When he was a little kid, Jacob loved to hear his grandfather's stories about fighting monsters and looking through his selection of old photographs of flying children and other strange beings, but as he grew older, he learned to dismiss the stories as fairy tales. When Jacob reaches the age of 16, his grandfather is brutally murdered, apparently by animals, and with his dying breath he sends Jacob on a journey to find the orphans' home in Wales where he grew up. Once there, Jacob discovers that his grandfather's stories were actually all true.... Thus begins "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children," by Ransom Riggs, a darkish YA fantasy that intermingles text with old photographs, all seeming to show children who are, indeed, quite peculiar. I found it imaginative and a great deal of fun, once I got over feeling creeped out by some of the early photographs anyway. Part of the enjoyment of this book, for me, was trying to figure out how the photographs were manipulated to create the illusions that they do, but I'm not sure the conceit would work as well a second time although the end of this novel certainly leaves room for a sequel. Recommended.

"Blood Rain" is a novel in Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen mystery series, this time taking place in Sicily. Zen is sent there essentially to spy on the activities of an anti-Mafia squad, an elite corps that may be working without proper authorization in certain circumstances. Once there, he finds himself caught between several different groups of law enforcement officers and those on the other side of the law. His adopted daughter Carla is also in Sicily, assigned to install a new, integrated computer system for the anti-Mafia squad, and she attracts the attention of one of the judges working in the same department, a woman who is always under intense police protection because of the Mafia's propensity for knocking off judges. When Carla discovers that someone is infiltrating the new computer system even as she is installing it, she is not sure how to handle it or who to turn to for advice, but advice is something that she - and Zen - desperately needs.... I had previously read the first four Zen novels, but could not find the next two or three (even on Amazon!), so Carla is completely new to me and I found that not having read the entire series made a difference in how I viewed her and what happens to her. Aside from that problem, though, "Blood Rain" was an exciting and tense read, one that had me so worried at the end of it that I had to immediately search out the next book in the series in order to find out what happens next. Recommended - but definitely try to read the earlier books first!

Another entry in the series of related stories told by some of Britian's best-known historical mystery writers, "Hill of Bones" contains tales by Karen Maitland, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight, Philip Gooden and Ian Morson. The premise of these books is to take a particular item and follow it through time, specifically through the Middle Ages, with a preface setting up the article to be followed and a brief coda bringing the item into the 21st Century. "Hill of Bones" is slightly different in that it really explores a specific place (Solsbury Hill, not far from the ancient Roman city of Bath) rather than a single object; in this case, there are several objects that find their way to the hill. And, of course, there are several murders related to those objects - the group of authors *do* call themselves The Medieval Murderers, after all! It's not necessary to be familiar with earlier books in this series, or indeed to be familiar with the characters created by each of these authors and appearing in their own series of mysteries; I enjoy the medieval setting and the fact that each story tends to contain a fair amount of humour in addition to the mystery plot, and would recommend the book especially for lovers of historical mysteries.

My mother recently visited me and left Maeve Binchy's novel, "Evening Class," for me to read, and I'm very glad she did as she's not an author I've read before. "Evening Class"is set in Dublin and is essentially a collection of inter-related stories about a group of people who come together to take a course in Italian. The glue that holds together all of these people is Signora, the teacher who had spent 26 years in Sicily before returning home to Ireland following the death of the love of her life, but each of the characters has a deeper and more complicated life than appears to be the case initially. For instance, Fran and Kathy are the eldest and youngest sisters of a large family - or are they? Lou seems completely out of place in the course, but he has a surprising reason for being there. Connie is the wealthy lady who is hiding a lifetime of artifice and scandal.... And so on, and so on. I very much enjoyed this collection of character studies; although Binchy's writing seems to be very gentle and sweet, there are shocking truths revealed by each character as the reader gets to know them better, and one ends up with a feeling of rich satisfaction at the complex nature of life and of humanity. Recommended, and I'm definitely planning to read more of this marvelous writer!

