Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Alan Conway, a terribly difficult author to work with but the star in the catalog for the small publishing house Susan Ryeland works for, just submitted the manuscript for his ninth Atticus Pünd novel. She adores the novels as much as she dislikes the author, and the author dislikes his character, so she is thrilled to spend her weekend reading the newest installment. But things don’t go as planned. Susan needs to turn her talents from editing mysteries to solving them if she plans on keeping her publishing house in business!
Sorry but I need to keep the plot of this one vague because I want you to be as surprised at the directions this book takes as I was when I read it. I can tell you that you’ll be getting two books for the price of one -- the Atticus Pünd manuscript set in a sleepy village in 1955 very reminiscent of Hercule Poirot and Susan Ryeland’s investigation in the present.
If you are an audiobook listener add this one to your list. Each “mystery” is read by a different reader. A man voices the manuscript while a woman voices the editor’s investigation. It really made the book within a book work even better than it could on the written page; which isn’t saying too much because this is a well plotted mystery in every way.
If the author ever wants to start a series he should turn to writing cozy mysteries like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers because he has the style down perfectly. Mystery fans of any type of mystery will adore this book.
The Weight of Lies by Emily Carpenter
Forty years ago Frances Ashley wrote Kitty the book that would propel Frances, and eventually her daughter Megan, into the public eye for decades to come. In Kitty a young girl murders her best friend and wrecks havoc on the lives of those around her at the hotel her parents own on a Southern island. Kitty is a cult classic inspiring the Kitty-cult, obsessed fans who visit the real world locations from the novel, since the novel is loosely (we think) based on the truth.
Megan has never felt close to her mother and Frances’s recent actions put even more distance between the two. When the idea to write her own book, what life was like growing up as the daughter of Frances Ashley as well as to research the real story behind Kitty, oddly enough a book Megan has never read, she embraces the idea. Revisiting the island her mother worked at as a hotel maid while writing her breakout novel Megan is a guest of Dorothy Kitchens, the real life inspiration many assume for Kitty. During her stay, digging into the secrets of the past, Megan uncovers information that makes her look at her relationship with her mother, her sense of identity and the long ago murder in a new light. Will Megan finally discover who killed the young girl all those years ago? And will the murderer strike again to keep their secret safe?
At the heart this is a book about identity. What groups we identify with, how we envision our place in the world, who we choose to align ourselves with and why. Megan has lived a sheltered life, and she’s self aware enough to know it, but her investigations into her own life through her mother’s past brings her face to face with herself and how she chooses to identify herself.
Fans of psychological thrillers will find a lot to enjoy here; a great choice both on audio and in print -- I went back and forth between the two to see what would happen next!
Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
Three years ago two teenaged sisters disappeared. Dr. Winter was the bureau psychiatrist assigned to the disappearance of Emma and Cass Tanner. The case has haunted Dr. Winter for the past three years, she always thought their mother showed signs of narcissistic personality disorder and was somehow involved, but she could never find any evidence. Then she gets the call that Cass just returned home telling of an island off the coast of Maine where she and a pregnant Emma were taken to and then held at all this time. Emma didn’t escape with Cass because she refused to leave behind her young daughter and now Cass is desperate to find her sister and her niece.
Dr. Winter is shocked by Cass’s return and not completely convinced by her story. As the days go by and the interviews continue Dr. Winter is pretty sure she knows what really happened to Cass over the past three years; but is she right and can she prove it?
Wendy Walker proved she can write great psychological thriller with All is Not Forgotten last year and she has another great story here. It seems a little slow to start, but the stage needs to be set. From the beginning the story seems weird, but there is nothing that can be pointed at as being particularly off, in all the stories Cass tells and the evidence that is found only a few things send up flags to Dr. Winter and we’re right there with her as she figures out what happened to the Tanner sisters. If you like twisty, strange and disturbing psychological thrillers Wendy Walker needs to be on your to read list.
The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal
Nora is the research assistant for a Vancouver PI and is doing her best to keep her head above water. After a horrific incident in her past she fell into the bottle but has been sober for years. She has made a life for herself; she even has a dog. Her life doesn’t seem like much to outsiders or her sister, but Nora is basically content illegally living in the basement of her office building saving up for better times. She’s starting to think she may have enough savings to start looking for an apartment when the distraught parents of a missing teenager contact her to meet with them. They aren’t looking for her boss, they want Nora’s help. Through a paperwork mishap years ago they have always know the name of their daughter’s birth mother, Nora Watts, and they think their daughter may have been searching for the mother who gave her up for adoption when she disappeared.
