Jennifer Crusie and Mary Kay Andrews and Cheez Whiz

fake cheese on fake crackers… shoplifted and served with warmed over leftovers. Shame on the publishers.

19 Years of Reviews

A collection of lost boys with dyslexia, poor little rich girls, orphans with personality disorders, meet in Atlanta, on different sides of the law.Fractured by Karen Slaughter read by Phil Gigante

Again, we have Washington with its burials and its laudations betrayals become elegy -- where the ones praising the dead are also their executioners. A Roman tradition carried brightly on by moral gamesmen, whose empires are supported by three rhetorical questions: Is it ethical for men in power, men entrusted byA House Divided by Mike Lawson read by Joe Barrett

Lisa Gardner is a genius at thesis statements. My favorite is: "a family is a system" (Hide). Or maybe: "A computer is a portal, you know, an entry point into your home." (The Neighbor) This book's thesis statement is: "Pain has a flavor." And like all good thesis statements, it tellsLisa Gardner, Touch & Go

Deliciously understated English murder mysteries against a background of Hereford cows and curmudgeonly coppers. Here's a taste: Bastard, bastard, bloody stupid game! He beat the turf with his five iron and considered dispatching it after his golf ball into the undergrowth. Then he trudged on morosely, feeling the blood pounding inJ.M. Gregson: The Inspector Lambert Series

And it occurred to him that the most important thing about Rode was that he had no friends. Smiley was reminded of Buchner's fairy tale about the child left alone on the Earth, who finding no one to talk to went to the moon because it smiled atA Murder of Quality by John Le Carre read by Keith Lloyd

Libby, an archeological historian who works on historic preservation is informed that she has inherited a run down inn in a beach town where her father lived. "Why isn't this place in the historical register?" she asks the Sheriff, who is helping her find her kidnapped friend. The kidnapping makesTidewater Inn by Colleen Coble read by Devon O'Day

Rest, it seems, is a peculiarly English thing. Restfulness in all its timorous, melancholic glory cushions the indoor lives of Oscar and Dorrie Livingstone, in a peculiarly English way. Not as the accidental sidebar of an otherwise busied existence but as an aspiration, a calling, a rigorous end in itself.A Friend From England by Anita Brookner read by Cherie Lunghi

Maeve Binchy is the grand-mistress of the domestic imaginary: that hearty, busy, pretty space where women make themselves primal. It is late Capitalism and the lumpen proletariat of Dublin are caterers, not cooks. Katy is prole and caterer and the figure of a Dublin that caters to others, toScarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy read by Barbara Caruso

Clever social critique wrapped up in smart, pretty fiction, with a side of acerbic wit. Beautifully thought out by a very ordered English-speaking mind.Capital by John Lanchester read by Colin Mace

We all have an aunt or a grandmother who likes to mourn. But in the March family there is a maiden aunt who only comes to visit when the family is in mourning - and doesn't go away until another family member dies…. Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourne

Everything good comes together in this slow moving L.A. smoothie with the wizened, reflective, and much humbled Harry Bosch. Gone is the bull in the china shop attitude, the stubborn in your face overconfidence. In its place is the humility that comes from being too old or at least olderThe Overlook by Michael Connelly read by Len Cariou

After the funeral, there is the family and the village. There is a batty aunt, a hysterical and heirless English lord, his ancient butler, and a smattering of inadequate and weak-willed in-laws, waiting for their share. These are the leftovers of the comfortable class, who married badly and relied onAfter The Funeral by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser

In the yard a piece of shiny scrap metal from a nuclear power plant is waiting for Roy to see it. But Roy is reading a not yet published New York Times obituary: Roy Valois a sculptor whose large works are displayed in many public spaces aroundNerve Damage by Peter Abrahams read by Alan Nebelthau

1235 12399 1234 First create a pattern. A pattern creates an expectation. Then, disappoint the expectation. So Lehane gives us a prostitute who turns into a decoy who turns into a very pretty woman who wants to take her detective-investigator boss to a hotel room, and does. But sheMoonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane read by Jonathan Davis (with a limping Boston accent)

Rina Lazarus is a religious woman who cleans the ritual bath, cooks huge Sabbath meals, and teaches Math at a Yeshiva for boys in "Jewtown", near L.A. She dresses modestly, covers her hair with a kerchief or a wig, and celebrates the Sabbath by hosting huge home cooked meals forThe Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman performed by Mitchell Greenberg