Scones & Bones (A Tea Shop Mystery) by Laura Childs

(from the paperback) Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning is lured into attending the Heritage Society's Pirates and Plunder show by her master tea blender.  Amid the gold earrings and doubloons, an antique skull cup with a huge diamond steals the show - and gets plundered by someone who murders a history intern in the process.

Even with that on her plate, Theodosia still has to attend Charleston's Food and Wine Festival, where she's hosting a tea and cheese tasting - the latest culinary trend.  But as her thoughts keep drifting to the victim, Theodosia knows she'll have to whet her investigative skills to find the killer among a raft of suspects...

Includes delicious recipes, tea time tips and tea resources!

Scones & Bones (2011) is the twelfth book in the Tea Shop mystery series.  The latest one, Agony of the Leaves (6 March 2012), is available now.  For more information, check out www.laurachilds.com

Rating:  3/5

Devil's Food Cake Murder (A Hannah Swensen Mystery series) by Joanne Fluke

(from the paperback) These days, everyone in Lake Eden, Minnesota is buzzing with activity, and Hannah Swensen is no exception.  But no matter how busy she may be, Hannah can always find time to help a friend in need - especially when he's been murdered...

Hannah Swensen has to admit that her life is pretty sweet.  Things are going well in the romance department, and her bakery's delectable confections are selling almost as fast as she can bake them.  Even her good friend Claire is on Cloud Nine, head over heels with her new husband, Reverend Bob Knudson.  If only they could find time to take their honeymoon!

When Bob's childhood friend, Matthew Walters, comes to town, it seems like divine intervention.  Matthew, like Bob, is a Lutheran minister with a stubborn sweet tooth.  Since he's on sabbatical, Matthew is happy to fill in for Bob while he and Claire take that long-awaited honeymoon.  It sounds like the perfect plan - until Hannah finds Matthew in the rectory, face-down in a plate of Devil's Food Cake, a single bullet in his head.

Determined to find out who killed Matthew, Hannah starts asking questions - and discovers that the good reverend wasn't quite the saintly fellow he appeared to be.

But could the gold Sacagawea coins in Sunday's collection plate hold the key to solving the crime?  Or is the murder connected to that big jewel heist out in Minneapolis?  Is it possible that Matthew's love of chocolate somehow led to his downfall?

It will take some more digging to find out, but Hannah is sure of one thing:  even the most half-baked murder plot can be oh so deadly...

Devil's Food Cake Murder (2011) is the fifteenth book in the Hannah Swensen Mystery series.  The sixteenth in the series and also the latest, Cinnamon Roll Murder (28 February 2012), is available now.  Visit the author's website at www.MurderSheBaked.com for more tidbits.  I read this electronic book priced at £3.56 (from Amazon) on my Kindle.

Watch Joanne Fluke talking about Hannah and friends and her mouth-watering recipes:



Rating:  3/5

My Destiny

Apple Turnover Murder (A Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes) by Joanne Fluke

Early summer brings plenty of work for baker Hannah Swensen, even before Mayor Bascomb's wife drops by The Cookie Jar to place an order for her charity even...for eleven-hundred cookies!  And Hannah almost flips when her business partner, Lisa, suggests setting up an apple turnover stand.  But she places her faith in Lisa and agrees to be a magician's assistant in the fundraiser's talent show...

The only snag is the show's host, college professor Bradford Ramsey.  Hannah and her sister, Michelle, each had unfortunate romances with Ramsey, and when the cad comes sniffing around between acts, Hannah tells him off.  But when the curtain doesn't go up, she discovers Ramsey backstage - dead, with a turnover in his hand.  Now Hannah must find a killer who's flakier than puff pastry - and far more dangerous... (paperback blurb)

Apple Turnover Murder (2010) is the fourteenth book in the Hannah Swensen Mystery series.  True to form, it contains over ten cookie and dessert recipes like Mocha Nut Butterballs and Wacky Cake, enough to make my mouth water when reading.  It is good to come back to one of my favourite cosy mysteries and have some good wholesome fun with Hannah and friends after a long hiatus.  The dreaded purple dress rears its ugly head twice in this series - what did Hannah do to warrant that?  Do visit Joanne Fluke's cookie-biting website on www.MurderSheBaked.com for more information.  

Rating:  3/5

Happy Sunday, booklovers!

Murder in Brentwood by Mark Fuhrman

So far, I have read a couple of true crime books based on the actual murders, the investigations and the trials but this book - Murder in Brentwood (1997) - is a totally different kettle of fish.  For one thing, it is written by a former LAPD detective specifically to tell his side of the story.  Why?

