May: Murder & Mayhem Part II

More M & M, anyone?

Can't believe I'm first!

Back on the old thread, was the question of doing it again...

I'm ready anytime. Every month is Murder and Mayhem for me, I love mysteries!

How was The Snowman? I've seen this one in the stores and the series looks interesting...

Cheli's first! Cheli's first!

I finished a graphic mystery called Britten and Brulightly, that fit in perfectly with M & M. Check out my review. I'm nearly finished with Shadow Pass. It's a Russian thriller, set in the 30s and it's been very good. On audio, I'm nearly done with Every Dead Thing, except for it's gruesome body count, it's been quite entertaining.

Jim- I have not yet read The Snowman but I love that cover. Creepy. I did read The Redbreast recently, my 1st Nesbo and it was terrific.

For people interested in reading Mysteries all the time, there is a group called Crime, Thrillers and Mysteries. (http://www.librarything.com/groups/crimethrillermyster)

Feel free to come by! That's were msf59 posted about May: Murder and Mayhem, and where I found this thread.

# 5 I am already a part of that. I think it was one of the first groups I had joined at LT. It's a great group!

#5> Yep, I'm a member. I find out about far too many good books through that group!

I finished The Various Haunts of Men, and have started the seventh Amelia Peabody mystery, The Crocodile, The Snake and the Dog as a complete change of pace.

I am thoroughly into The Redbreast now, though I got distracted from it by my non-fiction book the past couple of days and am lacking reading time this week.

#5 I'm a member over there too, though I don't post much these days.

I'm starting He Who Fears the Wolf by Karin Fossum. It's the 2nd in the series. Nearly finished with the audio of Every Dead Thing.
Anybody read The Amsterdam series by Janwillem van de Wetering? It started in the 70s. I just landed a copy of the 1st book Outsider in Amsterdam.

Terri- Glad you are enjoying The Redbreast.

Zoo City was a good read. It's an inventive urban fantasy mystery set in a divided Johannesburg. Zinzi, the main character, is a finder of lost things who's talked into searching for a missing pop singer. The road to finding her, and giving the bad guy his comeuppance, is a wild one, with a number of bodies piling up and twisted conspiracies being revealed. Lauren Beukes is a talented writer.

Now I'm a ways into The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, the latest in the Precious Ramotswe series. These books are less Murder and Mayhem and more Mystery and Manners, but they're in the general spirit of the month.

I am now a hundred pages into my second Quirke mystery - Silver Swan. This series is written by Benjamin Black who is otherwise known as John Banville and I like these books. Quirke seems to be a much less self-destructive character than is Harry Hole. I know that I shouldn't even be comparing the two, but since I have spent so much time reading murder mysteries this last month it is probably inevitable that I would do so. The Quirke books are not nearly as bloody and violent as are the Jo Nesbo books. Quirke is much quietier and perhaps it is mere coincidence, but Quirke is also older than is Hole. The book blurbs say that this series has a noirish feel. They do, but they have some really nice writing in them.

"The light at nightfall in this large room was always strange, more a grainy shadowiness than a radiance, drifting down from the enormous, eerily motionless chandeliers." How's that for lyrical noirish writing? I am very enthusiastic about this series. Very much worth the time spent reading.

My library had the third book in this series and I am going to try to get through it before the month ends. Then it will be back to the White Rhino Hotel books.

I am also about to finish listening to The Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig. This is the third book in The Secret History of the Pink Carnation series. Normally I wouldn't include this series in a murder and mayhem group read, as these books are a combination of The Scarlet Pimpernel and Georgette Heyer. These books are great good fun, and I love listening to the reader, but I have always put them in the parody category. However, there has just been a second murder in the book, and for Willig that is pretty much mayhem and i can't wait for the murder mystery to be solved. For that reason I am going to count this book as one of my May Murder and Mayhem books.

Very different than Redbreast but still a good read.

I will be starting Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser. This is a new mystery author for me. A Swedish mystery writer who has won several awards.

Another day full of housecleaning. I needed another audio book -- alas, I have maxed out my NetLibrary quota with two I've already finished, until their loan terms expire. So I went to our district library's Overdrive Media connection. Everything I really wanted was unavailable. I settled for James Patterson's Don't Blink. It's typical James Patterson: lots of action, short chapters (100+ chapters in less than 7 hours), nothing requiring a lot of concentration or thought -- and all in all, a decent thriller. Plenty of murder and mayhem, right from the first chapter.

