Miraz Jordan

Breakup: … when Alaska awakens from its Arctic slumber. Snows melt. Rivers flood. Winter's secrets emerge.

Kate is having an extremely bad day. Then things get worse … and worse … and worse.

Another excellent read: Breakup (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 7) by Dana Stabenow. 📚

Greedy developers are looking for ways to exploit resources the Native people should be controlling. Luckily Kate gets pulled into the whole thing by her grandmother Emaa.

Blood Will Tell (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 6) puts Kate and Mutt in Anchorage, a place where Kate does not want to be. 📚

Another Dana Stabenow book down: Play With Fire (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 5). This one wasn't my favourite but is still a reasonable read. It's heavy on the discussion of extremist religion; not so big on the action that made the last few so compelling. 📚

Stayed up too late last night reading Dana Stabenow's A Cold Blooded Business (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 4). 📚

Kate went undercover at the oil drilling site on The Slope to learn who was bringing in drugs. She made herself a bit too comfortable. But that didn't last long …

Wow! Dead in the Water (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 3) by Dana Stabenow went by so fast as I had to keep reading. 📚

I wouldn't last 2 seconds on the crab boat Kate has to work on for weeks to solve this mystery. The smell! The heaving seas! The ice! The gruelling work hours! The killers!

Dana Stabenow's consummate skill as a storyteller is evident in A Fatal Thaw (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 2). 📚

With lesser writers intensely descriptive passages make me (metaphorically — Kindles are expensive) throw the book across the room. Her descriptions draw me in, involve me…

A Cold Day for Murder (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 1) by Dana Stabenow sets Kate on the trail of a missing Park Ranger, and the missing guy who went looking for him. 📚

I love the way Stabenow somehow makes the reader an inhabitant in the culture and landscape rather than just a tourist.

Such a good book, as are all in this series! Not the Ones Dead (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 23) by Dana Stabenow. 📚

The only thing wrong is I've finished reading and have to wait for the next in series.

White nationalists create trouble in The Park. Kate investigates. An excellent read.

I really enjoyed The Complete Blue Ridge Mountains Mysteries 1–5 by Cathy Pickens. 📚

I very much liked the main character, Avery, and the author seemed very grounded in the setting — specially interesting as it was totally unfamiliar to me. Make sense:

set in small-town South Carolina, where Cathy grew up and where her family has lived for 300 years.

Somehow I had missed reading Midnight Come Again (A Kate Shugak Investigation Book 10) by Dana Stabenow, even though I’d read all but #23. 📚

Now put right and it was, as expected, an excellent read!

I love the Alaska setting in these books and the characters are favourites too.

I enjoyed reading Three Dog Knight (A Jorja Knight Private Investigator Mystery Book 3) by Alice Bienia. 📚

Jorja is one unlucky detective who narrowly escapes with her life on several occasions. The book held my interest though, and I expect to read more in the series.

Checked the Library's ebooks and found Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Comic Issues #1-5:

… shows what life is like for cadets at the galaxy's greatest school! Witness the student days of the iconic cast before they joined the Enterprise!

Never was a comics reader, but loving this. 📚

I added the RSS — Bring Crime out of the Closet | A celebration of LGBTQ+ characters in crime fiction 📚:

to examine … how LGBTQ+ characters have been handled in crime fiction … from first … being cast as the villain/victim, to today’s much more diverse and welcoming literary landscape.

I enjoyed reading The Dead Swede (The Sheridan County Mysteries Book 3) by Erin Lark Maples. 📚

There was a heap of terminology relevant to brewing beer as the book is set at a local homebrewing contest. I hit the dictionary a fair few times. Enjoyable story though.

Another good read from Jana DeLeon, with some switching around of secondary characters and an intriguing plot — Fortune Teller. I enjoyed this book. Even with so many prior books in the series, and a few long-running gags, such as Gertie's handbag, the author has kept things fresh. 📚

A new series but another excellent police procedural from Anne Shillolo: Murder at Elk Ridge (An Elk Ridge Murder Mystery Book 1). Nice character introduction and development, great setting, good story. Can’t wait to read the next in series 📚

I don't often buy reference books, but this seemed like a must-have: Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager's Field Guide by Liv Sisson. 📚

I realised I can read it in Kindle on my Mac to enjoy all the colour photos.

This was a gripping read: The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave. 📚

Hannah’s husband just doesn’t come home from work after his boss is arrested for fraud. She sets out with his teenage daughter Bailey to figure out what’s going on.

Recommended by alex ink.

In The Case of the Unlucky Gardener (Connie McKinnon Sailing Detective Cosy Mysteries Book 1) by Tina Mclachlan Brassington the characters bat chunks of dialog to and fro.

I finally realised it was more like exchanges of email: chat chat chat; reply reply reply.

Anyway, I liked it well enough. 📚

The book Little Girl Lost (Georgiana Germaine Book 1) by Cheryl Bradshaw just didn't sit right by me. 📚

The detective had some mysterious tragedy in her past that was a driving force but whose shadowy nature was just annoying. Also I found the detective's way of working didn't seem right.

Things just aren't going well for Peg, in relationships or work in Peril in Silver Nightshade (The Pegasus Quincy Mystery Series Book 4) by Lakota Grace. 📚

Somehow she ends up dealing with Silver, a talented con artist who trusts no-one but herself. Then there's bad boy Wolf too…

Another in a series I enjoy — Goodbye Linden Square (A Port Alma Murder Mystery Book 7) by Anne Shillolo. 📚

The crimes keep piling up in Port Alma — dead bodies, a bomb on a boat, sniper fire, kidnapping — but are they all connected? And why?

A nice prequel short story to the Pegasus Quincy mystery series by Lakota Grace — Bad Day at Black Canyon: 📚

When Peg leaves for Arizona and her new job as a rookie sheriff's deputy, she discovers major roadblocks ahead, not to mention a gremlin or two.

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Bought back in September 2020; I must have read the first book then. Totally forgot what it was about. Read the second book this week and it ranks very high on the improbability scale. That aside, it was an OK read.

The Girl and the Ocean — Boxset by Alexandria Clarke. 📚

Reading Persons Unknown (Manon Bradshaw, Book 2) by Susie Steiner was how I imagine white water rafting would be. You dip a toe in the river not sure if you really want to engage, take a step, and then you're off, swept along irresistibly. What a read! 📚