‘Little Girl Lost’ is book one in the DI Robyn Carter series. Frankly, I will not be continuing with it.
The plot is a boilerplate one about a vengefu‘Little Girl Lost’ is book one in the DI Robyn Carter series. Frankly, I will not be continuing with it.
The plot is a boilerplate one about a vengeful psycho serial killer who was damaged from a bad childhood and rotten parenting - hooray, right? We love dark validating mysteries! This is not the issue for me. (I did not spoil, gentle reader, no worries.)
The writing is flat. There is too much expository dialogue and it is void of life even when everyone isn’t explaining about everything. All of the characters talk the same. The writing technique dulled any excitement of the upcoming victim attack and the manhunt. The cruel killer’s self-talk in every other chapter was also written in a flattened voice. This book needed more tension. This is why I am disappointed.
For those who need to know about DI Carter: as the story begins, she is returning to work as a UK police officer after taking time off to recover from grief after a traumatic vacation. Her beautiful fiancé Davies was a black-ops guy who was on an assignment tracking down Islamic terrorist cells in Morocco. Robyn joined him as she planned to combine his assignment with a impromptu celebration of her unexpected pregnancy. Unfortunately, Davies was killed and the shock caused Robyn to miscarry. Although she was given a leave of absence, she decided to work with her cousin Ross in his private investigation agency for a short while. This busy work is almost at an end as she shortly will report to work and take charge of her team again. She is an orphan as well. Her parents were killed in a car accident.
First books in a series are often flattened by inexperienced writing or because the author is still honing their character, but this was really dulled-down boilerplate, too. The series isn’t for me.
Merged review:
‘Little Girl Lost’ is book one in the DI Robyn Carter series. Frankly, I will not be continuing with it.
The plot is a boilerplate one about a vengeful psycho serial killer who was damaged from a bad childhood and rotten parenting - hooray, right? We love dark validating mysteries! This is not the issue for me. (I did not spoil, gentle reader, no worries.)
The writing is flat. There is too much expository dialogue and it is void of life even when everyone isn’t explaining about everything. All of the characters talk the same. The writing technique dulled any excitement of the upcoming victim attack and the manhunt. The cruel killer’s self-talk in every other chapter was also written in a flattened voice. This book needed more tension. This is why I am disappointed.
For those who need to know about DI Carter: as the story begins, she is returning to work as a UK police officer after taking time off to recover from grief after a traumatic vacation. Her beautiful fiancé Davies was a black-ops guy who was on an assignment tracking down Islamic terrorist cells in Morocco. Robyn joined him as she planned to combine his assignment with a impromptu celebration of her unexpected pregnancy. Unfortunately, Davies was killed and the shock caused Robyn to miscarry. Although she was given a leave of absence, she decided to work with her cousin Ross in his private investigation agency for a short while. This busy work is almost at an end as she shortly will report to work and take charge of her team again. She is an orphan as well. Her parents were killed in a car accident.
First books in a series are often flattened by inexperienced writing or because the author is still honing their character, but this was really dulled-down boilerplate, too. The series isn’t for me....more
I could not put ‘The Last Murder at the End of the World’ by Stuart Turton down! I only stopped to sleep, shower and eat. It is a terrific mystery! ‘TI could not put ‘The Last Murder at the End of the World’ by Stuart Turton down! I only stopped to sleep, shower and eat. It is a terrific mystery! ‘The Last Murder at the End of the World’ is a story that in describing too much of it will cause prospective readers to have a less than exciting experience in reading the book. I had no clue myself when I started the novel what it was about since I didn’t read any reviews. It was a book club selection, and I had only read the title and author in the email I received so that I could put a hold on it at my local library. I had a very happy time being totally amazed at every twisty and turny reveal! There were, I think, some dangling threads, and I felt the book could have used more explanatory filler here and there, but I didn’t really stop to examine the plot intellectually until writing this review. The pounding of my heart because of thrills and chills drove me on!
And, here you are, gentler reader, into a book review. Ok, then. I highly recommend ‘The Last Murder at the End of the World’! It is more murder mystery and thriller than science fiction imho, but all of the genre elements are necessary to make it work. I suggest reading a hard/digital copy rather than only an audiobook. There is a list of characters which explain the relationships between them, which are important insofar as how they emotionally interact. Which is odd, actually, because of one of the reveals left me with a lot of questions about this. Emotions are thicker than blood in this case?
I have copied the book blurb:
”From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.
Solve the murder to save what's left of the world.
Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.
On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.
Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.
But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don't even know it.
And the clock is ticking.”
There are some red herrings which I think were unnecessary or simply nonsensical, logically speaking, but it was Abi who was throwing fog mist at everyone’s eyes, so to speak. Perhaps she had absorbed the plots of a lot of mystery novels and she had become a fan. Who is Abi? Not telling. Is she good or bad, wise or philosophically corrupted? I’m still mulling that one over…
The book is a fun and exciting thrill ride!...more
‘Y’ is for Yesterday’ by Sue Grafton is intriguing, a good beach read. It is a sequel to the previous book X so I recommend reading ‘X’ before ‘Y…’. H‘Y’ is for Yesterday’ by Sue Grafton is intriguing, a good beach read. It is a sequel to the previous book X so I recommend reading ‘X’ before ‘Y…’. However, to really enjoy the mysteries involving the main character private detective Kinsey Millhone, readers should begin with A Is for Alibi, the first book in the series.
I have copied the book blurb:
”The darkest and most disturbing case report from the files of Kinsey Millhone, Y is for Yesterday begins in 1979, when four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a fourteen-year-old classmate—and film the attack. Not long after, the tape goes missing and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. In the investigation that follows, one boy turns state’s evidence and two of his peers are convicted. But the ringleader escapes without a trace.
Now, it’s 1989 and one of the perpetrators, Fritz McCabe, has been released from prison. Moody, unrepentant, and angry, he is a virtual prisoner of his ever-watchful parents—until a copy of the missing tape arrives with a ransom demand. That’s when the McCabes call Kinsey Millhone for help. As she is drawn into their family drama, she keeps a watchful eye on Fritz. But he’s not the only one being haunted by the past. A vicious sociopath with a grudge against Millhone may be leaving traces of himself for her to find…”
One of the cases alternates between 1979 and 1989. Unusual for a Millhone mystery, Kinsey is not the sole narrator. The 1979 chapters follow other characters, showing their point-of-view, slowly revealing what happened in the one of the two cases Kinsey is investigating. The characters involved in that plot increasingly became unlikeable to me, as I am sure Grafton intended.
