Frozen Heat by Richard Castle

Another junk food book. I love these things. Number four in the Nikki Heat series, in this one, Heat is tasked with the homicide of a woman stabbed and stuffed into a suitcase.

A suitcase that belonged to Heat's murdered mother....


Dun dun dunnnnnn.


And we're off, investigating the current murder and Heat's mother's murder at the same time. Rook is back, annoying but there for bouncy sex and occasional insight, but mostly Heat is on her own.

This took some twisty turns that got slightly (more than slightly) unbelievable. LOTS of dead bodies pile up but Heat doesn't seem worse for the wear of it.

Super fast read. Just enough when you need to escape the world for a bit.

These Heroic, Happy Dead by Luke Mogelson

War stories and war movies bother me. So, when I got this book to read, I almost didn't read it. Since it was a collection of short stories, I went ahead and read it, hoping for the best.

Mogelson did a great job depicting how wars and combat affect soldiers, both in war and in peacetime. This is actually why I dislike war stories so much: it's just commonplace to throw these men and women into horrific conditions, instruct them to kill then toss them back in to reality without any help. I've always felt that war is played as a game by the people declaring it. It's easy to declare when you never have to fight.

The characters we meet actually intertwine throughout the stories, their past, their present. Veterans of Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq. Veterans who can't handle life after war, who give up, turn angry and violent.

All in all, each story made me sad and angry about how vets are treated, or in several cases, ignored and left alone, after they have been used by the bigwigs to win their wars. Don't get me wrong, some wars were justified. But just as many were not.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

There'll be no butter in hell!!!!!!

I have never heard of this book before, let alone knew a movie existed, but I'm glad, once again, that I read outside of my comfort zone! Cold Comfort Farm turned out to be a very entertaining and funny book!

Written in 1932, Cold Comfort Farm is about Flora Poste, recently orphaned and looking for family to stay with. She does hate a mess and is determined to clean up the farm when she does to stay there. She wasn't quite prepared for the crazy side of her family and they weren't prepared for her. Flora does, in fact, come in and re-organizes in a way. In the end, everyone is much happier that she moved in with them.

At first I didn't care for Flora. When she spoke with Mary about not working but going to live off of family and "being a parasite", which doesn't sound good in any context. I felt at first that she was just a spoiled brat who refused to work. Gradually, I began to like her. She had grand plans for helping out her family at the farm and they were good plans, helpful to her family and not just herself. Somehow, all of her plans worked out perfectly.

It took a bit to get into the rhythm of the "country" talk but once I did, I moved right along. Don't let the language or age of the book dissuade you from reading. It's really a clever funny book!

I watched the movie as well and was pretty pleased that it was a faithful adaptation. I rarely ever say that!

The new Penguin cover cracked me up! I can't picture Seth as anything else now.

Cold Comfort Farm trailer

Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton

Can I say how much I LOVE Sue Grafton's books? Each book in the series is fresh and new and I'm so sad Z is coming up. I want these to last forever. I hope, in some way, Kinsey Millhone continues on somewhere.

Based in the late 80's, Kinsey is a private detective who is called about a job for Lauren McCabe. Lauren's son, Fritz, just got out of prison where he was sentenced for murder and released at age 25. Fritz, and some of his friends, killed Sloan Stevens 10 years prior. Fritz turned on his friends but had to serve a full sentence since he pulled the trigger. His friends, Troy, Baynard and Austin, didn't have as much punishment. Lauren hires Kinsey to find out who is blackmailing Fritz now for $25,000. Turns out, Fritz and friends made a sex tape where they sexually assault a passed out 14 year girl, Iris. Sloan was trying to negotiate Austin with the tape: he gets the tape, he calls off everyone shunning her.

Austin was not pleased that Sloan had the tape, she dies, tape goes missing. Until Fritz is blackmailed with it. Kinsey goes down one hell of a messed up rabbit hole to figure out what happened 10 years prior and who was blackmailing now.

As a side plot, Ned Lowe is back and stalking Kinsey (remember, he tried to kill her in a previous book).  Anna, Henry, Ed, Pearl all play a part in this side plot.

I sped right through this one. It was a a crazy case to work through and, even though I read the accounts of what happened really, I still didn't guess the WhoDunIt. Excellent job!

Each book in the series can stand on its own very well. Start wherever you like, just start!