First Impressions by Charlie Lovett

The subtitle is A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love and Jane Austen.  I'm not a Jane Austen fan so it was a bit of a slow start but once the mystery, revealed in parallel and alternating chapters, kicked in, I was hooked.  One story begins in 1796 with a young Jane Austen as the central character.  The other is a contemporary story in the English countryside where the young book lover, Sophie Collingwood, is grieving the loss of her favorite uncle and the further loss of the family's extensive library. The object at the center of attention in both is the one and only copy of a little book written by the Rev. Mansfield, close friend of Jane.  The book was once in the Collingwood library.  In the book was  a story that would grow up to be Pride and Prejudice.  Did Jane Austen steal her most famous novel from her elderly friend and is this mystery somehow connected to her uncle's mysterious death? The fact that Lovett moves so easily between the style of the Victorian novel and contemporary writing was one of my favorite parts of this book - one every bibliophile would enjoy.

Still Life by Louise Penny

I won't share all the Louise Penny Inspector Gamache mysteries but this is the first in the series and had I discovered this book back in the day, I am sure I would have preferred starting from the very beginning.  I believe these books are classified as cozy mysteries so as not to be condused with great literature but - I am so hooked on the characters and the fictional village of Three Pines that I really really want to visit the part of Canada that is her inspiration.  Quebec, Monteal and Three Pines - a perfect holiday.  I don't even really like mysteries but Ganache and his insightful caring approach to solving murders and the cast of suppoting characters have definitely become one of my guilty pleasures.  Although each mystery stands on its own, I would recommend starting here.

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

Inspecter Gamache is in Three Pines, a village in the woods outside of Quebec City, investigating the death of one of it's most popular residents.  Was she really scared to death at a seance intended to be a bit of silly entertainment or is something more sinister afoot?  Complicating the investigation is the continued attack on Gamache himself because of his accusations against the Surete.  I have read a couple of this series all out of order.  Love the characters.  Love the philosophical discussions around good and evil.  Now I want to start with number 1.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

Thirteen year old Jenna has spent much of the last 10 years wondering why her mother Alice left her behind.  Alice has managed to continue her study of elephants in spite of her profound grief at the loss of her daughter.  Serenity was once a psychic to the stars and a valuable aid in many police investigations. Virgil (aka Victor) was quickly climbing the ranks of the police force when a bad decision throws him into a permanent alcoholic stupor.  Their individual stories all connect around a murder in New England Elephant Sanctuary.  Or maybe not....
I did not see where this story was going.

the Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarity

Cecilia accidentally discovers a letter written by her husband.  On the outside it says, "To be opened after my death". He is very much alive but away on a business trip.  On the phone, she kids about finding the letter.  "Don't open it," he says.  Channeling Pandora, she opens it anyway changing everything she knows about her life.  The truth can be a dangerous thing.  Is it better to live with a lie or suffer the consequences of the truth?  And here is another question.  If the primary characters in a novel are mostly women and the issue is fraught with emotion and personal consequences, is it always classified as "chic lit"? 

The Fig Eater by Jody Shields

I was drawn to this book because to mentioned Freud's Dora case. As a former psych major, I was intrigued.  Dora is dead on page one and Freud is nowhere to be seen.  There is a lot of eastern European mysticism and 1910 Viennese atmosphere but at its heart this is a pretty boring murder mystery with a lot of characters I never warmed to.  Oh well.

A Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

Inspector Gamache and his side kick Jean-Guy Beavoir find themselves in in the remote Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups monastery to investigate the suspected murder of one the monks.  There are no roads to the lakeside fortress built hundreds of years ago.  In fact the folks in Rome think this ancient order of silent monks were eliminated during the Inquisition.  That is until a CD of these isolated monks singing Gregorian Chants becomes number 1 on the charts.  The money earned from CD has allowed the monks to make much needed improvements in the ancient monastery but it has created a rift between the monks.  Some were anxious to make another CD to continue the improvements in the building.  Others believed that the necessary interaction with the outside world would mean an end to their contemplative life.  The death of the choir master would definitely mean something very different to each camp.
One of the best thing about this book is the description of the music.  The mystical, other worldly quality of the music when sung by these monks is the "beautiful mystery."  Even the anti-church Gamache and Beauvoir cannot escape its power.
Because I have not read the Inspector Gamache mysteries in order, I definitely had a feeling of stepping into the middle of a much larger back story that does not end with this book. It is these characters and their complicated lives as well as the poetic love of the world around Quebec that elevates these above the typical mystery.

