Dearly Devoted Dexter

Doakes is following Dexter pretty hard, so Dexter is spending a lot of time with Rita and her kids, Astor and Cody, in order to look like an average guy. He hasn't been able to let his Dark Passenger come out to play, and he's getting cranky. Then a killer shows up in Miami, a really nasty guy: he cuts pieces off his victims, basically leaving them alive but with their minds completely gone (he sets up a mirror so they can watch him butchering them--yikes). Former Black Ops Kyle Chutsky shows up from Washington to help out, as he is apparently familiar with the killer, whom they have dubbed "Dr. Danco". Deb and Kyle start dating, and she's livid when Danco grabs Kyle and begs Dexter to help get him back. Meanwhile, Dexter accidentally proposes to Rita, and Masuka throws him an epic bachelor party and Danco takes advantage of the opportunity to kidnap Doakes. Dexter finds Kyle and is able to rescue him before *too* much damage was done, but Doakes wasn't as lucky.

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

Still working on avoiding all those big nonfiction books I checked out! I love "Pride and Prejudice" (book and films). I've liked a lot of the sequels written by other authors and some of the spoofs, like "Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies". If P&P could be fun with zombies, why not vampyres? Sadly, I was wrong. Fitzwilliam Darcy is a vampyre, although Lizzie doesn't know it when they get married. They take off on their honeymoon trip and go first to Paris, to meet some of his relatives. Lizzie is a bit concerned that Darcy doesn't want to be alone with her, since, after all, it is their honeymoon. She tries to set her doubts aside and have a good time, and she does in Venice, where she meets more friends and family. Then off to a remote castle, which is stormed by an angry mob of villagers, and Darcy and Lizzie barely escape with their lives. An ancient vampyre is pursuing them, determined to have Lizzie for himself, and Darcy finally tells her the truth. They can never be together, for fear of making her a vampyre, too. It was all very silly, but not in a good way, in an eye rolling "My God, why am I still reading this?" sort of way. And she took great liberties with the vampyre mythos. Darcy can eat food, and go out in sunlight, and wear a cross. I would have been better off rereading the original.

Casino Moon

These Hard Case Crime books are so much fun!
"Casino Moon" by Peter Blauner is about a man in Atlantic City named Anthony. He was raised by his stepdad, Vin, who is in the mob. Anthony has fought his whole life *not* to become a gangster, and he's drowning. He owes all kinds of money, and can't seem to get ahead to save his life. Anthony thinks he's found a way out of his mess when he comes across a former prizefighter named Elijah who is looking to make a comeback. Anthony decides to become his manager, and borrows more money to help Elijah get a fight that will propel him back into the spotlight. He ends up in all kinds of trouble with Teddy, his dad's boss, over the deal and things go south very quickly. It was painful to watch Anthony make bad decision after bad decision, with the best of intentions, and nothing working out for him.

See What I Have Done

I was super disappointed with Sarah Schmidt's "See What I Have Done". It's a fictionalized account of the Lizzie Borden case, so of course I was excited and snatched it up as soon as it came in. Right off the bat her writing style didn't appeal to me, and I told myself to just give it up and return the book, but I was determined. I'm sorry now I wasted my time, it just wasn't for me. She had a strange premise for crime: Uncle John hired a man named Benjamin to accompany him to Fall River and "have a word" with Andrew about the way he was treating his nieces. Benjamin is a rather unsavory character, but he manages to sneak his way into the Borden home that fateful day, unseen by anyone (despite vomiting under the table...yuck). And yet, he wasn't the murderer. Schmidt doesn't come out and *say* it, but she strongly implies it was Lizzie who butchered her stepmother and father. Benjamin is upset he was cheated out of his chance to hurt someone, but he does find the murder weapon and take it with him when he leaves (which explains why the police never found it). All in all it was very disjointed and like I said, the style was not to my taste.

