Category: Mystery Fiction
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Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner
Well, hello there! It has been much too long since I’ve posted here. I didn’t mean to go so long without writing anything but, you know,…life. Not that I’ve had a lot of stress or craziness – it just seems that when I’m in the day to day stream of living blogging seems to come…
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
After reading so many contemporary novels over the past few months, last week I wanted to read something old fashioned, comforting and familiar – so I turned to Agatha Christie. It seems odd to say that a book about a murder is comforting, but there is something about Christie that is so routine and recognizable…
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The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson
I read about this Scotland-based mystery in a recent issue of Library Journal who gave it a starred review. I always look out for books that are well-reviewed yet don’t have the ‘buzz’ that a lot of other books have – the ones that not everyone is talking about. This one is definitely in that…
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Disclaimer by Renée Knight
One of my very favorite genres is the ‘suburban suspense’ or ‘domestic suspense’ novel. Books like The Girl on the Train, Gone Girl, etc. They can be extremely well done with vivid writing, well drawn characters and clever, tight plotting. Or they can be predictable, messy and dull. Thankfully, Disclaimer is in the former category.…
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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
So the first book I finished in 2015 is the gripping, twisty, clever, nail-biting mystery that is being advertised as ‘the next Gone Girl‘. Whether it will have that kind of success or not (the film rights have already been bought) I don’t know or care, I just enjoyed the experience of reading this very…
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Book Group: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Last month my book group discussed The Daughter of Time, a 1951 mystery novel with a twist. Inspector Grant is in the hospital with a back injury, bored out of his mind, when a friend brings him an intriguing case: Did Richard III really murder his young nephews, the famous “Princes in the Tower”? Using…
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Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
This is the first book I read in what I consider ‘summer mode’. Do you find your reading tastes/expectations change when summer comes around? I do. I want to read mysteries, YA, contemporary more than classics and the ‘buzz’ books of the season. I think it’s all so fun. Elizabeth is Missing is definitely a…
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Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
In the winter of 2008 I served on my very first jury. The case was at the Superior Court of Maricopa County in Phoenix and the defendant was a twenty-five -year old man who was accused of auto theft. He had stolen a truck from an apartment complex and when he was pulled over by…
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The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton by E. Speller
I’ve always had a strange fascination with people who’ve disappeared and have never been seen again. The tv show Disappeared is one I never miss because I just don’t understand how someone can vanish into thin air. The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton deals with just such a case. Set in the 1920’s the book…
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The Solitary House by Lynn Shepherd
The Solitary House (called Tom-All-Alone’s in the UK) is a dark Victorian mystery that uses characters and plot points from two grand Victorian mysteries – The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and Bleak House by Charles Dickens – to create its own riveting tale. Charles Maddox is a young private investigator, an outspoken man…
A Certain Fondness 