Over at Galleycat yesterday, I confessed my New Year’s Resolution: “to read an honest-to-goodness potboiler, complete with smokin-guns and dark-cloaked villains.” I’ve sort of avoided mysteries and thrillers for my entire adult reading life. The last mystery I remember reading is from the Nancy Drew series! So, along comes a book that might give me the kick I need, Tamara Silver Jones’s Threads of Malice, a continuation of the series that began with her debut novel, Ghost in the Snow. The novel contains corpses, mysterious disappearances, a trail of clues, and a tantalizingly ticking clock. Oh, and here’s an idea I wish I’d thought of. On her website, Jones has a map of the ranch where the dirty deeds take place! One reviewer says, “For a nice Midwestern housewife, Jones is one sick lady.” Sounds like just what I need!

For more crime fiction, check out the blog Confessions of an Idiosyncratic mind.

And this just in from Karin Gillespie, founder of the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit:

f you’re a traditionally published female author who has an established blog (three months or more) and who blogs at least once a week, you may be interested in joining the GCC. We now have a couple of openings but they are bound to go fast. The GCC will tour your book on 25 well-established blogs like this one with no cost to you. In exchange you will tour a couple of authors a month on your blog. If you’re interested in being nominated for the GCC, please contact kgillespie@knology.net