Blackberry Pie Murder

While Hannah is picking up Lisa at the car repair shop, a violent summer storm starts. Unable to see well in the rain and lightning, she hits a tree branch, but when she and Lisa get out to investigate, they find a man, dead. Doc Knight confirms that Hannah's truck caused the deadly injuries, so even though it was an accident, Hannah is arrested and thrown in jail. Bill gave the order, so Andrea is no longer speaking to him, and Mike is suspended because he refused to do it. Howie, Hannah's lawyer, gets her out on bail and Hannah and friends go to work trying to identify the man, who is a stranger to Lake Eden residents, young and old alike. He had a distinctive diamond in one tooth, which leads Grandma Knudson to hypothesize he was a pimp. Turns out Grandma was right! Meanwhile, Delores is no closer to making any final decisions on her upcoming wedding to Doc Knight, changing her mind every other day about everything, leaving her daughters completely exasperated. And Michelle's friend Carly is worried about her long lost sister, Jennifer. She doesn't think Jennifer is really Jennifer, and asks Hannah to investigate. Girl, Hannah is out on bail and awaiting trial for vehicular manslaughter. You think she has time to investigate your issue? Well, unless the impostor is somehow related to the dead pimp...

Red Velvet Cupcake Murder

Doctor Beverly is back in town, engaged to wealthy Roger Dalworth and flaunting herself around town. Hannah doesn't really care, so long as she doesn't try to get her dirty hooks into Norman again. Barbara Donnelly falls off the roof of the fancy new penthouse apartment Roger bought for Beverly, and while she isn't killed, she does seem to have some brain injuries that are keeping her from remembering exactly what happened on the roof. Hannah is trying to find out if she was pushed, fell, or jumped when she finds Doc Bev's dead body in the lake. It was okay. I'm glad Hannah slapped Mike towards the end, he deserved it.
TEAM NORMAN!!

Savage Season

I had to buy the first Hap and Leonard book, but that's okay, it was pretty good. Hap's ex-wife, Trudy, shows up and has a too good to be true proposition for Hap. Her current boyfriend, Howard, knows where there's a sunken boat with a million dollars hidden on it, from a bank robbery. He bunked with a guy in prison who was part of the team of robbers, and their getaway boat sank. Trudy and Howard have been trying to find the boat, but haven't had any luck. Trudy thinks Hap can help, since the boat went down in an area Hap knows pretty well from having grown up there. Hap agrees to help out for a cut of the money, but only if he can bring Leonard along, and Trudy reluctantly agrees (there is no love lost between Leonard and Trudy). There was a lot of double-crossing involved, and an epic fight at the end that left Trudy dead (which I knew from reading "Mucho Mojo", but still) and Leonard permanently disabled.

Bloody Spur; Astrid Lindgren: the Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking

Third in the Caleb York series, the wonderful Western collaboration between the late, great Mickey Spillane and the keeper of his flame, Max Allan Collins (side note: happy 100th anniversary of Mickey Spillane's birthday the other day!). The railroad wants to build a spur of the line between Trinidad and Las Vegas (New Mexico, not Nevada) and most of the townspeople are thrilled at the idea of the railroad coming through their town, bringing new business and prosperity. Founder of the Bar-O ranch, blind George Cullen, is against the spur, since he thinks it will bring more crime and trouble and competition. His daughter, Willa, is all for it but doesn't know how to convince her father to change his mind. York is for it, but he's got more important things on his mind: a bad hombre named Preacherman is in town to compete in the poker tournament at the Victory, and York has a feeling he's been hired to kill someone. It was good and lots of fun, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I've never actually read any of Astrid Lindgren's books. My sister and I used to love watching the old Pippi Longstocking movies on TV when we were kids. I saw this new biography about Lindgren, and checked it out. It wasn't bad. It's funny to think she only wrote three Pippi Longstocking books, she wrote so many others, and yet Pippi is what she is known for. She lived a pretty unconventional life: she got pregnant at 18 by her much older, married boss and traveled to Denmark to give birth in secret, since Swedish hospitals required both parents' names on the birth certificate. She left their son, Lars, with a foster mother for a few years until she was able to go back and get him and bring him home with her. She married her next boss, who was a bit older, and had a daughter, Karin, with him. It wasn't a marriage for love but for mutual benefit: as a single mother she needed to be able to give her son a stable home, and she and her husband got along well. When he died, quite young, actually, she never considered remarrying, instead enjoying living on her own, surrounded by children and grandchildren. She passionately loved children, and had some rather radical notions about how to raise them.

Cinnamon Roll Murder

Hannah and Michelle witness a multi-car pileup on the highway and stop to help. The tour bus for a jazz band that's playing at the Lake Eden Inn is overturned, and the driver is dead. They help transport the rest of the band (called "The Cinnamon Roll Six". Really? That's the best name you could come up with for a jazz band? Okay...) to the hospital. While at the hospital, one of the band members, Buddy, is stabbed in the heart and dies.
Of course Hannah is going to investigate, she has a lot of free time on her hands now that Norman is marrying Bev (she blackmailed him into it, saying she wouldn't let him see their daughter, Diana, unless he did. Poor Norman is miserable about it but doesn't know what else to do). Turns out Buddy wasn't his real name, and Doctor Bev looks like a good suspect for murdering him!
While it wasn't bad, I'm starting to get a little tired of some of the aspects of these books. Like the never ending eating. There was one point where Hannah and Andrea went to a bar, had drinks (nonalcoholic, but still) and appetizers, then stopped on the way home for ice cream sundaes and hot chocolate, and took more hot chocolate on the road, then had dinner. Andrea must have the metabolism of a hummingbird if she can eat like that and still be thin, I mean, my God. Who even eats like that?

Candy Cane Murder

So, again, I didn't read this whole book, just the Hannah Swensen novella. It was actually in between "Carrot Cake Murder" and "Creme Puff Murder", but I skipped it because I didn't think it would make a difference. Then Fluke referenced it in one of the more recent ones and confused me, so I figured I'd better go back and read it. It was pretty good: Bergstrom department store owner Wayne is found (by Hannah, of course) dead after playing Santa for a bunch of kids. His wife, Melanie, seems less than sad about it, leading everyone (and by everyone I mean Hannah and Norman) to think she killed Wayne.

Mucho Mojo

I've been wanting to read Joe R. Landsdale's Hap and Leonard series for awhile now, but I said to myself: "Do you really think you need to start a new series right now? You haven't finished the Hannah Swensen books yet, not to mention all the other books you have on hold. And don't even get me started on all the books you've bought and never touched!". Yeah, yeah, I know. All very logical arguments against starting a new series.
So, naturally, I started a new series.
We didn't have the first one at my library, and the next closest library I use didn't own it, either, so I started with "Mucho Mojo". I don't think I missed too much, not reading the first one: Landsdale sort of recapped it, hit the high points. Leonard's uncle Chester passes away, leaving him his house and a bunch of odd things: jars of coupons, a copy of "Dracula", a painting Leonard did as a child. Leonard asks his friend Hap to help him fix up uncle Chester's house, and Hap agrees. While they're working on the flooring, they discover a locked trunk with the skeletal remains of a child in there, along with some disturbing kiddie porn. Leonard knows his uncle wasn't a saint, but he also knows he wasn't a pedophile and killer, so he and Hap start trying to figure out what could have happened. It was really good, I enjoyed it, and it was gritty and dark, which I needed after all the sweet fluff of Joanne Fluke.