The Home Place by Carrie La Seur

Years ago Alma Terrebonne left bleak rural Montana to become a high priced lawyer in Seattle.  When she receives a call that her younger sister Vicky has been found frozen to death in Billings, she is drawn back into all the drama of the dysfunctional family she tried to escape.  As the facts seem to build that this was not an accidental death - family secrets, history, promises made, promises broken - all seem to be a part of solving the mystery surrounding Vicky's death.  Can we escape our roots?  Do we always carry our history inside even if we try to become wholly other?  In the end, do we all find our way home?

Stella Bain by Anita Shreve

A young woman wakes up in a French military hospital in 1916.  She thinks her name might be Stella Bain.  She is wrong.  She is wearing a British Volunteer uniform but she seems to be American. She knows how to drive an ambulance, is quite artistic and believes that there is a connection between the Admiralty in London and discovering who she really is but can't explain any of it.  As troubling as her memory loss is, it does not compare to the difficulties she discovers when her real life comes rushing back.  This is an interesting picture of life during the war, the role of women, and the beginnings of "talking therapy" although there is no great science here.  Not sure which one was the inspiration for the story.

Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

Rowling (really no reason to pretend Galbraith is anyone else) turns to the world of literary intrigue for her second Cormoran Strike mystery.  Novelist Owen Quine has just finished a manuscript full of easily identifiable characters doing nasty and, until his writing, secret things.  When the missing Quine turns up dead, it is easy to see why any of a number of the people whom he has included in the book may have wanted to kill him.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Every day Rachel takes the commuter train out of London.  She looks out the window at a small town where she lived before her divorce and fantasizes about a couple she can see from the window.  So young; so happy; so affectionate.  Then one day she is surprised to see the young woman passionately embracing another man.  Her fantasy is destroyed but the greater shock comes when she reads in the news that the woman has disappeared.  Rachel believes what she has seen from the window is the key to solving the mystery of the woman's disappearance. Complicating her thinking is the fact that on the day the woman disappeared, Rachel found herself in the same town bloodied and bruised with no idea what happened - one of her many alcohol induced black outs.  But Rachel is just one of the narrators.  Megan, the woman who is missing and Anna, Rachel's husband's new wife also have stories to tell.  Although it is difficult to be sympathetic to any of these damaged women, they are not the nastiest characters in the book.  Three narrators provide three perspectives on a single murder but that may not be the only murder.  Very Gone Girl -ish. 

Th Invisible Ones by Stef Penney

This mystery, if there is any truth in it, is a window into 1980's Romany culture in England.  Private investigator Ray Lowell is hired to find a young woman who has disappeared following her marriage to a young Romany man, Ivo Janko.  Lowell tells the story from two perspectives - from the beginning of his investigation and from from his current position in a hospital bed with a mysterious illness that has clouded his memory.  The third voice telling the story is a young Romany boy, JJ, a relative of Ivo's.  There are many twists to the plot which predict a strange resolution but I'm guessing you won't guess this one.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarity

Madeline, Celeste and Jane all have children about to enter kindergarten at Pirriwee Peninsula in Australia.  Madeline (of the biting wit) has a current husband  who is wonderful but her older daughter would rather live with husband number one and his oh so perfect zen loving wife.  They also have a child starting kindergarten in the same school.  Celeste ( of the perfect wealthy life ) harbors a secret which may or may not have affected her oh so perfect twin boys.  Jane ( the shy single Mom ) tries unsuccessfully to fly under the radar of the parent group feeling that neither she or her son will fit in.  This too perfect setting is crawling with misunderstandings and false truths.  Someone is being a bully.  Maybe more than one someone.  And someone is going to get hurt or maybe die.  These 3 voices carry the reader to a more than satisfying ending.  Chick Lit?  Maybe - but worth the read.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

