The Thursday Murder Club
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (Book 1) This novel kept appearing on various “recommended for you” lists, but I initially resisted buying it as it sounded rather insipid, […]
The Strangler Vine
The Strangler Vine and The Infidel Stain by M.J. Carter In the tradition of Holmes and Watson, Jeremiah Blake, a cynical ex-employee of the British East India Company and William […]
The Forgotten
The Forgotten by David Baldacci The new Baldacci is a to-be-expected page turner. Aunt Betsy has a hunch that there is something fishy in her hometown of Paradise, FL. She […]
I am Half-Sick of Shadows
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley I adored the first novel in the Flavia de Luce series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Subsequent novels in […]
Close to Death
Close to Death, a Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery by Anthony Horowitz BOOK 5 Anthony Horowitz novels are more sophisticated than silly, but are excellent, engrossing summer reads. In the Hawthorne […]
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto Sixty-year-old Vera Wong springs out of bed at 4:30 a.m. each morning. “Late mornings, Vera believes, are only for toddlers […]
The Examiner
The Examiner by Janice Hallett I loved The Examiner, a fiendishly clever epistolary novel. I read the book in a weekend, and was repeatedly flummoxed by the plot’s twists and […]
One Death at a Time
One Death at a Time by Abbi Waxman Romance writer Abbi Waxman (The Bookish Life of Nina Hill) has written a mystery. Twentysomething Natasha Mason and iconic, retired actress Julia […]
Murder Takes a Vacation
Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman As we swelter in Nashville, a river cruise in France sounds delicious! Unless you are the traveler who discovers the body! Mrs. Blossom, […]
American in Paris Mysteries
American In Paris Mysteries, Colleen Cambridge There is a sub-genre of mystery novels that feature real-life historical figures as crime solvers. Some of these efforts seem a bit of a […]
The Country Club Murders
The Country Club Murder Mysteries by Julie Mulhern In the first of these novels, set in Kansas City 1975, artist, and unhappy wife Ellison Russell stumbles over a body during […]
How to Choose a Murder Mystery
How to Choose a Murder Mystery Those of us who regularly read crime novels know that despite their down-market reputation, writing an engaging page-turner (I bow to you Michael Connelly) […]
The Silkworm
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith a/k/a J.K. Rowling BOOK 2 Yeah! Private investigator Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott are back—as I knew they would be. Galbraith’s first novel […]
Vengeance
Vengeance by Benjamin Black (Book 5) Another atmospheric, literary mystery from Benjamin Black, a/k/a John Banville, the Man Booker Prize-winning Irish novelist. Dour pathologist Quirke and his colleague Detective Inspector […]
A Death in the Small Hours
A Death in the Small Hours by Charles Finch (Book 6) In Finch’s latest novel featuring Victorian gentleman sleuth and Member of Parliament Charles Lenox, Lenox retreats to rural Somerset […]