Winners' Circle

And the names of the lucky winners of the autographed copies of the Aristide Ravel historical mysteries, courtesy of the author Susanne Alleyn, are:

1. Book Bird Dog
2. pennyt
3. Aik
4. Kari Wainwright
5. k-sunshine1977

Congratulations! I've contacted all the winners by email and have all their mailing addresses and I plan to get the books out in the mail by Monday morning 11/22. Thanks to all who entered!

Ghost Files: We Have a Winner!

Nickel the African Grey parrot was sleeping hard last night at midnight when it was time to draw a winner, so I used Random.org to pull out the name of . . . Misha!  Congratulations, Misha!  I hope you enjoy Ghost Files, the Haunting Truth. 

To everyone who visited Just One More Page...Or Two and left comments, I'm so glad you did and really hope you had a good time.  I'm planning to be having a number of giveaways in the next few weeks, and I hope you'll come back and check them out.

Happy reading!

A Ghosty Giveaway!

Last year around this time, I went to my local indie bookstore for a book signing by the living authors of Ghost Files (the members of the Spirit Society declined to make an appearance, except through a Ouiji Board).  While there, I picked up an autographed copy of the book.  It's really intriguing, with a lot of cut outs and hidden messages ~ even a little fold-out Ouiji Board ~ and beautifully illustrated.  It's supposed to be for kids 10 and up, though I think it might be a little scary for the younger ones.  On the other hand, I'm sure adults wouldn't find it too scary and would instead get a real kick out of it.  Unless they were to try working the Ouiji Board and, you know, got a message.  That might be just a tad worrying, but, hey! Maybe it'll be good news you get from the Spirit World!

Oddly enough, some of the scariest books I ever read were not horror stories, per se.  One I particularly remember was by Caleb Carr, the guy who wrote The Alienist.  I thought his novel Angel of Darkness was terrifying, with one of the creepiest, altogether evilist characters I've ever met on the pages of any book.  I've read other books that have made my heart race and my mouth go dry, notable among them The Exorcist, The Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, The Collector, Salem's Lot, even In Cold Blood, but I'm always up for more.  I've decided to join the ranks of all the ghouls and boys who are reading scary stuff this October, and the first novel I've chosen to read is World War Z. I've heard from people whose book recommendations I trust that it's an excellent read, so I can hardly wait!


So, tell me, what's the scariest book you've ever read?  Just leave a comment after this post, telling me what your absolutely number one top favorite read-it-with-the-lights-on scary novel is, and you'll be entered to win the autographed copy of Ghost Files.  I plan to hold the drawing in one week, on October 21, at the *mwahahaha* witching hour.  That should leave plenty of time to get the book to you before Halloween.

Since it's on my own dime, I've decided to open this giveaway up worldwide.  All you need do to be entered is comment with your fave scary book and include your email address.  And all you have to do to get the book (should Nickel ~ the highly intelligent parrot who shares my abode ~ pick your name out of the proverbial hat) is send me your street address when I notify you at the email address you left in your comment.  (Sorry, you have to have a numbered street address; no post office boxes or Crossroad-Between-the-Living-and-the-Dead type addresses please.)

Anyone who links this post to their blog, either in the sidebar or in a post, gets an extra chance to win.  Ditto for anyone who tweets this or mentions it on Facebook (with a link back to my blog).  If you do any of the three, please leave a comment with the link to your blog, the tweet or the FB mention.  Thanks and good luck!

And the Winning Numbers Are...

This is sooo cool! Here are the winning numbers: 5 - 9 - 13. Write them down, and don't forget them! 5 - 9 - 13. Got it? 5 - 9 - 13.

But what's it all about? I hear you saying.

Let me explain.

Okay, so you know that NINE DRAGONS, Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch thriller, is due out soon, right? Well, thanks to the wonderful people over at Hatchette Books, I'm getting an early review copy! I'm so excited that words fail ~ or they would, if I wasn't blogging about it. Anyway, it just gets better and better! They are also giving me five (count 'em, 5) copies to give away to five lucky readers.

That's where the 5 and the 9 come in, but what about the 13? Get ready for it: October 13 is when NINE DRAGONS will be released in the U.S., and, even better, it's the date I'm going to draw the winners' names.

