Book Review--Hate Crime, by William Bernhardt

This is a legal thriller, which is one of my favorite genres. This is the first book I've read by Bernhardt, but apparently he has written at least one other book besides this one featuring attorney Ben Kincaid, so I'll have to check that out.

Tony Barovick, a gay man and the manager of a bar near a college campus, was badly beaten and killed on his way home from work, the victim of a hate crime. The perpetrators were two young fraternity brothers. At their trial, one of them is gunned down by a member of a fringe gay-rights group, and their lawyer is injured. The mother of Johnny Christensen, the surviving sadistic bigot, comes to see Ben to beg him to take her son's case. Ben turns her down, but his partner, Christina McCall, takes the case. Christina is puzzled by Ben's refusing to take the case. She knows it isn't because Johnny Christensen is vastly unpopular. Ben takes cases of vastly unpopular (and broke) clients all the time. So she figures there has to be some personal reason, but it is awhile before she manages to find out what that is.

Johnny's defense is that he and his friend badly beat Tony Barovick, but left him alive. This doesn't make Johnny more likeable, especially since even if someone else did kill Tony, he wasn't exactly likely to survive after Johnny and his friend finished with him. However, Christina is committed to putting on the best defense she can for her client (as she should, even though he's hardly one to garner sympathy), and digs for evidence that what her client said is true.

The book has some interesting twists and turns. It raises the possibility that perhaps Tony was involved in something sinister; I won't say whether or not that's true, but it sure doesn't fit with his wholesome image. Christina and Ben (who is eventually dragged into the case) are themselves the targets of violence. The case definitely brought out violent extremists on both sides.

I really liked the characters of Christina and Ben. This sure wasn't a case I would want if I were a lawyer, but they didn't seem like sleazy defense lawyers who were just trying to twist the law to get their client off. They seemed committed to finding the truth.

I also really liked what the author said in the dedication of his book: "For Theta Juan, my mother, who taught her children that all hate was a crime."

Book Review--Raining Cats and Dogs

This is another series mystery that I have picked up on somewhere in the middle. I like this, because if I like the series, I have lots to read before the next one comes out. The title of this one caught my eye. It turns out that the protagonist is actually a dog lover. I have a very hard time understanding this, but I can understand devotion to one's pet. So I can relate to this character on that point.

At the beginning of this book, Melanie Travis has just gotten married. The tiny house she shared with her son and two Standard Poodles is now bursting at the seams, as her new husband brought his own three Standard Poodles with him (Standard Poodles are the big ones, by the way). Both Melanie and her husband's Poodles are very well-behaved, but their patience is tested by the seven cats who moved in next door. Their owner, who is way too gorgeous for Melanie's taste (and with a husband who is largely absent), doesn't seem too concerned. It's true that cats don't stay reigned in as well since they can climb, but if I were her, I'd have been very worried about the big dogs next door and kept a closer eye on the cats.

Anyway, Melanie is really into dog shows and all that, and she wants one of her Poodles, Faith, to get more obedience training. So she enrolls her in the South Avenue Obedience Club. They feel a little out of place (well, at least Melanie does; I'm not sure about the dog) because everyone knows everyone already and Faith hasn't had as much obedience training as most of them. The group has an unofficial program where they bring the dogs to visit a nursing home, and Melanie and Faith are invited to come along. The visits were initiated by Paul, a Club member whose Great Aunt Mary, a dog lover, lives there.

Faith and Melanie's first visit goes very well at first, but it ends in tragedy. Paul's Great-Aunt Mary is found suffocated in her bed. As the police investigate, club members learn of Melanie's amateur sleuthing and urge her to look into Mary's murder. There are plenty of suspects for Melanie to check out, from Mary's black-sheep son to some of the group members and nursing-home staff.

Anyway, if you like amateur-sleuth type books, you will like this one. If you also love dogs you'll like it even more, but I don't think that's necessarily required.

Movie Review--Last Holiday

I can't help it. I love so-called feel-good movies. In this one, Queen Latifah plays a meek sales associate (Georgia Byrd) who is afraid to really live. She works in a department store in New Orleans (pre-Katrina, of course) selling cookware. She is an amazing cook herself, but she doesn't try to pursue her dream of becoming a chef. She feeds a neighbor boy (whom I assumed was her son at first; the movie didn't do a good job of identifying him) a fabulous meal but eats a Lean Cuisine herself. She is crazy about a coworker named Sean (LL Cool J) but is too shy to let him know how she feels.

