An Easy Death" is the first book in a new series from Charlaine Harris that is set in an alternative America where history diverged after Roosevelt's assassination. It tells the story of Elizabeth Rosie, a nineteen-year-old "gunnie" who makes her living providing armed protection to travellers across the, now largely lawless, West.

It seems to me that this book fits into an emerging "Weird West" genre - an American West with magic as an added ingredient and some difference is history. I'm thinking of books like "The Curse Of Jakob Tracy". "The Devil's Revolver" or "Make Me No Grave".

Gunnie Rose knows that the world she lives in is hard and unforgiving and likely to take her life if she lets it. Still, there's no point in complaining about what you can't change so she does what needs to be done, which in her case means using her guns to kill anyone who tries to kill the clients she's protecting. The title, "An Easy Death", is what Gunnies wish each other. It's the best luck they can reasonably hope for.

There's a lot of violence in this book. The body count is so high that I lost track after it reached double figures. The violence and the killing are grim rather than gratuitous but it is brutal and unrelenting. Gunnie Rose knows that she's a killer. She mostly takes no pleasure in it and sometimes pays a significant emotional price for it. She has her standards but, if someone needs killing, which definitely includes any of the many people who are trying to kill her, she will shoot them dead and move on.

Part of the pleasure in the book comes from discovering the complicated world that Charlaine Harris has placed Gunnie in. This is a fractured America that has lost land to its neighbours and has seen twelve of the original colonies ally with Britain. San Diego has become the home of the Holy Russian Empire (HRE). It's the place where the Tsar fled to in 1918, bringing with him his priests, his magicians and his army. The HRE welcomes magicians from across the world and trains them to use their magic to serve the Tsar.

Gunny Rose ends up with two magicians as clients and travels with them as they search for a missing minor magician who has something they need.

They have their secrets and Gunny Rose has more than a few of her own. Both sets of secrets get tangled up as the three of them try to carry out their mission while surviving a series of attacks.

I enjoyed this book and I think the series has a lot of promise but some of the world-building resulted in potted history lessons that flattened the story a little. Elizabeth Rose is easy to admire but less easy to like. Still, I want to find out what happens to her next.

A big thank you to Moonlight Reader for yet another fun, inventive BookLikes game!  I had a wonderful time, while also advancing -- though with decidedly fewer new reads than I'd origianlly been planning -- my two main reading goals for this year (classic crime fiction and books written by women).

Harry Potter - The Complete Series

This was a long-overdue revisit and obviously, there isn't anything I could possibly say about the books that hasn't been said a million times before by others.  But I've gladly let the magic of Hogwarts and Harry's world capture me all over again ... to the point of giving in to book fandom far enough to treat myself to the gorgeous hardcover book set released in 2014 and, in addition, the even more gorgeous Gryffindor and Ravenclaw anniversary editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

That said, particular kudos must also go to Stephen Fry for his magnificent audio narration of the books, which played a huge role in pulling me right back into to books, to the point that I'd carry my phone wherever I went while I was listening to them.

As for the rest of my KYD books ... roughly in the order in which I read them:

Ngaio Marsh: Death at the Dolphin (aka Killer Dolphin)

Also a revisit: One of my favorite installments in Marsh's Roderick Alleyn series, not only because it is set in the world of the theatre -- always one of Marsh's particular fortes, as she herself was a veteran Shakespearean director and considered that her primary occupation, while writing mysteries to her was merely a sideline -- but because this one, in fact, does deal with a(n alleged) Shakespearean relic and a play based on Shakespeare's life, inspired by that relic.

Freeman Wills Crofts:

The Hog's Back Mystery

 Part of Crofts's Inspector French series and my first book by Crofts, who was known for his painstaking attempts to "play fair" with the reader; which here, I'm afraid, hampered the development of the story a bit, in producing a fair bit of dialogue at the beginning that might have been better summed up from the third person narrator's point of view in the interest of easing along the flow of the story, and in holding French back even at points where a reasonably alert reader would have developed suspicions calling for a particular turn of the investigation.  But I like French as a character, and as for all I'm hearing this is very likely not the series's strongest installment, I'll happily give another book a try later.