Since this was the last book Grafton wrote about the character Kinsey Millhone before her death, I wish I could say it was amazing. But I can’t. Grafton’s portrayal of the continuing characters in the series was slightly more caricature then affectionate or nuanced, and her mysteries in this novel were drowned a bit by the alternating narrations and timeline.
I most enjoyed in every mystery the deadpan procedural style of Kinsey’s “reports.” Her reports (the novel) were written in what I think now was a continuing joke of the author. Kinsey always included in her written accounts of the investigation for her files and for her clients excruciatingly minute details, including the trivial personal minutia of living her life. I enjoyed this series for the most part, and I am really going to miss looking for a new Kinsey Millhone mystery to read....more
‘X’ by Sue Grafton is one of the best I’ve read in the Kinsey Millhone detective series! (Readers must start with A Is for Alibi.) Besides being writt‘X’ by Sue Grafton is one of the best I’ve read in the Kinsey Millhone detective series! (Readers must start with A Is for Alibi.) Besides being written, as usual, in a first-person narration that showcases Kinsey’s process of procedural detection, Grafton also manages to show Kinsey’s cynical nature along with her amusement in her exacting observations. The two cases Kinsey solves in this novel are intricate and extremely interesting. There are some brief 1980-ish infodumps that are perhaps not welcome for some 21st-century mystery genre readers, though. Kinsey is a character who lives and solves cases in the 1980’s throughout all 25 books in the series. Grafton has always given Kinsey space to have friends, and issues from her personal life in every book in the series, too.
I have copied the book blurb:
”An inventive plot and incisive character studies elevate MWA Grand Master Grafton’s twenty-fourth Kinsey Millhone novel...This superior outing will remind readers why this much-loved series will be missed as the end of the alphabet approaches.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss...
Perhaps Sue Grafton’s darkest and most chilling novel, X features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton wastes little time identifying this deadly sociopath. The test is whether private investigator Kinsey Millhone can prove her case against him—before she becomes his next victim.”
Like most writers who are becoming elderly (sorry if I am not being politically correct, but I am an elder myself), Grafton became a little bit openly garrulous/opinionated in her writing of later books, as I see I also am in my reviews if I re-read them months later. However, Kinsey’s procedural voice is still there in these novels.
Real life experiences and feelings from a long life seem to erupt from authors’ (and many elderly people) memories when they are telling stories. Without an editor, authors (and old people) can’t seem to stop themselves from putting into conversations off-topic memories, thoughts, knowledge and feelings of their real lives that popped up in their heads while discussing something else. I have seen this in many series where books come out over a period of twenty years, one every year or so. Anne Rice and Stephen King imho was/is guilty of this increasing tendency to infodump either with off-topic or distracting subjects in their books. I also do this in talking to people, or in writing GR book reviews, this review of mine being a particular case in point I suppose. But you all know this by now if, gentler reader, you are a follower of my reviews...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The novel ends on a cliffhanger I think, so I have eagerly checked out the next book in the series, ‘Y’. Although I had originally planned to participate in most of the book selections of my various Goodreads reading clubs for this month, I guess I am delaying picking up those books for now. I had gotten curious to see if Grafton had been able to complete more books in the Millhone series so I looked it up. I had been caught up, but that had been a few years ago. I have always loved this series. I grew up alongside Kinsey Millhone. Her era of the 1980’s was when I was in my late 20’s/30’s too. Kinsey, I think, is about 38 or so in this novel. Grafton nails the period perfectly.
‘’Murder Past Due’ by Miranda James is the first book in the Cat in the Stacks’ mystery series. I think it a perfectly good beach read for those who p‘’Murder Past Due’ by Miranda James is the first book in the Cat in the Stacks’ mystery series. I think it a perfectly good beach read for those who primarily read cozies. The mystery series appears to be very successful, there being 16 books so far. The cat, Diesel, is a Maine coon. The cat is not quite two years old, but he is a very large cat already as Maine coons tend to be. Diesel has not reached his full growth yet. The main character, Charlie Harris, who is 50 years old, takes Diesel everywhere on a leash. The cat seems to act towards everyone like those comfort animals that are taken by their owners to hospitals and nursing homes. Charlie is allowed to bring Diesel to the Hawksworth Library where he works in the Rare Book Room. Charlie is mourning his wife and his aunt, who died within two months of each other a year ago. He has two grown adult children: twenty-three-year-old Laura, an actress in Los Angeles, and twenty-seven-year-old Sean, a civil law lawyer in Houston.
I have copied the book blurb, which is accurate:
”Everyone in Athena, Mississippi, knows Charlie Harris, the good-natured librarian with a rescued Maine coon cat named Diesel that he walks on a leash. He’s returned to his hometown to immerse himself in books, but soon enough he’s entangled in a real-life thriller...
A famous author of gory bestsellers and a former classmate of Charlie’s, Godfrey Priest may be the pride of Athena, but Charlie remembers him as an arrogant, manipulative jerk—and he’s not the only one. Godfrey’s homecoming as a distinguished alumnus couldn’t possibly go by lunch, he’s put a man in the hospital. By dinner, Godfrey’s dead.
Now it’s up to Charlie, with some help from Diesel, to paw through the town’s grudges and find the killer before an impatient deputy throws the book at the wrong person. But every last one of Charlie’s friends and co-workers had a score to settle with the nasty novelist. As if the murder wasn’t already purr-plexing enough...”
I had hoped I would enjoy these mysteries, but alas, I feel the book is too bland and ordinary for my tastes. It might be the usual first-book-in-a-series issue, but I am not continuing with the series....more
Sam Taylor translated ‘The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair’ by author Joël Dicker from the original French into English. Whatever the novel, if iSam Taylor translated ‘The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair’ by author Joël Dicker from the original French into English. Whatever the novel, if it is in translated English it often reads in a stilted, unnatural manner to me. In this book the stiff writing was very obvious to me for the first hundred pages or so. The early dialogues are just infodumps, although in a very stylized manner. At first, not knowing I was reading a translated murder mystery, I thought maybe the author was intentionally using a stylized writing style for the dialogues, like what characters spoke in the John Wayne movie ‘True Grit.’ But after looking it up because I was very intrigued by the dialogue writing style, I discovered that the story I was reading in English was a translation from French, the language the book was originally written in. However, the initial stilted quality of the writing dies away, and it reads in English very naturally for most of the novel.
