Blog Posts by David

"The Diva Runs out of Thyme"
by Krista Davis
Berkley Prime Crime, 292 pp., $6.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James

The most memorable Thanksgivings are often those at which everything goes astray, suppyling many a belatedly humorous anecdote for celebrations to follow. Or, so notes event-planner-and-domestic-advice-columnist Sophie Winston.

In this debut "Domestic Diva" mystery (see a review of the second one, "The Diva Takes the Cake," previously posted on this blog), Sophie wishes the height of her Gobble-Gobble Gala problems were an underdone turkey or an overbaked pumpkin pie. For, scarcely has she accomplished shopping for the festive feast (and auxiliary meals for the bountiful houseguests in her historic home in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia) than she stumbles upon a body in the grocery-store dumpster.

The next day, Thanksgiving Eve, a well-known and largely disliked TV producer becomes toast at the Stupendous Stuffing Shakedown contest, in which Sophie is a finalist,

"A Beautiful Blue Death" by Charles Finch Minotaur, 309 pp., $13.95 (oversized paperback) Reviewed by David Marshall James Sir Charles Lenox-- learned London bon vivant and amateur detective of the mid-Victorian era-- has solved many a case, judging from the references thereto in this narrative concerning the titular murder. However, this is the first Lenoxian case to make print, in author Charles Finch's debut mystery novel, in which the "aged 40, or thereabouts" Lenox is asked to look into the death of one of his dear friend's (Lady Jane Grey's) former maids, one Prudence Smith. "Prue" had moved from Lady Jane's employ on Hampden Lane (near St. James Park) next door to Lenox, to the even grander residence of George Barnard, where Prue's fiance is employed as a footman. Nevertheless, the short-lived servant's roving eye had led her to other affiars, as Lenox soon discovers. He also concludes, rather quickly, that her death is not the suicide that Barnard believes it to be-- as does

"Sand Sharks" by Margaret Maron
Grand Central, 291 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


North Carolina author Margaret Maron's mystery novels have lately encompassed such subjects as the encroachment of suburban sprawl on farm land, as well as the influx of migrant labor in order to meet the increasing demands of agribusiness.

In this fifteenth entry in Maron's series featuring Deborah Knott-- a district-court judge in fictitious Colleton County, N.C., somewhere fifty miles east of Raleigh-- the protagonist spends the duration of the narrative in Wilmington, N.C., and nearby Wrightsville Beach.

All of the state's district-court judges assemble there every summer for a conference consisting of a variety of continuing-legal-education seminars.

As her husband of six months, Colleton County sheriff's deputy Dwight Bryant, is involved with a law-enforcement meeting of his own in Charlottesville, Virginia, Deborah departs several days early for Wrightsville Beach, the better

"My Judy Garland Life" by Susie Boyt Bloomsbury, 310 pp., $25 Reviewed by David Marshall James We've been going off to see the Wizard so many times, for so many years-- and suddenly we find ourselves older than "The Wizard of Oz" was, the first time we viewed it. "Oz" premiered 70 years ago this August, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Judy Garland wasn't present, as she was putting on a show (what else?) with Mickey Rooney (six times daily, between screenings of the film) at the Capitol Theatre in Times Square. Actually, "Oz" world-premiered, sans hooplah, in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, a week before the East and West Coast debuts. Now, Susie Boyt knows all this-- and far, far more-- about the life of Judy Garland, as expressed in this memoir. More than a Valentine, it's an expression of a spiritual connection to the talent, essence, and inspirational qualities of JG. It's worth the price of admission for the author's pilgrimage to JG's hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota; for

"Swan for the Money" by Donna Andrews
Minotaur, 306 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


You'd think by now that Meg Langslow would have learned to cease being coerced into volunteering for every thankless post in Caerphilly, Virginia.

Well, since she's young and childless (yet married), we who have walked in her shoes realize how everyone else would just assume that she has oodles of free time to undertake such largely unwanted responsibilities.

It's not as if Metalworking Meg doesn't have an order to create a dozen and a half secateurs-- fancy gardening shears-- for members of her oh-so-propah Mother's Garden Club.

By the by, keep your eye on Mother's secateurs, as she failed to do so, and they were pilfered by someone in the-- gasp-- Garden Club. Those things are razor-sharp and are going to cut a wide swath through the plot of this eleventh Meg Langslow mystery by Virginia writer Donna Andrews.

Speaking simultaneously of Meg's onerous task and the Garden Club, our

"The September Society" by Charles Finch
Minotaur, 310 pp., $13.99 (oversize paperback)
Reviewed by David Marshall James

It's 1866: A marvelous time to be English, as the sun never sets on a magnificently wealthy Empire.

It's an era of colonialism, of strict class divisions, of valets and parlor maids, of eating clubs and secret societies, of notes delivered across London by liveried footmen, then carried into their recipients (on silver trays by unfailingly faithful butlers), who are ensconced in overstuffed chairs in smoke- filled studies.

At least, that is the milieu of Charles Lenox's London-- he resides just off Grosvenor Square, in Mayfair-- a gentleman's gentleman, engaged in the seldom-appreciated (until one requires one) field of detective work. Being an Oxford man (Balliol College) and the son of a prosperous, established Sussex family, Charles need'nt worry from whence his next plate of kippers and poached eggs is coming.

He's free to indulge in favored pursuits, such

"Royal Flush" by Rhys Bowen

Berkley Prime Crime, 306 pp., $24.95

Reviewed by David Marshall James

Thirty-some-odd years before "Georgy Girl," there was Lady Georgie, mod young thing of swingin' London, hopping all about town when she wasn't popping up to Scotland to visit her ancestral home, Castle Rannoch, where she was reared as the daughter of the Duke of Rannoch and Queen Victoria's most homely daughter.

Now, that's all a bit of historical fiction, and Lady Georgiana Rannoch would be scads more mod (in Rhys Bowen's third "Royal Spyness" mystery) and even more hopping if the family fotune hadn't dwindled considerably.

Furthermore, there's a nasty Depression compounding her financial woes. Meanwhile, Europe's setting the stage for turmoil: Here a Communist, there a fascist, I-thought-I-saw-an-anarchist.

In spite of economic downturns and political turnabouts, it's a smashing good time to be young and thirty-fourth in line to the British throne, which does

"Southern Peril" by T. Lynn Ocean

Minotaur, 312 pp., $24.95

Reviewed by David Marshall James

Jersey Barnes-- she of the government-subsidized double-D cups and riverfront restaurant/bar with living quarters overhead-- has once again eschewed way-early-retirement plans and is back chasing the Bad Guys, just as she did when she worked in an elite couterterrorism group for her Uncle Sam.

If Jersey didn't miss the thrill of that chase, she wouldn't be performing nonpaying favors for friends-- in this case for a South Carolina Supreme Court justice who's concerned about her younger brother, who has taken over the reins of a highfalutin eatery in Wilmington, North Carolina, which was owned by the siblings' recently deceased mother and father.

La Barnes just wouldn't be content pulling (and drinking) draft beers and shlepping fried-trout sandwiches (yum) and sweet-potato fries (more yum) to customers in her open-air bar and bistro, The Block, on the Cape Fear River in