Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James

          Fifty Shades #1

          So, I must admit, I was very excited when I got the email from the library saying Fifty Shades of Grey was available for download to my Kindle. There has been so much hype about the books. They have been on the best seller list for months. I couldn’t wait to find out what all the fuss was about. I just hoped there was something else there besides kinky sex.

          I was well aware that the book would fall somewhere in the range of erotic to pornographic. (This is definitely not for the under eighteen crowd.)  And, to be perfectly honest, most media that falls along that spectrum bores me to tears.  I am not necessarily turned on by other people having sex. Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem reading about other people having sex, but I expect other things to go on besides just sex or you lose me.

          And, Fifty Shades of Grey delivers. Most of the sex is actually pretty tame, although there are several scenes that get pretty far off the beaten path. But there is much more than sex going on here. We get to read about two people with wildly divergent ideas about the perfect relationship attempting to find common ground, and making progress toward each other.

          I really enjoyed the email exchanges between the two main characters. They are witty and well written.  And, I spent quite a bit of time laughing out loud while reading them.  Those exchanges helped bridge the gap between Ana’s desire to have conversations and talk about things as they go along, and Christian’s wanting the relationship all laid out ahead of time in written contract form.

          I liked that both parties were willing to compromise and try doing things the way the other one wanted. They both worked hard to try to create a relationship that worked for both of them.  But in the end Christian’s control issues, and sexual proclivities proved too much for Ana to accept.

          I think she absolutely made the right decision to walk away from Christian. She was correct. He needed to get his head on straight.  I can only assume that she goes back to him in book two.  I don’t think it’s a good decision, but the idea that love conquers all is a staple of literature.

          I really enjoyed this book.  The characters are well written and fully realized. Seattle may not be the most exciting city in the world, but these characters don’t spend a lot of time outside. I was intrigued by the idea that a British writer would set the novels there, though. I’m looking forward to reading book two, Fifty Shades Darker, when it’s my turn at the library.

The Drop by Michael Connelly

         Harry Bosch #15

          This is the latest in Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series. Harry is a detective in LA’s cold case squad.  One morning he is brought into the boss’s office and given a case that could be a real hot potato.  A nineteen-year-old girl was raped and murdered nearly two decades earlier. A retest of the DNA in the case has come up with a match – a man who has done time for another sex offense. The kicker is that at the time of the young girl’s murder, this sex offender was eight years old. Has the evidence been mishandled? Was there an error at the lab? This case could blow up in the department’s face.

          As Harry and his partner begin the careful investigation of the case in light of the confusing DNA results, they get thrown another curve. They are asked to take over a hot case, one with lots of “high jingo” or administrative and political interest. A man has landed in the parking lot of a hotel.  The question is whether he jumped himself or was helped over the railing of his seventh floor room. The man is the son of a city councilman, one who has long had it in for Harry Bosch.  But Harry believes that everybody counts or nobody counts and the councilman knows Harry will not let the case rest till the truth has been uncovered.

          As Harry and his partner begin the even more delicate investigation of the councilman’s son’s death, it begins to look like a murder to get revenge on the councilman.  Then it starts to look more like a suicide that was helped along by the son’s despondence over his father’s corruption. Harry’s final decision is suicide. And the councilman, who is facing reelection within weeks, is furious.  He is also adamant that he is not corrupt.  He gives Harry a photocopy of a phone message that he claims proves his innocence.  Harry says it is not enough to prove anything, but pockets the paper anyway.

          And then Harry returns the dead girl, whose reinvestigation was so rudely interrupted by the high jingo suicide case.

          Harry carefully follows the leads, determining that the DNA of the eight-year-old is not on the murdered girl’s body because he was involved in her death, but because he was another of the perpetrator’s victims. With the help of a predator, a monster is arrested. And, before all is said and done, Harry chooses to foil a plot to murder the murderer.  Because, everybody counts or nobody counts.

Red Mist by Patricia Cornwell

            Kay Scarpetta #19

               This was another very good offering from Patricia Cornwell. It is more like the earlier Scarpetta novels in that it revolves most heavily around the mystery and the science and is less concerned about the lives, loves and psychoses of the main characters.  I’ve read the previous eighteen books in this series and have the twentieth on the to-be-read list. I recommend it highly, although if you have never read a Scarpetta novel, I’d suggest picking up one or more of the early ones to get a feel for the recurring characters first.

