City of Shadows - Ariana Franklin

Time has really gotten away from this last week. With Christmas and the New Year coming up, I got busy and didn't have time to write my last reviews of the year! So, here I am on New Year's Eve writing the last two reviews of 2009. How exciting!

I picked up City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin on a whim at the library a few weeks ago. I was sucked in by the look of the spine on the shelves and when I saw what it was about, I decided to check it out. The story is set in post-WWI Germany where Hitler has begun to gain popularity. Many Russians have fled the Bolsheviks in their country and have taken up residence in Berlin. The main character, Esther, is a Russian Jew and has fled the country after a pogrom. She is beautiful except for a large scar that she has on her face. She also is multilingual and uses her skills to work as a translator for a shady businessman. While she is at work one night, an intruder comes in and tries to attack her and a young woman that Esther's boss thinks is the missing Princess Anastasia. The man gets away, but a string of murders continues in Berlin and threatens Esther, the troubled young woman that might be the princess, and others that Esther knows and cares for.

The first few pages of the book were really interesting and sucked me into the story. However, there was a lull for a good 50-70 pages that made it a little difficult to sit and read for an extended period of time. Once the story got going though, I didn't want to stop reading. It had everything I like...mystery, thrills, and a little historical information on the Romanovs. I did enjoy the book and found it fairly engrossing. If you do read this, keep in mind that she wrote the book when Anastasia was still technically missing. I did a bit of reading on Wikipedia and it said that the missing bodies of the Romanov children were found and identities confirmed in 2007. Ariana Franklin wrote this book in 2006 so some of the information may be somewhat amiss because of it. It was still a fun read and the Romanovs are still as interesting as they ever were.

In the Woods - Tana French

In small town Knocknaree, Ireland, a young girl has been found dead in the woods. She has carefully been placed on an old, stone altar. Detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox get assigned to investigate the case. Some years before, two young children disappeared from these same woods. Are the cases related? 

Tana French's debut novel is brilliant. The book took me in so many different directions that I was never sure who was the murderer. Detective Rob Ryan has a link to the older disappearances--he was the third child that was in the woods that day and was found standing in blood soaked shoes. The mystery deepens because he cannot remember what happened in the woods that day. His past haunts him as he struggles to remember. 


I have read a few thrillers this year and this was definitely one of the better ones. There were so many suspects and the crime scene was only half found so I never knew what was going to happen next in the book. I found myself reading at night with my Mighty Bright light in bed and I'd look up and see the clock beaming 4:00 am. While I don't like the insomnia that it's caused, I love books that engage me so much I am unaware of time passing. 


I never like to give away too much when I read thrillers or mysteries because I don't want to ruin the story. I will say that this book kept me guessing and was really well written. If you are looking for a book with a complicated plot that isn't scary, you should give this book a try. I will definitely be picking up the followup, The Likeness for my Thriller and Suspense Challenge in 2010. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

For months, I heard about the hype surrounding Stieg Larsson's novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Thrillers/mysteries are a genre that I am trying to get into this year. I always enjoy them, but I also find most of them forgettable and within a few months of reading them I can rarely remember what the plot of the book was. I can safely say that this book will not be one of them. The plot was incredible and left me guessing through much of the book. There was such a detailed back story that I became attached to some of the characters as well.

The book is about a disgraced financial journalist named Mikael Blomkvist who has been convicted of libel for a story he published about a Swedish businessman. Through the press coverage of the trial, industrialist Henrik Vanger finds Blomkvist and hires him to write his family's story and hopefully solve the mysterious disappearance of his niece, Harriet Vanger. Blomkvist does exhaustive research into the Vanger family over the course of a year and even picks up a research assistant along the way. The twists and turns the story takes made for a really good read. I was never bored! However, this book was chosen for an online book club that I am participating in, and one of the readers found the book laborious and difficult to follow. It is true that there are a ridiculous number of Vangers in the book (since Blomkvist is researching the family history, he pretty much touches on every one for the last 100 years it seems like) and the back story takes quite awhile to get through. My copy was almost 600 pages and the exciting part starts around pages 200-250. I didn't find any of it boring. During the back story, Lisbeth Salander (who is the girl with the dragon tattoo) has her own story that I felt was equally interesting if not more at times.

I cannot wait to pick up a copy of The Girl Who Played with Fire and continue reading the series. I will most likely wait until it comes out in paperback just to keep my series consistent (my copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is paperback). My only regret in this series is the Stieg Larsson died in 2004 at the age of 50. According to Wikipedia, his plans were to write ten books in the Millenium series, but only three were finished and a fourth manuscript was left unfinished. Synopses were written for the fifth and sixth books of the series. I would have enjoyed reading all of the novels, and I'm excited that there are three that are or will be available soon.

The Dark Wind

From time to time, I really enjoy a quick mystery novel. Tony Hillerman's are some of my favorites because he writes about the area I am from. Two days ago I picked up his book The Dark Wind so I'd have something to read at the doctor's office while I got my allergy shots (three hours and eight shots in all...I have to pass the time somehow).

Sitting in the office reading between my shots, I got totally lost in his descriptions of the land and the weather in the area. I have no plans to ever move back to New Mexico, but reading his descriptions of the rain in the summer made me really miss home. I do miss the dry dirt and seeing rain evaporate before it hits the ground. I miss the smell of the rain when it does fall. Nothing like a little Tony Hillerman to give me my desert fix!

The story itself was fun to read. The story takes place mostly in Arizona (but New Mexico is also in it) and is about a plane crash, a vandalized windmill, and a drug deal gone wrong. Jim Chee is alone in this mystery (his other character, Joe Leaphorn wasn't in it) and is caught up in a web of mystery of who has continually been vandalizing a windmill and its link to a plane crash that happened in the area. Although Chee is tribal police and shouldn't be involved in the plane crash investigation because it appears to have been a drug deal gone wrong, he continues to investigate all these crimes.

It was a fun, quick read. I read it in less than 24 hours. Someday I'll get through all Tony Hillerman's books because I think they depict New Mexico pretty well. It gives me just the right dose of mystery and home all in one package!