As you know, Mark Fuhrman is the most pivotal witness of the OJ Simpson trial.  As he takes to the witness stand, he is accused of perjury and subsequently sentenced to three years formal probation and a monetary fine.  His good name has been vilified, defamed and ridiculed and he is forced into early retirement.  Unjustifiably, he became a convicted felon.

Why is a witness who was called to give testimony prosecuted for perjury?  What relevance has it to the Simpson murder trial?  Is he used as an underdog and if so, why?  How can one justify almost destroying an innocent man's life knowing that the charges to his name were not relevant at all to the Simpson murder case?  There is nothing wrong with Fuhrman's criminal investigation on the infamous murder.  There is no evidence that Fuhrman had given any false testimony about his investigative work.

It is inevitable that questions will be asked and perhaps these questions are better answered by reading the book and then deciding for yourself, for there are thousands upon thousands of biased and unbiased opinions and accounts out there.  Once the murder trial starts and you read more into it, you will become more and more puzzled by the proceedings.  Why?

In my opinion, it is because the whole trial is a farce and a waste of time for both the defense and the prosecution and other parties involved.  Most questionings and arguments are totally unnecessary because they have nothing to do with the brutal murder of two young people.  Important evidence are completely ignored and not used or mishandled.  Important witnesses are not called to the stand.  There seems to be a lot of infighting among the parties from the top to the bottom rung and the trial is more about the meeting of egos than the meting out of justice to the person who had so violently taken two lives.  As Vincent Bugliosi (American attorney and author) said, "Throughout the trial, the sad irony was that the defense attorneys seemed to be fighting harder for injustice than the prosecutors were fighting for justice."

There are more than a few versions of the Simpson murder trial told by various people but I have chosen to read one from a cop's point of view.  If it is his way to defend and restore his reputation and also redeem his mistakes, so what?  Everyone deserves a voice.  Everyone deserves to be heard.  Nobody deserves to be so outrageously victimized and denounced especially not a veteran cop who simply told what he saw and was only doing his job.


Murder in Brentwood is a well-documented and well-researched book as befits a good cop and very well-written.  It was a New York Times No 1 bestseller.  I wish Mark Fuhrman all the best.  A highly recommended read.

Former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman talks to Oprah on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2010 in these snippets.  This is Fuhrman's second and last interview with Oprah, the first being in 1997:

First Video
Second Video
Third Video

Other books by Mark Fuhrman, now an author and radio host, are

1)  Murder in Greenwich:  Who Killed Martha Moxley? (1998)
2)  Murder in Spokane:  Catching A Serial Killer (2001)
3)  Death and Justice:  An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Machine (2003)
4)  Silent Witness:  The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death (2005)
5)  A Simple Act of Murder:  November 22, 1963 (2006)
6)  The Murder Business:  How The Media Turns Crime Into Entertainment And Subverts Justice (2009)

An Encounter With A Book

Think Deeply

Dark Harbour by David Hosp

Hardback:  August 2006.  The disembowelled body of a young woman is fished out of Boston harbour.  The distinctive mutilations to the corpse bear all the hallmarks of the killer they call Little Jack.

But unlike the six previous victims, Natalie Caldwell was no prostitute.  She was a once-beautiful, ambitious and highflying lawyer.  As the last person to have seen her alive, Scott Finn, her colleague and ex-lover, comes under intense scrutiny in the ongoing police investigation.

With Natalie's death, Finn also inherits the high-profile assignment she was working on.  The case, involving a terrorist train bombing, could clinch his career.

But the more Finn uncovers about Tannery vs Huron Security, the murkier it all appears.  And, as he learns more abou the circumstances surrounding Natalie's murder, Finn begins to harbour a dark suspicion.  Was his former colleague the random victim of a merciless psychopath?  Or could the case she was working on have some connection with her death?

Meanwhile, the city of Boston is being terrorised by a serial killer as devious as he is deranged.  And Finn begins to fear for his own survival.

Dark Harbour (2005), the first book in the Scott Finn series, succeeds in subverting the reader's expectations at every fresh turn of the constantly twisting plot.  It was a Barry Award nominee for Best First Novel.  Other books in the series are Innocence (2007), Among Thieves (2010), and Next of Kin (2011).  In a nutshell, David Hosp is a partner in one of Boston's largest and oldest law firms.  He currently lives in Boston with his wife and their children.

Rating:  3/5

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

Which is harder:  devising an unsolvable problem or, solving that problem? - Chapter Eight

The story opens on an ordinary domestic scene which very rapidly escalates into a murder scene.  The reader will be told how and why the murder occurred and who the murderers were right at the beginning of the book but it is the unfurling of the investigation and the interaction of the characters that is what makes this book worth a read.  The story can be equated to a mathematical problem which needs to be worked out step-by-step.

