Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hop in the car or on a plane and take a trip, hit the beach for spring break or visit family? Any kind of travel really. But for now I am happy doing my traveling from the comfort and safety of my couch. I can imagine myself like the Torrance Family in The Shining; isolated, cold and scared, or I can choose to think of myself as the characters in Swiss Family Robinson or as the Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov in A Gentleman in Moscow, under house arrest inside the Metropol Hotel in 1922, drinking coffee on the roof of the hotel with the beekeeper, making the best of a new life and finding closeness in a shared space and a new adventure. I can’t travel in person but through the magic of books and using the library ebook apps I can transport myself. I can think of my library card as my passport to the books listed below. They are all available to download as eBooks or audiobooks to read or listen to with your library card. Many of these titles have been adapted as television dramas or movies. Visit www.lakeforestlibrary.org, then click on download and stream for directions on using these apps.
Australia
Jane Harper’s Aaron Falk Series features excellent writing and characters set in the Outback of Australia. The series starts with the award winning, The Dry featuring federal agent Aaron Falk returning to his hometown where he must investigate a murder, one that may involve his childhood friends. Force of Nature brings back Agent Falk to investigate a disappearance that takes place during a local business’s team building exercise. The Lost Man, is a novel that takes place in the desolate outback where two brothers investigate the murder of their third brother in this intense family drama.
Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series, beginning with The Cocaine Blues stars Miss Fisher as a beautiful, reckless and aristocratic private detective in 1920 Melbourne. She is relentless in her pursuit of fairness and justice, especially for those in vulnerable situations. Also available as a television series on Hoopla.
Other TV Series that are filmed in Australia include Deep Water (Bondi Beach), Winter (Queensland) and A Place to Call Home (New South Wales).
Scotland:
Val McDermid’s Tony Hill series features a criminal psychologist and DCI Carol Jordan who work together as a team. In the first in the series, The Mermaids Singing the two must catch a serial killer before Tony becomes the next victim. The television series Wire in the Blood is based on these books.
Tartan Noir is a phrase used to describe Denise Nina’s police detective series featuring Glasgow’s Alex Morrow. Detective Morrow has a family history that hasn’t always included staying on the right side of the law and in her first novel Still Midnight she faces some tough decisions. These novels are the basis for the Field of Blood television series.
Edinburgh, Scotland is the home of Ian Rankin's tough cop Rebus, a jazz loving, hard drinking chain smoking cop who first appears in Knots and Crosses. There is a television series based on these books called Rebus. I recommend using the closed caption feature to help follow the story.
Ireland
Ireland boasts a long history of poets and writers. For crime series writing Tana French stands out as the best. Her debut novel In the Woods strikes the perfect balance between a police procedural and a psychological thriller.
Adrian McKinty’s Detective Sean Duffy struggles with not only being a college educated officer in Ulster during the troubles but a catholic one as well. The Cold Cold Ground introduces us to this complex and interesting character as well as to the tension in everyday life during this time.
England
Britain is not all about curling up by the fire with tea and Agatha Christie. P. D. James, Elizabeth George, Dick and Felix Francis, Robert Galbraith, Nicci French and MC Beaton all have series that are well written, interesting and worthy of the most comfortable armchair. Most of these have also been made into television series.
Canada
Louise Penny is a much loved Canadian author. Her popular series features Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and the charming (although deadly) community of Three Pines. Another Canadian writer, Kathy Reichs whose books are the basis for the forensic anthropologist in Bones shares her homes in Montreal and in North Carolina with the readers. The main character, Temperance "Tempe" Brennan works for both governments and is called out to the scene of the crime to recreate what has happened.
United States
Staying “home” in the states is easy to do. Start in the south with Carl Hiaasen and Randy Wayne White who both take us to South Florida, then head north to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota with William Kent Krueger. Another great writer is John Sandford who places his protagonist in the Prey series in Minneapolis. Anna Pigeon, a National Park Ranger is Nevada Barr’s main character. We are able to join her as she moves from job to job, from Yosemite in California to Cumberland Island in Georgia and beyond. And here in Chicago we can always depend on Vic Warshawski, Sara Paretsky’s tough, southside detective. The North Shore often features as the setting in her gritty and face paced books.
I hope that you have enjoyed this tour. I can’t help but wonder if Wendy and Jack, the characters in The Shining had been able to access Hoopla, Libby, and Cloud Library or had their books delivered from the Lake Forest Book Store, if just maybe that book would have had a different ending. Stay Cozy.
Visit lakeforestlibrary.org , then click on download and stream. Libby and Cloud Library have eBooks and audiobooks, Hoopla has both of those plus movies and television shows.
The Lake Forest Book Store can order books, games and puzzles for you and deliver them to your door too. Visit their website at lakeforestbookstore.com. You can also download audiobooks through the bookstore at libro.fm through the bookstore’s website.