September 2015 Reads

Sept.	49	Girl Waits With Gun	Amy Stewart
	50	Make your home among strangers	Jennine Capo Crucet
	51	Fishbowl	Bradley Somer
	52	Reykjavik Nights	Arnaldur Indridason
	53	A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding	Jackie Copleton
	54	The Drafter	Kim Harrison
	55	Kings of Midnight	Wallace Stroby

Better late than never, I say!  I won't bore you with the reasons.

September was a very good month for reading.  This is Amy Stewart's debut novel, and a fine one it is!  Girl Waits With Gun is historical fiction at it's finest; the story is based on the history of one of the first female sheriff deputies in.America. This is a quote from Bustle, "Amy Stewart recreates one of the world's first female deputy sheriffs, set in the early 1900s, and you will be cheering Constance Kopp on through every page. The race to catch a murderer is thrilling in itself, but the powerful woman driving the book is what will really keep readers turning pages!"

Fishbowl is a very unusual read and it is delightful.  In the seconds it takes Ian the goldfish to jump from his fishbowl, on the 27th-floor balcony, and arrive at street level, readers glimpse the lives of the denizens the apartment building with all their foibles and dilemmas.  This really is a fun read, Somers has enormous affection and empathy for his cast of all-too-human characters.

I read Reykjavik Nights because I've enjoyed all the other Scandinavian authors I've tried.  My favorite is Henning Mankell and Arnaldur Indridason is equal in my mind.  I haven't read him previously, but this is a prequel to a long series, so I started with the right book!  The story is about a beat cop, who investigates a death on his own time.  The deceased is a homeless man whom everyone is willing to write-off, in order to not waste any time on him.  This is a great who-done-it, and I'm looking forward to reading more about Inspector Erlendur.

This is the first time I've read Kim Harrison.  I liked the premise of the novel and consulted with my daughter Carrie, who reads a lot of fantasy novels, before committing to The Drafter.  This is the first of a trilogy and I really liked it.  Apparently, this is very different from Harrison's other works, but good writing always comes through.  The year is 2030 and Detroit has been reborn. Among it’s many residents there lives a group of secret agents working for a covert government agency. The most elite of Opti’s agents are known as Drafters. Drafters can go back in time to change the outcome of an event. Anchors help to keep them sane. Peri Reed is the best of the best, and when she finds out there is a list of corrupt Opti agents with her name on it, she is determined to find out the truth.

The last book I'm recommending this month is Kings of Midnight.  I'm hooked on the Crissa Stone series and this installment was great!  Here's a quote about the book, that should sell you on reading the series: “[The] power lies in Wallace Stroby's uncannily exact imagery, precise language, and narrative credibility . . . There's not a word out of place, no detail that isn't essential to the story . . . Stroby has risen to the top of his field.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

What are you reading?