It is always a treat to have a new Chief Inspector Salvo Montalbano novel to devour, and "The Age of Doubt," the 14th in the series by Andrea Camilleri, is no exception. After an unsettling dream in which Montalbano is dead but Livia can't make it to the funeral, our Chief Inspector is summoned to the port, because a body in a dinghy has been towed in by a visiting yacht. At the same time, a cruiser is pulling in to port because of engine trouble, and the crew of that cruiser seems a bit...odd. The body intrigues, the yacht's owner is voracious, and the Navy officer in charge of the port, Lieutenant Belladonna, is the most beautiful woman Montalbano has ever seen - and she seems to like him, too! Or maybe she doesn't; she seems to blow hot and cold, and Montalbano is helpless in responding to her moods. But there is serious business going on here, one murder and then another, and although they seem unrelated, there must be a connection, if only Montalbano can find it in time.... I've always enjoyed Camilleri's books, they are terrific windows into Sicilian life (and food; he's an author who loves describing the food that Montalbano loves to eat). I enjoyed this one too, although I found Montalbano being a bit more baffoonish than usual, a little bit more, well, comedic I suppose. His attitudes toward women have always leaned more toward the neanderthal than the modern, but here I found the women's reactions to him just a bit less believable than usual. So I'm a little conflicted with this entry into the series; overall, I love the Montalbano books immensely; this particular one is not the best among them, though. I would recommend any reader who hasn't met Chief Inspector Montalbano yet to start with the first novel ("The Shape of Water") and proceed from there; and I would recommend any long-time reader to, of course, read this one too, but possibly with a slightly jaded eye.

"Venice Noir," edited by Maxim Jakubowski, is one of a series of original anthologies published by Akashic Books of New York; the premise of each is to take a particular city and ask authors (some associated with the city, others not) to write a noirish story situated in that city. This volume includes tales by Matteo Righetto, Francesco Ferracin, Barbara Baraldi, Francesca Mazzucato, Michelle Lovric, Isabella Santacroce, Peter James, Emily St. John Mandel, Tony Cartano, Mike Hodges, Maria Tronca, Michael Gregorio, Mary Hoffman and editor Jakubowski; the names of most of these are new to me, and I was happy to make the acquaintance of some, particularly Baraldi ("Commissario Clelia Vinci"), Mandel ("Drifter"), Tronca ("Tourists for Supper") and Hoffman ("A Closed Book"). Some I found unfathomable (Santacroce's "Desdemona Undicesima" in particular as it seemed to be nothing but a repetition of various sentences; and Gregorio's "Laguna Blues" contains two entirely separate segments that don't create a full story but rather just seem to be sketches), but in all of the stories, the author depicts the famed location as a complete character in and of itself. This conceit wouldn't work for too many cities in the world, but certainly Venice is one of the few that can take on such a role. All told, by the time I finished the book, I wanted even more to visit that lovely place before it sinks into the Lagoon - recommended!

"The Serpent's Shadow" is the final novel in Rick Riordan's Egyptian trilogy known as The Kane Chronicles, and if anything, he manages to ramp up the action even more than he did with the two prior books, "The Red Pyramid" and "The Throne of Fire." Siblings Carter and Sadie Kane, channeling the powers of Horus and Isis respectively, must go on a quest to find the shadow of Apophis, the personification of Chaos, with the intention of using the serpent's shadow to destroy it once and for all. The only thing at stake is the survival of the entire universe, and the siblings have only three days to accomplish the task. In the meantime, Carter is trying to wrestle with his feelings for Zia, an Egyptian magician, while Sadie feels conflicted between Walt, who is dying, and Anubis, the god of death, and when those two become closer to one another, she doesn't know what to think. Can the siblings resolve their personal lives and save the universe, all in three days? Only by reading the book can one find out.... I don't find this series as compelling as Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" books, but it contains his usual snarky humour mixed in with some poignant scenes and a whole lot of very fast action. As such, it's an enjoyable rollercoaster of a read, and therefore is recommended - but you need to read the first two books in the trilogy in order to understand this one!

