Category: Mystery

Book Related Topics, literary fiction, Mystery, thriller, Uncategorized

Book Review: The Last Flight by Julie Clark

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“I’m not very good at forgiveness.” Liz nodded. “Not many people are. But what I’ve learned in life is that in order for true forgiveness to occur, something has to die first. Your expectations, or your circumstances. Maybe your heart. And that can be painful. But it’s also incredibly liberating.”

A chance meeting at an airport bar brings two women together, each running away from the circumstances in their lives, and leads to a switch in travel plans. Claire Cook is married to a very charismatic and well liked politician from a great political family and her life looks perfect. She lives in a fantastic townhouse in Manhattan, surrounded by staff and wealth but behind closed doors, nothing is as good as it seems. Her publicly adored husband is an abuser – both physical and emotional – and does not hesitate to use his loyal staff to clock and monitor her every move.

Eva is also running from something and just wants to not be on a flight to Oakland, so she proposes a change in travel plans to Claire at the airport. Eva to Puerto-Rico and Claire to Oakland instead of vice versa. But, when the flight to Puerto-Rico goes down with Claire’s name on the manifesto, she has to figure out who Eva was and if remaining hidden is the best cause of action.

“Identity is a strange thing. Are we who we say we are, or do we become the person others see? Do they define us by what we choose to show them, or what they see despite our best attempts to conceal it?”

Told through the women’s perspectives, we find out about the lives they’re trying to escape from. Both characters were very well developed and their stories were very compelling and interesting. I was rooting for these women to get what they wanted out of life.

You can feel the fear and tension in Claire’s life when you read her sections in the book. Being without a family for so many years and not being able to have any friends except those pre-selected by your husband, while he physically abuses you with all your staff in the know of what is going on but staying quiet, is a difficult thing to read about.

Eva feels lost and isolated in her life. One mistake in college (even though I thought it was a very dumb mistake and couldn’t believe she did it all for a boy) cost her the degree she had worked so hard for all her life. She is thrust into a life of drugs and crime just to survive. I was intrigued by both storylines and found them easy to follow. Both characters being likable didn’t hurt and made the characters easy to root for.

I found this book to be a well written and fast paced thriller but if you do not enjoy reading alternative point of views in books, then you’re probably not going to enjoy this one. With the book being less than 300 pages and getting straight to the point, I read this book in 4 hours.

I can’t really say too much about this book so as not to reveal any spoilers but I completely recommend this book. The epilogue wasn’t what I was hoping for and it completely broke my heart, but I understood why the author made that decision. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads.

 

Leggy

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, romance, Uncategorized

Book Review: Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner

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Big Summer | Book by Jennifer Weiner | Official Publisher Page ...

 

“The trick of the internet, I had learned, was not being unapologetically yourself or completely unfiltered; it was mastering the trick of appearing that way. It was spiking your posts with just the right amount of real… which meant, of course, that you were never being real at all.”

Six years after the night that ended their friendship and inspired Daphne to start her blog, Drue Cavanaugh walks back into Daphne’s life and asks her to be her maid of honor. Drue was always the one who had everything – money, beauty, brains- but has finally alienated every friend she’s ever had with her horrible attitude and entitlement. Daphne is no longer the shy kid from high school who did anything for Drue’s friendship, she has built a plus-size blog from the ground up with a very good following and is about to land the biggest contract of her life.

Daphne recognizes that Drue’s wedding guest list is going to be filled with the best of the best and will be taking place in the most beautiful mansion in Cape Cod, so she decides to take that opportunity to boost her career. When a murder happens right before the wedding that throws everyone for a loop and lands Daphne on the suspect list, she’s forced to reevaluate her history with Drue and the reason she was invited in the first place.

“I was going to eat to nourish myself, I was going to exercise to feel strong and healthy, I was going to let go of the idea of ever being thin, once and for all, and live my life in the body that I had.”

Weiner’s writing style is great in this book. She tackles female friendships really well. Some are complex and toxic, while others are complex and yet very healthy. The high school friendship between Daphne and Drue was very intriguing to read about, it was almost like reading about an emotionally abusive relationship. Drue made Daphne feel disposable so she worked even harder to please Drue and maintain her place in Drue’s life. She would do Drue’s home works, take her verbal stings and subject herself to so many different diets just trying to fit into Drue’s squad in high school.

