Excellent.

Magpie Murders is a 2016 mystery novel by British author Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Susan Ryeland series.

The story focuses on the murder of a mystery author and utilizes a story within a story format.

Susan Ryeland is the editor of the mystery author Alan Conway, who is known for his well-received series of novels centering upon the detective Atticus Pünd and for being very difficult to work with.

Fans are eagerly awaiting Conway’s latest novel, rumored to be the last in the series, but when Susan reads through the manuscript she discovers that it is unfinished.

And that Alan Conway is dead.

Does the manuscript provide clues?

related – PBS Adapting MAGPIE MURDERS as Six-Part Mini-Series

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Michael Connelly‘s new book (2020) is his best — so far — of the 6 featuring attorney Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer.

I’ve never been much of a courtroom drama fan. But this story is excellent.

And well told.

it’s topical, as well, set just at the start of pandemic in 2020.

On the night he celebrates a big win, defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a former client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is immediately charged with murder but can’t post the exorbitant $5 million bail slapped on him by a vindictive judge. …

Haller knows he’s been framed, whether by a new enemy or an old one. As his trusted team, including his half-brother, Harry Bosch, investigates, Haller must use all his skills in the courtroom to counter the damning evidence against him.

Amazon

With season 5 of The Expanse arriving Amazon, I read the 4th book in the series as a warm-up. 😀

Cibola Burn (2014) follows the crew of the Rocinante as they join the flood of humanity out into the galaxy, using the gates built by the ancient civilization that also produced the protomolecule. …

Holden arrives on a world on the verge of war.

Yet the biggest danger to the colonists, scientists and Holden is not the human disagreements that they have brought with them but the frontier. …

Season 4 of The Expanse was largely based on this book.

I love the future universe imagined in this series. Like a number of the characters.

But — overall — these are not great books. If the TV series did not exist, I wouldn’t read them.

Season 6 will be last in the TV series.

I liked the previous book by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen — The Wife Between Us (2018) — and looked forward to their 2019 novel.

It’s even better.

Jessica, a Manhattan makeup artist, signs up for a research study into morality and ethics. She needs the money. It pays $500.

But what does Dr. Shields’ actually want of her?

A TV series based on the book is planned.

Amazon.

Abaddon’s Gate is 3rd in The Expanse series — preceded by Leviathan Wakes and Caliban’s War. 

James Holden and his crew have been successful in their ship-for-hire business, cashing in on their celebrity …

But things go wrong when our crew goes first through the Stargate called “The Ring”.

They have a camera crew onboard.

Abaddon’s Gate was adapted into episodes 7 to 13 of the third season of the television series The Expanse in 2018, with its title taken for the final episode of that season.

This is one of those rare series where the TV show is better than the books.

I find the books too slow.