Bone Crossed (Patricia Briggs)

I just can't get enough of this series. Mercy Thompson is tough, funny, vulnerable, resourceful, sexy, honest -- everything one could want in a hero. In this story she's coping with the aftermath of trauma she experienced in earlier books and trying to find her footing in the new relationship she has with the werewolf pack (and its sexy Alpha), so she doesn't need a threat posted on the wall of her mechanic shop indicating that the vampires have declared open season on her and hers. She has to try to find out what the vampires are after and how to protect herself from them, and also solve a seemingly unrelated problem brought to her by an old college friend who suspects her house is haunted. Of course, the two problems turn out to be related, and much worse than anyone thought, but through bloody-minded toughness and quick thinking, and with help from various expected and unexpected sources, she manages to make everything work out as it should. Mostly. Recommended.

The Secret History of Wonder Woman (Jill Lepore)

I've never been a big comic-book fan, and only remember Wonder Woman from her TV days with Lynda Carter playing the Amazon princess. This book details the history of how Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston, a harvard-trained psychologist and inventor, by some accounts, of the lie detector test - and advocate of feminism and free love. This is a fascinating story because Marston is such an outre character. He was never really successful at any other career except Wonder Woman, and he very deliberately used her to project propaganda that women can and should have power over men to make the world a better place. His is a story of contradictions, though. While pressing the agenda of women's rights and independence, in his own life he ruled a small harem with a wife, a live-in mistress, and an occasional other mistress who often visited and lived with them for a time. The mistress wore a wide bracelet on each arm as "love bonds" to symbolize her subjugation to Marston; they are eerily similar to Wonder Woman's bracelets that allow her to deflect bullets. This history delves deeply into the lives of Marston and those around him, including his women, his business dealings, and his family. The author argues that Wonder Woman, by herself, bridged the gap in women's rights from the suffrage movement in the 1910-1920 time frame and the resurgence of "women's lib" in the 1960s, keeping the flame of feminism alive. I'm not so convinced. She was clearly a force for strong, independent woman in the 1940s, but after Marston died in 1947 her message was much diluted and she became a pretty face in tight clothes, focused on finding a husband rather than saving the world. One clear sign of this change: The Wonder Woman comic book for years in the 1940s had a four-page section on Wonder Woman in History, profiling strong, independent, world-changing women. In the 1950s, this section changed to one giving wedding tips. How far she had fallen.

The Suicide Murders (Howard Engel)

This is a pretty typical example of the hardboiled detective story. Benny Cooperman is in his office when a beautiful woman brings him a job - she thinks her husband is having an affair. Cooperman agrees to look into it and starts following the husband, but then the next thing he knows the husband is dead of an apparent suicide. He's not convinced, though, and continues to dig into what he is more and more convinced is murder, and along the way uncovers more suspicious "suicides" that prove to be murders in disguise. Most of the typical tropes are here: an ambivalent relationship with police, corrupt politicians, getting waylaid by thugs, and being suspected of a crime himself. I definitely enjoyed the story enough to stick with it and learn how it ended, but have to say that I found it vaguely disappointing, especially when Cooperman made some pretty stupid decisions. No great enthusiasm here, but also no real aversion.