I just finished The Confessions of Frances Godwin by Robert Hellenga and it's the best book I've read this year. It tells a good story well, yet has substance and interesting characters and locales.

I've just begun The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett, and --so far-- it's also a bit off the beaten track and very intriguing.

I tend to choose my books after reading the weekly NYT Book section, and I order them 'used' from Amazon. I put them on my Amazon list, and when the 'used' price gets to my price range I push the GO button to order it. Some of them I get for 1 cent plus postage. On SS, it allows me to have my mental sustenance and stay on budget.

The Confessions of Frances Godwin sounds interesting.

We rely on E-bay, Abe Books and Amazon for our used books. That way we can read them when we want and we never run out of books to read. Of course we still get many books from the library.

Oh, I forgot to say. We also get some used books at the local Goodwill store. No postage!

Well, when I can get a book for less than $1 plus postage, I figure it's still a Bargain. I'm just a little old lady who recently had to give up driving so am limited to the books in the on-site library here (mostly things I don't much care for), and what I can do via computer and mail. I used to do the Goodwill store for books--back in the day. I usually buy the books at the top of the Used list because they are the cheapest and mostly they are in almost new condition.

And welcome to DU!

It's a scary mystery set in Denmark.

by James Howard Kunstler. It's the third in a series called A World Made By Hand, which is also the title of the first book. They're set a few years in our own future, when civilization has broken down because of unending wars, a complete loss of gas/oil imports, and then a series of devastating diseases which killed lots of people.

The novels are set in a small town a north of Albany, NY. I mostly like the books. I think he's done a generally credible job of imagining what would happen once the decline as he sets it up takes full hold.

This is one of the books that, when I found out my library didn't yet have it, and put in the request that it be bought, was ordered in less than 24 hours and I was top of the list to check it out once it came in. What a great library.

Last edited Tue Oct 7, 2014, 07:57 PM - Edit history (1)

I dove into it at the beginning of last week, like a starving woman diving into a feast, and finished it in one go. But I couldn't bear to be done with it, so I immediately picked it up again and took my time with it, reading it in small bits this time, so I could savor each detail.

And I'm still feeling dazed and haunted and emotionally wrung out after the second reading. Both times through left me tearing up at the end. Only the swan song of Henning Mankell's Wallander comes even remotely close to the poignancy of this closing chapter of Erlendur's story.

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And now for something completely different...

The next book I have lined up is Norwegian by Night by a new author, Derek Milller. I think I came across it on GoodReads - at any rate, it sounded intriguing, and my library was able to get it right away. Not necessarily a mystery exactly, from what I read in the GoodReads reviews, but it sounds like it might be entertaining, and it's something to hold me over while I wait (and wait) for the new books by some of my longtime favorite Nordic Noir authors to get in.

As additional back up, I've also requested all 10 books of the Detective Inspector Martin Beck series - the wonderful and most excellent police procedurals written between 1965-1975 by Swedish authors Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, a pair of Marxists who are literally the godparents of Nordic Noir.

I've already read the entire series a few years ago, and I'm definitely looking forward to revisiting these books. They combine solid plots with subtle social and political analysis - what more can a political junkie and crime novel junkie ask for?

I thought it might be the last one but I see there is also Reykjavik Nights.

I just ordered Silence of the Grave and Voices.

Strange Shores is (presumably) the last Erlendur book that takes place in the present.

I would totally NOT recommend Strange Shores to anyone who hasn't read the rest of the Erlendur series. It just wouldn't be as meaningful if you hadn't already followed the character through all the earlier books. All through the series there are references to his early family life on a farm in the eastern fjords of Iceland, and to the loss of his little brother in a snowstorm when they were children.

Strange Shores is the culmination of all that long hinted-at history, and how it shaped the character of Erlendur and his penchant for digging deeply into long-buried secrets. Everything that came before leads up to this (seemingly) final story.

I hope you will enjoy Silence of the Grave and Voices, and that maybe you'll want to keep on through the rest of series. If not, that's fine too, of course!

I've just been particularly smitten with this author and this series, and have found these books to be some of the most rewarding mystery fiction I've ever read.

by Ben H. Winters. It's the third of The Last Policeman books. I first heard about the series in this forum, by the way.

and The Rat King by Michael Dibdin. Both very witty and engaging writers. Aurelio Zen is my favorite fictional cop at present. Also, White Nights by Ann Cleeves, though I may not get to it this week.