A Small Indiscretion by Denise Rudberg translated by Laura Wideberg read by Joyce Bean

A well upholstered, crisply intelligent middle aged police inspector newly widowed from her faithless, politically agile husband, is called back to work after many years. She colors her hair, tries to eat less, and reconnoitres her domestic life across and through the  investigation of a murder, the enmity of the young office bitches,  the appreciation of her male colleagues, and the sideline of society parties and friendships accompanying her old world inherited wealth.

Lola’s Secret by Monica McInerney read by Catherine Milte

Lola is a puckish mostly happy 84 year old ex-motel keeper who works at a charity shop In Claire Australia .. She is much  loved by her granddaughters whom she has mothered and marshalled like a general, and who drop in to complain about their husband their children and each other. Funny senior citizen fiction….

The Church Builder by AL Shields

The technique of the teacher that will not die: there is a law professor in y our head that is still teaching you contracts, except that instead he is asking you about why you are driving to Philadelphia after you have discovered a dead ex in your house killed with your gun …

Tidewater Inn by Colleen Coble read by Devon O’Day

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 makes a semi romantic semi coming-into-money story into a (bad) mystery. Asking “What would Jesus do?” turns a (bad) romantic mystery into (bad) Christian fiction. Good narrator, though.

A Cold White Sun by Vicki Delany read by Carrington Macduffie

Another case for Molly (Moonshine) Smith, Trafalgar constable, blonde, widow and skier.

When Cathy Lindsay, housewife and teacher is shot in the back while walking  her dog Spot, the town can’t figure it out.

We are introduced to the dead woman’s fat unfaithful husband, her delinquent son, her gossipy colleagues, but mostly we are seduced back into the comfort and joy of this out of the way, happy go lucky  piece of British Columbia, with its bakeries, its bookshops, its ski resort, its art galleries and its not so simple people.

No Questions Asked by Ross Thomas

There weren’t any cabs of course. There weren’t any cabs  because it was 4:35 in the afternoon and the government workers were streaming out of the Library and the Capital and the Senate and the House office buildings and besides that, it was snowing. They haven’t yet decided what to do about snow in Washington…When it snows really hard the government shuts down, the schools close and everybody goes home and waits for it to melt. It was snowing hard now.

 

When its snowing at the beginning of a Ross Thomas chapter,  there’s a senator or a cop by the end.