all your Reads in Here

Welcome to the world of geek culture in Meghan Scott Molin's fun, fast-paced mystery, The Frame-Up . Even if you don't attend cons or read comic books, MG Martin's world is entertaining. It's repetitive to say it, but this is just a fun mystery. MG (Michael-Grace) Martin is totally immersed in geek culture. Her parents disowned her when she dropped out of law school to write comic books. And, it's that knowledge of comics and their history that involves her in a criminal investigation. She's in a coffee shop when she sees a crime scene on a man's computer and says it looks like a crime scene from an old comic. She's right, and Detective Matteo Kildaire of the LAPD is interested both in her personally, and in her knowledge. And, once she talks with Matteo, she admits "Witty banter is my Kryptonite." MG recognizes Matteo's crime scene as one starring her favorite superhero, the Hooded Falcon. She quickly becomes his consultant for the drug-re...

How many of you had heard of the fire that destroyed almost half a million books and damaged several hundred thousand more at the Los Angeles Central Library? It happened on April 29, 1986, but the Chernobyl accident occurred on April 26, 1986, so the eyes of the world were focused on that earlier accident. But, Susan Orlean covers the library and the fire in  The Library Book . I'll admit, I had a difficult time with the first thirty-nine pages. I had to quit, and come back to the book later because I found a scene too difficult to get through. The library staff had to stand outside and watch the library burn. "According to librarian Glen Creason, the breeze was filled with the smell of hearbreak and ashes." Although Orlean begins with the fire, the subsequent investigation, and the suspicion that a man named Harry Peak started the fire, there's so much more in the book. She covers the history of the Los Angeles Central Library, the eccentric and practical librarians...

I can always count on Heather Graham's Krewe of Hunters books to allow me to escape. Pale as Death , with its connection to a mysterious historical murder, is a fascinating romantic suspense novel. When Detective Sophie Manning and her partner Grant Vining respond to a crime scene in Hollywood, they know it will be an unusual one. Their team tends to handle the vicious and strange cases. But, this one, with a woman's body drained of blood, and dismembered, resembles one of the most famous unsolved murders in Hollywood, the Black Dahlia case. Elizabeth Short was brutally murdered and dismembered. Now, someone has killed a young actress who resembles Elizabeth Short, and the killing resembles the earlier death as well. It's Sophie herself, though, that catches the attention of the McFadden family. She's the spokesperson for the case, and Bryan McFadden and his fiancé, Marnie, worked with Sophie when Marnie was threatened. Now, Bryan is preparing to attend training at Quan...