I loved reading about Daphne’s road to accepting her body for what it was, trying to be strong and healthy and discarding the idea that she had to be thin to be worthy of love. I love that Weiner showed that loving yourself is never a straight trending upward line. There are dips and days when we just don’t feel that love and loving oneself is a continuous and never stopping active exercise.

“When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re angry, everything looks like a target. There are a lot of angry people in the world. And these days, they’re all online.”

The mystery in this book absolutely sucks. Yes, this book is part thriller/mystery but it was so unnecessary, not well executed and just felt a bit ridiculous. I think this book should have just been straight contemporary female fiction. Big Summer had so much going for it until the murder happened and then everything completely fell apart for me. The murder happened so late in the book that it just felt like an after thought and then the entire book is overtaken by an investigation and our protagonist is suddenly being questioned for murder.

Also, this book absolutely didn’t need a romantic angle. It just felt like it was trying to be everything at once – contemporary, romance, mystery, thriller, social commentary. We don’t need to validate or prove that the fat protagonist is worthy by giving her a man and that is exactly what the whole thing felt like. It was literally instalove, they fell in love in a day and he suddenly moves across states to be with her within a week. It was just ridiculous and unbelievable.

“It’s almost religious, that belief, that faith that a piece of silk or denim or cotton jersey could disguise your flaws and amplify your assets and make you both invisible and seen, just another normal woman in the world; a woman who deserves to get what she wants.”

I really wanted to love this one because I picked it up after hearing the author speak about this book and loving everything she had to say about social media and body acceptance. I enjoyed the first 50% of this book and thought it was well written, the last 50% didn’t work for me. I ended up giving this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

 

Leggy

Fiction, Mystery, Uncategorized

Book Review: Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin

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Amazon.com: Saint X: A Novel (9781250219596): Schaitkin, Alexis: Books

7 year old Claire is on an annual family vacation at a resort on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint X. A day before they are set to return home to the U.S, her 18 year old sister, Alison’s body washes up ashore. The local police start an investigation and two employees (who happen to be black) at the resort are arrested. With not enough evidence, the men are released. The investigation continues even after the family returns home but it yields nothing and it is closed.

Fast forward years later, Claire is an adult, living and working in New York. One day, she enters a cab and recognizes the driver as Clive Richardson, one of the men arrested for the death of her sister. Claire becomes obsessed with finding out the truth. She abandons her life and infiltrates Clive’s life in search of this truth that she has convinced herself of. Schaitkin then takes us back and shows us the back story of both Claire and Clive’s lives.

I heard a very compelling description of this book that made me add it to my TBR list immediately, so I knew what I was getting into. I would say that the book started out very strong. Schaitkin is very good at description. The way Saint X is written, right down to giving it history and folklore, you could easily forget that it is fictional.

Somewhere down the line, the book started going downhill for me as we got to know Claire. The more I got to know her, the more I found her unlikable and a victim of white privilege and grief. I found her obsession with Clive annoying but also understood it was a side effect of her never really mourning her sister. Her parents closed that chapter and never really spoke about Alison.

I did enjoy Claire getting to know her sister through her journals especially when perspective was involved. Claire idolized her sister but was forced to see her sister in a different light as she saw life through her sister’s lens and realizing her sister had her flaws, remembered events in life differently from her and had to process the way Alison viewed and felt sorry for her.

Clive on the other hand, I enjoyed his story because there was depth to it. There were many layers through his story – poverty, young fatherhood, friendship, sexuality, being an immigrant, racism and I have to give props to Schaitkin for writing the perspective of a black immigrant pretty well.

Overall, it was an enjoyable book but it did drag towards the end. It probably should have ended earlier because it began to go all over the place and it felt like filler. It has a great premise and is a good exploration of many topics as mentioned earlier. This book got 3 stars from me.

Taynement

 

 

Book Related Topics, Fiction, Mystery, thriller

Book Review : A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight

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“And in the end, wasn’t that the key to marriage? Learning to pretend that a few unspoiled things could make up for all the broken ones.”

