The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV

The Good Wife… One of My (New) Favorite Shows

I just watched a new show that I am following: The Good Wife. >>>  Love it!

As if  The Good Wife‘s regular cast isn’t (to use the word from the title) “Good” enough!!! They brought in one of my very favorite actresses this past week: Martha Plimpton. I have always thought that she would have been the absolutely best actress to portray Stephanie Plum, the main sleuthing character of the wildly successful Janet Evanovich mystery book series.

The premise of the show is something we have witnessed all too often… An elected official is “found out” by the media, and as he apologizes for cheating (that’s a rather mild term for what this husband did) on his wife and children, the wife stands with him at the podium, with a Mona Lisa look on her face… You get the drift, no doubt… (***I have always thought that a cheating spouse not only cheats on their partner, but also on the children. The time he/she spends with his/her partner in the cheat, is time that he/she could have spent with his/her children… Now, should I get off of my shoebox?!?)

Julianna Margulies is excellent as the wife, Chris Noth is able to actually make me (almost!!!) like the cheating husband, I love Christine Barnaski in anything she is in, and the list of actors goes on and on.

If you haven’t already seen an episode of The Good Wife… It’s on CBS on Tuesday nights. Try it… You just might like it!

November 2009 Mystery Book New Releases

The following mystery books will be released in November 2009:

David Baldacci: True Blue (This will be a Stand Alone…) (Actually Oct. 27…)

Lorna Barrett (aka L. L. Bartlett): Bookplate Special (This will be the 3rd in the Booktown Mystery Series…)
 
Simon Brett: The Poisoning in the Pub (This will be the 10th in the Fethering Mystery Series…)

Emily Brightwell: Mrs. Jeffries and the Yuletide Weddings (This will be the 26th in the Mrs. Jeffries Victorian Mystery Series…) (This is a Christmas theme mystery novel…)

Cleo Coyle (aka Alice Kimberly): Holiday Grind (This will be the 8th in the Coffeehouse Mystery Series…) (This is a Christmas theme mystery novel…)

Clive Cussler & Justin Scott: The Wrecker (This will be the 2nd in the Isaac Bell Mystery Series…)

James D. Doss: The Widow’s Revenge (This will be the 14th in the Charlie Moon Mystery Series…) (Actually Oct. 27…)

Carole Nelson Douglas: Vampire Sunrise (This will be the 3rd in the Delilah Street: Paranormal Investigator Mystery Series…)

Christopher Fowler: Bryant & May on the Loose (This will be the 7th in the Peculiar Crimes Mystery Series…)

Sue Grafton: U is for Undertow (This will be the 21 in the Kinsey Millhone Mystery Series…)

Charlaine Harris: Grave Secret (This will be the 4th in the Harper Connelly Mystery Series…) (Actually Oct. 27…)

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles: The Fourth Bill Slider Omnibus (This will contain the novels Gone Tomorrow & Dear Departed…)

Ellen Hart: The Mirror and the Mask (This will the the 17th in the Jane Lawless Mystery Series…)

Sue Henry: The End of the Road (This will be the 4th in the Maxie & Stretch Mystery Series…)

Reginald Hill: Midnight Fugue (This will be the 24th in the Dalziel and Pascoe Mystery Series…)

Susan Kandel: Dial H for Hitchcock (This will be the 5th in the Cece Caruso Mystery Series…) (Actually Oct. 27…)

Diana Killian: Dial Om for Murder (This will be the 2nd in the Mantra for Murder Mystery Series…)

Kate Kingsbury (aka Rebecca Kent): Decked with Folly (This will be the 17th in the Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery Series…) (This is a Christmas theme mystery novel…)

Paul Magrs: Hell’s Belles (This will be the 4th in the Brenda & Effie Mystery Series…)

John Mortimer: A Rumpole Christmas (A Collection of Five Rumpole Holiday Stories…) (This is a Christmas theme mystery book…) (Actually Oct. 29…)

James Patterson: I, Alex Cross (This will be the 16th in the Alex Cross Mystery Series…)

J. D. Robb: Kindred in Death (This will be the 30th in the Eve Dallas Mystery Series…)

Peter Tremayne: The Council of the Cursed (This will be the 19th in the Sister Fidelma Mystery Series…) (Actually Oct. 27…)

Elaine Viets: The Fashion Hound Murders (This will be the 5th in the Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper Mystery Series…)

Joseph Wambaugh: Hollywood Moon (This will be the 3rd in the Hollywood Station Mystery Series…)

♦To go back to the Cozy Mystery Book New Releases page click here♦

Halloween in Salem…

One of the day tours my daughter and I took was to Salem. On our way to Salem (from Boston) we went through Revere – the setting for Camille Minichino‘s Periodic Table mystery book series. (As some of you know, Minichino is one of my favorite Cozy Mystery book authors…)

Our bus driver/tour guide was a lifetime resident of the Boston area .. complete with the “yooz guys” dialect, “Wooster” was not the name of P. G. Wodehouse’s main character, but was the “Worcester” exit. I’m not sure if this was laid on so thickly for our benefit or if he truly spoke this way during his off hours. Either way, I loved it!

I have to say that listening to the tour guide was a real treat. He was… full of local color. I especially enjoyed all of his Revere stories (He actually grew up there.) He spoke about the public beach/amusement park/boardwalk of yesteryear… with the same loving nostalgia that Minichino’s main character Gloria Lamerino speaks about it.

Unfortunately, time has taken its toll and the big roller coaster has been demolished. But in its place, they have built buildings with sides that are true to the angles of the dips and rises of yesteryear’s roller coaster. Those buildings are fun to see when you know their history, but at the same time, they’re an oddity to behold when you don’t know about the roller coaster story…

Back to Salem…

Obviously, a large bulk of Salem’s economy is made from selling tourists all of what you would expect to buy in Salem… potions, herbs, candles, crystals, lotions, fortunes, ETC. As we ventured around the town, we noticed a lot of Wiccans, which I should have guessed would find Salem to be a great place to live (and prosper.)  I especially enjoyed hearing informational mini-lectures throughout the town… One Wiccan was especially interesting as she conducted a tour of one of the town’s cemeteries.

While October must be a huge boom for Salem, Halloween must be a real treat!

I'm Back from Cambridge…

I’m home! And I feel smarter now than I did before my trip! As I’ve mentioned before – my daughter moved to Cambridge to pursue her law degree.

I had a great time visiting a lot of really neat places. It really would be terrific to live on the east coast and have access to all sorts of historical places! We took a trolley tour and saw the highlights of Boston, and on our harbour tour we saw the USS Constitution. The trip to Salem was a real treat, as was our trip to Lexington and Concord. We saw such beautiful scenery AND after so many years of San Antonio’s lack-luster falls, the autumnal changing of colors was truly phenomenal.

My daughter rented a “Zip Car” twice, so we were also able to do a little shopping – for necessities, not clothes. We took advantage of her student status and went to Harvard’s Museum of Natural History, where we saw the most amazing glass flower collection imaginable. The flowers were made by a father/son duo (Leopold Blaschka and his son, Rudolph) – commissioned  for Harvard’s Botanical Museum in the late 18900s/early 1900s. Really impressive!!!

But of course, as a mom, my favorite event of the trip was seeing my daughter. I have missed her a lot and I have missed our weekly lunch dates when she attended the University of Texas at Austin. Some weeks the seventy five mile trip (one way!) felt long — but now I look back and feel like she was truly in our local “neighborhood” school.

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