Tag: mystery

Book Review: I Would Die for You, by Sandie Jones

Website:

Title: I Would Die for You (audio)
Author: Sandie Jones
Genre: Mystery/thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5

Now: Nicole Forbes lives a quiet life in a small seaside Californian town with her husband and daughter. She is not expecting a writer to knock on her door asking for her personal insight into the downfall of the biggest British band of the 1980s—unveiling the threads of a life she put behind her years ago. The same day, her daughter goes missing and the school claims her aunt picked her up . . . but she doesn’t have an aunt. Convinced of a link between the two, Nicole is forced to revisit long-abandoned memories from her past to protect everything she now holds dear.

1986: Sixteen-year-old Cassie is obsessed with the hottest band in London, Secret Oktober. Harboring an intense crush on the leading man, Ben Edwards, she will do anything she can to capture his attention among the throngs of groupies at the band’s scandalous backstage parties. But when Ben discovers her older sister Nicole singing at a local bar one night, he can’t help but feel drawn to her, setting in motion a collision course that could tear their family apart.

I listened to the audio version for this, and I enjoyed it. The narrator did a good job and kept me engaged. I liked 1980s Nicole more than I liked sort-of-present-day Nicole, and the way her entire life/marriage fell apart in slow motion was hard to watch. I felt horrible for past Nicole, but the misunderstandings back then were next level.

I did not care for Cassie at all. She was delusional, self-absorbed and selfish, manipulative, a pathological liar….AND psychotic. Her behavior was completely off the rails, and she never showed an iota of remorse. She made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, honestly.

Sandie Jones is a bestselling author. I Would Die for You is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Queens of Crime, by Marie Benedict

Title: The Queens of Crime
Author:   Marie Benedict
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: 4.0 out of 5

London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.

May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.

This started off pretty slowly, and I almost gave up and DNFed it. It ended up being a decent read, although it’s not fast-paced at all. I enjoyed seeing the author’s version of these famous authors on the page, but the POV felt distant to me, dragging the pace down.

Marie Benedict is a bestselling author. The Queens of Crime is her newest novel.

Book Review: See How They Hide, by Allison Brennan

Title: See How They Hide
Author: Allison Brennan
Genre: Mystery/thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5

No matter how far you run, some pasts never let you go…

Two people were murdered—at the exact same time, in the same gruesome manner, bodies covered in the same red poppies…but on opposite sides of the country.

With Detective Kara Quinn investigating in Oregon and Special Agent Matt Costa in Virginia, the Mobile Response Team digs deep to uncover more about each victim. What is the link between the two, and why were they targeted?

Yet their search unearths more questions than answers—until they meet Riley Pierce, the only person still alive who might be able to help them find the killers.

Soon, it becomes clear this case is nothing like they’ve seen before as their investigation leads them to the hallowed grounds of Havenwood—an eerily beautiful place rooted in a terrifying past.

As more bodies turn up, all tied to the same community, Kara and Matt are desperate to piece the puzzle together before Havenwood’s leader sacrifices everything to keep her secrets buried.

I’ve enjoyed all the Quinn & Costa books, and I liked this one, too. Books about cults always creep me out a bit, and this one was no exception. I liked seeing how the team made connections and linked thinks I would never have thought of, but the glimpses of live within Havenwood was creepy and unsettling at best. I thought the ending was a bit abrupt—the part after the resolution with Havenwood—but the rest was a solid read.

Allison Brennan is a bestselling author. See How They Hide is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Booked for Murder, by P. J. Nelson

Title: Booked for Murder
Author: P. J. Nelson
Genre: Mystery
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Madeline Brimley left small town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she’s left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore, and restart her life, Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the back yard is set ablaze and a late night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn’t leave immediately.

But Madeline Brimley, not one to be intimidated, ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there’s another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it’s up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim.

I need the main character of cozy mysteries to be believable and not go running off after every crazy, fleeting thought they have. This one did not deliver. Madeline changed her mind about every 35 seconds. About everything. The insta-friendship between her, her “aunt”, and the reverend did not feel realistic, and the rest of the characters felt like barely-sketched caricatures.

P. J. Nelson lives in Decatur, Georgia. Booked for Murder is his newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Gardener’s Plot, by Deborah J. Benoit

Title: The Gardener’s Plot
Author: Deborah J. Benoit
Genre: Mystery
Rating: 3.8 out of 5

After life threw Maggie Walker a few curveballs, she’s happy to be back in the small, Berkshires town where she spent so much time as a child. Marlowe holds many memories for her, and now it also offers a fresh start. Maggie has always loved gardening, so it’s only natural to sign on to help Violet Bloom set up a community garden.

When opening day arrives, Violet is nowhere to be found, and the gardeners are restless. Things go from bad to worse when Maggie finds a boot buried in one of the plots… and there’s a body attached to it. Suddenly, the police are looking for a killer and they keep asking questions about Violet. Maggie doesn’t believe her friend could do this, and she’s going to dig up the dirt needed to prove it.

