This Week's Mystery is No Mystery

It's the first giveaway for Coffee Light readers,

a copy of The Big Empty

 

A few weeks ago I featured The Big Empty as the first Mystery of the Week for Coffee Light. I enjoyed it a lot and thought our band of mystery readers would like the opportunity to read it, too. One Coffee Light reader will receive an advance reader copy, thanks to my buddies at Soho Press.

It's an easy entry. Please be a follower of Coffee Light and leave a comment with your favorite mystery novel. To receive an extra entry, dear blogger buddies, a shout out on your blog would be great. If you're not a blogger, you can earn an extra entry by Facebook/Instagram/Google+ mention. Just let me know in a comment if you posted for an extra entry. The giveaway will be open until Sunday, September 2 and on Monday, September 3 I will do a blog post with the winner's name.

In the interim I'm getting ready for next week's Mystery of the Week and finishing Elly Griffiths' The Chalk Pit. It's a favorite series and I'm enjoying it very much.

I feel that the last days of August are the last days of summer, though I do know that summer doesn't technically end for a few more weeks. But school started for years on the Wednesday after Labor Day and the last week of August was the last week of summer. Old habits still linger and I'm savoring shorts, no socks, t-shirts and of course, iced coffee light. What are you savoring this week?

Thanks for visiting and happy reading!



Mystery of the Week: The Zig Zag Girl

Anyone can tell by the scarcity of posts that I went through a long reading block earlier in the year. I read a few books -- and lots of magazines, newspapers and blogs -- but if I read a dozen books, it was a lot. It was definitely not my normal reading. But that turned around on July 1. I was at JFK airport waiting to board my flight to London and my habitual fear of not having enough to read on the plane came over me. I did have a number of unread books on my iPad, but what if nothing quite suited me?

I logged into the New York Public Library website and looked for Elly Griffiths, one of my favorite mystery writers. I downloaded an unread title in her Dr. Ruth Galloway series and noticed a few titles I wasn't familiar with. So I also downloaded a sample of today's Mystery of the Week, The Zig Zag Girl. I was so engaged in the sample that I also downloaded the entire book and the next book in the series, Smoke and Mirrors. I read both books when I was in England and they were the kick start to get me reading again.

The main characters are Max Mephisto, a vaudeville magician and Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens of  Brighton, England and the setting is Brighton in the years after World War II. The characters are quirky, engaging and the setting is a fascinating glimpse into the last years of vaudeville. There are murders -- this is a mystery series -- and there is magic and the unlikely duo, who served together in World War II, more than held my interest. I'm now so wrapped up in the series that I've got the next two ready to read. In case you are worried that these are light and cozy, no fear, they are not. While they are lighter than the darkest of Scandinavian mysteries, and there is fun in the show business settings, there are still times spent in the dark corners of post-war Brighton.

What's your Mystery of the Week? Always enjoy knowing what the Coffee Light readers are enjoying.

Thanks for visiting and happy reading!  

Mystery of the Week: The Big Empty

You will have to wait until December for The Big Empty, but it's worth the wait.

 

Greetings, mystery readers and friends! I know there are people who didn't think Coffee Light would be back in this decade -- and at times I was one of them -- but I've gotten my mystery writing inspiration back. I've also gotten my mystery reading inspiration going and I've finished four mysteries in the last month. I realized they're too good not to share and here's the first of what I hope will be a weekly recommendation for your mystery reading, The Big Empty by Stan Jones and Patricia Watts. 

 

I had the good fortune to attend BookExpo2018 and spend time with the gracious and erudite staff at Soho Press. They shared a number of titles with me and the Big Empty is the first of those that I've read. The detective is Nathan Active, police chief of Chukchi, Alaska. Chukchi is set in the world of bush planes and mountains, the Big Empty of Alaska. The story is well put together, the characters are detailed and interesting and the setting was a new world to me. The book will be published in December, but I had the good fortune to have an advanced copy. Don't despair at the time waiting for publication. The next few months are a great time to catch up on the first four books in the series.

 

Next week we're going back in time and to a different continent. Please be on the lookout for the next Mystery of the Week.

 

Happy reading!

 

Please note: I received a copy of the Big Empty in return for my thoughts. The opinions are all mine.