I've finished The Crime At Black Dudley - I'll be posting a review at my thread in the next couple of days. Obviously a first novel - some awkward bits and too many coincidences - but I found it intriguing how Allingham lures the reader into what looks like a traditional cosy and then takes it in quite a different direction. It was also amusing seeing Albert Campion from the outside in, as it were - and what a great exit line for him! You can see why Allingham's publishers wanted him brought back.

I'll be picking up a copy of Mystery Mile from the library shortly.

Really enjoying The Kill Artist, am about halfway through and will go back to it as soon as I've posted this message.

On the other hand, I started Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming, listening to just under an hour and was bored senseless, so that's the end of that. I think I'll be listening to No Dominion next.

Ilana- I have not read Dan Silva and believe it or not, I don't think I have ever read Ian Fleming either, which is amazing, since I'm a big fan of the early Bond films.
You know I'm crazy about Charlie Huston though. He's my guy and he fits in perfectly for serious M & M!!

I love James Bond films too, which is why I picked up this audio, thinking it should be quite interesting. Maybe I didn't give it a chance to pick up with the good stuff, but it was just too much of a slog for my liking. And yes, I DO know you're a Charlie Huston fan. I'll always remember that you friended me because I had a few of his books on my wishlist, after all. :-)

I read one James Bond novel, the first one, Casino Royale some years ago. Have to say, I'm never picking up another one again. The whole book was drenched with misogyny, and I have no wish to annoy myself that much again by trying another Bond novel.

Yay for Charlie Huston!!

Finished Soulless by Gail Carriger, where there is mayhem aplenty, and lots of laughs too. I talked a bit about it on my thread. Next I'm reading The Day the Music Died by Ed Gorman. It starts off quick with one dead body and then a suicide. (And that's not counting the plane crash referred to in the title.)

One more murder and mayhem for me this month - Love You More by Lisa Gardner. So far one person is dead, and a child is missing.

I just completed the non-fiction read of Murder in Mayberry: Greed, Death, and Mayhem in a Small Town. Unfortunately, the best thing about the book was the title. I found it a real slog to get through.

I finished reading my first Gabriel Allon book, The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva last night. Quite liked it. Strange to read a thriller about Israeli/Palestinian relations for me, but I'll be seeking out the others in the series at the library, where they have the whole series.

I started No Dominion,am less than a quarter of the way through and have to say that so far, am not finding it very exciting. There's just not much to differentiate it from the first book yet, but I won't give up on Charlie.

#19 I picked up Live and Let Die from the library, and have another one, From Russia with Love which I got on sale from Audible. I know what you mean about the misogyny... one thing that got to me with the first one was the outright racism as well. Still, I'll give From Russia a try... maybe he got better as the series progressed (wishful thinking, probably.)

I read the second book in the Gabriel Allon series, The English Assassin by Daniel Silva, this month. I enjoyed it just as much as The Kill Artist, but it is quite different, not being about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict at all, but about art stolen from Jews by the Nazis during WWII, and the Swiss role in all of that. It was fascinating. Like you, I am going to keep on reading the series.

#24 I'm kind of relieved that the other books don't necessarily deal with that topic. To be perfectly honest, it made me quite uncomfortable. Though I haven't been to Israel in decades, I do have citizenship and jewish heritage and that whole topic has always made me very uneasy... heartbreaking actually. Though I have to say Silva broached this explosive topic with great delicacy by presenting the issues of both sides; he didn't try to make the Israelis look good (quite the contrary!), nor did he present the Palestinians as monsters, leaving the readers to draw their own conclusions.

So far, for M&M I've read

Treacherous Teddy - cozy about industrious espionage
Paris Vendetta - thriller revenge and economic conspiracies
Murder with Peacocks - cozy with blackmail and murder

But I still have a more to read in the next 10 days!

I'm happily settling in with another Lehane book, Prayers for Rain. This is the last book I have to read in the series and I already know I'm going to miss these characters.

Since my last update, I've finished The Queen's Gambit, a historical mystery with Leonardo da Vinci investigating a murder at the Duke of Milan's court. It wasn't great, but it's not terrible, either. Surprisingly, I didn't feel a very strong sense of place or time.

I've almost finished Lethal Lineage, a NetGalley ARC. An Episcopalian clergywoman dies in a locked room during a church ceremony. The premise is interesting, but the story lacks momentum. The investigation seems to be going in circles without any clear direction.

I stayed up late so I could finish Redbreast last night (or, rather, early this morning). Wow! To call it complex is an understatment. Can't wait to read the next in the series.

