Reading right now:

            “Bless the Dying” by Sandra Bretting. Only Bretting’s second book, “Bless the Dying” is a mystery with a medical twist. When a young policeman is poisoned, his former girlfriend who works for the hospital doesn’t believe it was an accident and steps in to prove that something else is going on and finds plenty of suspects. This looks like it will be a pretty easy read, but has potential.

On hold right now:

            “Payoff” by Douglas Corleone. This is the second in the Simon Fisk series which debuted with “Good as Gone” last year. Our hero is former U.S. Marshal Simon Fisk who now works as a private contractor to try to locate kidnapped children. After movie studio mogul Edgar Trenton’s teenage daughter is kidnapped during a violent home invasion, Fisk is hired to deal with the ransom exchange. It soon becomes obvious that the kidnappers are not going to return the girl and Fisk must track them through many dangerous South American cities to try to return her to her parents. This is supposed to be a tremendous thriller with many surprises.

Other Mysterious Things:

            August has seen some amazing books come out with several more on the way. I’m sure we’ll still be trying to catch up with these for a while. It’s hard to mention every book that comes out each month, but some of these are important and you may not want to miss them. “The Bellingham Bloodbath” by Gregory Harris is the second in the Colin Pendragon series. This is another terrific Victorian London mystery with Colin Pendragon as the brilliant detective. Leading Swedish author Henning Mankel’s 11^th Kurt Wallander book came out in August (“An Event in Autumn”). “The Kills” by Richard House is a collection of his four part series. If you haven’t read his books before, here is an opportunity to find out why the collection was nominated for The Man Booker Prize this past year. Louise Penny’s “The Long Way Home” is the 10^th book in the Chief Inspector Gamache series. August saw Tami Hoag write a new stand-alone novel called “Cold Cold Heart.”

Here’s a few more: Bitter Crossing by D. A. Keeley, Confessions by Kanae Minato, Devil takes Half by Leta Sarafim, Low Profile by Nick Oldham, A Distance to Death by Holly Menino, Clam Wake by Mary Daheim, I Can See in the Dark by Karin Fossum, Designated Daughters by Margaret Maron, A Cry from the Dust by Carrie Stuart Parks, A Little Night Murder by Nancy Martin, Queen of Hearts by Rhys Bowen, Strange Shores by Arnaldur Indridason, Summer of the Dead by Julia Keller, Windigo Island by William Kent Krueger, The Equalizer by Michael Sloan, Etta Mae’s Worst Bad-Luck Day by Ann B. Ross, and Harbor Island by Carl Neggers.