There you have it: 5 - 9 - 13. Way cool, huh?

For those benighted few who don't already know about the Harry Bosch mysteries, I've got to tell you that they are among my all-time favorites. From the first one I read ~ CONCRETE BLONDE (Note: THE BLACK ECHO was the first of the series) ~ back in the 1990s (soooo long ago, hah!) I was hooked, and from then to the latest ~ THE OVERLOOK (2007)~ it's been one exciting thrill ride after another with LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch.

Here's a description of NINE DRAGONS from the Hatchette site:

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is off the chain in the fastest, fiercest, and highest-stakes case of his life.

Fortune Liquors is a small shop in a tough South L.A. neighborhood, a store Bosch has known for years. The murder of John Li, the store's owner, hits Bosch hard, and he promises Li's family that he'll find the killer.

The world Bosch steps into next is unknown territory. He brings in a detective from the Asian Gang Unit for help with translation--not just of languages but also of the cultural norms and expectations that guided Li's life. He uncovers a link to a Hong Kong triad, a lethal and far-reaching crime ring that follows many immigrants to their new lives in the U.S.

And instantly his world explodes. The one good thing in Bosch's life, the person he holds most dear, is taken from him and Bosch travels to Hong Kong in an all-or-nothing bid to regain what he's lost. In a place known as Nine Dragons, as the city's Hungry Ghosts festival burns around him, Bosch puts aside everything he knows and risks everything he has in a desperate bid to outmatch the triad's ferocity.

So there you have it. I don't know about you, but I'm practically hyperventilating from excitement. Cannot wait to read this one.

I think that should make pretty much everyone sit up in interest. (Lord, I love a good cliche!) Now, down to the brass tacks. (See what I mean?)

To enter, please leave a comment letting everyone know your favorite mystery/thriller writer or novel. Also be sure to leave your email address so I can contact you if you win; no email addy, no entry. For an extra entry, post a note about the giveaway on your blog. You can also get an extra entry for tweeting it. As always, the giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only, and you must have a street address (no post office boxes please).

MORE Thrills, Chills, & Giveaways!

Life doesn't get much better than this! I've got three (count 'em, 3) copies each of two (yep, 2) unabridged audiobooks to give away, again courtesy of those wonderful folks at Hatchette Books. These are mystery/thrillers by some of the best-known, best-selling authors around today, and I am so excited to be able to offer them to my friends in the blogosphere.

First: THE SCARECROW by Michael Connelly, read by Peter Giles

If you aren't familiar with Michael Connelly, then you are in for a rare treat ~ an introduction into the world of Jack McEvoy (The Poet and this, The Scarecrow, his latest) by one of the best and most prolific mystery writers around today. Other mystery series by Connelly feature Harry Bosch (starting with Black Echo) and Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer & The Brass Verdict). I've read every one of his novels, as well as his non-fiction look at his experiences as a crime reporter, and cannot speak highly enough of him and his books.

Synopsis

Forced out of the Los Angeles Times amid the latest budget cuts, newspaperman Jack McEvoy decides to go out with a bang, using his final days at the paper to write the definitive murder story of his career. He focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer in jail after confessing to a brutal murder. But as he delves into the story, Jack realizes that Winslow's so-called confession is bogus. Jack is soon running with his biggest story since The Poet made his career years ago. He is tracking a killer who operates completely below police radar--and with perfect knowledge of any move against him. Including Jack's.

To learn more, visit Michael Connelly’s website or become a fan on Facebook.

Second: CEMETERY DANCE by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, read by Rene Auberjonois

I may be the last reader of mystery/thrillers on the planet who has not yet had the pleasure of reading Preston & Child. That will soon be remedied when I listen to the audiobook of Cemetery Dance.

Synopsis

Pendergast-the world's most enigmatic FBI Special Agent-returns to New York City to investigate a murderous cult.

William Smithback, a New York Times reporter, and his wife Nora Kelly, a Museum of Natural History archaeologist, are brutally attacked in their apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. As Pendergast and Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta undertake their own private-and decidedly unorthodox-quest for the truth. Their serpentine journey takes them to an enclave of Manhattan they never imagined could exist: a secretive, reclusive cult of Obeah and vodou which no outsiders have ever survived

.
For more info, visit Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s website.