Yasuko Hanaoka lives a quiet life, working in a Tokyo bento shop, a good mother to her only child, Misato.  But when her abusive ex-husband appears at her door without warning one evening, her comfortable world is shattered.  When Detective Kusanagi of the Tokyo Police tries to piece together the events of that night, he finds himself confronted by the most puzzling, mysterious circumstances he has ever investigated.  Nothing quite makes sense, and it will take a genius to understand the genius behind this particular crime...  (paperback blurb)

Briefly, Keigo Higashino was born in Osaka in 1958.  He started writing novels while still working as an engineer and won the Edogawa Rampo Prize for his debut novel at age 27.  In 2006, The Devotion of Suspect X won the 134th Naoki Prize and also the 6th Honkaku Mystery Grand Prize.  This year, it has been nominated for the Edgar Awards for Best Novel.  It is dubbed one of the biggest-selling Japanese thrillers ever, selling over 2 million copies in Japan, and has been made into a cult film.  Its blend of an intelligent and atmospheric story, evocative Tokyo setting, human psyche and relationships, Japanese philosophy, perverse love and utterly ingenius ending makes it a must-read for anyone interested in international crime fiction.  Since 2009, the author has been the president of the Mystery Writers of Japan.  His other books (not all are available in the UK yet) which have been translated into the English are

1)  Naoko (2004)
2)  Malice (2009)
3)  Salvation of a Saint (2012) - release date:  2 October 2012

In Japan, The Devotion of Suspect X is the third book in the Detective Galileo series and apart from this little nugget, I have no other information on the other books in the series.  I have enjoyed reading this thought-provoking Japanese police procedural and highly recommend it.

Alexander O Smith and Elye J Alexander from Kajiya Productions Inc have done an excellent job translating the text from the Japanese into the English.

The trailer is enough to convince you to read the book:



Rating:  5/5

Who Says I Cannot Buy Happiness?

Thought-Provoking Read

People Who Eat Darkness: Love, Grief And A Journey Into Japan's Shadows by Richard Lloyd Parry

I ventured into Waterstone's for a browse earlier this week and came across this book which tells of the mystifying disappearance of British woman Lucie Blackman in Japan nearly twelve years ago.  I remember it making headlines in all the newspapers back then but as usual, did not follow the case too closely.  What compelled me to pick up the book is the title.  The title - People Who Eat Darkness - suggests a strong connotation to/with evil and unthinkable violence, period.  It cannot be more apt a title than this as one cannot comprehend such a horrible crime to have happened to a normal middle-class woman who had travelled far from home at the young age of 21 to work and experience the vibrant cultural life in Japan but had ended up dead in an exotic land, a mere fifty-nine days after she had first set foot on Tokyo soil.

There were of course questions.  Questions that remained unclarified.  Questions such as, had Lucie been abducted by a religious cult?  Who was the mysterious man she had gone to meet?  What did her work, as a 'hostess' in the notorious Roppongi district of Tokyo, really involve?  And could Lucie's fate be linked to the disappearance of another girl some ten years earlier? - (taken from the paperback).

When you start reading through the book, you will find that the old saying "nothing is what it seems" fits like a glove.  You will find that Lucie Blackman's life in Japan is far more complex than one originally thinks.  You will find a much bigger story about the times we are living in now than just the case of a missing woman.  You will find it a disturbing story yet very much thought-provoking.  You will ask yourself a lot of questions you would not normally ask had you not read the book.  I would only recommend this book to readers only because it is a masterpiece of journalistic writing; other than that and in some aspects, some things are better left unread.

The Guardian wrote, "...  This isn't just a tale of murder, but a book that sheds light on Japan, on families, on media, on the insidious effects of misogyny...  Parry is the best kind of narrator...he tells it with such clarity and compassion..."

According to Literary Review, "...(it is also) about the depravity of man, the difficult pursuit of justice and how we deal with the wrongful deaths of those whom we loved...  There is a moral to this tale.  But it is up to readers to determine for themselves just what that moral really is".

According to the author, the story was so puzzling and evasive that it took him ten years to carry out his research and document his investigation including travelling to four continents and working undercover as a barman in a strip club where Lucie Blackman used to work.  Finally, his journalistic efforts to reveal the truth about Lucie and her fate resulted in the publication of this book in February of last year (2011).  His toil paid off as well when in April 2011, People Who Eat Darkness was placed on the longlist for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize in the non-fiction category.

Who is the author?  Briefly, he is the Asia Editor of The Times, and has lived in Tokyo since 1995.  He has reported from twenty-seven countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea.  His other book is In the Time of Madness:  Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos (2005) which was shortlisted for a Dolman Best Travel Book Award in 2006.

Here, the author reads and talks about his book at the Temple University in Japan:



and a documentary on The Lucie Blackman murder:

Beauty of Literature