A Bad Lie

Title: A Bad Lie
Author: Matthew Costello, Neil Richards
Published: January 11th 2016 by Bastei Entertainment
Format: Kindle, 104 pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Series: Cherringham #23

First Sentence: Ryan Collins watched his mates pile out of his hire car—a big Ford Galaxy.

Blurb: When talented young artist Josh Andrews goes missing after a stag night prank at Cherringham Golf Club, the bride in desperation asks Jack and Sarah to find him. It seems he's gotten cold feet, with the wedding just days away.

But Josh is not all he appears to be ... And soon suspicion falls on the Golf Club itself. Can Josh be found before he takes justice into his own hands?

My Opinion: Everyone has secrets, you just hope they don’t rise to the surface when you are planning your wedding.

Jack and Sarah are at it again, and this time I am not so sure the cold feet are only on the part of Josh Andrews. This subject causes me to take a left turn and wish I knew which relationship direction the investigating duo is heading. Yet each time they take a step ahead, there seems to be a couple of steps back. Glad I like their camaraderie when it comes to matching wits with criminals since their relationship is quickly heading into the vexation stage for the reader.

I am reaching the point in the series where I don’t care as much about the murders as I do about the interactions among the main characters. There is no doubt I will continue reading since I like how they put the pieces together and are slowly making other realizations.

Sometimes People Die

Title: Sometimes People Die
Author: Simon Stephenson
Published: September 20th 2022 by Hanover Square Press
Format: Kindle, 368 pages
Genre: Medical Thriller

First Sentence: There are many storied hospitals in London, venerated institutions where scientific breakthroughs are made and legendary physicians name unfortunate diseases after themselves.

Blurb: Returning to practice after a suspension for stealing opioids, a young doctor takes the only job he can find: a post as a physician at the struggling St. Luke's Hospital in east London. Amid the maelstrom of sick patients, overworked staff and underfunded wards, a more insidious secret soon declares itself: too many patients are dying. And a murderer may be lurking in plain sight.

Drawing on his experiences as a physician, Simon Stephenson takes readers into the dark heart of life as a hospitalist to ask the question: Who are the people we gift the power of life and death, and what does it do to them? (GoodReads)

My Opinion: A slow simmer that never reached a full boil. Just when you thought there was a chance for a few rapid bubbles, Simon Stephenson turned down the heat leaving the reader in a semi-obvious state of who had done it with only a few “oh” moments.

The sidenotes of known healthcare serial killers were interesting but left the reader wondering if a deeper dive into those mentioned would have been more captivating.

As for the ending – was there an ending? Or was the reader supposed to be left unfulfilled and wondering if the state of healthcare, where the bottom line and passing killers on, is more important than murder?

Then again, maybe the title did tell the whole story.

The Plot and the Pendulum

Title: The Plot and the Pendulum
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Published: October 11th 2022 by Berkley
Format: Kindle, Hardcover, 272 pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Library Lover's Mystery #13

First Sentence: Lindsey Norris, director of the Briar Creek Public Library, was seated at the reference desk gazing out the window overlooking the bay and the archipelago call the Thumb Islands.

Blurb: Library director Lindsey Norris is happy to learn the Briar Creek Public Library is the beneficiary of the Dorchester family’s vast book collection. However, when Lindsey and the library staff arrive at the old Victorian estate to gather the books, things take a sinister turn. One of the bookcases reveals a secret passage, leading to a room where a skeleton is found, clutching an old copy of The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Lindsey does a quick check of missing persons, using the distinctive 80s era clothing worn by the deceased to determine a time frame, and discovers that Briar Creek has an unsolved missing person’s case from 1989. A runaway bride went missing just weeks after her wedding. No suspects were ever arrested and the cold case remains unsolved. Lindsey and the crafternoon crew decide that justice is overdue and set about solving the old murder mystery, using some novel ideas to crack the case. (GoodReads)

My Opinion: The title is a play on words to Edgar Alan Poe’s, The Pit and the Pendulum, which parallels the spooky feel of a found skeleton, a hidden room, drafts, a disappearing cat, and scream-inducing power outages in a creepy mansion in Briar Creek. Which makes for a perfect autumn read.

If the reader is paying attention, the culprit is revealed midway through the book, yet you hang on to make sure you did pick up on the tell. Do I wish that the author had added a couple more diversions and possibilities – I do, but that is not how these things work.

Library Lover's Mystery series has been a hit or miss for me. The Plot and the Pendulum was a hit.

Crime for the Books

Title: Crime for the Books
Author: Kate Young
Published: October 11th 2022 by Crooked Lane Books
Format: Kindle, Hardcover, 336 pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Jane Doe Book Club Mystery #3

First Sentence: The clouds looked ominous as I walked our client out of the office and locked the door.

Blurb: Lyla Moody and her book club, the Jane Does, are hosting a Halloween party at Magnolia Manor, tailored after Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced, but when the lights come on after the staged murder, a real victim lies dead with a gunshot wound in her chest. The victim was an estranged relative of Elaine Morgan, operator of the B&B, who’d earlier been seen arguing with her about the fate of the property. Suspicion immediately falls on Elaine, and she’s arrested.

The Jane Does believe Elaine is innocent, and when they get the chance to team up with police officer Rosa Landry—a member of the club—they jump on it. But then, the club discovers that two more murders have been brazenly predicted online and in the Sweet Mountain Gazette—and that one of the intended victims is Rosa.

