What I'm reading this week (3/18/19)

Last week I finished:

I met someone at my favorite jewelry store recently who has similar reading tastes, and she said I had to read Beneath a Scarlet Sky. It was on my TBR (I already had the Kindle version), but I decided to move it up to an audio version after her urging. This is a novel based on the true story of a young man in Milan, Italy, during World War II. When Italy surrenders to the Nazis, young Pino Lella joins the Nazi army as a spy for the Italian resistance. He becomes the driver for a Nazi general and reports what he learns to underground resistance forces. He also falls in love with the lovely Anna, the maid of the Nazi general's mistress. This really is quite a story, but I just have such trouble believing it's real. It's too good to be true. The amount of serendipity and coincidence is too high for me to believe. So, I was a bit on guard throughout. It could be true, but in the age of "fake news," who knows? I do recommend this one, though, as one of the better WWII novels to have flooded the market recently. The writing is a bit simpler than I like, but the story really is something. The audio version is good, but if you have the ability to listen at 1.5 speed (which I don't), you might do so as the narration is much slower and more deliberate than the book warrants. My rating: 4 stars.

I am always on the lookout for a good, solid mystery series, and I think I've found another to add to my auto-buy list. Death of a Rainmaker is the first book in a new Dust Bowl Mystery series. Set in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl and Depression of the 1930s, the book introduces us to the small town of Vermillion, where farms are being foreclosed, businesses are going belly up, tramps are setting up camp, and the air is thick with dust. The sheriff, Temple Jennings, has a murder case on his hands when the rainmaker hired by the town to bring relief and came to town not 24 hours earlier is found dead outside the matinee. The sheriff's wife gets involved in the case when a local CCCer (one of President Roosevelt's ABC initiatives to put people to work during the Depression) is accused of the crime. She knows he's innocent, but if he didn't do it, who did? Who had motive? And will the sheriff solve the case before the primary that will determine his reelection chances? This was a good, straightforward mystery. It's not fancy, but the characters are real, and the desperation of the town itself becomes a character. I really enjoyed it. My rating: 4 stars.

Next up:

A favorite re-read from a few years ago.

My Kindle (re)read:

 

Nearly done with this one.

My nightly reads:

 

 

Slowly making progress on each of these. I've been focusing mainly on the politics and decorating books.

My audiobook:

I'm enjoying this newest Newbery Medal winner.