My Review It’s 1939 in England. You are a journalist, an amateur detective, and a part-time spy for the British government. You are chosen to join the Quaker Kindertransports of mostly Jewish children from Germany to England. Your goals? Find out who murdered the person you are replacing. Discover whoContinue Reading
“I do not climb into cars with a group of strangers or jaunt off into a snowstorm. This isn’t something I’d normally do, but to get home to Mom? I’ll do whatever it takes.” These are Mira’s last thoughts before she indeed becomes one of Five Total Strangers stuck inContinue Reading
In Come to Light, Emit’s wife, Julia, and two of her friends went missing six years ago while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. When the skull of one of the friends is found after a storm on the PCT, Emit suspects his wife’s stalker ex-boyfriend, Guillaume. Unfortunately, Julia’s sister, Sara,Continue Reading
A Mexican drug cartel accidentally sees their former employee, an infamous killer named Ramirez, in an Arizona vacuum store. Could an assassin be in hiding as a mild-mannered vacuum repairman? The cartel is convinced and their assassins come Gunning for Ramirez! The art was my favorite part of this novel.Continue Reading
There is a gossip website called Dirty Laundry that focuses on Portland High School in Maine. While Sandra was giving a speech to the school’s PTA in her new role as PTA President, a story explodes from Dirty Laundry into the room. Sandra’s Senator husband is rumored to be usingContinue Reading
Teenage Lucy is still struggling with PTSD from her childhood experiences in Peru when she witnesses a demonic attack in her high school classroom. A fellow student blinds another. And then he kills the teacher who tries to break up the fight. Mysterious men then kill the attacker. But thatContinue Reading
John Banville is much more famous for literary fiction than mysteries. It shows in Snow. The plot reads like a too-easy-to-solve Agatha Christie. A priest is murdered in a down-at-its-heels country manor house during a snowstorm with no signs of forced entry. However, the setting in 1950s Ireland with theContinue Reading
My Review In Cake Popped Off!, Emory has a cupcake catering company that specializes in cupcakes flavored like cocktails. She is also a companion to octogenarian Tillie. When Tillie has a costumed Halloween party, Emory provides Fireball cupcakes and “poisoned apple” cake pops. Emory’s twin sister Carrie provides the cateredContinue Reading
Accidental CIA agent Charles Jenkins is back in Russia in The Last Agent, the second book in his spy thriller series. Charles is exonerated from charges of espionage in a US federal court. In the last book, his former company, CJ Security, had unknowingly worked for a CIA shell company.Continue Reading
Seniors Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron are The Thursday Murder Club. They meet weekly in their senior center and try to solve cold cases from former member and police inspector Penny’s files. Penny, unfortunately, is living in a nursing home with dementia so can no longer assist. When local builder,Continue Reading
Michael finds a nude, lifeless girl in his bathtub. He calls the police. They arrest him for the crime. He denies ever seeing the girl before. The police show Michael pictures found in her apartment of him with the dead girl. They show him his personal items in the girl’sContinue Reading
Down these mean streets a ghost must go… Hotel Destiny is a ghost trap. Die there and you won’t go anywhere except down different timelines while always stuck within the hotel’s walls. Cole is the latest ghost to check in. However, the hotel is jam-packed with other ghosts too. WereContinue Reading
Nic is the only member of her family that still believes her mother did not just walk away from them. She doesn’t believe the note left behind in her mother’s hotel room that says “Don’t Look for Me”. Molly, Nic’s mother, has many reasons to run. Five years ago, sheContinue Reading
Maggie Crozat and her family have turned the family’s Louisiana plantation into a Bed & Breakfast. To drum up business, they make October a theme month with the neighboring B & Bs. It focuses on the town’s spooky past. But with several rougarou, a Cajun vampire/werewolf, sightings, and an argumentContinue Reading
It’s a tech company’s team building meeting in an isolated ski resort in the remote French Alps. Ten Britons go in. One by One they are picked off. Remind you of another famous, but not racial sensitive, tale? It is hard to beat Dame Agatha at, literally, her own game.Continue Reading
It Will Just Be Us is a new Southern gothic suspense tale set in the Shirley Jackson universe of ghosts and madness. Living in their family’s historic but dilapidated mansion, Samantha and her mother see the ghosts of their own pasts every day. But when Samantha’s sister Elizabeth arrives veryContinue Reading