplifying an almost 600-page book, Freedom is the story of Walter and Patty Berglund, a couple who meet in Minnesota. It travels backward and forward in time to track their lives, love, children and careers. My thoughts: I may be one of the few literary fiction lovers who didn't read The Corrections , so Freedom was my first experience with Franzen. I went in with moderate expectations. His novels get immense acclaim, but I've never actually found someone who personally loved his books (if you're out there, please speak up!) Most of my bookish friends own The Corrections but abandoned it as some point. In many ways, Freedom lived up to my expectations. I thoroughly enjoyed Franzen's writing and was engaged with the characters and the narrative. I happily sat in the Chicago airport reading this novel while multiple flights were cancelled an...

The basics: Fair Game  is the story of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative, whose cover was blown by the Bush White House is retaliation for her husband's editorial stating he didn't find uranium. My thoughts: I was fascinated by this story when it was in the news. I haven't read Valerie Plame's book about the ordeal, but I was eager to see the movie. Although I was quite familiar with the story, the film maintained a wonderful amount of suspense. The story begins by giving the viewer glimpses into Plame's life as a wife, mother and spy. Although their small group of friends had minor roles, I thoroughly enjoyed the scenes of them discussing politics and current events at the dinner table with no idea Valerie was a covert operative who actually knew what was going on. Despite my prior knowledge of the story, Naomie Watts and Sean Penn shined most as actors in the story of a marriage. The film was based on memoirs by both of them, and one never really k...