Mogs Invade! Mogs Invade! The Garde Take the Fight to the Evil Aliens

The Revenge of Seven (Lorien Legacies) - Pittacus Lore

When we left the remaining Garde last time (The Fall of Five), everything was a mess. The traitorous Five had killed Eight, left three other numbers marooned in the Everglades, and tipped off his Mogadorian allies to the location of the stronghold in Chicago. In the aftermath of the resulting firefight; Ella’s been kidnapped by Mog soldiers and John, Sarah, Adam and the Goodes are on the run. Maybe it’s time to regroup…

Told from three viewpoints – those of Six, John and Ella – The Revenge of Seven finds the remaining Garde sundered even further, with three of them off in search of the fabled Sanctuary while John, the humans and their “good Mog” ally Adam fight a rear-action on the east coast. Meanwhile, Ella is imprisoned on Setrákus Ra’s flagship in interplanetary space as the Mogadorians prepare to invade Earth. And that’s not Ellas’ only heart-rending surprise, as the evil Mog overlord reveals his true face to her while laying out his plans for our planet.

Unleashed - David Rosenfelt

I guess it makes sense that if there are cat-lovers’ mysteries, there have to be dog-lovers’ mysteries, too. That’s fine with me – I’m about as dog-lovin’ as anyone you’ve met. Some of the “talking dog-based” mysteries are pretty lame (I’m thinking about Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie series, if truth be told), and a couple of the dogs have gotten tiresome (Tee Tucker in the Rita Mae Brown Mrs. Murphy series). And then there’s the Andy Carpenter series, which doesn’t really have dogs at all – it’s a lawyer series with a dog suit on. I have to wonder if it would be better if  the dogs talked...

Scottoline's Fans Should Feel Betrayed by This One

Betrayed - Lisa Scottoline

You may think your day has been shitty, but it’s a strong bet that you’ve got nothing on Judy Carrier… let me back up a bit. Carrier, low woman on the totem pole at Rosato and Associates (all-woman law firm [hmmm: do I hear a reverse discrimination suit in the works?] in Philly) has had a helluva week. The boss dumped a stack of 70-plus civil cases on her. They’re not only boring, they offend her sensibilities. And then she gets a call from her favorite aunt announcing that the woman has breast cancer and will be going under the knife in a couple of days. And then her mother, with whom Carrier has a prickly relationship, shows up in town. And then her boyfriend Frank turns out to be a loser… 

On top of all that, Aunt Barb’s good gardening buddy, Iris, turns up dead. Carrier and her aunt are, of course, certain the circumstances of the undocumented Mexican woman’s death are suspicious, though the cops aren’t. With only hours before Aunt Barb goes all Amazon, Carrier starts snooping, as is the wont of the women of Rosato. She’s going to learn a hell of a lot more about a lot of things in the next couple of days; not least that someone has been Betrayed.

Judy Carrier, along with Bennie Rosato and Mary Dinunzio, is a set character in Philadelphia lawyer-turned-author Lisa Scottoline’s Rosato and Associates mystery series. Most of the earlier mysteries in Scottoline's series have featured either the dithering, ditsy Dinunzio or the brilliant but socially-inept Rosato¹, with Carrier usually serving merely as backup in the featured character's dumber antics or as a sort of comic relief - mainly due to her rather strange fashion sense. This time, Carrier takes the lead.

Ian McEwan Gets a Head Start on the 2015 Awards Season

The Children Act - Ian McEwan

There’s a hoary joke about a married couple who divorced when both are 54 after the husband had an affair with an 18-year-old. Once the wife had found a boy-toy of her own, she gleefully informed her ex-husband that she got the better end of the deal, mathematically speaking: after all, 18 goes into 54 a lot more times than 54 goes into 18. Ba-dump-bump.

McEwan ca. 2008 (source: wikipedia)

Such might well be the story of Fiona and Jack, childless and almost 60, when he decides he “needs his space” to take up with a coworker born well after his and Fiona’s wedding day. Their thirty-some-year marriage sundered in one acrimonious moment, Jack departs for his would-be lover’s flat and Fiona returns to her work. The scenario may be regrettably commonplace, but the actors are not: Lady Justice Fiona Maye is a judge in family court. Each day the slim, elegant juror presides over the dissolution of marital unions, the tawdry tales before her bench really not unlike her own.

Jackson Brodie Meets the Coincidence Fairy

Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson

Central Leeds

Perhaps the most irritating failing of crime writers is over-dependence on coincidence. It seems to me to be a form of laziness, lack of imagination, or both. One writer who’s made a career out of over-dependence on the muse I call the Coincidence Fairy is Robert K. Tanenbaurm in his Karp family series (at least once he’d lost ghost writer Michael Gruber); another popular author who’s sometimes suspect is Sue Grafton with her Kinsey Millhone series. And now I may have a third coincidence criminal: Kate Atkinson, at least from the plot of Started Early, Took My Dog.

Jackson Brodie, retired London cop turned reluctant PI, is backtracking an adoption thirty-five years ago in Leeds when he accidentally acquires a dog. At more or less the same time, retired Leeds cop Tracy Waterhouse (now head of security for a shopping mall) accidentally acquires a daughter. Well, actually, she buys four-year-old Courtney from a local hooker for £3000…