New Year, New Start

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are going back to work/school/slothdom with a fresh outlook and fresh start.

I finished two mystery books during the holidays:

The Case of the Tough Talking Turkey by Claudia Bishop
(The Casebook of Dr. McKenzie #2)
Berkley (Prime Crime), August 2007
ISBN #0425216691
288 pages Paperback
$6.99

This new-to-me-author is now going on my 'must-glom' list, because I love her 'voice'. Voice, impossible to define, impossible to mistake, is that elusive quality that carries a reader along to the finish with no effort. A writer's 'voice' won't work for every reader, so when you stumble across one that does, you hang on for life!

This book, the second in the series, was funny, warm, smart and quick. I dub Claudia Bishop (if it hasn't already been done) the new Charlotte MacLeod, because that is exactly what Ms. Bishop's voice reminds me of, especially MacLeod's Professor Peter Shandy series.

I also read Dashing Through the Snow, a Christmas mystery by Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark. This was a slight, light, fast read, without a lot of meat. Quite frankly, it felt 'phoned' in, like the two didn't put a lot of thought or time into it. Aside from that, it was an easy and relatively enjoyable read, but not one I'll remember a week from now. Or even a couple of days.

Website alert:

As always, I like to pass along info on websites Cozy Murder Mystery readers might enjoy. Check out this site, Mystery Readers International.
http://www.mysteryreaders.org/

It lists reading groups, mystery bookstores, and is the online home of Mystery Reader's Journal. In association with that is this blog, by Janet Rudolph: http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/

So... we're ba-ack! And ready for a new year of murder, mayhem and fun!