The Tapestry of Death - Howard of Warwick

   2013; 321 pages.  Book 3 (out of 30) in the “Chronicles of Brother Hermitage” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Cozy Murder-Mystery; Humorous Crime; British Humor.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

 

   Briston the Weaver has been murdered!  Executed, to be exact, and it was carried out by a group called the “the Guild of Weavers”.  The King’s Investigator, Brother Hermitage, knows all this thanks to one of his cohorts, Wat, who is also a weaver.

 

    There’s something about the strange way in which Briston’s corpse has been found: a “body suit” of sorts has been woven around him, very intricately and expertly done.  There’s a tuft of Briston’s hair sticking out the top of the weaving, and his two feet sticking out the bottom.  The rest of him is swathed in yarn.

 

    According to Wat, the Guild of Weavers even has a name for this type of shroud.

 

    It’s called the Tapestry of Death.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Tapestry of Death (Book 3) is the second book I’ve read from this series; the first one, Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns (Book 6), is reviewed here.  Both are set just a couple years after the Norman William The Conqueror invaded England, and clobbered the Saxon Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 CE.

 

    The art of tapestry-weaving is spotlighted in this story.  Wat and Briston knew each other well, and both were members of the guild of weavers.  The reader is introduced to Cwen, a young, female apprentice weaver under Briston and who becomes a part of Brother Hermitage’s team from here on.  This is a good career move for Cwen, since teaching the secrets of the weaving trade to a girl is a capital crime.

 

    The action starts immediately.  The book opens with Hermitage and Wat examining the “cocooned” body in Briston’s tent.  Unsurprisingly, their investigation rapidly becomes more complicated.  Who is the Hoofhorn?  What did Briston do to bring the wrath of the guild down upon him?  What kind of monster or monsters lurk outside Stott’s manor?  And if he's not too busy, can Hermitage also find a Norman commander’s daughter and solve another murder?

 

    I liked the “feel” of the Historical Fiction aspect of The Tapestry of Death.  The scenes of 11^th-century England seemed real to me, not overdone and not like they’d been lifted from a Wikipedia article.  That’s important whenever I’m reading a novel set in the past.

 

    The book is written in English, not American, but it wasn’t distracting, and I enjoyed the alternate spellings of words like judgement, offence, realise, favour, sceptical, fraternize, et al.  There’s even a smidgen of Latin in the text, the easy-to-decipher: “Deus salvabit nos.”

 

    The ending is so-so.  The “whodunit” aspect of the main murder gets resolved not by Hermitage’s sleuthing but by the killer simply revealing that he did it.  The “Hoofhorn” sidelight has a rather forced denouement.  Yet all the plotlines are wrapped up by the book’s end, and that's the important thing.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 741 ratings and 100 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.25/5 based on 340 ratings and 22 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “He always was a chancer.”

    “A chancer?”  Hermitage hadn’t heard the word before.”

      “One who took chances, risks.  Always on the look out for the big fortune.  Perhaps taking some money for something he hadn’t done.  Passing off work as your own when it might not be.  That sort of thing.”

    “Ah.  Dishonesty.  But not you.”  Hermitage stated a fact.

    “Cautious and steady, me.  Always have a fall back.”  Wat was reassuring, but he hadn’t actually denied dishonesty. (loc. 144)

 

    “The ritual doesn’t allow the tapestry to be opened again.

If opened be

The tapestry

Of death once it is woven.

Great evil will

The world up fill

Unless it is recoven.”

    “Recoven?”  Hermitage was aghast at this nonsense.  And the appalling use of the language.

    “Don’t know,” Wat shrugged, “I think it’s a sort of mix of recovered and re-woven.  Most of the guild ritual is in awful rhyme.”  (loc. 2356)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Tapestry of Death presently sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  The other 29 books in the series range in price from $2.99 to $4.99, with the most recent books generally a bit more expensive.

 

“The missing tapestry could be the chop that choked the dog.” (…) “Eh?”  (loc. 678)

    The Tapestry of Death is almost cussword-free.  I counted just four of them in the first 25% of the book, and those were of the milder, eschatological sort.  I am always impressed when authors use their good writing skills to heighten the tone of the text, rather than resorting to the overuse of cussing.

