Scott Pilgrim 6 : Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley

With six of Ramona's seven evil exes dispatched, it is time for Scott Pilgrim to face Gideon Graves, the biggest and baddest of her former beaus. But didn't Ramona take off at the end of Book 5? Shouldn't that let Scott off the hook? Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't, but one thing is for certain all of this has been building to Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour!

This sixth and final volume doesn't disappoint as we finally get to the final battle that lasts most of the book.  I wasn't sure if I was going to like it but once the actual battle began it was a wild ride. 

Live to tell by Lisa Gardner

Boston police detective D. D. Warren returns in another gripping thriller. A family is murdered, apparently by the father (who, it seems, barely failed to take his own life after killing his wife and young children). But soon there are questions, the most pressing of which is, Why would this man, apparently out of the blue, slaughter his own family? Is it possible that someone else was the killer, perhaps another member of the family?  When another family is murdered in a very similar style the next day Warren fears there might be a serial killer at work instead.

We hear the story from 3 points of views - D.D. Warren from the point of view of the police, Victoria, a mother at her wits’ end - which until almost the end you wonder why you are hearing it and Danielle, survivor of a family slaughter.  Danielle works as a pediatric psych nurse on an acute hospital ward.  Every day she works with children who hurt themselves and have hurt others.  We learn that the 2 of the children from the murdered families were at the Acute ward in the last year. Through Victoria's eyes we learn that eight-year-old son, Evan, is capable of astonishing violence, including plotting to murder her.  We see that for 8 years her life has been put on hold as she does everything to keep her son even losing her husband and younger daughter. 

I have read several others of Gardner's work and so far all have featured D.D. Warren.  This by far has been the best, because it focuses more on the story behind the characters instead of the police side.  The story really came together and was engrossing even when I got angry by how some of the characters acted but it did feel authentic.

Koko Be Good by Jen Wang

Jon is a recent college graduate planning to follow his older girlfriend to Peru to work for an orphanage, and his story, starts the book. In the midst of his existential crisis, he meets Koko, an eccentric, sometimes almost feral young woman who ricochets from encounter to encounter, often leaving a trail of chaos in her wake.  We are introduced to Faron as he seems to be her sidekick. 

At first Faron seems to be an unmotivated slacker. He lives and works with his family and doesn't seem to have any aspirations beyond playing video games and sometimes performing Kung Fu tricks as Koko's sidekick. But out all 3 characters he seems to have the most depth as we learn as a young boy he was fat and teased by other kids.  He pushed himself to grow up strong and dangerous. He has a secret which is that he loves Broadway musicals, and his most treasured possession is a poster from the musical Wicked.

This had a very nostalgic feel to the artwork and I had some trouble following the story sometimes as it jumped between characters.  I did like how all 3 characters were so different from each other.  But when Koko gets to know Jon it inspires her to become a better person and she inspires Faron.  The ending is left open as both Koko and Jon follow their hearts to see where life takes them. 

Edwin of the Iron Shoes by Marcia Muller

Private eye Sharon McCone works for All Souls Cooperative, a San Francisco legal services plan.  She is hired to discover who was vandalizing a small street of antique shops.  But before she can discover who is behind the vandalism one of the antique dealers was found murdered in her own shop. Sharon had no idea who had killed Joan Albritton, who Sharon really liked.  She was a pleasant older woman whose main fault was talking to the dressmaker's dummy, the stuffed German shepherd, and the little boy mannequin she kept in her shop. She decides to stay on the case as she didn't feel confident in the police's ability to discover the killer. Especially after she met the unpleasantly patronizing Lieutenant Marcus who was in charge of the case. Uncertain of whether she would be paid for her work or not, but refusing to allow Joan Albritton's killer to go free, Sharon starts her investigation.

Suspects abound, with Charlie, the junkman who ran the shop across the street from Joan's, at the forefront. Charlie was Joan's former lover, recently jilted for a wealthier man, and he was the one who had discovered the body and called the police. Then there was Cara Ingalls, a real estate mogul with ice running through her veins. She made no secret of the fact that she was glad that Joan was gone so that she could buy the land and force the antique dealers out. Of course, Cara was not the only one trying to buy the land and then there was the slimy bond bailsman and the slick "antique-style" dealer who kept popping up at every corner. Not to mention the puzzling Lieutenant Marcus, who was grateful for Sharon's help and then pushing her aside the next.

This book introduced us to Sharon McCone and while I have read others in the series I have never read the first one.   It gives a great sense of place and time as it was written in 1977 before female PI's were all the rage.  Marcia Muller hints at the prejudices women had to face off with from the police and the public in general.  The mystery was a bit muddled as I felt like information was deliberately left out so I couldn't figure out who the killer was or what the motive was.  But it does make me want to go back and read more of her books.

Saturn Apartments. 1 / Hisae Iwaoka ; translation by Matt Thorn

Far in the future, humankind has evacuated the earth in order to preserve it. Humans now reside in a gigantic structure that forms a ring around the earth, 35 kilometers up in the sky. The society of the ring is highly stratified: the higher the floor, the greater the status. Mitsu, the lowly son of a window washer, has just graduated junior high. When his father disappears and is assumed dead, Mitsu must take on his father's occupation. As he struggles with the transition to working life, Mitsu's job treats him to an outsider's view into the living-room dioramas of the Saturn Apartments.
 
The story revolves around Mitsu but there are reoccurring characters, like Jin who had been Mitsu's father's partner and now is showing Mitsu the ropes, and Sachi, a girl who lives in a cleaning-machine with her cat that perpetually crawls the surface of the ring. But mostly the stories revolve around the quirks of Mitsu's clients, and the various reasons why they shelled out the massive amount of cash required to get their window's cleaned.
 
I didn't think I would like this as I don't do well with Japanese manga but I the first copule of pages several times to get a feel for it and actually found myself enjoying it.

My first book of 2011.

Hunt for Sonya Dufrette by R. T. Raichev

Antonia Darcy is the assistant librarian at London's Military and Naval Club.  This divorced grandmother is also an aspiring writer. Twenty years after the Royal Wedding, Antonia sadly remembers the little girl Sonya Dufreete, who disappeared the same day Charles and Diana were married in July 1981. Along with Sonya's parents, Antonia was on holiday at a country house on the Thames at the time the young girl went missing and was presumed drowned, her body never recovered.

Being a writer - Antonia writes a lot and while having writer's block discovers a long ago written detailed account of Sonya's disappearance that she wrote shortly after the tragedy.  While re-reading it Antonia has a strong sense that something isn't right with her story and sets out to satisfy her nagging doubts—with the help of her admirer and willing assistant, widower Maj. Hugh Payne.

Hence a mystery reminiscent of Agatha Christie as we are given a few red herrings and the ending was more complicated than I expected.  It also appears this is a the first in a series which I discovered by accident. Plus I really enjoyed reading it, the suspense was well done and the mystery worked well.  I'm looking forward to others by this author.