douglasclausen585609

img width="425" src=""><div id="toc" style="background: #f9f9f9;border: 1px solid #aaa;display: table;margin-bottom: 1em;padding: 1em;width: 350px;"> <p class="toctitle" style="font-weight: 700;text-align: center;">Content</p> <ul class="toc_list"> <li> #toc-0 </li> <li> #toc-1 </li> <li> #toc-2 </li> <li> #toc-3 </li> <li> #toc-4 </li> <li> #toc-6 </li> </ul></div><p>Jane Delaney does things her paying customers can’t do, don’t want to do, don’t want to be seen doing, can’t bring themselves to do, and/or don’t want it to be known they’d paid someone to do. To dead people.Life gets complicated for Jane and her Death Diva business when she’s hired to liberate a gaudy mermaid brooch from the corpse during a wake?on behalf of the rightful owner, supposedly. Well, a girl’s got to make a living, and this assignment pays better than scattering ashes, placing flowers on graves, or bawling her eyes out as a hired mourner. Discover why each book is one of Lois'favorite books. The chief attraction of Fred Vargas’s novels is her cast of characters, led by Chief Inspector Adamsberg, a most unconventional leader of any criminal investigation outfit. Small and disheveled, good with animals and children, dreamy and often seemingly idle, Adamsberg is not only extremely bright but has confidently surrounded himself with remarkable colleagues.</p><p>Last night, my wife and I went to see The Heir Apparent, an adaptation by David Ives of the 18th  Century French farce by Jean-Francois Regnard. It’s hysterically funny, consistently entertaining, and in verse. One of the more interesting aspects is that Ives sprinkled in an awful lot of contemporary references and even slang within the formal structure of the play. The problem is, the music being generated goes on for longer than that. And if you've never heard bongos being played for five or six hours on end, trust me that after a while, the process becomes a commercial for headache pain relievers.</p><p>Anna Bella Nor is a single mother juggling her parental duties with her academic work. She is due to defend her thesis in just two weeks when  Dr. Lars Helland, her adviser, is found dead in his office, his tongue severed and her thesis, covered in blood, on his lap. Despite the gruesome death scene, it appears that Helland died from natural causes, a seizure, and bit off his own tongue. It is not until the autopsy that the real cause of death is discovered, and it is far from natural. Helland was intensely disliked by his colleagues and students, to whom he was cold, distant, and rude. Even Professor Clive Freeman, his antagonist in the debate over the origins of birds, and a professor in Canada, may be involved, given the bizarre method used.</p><p>From the list onoffice thrillers keeping you on the edge of your chair. A mysterious book artist has been leaving book sculptures around Edinburgh since 2011. They're beautiful and fragile and made from books. The artist still has not broken anonymity, despite a whole exhibition of the sculptures and a book about them.</p><p>I was close to loosening my clothing and fanning myself as Liz Daniel’s confronts her husband’s dour parents in the heat and humidity of August in a stifling farmhouse on the flat plains of western New York. (And I read Ruin Falls during the coldest winter I can remember, so it took some good writing to generate my reaction!) Descriptions of the deep forests of New York State evoke both the beauty and the menace. It gets the point across that we are in a different time through descriptions of dress and movement and plot, rather than through “fancy talk,” as one of my clients put it. It doesn’t mean that conversation needs to be vague or non-descriptive?just not flowery.</p><ul> <li>For anyone who hasn’t read John Verdon and is looking for an engrossing read this summer, I highly recommend him.</li> <li>The entries are signed and contain references for further reading.</li> <li>Our lives are very fast-paced, and books that celebrate slowing down and a simpler life will always be a draw for me.</li> <li>What this really means is that I don’t start reading any of their books until I know I can ignore some chores without too great a penalty, because I won’t be able to put the book down.</li> <li>It lacks neutrality, making it, to my mind, less of an encyclopedia and more a work of criticism.</li> <li>There is a lot of explanation of the scientific arguments over birds and dinosaurs.</li></ul><p>This time the method is pretty straightforward, but the questions of motive and possible relationship to Helland’s murder are still complicated. My wife gives me a similar look every now and again because I'll sit at the kitchen table and watch her cook. I like watching her do most things, but in this case I find cooking to be something of a mystery, and she doesn't, so I spy on her when she's practicing the craft. What good writers do different from most in that we might pay more attention. We are observers, because we are storing away experiences outside of our own that we might be able to tap into when we need them. And for those aspiring writers who see the contest--which they'll surely win, in their view--as the ticket to the Big Leagues, the crushing disappointment of not be chosen among 20,476 people can be a debilitating blow.</p><h2 id="toc-0">ng%Dog On It</h2><p>An author does not want the reader to be aware of the effort and the time that goes into the creation of the story because it might decrease the amount of enjoyment the reader gets, and that reflects on the author. I was first drawn to The Art of Secrets by James Klise (Algonquin, 2014) because it takes place in Chicago and the author is a librarian. Once I started reading, I found that Saba Khan, the teenage heroine, lives just a mile or so from my home in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the north side of the city. I was quickly drawn into the story, which blends elements like teen angst and learning to get along with arson and art theft. But they don't know very much about the way television was back in my 20s. Introducing former death-row inmate turned private investigator Franky Dast in the first of an intriguing new crime noir series.