Blog Posts by David

"Rest for the Wicked" by Ellen Hart
Reviewed by David Marshall James

Restaurateur Jane Lawless has secured her P.I. license from the state of Minnesota, but it's a complexly mixed blessing as concerns her first case.

At least she can investigate the murder of her mentor's, ex-cop A.J. Nolan's, nephew outside of a Minneapolis strip club, while Nolan is touch-and-go in the aftermath of surgery.

The victim, an adopted son of Nolan's sister in St. Louis, has come up to The Cities seeking his older sister.

"Say what?" says everyone, theretofore oblivious to the fact that the vic had an older sister.

Oh, the secrets just begin there, and much of the action is pent up in the strip club, where Jane becomes fixated on one of the barkeeps.

Given the locale, it comes as no surprise that this is one of the steamier entries-- the twentieth, to be precise-- in Minnesota author Ellen Hart's Jane Lawless series.

Yes, indeed-- the snowdrifts may be crusting over outside, but the heat's rising

" 'The Sound of Music' Family Scrapbook" by Fred Bronson
Reviewed by David Marshall James

If "ray" means "a drop of golden sun" in your lexicon, then you'll be polishing off this volume like schnitzel with noodles.

The author wisely turns the work over to first-person remembrances by the seven actors who portrayed the Von Trapp children in "The Sound of Music":

Charmian Carr (Liesl) became a noted designer, with Michael Jackson's home among her credits.

Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich) went on to become a Princeton graduate.

Heather Menzies (Louisa) married fellow actor Robert Urich.

Duane Chase (Kurt) went on to earn degrees in geology.

Angela Cartwright (Brigitta), a staple of 1960s TV, moved on to creating mixed-media art and clothing designs.

Debbie Turner (Marta) is a nationally recognized expert on flower arranging.

Kym Karath (Gretl), who went on to guest star on "The Brady Bunch," is an advocate for special-needs individuals.

There're many more of their autobiographical

"Iced Chiffon" by Duffy Brown
Reviewed by David Marshall James

Many mysteries that attempt to be both Southern and humorous merely belly-up by being silly, either over the top-- of the magnolia tree-- or dead on the vine-- tomato, kudzu, or morning glory, take your pick.

However Duffy Brown's got the double order down, with a mystery as well-plotted as any mansion garden on any square in Savannah, which happens to be the setting.

The author knows the city, which, as any Southerner can tell you, means she is familiar with the best places to eat and drink, from the holes-in-the-wall off the tourist GPS's to the more prominent bistros, grills, and cafes.

Brown has weighed all the conventions of the mystery genre and determined the keepers, while discarding the "old hat."

Speaking of old hats, the protagonist, divorcee Reagan Summerside, is building up a consignment shop in the front room of her SNOWY (Still Needs Oodles of Work, Y'all) Victorian.

However, that enterprise comes as

"The Ninth Step" by Grant Jerkins
Reviewed by David Marshall James

Two cars crash. One passenger is killed.

One survivor, drunk out of her mind, leaves the scene.

In the other vehicle, the driver was distracted from his steering by a handheld computer device.

This "over the neighbors' fence" mystery/thriller zooms in on those survivors' lives, before and after the hit-and-run wreck.

The man-- who was placing a last-second bid on an online auction while attempting to steer his vehicle-- loses his wife, who had just discovered that she was pregnant, following years of fertility treatments.

He's a somewhat nebbishy high-school geometry teacher, complete with soda-pop-bottle-thick bifocals.

For those of a certain age, he may bring to mind Wally Cox, about to transform into a skewed version of Underdog.

He's "functional OCD," obsessed with equations, charts, graphs, and puzzle boxes, and most definitely into a hyperorganized lifestyle.

The woman who leaves the scene of the car

"Hiss and Hers" by M.C. Beaton
Reviewed by David Marshall James

"Snakes and ba----ds!"

That's one of British P.I. Agatha Raisin's favorite phrases. Much to her misfortune, she's facing more than a few of the former in her latest case.

The handsome gardener who caught her fancy in the previous Agatha Raisin mystery isn't long for the ground himself.

At least he goes out with a metaphorical smile on his face, having dillied and dallied with more than a few of Agatha's neighbors in the Cotswold village where she resides when not running her agency in the much-larger locale of Mircester.

The gardener's death is gruesome, involving a trio of adders, but at least he was drugged and transported before being, well, planted.

Agatha-- as fond of her facial paints and powders as she is of her gin and tonic-- feels a right fool for having tarted herself up with too-high heels and revealing dresses in order to entice the now-deceased.

Nevertheless, she's going to feel heaps worse before

"Lucky Stuff" by Sharon Fiffer
Reviewed by David Marshall James


Whoa, Nellie!

Too late-- she's stolen another Jane Wheel mystery right out from under her daughter, who after all has an inordinate amount of stuff on her plate in this eighth novel by Illinois author Sharon Fiffer.

Jane's life has been a-changin' since she left her big-league job with a Chicago ad firm.

She's become spouse-less and house-less, and her only son, Nick, is boarding at a science-and-math-centered school.

The marital dissolution is amicable, and Jane is headed home to Kankakee, Illinois, to assist old chum Tim Lowry with their Trash 'N' Treasures business. Meanwhile, she remains in touch with Bruce Oh, her mentor in the the PI trade.

Nellie and husband Don also expect Jane to pull drafts at the family biz, the EZ Way Inn. As Nellie notes-- and she would note-- Jane has left a high-level position for three part-time jobs.

Bump that up to four, as this story finds her working as a personal assistant for

"Loverly: The Life & Times of 'My Fair Lady'"
by Dominic McHugh
Reviewed by
David Marshall James

Timing is everything, particularly in The Theater, and events coalesced during the early-to-mid 1950s to facilitate the transformation of George Bernard Shaw's five-act play "Pygmalion" (1913) into a two-act Broadway musical.

The show probably wouldn't have ever come to life without the determination of lyricist/librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe.

Indeed, Rodgers and Hammerstein wouldn't touch the project, nor would Noel Coward, who went on to refuse the role of Prof. Henry Higgins on the several occasions he was requested to take it.

Not that Lerner and Loewe had an easy time of it. The first attempt to conduct the experiment-- with Mary Martin as Eliza Doolittle-- rather mercifully, in hindsight, failed.

A few years later, Julie Andrews was scoring a triumph with her first Broadway musical, "The Boy Friend." Additionally, Lerner and Loewe had set their sights

"Murder Most Austen" by Tracy Kiely
Reviewed by David Marshall James

Tracy Kiely's fourth Elizabeth Parker mystery clicks on every level, offering a richly glazed treat to Jane Austen fans.

"Murder Most Austen" sounds the tone and tenor of a Regency period novel set in the present, with the presently unemployed and at-multiple-loose-ends Miss Parker being treated to a Jane Austen festival in Bath, England, complete with balls and period costumes, by her Aunt Winnie.

Duly note the young woman traveling abroad with her great-aunt-slash-chaperone; however, if one must be chaperoned, Aunt Winnie would land near the top of one's list.

However, a skunk is befouling the garden party, as it were: A wealthy, handsome professor of English from the States-- a monument to pomposity intent on reading salacious subtexts not only into the Austen oeuvre, but also into her biography.

As can be readily imagined, said disgrace to scholarship and Janeites everywhere has accumulated a formidable