While Crais pairs the sensitive Cole with the darker, silent, enigmatic Joe Pike—a sidekick like Robert Parker’s Spenser’s Hawk; Riordan surrounds his hero, Navarre, with a posse of family, friends, employers, and police contacts who help with his cases and dilemmas. Crais places Cole and Pike in jaded Los Angeles, while Riordan’s Navarre works his cases in culturally diverse San Antonio, TX. Each city brings a unique spin to the stories and the authors make the environments resonate as characters in each series. Add relentless pacing, fresh plot twists, humorous dialogue, and rich thematic arcs—and you have two series that are extraordinary examples of good mystery storytelling.

If Ross MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett are authors you admire and re-read, then Crais and Riordan as well as Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, and, of course, Robert B. Parker should be on your list of mystery “read-alikes.” If the humor in the Crais/Riordan books appeals to you, check out Tim Cockey’s Hitchcock Sewell series. Sewell is not a private detective. However, he does possess Elvis Cole’s twisted sense of humor and views his chosen profession with a blend of cockeyed optimism and witty cynicism. Hitch is a mortician who not only has heard every undertaker joke, but he can come up with new ones. Readers who enjoy Cole’s comic commentary, dogged loyalty, and devotion to what’s right and just, will appreciate meeting Hitch in his first outing, “The Hearse You Came In On.” The action takes place in Baltimore where Hitch has his first client, a woman making arrangements for her own funeral; a funeral she will require the next day. This book has great pacing and lively secondary characters to round out the reading experience.

The next meeting of Supper Sleuths takes place on October 13 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the library’s Lecture Hall. This group meets every second Tuesday at 6 p.m. to discuss, compare and contrast mysteries of every genre and type. Feel free to bring your own snack or brown bag lunch with you to the meeting since it takes place in the early evening.

The group will be discussing one title in October: Val McDermid’s A Place of Execution. According to a “Booklist” review, “Readers will be reminded of the real-life Moors Murders and of Stephen King’s eerie-village tales.” McDermid presents Scardale, a village whose hard-bitten inhabitants try to keep the world out and their secrets in. Part of the mystery is set in the 1960s, when several children disappeared and were later found murdered in nearby Manchester. McDermid won the British Gold Dagger Award in 1995 for Mermaids Singing.

If you wish to join this discussion and experience “Supper Sleuths,” copies of this title and handouts are available on the Supper Sleuths display in the library.

The next gathering of Books by the Lake is on September 17, 2008 when the group will discuss “Mrs. Kimble” and “Baker Towers” by Jennifer Haigh. “Mrs. Kimble” follows twenty-five years in the life of charismatic opportunist Ken Kimble as seen through the eyes of his three wives: Birdie, who struggles with his abandonment; heiress Joan, who is recovering from a personal loss; and Dinah, who suffers from an unhappy past.

“Baker Towers” concerns the decade following World War II, which becomes one of tragedy, excitement, and unexpected change for the five Novak children and the residents of
their western Pennsylvania community of company houses, church festivals, union squabbles, and firemen’s parades. Both novels convey a theme of illusion versus reality as well as other potent relationship matters.

Books by the Lake meets on the third Wednesday of each month, September through June. This book discussion group combines the enjoyment of reading a single title and the desire to share insights, observations, and feelings about that one book with others who have read it. So many novels create a need in some readers to share their reactions about the book with others, as well as an opportunity to personally grow from the discussions of related themes and common experiences.

All adults enthusiastic about reading and talking about what they have read are invited to attend as often as they can. The conversations are lively, intelligent, and insightful – come and join us! For a full schedule of titles for this year, go to our web site at
www.wakefieldlibrary.org/book-discussion-groups/books-by-the-lake/ or pick up a flyer at the Reference Desk.

Supper Sleuths, a mystery discussion group, meets every second Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. to discuss mysteries of every genre and type. Feel free to bring your own snack or brown bag lunch with you to the meeting. Supper Sleuths will next meet on Tuesday, October 14, when the group will discuss Louis Bayard’s “The Pale Blue Eye.”

The Senior Center Book Group meets regularly at the John J. McCarthy Senior Center on Converse Street, with a Beebe Library staff member leading the discussion. For more information contact the Senior Center or call Beebe Library at 781-246-6334.

New members are always welcome at book discussion groups. For more information, including meeting dates and a list of titles on tap for each group, go online at www.wakefieldlibrary.org/book-discussion-groups/.

Supper Sleuths, Beebe Library’s mystery book discussion group, will meet on Tuesday, September 11, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in the Lecture Hall. Each month, members discuss books that they have read within a specific mystery sub-genre. Each person reads one or more books of the authors/titles from the prepared list or assigned topic. In the discussion, each participant reviews or reacts to one book.

Supper Sleuths is always welcoming new members who love to read and talk about mysteries. Members can bring a snack or a brown bag supper to the meeting. Combine sustenance with suspense!

