Flashback

Flashback by Nevada Barr


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Anna Pigeon has been sent to Ft. Jefferson to temporarily replace the supervisory ranger on remote Garden Key in Dry Tortugas National Park. She is also running from a proposal of marriage from the Sheriff/Minister back on in Mississippi and this will give her some badly needed breathing space. The fort is a bleak and lonely post about 70 miles from Key West. The group of islands are just barely above sea level and are almost deserted. There is, however, Ft. Jefferson, a Civil War fort which houses the National Park operations.

To help her pass the time, her sister has sent her some letters from their Great Great Aunt who was living at the fort when it was a military outpost during the Civil War. Her aunt was living there with her difficult husband who was the Commandant of the fort during the time the Civil War prisoners were occupying it. The arrival of Dr. Mudd and Samuel Arnold, convicted of acting in the plot to assassinate President Lincoln, sets in motion the turmoil to which the letters relate.

The book switches between the past and present which is a new device for Nevada Barr. Each chapter seems to end on a cliff hanger, so you are always being tempted to read much longer than you should just to get back to the opposite century. All in all, this was very good. The mystery was tight and also gave much information on an area of the country most people don't even know exists.

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Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I picked this book because it could be downloaded from my library and it seemed like it had potential. I should have known after the first chapter it wasn't going to work for me. Sookie is a contradictory protagonist and there is a lot of the book that just doesn't make sense. I'm not crazy about vampires, except for the original Dracula, so I should have known better. The book needed a lot more editing and some attention needed to be paid to setting the stage for behaviors of some of the characters, especially Sam. The characters were all two dimensional and didn't ring true. I won't be reading any more.

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Biggie and the Devil Diet

Biggie and the Devil Diet: A Mystery by Nancy Bell


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I haven't read any of Nancy Bell's books in years and yesterday I longed to hear a little Southern talk. I am downloading audiobooks from the St. John's Co., FL library and get to hear the story with the accented voice of the reader. Certain books are especially good this way and while this book is a lightweight, I love it because the down home dialect reminds me of many summer vacations in Mississippi.

Biggie is the grandmother of J. R., who came to live with her when he was small and has grown up in the series. In this book he is 13. Biggie has a lot of soul searching when she find that there is a ranch outside town for overweight girls and she recognizes the name of the owner. She tells J. R. some old secrets and embroils them in cauldron of emotion which surrounds the camp.

The book is a little slow at first, unless you just plain enjoy a bit of slice of life, deep South style, you may wonder why it was called a mystery. I was too busy enjoying to wonder, but it may bother some. The preliminary actually does set up the mystery, so it isn't wasted. All in all, a pretty good read.

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