Tag: mystery

The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill

- Stephanie Leave a comment

What would you be willing to sacrifice to become a writer? Sulari Gentill explores this question in her latest novel, The Mystery Writer.

Theodosia Benton is in crisis. She doesn’t want to be in law school anymore, so she drops out, flees Australia, and ends up on the doorstep of her older brother Gus, a practicing lawyer in Lawrence, Kansas. She expects Gus to be disappointed, to try to talk her out of her decision, and to tell their parents on her, especially when he finds out that she wants to be an author. Instead, Gus welcomes her into his home, helps her establish a routine, and supports her on her journey to be a writer.

Theo spends her days writing at a pub, finding solace amongst other writers and working hard on her first novel. She finds a mentor who gives her tips and advice on her book. When her mentor is brutally murdered, Theo finds herself drawn into a underground world full of people who aren’t what they say they are and who are willing to do whatever it takes to find the truth. Theo wants answers, but when the police focus in on her brother and his partner as their prime suspects, she must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to save them all. The race to the truth will take years.

This story had me captured from the start. There’s murder, conspiracy theories, disappearances, doomsday preppers, lawyers, writers, and shady people galore throughout this book. As a true crime lover, I also love conspiracy theories and this book is full of all different kinds. This book goes off the rails and I loved it. The mixed media elements in the book added to the chaos and helped add context to the plot. The characters were off-kilter, yet lovable, and the conspiracy theories were based enough in reality that I could picture this happening in real life. I can’t wait for the author’s next book.

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“I couldn’t explain it, not even to myself, but books gave me an unflinching sense of stability and groundedness. That because words survived, somehow I would too.”
― Evie Woods, The Lost Bookshop

Hidden stories swirl beneath the surface in Evie Woods’ debut novel, The Lost Bookshop. Opaline, Martha, and Henry have been pushed around and shunted to the sides of their own lives. Desperate to escape, they start down paths that will change their stories forever.

In the past, Opaline is facing off with her brother. His plans for her are not what she wants, so she looks for a way out that eventually leads her to a magical, mysterious bookshop. In the present, Martha is an Irish woman trying to escape her abusive marriage. Leaving her husband, she finds work as a housekeeper for a mysterious woman in an even more mysterious house that comes alive the longer Martha works there. One day, Martha sees Henry pacing outside her bedroom window. Henry is a scholar who has made his way to Dublin to find a missing manuscript and a lost bookshop that should be right next to where Martha lives. Henry and Martha work together to find the history of the bookshop and what happened to the people involved.

This was a lovely read. I adored listening to Opaline, Martha, and Henry tell their stories across time. This is a dual timeline, so readers (and listeners) need to pay attention! Evie Woods pulled together the timelines, characters, and storylines in such a way that almost everything is resolved at the end. Woven into the storylines were multiple classic books, manuscripts, and their authors. Sylvia Beach and her bookshop Shakespeare & Company played a large part, as well as famous authors who dropped in to help the characters on their self-discovery journeys. Pick up this book if you’re looking for a bit of magic, myth, historical fiction, or have a deep love of anything literature. You’ll be transported to Ireland and the mysterious worlds of Opaline, Martha, and Henry as they work to find the lost bookshop and, by extension, themselves.

“The thing about books,’ she said, ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.”
― Evie Woods, The Lost Bookshop

Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books with a bit of Mystery

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Are you looking for a new science fiction or fantasy book to read? I have found a list of science fiction and fantasy titles that also have a bit of mystery running through them. If you’re like me and sometimes find sci-fi and fantasy books overwhelming, these titles may help ease you into this genre. You can even think of them as mysteries set in science fantasy worlds! If you have read something that fits with the below titles, let us know in the comments!

Descriptions are provided by the publishers.

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect. – Del Rey

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My Murder by Katie Williams

What if the murder you had to solve was your own?

Lou is a happily married mother of an adorable toddler. She’s also the victim of a local serial killer. Recently brought back to life and returned to her grieving family by a government project, she is grateful for this second chance. But as the new Lou re-adapts to her old routines, and as she bonds with other female victims, she realizes that disturbing questions remain about what exactly preceded her death and how much she can really trust those around her.

