How can I be the one creating this thread????  Worried about all my pals who get up at 3 a.m.

Just finishing My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni. Tracy Crosswhite is a Seattle Detective whose younger sister disappeared twenty years ago. A man was tried and convicted of her murder, but Tracy had doubts about his guilt as far back was the trial, and has been doing her own investigation during her spare time. Then her sister's remains are discovered, by hunters, buried in a shallow grave, and her doubts are redoubled. With the help of a lawyer who had been a childhood friend the convicted man files a petition for post-conviction relief alleging, among other things, new evidence. It sets in motion events no one would have expected. Although Tracy is based on Seattle, the murder, trial and later events take place in a small town in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. Very well plotted, the story moves along smoothly through investigation, to hearing, to the exciting denouement. This is definitely a four-star book!

I started reading Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower yesterday. I've had it for a while but just kept putting it off but enjoying tremendously so far. Characters seem like they will be fun and how can you go wrong with a talking crow?

And Mary P, thank you for passing My Sister's Grave on to me!

I have to think a minute about what I've been reading. I finished SPQR I: The King's Gambit by John Maddox Roberts and was definitely not bowled over. Too many peripheral characters with long, forgettable names and a convoluted plot that was difficult to understand without some working knowledge of the Roman hierarchy. Lots of ancient Roman words that kept pulling me out of the story to consult the glossary at the end. It was ok, just not all that eager to get to the next one. I read that on my Kindle and the formatting was also "off" with lots of extra hyphens and goofy punctuation. Now I am trying to gag my way through one of Donald Trump's books...it's for my own personal reading challenge to "read a book by a person whose political stance you disagree with." So I'm determined to finish it, but it will have to be in small bits at a time. I can only stand him bragging about how GREAT he is at this or that so often.

In audio, I am almost done with The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths, which is the first of a new-to-me series set in post-WWII England and featuring a DI and his magician friend in Brighton. It's not too bad, though again...not really blown away by it. I read another book that dealt with this same case, a body cut in parts found in a trunk in a left-luggage department at the Brighton station. In print, I'm reading the excellent Dog Will Have His Day by Fred Vargas, the second of her "Three Evangelists" series. I do love her writing style and want to urge her to write faster, but I fear that would spoil her books.

Cheryl

Mary P. I love that series by Robert Dugoni!

I am just finishing up a historical mystery by S D Sykes titled The Butcher Bird. The first in this series was Plague and I thought it was a little quirky - this one is a page turner for me. Too bad I have to put it down for a while today!!!!

Finished "All Dressed in White" by Mary Higgins Clark & Alafair Burke.  This is a great series, in the "Under Suspicion" titles.  The MC has come up with the idea for a TV reality program taking on cold cases and bringing all the folks that were witnesses and/or family members together in the place where the victim was at the time.  Very interesting.  You have to read book 1 first to get the characters straight and then read in order.

Now reading book two in the Thea Osborne Cotswold mysteries "A Cotswold Ordeal"by Rebecca Tope.  Poor Thea has decided, after the death of her husband in a car accident, to start a house-sitting job and so far murder and mayhem have followed her.  I have the feeling that this will continue in future books. Good read.

Just finished Death of a Chocolate Cheater by Penny Pike it needed it for the 2016 mystery challenge. Mystery was okay recipes were better.

I have read many books in this series just not the first one Murder and the First Lady (Eleanor Roosevelt, Bk 1) :: Elliott Roosevelt

I have finally got around to reading book one. It is a wonderful series, with Eleanor Roosevelt as our main sluth. Here son Elliot is the author of the series.

Needless to say the Roosevelt white house years are well captured. highly recommend this series.

Alice

Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley. an Easy Rawlins novel.

SPQR I: The King's Gambit by John Maddox Roberts. I wonder. Is that the same J M Roberts who wrote the book The History of the World? no that's not the same Roberts. I looked him up.

John Maddox Roberts has another series starring Gabe Treloar. I requested the 1st book in that series. I'll see how it goes. That SPQR series is up to 13 books. too much for me.

Finished Little Scarlet. I would say maybe a 7 of 10.

Charles,

I read SPQR years ago it is quite good.

