Key Lime Pie Murder: A Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes

Joanne Fluke

Kensington Books/mystery

Release Date: February 1, 2008

It promises to be a busy week for Hannah Swensen. Not only is she whipping up treats for the chamber of commerce booth at the Tri-County fair, she’s also judging the baking contest; acting as a magician’s assistant for her business partner’s husband; trying to coax Moishe, her previously rapacious feline, to end his hunger strike, and performing her own private carnival act by juggling the demands of her mother and sisters. With so much on her plate, it’s no wonder Hannah finds herself on the midway only moments before the fair closes for the night. After hearing a suspicious thump, she goes snooping – only to discover Willa Sunquist, a student teacher and fellow bake contest judge, dead alongside an upended key lime pie. But who would want to kill Willa and why?Now Hannah needs to crank up the heat, hoping that Willa’s killer will get rattled and make a mistake. If that happens she intends to be there, even if it means getting on a carnival ride that could very well be her last…

Although this is the 8th book in the series, this was my first exposure to Hannah Swensen and idyllic Lake Eden, Minnesota.  Hannah owns a booming cookie business, has two local men (and one Hollywood producer) fighting for her affections and she manages to sniff out trouble everywhere she goes.  Through it all, she always come out on top of things.

Hannah’s adventures are not markedly different from others in the genre, but the story is well told and interesting.  The mystery was not difficult to solve, but the author did a good job of showing how Hannah and her friends discovered the culprit and eliminated the red herrings.

My verdict:  Read it.  If you enjoy culinary cozies, you will enjoy the adventures of Hannah Swensen.  This is a perfect book for when you need something light and refreshing- just like key lime pie.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand

Random House/non-fiction, biography

Release Date:  November 16, 2010

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

This is not a book that I would have picked up on my own.  The subject matter just didn’t speak to me, so I waited until the last possible moment to begin the book before our monthly Main Street Book Club meeting.  Once I realized the book weighs in at almost 500 pages, I started to doubt my ability to be prepared for discussion.

It turns out that doubt was misplaced, as I tore through the book in record time.  Knowing that Louis Zamperini conquered every obstacle in his path, I had to keep reading…I had to know how he survived.  This is much more than just a story of survival, it is a story about truly living.

All of the events in the book are well documented in the prolific end notes.  There are numerous sources cited for those who wish to delve deeper into WWII in the Pacific theater.

My verdict: Read it, read it, read it!  This is an amazing story and Laura Hillenbrand is a truly gifted storyteller.  You will run through a gamut of emotions before the final page and be left with a renewed faith in man’s ability to forgive.

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China

Paul French

Penguin Group/history, non-fiction, Asia, true crime

Release Date:  April 24, 2012

Peking, January 1937. In the frigid January air, the ancient Fox Tower, rumored to be home to the seductive fox spirits who steal men’s souls, keeps silent watch. The Japanese Army is encircling Peking in an ever-tightening noose. The city’s population swells daily with refugees from the country, eager to escape the brutality of the Japanese. In the vast city, only two neighborhoods seem to blithely carry on:  the Badlands, a warren of cheaply-built buildings and the center of the city’s illegal pleasures, including brothels, opium dens, and innumerable bars; and the gilded Legation Quarter, Europe in miniature, home to foreign, white Peking and the glittering Hotel Wagons Lits.

The morning after Russian Orthodox Christmas celebrations, the city awakes to a hangover–and murder. The mutilated body of British school girl Pamela Werner is found at the base of the Fox Tower, on the edge of the Badlands, and the crime sends a shiver through already nervous Peking. Is it the work of a madman? One of the ruthless Japanese soldiers now surrounding the city? Or perhaps the dreaded fox spirits? Was it a case of mistaken identity? Who would commit such a brutal crime?

Paul French spent seven years researching this dramatic true story in both Chinese and UK archives. Front page news around the world when it was first reported, MIDNIGHT IN PEKING will acquaint readers with this dramatic crime and its aftermath, and offers a window into the last days of colonial Peking. For fans of history, true crime, and anyone looking for an engrossing read.

