January 2020 ~ What are you reading?

Getting the new year started.

Just started reading The Suspect* by Michael Robotham. Read another one of his works last year and found it quite enjoyable; quite curious to see what else he has in store. That, and I've also begun to try my hand at writing a thriller myself, so I'm turning to the genre more this year to get a sense of the style.

Recently finished The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides (loved it, it was much better than I expected), The Other Wife, by Claire McGowan, and The Hunting Party, by Lucy Foley.
Edit: links do not seem to be working, site is very slow - will try again tomorrow.
Edit again: touchstones sorted and fixed :)

>2 the_inkblotcher: the_inkblotcher: seems that Michael Robotham also has a book titled, The Other Wife, as I had to fix my touchstone :)

>2 the_inkblotcher: LT has it: Suspect (and a direct link in case the touchstones fail again http://www.librarything.com/work/16331 ) - the search had been a bit temperamental today - so when you posted it could not find it. :) Linking to GR is fine of course :)

>3 mvo62: Ah, I heard about that one, too. May as well give all of them a go sometime, haha. (And there goes my TBR list, still ever-expanding!)
>4 AnnieMod: Thanks! Yeah, the engine was a bit slow yesterday, but it's all nice and speedy now.

Enjoying this Audible suspense novel ~

Final Truth by Mariah Stewart

(book 4, Truth series/true-crime writer Regan Landry)

My first crime read of the year was The Bellamy Trial, by Frances Noyes Hart. I read it as a public-domain ebook, but it is also available in the American Mystery Classics reprint. Very good.

Finished The Secrets of Wishtide, by Kate Saunders - now reading The Second Sleep, by Robert Harris.

I have finished The Penrose Mystery by R. Austin Freeman - the 22nd book in the Dr. Thorndyke series. An average entry in the series which meant that I liked it! 3.5*

I have been reading Foreign Bodies, a collection from the British Library's Crime Classics series( not picked up by Touchstone I'm afraid. Perhaps the editors name will appear, Martin Edwards.

Unlike previous collections this one focuses on crime writers from other countries than the UK, many of whom have not had their work translated into English before. There were some interesting stories from many countries and I particularly liked 'The Cold Night's Clearing' by Keikichi Osaka with it's very atmospheric snowy setting for a murder, and Pierre Very's 'The Mystery of the Green Room', an intriguing 'locked room' mystery. This is a collection well worth trying for anyone who would like to explore writers likely to be unfamiliar to English speakers.

Finished The Second Sleep, by Robert Harris. Quite good - I wasn't as upset by the ending as many reviewers seem to be...

>10 Maura49: I have Foreign Bodies, thank you for the recommendation :)

>10 Maura49: You can click the "others" link in the touchstone to look for/select the correct Foreign Bodies . Or you can use [Author, Title] or [Title, Author]. Or [workid::title]
Author can be either first last or just last, depending on how common the title/author are on LT.

[Martin Edwards, Foreign Bodies]
[Foreign Bodies, Martin Edwards]
[20412930::Foreign Bodies]

>12 lesmel: I didn't know that - thanks for the useful info.

Enjoying this OverDrive audiobook ~

Aunt Dimity and the Heart of Gold by Nancy Atherton

(Aunt Dimity series/paranormal cozy/Christmas happenings & mystery in an English village)

I did not know this about touchstone either. Thank you- I will make a note.

>3 mvo62: Interesting comment. I read The Silent Patient recently and found it good but not as good as I expected. Maybe my expectations were too high?

I started the year with a new to me writer and mystery series. The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan came out in 2015 but I somehow missed learning about this debut mystery at that time. Fortunately somebody on BookCrossing posted about it earlier this year and I got a copy from my local library. A man falls to his death from the Scarborough Bluffs (Scarborough is part of the Greater Toronto Area) and the federal Department of Justice wants Inspector Esa Khattak to take a look and see if it was an accident, suicide or murder. The Department of Justice is interested because the dead man may have been a wanted war criminal from the Bosnian genocide and may have come to Canada illegally. I learned so much about that terrible chapter in history from reading this book. The author has written more in the series so now I am anxious to get my hands on them.

Yesterday I read The Mystery of the Chinese Junk, a 1959 Hardy Boys mystery that deals in threadbare writing and tired stereotypes. There are better books in the series.

I absolutely loved the noir thriller This Gun for Hire (aka "A Gun for Sale") by Graham Greene! I read it before about 7 years ago and gave it 4.5* but this time it gets the whole 5*

Reading Charles Todd's A Divided Loyalty which is one of his Ian Rutledge novels. First book by this author I have taken up. I am intrigued with this mystery set in Avebury (England). We shall see how it all ends up.

Finished Our House by Louise Candlish early this morning - very good. Next up is Masters of Mystery: A Collection of Interviews by Dale Andrew White.

>16 jwrudn: Yes, perhaps I enjoyed The Silent Patient more because my expectations were not too high ;)

>19 leslie.98: Havent read the book but the movie (with Alan Ladd) is good, too. I saw it recently on the Noir Alley series on Turner Classic Movies.

