West Heart Kill breaks the fourth wall by talking directly to the reader. About what you may ask. About how mystery authors have conventions that readers have come to expect. It is implied that the author speaking to us is about to defy these conventions (as Agatha Christie famously didContinue Reading
It’s always a great day when I get to drop in on the antics in Harvest, Ohio. Millie is an Amish matchmaker and widow. Lois is her non-Amish purple haired multi-divorcee longtime best friend. In Dating Can Be Deadly, Millie puts aside her matchmaking to enter her latest quilt inContinue Reading
The Robin Hood stories are reimagined as medieval history in the graphic novel, Tales from Nottingham Vol. 1. The artwork is detailed and colorful. It has the mood of the old Classics Illustrated comics or the pictures in an old history book. The plot takes real, but long dead, royaltyContinue Reading
Something strange is happening to Tamsin. First, her team at Myrica Dynamic discovers that their city is sinking. Could it be caused by the team’s mysterious secret underground project? More concerning is that Tamsin’s basement is sinking even faster than the surrounding area. Then a door appears, and an exactContinue Reading
Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow! I know the holidays are quickly approaching when the latest humorous cozy mystery featuring Meg Landslow comes out. There is nothing better to get you in a holiday mood! Meg’s friend and patron, Ragnar, has opened up his massive estateContinue Reading
On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down. In fact, on every day in history something happened, though a lot of it was pretty boring. Once you look up everyone’s birthday, I don’t see the value of this book. The entries don’t link together into some overarching story. You canContinue Reading
Murder on the Christmas Express has all the tropes that I enjoy in a locked room (train in this case) mystery. A holiday, a birth, an abusive marriage, snow, etc. are all here. So why was it such a struggle to read? Too many characters and almost all were moreContinue Reading
It ‘Twas the Bite Before Christmas when all through the house, people were reading this book, even my spouse. It was this great legal thriller about mobsters, you see. My husband loves gang stories, and its court scenes for me. It’s the twenty-eighth book in the Andy Carpenter series andContinue Reading
A former television star has an evening go quickly from bad to worse in the new graphic novel, Parasocial. Luke Indiana is at a comics convention signing autographs and posing for fan selfies. His evening soon descends into a cat-and-mouse thriller between himself and his “number 1 fan”. I wasn’tContinue Reading
Mrs. Pargeter is back after a six-year absence! Of course, she has found a body under her back patio. She uses her shady, but beloved, dead husband’s contacts to dig up information about who was murdered and why. Oh, did I mention that Mrs. Pargeter’s Patio is a humorous cozyContinue Reading
Surely You Can’t Be Serious? An entire book about the (arguably) funniest movie ever, Airplane? By its creators? Sign me up (and feel free to call me Shirley)! There hasn’t been a book about the making of Airplane before and now there is. Yay! Admittedly, it is better to watchContinue Reading
I have been playing adventure games since the very first, appropriately entitled Adventure, game appeared in the 1970s. The History of the Adventure Video Game describes every adventure game from that first game to current narrative games like What Remains of Edith Finch and the Strange Colors series. I loveContinue Reading
Two sisters, each with their own problems, come together to accept a large inheritance from an unknown aunt. However, they get much more than wealth. The Bone sisters’ mother ran away from her wealthy family at a young age to the hard-scrabble life that was all the family memories thatContinue Reading
Private detective Agatha Raisin once again crosses swords (or in this case, arrows) with Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes in the 34th entry is this enchanting cozy mystery series. In Dead on Target, Agatha finds a body near a village fete. It’s the house-rich, cash-poor and maid grabbing landowner, Sir Godfrey.Continue Reading
In Glitch, Vol. 1, a Japanese exchange student sees dark shadows on his first day in a new high school. On the way home after picking up his younger sister, they both see the same shadows. There are relieved that if they are both seeing it, it must really beContinue Reading
The Golden Gate is a historical hard-boiled police procedural novel that includes family drama and addresses a lot of buzzy topics like politics, racism, passing, and how the rich are treated differently. The story is set in 1944 in a fashionable hotel where a politician is murdered but has flashbacksContinue Reading