Now it’s not enough to care for her child, love her husband, and work the job she’s always enjoyed—she must also figure out the circumstances of her death. Darkly comic, tautly paced, and full of surprises, My Murder is a devour-in-one-sitting, clever twist on the classic thriller. – Riverhead Books

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The Helm of Midnight by Marina J Lostetter

In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power—the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city.

Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. But these murders are different from before, not simply random but the work of a deliberate mind probing for answers to a sinister question.

It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake. – Tor Books

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The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft

The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.

But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king pleads to be baked into a cake—going so far as to wedge himself inside a lit oven—the Wilbies soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could very well see the nation turned on its head. Their effort to expose a royal secret buried under forty years of lies brings them nose to nose with a violent anti-royalist gang, avaricious ghouls, alchemists who draw their power from a hell-like dimension, and a bookish dragon who only occasionally eats people.

Armed with a love toughened by adversity and a stick of chalk that can conjure light from the darkness, hope from the hopeless, Iz and Warren Wilby are ready for a case that will test every spell, skill, and odd magical artifact in their considerable bag of tricks. – Orbit

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The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university—and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems.

Pleiti has dedicated her research and her career to aiding the larger effort towards a possible return to Earth. When Mossa unexpectedly arrives and requests Pleiti’s assistance in her latest investigation, the two of them embark on a twisting path in which the future of life on Earth is at stake—and, perhaps, their futures, together. – Tordotcom

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The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling—and keep the real killer from striking again. – Tor Books

QCL Book Club April Wrap-Up

- Brittany Leave a comment

In April, Morgan and I read Someone We Know by Shari Lapena to celebrate National Letter Writing Month. Below is a short synopsis of the book and what I thought of it! 

A teenage boy is breaking into neighbors’ homes hacking into their computers and discovering secrets best hidden. When a woman in the neighborhood’s body is discovered in the trunk of her car in the lake, there are many suspicions as to who did it. Was it her husband, a lover, anything could happen.

I have liked every book that I have read by Lapena, she spins a story with so many twists and turns wrapping up each story with a nice little bow. This story, however, left some room for interpretation.  

Morgan and I have a very exciting lineup of book options for May. Below are our 4 options including our winning title! Feel free to check them out from Davenport Public Library! 

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jessie Q. Sutanto (In Honor of Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month) 

Vera is a woman of a certain age who enjoys sipping her tea and running her teashop. When she finds a dead man in the middle of her shop, Vera begins to launch an investigation. As she searches for the perpetrator, Vera forms unlikely friendships with her customers. The hardest part, one of her new friends might be the killer. — adapted from back cover   

 

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill (In Honor of Mystery Month) 

The beautifully ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is completely silent one weekday morning, until a woman’s terrified scream echoes through the room. Security guards immediately appear and instruct everyone inside to stay put until they determine there is no threat. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers who had been sitting in the reading room get to chatting and quickly become friendly. Harriet, Marigold, Whit, and Caine each have their own reasons for being in the reading room that morning–and it just happens that one of them may turn out to be a murderer. — adapted from back cover 

 

Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (In Honor of Brother and Sister Day on May 2nd) 

Merging two multi-generational storylines in Colorado, this is a novel of family love, secrets, and survival. With Fajardo-Anstine’s immense capacity to render characters and paint vivid life, set against the Sange de Cristo mountains, Woman of Light is full of the weight, richness, and complexities of mixed blood and mica clay. It delights like an Old Western, and inspires the hope embedded in histories yet-told. — adapted from back cover 

 

***May QCL Book Club Pick!
Watching You by Lisa Jewell (In honor of National Teachers’ Day on May 7th) 

Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you. As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all–including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie–a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5–excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father. One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother–whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years–is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her. Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam… — adapted from back cover 

If you are interested in any of these titles, or have read them, I want to talk about them! Please consider leaving a comment! Want to converse with other QCL Book Club followers? Consider joining our Goodreads Group! 

