Mixed feelings about his book published 2022.

The whodunnit kept me going. But the resolution was too unlikely for me to believe.

Sara Ewes, Travis Devine’s coworker and former girlfriend, has been found hanging in a storage room of his office building—presumably a suicide, at least for now—prompting the NYPD to come calling on him.

If that wasn’t enough, before the day is out, Devine receives another ominous visit, a confrontation that threatens to dredge up grim secrets from his past in the army unless he participates in a clandestine investigation into his firm.

This treacherous role will take him from the impossibly glittering lives he once saw only through a train window, to the darkest corners of the country’s economic halls of power . . . where something rotten lurks. And apart from this high-stakes conspiracy, there’s a killer out there with their own agenda, and Devine is the bull’s-eye.

DavidBaldacci.com

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Long Shadows is the 7th Amos Decker murder mastery.

Amos Decker is a BIG former professional football player who was violently hit on his first NFL play, resulting in severe injuries and changes to his brain.

He’s called the “memory man” because he’s unable to forget anything.

In this book Amos is sent to Florida with a brand-new partner, FBI Special Agent Frederica White, to investigate the murder of a federal judge. Both partners are pissed at their last-minute pairing, and they immediately see themselves as a bad fit. 

Later they discover they are being set up to fail and possibly dismissed for failure.

But Amos Decker never fails. His success rate in finding the murder is 100%.

A good tale.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Elly Griffiths is the pen name of Domenica de Rosa^, a British crime novelist.

Her Ruth Galloway book series is super popular.

Ruth is a forensic archaeologist who lives in a remote seaside cottage near King’s Lynn in Norfolk and teaches at the University of North Norfolk.

She had a daughter, Kate, with on-again, off-again love interest DCI Harry Nelson.

I tried the most recent — The Locked Room #14 (2022) — mainly because it was set just at the start of the pandemic. And that was interesting.

The murder mysteries were complicated by Covid lockdown rules.

It is a good book. But I’m not sure I’ll ready more Ruth Galloway. I’m keener on her Harbinder Kaur book series.

Post-holiday blues got you down? The solution is to cozy up with a great thriller! 😌📖

And do we have the recommendation for you—The Locked Room by @ellygriffiths. Ruth is feeling isolated—until Nelson investigates a string of murder-suicides that’s looming ever closer…😱 pic.twitter.com/pBuSZyoWxQ

— Mariner Books (@MarinerBooks) January 5, 2023

Jeffery Deaver is a great writer.

This is the first book of his I’ve read.

Colter Shaw is an itinerate “reward-seeker,” traveling the country to help police solve crimes and private citizens locate missing persons.

When he learns of a reward for a missing college student in Silicon Valley, he takes the job. The investigation quickly thrusts him into the dark heart of Silicon Valley and the cutthroat billion-dollar video gaming industry–and then a second kidnapping happens…and this victim turns up dead.

The clues soon point to one video game, The Never Game, in which the player has to survive after being left abandoned.

Is a madman bringing that game to life? If so, Shaw has to stop him before he strikes again…and before he figures out that Shaw is on his trail.

jefferydeaver.com

I’ll be reading more Jeffery Deaver, for sure.

Deaver was chosen to write a new James Bond novel: Carte Blanche set in 2011 and was published on May 25, 2011.  So he’s definitely got credibility as an author.

A new series begins – the Hunter and Tate Mysteries.

Book #1 is OK.  Easy reading. 

I doubt I’ll continue with the series.

True crime podcaster Ella Tate is shaken to her core by the horrific assault and murder of Josie Wheatly, a teacher she has never met … because not only had Josie moved into Ella’s vacated apartment three months earlier, but her Facebook photos reveal a striking resemblance between the two women.

Within days, two people close to Ella are harmed, and she fears that she’s become the target of twisted revenge from her crime-reporting days. 

Reluctantly teaming up with her neighbour Tony, a hairdresser who loves the finer things in life, and Liam Hunter, the persistent detective assigned to the cases, Ella struggles to stay one step ahead before she becomes the target of the final kill.

BrendaChapman.ca

5th book in the series.

When I realized my favourite character, Lewis, was not going to be in this story, I was disappointed.

BUT a murder mystery set in a December blizzard in Iceland turned out to be right up my alley. 😀

Losing ground in his fight against post-traumatic claustrophobia, war veteran Peter Ash has no intention of getting on an airplane–until a grieving woman asks Peter to find her eight-year-old grandson.

The woman’s daughter has been murdered. Erik, the dead daughter’s husband, is the sole suspect, and he has taken his young son and fled to Iceland for the protection of Erik’s lawless family.

Finding the boy becomes more complicated when Peter is met at the airport by a man from the United States Embassy. For reasons both unknown and unofficial, it seems that Peter’s own government doesn’t want him in Iceland. …

nickpetrie.com

Good book. I enjoyed it.

Wesley King is the author of over a dozen novels for young readers.

His debut, OCDaniel, is an Edgar Award winner, a Canada Silver Birch Award winner, a Bank Street Best Book of the Year, and received a starred review from Booklist.

The author suffered in silence with Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) when he was a kid. This coming-of-age novel is quite autobiographical.

13-year-old Daniel is shy and smart. He’d be bullied if not for his best friend Max who is a school football star.

Daniel is on the team too — as back-up punter and water boy. He really doesn’t want to get on the field.

The only stranger kid in his Grade is Sara Malvern who does not speak to anyone. Though she keeps her grades high.

Daniel is shocked with Sara approaches him with a personal problem. And speaks.

She fears her father has been killed by her Mom’s new boyfriend.

It’s partly a murder mystery.

Simultaneously, Daniel is secretly writing a book called The Last Kid on Earth.

This book is ideal for kids and teenagers.

The author is most famous for writing kids books for Kobe Bryant.

He wrote a prequel, as well, about Sara ➙ Sara and the Search for Normal.