I'm a few pages into an ER book, The Twisted Thread by Charlotte Bacon.

I just picked up the cassette audio of the 2nd book in James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series, Heaven's Prisoners. Even though it doesn't say it anywhere, it HAS to be an abridged version. Only 2 cassettes?? Since I think (not sure) this one is a re-read, I may settle for an abridgement (don't usually do that), just to refresh my memory on the progress of the series, and then move on to the next -- rather than waiting for an inter-library loan of an unabridged version.

ETA to add I finally found the "abridged" notation, peeking out from under the old library card pocket.

I was a third of the way through No Dominion and just decided to give up. I enjoyed the first book in the series Already Dead to a degree, even though vampires and zombies really aren't my thing and lots of things about it outright disgusted me, but this one just seems filled with unpleasantness and no action so far. Too many other great books on the shelves to keep on with something I'm not happy with, right? Right.

>30 Smiler69: Right! I never used to abandon books but I've now given myself permission to do so and it is quite liberating ;)

I gave myself permission a couple of years ago after finally coming to the realization that no matter what, I'd never have enough time to read all the books I want to in this lifetime.

A milestone: My first e-book PURCHASE (as opposed to the freebies, as from Project Gutenberg): Nemesis by Jo Nesbo.

#33 - A-ha Terri, you have fallen under the Jo Nesbo spell as well! I too rushed out to pick up Nemesis last weekend. Now Mark has to host another Murder and Mayhem month so we can read Nemesis together!

I am definitely going to have to check out Jo Nesbo! So much buzz about her books!

Just finished The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly, the latest offering in the Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer) series, and really really good!

Well, I'm full up right now as far as traditional books go, and I would have been happy to get into Jo Nesbø by getting the audio for Redbreast, but Audible only has The Leopard and The Snowman. Is this a series that should be started from the beginning? I imagine it doesn't really matter since the first two books in the series haven't been translated to English yet...

In any case, I'll be starting Killing Floor by Lee Child when I go walk my little Coco in an hour or so.

Terri- I have to ask you: How do you abridge a mystery/crime book? How do you abridge anything, for that matter, but especially a mystery? That's baffling and very aggravating. I'm so glad you enjoyed Redbreast. I can't wait to get to Nemesis.

Ilana- Sorry No Dominion didn't work for you. I think the 1st 3 Joe Pitt books are nearly perfect, but I agree, there is no reason to waste time, with something you are not enjoying. My suggestion on the Nesbo series, is to start with The Redbreast. I think that's a great launching point. IMHO, of course.

37 I don't know, Mark; I don't remember enough of the full-length version to compare it. But it's a common enough practice, especially with books on tape. It's also done a lot with childrens' classic novels, as they're edited into versions for different age groups.

How do scriptwriters pare long novels down into 90 minute or 2-hour screenplays for movies? Since this book was made into a movie -- which is boldly and shamelessly promoted on the front and back covers of the audiobook package -- I suspect the abridgment may follow the pattern used to write the movie script.

Mark- I'm not sure how a person abridges a book either -but do your remember Reader's Digest Condensed books???? My grandma had quite the collection at one time - and now in retrospect - I wish I had kept and was able to look at them know. In fact - I may have to look into that. I wonder did Reader's Digest condense popular books so that a person could seem to have kept abreast of reading? Or did they favour classics? I have no idea... I'll to see what I can find out on the web...

I've steered clear of abridged versions so far, as would feel like I'm being cheated, but it's true that sometimes when getting audios from the library, it's not exactly clear what I'm getting. When in doubt, I always check against Audible.com to see whether the number of CDs corresponds to the length of the unabridged version or not. But even then, sometimes when it's MP3s, there's just one or two CDs so I guess it's just a matter of time before I get stuck with one.

#37 Mark, I've just responded to you on my own thread about No Dominion, but I will say here that I would have been prepared to stick with it, until I hit a scene where Joe Pitt is riding the A Train and describes all the disgusting smells all around him at length, and in much more detail than I would ever wish to hear again. Funny, because I'm not all that squeamish usually, but that turned me off completely. Could have been because Huston did such a convincing job, which I definitely give him credit for, but still.

Meanwhile, Killing Floor is hitting the spot as far as murder and mayhem are concerned. ;-)

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party was another good one in the well done Precious Ramotswe series. She's a wise woman.

I'm not as captivated by Holy Disorders as I had hoped, but it has its moments.

#39 The Reader's Digest Condensed Books series issued contemporary books, as I recall, not "classics" as such. They did later publish their own editions of many classics--Poe, Twain, Dickens, Pasternak, Stevenson---several of which my family owns. Those were not abridged.

I recently discovered that my childhood edition of The Three Musketeers was abridged. Harrumph. I'm now in the market for a nice new (unabridged) copy, so I can read it properly.

Ilana, sorry you didn't like No Dominion, but I agree, no need to continue with a book if you're not enjoying it!

I finished The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog and it was good fun, of course. I still want to be Amelia Peabody when I grow up.

And am now reading Martin Booth's A Very Private Gentleman, which I am enjoying very much. It's much more literary than my last read, and so far lacking in either murder or mayhem (although I love the hints being dropped), but I think by the end it'll fit the M&M theme rather well.

Finished The Day the Music Died; can't recommend it, for reasons explained on my thread. Pity, 'cause I like Gorman's style.

I finished Blind Eye by Stuart MacBride, this was the fifth book in his police procedural series set in Aberdeen, Scotland. Excellent.

I am now going to read Blink by Andrea Badenoch, a British mystery that is set in the 1960's. This is the first time I have read this author, so looking forward to seeing what she has to offer.

Holy Disorders was pretty good. I enjoyed the literary allusions and the egocentric, hot-headed, tetchy Gervase Fen. I'll try another some time.

Next is Savage Run by C.J. Box, another author I haven't read before.

I finished reading Devotion of Suspect X this weekend. I thought this book had a great plot. Can you imagine a murder mystery that features a physicist and a mathematician? There was some great tidbits about mathematical history in this book that I had to look up on Wikipedia. It was clear that this was not the first book about the physicist, who has assisted the police in previous cases, but knowing the character was not essential to reading the book. (Unlike in the Nesbo books.) The main problem with this book is that the translation was not very well done. This was especially true with the dialogue. That was wooden and clunky and just didn't read well.

It was clear to me that the publisher put a good effort into the publicity for this book as it was featured prominently in my local Barnes & Noble and the public library got two copies of it. However, when I went to find a copy of the book in the book store last night there was nary a one to be found. I don't think that many people bought it so am guessing that it will soon be appearing on the remainders tables. I hope that the publisher gives this author another chance with a better translation as I think these mysteries would go over well in the U. S.

I finished Unnatural Causes a couple of days ago and like Dalgliesh more and more.

I've started the noir Wild Town and am thrilled to find that Sheriff Lou Ford is here. I had no idea that Thompson wrote about him again after The Killer Inside Me. He's probably my favorite psycho ever.

my favorite psycho ever Just love it.

I have been on a roll this month. So far I have read five murdery, mayham, and mystery novels, and listened to one.

Last night I finished reading The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black and thought it was a beautifully written as the first in that series Christine Falls. This book was as dark and moody as the first in the series and I do get tired of all these self-pitying types as the book is just rife with them, but I do like Quirke as I find him the most likeable of all the characters in the book. This novel is really a character study masquarading as a murder mystery. It is also probably the first mystery I have read in which the sleuth gets the wrong man and has to have his mistake corrected by the police detective assigned to the case. Quirke's only excuse is that he loves his daughter and wants to protect her so he is blinded by that concern. Even so it was a twist that made the reader sit up and go umhhh! at the end. As usual for this series it was chocked full of great lyrical descriptions that never became mundane or melodramatic.

I just finished listening to the light-hearted and so much fun Deception of the Emerald Ring while on an early morning errand downtown. This spoof on the regency romance had two murders in it that are unsolved at the end of the story (I suspect that they will show up in book number 4 of the series) but that didn't have any effect on my enjoyment of the story. I admit that compared to the Quirke series this is fluff, but oh what fun. And a girl's just gotta have fun!

I seriously doubt that there will ever be another month with five completed novels read in one month, but I have started book number six. Elegy for April the third in the Quirke series by Black. Perhaps by the end of the month I can add this one to the total for May.

Reading Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser.

So far this month, I have read these books for May's Murder and Mayhem:

Catnap by Carole Nelson Douglas
Night of the Living Deed by E. J. Copperman
The English Assassin by Daniel Silva
Witches' Bane by Susan Wittig Albert
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

I am still reading Raven Black by Ann Cleeves, but I am on page 120 or so and so far I am finding it tediously boring. I am planning to start Sacred and Profane, the second Rina/Decker mystery, by Faye Kellerman next.

Wow, everyone is still plugging away at their M & M picks. Good to see. Can you believe we just have a week left? It feels like I've barely skimmed the surface, of the stacks of crime fiction, I would love to get to. Oh, well, there will be other months.
I finished and loved He Who Fears the Wolf. Fossum is such a top-notch story-teller, plus she is a major tease and ended this one with a tantalizing ending.

Joe- I read the 1st Joe Pickett book and really liked it, but have not got back to the series. I loved the Wyoming setting.

I know that Mark read Devotion of Suspect X back when it first came out and that he thought it was good. I wonder if you had some of the same complaints with this book as I did. I think that the plot for this novel was inventive and very original but the wooden dialogue was a problem that most readers wouldn't overlook.

I thought the response to the Nesbo books here on this thread was wonderful and am so glad to see how many people were reading them. (Along with so many other Scandinavian authors.) I deliberately picked Suspect X to read because Mark had read it and because it was from another part of the world from the Nesbo books.

I like the idea that the U. S. publishers are trying hard to bring in books from other countries and that feature other cultures. The Nesbo, Larsson, and Mankill books are a prime example but there are other countries out there with writers who are very talented and I for one am happy to see that they are gaining a wider readership. My publisher friends tell me that it is very expensive to translate books and they are very aware that the quality of translation has a direct effect on public reaction to books. However, I can say that my publisher friends tell me that their business is very much market driven and they respond to pressure from readers. So let them know if you like the books you are reading.

Next up on my list of books in this area is Skull Mantra although it doesn't appear that this one is a translated book.

Skull Mantra is topnotch. If you like it, there are more by Eliot Pattison books featuring Inspector Shan.

For some reason, Mark, I wanted to start with the second one in C.J. Box's series rather than the first. I'm enjoying it, so I'll go back and read the first one at some point. You're right about the way he evokes the Wyoming setting. According to his book bio, he was a ranger once, and that comes through.

I notice that the latest Nesbo is getting a lot of attention.

I'm reading a nice cozy these days. John J. Lamb's The Treacherous Teddy.

I've started Michale Koryta's debut novel from 2004, Tonight I Said Goodbye, first of the Lincoln Perry, PI series. I'm really enjoying it so far.

Well it's taken me 24 days, two threads and 57 posts but I've finally read a book that qualifies for this thread. I finished Julia Spencer-Fleming's A Fountain Filled With Blood, the second book in the Clare Fergusson series. This continues to be a very good series with the former Army helicopter pilot turned Episcopal priest solving crimes in upstate NY.

I've started reading Invisible by Lorena McCourtney on my Kindle. It was offered as a freebie awhile back by one of the Christian publishers. It is a mystery, and its opening chapter is one that any genealogist like myself would enjoy, but I'm afraid that it's beginning to turn into a mediocre read because it has many of the faults of much of Christian fiction. I'll keep reading because I'm curious what the author is going to do with the genealogical plot.

Am so excited to have found Heartstone by C.J. Sansom at the library yesterday! It's been too long since I finished Revelation and I've been eagerly awaiting the latest Shardlake mystery. Also reading Relic by Douglas Preston (on audio) and Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich. I think it would be a lot harder to read three mysteries at the same time if these weren't all so very different from one another.

I'm reading The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny. It's No. 3 in the Three Pines series. There may have been a murder, but mayhem is a pretty strong word for the lovely little town in Quebec that no one ever finds unless they're lost.

Just finished Death in Holy Orders by P. D. James. She always treats the murder scene - the victims and the suspects - with a lot of respect and empathy. Here we are at a small anglican college - with priests having their daily duties of prayer, worship and teaching - and there's an added sense of the dignity and sacredness of life when confronted with the horrible crimes. I was a little disappointed with the motive of the murderer - cannot write anything more about it - but it really didn't make sense to me. But I had a great time with Dalgliesh and his team.

I finished Tonight I Said Goodbye by Michael Koryta, start of the Lincoln Perry, PI series. I really liked it, and am very impressed that Koryta was that good even in his debut novel. I saw none of the flaws that first-time novelists usually display. Characters were well-developed, the plot was solid and plausible, the writing flowed nicely with surprises that weren't so out-of-the-blue as to feel like cheating -- everything hung together well. Now I've jumped into the second installment of the Lincoln Perry series, Sorrow's Anthem. Looks to be a more ambitious storyline than the first one.

I read Koryta's So Cold the River a few months ago, and loved it too. (It's more in the horror genre.) I think Koryta is becoming one of my favorite writers. I've added everything else he's written to my Ever-Expanding List.

>62 ctpress: ctpress I have that one waiting on the shelf, but I've seen the movie of it (Martin Shaw as Dalgliesh). I won't get to it for a while because I'm doing my best to read them by publication date.

I've finished Wild Town, a 1950's noir with an evil sheriff of a small Texas town. Very recommended.

I am still struggling with The Likeness. I couldn't put down the first from French, In The Woods, but this one hasn't grabbed my interest at all and I'm thinking of abandoning it. For anyone who has finished it, is it worth the boredom in the end?

Jennifer- I liked The Likeness quite a bit, so I would suggest trying to finish it, but if it's not working for you at all...do what you have to do.

Terri- I read and enjoyed So Cold the River last year, but have not read anything else by him. He has a new book out right now, correct?

Starvation Lake has been terrific, so far! Yah, for the Midwest!

65 Koryta's new book is called The Ridge. Library Journal's review described it as "part ghost story, part murder mystery, all thriller . . "

I've finished A Very Private Gentleman, and it probably doesn't quite fit in with this challenge, since it's more a philosophical novel about killing. Still, it was an excellent read.

I was thinking of maybe popping another Agatha Christie in this month, but then focussed on the four dense library books due back in two weeks. So, I'm finished here now.

Thanks for setting up the theme, Mark, I had a great time! Got through some books on Mt TBR, started some new series, read some great stuff.

My "Murder and Mayhem" books were:

Ken Bruen's The Killing of the Tinkers
Richard Castle's Heat Wave
P.D. James' Cover Her Face
Susan Hill's The Various Haunts of Men
Elizabeth Peters' The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog

My favourite was probably the Susan Hill book, but they were all great in their own ways.

>65 msf59: Thanks, Mark. I may give it a few pages more, which would put me to about 100, to see if I get interested. If not, it gets the axe.

I finished my third Benjamin Black book last night. (Having no TV sure has helped with the reading time!) This one was Elegy for April. It is the last one in the Quirke series, although Amazon says that a fourth book is coming out this summer. I am not sure if I will read it as I have so many other things I want to get to first. Overall I liked this series for many reasons, but I am getting a littler tired of the alcoholism angle. Perhaps it is because I also read the three Jo Nesbo books as well, so it may be a case of sympathy fatigue. I can't say that I am bored with them. It is more of a case of ennui. I am also getting a little exasperated with the helpless, or is that hapless, Phoebe. She just never seems to grow up, although there is a little improvement in this book, but to me she is the epitome of the helpless female. Black does an excellent job of setting the mood, and his descriptions are amazing. He makes you feel like you are in the room and he gives the setting texture with words. That is amazing. Even so this will be my last book in this series for awhile, unlike with the Nesbo books. I can't wait to get back to them.

I may finish another book for this month, so am not abandoning this theme entirely. Yet. Trinity Six is very good so far. However, it is more of a spy novel than it is a mystery, and I may not get it finished in time.

I'm not enthralled with The Cruellest Month. It isn't pulling me in. I'm going to finish it and then leave Three Pines to itself for the foreseeable future. Something about Penny's style just doesn't click with me.

I finished Blink by Andrea Badenoch, I really liked this book. I want to thank you as well, Mark. Murder and Mayhem May helped me clear quite a few books off my shelves. Of course, I still have many more mysteries to get to.

I doubt if I will get to any more before the month ends, but I managed to read the following this month:

I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells
Redbreast by Jo Nesbo
Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers
When the Dead Cry Out by Hilary Bonner
Murder In Mayberry by Mary Kinney Branson
Blind Eye by Stuart MacBride
Blink by Andrea Badenoch

Edited to add: I also added quite a few titles to my wishlist from other's reading this month as well.

>70 laytonwoman3rd: Oh, Linda! You're the first person I've heard express less than total enthrallment with the Three Pines mysteries. I am going to be the second. Granted, I only tried one, and it was one of the earlier ones, but I got about 40 pages in and gave up. It just didn't work for me.

I'm still reading Heartstone which is a little slow, but I'm only about a fourth of the way in, and I remember the prior Shardlake mysteries started slow too. Also Sizzling Sixteen, though something that happened in the section I read last night annoyed me so much I tossed it on the floor (tho not so much that I needed to throw it across the room).

>70 laytonwoman3rd:, 72
You can add me to the list of not impressed by the Three Pines mysteries. I read the first one when it came out, but it didn’t do much for me. I didn’t bother to get ahold of the other as they were published. I know a lot of people love the series, but not me!

For Murder and Mayhem May matches the theme of much of regular reading. This month I’ve read:

The Chick and the Dead by Casey Daniels
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb
Slugfest by Rosemary Harris
Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick
Murder with Peacocks by Donna Andrews
Murder with Puffins by Donna Andrews
Where There’s a Witch by Madelyn Alt

I posted reviews for Slugfest and Death on Tour if anyone’s interested in reading them.

This has been my first month on LT and I’m looking forward to the theme for June!

Finished my last mystery for this month Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser. This is the first in the series of Inspector Van Veeteren. These are another series taking place in Sweden. Insp. I gave this 4 stars. Will look forward to reading more.

Everyone has read so many good books. I'm impressed. I read 8 of them, including my latest Starvation Lake and 2 audios, I listened to earlier in the month.
Don't you wish we had a couple more weeks left? I have so many crime books left on the shelves. I can hear their pitiful cries: "What about me, mister?"
If anyone wants to do this in the fall, let me know. A September of Suspense? Notorious November? I'll take other suggestions if you have 'em!

>75 msf59: How about both? I've got enough mysteries waiting I could make that the theme for the rest of the year. Actually, though, I'll be continuing with mysteries even though May's over (and can you BELIEVE how fast the year's going by!?!).

My May mystery reads are:
Fearless Fourteen
The Fifth Witness
Eternity in Death (a novella in Dead of Night)
Finger Lickin Fifteen

and I should be finished with the new Shardlake mystery Heartstone before the month's end.

Not sure if I can count the two following as mysteries, though that is an element in them, but I sure did have fun with them:

Kitty and the Midnight Hour
Kitty Goes to Washington

There truly are so many fabulous murder and mayhem books!

My May Mystery and Mayhem reads have been

The Water's Edge by Karin Fossum - such a wonderful new author to me!
Love You More by Lisa Gardner - great suspense thriller.

and I've just begun The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane which promises to be "spooky" and "bedeviling". It's about the Salem Witch Trials -so I feel certain that there will be murder and mayhem!!! .

Quite a few of my reads this month, as usual, have involved murder and a fair bit of mayhem too:

Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde (mostly mayhem and attempted murder)
Southern Discomfort & Shooting at Loons - Margaret Maron (books 2 & 3 of the Judge Deborah series)
Unnatural Death - Dorothy L Sayers (book 3 in the Lord Peter series which I'm re-reading
Mr Campion's Farthing - Youngman Carter - The first of two books written by Margery Allingham's husband, completing ideas which she had begun to sketch out and discuss with him before he died. Would I have guessed it was not written by her if I didn't know? Not sure...
Bury Your Dead - Louise Penny - finally got this latest installment of the Gamache mysteries from the library and read it the same day
Dark Fire - C J Sansom - book 2 of the Shardlake Tudor mysteries - very good.
The Shape of Water - Camilleri - the first in the Inspector Montalbano series which has come highly recommended from several LT members. I enjoyed the character of the Inspector, and the Sicilian setting.

Wife of the Gods was really good. Set in Ghana, with an appealing main character, Darko Dawson. Kwei Quartey's new Darko Dawson comes out in July, and I'm already looking forward to it.

Besides Wife of the Gods, my M & M's this month were:

Savage Run - good Joe Pickett game warden mystery set in Wyoming
Holy Disorders - Edmund Crispin; enjoyed the literary allusions and crabby central character
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party - another good Precious Ramotswe enty in this charming series set in Botswana
Divergent by Veronica Roth - excellent YA dystopian novel that Hunger Gamers will like
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes - great urban fantasy vision of transformed Johannesburg with engaging woman detective (finder)
Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre - hilariously gross in parts; good writer

My list for this month is appallingly short:

Cover Her Face- 4 stars
Unnatural Causes- 4 stars
Wild Town- 4.5 stars
The Mystery of the Blue Train- 3.5 stars
The Likeness- abandoned

Where did the time go?

I've had a good M&M reading spate> Finished Charles Todd's Search the Dark, Peter Lovesey's Stagestruck, Julie Hyzy's State of the Onion and Ariel Allison's Eye of the God

I had a pretty good M&M month, although my list is short. I had other things I needed to read this month and couldn't devote as much time to M&M as I would have liked.

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd - 4 1/2 star audio book
The Body in the Gazebo by Katherine Hall Page - 4 star Early Reviewer book
The Queen's Gambit by Diane Stuckart - 3 stars
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie - 4 1/2 star audio book
Lethal Lineage by Charlotte Hinger - 2 star e-galley

I'm currently listening to Alan Bradley's third Flavia de Luce mystery, A Red Herring Without Mustard, but I doubt I'll finish it before the end of the month.

I can now add two more to my list of May M&M books finished:

Heartstone by C. J. Sansom (the latest Matthew Shardlake historical mystery set in Tudor England) - 4.5 stars
Relic by Child and Preston (the first Pendergast mystery thriller set in the NY Natural History Museum) - 4 stars

Even though, I have a ton more crime/mysteries to get to, I had a pretty productive month.

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo 4.5 stars
Something Missing by Matthew Dicks 3.8 stars
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
Snow Angels by James Thompson 4 stars
Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry 4.5 stars
Shadow Pass by Sam Eastland 3.7 stars
Every Dead Thing by John Connolly 3.5 stars
He Who Fears the Wolf by Karin Fossum 4 stars
Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley 3.8 stars

Once again, I had a great time with everybody here and maybe we can do it again later in the year.

I've had a good month of mystery/crime reading:

The Baptism of Billy Bean by Roger Alan Skipper
Too Easy by Philip DePoy
Easy as One, Two, Three by Phillip DePoy
The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke (audio book)
Don't Blink by James Patterson (audio book)
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo
Tonight I Said Goodbye by Michael Koryta
Sorrow's Anthem by Michael Koryta
The Twisted Thread by Charlotte Bacon (LT ER book)

I'm in the middle of:
an e-book of The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton (but now my e-book reader seems to have died)
an audio book of Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke

And I just finished the first chapter of Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum

May was a good month for me as well. I only cleared two books off of my TBR pile, but they lead me to other books that I liked. I read six novels.

Redbreast, Nemesis, and Devil's Star all by Jo Nesbo and lengthy, hefty, and heavy psychological reads.

Christine Falls, Silver Swan, and Elegy for April by Benjamin Black, which all belong in the same category as the Nesbo books.

I listened to Deception of the Emerald Ring which was a fun mystery/spy novel by Lauren Willig and a welcome change from the other six.

On my Nook I read Devotion of Suspect X which was a great mystery featuring scientists, who knew they had such an interesting time asking and answering questions?

And yesterday I finished the novella Fahrenheit 451 which somehow I had never read.

Only two out of all of these books counts against my TBR pile, Redbreast and Silver Swan, which has continued to grow while I read other works that caught my fancy. On the positive side, I am not sure that I have ever read nine novels in one month before. This might be a new record for me.

I can also say that I am sort of glad to be leaving the world of those heavy psychological thrillers. They do affect my mood and I find myself in a darker world than when I read other kinds of literature. I think this is especially true if the writer is good. In this case Nesbo and Black are very good and really put the reader into the world of their characters. More than once this month I have found myself recommending Nesbo and Black to other mystery fans.

I really didn't have a great reading month, but when I attended a conference one week, I got no reading done that week so that put me down about 3 books that week. I also was busy with packing for a couple of trips that put me down another book or two. I only managed 4 mysteries among the 10 books read this month.

The Cincinnati Red Stalkings by Troy Soos
The Reluctant Detective by Martha Ockley
Invisible by Lorena McCourtney
In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

The best of these was the first. I found that I was pleasantly surprised by the baseball mystery, and I thank Linda for creating the baseball TIOLI challenge which motivated me to pull this one off the TBR shelves. Runner-up would be Stefanie Pintoff's book. I had won the 3rd book in Pintoff's series and was pleased to see the 1st offered as a free or cheap Kindle download since I'd decided I wanted to read the others. I enjoyed it, but the third in the series was definitely better than the 1st.

I finished two more!

The Temptation of the Night Jasmine
A Noble Radiance

That makes 5 for the month!

One last piece of May murder & mayhem for me -- just about midnight, I finished my audio of Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke.

I finished my last Murder and Mayhem in May book last night.
I read, in May:

Tigerlily's Orchids - Ruth Rendell (England)
The Devil's Whisper - Miyuki Miyabe (Japan)
Southwesterly Wind - Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza (Brazil)
Death at Victoria Dock - Kerry Greenwood (Austalia)

I read on 4 different continents, murder around the world.

I really enjoyed reading everyone's posts about their mystery books. thanks for the Murder and Mayhem Month.

It turned out to be a difficult month, so I only got one actual mystery read, The Crime At Black Dudley. However, I can also add Rookwood to the list, because although it's not a mystery, it has enough murder and mayhem for three novels.