Alice

Read The Priest's Graveyard by Ted Dekker. This was an interesting book examining the philosophy of consequential morality. Two main characters: Danny Hansen, whose mother and sisters were killed during the Bosnian war. After killing the killers and fighting as a soldier in the war, he comes to L.A. and becomes a priest. Renee Gilmore, a young woman who was hooked on heroin and forced into prostitution by a pimp. Their lives come together in a surreal way. One of the blurbs on the back cover calls the book a "complete original," and I totally agree.

Mary - Ted Dekker does write some original books. He isn't though an author that I have ever managed to read even though I've tried several different books of his.

I started reading A Disguise to Die For (Costume Shop, Bk 1) :: Diane Vallere on Saturday but having a difficult time getting through it. Even thinking about not finishing it.

Did finish Crime and Poetry (Magical Bookshop, Bk 1) :: Amanda Flower. Really liked it.

Dreary day here. Been raining off and on but I think for this afternoon/evening going to be more on. Would have been a good day to stay in and read except work got in the way.

I have a bit of a gripe and wondered if anyone else has run into this: I bought five books from Thrift Books during their Cyber Monday sale. Just received four of them today and two are ARCs.! Nowhere in the description does it state the book is an ARC. Now I can't use them to trade. What hooey!

I did send them an email inquiring as to why they were selling ARCs and not letting people know, so I guess I'll see what they have to say. Hope I don't have to pay to send them back.

Thanks for listening.

thrift books has tentacles all over the place. I have ordered books from different venders on amazon and some of them show up in Thrift books wrappers even though I did not order from them. I have had pretty good luck with them so far. That is disappointing to hear about the arcs.

Mary,

They did send me an ARC as well. When I complain they credited my account.

Alice

Just started listening to one of my favorite series, sort of unexpectedly. I forgot I'd put a hold on it at the library months ago. Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd by Alan Bradley, #8 Flavia de Luce. Flavia is back from Canada back at her beloved Buckshaw, so I anticipate this one to be much better than the last, which irritated me on several levels.

I would certainly complain about being sent an ARC...it says very clearly in at least one spot on any of them I've ever gotten, "NOT FOR RESALE."

Cheryl

Charles - Thrift Books is a consortium of Goodwill stores.

Physical therapy is rough. I usually take an oxy and Alleve a half hour before I leave the house, and then a couple extra strength Tylenol after. Today wasn't quite as brutal as last week. However, tomorrow I think I have Torquemada as my therapist again.

Today is a red-letter day for me. I received seven books in the mail, six of them for the 2017 Challenge. Still another seven en route, and just requested the most recent Rizzoli & Isles.

About halfway through Rock With Wings by Anne Hillerman. Her writing style is very simple and easy to read. Chee is working with a movie crew in Monument Valley. Bernie stopped a car for speeding and wound up getting offered a bribe, but she found no drugs, alcohol, or other contraband in the car, only two boxes of dirt. So why was the driver so nervous?

Mary, good to know Anne Hillerman's style is easy...I haven't read any of hers yet, though am a huge fan of her father's. I'm in the process of re-reading all of Tony Hillmerman's Leaphorn/Chee books and then will move on to Ann's.

Heading out to the library to pick up Murder on the Orient Espresso by Sandra Balzo in print, which is #8 or 9 in the Maggy Thorsen series...one of the few semi-cozies I still enjoy.

I'm also going to drop my DNA sample in the mail to AncestryDNA. Has anyone else done this? They have (or had) a sale going on right now where it's only $69 instead of $99...been thinking about doing it for awhile. It will be interesting to see how it turns out! I'm relatively sure of my mother's side of the family--she is 100% Swedish herself and there is family traced back to the 1400's in Sweden...but my dad's side is a little more mixed up and dodgy.

Cheryl

Well, I got an email from Thrift Books this morning and good news. They're going to refund my money (because therre are no other copies of what I wanted) and I can keep the books. They said they get large quantities of books at one time and apparently the ARCs slipped through. Nice to know they are responsive to complaints and rather fast in answering.