 

    There are a few passing references to events in the first two books in the series, neither of which I’ve read, but I didn’t find that to be a hindrance.  None of them were critical to the storyline here, and I could more or less figure them all out, except for whatever happened at Leamington.

 

    The main issue with The Tapestry of Death lies with its horrendous misuse of commas.  Particularly vexing was the complete absence of commas in direct dialogue.  One example: “I know Hermitage” instead of the different, and intended connotation: “I know, Hermitage”.  There were lots of other comma errors as well, but this was the most persistent one.  To be fair, this appears to have been corrected by Book 6, so I’m thinking I may not be the first reviewer to have pointed this out.

 

    If you can ignore the preponderance of punctuation gaffes, you will find a fast-paced and interesting storyline in The Tapestry of Death.  Wit and humor abound, and there are enough plot twists sprinkled along the way to keep you turning the pages.   Howard of Warwick has been churning these Brother Hermitage books out for ten years now, at an average rate of three-per-year, and I’m curious to see whether his storytelling and writing skills get refined over that timespan.

 

    6½ Stars.  One last plug for this book.  We won’t go into details but “tapestry porn” is a major feature in the story.  That may sound racy, yet I’d label The Tapestry of Death a cozy murder-mystery.  How Howard of Warwick has managed to smoothly combine porn and cozy astounds me.

Razzmatazz - Christopher Moore

   2022; 390 pages.  Book 2 (out of 2) in the series “The Tales of Sammy Two-Toes”.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Pulp Fiction; American Historical Fiction; Fantasy; Humor.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    It’s 1947 in San Francisco and folks in Chinatown are on edge.  Two women in the gay-club area have been killed, in separate attacks.  One was bludgeoned and dumped in the bay, the other was offed via an ice pick to the head.

 

    The San Francisco Police Department is of little or no help; they’re more interested in discouraging their fine citizens from frequently these disreputable clubs.  If murders are occurring at those places, well, just stay away.

 

    So a bartender there, Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin, takes it upon himself to investigate the slayings, even though he doesn’t know the first thing about being a detective.  But one of his customers, an alcoholic geezer nicknamed Fitz, is an ex-cop, and Sammy is counting on getting some sage advice from him.

 

    And happily, the Chinese dragon that resides in Sammy’s head has also volunteered to help.

 

What’s To Like...

    Razzmatazz is the sequel to Christopher Moore’s 2020 novel Noir.  I wasn’t aware it was part of a series, and I haven’t read the first book.  Based on the above intro, you’d think this means Razzmatazz will be a murder-mystery, and it is, but having a dragon and an extraterrestrial as supporting characters introduces fantasy and mythological slants to the tale.  Then throw in lots of the author’s trademark wacky humor, and you end up with what for me read like a fine piece of pulp fiction.

 

    The book is written in both the first-person POV (usually Sammy’s, but occasionally the dragon’s or a friend of Sammy’s named Stilton), and the third-person (mostly the narrator, but at times other characters).  This switching around of the viewpoint might sound like it'd make things confusing, but it works smoothly.

 

    There are secondary plot threads that keep things moving at a brisk pace.  The dragon wants a statue retrieved, a maroon Packard keeps showing up, and no one knows what happened to the former police chief, but they're pretty sure Sammy had something to do with it. The setting is the greater San Francisco area, and takes place in two times – the “present-day” 1947, and the “flashback” 1906.  Yes, that’s the year the earthquake hit.  I liked the “feel” of the Bay Area depicted in those two eras, especially the focus given to how the Chinese and the gay sectors fared.

 

    I enjoyed the smattering of Chinese vocabulary woven into the story, including gwai-lo and jook.  I was bummed that I didn’t recall them from when I took Mandarin in college, but it turns out Cantonese expressions are used here.  The Chinese transliterations of place names was also neat; among them were: The Glorious Location of Various Weeds, Flowery Arbor Mountain Booth, and Tall House of Happy Snake and Noodle.

