Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

My neighbor recommended this book to me when we were talking about the book, Lessons in Chemistry, that both of us had liked. This book contains the weiderest start that I have ever read. The protagonist is digging a grave and complaining nonchalantly how hard it is to dig a proper grave that needs to be at least 6 feet deep. Then you find out that the one to be buried in this grave is her dead husband. By the way, the name of the "grave-digger" is Erin Locke.

Since Erin is so nonchalant about the labor of grave-digging, you suspect that there probably wasn't too much love-lost between her and the husband. But that's not it. In chapter 2, after the grave is dug and the husband properly buried, you find out that they are staying in a boutique hotel on their fist wedding anniversary and very much in love. So, you read the rest of the book waiting to find out how and why things changed between chapter 1 and chapter 2. 

It is quite a good read. The premise is that when the couple was on a boat trip out on the ocean off a south pacific island, they found the remains of a recently-downed airplane in the water including some passengers, also securely dead. From the airplane the husband managed to pull out a waterproof bag that contained a million dollars in cash and a stash of a handfull of 2-carat diamonds worth about one million dollars. The loot obviously was a result of some kind of skullduggery and belonged to unknown nefarious characters. The initial feeling is to turn over the unopened bag to the police and be done with it. But, first curiosity gets the better of Erin and she opens the bag. When they find out the value of the contents, the next thing is obviously greed that gets the better of the both of them. Obviously, the loot was ill-gotten and it is not a crime to steal from drug-dealers, robbers, embezzelers, or whoever committed the ill-deed to get the ill-gotten treasure. (Is it really not a crime if you steal ill-gotten money? Maybe, it is but we will not debate it here.)

You will read the rest of the book waiting to find out who the bad-actors are who must be looking for the missing airplane and after further investigation, the people who made off with the bag in the downed airplane. Erin and husband Mark spend the rest of the book figuring out how to stay ahead of the bad-guys and to keep the money.

I don't think I have given away any of the suspense in the book. So, read it.

Village in the Dark by Iris Yamashita

This book is a sequel to City Under One Roof, although, you don't have to read the earlier one to follow this one. It has many of the same characters and follows strory line from the previous book,

I had mentioned in the blog about the earlier book that the book was successful and the detective, Cara Kennedy in the book was going to show up in Yamashita's future books. She does and also in a continuation of one part of the story. In the earlier books, Cara was grieving her husband's and son's deaths. In this story it appears that they were not really dead and the DNA of the bodies she had buried does not match her hasband's and son's DNAs.  So, Cara is on a mission to find out what happened and track her not-dead family. She is helped by the other people in the City Under One Roof. Bad guys from the previous story are involved somehow. New bad guys are also apparently involved.

Anyway, the story moves along quite well and is quite readable. 

I wonder how Cara is going to return in Yamashita's next book. Will Cara's family die again? That's morbid. I don't think so. Although Cara was on disability leave from the Anchorage Police department, I think Yamashita mentioned that she was accepted into the FBI. And everyone knows that the FBI has no shortage of cases to solve. So, stay tuned from another book from Yamashita about Cara Kennedy the FBI Special Agent.