Frankly, I was even more intrigued because it is books by French authors in English translations that seem very foreign in attitudes, plots, characters - everything - more foreign than any other Western European authors writing stories in another language! Perhaps, while being a French writer, the author is actually from Switzerland which is how the book captures in caricature Americans so well. (Once again, I find myself wondering if the French are really so remarkedly different culturally from any other Western European country?) However, ‘The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair’ is set in a small town in New Hampshire, and all of the characters are American! The book as it nears the end is wonderfully unashamedly overblown with mysteries and American culture (both the small town and New York City varieties) like a June rose in July nearing its deadheading stage, full of twisty turns (and cul-de-sacs, and cliff slides), much like what drivers experience driving on highway 101 along the Western coast of America. I suddenly recognized the book’s satiric layers on Americans only after I finished it! We make it easy for writers, don’t we, because so many of us are really just as foreigners think we are in real life. America loves to show Americans to the world in our movies and TV shows, not only as visitors and tourists to other countries. From what I’ve been told, the whole world recognizes Americans as Americans when we visit their countries.
However, the novel errs on emphasizing strong American loyalties when in love. Yes, some people become mentally ill from being in love or lust, but not a whole town. I think Americans are indeed a passionate people - for a minute. Except when its about money status, the true measure of class and power in America.
I saw, or maybe only felt, a developing literary sophistication in the writing and the plot as I turned the pages. My first impression caused by the infodump dialogue disappeared because the writing improves so much by page 200. The character Marcus Goldman, the main narrator, who transforms eventually into an honest mystery sleuth as well as a good writer, mirroring the real author Dicker’s/translator Taylor’s improvement!
: D
Twenty-eight-year-old Marcus Goldman, the main narrator, is incredibly needy of fame and fortune. I did not like him, or his mentor Harry Quebert, who when he was a young man in 1975 was very much like Marcus is in the present time of the novel, which is 2008. They both are shallow vultures when in their twenties. Quebert is in his early sixties, though, when he begins to guide and teach Marcus in 1998-2002 as his writing professor at Burrows College, and he no longer is a callow individual. He DOES tend to speak in what seemed to me Winston Churchill-like sayings, only somewhat more cliche and even trite. As the book progresses, Marcus grows up, too, sadder and wiser.
I have copied the book blurb:
”The #1 internationally bestselling thriller, and ingenious book within a book, about the disappearance of a 15-year-old New Hampshire girl and, thirty years later, a young American writer’s determination to clear his mentor’s name—and find the inspiration for his next bestseller
August 30, 1975: the day fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan is glimpsed fleeing through the woods before she disappears; the day Aurora, New Hampshire, lost its innocence.
Thirty-three years later, Marcus Goldman, a successful young novelist, visits Aurora to see his mentor, Harry Quebert, one of America’s most respected writers, and to find a cure for his writer’s block as his publisher’s deadline looms. But Marcus’s plans are violently upended when Harry is suddenly and sensationally implicated in the cold-case murder of Nola Kellergan—whom, he admits, he had an affair with. As the national media convicts Harry, Marcus launches his own investigation, following a trail of clues through his mentor’s books, the backwoods and isolated beaches of New Hampshire, and the hidden history of Aurora’s citizens and the man they hold most dear. To save Harry, his writing career, and eventually even himself, Marcus must answer three questions, all of which are mysteriously connected: Who killed Nola Kellergan? What happened one misty morning in Aurora in the summer of 1975? And how do you write a successful and true novel?
A global phenomenon, with sales approaching a million copies in France alone and rights sold in more than thirty countries, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair is a fast-paced, tightly plotted, cinematic literary thriller, and an ingenious book within a book, by a dazzling young writer.”
My book version has the setting in a town called Somerset, not Aurora. I have no idea why the discrepancy between the book and the blurb. The author did live in Maine in the summer, so he knows that part of New England America very well. I think he nailed it.
At first, I didn’t like the book-in-a-book-in-a-book construction, the novel being as much about the New York publishing industry as it is about the people of Somerset (and about the avidity of readers/watchers of True Crime stories, and about the marketing spin diverting the veracity of such books/shows into more lurid speculative sideshows and filthy back alleys). The back and forth between 1975, following Harry’s life, and then flipping to 2008 following Marcus’s life caused me to get confused sometimes between Harry’s experiences and Marcus’s - which I realized after awhile probably is intentional on the author’s part. As I mentioned above, it slowly began to dawn on me how much fun the author was having in crafting this novel! Eventually, I was reminded of those murder boards that are now so popular on TV shows, with strings running all over the board, crossing paths, leading to this person, that fact, those photos - but something done on the scale of linking an entire population of a town to the murder victim because they all DID have some sort of scurrilous link.
It is a book which can make any reader dizzy because of the book being about writing a book about a book, while at the same time a murder mystery is unfolding! Unfolding isn’t the right word, gentler reader, either. It is more like walking a maze, trying to find the True Path out!
I have read a number of extremely twisty mysteries in the last three years. I am officially putting this book at the top of the list for plots which are so convoluted they are more like a bag of shredded paper than twists. I highly recommend this nested-doll of a murder mystery! ...more
‘Under the Dragon’s Tail’ by Maureen Jennings is book 2 in the Murdoch Mysteries series. There is an extremely popular Canadian TV show based on the c‘Under the Dragon’s Tail’ by Maureen Jennings is book 2 in the Murdoch Mysteries series. There is an extremely popular Canadian TV show based on the characters in these books. But except for characters’ names and the place of a Toronto police station in the late 1890’s, there is little I recognize in the novels about my favorite characters as a fervant fan of the TV show.
If you watch the TV show series either through Hoopla library checkouts or by subscribing to Hulu, you will see charming actors playing amusing characters in plots which are edgy in tackling real life social ills, but maintain a light touch when showing horrible murders. The novels are more noir. The character of Murdoch on TV is that of a genius scientist/inventor/detective who has the excessively proper manners of an English Victorian/Edwardian. In the novels, he is simply a good detective from the wrong side of the tracks. While both TV Murdoch and novel Murdoch are Catholics, TV Murdoch is a good Catholic, while the novel Murdoch no longer has much faith. That said, both Murdoch characters are people with a lot of sympathy towards victims of violence and social ostracism. They both have to restrain themselves from anger and getting themselves fired or losing rank when dealing with bosses who care more about how things look to the public, especially those of the public who are politicians or powerful businessmen, than actual justice.
