Dog On It
Bernie's enterprise, the Little Detective Agency, limps along, waiting for the next job to arrive. While Chet freely admits that he doesn't always understand the humans around him, the mutt who failed to graduate from the police academy quickly establishes that he's got a nose made for sniffing out trouble — as well as the tasty morsel.
When the story begins, Chet and Bernie are settled into the companionable routine they established when Bernie got divorced and lost custody of his son. Riding shotgun for stakeouts in Bernie's beat-up convertible (and snarfing up doughnuts and beef jerky) is the perfect life for Chet, though he knows Bernie's worried about cash flow.
But their luck is about to change. During a nighttime stroll through the neighborhood — an older enclave in the southwestern desert that Bernie fears will soon be eclipsed by new development — the pair encounter a panicked neighbor, Cynthia Chambliss. Waving a wad of bills, she beseeches Bernie to find her daughter, Madison, a 15-year-old who has been missing for several hours.
Bernie heeds the call of cash and the urgency of parental concern, but Madison soon returns home on her own, only to disappear again in short order — this time for several days. Cynthia frantically rehires Bernie, but her ex, Damon Keefer, refuses to cooperate, insisting that Bernie be taken off the investigation. Nevertheless, intrigued by the young girl's apparent connections to a group of Russian thugs, Bernie and Chet follow a trail of clues that leads them into more danger than they'd bargained for.
As Chet and Bernie race across the desert toward Las Vegas in their sandblasted Porsche, Quinn's narrative unfolds with mounting suspense. At every stage of their journey, readers will warm to Chet's loyalty and courage — to say nothing of his delightfully doggy digressions — and be captivated by Spencer Quinn's deft blend of humor and thrills in this enormously entertaining tale, bound to be the first of many adventures.
The first of many Ffordes
Introducing Thursday Next, Jasper Fforde's no-nonsense, smart, funny, and loving heroine of his first series. We meet Thursday in an alternate mid-1980s Great Britain - one still fighting in the Crimea with Russia - and she is hot on the trail of forgers, Shakespeare impersonators, and book thieves. Everyone is mad for literature including Acheron Hades, the most wanted man in Britain, and it is Thursday's job to catch him once Jane Eyre is kidnapped from her book leaving the remaining pages of the beloved novel blank. Fforde's first novel is laugh-out-loud funny, including obscure literary in-jokes that even the most well-read bibliophile might miss, with a drop or two of sci-fi tech, and also quite terrifying when Thursday fights for her life atop the blazing Thornfield Hall. Fforde uses Thursday's world to comment on certain aspects of our own society including government interference by large corporations (signified by the hulking Goliath Corporation), over-commercialization, and the decline in literacy. Fforde's books suck you in, which is great because you'll want to follow Thursday through the rest of her books: Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, Thursday Next, and one more Thursday novel due sometime in 2010 (or so Jasper says); Thursday learns about the Bookworld and Jurisfiction, apprentices with Miss Havisham, fights grammasites in the Well, tracks the Minotaur, takes the indecisive Dane of Denmark under her wing, and saves Pride and Prejudice from the degredation of reality TV (now I've really got you wondering...I guess you'll have to read all the books now 
) - it's all very accessibly, absurd, and fun to read. Once you've finished Thursday's published books, and need a tide-over until the next one, you can start on Fforde's Nursery Crime series (Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear), following DCI Jack Spratt and his partner, Mary Mary, as they solve hard-boiled nursery rhyme crime in Reading, and his new series, Paint by Numbers, will debut in December 2008.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The intricate tale begins when Blomkvist is convicted of libeling top Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Unable to prove his innocence, Blomkvist prepares to leave his position at Millennium, the magazine he co-founded, now financially threatened by the verdict. But a summons from Wennerström's rival, the aging tycoon Henrik Vanger, presents an option he couldn't have imagined: In exchange for Blomkvist's writing the Vanger family history, Vanger promises to back Millennium financially and deliver incriminating evidence of Wennerström's crooked dealings.
But that's not all. The closets of the Vanger clan are littered with skeletons, and his new patron wants Blomkvist to set one at rest: the disappearance, 40 years ago, of Vanger's 16-year-old grandniece, Harriet. Intrigued by the cold case that was never solved despite multiple investigations, Blomkvist begins to dig for new evidence on an island north of Stockholm.
He is soon joined by Salander, a freelance investigator originally hired by Vanger to vet Blomkvist's reputation. Multiple piercings and tattoos are belied by the young computer genius's photographic memory. A victim of assault and harrowing abuse, Salander is driven by a relentless will and an astonishing capability for merciless retribution.
Larsson's narrative unfolds with mounting suspense, detailing the duo's intellectual ingenuity and increasing courage as they expose hidden cultures of right-wing fanaticism and misogyny and reveal the moral bankruptcy of big capital. As they race across Europe and on to Australia to trap their prey before another woman is tortured and killed, the reader is held in breathless anticipation until the novel's unforeseen conclusion.
Farthing by Jo Walton
What if a group of influential politicians in Britain managed to broker a peace with Nazi Germany early in 1941, avoiding years of bloody war, but also allowing Hitler to remain in power with a sympathetic government in place in London? This is precisely the situation the world is in at the beginning of Farthing when one of the architects of that peace is found murdered at the Farthing estate, with a Star of David stabbed into his chest. Told from the points of view of Lucy Kahn, the daughter of one of the members of the Farthing Set who married a Jewish man, and Inspector Carmichael, the Scotland Yard detective sent to investigate the murder, what follows is a taut mystery, full of political intrigue. Jo Walton manages to deliver a terrific story that combines the best elements of alternate history with a classic country house mystery.
