★★★☆☆ | 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.
…★★★★☆ | 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.
…
★★★★☆ | 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.
