Lady-of-a-certain-age Judith and her best friends Becks and Suzie are back on the case in Murder on the Marlow Belle. A local blowhard who runs the town’s drama society and playhouse is killed on a boat where everyone is a suspect. Was it his protégé who is now an eliteContinue Reading
Bad Things Happened in This Room is a weird fevered dream of a book. It is, perhaps, the best first person depiction of mental illness that I have ever read. That, of course, takes it down a rather unnerving and depressing path. Is our heroine just a victim of herContinue Reading
A mysterious host lures seven guests to a posh dinner party in Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests. While there, they each receive an envelope that includes a card with their age at time of their death. Most think it is a not-very-clever PR stunt. Until the bodies startContinue Reading
I have one word for the newly translated Icelandic thriller, The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer. Frustrating. This book has a mystery of a missing crime writer but so much more. It has a detective with a violent ex-girlfriend in 2012, a bank robbery being planned in 1965,Continue Reading
In For Duck’s Sake, Meg has had enough of planning huge events. When her town decides to have a parade and fair to support an animal adoption event, she successfully pawns off the leadership of it to her uber organized mother. That leaves Meg plenty of time to help theContinue Reading
Twin girls adopted at birth by two families. One is middle class. One is upper class. The rich one is accused of murdering her family’s biological daughter. The other tries to get her freed from The Locked Ward, a psychiatric hospital where she is being held on a murder charge.Continue Reading
The World Inside is a ghost story written with teens in mind. However, since the prose is at a third grade level, per the publisher, even younger children might enjoy it too. Fifteen-year-old Tamika’s mother won’t let her join her friends in Paris for a summer vacation. Instead, she isContinue Reading
Reading Tea with Jam & Dread, the sixth entry in the Tea by the Sea cozy mystery series, is like slipping on a warm robe on a chilly winter day. It’s comforting and lets you forget all the troubling “fake” news of late. In the book, Cape Cod tearoom proprietorContinue Reading
Rage is the latest novel in the Kate Burkholder police procedural series. In a small Ohio town, a young Amish man recently back from his rumspringa is found dead in the woods cut into eleven pieces. Police Chief Kate is on the case. She suspects a non-local is the killerContinue Reading
My Review A Body in Boston is the latest cozy mystery series based on the popular television series featuring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher. The characters here speak and act just like their television counterparts. Even down to Doctor Seth’s Maine Ayuhs. Other familiar people appear too like noir detectiveContinue Reading
In the previous thirty entries in this mystery series, Andy Carpenter is a rich defense attorney, who really, really, really, wants to retire but just keeps getting sucked into one more case. To be honest, it was getting a bit repetitive, though Andy’s snarky humor always makes me come backContinue Reading
I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was younger. I’ve always loved murder mysteries. And I’m a narrative gamer. So it is no surprise that I adored Can You Solve the Murder?, a happy combination of all three for adults. You are the Detective Chief Inspector leading anContinue Reading
A Novel Murder is an interesting mashup of a cozy amateur detective mystery and an insider’s look into the publishing industry. Jane is an ambitious author at a murder mystery convention. When a literary agent is killed at the event, Jane jumps at the chance to solve the crime whileContinue Reading
Don’t Open Your Eyes is the latest book by the authors of the smash hit, The Late Mrs. Parrish. Annabelle seems to have the perfect life with her loving, if somewhat controlling, husband and two wonderful daughters. However, each night Annabelle has terrifying nightmares. When her visions start coming true,Continue Reading
Knave of Diamonds is another entry in the long running Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mystery series. It has a more character-driven focus than other recent entries in the backlist. Mary’s ne’er do well Uncle Jake arrives in her life after being absent for decades. He needs a favor thatContinue Reading
The s-l-o-w pacing of The Black Swan Mystery was common when it was written especially because it was serialized first. The detective and his assistant don’t even appear until the halfway point of the book. But the tempo and all the hard-to-remember character & location names made this book aContinue Reading