Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3)

Jim Butcher

This is the third in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, starring who I like to refer to as "The Other Wizard Named Harry," Harry Coperfield Blackstone Dresden, the only openly practicing wizard in the City of Chicago.  He's in the phone book; look him up.

Book Three shows a departure from the first two in the series.  For one thing, it starts with some backstory having occurred between the two books.  This is one of the things I like about Butcher's writing style - he makes it clear that the universe he's created is much larger than what is actually on the page.  In Grave Peril, a new character, Michael Carpenter, is introduced, who is basically a modern Knight Templar, a paladin, using his faith as a sort of magic which complements the purer magic that Harry uses.

At the same time, another character that was extremely important in the first two books, Detective Murphy, is hardly present.

In Grave Peril, something is causing the ghosts of Chicago to become stronger and more restless, and before you can say, "Who Do You Call," Harry is on the case, trying to find out what, or who is stirring them up, and why.

Without giving out spoilers, vampires play heavily in this book, which is fitting since we actually listened to this book in audio, read by James Marsters.  Normally, I prefer to read my books to listening to them, but Marsters does a superb job, for which I must give him credit even if Strix thinks he's really hot.  Or she thinks he's cool.  I guess he's all-temperature.

James Marsters

Beware Captain Peroxide

Anyway, anyone who likes detective novels, hard-boiled mystery, fantasy, ghost stories, vampire stories, or dressing up like Harry Dresden would like this book.

Pax as Harry Dresden

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According to Clustrmaps, this blog is drawing over one hundred hits per day (122 yesterday), and I've had over 10,000 visitors since the beginning of July when I installed the counter.  Considering how immensely uninteresting my blog is, I can't imagine what's bringing them here.  Any thoughts?

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Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2)

Jim Butcher

This is the second book of the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher.  The first book, Stomfront, about the only openly practicing Wizard in Chicago - part hardboiled detective, part CSI analyst, part Harry Potter - blew me away, and I know that I will read every book in this series.

That being said, this book wasn't quite as good as the first.  It had too many subplots and not as much of a coherent story arc as the first.  Still, it was a very good read (or listen, since what I have is the audiobook read by James Marsters), and I am still eagerly looking forward to the next one.

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Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)

Jim Butcher

I listened to this on CD, and absolutely loved it.  Now I have to get the whole series.  I understand that there is a TV series of this now on the Sci-Fi Channel, called The Dresden Files, but not having cable I haven't seen it.

Jim Butcher has managed to come up with a very intriguing mixture of high fantasy, hardboiled detective fiction, humor, horror, and police drama.

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Drop Shot (Myron Bolitar Mysteries)

Harlan Coben

This is another one I listened to in audiobook.  It's good, funny in a chuckles sort of way, but no guffaws.  Some of the jokes get a bit tedius, like how the main character likes to irritate the other male characters with homosexual innuendo.  These are series characters, and I think the characters may be a little more believable if I had read the previous stories.

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Chinatown

We watched Chinatown tonight, from our Netflix list.  This Roman Polanski/Jack Nicholson picture from 1974 is the epitome of hardboiled detective stories.  Strix and I both noticed strong Alfred Hitchcock influences in the camera work, and the directing is top-notch.  Nicholson's performance is outstanding, and in fact I said at one point while watching this that no one could have played this character except Nicholson.  The movie seemed to have been made for him.

It's also in the IMDB top 250 list.

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Originally posted on my old blog on November 29th, 2004:

Family Plot

Family Plot, 1976, was the last movie made by uber-director Alfred Hitchcock.  It's always disappointing when a master's final work is below his average par.  It would be more satisfying for the artist to go out with a bang and give us one last masterpiece.  That being said, Family Plot is still an interesting and enjoyable movie, and one can still see the signature techniques that made Hitchcock famous.  Its unfortunate that those techniques are displayed in a movie with that low production value "70's" look that makes the whole movie look like an episode of Starsky and Hutch.  Watch the movie, but don't expect North by Northwest.  If nothing else, you'll get to hear a score by John Williams.

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Haiku-Who-Done-It

So many poisons,

So little time to spike drinks.

Guess I'll just shoot him.

Detective looks dour,

Shows me his fingerprint brush,

Says, “You should wear gloves.”

“Heart attack?” she says.

Potted foxglove missing leaves.

“So sorry for you.”

“You may be wond’ring

Why I have called you all here.”

Sleuth looks so damned smug.

Dark and stormy night.

A shot rings out, maybe two.

The butler did it.

Paxton Daryl Branson

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A Rare Benedictine

Ellis Peters

Originally posted on my old blog on Sept 25th, 2004:

A Rare Benedictine, by Ellis Peters, is a collection of three short stories (novellas?  novellettes?) staring her recurring medeival sleuth Brother Cadfael.  Of course, in the first story, he's just Cadfael, since he has not yet "taken the cowl" in that story.  The purpose of these stories is, in fact, to give a little background to Cadfael, and to why he decided to become a monk after living a much more worldly life as a soldier in the Crusades. 

The stories are generally good, if a bit plodding occasionally.  Those who are looking for classic murder mysteries won't find them here.  In fact, no one dies in this book.  If you're looking for the wisdom of the monk who appears in the later stories, however, and are interested in his beginnings, this is a good read.

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The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Today Show Book Club #8)

Alexander McCall Smith

I read this for a mystery book group Christina and I attend, and though I didn't get it finished in time for my book group, I did finally finish it!

This is the first in a series about the first female private detective in Botswona.  The book has very little plot, being both a story about some of the first cases this detective took after starting her agency and about how she came to be the first female P.I. in the country.

It is duly noted that the author, Alexander McCall Smith, is not African and is, of course male, and yet it would be very easy to believe that this book was written by an African woman.  Smith obviously did his research, not just on the history and culture of Botswana, but of the way that Africans think and convey stories.

I've taken classes on South American and Carribean literature, and the similarities are striking, and perhaps has to do with the non-linear thinking of writers from non-Western cultures.  No. 1 jumps forward and backward in time, and starts telling us about the protagonist, Precious Ramotswe, by telling us about the life of her father, because the type of man her father is greatly impacts the kind of woman she becomes.  There isn't a big, complex case to solve - most of the cases she solves are simple and are solved within a couple of days - but this is refreshing for two reasons.  For one thing, it is more realistic, since the types of cases she takes - trailing the wayward children of rich patrons and obtaining proof of marital infidelity for worried wives - are typical of what most real-world P.I.'s do.  That is, most private detectives aren't called in by the police to help solve a giant diamond caper, like in the movies, nor do they tend to just stumble on murders all the time. 

For another thing, the description of these small cases helps continue the feel of non-Western literature throughout the novel.  This book isn't about a case, it's about Precious Ramotswe, and in order to not detract from the building of her character the book doesn't describe to us a major case that she broke, like most detective novels, but rather it describes a series of smaller cases that show us rather than tell us about her ingenuity, her compassion, and her humor.

This is an excellent book, and I look forward to reading the next in the series.

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