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.

The Alphabet Now Ends at Y

I'm so sad to share sad news at what is considered a festive time of year, but Coffee Light and mystery fans throughout the world are mourning tonight. Our beloved Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone mystery series died in California yesterday.

I've read every book in the series, excepting the latest one, Y is for Yesterday and I was hoping to begin it in the next week. I started with A is for Alibi, published in 1982 and thirty-five years later I was still reading. Over the decades Kinsey, a private investigator in the mythical southern California town of Santa Theresa, came to be a trusted acquaintance. When I came upon a new volume in the series I could trust I would find one of my favorite investigators embarking on a complex and interesting mystery adventure. This consistency of plot and character is what kept me and millions of other readers enthralled with Sue Grafton's writing.

 Sue Grafton never wanted a ghost writer for her work and now there will be no "Z." As her daughter, Jamie Clark wrote, "the alphabet now ends at Y."  Farewell, Kinsey and farewell, Sue Grafton. The world is a sadder place tonight.   

I Never Thought I'd Fall in Love Again...

But I'm in love and I'm not hiding it.

 

At 67 I believed that my falling in love days were over and done. But after finishing Rather Be the Devil, Ian Rankin's latest mystery novel, I realized that I was in love and had been in love for years. Of all the men and detectives, I'd fallen for John Rebus, the very human hero of these novels.

 

Yes, Rebus is "seeing someone," may start smoking again at any second, lives 3,000 miles away in Scotland and perhaps the biggest impediment to our relationship, is a fictional character. But in this latest novel, dark and brooding as ever, he is very real to me, and his intelligence and sense of fairness drew me to him in this book, as in every past novel. In Rather Be the Devil Rebus has just retired from the Edinburgh police force, but not surprisingly is drawn back into an unsolved murder case from the 1970s.

 

In an era where corruption and power are part of every day discussion Rather Be the Devil looks at these issues through the lens of a mystery novel. As someone who has crossed over to retirement, I enjoyed seeing these issues through Rebus' cynical and experienced lens and the twists of the plot and the characters kept me reading.   

 

My dear Rebus, I'm glad your retirement was brief. I bet I'm not the only reader who waits eagerly for your next adventure when you'll once again be a part of my life.   

The Dry

Most of the Northern Hemisphere is shutting down for the summer. It's the end of the school year, the beginning of vacation season and most of the dreams people are dreaming include sand, waves and drinks with little umbrellas. But here at Coffee Light, we're not like most of the world. We're back from our way too-long hiatus with one of the best (mystery) novels I've read in a long time. It's not cozy in any way and there are no drinks with little umbrellas.

Jane Harper's debut novel, The Dry, takes place in a small town in Australia, that has suffered a devastating drought. People's tempers are at the edge and when Luke Hadler and his family are found murdered on their farm, the assumption is that Luke had come to the edge and crossed over it. But like so much in Kiewarra, things are not what they seem.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk left Kiewarra twenty years past, but has returned at the request of Luke Hadler's father to look into the murders. Though Falk's specialty is financial misdoings, he returns and begins to not only investigate what happened to his closest boyhood friend and his family, but other secrets of the town.

The Dry is dark, somber, sad and captivating. Aaron Falk takes his place in my pantheon of favorite detectives, flawed and human and tremendously engaging. For those of us waiting for his next appearance, Force of Nature is scheduled for publication in Australia -- may need to schedule a trip there -- in September.

For mystery fans who like their stories noir The Dry is a definite must read. Grab an iced coffee and settle down on a shaded porch. You're in for a great read. 

 

I'm not sure what my schedule will be, but I guarantee you that I'll be back (more than once) this summer. Happy reading! 

 



 

Happy National Coffee Day

In order to celebrate National Coffee Day -- yes, there is a day to fete le café -- I'm leaving the land of noir and stopping by the cozy mysteries. I'm inspired to take this departure by Cleo Coyle's very fun and very quirky Coffeehouse Mystery series. The series takes place in a landmark coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. The series focuses around amateur sleuths in some of the wittiest titled -- and most fun -- mysteries on the shelves. The website is also delightful and you will find great recipes. In the interest in truth in blogging I need to add that I have yet to try the recipes in the interest of continuing to fit in my present wardrobe. They look that delicious.

I found one other title that also had a coffee focus. I haven't read it, it also looks like great fun. It's  Death by Coffee by Alex Erickson. It's the first in the Bookstore Café mystery series and I'm going to search for the other titles. I've developed an affection for the titles of cozy mystery novels. I love my dark and brooding noir mysteries, but the cozies definitely have more fun titles.

 A cat, coffee and a mystery! It doesn't get much better for fun reading.

 

Is anyone a fan of cozy mystery novels, as well as the more somber noir mysteries? What authors are your favorites?

Now I'm going to settle in for some reading on this first chilly night of autumn. Since this post of Coffee Noir talked about cozies I'm going to turn everything upside down and have a cup of mint tea. It's a wild night here in New York.

So many mystery novels and so little time! Thanks so much for visiting.