While I enjoyed reading ‘Under the Dragon’s Tail’ I can’t imagine the TV show ever using the plot of this book, and especially the street dialogue of rough, uneducated or drunken characters, without significantly cleaning everything up. The TV show doesn’t shy away from tough subjects that are in this novel, which involves prostitutes, rape, single mothers, abortions, poverty, and child abuse. But the book is moderately graphic with full disclosure in describing such scenes, although without lingering, while the TV show very briefly shows a murder or an underclass demimonde character, showing only enough for viewers to understand the whole picture without actually having a full disclosure.
It has been interesting, to say the least, in comparing the completely different noir tone of the written novels vs. the more cozy approach of the TV show!
I have copied the book blurb:
”Women rich and poor come to her, desperate and in dire need of help – and discretion. Dolly Merishaw is a midwife and an abortionist in Victorian Toronto, but although she keeps quiet about her clients’ condition, her contempt for them and her greed leaves every one of them resentful and angry. So it comes as no surprise to Detective William Murdoch when this malicious woman is murdered. What is a shock, though, is that a week later a young boy is found dead in Dolly’s squalid kitchen. Now, Murdoch isn’t sure if he’s hunting one murderer – or two.”
I liked the book. It is somewhat standalone, but I think readers will enjoy the continuing drama of Murdoch’s private life which is carried from book to book. Murdoch’s private life is very different from the TV show! Book one is Except the Dying. All in all, it is a good enough historical mystery series to take to the beach! ...more
‘Except the Dying’ by Maureen Jennings is book one in the Murdoch Mystery series, published in 1997. There are only eight books in this series, which ‘Except the Dying’ by Maureen Jennings is book one in the Murdoch Mystery series, published in 1997. There are only eight books in this series, which is massively shocking and unexpected for me! I have been binging the TV show ‘The Murdoch Mysteries’, a Canadian television show which will begin its 17th season in 2024. I have the Hoopla app, which suggested the show to me since I mostly check out and watch video mysteries on the app, which is connected to my library card. I recently discovered the show is on Hulu, too.
I copied the book blurb:
”In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the unclad body of a servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway. Detective William Murdoch quickly finds out that more than one person connected with the girl’s simple life has something to hide.”
The novel is a good one, an interesting historical novel as well as a traditional mystery. It drew me on, had me wanting to know how it would end. It has a lot of factual tidbits included about Toronto, Canada, and how people lived in 1895. I would not have wanted to be a woman in the late 19th century, but life was difficult for many people, not just women. The book does not hide from the ugly world of poverty. Murdoch would not have solved the mystery without the help of young abandoned boys who live on the streets, literally sleeping on sidewalks, or prostitutes who observe the men and carriages going by them. The pain of poverty (as well as the boredom felt by upper-class young men) was dulled by quite a bit of alcohol, drugs and laudanum, used by many characters in the book. While the novel is realistic, though, it is not graphic. There are some things in the plot which were not clear, or explained adequately, but I thought this a minor quibble. It IS a number one in a series, and perhaps the author is still finding her way in this novel.
Despite that the TV Murdoch mysteries are edgy cozies, normally a type of genre of which I am not a huge fan, I have fallen in love with this television show. The TV actors starring in the show, all of them, are charming, winsome or interesting. They all play off of each other in such a way that there is as much amusement as well as drama in watching the characters interact in their private lives.
The TV Detective William Murdoch is a genius and an inventor, an amateur scientist, who uses his scientist brain to solve crimes. Series one began airing on television in 2007. The plots involve Murdoch meeting all kinds of important inventors and writers of history who actually were alive in 1895, 1896, 1897, etc. as each season is aired. It is a fun show! Although it is more cozy than hardcore, the show tackles difficult subjects like child abuse, poverty, class prejudices, and abortion. Murdoch, in season one, is a fundamentalist Catholic. However as the show progresses from season to season, he finds he must accept and change his mind about many of things the Catholic Church considers terrible sins.
However, the TV plots are not realistic in many ways: Murdoch invents many clever things on the show which are exactly like stuff that is attributed to others throughout real-life history, like the polygraph. Murdoch ‘invents’ such a lie-detector device to use in the Toronto police station in 1900 where he works. The history books tell us it was actually invented in 1921 in Berkeley, California at the University of California by John Augustus Larson, who was also a detective on a police force.
Whatever, it doesn’t matter. It is really a good TV show, with really good actors. Murdoch is played by the actor Yannick Bisson as a very proper upstanding high-class educated officer who doesn’t have any vices whatsoever. The character Constable Crabtree, played by Jonny Harris is very funny. He believes in the more exotic pseudo-theories of science believed by crackpots, and fringe scientists, like ghosts and space aliens. Some of the things, of course, that he says, which sound like wild speculation to the others, especially the purist science guy Murdoch, actually have come to pass, like spaceships going to the moon. Thomas Craig plays Inspector Thomas Brackenreid, a Protestant lower-class Irishman, as Murdoch’s boss. Brackenreid distinctly doesn’t like Murdoch at first, and does not understand science at all. But Murdoch proves over and over science works, so Brackenreid is won over. There are other characters, all of which are distinct and entertaining to watch.
The books are completely different! Completely! I was not only shocked by how few Murdoch mystery books were written, but I was also amazed by the TV transformation of the actual characters in the novels! The TV show sparkles with tongue-in-cheek entertainment, but the book is more like any usual mystery novel, similar in style, I think, to Agatha Christie and other mystery writers of the 1930’s, almost a procedural as well as a historical novel.
In the novel, Murdoch is not a genius scientist/gentleman who is working as a detective. He is more lower-class in the novel than he is on TV, someone who couldn’t attend college because his father was an abusive drunk and his mother died supposedly by drowning in a shallow pool on a beach collecting mussels. Murdoch believes his father killed his mother in the book. He has a brother and sister, the sister having joined a nunnery at a very early age, driven to this action by their horrible homelife. In the book, Murdoch has worked at many jobs before becoming a police officer, such as a chopper at a lumber mill in Nova Scotia. He rents a room from an elderly couple in the novel. If I remember correctly, in the TV show he lives in a hotel room he rents, and not much has been seen of any family, or has any backstory been told. So far I am up to the sixth season. Viewers have met Murdoch’s sister, who is a nun on the TV show as she is in the book.
The only thing that is the same about TV Murdoch as in the book is Murdock is a Catholic. But the TV version of Murdoch is more of a fundamentalist Catholic than the novel Murdoch.
