Our chapter was very pleased to welcome Kate Carlisle on November 12. Kate writes two series of mystery cozies. If you don’t know what a “cozy” is, these are mysteries with quirky characters and very little violence or sex on the page. Readers love the characters as much or more than the mysteries they solve. Kate started out writing romance novels. There are a number of mystery writers who started the same way. Lisa Gardner and Heather Graham, to name a couple. Kate gave tips on writing a successful cozy character. The character must be realistic and not too outlandish, as well as kind and smart without being meddling. Her protagonist’s mother is into astro traveling, has joined a coven, believes in chakras, and loves the Grateful Dead. Now that’s a fun character.

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This book’s structure is so ambitious! The novel is a present-day, oral history from all the members of a rock’n roll band that made it big in the seventies. The interviewer only intrudes to give some needed background. Each chapter jumps among band members who comment on the event from different points of view. I thought this would be impossible to sustain for a whole book. But Taylor Jenkins Reid does it! The band comments on their whole journey—the early struggles, conflicts of ego, love affairs, strains on family, and finally their dissolution. Throughout, the attraction between the talented singer/writers, Daisy and Billy, threatens to erupt into a full-blown love affair that will destroy his family and sobriety, and her future. The squabbles among band members both tear them apart and inspire great music. No matter how crazy the characters acted, I felt sympathy for them. I highly recommend this book.

Suspect by Robert Crais

This is the first of a series of Robert Crais thrillers starring Scott James and his police dog, Maggie. It was was published in 2013. In this one, James’ partner is brutally murdered and he is seriously wounded. James must both heal himself physically as well as psychologically. He joins the police K9 unit and is paired with Maggie, a dog that was previously in the military in Afghanistan. Maggie’s prior handler was killed in an ambush. Having the two main characters both suffer from PTSD is a nice touch. Crais does a good job in showing how Scott and the dog mutually help one another to recover. I got a real sense of the bond between him and Maggie. Crais also displays a lot of knowledge of what the police training is like for both Scott and Maggie. The characters are all sympathetic and the officer in charge of the training is nicely drawn. He’s a crusty man who feels more for his dogs than the officers training them. There are several points of view. Particularly ambitious are chapters from the consciousness of Maggie, the dog. This was a great start to his series.