 

    Be sure to read the author’s Trigger Warning at the beginning of the book, as well as his Afterword at the book’s end, the latter being where Christopher Moore tells what led him to insert into the story a visit by 30 hookers to a place called The Sonoma Hospital for Feeble Minded Children for a Christmas celebration.  Moore also reveals which details in the book are factual and which he made up.  The police-enforced “Three Article Rule” was hilarious to me until I found out it was real.  Wiki it.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Jamoke (n., slang) : an ordinary, unimpressive, or inept person.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 1,310 ratings and 82 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.11*/5, based on 3,526 ratings and 484 reviews.

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    “Flapjacks and willies, slam ‘em in the screen door!”

 

Excerpts...

    “He lost his statue forty-one years ago and all of a sudden it’s worth two grand to get it back?”

    “No.  Getting his business back is worth two grand.  The dragon is for another guy, the Squid Kid.”

    “Moo Shoes, do not try to run that phonus bolognus inscrutable Eastern mystic game on me.  You are highly scrutable.  I can scrute both you mugs five out of six days a week.”  (loc. 843)

 

    “Sit,” said the big guy.  “Wait.”

    So we sat.  We waited.  A half hour went by.  An hour.  We saw not a soul.

    “Were we supposed to take a number?” Moo asked.

    I peeked into the other rooms.  No one.  I said, “A guy who used to come in the bar told me once that if you go in someplace and they don’t pay any attention to you, then start stealing stuff.  They’ll either start paying attention or you’ll have something for your time.”

    “Wise.  What business was that guy in?”

    “Thief, I think.”  (loc. 4102)

 

Kindle Details…

    Razzmatazz presently costs $14.99 at Amazon.  The other book in the series, Noir, will run you $14.49.  Christopher Moore has about 15 other e-books to offer, most of them in the price range of $10.99-$14.99.

 

“That broad could hear an ant fart in a hurricane.”  (loc. 1627)

    I’ve been a Christopher Moore fan for decades, so finding things to gripe about in Razzmatazz is difficult.  If you’re new to his works, be aware that an abundance of cusswords is the norm for him.  Here, I noted 35 of them in the first 10% of the text, more than half of which were f-bombs.  There were also a couple of rolls-in-the-hay and one of the characters is obsessed with carrying out a rather extreme form of birth control.

 

    Also, it must be said that this is not a whodunit.  Yes, Sammy does eventually suss out who’s killing the gays, but this comes in the last chapter as a “great reveal”, and is not due to dogged sleuthing.

 

    Some reviewers were disappointed that Razzmatazz was not up to the level of zaniness found in earlier Christopher Moore efforts.  They have a point, but I think a pulp fiction novel is inherently darker and less snarky than a humorous satire, and personally, I was impressed that Moore could switch so seamlessly to a new genre.

 

    Overall, Razzmatazz was both an enlightening and entertaining read for me, shining the spotlight upon a time and place that I’m not all that familiar with.  So if you’re looking for “Moore of the same” (pun intended) type of humor this author is renowned for, you might give this book a pass.  But if you want to see him expanding his literary horizons, which shows just how skilled of a writer he is, you’ll find a pleasant surprise.

 

    8½ Stars.  One closing teaser.  Uncle Ho can talk to, and listen to, animals.  Particularly to pigs and rats, whose advice can be quite useful.  He can also hear what dragons have to say, a talent which just might get him killed.  I love stories with talking animals.

Knights of the Apocalypse - Benjamin Wallace

   2015; 244 pages.  Book 2 (out of 5) in the “Duck and Cover” series.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genres : Post-Apocalypse Thriller; Action-Adventure; Dark Humor.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Sometimes you just get tired of running away.

 

    That’s true for Jerry, aka "the librarian", aka "the post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior" and Erica, who’s fleeing with him.  They are wanted in what remains of Texas after the bombs fell there, and their faces are shown on Wanted Posters all over the place.

 

    But finding a safe haven in a post-apocalyptic world is not easy, and that’s what makes them so optimistic about their arrival in Colorado.  The cities in the Rocky Mountains there fared relatively well in the nuclear holocaust.  Maybe Jerry and Erica can finally find a place to settle down.

 

    Except that they’ve stumbled into a realm called The Kingdom of the Five Peaks, which is ruled by a King Elias, and patrolled by a bunch of armor-clad thugs who go by “Sir names” such as Sir Thomas, Sir Steven, and Sir Dominic.

 

    And we won’t even mention the enigmatic “Sir Nameless.”

