You know what's really cool about finding a series you like after it's started? You can gobble the books up ... none of this waiting around for a year or two for the author to produce the next installment (maybe that's why people like James Patterson and Stuart Woods so much -- you only have to wait around for a month or two!). But I digress. This week, I unfortunately caught up to C.J. Sansom with the fourth installment of his Matthew Shardlake series, Revelation. Fortunately I don't have to wait that long -- the fifth title, Heartstone, is due out this fall. This situation is especially frustrating because this series just keeps getting better, in my estimation. Maybe I'm just getting fonder of the characters or more familiar with the milieu but Sansom is doing a great job keeping up the intrigue and filling in the setting of London late in the reign of Henry VIII. This time, Shardlake is called in to help investigate a serial killer (a couple centuries before that term existed) -- mostly the debate between the characters is whether the killer is mad or possessed by the devil. Either way it's a scary chase involving Shardlake's friends, household and of course himself. I'm going to give this one -- the only in the series you can get from the Monroe County Library collection (we have it in print and audio) -- an A, or 4 stars out of 5. But I recommend starting from the beginning of the series, with Dissolution, the first in the series -- you can buy the earlier titles or do like I did, and order them from interlibrary loan.

A couple other quick links while I have your attention. Keys residents should check out our newly redesigned library website -- and a darn sight prettier it is, too! It also includes some book recommendations from staff throughout the Keys -- you look under "books and more" and then "staff favorites." Also I've done some revising to the links on this site -- new additions include Citizen Reader, a kickass book blog from a librarian who appears to read even more than I do and Flashlightworthy Books, a cool site of book lists. I find this especially handy for book recommendations in genres about which I know next to nothing, such as slipstream and steampunk.

Happy reading!