Dorothy L. Sayers: Unnatural Death

Not my favorite Lord Peter Wimsey book by Sayers, but virtually the only one I haven't revisited on audio recently -- and as always, I greatly enjoyed the narration by Ian Carmichael.  That said, here again Sayers proves herself head and shoulders above her contemporaries, in devising a particularly fiendish, virtually untraceable method of murder (well, untraceable by the medical state of the art of her day at least), and perhaps even more so by hinting fairly obviously at two women's living together in what would seem to be a lesbian relationship.

Margaret Drabble: The Red Queen

Ummm ... decidedly NOT my favorite read of the month.  'Nuff said: next!

Walter Mosley: A Red Death

I'd long been wanting to return to the world of Easy Rawlins' mid-20th century Los Angeles, so what with Mosley's fiction making for various entries in the KYD cards, including at least one book by him in my reading plans for the game seemed only fitting (... even if I ended up using this one for a "Dr. Watson" victim guess!). -- This, the second installment of the series, deals with the political hysteria brought about by the McCarthy probes and also makes a number of pertinent points on racial discrimination and xenophobia, which make it decidedly uncomfortable reading in today's political climate.

Agatha Christie: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Another revisit, and in no small part courtesy of Hugh Fraser's narration, I liked the book a good deal better than I had done originally.  This is one of several entries in the Poirot canon where we learn about Poirot's phobia of dentist's visits, which obviously makes for the high point of the book's humour ... and of course it doesn't exactly help that it's Poirot's dentist, of all people, who turns out the murder victim. -- The plot features several clever slights of hand, and you have to play a really long shot to get the solution right in its entirety (even if strictly speaking Christie does play fair).  Well, that's what we have Monsieur Poirot's little grey cells for, I suppose!

Robert Harris: Imperium

The first part of Harris's Cicero trilogy, and both a truly fast-paced and a well-researched piece of historical writing; covering Cicero's ascent from young Senator to Praetorian and, eventually (and against all the odds), Consul. 

The first part of the book deals at length with one of Cicero's most famous legal cases, the prosecution of the corrupt Sicilian governor Verres, and Harris shows how Cicero employed that case in order to advance his own political career.  Notably, Cicero quite ingeniously also ignored established Roman trial practice in favor of what would very much resemble modern common law practice, by making a (by the standards of the day) comparatively short opening statement -- albeit a supremely argumentative one -- and immediately thereafter examining his witnesses, instead of, as procedural custom would have dictated, engaging in a lengthy battle of speeches with defending counsel first.  As a result of this manoeuver, Verres was as good as convicted and fled from Rome in the space of the 9 days allotted to Cicero as prosecuting counsel to make his case. 

The second part of the book examines Cicero's unlikely but eventually victorious campaign for consulship, and his exposure of a conspiracy involving Catiline, generally believed to be the most likely victor of that year's consular elections, who later came to be involved of conspiracies on an even greater scale, and whose condemnation in Cicero's most famous speeches -- collectively known as In Catilinam (On, or Against Catiline) -- would go a great way towards securing both Cicero's political success in his own lifetime and his lasting fame as a skilled orator.

Agatha Christie: Murder Is Easy

Another Christie revisit, and I regret to say for the most part I'm down to my less favorite books now.  This isn't a bad book, and the ending in particular is quite dark ... but the middle part, much as I'm sorry to have to say this, simply drags.

Val McDermid: The Distant Echo

Holy moly, how did I ever miss this book until now?!  Even more so since the Karen Pirie series is actually my favorite series by Val McDermid ... OK, Pirie herself has little more than a walk-on role here; we're talking absolute beginning of her career, and the focus is decidedly not on her but on her boss and  on a quartet of suspects involved in a 25-year-old murder case -- in fact, the whole first half of the book is set 25 years in the past, too, describing the immediate aftermath of the murder and its consequences for the four main suspects, chiefly from their perspective.  But still!  Well, I sure am glad I finally caught up with it at last ... definitely one of the best things McDermid ever wrote.