</p><p>Vivid characters, flower-child nostalgia, and an ominous vibe combine to make this an absorbing read. We are a group of authors, editors, publishers, publicists, booksellers and reviewers with an interest in mystery books. The Institute of Biology at the University of Copenhagen.</p><h3 id="toc-1">ng%Roxana's Book List On</h3><p>The bongos are what I think of when I see some authors posting to Facebook or Twitter. NO WONDER they all go batshit crazy and turn on each other! I'd be crying, shaking, screaming, ripe for cult kidnapping. But the problem is that there is such a thing as overdoing the tease.</p><h2 id="toc-2">ng%Danielle's Book List On</h2><p>Her Afghan War veteran private detective, Comoran Strike, living in London and struggling with personal issues (including a prosthetic leg) follows his instincts even when the authorities are convinced he’s on the wrong track. His huge, tough exterior belies his perception of the motives and mendacity of the suspects. Having read the Harry Potter series and A Casual Vacancy, which is a “straight” novel about the power struggles and politics of a small English village, all I can say is, this woman can tell a story, no matter what the genre.</p><h3 id="toc-3">ng%Why Should I Read It?</h3><p>So after the endless winter, with months of parkas and gloves and boots and depressing dreariness, it's spring break. We go away for Passover each year, which makes sense since my wife and daughters are in a Jewish school and this coincides with spring break. The strength of book Blood Will Out isn’t in psychological insights about sociopaths or forensic evidence about cold murder cases. It is really about Kirn’s relationship with this totally off the wall person and how that worked out. Like most people, Kirn generally believed what Gerhartsreiter told him about his life, maybe taking things with a grain of salt but never imagining that it was all totally fabricated.</p><h3 id="toc-4">ng%Why Did Danielle Love This Book?</h3><p>1author pickedUndertaking Ireneas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it. 1author pickedHave Mercy on Us Allas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it. 1author pickedPretty as a Pictureas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it. 1author pickedThe Other Americansas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it. 1author pickedThe Long Callas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it. https://pbase.com/formeditor8/root published novel, Mahu, was about a gay cop coming out of the closet in Honolulu while investigating a dangerous case.</p><h2 id="toc-5">ng%No Books Allowed On Reality Shows</h2><p>And by the way, I completely made up bookstuff.com. At HSG I get to read, alternately, the 50-page excerpts that my dad and his assistant Danielle get on a regular basis, or one of the huge manuscripts that, were I not doing this for a job, would probably finish in a month. This can be either fun or taxing, depending on the manuscript. I must admit, until I started working with Dad, I had no idea how much action an author can cram within 50 pages, and I end the Partial wondering how long the actual manuscript must be, and how much more action must take place. I know my friend Leann Sweeney lives in some Carolina or another these days.</p><p>And divorced single mom Alison Kerby struggles to make her shore-town guesthouse a success while solving crimes with the help of a couple of resident ghosts in E. So the trick in writing characters, then, is to present the whole package. Give all the characters something of a muddled view of their own psychology.</p><p>But I can’t, and so I’m going to tweak a couple (but only a couple) of elements of his Query Letter post. Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of spending an evening with other booksellers. The occasion was a dinner arranged by a publishing house so that an author who is reluctant to tour could meet booksellers in a social setting. We all enjoyed getting to know him (and getting signed copies of his latest thriller, to be released in July), but I think we enjoyed getting to know each other even more.</p><p>As a child, Daniel Sempere discovered among the passageways of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books an extraordinary novel that would change the course of his life. Now a young man in the Barcelona of the late 1950s, Daniel runs the Sempere & Sons bookshop and enjoys a seemingly fulfilling life with his loving wife and son. 1author pickedThe Labyrinth of the Spiritsas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it.</p><p>Meister was on Road Rules and The Challenge, which may be different from my beloved Top Chef and Project Runway, but when I think about it, I'm not sure I've ever seen any of the cheftestants or designers reading books. I guess I always figured they were reading off-camera, for obvious reasons. I know the chefs can't have cookbooks, duh, and the designers can't have pattern books, duh again.</p><p>As a cozy mystery lover with a sweet tooth, I devour dozens of mystery novels every year (many featuring food) and I love to sample new series while also following my long-time favorites. I have also written and published more than 15 cozy mysteries of my own, many of which have a culinary theme. Although I grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, I now live in a small town and I have a particular fondness for cozy small-town mysteries set by the ocean, as well as those featuring scrumptious treats. As a well-traveled writer who has lived around the world, I’ve visited a tea salon in almost every city I visit. My favorite places are small communities filled with old-timers and well-wrought customs. https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/u/springfreeze8 are very fast-paced, and books that celebrate slowing down and a simpler life will always be a draw for me.</p><p>Of course, here in New Jersey, summer wouldn’t be summer without the shore. If you’re not able to actually get to the beach, you can still spend some time in Jersey shore towns with books. Chris Grabenstein’s John Ceepak novels, all named after boardwalk amusements, (Tilt-a-Whirl, Fun House, Free Fall, and more) involve the difficulties of keeping the peace in a town full of summer vacationers.</p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Z1Ul37AmRY" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>