is there any more pie?

Do you like your thriller/mysteries/crime fiction novels closer to home?  How about rural, upstate New York?

Here’s a great series for you, I promise.  Read them in order.  That’s very important!!!!

Check out Julia’s WEBSITE  for more info.  I had the pleasure of meeting her once, at a librarian’s convention in Boston I attended with a friend from Alabama who was also one of the speakers.   She has won a ton of awards, too many to list here.  And I love her books.

The newest book in the series just came out a few weeks ago, so guess what I will be reading on the flight from Providence to Austin in a couple of weeks!!!

Because I am not one of those people who knows “who did it” halfway through the book, I am in awe of mystery writers and their intricate plotting and machinations meant to fool the reader.  I never know who committed the murder unless the author tells me.  I am easy to fool, easy to manipulate with red herring clues and plot twists.

Don’t you love a good plot twist?  A great villain?  A mystery that keeps you turning the pages when you should be sleeping or cooking or working or cleaning something?

Let it snow, baby.  Let it snow.

Harry Hole is a fictional character.

Have you heard of him???

If you have, you know that in his most recent book (the one published in October, 2013) he was in serious, bloody, deathly, deadly trouble.

Last October I had a migraine and ended up going to a walk in clinic for medication, where I met with a doctor.  I was reading my Kindle while waiting to talk to her, and we immediately began discussing books.  When she heard there was a new Harry Hole novel, she almost fell off her swivel stool.

Really.  She gasped, too.  (There was a good reason for that, but because it’s book 10 I’m not going to tell you what it is).

I explained to her that I hadn’t read it yet, that I had splurged and bought it on my Kindle as a reward for when my own writing was finished, that I would be reading it in November.  That I hadn’t read any reviews and didn’t want to know what was going to happen.  I didn’t want any hints or spoilers.

She was thrilled.  We exchanged names of favorite authors and scribbled book titles on scratch paper and promised to read each other’s recommendations.

So, you probably want to know who Harry Hole is.

Harry is a detective on the Oslo police department in Norway.  He’s a genius, a lone wolf, a man with “issues”.   The books, by the brilliant Jo Nesbo, were not released in order in English, so reading them in chronological order can be a bit of a challenge.

For more information, check out Crime Fiction Lover’s Guide to Harry Hole.

I really enjoy these gritty, brilliant crime novels set in dark, cold countries.  No snakes, no bugs, no malaria…could that be the reason?

p.s.  I am on page 44.  I am reading very, very slowly.  I don’t want it to end.  And I hope Jo Nesbo writes quickly and spends many hours at his desk writing the next novels.

If you liked GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO, you will like this.

If you didn’t like GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO because it was too gory and graphic and violent, you will like this because it’s not gory, graphic and over-the-top violent.

If you like mysteries, that is.

This is the first book in a “cold case” crime fiction series set in Copenhagen.  I’ve read all three books in the “Department Q” series and can’t wait for the next one to come out.

You can read more about it HERE.

And you can blame me if you don’t finish baking your cookies, wrapping your gifts, chopping your wood or answering the telephone.