               This book starts out with Kay actually functioning as a private citizen as opposed to her normal roles as a very public person.  But she soon begins to realize that the trip she has chosen to take was not really her own idea.  She has been manipulated into a position by people taking advantage of how well they know her.

               She finds herself at the Georgia Prison for Women, visiting with an inmate who slips her a note as the visit is ending. Kay realizes at once that she has been set up but goes along with the written request to call Jamie Berger, a former colleague and friend, from a pay phone largely because she wants an explanation. Kay is good and angry and wants to know what is going on.

               She arrives at Jamie’s place later that day and does not find Jamie there, but is greeted by Pete Marino.  It seems Jamie has discovered that an inmate on death row at the prison is actually innocent. And she is going to revive her flagging career by getting the woman released. The cloak and dagger nonsense used to get Kay to the prison and into the area forensic lab was deemed necessary by Jamie and Marino because the real murderers were not all apprehended and could be a danger to them all.

               As Kay follows the evidence from the 2002 murders of an entire family, she begins to realize that Jamie is absolutely right about the wrong woman having been convicted. And Kay stumbles upon the missing link, nearly getting herself killed in the process of determining who the real killers were.

               The bad guys are apprehended, the good guys put their bags into Lucy’s helicopter and fly back to the Northeast to pick up their lives, loves and psychoses.

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks

               I’ve got to say I was a bit disappointed in this offering by Nicholas Sparks. Not to suggest this is a bad book - far from it. But the last one of his I read struck such deep, emotional chords with me, I’m afraid I raised my expectations a bit too high with this one. (See my review of The Best of Me at http://musingsofsue.blogspot.com/2012/06/best-of-me-by-nicholas-sparks.html). I also figured since The Lucky One is set largely in a dog kennel/training school, I would love the story just because the dogs would play such a large part. Unfortunately, most of the kennel action has to do with cleaning up the poop, not interacting with puppies.  I liked this book, but just wasn’t touched emotionally like I expected to be.

               Logan Thibault (pronounced T-boe) is a marine in Afghanistan. While out for a run one early morning, the rising sun glints off something in the sand. Logan pauses to see what it is and finds a laminated photograph of a woman and two men at a fair. He attempts to find the owner of the photo, but cannot.  And, so, he begins carrying the photo with him at all times. Once he begins keeping the photo with him, he seems to become charmed. He cannot lose – not at games, not at life, not at war. While fellow marines are dying within feet of him, he comes out of the situations unscathed. One of his buddies has a theory that the photo is his lucky charm and is keeping him from all harm.

               Eventually, Logan’s time in Afghanistan comes to a close and he returns to his home in Colorado. He does not have the readjustment issues that so many vets have, but is unsettled and not really happy. He chooses to go looking for the woman in the photo – and chooses to do so on foot. Logan and his trusty German Shepherd, Zeus, head southeast toward North Carolina. After months of walking and camping, they finally find the woman in the photo, Elizabeth, divorced mother of one, caretaker to her grandmother. A woman desperately trying to figure out how to keep her grandmother’s kennel and dog training business running while teaching elementary school in town.

               Logan’s arrival seems the answer to Elizabeth’s dilemma.  Logan is meticulous with the kennel duties, good with the dogs, and willing to work cheap. He is also good with Elizabeth’s son and grandmother. But there is a somewhat sinister third leg to this triangle, Elizabeth’s ex-husband. He comes off as juvenile, arrogant and entitled through the entire story, till the climactic scene in which his selfless behavior redeems him, even though it strikes a dissonant chord. We have seen no redeeming aspect to his character, and then he does this? What? This makes no sense!

               I felt the characters were not a fully fleshed out in this story as in some of his others.  The action was less intense and even the scenery was not as well defined. I realize not every book an author produces is going to ring my bell, but I was hoping for more with this one.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

          This is a Young Adult novel, the first in a series, which was recommended by one of the bloggers I follow, Jesi Lea Ryan, Diary of a Bibliophile. Graceling is a very good book, and may be the beginning of a very good series. I am not going to be the one to tell you, though. While there are certainly Young Adult novels that I really enjoy, I encountered most of them while I was a young adult myself.  I also enjoy fantasy novels, which this is, and it’s a pretty good fantasy also.  It’s just a little too young and the fantasy world is a little too formulaic for my tastes.