All of the other characters in the novel have been changed a lot. Crabtree, in the novel, is over 6 feet tall and hugely husky. In the TV show, Crabtree is played by a slight, 5-foot 7- or 8-inch actor, who has excellent comedic timing when saying his lines. Brackenreid bullies Murdoch, having not much respect for him in the novel, while he covers for and backs up Murdoch on TV. The medical examiner on TV is a lovely, super-educated woman, who becomes Murdoch’s love interest. In the book, there are no professional upper-class women. The only women in the book are prostitutes and wives, or lower-class store clerks or servants.
I liked the book, but I do prefer the TV show. One of those rare instances of the book being not as good! But it is a perfect novel for the beach, gentler reader! ...more
‘No Time for Goodbye’ by Linwood Barclay is a thrill ride! I couldn’t put the mystery down for two days! I read through the night until I nodded off, ‘No Time for Goodbye’ by Linwood Barclay is a thrill ride! I couldn’t put the mystery down for two days! I read through the night until I nodded off, waking up three hours later with my face imprinted on my ipad. I realized I needed to sleep, which I did reluctantly. As soon as I woke up, I was reading the book until I finished it! My cat is mad at me, too. Never fear, gentler reader, her water and dry-food bowls are freshened and full. But she had to wait for her silly rabbit wand toy to begin his run over my couch….
I have copied the book blurb:
”Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke one morning to discover that her entire family, mother, father, brother had vanished. No note, no trace, no return. Ever. Now, twenty-five years later, she'll learn the devastating truth.
Sometimes better not to know. . .
Cynthia is happily married with a young daughter, a new family. But the story of her old family isn't over. A strange car in the neighborhood, untraceable phone calls, ominous gifts, someone has returned to her hometown to finish what was started twenty-five years ago. And no one's innocence is guaranteed, not even her own. By the time Cynthia discovers her killer's shocking identity, it will again be too late . . . even for goodbye.”
The story reads like a well-done movie script, though, especially the dialogue, so more discriminating movie-fan readers might feel it has some derivative scenes of suspiciously familiar lacking-in-full-disclosure conversation and married-couple fights between protagonists here and there. There also was what to me were peculiar inserts of italicized conversations between unknown speakers that didn’t make sense for awhile. I still don’t believe they were necessary paragraphs at all, even though they did serve eventually to deepen the mystery. There is one character I correctly guessed early was involved. I figured at least one of the characters was lying or unreliable which had me on the wrong track. The character Cynthia was incredibly annoying because of her intense irrational reactions.
I really liked the story despite what I was recognizing as similar ‘gotcha’ set-ups that are familiar to fans of good, fast-moving horror movies. The ending, after a number of twists and turns, was amazing! I didn’t see that coming!
It was great fun reading ‘No Time for Goodbye’!...more
‘The Fury’ by Alex Michaelides is truly an epic tilt of reality! My brain was turned inside out and upside down!
I have copied the book blurb:
”A master‘The Fury’ by Alex Michaelides is truly an epic tilt of reality! My brain was turned inside out and upside down!
I have copied the book blurb:
”A masterfully paced thriller about a reclusive ex–movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder ― from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient.
This is a tale of murder.
Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?
Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex–movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.
I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time ― it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.
We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse ― a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered.
But who am I?
My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story unlike any you’ve ever heard.”
Elliot narrates, but he is not a reliable one until the last page. As part of the toxically damaged clique Lana gathers around her, Elliot’s objectivity is a bare-bones achievement . But telling Truth is demanded by his therapist. So he does tell reluctantly the tale. However, omissions tilt his story into a more benign malignancy until he is forced to finally come out with telling it all.
The “love story” that Elliot Chase want to tell you, gentler reader, is one involving toxic friends and frenemies. Lana’s choices in her “friends” she feels she wants to hang out with IS shockingly terrible! The villain of the book is one only in comparison of the degree of poisonous attraction all of Lana’s closest buddies have for Lana and each other! With friends like these, etc. etc. etc.
I highly recommend ‘The Fury’! It is a unique spin on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, a homage of sorts, but given an Alfred Hitchcock’s movie twist. I loved it! ...more
The Locke family has moved to Lovecraft, Massachusetts from San Francisco after the murder of Rendell Locke, school counselor. Duncan, Rendell's youngThe Locke family has moved to Lovecraft, Massachusetts from San Francisco after the murder of Rendell Locke, school counselor. Duncan, Rendell's younger brother and an artist, has been kind and understanding. He is happy to see them back in Lovecraft and helps them move into Keyhouse, the Locke family mansion dating back to 1775. Nina, and her children, 17-year-old Tyler, 15-year-old Kinsey and 8-year-old Bode try to become comfortable with a new home, school and friends, but their grief is overwhelming. Nina, their mother, is drinking even heavier than she had been.
Bode has found a few interesting keys hidden in various places around the old mansion. Left mostly alone, he has been trying the keys on different doors, cabinets and drawers. To his shock, when these keys unlock a door, the doors seem to open into other dimensions which appear to operate under magical rules. The first door he discovers after unlocking it allows him to float about the house invisible, as if he were a ghost! Another key unlocks a wellhouse door, where a being, a woman, appears to live down the well. Bode is thrilled! And alone with his discoveries - no one believes him.
The older teenagers are having a great deal more trouble adjusting to their dad's murder. Tyler feels shame and blames himself because he had asked a high school acquaintance, Sam Lesser, to kill Rendell for him after an argument with his dad. He did not mean it, but unbeknownst to him, Sam is a crazy person. Sam has his own reasons for wanting to hurt Rendell Locke, but he taunts Tyler with his supposed request for patricide. Although Tyler fought for his and his family's life after Sam and his partner showed up looking for the Anywhere and the Black door keys, Tyler still believes Rendell's death and Nina's rape is his fault.
Kinsey is afraid all of the time. She cannot forget the terror of Sam's attack or how she was forced to defend herself and save Tyler and Bode in the bloody struggle. She cannot sleep or eat, and she is as prickly as a cornered cat.
Only Bode is recovering his spirit - and someone else's...
The Locke family survivors believe the worst is behind them. But Sam, locked up in a juvenile facility on the West coast awaiting trial, is being goaded by a ghostly being to escape the jail. He did not get the keys or find out where they are as he was supposed to do. He MUST accomplish this mission of getting the keys, if he has to kill every Locke to do it! However, escaping the cell is the first step, so he prepares himself as the guard approaches. Sam does not intend to fail a second time...