There are two ways in which a non-fiction book can go horribly wrong.  The most common problem with non-fiction is that it is packed so full of facts that it becomes a dry recitation of interest only to scholars in that subject.  A less common, but equally off-putting, problem is that the author tries to make it more interesting by filling the holes in research with speculation.  Enough speculation and  it soon becomes a work of fiction.

Thankfully, Paul French has managed to avoid the two extremes and deliver a well researched and engrossing tale.  Much more than a gruesome murder, the tale of Pamela Werner involves collusion and cover-ups from the dregs of society to high ranking Chinese and British officials.  At times it appears that Pamela’s elderly father is the only person who cares to see her murderer brought to justice.  Can he bust through the veil of secrecy enshrouding this case? How will Japan’s occupation of Peking and World War II affect his journey to seek honesty?  Be prepared to finish this book in one sitting!

My verdict:  Read it! This book is definitely in the ”can’t put it down” category.  Paul French does an excellent job of laying out a very complicated story in an interesting and understandable way.  For the Sinophile, Midnight in Peking offers a look at the last days of Old China before the rise of Communism under Mao Tse-Tung.  Whether your interest is Old China or true crime, this book will hook you.

Thunderstruck

Erik Larson

Crown Publishing/non-fiction, historical

Release Date: 2006

A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world’s “great hush”.
In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.
Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly commits the perfect crime.
With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.

I chose this book using my standard book selection criteria.  To whit, I was wandering around a used book store, scanning the covers in hopes of spying something worthy of further investigation.  The name “Erik Larson” caught my eye and I snagged the single copy off the shelf and added it to my purchases.  It was not until I got home that I even bothered to check out the book description, for I knew that the author of The Devil in the White City would not disappoint.

For a few pages, I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake.  The story of Guglielmo Marconi was interesting…to a point, and then my eyes rolled back into my head in boredom and frustration.  I don’t fault Larson for this- the technical information is dry and unexciting to someone who has absolutely no interest in the science behind wireless telegraphy.  I do know people who would salivate over the descriptions of towers built, coherers invented and Hertzian waves, but it was just a bit technical for me.

The second tale that Larson tells is an Edwardian London murder mystery with a meek homeopathic doctor, a larger than life America actress and a disguised dash across open waters to freedom.  Are you beginning to see what saved this book?  Admittedly, I was confused as to how the two stories connected.  At roughly the halfway point my husband asked what I was reading about and I tried to describe that it was about Marconi, and a murder, but Marconi wasn’t involved in the murder…he kept questioning how the stories related and I finally gave the exasperated reply, “I don’t know! But the two stories will intersect before the end of this book, that I know!”

I do not want to spoil the book for anyone, so I won’t reveal the connection.  However, I will say that Mr. Marconi (and his Board of Directors) owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Hawley Crippen.  Dr. Crippen set in motion a chain of events that cemented Marconi’s dominance in the wireless market.

My verdict:  Read it! If you can get through the technical information, you will be rewarded by an exciting story that leaves you wondering if someone got away with murder.  Larson has a penchant for over-researching and shares many details that others might leave out, including a section of additional notes at the end of the book.  Did you know that Marconi and his wife were supposed to sail aboard the Titanic?  Were you aware that Edwardian hangmen had a “table of drops” to consult, ensuring that the condemned would drop exactly the right distance to cleanly break the neck without decapitation?  Lovely trivia abounds!

Grave Mercy

Robin LaFevers

Houghton Mifflin/historical fiction, YA

Release Date: April 3, 2012

“Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?”

This book was amazing! It had a great balance of creepy and romantic. If there’s too much of either I usually won’t like the book. It kind of reminded me a little bit of The Blood Confession, but not as dark.

I also found it very helpful that LaFevers included in the front of the book a list of all the main characters which really helps when trying to keep all of the different members of the Breton court straight.

My Verdict: Read it! I wouldn’t suggest this for people who are easily frightened as death and high treason are common recurrences in the story, but  I think historical fiction fans will really like this book. I can’t wait for the next book in the “His Fair Assassin” series Dark Triumph.

**A B-I-G thank you to Claire at Claire Reads for hooking us up with our own copy of this book!**