          Katsa is a young woman in a world where some people are “graced”. Being graced is rather like having a talent on overdrive. At the tender age of eight, Katsa defends herself instinctually and kills the predator stalking her. From that point forward, it is assumed that Katsa’s grace is killing.  As the niece of the king, she quickly becomes his executioner. But she is smart and motivated to help others and really, really dislikes being used to intimidate, hurt and kill the king’s enemies. She finally develops the maturity and insight to realize that she holds the real power here, not the king. She refuses to do his bidding and leaves the kingdom.

          But she does not leave alone. A young man, Po, has come to her uncle’s kingdom searching for his kidnapped grandfather.  When Po leaves to continue his search, Katsa accompanies him. They come to know and trust each other as they face the perils of their journey. They both possess graces that everyone around them interprets incorrectly. Together they discover the true depths of their graces. They eventually fall in love.

          They determine who is behind the kidnapping of Po’s grandfather, and in their quest to discover and understand the motives for it; they encounter Bitterblue, a princess of a neighboring kingdom and Po’s cousin. She is grave peril, and Katsa and Po must risk everything to save her and expose the evil that is spreading outward from her kingdom.  Grandfather is rescued. Bitterblue is crowned queen, and the young lovers return to their cabin in the mountains to await the next installment in their story.

          This really is a good story. It is just directed at too young an audience to keep my interest. By all means give it a try, and encourage your kids to try it as well.

Sunrise Point by Robyn Carr

               Virgin River #19

               Sunrise Point is another quick, fun read from Robyn Carr’s Virgin River series.  Nora appeared a couple of books ago and she and her two young daughters quickly became a part of the fabric of life in town. So it was no surprise when her story came along.

               She was discovered, destitute with two babies, living in a derelict house that had no heat in the midst of a major blizzard.  The town rallied around her, got her warm and fed, and shored up the house. Soon she had a part time job and could at least manage to keep her small family fed.

               At the start of Sunrise Point, she is reading a help wanted poster for apple pickers at the orchard three miles outside of town. She is determined to get a job there. She bums a ride down to the orchard to apply.  The owner’s grandson, who is handling the hiring, takes one look at her and sends her on her way.  She is too young and small and weak-looking to be an apple picker. His grandmother, however, takes one look, sees shades of herself as a young woman, and pulls rank, informing Tom that Nora is to be given a chance.

               Nora grabs the opportunity and runs with it. But she is aware that Tom doesn’t really want her there…at first. She finds him very attractive, but knows there is another woman in the picture (classy, sophisticated and absolutely intimidating to Nora).  And, Tom is hesitant to take on a ready-made family, but not so hesitant that he is willing to keep his distance from the feisty, independent woman working in his orchard.

               Through trials and tribulations and triumphs, Nora and Tom become closer. And, when faced with the possibility of losing Nora and the girls for good, Tom does the only thing he can.

               I liked this book. It’s not deep and there are no major twists or surprises, but it is very entertaining and has a happy ending. I’ll look forward to the next book in the series.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

          This book is the first in a series. I added it to my to-be-read list after reading, and enjoying, The Scottish Prisoner a few months ago.  I’m very glad I did.  I really liked this one, and have added the rest of the series to the list.

          If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you’ll be aware that time travel is one of my favorite kinds of stories.  And, this is a time travel tale.  The story starts in 1946. Claire and her husband, Frank,  have been posted at opposite ends of the earth during WWII, and now that the war is over, they are enjoying a bit of a second honeymoon in Scotland.  Toward the end of their planned stay, Claire makes a solo trip to a stone dance where she stumbles through a thin spot in the space-time continuum and finds herself in the middle of a skirmish between some Scottish raiders and English redcoats.

          It takes some time, but fairly quickly she discovers that this is no historical reenactment or movie shoot. She really is in 1743.  She ends up being taken by the Scots back to their home, and must find a way to escape them and return to the dance where she hopes she can make her way back to her own time. 