Then one day she is told that she has a fatal disease, and her HMO won't cover an operation. She quits her job, cashes in her retirement plan, and checks into the Presidential Suite ($4000 a night) in a posh resort hotel in Central Europe, chosen because a chef she idolizes works there. Also at the hotel are the CEO of the department store where Georgia recently quit her job, his assistant, a senator, and a congressman. They think that Georgia must be someone "important" because she's staying in the Presidential Suite and is apparently very rich. She wins all of them over, with the exception of the CEO (Timothy Hutton), who is jealous of the attention she's getting. She also wins over the hotel staff and especially the chef.

This is a remake of the 1950 movie starring Alex Guinness. I never saw that one, but what made this one so good is Queen Latifah's charm. The movie is not exactly unpredictable, but it's enjoyable because she is just so much fun.

Book Review--The Escape Artist, by Diane Chamberlain

This book is so-named because the protagonist, Susanna Miller, has a habit of running away from her problems. Not that this isn't understandable. When Susanna developed this habit, she was running from her abusive, alcoholic parents.

Now Susanna is sure that running away is the right thing to do again. She has just lost custody of her 11-month-old son to her ex-husband and his new wife. Having been afraid this would happen and unable to bear the thought of giving Tyler up, Susanna had been plotting her escape for weeks. Without even letting her boyfriend, a man whom she has loved for years, in on what she is doing, Susanna slips away in the night. In leaving Boulder, she leaves behind the only city in which she has ever lived.

Susanna dyes her hair, changes her name, and makes a new life for herself in Annapolis, Maryland, but it is difficult. She is afraid to trust anyone. She does befriend a local artist and his sister, both of whom are haunted by tragedy. But even when she becomes romantically involved with the artist, she is unable to forget her previous boyfriend, Linc, back in Boulder. And her new life may turn out to be even more dangerous than she feared it might be.

Though it's really Susanna's story, part of the book are from Tyler's stepmother Peggy's point of view. I wanted to dislike Peggy, but really, I think she honestly thought Tyler would be better off with her and his father. Her perceptions were tainted by her husband's unfair criticism of Susanna and her own desperate wish for a child, but it took her awhile to realize that. She was way too quick to believe her husband, who was a first-class jerk.

The books I've read by Diane Chamberlain are exceedingly difficult to put down. I think I've read most of them already, but I must read more.

Movie Review--Brokeback Mountain

What an awesome movie. I'm just glad it came to the conservative Tri-Cities. This was the first weekend it was here, and it's been out for several weeks.

It's the story of a romance between two cowboys who meet in 1963 when they spend a summer watching sheep on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. First they are friends and then they become romantically involved. We only lost seven or eight people in the theater at that point, their seats snapping up like minds snapping shut. Did they actually not know what this movie was about? I don't see how anyone could have missed hearing or reading about it by now.

Anyway, the men go their separate ways after the summer. They both get married and don't see each other again for a few years. When they do reunite, Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) wants to make a life together with Ennis (Heath Ledger), but Ennis' fears prevent him from doing this. So for years they meet on the sly for brief flings.

Ledger is great as a rather stereotypical cowboy, a man of few words, stoic, remote. Gyllenhaal's character is more brash and enthusiastic. The scenery in this movie is beautiful, making me rather homesick for Montana, where I grew up and still frequently visit.

I don't want to say too much about how it ends, but bring your Kleenex.

I Got Tagged

I got tagged by Marti from Enter the Laughter with a meme.

The rules/procedures are as follows: The first player of this game starts with the topic "five weird habits of yourself," and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says, "You are tagged" (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.
Okay, five weird habits:

1) Way back in May, I wrote a blog entry about my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, which are still present. I check and recheck things. Mostly, I check several times to make sure I turned off the curling iron before I go to work. Locking the door (either at night before I go to sleep or upon leaving the apartment) is another big one.

2) In a similar vein, I sometimes put on deodorant twice, because I cannot remember with 100% certainty that I put it on, and it's something I don't want to be wrong about. I do too many things on autopilot.

3) I keep bowls of cat food on my bed and futon. My cat Carmela had a problem with UTIs for awhile, and I had to replace the futon mattress twice. I wanted to make sure both cats remembered that the bed and futon were not bathrooms, and cats don't like to pee where they eat (makes sense). The was quite awhile ago, but I'm still afraid to take the bowls of food away.

4) I can spot change on the ground from a mile away, and I always pick it up, even pennies, unless I'm in immediate danger of being run over by a car or something if I do. I think this comes from being a poor graduate student for so long. One might assume from reading this that I am an extremely frugal person. One would be wrong in assuming that.

