I did like Death by Dumpling (2018). The author, Vivien Chien, already has 11 books in the series as I post.

The 1st is far from a brilliant murder mystery. There’s no way I could have guessed the killer from the clues.

BUT I was charmed by Lana Lee, our investigator.

It’s a short, easy read. A cozy mystery. Almost Young Adult.

The last place Lana Lee thought she would ever end up is back at her family’s restaurant. But after a brutal break-up and a dramatic workplace walk-out, she figures that helping wait tables is her best option for putting her life back together. Even if that means having to put up with her mother, who is dead-set on finding her a husband.

Lana’s love life soon becomes yesterday’s news once the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead―after a delivery of shrimp dumplings from Ho-Lee.

But how could this have happened when everyone on staff knew about Mr. Feng’s severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy?

Now, with the whole restaurant under suspicion for murder and the local media in a feeding frenzy―to say nothing of the gorgeous police detective who keeps turning up for take-out―it’s up to Lana to find out who is behind Feng’s killer order. . . before her own number is up.

The book ends with Lana heading off on a date. There’s hope for her.

Not the best King I’ve read — but very good. 

Never Flinch (2025) is a crime novel by Stephen King. 

A stand alone book, but one that includes fan favourite recurring character Holly Gibney.

Two stories run in parallel, then converge for the finale. 

1. Holly Gibney signs on as body guard for a controversial celebrity feminist activist on tour.
2. Detective Izzy Jaynes searches for an insane multiple personality who plans to “kill thirteen innocents and one guilty” 

For me, the Izzy Jaynes storyline was more interesting. That bad guy truly bizarre. 

Gospel singer Sista Bessie is one of those terrific King characters with whom you can truly relate.

He’s one of our best storytellers. 

Hidden Nature (2025) is another of her terrific romance novels. Uplifting.

She’s one of the best storytellers.

The murder mystery is less compelling. Too drawn out. (Her fans like LOONNNGGGG books.)

I did like the bad guys, however.

I love the details she includes in every book. You always learn something. In this case, I learned much about home renovation.

Natural Resources police officer, Sloan Cooper, is the focus. An interesting job.

She’s shot. Died. And shocked back to life on the operating table.

Sloan searches online for similar cases of people who have come back from the dead — as the killers seem to be targeting them.

The 6th book in the Jane Whitefield series — Runner (2009) — is good, but the weakest of the collection, so far.

For more than a decade, Jane pursued her unusual profession: “I’m a guide . . . I show people how to go from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody is.”

Then she promised her husband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, New York.

But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across the country by a team of hired hunters.

That night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she’s made to her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more victim into a runner.

BookBrowse

The 5th book in the excellent Jane Whitefield series is the best yet, I’d say.

Blood Money (2002)

Jane Whitefield, the fearless “guide” who helps people in trouble disappear, make victims vanish, has just begun her quiet new life as Mrs. Carey McKinnon, when she is called upon again, to face her toughest opponents yet.  

Jane must try to save a young girl fleeing a deadly mafioso.   Yet the deceptively simple task of hiding a girl propels Jane into the center of horrific events, and pairs her with Bernie the Elephant, the mafia’s man with the money.  

Bernie has a photographic memory, and in order to undo an evil that has been growing for half a century,he and Jane engineer the biggest theft of all time, stealing billions from hidden mafia accounts and donating the money to charity.  

Heart-stopping pace, fine writing, and mesmerizing characters combine in Blood Money to make it the best novel yet by the writer called “one of America’s finest storytellers,”