Nora would like to kid herself that she hasn’t thought about her daughter since she gave birth, but she has (especially since Nora woke up after a six month coma to find herself very pregnant with little memory of the events leading up to the discovery of her battered body by a hiker.) Nora’s really mad because she gave the baby up knowing the child would have a better life than with her and now she finds out the child, a teenager, has run away from home before. What kind of life did she give her daughter when she gave her up? Will Nora be able to find her? What if the mystery surrounding her daughter’s disappearance has bearing on Nora’s past?
This is a dark and gritty novel with a heroine that you at turns empathize with and dislike. She doesn’t always make good decisions, but when her backstory is revealed her attitudes and choices make more sense. As the layers of the mystery are peeled back as a reader you begin to feel the paranoia alongside Nora: who are her friends, who are her enemies and why do they want her daughter?
The Breakdown by B. A. Paris
Cass Anderson lives in a beautifully idyllic hamlet in England and is married to a wonderful man. She loves her job teaching, but she is looking forward to her long summer vacation. At least she was. On the last day of school, during a horrific storm, she takes a windy desolate road through the woods to her home. On the side of the road she sees a woman in a car and assumes she is broken down. Cass pulls over but the woman in the other car makes no attempt to ask for help so Cass drives home with the intention to call for help for the other driver when she arrives home, just in case. But Cass forgets to make the call and the next day she hears about a murdered woman on the radio; the woman in the car is dead. Even worse, once the murdered woman’s identity is made public Cass realizes she had lunch with the woman the week before.
Cass feels extremely guilty for forgetting to call, but it seems to be only one in a long string of things she has been forgetting. Her mother died of early onset Alzheimer’s a couple of years before and Cass is afraid she is suffering from the same illness. She is seeing things that aren’t there, things aren’t where she left them and items start arriving at her door she has no memory of ordering. It looks like Cass is headed for a breakdown herself.
Picking up the book you know going in this is a thriller so you are waiting for the shoe to drop. And it comes down with a crash! You really get into Cass’s head and understand why she feels that she is slowly losing her mind. Then again, you know the genre of the book you are holding, so you always have that little bit of doubt.
The book starts slowly but everything builds up to the amazing conclusion that will have you cheering out loud. This is a great book, please do yourself a favor and stick with it. You’ll be thrilled that you did.
Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips
Today Joan and her four-year-old son Lincoln decide to visit the zoo. Lincoln enjoys the play areas away from the main section of the zoo so he can play with “his guys” like Thor, Predator and Captain America. It’s a typical fall day. Lincoln doesn’t want to leave and Joan needs to encourage him towards the exit. But what were those popping noises Joan heard before? And why are they continuing? As she nears the exit, sees the people on the ground, and glimpses a man with a gun, she knows that today is not like any other day she has ever experienced. She needs to keep her wits about her and do all she can to keep her son safe. Her tired, hungry son who doesn't really understand the danger they are in.
I typically don’t like when readers act out the voices of children, but this reader really brought Lincoln to life as a four-year-old boy. When he spoke too loudly or started getting grumbly I understood, he’s a little kid! The reader kept that part of the story alive for me. That said, I switched over the print (thankfully I had both) because I was getting really anxious listening, and needed to know what happened next and I can read so much faster.
I’m not a parent so maybe a parent would like the ending more than I did? I understood the direction and message the author wanted to convey, but I didn’t like the execution of the ideas. I really enjoyed the first 90% of the book but the ending fell flat for me. Again, could just be me and the bulk of the book is a really great read.
The Child by Fiona Barton
The skeleton of a newborn is found by a crew at a construction site on the outskirts of London. Reporter Kate Walters finds a small article in a competitor’s newspaper about the discovery and it starts firing questions in her mind, most importantly, who is the child?
The book has four narrators: Kate; a mother whose newborn was stolen from a hospital decades before; and both the mother and daughter who at one time lived at the property where the skeleton was discovered. You know that all four women are tied to the baby in one way or another but it doesn’t become clear until the end.
Each chapter has a different narrator, and therefore a different point of view, and on the audiobook each of the four narrators are voiced by a different actor. This is a character driven thriller, you really get to know these four women and what events in their past have made them the people you meet in the opening pages.
I was able to figure out what was going on very early in the story, but I still wanted to keep reading to find out how it all came about. My one issue is that there is some DNA testing in the book and the science didn’t really make sense which may have been a good thing because I kept doubting that I truly did figure out the plot!
