Tag: mystery

Mystery Reads: Veronica Speedwell Mystery series by Deanna Raybourn

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“Everyone has a capacity for cruelty. Not everyone gets the chance to exercise it.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Curious Beginning

The Veronica Speedwell mystery series by Deanna Raybourn has been recommended to me many times by multiple library staff, but I only recently decided to give it a listen. The first in this series is A Curious Beginning, released in 2015. I thoroughly enjoyed this introduction to Veronica’s world. She is a sassy young woman who knows what she wants and isn’t going to let a few measly men stand in her way.

London, 1887. Veronica Speedwell’s aunt has just died, which has proven to be both a sad and exciting event. Sad because Veronica officially now has no family left. Exciting because Veronica has big plans: she is going to travel the world hunting for more of her precious butterflies in her job as a natural historian. On the day she is slated to start her journey, disaster strikes. Someone attempts to abduct Veronica, which proves to be only a minor inconvenience when a German baron appears out of nowhere to rescue her. Once Veronica and the Baron arrive somewhere new, he introduces her to his friend Stoker. Cashing in on a debt, the Baron offers Veronica sanctuary with Stoker until he is able to figure out who wants to do her harm. Despite Stoker’s bad tempered nature, Veronica is intrigued by this man, mostly as he is also a natural historian. The two form a wary acquaintance that changes when they learn that the Baron has been murdered. As soon as they learn the devastating news, Veronica and Stoker are forced to go on the run. After all, someone is still after Veronica and maybe now even after Stoker. The two decide to team up to discover the truth behind the Baron’s murder, discovering many other hidden secrets along the way.

This book is available in the following formats:

Veronica Speedwell Mystery series

  1. A Curious Beginning (2015)
  2. A Perilous Undertaking (2017)
  3. A Treacherous Curse (2018)
  4. A Dangerous Collaboration (2019)
  5. A Murderous Relation (2020)
  6. An Unexpected Peril (2021)
  7. An Impossible Impostor (2022)
  8. A Sinister Revenge (2023)

Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Turns out that reading nothing but true crime isn’t exactly conducive to modern dating — and one woman is going to have to learn how to give love a chance when she’s used to suspecting the worst. – Alicia Thompson, press for Love in the Time of Serial Killers

Love in the Time of Serial Killers is Alicia Thompson’s first novel, published in August 2022. As soon as I saw the press description of this book as well as the tag line, ‘Can true love survive her true crime obsession?’, this immediately became a must-read. Bonus: it’s a romance, so I knew there were going to be some steamy bits. Let’s get into it!

Phoebe Walsh has been obsessed with true crime since as long as she can remember. As a PhD candidate, Phoebe even managed to finagle the English Department into letting her analyze true crime as a genre for her dissertation. Said dissertation is taking her longer than she thought to finish it though, especially now that she has to head to Florida to deal with some family issues. After the death of her father months ago, Phoebe and her younger brother now need to clean out their childhood home. The bulk of the task falls to Phoebe and she’s none too pleased. In addition to having to clean out the house and deal with her precocious younger brother, Phoebe’s complicated emotions regarding her father surge to the surface. She hasn’t had a relationship with her father in years. Being left to clean out his house may be more than she can deal with.

Writing her dissertation isn’t proving to be as much relief as she thought it would be. Thinking about serial killers has fully infiltrated her life so much so that when she first meets her new neighbor, Sam Dennings, she immediately thinks he is a serial killer. Phoebe believes that Sam’s actions at night are suspicious, so he must be up to something. As their relationship progresses, Phoebe realizes that Sam may be something much worse than a serial killer – he might be a nice guy who is willing to take care of her precious vulnerable heart.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“If this were a novel, he might simply be a poorly written character. But there are no poorly written people. Only ones you don’t yet understand.”
― Jane Pek, The Verifiers

Jane Pek’s debut novel, The Verifiers, follows the life of Claudia Lin, the youngest of three siblings whose Chinese mother wants her to marry a nice Chinese boy already. Her older brother has a high paying job and can’t understand why Claudia doesn’t simply get a job like he has. Her older sister dislikes Claudia as their mother always treats Claudia like the privileged perfect child. While dealing with everyone’s expectations, Claudia finds herself keeping secrets that would shock them. First of all, Claudia prefers girls over boys. Second, Claudia has a job, but she can’t talk about it as it would be unsuitable for what her family thinks she should be doing.

