Tag Archives: mystery

Weekend Reads: Runaways

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It is January and the holiday season is over which means most of what is fun about winter is over. Except for the curling up with a good book, that is! Here are some suggestions of stories that involve travel, in case you’re stuck inside thiinking it would be better to be anywhere but here, where ever here is.

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

Genuine Fraud follows the friendship of Jule and Imogen, in reverse chronicle order, leaving you as the reader to put together the pieces of how the characters ended up where they ended up. The characters go from  London, San Francisco, Puerto Rico, Martha’s Vineyard to New York. Sounds like a wild ride to me!

The Caraval Trilogy by Stephanie Garber

The Caraval trilogy is the story of sisters who are obsessed with a magical game. The sisters accept an invitation and travel to the game to find themselves at the center of the game where one of them must search for the other. If she fails, her sister could disappear forever.

The Dispatcher Series by John Scalzi

I never actually wrote a review of these books after I posted them as ‘What I’m Reading’. They’re super interesting. In an alternate timeline, if you are murdered, you turn back up again as you were moments before your death. This is horribly inconvenient for anyone who wants to commit murder, but is obviously nice for potential murder victims. It is also nice for other reasons, like if you are about to die during surgery, your doctors can be given another chance. Dispatchers are people who are officially sanctioned to murder people in certain circumstances. But there is a whole grey area where Dispatchers can also be employed. Zachary Quinn reads the audiobooks and he does an excellent job. These were interesting and enjoyable mysteries. I don’t love that they are exclusively from audible, since I prefer to get things from the library, but this is the world we live in.

Review: Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus (Read by Robert Fass)

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I picked this up because there is a K-drama called Black Out on Hulu that is based on it and I was wondering how much of the insane misogyny in the story was part of the original narrative and how much of was just natural consequences of the changes they made to the story plus the change of setting it in Korea. (This is not to say that Korean culture is insanely misogynistic. But it is a patriarchy and that does entail some misogyny.)

Anyway, our detectives Pia Kirchoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are called to the scene of an accident where a woman fell from a pedestrian bridge. In the course of investigating, they discover that not only was it not an accident, it is related to a controversial case from a decade prior where a teenage boy, Tobias Sartorius, was convicted of killing two girls. There are some things about the the old case that don’t add up, like where are their bodies? And when another girl goes missing, they find themselves in a race against time to solve both the closed case and the new one.

So, how much of the insane misogyny is in the original narrative? Oh, a bunch. But, because of the differences in narrative choices, you are confronted with it in the K-drama in ways that just absolutely made my blood boil that weren’t in the original text. In both, there are discussions and depictions of rape and a bunch of abelism directed towards an autistic character. So, if those things are triggering for you, be aware.

I obviously kept reading the series, so there were things here that I liked, but I’m not sure I’d necessarily recommend this. This story had a good ending, but overall it was very dark. The end of the year was very busy and difficult, so I wanted something that felt comfortable, and detective stories and mysteries are a go-to for me. So, if you’re into dark tales and whodunits, these aren’t a bad choice, but if you absolutely can’t deal with depictions of rape or ableism, then give it a pass.

Review: The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter

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It has been hard for me to get into the holiday season this year. I have a feeling that I am not the only one. I had a coupon that was about to expire, and that is how I stumbled on this gem. You can say I didn’t know I needed it until I found it. Maggie is a mystery writer who is having the worst year and Christmas is coming and that never makes her feel any better. Her husband left her for her best friend and took half of her money. Things might be turning around. She’s been invited to spend Christmas with her “biggest fan”. Too bad Ethan Wyatt is also invited. She can’t stand Ethan. He always calls her the wrong name and is just too perfect. When they arrive, they find out that their host is Eleanor Ashley, maybe the most famous mystery writer of all time, and the reason that Maggie wanted to be a writer in the first place. The first night they are there, Eleanor disappears and it’s up to Maggie and Ethan to solve the mystery.

