all your Reads in Here

Rita Mae Brown's foxhunting series is not for every reader. I enjoy the stories, although I haven't read all of them in the series. It really is the scenes of the foxhunting that I enjoy the most. Now, don't get angry about foxhunting, unless you've read these books, and see how humanely all the animals in the books are treated. Although I hadn't read one of the books in a while, I enjoyed returning to "Sister" Jane Arnold's world at Christmastime with  Homeward Hound. Despite the threat of a blizzard, Jane Arnold, Master of the Jefferson Hunt in Virginia, won't stop the Christmas hunt. Jane, known as Sister, even welcomes Gregory Luckham to the hunt. Luckham is president of an energy company that proposes to put a pipeline right through the heart of foxhunting country. Some of the local property owners are wealthy enough to sue the company, so Luckham's appearance is met with only lukewarm enthusiasm. When the blizzard does hit sooner than exp...

Crime takes no holiday. That's obvious in Steven F. Havill's twenty-third Posadas County mystery, Lies Come Easy . It's set at Christmas, but the small sheriff's department in the county has to cope with child endangerment, family issues, and murder. As the story starts, Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman welcomes late night calls. One son, a world famous musician, is in Germany. One son is in college. And her physician husband is out of town at a conference. So, she responds when Deputy Tom Pasquale reports finding a two-year-old, Derry Fisher, walking along a snowy road. The boy's father dumped him out of his pickup and took off. Poor Derry won't have the best Christmas. His angry mother confronts his father at the hospital, and, while both parents are cuffed, it's Darrell Fisher who is arrested. The judge tears into him at his bail hearing, and his brother bails Darrell out. Fisher doesn't have long to celebrate. His wife's at work when Pasquale fi...

I tried to hold off. I really did. But, it's so hard to wait until after Halloween to read books set at Christmas when they're showing up in the mail. It was impossible to resist the cover of Miranda James' latest Cat in the Stacks mystery,  Six Cats a Slayin' . So, before the book review, kudos to Dan Craig, the artist who did the cover art. Once in a while, I think it's appropriate to recognize the cover artist. It's almost Christmas in Athena, Mississippi. Librarian Charlie Harris doesn't feel in the Christmas spirit, though, when he encounters his new neighbor, Geraldine Albritton. She's a little too enthusiastic and flirtatious for the staid Charlie. Something seems off about her, and Charlie's co-worker Melba Gilley agrees. Geraldine claims to be from Athena, but Melba doesn't recognize her, and Melba knows the history of everyone in town. Although Charlie does his best to ignore Geraldine, he agrees to attend her Christmas get-together, ho...