 

What’s To Like...

    Knights of the Apocalypse is the second book in Benjamin Wallace’s Duck & Cover series.  I read Book One, Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors, way back in 2014 (and reviewed here) and remember being blown away by the worldbuilding.  At that point, it was a standalone novel, now this is a completed (presumably) pentalogy.

 

    Once again, the storytelling is top-notch.  The post-nuclear-disaster world of death and destruction is cleverly blended with just enough wit and humor to keep the tone lighthearted.  The small pockets of surviving Coloradans may have to deal with mutants, marauders, monsters, and mountain men, but they also have time to relax while pretending they're back in King Arthur's Camelot.

 

    The main plotline is fairly straightforward.  Jerry needs a new fuel pump for his Cummins B-series truck, and auto parts stores just don’t exist anymore.  King Elias offers to procure the fuel pump, but in exchange Jerry and some other “volunteers” must find and rescue the kingdom's missing princess.  Needless to say, the rescue attempt rapidly gets more complicated, where the most likely outcome for our volunteers/suckers is getting killed, their mission an utter failure, and Erica suffering dire consequences because of that.

 

    I liked when our adventurers traveled along the I-40 interstate; I’ve recently traversed that stretch while going from Tennessee to Arizona.  I chuckled at the slang term used to refer to the apocalypse: “The Crappening”, as well as the built-in design faults in King Elias’s throne.  Sometimes it hurts to be the king.

 

    Everything builds to an exciting and twisty ending, although the main storyline (Erica and Jerry) is not resolved.  Things end at a fairly logical place, but I wouldn’t call it a cliffhanger, which is one of my literary peeves.  Just be aware that reading the next book is a requirement.  I’d normally deduct stars for this, but I’m reading an e-book bundle of the first three books in this series, so it’s not like I have to go find and download the sequel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 150 ratings and 35 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.09*/5, based on 701 ratings and 53 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Tie him to the rail!”

    “Throw him in the canyon!”

    “Drown him!”

    “Tie him to the rail!”

    “You already said that, Sarah!”

    “I really like the idea!”

    Jerry raised his hands above his head and motioned for a calm that wouldn’t come.  “All of those sound like perfectly good horrible deaths.  And, considering our first encounter, very fitting.  Especially tying me to the rail, very poetic.”

    “Thank you,” Sarah yelled.  “See, Rob?”  (loc. 5231)

 

    “Did he tell you how we knew each other?”

    Erica shook her head and Brae smiled sheepishly.

    “I don’t blame him for that.  It must have been awkward.  Meeting the ex always is.”

    “The ex?”

    Brae nodded and then put her hands up in defense.  “Don’t worry.  It was a long time ago.  We were over way before the end of the world.”  She laughed at this.  “But you know how it is.  Girl meets boy.  Girl loses boy.  World blows up.  Girl finds boy in a post-apocalyptic kingdom of dorks.”  (loc. 5614)

 

Kindle Details…

    Knights of the Apocalypse sells for $4.99 right now at Amazon, as do the other books in the series, with the exception of Book One, Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors, which only costs $2.99.  Alternatively, you can buy the first three books as a bundle, as I did, for $9.99.  Benjamin Wallace offers several other series as well; the books in those are all in the $2.99-$4.99 price range.

 

“Think of it more like a flea market but with fewer homemade wind chimes and more stabbings.”  (loc. 3050)

    I enjoyed reading Knights of the Apocalypse despite the nine-year hiatus from the series, so finding things to gripe about is difficult.

 

    The cussing is sparse—I counted just 16 instances in the first 20%—and most of times it was what I’d call the “milder” terms.  I don’t recall any “adult situations”, although several are alluded to.

 

    The biggest issue was the editing.  Typos were rare for the first third of the book, but around 41% (this book spans 30%-62% in the 3-book bundle) errors began to pop up with distracting frequency.  Perhaps the editor quit halfway through this project?

 

    But please don’t let the typos deter you from reading this series.  Both the worldbuilding and character development are masterfully done, and the storyline is both action-packed and fast-paced.  The wit and humor are an added treat.  Just pick up the e-bundle, and, unlike me, don’t wait a decade between reading the first and second books in the series.  I intend to not be so remiss in reading Book Three.