Lizzie Kitsakis just started working at the prestigious Young and Crane law firm when she gets a call from an old friend, Zach Grayson, from Rikers prison desperately asking for her help. His wife, Amanda, has just been found dead on the floor of their Brooklyn brownstone and he’s the primary suspect. Until recently Lizzie had been a happily underpaid prosecutor with a devoted husband but everything has come crashing down around her. She delves into investigating who could have murdered Amanda, the close knit group that surrounds the couple in Brooklyn who all seem to be hiding secrets of their own and she has to figure out which of these secrets is worth committing murder for.

“Forgiveness is a side effect of love,” he said finally. And sadly, almost. “If you are going to be married, share the ups and downs of life. What other choice is there?”

This is an impressive slow burn of a book. The author starts off building her characters’ backstories and letting us into their lives. We get two different points of view – one from Lizzie as she gets Zach’s call and starts investigating the murder and secondly, from Amanda as we get a countdown of the events that lead up to the murder. The chapters alternate between these two characters so if you don’t like that plot narrative device in a book, this one might not be for you. Even though the book started out slow and built to a crescendo, I never thought for a second it was boring. It was intriguing from the very first page.

“That’s the hardest part about marriage, isn’t it?” Zach went on. “Somebody else’s problems become your own. It doesn’t always feel fair.”

This book was full of twists and turns and none of it was silly but none of it was mind blowing either. It is sprinkled with a lot of deceit, false starts and dead ends but you never feel like the author is toying with your sense of believe. Even though I didn’t see a lot of the twists coming, they just made me go – “oh, ok, I can see that being true”, there wasn’t a huge Gone Girl twist which I loved. I’m tired of every thriller on earth trying to have a huge twist at the end just to cash in on that Gone Girl popularity. Also, I could not guess the killer which is very important to me and this is the fact that kept me reading, I just needed to know who killed Amanda. I read this book all in one day and didn’t go to bed till I was finished.

“I’d been so foolish to think love could change the essential nature of anything.”

After every few chapters, the book presents you with a transcript of a grand jury testimony containing several interviews between witnesses and the prosecutor building the case against Zach. I found these transcripts to be unnecessary and stopped reading them after the first couple installments, just started skipping them. They added nothing to the plot. Also, honestly, the ending was lackluster. Even though I didn’t guess the killer, I still felt oddly unsatisfied. I wanted someone more instrumental to the plot. Anyway, this book is very readable and even though it starts off slow, it still managed to be a big page turner. Gave this 4 stars on Goodreads.

 

Leggy

Mystery, Uncategorized

British “Whodunnits” Recommendations

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Image result for british whodunit books

I love British mysteries. As much as I like the mystery thrillers that are all the rage in the US these days, since Gone Girl came on the scene and made so much money, the true love of my life are the simple mysteries that are not complicated and are straight forward. Books that are just simple, delightful reads like the ones I used to read when I was younger. I think the British have this market cornered, nobody does great whoddunits like they do and I’m here to give you some recommendations to add to your already huge summer piles.

1. Lady Sherlock series by Sherry Thomas

“Do not undervalue what you are ultimately worth because you are at a momentary disadvantage.”

This series is a good retelling of the original Sherlock Holmes with the difference being that the protagonist is a 19th century woman. Observing her surroundings and advising the police department and Queen’s Men while hiding her real gender from the world and her clients. The first book in the series is called “A Study in Scarlet Women”, the second one is “A Conspiracy in Belgravia” and the third one which comes out on the 2nd of October is called “The Hollow of Fear”. All the titles are a subtle nod to the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They don’t take themselves too seriously and I really enjoyed reading them.

2. Cormoron Strike series by Robert Galbraith aka J. K. Rowling 

“You’re like everyone else, Strike; you want your civil liberties when you’ve told the missus you’re at the office and you’re at a lap-dancing club, but you want twenty-four-hour surveillance on your house when someone’s trying to force your bathroom window open. Can’t have it both ways.” 