This wasn’t a bad read, although Maggie veered over the line to nosiness as opposed to investigating at times. To me, it wasn’t believable that apparently so many people in this town had land lines instead of cell phones, and that no one ever carried their cell phones with them. Not realistic. The small town feel was well-done, and I enjoyed the gardening aspect, but I probably wouldn’t read any more books, if this were a series.

Deborah J. Benoit is from Massachusetts. The Gardener’s Plot is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Website: https://penpaperplant.com/author/djbwriter/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CQHLJP9T/ref=x_gr_bb_kindle?caller=Goodreads&tag=x_gr_bb_kindle-20 Title: The Gardener’s Plot Author: Deborah
J. Benoit Genre: Mystery Rating: 3.8 out of 5 After life threw Maggie
Walker a few curveballs, she’s happy to be back in the small, Berkshires town
where she spent so much time as a child. Marlowe holds many memories for her,
and now it also offers a fresh start. Maggie has always loved gardening, so
it’s only natural to sign on to help Violet Bloom set up a community garden. When opening day
arrives, Violet is nowhere to be found, and the gardeners are restless. Things
go from bad to worse when Maggie finds a boot buried in one of the plots… and
there’s a body attached to it. Suddenly, the police are looking for a killer
and they keep asking questions about Violet. Maggie doesn’t believe her friend
could do this, and she’s going to dig up the dirt needed to prove it. This wasn’t a bad read,
although Maggie veered over the line to nosiness as opposed to investigating at
times. To me, it wasn’t believable that apparently so many people in this town
had land lines instead of cell phones, and that no one ever carried their cell
phones with them. Not realistic. The small town feel was well-done, and I enjoyed
the gardening aspect, but I probably wouldn’t read any more books, if this were
a series. Deborah J. Benoit is
from Massachusetts. The Gardener’s Plot is her debut novel. (Galley courtesy of St.
Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.) Book Review: The Gardener’s Plot, by Deborah J. Benoit

Book Review: The Debutantes, by Olivia Worley

Title: The Debutantes
Author: Olivia Worley
Genre: Mystery/thriller, YA
Rating: 4 out of 5

For the New Orleans elite, the Les Masques Ball is sure to be the social event of the season—if they can avoid another dead Queen. When debutante Margot Landry was found dead the morning after her reign at last year’s ball, it was a tragedy, but not a shocking one. Margot was a wild child with a self-destructive streak, nothing like this year’s Queen, Lily LeBlanc. With a perfectly poised debutante on the throne, everything is going according to plan…until the ball is hijacked by a mysterious figure in a Jester costume. That night, Lily sends a text to three of the Maids on her royal court—her best friend, Vivian; her boyfriend’s sister, Piper; and April, her former frenemy—asking them all to meet the next morning. But Lily never shows up.

On the surface, these three debutantes don’t have anything in common except their exclusive private school and their ties to Les Masques. But soon, they realize why Lily brought them together: something dark is lurking beneath the glamorous surface of the debutante world, and it might be the reason she disappeared. And the further the girls dig, the more they begin to suspect that Margot’s death may not have been an accident—and that Lily may be next. When the Jester starts threatening to expose their own secrets, this unlikely trio must team up to uncover the monsters behind the Mardi Gras masks—before they’re left with another dead debutante.

Not going to lie, this creeped me out on several levels. I used to live outside of New Orleans, so this, while fictional, did not seem completely outside the realm of possibility to me. The writing is solid in this and the setting was vividly done and did justice to New Orleans itself. Debutante culture was both creepy and infuriating, but I thought the mystery and the twists and turns were well-done, keeping me guessing until the end.

Olivia Worley was born in New Orleans but now lives in NYC. The Debutantes is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Sleep in Heavenly Pizza, by Mindy Quigley

Title:    Sleep in Heavenly Pizza
Author: Mindy Quigley
Genre: Mystery
Rating: 3.8 out of 5

Pizza chef Delilah O’Leary and her kitty companion, Butterball, get into the holiday spirit as Geneva Bay, Wisconsin hosts the nation’s premier snow sculpting championship. The annual event transforms the charming resort town into a wonderland of snow castles, ice rinks, and cozy cups of cocoa. On the eve of the festival though, a too-good-to-be-true Chrismukkah catering gig brings some frosty tidings and heralds an unexpected visit from Delilah’s high-intensity older sister. Suddenly it seems that the holidays may not be the hap-happiest season of all. And when a missing party guest’s frozen corpse turns up inside one of the town’s snowy sculptures, murder threatens to put the celebrations—and Delilah’s crew—on ice for good.

This was a quick cozy mystery read, but I have to admit, Delilah is just too darned nosy for me. I mean, everybody else’s personal life just isn’t your business, so stay out of it. People like that get on my nerves, so it was really hard for me to forget I was annoyed and just enjoy the story. There were a lot of side plots going on here and I figured out who the killer was about halfway through, but it was a decent enough read.