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge by Spencer Quinn

- Stephanie Leave a comment

If you don’t know what to read, what is your go-to? I gravitate towards cozy mysteries starring elderly people. My latest read was Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, the first book in the new Mrs. Plansky series written by Spencer Quinn, a pseudonym used by author Peter Abrahams. Spencer Quinn is most known for his Chet and Bernie Mystery series that started in 2009, starring Chet the dog and his human partner PI Bernie Little.

Mrs. Loretta Plansky has been dealing with a lot lately: her husband has just died, her retirement in Florida is mired with dealing with her cantankerous 98-year-old father, and her children and grandchildren are constantly asking her for money. As a recent widow in her seventies, Loretta just wants to spend her day playing tennis and enjoying her new hip!

Mrs. Plansky receives a phone call in the middle of the night from her grandson, Will, saying that he has been arrested and needs ten thousand dollars. After asking some questions, she decides to give him the money. She sends him her bank details, delighted to receive another phone call a short while later saying that Will has the money and has been released. She heads back to sleep, happy that Will is safe.

Loretta wakes up the next morning and phone calls start pouring in. She is shocked to discover that she has lost everything. Her bank and her financial advisor call to say that she drew her accounts down to zero the night before, millions of dollars gone in the blink of an eye. Loretta soon finds herself in meetings with law enforcement who inform her that her life savings are gone and unfortunately there isn’t much they can do to help her. The scammers are gone, their heist complete, and Loretta is left with nothing. After processing her emotions, she decides to start investigating on her own, following the only clue that she has to a small village in Romania. Mrs. Plansky wants her money back. She isn’t a fool and won’t be taken advantage of anymore.

This was a good introduction to a new series, enough to have me hoping that the subsequent books in the series will be more entertaining. Typically cozy mysteries have a main character with a quirky sidekick, but this book popped back and forth between two view points: 1) Mrs. Plansky and 2) the scammers in Romania. Mrs. Plansky spend the majority of the book by herself with no relief or help. The story focused instead on her forgetfulness as a character, which was distracting. Thankfully about 80% of the way through, some helpers popped into Mrs. Plansky’s life, adding some comic relief to the story. Hopefully these characters are also present in the next books.

This title is also available in large print.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“And before you accuse me of telling my story in a labyrinthine manner, let me remind you this is a true story—and in real life, that’s how we communicate, isn’t it? We’re all over the place: we jump back and forth in time; slow down and expand on some moments; fast-forward through others; editing as we go, minimizing flaws and maximizing assets. We are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Fury

Alex Michaelides’ latest novel, The Fury, relies heavily on unreliable narrators, which given the plots of his previous two books, The Silent Patient and The Maidens, shouldn’t come as a surprise. Unreliable narrators are narrators who can’t be relied upon to provide a trustworthy or completely accurate story. They may mislead readers, sometimes accidentally or deliberately. In my opinion, all first person narrators (those who are telling the story from their own point of view within the book) are unreliable narrators until you get to the end. The narrator in The Fury, Elliot Chase, tells the story from his perspective, whether or not it’s the 100% truth is up for you, the reader, to decide once he’s finished his story.

Have you ever read a story about a murder in the news and been curious about what led up to the crime? Well, Elliot Chase has a story for you. His best friend, an incredibly famous reclusive ex-movie star named Lana, has invited himself and her other closest friends to her private Greek island for a getaway over the Easter weekend. This isn’t anything new. Lana frequently invites her friends to the island as a way to escape the dreary English weather. What’s out of the ordinary this time? Murder. One of them will be dead before the weekend is over. This should be pretty easy to figure out. Everyone is trapped on an island cut off from others due to whipping winds and weather – this is a finite pool of people to figure out who the murderer and victim is. The murder, what led up to it, and its consequences were splattered all over the tabloids, but Elliot is able to give readers an insight into the story that no one else has. After all, he was privy to the gossip, revenge, and pettiness within their friend group. Elliot has been silent long enough. He has his own story to tell.

The Fury is also available in large print, as a CD audiobook, and as a Playaway audiobook.