In 2004 BeckyLyn Scott, 19th wife of the current Prophet in the Utah community of First Latter Day Saints (known as the Firsts) is in prison for his murder.  In the summer of 1894 Ann Eliza Young, 19th wife of Brigham Young published a book called The 19th Wife exposing the reality of polygamy.  The two stories intertwine as Jordan, BeckyLyn's son, seeks to discover the truth behind his mother's arrest.  Lots of Mormon history, lots of exploration of the polygamous life style, and a pretty interesting mystery.  Jordan is an amusing and wise narrator of one story.  Ann is the guide to historical Mormonism on the verge of change.  It is a good compliment to Under the Banner of Heaven and an interesting insight into a belief most non-Mormons find hard to understand.

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

New Bremen, Minnesota is the kind of small town where life should be idyllic.  But the summer of  1961 was one of tragic deaths and misunderstandings.  For 13 year old Frank and his young brother Jake, sons of the town's Methodist minister, it is also a crisis of faith.  Although it is on the surface a mystery, for Frank our narrator, it is a coming of age story.  The grey areas between right and wrong, the nature of love, the connection between grief, anger and forgiveness are just a few of the struggles Frank and Jake seek to understand.  Although wisdom frequently comes with Jake's observations,  it is Gus, their Dad's old army buddy, that is fortunately there to provide reason when the apparent randomness of God's intent is not explanation enough.

The Dead of Winter by Rennie Airth

A young Polish immigrant is murdered in blitz riddled London.  The fact that she was working for retired detective John Madden who has left  London to be a gentleman farmer in the countryside draws him into the mystery.  As the bodies pile up, the solution seems to cross decades and continents.  This is great period history as well as mystery and Madden is as much the insightful, gentlman detective in this book as he is the first two mysteries in this series.

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

I'm not sure why J.K. Rowling bothered to use a pseudonym since her name appears on the bio info. but whatever.  Cormoran Strike has returned from Afghanistan to London without a part of his leg and a plan to be a private eye.  Things are not going well.  When Robin Ellicott shows up from the temp agency to run his office he has no idea how he will pay her.  Then John Bistrow shows up insisting that his famous sister did not commit suicide and he wants Strike to find her murderer.  And with that a new detective team is born.  The second book will come out this summer.  It wasn't a bad mystery at all.  It will remain to be seen if the team chemistry will stand the test of time or at least another book.

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspeare

Book number three in the Maisie Dobbs Series.  It is the 1930's and Hitler's rise is already casting gloom over England.  Maisie is trying to locate the bodies of two WWI pilots lost in action as well as keeping a young girl from hanging for a murder she has confessed to but may not have committed. How could these all be connected?  Aah but they are.  This is such a period mystery series right down to the aristocratic country side and detailed description of the characters clothing but Maisie is by contrast such a likable strong female character.  These aren't Pulitzer prize contenders but definitely more satisfying than  Stephanie Plum - although not nearly as funny.

The Music Lesson by Katherine Weber

The Music Lesson in the title of the Vermeer painting that hangs in Buckingham Palace.  Weber imagines the possibility of a radical group stealing that painting while it is in transport from a European exhibit.  Patricia Dolan is the art historian innocently drawn into the theft by a charming Irishman who awakens her from a deep sadness generated by a personal tragedy.  It isn't until she finds herself in a remote Irish village alone with the painting that she begins to question her decision to participate.  We learn the story through a two week diary she keeps during her time in the village.  Part mystery, part romance, a little art history and an interesting experience with "what if". 

Leaving everything most loved by Jacqueline Winspear

I love the combination of mystery, psychology, and history.  Maisie Dodds is such an intriguing character.  I think this is 5 or 6 in the series and I definitely had to jump to some conclusions to fill in the spaces of the books I haven't read yet.  It is now 1933.  Her love life has definitely taken a turn for the better but is on hold until she explores a bit more of the world.  In the meantime she must solve the murders of two young women from India who were brought to England as ayahs.  The lives of many of the other characters change as well.  Can't wait to see what happens next.