About Me

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Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada
I am a lawyer in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada who enjoys reading, especially mysteries. Since 2000 I have been writing personal book reviews. This blog includes my reviews, information on and interviews with authors and descriptions of mystery bookstores I have visited. I strive to review all Saskatchewan mysteries. Other Canadian mysteries are listed under the Rest of Canada. As a lawyer I am always interested in legal mysteries. I have a separate page for legal mysteries. Occasionally my reviews of legal mysteries comment on the legal reality of the mystery. You can follow the progression of my favourite authors with up to 15 reviews. Each year I select my favourites in "Bill's Best of ----". As well as current reviews I am posting reviews from 2000 to 2011. Below my most recent couple of posts are the posts of Saskatchewan mysteries I have reviewed alphabetically by author. If you only want a sentence or two description of the book and my recommendation when deciding whether to read the book look at the bold portion of the review. If you would like to email me the link to my email is on the profile page.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month (January of 2013)

For at least January I am joining Kerrie Smith’s meme, Crime Fiction Pick of the Month. You can find lists from several blogs at her blog, Mysteries in Paradise. I am not sure if I will be a participant every month as I do not read several mysteries every month.

January of 2013 turned out to be a good month of mysteries for me. I completed 7 books in January with 5 of them being mysteries.

The books were:

1.) Healthy, Wealthy & Dead (1994) by Suzanne North;

2.) The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau;

3.) The Bone is Pointed (1938) by Arthur Upfield;

4.) River in a Dry Land by Trevor Herriot;

5.) Slip & Fall by Nick Santora;

6.) The Racketeer by John Grisham; and,

7.) Redefining Success - Still Making Mistakes by W. Brent Wilson.

River in a Dry Land and Redefining Success - Still Making Mistakes were non-fiction books. One was set in Saskatchewan and the second is connected to this province.

I have also been reading the massive third volume in William Manchester’s biography of Winston Spencer Churchill. Manchester died before completing the book and the task has been completed by Paul Reid. While very interesting it is very long. I am 747 pages into the book, one of my Christmas gifts, and still have over 300 pages to go to finish the book.

Out of the mysteries I completed during the month The Bone is Pointed (1938) is my favourite. As noted in my review it is the best of Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte series I have read. It is far more complex than the average mystery with Upfield delving into aborigine / white issues and the psychology of Bony being a half caste in his words.

Unfortunately, the TBR pile increased by 8 during the month with the 6 mysteries I purchased on my trip to Minneapolis and a pair of books sent to me by Simon Schuster – Pierced by Thomas Enger and The Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews. I was going to resolve not to buy any books in February but with a vacation planned for 2 weeks of the month I fear such a resolution would be futile.

4 comments:

  1. You do a great job campaigning on behalf of Arthur Upfield's books Bill.

    Hope you enjoy your holiday and get some good reading in - we'll get those TBR piles down one day

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  2. Bernadette: Thanks for the comment and your kind words. I am not sure about getting the TBR piles down. I just found some more books in my office I forgot I had purchased.

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  3. I have enough TBR books to last me a lifetime. Just when I thought the pile had come down by four books, it went up by eight more. Have a wonderful vacation, Bill.

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  4. Prashant: Thanks for the comment. I no longer want to add up how many books are on the TBR piles. I am looking forward to getting away. Last week the wind chill reached -50C and then when it warmed it up to the low minus teens it started snowing.

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