Mystery-Suspense

★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I picked this up after Stephen King recommended it as an engaging haunted house book. I’ve been doing some heavy reading lately. An entertaining book sounded appealing.

The premise and setting had terrific potential, but one-dimensional characters, plot holes, and poor editing hobbled the story. It felt like a book written under the pressure of an unrealistic deadline.

Still, I finished it quickly, so it served as a welcome break from more serious reading.

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph

A recent New Yorker article by Anthony Lane prompted me to read this one, my first Elmore Leonard book. I enjoyed the pacing and dialogue and colorful cast of characters, all set in languid south Florida. The book ends with a promising turn for Kathy Baker, the main protagonist of the novel, but if I remember correctly, Leonard wasn’t in the habit of writing sequels or carrying characters from book to book. A little sad we never get to see what happens next.

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

I read the book during a recent visit to New York City and watched the movie on the plane ride home, which made for an immersive experience. The movie stayed very true to the book, though some big sections were left out. I loved reading the backstory of how young Vito Corleone eventually became the Don. Yes, some of it is dated, and yes, there were a few choppy parts that felt in need of editing, but I was pleasantly surprised by how really good this book was. If you loved the movie, you’ll enjoy the book.

Highlights

The word “reason” sounded so much better in Italian, ragione, to rejoin. The art of this was to ignore all insults, all threats; to turn the other cheek.

a friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults.

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

What a crazy rollercoaster ride through Harlem in the 1950s. I’m just now catching my breath!

There were more bars on his itinerary than on any other comparable distance on earth. In every one the jukeboxes blared, honeysuckle-blues voices dripped stickily through jungle cries of wailing saxophones, screaming trumpets, and buckdancing piano-notes; someone was either fighting, or had just stopped fighting, or was just starting to fight, or drinking ruckus-juice and talking about fighting. 

★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

A strange meta-detective novel with an unreliable narrator who slowly dissolves into insanity. I followed maybe half of the literary and Biblical  allusions. Not at all what I expected, but oddly satisfying. I read it for the setting — Manhattan in all its grandeur — and so I can’t complain.

★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

A reading web site recommended this book as a literary mystery with an unbelievably great plot twist. The story opens with hit and run murder of a five-year-old boy while his devastated mother cradles her son’s dead body.  Tough subject matter for a grieving parent, but I persevered.

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I Let You Go by Clare MackintoshRead More »

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I listened to the audio book of this one. The story is told by Dolores as part of a police interview.  There are no other speakers.  She tells the entire story in one setting.  The audio book narrator was pretty good.  Hard Maine accent with plenty of emotion.

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Dolores Claiborne by Stephen KingRead More »

★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

An OK book. The unreliable narrator was unlikeable, which I guess in the end was intentional.

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways. —SIGMUND FREUD

★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I listened to this on audiobook and was put off by the strong Maine accent of the narrator — too heavy to be understood at first — but it slowly grew on me.

This is one of Stephen King‘s Hard Case Crime books (Joyland and Later were the other two and I’ve read them both).  I’ve wanted to buy a slew of books of this mystery/crime series just to have on the shelf for when I need a quick read.  I still might.

Spoiler follows …

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The Colorado Kid by Stephen KingRead More »

★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I liked parts of this book.  The mystery was interesting and the twists/turns were unexpected. I did not connect with the narrator who seemed on the verge of unreliable to me, obsessive, stuck in a loop of her childhood miseries.

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I finally got around to reading this classic, one I thought I had read but hadn’t.  The book was soaked with atmosphere.  You felt you were with the unnamed narrator, over your head in some grand english manor.  Her uncertainties and fears became your own in a stream-of-consciousness flutter of internal dialogue.  There were some good twists along the way, and Mrs. Danvers was certainly creepy.  And yeah, so it was largely set in the library of a grand old house.

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Rebecca by Daphne Du MaurierRead More »

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Print | Own | Goodreads

Fun suspense yarn set at sea. Interesting writing style: points of view change within chapters without warning; no flashbacks; everything revealed via dialogue. I enjoyed this one.

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I can’t remember the last 300+ page book I read in nearly a single sitting. What a terrific story, so well told.  So many tie ins to my life: Mallory the protagonist, 18 months sober, the early death of her sister in a car accident.

Books like these remind me of the true joy that comes from reading a good story.  I’d give it five stars but for the zany, frumped up ending.  This story demanded a simpler, more elegant way to finish such a smooth, entrancing beginning and middle.

★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

A ghost story with two sets of twins and a few surprising twists that I didn’t see coming (but should have).  Niffenegger lost points with her depiction of Valentina’s parents (including Elspeth!) with their lack of grieving and too-easily-accepted death of their daughter.  Obviously she’s never dealt personally with the loss of a child.

Julia had never thought of death as something that would happen to her, or to people she knew. All those people in the cemetery were just stones, names, dates. Loving Mother. Devoted Husband. Elspeth was a parlour trick; she had never been really real to Julia. Valentina is in that box. It couldn’t be true. 

★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

My first Craig Johnson / Longmire novel. I enjoyed the setting, the characters and the plot. Lots of interesting themes:

Wyoming’s rugged beauty and landscape
Native American culture and wisdom
Friendship
Justice and revenge
Graceful aging
Loss (Walter’s wife, Vonnie’s death)
Small town life
Rape, human cruelty

Highlights

I always wondered about men who spent their time trying to anticipate and know a fish in a world where man’s knowledge of each other could only be called scarce.

Good friends are the ones who can remain close without losing their ability to surprise.

★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I enjoyed this bizarre unreliable narrator suspense story.  Stepping inside the mind of a sociopath and fretting over his many close calls with being found out is an interesting reading experience.  How did this author make you feel for such a monster?

Tom lived his life — as many of us do — in anticipation of an exciting future, but always found fault in the present moment.  Perhaps that’s the hook for the reader.  We all feel that way.

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The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia HighsmithRead More »

★★★★☆ | Mystery/Suspense | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph

A very well-written suspense story told in an unusual way.

Highlights

Somewhere in the small hours of the morning, very drunk, they agreed on their plan and drank to it with the solemnity of the truly intoxicated.

★★★☆☆ | Mystery/Suspense | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I picked up this first of Jance’s 20+ Beaumont mystery series. This one is set in Seattle and Phoenix, and as we were planning to move from Seattle to Phoenix, I thought it might be interesting. I liked the book fine, but didn’t connect with the main character of Detective Beaumont. I couldn’t imagine spending another book with him, let alone twenty more. The series is wildly popular though, so maybe he improves with age.