5) I am addicted to computer Boggle.

Here are the people I am tagging:

Rich--Championable: Fatherhood, Politics, Kids
Barbara--A Rich Tapestry of Barbara-isms
Celestial--She Talks to Angels
Stacey--Stac Space
Cris--That Side of the Moon

Have fun!

Book Review--Burned, by Carol Higgins Clark

This is the latest Regan Reilly mystery. I must confess, I first got checked out Carol Higgins Clark's books because I had been reading her mother's books forever (Mary Higgins Clark). In fact, I think the first book I read by Carol Higgins Clark was a holiday mystery coauthored with her mother. That one featured Regan Reilly, and I decided I wanted to read more books about her.

Regan Reilly is an LA-based private detective. She has a fiance, Jack, in New York, and at the beginning of this book she is planning to fly out to see him and her family there, but a blizzard had hit the East Coast. Her friend Kit is in Hawaii, and she can't get home to Connecticut, so she convinces Regan to fly out there for a girls' weekend. But for a girls' weekend, they really don't end up spending much time together. Kit is spending a lot of time with a new guy, a 35-year-old millionaire who may be too good to be true. And though Regan had intended to relax, she ends up helping to solve a case.

Will Brown, the manager of the resort hotel where Kit and Regan are staying, asks for Regan's help. A hotel employee, Dorinda Dawes, had recently died in what police believed to be an accidental drowning. Will isn't so sure her death had been an accident, especially since not too many people were terribly fond of Dorinda. Adding to the mystery is that when Dorinda's body washed ashore, a very valuable shell lei was around her neck. The lei had belonged to a Hawaiian princess, and been stolen from a museum 30 years earlier. So the question, of course, is how Dorinda, a relative newcomer to Hawaii, ended up with it.

More minor things have been happening as well, pranks such as full tubes of suntan lotion being dropped into toilets and food being tainted. And the leaders of a tour group from a town called Hudville, where it rains 89% of the time, certainly seem as though they could be up to something. They and the other citizens of Hudville were left a lot of money by a very rich man to take Hawaiian vacations. Every three months, five Hudville citizens were chosen by lottery to win a trip to Hawaii. The leaders, twin sisters in their 60s, went on every trip. There should have been plenty of money, but the twins are pinching pennies.

Like all of the Regan Reilly books, this one is a lot of fun. I look forward to reading more.

Book Review--Blue Twilight, by Jessica Speart

This book is part of another series upon which I have stumbled; it's what the Pittsburgh Post Gazette called a wildlife mystery thriller. Rachel Porter is an agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Recently assigned to Northern California, she receives a call from a professor specializing in endangered butterflies. First he tells her that someone was illegally netting butterflies and digging up plants in San Bruno MountainSate Park. Then he tells her that a biologist hired by Fish and Wildlife to search for a rare and possibly extinct butterfly has disappeared.

Rachel checks out the professor's tip about the illegal butterfly collector. When she finds the man, Mitch Aikens, she learns all about his business breeding and selling butterflies, including endangered ones, (before she tells him where she works) and decides to turn him into an informant who will help her catch some big-time butterfly dealers. She talks to her boss about the missing biologist, but he tells her it wasn't their division that hired him and thus not their problem. So Rachel decides to investigate on her own time. The investigation leads her to Mendocino and to Bill Trepler, a former director of conservation biology at a university who now has switched sides and hires himself out to private developers as a consultant. He tells her about the butterfly for which the missing biologist was searching--the Lotis Blue Butterfly, last seen in 1983 and possibly extinct. The missing biologist's car is found abandoned but provides no other clues, and the sheriff isn't terribly interested.

Then a teenage girl--the daughter of a friend of Rachel's--also goes missing. When Rachel--who apparently missed her calling as a private investigator as opposed to a Fish and Wildlife Agent--helps search for the girl, her case intertwines with that of the missing biologist and the world of butterfly collecting in a most bizarre way.

This book meanders quite a bit, but I still found it engaging. I wasn't sure how much I'd like it since I don't have a huge interest in wildlife (other than being generally pro-environmentalist). But actually, the environmental information was interesting. I learned that butterfly populations are rapidly decreasing due to habitat loss and poaching, and that butterflies are the most important pollinator of crops, after bees. Butterflies were even described in this book as a barometer for the health of the planet, rather like a canary in a mineshaft. Kind of scary when you consider their decreasing populations.

Book Review--Dark Angel, by Karen Harper

This was a rather unique romantic suspense novel in that one of the main characters is Amish. Actually, I guess it's part of a series, but I haven't read the others in the series yet.