 

    8½ Stars.  Add ½ star if you’re familiar with, or participate in, activities such as the Society for Creative Anachronisms and/or Renaissance Festivals.  If so, you'll thoroughly enjoy the encounters with the titular Knights of the Apocalypse here.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? - Jodi Taylor

   2015; 390 pages.  Book 6 (out of 14) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    Congratulations are in order for Madeleine “Max” Maxwell!  She’s recently been appointed Chief Training Officer at St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research.

 

    A group of five new recruits has just been assigned to her, and she’s already mapped out a series of time-jumps with a sufficient variety of places, times, tasks, and difficulties by which the newbies will hopefully learn the rewards and risks of St. Mary's core business: chronicling historical events, while at the same time, Max will evaluate the leadership, decision-making, and team-building qualities in each recruit.

 

    Admittedly, Max’s new role is somewhat of a head-scratcher.  Her own time-traveling experiences have been “eventful”, although “chaotic” would perhaps be a more apt description.  Oh well, the first couple of scheduled chrono-hops should be tame affairs, with the trainees being limited to being merely observers and note-takers, and from a comfortable distance away from peaceful events.

 

    What could possibly go wrong?

 

What’s To Like...

    The main storyline in What Could Possibly Go Wrong? is straightforward: the reader gets to share in the misadventures of Max’s training sessions with her first group of rookies.  There is also a secondary plotline, however, which consists of investigating whether there is a double-agent operating within St. Mary’s.  Max will be kept busy.

 

    The training missions result in nine separate time-jumps, which is about double the usual amount for a Chronicles of St. Mary’s novel, and the destinations will be a literary treat for any reader who’s a history buff.  As usual, I was blown away by Jodi Taylor’s incredibly realistic descriptions of the various places-&-times visited.  They felt very realistic to me, much to my delight.

 

    The book is written in English, not American, which is always a treat.  Besides the usual spelling variants: despatched, furore, sceptically, plough, sabre-tooths, etc., there were a number of British phrases and slang that had me asking Google for a "translation", including: oik, grassed up, bottle out, plonker, and the colorful like a tramp on a kipper, whose meaning I never did suss out, even after consulting a friend of mine who has lived all her life in Merrie Olde England.

 

    Once again, I very much liked the variety of chrono-hopping destinations.  We won’t spoil the storyline by listing them here, but the book cover image above gives you a clue as to the first two places visited.  The Sonic Scream and Time Map were both fascinating innovations, and I had fun deciphering the Latin phrase “Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic vider?”

 

    All the perils encountered in the time-travel excursions lead to a successful and satisfying end.  History is not changed, which is one of the ironclad rules when chrono-hopping for St. Mary’s.  The five trainees, plus Max, are all evaluated, and we’ll simply note that not everyone passes muster.  Some good guys perish along the way, some evildoers succeed in plying their skullduggery, and there’s a neat “hook” at the very end that will whet your appetite for Book 7: Lies, Damned Lies, and History.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 5,916 ratings and 535 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.42*/5, based on 10,191 ratings and 606 reviews.

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    “I’m not wearing anything whose design is based on Bashford’s testicles.”

 

Excerpts...

    We’re St. Mary’s.  We don’t scream.  Although we do tend to be a cause of screaming in others.  So when a yelping Bashford raced past, followed by a stampede of St. Mary’s staff, all of them shrieking contradictory instructions, you could say my attention was caught.

    “My feet are melting!  My feet are melting!”

    I gestured to my trainees to remain where they were.  The sooner they got used to this, the better.  I had no clue what was going on.  Given those involved, it could be anything from a reconstruction of some medieval torture device to a re-enactment of the famous scene from The Wizard of Oz.  (pg. 15)

 

    “Max, I think you should stay behind.”

    I turned slowly.  “What did you say?”

    “I think you should stay out of this.”

    “Because?”

    “Because if something goes wrong then one of us is still able to get back to St. Mary’s.”

    “I appreciate your reasoning, but if we all end up under arrest then a mature and respectable female can more easily facilitate our path to freedom.”

    “Not sure we’ll be able to find one at this short notice.”

    “I’m going to ignore that comment.”  (pg. 188)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Grass up (v.) : to tell the police about the criminal activity of someone.

