Category: books

Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows

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Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows is a mystery novel by James Lovegrove.

This book is well written.

But WEIRD for Sherlock Holmes fans.

Instead of typical Baker Street consulting detectivry, this is some kind of supernatural horror story.

This one begins in 1880. Watson has returned from Afghanistan an invalid, but the cause of his injury was not as previously stated a Jezail bullet during the Battle of Maiwand, but rather as a result of his first brush with the occult.

It is not to be his last.

He is dragged by accident into one of Holmes’ cases, and from there their friendship grows.

Holmes has been investigating a series of bizarre deaths in the East End district of Shadwell; poor, unfortunate men and women are dying at the height of the new moon, their bodies aged and shrunken in an improbable manner. …

Crime Fiction Writer review

It’s not for me. I won’t be continuing with the series.

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

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Clare Mackintosh is a British author and former police officer..

She became a  full-time writer in 2011. And in 2014 published I Let You Go, a best seller.

It’s intense.

Well written.

There are plot twists that surprised me.

Jenna Gray has rented a spare cottage in a small Welsh town on the coast.

She’s timid and doesn’t interact with many people, just her landlord and a woman at a local shop. She’s running away from the death of a child.

In parallel, Detective Inspector Ray Stevens and a female rookie are working on the case of a young boy killed in a hit-and-run right in front of his mother.

Inevitably, the story reveals itself.

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

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Lisa Jewell is the best selling author of None of This Is True (2023).

It’s yet another hit psychological thriller — and I’m starting to get sick of psychological thrillers. 😀

BUT this is a good one.

None of This is True refers to unreliable narrators. The story will keep you guessing.

Josie Fair and Alix Summer share the same birthday. Born in the same hospital on the same day, and now, at the age of forty five, they share a curiosity about how their lives might have turned out differently.

Bumping into one another by accident, Alix (a podcaster) strikes on an idea for a series called …

“Hi I’m Your birthday Twin” 

She begins to interview Josie — who tells of a very damaged upbringing and family life.

It’s an intense book. Dark and sad.

 Kirkus Reviews noted that the book was “hard to read but hard to look away from.”

Recommended.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

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I only read the first third of this book. I normally find King books to be superb storytelling — but too long.

I quit at the point where the ghost story started to get too weird and violent.

Bag of Bones is a 1998 horror novel … about an author who suffers severe writer’s block and delusions at an isolated lake house four years after the death of his wife. …

He decides to confront his fears and moves to his vacation house on Dark Score Lake, known as “Sara Laughs”.

On his first day, he meets Kyra, a 3-year-old girl and her young widowed mother, 20-year-old Mattie Devore.

Mattie’s father-in-law is Max Devore, an elderly rich man who will do anything to gain custody of his granddaughter. He was the bad guy when I quit the book.

Pierce Brosnan plays the writer in the TV mini-series.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Swiping Hearts by Jeffrey Deaver

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Swiping Hearts (2023) is a short story by one of my favourite writers.

Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are called upon to tackle a crime unlike any they’ve ever faced.

An unknown subject is using his formidable skills to work his way into the lives—and hearts—of his victims, all with the goal of utterly destroying them psychologically and emotionally . . . for his pure pleasure.

jefferydeaver.com

Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

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Debut novel by Eva Jurczyk.

Too slow. Too long.

Liesl Weiss, the protagonist, was simply not a character I could cheer for.

The resolution no kind of surprising twist.

I downloaded this mystery because it was set in a library. And Jurczyk herself is a librarian at the University of Toronto and worked in its rare books library as a graduate student.  

She knows of what she writes.

Amazon

Skip this book — unless you are REALLY into libraries.

Click PLAY or watch an interview with the author on YouTube.

The #1 Lawyer by Patterson & Nancy Allen

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He’s America’s Best Lawyer Until He’s Its #1 Murder Suspect

Can this actually be James Patterson?

It reads to me more like John Grisham.

Excellent.

Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi’s #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity.

Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career.  …

Perhaps this 2024 novel had a LOT of influence from co-author Nancy Allen.

She practiced law in the Ozarks for fifteen years as Assistant Attorney General and Assistant Prosecutor. She served on the faculty at Missouri State University for sixteen years, teaching law classes.

All the Light We Cannot See – book & TV

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All the Light We Cannot See (2014) is a war novel by American author Anthony Doerr.

… set during World War II. It revolves around the characters Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl who takes refuge in her great-uncle’s house in Saint-Malo after Paris is invaded by Nazi Germany, and Werner Pfennig, a bright German boy who is accepted into a military school because of his skills in radio technology.

It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Overall, I was disappointed.

Too long. Poor storytelling. It rambled too much.

There were dozens of scenes that could have been left out — leaving the core story stronger.

WHY have 4 diamonds? That added nothing but unnecessary pages.

I’m astonished that the Pulitzer judges were impressed.

The mini-series — 4 episodes — is MUCH BETTER.

Don’t listen to the critics who gave it only 27% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I commend the screen writers for improving so much of the messy book.

Werner Pfennig is a much stronger character on screen.

Hugh Laurie is excellent as the World War I veteran suffering from PTSD.

Marie-Laure is played by Aria Mia Loberti who is legally blind. She responded on a whim to an All The Light We Cannot See open global casting search posted online. An amateur. Well cast.

I’d agree with critics that the NAZIs are cliche in the TV series . No nuance.

That was my biggest complaint with the mini-series.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Fletch Won by Gregory Mcdonald

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Fletch Won (1985) is a mystery/comedy novel written by American Gregory Mcdonald.

It is the eighth book to star the character Fletch, but is a prequel set before the events of first seven books in the series.  …

 Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher is moved off of obituaries and wedding announcements at the News Tribune and is assigned his first journalistic interview, only to have the subject turn up dead in the newspaper‘s parking lot. He investigates, beginning his dual profession of journalist and investigator.

Amusing. But I don’t think I’ll continue with any of the other Fletch books.

The book series was twice adapted for film:

Chevy seems the perfect fool to play this role.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Juror #3 by Patterson & Nancy Allen

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I’ve really enjoyed the James Patterson books with co-author Nancy Allen.

The difference is Nancy Allen.

In this book, there are two separate trials.

Ruby Bozarth, a newcomer to Rosedale, Mississippi, is also fresh to the State Bar — and to the docket of Circuit Judge Baylor, who taps Ruby as defense counsel.

The murder of a woman from one of the town’s oldest families has Rosedale’s upper crust howling for blood, and the prosecutor is counting on Ruby’s inexperience to help him deliver a swift conviction.

Ruby’s client is a college football star who has returned home after a career-ending injury, and she is determined to build a defense that will stick

Ruby never belonged to the country club set, but once she nearly married into it. As news breaks of a second murder, Ruby’s ex-fiancé shows up on her doorstep — a Southern gentleman in need of a savior. As lurid, intertwining investigations unfold, no one in Rosedale can be trusted, especially the twelve men and women impaneled on the jury. They may be hiding the most incendiary secret of all.

Amazon

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.