In her real life, Simon is a museum director and futurist.
Her book reminds me of some Nora Roberts book. Easy to follow. Strong personalities.
Almost Y.A. No sex. No profanity.
Mother-Daughter Murder Night is about a grandmother-mother-daughter trio who come together as amateur sleuths to solve a murder in their coastal California town.
She now lives off-the-grid in the Santa Cruz mountains with her family.
She wrote this novel while her own Mom had a serious health issue.
Exercise improves almost every system in our bodies. And helps us recover through sleep.
A virtuous circle.
Christie Aschwanden’s book concluded that sleep is the #1 priority for athletes recovering from training.
It’s been well known for many decades that exercise provides many benefits to our health.
But a new scientific consortium is revealing new insights into just how profound exercise can be for the human body. William Brangham discussed more with Euan Ashley, a professor of cardiovascular medicine and genetics at Stanford University and the newly named chair of its department of medicine. …
BUT I nearly quit his 2024 book because the otherwise intelligent protagonist was making unbelievably bad mistakes. Lying unnecessarily, as well.
I’m glad I got through it. The twist and turns are interesting.
… a teacher’s act of heroism inadvertently makes him the target of a dangerous blackmailer who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.
How would you react in a life-or-death situation?
It’s a question everyone asks themselves, but few have to face in real life.
English teacher Richard Boyle certainly never thought he would find himself talking down a former student intent on harming others, but when Mark LeDrew shows up at Richard’s school with a bomb strapped to his chest, Richard immediately jumps into action. Thanks to some quick thinking, he averts a major tragedy and is hailed as a hero, but not all the attention focused on him is positive.
Richard’s brief moment in the spotlight puts him in the sights of a deranged blackmailer with a score to settle.
The situation rapidly spirals out of control, drawing Richard into a fraught web of salacious accusations and deadly secrets. As he tries to uncover the truth he discovers that there’s something deeply wrong in the town—something that ties together Mark, the blackmailer, and a gang of ruthless drug dealers, and Richard has landed smack in the middle of it. …
Lindsay Boxer is pregnant at last! … But her work doesn’t slow for a second.
Lindsay is called next to the most bizarre crime scene she’s ever seen: two bodiless heads elaborately displayed in the garden of a world-famous actor. Another head is unearthed in the garden, and Lindsay realizes that the ground could hide hundreds of victims.
12th of Never
Lindsay Boxer’s beautiful baby is born … but it’s a drama.
A rising star football player for the San Francisco 49ers is the prime suspect in a grisly murder. At the same time, Lindsay is confronted with the strangest story she’s ever heard: An eccentric English professor has been having vivid nightmares about a violent murder and he’s convinced is real. Lindsay doesn’t believe him, but then a shooting is called in-and it fits the professor’s description to the last detail.
Unlucky 13
Mackie Morales is back. The most deranged and dangerous killer the Women’s Murder Club has ever encountered.
San Francisco Detective Lindsay Boxer is loving her life as a new mother. With an attentive husband, a job she loves, plus best friends who can talk about anything from sex to murder, things couldn’t be better.
Then the FBI sends Lindsay a photo of a killer from her past, and her happy world is shattered. The picture captures a beautiful woman at a stoplight. But all Lindsay sees is the psychopath behind those seductive eyes: Mackie Morales …
14th Deadly Sin
Quite good.
With a beautiful baby daughter and a devoted husband, Detective Lindsay Boxer can safely say that her life has never been better. In fact (for a change), things seem to be going well for all the members of the Women’s Murder Club …
The 5th book (2004) in the Lucas Davenport series is one of the author’s favourites.
Davenport meets his future wife in this one.
It is winter in the remote, dark Wisconsin woods.
But the chill in the local sheriff’s bones has nothing to do with the weather.
The extravagance of the crime is new to him: the murdered man, woman and child; the machete-like knife through the man’s head; the ashes of the fire-consumed house spread over the ice and snow.
In desperation, the sheriff turns for help to the reclusive lawman he’d heard had a cabin up here, and with reluctance Davenport agrees, but it is a decision he will soon have reason to regret.
For this is a kind of criminal new to him, too.
Authorities make a lot of stupid decisions. Disappointing.
If you told me this was written by Stephen King, I’d believe you. As with many King novels, it’s long. Perhaps too long.
The Weller is one of my favourite characters of fiction. A football / weight room jock, he’s the unlikely friend of our protagonist.
Thrilled to find a new author I really admired … I was half way through the book before discovering Scott Carson is a pen name for one of my favourite writers — Michael Koryta.
When a young woman disappears in his small town, the investigation hinges on 16-year-old Marshall Miller’s haunted sighting of her, crying in the back seat of a police car driven by a cop named Maddox.
