Murder at the Brightwell is the first book in the Amory Ames series and I really enjoyed this novel. I enjoyed it so much that I would have started the second book right away if I would have access to it.

Admittedly the actual mystery was the weakest part of the story. It was written well enough but it lacked that certain kind of finesse and trickiness that for example an Agatha Christie novel possess.

But I loved the 1930s setting in an Englisch hotel and above all the two main characters, who are absolutely endearing. I almost never root for characters, but these two made me root for them all the way through the book. And they are the reason why I would like to read the next book immediately, because I want to know what happens next in their lives.

This book has been tagged as a cozy mystery on goodreads.

Page count: 325 pages

Money earned: $6.00

This is horrific, the exploitation, the murders for profit and the terrible, horrible, attitude to Native Americans...

I was both speechless and wanting to talk to everyone about it. 

In the late 19th and early 20th Century the Osage Indians had oil under the reservation and that meant money, lots of money. Overlay that with an attitude that said that the Osage (and most Native Americans) were little more than children, don't regulate the situation and you create a situation where greed will cause problems.  This situation lead to the death of several people and the main story in this followed one family. One family whose deaths broke the silence about the situation and ended with just one person left alive, her husband and a relative of his in jail for murder and a community shattered.  Along with the beginning of the FBI as it is now this is an interesting argument for oversight by third parties of vulnerable people, of how power can corrupt and about how equality has to be for everyone.

Wonderful edge of my seat action plus adventure on the frozen sea. I swear I thought I'd scream during several of the near death moments. Kate can be insanely strong ! Oh and i love the new character California surfer Andy.
Kate goes on a crabbing boat, one of the most dangerous jobs on earth to find out what happened to two missing/presumed dead crabbers. She faces a frozen angry ocean, meets an elder who teaches her much and faces some of her past. Holy smokes it's intense !
Now on to #4

I've never been a fan of romance novels so I would never have picked this book up if I hadn't seen a review posted during a book swap game I was participating in. I read the review for this book and decided I wanted to read it. I read the first book first and it was great. I liked it better than this one but this book kept my interest too. I like the mystery and suspense more than the lovey-dovey parts but I definitely will be finishing this series and looking into more books by this author. Now I have to make myself finish the other books I've started before reading the third book in this series.

Mallory is trying to support her teen-aged daughter on her own after her husband passed away by making artistic sea glass jewelry.  She just makes a big sale so she could pay her late house payment when she gets a strange call from her father.  He sounds like he is hurt and barely able to tell her something very important before he dies.  He told her to find her mother but that is impossible since her mother has been dead for years. She quickly calls for someone to go check on her dad then heads that way herself.  

She is wary of going back to the town where she grew up and is sure she won't be welcomed because of her past.  She was engaged to Kevin, a local game warden, but she abruptly left town without an explanation and quickly married someone else.  Now, she needs Kevin's help to help her figure out what happened to her dad.  Things quickly get scary though as she finds out her own life might also be in danger.  

     Mixed genre- well put together; no, very well put together. Those that love murder mystery will find themselves comfortably stationed within a science fiction world and vice versa. I love writing that can shatter walls between genres, between readers fixed ideas of like, and this book does that well.

     We are in a recently invaded world by a civilisation of ‘slicks’ that mankind is still far short of understanding. Human society is in a state of decay, if not quite chaotic dissolution, as the alien culture imposes certain disciplines whilst leaving humans with a veneer of independence. Any independence is apparently dependent on an absence of resistance. Regular mass deportations to destinations unknown, are ‘accepted’ by the human administrations. One can’t help but make comparisons between the slicks as quasi Nazi or Starlin’s cabal. Perhaps those born in this century would relate better to comparison with the current, alien to humanitarian values, regime of Kim Jong-Un.

     When an alien is apparently murdered the aliens find cause for an investigation by what remains of a human police force. Painstakingly Adrian, the last pre-invasion trained detective, puts the pieces of the case together despite the lack of resources and technologies still at his disposal.

     The principle human characters are well drawn, and the unfolding of the crime is crafted in a very compelling way. This is a case for an old-time sleuth, not a ‘slick’ crime lab. Um: pun intended.

     As an independent writer and a strong advocate of my peers, I am delighted to be able to report this book as being a good example of the quality achievable outside of the traditional publishing empires. Pandamoon are one of many new small publishers. I’m certainly not in any position to endorse them, but I can say that they have at least one good writer aboard.

     Well written and, apart from a few lapses, well edited.

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