Book Review Thursday - 8/15

Right now, I would rather be reading the book that I am currently in the middle of! :)

To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman is a stand alone novel, but some of the characters have made appearances in other books and short stories she has written. The book opens in an affluent Baltimore area high school and 3 seniors were just involved in a school shooting. Popular Kat is dead, athletic Josie has a gun shot wound to the foot, and Perri the actress is in critical condition with a shot to the head.

By all accounts, Perri is the guilty party, but Josie is withholding information from the police and her parents. The story follows Josie and other members of the high school forward and back in time to explain the troubled relationship between the 3 girls while the police try and determine the reasoning behind it.

I finished the novel and I am still not 100% sure of the reasoning behind the shooting. The back stories were explained well enough, but the final reasoning was a little convoluted, I think. Regardless, Lippman is an outstanding storyteller!

A Glimpse of Evil is the 8th book in the Psychic Eye Mystery series by Victoria Laurie. Abby and Dutch have arrived in Austin, TX to start the next part of their lives - working with the FBI cold cases. Within hours of starting the job, Abby gets the team more than halfway to their monthly goal of solved cases. The only problem is that it is hard on her brain and throws off her intuition. In addition to the job, she has to work to keep Candice and Brice from breaking up when she knows that they should just get engaged.

I can't remember a lot of specifics about the last novel and why I took a break from the series. Well, I couldn't remember until Candice drove her brand new Porsche through shallow but flowing water and lost control of the car and the water carried Abby down stream to her almost certain death. I mean, if you have a psychic in your car telling you not to go through water, maybe you listen to them?

That incident aside, Abby takes a few cases that she thinks are related and her and Candice investigate and get into serious trouble. Abby goes to the hospital a few times and Dutch yells at her for not thinking. From what I remember, it is a typical Abby Cooper mystery. And this book sets up some future plot lines.

Liberty Falling is the 7th Anna Pigeon novel by Nevada Barr. Anna's sister Molly has taken ill and Anna is spending time in the park at Liberty Island to save money for the extended visit. While Molly is in the hospital, Anna visits daily (mostly) and spends time alone on the island and with the guides learning about the islands and the buildings that are no longer in use.

When strange things start happening and a teenage girl winds up dead at Liberty Park, Anna gets drawn into the mystery and has to start investigating to find out what is going on.

This novel has the park descriptions that are prevalent in Barr's series. Anna always finds herself in sticky situations and finds ways out of them. As usual, things get intense. I love this series!