Assassins Anonymous

 What happens when you have signed up for a life of crime and now you have a twinge of conscience?  

Assassins Anonymous is an entertaining new novel by mystery author , Robert Hart. The story of where assassins go when they have decided that killing for a living is not how they want to live anymore.  

Mark has been working for a secret agency under the nickname Pale Horse for years.  But now he decides he wants to change his life so he finds a self help, 12 step program because it may be that he is addicted to the adrenaline rush he gets from killing another human being.  Though he has justified the lives lost as other lives that have been saved by his actions.

As he goes through the program getting closer to his goal of staying clean for a year, an unknown assassin steps in and tries to kill him.  Can he make it to the year mark without incident or will this attack and his search for the perpetrator ruin his record and bring him back to th feelings he actually used to enjoy?

It is a little like smoking and drinking, the memory of the feeling and the taste are hard to forget. Hard for your body to resist and if you sli, just one reminder could send you on a spiral backwards.

Veridian Sterling Fakes It

 Jennifer Gooch Hummer brings us the entertaining novel, Veridian Sterling Fakes It.

A fun colorful painting of how the art world works seen through the eyes of recent RISD student Veridian Sterling.  Living with her single mother in Hoboken NJ she is pounding the pavement in NYC after graduating with honors from RISD.  Trying to get a gallery show she goes from art gallery to gallery with her portfolio.  Finally hired by a former graduate who runs a gallery, she gets caught up in a series of high jinks that having her flirting with the underground world of art theft and art heists and reproductions of the masters.

Also discusses the world of cryptocurrency and UTFs.  It was very entertaining but did not seem realistic, really a bit farfetched.  A few twists and turns but not really in-depth.  Kept my attention for a beach read.

The Curse of Pietro Houdini

There are so many different angles an author can explore when writing about the horrific events of World War II and the Holocaust.  Author Derek Miller has found an unusual and very interesting path to follow as he presents the Nazis attack on Italy and its historic art and architecture. 

The setting is a Benedictine Abbey near Montecassino, Italy.  It is 1944 as the Allied Forces are trying to push back the German army.  The story Miller tells in this novel is about a major military operation that has gone mostly unnoticed.  It is not a heroic story, like the attack at Normandy Beach. In this instance, the Americans mistakenly believed the monastery to be occupied by Nazi forces.  Their pilots dropped more bombs on this building than any other single building during the war.  Many people were killed as the battle raged on for months.  There had been a large influx of thousands of irreplaceable manuscripts, paintings and other art hidden in the abbey for safekeeping the year before. But two officers, a German and an Austrian, worked with the monks to load much of the art onto carts and move it out to Rome ahead of the invasion.

Miller presents two protagonists, Pietro Houdini and the young person he rescues who was left beaten in a gutter, as they approach the Montecassino Abbey.  As his name implies Pietro is a master of illusion. He is a larger than life character, who by his own description claims to be, “master artist and confidant of the Vatican.”   His assistant is Massimo, a fourteen year old orphan whose parents were killed during a bombing in Rome.  Both of these characters along with the many others they encounter have something to hide.  

Massimo is the narrator of this story, recounting the tale that brought them to Montecassino and the experiences that led Houdini to perform the stunts he did and what he taught Massimo along the way.  Houdini educates Massimo in the art of misdirection and sleight of hand to save the artwork hidden in the monastery.  Through a variety of experiences and tribulations they are joined by a monk, a cafe owner who will murder to protect her family, a nurse with a past to conceal and a wounded German soldier who does not want to return to battle. The group becomes in the author's words, “a posse of misfits who had nothing in common but a generic and shared compulsion to keep on living.”  Together they will try to thwart the Nazis and save others.

The plot uncovers a rich historical story propelled by intrigue, drama and high stakes risks that explores the horrors of life during World War II.  The characters learn that heroes and powerful bonds can grow as relationships are created and love can grow as tragic situations are faced together.  Massimo matures and changes through all their encounters.  

Though the artwork in this novel is fictitious, the author brings to life this amazing little known history by exposing a real masterpiece covered by layers of confusion and misdirection.

The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson

 Written by Ellen Baker this novel, The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson is full of love, heartache and family connections.  

Cecily is left behind at the orphanage when her young mother marries again to a husband that doesn't want someone else child. Though she waits three long years for her mother to come back and get her, Cecily is finally sold to a traveling circus.  She learns to be a bareback rider and spends the next many years traveling back and forth across the country.  She always looks out into the audience hoping to see her mother.

Now at the age of 93 after falling and breaking her hip, she is in rehab with her daughter and granddaughter looking after her.  She can tell they each have secrets they are hiding and she knows that she should be sharing her secrets, but she just cannot bring herself to bring them to light.

Her grandson is working on a family tree project for his final grade in high school.  Everyone spits into a test tube.  They take Cecily's saliva in secret and off they all go to Ancestry.  The answers will surprise everyone.  

Finding out a secret from a lifetime ago can be like falling off the trapeze. You are very shaken up and it takes awhile to trust the safety net again. This is a story of family, security and trust. It is a very engaging tale.

I Need You to Read This

 I Need You to Read This is the newest novel of author Jessa Maxwell.  Her first mystery The Golden Spoon was an light and entertaining mystery based on the idea of the Great British Baking Show.

This time Maxwell takes on the busy newsroom and newspaper advice column as the backbone of this murder mystery.  Alex Marks has left the small town life behind.  She is trying to forget her past and get lost in the hustle and bustle of New York City.  Then she is a want ad in the newspaper that changes her life.

When her role model advice columnist Francis Keen is murdered, the newspaper puts out an ad looking for her replacement. On a lark Alex answers the ad and is surprised when she is offered the job.

Coming into the spotlight is difficult for Alex but she finds she loves the job and is excited to be the newspaper's new advice columnist. Though strange things seem to be going on at the office, Alex gives the job her all, spending long hours alone in her secluded office with her assistant answering the many letters asking for her advice.  There are eerie moments, when her boss, editor-in-chief Howard Dimitri, is discovered staying late at the office and drinking too much.  Then there are some threatening letters.  She decides to try to figure out why Francis was murdered which takes her to her predecessor 's lake house in search of answers.

She has a skill for solving other people's problems, but can she save herself?

The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

 Tonight I turned on Netflix and there it was as a mini series, The Good Girls Guide to Murder.  What a surprise, I had just read the book . The TV series is not bad, a good replica of the book.  The book is also a very good read.  Holly Jackson is the author.

The story of a group of high school kids who take things  a little too far. When a girl goes missing from the gang, another boy, Sal Singh, who was her latest boyfriend is targeted for possibly killing her. Feeling he has no alibi and his friends seem to have turned against him, he confesses and then takes his own life. The town continues to ostracize his family.

But there is one young girl, Pip,  who remembers the boy as kind and thinks he was innocent. Now five years alter as she is graduating from high school she decides to investigate and prove the young man’s innocence to clear his name, as her senior project.

Pip enlists Sal’s brother to help her figure out all the facts and put together all the clues. Through many twists and turns, threats and secrets, Pip figures out what happened that evening five years ago.

This book is a well written intriguing novel. Written for teen readers, but also good for adult readers.