Although I found a few scenes confusing (some fights in a cave, murders in Keyhouse), ultimately I thoroughly enjoyed this full-cast audiobook adaptation of the 'Locke & Key' graphic novels. The sound production and the directing of the actors, as well as the voicing of dialogue, was excellent. The last chapters had me dropping a tear or two from my eyes, but it was all good anyway. However, to fully understand all of the action which takes place in the recording, I suggest that perhaps the listener buy the graphic comic series, too. They are a most excellent read and beautifully drawn, if horrific scenes of vivid gore do not bother you too much....more
In what is becoming the usual mystery novel style by Benjamin Stevenson, ‘Everyone on this Train is a Suspect’, book two in the Ernest Cunningham seriIn what is becoming the usual mystery novel style by Benjamin Stevenson, ‘Everyone on this Train is a Suspect’, book two in the Ernest Cunningham series, is funny, but readers can only know how funny when the last chapter is being read! The entire book is a parody of mystery tropes and writers of genre fiction, but done is such a fashion as to be not overtly noticeable. The jokes are fast and steady, but not obviously upfront. The plot inevitably leads to an ending where only then is the author’s tongue-in-cheek obvious. In fact, it is stronger than tongue-in-cheek. It is pure tongue-in-cheekiness! I love this Ernest Cunningham, amateur detective/fake mystery writer since his books, as he himself says, are really fictional non-fiction memoirs masquerading as genre mysteries, with the only truly reliable narrator, series!
I have copied the book blurb (copying of which has never been more appropriate, its importance only now being considered by me):
”When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.
The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:
the debut writer (me!)
the forensic science writer
the blockbuster writer
the legal thriller writer
the literary writer
the psychological suspense writer
But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.
Of course, we should also know how to commit one.
How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?”
Honestly, whoever wrote the book blurb should get an honorable mention, given the plot of the novel! Movies give credit to the people who drive and cook in the street food-wagon that the actors preferred over the movie cafeteria food in the end credits today. Book blurb writers are sort of a type of ghostwriters, aren’t they?...more
‘The Honjin Murders’ by Seishi Yokomizo is the first of the Detective Kindaichi Mysteries published in English. It was published in Japanese in 1946. ‘The Honjin Murders’ by Seishi Yokomizo is the first of the Detective Kindaichi Mysteries published in English. It was published in Japanese in 1946. It is written in the style of the first ever mysteries to be written, such as those written by John Dickson Carr and Gaston Leroux in their very early Western 20th-century period, such as in the years of the 1900’s to 1930’s. Yokomizo wrote 77 Kindaichi mysteries in total. From what I’ve read on-line, they are still very popular in Japan today.
I have read a number of very early mystery novels and they are all written in a somewhat stilted style, what I would call out as early police procedurals (although the detective is usually a private one, not a policeman), with great emphasis on describing the physical clues of a murder inside of a room, the house, the grounds, and the whereabouts of all of the characters during the timeframe the murder was committed. Some are locked-room mysteries involving impossible murders. Imho, the solutions of locked-room mysteries are often crazily weird and impossible to have actually staged in real life, no matter how much the author tries to convince the reader of its plausibility! How murders are committed in locked-room mysteries are as intricately created as a Rube Goldberg machine.
I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
”One of Japan's greatest classic murder mysteries, introducing their best loved detective, translated into English for the first time.
In the winter of 1937, the village of Okamura is abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming wedding of a son of the grand Ichiyanagi family. But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumour - it seems a sinister masked man has been asking questions around the village.
Then, on the night of the wedding, the Ichiyanagi household are woken by a terrible scream, followed by the sound of eerie music. Death has come to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow outside the house. Soon, amateur detective Kosuke Kindaichi is on the scene to investigate what will become a legendary murder case, but can this scruffy sleuth solve a seemingly impossible crime?”
The amateur detective, Kosuke Kindaichi, is described thus:
”A young man alighted at N—station on the Hakubi Line, and came sauntering down the road towards K—town. He was around twenty-five or -six, of medium build, on the pale side, and he would have been completely unremarkable if it weren’t for his unusual style of clothes. He wore a matching set of short haori jacket and kimono in a kind of splash-pattern dye, with a traditional hakama skirt of of narrow stripes over it. However, the haori and kimono were full of wrinkles, and the hakama, conversely, had lost any trace of its crisp pleats. His toenails were beginning to poke through the ends of his Gabi socks, his wooden geta clogs were worn down, his hat had lost its shape—In short, for a young man in the prime of life he seemed shockingly indifferent to his appearance.
This youth crossed the T—river and approached K—. His left hand was stuck in his pocket, and in his right, he carried a walking stock. His haori was bulging at the chest; it appeared to be stuffed full of journals or notebooks.
In those days, Tokyo was full of characters like this one. You’d find them hanging around the boarding houses in the Waseda University area, or in the writers’ room in theatres in the seedy part of town.”
Of course, Kindaichi is a super genius!
The novel is an excellent early locked-room mystery, even in translation! I am not a huge fan of these kind of mysteries, despite that I admire the ingenuity of the authors who have fun writing these types of mysteries. I enjoy them for their historical (and often the hysterical solutions to murder) significance in early mystery writing. These books, often almost the first of their kind in whatever country the author came from, are fascinating for their style and era of writing as much as the genre elements being created for the first time!...more
‘The Spy Coast’ by Tess Gerritsen is a really good mystery, the first in a planned series involving five retired CIA agents who are living in a small ‘The Spy Coast’ by Tess Gerritsen is a really good mystery, the first in a planned series involving five retired CIA agents who are living in a small Maine community. The main character, Maggie Gallagher, loved working for the CIA, and the travel and being a spy, until the disaster that happened in what turned out to be her last assignment when she was 42 years old. Now she is 60, a chicken farmer.
I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
”A retired CIA operative in small-town Maine tackles the ghosts of her past in this fresh take on the spy thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.
Former spy Maggie Bird came to the seaside village of Purity, Maine, eager to put the past behind her after a mission went tragically wrong. These days, she’s living quietly on her chicken farm, still wary of blowback from the events that forced her early retirement.
But when a body turns up in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her. Maggie turns to her local circle of old friends—all retirees from the CIA—to help uncover the truth about who is trying to kill her, and why. This “Martini Club” of former spies may be retired, but they still have a few useful skills that they’re eager to use again, if only to spice up their rather sedate new lives.
Complicating their efforts is Purity’s acting police chief, Jo Thibodeau. More accustomed to dealing with rowdy tourists than homicide, Jo is puzzled by Maggie’s reluctance to share information—and by her odd circle of friends, who seem to be a step ahead of her at every turn.