Both giveaways are open to residents of the U.S. and Canada with a street address to provide. Leave a comment letting me know which audiobook giveaway you are interested in entering. An extra entry (for the same or the alternate audiobook) will be yours if you also indicate what your all-time absolute favorite mystery/thriller is. Be sure to provide a way for me to contact you if your name is drawn. Contest ends at midnight on June 21, and a random drawing will be held on June 22.

The Night Gardener - Thrills, Chills & a Great Giveaway

Oh, boy! Am I ever excited about my latest giveaway ~ The Night Gardener! It's a thriller by George Pelecanos. I read the first couple of pages and could tell from the first sentence that it was going to be good. (To read a little of the book yourself, check out the link on the right side of the page.)

Here's what Publishers Weekly has to say about it:

"Starred Review. Pelecanos (Drama City) delivers a dignified, character-driven epic that succeeds as both literary novel and page-turner. In 1985, the body of a 14-year-old girl turns up in a Washington, D.C., park, the latest in a series of murders by a killer the media dub "The Night Gardener." T.C. Cook, the aging detective on the case, works with a quiet, almost monomaniacal, focus. Also involved are two young uniformed cops, Gus Ramone, who's diligent, conscientious and unimpressed by heroics, and Dan "Doc" Holiday, an adrenaline junkie who's decidedly less straight.

"Fast forward 20 years. Detective Ramone, now married with kids of his own, investigates the murder of one of his teenage son's friends. The homicide closely resembles the earlier unsolved Night Gardener murders. Holiday, now an alcoholic chauffeur and bodyguard, follows the case on his own and tracks down Cook, long retired but still obsessed with the original murders. While the three work together toward a suspenseful ending, Pelecanos emphasizes the fallacy of "solving" a murder and explores the ripple effects of violent crime on society."

If you'd like to read The Night Gardener, I've got 5 copies to give away courtesy of those nice folks at Hatchette Books. Please comment here for a chance to win one of them. If you mention this giveaway on your blog and/or Twitter and/or Facebook & include a link to this post, I'll add another entry for each website link you send me. If you ask to follow my blog, you get another entry. (If you already follow me, that'll count for an additional entry too.) Just do me a favor and mention each of those things in a separate comment or email so I can keep things organized ~ well, as organized as I ever get. Thanks!

Giveaway is open to all U.S. and Canadian residents only with a street address and ends at midnight Pacific time on June 21.

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming Giveaway

Hatchette Book Group USA is again making it possible for me to host a giveaway. This time, the book is The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson, which looks at the darker side of Southern living.

In the words of Entertainment Weekly, it is "[a] ghost story, family psychodrama, and murder mystery all in one. Jackson's latest is a wild, smartly calibrated achievement. A-." I'll be posting a review here as soon as I read the copy that's being sent to me, so stay tuned!

Up to 5 copies will be given away, and the drawing will take place at midnight on April 15. As usual, this giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only, and the novel cannot be sent to post office boxes.

Good luck, ya'll!

I'm Back ~ with a Great Giveaway (and a Review)

It's good to be back from my NaNoWriMo-induced hiatus from reading and blogging and socializing. During November, I managed to write 51,200 or so words of a novel that is not and never will be finished because I loathe it so much (another story). I had a great time during NaNo November, but I really missed blogging and socializing. Most of all, I missed reading. I mean, I usually read 8 to 10 books a month, and I kept it down to only 2 books last month.

As a reward for my fortitude (at least that's what I like to tell myself), Hachette Books sent me a copy of Gods Behaving Badly, a debut novel by Marie Phillips (click here to listen to a podcast interview). Gods Behaving Badly is about Greek gods and a couple of mortals with whom they cross paths. According to Kerry Fried in Newsday, it is "[t]he most amusing and instructive collision between gods and mortals since A Midsummer Night's Dream." High praise indeed, but is it true? Personally, I love the title, but the jury (of one ~ me) isn't in yet, though I can say that I've read the first chapter and it already had me laughing out loud.

