Musing Monday...A Rose by Any Other Name

 Monday! Let's get going!
But be sure to check out the other Musing Monday posts at  Should Be Reading...

---

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

---

Well, I have nothing to rant about this week, so I will tell you about a few books I got my hands on recently...

Holy Orders by Benjamin Black
"When the body of his daughter’s friend is brought to his autopsy table, Quirke is plunged into a world of corruption that takes him to the darkest corners of the Irish Church and State.

So begins the latest Quirke case, a story set in Dublin at a moment when newspapers are censored, social conventions are strictly defined, and appalling crimes are hushed up. Why? Because in 1950s Ireland the Catholic Church controls the lives of nearly everyone. But when Quirke’s daughter Phoebe loses her close friend Jimmy Minor to murder, Quirke can no longer play by the Church’s rules. Along with Inspector Hackett, his sometime partner, Quirke investigates Jimmy’s death and learns just how far the Church and its supporters will go to protect their own interests."

I just know this one is going to get me mad...lol
But still I requested it, so I will do my best to read it and stay calm.


Louisiana Fever by D.J. Donaldson
"Andy Broussard, the plump and proud New Orleans medical examiner, obviously loves food. Less apparent to the casual observer is his hatred of murderers. Together with his gorgeous sidekick, psychologist Kit Franklyn, the two make a powerful, although improbable, mystery solving duo.
When the beautiful Kit goes to meet an anonymous stranger—who’s been sending her roses—the man drops dead at her feet before she even could even get his name. Game on."

This one was offered to me and although I swore never to take another book from a publicist or author, I accepted this one...and am happy I did. I really must write the review, but I will just say I love books set in New Orleans. As you can see, this one has another coroner as the lead character. And a great character Broussard is.


The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

"After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.
The Cuckoo's Calling is a 2013 crime fiction novel by J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith."

I am sure most of you have heard about this last book. It seems Ms. Rowlings, she of Harry Potter fame, wrote a mystery under a pseudonym but got found out. Now the book is rocketing up the best seller list and I admit it, I was interested. Interested because it got good reviews before the true author was discovered.
So, yes, I had to buy it.

Of course, writing under a pseudonym has a long history in the world of literature, for a variety of reasons. The Bronte sisters and George Elliot are two of the most well known, in their cases to disguise their genders. But other have written to disguise their fame as well. Stephan King, who wrote a letter in USA Today in defense of what Rowlings did, wrote under another name. Sadly, he killed off his nom de plume Richard Bachman when he was uncovered, saying Poor Richard died of "cancer of the pseudonym".

Tell me, what do you think of this Rowling thing?
Was it all a ploy, the revelation set up to boost sales.
How cynical! No, I think she just wanted to write, as King said, "just for the joy of it", to see what people would honestly think of the book on its own, without the Famous name.
Well, either way, I will be reading it.

---