Over the summer, Supper Sleuths has been reading the novels of Ed McBain and Reginald Hill for the September meeting. Each of these authors has created unique characters and takes on the popular police procedural. A police procedural is a story or drama about the investigation of a crime by the police. McBain’s and Hill’s series are excellent examples of this type of mystery.

Ed McBain is a pseudonym of Evan Hunter. Born Salvatore Lambino, he chose to publish under the McBain pseudonym because mysteries were in such disfavor in the 1950s. It was thought that they would tarnish his reputation as a real writer. The 87th Precinct novels were the longest running series in contemporary crime fiction at the time of McBain’s death in 2005.

The 87th Precinct series is about a thinly disguised NYPD, set in Isola, New York. Steinbrunner and Penzler’s “Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection” states, “These starkly realistic police procedural tales have a range of subjects and approaches–from intangible terror to physical brutality to slapstick humor–that is unmatched in versatility for this subgenre.” Although McBain did not invent the police procedural, he established it as a genre.

According to “The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction,” Britain’s “Daily Telegraph” has called Hill, Britain’s “finest living crime writer.” His police detectives, Dalziel and Pascoe, are from Yorkshire, England and began in 1970. In the Dalziel and Pascoe series, “Hill is also able to balance sharp wit and intelligent observation against the emotions arising from murder, fear, and loss, which brings a stark realism to his books.”

Current popular writers like Michael Connelly, Archer Mayor, Deborah Crombie, and P.D. James have all been influenced by McBain and Hill.

Each October, Supper Sleuths discusses a single title. These titles are voted from a short list nominated by members and the group leader. On October 9, Supper Sleuths will read and discuss Kate Atkinson’s “Case Histories.” Copies of this book will be available at and after the September 11 meeting.

Twice a year (with popular potluck suppers in December and June), the group has a “Free Read.” This “Free Read” allows members to read any mystery they choose and to share the title with the group. It is an excellent opportunity to choose from old topic lists or from current mystery bestsellers.

Once every other year, the group leader asks for recommendations for new topics of discussion. Voting takes place by ballot to determine what topics will be done for the next two years. Topics coming up for discussion in the future are Great Lakes Regional Mysteries, Chicago Mysteries, Scandinavian Mysteries, Sherlock Holmes (by Arthur Conan Doyle and Others), Archeological Mysteries and Arson Investigation Mysteries.

Anyone interested in joining this group at the September meeting should read at least the first in each series, McBain’s “Cop Hater” and Hill’s “The Clubbable Woman.” Copies of both books can be found on the Supper Sleuths display at the library. Participants are encouraged to read as many books as they wish from each author since the exploration of the body of these authors’ works will benefit the discussion. For a complete list of the authors’ books and Supper Sleuth’s schedule of meetings and topics, go to Beebe Library’s website (http://www.wakefieldlibrary.org/zrasuppersleuths.htm) .

Books by the Lake

If you are interested in discussing books that fall into an array of categories, “Books by the Lake” may attract you. The group’s first meeting after the summer break is on Wednesday September 19, from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. in the Lecture Hall. This book discussion group combines the enjoyment of reading a single title and the desire to share insights, observations, and feelings about that one book with others who have read it. So many books create a desire in readers to share their reactions with others, as well as an opportunity to personally grow from the discussions of related themes and common experiences.

In September, Books by the Lake will discuss a selection of three titles under the theme, “Austen Envy.” The books are Jane Austen’s “Persuasion,” Karen Joy Fowler’s “The Jane Austen Book Club,” and Laurie Horowitz’s “The Family Fortune.”

The story of Anne Elliot and the love she once had for a naval officer drives Austen’s “Persuasion.” Anne had been persuaded by her family that he was not suitable. And regretfully, she lets him slip away. Years later, they meet again.

In Fowler’s “The Jane Austen Book Club,” six Californians get together for a book club to discuss the novels of Jane Austen, as their lives are turned upside down by troubled marriages, illicit affairs, changing relationships, and love.

In Horowitz’s first novel, “The Family Fortune,” Jane, the sensible middle daughter in an old-guard Boston Brahmin family whose once enormous fortune has vanished, finds she is the sole support of her family until love turns her life upside down.

Among other questions, Books by the Lake will discuss what makes other authors imitate Jane Austen, and why do readers crave other books similar to what she wrote? If you are interested in joining the group, pick up all three books at the Circulation Desk.

The web address is http://www.wakefieldlibrary.org/zralibris.htm for a schedule of meeting dates and forthcoming titles which include some non-fiction: “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson and Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, And Indonesia.” Other fiction titles on the schedule from October 2007 to June 2008 are Julia Glass’s “Three Junes,” Kim Edward’s “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter,” Jodi Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper,” Kiran Desai’s “Inheritance of Loss,” Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead,” Sara Gruen’s “Water for Elephants,” and Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked.”

If you have any questions about either Supper Sleuths or Books by the Lake, please contact Leane Ellis at the Reference Desk of the library, telephone: 781-246-6334 X2.