Mystery Books Challenge Book Review Number 2

This is Review number 2 in the Mystery Book Challenge.

Anyway I finished reading my first Anna Pigeon mystery today. This novel was called Ill Wind and is number 3 in the series. Set in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, its about a young child and a park ranger who are killed in the old Anasazi cliff dwellings. There are rumours of spirits in the air late at night. One of the park rangers claims that the Anasazi are warning visitors away from the ancient dwellings. But eventually Anna and Frederick Stanton (a old FBI colleague) solve the mystery. The spirits turn out to be fumes from illegal toxic wastes being dumped on federal land.

I love stories with an environmental theme, and there are quite a number of American National Parks I would love to visit. I also love learning about the Anasazi. I find them to be mysterious - only because we still dont know very much about them. And their dwellings are just so beautiful. I am eager to read this entire series to learn more about the parks. I cannot beleive I have never heard of this author or this series before. Nevada Barr has been writing this series for over 15 years.

I still need to do the Non fiction and the other 2 challenges I signed up for - these challenges are kind of addictive aren't they? LOL.

Mystery Books Challenge Book Review

I don't normally read Jeffrey Archer, but I can never resist an Art History Mystery. So when I found False Impression on a sale table on Saturday, I grabbed it for 50 cents. Then I stayed up until 3am Sunday morning because I could not put it down. So this is the first Book in my Mystery Challenge.

The Blurb and the back cover asks questions like

Why was an elegant lady brutally murdered the night before 9/11?
Why was a successful New York banker not surprised to receive a woman's left ear in the morning mail?
Why did a top Manhattan lawyer work only for one client, but never charge a fee?
Why did a young woman with a bright career steal a priceless Van Gogh painting?
Why was an Olympic gymnast paid a million dollars an assigment when she didn't have a bank account?
Why was an honors graduate working as a temporary secretary after inheriting a fortune?
Why was an English Countess ready to kill the banker, the lawyer, and the gymnast even if it meant spending the rest of her life in jail?
Why was a Japanese steel magnate happy to hand over $50 million to a woman he had only met once?
Why was a senior FBI agent trying to work out the connection between these eight apparently innocent individuals?

Let me see if I can answer these questions.

The FBI agent has 3 unsolved murders - all with their throats slit and their art collections recovered by the New York banker to cover their debts. The elegant lady becomes the 4th victim.

The english countess and the elegant lady were related which is why she wants to kill the banker, the lawyer and the gymnast. Actually I dont recall that she even knew the lawyer's name.

The FBI agent thinks the brilliant young women with a promising career who stole the Van Gogh is the murderer, so he puts surveillance on her. He thinks she is in league with the banker. After all she is an Art History professional with a Ph.D. And she and the banker both come from the same East European country.

The honors graduate working as a temporary secretary - well she was the surprise twist. We dont discover her story and how she ties into all this until the very last chapter.

The Japanese magnate - like all art collectors - he's willing to pay $50 million for a "stolen painting", once he is told of the reason for the sale.

The Olympic Gymnast? She also comes from the same East European Country and she uses her gymnastics to escape from a locked room. No bank account means no way to be traced - supposedly.

And by the way, the painting was never stolen. The banker just wants what he claims is his property in order to recover his debt. The english countess says the banker is a swindler and refuses to give up without a fight. The art historian just does a bit of switch & bait to fool the banker and get justice for the countess after the elegant lady was murdered.

And I think I'll leave it at that. You got to read the book to find the answers. But it really is a riveting story. Like I said, I stayed up until 3am reading it.

One last thing - the elegant lady was murdered the day before 9/11. The banker, the lawyer and the art historian are all in New York and were in the North Tower when it was hit. The description of walking down over 90 levels of stairway is very nicely detailed and really makes you feel like you were there. Then the running to escape the dust & ash cloud when the first tower went down is also riveting.

I was sitting at my doctors office on the morning of 9/11 waiting for a diagnostic test. I watched the towers fall on the TV in his waiting room.