As Jo’s investigation collides with the Martini Club’s maneuvers, Maggie’s hunt for answers will force her to revisit a clandestine career that spanned the globe, from Bangkok to Istanbul, from London to Malta. The ghosts of her past have returned, but with the help of her friends—and the reluctant Jo Thibodeau—Maggie might just be able to save the life she’s built.”
I enjoyed how the five grey-haired ex-spies kept confounding Jo and other police officers with their investigative expertise and advice. Jo in particular got more and more exasperated with them when they seemed to be several steps ahead of her in the investigation of the murder. Jo researched them, but she turned up nothing on them except they were regular people at regular jobs. Ingrid Slocum was an executive secretary. Ben Diamond sold hospitality furniture and equipment. Declan Rose was a history professor. Lloyd Slocum was a big data analyst. Maggie was an employee of an international import/export logistics firm. Jo’s database search confirmed what these five Martini Club members told her.
But the novel is all about Maggie’s past and it is her narrative that takes center stage. The chapters alternate between her past and present. A case she was involved with decades ago is the reason a dead body has been left in her driveway. The body has been tortured in a specific way, the way a bad man Maggie had been tasked with capturing on her last assignment with the CIA had tortured people. She thought he was dead, but it appears he somehow escaped and is coming for her. To save herself, it means she has to get back in the game!
The book is very good, but it does have what might be felt by some readers to be a little bit unhurried in its pacing compared to the manner that many thrillers have been written in in the last few years. But I could see the author’s mature expertise in writing what is after all an introduction to the Martini Club series and the involved characters. I have become accustomed to first books in a series being a little off, or not quite ready for prime time, but that is not at all the case for ‘The Spy Coast’. It is a perfectly structured novel which reveals the mystery in a slow build-up way. I liked it and plan to continue with the series. However, I am beginning to wonder at all the new mystery series coming out in recent years featuring geriatric ex-cops or ex-spies! This is the third recently published series with retired characters solving mysteries I’ve read in the last two years. The other two tended to be dramedies, but this one does not have much comedy, other than Jo’s exasperation with the lies of the Martini Club members.
Do young adults have an interest in action novels featuring old characters? Hmmm. Just curious....more
I think ‘The Turn of the Key’ by Ruth Ware is well-written. Full stop. But the book disappointed me in the last three pages. I guffawed. Then I groaneI think ‘The Turn of the Key’ by Ruth Ware is well-written. Full stop. But the book disappointed me in the last three pages. I guffawed. Then I groaned. That ending! The ending has many reviewers baffled or frustrated. However, I didn’t like it for what is apparently some very different reasons than what most other reviewers who didn’t like it felt.
‘An Honest Man’ by Michael Koryta is a fabulous noir thriller, reminiscent of some of the best noir private detective novels and movies from the 1940’‘An Honest Man’ by Michael Koryta is a fabulous noir thriller, reminiscent of some of the best noir private detective novels and movies from the 1940’s. I highly recommend it, gentler readers! But I suggest setting aside time for reading it when there will be no interruptions, like a day, because once the book is half finished it will be impossible to put down.
The story initially takes its time setting up current scenes and past history which slowly reveal more and more information about what is going on. The main characters also are slowly revealed as to who they are. For example, at first, I thought Israel Pike, who is one of the main characters, was in the trouble he was in because he was an immature hothead made stupid by his rages against any authority. Having had a crappy father is obviously a cause for his continuing adult emotional problems. As it turns out eventually, that is only the tip of the iceberg.
I have copied the book blurb:
”The murder of several politicians at sea has shattering implications for a local lobsterman and a young boy.
Israel Pike was a killer, and he was an honest man. They were not mutually exclusive.
After discovering seven men murdered aboard their yacht – including two Senate rivals – Israel Pike is regarded as a prime suspect. A troubled man infamous on Salvation Point Island for killing his own father a decade before, Israel has few options, no friends, and a life-threatening secret.
Elsewhere on the island, 12-year-old Lyman Rankin seeks shelter from his alcoholic father in an abandoned house only to discover that he is not alone. A mysterious woman greets him with a hatchet and a “Make a sound and I’ll kill you.”
As the investigation barrels forward, Lyman, Israel, and the fate of the case collide in immutable ways.”
The dystopian atmosphere that the island characters live in is believably created through the inclusion of real-life situations that have been on the front pages of news websites. Israel’s past and Lyman’s present mirror each other. Unbeknownst to either one of them, they are also linked in other ways. But while Israel is irreparably damaged by his past experiences, there is still hope for Lyman. Maybe. The author gradually weaves the two separately narrated storylines together into a heart-pounding finish!
I couldn’t put the book down! I have a terrible headache as a result, plus I am hungry, thirsty, and I desperately need a bathroom! It is 2 am as well. So. I highly recommend this novel, and I also recommend putting aside a day to read it. Do not do what I did, picking up the book before dinner thinking only to read a few more chapters…....more
‘Five Survive’ by Holly Jackson is a heart-pounding thrill ride!
I have copied the book blurb because I don’t want to reveal too much myself:
”Goodread‘Five Survive’ by Holly Jackson is a heart-pounding thrill ride!
I have copied the book blurb because I don’t want to reveal too much myself:
”Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Best Young Adult Fiction (2023)
Eight hours. Six friends. Five survive. A road trip turns deadly in this addictive YA thriller from the bestselling author of the worldwide phenomenon A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER.
Red Kenny is on a road trip for spring break with five friends: Her best friend - the older brother - his perfect girlfriend - a secret crush - a classmate - and a killer.
When their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they soon realize this is no accident. They have been trapped by someone out there in the dark, someone who clearly wants one of them dead.
With eight hours until dawn, the six friends must escape, or figure out which of them is the target. But is there a liar among them? Buried secrets will be forced to light and tensions inside the RV will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. . . .”
I highly recommend this exciting novel! Ok, ok, at the end, after calming down and resting from not being able to put the book down for hours until seeing how it all turns out, readers will notice the coincidences, but never mind. I loved ‘Five Survive’. Shut up. ...more
‘Red Queen’ by Juan Gómez-Jurado is the first book in the Antonia Scott mystery series. The book has been translated into English from Spanish. There ‘Red Queen’ by Juan Gómez-Jurado is the first book in the Antonia Scott mystery series. The book has been translated into English from Spanish. There are two books in English so far, but if one is able to read Spanish, there are more in the series available in print. However, I won’t be continuing with the series. While there is a lot to like, there are elements which I find too odd.