The blurb on the back of the book gives a brief description of the novel:

Being a Greek god is not all it once was. Yes, the twelve gods of Olympus are
alive and well in the twenty-first century, but they are crammed together in a London townhouse-and none too happy about it. And they've had to get day jobs: Artemis as a dog-walker, Apollo as a TV psychic, Aphrodite as a phone sex operator, Dionysus as a DJ.

Even more disturbingly, their powers are waning, and even turning mortals into trees--a favorite pastime of Apollo's--is sapping their vital reserves of strength.

Soon, what begins as a minor squabble between Aphrodite and Apollo escalates into an epic battle of wills. Two perplexed humans, Alice and Neil, who are caught in the crossfire, must fear not only for their own lives, but for the survival of humankind. Nothing less than a true act of heroism is needed-but can these two decidedly ordinary people replicate the feats of the mythical heroes and save the world?

So, after the month I've had, I need a few laughs. I'm going to bed now to snuggle beneath the comforter and read more of Gods Behaving Badly.

But, first: The Giveaway! Leave a comment to this post and you will be entered to win a copy of Gods Behaving Badly. Put a link to the contest on your blog, and your name will be entered twice. For each five comments, one copy will be given away, up to five copies. So leave a comment, tell your friends, post a link on your blog. The contest will run through 12:00 p.m. (PDT) December 24, so if you win, it will be a nice early late Christmas present! (Sorry, contest open to residents of the U.S. and Canada only.)

I'll be back in a couple of days with my review.

And here it is, finally, my review: I thought it was a wonderful read, light and amusing without being fluffy, serious without being depressing. Imagine if you will the mighty Greek gods of Olympus ~ Zeus, Hera, Athena, Artemis, Mars, Persephone, Apollo, Hermes, and Pluto (not the Disney dog) ~ living all together (except for Persephone and Pluto who live in Hades) in a rundown tenement in London. And imagine these formerly powerful and amoral gods and goddesses trying to fit into modern times. Dysfunctional doesn't come near to what things are really like for them, especially now that their powers are in decline. I mean, think of it: Aphrodite as a phone sex operator, Artemis as a dog walker, Eros as a born-again Christian convert who doesn't believe in Christ but really really wants to.

The story begins when Artemis discovers that her brother Apollo has turned Kate, a mortal female who had apparently resisted his lovemaking, into a tree. She and their aunt, Aphrodite, force Apollo to swear on the River Styx that he will refrain from harming any more mortals unnecessarily for a decade or until they get their power back, whichever comes first. Things get interesting when Artemis hires Alice, a mousy, almost unbelievably ordinary mortal woman, to clean house for them. Unfortunately, Apollo has fallen madly in love with Alice (aided by an arrow shot by a certain god of love who will remain nameless), but Alice is too much in love with Neal, a painfully shy guy who is too afraid of rejection to ask her out on a date though he pretty much adores her too.

As happened all too often in mythology when the gods played with human emotions and lives, the games take a deadly turn of events, and Neal has to make a choice to turn his back on Alice or become the most unlikely hero that ever was.

Mr. White's Confession - A Review and a Giveaway

Mr. White's Confession by Robert Clark
Trade Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Picador (September 2, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 031242812X
ISBN-13: 978-0312428129

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, 1999

In the beginning, two police detectives are drinking coffee at a local White Castle when they happen to notice a bald, rotund, funny-looking man eating hamburgers at the counter. One of them muses that the odd-looking man sits on his stool "like an egg in an eggcup." That was only the first of many moments of pure enjoyment I have had from this murder mystery, which is much more than a whodunnit, and I am looking forward to many more, since I am only at about the halfway point in the novel.

It is late in the autumn of 1939, and St. Paul, Minnesota is still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression when the murdered body of a beautiful red-haired dime-a-dance girl is discovered on a hillside. Coincidentally, the investigation by the two detectives initially leads them to suspect Mr. White, the Humpty-Dumpty of a man they had noticed a week or so earlier at the White Castle.