Claudia works at Veracity, a detective agency that operates out of a Manhattan townhouse. This business is rather unconventional. Veracity is hired by their clients to verify people’s online dating personas. Claudia spends her days chasing down liars and cheaters. As a lifelong reader of mystery novels, she sometimes finds herself carried away by the backstories she invents in her head. When one of Claudia’s clients winds up dead, she is told to drop the case. Dead client means no more verifying on her behalf. Claudia can’t let it go. She breaks Veracity’s protocols and decides to investigate what really happened. She doesn’t believe the story she was told, but the more she digs, the more she discovers just how big the web of lies extends. Her client, the circumstances surrounding her death, the myriad dating platforms, her coworkers, and even her own family aren’t being honest with her. Claudia decides to tear down the truths she has been told in order to figure out what she should believe.

This book is also available in the following format:

Cozy Mystery Reads: The Secret Staircase Mysteries series by Gigi Pandian

- Stephanie Leave a comment

An impossible crime. A family legacy. The intrigue of hidden rooms and secret staircases.

Under Lock & Skeleton Key is the first book in the new Secret Staircase Mystery series by Gigi Pandian. This series combines two of my favorite cozy mystery elements: a locked room mystery and delicious food! Plus there’s an adorable rabbit named Abracadabra running through the story.

Tempest Raj is a talented stage magician. After a disastrous stage accident ruins Tempest’s career, she returns to her childhood home in California to try to rebuild her life. With her grandparents living in the tree house our back, Tempest is able to turn to them for advice and to drown her feelings in her grandfather’s home-cooked Indian meals. Trying to figure out who was behind that horrible accident may consume Tempest, but she has more pressing concerns. She may have to art working for her father’s company, Secret Staircase Construction. Started by both of her parents, Secret Staircase Construction specializes in combining magic, stories, and construction. They strive to bring childhood magic alive in each of their projects, whether it be a hidden reading nook, complicated and intricate locks, sliding bookcases, and a treehouse in the backyard.

Tempest is called to visit her dad at his latest renovation project. They have found a discrepancy in the blueprints that Tempest’s dad believes she can help them solve using her background in magic and illusions. What Tempest finds instead is the body of her former stage double inside a wall that has been sealed for more than a century. Tempest’s first thought is that she was the intended victim. Second thought: how did the body get into the wall? As she works to solve this mystery, the Raj family curse haunts her thoughts, as it has haunted her family for generations. Although she hopes the curse isn’t true, her recent accident plus her stage double’s death has her believing that the curse may be coming to call.

Secret Staircase Mystery series:

  1. Under Lock & Skeleton Key (2022)
  2. The Raven Thief (2023)

The Christmas Caper: A Secret Staircase Mystery Short Story (2022)

 

Best Sellers Club is now Simply Held!

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Best Sellers Club is now Simply Held, a service that automatically places you on hold for authors, celebrity picks, nonfiction picks, and fiction picks. Choose any author, celebrity pick, fiction pick, and/or nonfiction pick and The Library will put the latest title on hold for you automatically. Select as many as you want! Still have questions? Click here for a list of FAQs.

Fiction Additions

  • Isabel Allende
  • Louise Erdrich
  • Lisa Jewell
  • James McBRide
  • Mary Monroe
  • Lisa See
  • Karin Slaughter
  • Colson Whitehead

Mystery Additions

  • Walter Mosley
  • Louise Penny

Romance Additions (the below are only available in regular print)

  • Jasmine Guillory
  • Helen Hoang
  • Beverly Jenkins

Cozy Mystery Series: Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“Many years ago, everybody here would wake early because there was much to do and only so many hours in the day. Now they wake early because there is much to do and only so many days left.”
― Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club

The Thursday Murder Club is the first book in the series of the same name written by Richard Osman. This book has been recommended to me many many times by other librarians since it was published in 2020. I finally listened to this book earlier this month and oh, I wish I would have started it sooner.