          But fate intervenes, and in order to avoid being turned over to the British to be interrogated as a spy, she finds herself wed to Jaime Frasier, an outlaw and fine specimen of a man. Once wed, the Scots trust in her begins to increase, and her training as an army nurse puts her in great demand as a healer. Her attempts to help the sick and injured are not always looked upon in a friendly manner, though, and before long she finds herself accused of witchcraft. 

          She is rescued at the last moment, and finally breaks down and tells Jamie that she has come from the future, and has a husband and a life there.  While obviously skeptical, Jamie takes her back to the dance. And, while there, witnesses things that convince him her story is true. He loves her enough to allow her to return through the time rift to her life in 1946, but is not strong enough to watch it happen. He leaves her standing before the stone.

          And there she stands, unable to take the final step through the rift. She realizes that she is too much in love with Jamie to leave him, and chooses to remain in 1743, despite the lack of indoor plumbing.

          Together, Claire and Jamie have further adventures as they attempt to avoid the British, who have condemned Jamie to hang, and try to find a place where they can live and love.

          This is a very long book. The original hardcover edition was 688 pages long. It took a while to read it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can’t wait to get to Dragonfly in Amber, the second book in the series.

I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

          Poppy is an idiot. Her friends are too ridiculous for words. I really struggled to get through the first chapters of this book. If the woman didn’t lie, cheat and routinely break the rules of civilized behavior, her life would be simpler, less stressful and easier to read about. And, the muscles in my eyes wouldn’t ache from all the rolling.

          I wrote the paragraph above at the end of chapter three intending to stop reading right there. However, I realized I did not have another book loaded on the Kindle yet, and since I was reading between calls at work, I couldn’t really go shopping for one right then. So, I decided to soldier on till the end of my shift.

          I got better – not great – but it became more readable as it went on. Poppy started making better decisions, stopped lying compulsively, spent far less time with her idiot friends and finally met a good guy.

          This is not a book I’ll ever read again, but it ended up being okay.

Betrayal by Danielle Steel

               A woman who seems to have it all discovers she’s been living in a house of cards.

               Successful film director Tallie Jones is at the peak of her career, surrounded by people who live to take care of her so she can concentrate on her work. Brigitte, her personal assistant and best friend for the last seventeen years does everything she can to keep the worries of the world away. Vincent, Tallie’s accountant for the last fifteen years, keeps track of her fortune. Hunter, Tallie’s live in boyfriend of four years and producer of her most recent films, keeps the home fires burning while she is on location. Tallie’s aging father and law school student daughter round out the major players in her life.

               When Tallie discovers that more than one of them has been lying to her, her world comes tumbling down.

               I the ensuing chaos, Tallie meets FBI agent Jim Kingston who helps right the legal wrongs that have been done to her, and gives her life a new stability.  This allows Tallie to build her world to new and even greater heights.

               I liked this book. It was a quick, fun read, if a little predictable.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

          The idea of time travel has long been a favorite of mine. While straight lines are great for getting quickly from one place to another, curves and spirals are much prettier and more appealing to me. The idea that time can fold back on itself has gripped my imagination since I first read A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle in elementary school. So I was very excited about this novel about the effort to return to 1963 and stop the assassination of President Kennedy.

          Naturally, there are twists in this story that only the warped mind of Stephen King can conjure up, but I totally have to agree that altering small events in the lives of ordinary people can have unexpected and far reaching consequences. So certainly, the alteration of a major historical and political event could be catastrophic. I also happen to think it was lucky Kennedy’s presidency ended when it did, before the cracks started to show.

          I am tempted to read it again because there were a couple of spots where I was not really sure why certain things were happening, and I don’t remember them being resolved.  I suspect that in the course of this very long book, I missed some details. For now I’ve decided to let this book just marinate in my brain for a while. I may pick it up again someday to see if I can figure out those couple of passages.

          At any rate, this was an engaging tale of what might have been.  I particularly liked that King involved the sense of smell so much.  It is so often overlooked by writers. I also really liked how well King managed the raising of the story’s intensity as Jake struggles against the clock up the many flights of stairs in the Texas Schoolbook Depository building. Each flight up left me more tense and frantic to know if he’d make it in time.

          11/22/63 is a very long book, but it is well worth reading every word.