Right off the bat, I loved both Maggie and Ethan. I am a sucker for enemies to lovers trope. Though it is pretty obvious that the loathing is really one-sided let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Maggie is the ultimate Eleanor Ashley fan so she first thinks this is just a test for her to solve but as twists and turns start to happen she starts to doubt herself. Like so many successful women I know she has been warned down by so many people belittling her and making her doubt herself. Ethan starts out as your typical alpha male type that everyone is drawn to. His first book is a best seller and is being turned into a movie. Things just come naturally to him. However, there is more to him than that. His charisma is more a defense than anything else but one thing is for sure. He’s down for whatever Maggie wants to do never questions her and is the steadying force for her. As they go through the usual suspects and work the case, they grow together. I found the reason why he always called her by the wrong name to be touching and sweet. This was the perfect quick, fun read that I needed this season. Sure, the plot is pretty typical of Agatha Christie’s set up but it works and it doesn’t matter that it’s not that original. It doesn’t have to be. It just needs to be fun and entertaining and it was. Happy Holidays everyone!

Quick Review: This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

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This is the story of Briseis, a young woman who has the magic touch when it comes to plants. She receives a surprise inheritance and she and her Moms move to a grand house in Rhinebeck, New York. She discovers secrets and mysteries in the house.

This was so fun. I was so interested to what happened next that I wanted to keep listening. It also inspired me to start a little knitting project, which I was able to finish while I was listening. These little wrist warmers with their falling leaves are so cozy.

Back to the book, I was delighted by the characters and their growth through the story. This is a series and I’ve already requested the next one from the library!

Quick Review: The Sydney Rye mysteries 2

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This one leaves off where the first one stops. We meet Joy turned Sydney on a beach in Mexico. Her days are pretty much still the same until Mulberry turns up and offers her and Blue, her dog, a job. She accepts and starts some training. From here, she finds herself in another mystery.

This one was fine, I guess. Sydney has a bit of a temper and she’s not great at planning, so this novel is pretty predictable. There were elements of this story that felt… too easy and stereotypical? There are elements of the Mexican plot that felt a little like they’d come from a fever dream of someone who has never been to Mexico and only read negative headlines. There were no twists in this one that I didn’t see coming. The ending was fine, but meh. I will be listening to the third book, but we’ll see when I get to it.

Quick Review: Book 1 of the Sydney Rye Mysteries

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The tiktok that introduced me to these books promised me a main character who was smart, capable, and interesting. And so far I’m sold. The book opens with Joy Humboldt, barista, at work until a run in with a customer leads her to becoming Joy Humboldt, ex-barista. From here, she gets a new job as a dog-walker and is dropped into a murder investigation when one of her clients turns up dead. She does a little poking around on the side and ends up in the middle of a messy plot that is way above her pay grade. I liked Joy, I liked the mystery. There was at least one twist I didn’t see coming. I definitely will be starting the next of the three novels!

What I’m Listening to Now: Julie Clark

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I joined a knitting group last summer and many of us like to listen to audio books while we knit, so now we’re also a book club! Our first book is Julie Clark’s The Last Flight. And my knit right now is a pair of socks.

The beginning of a pair of Paint bricks socks (pattern by Stephen West)

Review: The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

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The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

In this novel, a young woman attempting to escape the military dictatorship rounding up dissidents in Buenos Aires accepts a position at a school in Patagonia as an English teacher in the 1970s. The school is on the edge of the world, in a manor house built by an aristocratic family at the beginning of the century. The home had once been a school, but it has been shut down for decades because everyone caught a mysterious illness and many of the students and faculty died. They say that the house is built on land that was cursed by the indigenous people the family stole it from. Now the school is being reopened by the domineering business mogul who grew up in the house before she was forced to flee the mystery illness.

While this is creepy, our brave heroine Mavi likes her chances at the school overlooking ice fields in Southern Argentina better than her chances on the streets of Buenos Aires. Once at the school, she meets the other instructors and the son of the headmistress, heir to the wealthy family who owns the manor. And he’s a dick. Or, he starts off that way. But then his personality completely changes. That’s not the only strange thing that happens. There is a mysterious visitor in the night. The girls begin to fall sick. The house begins to decay. Everything begins to spiral out of control.

This book had an interesting twist that I was a little annoyed by at first. I could see it coming and I was hoping for another outcome. But the reveal wasn’t as clunky as I was expecting it to be and the resolution was interesting. This is an okay novel. I was hoping for a little more horror, but it kept me interested. If you like slightly creepy mysteries and need a reasonably quick read, this is pretty good. I am planning on checking out other books by Faring in the future.