Leah Kurtz is a single Amish woman in her 20s who teaches school in the Amish community where she lives. She was engaged to be married when she was younger (Amish women usually marry very young), but her fiance ran off during their rumspringa, the traditional teenage running-around time. (Amish teens are supposed to come to their own decision in deciding whether or not to stay with the Amish faith as adults, so they are allowed freedom to experience more of the world during this time). Leah longs for her own family. Her best friend is terminally ill, and she and her husband (who travels around helping to build churches) decide that they want Leah to raise their baby, Rebecca (Becca) as her own.

Leah is thrilled to raise Becca, even as she grieves the loss of her friend. She is also happy with her new job with Dr. Mark Morelli. Dr. Morelli studies genetic illnesses that are common in Amish communities due to intermarrying and a small gene pool. One of these hereditary illnesses killed her best friend. Another causes accelerated aging, an illness from which three children in her community suffer. Leah is to serve as Mark's liaison to the Amish community. However, the competition to find a "cure" for aging, which Mark's work could lead to, might make this a very dangerous job. Someone is trying to scare them off.

Then one morning when Leah goes to wake up Becca, she discovers she has been switched with another baby! She doesn't trust the sheriff, partly since in general, people in the Amish community don't trust authority figures in the outside world. She also distrusts this sheriff due to personal experience with the man. So she investigates on her own and enlists Mark's help. They aren't sure whether Becca was stolen because a rival of Mark's wants to study her or to scare Leah so that she will quit working with Mark. But Leah will stop at nothing to get her daughter back, and in their search, she and Mark uncover a deadly conspiracy.

To further complicate matters, Leah is starting to fall for Mark, though he is off-limits to her since he isn't Amish.

I always like to read fiction books in which I learn something new. I learned a lot about the Amish faith in reading this book, though I think Leah was somewhat atypical in being older (at least for her community) and single. I also enjoyed the medical-thriller angle. And of course, forbidden romance is always good. I'm going to read more books in this series.

Book Review--The Bay at Midnight, by Diane Chamberlain

This book was one of those books that I am sorry to finish, because it is so interesting.

At 53, Julie Sellers still feels guilt over what she sees as her part in her sister's murder 40 years earlier. Every summer she and her family visited the New Jersey shore, where they have a bungalow. In 1962, when she was 12 and her sister Isabel was 17, Isabel was murdered. The past is dredged up again when the daughter of Ethan Chapman (the next-door neighbor boy back then), pays Julie a visit. Ethan's older brother and Isabel's old boyfriend, Ned, had recently died. In cleaning out Ned's town house, Ethan and his daughter had found a note saying that the wrong person had gone to jail for Isabel's murder and that he wanted to set the record straight. The note provides no other details. They take the note to the police, who reopen the case.

Julie had never thought that George Lewis, the man who had gone to jail for murdering Isabel, was actually guilty. She believes that Ned was the killer. Ethan, who reenters Julie's life in a new way after a 40-year absence, is equally certain that his brother was not responsible for Isabel's murder.

The book alternates between Julie's point of view and those of her younger sister, Lucy, and her mother, Maria. It alternates between 1962, the present, and times in Maria's past, where a dark secret is revealed. Somehow it does this without being confusing; it couldn't have been easy to write. It's part mystery and partly a character development type of novel, with some romance thrown in, so there's something for everyone.

Book Review--Immoral, by Brian Freeman

Another great debut novel. I have a particular fondness for thrillers, and I really enjoyed this one. Lieutenant Jonathan Stride, still grieving the death of his wife, is trying to solve two missing-person cases, both involving teenage girls. Both went to the same high school and lived fairly close to one another, but in terms of personality, the two couldn't have been more different. Kerry McGath was a sweet, well-behaved sixteen-year-old. Rachel Deese, seventeen, was a promiscuous, angry wild child. Fighting extreme guilt for failing to solve Kerry's case, Stride vows to do right by Rachel. When the investigation reveals a sexual relationship between Rachel and her stepfather, Graeme, suspicion focuses on him. When other evidence is found as well, Graeme is arrested for Rachel's murder, though her body is never found. But questions remain. Did Graeme really murder Rachel, who had no shortage of enemies, or did someone else do it? Or is Rachel really still alive, as Graeme seems to believe?

What I liked best about this book was that it was not predictable. There were several twists and turns that I just did not expect. This is not easy for a book to accomplish just because I read so many thrillers. I look forward to reading more from Brian Freeman.