Mindy Quigley lives in Virginia. Sleep in Heavenly Pizza is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Website: http://mindyquigley.com/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250326281?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tmmp_3&storeType=ebooks Title: Sleep in Heavenly PizzaAuthor: Mindy Quigley Genre: Mystery Rating: 3.8 out of 5 Pizza chef Delilah
O’Leary and her kitty companion, Butterball, get into the holiday spirit as
Geneva Bay, Wisconsin hosts the nation’s premier snow sculpting championship.
The annual event transforms the charming resort town into a wonderland of snow
castles, ice rinks, and cozy cups of cocoa. On the eve of the festival though,
a too-good-to-be-true Chrismukkah catering gig brings some frosty tidings and
heralds an unexpected visit from Delilah’s high-intensity older sister.
Suddenly it seems that the holidays may not be the hap-happiest season of all.
And when a missing party guest’s frozen corpse turns up inside one of the
town’s snowy sculptures, murder threatens to put the celebrations—and Delilah’s
crew—on ice for good. This was a quick cozy
mystery read, but I have to admit, Delilah is just too darned nosy for me. I
mean, everybody else’s personal life just isn’t your business, so stay out of
it. People like that get on my nerves, so it was really hard for me to forget I
was annoyed and just enjoy the story. There were a lot of side plots going on
here and I figured out who the killer was about halfway through, but it was a decent
enough read. Mindy Quigley lives in
Virginia. Sleep in Heavenly Pizza is her newest novel. (Galley courtesy of St.
Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.) Book Review: Sleep in
Heavenly Pizza, by Mindy Quigley

Book Review: Fondue or Die, by Korina Moss

Title: Fondue or Die
Author: Korina Moss
Genre: Cozy mystery
Rating: 4 out of 5

The lazy, hazy, dairy days of summer are coming to a close in the Sonoma Valley. . . and so is someone’s life.

The small town of Yarrow Glen’s neighbor, Lockwood, hosts an annual Labor Day weekend bash: Dairy Days. And Willa Bauer and her cheese shop, Curds & Whey, refuse to miss out on the fun. Willa is thrilled to celebrate her favorite thing—she is a cheesemonger after all—and this festival goes all out: butter sculptures, goat races, cheese wheel relays, even a Miss Dairy pageant. Too bad the pageant runner, Nadine, is treating Dairy Days prep like it’s fondue or die and is putting everyone around her on edge. When Willa finds Nadine’s dead body under years’ worth of ceramic milk jugs, the police aren’t sure whether the death was an accident. But fingers are pointing at Willa’s employee, Mrs. Schultz, who steps in to help the pageant after Nadine’s death. Someone wanted Nadine out of the whey, and Willa is going to find out who.

This was a cute cozy mystery story—and all the cheese references made me hungry! The setting here, a cheese shop in a small town, and the people associated with the shop, make this quirky and fun. Nosy people get on my nerves, so in any other situation, Team Cheese would be super annoying to me, but they manage to pull it off and keep me entertained as they try to solve another murder mystery.

Korina Moss is an award-winning author. Fondue or Die is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Fire and Bones, by Kathy Reichs

Title: Fire and Bones
Author: Kathy Reichs
Genre: Thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5

It’s never easy working fire scenes.

Called to Washington, DC to analyse the victims of a mysterious arson attack, Tempe quickly finds her misgivings justified. The fire site is in Foggy Bottom, a neighbourhood with a colourful history, and as the pieces start falling into place, the property’s ownership becomes more and more suspicious.

Sensing a good story, Tempe teams up with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle. Delving into the past, the duo learns that back in the Thirties and Forties the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang. Though interesting, this fact seems irrelevant – until the son of one of the gang members is shot dead at his farm in Virginia.

When another Foggy Bottom Gang-linked property burns to the ground, claiming one more victim, what might have been coincidence starts to look more like targeted attacks. As she and Ivy dig deeper, Tempe’s instincts point towards the somehow, her every move since coming to Washington has been anticipated in advance. And every path forward brings with it a lethal threat.

As all of Reichs’ books are, this was a solid read. I liked the different levels of mystery going on—the current mystery, the historical, Foggy Bottom Gang mystery, and the mystery of the other, unidentified body. Tempe is an interesting character to me. She’s so smart, sees things others don’t, yet knows she’s hit-or-miss with the people skills. This was a good read that I blew through in a single day, although I did see some hints of the actual culprit peeking through.

Kathy Reichs is a bestselling author. Fire and Bones is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Scribner in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Return of Ellie Black, by Emiko Jean

Title: The Return of Ellie Black
Author: Emiko Jean
Genre: Fiction, thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.

It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.

Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.

But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.

Honestly, I almost put this down about 15% of the way through, but I stuck it out a little bit longer and it picked up. I didn’t really feel a connection with any of the characters, so it was a struggle for me to get into the story. Ellie…well, I didn’t really care for her. And Chelsey just felt chaotic and cold, frankly. This was a solid read, I just didn’t have much invested in the characters.

Emiko Jean is a bestselling author. The Return of Ellie Black is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.)

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: