Time for another trip back in time – this time, I am revisiting 2017.

A Casualty of Warby Charles Todd
Series: Bess Crawford #9
Publication Date: September 25, 2017
Genre: historical fiction
Pages: 378
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday
Though the Great War is nearing its end, the fighting rages on. While waiting for transport back to her post, Bess Crawford meets Captain Alan Travis from the island of Barbados. Later, when he’s brought into her forward aid station disoriented from a head wound, Bess is alarmed that he believes his distant English cousin, Lieutenant James Travis, shot him. Then the Captain is brought back to the aid station with a more severe wound, once more angrily denouncing the Lieutenant as a killer. But when it appears that James Travis couldn’t have shot him, the Captain’s sanity is questioned. Still, Bess wonders how such an experienced officer could be so wrong.
On leave in England, Bess finds the Captain strapped to his bed in a clinic for brain injuries. Horrified by his condition, Bess and Sergeant Major Simon Brandon travel to James Travis’s home in Suffolk, to learn more about the baffling relationship between these two cousins.
Her search will lead this smart, capable, and compassionate young woman into unexpected danger, and bring her face to face with the visible and invisible wounds of war that not even the much-longed for peace can heal.
The random number generator handed me a whole bunch of series entries this time around. This first one is the 9th entry in the Bess Crawford series, previously written by mother & son writing team Charles Todd. It sounds like the maternal half of the writing team either retired or passed away, so it’s just the son writing at this point. They/he also write the Ian Rutledge series, which I haven’t read, but I’ve been reading Bess Crawford for at least ten years. There are a total of 13 installments in the series, and I’ve finished through #11, which means that I have two available for catching up.
I used to read a lot more historical mystery than I do now, but there are a few series that are pretty reliable pleasures for me, and this is one of them. Set during WWI and the immediate aftermath, I have enjoyed following the adventures of Bess, who was a nurse during the Great War, and who is intrepid and independent. This is a nice reminder that I have a couple of additional titles that I should get to soon.
A Pocket Apocalypseby Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptids #4
Publication Date: March 3, 2015
Genre: urban fantasy
Pages: 367
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday
Endangered, adjective: Threatened with extinction or immediate harm.
Australia, noun: A good place to become endangered.Alexander Price has survived gorgons, basilisks, and his own family—no small feat, considering that his family includes two telepaths, a reanimated corpse, and a colony of talking, pantheistic mice. Still, he’s starting to feel like he’s got the hang of things…at least until his girlfriend, Shelby Tanner, shows up asking pointed questions about werewolves and the state of his passport. From there, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to Australia, a continent filled with new challenges, new dangers, and yes, rival cryptozoologists who don’t like their “visiting expert” very much.
Australia is a cryptozoologist’s dream, filled with unique species and unique challenges. Unfortunately, it’s also filled with Shelby’s family, who aren’t delighted by the length of her stay in America. And then there are the werewolves to consider: infected killing machines who would like nothing more than to claim the continent as their own. The continent which currently includes Alex.
Survival is hard enough when you’re on familiar ground. Alex Price is very far from home, but there’s one thing he knows for sure: he’s not going down without a fight.
Next up, we have A Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire. I’ve posted about this series before because it is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, urban fantasy series (brief review of book 11 here). McGuire writes her October Daye series, as well as the Wayward Children series, and she also writes under the penname Mira Grant. I don’t really read her Mira Grant books because they tend to be more horror than UF, but I really enjoy her three UF series. Incryptids is my favorite of them all. There are 13 series entries, and I have read all but the last.
The basic format of this series is that she gives each member of the Price family (a family of cryptozoologists who sympathize more with the cryptids than with the humans who are trying to eradicate them) two books. She started with Verity Price, who is still my favorite character, in Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue Light Special. From there, she moved on to Verity’s brother, Alex, whose first book, Half-off Ragnarok, was set primarily in Ohio. For A Pocket Apocalypse, she shifts the action to Australia. Alex is not my favorite character, but these books are reliably entertaining as heck.
A Faint Cold Fearby Karin Slaughter
Series: Grant County #4
Publication Date: July 28, 2003
Genre: mystery: modern (1980-present)
Pages: 422
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday
The third pulse-pounding novel in the Grant County series from New York Times bestselling author Karin Slaughter.
Sara Linton, medical examiner in the small town of Heartsdale, Georgia, is called out to an apparent suicide on the local college campus. The mutilated body provides little in the way of clues -- and the college authorities are eager to avoid a scandal -- but for Sara and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, things don't add up.
Two more suspicious suicides follow, and a young woman is brutally attacked. For Sara, the violence strikes far too close to home. And as Jeffrey pursues the sadistic killer, he discovers that ex-police detective Lena Adams, now a security guard on campus, may be in possession of crucial information. But, bruised and angered by her expulsion from the force, Lena seems to be barely capable of protecting herself, let alone saving the next victim...
And, finally, the 3rd book in the Grant County series by Karin Slaughter, A Faint Cold Fear. The Grant County series has 6 entries, at which point it basically merges with the Will Trent series, when the main character of Grant County, Sarah Linden, becomes romantically involved with Will Trent. I prefer the Will Trent books, but Grant County provides some good backstory.
The thing about Karin Slaughter, though, is that her books are super-violent, and especially sexually violent. I don’t recommend them to my friends, even though she tells a great story, until I get a sense of how much violence the reader is prepared to handle. Her characterizations and plots are really good, but man, she does not pull her punches.
As an aside, the Will Trent television adaptation is completely delightful in a way that the books are not.