I’d given up on Karen Slaughter, finding her early books simple too violent against women.

They are horror.

For some reason I downloaded this short book — and found it excellent.

Protecting someone always comes at a cost.

At the age of thirteen, Charlie Quinn’s childhood came to an abrupt and devastating end. Two men, with a grudge against her lawyer father, broke into her home—and after that shocking night, Charlie’s world was never the same.

Now a lawyer herself, Charlie has made it her mission to defend those with no one else to turn to. So when Flora Faulkner, a motherless teen, begs for help, Charlie is reminded of her own past, and is powerless to say no.

But honor-student Flora is in far deeper trouble than Charlie could ever have anticipated. Soon she must ask herself: How far should she go to protect her client? And can she truly believe everything she is being told?

Excellent historical fiction. I was astonished by how many facts were included in this entertaining romp.

The Phoenix Crown (2024)

From bestselling authors Janie Chang and Kate Quinn, a thrilling and unforgettable narrative about the intertwined lives of two wronged women, spanning from the chaos of the San Francisco earthquake to the glittering palaces of Versailles.

San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage.

Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.

His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined . . . until the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice.

Of the other characters, I enjoyed Alice Eastwood most. Based on a real person of the era.

Harlan Coben is the master of engaging plots.

This is not one of his best.

… Still, it kept me going.

7th in the Myron Bolitar series. He reps sports stars and celebrities — but somehow ends up spending more time solving murder mysteries.

His best friend, Windsor Horne Lockwood III (better known as Win), and his assistant at MB SportReps, Esperanza Diaz are both more fascinating characters.

Life isn’t going well for Myron Bolitar. His business is struggling, and his father, recently recovered from a heart attack, is facing his own mortality – and forcing Myron to face it too.

Then Emily Downing, Myron’s college sweetheart, reappears in his life with devastating news: her thirteen-year-old son Jeremy is gravely ill and can be saved only by a bone-marrow transplant – from a donor who has vanished without trace.

Before Myron can absorb this revelation, Emily hits him with an even bigger shocker: Jeremy is Myron’s son, conceived the night before Emily’s wedding to another man.

Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor.

But for Myron, finding the only person who can save the boy’s life means cracking open a mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and a cat-and-mouse game between an ambitious reporter and the FBI.

A good read.

The bad guys are really, really bad.

#16 (2018) in the anti-hero Charlie Parker series.

Recent rainfall has exposed a hidden grave in the woods close to Portland, Maine.

Parker is retained by a local lawyer to identify the woman’s body, and establish what happened to a baby that forensics believe may have been born just before she was killed.

Parker’s best guess is that the child may have been adopted locally by whoever buried the woman …

Themes like gender violence and systemic cruelty are woven into the plot.  The plight of women escaping abusive relationships plays a crucial role. 

The highlight for me are Charlie’s entertaining cast of friends: Louis and Angel, a Gay couple who are loyal friends and killers for hire. And his frequent boss, lawyer Moxie Castin, who turns out to be Jewish … ish.

There is a parallel story line of a racist criminal and his very stupid son.

There is a supernatural element in this one, but it doesn’t distract.

Cliff hanger ending. I’ll buy the sequel on Audible.

Crime Fiction Lover review

The 10th book (2017) in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Deep Freeze.  

Originally disappointed in these Virgil Flowers books, I’ve come to like them. Or … perhaps they got better over the years.

Class reunions: a time for memories — good, bad, and, as Virgil Flowers is about to find out, deadly — in the thrilling new novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series

Virgil knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt — and as it turned out, homicidal — local school board, and now the town’s back in view with more alarming news: A woman’s been found dead, frozen in a block of ice.

There’s a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of twenty years ago that has a mid-winter reunion coming up, and so, wrapping his coat a little tighter, Virgil begins to dig into twenty years’ worth of traumas, feuds, and bad blood. In the process, one thing becomes increasingly clear to him. It’s true what they say: High school is murder.

One of the better Sherlock Holmes spinoffs.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994) is the first book in the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King. It was nominated for the Agatha best novel award 

Sherlock Holmes is well retired at age- 54 in 1915. Keeping bees and studying everything in rural Sussex Downs.

A 15-year-old Jewish-American wonder child — Mary Russell — bumps into the old man in the woods — and the two quickly become odd friends.

Mary becomes a worthy apprentice. Then enters Oxford University in the autumn of 1917.

The book is a series of adventures NOT written up by John Watson.

Click PLAY or watch the author introduce the book on YouTube.

I’ve read a few of the Alex Cross novels now. Junk food. 😀

BUT I was surprised at the complexity and plot twists in his 2022 book.

(Daughter tied the High School record in 400m in this book.)

The bad guy is known as the Family Man — very EVIL.

A serial killer who targets entire families. 

A precise killer, he always moves under the cover of darkness, flawlessly triggering no alarms, leaving no physical evidence.  

Cross and Sampson aren’t the only ones investigating.  

Also in on this most intriguing case is the world’s bestselling true-crime author, who sees patterns everyone else misses.

The writer, Thomas Tull, calls the Family Man murders the perfect crime story. He believes the killer may never be caught.  

Alex Cross books in oder.

You Like It Darker (2024) is a collection of 12 short stories.

Stephen King modified the title from a Leonard Cohen lyric.

I love King the story teller. But generally don’t like horror. #conflicted

I did like this collection. He’s amazingly good at drawing you into unusual characters in unexpected situations.

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal.

“Two Talented Bastids” explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills.

In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically.

In “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached.

In “The Dreamers,” a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored.

“The Answer Man” asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

Entertaining.

The 9th book (2016) in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Escape Clause.

John Sandford is an excellent writer.

Two large, and very rare, Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they’ve been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others — as Virgil is about to find out.

Then there’s the homefront. Virgil’s relationship with his girlfriend Frankie has been getting kind of serious, but when Frankie’s sister Sparkle moves in for the summer, the situation gets a lot more complicated. For one thing, her research into migrant workers is about to bring her up against some very violent people who emphatically do not want to be researched. For another… she thinks Virgil’s kind of cute.

Very good.

The Chalk Pit (2017) is the 9th book in the Ruth Galloway series.

Boiled human bones have been found in Norwich’s web of underground tunnels.

When Dr Ruth Galloway discovers they were recently buried, DCI Nelson has a murder enquiry on his hands. The boiling might have been just a medieval curiosity – now it suggests a much more sinister purpose.

Meanwhile, DS Judy Johnson is investigating the disappearance of a local rough sleeper. The only trace of her is the rumour that she’s gone ‘underground’. This might be a figure of speech, but with the discovery of the bones and the rumours both Ruth and the police have heard that the network of old chalk-mining tunnels under Norwich is home to a vast community of rough sleepers, the clues point in only one direction.