Category Archives: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

I was late to the starting point with this series. I began reading it with the “Dreaming Spies” and was beginning to work my way through the series from the beginning. I jumped ahead once again to read “The Murder of Mary Russell” as it is just being released. Another great read and one that had me wondering up until the end about where the book was headed.

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When I started reading this book, I had no idea that it was tenth in a series. I often read books out of order in a series to see if I can still find my way as a reader. It quickly became obvious, to me, that this was not going to be an easy story to simply pick up and read. There are many characters with a lot of back history that is integral to the plot development.

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“She’s Not There” tells the story of Caroline Shipley. She is the mother of two who is convinced (by her husband) to leaver her two young daughters alone in their hotel room in order to celebrate their anniversary dinner with family in friends. The worst happens and their youngest daughter goes missing.

Fifteen years later, Caroline is still heart-broken and the “anniversary” of the kidnapping is coming up. She gets a call from a young woman who announces that she believes she is Caroline’s missing daughter.

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“Yarned and Dangerous” is the first in a new series about Dorset Falls and the group of ladies who make up the Charity Knitters Association.

Josie Blair has moved back to help out her uncle after he was injured in a car crash that took the life of his wife he had recently married, Cora. One of the important tasks she has to accomplish before leaving is to close down and sell the stock of Aunt Cora’s yarn store, Miss Marple Knits.

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“Death Crashes the Party” is the debut book by author Vickie Fee as well as the first book in her new Liv and Di mystery series. Liv is a party planner in Dixie, Tennessee and Di is her best friend. Together they get into a lot of mischief as they try to solve the murder mystery that has their small town turned upside down.

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This is a series that I have read out of order over the years. I missed a few of the more recent books and so the personal life of forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver has advanced and changed a bit since the last book I read. However, I read the book for the mystery and Mr. Elkins ability to write a great and cerebral murder mystery has not changed at all. It is arguable that Mr. Elkins started the genre of forensic anthropology murder mysteries with his Gideon Oliver books.

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This is the first Dean Koontz novel I have read in a very long time. It was interestingly written but in some ways a tad confusing for me. The characters jumped around a bit and I was never quite sure of where I was in the story.

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While this is the second book in this cozy mystery series, it is the first book I have read by this author. The focus of the series is on University life in general and on the interim dean of Journalism, Meredith Solaris, in particular.

Dr. Solaris, known to family and friends simply as “Red” is applying for the full time position of Dean of Journalism at Mountain West University. This is a university which is located in Nevada. Prior to this book (and presumably in the first book in the series), Red has saved the university’s “bacon” by solving a crime and by getting the school back on track. While that should make her odds on favorite for the full-time position, it turns out that two other outstanding individuals are also looking for the job.

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When I started reading this book, I didn’t realize that it was the beginning of a series. Because so much is being introduced in this book, it made it a rather slow read.

While there appears to be a murder most malicious, one isn’t sure about this until the very last few pages of the book. While that may have been intended to leave the reader guessing, I found the result to be less than what my imagination had been able to conjure up, so I was slightly disappointed at the outcome.

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The author paints a realistic view of small town Texas life. I moved from California to Texas more than ten years ago and before that move, I would have thought the the characters and events in this book were a tad exaggerated. Turns out, I have learned better in the last decade. It is almost as if I know some of these individual. What is even more odd (considering I’m a long time big city girl), I love this about these small town folk.

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