Followed by two sequels: Ha'penny and Half a Crown.
What do you do when you accidental
Life has not gone smoothly since Sam accidentally burned down Emily Dickinson's house (oh, and killed two people in the process) ten years ago. Now Sam is out of prison and ready to begin life anew. He is forced to move in with his nutty parents while he looks for a job. Sam also tries to apologize to the man who's mother he killed and the craziness continues.
When other author's homes begin to burn to the ground, Sam must discover who is out to get him and continue to try and build a life for himself in the process.
A quick and fun book that is great for any reader.
Rule Against Murder: An Inspector Armand Gamache Novel
When a genteel family gathering at Quebec’s sumptuous lake-front Manoir Bellechasse terminates with a brutal homicide, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache interrupts his own holiday to find the culprit. It takes only a few pokes at the Finney family tree to bring down a full bushel of suspects: Vicious sibling rivalries and jealousies seem to be festering everywhere. As usual, Gamache, “the 21st century version of Hercule Poirot,” stays on top of the case, ferreting out wrongdoers as he moves closer to identifying the killer.
Cheers to Nick and Nora Charles!
What happens when you mix hard-boiled detective pulp with a Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn movie and add in enough alcohol to make Charles Bukowski blush? You get two of author Dashiell Hammett's most famous characters, Nick and Nora Charles. Written over 75 years ago, The Thin Man is chock full of 30's colloquialisms and dated policing methodology, but is still clever and edgy enough to compete with any modern equivalent. While this is the only novel Hammett wrote with these two amusing and well-developed characters, they resonated so much with readers that six movies, a radio drama and TV series were made about them.
The novel follows Nick, a former detective of some notoriety, and Nora, his wealthy, young socialite wife, as they solve a series of related murders that are closely associated to Nick's past. In between an ever-escalating amount of cocktail parties and gin joints, we are introduced to a motley cast of cops, crooks and New York's upper crust. Hammett brings the same amount of energy to ever character in this drama and develops each personality so adeptly, that the reader would be compelled to follow the story no matter which character was being focused on.
Hammett has the uncanny ability to keep this violent, and at times misogynistic tale, upbeat. Rarely can an author keep his audience in suspense and laughing at the same time, but Hammett pulls it off effortlessly. The Thin Man is the perfect book for fans of the detective genre, but is equally enjoyable for any reader who enjoys a witty book. Like its namesake, the novel is thin in size and is an ideal traveling companion.
In The Woods
I picked this book up over the summer on a recommendation from a friend. I was actually a little unsure as I had been devouring the latest teen books and wasn't sure I was ready to read a serious mystery while lounging by the pool. Honestly, I wanted a quick and easy read but this, the story of the investigation to find the killer of a young girl, grabbed my attention from the first page.
What I liked about In The Woods is that Tana French did not write it to be pretty. The descriptions are gritty, the characters have flaws, and even the plot and resolutions during the story will not always leave you feeling content.
My only real complaint about the novel might be the length as I felt it was long at some parts just for the sake of being long. Maybe French wanted her readers to feel how dragged out the case was for the main characters, Detectives Ryan and Maddox. As a reader, I got frustrated when the detectives did and felt invested in the quest to find the killer of the young girl.
Oh, and the story takes place in Ireland so, if you're like me, you'll read the entire thing with an accent. I hope I'm not the only one who does that
Discover The Lies of Locke Lamora
Thirsting for an intricate heist like Ocean's Eleven with a fantasy flair? Interested in a modern reflection of Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser? Or are you looking for a series where wits count for more than magic? If any of these questions make you pause, then take a moment to check out Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.
The story follows Locke & Jean as members of the Gentleman Bastards as they bilk the nobles of Camor out of their riches. They've been doing it rather successfully for a number of years, Locke earning the reputation as the Thorn of Camor. The heist gets complicated when the Gray King begins to run his own counter-scam against the thieves of Camor. Add the Spider, Camor's own spymaster, you end up so many intrigues going on it's hard to determine who's going to come out on top. Fantastic!
I enjoyed that the story doesn't follow the usual linear format, rather it jumps forward and backward in time. This tool was helpful in building suspense as well as allowing peeks into the fundamental instances of the characters' lives. Neither did it detract from the story as repeated flashbacks often do. Not a common technique in fantasy, it added another dimension to the already convoluted scheming of the novel.
One of the reasons I found this story appealing is I've found that I've become attracted to the crime story. Whether it's my Godfather collection or some Hard Case Crime, I like to see the seedy underbelly of humanity. On top of that, the story smacks of Robin Hood. While Locke might not quite give back to the poor, he's certainly making the rich pay out the nose.
Once you are through with Lies, you don't have to wait for the second novel in the series, Red Seas Under Red Skies . As for the rest of the books, I'm anxiously awaiting them, and I'm sure you will be as well.
Never Tell a Lie: A Novel of Suspense
A yard sale at an old Victorian house, hosted by a young couple, the wife eight months pregnant with their first child. Among the eager bargain hunters is a barely recognized former classmate of these happily married high school sweethearts. This aggressive, nervous woman, also expecting, talks her way into the aging mansion. She is never seen again. Suspicion begins to slip around the necks of the young couple; when incriminating evidence is found, the husband is arrested for murder. The wife, left to investigate on her own, begins to realize that she scarcely knows the man she married. What she doesn’t yet know is that the surprises have just begun…..
