so you can't have a murder mystery without at least one death, but it's nice to read a mystery that is intelligent, enjoyable, has realistic characters, and takes place in my neighborhood. the only problem i had with it was that i ended up reading it in one sitting and now i have to find another one.

Although I have read -- and enjoyed -- virtually every book in every series by the most famous female mystery writers, Carolyn Wheat unequivocally remains my favorite.

This series is about a Legal Aid attorney named Cass Jameson. As such, it introduces fascinating glimpses into seldom-seen areas of the legal system -- along with providing excellent mysteries. This is one series I buy in hardcover as soon as each book is published.

The books are all very well-written, fast-moving, and entertaining. I cannot sufficiently recommend them. IMHO, this is the best mystery series available.

"Yellow Dog Party" is the sixth Thomas Black mystery by Earl Emerson. Floyd Boyd, Jimmy Canfield, Denny McCallum, and Rex Ronquist hold an annual beer bash and party in honor of Canfield's yellow dog who was killed by a Ritz Cracker truck. They call it the Yellow Dog Party. These 4 friends who are successful businessmen ask PI Thomas Black to find 4 women with whom they want to have "dream dates." When Black finds the first woman, she is in a coma in an Oregon hospital. As he and friend Kathy Birchfield are leaving the hospital, they are abducted by 3 masked men. Kathy is able to run, but Thomas is assaulted and hung from a tree. Luckily for him, the branch snaps and he is spared. He begins to hunt down these 3 men and find out why they wanted to kill him. As he searches for the other 3 women, it becomes clear that one of the 4 men has an ulterior motive. Then Denny McCallum is found murdered in a hotel room. This novel also deals with the relationship of Thomas Black and Kathy Birchfield. Kathy announces that she is engaged to her boyfriend, Philip. With the possibility of losing her, Thomas finally tells her that he loves her and they kiss. The next books will have to deal with this situation. "Yellow Dog Party" is one of the best of the Thomas Black novels and is highly recommended.

I have read all of the Earl Emerson books. The Yellow DogParty is by far the best. The plot is extremely strong and the depth at which the writing goes is endless. Check this book out.

Some of Hill's earliest novels don't really compare to some of his later ones, but this is one of a couple of absolutely cracking exceptions.

It's got a wonderfully complex plot, some brilliant characters, a great setting, some surprising twists, and it is written wonderfully. Plus, Franny Roote is one of the best villains Hill has ever created. This one, indeed, is essential reading for those who intend to read the later books in the series, because it is Roote's first appearance, and he goes on to appear in quite a large role in all three of Hill most recent books ("Arms and the Women", "Dialogues of the Dead", and "Death's Jest Book"). It's also pivotal in that here Pascoe is first re-united with his former friend, and future wife, Ellie.

A body is found buried in the grounds of Holm Coultram College, and the police arrive, settling themselves in on campus. They meet a wonderful array of interesting and well-drawn interesting characters (students and lecturers alike), but then a new body turns up, and then another...

This is a wonderful crime novel, realistic and strangely chilling, that explores the underbelly of that bastion of the education system, the College, with its strong-willed students, and with it's lectureers all too ready to give in to temptation...

I would reccomend this novel to anyone, especially fans of the police procedural which not only entertains but challenges the intellect. The character, story, writing and setting are all marvellous. Fantastic. Certainly one of Hill's best.

At the start of "Always a Body to Change," the sixth Mario Balzic mystery by K. C. Constantine, we learn that the police chief of Rocksburg has to deal with a new mayor, Kenny Strohn. A political unknown who had defeated four-term incumbent Angelo Bellotti, Strohn is a simplifying self-righteous neophyte who cannot believe his police chief can be so complacent about the dozen burglaries that happen each day or the need to call a press conference at 8 a.m. when a young woman is found dead on the street with her face blown away. The victim has no identification, but the murder has all of the markings of a "message" rather than a random act of violence. One of the main subplots of this novel is the education of Mayor Strohn, who learns more about the way the law works in the real world than he every wanted to know. But the main point of the story is to solve this murder case and the great irony is that Chief Balzic is in for something of an education as well.

This is a disturbing book in many ways and I take into account that clearly it is Constantine's intent to provoke a response from both his characters and his readers. There was a point reading this book when Balzic is told of something horrible that a cop has done and I literally had to put down the book and walk away from it for a while. Not so much because this was one of the worst atrocities I have ever come across, in fiction or history, but because it was rather unexpected. However, I have to admit this did a marvelous job of creating a strong sense of identification between the reader and the main character as Balzic says and does what we ourselves would probably say and do under those circumstances. Still, the fictional Western Pennsylvania town of Rocksburg seems a much different place to me as I read this book.

This is not to say that the world of crime in Rocksburg has been anything approaching the relative clean environment of the Agatha Christie type "polite mystery," but rather than Balzic has not wallowed in it as much as he does in this book. The Balzic mysteries are always built around a series of conversations between the chief and various people, which bring him closer and closer to solving the crime. Often these are casual conversations that made lead to more serious ones down the road. But this time around there are direct interrogations of suspects, delicate negotiations with a local crime boss, and repeated efforts to education the mayor on the ways of the world. There are unpleasant topics talked about in the most unpleasant terms. Equally important to the uneasiness "Always A Body to Trade" provokes is that Balzic's family and friends have receded into the background. Balzic keeps saying he is a family man, but I think the only time his girls talk to him in this book is to tell him the pesky mayor has called again. Maybe this sense of isolation from his loved ones is why Balzic has been stomping through these last couple of novels in such a foul mood. Add to this the dirty and filth he has to wallow in with this particular case and no wonder he seems more unpleasant than he was when we first met him. For this character to lose his humanity would be a fatal error.

Excellent continuation of the Corbett series - Doherty at his finest.

Small towns and villages feel the downswing of a depressed economy as much if not more so than the large urban centers. The small California seaside town of Port Silva is wracked with severe social and economic problems. Schoolteacher Meg Halloran, wife of Police Chief Vince Gutierrez, watches a group of teens attack a homeless person. She tries to intercede, but is beaten up by the gang.

Meg goes to the police station to file a report, but the officer, not recognizing her relationship to his boss, blames it on the Mexicans. With employment down, the Anglos resent the Mexicans who are taking away their jobs while draining the local resources. Things turn ugly when someone murders Mexican Esperanza Moreno. Soon a pregnant Mexican teenager disappears. Protests within the town have turned violent. Vince believes a link exists between the murders and the other incidents, that once uncovered, will lead to the culprit behind the brutality.

BABY MINE is filled with several well designed who-done-its and other mysteries that blend together into a coherent and entertaining story line that dazzles the audience. Readers will find it nearly impossible to ascertain what will happen from one moment to the next. Small town life in a mixed community is vividly described. The sixth Port Silva novel is pure pleasure as old friends return after a long absence. This reviewer does not believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder because Janet La Pierre is too good a writer for readers to persevere that long between books.

Harriet Klausner

Eldon Larkin is a journalist who reports crime for the newspaper in mythical, mysterious Port Jerome, Oregon. He goes to the scene of a grisly homicide, to find a 452 pound former high school football star (turned pimp) who was shotgunned to death while eating spaghetti. An unlikely alliance is forged with the new assistant prosecutor, who offers to bed Larkin if he can solve the mystery. The game's afoot. An excellent read, I'll be buying the others in the series as soon as I find them.

Chief of Police Mario Balzic receives a phone call from Miss Cynthia Summers who reports that she has not seen one of her student roomers for several days. Paying a courtesy call sounds a lot better to Balzic than working on the budget report until he finds the body of Janet Pisula on the floor of her room. The young woman has been strangled with her brassiere, wearing only her panties, with a blank sheet of paper resting on top of her body. The murder had happened sometime the previous week and nobody in the rooming house or on campus had noticed Janet had suddenly disappeared.

