The Hotel Dick

The Hotel Dick by Axel Brand

The Hotel Dick is the first of a series of four detective novels that follows the exploits of Lieutenant Joe Sonntag of the Milwaukee Police Department and are set in the late 1940s. The novel starts off when a hotel detective named J. Axel Brand is shot in the hotel brbershop while getting his morning shave. The only witness to the crime is the barber who swears that the movie actor Spencer Tracy is the shooter. A quick check with Tracy's studio reveals that he has an alibi and could not be the murderer, leaving Sonntag to puzzle over the eyewitness account as they begin questioning anyone who might have had a reason to dislike the hotel dick.
Full of atmospheric references to Milwaukee in the late Forties supplied by the author who grew up there, this is a puzzling mystery and a good introduction to this series.
Axel Brand is a pseudonym for Richard Shaw Wheeler (1935 – 2019) who is known for his award winning novels set in the American West.

Night Medicine

Night Medicine by Axel Brand

Night Medicine is a one of a series of detective novels that follows the exploits of Lieutenant Joe Sonntag of the Milwaukee Police Department that are set in the late 1940s. The title refers to the kinds of medicine that are illegal, such as abortions and assisted suicide, and therefore often provided in secret. The police in this novel are called in when the patients of such "night medicine" die from their treatment. It starts when a young woman's body is found drained of blood lying at the Milwaukee City Zoo. The pathologist believes she had a botched abortion that caused her to bleed out, but there is no clue as to who washed and dressed the girl's body and left her there in the zoo next to the big cats cages, arranged almost as if in a funeral home on a bed of ferns.
In the 1940s, abortion and suicide were considered murder, and those who assisted in them were murderers. When a patient died, the police were called in to find those involved. During the course of his investigation, Sonntag deals with not only legal, but also ethical and political issues, and the novel provides a window into the debate at that time over a woman's right to choose as he investigates the death of this young woman.
Axel Brand is a pseudonym for Richard Shaw Wheeler (1935 – 2019) who is known for his novels set in the American West. Night Medicine is the third of four detective novels set in Milwaukee that he wrote in 2015 as Axel Brand.

Transitions: A Mother's Journey

Transitions: A Mother's Journey by Élodie Durand

This English translation of a French graphic novel deals with a parent's learning that their child is a transgender man. Told from a mother's point of view, it portrays a lot of the questions and concerns that parents of transgender offspring often face while their child is transitioning. It will be useful to heteronormative adults, especially family members, who want to understand the transition process.

Still Life

Still Life by Louise Penny

Still Life is the first of a long series of mystery novels by Louise Penny that feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec. In it a secretive artist living in a small rural village is killed after entering a painting for the first time in a local art competition and Gamache is called in to investigate. The village is full of quirky characters and many may have a motive ond the opportunity to have comminnted murder. Gamache and his team leave no stone unturned in seeking to find out what happened and by whom. As a fan of Agatha Christie's mysteries, I found that Louise Penny is a worthy heir to the Christie legacy.

Run, Rose, Run

Run, Rose, Run by James Patterson and Dolly Parton

This is the story of a young woman on the run from her past, seeking to make it as a singer/songwriter in Country Music. She meets a man with an equally dark past who is also a singer/songwriter and just happens to be a studio musician for the most famous woman performer in Nashville history. As she starts to make it, she fears the demons of her past will catch up with her.
I enjoyed the audiobook edition where the famous female performer is read by Dolly Parton herself. This is the first book I have ever read that is accompanied by a soundtrack CD. With three singer/songwriters turning out the lyrics and chords to song after song in the book, Dolly Parton records all the songs and has put out a Run, Rose, Run CD.

Queer: A Graphic History

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker & Jules Scheele

Activist/academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele provide a history of Queer Theory and action in this illustrated guide to this new and controversial area of study. Providing a history of Queerness as it has evolved and is currently thought of, the book introduces the reader to the leading thinkers and theories that will provide a grounding in the meaning of queer Theory and its place in modern thought.

Back to the Garden

Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King

Laurie King creates a new detective, Raquel Laing, to work on a cold case murder that may be related to a string of unsolved murders. Human remains are found under the cement base when the Trustees of the Gardener Estate have a statue with a failing foundation moved. Fifty years ago when the statue was placed at the Estate, it was home to a countercultural commune.
Detective Laing has been working on a series of unsolved murders of young women whose bodies were found under poured cement foundations in the San Francisco area, all linked to a serial killer known as The Highwayman. The alleged killer is dying of cancer and she is trying to get him to help identify the remains of his victims.
With chapters titled THEN and NOW, the author delves into the backstory of the commune, leading up to the day the cement foundation was poured, while she interviews the few members of the group remaining. All the while trying to coax a dying serial killer to identifying his victims.
It is nice to see a new character emerge from the imagination of this gifted writer. Hopefully this book will become the first volume of another succesful detective series for Laurie R. King.