Mystery By The Book Club
Fort Walton Beach Public Library
185 Miracle Strip Pkwy.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida 32548
Meetings will be held every first Thursday of the month from Noon to 1:00 p.m. in the meeting room. Bring a brown bag lunch, coffee and dessert will be served. We hope you can join us for a fun and interesting discussion of mystery books! If you have any questions, please call me at (850) 833-9590 ext. 227.
Jennifer Kepple
Adult Services Librarian
2010 Mystery Book Selections
January 7
Spade and Archer by Joe Gores
February 4
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Amazon Review
It's the beginning of a lazy summer in 1950 at the sleepy English village of Bishop's Lacey. Up at the great house of Buckshaw, aspiring chemist Flavia de Luce passes the time tinkering in the laboratory she's inherited from her deceased mother and an eccentric great uncle. When Flavia discovers a murdered stranger in the cucumber patch outside her bedroom window early one morning, she decides to leave aside her flasks and Bunsen burners to solve the crime herself, much to the chagrin of the local authorities. But who can blame her? What else does an eleven-year-old science prodigy have to do when left to her own devices? With her widowed father and two older sisters far too preoccupied with their own pursuits and passions—stamp collecting, adventure novels, and boys respectively—Flavia takes off on her trusty bicycle Gladys to catch a murderer. In Alan Bradley's critically acclaimed debut mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, adult readers will be totally charmed by this fearless, funny, and unflappable kid sleuth. But don't be fooled: this carefully plotted detective novel (the first in a new series) features plenty of unexpected twists and turns and loads of tasty period detail. As the pages fly by, you'll be rooting for this curious combination of Harriet the Spy and Sherlock Holmes. Go ahead, take a bite. --Lauren Nemroff
March 4
Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
*Starred Review* Bowen, the Agatha winner responsible for the popular Molly Murphy series, has come up with another winner in her new heroine, Lady Georgina, the least important member of the royal family. Thirty-fourth in the line of succession, Georgie may have the title but none of the money. What's a girl to do? Well, in Georgie's case, she tries opening her own domestic agency, with herself as the only domestic. Even her brother, Binky, the duke, is barely holding on to the family castle in Scotland, and that hold becomes tenuous when a French rogue claims to have proof that Binky and Georgie's father gambled the homestead away before his suicide. So, when the Frenchie winds up drowned in the bathroom of Binky's Belgrave house, there's reason to worry. After Binky's arrest, Georgie feels it's up to her to find the real murderer, but soon she finds her own life threatened, repeatedly. The mystery jigs and jags, but the best part here is Bowen's evocation of 1930s England. Drawing on Georgie's diary entries, she vividly portrays what daily life between the wars was like for a modern young woman bumping up against tradition. Populated with lots of neatly delineated characters, including Mrs. Simpson and a sexy Irish lord attempting to help Georgie lose her burdensome virginity, this is a smashing romp. Ilene Cooper
April 1
The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva
From Publishers Weekly
Will Nazi spies escape from Britain with Allied plans for the imminent invasion of Normandy? As history tells us, obviously not?so the challenge for veteran journalist and CNN producer Silva in his first novel is to brew up enough intrigue and tension to make readers forget the obvious. While Silva employs multiple characters and settings, his key players are an English counterintelligence officer and a beautiful Nazi spy. Alfred Vicary is an academic recruited to work for MI5. The intelligence reports he fabricates and sends to Germany are designed to persuade the Nazis that their utterly compromised spy network, the Abwehr, is still fully operational. MI5 learns, however, that the Abwehr has been keeping a few sleeper operatives under deep cover throughout the war. Now they pose a serious threat to the invasion plans. One of these operatives is Catherine Blake, a ruthless assassin and spy. Her assignment is to become romantically involved with Peter Jordan, an American engineer working on a top-secret D-Day project. Will Vicary be able to stop her? Silva's characters are strong; but, despite occasional bursts of high suspense and a body count to remember, his overall pacing is uneven, and most readers won't forget that D-Day succeeded. The final plot twist, moreover, while unpredictable, seems more logical than shocking.
May 6
A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
From Publishers Weekly
When sadistic socialite CC de Poitiers is fatally electrocuted at a Christmas curling competition in the tiny Québecois village of Three Pines, only the arcane method of the murder is a surprise in Penny's artful but overwritten sophomore effort (after her highly praised 2006 debut, Still Life). CC had cobbled together a spiritual guidance business based on eliminating emotion, but the feelings she inspired in others were anything but serene. Everyone around the cartoonish victim—from a daughter cowed by lifelong abuse to the local spiritual teacher whose business she threatens to ruin—has a motive, and the crime also links to a vagrant's recent murder as well as to the pasts of several beloved village residents. The calm but quirky Chief Insp. Armand Gamache, who arrives in Three Pines from Montreal to head the investigation, is appealing as the series' focus. Though Penny gorgeously evokes the smalltown Christmas mood, the novel is oddly steeped in holiday atmosphere for a May release, and the plot's dependence on lengthy backstory slows the momentum.
June 3
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrson
Amazon Review
Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. --Dave Callanan
July 1
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larrson
From Publishers Weekly
Fans of intelligent page-turners will be more than satisfied by Larsson's second thriller, even though it falls short of the high standard set by its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which introduced crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist and punk hacker savant Lisbeth Salander. A few weeks before Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, plans to publish a story that exposes important people involved in Sweden's sex trafficking business based on research conducted by his girlfriend, Mia Johansson, a criminologist and gender studies scholar, the couple are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Salander, who has a history of violent tendencies, becomes the prime suspect after the police find her fingerprints on the murder weapon. While Blomkvist strives to clear Salander of the crime, some far-fetched twists help ensure her survival. Powerful prose and intriguing lead characters will carry most readers along.
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