Mystery Challenge

Well I have found 2 mystery series that I havent read and with nice strong female characters.

The first character is Anna Pigeon. As I'm sure you probably already know, Anna is a National Park Ranger and part time Detective, and every summer she works in a different National Park. This series is written by Nevada Barr.


The second character is Sister Frivisse. Someone else posted about Margaret Frazer who writes Medieval Mysteries. I love medieval mysteries. I have read most of the Brother Cadfael books.

I'm definitely going to check both these series out.

Carnivals, Woofstock, and Blogging - all in a days work for me

Well its now after 9pm and today has been a very busy day. My son is a early riser, and by 9am we were outside and heading for the park. By accident we discovered one of the local schools setting up its annual fundraising carnival. OOH bad news - this means I can't take son back to dad as planned so I can attend blog meeting later. He would kick up a stinker of a tantrum if I try and do this. A slight change of plan is called for. Drag son up to St Lawrence markets to use the pay phone and call home. Tell dad he MUST be at the carnival by 1pm. He agrees.

Outside the markets on Front street, all is quiet. The craft tables are being set up like they always do. The roads are clear and the traffic is flowing freely. There is nothing to indicate that chaos is about to descend. And despite having commented last weekend about Woofstock being on this weekend, I had completely forgotten about it.

Back at the carnival, my son and I have an enjoyable time. He gets an all day pass to do the rides and games, wins lots of prizes and my bag quickly starts to overflow with toys. We even won a cake in the raffle. I found some great new kids books going really cheap and snapped those up. My son gets bored with his books, and always wants "something different". Finally dad showed up so I ditched the carnival and headed back up past the markets. Right into chaos on Front Street. Dogs everywhere.

The Woofstock the annual dogshow is being held this weekend along Front and Wellington streets (between Jarvis & Yonge). Its amazing there was not more noise being heard one block down at the carnival, but I guess a carnival is noisy as well.

Got to Solferinos early. In fact I think I was the first one there. Sassy monkey arrived soon after I did. We made contact and then we sat and chatted while we waited for everyone else. Traffic was just as chaotic, and everyone was late, but then parking down here is HORRENDOUS!!! One young lady was standing around for quite some time before she plucked up enough courage to ask "Are you the blogging group".

The get together was WONDERFUL!!! Six women getting together on a gorgeous sunny day and talking nonstop, mostly about books, for 3 hours. I had a great time - despite all the noise.

So who was there?

Karen the Technical writer who organised this get together because she wanted to meet some Toronto Bloggers before moving back to Montreal.

Patricia the Cartoonist who is a published illustrator

Kate from Saskatoon who is a published author.

Melanie the Librarian who came all the way in from Stratford.

Deanne the Online Editor

And of course me - the only one who does not actually work in the Book industry - although I dearly wish I was.

Solferino's is a cafe (38 Wellington Street East, Downtown Toronto) that sells tea, coffee, juice, the usual, but it also sells GELATO. Italian Icecream. The notice on the wall said that gelato was icecream with NO air in it which made it thicker and creamier.

Being from New Zealand I grew up with passionfruit and kiwifruit vines outside my house. To this day I love passionfruit, but I detest kiwifruit. Not sure why. Anyway, I had a small bowl of passionfruit gelato and it was just so so scrumptious and yummy.

"The flavour I would enthusiastically recommend, however, is the passion fruit, rich in aroma and flavour with a cool and fruity taste that will make even Toronto’s hottest summer’s days seem bearable." (as reviewed in the Solferino link above) GO PASSIONFRUIT

The cafe was very loud, noisy and chaotic. Everywhere you looked there were bloggers, babies, dogs, and more bloggers.

And the cafe got more noisy when another group of bloggers showed up and started putting a lovely photo exhibit on the wall right behind where we were sitting.

Our resident photographer took the requisite photos (of our group and the photo display). You should be able to email me now. Please send me copies of the photos, thanks.