Now, it turns out that Mr. White has a faulty memory ~ he cannot remember middle-distance events. He can recall in detail memories from his youth, and he is pretty good at remembering things that happened within the last day or so, but between that ~ nothing. As a substitute, he has devised various ways to keep track of his life: he is an avid photographer (particularly of dime-a-dance girls), and he keeps scrapbooks of his photos as well as newspaper articles of current events. On the day of his unknown encounter with the detectives at the White Castle, he had also decided to keep a diary. This diary becomes an integral part of the narrative and is, I think, the best part of Mr. White's Confession. In his diary, Mr. White's voice is formal and innocent and, most of all, blind to his own desires. In the first pages of his diary, recalling a visit by Ruby Fahey, one of the dime-a-dance girls he photographs, he writes: "She went back to my bedroom to change, and I must say I felt a huge sort of breathlessness at the idea that she was in my room shedding and then donning her garments, rather as if some mystery of great enormity were taking place right here in my humble quarters!"

The detective's portion of Mr. White's Confession seems to be a conscious parody of the hard-boiled Chandleresque detective novels, and occasionally it gets a little over-the-top, but overall it works to balance the almost dreamy ruminations of the diarist. So far, anyway.

September 26, 2008 ~ Review continued!

It is always exciting to find a good novel by an author whose work I haven't read before, but when that author is brand new, as in this is his first novel ever, well, that's nothing short of magical.

"Mr. White's Confession" is sort of a cross between a Chandleresque whodunnit and a noir fictional memoir. It tells the tale of an odd-looking and -acting young man who, mostly due to his strangeness, is suspected of murdering a young, beautiful dime-a-dance girl in 1939 during the Great Depression in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is not only socially inept and odd-looking, he has a memory disability. Because of his disability he keeps track of his life in journals and scrapbooks, and that makes up one part of the story. The part that focuses on the police investigation is told mostly through the eyes of the detectives, Lt. Wesley Horner, a chain-smoking, dogged, rough, but honest cop, and reads like a dime-detective novel from that era.

When the story begins, the two protagonists ~ Mr. White and Lt. Horner ~ are eons apart in personality and experience, but, as the novel continues, their lives begin to parallel each other.
I found Mr. White a sympathetic character, perhaps because he is also into photography, and I understood his descriptions of the photographic process and identified with his pleasure at watching an image appear from nothing. I also found his ruminations on the metaphorical aspects of photography as it relates to memory, love, life itself, really quite astute. I also sympathized with him for the way he was looked at ~ as a freak and a creep and even a murderer ~ only because he wasn't fashionable or good-looking. In this story, things got way out of hand because of that bias. I eventually started to like Lt. Horner too, rooting for his redemption when he made the decision that would result in a terrible loss, and feeling his pain over that loss when it occurred. I feel that the character of Lt. Horner grew as much as Mr. White's did until, by the end of the story, they both resembled the kind of quiet heroes the world needs more of but never really seems to appreciate fully.

The novel was a little slow in portions, but the writing itself was so good that it was always enough to keep me going until the pace would pick up again. Toward the end, maybe the last 50 pages or so, the story got so intense that I had to force myself to just keep reading and not skip to the end to see what happened. I did sort of figure out more or less who the murderer was, although it was never 100% certain, due to the ambiguities of Mr. White's faulty memory and everyone's intentional and unintentional falsehoods.

One other thing that bothered me (not about the novel but about one of the issues brought up in the story) was the way the criminal justice system in effect at the time could be so brutal and unfair. There were few of the checks that keep the system in line today, like the requirement for Miranda rights, the rights of the accused to representation and a fair trial by jury, the rights of a criminal not to be subjected to brutal, inhumane punishments, etc. While the criminal justice system today has flaws, they are nothing to what it was like back then. Some of the things that happened to some of the characters infuriated me, and I had to keep telling myself "it's only fiction," and "that was then, it's not like that here anymore."

Needless to say, I really enjoyed this novel and am looking forward to more from this author!

On October 1, a copy of "Mr. White's Confession" by Robert Clark will be raffled off to one lucky reader who leaves a comment below. Please be sure to include your email or blog address in your comment if you want to enter. Mention this contest on your own blog and add a link to the above post, and you'll be entered twice to win. (Open to U.S. and Canadian readers only.)