The Girl Next Door: A Mystery by Brad ParksMy rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a review of the Advanced Readers’ Edition.

Carter Ross is an investigative reporter for the Eagle-Examiner and decides to write a human interest piece on a fellow employee who was killed in a hit-and-run accident while delivering newspapers. Ross discovers all is not as it seems, this is no mere accident, and the mystery unfolds.

This has been a long, hot, smoky, burny summer. In Colorado we’ve had a record number of days in the 90s, way too many wildfires, an amazing (in a bad way) hail storm that took out our roof and 35,000 others in the area, and, much like the rest of the country, drought. Too much drought. Blech.

That’s enough to want to take the summer off from blogging. Right? Plus the fact that many writers just like to take the summer off to spend it with family, do the vacation thing, enjoy the long days. Right?

Prague Fatale by Philip KerrMy rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was my first Philip Kerr/Bernard Gunther novel and I was not disappointed. It’s an entertaining read with plenty of twists and turns. Also of note, while it takes place in Nazi Germany and certainly addresses the atrocities committed during this time, it’s not *all* about the gas chambers and horrors and darkness. Kerr does a great job of incorporating the history, including characters that were really part of that time, and giving the reader a different and intriguing perspective.