Can't Wait to Read Wednesday: Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun / A Courage Undimmed / The Terror

The New

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted by the marvelous Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight upcoming release we are excited about that we have yet to read.

Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan is so much fun! I cannot wait to read the next installment in the series. 

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun (#3) by Elle Cosimano

(Minotaur Books; January 31, 2023)

Author and single mom Finlay Donovan has been in messes before―after all, she's a pro at removing bloodstains for various unexpected reasons―but none quite like this. When Finlay and her nanny/partner-in-crime Vero accidentally destroyed a luxury car that they had "borrowed" in the process of saving the life of Finlay's ex-husband, the Russian mob did her a favor and bought the car for her. And now Finlay owes them.

Mob boss Feliks is still running the show from behind bars, and he has a task for Finlay: find and identify a contract killer before the cops do. The problem is, the killer might be an officer themself.

Luckily, hot cop Nick has just been tasked with starting up a citizen's police academy, and combined pressure from Finlay's looming book deadline and Feliks is enough to convince Finlay and Vero to get involved. Through firearm training and forensic classes (and some hands-on research with a tempting detective), Finlay and Vero use their time in police academy to sleuth out the real contract killer to free themselves from the mob's clutches―all the while dodging spies, confronting Vero's past, and juggling the daily trials of parenthood. [Goodreads Summary]

Ian Fleming, a séance, murder, and a pigeoneer! I am intrigued already! 

A Courage Undimmed (Olive Bright Mystery #3) by Stephanie Graves

(Kensington, January 31, 2023)  

British pigeoneer Olive Bright is proud of the role her racing birds have played in the war effort and has hopes of becoming an agent herself . . . but first there is a baffling murder to solve.

As the weather turns bitterly cold in the dark days of November 1941, fewer pigeons are being conscripted for missions into occupied Europe and Olive fears her covert program may be dropped altogether. In fact, the new CO of the Baker Street intelligence operation at Brickendonbury Manor, Major Blighty, has expressed his doubts regarding her birds--not to mention Olive herself--and assigned her to a far more insignificant role: escort to a visiting officer of the Royal Navy Intelligence Special Branch.

She's none too keen on her assignment or her charge--the aloof and arrogant Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming--but the last place she expects to accompany him is to a séance. Self-proclaimed medium Velda Dunbar--new to the village of Pipley--has drawn fascination and skepticism after a very public channeling of a doomed seaman aboard the HMS Bartholomew, which she claims has sunk. Fleming remains tight-lipped about his reason for attending her séance, but his arrival with Olive raises eyebrows as she is still maintaining the ruse of dating Captain Jameson Aldridge. When murder occurs before her very eyes, Olive must trust her own instincts and not rule out anyone as a suspect--including the secretive Fleming--for one of them is harboring a hidden deadly agenda. [Goodreads Summary]

Does either of these books interest you? What upcoming releases are you looking forward to reading?

The Old(er) 

Carole of Carole's Random Life in Books has given me the perfect excuse to spotlight those unread books on my TBR in her Books from the Backlog feature, reminding me what great books I have waiting for me under my own roof still to read!

In going through some of my bigger TBR books I came across The Terror by Dan Simmons. It may not be my usual type of read, but I was drawn to it nonetheless. It comes highly recommended and it still appeals to me. So maybe this year will be its year? 

The Terror by Dan Simmons (2007)

The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.

When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape.

Have you read The Terror?  Does this book sound like something you would like to read? 

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