The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

This has been on my want to read list for about a year, and I'm glad I could finally track it down at the library. The novel, set in Sweden, starts slow. It took me some time to get used to the Swedish names, especially the place names given that I have zero knowledge of Swedish geography. But once the story begins to shift from financial reporting and background checks to that of a disappearing heiress things really pick up and it's hard to put the book down. I won't give any of the plot points away, but I really like how complex this story is, both in terms of the number of elements and people in play to what they've all been hiding. I can't wait to get a hold of the sequel.

The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie

A delightful debut mystery in the vein of a Miss Marple, well if Miss Marple were only eleven years old. Set in the 1950s Sweetness has all the hallmarks of a good suspense story complete with unexplained deaths, but with none of the grit that infests most modern mysteries. Nancy Pearl put it perfectly, " it's gore-free, very funny in places, nicely written, not too sweet (despite the title) and narrated by a real charmer."

Sacred Games

Whew! What an epic. I started this book in late May or so, then put it down in late June and then started back up with it after getting home from the beach. It was 947 pages crammed full of true writing. I'm glad I picked it back up.

This complex tale centers mainly around a Sikh police detective, but he is merely a jumping off point for many, many more well-drawn, thoroughly three-dimensional characters. The novel is mainly one of character and place rather than plot, though plenty happens too. Dickens has nothing on Chandra in terms of interweaving the stories of these many and varied people that populate the novel. It's a sometimes taxing read, but the book was well worth the effort, and I could easily go another 300 pages with these characters.