Miss. Kopp Investigates

 Yeah!  The Kopp Sisters series continues!!!  Amy Stewart is the author of this great series.  I have enjoyed reading every one of these fun mystery novels set mainly in Northern New Jersey in the early part part of the century.  

The newest, Miss Kopp Investigates has Fleurette, the youngest of the Kopp sisters out saving the family from bankruptcy with her ingenuity.  All three sisters had big personal plans. they were going to pursue now. that the first world war has. ended, but when a family tragedy. brings them all home again together they strike out again in. pursuit of justice and correct any. wrongs to help their sister-in-law and others.

Fleurette uses her talents as a seamstress to earn money altering clothes and also making costumes so she can do her new job.  Constance gives up. her dream to go to Washington DC and takes a job as a store detective and Norma leaves France and instead of staying in Europe she comes home to take the lead on organizing everyone and trying to get the farm ready to sell.

Along the way through many trials and tribulations the family fights with each other but always comes together and resolves their problems and works together to solve all the issues they are facing.

There is always a fun different kind of mystery to solve and it is so much fun to read about New Jersey towns I remember from childhood.

The Masterpiece

 The Masterpiece written by. Fiona Davis, is. almost exactly that.  Fiona Davis is one of my favorite historical novelist .  This novel is beautiful portrait of the history of Grand Central Station in New York. City and the art school that existed within its walls.

Using real artists from the time period as her inspiration to create her characters, Clara Darden and Levon Zakarian.  Davis paints with bold, broad strokes to develop the storyline of a woman who is trying to break into a man's world as a serious artist.

Clara has left everything behind to become a painter in New York.  She becomes an art teacher at the Grand Central Art School and is also illustrating advertisements for lingerie and cars.  She wants to be taken seriously. as an artist which is hard to do in the 1920s , it is a man's career. 

Levon is a well known artist and popular teacher at the school, with his help Clara is offered more opportunities.  They have a challenging relationship between. them.  Clara is also pursued by Oliver, an up and coming poet, who also helps Clara get established.

Davis also sketches out the lives of Virginia and her daughter Ruby who are living in New York. in the present day.  Newly divorced trying to make it on her own and keep her daughter happy is difficult.   She has a new apartment and. needs to find a job.   She ends up at the information booth in Grand Central Station.  Ruby has dropped out of Sarah Lawrence and does not want to go to college. Virginia and Ruby need to find themselves and reconnect with. each other.  

The building is in disrepair and there is a lawsuit pending to knock it down and build a skyscraper on top of it.   Virginia gets involved and becomes passionate about saving the building.   She brings Ruby along with her and they find something in common.  The building can save a woman, a family relationship. and even more.  The finished painting of this book is wonderful, you will stand looking at it on the wall, examining it from different angles and metaphors even after you finish reading it.

All The Little Hopes

 All The Little Hopes is written by Leah Weiss.

What a delightful novel this was.  I was enchanted by Lucy and Allie Bert right from the very first chapter.

It is beautiful the way the author ties together the two characters voices in alternating chapters.  Their voices are in harmony sharing their viewpoints of the events that are happening to them both through this novel.

Allie Bert grows up int he mountains of North Carolina, uneducated and without the love and communications of a family sharing their feelings. So when her mother dies in childbirth, she is sent away without understanding what has happened.  She is lucky to meet Lucy who is growing up on the farmland of North Carolina.  Though it is only a few hours bus ride to other side of the state, it is a world apart from the rural shack Bert has only known.  Lucy and her family welcome the lost Bert into the family.  They feed her, cloth her and love her.  They also educate her and explain the ideas of how to act and how to deal with your feelings.  This is really the depth of the story, though there is a mystery that flows through the novel as men in the small town are disappearing.  The girls read Nancy Drew and mysteries and try to use available information as clues to solve these disappearances.   

Intertwined throughout this novel is also the story of Nazi POWs working on farms during the war.  This book covers so many topics that all related to hate, forgiveness and 

My favorite quote,  :I do know this - and I spend some of my ten dollar words to make the point: hate is incendiary, provocative , dangerous..  Can Byron hope to eliminate it? Or even keep it at bay? Or will it lie in wait like a glowing ember ready to ignite when the wind shifts?"  This quote is said by Lucy thinking about Byron who is a US army Captain, looking after the German POWs whoa re working on the family farm.

This turned out to be a surprisingly great read .

A Line To Kill

 Horowitz has done it once again!! 

There is nothing more entertaining to read than these Hawthorne and Horowitz mysteries. 

Writing himself into the mystery as the biographer of the detective is so clever. Sometimes it is hard to tell if maybe some of it is actually real.. Horowitz follows Hawthorne around taking notes as Hawthorne solves the crime. He is the funny Watson to Hawthorne's Holmes. You the reader are listening to the same clues and descriptions and trying to figure out the killer as they go along. Always a good clever twist...right under your nose.

This time Horowitz finds himself at a literary festival with Hawthorne thinking he will have the upper hand, showing Hawthorne how to meet the literary fans and how to handle himself in an interview.  
But once again Hawthorne seems to get the tables turned.  He is already comfortable with the environment on this English island and he seems to run into people from his past.  

When a murder occurs at a literary party on the island Hawthorne is right there to begin the investigation until the police can get there.  Of course Horowitz is right there beside him with pen and pad in hand to record all the facts.  But Horowitz is reluctant to begin another mystery novel featuring the detective.

In the end multiple, seemingly unsolvable, murders and a cast of suspects pulls them both into the fray and Horowitz is making lists of suspects and trying to figure out who it could be.  Is it the blind author with a physic sense? Is it the French poet ? Or maybe the chef who writes cookbooks?  So many authors with the timing and the motive... and of course there are quite a few distractions that can send you in a variety of directions.

Along with a very well disguised killer and a clever mystery there is also the wonderful funny and entertaining dialog.  Already looking forward to another great mystery novel by Anthony Horowitz.