>22 jwrudn: The movie is good -- I missed it on TCM but have been looking for a (free) streaming option to rewatch it while the book is fresh in my mind. The book is definitely worth reading if you liked the movie!

Enjoying this OverDrive audiobook ~

Private Justice (Newpointe 911, Book 1) by Terri Blackstock

(Christian suspense)

Currently reading Counterfeit by Guillermo Valcarcel in translation. A contemporary art fraud thriller set in Madrid. Very dark so far. I appear to be the only LibraryThing member who has a copy which probably explains why the touchstone doesn't work.

Having recently watched the Glenn Close/Julian Sands movie version of Crooked House I decided to read the book. Close pretty much nailed Aunt de Haviland.

I read the final book of Anna Katherine Green's Mr. Gryce series - The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow.

Recently finished the John Cardinal series by. Giles Blunt with Until the Night. Chilling literally as it deals with a series of murders of women who are left in the cold to die of hypothermia. I wish Blunt would right more in the series but this one came out in 2012 and he hasn't added any more so I guess he is done. CTV is planning one more season of the show based on this series so I keep scanning the TV lineup for the starting show. And then I'll have to bid farewell to Cardinal and Delorme.

I finished the children's/YA mystery Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons. As far as I know, this book is only available as an audiobook which is a shame. The story is a quite good mystery for 10-14 year-old listeners (or those like myself who enjoy children's books), but the audio quality was uneven and in places interfered with the story.

>28 gypsysmom:. I really enjoyed the John Cardinal book series too and wished there were more. The TV show is pretty good-love the landscapes-beautiful country.

I relished They Tell No Tales by Manning Coles. This espionage thriller, the 3rd in the Tommy Hambledon series, is set in 1939 before England declared war. It's the first book in the series which takes place entirely in England. While it isn't completely necessary to have read the first 2 books, it does help to understand some of the relationships and references. 4*

Working on The Crooked Hinge, by John Dickson Carr, and am planning to start Verdict of Twelve, by Raymond Postgate.

>32 rabbitprincess: lol -- I am just about to start reading a John Dickson Carr book -- Hag's Nook. For some reason, I have never read this first book in the Gideon Fell series.

Just finished The Peaceful Valley Crime Wave (the latest by Pronzini, standalone and pretty good). Next (in these genres anyway) is another Perry Mason: The Case of the Phantom Fortune. I am starting to get closer and closer to reading them all :(

I much enjoyed Hag's Nook. A short book by today's standards but plenty of atmosphere & a great puzzle (and the culprit was a complete surprise to me!).

Very disappointed in The Chain by Adrian McKinty, after waiting for it for many weeks on my library's request list. I'm sure I've read some of his Sean Duffy series books before and liked them, but I really didn't like this one at all. Too formulaic and I didn't care about any of the characters.

>33 leslie.98: Haha Carrstery twins! I quite enjoyed The Crooked Hinge, although it did do that thing that I get annoyed with sometimes where the detective presents a totally plausible, totally bulletproof wrap-up of the case, and then PSYCH! it turns out that somebody else is the culprit.

Oh no! That is a bit frustrating.

Enjoying this OverDrive audiobook on a snowy Saturday ~

The Nightingale Before Christmas: A Meg Langslow Christmas Mystery by Donna Andrews

(cozy mystery/interior decorators/Christmas showcase house theme)

>38 leslie.98: Fell is a bit better than M. Bencolin in that regard... the only Bencolin book I read, he proposed three equally plausible solutions! I was like "What! Are you going to say next that YOU did it?!" I will certainly continue to read Fells when the mood strikes :)

I haven't read any of Carr's Bencolin books - thanks for the warning! I have liked the few Sir Henry Merrivale ones I have read (which he wrote under the pen name Carter Dickson).

>41 leslie.98: I'll have to try one of the Merrivales to see which is my favourite of Carr's detectives!

Next up in crime fiction: Dread Journey, by Dorothy B. Hughes. I have a sizeable stack of American Mystery Classics out from the library...that's what I get for placing a whole bunch on hold at the same time :)

>30 ted74ca: I think the opening credits for Cardinal are the most beautiful I have ever seen.

>43 rabbitprincess: I have heard of Dorothy Hughes but don't believe that I have ever read any of her books. I associate her in my mind with Margaret Millar whose books are surprisingly dark for a female author of the 1940s & 50s. I look forward to hearing what you think.

I just finished Still Midnight by Denise Mina, a police procedural set in Scotland. It's the first of five books, and I'd definitely read more. I liked the rough around the edges main character Alex Morrow, hiding her family background.

>46 raidergirl3: Yay! I love Denise Mina's books.

>45 leslie.98: Hughes's books are certainly suspenseful! The last one I read, The So Blue Marble, had a chokehold on me from the first chapter and I couldn't put it down.

>47 rabbitprincess: I'll have to add her to my (already unmanagable) list of authors I want to try!

>46 raidergirl3: Welcome to the Mina fan club.

I finished An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena yesterday evening. A group of people are trapped at a mountain hotel by an ice storm when they start dying one by one. I finished it because it was so short, but it was terribly written. I do not recommend.

