Book Review: The Disappearing Act by Catherine Steadman

 

The Disappearing Act
by
Catherine Steadman

Title: The Disappearing Act by Catherine Steadman

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟(4 stars)

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Quite the page-turner. It reminded me of Lynch's Mullholland Drive and the tv show The Arrangement. Both for the "something's not quite right with this dreamy place" feels and also the feeling of falling down a seemingly bottomless pit of crazy.

Book Review: The Murder of My Aunt by Richard Hull

The Murder of My Aunt
by
Richard Hull

Title: The Murder of My Aunt by Richard Hull

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟(4 stars)

Publisher: The British Library

This was a great story! Edward and his Aunt Mildred Powell are two of the most disagreeable and quarrelsome relatives I've ever read trapped together. It almost becomes too much but there's ample opportunity to laugh along the way in this macabre tale of pettiness.

Book Review: Oracle by Julie J. Anderson

Oracle
by
Julie J. Anderson

Title: Oracle by Julie J. Anderson

Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: Claret Press

 Cassandra "Cassie" Fortune is only a few weeks removed from her traumatic experiences that took place in Plague. She's dispatched by the Prime Minister to a conference in Delphi to give a presentation on tax policy but most importantly to secure a connection with a high-level official on the PM's behalf. That would be stressful enough but Cassie has some additional challenges, her stalker may be closing in and there's the murder she's roped into investigating as well.

Book Review: Shiver by Allie Reynolds

 

Title: Shiver by Allie Reynolds

Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: G.P. Putnam & Sons

This was the perfect read for a snowy weekend (especially when the Superbowl is... not as good or competitive a game as you had anticipated). This totally saved my Sunday night with a taut conclusion.

Book Review: Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay

Death on the Cherwell
by
Mavis Doriel Hay

 Title: Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay

 Rating: 3 stars (🌟🌟🌟)

 Publisher: British Library Crime Classics

The body of Miss Denning, the bursar of Persephone College has been found dead in her canoe floating down a river and this sets off an inquiry into how that happened. She has a head injury and her clothes are wet, though the interior of the canoe is dry. It's sussed quickly that there's friction between her and the students of the college and also two nearby landowners as she was tasked with the acquisition of a tract of land to expand the college. The question of course is if that was what really led to her death.

Book Review: Eight Perfect Murders (Malcolm Kershaw #1) by Peter Swanson

 

Eight Perfect Murders
by
Peter Swanson

Title: Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: William Morrow

This is a love letter to lovers of Classic Crime & mystery fiends so right up my lane.

Book Review: The Case of the Famished Parson by George Bellairs

 

The Case of the Famished Parson
by
George Bellairs

Title: The Case of the Famished Parson by George Bellairs

Rating: 3 stars (🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: Ipso Books

I read this several days ago and held off writing a review because I couldn't think of what I wanted to say. While that can be a good thing when I finish a book, it wasn't in this case. This was left me decidedly neutral.

Book Review: The Pact by Dawn Goodwin

 

The Pact
by
Dawn Goodwin

Title: The Pact by Dawn Goodwin

Rating: 4 stars

Publisher: Aria

The cover of this caught my eye on Netgalley and after reading the blurb, I had to request it. It definitely sounds like Strangers On a Train (without the train). Two women with man troubles and one muses after too many glasses of wine that killing hers would improve her life. Unfortunately, the other is a lunatic and takes this as a "Game on!" moment and that can't end well.

Book Review: Death of a Busybody by George Bellairs

 

Title: Death of a Busybody by George Bellairs

Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: British Library Classics

This was a great village mystery and I'm so glad for the British Library Crime Classics including it in their reissues because I can't imagine I'd have come across it any other way!

Book Review: Magpie Murders (Susan Ryeland #1) by Anthony Horowitz

 

Magpie Murders
by
Anthony Horowitz

Title: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Rating: 3 stars (🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: Harper

Well, I don't really know what to say. I liked parts of this but I have to admit to being overall non-plussed. I gave it three stars but mostly because I can't bring myself to give in two.

Book Review: Crossed Skis: An Alpine Mystery by Carol Carnac

 

Crossed Skis: An Alpine Mystery
by
Carol Carnac

Title: Crossed Skis: An Alpine Mystery by Carol Carnac

Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: British Library Publishing

I loved this! The setting was fantastic (piles of snowy awesome, mountains, chalets and skiing!) & the mystery is more a London police procedural with a concurrent thread running with an Alps vacationing party of 16 in which the sought after killer is embedded under an assumed identity.

Book Review: The Chalet by Catherine Cooper

 

Title: The Chalet by Catherine Cooper

Ratings: 4 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: HarperCollins

Oh, this was a fun, wintry read to end 2020. The perfect atmosphere of an Alpine chalet and a murderer out for revenge.

