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Dive into The Waters of Eternal Youth

September 28, 2021 / Leave a Comment

Today’s book is The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon (which I thought was interesting, as Ponce de Leon was supposed to have found the Fountain of Eternal Youth— But this is book number 25 in the Commissario Brunetti series and appears to be the only book with any eternal youth references.) In this case, “eternal youth” does not refer to the body not aging, but to a character whose development was stymied by hypoxic brain damage after a near drowning in one of the canals.

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Cuddle up with a Good Mystery for National Ice Cream Cone Day

September 22, 2021 / Leave a Comment

Today is National Ice Cream Cone day. Mmmm!
I decided that matched up nicely with my latest book release, Dark Water Under the Bridge, which includes mentions of a favourite ice cream parlour in our area, Mackay’s:

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Get swept away by All by Myself, Alone

September 21, 2021 / Leave a Comment

This week’s teaser is from All By Myself, Alone by Mary Higgins Clark. I think the first book that I read by Mary Higgins Clark was The Cradle Will Fall, a scary medical thriller that kind of freaked me out as a twelve- or thirteen-year-old. I was hooked. All By Myself, Alone, is part of Mary Higgins Clark’s Alvirah & Willy Series, a cozy mystery series far removed from the medical thriller genre. But it is still good. Full of interesting characters, several murders and attempted murders, and a priceless emerald necklace all aboard a cruise ship.

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A thrilling read: Stalker on the Fens

September 14, 2021 / Leave a Comment

In Stalker on the Fens, Nikki Galena is approached by a friend who she had previously saved from a horrific building collapse. The woman thinks that she is being stalked, but her family and friends are apt to put it down as PTSD rather than something that is really happening to her. Bad turns to worse, and before long Galena is trying to deal with a couple of bodies and some significant unrest between two criminal factions. There are plenty of suspects, but trying to narrow it down and rule them out is not easy.

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Murder in the Park: Long Climb to the Top

September 9, 2021 / 1 Comment

It is release day for Long climb to the Top, Book #2 in the Parks Pat Mysteries series!

Since I featured other new releases last week, I wanted to try something else this week, so I am focusing on other books with murders that take place in parks or natural spaces. Check them out!

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An Italian Treat: Rounding the Mark

September 7, 2021 / Leave a Comment

With 28 books in the series, I feel like I should have run into Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano Mysteries before now! These are English translations of the original Italian, a series of Police Procedurals set in Sicily, full of sensory and culinary detail. Rounding the Mark is book #7 in the series. While Inspector Montalbano is threatening to resign, I would assume by the fact that there are 21 more books following this one, that he never quite gets around to retiring.

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Follow Flavia’s adventures in A Red Herring Without Mustard

August 31, 2021 / Leave a Comment

Flavia is a rather morbid child (age eleven) with a fascination with chemistry, poisons, bodies, and murder. She is very handy in her chemistry lab and although she often gets in the way of the local constabulary, she is also usually ahead of them in solving murders that take place in the local village (and in this case, even on the de Luce family property.)

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Take your time with This Tender Land

August 24, 2021 / Leave a Comment

This Tender Land is not part of the Cork O’Connor series. It is an epic travel-across-the-country-during-the-depression story, with four orphans escaping a residential school and trying to get themselves somewhere safe. I see a few reviewers complaining that it is a children’s story, but it certainly is not. It isn’t a mystery like the Cork O’Connor series. Teens and other YA readers who enjoyed Hatchet, The Journey of Natty Gann, of Huck Finn might enjoy it, but it is not for the very young.

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Puppies and poison in Dead in Dublin

August 17, 2021 / 1 Comment

Dead in Dublin is the first book in The Dublin Driver Mysteries, which surprised me when I looked it up today. There is lots of backstory summarized in Dead in Dublin, and I assumed that there were probably three or more books before it in the series. So this book may leave you a little hungry for more details of “what happened before,” but it is a fine standalone mystery and I’m sure the author will reveal more about Megan Malone’s origin story throughout the next two books in the series. I will definitely pick up the others as they become available through my library app.

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Jump right into Body of Lies

August 10, 2021 / Leave a Comment

This week I am just coming to the end of Iris Johansen’s Body of Lies, the fourth book in the Eve Duncan series. I don’t know whether I’ve read any of the other books in the series before, but it is easy to follow the characters and the action without having read the rest. There is plenty of backstory and explanation to allow you to follow the basic history of the characters.

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