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Listening and laughing
There’s an odd thing about audio books. I find that I can enjoy listening to books that I most likely would not read. That’s been true of some pretty heavy nonfiction. And now I’ve found it to be true of one of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books. I started to say “mysteries” or “thrillers” instead…
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Reading Hillerman in Hillerman country
A day in June found me in Tuba City, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation. My husband and son and I were camping in the Four Corners area where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet. This is Indian country, with large reservations occupying much of the area. Naturally, I thought of Tony Hillerman, who wrote…
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One of the best
Before he roared off on a motorcycle, in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes, Bob Moyer left us a review of a book by and old favorite. By Robert Moyer A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF. By Lawrence Block. Mulholland Books. 319 pages. $25.99 Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder, who has walked down many a…
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Goodbye, and thanks for the series
Bob Moyer says this about this review: “I had the privilege to hear Robert B. Parker read from his excellent baseball novel Double Play. Afterward, he answered questions in his gruff but somehow gracious way – until someone asked him about his ‘research’ on the times, Jackie Robinson, etc. Parker interrupted him and said, ‘Wait…
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Watch out: Here comes Miss Julia
Ann B. Ross of Hendersonville, N.C., is a delightful lady whom I’ve had the privilege of interviewing twice – once for the Winston-Salem Journal back in the 1980s when she published The Pilgrimage, a novel about two orphaned sisters traveling on the Oregon Trail, and then for Our State magazine when her 11th Miss Julia…
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Back on the mean streets
Bob Moyer has been reading Walter Mosley’s new series again – with pleasure. By Robert Moyer WHEN THE THRILL IS GONE. By Walter Mosley. Riverhead Books. 368 pages. $26.95 Leonid McGill makes only his third appearance in Walter Mosley’s new series, but we’ve seen his kind before — the hard-boiled kind. Short, stocky and deadly,…
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Intrigue and danger in Victorian England
Anne Perry is one of the best historical novelists writing today. Her books are literate, thoughtful, thought-provoking and intriguing. Obviously, she has done a great deal of research, yet her stories are told so naturally that the reader is immersed within the world she creates without being distracted by too much thinking about how she…
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Kellerman on his game
What has Bob Moyer been reading lately? It’s a mystery. By Robert Moyer MYSTERY. An Alex Delaware Novel. By Jonathan Kellerman. Ballantine Books. 320 pages. $28. Mystery would seem a presumptuous title for a genre all about them. The Mystery here, however, is merely the moniker of an older-than-she-looks bimbo trolling the Internet for an older-than-the-hills sugar…
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If it’s spring, it must be Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie
Spring brings an abundance of new life and activity in the briar patch outside. Two bluebirds, I suppose a pair hoping to nest, have been ferociously attacking the windows of the office (a former screened porch) where I write. I’d love for them to find a home close by, but I just don’t think inside…
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Into Africa
Once his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books became hits, Alexander McCall Smith came out with an impressive number of other series. McCall Smith was born in what is now Zimbabwe, taught law at the University of Botswana and medical law at the University of Edinburgh, and lives in Scotland. Either he’s extremely prolific, or…