No House Limit

I bought a bunch of the Hard Case Crime books when they first started coming out (2007? 2008? somewhere in there). I've read some, but not most, and the other night I wanted something to take to bed that wasn't a huge nonfiction book (like everything I currently have checked out from the library) so I dug into my shelves and came up with "No House Limit" by Steve Fisher. Set in Las Vegas in the 1950s (God, I wish I could have seen it back then!), Joe Martin is the biggest independent casino operator on the Strip. The Syndicate's been trying to chip away at him for awhile, but thanks to a great security team who has his back, Joe has managed to thwart them at every turn. Then one night Bello shows up. He's a professional dice man with big money behind him, and he spends three days winning millions off Joe. It was really great, I enjoyed it. I would love to read more books by him, but it looks like they're hard to find. That's a shame.

Best of Richard Matheson; Two Nights

"The Best of Richard Matheson" was an excellent collection of his short stories. Richard Matheson wrote a few of my favorite "Twilight Zone" episodes, and while some of the stories in this collection were a little too science fiction for my taste, most were pretty good. Quite a few had great surprise twists at the end that I didn't see coming. "Button, Button", "Where There's a Will", and "A Visit to Santa Claus" stand out as particular favorites. Great collection, I really enjoyed it.

I hope this is a start to a new series by Reichs, I really enjoyed the main character, Sunday Night. She's ex-military and ex-cop who was injured on the job and forced to take an early retirement. She's got a past full of demons: Reichs didn't delve too deeply into it, but it seems as if Sunday and her twin brother, August (Gus), escaped from a cult back in the 90s. Due to her unique upbringing, her mentor Beau thinks she's perfect to help on a case that's eluded Chicago PD for over a year now. A mother and her young son were killed in a terrorist attack, and the daughter is missing. Her grandmother, a wealthy Southern dame, is offering big bucks if Sunday can find her.

Borden Murders

While reading "Caroline", I saw Sarah Miller had written a book about the Lizzie Borden case. I finished reading it and saw on the back cover that it is considered a children's (well, grades 7 and up) book, which surprised me a bit. Not sure why it surprised me, since I was twelve when I first read "Helter Skelter", so it's not like kids that young can't be interested in true crime. I guess it's just that when I was a teen, they didn't write true crimes books specifically for my age range (at least none that I knew about). It was well written, just no new information for me, because I've read literally everything I can get my hands on about the case. I also got to visit the Borden house back in 2011, I think. I have pictures somewhere :) It's just one of those cases that fascinates me, since we won't ever know who really did it.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

All right, well, I think I figured out what I'm going to reread now that I finished the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" is the first in the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay. Dexter is a blood spatter expert in Miami with a dark secret: he likes to kill people. Now, having been raised by a cop, Dexter has a strict moral code. He can only kill people who are bad. He carefully chooses his victims: murderers, pedophiles, rapists, and sacrifices them to his "dark passenger". His adopted sister, Deb, is working vice, anxious to get her big break into homicide, and it looks like she might get her chance with the latest string of murders of prostitutes, drained of blood and cut into pieces. Dexter is intrigued by the kills. I love how snarky and darkly humorous Dexter is. Lindsay is a fun writer, I wish he would write more.

Paperbacks from Hell; Caroline: Little House, Revisited

"Paperbacks from Hell" by Grady Hendrix was a lot of fun. He took a look back at the golden era of horror and the craziness that was being published back then (but crazy in a super fun way). His summaries of some of the stories had me laughing out loud, and a lot of the cover art was so excellent and over the top. I think I added about 1,000 books to my "to read" list (the last thing I needed, right?) but some of those books are really hard to get a hold of, since they were only in print for a short period of time and not meant to be classics that stayed in libraries forever. I see a lot of Ebay in my future :)

"Caroline: Little House, Revisited" by Sarah Miller was "Little House on the Prairie", told from Ma's (Caroline Ingalls) point of view. It was excellent, great to get an adult perspective on the events that happened. Caroline has just discovered she is pregnant with their third child when Charles asks if they can move to Kansas. She reluctantly agrees, and off they go in the wagon. I can't even begin to imagine how awful that must have been: first of all, traveling that far in a wagon and being newly pregnant to boot? No thanks. They get to Kansas and pick a spot to make their new home. While Charles is looking for good land Caroline is naturally worried about who will come to help her when it's time for the baby to be born. After living in Kansas for about a year, the farmer who bought their home in Wisconsin reneges on the deal and the Ingalls family has to pack up and move back (they don't stay long, but that's another story). It makes me want to go back and reread all the Little House books, even though I really shouldn't.