[Note: Even though Alex Michaelides’ books aren’t in a series, they are interconnected. Characters from certain books are mentioned in others. Parts of some books are also mentioned in others. (This is all incredibly vague, but I can’t talk specifics without spoiling some parts). While they all may not seem like plot spoilers at the time of reading, some are, so I would recommend that you read his books in the order of publication: The Silent Patient (2019), The Maidens (2021), and The Fury (2024). ]

Because I Could Not Stop for Death: an Emily Dickinson mystery by Amanda Flower

- Stephanie Leave a comment

One of my favorite cozy mystery writers has started a new series based on Emily Dickinson! Because I Could Not Stop for Death is the first in the new Emily Dickinson Mystery series started by author Amanda Flower.

It’s January 1855 and Willa Noble is on her way to a job interview at the Dickinson home in Amherst, Massachusetts. While she’s qualified for the job, her disheveled appearance leaves much to be desired. This job will be a much-needed stepping stone up the employment ladder for Willa, allowing her to save more money for herself and her younger brother, Henry. As Willa leaves after her disastrous interview, she is stopped by the voice of Emily Dickinson, alerting her that she has been hired for the job despite the housekeeper’s reticence.

Emily sees something in Willa that intrigues her, leading the two to strike up a friendship of sorts. Not long after starting her new job, tragedy strikes. Willa’s brother Henry is found dead, killed in an accident at the town stables where he works. The police label it as a tragic accident, something that Willa doesn’t believe for a moment. She is convinced that Henry was murdered. She confides in Emily her beliefs and her reasoning. Emily offers to help and the two start on a deadly chase for the truth that leads them all around Amherst to Washington DC and back. What they thought was an intriguing puzzle at the beginning weaves the two into a web of corruption and political intrigue that could destroy Willa, Emily, and the entire Dickinson family.

This intro to a new series blew me away. It’s more than just a cozy mystery, instead it is also a historical cozy! The fact that the story is told by a housemaid in the Dickinson household was interesting as readers get to learn more about Emily’s life from an outsider. I particularly enjoyed the cast of characters in this book. They all have vivid descriptions and interact with each other fairly frequently. The setting also plays a large role in the plot of the story. Readers travel the streets of Amherst and then take the train to Washington DC to visit the Dickinson patriarch. Seeing mid-1800s Washington DC through the eyes of the character allows readers to experience briefly what time really was like in such a historical place. This book was darker than other titles written by the same author, but if you enjoy historical mysteries, cozy mysteries, and amateur sleuths, you’ll enjoy this title.

Emily Dickinson Mystery series

  1. Because I Could Not Stop for Death (2022)
  2. I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died (2023)

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann

- Stephanie Leave a comment

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp is the first book in the Agnes Sharp Murder Mysteries series written by Leonie Swann. This book is dark, but also funny and full of twists and turns. If you’re looking for a cozy mystery series featuring a group of senior citizens trying to solve a murder, this is for you!

Agnes Sharp has always wanted to be able to control her own life. Wanting to be surrounded by like-minded people, she created Sunset Hall, a house share for the elderly in the sleepy English countryside. At Sunset Hall, they all can control how they live and how they choose to spend their time. They may have mobility issues, misplaced reading glasses, different dietary tastes, and many other problems, but the most important fact is that the residents of Sunset Hall are all there for each other.

When a police officer knocks on their door one morning, nothing could prepare them for what he says: a dead body has been discovered at a house close to them. Quickly taking in this news, the group is relieved that the officer is there to tell them about their neighbor’s dead body and not the body that they are currently hiding in their shed out back. Confused about what to do with the dead body in their shed, the discovery of their dead neighbor couldn’t have come at a better time. They just have to find out who murdered their neighbor and then pin that murder on them (after all, said person has already murdered their neighbor, there’s nothing to say that they wouldn’t have murdered again, given the chance). Easy, right? With a plan in place, Agnes and her cohorts start looking for clues, venturing outside their comfortable norms and head to the village where they will have to interview locals and steer clear of the authorities to find the killer.