There’s only one problem: no local cop named Maddox exists.
But the speeding ticket he handed to Marshall certainly does.
Dealing with police and media is heady stuff for a teenager, the son of a single mother, but Marshall is sure he can handle it, until the shocking day when his reliability as a witness implodes.
Now scorned and shamed, he finds unlikely allies as he confronts the ancient secrets behind his small town’s peaceful façade—and learns the truth about his own family.
I was quite intrigued with the start of this book. But when she didn’t report rape. And didn’t defend herself in front of the tribunal effectively … I got pissed off. Quit at 43%.
Let’s say you want to write a murder mystery. …
You need some kind of unique hook.
This 2024 novel is unique and fascinating.
Profane, motorcycle riding, smoking, tattooed, pierced, anti-social and damaged …
… Maggie Moore is a surprising genius when it comes to words, a savant able to solve any linguistic puzzle.
The top student in her forensic linguistics class, she’s tapped by local police to use her skills to decipher harrowing notes left by a stalker-turned-rapist—and succeeds brilliantly.
But when the daughter of a local mayor is abducted, Maggie isn’t sure she’s the right person to help the police solve the crime. Given what happened to her best childhood friend, Maggie just might be too close to this one.
Yet she knows the authorities in this rural south-Central Florida town cannot crack the case without her special skill.
Along with her new best friend, a detective Jackson, Maggie begins to analyze the texts, emails, and verbal tics of various suspects . . . and comes to a disturbing conclusion …
This sequence I enjoyed more than the first 6 books.
Lindsay Boxer, Cindy Thomas, Claire Washburn and Jill Bernhardt—stars of 1st to Die, 2nd Chance and 3rd Degree—are the founding members of the Women’s Murder Club.
Yuki Castellano joins the Club in 4th of July. Together, they solve crimes in their home city of San Francisco and often meet up to talk about clues and life, over Mexican food and drinks at Susie’s.
A terrible fire in a wealthy suburban home leaves a married couple dead and Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner Rich Conklin searching for clues. And after California’s golden boy Michael Campion has been missing for a month, there finally seems to be a lead in his case-a very devastating lead.
As fire after fire consume couples in wealthy, comfortable homes, Lindsay and the Murder Club must race to find the arsonists responsible and get to the bottom of Michael Campion’s disappearance. But suddenly the flames are raging too close to home.
Someone is killing the richest people in the city-and the Women’s Murder Club will pay a high price for hunting him.
At the party of the year, San Francisco’s most glamorous couple is targeted by a killer-and it’s the perfect murder.
While Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates the high-profile killings, a saintly street preacher is brutally executed. Reporter Cindy Thomas inquires into this neglected case …
During an intimate dinner party, a cat burglar breaks into the home of A-list actor Marcus Dowling. When his wife walks in on the thief, the situation quickly teeters out of control, leaving an empty safe and a lifeless body.
The same night, a woman and her infant child are ruthlessly gunned down in an abandoned garage. The killer hasn’t left a shred of evidence, except for a foreboding and cryptic message: WCF, the letters written in blood-red letters.
Detective Lindsay Boxer’s long-awaited wedding celebration becomes a distant memory when she is called to investigate a horrendous crime: a badly injured teenage girl is left for dead, and her newborn baby has been kidnapped without a trace.
As her marriage begins to suffer from the pressures of work and her new boss watches her every move, Lindsay discovers that the victim may be keeping secrets as well.
At the same time, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano is prosecuting the biggest case of her life-a woman who has been accused of murdering her husband in front of her two young children.
Yuki’s career rests on a guilty verdict, so when Lindsay finds evidence that could save the defendant, she is forced to choose. Should she trust her best friend or follow her instinct?
Another action packed novel with Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers.
Righteous Prey (2022) is 32nd in the series. Virgil finally gets a publishing contract!
This time our heroes are trying to takedown a group of vigilante billionaires — all who got rich by early investment in Bitcoin.
The vigilantes make a list of American assholes — people most deserving of assassination.
For example, one target is exactly like Rush Limbaugh, a dangerous rightwing extremist radio shock jock.
The general public is sympathetic to the killers.
“We’re going to murder people who need to be murdered.” So begins a press release from a mysterious group known only as The Five, shortly after a vicious predator is murdered in San Francisco.
The Five is believed to be made up of vigilante killers who are very bored… and very rich. They target the worst of society — rapists, murderers, and thieves — and then use their unlimited resources to offset the damage done by those who they’ve killed, donating untraceable bitcoin to charities and victims via the dark net.
The Five soon become the most popular figures on social media, a modern-day Batman… though their motives may not be entirely pure.
There’s a real anti-Gundamentalist theme in this book, as well.
It’s far too easy to acquire weapons of war in the USA.
Rick McCharles 