V Is For Vengeance by Sue Grafton

Kinsey Millhone #22

          I’ve missed the last four or five books in this series, but

did not feel lost at all in this one. While Kinsey Millhone’s

friends and neighbors make their regular appearances here,

the story line works quite well as a standalone.

          The story starts with Kinsey witnessing a shoplifter and reporting her to store security. Soon after the woman is arrested, she dies. This woman’s fiancée shows up on Kinsey’s doorstep asking her to look into the death. The story spirals out into organized retail theft and further into family run organized crime and police corruption. Nearly everyone gets what’s coming to them by the end. And Kinsey is left with the means to get vengeance on her worst enemy.

          If you’ve never read one of Grafton’s alphabet mysteries, I’d surely suggest picking up a few of the early ones just to get a feel for the recurring characters.  If you’ve read them all, you’re going to love this one too! 

          Respectfully submitted,

The Guardian by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Dark Hunter #21, Dream Hunter #5

               I’d give this 4-1/2 stars on Goodreads if fractions were allowed. I suspect the only reason I’m resisting 5 stars is that there were a few moments when if felt like I was missing something. But since this is book #21 in her Dark Hunter series and book #5 in her Dream Hunter series, that’s only to be expected. I haven’t read all the previous books yet, but I liked this one well enough that they are all now on my to-be-read list.

               I guess by now you realize I liked this one – a lot. It’s got your basic love-conquers-all theme set in a fantasy world inhabited by angels, demons and other immortal types.

               I think the part I got the biggest kick out of is these entities use of modern technology. They communicate via email (among other methods) and carry smart phones. I had to giggle over that. I also totally empathized with one demi-god’s struggles with a new laptop!

               If you do not have a well developed ability to suspend disbelief, this book is seriously not for you. But for those of us who enjoy visiting strange new worlds in our heads, this is a great one. I can’t wait to get to Night Pleasures, the first book in the series.

Angle of Investigation by Michael Connelly

               This is a collection of three short Harry Bosch stories.

               Christmas Even is the story of a thief who has robbed the same pawn shop four times. He was shocked to discover, during his fourth and final break in, that the pawn shop owner had finally had enough.

               Father’s Day is the very sad tale of an all too common, but dreadful, death of a child. As we’ve all read in the papers, a parent became distracted and forgot his sleeping child was in the car seat in the back. This one is a tragedy on a number of levels besides the obvious.

               Angle of Investigation has Harry reopening a cold case. As it happens, he and his trainer found this body on Harry’s second day ever on patrol. With the help of new technology and something only his old trainer knew, Harry puts a decades old drowning to bed.

               If you are a Harry Bosch fan, I’d definitely get a copy of this ebook. Each of these stories gives a bit of insight into Harry as well as determining who done it.

Longing by Karen Kingsbury

               Bailey Flanigan #3

               God may be a football fan, but I am not.  Nor am I fond of being preached at.  It’s been quite some time since I failed to finish a book on my list, but I couldn’t stand another syllable.  I broke my own rule about giving a book three chapters to catch me before I give it up.  About half way through the second chapter, a high school football coach allows an injured player to go back onto the field.  Don’t even get me started on the total irresponsibility of such a move.  I knew at that point, that in my eyes, this book was irredeemable.  I shut down the audio player. Life is too short to waste it on this story.

               Of course, if you like football or are heavy into Christian literature, this book may be for you.

The Snow Angel by Glenn Beck

               This was a quick read for which I am grateful. Two stories run in parallel until they finally meet at the very end. 

                Rachel, the child of an alcoholic mother and an absentee father find herself in an abusive marriage. The day her husband turns his temper on their daughter, she finally finds the strength to leave. With the love and help of two friends who have stuck with her through her marriage, she and her daughter escape her abuser and head out to start a new life. But, she needs to make one last stop before they go.

               Mitch’s story plays out in a single day – Christmas Eve. He wakes to discover he is an old man, in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by strangers. Alzheimer’s has wreaked its havoc on his memory, but he understands it is Christmas Eve, and he knows he is waiting for someone. He’s just not sure who.

               The final scenes play out as Rachel encounters her father for the first time in over a decade. While he does not recognize Rachel as an adult, he mistakes his granddaughter for her mother. This is the child he has been waiting for. The one he knows he let down in a thousand ways, and the one he has waited many years from whom to ask forgiveness.