Juli Zeh: Unterleuten

A scathing satire on village life, on post-Berlin Wall German society, on greed, on the commercialization of ideals ... and most of all, on people's inability to communicate: Everyone in this book essentially lives inside their own head, and in a world created only from the bits they themselves want to see -- with predictably disastrous consequences.  The whole thing is brilliantly observed and deftly written; yet, the lack of characters that I found I could like or empathize with began to grate after a while ... in a shorter book I might not have minded quite so much, but in a 600+ page brick I'd have needed a few more characters who actually spoke to me to get all the way through and still be raving with enthusiasm.  If you don't mind watching a bunch of thoroughly dislikeable people self-destruct in slow motion, though, you're bound to have a lot of fun with this book.

Werner Böcking: Von Köln zum Meer

Local history, a read inspired by conversations with a visiting friend on the history of shipping and travel by boat on the Rhine. -- A richly illustrated book focusing chiefly on the 19th and 20th centuries, and the mid-19th-centuriy changes brought about by diesel engines and the resulting disappearance of sailing vessels (which, before the advent of engines, were pulled by horses when going up the river, against the current): undoubtedly the biggest change not only in land but also in river travel and transportation, with a profound effect on large sectors of the economy of the adjoining regions and communities.

And last but not least ...

Dennis McCarthy & June Schlueter: "A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels" by George North -- A Newly Uncovered Manuscript Source for Shakespeare's Plays

The lastest in Shakespearean research, also a read inspired by conversations with the above-mentioned visiting friend, and a February 7, 2018 New York Times article on a possible new source text for passages contained in no less than 11 of Shakespeare's plays.  The story of the discovery itself is fascinating; the research methods applied are in synch with modern Shakesperean scholarship ... and yet, for all the astonishing textual concordance, unless and until someone proves that Shakespeare not only had the opportunity to see this document but actually did (at least: overwhelmingly likely) see it, I'm not going to cry "hooray" just yet.  According to the authors' own timeline, Shakespeare would have been about 11 years old when this text was written, it was kept in a private collection even then, and there is no record that the Bard ever visited the manor housing that very collection -- which collection in turn, if the authors are to be believed, the text very likely at least did not ever leave during Shakespeare's lifetime (though it was undoubtedly moved at a later point in time).  And Shakespearean research, as we all know, has been prone to a boatload of dead-end streets and conspiracy theories pretty much ever since its inception ...

Well, we still have one victim to guess and since it's the victim of the very first murder it can't be Katniss Everdene (the only other theoretically remaining option), since she was expressly excluded in the game's first round.

Walter Mosley's Red Death, which I finished a few days ago, is genre crime fiction; in addition, its author's first name begins with one of the letters in WATSON.

I don´t know if there is something like Bizarro Crime, if not there should be. Low Down Death Right Easy would most likely fit right in. There is something surreal in this book, especially later on where it´s not quite clear if those are simply meth-induced feverish dreams, or the reality and something more sinister, more nefarious is at work. Or maybe it´s just a different take on rural Oklahoma with people with dead end jobs that don´t go anywhere while trying to keep their heads just above poverty line and trying to get by. Drugs, crime, a dead body, the usual ingredients of the classic tale of Crime Noir are there, and still there is something more to it. A gloom/darkness that swallows everything and everyone.

There are two parallel story lines, those of Danny Ames who desperately is on the search for his younger missing brother, Thomas, and those of Arlo & Sepp Clancy. Ames is a bouncer in a rave club/drug addict, one of those figures who owns a room when entering it simply for being who they are. Police is sort of looking in this missing person case, without much enthusiasm, until Ames takes matters into his own hands. A hysterical mother, always just short of a nervous breakdown, needs to be taken care of too; hardly accepting any kind of bad fate that might have happened to Thomas, the good kid in her eyes. Plus there is Rafe, the sociopathic sidekick, which complicates matters further for him.