The Medieval Murderers are a group of British historical crime fiction writers (in this case, Karen Maitland, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight, Philip Gooden, Ian Morson and Simon Beaufort) who start with a particular object and take it through its criminal history from, say, the Dark Ages to the present. In "The Sacred Stone," that object is a curiously shaped meteorite, a small but heavy rock that sometimes looks like a ship and sometimes looks like a bird in flight. It falls from the sky onto a field in Greenland in 1067, and it both cures and curses the Viking settlement living nearby. As time goes on, it sometimes heals and sometimes destroys - but always, there are people prepared to murder to possess it....In this entry to the series, we range from the 11th Century to the 21st, sticking mostly in the Middle Ages with stories set in 1101, 1236, 1241, 1272, 1606 and 2010 respectively; most of the stories feature the authors' series characters (actor Nick Revill in Philip Gooden's story, Oxford don William Falconer in Ian Morson's tale set in 1272, and so on). Karen Maitland is new to the series and to me as a reader; her story deals with Jews in 13th Century England, but I don't know if any particular character is set up as a series personage. I find these volumes to be quite entertaining and this one is no exception. Not the type of book where you want to buy multiple copies for all your friends and relatives, but a pleasant way to while away an evening or three. Recommended.

"Dead Lagoon" is the fourth in the Aurelio Zen series by Michael Dibdin; this time, Zen is seconded to his home city of Venice, ostensibly to look into the apparent harassment of a somewhat demented contessa who is being plagued by ghosts, but really because he has been hired by the family of an American millionaire who went missing while living in Venice. The city of his childhood and youth is both familiar and utterly strange to him now, but his essential Venetian soul soon reorients him to his homeland, both its charms and its vices. His best friend in childhood has gotten involved in a new political party, one with a charismatic leader and a separatist agenda that aims to restore Venice to its glory as an independent city-state; this party seems on the verge of victory in the upcoming elections, but Zen suspects a connection to the case he is clandestinely investigating....I've been enjoying Dibdin's series, and this is no exception: the character is an engaging one, and the various people he meets are well-described and not one-note characters by any means. The plot is convoluted and intriguing, and although I solved the mystery fairly early on, I don't think these are the kind of books where the author is trying to keep the reader from guessing so I didn't mind that. I *am* getting a little tired of Zen's apparent problems with women: every time he gets involved with one sexually, he soon finds he cannot communicate/wants someone else/is just using her and/or being used, but of course it's never his fault that the relationship doesn't last, it's always hers. In that respect, one would wish that Zen would grow up already, but that might be too much to ask of a modern Italian man. Still recommended though!

"The Crime on Cote des Neiges," by David Montrose, was originally published in 1951, and was reissued in 2010 by Vehicule Press in Montreal. Squarely in the vein of noir, it tells the story of Russell Teed, an anglo private investigator living in Montreal and primarily making a living doing high-flying work for mega-corporations. But when the rich Westmount mother of a childhood friend asks Teed to find out what has happened to her daughter's husband, who has not been seen for five days, he is willing to take on a different kind of detective work. It doesn't take long for him to realize that the man is dead, and from there on in the bodies just start piling up, one after another. Who is behind the murders? Could it be one of the three women apparently linked to the dead man? Or some of his business partners who are tired of his high-handed ways? Or perhaps the drug ring that has more uses for a remote cabin than one might think.... Quite dark and rather odd, this book presents Montreal in a very different light to the way the city is now (I live in Montreal, so I can say that with confidence). For one thing, Montreal in the novel appears to be almost entirely Anglophone, with the only French character being Sergeant Framboise ("raspberry"), who is hyper-alert, yet plodding and slow, and whose English is portrayed as very heavily accented and grammar-free. For another, the street names are almost all different now; most have been renamed using French terms or people, whereas in Montrose's day, many street names were English. For example, what is now Rene Levesque Blvd. was once Dorchester Street, and our hero spends a lot of time traveling on that Anglophone road. The women in the book are all scheming and slinky; the men are happy to use their fists, knives and guns any time at all. Oh, and our hero starts drinking (usually beer, sometimes rye or whiskey) from the moment he rolls out of bed, and carries on until he finds said bed once again. Montrose apparently wrote two other books featuring Teed, "Murder Over Dorval" (1952) and "The Body on Mount Royal" (1953), and I hope Vehicule Press reissues those two as well. Definitely not for people with tender sensibilities concerning the violence, sexism and racism that was part of the social fabric of the time, but recommended if you're a fan of 1950s pulp!