               It is all very sad and sweet.  Not my usual cup of tea, but a fairly well written little story. If you like heavily emotional, bittersweet ending stories, this one’s for you.

Defending Jacob by William Landay

               I was torn while reading this story. On one hand, I was absolutely riveted and couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. On the other hand, just knew what I was seeing was utterly disturbing and I just wanted to look away. Depending on where I was in the story, I couldn’t wait to get back to it, or I totally dreaded reading the next section.

               As a parent, the very thought of my child being arrested for murder makes me a little bit ill. How much worse it would be if the possibility existed my child could be guilty. This is the situation faced by the Barbers in this story.

               As a parent, how would I react if I realized that I had brought a monster into the world? How far would I go to protect my child? How much could I disregard the safety of those around us? This is the dilemma faced by the Barbers in this story.  I totally understand the very different reactions of both parents, and wonder which I would be more inclined to emulate.

               I’m giving this book a good rating even though it is not entertaining in the usual sense. It was a very uncomfortable book for me to read. But like watching a train hurtle toward a trestle rigged to blow, I could not look away.

The Christmas Wedding by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo

          I listened to the audio book version of this one, and thoroughly enjoyed it.   The premise would have seemed a bit farfetched, except that I know someone it happened to.  Gaby gets a marriage proposal, not so unreal. It happens all the time.  But, two other men decide they cannot let her get away without a fight.  They both propose as well.  Now she is juggling three proposals.

          She also has grown children that she hasn’t seen as a group since their father died several years earlier. She decides to use the wedding as a way to get the family together for Christmas.  She plans the wedding for Christmas Day, but throws in a twist.  She will not reveal the identity of the groom until the ceremony is about to begin!

          There is a lot of fun and excitement, and several small twists to keep the action moving. Gaby keeps her kids in the loop via video messages that she records, copies and sends to them all. At the moment of truth, Gaby announces the name of the groom and they are duly wed. The part that amazes me is that the author leads us to believe that Gaby’s relationship with the pair of suitors she refused will not change.

          That point aside, I recommend this book to those who enjoy love stories and family dramas. It’s a quick, fun read and thoroughly enjoyable.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

               This is a looooong book – it took me ten or eleven days to read it. Even so, I’m not sure I’d have cut out more than a few sentences, if I’d had the opportunity. The story is complex and tightly woven with few extraneous loose threads hanging out. I was very impressed.

               I started with a certain level of concern that I would have trouble reading such a long work based in another culture. Sometimes translations of foreign works leave me struggling with cultural ignorance issues – my cultural ignorance, not the author’s.  I often find names of people and places hard to deal with as well. Not so much with 1Q84. Fortunately, translating Japanese into English is very much a spell-like-it-sounds proposition.

               I recommend this story. It is absolutely not a quick, fun read. But it kept me interested and entertained for over a week!

Flash and Bones by Kathy Reichs

               Temperance Brennan #14

               Flash and Bones is the fourteenth in the Temperance Brennan series. I have not read them all, but have taken in and enjoyed several of them. This one is set to the backdrop of the Charlotte Motor Speedway during race week of the Coca-Cola 600.  Since we are a NASCAR family, I am quite familiar with Charlotte, North Carolina, the history of NASCAR, and many of its most famous names, past and present.  Reichs captured the less than sane fanaticism of NASCAR aficionados very well, and gave some excellent background on the sport for those readers less familiar than I.

               I was, however, a little disappointed with the rest of the story. It almost seemed as though Reichs used the excitement and drama of race week as a crutch for a weak story line.

               Overall, it’s a pretty good book, but if I had failed to appreciate the NASCAR angle, it would not have fared so well with me.

Lethal by Sandra Brown

               I liked this one. It sucked me in early and kept me interested. And I was sure I had it all figured out until the very end when I was forced to admit I am not always as smart as I think I am.

               I especially liked the kid in this one – Emily.  She’s four. Brown must have kids of her own because she nailed this one. The child is bright and inquisitive and utterly forthright as only a four-year-old can be.

               I listened to this book, which is the only reason I didn’t finish it all in one day. It’s a good who-done-it with plenty of twists, turns, fun and fear along the way.