The Hat

The Hat is a novella length (116p.) story by C.S. Boyack.  It's quite hard to categorize, with elements of speculative fiction/fantasy, a little dash of noir, and some chick-lit thrown into the mix.

I'm truly not a book snob and I do make an effort to read and review smaller self published books.  I'm so glad this one caught my attention.  It's a joy for me to be able to give a good review for books which don't fit the mold and aren't mammoth-juggernaut-publishing-wonders™ with gazillion dollar budgets.

After a poke around his blog and having read this novella, I can say with certainty that the author is a gifted and creative storyteller with a sure voice.  Most of the characters are well written and the dialogue and plotting are entertainingly readable.  One big thing that struck me whilst reading The Hat was how consistently funny it was.  Humor is so variable and so difficult to write.  This book is really really funny in a lot of places.  I was also struck by how sure the author's voice was when writing the female protagonist.  She is believable.

There were a few less than stellar moments.  Her interaction with her uncle was flat and seemed like exactly what it was (a plot device to get The Hat into her possession).  A lot of her interaction with the bad guys was over the top, but then again, she's teamed up with a sentient inanimate object, so the author is owed a lot of suspension of disbelief wiggle room.

Just an all around fun read.  It's a couple of hours' diversion and entertainment.  I, for one, would love to read more adventures from Lizzie and co.  Intergalactic do-goodery with a rockabilly soundtrack?! Count me in!

Four and a half stars, beautifully written and funny.

Disclosure: I received an  electronic-ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.

Chained

Chained is the third entry in the Kate Turner, DVM mystery series by Eileen Brady.  The protagonist is a practicing vet in a rural area of New York state.  She's a temporary replacement for the clinic's owner, Doc Anderson. When one of her dog patients discovers a human arm bone, she gets involved in solving the cold case disappearance of the arm bone's original owner.

I enjoyed reading this book.  Though I read it as a standalone, the necessary backstory is included in the story and it doesn't suffer for being read out of order.  I really liked Kate.  She's no-nonsense and unpretentious and not superwoman.  I also liked the interaction and small town feeling between the characters in the book and the good relationship she has with her coworkers. There's a lot of humor in the book and it's a fun and diverting read.  (The scene with the hamster in the bottle made me giggle).

The plot resolution does depend on a deus ex machina, but it wasn't completely over the top.  It's a cozy mystery and the book adheres to the 'rules' in every other way.  The author is an experienced vet herself and it shows in the narrative.  They say 'write what you know', and I've no doubt that some of the dialogue and situations in the book have their origins in the author's experiences.

It's a diverting read and at 269 pages, a good length for a cozy.  It's well written and plotted and doesn't drag.

Released 5th Dec, 2017 by Poisoned Pen Press, it's available in hardcover, paperback and ebook formats.

Four stars, enjoyable, escapist, cozy fun.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.

The Linking Rings

The Linking Rings is the 4th Eli Marks mystery by John Gaspard.  I read it as a standalone and it worked very well.  I intend to chase down the first three books in the series.

The 'hook' for the series is that the main characters are, and the action happens around, magicians and their performances.  The main character, Eli, is a performer and co-owns a magic store with his famous uncle Harry, also a magician.  Harry and Eli are off to London for a special set of performances at a famous magic venue, The Magic Circle.  The performance schedule is upended when one of Uncle Harry's former cronies, Oskar, is literally stabbed in the back by a chair prop on their first night.

This is a traditional whodunnit.  The characters are maybe a bit standard (the bumbler, the femme fatale, the lush, the womanizer, etc), but they're pretty well written and the book is a fun read. The dialogue is well written and the foreshadowing and clues are presented creatively and relatively subtly. One thing I really enjoyed a lot about this book was the humor.  The main characters definitely don't take themselves too seriously and the dialogue is often sparkling and witty. I really liked the repartee and patter between Roy and his wife, Roxanne; they seemed to genuinely like one another (at least under the surface).

This is a clean mystery and the murders (though one of them is fairly horrific) are all written tamely and without graphic descriptions.  The dialogue is also clean and except for an occasional 'hell' or 'damn' has nothing which will dismay readers.

I enjoyed it very much and recommend it to lovers of classic amateur sleuth fiction.  One small caveat, the author writes at a couple of different points in the book that Eli's uncle Harry is being held because murder is 'a capital crime' in the UK.  I thought at first that the book itself was set pre-1965 (the point at which capital punishment was abolished in Great Britain), but then the author talks about clearly modern landmarks like the London Eye. It's not a huge discrepancy and it doesn't have any overall effect on the plot, so it isn't going to be any sort of issue for the vast majority of readers.

I intend to find the first three books in the series, high praise from me.

Four stars, well written and entertaining.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.