Archive for the ‘Mystery’ Category
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
Mass market, 277 pages, 2008
Rating: 8/10
Reason for Reading: New book in the Harry Bosch series! New book in the Harry Bosch series!
Synopsis: It’s the middle of the night when LAPD detective Harry Bosch receives a call about a murder - a doctor with access to radioactive substances was found shot in the back of the head. The entire city may be in trouble if Bosch can’t find out who killed him - all while dodging the FBI, who have their own agenda…
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Posted in Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Mystery | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
Hardcover (available in trade), 382 pages, 2006
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: Bet you can’t read just one.
Synopsis: Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, along with the other members of the Nursery Crime Division, is hot on the trail of a fresh crime, this time involving a missing journalist nicknamed ‘Goldy,’ some bears, and - just in case you thought you knew where this was going - cucumbers and the escaped mental patient, the Gingerbreadman. It turns out the real mystery began when Goldy left the house of the three bears and wandered into a minefield of trouble…
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Posted in Fiction, Humour, Mystery, Literary Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Sunday, November 5th, 2006
Hardcover, 310 pages, 2006
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: Why stop now?
Synopsis: Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter, of the klutzy, mistake-prone sort. When the daughter of the oh-so-hot Ranger, one of her colleagues (if someone a thousand times more talented can still be referred to as a colleague), goes missing, Ranger can’t be contacted, and weirder and weirder (and more dangerous) things keep happening, the hunt is on.
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Posted in Fiction, Humour, Mystery | No Comments »
Saturday, October 7th, 2006
Hardcover (available in trade), 386 pages, 2005
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: I’ve loved all of Fforde’s books.
Synopsis: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…or did he? Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is looking into the possibility that the hard-living, womanizing egg was actually murdered, with possible motives being jealousy, revenge, greed, pure evil. The (grossly underfunded) Nursery Crime Division, which also includes an alien and Sergeant Mary Mary, will have to battle to restore justice to their community.
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Monday, October 2nd, 2006
Hardcover, 259 pages, 2006
Rating: 7/10
Reason for Reading: I read the first few paragraphs and decided it was enough to make me want to read the whole book.
Synopsis: Annie Seymour is a journalist who’s about to discover the hard lessons of covering a story that’s too close to home. When a popular restaurant in her neighborhood burns down, and a body is discovered inside, Annie pursues the story despite the danger - possibly from someone she knows.
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Posted in Fiction, Suspense, Mystery | No Comments »
Friday, September 22nd, 2006
Hardcover (available in trade June 2007), 322 pages, 2006
Rating: 8/10
Reason for Reading: I really enjoyed Pardonable Lies.
Synopsis: In 1931 England, a young woman named Georgina comes to private investigator Maisie Dobbs with a dubious but heart-felt case: that her brother’s death wasn’t an accidental fall, but a murder. Her sibling, Nick, had been hanging some of his art for a spectacular gallery show that would unveil his top-secret masterpiece, but his body was discovered the next morning, the location of his final piece a mystery. It’s up to Maisie to discover the truth, but the controversial nature of the artist means that there are a lot more people blocking it than she would ever have expected…
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Posted in Fiction, Historical, Mystery | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
Hardcover (available in trade), 364 pages, 2005
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: I had no idea until I saw this book that Carolyn Keene was a pseudonym, so curiosity made me pick up Girl Sleuth to see who was behind a series I often read when I was younger.
Synopsis: While the name ‘Carolyn Keene’ is synonymous with mysteries and Nancy Drew to millions of people, females especially, there is no Carolyn Keene, and there never was. Instead, journey with Rehak into the worlds of Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Mildred Wirt Benson, the women that began writing the smash hit series seventy-five years ago. Through careful guidance, fiery competition, and exuberant-if-not-fantastic writing, these women molded Nancy Drew not just into a detective, but a cultural icon that symbolized female independence to generation after generation of young readers.
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Posted in Non-Fiction, Mystery, Biography, Culture, Literary Criticism, Women's Studies | No Comments »
Thursday, October 27th, 2005
Trade, 258 pages, 2005
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: The ‘hearing voices’ premise almost scared me away, but I decided to go for it because I’ve heard Carr is a good writer.
Synopsis: Anne Johnson is settling down into a lazily cozy existence - she’s fifty, living alone in a plush apartment following her recent divorce, and she feels little need to do much beyond drinking martinis and wafting around her apartment in white nightgowns. But then she hears a voice in her head warning her that she needed to halt a murder that will occur in her apartment building in thirty days. She enlists the help of Mary, a no-nonsense cleaning woman, and together they decide to plan a party to use as an opportunity to learn more about possible suspects. They’re quickly learning that finding a suspect is hard to do before a crime has been committed, but there’s too much riding on them to quit now.
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Wednesday, September 21st, 2005
Hardcover (available in trade), 340 pages, 2005
Rating: 8/10
Reason for Reading: Continuing on the big mystery kick I seem to be on lately.
Synopsis: It’s 1930, and Maisie Dobbs is working as a private investigator when a strange case falls into her lap. Sir Cecil Lawton vowed to his dying wife that he would attempt to find their son, a man that all reason indicates died over a decade earlier in the Great War; however, some shady psychics were willing to give Mrs. Lawton hope that he was still alive. Normally, Maisie wouldn’t agree to such a dubious case, but she requires Sir Lawton’s help as a lawyer in defending a poor thirteen-year-old girl accused of murder. Maisie must face her own demons with a visit to France, the place she served as a nurse during the war, but for cases that are supposed to involve nothing more than ghosts, there seems to be a solid enough presence out there that’s trying to kill her…
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Posted in Fiction, Historical, War/Military, Mystery | Comments Off
Wednesday, September 7th, 2005
Hardcover (available in mass market), 310 pages, 2005
Rating: 8/10
Reason for Reading: Reading all of Evanovich’s books is sort of becoming a bad habit.
Synopsis: A girl can only be shot at so many times before she starts to reconsider her career path, and Stephanie Plum is sick of the bounty hunter business and all of the explosions that seem to come with it. But her reputation proceeds her to her new would-be-jobs; it’s obvious someone didn’t get the memo that she’d retired because they keep trying to blow her up; and her curiosity is peaked when her cop boyfriend is looking into the case of missing men in her area of New Jersey. Stephanie is determined to find a nice, safe job, but someone is trying equally hard to keep her working - or to kill her to keep their secrets safe.
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