Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris

I fell in love with audiobooks about a year ago. They’re great to listen to while doing housework and driving to and from work. A month or two ago, I decided to give Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series a try, to see what it was I was missing. My husband loves these books, [...]

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The Draining Lake, by Arnaldur Indriðason

The Draining Lake is the fourth Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson thriller/mystery. Like Jar City, Silence of the Grave, and Voices, the action takes place in Iceland. A scientist studying the mysterious draining of a lake near Reykjavik after an earthquake sees the bones of a skeleton uncovered. The body had been weighted down by a [...]

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The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen

In my way of thinking, the way to experience a 250-mile trek across the Himalayas, up to 17,000 feet, is by getting under a warm blanket on my sofa and reading a book about it by one of the best nature writers alive. The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen, is such a book.
In 1973, [...]

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Angels of Destruction, by Keith Donohue

On a very cold January night, in a small Pennsylvania town, a nine-year-old girl with glasses shows up on the doorstep of Margaret Quinn. Margaret is a lonely widow whose only daughter, Erica, ran away from home as a teenager ten years earlier in 1975 with her boyfriend Wiley and hasn’t been seen in [...]

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Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods, by Cary Griffith

I picked up this book because I wanted to get a quick look at how published writers write about being in the woods. I intended to skim just a few pages. From the first page, I was hooked. I finished the book in less than two days, not wanting to put it down to [...]

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Bad Traffic: An Inspector Jian novel, by Simon Lewis

A phone call from Inspector Jian’s daughter interrupts his relaxed dinner date in Beijing. “Dad, help me, help me. Help me. Help.” The phone goes dead. Jian takes the first plane to England, to Leeds University where Wei Wei should be taking classes. Jian doesn’t speak English and very few people in London can [...]

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The White Mary, by Kira Salak

The White Mary is a novel by Kira Salak, journalist, adventurer, and contributing editor for National Geographic. Salak was the first woman to traverse Papua New Guinea and write a nonfiction account of her trip, Four Corners, which was a New York Times notable book in 2001.
The ‘white Mary’ (what Papua New Guineans call a [...]

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In Hovering Flight, by Joyce Hinnefeld

In Hovering Flight, by Joyce Hinnefeld, tells the life story of Addie Kavanaugh, a bird artist and environmental activist. As the novel opens, Addie is dying of cancer at her best friend’s house on the coast of New Jersey. Addie’s two best women friends, her husband, Tom, and their daughter, Scarlet, are by her side. [...]

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A Guide to the Birds of East Africa: a Novel, by Nicholas Drayson

This is a novel, not a field guide. The story takes place in Kenya, where reserved widower Mr. Malik has been going on weekly bird walks led by Rose Mbikwa for the past three years. He is in love with Rose, but has never told her. He has only recently been getting up the nerve [...]

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Lethal Legacy, by Linda Fairstein

Tina Barr, a conservator of rare books and maps, has been assaulted in her New York City apartment by a man in a fireman’s uniform and mask. Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cooper, from the DA’s office of Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit, has been summoned, although the police are not sure if Tina’s assault was [...]

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