BOOK CLUB IS ON HOLD

THE LIBRARY WILL BE CLOSED FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE

Another Update

Sadly, the Library Director has mandated that there will be no in-person programs through at least the end of December 2020.

The library system is currently running 2 virtual book clubs with online Zoom meeting:

3rd Thursday of each month 2-3:30 pm 

https://events.washoecountylibrary.us/event/6752739

4th Tuesday of each month 10:30-noon 

https://events.washoecountylibrary.us/event/6706982

 

If you’re interested, participants register for these via the online calendar and then are sent the Zoom login information.

THE STATE OF OUR MEETINGS

As you’re probably aware, the library has been closed since March 15, 2020 and I currently have not heard of any proposed re-opening date.

I have, however, been advised that no in-person programs will be held through at least the end of August. I’ve also been asked if the group wants to meet virtually and after reaching out to our members, there doesn’t seem to be a desire to do this.

Therefore, the Spanish Springs Mystery Book Club will not be meeting again until at least September.  I will, of course, keep an eye on things and let everyone know if the situation changes.

The books we were going to read and discuss over the summer are hereby pushed off into 2021.

Be well.

~Joan

Button Man – Mark Pryor

Once again, duplicate titles created some confusion among our readers.  Last month, Gone was revealed to the be the title of eight other books.  This month, there were three.  And Valorie read one of the wrong ones.

However, after her rather hilarious input, we may have to read her Button Man.

OUR Button Man was less about the mob and more about an American (in cowboy boots, no less!) in London and Paris and role fame, social status, and the desire for justice is played out in our world.

Joan thought Valorie would enjoy this book because it had the violence she so loves.  It also had British and French settings, rain, a little humor, a little spice and was generally an all-around thriller.

We were advised by Valorie, however, that HER Button Man was more bad ass than OUR Button Man, and so we discussed the mob definition of the title.  We agreed that the British Button Man was less “whack-y and more a convenient title for the book.

We found the main mystery interesting and enjoyed the other plot lines around the edges that added intriguing flavor – the Ripper angle, the wife in Texas angle, the antique books angle, the politics, the serial killer profiling, and the tabloids’ impact on investigations.  We all felt like Pendrith was off from the get go, but could NOT figure out why.  Merlyn didn’t seem to be age-appropriate for what she was doing and we had problems with that.

Favorite Characters – Hugo, who was declared to be nice, but not terribly good at his job; Merlyn, Upton, Agarwal, Pendrith, Harry Walton, and none of the above.

Joan’s meeting notes are confusing — Valorie either liked or disliked Leo for setting the fire.

Least Favorite Characters – Pendrith; Harry Walton, eventually.  Dayton Harper, the little shit.  Hugo was cocky and incompetent.

Valorie revealed that the Epilogue to HER Button Man made her tear up a little.

Because this was a British mystery, Ruthanne made faces, didn’t like any of the characters, and ranked it very low.  Joan initially LOVED the book, but once plot holes and stylistic issues were pointed out to her, she dropped her rating.  But only a little.

 

Gone – Randy Wayne White

So, the group generally likes books set in Florida because, well, crazy people are entertaining.  But this a Florida with salt of the earth people instead.  We liked the concept of a capable woman running boat charters and found her inner dialogue tamping down her true reactions in order to present a specific persona was refreshingly different.  Bruce had just returned from a trip to the area depicted and said that it was true to life.

We thought the plot was exciting and many of us read the book very quickly.  The mystery of the missing girl was interesting because of our desire to see her rescued from the creepy guy, even if she didn’t want to be rescued.  It’s rather scary to think that there are men out there that have this kind of psychological power over women and they’re like an addiction to these women.  And it’s also scary that seemingly together women get sucked into these situations.

That said, we found the story to be more thriller-ish and a bit predictable.  Too much “women in peril” and we had a hard time believing and/or understanding the final resolution.  Bruce did say that boars really are the scarier mangrove swamp animal.

Favorite characters – Most characters were real humans and quite likeable, except for the lady attorney.  We liked Hannah and her directness, though we did get a little sick of her whiny, “I was gawky” mind set.  Her mother Loretta is wonderfully awful.  Cordial Pallet was a cool old coot.  Friend Nathan and Lawrence, the uncle of the kidnapped girl were also favorites.

Least favorite characters – Gabby, Ricky Meeks, Ricky’s partner, Eugene Schneider (a scuzbag), the captain and the owner of the Sybarite.  Martha the lawyer was creepy and that whole lesbian subplot was unnecessary.

 

Visions of Sugarplums – Janet Evanovich

Our group has a real love/hate relationship with silly holiday novels.  While we want something light and festive, some of us also want some substance.  But one doesn’t really read Evanovich for substance, which this book lacks.  But there is plenty of ridiculousness.  And elves.  There are lots of elves.  And cookies.

Our opinions ranged from hating it and finding it completely unbelievable, to loving it and finding it entertaining and fun.  The supernatural bad guy/supernatural good guy plot was ridiculous, as one would expect.  And the whole “elves” angle was silly.  But Diesel is hot, while Stephanie is a hot mess.  Her family is crazy but entertaining.  Morelli didn’t disappoint, but the women generally agreed there wasn’t enough Ranger.

Favorite – Morelli, Gramma Mazur, Mom (after a discussion about her name, research revealed that she is Ellen or Helen.  Dad is Frank.), Stephanie and her family, Diesel, and Rex.

Least favorite – Sandy Claws, Stephanie and her sister Valerie, Briggs, the mean aggressive elf, and Mary Alice, the annoying little girl who thinks she’s a horse.

