I tried a second book in the very popular Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths.

Well written. But not really my cup of tea.

Ruth is a forensic archaeologist who assists the police from time to time with investigations.

In this book she is the harried mother of a toddler, asked to investigate an archeological study that had been unearthed by a College friend. Close to Blackpool, England.

It appears he had been murdered, perhaps due to the nature of the dig.

The plot is interesting. But Ruth’s complaints and worries eventually began to wear on me.

I wanted the book to end.

The Simple Truth (1999) by David Baldacci is quite good.

The plot sounded more Grisham — a murderer in prison for life wants to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Suddenly everyone who has anything to do with the possible case is at risk of being killed.

This one is definitely above average for Baldacci. I recommend it.

The Broken Window (2008) is the 8th book in the Lincoln Rhyme series.

As always, Deaver backs up his entertaining stories with great research.

Though the book was published 2008, it parallels what could happen in 2023 as hackers are winning the war against privacy.

…  a killer has access to the world’s greatest data miner called Strategic Systems Datacorp. He is using detailed information to commit crimes and blame them on innocents.

Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sachs, and characters from the previous books, team up to stop the criminal.

Anthony Horowitz is an excellent murder mystery writer.

This one from 2016 is a bit of a sequel to the very popular The Magpie Murders.

Moonflower Murders (2020) finds Susan Ryeland broke, running a small hotel in Crete.

For ￡10,000 she’s convinced to fly home to England to investigate the disappearance of a woman from another hotel.

Why?

Because there are parallels between how Cecily disappeared and another novel that Ryeland had edited in the past.

It’s a story within a story.

In fact, if you read this book ➙ you read 2 books. The one based on the other.

The second is called …

Atticus Pünd Takes the Case

In the novel Pünd and his new secretary are hired to investigate the murder of Melissa James, a former actress turned wife and hotel owner. As with the case of Frank Parris, there are many potential killers who could have murdered Melissa such as her husband …

Magpie murders was adapted for TV. It must have been successful as now Moonflower Murders will be coming to the small screen in 2023.

This is the first book I’ve read from Naomi Novik.

Novik’s first novel, His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire in the UK) is the first novel in the Temeraire series, an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars in a “Flintlock Fantasy” world where dragons are abundant and are used in aerial combat. …

The dragons of the story are portrayed as sapient and intelligent, capable of logical thought and human speech. The series centers primarily on events involving Temeraire (the titular dragon) and his handler, Will Laurence. …

I found the story refreshingly different. Historical fiction with dragons that speak perfectly on hatching. They learn language through the shell.

It turns out that Temeraire was to be a gift from the Chinese to Napoleon, his personal mount. But the British captured the egg from a French ship.

Deaver books have more twists and turns than any other author.

And he outdoes himself in The Cold Moon, 7th in the Lincoln Rhyme series.

It also introduces CBI agent Kathryn Dance, who would later get her own series of books. She’s one of the nation’s leading experts in interrogation and kinesics—body language.

The brilliant bad guy in this book calls himself the Watchmaker.

This killer’s obsession with time drives him to plan the murders with the precision of fine timepieces, and the victims die prolonged deaths while an eerie clock ticks away their last minutes on earth.

Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sachs, and the rest of the crew are tapped to handle the case and stop the Watchmaker and his partner, Vincent Reynolds, a repulsive character with a special interest in the female victims of the killer. …

The Kill Room (2013) is 10th in the Lincoln Rhyme series by Jeffery Deaver.

Robert Moreno, an American citizen living in South America, is killed in the Bahamas by a … sniper (?).

It seems an impossible shot.

Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are drafted to investigate. 

In fact, Lincoln flies to the Bahamas and tries to work with local authorities.

As always, the research and technology is excellent. Many twists and turns.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Anthony Horowitz is an English novelist and screenwriter.

Anthony, the narrator (a barely fictionalized version of the author), is a modern day Watson to a modern day Holmes called ex-Detective Inspector Hawthorne.

Hawthorne, who is in need of money, proposes that Anthony write a true crime novel about him. A bad idea. Horowitz somehow agrees to a 3 book contract. 

The first in the series was The Word Is Murder. Quite good.

This is the second. And I’d say it’s even better.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.