I just finished Painting the Darkness by Robert Goddard. Many years ago I read several of his books with supernatural overtones and loved them. This one is a straight out mystery where a mysterious stranger turns up and claims to be the long dead fiancee of a man's current wife. Secrets and family titles are at stake. Mayhem and murder ensue as the wealthy family of the dead man try to prove he's an imposter. It's set in Victorian England, and has plenty of red herrings. Very enjoyable. I intend to look into some of his other books that I've missed.

from wikipedia

ThriftBooks, headquartered in Tukwila, Washington, is a large web-based used bookseller.^[1] Thrift Books sells used books, DVDs, CDs, VHS tapes, video games, and audio cassettes. ThriftBooks' business model “is based on achieving economies of scale through automation.”^[2]

Selling nearly 12 million books a year, Thriftbooks is one of the largest sellers of used books in the U.S.^[3] It has 10 warehouses across the U.S. and is headquartered near Seattle, WA.

ThriftBooks was founded in the summer of 2003 by Daryl Butcher and Jason Meyer. The two created software which allowed them to organize and list thousands of book titles per day. ThriftBooks also operates a number of subsidiaries including Green Earth Books, the Atlanta Book Company, Motor City Books, Blue Cloud Books, Yankee Clipper Books, Silver Arch Books, Books Squared, Free State Books, Sierra Nevada Books,^[4] Peach Land Books,^[5] Green Duck Books,^[6] Green Grass Books,^[7] Yellow Rose Books,^[8] Red Crab Books,^[9] Red Sand Books,^[10] Purple Mountain Books,^[11] White Stag Books,^[12] and Gray Sky Books.^[13]

Cheryl, I did the DNA on Ancestry. I'm an adoptee and knew that my birth mother's side of the family was all Polish, but knew nothing about my birth father's side. I found out that my maternal side is only 43% Eastern European. That was a surprise. The rest of me is Western European, Irish and Scandinavian.

Rock With Wings was good, although not great. The end of one of the mysteries was a little hard to believe. My mom and I visited Four Corners back in the mid 90s, so the book brought back good memories. We visited Canyon de Chelly in a "People Mover" and Hubbell Trading Post and spent several days headquartered in Bluff Utah. On the way back we did a half-day tour of Monument Valley with a Navajo guide. 

Cheryl, I did the DNA from Ancestry and I've done my family tree.  There really wasn't any big surprises but there were some little off shoots that showed up.  It was interesting.  Polish Irish, Scots, English all well known within the family. 

Alice ~ I loved the Eleanor Roosevelt series!

We have a great story in our family about the DNA from Ancestory ~ it helped us find my great-grandfather who left his wife and 3 small children over a hundred years ago.  Found him in New Hampshire where he had remarried and had a bunch of kids taking on a different first name.  My husband found a lady from Las Vegas who ended up being a grandaughter of the second marriage. She and my Dad did the DNA testing and fournd with no shadow of a doubt that they were closely related.  Amazing.  We were able to find his grave site in New Hampshire.  So we have a whole new step-family we never knew about.

Beginning "Scam Chowder" the second in the five ingredient mystery series by Maya Corrigan.  I finished the first one, "By Cook or By Crook" and absolutely loved it. 

I read several books this past month.

Death Overdue (Karen Nash, Bk 2) Author: Mary Lou Kirwin.  The Chocolate Pirate Plot (Chocoholic, Bk 10) Author: JoAnna Carl. The Chocolate Snowman Murders (Chocoholic Mystery, Bk 8) Author: JoAnna Carl. A Catered Thanksgiving (Mystery with Recipes, Bk 7) Author: Isis Crawford and Killing Custer (Wind River Reservation, Bk 17) Author: Margaret Coel.

The author of Death Overdue only wrote two books for this series. I wish she had written more. I like Margaret Coel’s Wind River mysteries. The catered book’s by Isis Crawford are okay, just not my favorite. I borrowed Among the Wicked A Kate Burkholder Novel Author: Linda Castillo  from the library and started reading it last night.

I'm reading A Most Curious Murder: A Little Library Mystery :: Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli  on Kindle. One of the characters Zoe is very, what I would call, quirky or maybe whimsical. Definitely different. I can see where you might get tired of her easily but so far I kind of like her.  The MC just got divorced and went home to be with her mother. Next morning she gets up and the Little Library that her late father built for her mother has been destroyed as well as the books that were in it. Goes from there to a murder at Zoe's house in her fairy garden. Haven't gotten a whole lot further than that yet.