Antonia Scott is a genius, but she has been altered by drugs and what seems to me to be an extreme regimen of training to focus her mind on details and boost her IQ into being perhaps the highest on Earth. Her memory is excellent. In fact, she can’t forget anything at all of what she experiences or reads. She also is not entirely sane. Her sanity can be controlled only by taking special drugs that calm her mind. She needs a sidekick to protect her while she is on a police case because she lacks normal mental judgement.
Jon Gutierrez, a heavyset gay man, was a police inspector until he was caught planting heroin in a pimp’s car. He has been chosen by a mysterious man called Mentor (a pseudonym) to be Antonia’s sidekick.
Mentor is the man who used almost torture on Antonia to boost her IQ because he is the Spanish head of a top secret multinational organization that seeks out and trains certain people with peculiar minds to solve police cases. They call these assets, wait for it, a ‘Red Queen.’ The name comes from the novel Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass / The Hunting of the Snark. Every country in the world has a local man called Mentor who is assigned the head of an office in every country for this top secret police organization.
Although the description of this secret unnamed international police organization and the peculiar setup involved seems to promise a series similar to Hollywood’s James Bond movies, the book is not at all an absurd spy thriller. Instead, the novel is just a regular mystery thriller involving dark acts of criminality (very graphically dark) with two outsider protagonists solving crimes that local police are finding too difficult to solve. I thought the sleuths were a mashup of about 80% Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson stories and about 20% of the old TV show characters of Monk and his caretaker Natalie (https://youtu.be/HQFrNB4LcrE?si=oxR3y...). There isn’t much comedy, though, just a lot more graphic thriller/horror chills.
I have copied the book blurb:
”You've never met anyone like her …
Antonia Scott is special. Very special. She is not a policewoman or a lawyer. She has never wielded a weapon or carried a badge, and yet, she has solved dozens of crimes.
But it's been awhile since Antonia left her attic in Madrid. The things she has lost are much more important to her than the things awaiting her outside.
She also doesn't receive visitors. That's why she really, really doesn't like it when she hears unknown footsteps coming up the stairs.
Whoever it is, Antonia is sure that they are coming to look for her.
And she likes that even less.
Juan Gómez-Jurado's internationally bestselling thriller series has sold more than two million copies to date in Spain alone. Translated by Nick Caistor.”
A lot of Goodreads’ reviewers like the book a lot, giving it 4 or 5 stars. However, I felt that the creation of Mentor and his top secret international organization was described in a fashion too tired for me. The semi-torture used to train Antonia and to force her already genius brain to develop super powers of a sort for the organization was simply too much! Jon Gutierrez was a tired stereotype with uninspiring copper faults. Although the setting for the action is supposedly in Madrid, Spain, I think the novel’s setting could have been in any urban Western city. It is a small revelation for me that mystery novels written by Spanish writers are almost indistinguishable from the genre mysteries we enjoy in English-speaking countries. Madrid in this book could be mistaken for London or New York City, and even Amsterdam or Copenhagen, I think, from reading English translations of mysteries set in those countries. However, the translation has produced a well-written crime thriller in English, and there is a lot of drama and action. I am guessing the writing in the following books in the series improve as I’ve noticed this is what happens in most mystery series wherever the action takes place. Imho, though, mysteries that have been written by French authors and translated into English cannot be mistaken at all as being interchangeable with any Western locale or genre. French mysteries I’ve read in English translations are still so very very culturally French! Idk why. ...more
‘The Cabinet of Curiosities’ by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, is the third novel in the, to me, bonkers pseudo-science thriller series featuring ‘The Cabinet of Curiosities’ by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, is the third novel in the, to me, bonkers pseudo-science thriller series featuring FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast. I LOVED it! However, I felt it did not reach the usual Mount Everest heights of pulp horror as the previous two novels. The authors appeared to tone down the bloody terror slightly, very slightly, as a sacrifice (sacrifices being something of a go-to plot device for these authors) to their changing their usual over-the-top monster mayhem story for this book. ‘The Cabinet of Curiosities’ fits in more of the usual expected elements of a detective story.
I have copied the book blurb:
”In one of NPR's 100 Best Thrillers Ever, FBI agent Pendergast discovers thirty-six murdered bodies in a New York City charnel house . . . and now, more than a century later, a killer strikes again.
In an ancient tunnel underneath New York City a charnel house is discovered.
Inside are thirty-six bodies--all murdered and mutilated more than a century ago.
While FBI agent Pendergast investigates the old crimes, identical killings start to terrorize the city.
The nightmare has begun.”
The character of Pendergast has been surprisingly more of a supporting one in the previous novels, but not so much in ‘The Cabinet of Curiosities’. Readers finally learn about who he is in this book, and more importantly, why he is so peculiarly knowledgeable about the occult! Hint: it runs in the family.
Readers should begin with book one, Relic. Actually, it isn’t absolutely necessary to begin with ‘Relic’ in keeping up with continuing series developments so far in this particular novel, but the series is really fun! You’ll be missing out on a lot of pure traditional horror silliness which has been elevated into a higher class of pulp novel. One caveat: do not get too attached to any character! Survival is not a given....more
‘The Housemaid’s Secret’ by Freida McFadden is book two in The Housemaid series (start with The Housemaid). And no, these entertaining mysteries are n‘The Housemaid’s Secret’ by Freida McFadden is book two in The Housemaid series (start with The Housemaid). And no, these entertaining mysteries are not about cleaning tips to get food stains out of the carpet!
Wilhelmina (Millie) Calloway is sort of a low-rent vigilante who often gets involved with rescuing wives of abusers. She is currently going to school to become a social worker. To support herself, she works as a housemaid. Millie was in prison, so she has a difficult time finding work because most prospective employers run a background check. In the first book in the series, she had to sleep in her car because she did not have enough money to pay rent. But she is getting work on occasion. However, some of her employers who have been hiring her so far in this series tend to have dark motives in doing so. They hire her because she has a criminal record!
I have copied the book blurb:
”Goodreads Choice AwardWinner for Best Mystery & Thriller (2023)
It's hard to find an employer who doesn't ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want.
It's almost perfect. But I still haven't met Mrs Garrick, or seen inside the guest bedroom. I'm sure I hear her crying. I notice spots of blood around the neck of her white nightgowns when I'm doing laundry. And one day I can't help but knock on the door. When it gently swings open, what I see inside changes everything....
That's when I make a promise. After all, I've done this before. I can protect Mrs. Garrick while keeping my own secrets locked up safe.
Douglas Garrick has done wrong. He is going to pay. It's simply a question of how far I'm willing to go....
These books have twists I never see coming! The novels are not Great Literature, but they are great fun!...more
aPriL does feral sometimes
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