This book follows an eccentric group of seniors who are attempting to solve one murder while covering up another. The author mixes multiple sub-plots amongst the different points-of-view, which I enjoyed. The residents of Sunset Hall, alongside their pets, Hettie the tortoise and Brexit the dog, are delightful. The author portrayed the characters from their own point of view, which I appreciate in cozy mysteries. Readers are then allowed to see why these senior citizens choose to live on their own terms, alongside the challenges of aging and all the associated needs that come along with it. The twist at the end was also unexpected! I am intrigued enough to read more of their work.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, illustrations by Rovina Cai

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“To dwell on death, especially a premature and violent end, burdens the soul.”
― Darcie Little Badger, Elatsoe

When I started working on this blog, I found the following starred review quote from Shelf-Awareness describing Elatsoe as “A Lipan Apache Sookie Stackhouse for the teen set.” I couldn’t agree more. If you have ever read the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris or watched the television show True Blood, which was based on said series, this book is for you.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, illustrations by Rovina Cai, tells the story of Elatsoe, Ellie for short, a Texas teen from the Lipan Apache tribe. She lives in an alternate America where magic shapes their past and present. Her family’s connection to their Indigenous traditions also plays a very important role in her day-to-day life. This manifests through magic and supernatural curses. The people in Ellie’s family have gifts: hers is the ability to raise the spirit of dead animals, particularly that of her dead dog, Kirby. Even in death, he serves as her protector and helper. Her gift is both a blessing and a curse.

Ellie’s family comes together in tragedy when they learn of her cousin’s death. After being told he died in an accidental car crash, Ellie is shocked when his ghost comes to her to say that he was murdered AND drops the name of his killer. Wanting to find the truth, Ellie travels to his town and enlists the help of her family, best friend Jay, and the stories of her ancestors. The mysterious killer proves to be more than they all bargained for. Combine the killer’s behavior with that of the townsfolk and Ellie and Jay are left wondering what exactly is happening in this creepy town and what are they hiding.

This book kept me hooked from start to finish. While it jumps from past to present in a startling manner, that feeds into the narrative that history is closely entwined in our present in a way we cannot escape. Indigenous traditions are woven throughout every little bit of this story, sometimes through actions and other times through storytelling. The author talks about racism and colonialism in America in such a way that even younger readers are able to understand. It is a dark read, but the magical realism throughout adds distance from the tragedy and heartbreak.

“People cope with tragedy in different ways. That’s important, Ellie. There’s no one right method of grieving.”
― Darcie Little Badger, Elatsoe

Writers as Main Characters

- Beth Leave a comment

There is a long history of novels that have writers as the protagonist. Just look at Jo March from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, published in 1868. In that classic, Jo writes plays to perform with her sisters, sensational stories for tabloid-like newspapers, and eventually, longer manuscripts that get published as books.

Modern authors continue to use writers as main characters. Here are a few newer titles on our Davenport Public Library shelves.  (Descriptions provided by publisher)

The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor – The once-rising literary star Olivia Fitzgerald is down on her luck. Her most recent novel, a retelling of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, was a flop, and she’s battling a bad case of writer’s block. When her agent calls her with a high-paying ghostwriting opportunity, Olivia is all too willing to sign the NDA. At first, the write-for-hire job seems too good to be true. All she has to do is interview Henry “Ash” Asherwood, a reclusive mega billionaire, twice named People’s Sexiest Man Alive, who wants her help in writing a book that reveals a shocking secret about his late grandmother and Daphne du Maurier. But the more Olivia digs into his grandmother’s past, the more questions she has, and before she knows it, she’s trapped in a gothic mystery of her own.

The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly – Fifty years ago, Sir Frank Churcher wrote The Golden Bones. Part picture book, part treasure hunt, he created a fairy story about Elinore, a murdered woman whose skeleton was scattered all over England. Clues and puzzles in the pages of The Golden Bones led readers to seven sites where jewels were buried – gold and precious stones, each a different part of a skeleton. One by one, the tiny golden bones were dug up until only Elinore’s pelvis remained hidden. The book is being reissued along with a new treasure hunt and a documentary crew are charting everything that follows. During the filming, Frank finally reveals the whereabouts of the missing golden bone. And then all hell breaks loose.

Writers & lovers by Lily King – In the summer of 1997, Casey Peabody works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink. Writers & Lovers follows Casey – a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist – in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis.