Author: Judy Benedict

I took a book hiatus to catch up on old magazines that had piled up. A book or two slid into the mix of all that but I didn’t bother to keep up with them.

However, I took 5 books on vacation in June and if I can remember what they were (I actually left them along the trip as I finished them), I’ll list them here:

After reading 3 books on my trip that involved murders and pathologists, I wanted something without all that so I picked up Sandra Brown’s “Ricochet”, only to find one more book with a murder and some sleazy cops. It was a bit suspenseful but predictable at best for me. I had already started to feel like a pro after the other 3 books I had read:

Tess Gerritsen, “The Mephisto Club” was based in Boston (where we happened to be at the time) and was an interesting twist and turn into how people who study criminals can actually make them create gruesome crimes to get their attention. It was a bit different read than the others, but still involved murder and mayhem and autopsies. Ugh.

James Patterson and Andrew Gross’ “Judge & Jury” was also about murder and mayhem and kept you interested to the very end. It involved a single mother as a jurist and brings to light how unsafe you can be if picked for the wrong jury. Very believable.

Frankly, the other book was so memorable that I cannot even remember what it was about, but the same theme as the 2 above.

A book I started back in May and recently finished was Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. This book was started by Irene before she was taken to a concentration camp, never to return. It appears to be 2 parts to what was a “never-finished” novel. Because of the timing of the events in the book, which were June, 1940 to July, 1941, it appears that she was writing the book simultaneously to events that were happening at the very moment. Although the book doesn’t really seem to end, it still gives you a very different perspective of living in France during WWII and the writings describing the various classes of society and their reactions to the war around them are fascinating. It gets a bit boring at the beginning of the 2nd section but if you stick with you will get wound up in the story.

Probably the best book I have read since “The Historian” is one I had on my bookshelf for quite some time, “The Life of Pi” by Yann Martel. This book was nothing like what I thought from the title (can’t judge a book by its cover for certain on this one!). It was so fantastical that I gave it to my 13-year-old daughter to read and we are still commenting about parts of the book. It is not a long book but it is based on interviews of Pi (the person) that were recorded in the late 1970’s and recollections of a short period of time back then. I don’t want to tell anymore as to spoil the book for anyone else wanting to read it.

I picked up the Sue Grafton book at a used book store because I have read several of the Kinsey Millhone mysteries, but didn’t know how it all began! ‘A’ is for Alibi was entertaining, more so since I have read some already up to Q or R. If you like a series involving basically the same characters, this is a good series to pick up.

“TripTych” by Karin Slaughter, who I really just read a book or two of hers this past year for the first time, interested me more than the others since it was based in Atlanta. It manages to take a very clever, twisty turn of events and characters, enough that you finally figure out who is who. The character development is enough that it can get under your skin a bit, enough to really understand where the character is in his/her mind.

Mary Higgins Clark, “Two Little Girls in Blue” but definitely along the lines of previous Mary Higgins Clark. Very suspenseful. A quick read. Would recommend to anyone who likes her novels.

The House, by Danielle Steele, is one of the better one of Steele’s novels I have read, seeing that I haven’t read one in 12 years. The last one I read was so awful, I threw it in the trash rather than pass it on. Since I live in a 117 year-old house, this story was something more that I could relate to.

At Risk, by Patricia Cornwell, seemed more like a short story. It was a quick and suspenseful read but I have read much better from Cornwell. Done in one afternoon.

The best book I have read lately is “Pope Joan” by Donna Woolfolk Cross. Reminded me a bit of “The Historian” but not as lengthy. A wonderfully written book and fascinating to read about this bit of “erased” history from the Catholic church. I would definitely recommend this book.

“The Husband” by Dean Koontz
The wife gets kidnapped, and the husband, who is an ordinary gardener who wouldn’t normally hurt a fly, rises to the occasion to get his wife back. Another entertaining page turner.

“Killer Dreams”
Another Iris Johansen book, the main character, a woman, has some type of mysterious past and has a child she is raising on her own. In comes a commando-type character she despises and ends up, well, just read the book. Same basic overall theme as the other one’s I’ve read by the same author.

John Sandfords, “Hidden Prey” and “Mind Prey”
I am not sure why these 2 old books arrived on my bookshelf, but “Mind Prey” was published in 1995 and “Hidden Prey” in 2004. “Mind Prey” was the 7th book in a series featuring Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport and all his cohorts. I wasn’t crazy about the book overall until I picked up “Hidden Prey”, the 16th book with Lucas Davenport. I became more curious about what happened to his personal life between all those books and the second one was more enjoyable because I felt familiar with the main characters.

“Sam’s Letters to Jennifer” by James Patterson
Reminded me somewhat of a Nicolas Sparks novel, but with a little more depth to the character development. It was very different from the other James Patterson novels I have read and was enjoyable to read about this woman who returns home and starts to read letters addressed to her.

“Sandcastles” by Luanne Rice
Starting out in Ireland, this book’s setting changes back to the Connecticut shore and follows what happens after he husband returns home. Everyone’s secret past is slowly unrolled throughout the novel coming to a lovely, but predictable end.

“Prior Bad Acts” by Tami Hoag
A horrible crime changes the lives of all who investigate it, and this story reveals how hard it is for officials to distance themselves from a crime, and what happens when they don’t. A strong woman figure is brought to her knees and bounced back up again, as is the theme of most of these books I have been reading this year.

“Sweetgrass” by Mary Alice Monroe
Set in the South Carolina lowcountry, this book follows the “loser” son that returns home to tragedy, not only for his family but the inevitable erosion of lowcountry plantations and traditions. For anyone living near the coast or from the coast of South Carolina, it is an honest, eye-opener about what is really happening to this area of the state.

“The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold
A chilling story about a young girl lured into an underground bunker (which right now is scaringly similar to real incidents in the news) and what happens to her. The story is told by the young girl who cannot fully rest until her murder is solved.

“The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd
Set in South Carolina in 1964, this follows what happens to a young girl after the death of her mother and an emotionally distant father, who decides to leave her home to find out about her mother’s past based on something she found in a box of her mother’s belongins. What follows is how this young girl ends up living with 3 black women in their home and how they become the only real family she has.

Both these books base themselves on do-gooders who prove that “no good dead goes unpunished”.

In “The Innocent”, you constantly are unsettled by the fact that an innocent person was unjustly accused and served time in jail, and how one mistake changed that “good” person’s life forever. When after several years more bad things start to happen, he and his pregnant wife have to go beyond the law to try to figure out what is going on and both she and he discover some interesting facts about their lives prior. It has enough twists, turns and emotional upheavels to keep you unsettled the entire way through, and manages to lift you back up at the end so you feel everything has been set right.

In “Lying with Strangers” you also get that unsettled feeling of someone who you think is trying to do what is right but as with the “Shopaholic” books, a lot of what people see is not exactly what is happening so wrong assumptions are made that tend to tumble and escalate out of control. You just want to kick some of the characters in the pants, tell them to stop their running off with the wrong conclusions and wonder if it all will be set right in the end.

Is it obvious I am cleaning out the books that have accumulated and hidden on my bookshelf? “Dead Aim”, published in 2003, this is a great page turner about a photo journalist who witnesses a crime beyond proportions while trying to photograph what appears to be a natural catastrophe. She and an unlikely person are paired together in a run for their lives as they discover more and more information that involves more people than just the average criminals.

“On the Run” puts a mother and daughter together in a run for their lives. It all ties back into the mother’s interesting, yet dangerous past, and takes them from a small southern farm, to the wild west and across the world. Once again, the main character witnesses something but the real crime is hidden somewhere beneath what is seen, so for the entirety of the book she and her daughter don’t exactly know what they are running from and towards. It keeps you guessing, as well as “Dead Aim”.

I finished this book in a few hours due to the short chapters. It is a good page turner set in the East Hamptons. It does not exactly have you guessing the entire book, until you get closer to the end and get a kick in the pants! It mixes up low income and wealthy in a community that could not survive without both and the interaction, trust and non-trusts, between the different classes of people. A good book club book.

Part of the Womens Murder Club, “The 5th Horseman” is probably the 3rd or 4th one of this series I have read. But it doesn’t matter if you read any of the previous novels to enjoy this one. It follows a crime committed and 4 somewhat unlikely friends whose lives in one way or another are touched by the crime, either personally or professionally. They manage to help solve the crime sometimes unbeknownest to each other and the puzzle pieces tend to fall together by the end of the novel. A fast-paced read and entertaining. The first book in the series is was made into a movie in 2003.

This summer I read 3 more Sophia Kinsella books: “Can you keep a Secret?”, “The Undomestic Goddess”, and the 4th “Shopaholic” book, “Shopaholic and Sister”. These books were just as enjoyable as the other 3 “Shopaholic” books, making me wish she had more. The writing style is exactly the same in all the books, the stories are similar but different, and seeing what type of predicaments the main characters get themselves into is hilarious.

A really, really good read…Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah. This book covers a child psychologist who is married to her profession, a mistake she made, and typical return to the hometown. However, it is rich in character development and very touching as a child that comes to the town from seemingly nowhere and how the town rallies around both the psychologist, who left the town feeling like an outcast and loner after high school, and the mature psychologist who has learned to accept herself.

Another book I read earlier in the year, Looking for Peyton Place by Barbara Delinsky, was an interesting look into the social impact that Grace Metalious had on both the steamy novel and the soap opera. It seemed a bit autobiographical, as apparently Grace Metalious was and still is a great inspiration to many an aspiring housewife/novelist. The book follows, and I feel I am repeating myself, a return to a hometown where the main character felt like an outcast and a loner so she left as soon as she could, but became extremely successful away from home. A tragedy occurs of some sort, she returns home and is constantly trying to fight the stereotyp of herself in her mind to become a fully-grown mature adult who accepts herself. Despite my sarcasm, the book was also very good and I would recommend both of these books for any avid reader.