The Stranger Diaries
By: Elly Griffiths
Rating: 4 of 5
I’ve read other books by Elly Griffiths and those have been fairly straightforward mysteries and were novels in a series. With “The Stranger Diaries”, the book may be stand-alone or it may be the beginning of a series involving the police in this small town.
In either case, the story is more than a mystery. It has elements of supernatural (very, very slight) and, more importantly, it is a study in human behavior. How people interact with each other and how they truly think about the other when they are alone with their diary.
Clare Cassidy is a teacher at the local high school and she teaches creative writing and critical thinking. In her spare time, she is writing a book about a minor celebrated short story writer (R.M Hollander) whose home has been turned into the high school.
Elements of the writer’s most famous story are interjected into the novel while we follow the path of Detective Harbinder Kaur in solving the whodunnit. The story switches from Clare to Kaur’s perspective and back and forth again repeatedly.
The clues lead you to various different suspects and, for me at least, it led back to the individual I had wondered about first.
I’m looking forward to more books by this author, whether in this as a new series, more new stand-alone books, or entries in her existing series.
I was provided a digital advance reader copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley.
I’ve read other books by Elly Griffiths and those have been fairly straightforward mysteries and were novels in a series. With “The Stranger Diaries”, the book may be stand-alone or it may be the beginning of a series involving the police in this small town.