Category: books

She Didn’t See it Coming by Shari Lapena

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

The 2025 murder mystery from Shari Lapena is pretty good. It kept me guessing.

Bryden and Sam have it all – thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condominium, supportive friends and a cherished daughter.

The perfect life for the perfect couple.

Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden – working from home that day – has failed to collect their daughter from daycare.

Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall.

Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out.

How can she have disappeared from her own home? And did she even leave the building at all?

With every minute that passes – and as questions swirl around their community – Bryden and Sam’s past seems a little less perfect, their condominium less safe, their friends, neighbours and relatives no longer quite so reliable . . .

Doing Hard Time by Stuart Woods

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Doing Hard Time (2014) is the 27th book in the Stone Barrington series.

A good one.

Stone Barrington is a rich New York lawyer who, over the years, has become increasingly adept at eating at fancy restaurants and spending huge amounts of money on airplanes, cars and houses. Also sleeping with every beautiful woman who comes along.

Best in this novel is the return of arch criminal (or maybe he’s really a good guy) Teddy Fay.

Teddy is on the run from just about everyone, having killed a number of people he felt deserved an early exit from their time on earth.

Stone’s son and his 2 friends are on their way to Hollywood to make a feature film. Teddy saves them in a typically insanely unlikely way.

The book is mostly set in L.A.

A Russian mafia boss from the past starts sending hitmen after Stone and family.

Entertaining, as always. An easy read.

Unintended Consequences by Stuart Woods

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

A better than average Stone Barrington novel.

Unintended Consequences (2013) is in the series.

An easy, entertaining read.

Stone finds himself in Paris, France. With amnesia.

What happened?

Seems a French billionaire wants to buy one of his companies. And a Russian oligarch disagrees.

Michael Cavacini is an award winning writer. Yet STILL enjoys the silly Stone Barrington novels. As do I.

Severe Clear by Stuart Woods

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Not bad.

Severe Clear is in the Stone Barrington fantasy series.

This one includes the Presidents of the United States and Mexico.

Stone Barrington is in Bel-Air, overseeing the grand opening of the ultra-luxe hotel, The Arrington, built on the grounds of the mansion belonging to his late wife, Arrington Carter.

The star-studded gala will be attended by socialites, royalty, and billionaires from overseas…and according to phone conversations intercepted by the NSA, it may also have attracted the attention of international terrorists. To ensure the safety of his guests—and the city of Los Angeles—Stone may have to call in a few favors from his friends at the CIA…

David Baldacci wrote a SERIOUS Novel

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Strangers in Time: A World War II Novel (2025) is excellent historical fiction.

I’m surprised as Baldacci is mainly know for best selling suspense novels and legal thrillers that you immediately forget once getting to the last page.

But his 2025 book is serious literature. This could be nominated for major awards.

… set in London in 1944, about a bereaved bookshop owner and two teenagers scarred by the Second World War, and the healing and hope they find in one another. 

Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life. 

Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of children to have been evacuated to the countryside Molly has been away from her home for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there. 

Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his bookshop …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza

On By Rick McIn books, travelLeave a comment

Jo Piazza is a novelist, journalist, and podcaster.

I read The Sicilian Inheritance (2024) mainly because I‘ve never been to Sicily. An unforgivable oversight on my part.

It kept me going. Both the modern day story of Sara, there for the first time. AND the story of her great-grandmother Serafina in the bad, old days when women were treated like chattel ➙ kept me going.

I’d almost place this book in the Romance genre.

Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage.

On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief.

But Aunt Rosie’s death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret.

Rosie believes Sara’s great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn’t die of illness as family lore has it . . . she was murdered.

Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and learn the story of Serafina—a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly the more she challenges the status quo, the more she finds herself in danger.

Piazza wrote this fictional novel inspired by the real life murder of her great, great grandmother, Lorenza Marsala, more than a 100 years ago. 

Death Benefits by Thomas Perry

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Good book.

Death Benefits (2001) has a terrific premise.

A careful, methodical young data analyst for a California insurance company, John Walker knows when people will marry, at what age they will most likely have children, and when they will die.

All signs point to a long successful career—until Max Stillman, a gruff security consultant, appears without warning at the office.

It seems a colleague with whom Walker once had an affair has disappeared after paying a very large death benefit to an impostor.

Stillman wants to find and convict her; Walker is convinced the woman is innocent.

Now Walker teams up with Stillman on an urgent north-by-northeast race …

I enjoy learning about how skiptracers work and think.

The Left-handed Twin by Thomas Perry

On By Rick McIn books, hikingLeave a comment

The Left-handed Twin (2021) by Thomas Perry is good, but not as good as the previous 8 books in the series.

One part I did enjoy was a chase on Maine’s Hundred Mile Wilderness.

Jane Whitefield helps people disappear.

Fearing for their lives, fleeing dangerous situations, her clients come to her when they need to vanish completely—to assume a new identity and establish a new life somewhere they won’t be found. …

… Jane finds a young woman fresh from LA with a whole lot of trouble behind her. After she cheated on her boyfriend, he dragged her to the home of the offending man and made her watch as he killed him. She testified against the boyfriend, but a bribed jury acquitted him, and now he’s free and trying to find and kill her.

Jane agrees to help, and it soon becomes clear that outsmarting the murderous boyfriend is not beyond Jane’s skills. But the boyfriend has some new friends: members of a Russian organized crime brotherhood.

When they learn that Sara is traveling with a tall, dark-haired woman who disappears people, the Russians become increasingly interested in helping the boyfriend find the duo. They’ve heard rumors that such a woman existed—and believe that, if forcibly extracted, the knowledge she has of past clients could be worth millions.  

He does plan a 10th book to be called The Tree of Life and Flowers (2026).

“I See You’ve Called in Dead” by John Kenney

On By Rick McIn books, philosophyLeave a comment

Mixed feelings.

I downloaded “I See You’ve Called in Dead” (2025) for the intriguing premise:

Obituary writer Bud Stanley is semi-depressed. One night he gets drunk and posts his own obituary.

His company assumes he is dead and removes him from their employees list.

Turning up at work, the computer won’t let them fire Bud because he’s technically dead in their system. 😀

Catch-22.

I love it.

And there is a lot of humour. I laughed out loud more than once.

Thurber Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life.

Suspended from work, Bud meets a woman and they start attending wakes and funerals of strangers.

There are some interesting philosophical discussions about the meaning of life. Important.

Two additional characters really appeal: Leo, a neighbour’s son, and Bud’s best friend Tim.

So … plenty of good content. But ultimately I’m not sure I can call this book a success. I nearly quit several times.

Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Great title for a cozy mystery.

It kept me going right to the end. Never sure of which suspect was the real killer.

Uzma Jalaluddin is a Canadian writer and teacher. She also writes a column for the Toronto Star.

This one is an Agatha Christie set in the South Asian Muslim immigrant community.

When her grown daughter is suspected of murder, a charming and tenacious widow digs into the case to unmask the real killer in this twisty, page-turning whodunnit …

Sana, phones to say that she’s been arrested for killing the unpopular landlord of her clothing boutique.

Determined to help her child, Kausar heads to Toronto for the first time in nearly twenty years. …

With the help of some old friends and her plucky teenage granddaughter, Kausar digs into the investigation to uncover the truth.

Because who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty?

But even Kausar can’t predict the secrets, lies, and betrayals she finds along the way…

5-STAR REVIEW: DETECTIVE AUNTY by Uzma Jalaluddin

Themes included murder, affairs, fraud, pyramid schemes, theft, racism, gentrification.