Others: Recce (n.); Plonker (n.); Firkle (v.), Artic (n.); Oik (n.).

 

“Why has Miss Sykes entitled her report, ‘How Mr. Atherton Lost His Trousers’?”  (pg. 382)

    Finding things to cavil about is always a challenge in this series.

 

    The text is refreshingly clean; I noted just two cusswords in the first 20% of the book, and there's one roll-in-the-hay later on.  The editing is topnotch.  I caught only one typo: “The stared” instead of “They stared”.  I thought I saw a second one, using span as the past tense for spin instead of spun.  But upon researching it, it turns out “span” is an archaic verb form, and therefore a valid option.

 

    Besides the already mentioned British colloquialisms, there were several English cultural references, including Horlicks, The Archers, and someone “losing her bottle”.  These might disrupt the storyline flow for some American readers, but personally I thoroughly enjoyed these "hiccoughs."

 

    At book's end, a couple of the plot threads remain unresolved, including the identity of a several millennia-old historical figure who apparently also was once employed by St. Mary’s.  One or more trainees are shown to have ulterior agendas, but the identities of those who caused this remain hidden.  I suspect these issues will be addressed in the sequel, though.

 

    But I quibble.  What Could Possibly Go Wrong? has lots of wit, lots of grit, lots of action, and lots of human interactions, all of which kept me reading “just one more chapter” at night.  Romance takes a backseat to the time-traveling here, the previous Ultimate Bad Guys are no-shows, and the Time Police make only a cameo appearance.  Sounds awkward, but somehow it all works wonderfully.  I’m hooked on this series.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last bit of trivia.  At one point, a visit is made to a place in Siberia called Pleistocene Park.  I thought it was a fictional take-off of Jurassic Park!  I was therefore astounded to find out that it really does exist, and is located in present-day Siberia.  Really!  Wiki it.

Murphy's Luck - Benjamin Laskin

   2015; 250 pages.  Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Murphy’s Luck” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Clean Romance; Magical Realism; Cozy Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Murphy Drummer is the unluckiest man alive.  He’s a walking disaster magnet!  If there’s a banana peel near him, you can count on someone slipping on it.  If Murphy passes by a guy on a ladder painting a wall, someone’s about to have paint spilled all over him.

 

    Murphy Drummer is also the luckiest man alive.  Disasters may be happening on all sides of him, but they never happen to him personally.  The bad things always happen to those close by him; he always remains untouched.

 

    Murphy Drummer is therefore a very unpopular person.  And a very lonely one.  In school, kids made up jingles mocking his dubious “talent”.  Neighbors are openly hostile to him because their houses always suffer storm damage while Murphy’s remains miraculously untouched.  Maybe it’s time for Murphy to move.

 

    To a monastery, perhaps?

 

What’s To Like...

    The surrealistic cover image notwithstanding, Murphy’s Luck is actually best described as a “clean and wholesome romance”.  So says the Amazon blurb, and I agree. Our hero sets out from his home in Eureka, Kansas; in search of a sanctuary built sturdy enough to survive the slings and arrows of his ill fortune.  Somehow he ends up instead on the beaches of Los Angeles, where an innocent love interest pops up to do battle with those persistent jinxes hovering around Murphy.

 

    The storyline moves along at a brisk clip, with lots of down-home humor and “aww” moments to keep you reading “just one more” of the 34 chapters in the book.  A second romance also pops up with its own set of foibles and awkward moments to entertain the reader.

 

    I liked meeting Madame Freya, a tarot card reader whose prognostications are uncannily accurate.  This bothers the daylights out of several skeptical clients.  It’s worldly logic versus otherworldly magic, and may the more powerful force in the cosmos win.  I really hope that Freya will become a recurring character in this series.

 

    There were some clever chapter titles, such as “Catcher in the Wry” and “Zyzzyva”, plus a Japanese phrase that I’d never heard before. The “murphometer” was a handy resource that our hero uses quite often, and I loved that a didgeridoo was worked into the storyline.  I chuckled at a 7-Eleven store also showing up; are they even still around anymore?

 

    The ending is a heartwarming affair, closing with a peek at Murphy’s life one year later.  I wouldn’t call it twisty, and it’s not a spoiler to reveal that Murphy never makes it to a monastery.  Neither does he find many explanations about his “curse” but he does find peace and happiness, exactly what one expects from a “cozy” novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,421 ratings and 343 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.15*/5, based on 752 ratings and 133 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “What do you think I’m trying to do?”

    “Make fun of me, maybe?”

    “I’m Murphy Drummer all right, and, you see, you’re not as jaded as you think you are.”

    “I never said that,” Joy said.

    “You said coincidences dried up, didn’t you?”

    “Well, yeah.  So?”

    “They didn’t.  You just stopped believing that they were important.”

    Joy turned pensive.  “So, what are they—coincidences?”

    “I don’t know.  A little stardust caught.  A fallen feather from an angel’s wing.  A few notes from the cosmic, Aeolian harp . . . maybe.”  (loc. 916)

 

    “All I’m asking is that you drive over to Vine Street.  It’s not far from here—31 Vine Street.  There’s an art gallery there called Shooting Star Gallery—fake marble storefront with a sculpture of some tangled monstrosity outside.  You can’t miss it.”

    “I’ve seen the thing,” Sarich confirmed.  “What’s it supposed to be, anyway?”

    Parker shrugged.  “Whatever you want it to be, I guess.  You know—art.”

    “But it’s ugly.”

    Parker chuckled.  “Maybe that’s the point.”  (loc. 2519)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Cynosure (n.) : a person or thing that’s the center of attraction.

 

Kindle Details…

    Murphy’s Luck sells for $4.99 right now at Amazon, as do the other three books in the series.  Benjamin Laskin has several other series in Kindle format; the e-books in those are usually in the $2.99 to $4.99. price range.

 

“He’s a tad eccentric, but he isn’t crazy.  He hears vibrations.”  (loc. 2372)

    There’s not much to gripe about in Murphy’s Luck.  There’s a small amount of cussing—just 7 instances in the first 25%—and I don't recall any “adult situations”.

 

    I noted only a couple of typos: eying/eyeing, which would be correct if you’re writing in English, not American; and a missing comma in direct dialogue.  That’s actually quite clean.  Kudos to the editor for an excellent job.  And if there was an answer to a riddle at 56%, “What is the Greatest Hobby of All?”, I didn’t catch it.

 

    All in all, I found Murphy’s Luck to be an enjoyable read, even though I’m not a big fan of cozy novels, especially not cozy romances.  It’s not epic by any means, but as a number of other reviewers have opined, it was cute and pleasant and makes an ideal beach or airport novel.

 

    8 Stars.  Murphy’s Luck is a standalone novel, as well as part of a 4-book series.  Although he’s achieved inner peace, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about Murphy’s curse.  I’m curious to know whether these “how come” issues are addressed in the sequels.  Inquiring minds want answers.

Police - Jo Nesbo

    2013; 562 pages.  Book 10 (out of 13) in the “Harry Hole” series.  Translator: Don Bartlett.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Police Procedural; Crime Fiction; Mystery Thriller; Norway.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    Somebody recently murdered a retired detective in Oslo.  The killer must want to die since we know that the police department there won’t rest until they’ve found him and taken their revenge.  But now a second policeman’s been murdered.  Rather gruesomely.  Ski pole through the mouth. 

 

    Serial cop killer?  Copycat slaying?  A psychopathic two-man team?  Or maybe just a coincidence?

 

    Interestingly, both men were lured to, then executed at, the scenes of investigations that each had blundered many years ago.  These two present-day cop-slayings both occurred on the anniversaries of those two failed investigations.   So I think we can rule out coincidence.

 

    I sure wish Detective Harry Hole was here to aid in the probe.  These are just the sort of oddities he excelled in solving.  Alas, he’s left the police force for the better-paying life of a college lecturer.

 

    And he’s vowed never to return to his old profession.

 

What’s To Like...

    Police is the fourth book I’ve read from Jo Nesbo’s spellbinding police-procedural series featuring Harry Hole.  I’m not reading them in chronological order, so I wasn’t aware of Harry’s departure from the Oslo Police Force.

