Stieg Larsson, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, ETC.

What can one say about this trilogy? My husband made the mistake of buying me the third installment (THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST) for our "get away" 20th anniversary weekend. The first night, I ignored him and hung out with Lisbeth for 8 straight hours, from about 7 pm till 3 am so I could finish the book. My husband and I still had 3 days, but he will never make that mistake again. And unless Stieg's girlfriend releases the 4th book from her computer, to the Larsson kids who no doubt are scratching for it, I may never again read so obsessively.
I found it interesting that when I googled Stieg Larsson, his name came up (of course) followed by "Stieg Larsson death." The books are certainly full of death, and violence, and gross unfairness ... plenty of twists and turns through corruption and unlawful acts ... followed by justice and redemption. I think the international psyche has responded to these books so strongly in part because this is a story of how the little guy (or--intriguingly--in this case, the little girl: Lisbeth Salander is only about five feet tall) gets tromped upon and survives, gets cut to pieces and survives, gets locked away by the Big Bad State, and manages to triumph ... and she does it largely by hacking computers instead of hacking bodies (although she does that, too, on occasion, to those who really deserve it.)
Great reads, all three.

Carolyn Mackler, THE EARTH, MY BUTT, AND OTHER BIG ROUND THINGS

Good realistic YA. Virginia Shreves (named for V Woolf), has an older brother whom everyone holds up as a paragon of virtue ... until he date rapes someone at Columbia University. The mother in this book is perhaps too sharply drawn as the psychiatrist mother who has no idea what's going on with her own kids; but Virginia's struggles to put dieting aside as a substitute for living and her fears about dating and losing friends who move away are drawn with a deft hand. Good for the 13+ crowd.

John Flanagan, RANGER'S APPRENTICE SERIES

A great middle-grade/YA series; I've read the first seven (THE RUINS OF GORLAN, THE BURNING BRIDGE, THE ICEBOUND LAND, THE BATTLE FOR SKANDIA, THE SORCERER OF THE NORTH, THE SIEGE OF MACINDAW, ERAK'S RANSOM). There's a male protagonist but my 10-year-old daughter and I are reading them together and she loves them. The boy Will (an orphan, of course, with two friends, a la Potter: a girl and a boy) is chosen to be a Ranger's apprentice--the rangers being the spies for a quasi-fantastical kingdom that sounds a lot like England. (For example, one of the tribes in the outlying areas is the "Scottis," whose leader is Mac-something or other.) Like the Harry Potter series, the first book is more middle-grade; later ones have darker themes and a bit more swearing and love-interest. But well-written, good vocabulary, fast pacing. For those who liked Harry Potter and Riordan's Percy Jackson series, this is a good fit.

Laurie R. King, THE GOD OF THE HIVE

Great read. A suspenseful detective/murder mystery set in sloppy, sordid, early 20th-century London. It's partly about Sherlock Holmes (for fans of Conan Doyle)--but this tale is told from the perspective of his gutsy, brilliant wife Mary Russell whose plot runs independently of his. Plenty of twists, well-drawn characters, engaging, lively writing. This is the first of King's novels that I've read--she's written quite a few, ten of which are these Mary Russell mysteries--but I will hunt down others.
First lines:
A child is a burden, after a mile.
After two miles in the cold sea air, stumbling through the night up the side of a hill and down again ... having already put on eight miles that night--half of it carrying a man on a stretcher--even a small, drowsy three-and-a-half-year-old becomes a strain.

Tana French, FAITHFUL PLACE

French's 3rd book is probably as fabulous as the first two (though I loved INTO THE WOODS the best). The protagonist Detective returns home to Faithful Place (on the ugly side of Ireland, wherever it is) to find out that the girl whom he loved as a young man, and who vanished one night, was actually murdered, her body hidden in the basement of vacant house nearby. What unravels is typical Tana French ... a dysfunctional family, multiple motives, and the recognition that often the only difference between the good man and the bad man is that the good person doesn't do the things that they both imagining doing.

Beryl Markham, WEST WITH THE NIGHT

An old favorite that I read years ago, when I was (!) 24. The autobiography of a woman who grew up in colonial Kenya; as a child, she ran with kids in the bush and was nearly killed by a wild boar; at age 16 she was training world-class race horses; ten years later she was flying medical equipment and running safaris all over Africa. Born in 1902, she was the first woman to fly west across the Atlantic, against the headwinds, before crash-landing in Nova Scotia. She was Denys Finch-Hatton's mistress (you'll remember him as Robert Redford in OUT OF AFRICA) and was actually supposed to be on the plane that he died on. There's some debate about whether she actually wrote the book--Errol Trzebinski swears that one of her several husbands ghost-wrote it for her. But no matter. It's a fabulous read.

Zoe Sharp, SECOND SHOT

I went to see Zoe Sharp speak at Poison Pen in Scottsdale. She's very engaging, self-deprecating, with that dry "British" sense of humor. Book was fun, a slowish start, faster ending. I'd probably read another by her if it came my way.
My only gripe is the way that Charlie Fox (the protagonist/heroine/ex-military/bodyguard with a PAST) so quickly loves her little charge, Ella, age five or so, who actually seems sort of dull and spoiled, coy and giggly. But I must confess ... I don't always like other people's children in real life either. (Grin)