Lenny Bartulin’s De Luxe is Book 3 in his entertaining Jack Susko Mystery Series. De Luxe Synopsis For once, Jack Susko is feeling pretty good: his secondhand bookshop is on the up, and the cops haven’t been around in ages….
In Murder on a Midsummer Night the fabulous Phryne – the 1920s most elegant and irrepressible sleuth – returns for her seventeenth adventure investigating the death of a man at St Kilda while at the same time trying to find…
Flash and Bones by Kathy Reichs (Book 14, Temperance Brennan Novel) in enjoyable light listen/read for existing fans of this long-running crime series. Read my full review. Flash and Bones Synopsis Just as 200,000 fans are pouring into town for Race…
Crack Down Synopsis There was only one reason Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan was prepared to let her boyfriend help out with the investigation into a car sales fraud – nothing bad could happen. But by now Kate should know…
This was my first outing with Cara Black and her feisty protagonist Aimee Leduc. Based on the obvious success of this series, Murder in Passy being the 11th instalment, and the Parisian setting, I had high hopes.
Robert Wilson’s The Ignorance of Blood is a gritty, high octane crime thriller with a labyrinthine plot.
In Started Early, Took My Dog Kate Atkinson has plumbed literary depths uncommon in the mystery and crime-detective genre.
The Big Ask as with other titles in Shane Maloney’s Murray Whelan Series is a wonderful mix of thrilling action and caustic wit.
Murray Whelan is an underdog who seems to just get up everytime life knocks you down. He makes mistakes – big ones – but he inevitably figures out a way to deliver a bit of his own Robin Hood justice to those who mistake him for a patsy.
I simply cannot go past a cosy mystery featuring an elderly sleuth. An elderly female sleuth, all the better. Quiet Anchorage features two elderly sister sleuths that live together with a library of much-loved fictional mysteries at their disposal – what could be a better premise?
Ed Lynskey’s cosy mystery Quiet Anchorage was somewhat of a conundrum for me. Lynskey has come up with a wonderful story framework, shows moments of brilliance in setting a scene and in character development, but there were also moments of confusion. In my opinion, this novel would have benefitted immensely from some strong editing.
In The Broken Shore Peter Temple has created characters that display the darker side of humanity that is all too present in society, whether we choose to admit it or not.
There is a relentless and very personal message contained in The Broken Shore, a continual surging towards the delivery of justice in an imperfect world by imperfect people – symbolic of waves crashing into a shore. This is no pollyanna story – some readers may find the subject matter confronting (over and above the use of language I’ve already mentioned).
In Karin Fossum’s Bad Intentions the bone chilling bleakness and tension forces you to question the meaning of guilt. Read our review.
If you are after a literary masterpiece, this is not the book for you. Bestselling author Richard North Patterson is a crafter of plots rather than prose. If you are in the mood for an edge of your seat courtroom drama with gritty wartime reflections, familial deception and a little romance thrown in, In the Name of Honour ticks all these boxes!
This is the second novel by Sue Grafton that I have read. I thoroughly enjoyed B is for Burglar when I read it over a year ago and was looking forward to reading another Kinsey Millhone mystery.
Unfortunately S is for Silence didn’t live up to expectations for me. The murder mystery story itself was quite good, with a reasonably complex plot with clues gradually unveiled through flashbacks from multiple characters viewpoints. For me however, the element I most enjoyed in B is for Burglar, the personal touch of PI Kinsey Millhone, was somehow lacking this time round. Rather than being a central figure, she seemed to play a lesser role in this novel.
Kerry Greenwood’s everlasting protagonist Phryne Fisher, femme fatale private investigator is a woman who knows what she wants and how to get. She has a taste for the finer things in life, be they food, drink, apparel, cars or men.
What makes such a character all the more appealing is the setting in which we find her – St Kilda, Victoria Australia in the 1920s. She speaks her mind and uses her enviable charms to get away with doing so. She takes a somewhat liberal attitude to the achievement of justice for those causes she takes under her wing. Although Phryne is considered ‘fast’ by many, she has a strong moral code very much ahead of her time. She dotes on her two adopted daughters and is the perfect host to all those that enter her household.
I was pleasantly surprised at how many plot lines Vicki Delany has managed to weave into Negative Image, a novel of less than 300 pages. Murder, extortion, a string of burglaries, a stalker and a personal tragedy are all on the bill.
Vicki Delany’s prose is unpretentious and easy to read – her focus is telling a compelling story.
Elise Warner’s debut novel Scene Stealer is a cozy mystery with attitude.
“For a moment our eyes met; his were frightened, seeking help. Was it my imagination gone wild? No. After all those years of teaching elementary school, I knew this child was afraid.”