I'm currently reading The Psychology of Time Travel which, at it's core, is a locked room mystery. So far the charms outweigh the drawbacks.

I finished The Black Camel by Earl Derr Biggers.This is the fourth of Derr Biggers' "Charlie Chan" mysteries and was originally published in 1929. In this novel, Chan is back home in Honolulu after solving a big case or two in San Francisco. This is a typical "drawing room" murder. A beautiful Hollywood actress, just beginning the slip into the down side of her career, is murdered just before a dinner party is to start, with, of course, a house full of guests and servants, all of whom naturally become suspects. Charlie Chan is on the case, however, so we know the killer is not going to get away with his or her dastardly deed. Truly, these books are a lot of fun. For one thing, they're well written, both in terms of the plots themselves and also Derr Biggers' skill at using natural descriptions at creating atmosphere. Derr Biggers does have Chan speaking in a heavily accented and even caricature-like Chinese-English. But he is always, clearly, the smartest person in the room and is acknowledged by his boss as the best detective in town. There are even a couple of instances where racists comments are made by obviously obnoxious characters and are slapped down ably by Chan. I recommend this series to mystery fans who enjoy the classic 20s/30s noir era and who don't mind a little trip to the Honolulu of the 1920s.

>44 gypsysmom:. Me too! Haunting and sad and beautiful at the same time.

Paid a whole quarter for The Cat Who Saw Red at a favorite used bookstore. I'm enjoying the reunion with Qwill and the cats--especially as this is an earlier one, before the series, um, didn't quite come up to scratch. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

I'm re-reading a favorite... Straight by Dick Francis... I think it's one of his best, it pulls in the reader from the opening paragraph:

"I inherited my brother's life. Inherited his desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress. I inherited my brother's life, and it nearly killed me."

---------------------------------

One of my favorite closing lines is this (from A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton):

"I blew him away."

---------------------------------

Anyone want to chime in on favorite openings/endings?

Enjoying this OverDrive Kindle eBook Alexa can read to me ~

Desperate Creed by Alex Kava (4 stars)

(Ryder Creed, book 5/search and rescue dogs/tornado-torn area)

>53 rhinemaiden: I love Dick Francis! Perhaps it is time for me to reread some of them...

>55 leslie.98: you might want to check out this thread and join the 2020 Dick Francis discussion:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/315492

>56 rhinemaiden: Thanks! I have joined :)

I have finished Jack O' Judgment by Edgar Wallace.

I have noticed before in Edgar Wallace (in the "Four Just Men" series for example) that he appears to advocate vigilantism. Unlike most early 20th century crime/mystery writers, his books don't necessarily affirm that society's justice systems (police, lawyers, courts) will prevail and uphold the good over the evil. One reason that I like Golden Age mysteries is that feeling that in the end, the right will prevail so Wallace's worldview is a bit problematic for me even when I am enjoying the plot.

Minotaur Books offered free copies of The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer and I was lucky enough to win one. So I am deep into the world of spies and assassins and terrorists. Loving it.

Just started to read The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas the 4th in the Lady Sherlock series. Was unsure whether I would enjoy these as I don't normally like twists on established characters, but these are written so well and also so much fun that I'm absolutely loving this series.

I finished The Dragon Scroll by I.J. Parker. This is the first book in Parker's "Sugawara Akitada" series of mysteries set in 11th century Japan. Our man Akitada is a low-level nobleman trying to rise in the bureaucracy of Imperial Japan. In this first story (the LT series listing says this is the first book chronologically though the third book published), Akitada is sent out to a distant province to try to solve the mystery of the disappearances of three straight convoys carrying tax payments to the capital. Murder and mayhem ensue. The plot is engaging, and the story is mostly enjoyable, though there is precious little real character development. On a whim I bought the first four books of this series (there are 14 books in all!) a while back. I will read through those first four gradually, though I doubt that I'll bother to go much further.

Didn't find this "thriller" thrilling at all...very disappointed in Missing Person by Sarah Lotz

Great setting (Harris in the Outer Hebrides) but an implausible storyline: I'll Keep You Safe by Peter May.

Next up in crime fiction is yet another American Mystery Classic: A Taste for Honey, by H.F. Heard (and now I have the song "A Taste of Honey" stuck in my head...)

Also reading Airport, by Arthur Hailey, which is billed as a thriller. This aviation nerd is loving it to bits, but I don't know how thrilling it would be for others.

We have enjoyed all of Peter May books. Ironic that we grabbed this at the library,but may darling man got it first. I must wait my turn.

Recently read: The Guardians, by John Grisham and Through the Wall, by Caroline Corcoran.

Have just started Unruly Son (aka Death of a Mystery Writer), by Robert Barnard.

Am reading Bitter Finish the second in a series of four detective-y novels set and written around 1980. It's a nice break to go to a time before the internet, cell phones and absolutely crazy TV. Not better, just different. It's getting harder and harder to visualize my life before all this tech.

FEBRUARY THREAD: https://www.librarything.com/topic/316271

>66 mvo62: I read Death of a Mystery Writer recently and quite enjoyed it. Hope you do, too.

Yes, thank you, I did enjoy it :)