Later in the story Ames starts to lose some teeth coz he is simply rotten to the core like that. Which describes him pretty perfectly, but all of those characters have a soft side to them, a realistic one which maybe doesn´t make them likeable exactly, but at least one can feel sympathy for them. For the situations they find themselves in, for the decisions they make in their lives. There is an easy path for them, and another one they take and everything has consequences for any of them.

Arlo struggles through his job, his marriage with Jen and day dreaming of moving to another place, another city to be happy again, and trying to keep his brother out of prison. Easy drug money, failed job applications, it ain´t easy. Sepp has just the knack for finding himself into shaddy deals that sooner or later will go wrong. They know this and kinda shrug it off. There is only so much one can do. You see it, you watch it happening, and maybe you should have done more, and maybe you did your best and failed. And then you see the sadness in their eyes...

The most interesting part is probably when the two back to back story lines are clashing and their different worlds collide. One can see how much influence the older brothers actually have over their younger brothers. Both, Danny & Arlo shape and form their siblings in a way, good and bad, and when things are falling apart they spiral downwards fast and easy. Scary shit as I too have an older brother and if I take the story at face value I am pretty much fucked. Thanks for nothing, I guess? Or maybe everything. Nobody lives in a bubble and whatever we do will affect someone´s else life as well.

Osborne´s writing style is minimalistic, or more like he cut off any meat to the bare bones, so the mere essentials are there, but not a lot more. Nevertheless there is a beauty and an eloquence in his prose which I haven´t read before. The narrative voice looks simplistic even it isn´t but carefully crafted to have the maximum of effect. There is nothing show-offish about it, just pure, rough emotions with a lot of subtext, blanks that needs to be filled in. Everything that is unnecessary is removed. Which also makes it partially tough to get into it, and it´s one of those novels where you simply have to hang on. Neither did I find it easy to understand at times what is happening, but I had to read and reread scenes to get a fuller picture even he describes details, emotions, the world surrounding our characters very well. Nor do the dialogues much to bring the story forward. Still, those are real conversations by couples/mothers/sons/brothers, about everyday life and its problems. But once I got the hang of it I felt spit out/broken/torn.

I still haven´t figured out what the title phrase actually means. Low Down Death Right Easy sounds like a Gospel song, but for me the book itself reminded me more of a Blues song with an almost unbearable melancholy at times. And it makes me think why does this dude in his - back then - mid-20´s has so much insight into the human condition? It ain´t right. That´s not the way it is supposed to be, but at the same time everything makes sense. He writes like someone twice his age/too smart for his own good. I wasn´t even half finished with the book when I went out and purchased three other books written by Osborne. I wanted to know who is this guy? But it doesn´t really matter.

However, one of my fave bands is Deer Tick. There is a fantastic live video on YouTube of them playing their song "Ashamed" and when the crowd kicks in and sings along their singer/guitarist John McCauley just smiles, and with a huge shit infested grin shouts back, "You know what I´m sayin´?". And while I keep thinking back to this video I wanna shake and yell at Osborne, no, I don´t!... but I´m ready to sit down and listen.

The week before Christmas, two men hijack an armored car and go on the run. Can they evade the cops long enough to get the money to their employer?

Easy Death is a quick, suspenseful read. This tale of cops and robbers has a lot of twists and turns, made even more serpentine by Daniel Boyd's use of shifting viewpoints. The action shifts between several groups of characters and I got turned around a couple times.

One thing I really liked was that Boyd went out of his way to show that none of the criminals were all bad. Eddie and Walter cared about each other. I also liked the interplay between Ranger Callie and Officer Drapp. Even Brother Sweetie had more to him than I originally thought.

The repeated Christmas carol thing wore on me, though, just like in real life. I also thought the transitions were a little jarring in places. Other than that, Easy Death was a fun read and a worthy addition to the Hard Case Crime Series. 3.5 out of 5 stars.