Book Page

Yesterday, I picked up a copy of the May issue of Book Page from the library.  I like to go through it an circle book titles that I want to add to my TBR list and then reserve at the library.  

This isn't a good picture but this is the "hot list" of books for the month.  The book listed one up from the bottom is the new book by Laura Lippman.  

From Amazon:

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working full time and published seven books about "accidental PI" Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor's Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association. Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light. Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since.

The new book out is called Wilde Lake which as you will notice is the name of the high school she attended.  It is also the high school my kids attended and the name of the section of Columbia in which we lived.  So I have got to read this book.  I have read most of Lippman's stand alone books and a few of her Tess Monaghan series.  

Several of her books take place in the Baltimore and Howard County area.  There is something special and exciting about seeing familiar places in a novel and even more fun to be able to make connections from the fiction to real life incidents.

I will read Wilde Lake.  How could I not?  I look forward to seeing my old stomping grounds as part of her story.

Eggs In Purgatory

Remember this blog is connected to the challenge posed in A Daily Creativity Journal and today's "assignment" was to use food that was in the house for our project!  

I recently started the Cackleberry mystery series by Laura Childs.  I am a huge fan of her Tea Shop mysteries.  Since I am up to date with those books, I went in search of a new one and was happily satisfied with this.

Three women who by their own description are on the north side of 40 have opened a restaurant in an abandoned gas station.  With a book nook and a knitting corner, the cafe is a big success.  They are the hit of the town.

One day after Suzanne's lawyer stops by with some papers for her to sign, his body is found in his truck behind the Cackleberry Club.  How can Suzanne let this go?  She and her buddies Petra and Toni are off to find the truth.  Luckily, their restaurant is popular and gossip abounds along with several clues.  It makes sleuthing more intriguing.

There are bumps along the way with more crimes and not without accusations but in the long run Suzanne finds the guilty party.  

Technically, my eggs are in the Inferno but they had to go through limbo to get here.

The Lake House

The Lake House by Kate Morton.  I LOVE this book.  It ranks right up there on my all time favorite list.  I bought this book months ago and it has been sitting in the bag on a chair in my bedroom.  I'm not sure why I left it for so long:  I've been reading several series books?  I've been busy?  I am just not sure.  I'll say now that I was saving it.  I certainly was savoring it.  At one point with about 50 pages to go, I put it aside.  I didn't want to finish.  I didn't want it to end; however, I did want to get some answers.

One of the things I love about Kate Morton is that she knows how to keep a secret.  She can keep her readers in suspense until the very end.  But, the really very clever thing is that early on she reveals the true story.  She just keeps giving plausible alternatives until the reader is not sure who or what to believe.  By the end, and I mean the very end, the reader is surprised.  Perhaps surprised because he knew it all along or perhaps surprised because it didn't seem likely.  Either way by the conclusion everything is neatly brought together in ways that seemed impossible.

There are two stories moving through the book.  The first is the story of Alice Edevane and her family who live at the lake house pre-World War II.  In 1933 at a midsummer party held at their home, Alice's baby brother disappears.  Through a masterful arrangement of flashbacks and flash forwards gradually the facts come out.  Family history, tensions, worries are revealed all contributing to the crime.  

Meanwhile there is a story of Detective Constable Sadie Sparrow who is on forced leave from her job in London.  She comes to Cornwall for a rest at the home of her grandfather who raised her.  She is in trouble because she has become too close to a case of a mother who disappeared leaving her baby home alone.  Sadie can't let the case rest.  There must be an explanation for the mother's disappearance.  There must be foul play.

The stories converge when Sadie discovers the lake house deserted and in disrepair while jogging from her grandfather's cottage.  Curiosity leads her to the mystery surrounding the Edevane family giving Sadie a new case and a distraction from her troubles.  Chapters of her investigations in 2003 are mixed among the chapters during Alice's youth and the story shifts just as the reader begins to understand.

With the help of Sadie's grandfather, an elderly policeman from the original investigation, and Alice Edevane herself, Sadie is able to find the truth in both of her cases.  Some might say the ending is too perfect, but fairy tales play and important part in the story, so why not happily ever after?

I love this book and I love this author.  Unfortunately, she only has four other books for me to read. Should I put them off to extend my pleasure?