Clarity / Kim Harrington / 242 p

Clarity "Clare" Fern sees things no one else can see. All she has to do is touch a certain object, and the visions come to her. When a teenage girl is found murdered, Clare's ex-boyfriend wants her to help solve the case. Then Clare's brother becomes the prime suspect, and Clare can no longer look away. Teaming up with Gabriel, the smoldering son of the new detective, Clare must venture into the depths of fear, revenge, and lust in order to track the killer. But will her sight fail her just when she needs it most? (from Goodreads)


I liked this book from start to finish.  I mean, really, how can you not like a supernatural murder mystery?! (Maybe that's just me...)  Chapter One pulls you in immediately and you honestly can't put this one down until you've gotten to the end.

My honest-to-goodness favorite thing about this book was that I did not solve the mystery before the main character.  I'm sure that many readers will figure it out, but I'll readily admit that I was so into the story that I didn't see it coming! I was *completely* convinced the murdered was someone else and had a "NO WAY!" moment when it was revealed.  That's always a good feeling when you're reading a book--like you're learning right alongside the main character.

Now, Clarity, or Clare as she prefers, didn't necessarily pull me in as a character right away.  I'm not sure why but I didn't connect with her at the beginning.  As the story progressed, I did feel like I warmed up to her quite a bit.  I also really thought that the minor characters in this one were well done.  I felt like I knew each of them fairly well...with a lot of room for growth in #2!!   Also, on the character side of things, I actually liked the love triangle in this one because it wasn't the FOCUS.  It was there, it was minor, and it was a cute romance.

The Laughter of Dead Kings/ Elizabeth Peters/ 336 p.

Vicky Bliss, art historian and museum curator turned amateur detective, is back in the 6^th and final adventure of this series. When her romantic interest, reformed art-thief and supposedly-respectable dealer John Tregarth is accused of stealing Tutankhamen's mummy, the crew gets pulled into finding the real perpetrators. But has John really reformed?  Or will he leave Vicky in the lurch once again?

 I like all of Elizabeth Peters' books (and love the Amelia Peabody books, which start with Crocodile on the Sandbank) and while not my favorite, I've enjoyed Vicky's adventures, which I've read out of order and over a course of several years. Which is to say, this is not a series that has to be read in order, but this is not the volume to start with.  It's not as funny or clever as some of the others, and the mystery leaves a lot to be desired.  What Peters is good at is creating funny and slightly snarky heroes who make gentle fun of the mystery/adventure/romance melodrama that they are in, while still totally clinging to those genres.  At its best, this makes Peters' books fun and lighthearted reads, but when they fall flat it just gets tiresome. A decent book, nothing special.  But this is an author whose other works are well worth investigating.     

The Sherwood Ring/ Elizabeth Marie Pope / 256 p.

                  Peggy Grahame is orphaned at seventeen, and heads with ambivalence and perhaps a little apprehension to the family New England mansion to live with her withdrawn Uncle Enos, who is obsessed with keeping Rest-and-be-thankful as close to its condition during the Revolutionary War as possible. But before she even arrives at the house, she gets lost in the woods and is given directions by a girl in a red cloak on horseback, who disappears before she can thank her. Peggy quickly discovers that the girl is the ghost of Barbara Grahame, the daughter of the house during the war. As Peggy becomes friends with Pat, a visiting scholar from England who is researching the history of guerrilla warfare in the area during the revolution, she is visited by more ghosts and begins to discover that their story holds the secret to the current mysteries of the house. And all the mysteries seem to center around the figure of Peaceable Drummond Sherwood, a mysterious and brilliant English officer who led a band of renegades on raids that plague the Continental army. 

                   This story is a humorous and touching love story, with just the right amount of star-crossed escapades and a dash of mystery. Peggy’s story takes a back seat to the story of the ghosts, as they take turns telling their story.  These ghosts are not grim at all, but as enjoyably kind, clever, and sardonic as the best character in a regency romance who ever quirked an eyebrow. The reader is carried away by the exasperation of Barbara’s brother Dick, as he tried to capture Peaceable, and deal with the troublesome Eleanor Shipley who has captured his heart but taunts him mercilessly, and Eleanor, who has been trying for years to get him to notice her.  But the story we care about most is the unfolding sparring and love between Barbara and Peaceable himself. . .

It’s a short, quick book (with illustrations!) that make it seem like an elementary-level title, but the story and age of the characters make it fit better in a young adult collection (though there is no mature content). I first read it in my mid-teens and adored it, and this re-reading was still very satisfying, as it has one of my favorite romantic scenes of all time. I wouldn’t call it a mystery, the way it is billed, but rather as a cozy romance with a little light adventure on the side.         

Margaret Truman/Murder in the House/344 pp.

When I was a sophomore in college, in a class about The Detective Novel, I wrote a paper contrasting the works of Margaret Truman, daughter of President Harry Truman, and Eliot Roosevelt, son of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. If memory serves, I liked Roosevelt's mysteries better back then, and this book by Truman did nothing to change my opinion. Written in 1997, the book attempts to deal with the world of post-Soviet Russia, where the Communists, capitalists and criminals are fighting for control. Congressman Paul Latham is murdered in the US Capitol building; we know pretty much from the outset "whodunit", and the rest of the book seems to consist of the police and other characters catching up with us. Add to this a Congressional page with a really bad southern drawl, and a highly illogical, anticlimactic "climax" on the floor of the House of Representatives. The one enjoyable part of the book was the Congressman's friend, law professor Mackensie Smith, who as the story's hero tries to uncover the killer and clean up Latham's name. But even he doesn't solve the crime; the murderer is revealed while Smith is off having a nice dinner (and getting shot at) with his wife.