 

 

 

X – Sue Grafton

The group was mostly so happy to be discussing something other than a cozy, that we were willing to excuse a LOT of the problems we had with this book.  Some of us found this book to be too long, disjointed, had too many characters, repetitious descriptions, and a little half-assed, research-wise.  Kinsey was declared to be a little slack in her background searches, Henry’s antics seemed a little outrageous for someone of his age, and there was generally a sloppiness to this book not seen in others.

That being said, we enjoyed the multiple threads of investigation and rated this quite high, for us.  Kinsey Millhone is an interesting investigator, even though she’s locked into all of the standard P.I. tropes – working for the mysterious dame, working for free, money is tight, etc.

We had an interesting discussion about 1) why the author kept this series locked in the ’80s, without all the modern conveniences, and 2) investigations in general and what we thought Kinsey should have done differently.  Of course, if she had, there wouldn’t have been nearly as much story.  Which then led to a discussion of investigations members of the group have done, particularly with regard to new neighbors.  Fascinating.

Favorite Characters – Henry, Pete, Henry’s Cat, Kinsey, and Edna for all of her marvelous rottenness.

Least Favorite Characters – Edna, Ned Lowe, Joseph, Teddy, and Kim Bass.  Joan has no patience with unhelpful front desk people.

Be sure to take note of our reading list for 2020!  It’s in the bar on the right.

~Joan

The Ever-Running Man — Marcia Muller

Weelllll…  The biggest selling point about this book was the fact that it WASN’T a cozy.  And yet, because it was well along in the series, there were a lot of existing characters.  Many felt there were too many people to keep track of AND there was added annoyance of some of the characters having multiple names.  Then there was too much detail, until there wasn’t enough.

The group’s mixed feelings and reactions were along the lines of “Alright, not great.”  “Not compelling.”  “Better than the cozies.”  “Blech.”  “<shrug> <sigh>”.

The main characters were interesting with fascinating hobbies and houses.  Sharon McCone may be a lil ol’ P.I., but DAMN!  Girl’s got some real estate!  Hy was interesting, with a lot of character and depth, while McCone came off a titch whiny.

The multiple story lines kept us interested, mostly.  But we didn’t find the latter part of the book as compelling.  It was interesting to see how the past history of the characters resulted in modern results and how karma took its sweet time catching up to people, but it made for a good story and good mystery.  Joan enjoyed flying around and the question of “nurture vs. nature.”

While we liked the angst and marital conflict between Hy and McCone, we didn’t find it believable.  And we have some BIG questions about the fate of the bad guy.

Favorite characters – Hy, though we couldn’t figure out why such a goody-two-shoes was in business with two such awful men, the airplane and aviation aspects; Mick, the nephew; the staff in McCone’s office; the cats on the fence; McCone; and the guy who was obsessed with his charts.

Least favorite characters – Kessell/Tyne and Gage were declared to be icky, leaving behind an underlying film of evil. Chad.  Hy.

 

Raspberry Danish Murder – Joanne Fluke

Most of the group is now completely OVER cozy mysteries involving food and gossipy women.  Joan is in both wide awake AND in a diabetic coma after reading this one.  So.  Many.  Cookies.  And so much coffee.

Bruce declared, via written book report, that it was actually THREE books — (1) gossips gushing over pastries, (2) a cookbook, and (3) a ridiculous murder mystery.  None of us were sure what to do with the missing husband story and most weren’t interested in reading on to find out about it.

We generally found the mystery/story boring, yet over the top with food (both the making and the enjoying thereof) and coffee.  Ruthann likes this series and finds it fun and enjoyable.  It was declared to be an easy, quick read, especially if you skim the recipes, and people liked the small town atmosphere.

Joan found Michelle and Hannah to be completely ridiculous.  Out to dinner, cooking dinner with people in, crock pot meals and never-ending desserts.  Who really lives like that?  It’s exhausting!

And Norman?  What was up with HIM?  Is he just hanging around being uber helpful because he wants to be Hannah’s friend or get into her cookie sheets?  Mike, too, though less sheets and more of a cop caricature.

While we were curious to learn who killed P.K., the hunt for Pinkie was almost more entertaining. The intertwined mystery of the missing husband was also interesting and we kind of hoped that he was on some sort of James Bond-type mission.  And maybe he is because really, where did he get that kind of money?  But Hannah didn’t seem all that upset about his sudden departure.  And she, the great detective, didn’t seem to be putting much effort into finding him.  Neither did the police, for that matter.

Favorite Characters – Ross because he got the hell out of town and away from all these crazy people.  The cats, Hannah, and the pastries.

Least Favorite Characters – Norman, most humans, Gary, and the sleazebag husband.  Hannah, who wasn’t a baker, she just gave food away.

We aren’t reading The Orchid Thief for next month’s meeting.  Turns out it’s not a mystery.  And it was dreary.  We’ve switched to Marcia Muller’s The Ever-Running Man.  There are copies available behind the desk at the library.

The Alpine Winter — Mary Daheim

Sorry Mary Daheim, but this went over like a lead balloon.  While there were six of us at the meeting, only one of us finished the book.  We abandoned it after the first chapter, after thirty pages, and someone gave up half way.  Tom heard bad reports and didn’t even TRY to read it.  The biggest complaints we had were:

• Too many characters

• No redeeming characters

• Ridiculousness

• It was mostly gossip

• Poorly edited – there were typos

• Factual errors

• Plot holes

• Generally being “just a mess.”

That being said, “favorite” characters were the guy who was murdered, though he was barely liked, Emma, sort of.  And the priests were occasionally interesting.

Least favorite characters were most characters, Vida, Curtis, and the newspaper, which had a poor hiring process, and seemed to only print gossip.

As for any redeeming qualities, the location was good.

(Rating by the reader who finished it)

(Rating by all who wanted their opinions known)