Peachy Reads

An American financier relocates his young family to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, but the details of his job are sketchy.  His wife starts snooping around, especially when agents of the FBI begin to monitor the family.  She tries to uncover his secrets, while keeping her own not so insignificant secrets hidden. The expat existence is accurately portrayed, and the charm of Luxembourg nicely described.  Other European settings include the Alps, Amsterdam, and Paris, which makes this thriller great for the armchair traveler!  The story is intriguing, though ultimately a bit complex, at least for this reader.

US cover It’s been awhile since I’ve visited the campi , canals, and calli of Venice with Commissario Guido Brunetti.  For a long while I was more partial to Aurelio Zen and even read some books by Andrea Camilleri, but I really enjoyed my reunion with Donna Leon in this slim novel.  The writing is really good, the story was engaging, and the cultural insights are astute.  I felt like I was following alongside Brunetti, drinking in the atmosphere of Venice, and seeing it through the eyes of a native.  Granted, Leon is not a native Veneziana, but after thirty years she's as Venetian as any American could hope to be. UK cover, which I think is so much better   Brunetti is called in to investigate the vandalism and theft of some priceless books at a Venetian Library.  The plot thickens when one of the library’s readers turns up murdered. Was it the mysterious American scholar with credentials from a university in Kansas, or someone else?

Kinsey Millhone is permanently stuck in 1988, which is probably about when I read A is for Alibi, the first in Sue Grafton's alphabet detective series.  It's fun to time-travel back to that nostalgic era each time a new installment comes out.  X,Y, Z is all that is left. Anyway, in W is for Wasted we learn a bit more about Kinsey's distant family ties when a homeless man dies and lists Kinsey as family.  Not only is the family link a surprise, but the fact that this seemingly destitute hobo has left half a million dollars to Kinsey, bypassing his own children.   The book ends with an exciting fight in which Kinsey fends off a crazy doctor with murderous intents with a pair of garden shears.