J. K. Rowling writes these books under a pseudonym. These are really easy to read fun mystery novels  with the usual tropes. There really isn’t anything original about these books but they are written well and the characters are very fleshed out. Cormoron Strike is a wounded army veteran with a troubled past, terrible love life and financial woes.  He leaves the army and sets up his own private detective agency but has the nagging  problem of having no paying clients. He hires a temp secretary who has ambitions of being a private detective herself – Robin Ellacott, gets a high profile case and the rest is history. At the end of each book we get to know more about our two main characters and come to care deeply about their welfare. There are three books already published in this series and she’s currently working on the next one but still no release date available.

3. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

“As far as I’m concerned, you can’t beat a good whodunnit: the twists and turns, the clues and the red herrings and then, finally, the satisfaction of having everything explained to you in a way that makes you kick yourself because you hadn’t seen it from the start.” 

This is a standalone mystery book and is a mystery within a mystery. Editor Susan Ryeland gets Alan Conway’s latest mystery novel and doesn’t think it’s going to be any different than his previous novels except Alan Conway dies the very weekend he submits the novel – of a suicide. Susan Ryeland rushes to read the manuscript to rush production of the books but finds the last couple chapters of the book missing and we’re off to the races. This book was quite fascinating because we get to read the submitted manuscript and also deal with the mysteries in real time surrounding the missing last chapters and the death of the author. This is a nod to the golden age of mysteries so if you love reading Agatha Christie’s works this book is definitely for you.

4. An Accidental Death (DC Smith #1) by Peter Grainger

“You think it’s just selfishness? ‘just’ makes it sound trivial. All crime is caused by selfishness, I say. It’s the ‘me first, my needs first’. Take that away and you’re like one step from paradise”

Even though there are 7 books in this series, I have only read the first one which is what I will be recommending today. This British police procedural opens with the apparent accidental drowning of a sixth form student, it’s an open and shut case so it gets handed to Detective Sergeant Smith. Detective Smith is just coming back from suspension after an internal investigation involving a previous high profile case that caused a lot of tension in the police department. He is handed the small cases to ease him back in, but it ends up being a murder case. The latest trainee detective to work with him is the son of a member of his former team, and together they begin to unravel the truth about what happened to Wayne Fletcher. If you’re a fan of cozy mysteries or Louise Penny, you’ll probably like this too.

Have you read any of these books? Which ones are you likely to read? Let me know in the comments!

Leggy

 

Mystery

Book Review: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

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Image result for sharp objects gillian flynn

Ever since the Gone Girl movie blew up a few years ago, Gillian Flynn has become a household name and her books have been carried over to screen (Dark Places was turned into a movie). Next in line is Sharp Objects. It’s been turned into a mini series on HBO starring Amy Adams. I read the book a few years ago and I figured it’ll be good to share my thoughts, in case anyone was thinking of reading before its debut on July 8.

Sharp Objects tells the story of Camille Preaker, a crime reporter who has been assigned a job to go back to her small hometown and write about the murder of two young girls. Going back home means facing the demons she has not quite put to bed seeing as Camille has just been released from a psychiatric hospital. She has to deal with her mother who she does not have a good relationship with, her step sister who she barely knows and dredge up old (not so great memories) while still being professional.

I have not liked any of her other books like I did Gone Girl but if you know anything about Gillian Flynn, then you know that the common theme in her books are that they go to some really dark, twisty places. I truly often wonder where her ideas come from as they are so gory! Don’t ignore the razor blade on the book cover as it is an indicator of Camille’s issue with self cutting and pretty much tells you the tone of the book. It is not an easy book because it deals with some intense topics that some might actually find triggering.

I am not sure there are any redeeming characters in this book save for maybe Camille’s father figure boss, except he is a minor character. Every character is rather grating and you just want to roll your eyes every time they do something. For a whodunnit book, you get to have an idea who did it towards the end and even though I did not guess correctly who did it, I don’t think it will be difficult for some to figure out who did it but the twist might be a surprise.

Overall, there are many reasons to read this book – Flynn is a good writer, get a head start on the miniseries, challenge yourself to read a book that doesn’t go down easy and because Taynement says it’s worth a shot.

Let me know if you do read it or if you have read it. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Taynement