Book Review: In The Dark by Loreth Anne White

 

Title: In The Dark by Loreth Anne White

Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: Montlake Romance

It's not so often that I choose a book from the First Reads option on Kindle. Months can pass and nothing with pique my interest but In The Dark did and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Book Review: The Perfect Guests by Emma Rous

 

Title: The Perfect Guests by Emma Rous
Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)
Publisher: Berkley Books

I picked this up and it wouldn't let me put it down very long so I wound up finishing this in about a day. I very much enjoyed this and I want to talk about ALL THE THINGS but that wouldn't be cool because spoilers.

Book Review: The Dinner Party by R.J. Parker

The Dinner Party by R.J. Parker
My rating: 3 stars 🌟🌟🌟

What a fantastic opening. Ted's on the kitchen floor, writhing and bloody with a barbeque fork in his back. He's wondering if he's going to survive and he's still trying to fight.

Book Review: Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup

Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup
My rating: 🌟🌟 (2 stars)
Publisher: Doubleday

You know you're in trouble when the murder mystery couldn't save it.

The summary drew me in but sadly this did not ultimately deliver. There's a murder and six suspects who had motive and opportunity so the fun is in the teasing out the threads and following the leads to figure out whodunnit. I feel that the story lost its way at the suspects pov level and everything that sprang from that was tainted. To be fair, I did enjoy a few of the suspects' narration but cannot forgive the thoroughly unbelievable mess that was the sole American. Even if everything else had been perfect, he was so glaringly off, his existence would have thrown me out of the story and cost this a couple of stars. As it happens, he wasn't the only problem and by the time I'd arrived at the end (which was both preachy and a let down), I didn't feel like I'd read the book I was told this was. At least it was over.

I love books that can take me to a place and through a wide cast of characters either closely or tenuously connected to one another and provide an immersive, cohesive and satisfying story. I'm going to recommend Tash Aw's Five Star Billionaire here, in case that's your thing. Read that. Skip this.

Summary: There's a caste system even in murder.Seven years ago, Vivek 'Vicky' Rai, the playboy son of the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh, murdered Ruby Gill at a trendy restaurant in New Delhi simply because she refused to serve him a drink. Now Vicky Rai is dead, killed at his farmhouse at a party he had thrown to celebrate his acquittal. The police search each and every guest. Six of them are discovered with guns in their possession.
In this elaborate murder mystery we join Arun Advani, India's best-known investigative journalist, as the lives of these six suspects unravel before our eyes: a corrupt bureaucrat; an American tourist; a stone-age tribesman; a Bollywood sex symbol; a mobile phone thief; and an ambitious politician. Each is equally likely to have pulled the trigger. Inspired by actual events, Vikas Swarup's eagerly awaited second novel is both a riveting page turner and an insightful peek into the heart and soul of contemporary India.

Book Review: Girl in the Rearview Mirror by Kelsey Rae Dimberg

Girl in the Rearview Mirror by Kelsey Rae Dimberg
My rating: 3 stars (🌟🌟🌟)
Publisher: William Morrow

I had high hopes for this one but alas it wasn't a stunner. This also had the hook of a political family, so I was really excited. I've been having bad luck with the thriller end of mysteries of late. My expectations are high and there are so many that I'm running into more middling than magnificent. Here, the biggest problem was the main character, Finn. She was the sort of character that often did things that made no sense and it became quite clear early on that the story needed her to do that for there to be a story. Without her withholding info and making incomprehensible decisions for "reasons" this would have been a novella. Still, I persisted reading because I kept thinking it'd turn around.

Book Review: The Hollow (Hercule Poirot #26) by Agatha Christie

The Hollow by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)
Publisher: Harper

I love mysteries. I read them and watch them and one of my favourite things about them is when you're introduced to the characters and one is so awful or has riled up so many people that you just know, there's your murder victim. Dr. John Christow, upon introduction, came screaming off the pages that he was that guy and it was all I could do not to skip forward to his demise (very end of chapter 10) to see how it was going to be done and who among the characters would be the one to send him on his way (preferably to cheers & accolades).

Book Review: One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski

One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski
My rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)
Publisher: Graydon House Books (October 2019)

What I thought was going to be a mystery ensconced in a beach community turned into much more and I quite liked it. I'm going to keep this spoiler-free but will say that the dual timeline served the story well.

Book Review: The Birthday Girl by Melissa de la Cruz

The Birthday Girl by Melissa de la Cruz
My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (4 stars)
Publisher: Dutton

Told on a birthday, in dual timelines (one present day the other 24 years ago), this story focuses on Ellie, self-made entrepreneur, wife, mother and now 40 year old. She's having a few crises surfacing, from her daughter Sam reappearing back home from Stanford under mysterious circumstances, a business that needs a deal to go through to avert bankruptcy, two men from her long ago and best-forgotten past, dropping into her birthday party and worries that her husband is being unfaithful.