 

    Police is written in Jo Nesbo’s native Norwegian language, and translated into English by Don Bartlett.  “English” here does not mean “American”, and it’s always fun to run into strange spellings and terms such as: grey, whizz-kid, torch (“flashlight”), storey, matt (“matte”), spelt, whingeing, bedlinen, and my personal favorite: mozzie, which turns out to be the English slang for what we Yanks call a "mosquito".

 

    There’s a slew of musical references, some famous, others rather esoteric.  Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is cited several times, and IMO, appropriately so.  And there’s an eclectic mix of other bands/solo acts getting some well-deserved ink, including: Jay-Z, Decemberists, Rihanna, Merle Haggard, Talking Heads, and one of my favorite musicians: Steve Harley.

 

    The storyline is fast-paced; there are no slow spots.  The tale is told from multiple characters’ points-of-view, and Jo Nesbo’s writing and storytelling skills are sufficient to ensure that things never became confusing or boring.  It should come as no surprise that the cop killings don’t stop at two.  I’m proud to say I sniffed out a couple red herrings before the Norwegian detectives did, but like them, was amazed to realize those revelations still didn’t bring me any closer to determining the identity of the perp(s).

 

    Everything builds to a nail-biting climax.  The slayings are all eventually solved, but I guarantee you’ll never guess the baddie(s) and the motive(s), even though afterward, it will all seem logical and obvious.  The final chapter is a protracted epilogue which will first throw you a startling plot curve, then leave a lump in your throat, and finally make you want to go find and read the next book in the series.

 

Excerpts...

    Truls didn’t need to look at the papers, he had read them at home.  He had laughed out loud at Mikael’s feeble statement about where the investigation stood.  “At this moment in time it’s not possible to say . . .” and “There is no information regarding . . .”  They were sentences taken directly from the chapter about handling the press in Bjerknes and Hoff Johansen’s Investigative Methods, which had been a set text at Police College and in which it said police officers should use those generic quasi-sentences because journalists got so frustrated with “no comment.”  And also that they should avoid adjectives.  (pg. 61)

 

    “Did you know that in peacetime policemen are responsible for four per cent of all murders worldwide?  In the Third World the figure is nine per cent.  And that makes us the world’s most lethal occupational group.”

    “Wow,” Bjorn said.

    “He’s kidding,” Katrine said.  She pulled up a chair and placed a large cup of steaming tea on the table in front of her.  “When people use statistics, in seventy-two per cent of cases, they’ve made them up on the spur of the moment.”

    Harry laughed.

    “Is that funny?” Bjorn asked.

    “It’s a joke,” Harry said.  (pg. 391)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Scrumping (v.) : stealing fruit, such as apples from trees.

Others: Trompe l’oeil (n.); Matt (adj.); Skint (adj.), Trainers (n.); Syncope (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 11,238 ratings and 2,221 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.23*/5, based on 43,274 ratings and 3,046 reviews.

 

“You look like someone’s pissed in your porridge.”  (pg. 92)

    It’s hard to find things to quibble about in Police.  This is a dark, gritty police procedural with a lot of violence and mature themes, plus a moderate amount of cussing: 20 instances in the first 20% of the book.  But that’s to be expected in any Jo Nesbo murder/thriller.

 

    Harry Hole is absent for the first 184 pages of the story; which is surprising, considering the series title uses his name.  It takes a bunch more pages before he’s persuaded to help in the investigation, but you knew that was going to happen since there are three more sequels after this in the series.  Also, I’m pretty sure, if I were reading these books in order, I’d have been aware of his departure from the force.

 

    There are numerous other references to characters and crimes from earlier books in the series, but I eventually sorted those out as well.  Small details were more of a challenge; Jo Nesbo expects you to know that Ila is a Norwegian jail, Violin is a kind of heroin, and Odessa is a Russian-made weapon.  Happily, I sussed out those as well.

 

    For me Police was another masterfully-constructed page-turner from Jo Nesbo.  I have three more novels from this series (all earlier than this one) on my Kindle, plus one book, Midnight Sun, from another of his series.  I’ve never yet been disappointed in reading anything by Jo Nesbo.

 

    9½ Stars.  Let’s hear it for the brief mention of joik, a traditional form of song performed by the Sami people in the Lapland region of Northern Europe.  It’s great stuff; go listen to some on YouTube.