Linwood Barclay is a good author.

BUT I nearly quit his 2024 book because the otherwise intelligent protagonist was making unbelievably bad mistakes. Lying unnecessarily, as well.

I’m glad I got through it. The twist and turns are interesting.

… a teacher’s act of heroism inadvertently makes him the target of a dangerous blackmailer who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

How would you react in a life-or-death situation?

It’s a question everyone asks themselves, but few have to face in real life.

English teacher Richard Boyle certainly never thought he would find himself talking down a former student intent on harming others, but when Mark LeDrew shows up at Richard’s school with a bomb strapped to his chest, Richard immediately jumps into action. Thanks to some quick thinking, he averts a major tragedy and is hailed as a hero, but not all the attention focused on him is positive.

Richard’s brief moment in the spotlight puts him in the sights of a deranged blackmailer with a score to settle.

The situation rapidly spirals out of control, drawing Richard into a fraught web of salacious accusations and deadly secrets. As he tries to uncover the truth he discovers that there’s something deeply wrong in the town—something that ties together Mark, the blackmailer, and a gang of ruthless drug dealers, and Richard has landed smack in the middle of it. …

GoodReads

This series is the junk food of murder mysteries. 😀

11th Hour

Not bad. I enjoyed this one.

Lindsay Boxer is pregnant at last! … But her work doesn’t slow for a second. 

Lindsay is called next to the most bizarre crime scene she’s ever seen: two bodiless heads elaborately displayed in the garden of a world-famous actor. Another head is unearthed in the garden, and Lindsay realizes that the ground could hide hundreds of victims.

12th of Never

Lindsay Boxer’s beautiful baby is born … but it’s a drama.

A rising star football player for the San Francisco 49ers is the prime suspect in a grisly murder. At the same time, Lindsay is confronted with the strangest story she’s ever heard: An eccentric English professor has been having vivid nightmares about a violent murder and he’s convinced is real. Lindsay doesn’t believe him, but then a shooting is called in-and it fits the professor’s description to the last detail.

Unlucky 13

Mackie Morales is back. The most deranged and dangerous killer the Women’s Murder Club has ever encountered.

San Francisco Detective Lindsay Boxer is loving her life as a new mother. With an attentive husband, a job she loves, plus best friends who can talk about anything from sex to murder, things couldn’t be better.

Then the FBI sends Lindsay a photo of a killer from her past, and her happy world is shattered. The picture captures a beautiful woman at a stoplight. But all Lindsay sees is the psychopath behind those seductive eyes: Mackie Morales …

14th Deadly Sin

Quite good.

With a beautiful baby daughter and a devoted husband, Detective Lindsay Boxer can safely say that her life has never been better. In fact (for a change), things seem to be going well for all the members of the Women’s Murder Club …

The 5th book (2004) in the Lucas Davenport series is one of the author’s favourites.

Davenport meets his future wife in this one.

It is winter in the remote, dark Wisconsin woods.

But the chill in the local sheriff’s bones has nothing to do with the weather.

The extravagance of the crime is new to him: the murdered man, woman and child; the machete-like knife through the man’s head; the ashes of the fire-consumed house spread over the ice and snow.

In desperation, the sheriff turns for help to the reclusive lawman he’d heard had a cabin up here, and with reluctance Davenport agrees, but it is a decision he will soon have reason to regret.

For this is a kind of criminal new to him, too.

Authorities make a lot of stupid decisions. Disappointing.

Excellent.

Original.

Funny and entertaining.

A coming of age, murder mystery, ghost story.

If you told me this was written by Stephen King, I’d believe you. As with many King novels, it’s long. Perhaps too long.

The Weller is one of my favourite characters of fiction. A football / weight room jock, he’s the unlikely friend of our protagonist.

Thrilled to find a new author I really admired … I was half way through the book before discovering Scott Carson is a pen name for one of my favourite writers — Michael Koryta.

His 2024 book is a ‘Love Letter’ to Bloomington, Indiana. The author was born and raised there.

This novel is set in 1999.

When a young woman disappears in his small town, the investigation hinges on 16-year-old Marshall Miller’s haunted sighting of her, crying in the back seat of a police car driven by a cop named Maddox.

There’s only one problem: no local cop named Maddox exists.

But the speeding ticket he handed to Marshall certainly does.

Dealing with police and media is heady stuff for a teenager, the son of a single mother, but Marshall is sure he can handle it, until the shocking day when his reliability as a witness implodes.

Now scorned and shamed, he finds unlikely allies as he confronts the ancient secrets behind his small town’s peaceful façade—and learns the truth about his own family.

Amazon

I was quite intrigued with the start of this book. But when she didn’t report rape. And didn’t defend herself in front of the tribunal effectively … I got pissed off. Quit at 43%.

Let’s say you want to write a murder mystery. …

You need some kind of unique hook.

This 2024 novel is unique and fascinating.

Profane, motorcycle riding, smoking, tattooed, pierced, anti-social and damaged …

… Maggie Moore is a surprising genius when it comes to words, a savant able to solve any linguistic puzzle.

The top student in her forensic linguistics class, she’s tapped by local police to use her skills to decipher harrowing notes left by a stalker-turned-rapist—and succeeds brilliantly.

But when the daughter of a local mayor is abducted, Maggie isn’t sure she’s the right person to help the police solve the crime. Given what happened to her best childhood friend, Maggie just might be too close to this one.

Yet she knows the authorities in this rural south-Central Florida town cannot crack the case without her special skill.

Along with her new best friend, a detective Jackson, Maggie begins to analyze the texts, emails, and verbal tics of various suspects . . . and comes to a disturbing conclusion …

Amazon

The story of how this book came to be is fascinating, however.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.