So what did we talk about? Books of course. Including how to get published, the pros and cons of self publishing, Publicists and Agents - the good and bad, Authors we have met, Authors who have insulted us, Books we did and didnt like, Book signing parties, genealogy and accents, whether or not women really need men (as in spouse or partner) to get ahead in life.

We finally broke up at 5 pm. Not because we had run out of things to say. Oh no, it because several of the ladies had events to attend at the Book Expo also being held downtown.

I barely walked in the door at home before I was back outside, taking my son back to the playground again. We didnt get home until well after 8pm. I am sunburned and tired but I had a fantastic day.

Thanks Karen for organising the meeting.

And if you're still reading this novella, thanks for sticking with me all the way. LOL

The Last Cato - Book Review

Paleography is the discipline that studies (1) the history of writing (and precisely, handwriting, graffiti, murals) in their different phases; (2) the techniques used in writing in different periods; (3) the process of reproduction of written witnesses as they developed in different periods, and (4) the result of this process, as in books or inscriptions from documents or from individual and private writing (accounts, notes, letters, etc.) in their graphic form".

I finished this novel today and all I can say is WOW!! This novel is much better than The Da Vinci Code. Its got history, mystery, physical trials, tests of faith, a strong female lead who happens to be a nun, and of course a romance. But the romance is a very small part of the story.

As the head of the Vatican’s secret Classified Archives it is Dr. Ottavia Salinas's job to research and maintain some of the world’s most ancient and protected documents while also controlling her staff with an unyielding, unforgiving iron fist. As a nun, working in the Vatican is a prestigious and enviable job.

An Ethiopian man with strange markings on his body is killed in a plane crash. Amongst his belongings is a reliquary box with a small piece of the True Cross in it. The reliquary is taken to the Vatican, along with photos of the markings on the man's body. Sister Ottavia is asked to decipher the markings.

Once Ottavia discovers that the letters tattooed on the body spell the Greek word STAUROS or Cross, and that the strange marks on the body refer to the Seven Deadly Sins, the trail leads directly to Purgatory and Hell via Dante and his Divine Comedy.

Ottavia and her team must travel through Purgatory using the clues from Dante's Divine Comedy, and submitting themselves to 7 trials, in order to discover who is stealing the relics of the True Cross from the Catholic church.

Along the way. Ottavia discovers new things about her beliefs, herself and her family. She also finds herself more and more drawn to Farag, the Egyptian academic with whom she is falling in love. But as I said earlier, the romance is just a small part of the story.

The Last Cato Review

The Last Cato Review

Security Letters

Now if I am supposed to enter "security letters" EVERY time I want to edit my posts - I might just STOP blogging. Its very INTRUSIVE. BLOGSPOT please take note!!!!!

The Last Cato

Havent posted anything in a week. Not good. I'm supposed to be blogging about Books. Anyway I finshed The MapMakers Wife and am now reading a novel called The Last Cato.

It's about a Nun who is a Paleographer and works on the ancient Manuscripts in the Classified Vatican Libraries, and a Swiss Guard and an Anglo-Egyptian Archaeologist and their search for the True Cross. Those little slivers of wood that the Catholic church have been selling to their churches, claiming they come from the Cross that Jesus supposedly died on.

Oh yeah, about the Divine Comedy by Dante. The above journey to find the Cross, uses the Divine Comedy as a map - going through Purgatory, Hell and Heaven.

While I dont beleive that the relics are from the True Cross (wood is wood anywhere anytime), the story itself is very exciting. It reads exactly like the Da Vinci Code for those of you who have read that. And I love an exciting story. It takes me away from my boring life for a few hours.

The Blurb on the cover of my edition says this - The Last Cato is a riveting journey shrouded in mystery and literary allegory. It will do for Dante what Dan Brown did for Da Vinci - James Rollins (who is one of my favourite adventure/thriller authors).