"L.A. '56" by Joel Engel was brilliant true crime that read like a thriller. During the summer of 1956, a serial rapist is on the loose in Los Angeles. The LAPD is convinced they have the right suspect in custody: a former officer named Todd Roark. However, one of the detectives, Danny Galindo, isn't so sure and takes it upon himself to hunt down the real rapist. Powerful and edgy, it just goes to show that when you think things can't get any worse, they sure can.
"Wentworth Hall" by Abby Grahame was supposed to be like "Downton Abbey" for the YA crowd. I thought it overshot the mark. Grahame tried way too hard to copy the show and it came through and just struck me as silly.
"The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes" edited by Leslie Klinger is sort of a reread. I've read all the stories within (from "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes") I just hadn't read the annotated version. I've been wanting to, ever since it first came out, I just haven't gotten around to it. Since I've gotten into the new BBC version of Sherlock Holmes on TV (amazing!!!) I've been itching to reread the stories, so I checked out the annotated version. It was fun, very clever footnotes and quite interesting. I learned a lot :)
Jeanette Winterson's memoir "Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?" was very good. She is a positive, optimistic individual that triumphed in the face of adversity. Jeanette was adopted when she was six weeks old by an older couple. The wife, who she refers to as "Mrs Winterson" was very religious and cold, and things only got worse when teenaged Jeanette started a relationship with a girl. She went on to become a well regarded author and eventually met her biological mother. I haven't read any of her fiction, but I've been meaning to ("Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit", her first, is on my list 1,001 books to read before I die). I loved her positive attitude toward life. It was very refreshing.
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