Lyla thinks she knows who the killer is, but the only way to find out is by laying a trap using Rosa as bait. But, like an Agatha Christie mystery, the truth is never what it seems. Lyla and her trusty book club will have to sleuth out the killer before Rosa meets her final chapter. (GoodReads)

My Opinion: I read to the middle of the book and skimmed the next part, and to be honest -- I am not sure if I finished it.

Monotonous. No part or character stuck out as remarkable or intriguing, and I am now wondering what I liked about the first two books in the series. There must have been something that had me willing to pick up this third book, yet I can’t recall what it was.

Will I look for another Jane Doe book? I doubt it since my reading habits are changing, and I need a bit more when it comes to amateur sleuths.

The Girls on the Shore

Title: The Girls on the Shore
Author: Ann Cleeves
Published: January 11th 2022 by Minotaur Books
Format: Kindle Edition, 36 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Series: Two Rivers #2.5

Blurb: It was winter. Cold and clear, a different sort of day for this coast where the westerly winds usually blew rain and cloud.

Detective Inspector Matthew Venn is standing by his kitchen window when he first spots them. Two young girls, facing away from him, seemingly staring towards something in the distance. They are holding hands, and they are alone.

Though not a natural with children, Matthew knows he must find out why the girls are here, on a school day, unsupervised. And so he meets Olivia and Imogen, a pair of sisters whose secrets Matthew must uncover if he hopes to get them home.

My Opinion: I love a book with a good plot twist. Ann Cleeves takes advantage of the reader’s assumption as to whom the perpetrator is, and just when you become complacent, there comes the twist.

I enjoy the Two Rivers series. I have only watched the Shetland and Vera series and know that adaptations wander too far from the written word, so I can only do one or the other, and I am glad I went with the written version of Two Rivers. Detective Inspector Matthew Venn has his own form of damage, but that is what makes him and his team so endearing. They bring compassion, and that is what draws me back.

Anne, take as much time as you need to get to the next book; I will be here waiting.

Found Object

Title: Found Object

Author: Anne Frasier
Published: October 18th 2022 by Thomas & Mercer
Format: Kindle, Paperback, 272 pages
Genre: Suspense
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

First Sentence: I looked down at the release form on the desk, my main focus being the empty line awaiting my signature.

Blurb: A journalist begins to question everything she knows about her mother’s murder in a startling novel of suspense by the New York Times bestselling author of The Body Reader.

Culpable in an exposé gone tragically wrong, investigative journalist Jupiter Bellarose takes her boss’s advice: head back to her hometown for a fluff piece and get her world in balance. But in Savannah, the past is waiting.

Twenty years ago Jupiter’s mother, actress and celebrated beauty Marie Nova, was murdered, leaving many in her wake: Jupiter’s father, who has erased memories of his wife’s murder with alcohol. The matriarch of the cosmetics company who helped make Marie a star—and who takes every opportunity to reopen old wounds. Then there’s the fragile cop with blood on his hands, and the killer whose confession no longer seems convincing.

With so many lingering questions, Jupiter must revisit the grisly event that has influenced every decision in her life. Maybe her homecoming will bring closure.

Or maybe the worst is yet to come. (GoodReads)

My Opinion: Beginning with the origin of the title, the reader is quickly taken to the “what?” moments, the “well, that was an interesting way to relay information” moments, and the “wait, what is Anne Fraser letting me know?” moments. There are many moving parts, and when you think you might have, you realize you don’t, and you quite possibly have been wandering down the wrong path all along. Not a book to rush, the reader will need to sit down and read in large chunks and ponder, or they will miss the cleverly hidden subtleties.

Anne Frasier is a relatively new author for me. Beginning with the Inland Empire series, I knew I had found an author who can grab me from the beginning, with twists and subtle humor, and won’t let me go until the last chapter.

Will Anne Frasier turn this into another successful series? I certainly hope so since there are many stories investigative journalist Jupiter needs to tell.

Daggers at the Country Fair

Title: Daggers at the Country Fair
Author: Catherine Coles
Published: September 26, 2022 by Boldwood Books
Format: Kindle, 212 pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Martha Miller Mysteries #2

First Sentence: The bus trundled along the village lanes towards its destination.

Blurb: As a thank you for her previous brilliant crime solving, amateur sleuth, Martha Miller is guest of honour at the Winteringham Country Fair. However, this time she is looking forward to simply judging dog shows and eating cream teas rather than apprehending a killer!

And Martha is just beginning to enjoy spending quality time with Vicar Luke Walker away from the prying eyes and gossips of her own village, when disaster strikes, and the local teenage femme fatale is found stabbed to death behind the tea tent by Martha’s trusted red setter Lizzie!

But who would want to kill such a young girl and why? Someone in the village has secrets to hide and it seems Martha and Luke have another case to solve! (GoodReads)

My Opinion: Ruth? Lizzie? Which is the sister and which is the dog? Good thinking on the author’s part to put a long character list at the beginning of the book for those of us who tend to mix people, and animals, up.

Slow through the first three-quarters of the book with no spark, humor, or interesting side notes. It isn’t until the end of the book that the who-done-it starts to pique attention -- a little too late since the culprit could have only been two people, and eventually, it occurred to you that one had no motive.

I enjoyed the first book in the series, Poison at the Village Show, but this second book had me questioning if I care what is in store for Martha Miller and Vicar Luke Walker from Westleham.