For "The Blank Page," the third novel in the Mario Balzic series, author K. C. Constantine has apparently settled on a specific literary modus operandi. Lt. Harry Minyon, the blundering blowhard who was in charge of the local State Police barracks in the previous mystery "The Man Who Like to Look at Himself" has been temporarily replaced by Lt. Walker Johnson, who is more in the mold of Lt. Phil Moyer from "The Rocksburg Railroad Murders" in terms of providing support for Balzic rather than an constant impediment in the search for the murderer. By removing the set of stereotypical clowns getting in the way of Balzic's investigation, Constantine is able to keep the story's focus on the chief's interrogative skills. In the current dichotomy represented by television's "Law & Order" and "C.S.I." franchises, Constantine's Balzic is clearly in the camp of the former. The focus here is not on forensic science or the ability to beat and/or shoot up bad guys, but rather on asking the right questions in order to gather the necessary information. Reading these books is waiting for the key piece of the puzzle to show up so that everything can fall into place, at which point Balzic can go bring in the murderer. These novels are not so much about police procedure as they are the lost art of interrogation. Of course, in Constantine's hands these interrogations rarely take place in a special room at the police station.

"The Blank Page" is the best of the first three Mario Balzic novels, although readers who are captivated by some of the more colorful characters in Rocksburg may well wish Father Mazzo and Mo Vulcanas were more involved in the story as they were respectively in the first two books. Personally, I would like to see a bit more of Balzic's family, since they tend to provide nice counterpoints to the crime being investigated. But the most important other character in these novels to this point in the series clearly ends up being the murderer. I would not go so far a to say Balzic shows compassion for the murderers he catches (with the exception being what happened in the second novel), but there is certainly a strong sense of empathy and understanding towards the story they have to tell. But then, it is that ability to look at things from the perspective of others that is Balzic's greatest asset when it comes to solving crimes.

Comments on recurring concerns: "The Blank Page" was originally published in 1974, which helps to explain the original art on the hardcover edition with is a photograph of a woman's naked torso reproduced four times in pop art style with an empty rectangle representing the titular item on her stomach. Besides any concerns about having a picture of a naked breast reproduced four times on a book cover, there is the problem that it suggests the crime in this novel involves some sort of lurid sex act. However, I tend to think this is more an attempt at titillation by the marketing department for the Saturday Review Press rather than a red herring intended to throw readers off the track of the mystery. The other thing to be pointed out is that Constantine does not believe in chapters, so if you are in the read "x" number of chapter before bedtime school of reading, be forewarned. Constantine's books are ideal for those of us living the commuter lifestyle.

I have to say that this book and all of DJ Donaldson's books are simply amazing. I've read everything by him and I am always wanting more. His books are real page turners. If you love New Orleans, and like a good mystery with enough forensic detail to stump a PI, you should take the time to explore these mysteries

Torie O'Shea loves living in the tourist town of New Kassel, Missouri with her husband and three children. She knows almost all the other residents and where the skeletons are buried because she is the Granite County archivist. What she doesn't know she can find out which is why she is so good at solving homicide investigations.

Due to the drought the Mississippi River is so low that for the first time since 1919 the steamboat the Phantom is visible. Rumor has it that there was a huge amount of diamonds on it when it went down and the journalists and even a university professor are looking for a good story. One night when Torie and her friend are out walking she hears a groan near where the boat is located and discovers the body of the college professor whose skull is bashed in. Using her investigative skills and information gathered from interviewees and out-of-state contacts, Torie learns why the Phantom sunk over five decades ago, but who the killer is remains to be solved.

In addition to working yet another homicide investigation, Torie must cope with the knowledge that she has a half-sister she never knew about, but she does both with an aplomb that will make her the envy of readers. Torie is one of the most likable heroines a reader will find because she loves her family and friends and is not afraid to show and act on her feelings. Rett MacPherson is a talented writer who provides a complex, multi-layered mystery.

Harriet Klausner