Piratejenny Female, 42, Married. Matawan, NJ, USA

The third Eden Moore book (possibly the last). Eden is finally moving out of her aunt and uncle's house, but due to rain, the construction on the new apartment building she's moving to keeps running into problems. And the river keeps rising. The building is, of course, quite close to the river. And as the river rises, people start to disappear. And there are reports of dead people walking near the river. Not ghosts, dead people (and those would be zombies, wouldn't they? :-) ). Being they're dead people, and being asked by all sorts of people to check it out, not to mention her future apartment's being in jeopardy, Eden decides to find out what's going on. Naturally, it's unpleasant.

I read this book in June, which was one of the wettest Junes in NY/NJ in years. I think we had 4 days without rain. So the atmosphere really added to the creepiness of this one. As usual for Cherie Priest novels, I found it excellent.

I scored this from LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the publisher was awesome enough to send me a finished book! Yes, it could double as a doorstop, but that's never stopped me reading a book before.

Drood is a shadowy figure met by Charles Dickens after a train accident at Staplehurst in which many people died. Dickens tells our narrator, Wilkie Collins, that it almost seemed Drood was stealing the souls of the dying. Drood was kind enough to tell Dickens where he lives, setting Dickens and Collins on a trip to London's undertown in search of the creature. And so begins Collins's odyssey. His search for Drood as well as his attempts to supersede Dickens in the hearts of the reading public.

While reading, I was constantly seized by the urge to reread The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which I haven't read in decades as well as the urge to learn more about Collins and read more of his work, especially The Moonstone. Which means, I think, the book succeeded in many ways. I had one issue with it, which I'm not spelling out because while not a specific spoiler, it could be considered one.

All in all, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

America isn't the only place with serial killers. But for some reason, the story of the Monster of Florence didn't make it over here until a U.S. writer ended up involved. I'd heard about this story a year or two ago when I saw it on Dateline. Honestly, the judicial system there makes ours look stellar.

Couples on what we would consider lovers' lanes are murdered. The men are shot, the women mutilated. This goes on for decades with no clue as to who the culprit is. Journalist Mario Spezi gets the first case to report on by accident and continues to write about the case with every attack. He's considered an expert. Douglas Preston and his family move temporarily to Florence so he can research a novel. When he meets with Spezi in the course of that research, he discovers that the home he's rented is basically on the site of one of the murders. Preston becomes as obsessed with the case as Spezi, the two of them discovering evidence that disputes what the police have. When a new inspector takes over the case, both Spezi and Preston are arrested. (Not a spoiler--you find this out right away.) An excellent book and a scary one as well.