Roseanna

Another new mystery series for me. These center around Martin Beck, a Stockholm based detective. I found these in the wake of the Millenium series also set in Sweden. This book started very slowly, but by page 30 I couldn't stop reading. I'll definitely keep Martin Beck in my crime fiction rotation.

Lady of the Snakes

Thank goodness there was at least a little something interesting in the academic pursuit of the heroine as she looked into the life of the wife of a writer, because her own life followed the most textbook soap operatic twists and turns visible miles ahead to anyone but the heroine that you'd ever encounter in fiction. Meh.

Anthem

I just love Ayn Rand books and this quick, quick read, especially compared to her other two novels is no exception. Unfortunately this book as well as her others probably suffer from being a little too much a product of their times. My 14-year-old niece had to read it this summer, and given her experience of communism, or rather lack thereof, I doubt it resonated with her as much as it did with me, much less with Rand's original audience. I wish though that we knew what became of this new Adam and Eve striking out boldly on their own. I have every hope that they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Killer Weekend

This is the first of Pearson's mysteries centered around Sun Valley and Sheriff Fleming. Having been to Sun Valley and Ketchum for my 5th anniversary I was intrigued to read a series set in a place I have such fond memories of. Unfortunately the setting was better than the overall plot and a particularly gaping plot hole near the end, but when I'm looking for another fluffy mystery, I'll pick up the rest of this series.

Frankenstein

My first Kindle book. I had never read Frankenstein, but am of course influenced by all the movies and other pop culture take on Shelley's monster and his creator. It's really a very good book full of questions about creators and how they treat their creation as well as how the created may turn out without the ongoing influence of the creator. How people got from this book to mad scientist and a guy with bolts coming out of his neck, I don't know, so I'm glad I finally know what Mary Shelley intended her creatures to be.

Parrot and Olivier in America

This was a slow start, but then I became utterly engrossed in the lives of Parrot and Olivier, though I often wished this was just Parrot's story -- what a life. Having never read de Toqueville I'm not sure if his trip to America and his writing about it was as vacuous and misjudged as Olivier's books almost certainly were. And while Parrot derides Olivier's ultimate conclusions about where democracy in America would lead, I fear 200 years later that Olivier's truths are being born out. Hopefully we as Americans can soon rise above the place we find ourselves these days with half the country merely trying to out yell the other half.

By a Spider's Thread

Back to Tess Monaghan, though with a little Nancy Porter from the previous novel thrown in for good measure. This was a great page turner. Back and forth from Baltimore to the Midwest, from the present to the past. Only Tess's personal life was out of order in this novel, and hopefully that will resolve in the next.

Mockingjay

And so it ends. This third book in the trilogy was brutal. Not that the others weren't, but given what was happening to our beloved Katniss, Peeta and the rest Mockingjay took the brutality to a whole new level. I found myself both wanting and not wanting to read the book because the things that happened were on the whole so grim and because once I finished there would be no more Panem for me. But I'm glad I read the books and I'm satisfied with the ending.