The Thursday Murder Club meets every Thursday to solve crime. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron are four unlikely friends brought together by circumstance. They all live in a peaceful retirement village, but all feel like they need more. They meet weekly in the Jigsaw room to discuss unsolved crimes. Ron used to be known as Red Ron, the infamous former socialist who still causes trouble. Joyce is a gentle widow who is pining for another resident, but she seems to be hiding something darker. Ibrahim is a former therapist whose grasp of the darker side of human nature helps the four truly understand the unsolved crimes they discuss each week. Elizabeth has a dark past that is kept deliberately hidden. No one is quite certain of her past, but they all know that one should never underestimate her.

As the four get together as the Thursday Murder Club, they work to solve unsolved crimes kept by a former police officer. When a local developer is brutally murdered, the four decide its time for them to start investigating their first live case. They may be older, but their skill sets mean that they are more well-equipped to solve this case than most people. As they dig into the crime, they inadvertently put themselves in danger, but still hope that they can find the killer before they kill again.

This book is also available in the following formats:

Thursday Murder Club series

  1. The Thursday Murder Club (2020)
  2. The Man Who Died Twice (2021)
  3. The Bullet That Missed (2022)
  4. The Thursday Murder Club 4 (2023)

“You always know when it’s your first time, don’t you? But you rarely know when it’s your final time.”
― Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club

Dead Collections by Isaac Feldman

- Callen Leave a comment

Are you a dedicated user of our Special Collections department, or another archive? Do you love urban vampire stories or LGBTQIA literary fiction? If you said yes, or are intrigued, definitely try reading Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman. I checked it out because I had heard it was good transgender representation set in an archival setting and was delighted by the love story and identity exploration amidst an archival mystery. Here’s a quick summary:

When archivist Sol meets Elsie, the larger than life widow of a moderately famous television writer who’s come to donate her wife’s papers, there’s an instant spark. But Sol has a secret: he suffers from an illness called vampirism, and hides from the sun by living in his basement office. On their way to falling in love, the two traverse grief, delve into the Internet fandom they once unknowingly shared, and navigate the realities of transphobia and the stigmas of carrying the “vampire disease.” Then, when strange things start happening at the collection, Sol must embrace even more of the unknown to save himself and his job.

I loved reading both the experiences of trans man Sol and Elsie, who goes down a rabbit hole of gender exploration while falling in love with Sol. I also thought the way the story’s different threads wove together was clever and unique; this isn’t just a romance, or an urban fantasy, or a literary fiction, or a mystery, it’s a truly unusual blend of all of these, and reads like a prose poem. Sol’s narration is also reminiscent of the storytelling in Life of Pi by Yann Martel, incorporating glimpses of and insights from different times in Sol’s life. Different formats (email, scripts, etc.) were also woven into the narrative to echo the multimedia landscape of modern life.

As someone who reads more genre fiction than literary fiction, I did find the poetic writing style difficult in places, but the raw and real emotions, in all their complexity, that the characters lived through were really powerful and profound. I recommend this quirky and moving book to anyone looking for a one-of-a-kind reading experience full of queer representation, cool libraries, and mysterious goings-on.

‘Daisy Darker’ by Alice Feeney

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“Families are like fingerprints; no two are the same, and they tend to leave their mark.”
― Alice Feeney, Daisy Darker

Alice Feeney’s latest novel, Daisy Darker, is a dark and twisty locked-room mystery of a family gathered together for their grandmother’s birthday. It was deliciously messy and full of family drama. This is a contender for my favorite novel of 2022.

Daisy Darker was born with a broken heart. She wasn’t particularly wanted by either of her parents, but nevertheless she survived and was brought home to start her life with her parents and her two older sisters. Flash forward years and Daisy’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party on a tiny tidal island in her crumbling gothic house. The family has been avoiding each other for years, but a fortune teller foretold that Nana would die on her 80th birthday, so the family has assembled per her wishes.

As each member of the family arrives, they bring baggage, both physical and the secrets that they are all hiding from each other. The tidal island that Nana lives on means that the entire family will be shut off from the rest of the world for eight hours until the tide goes out. At midnight, a storm rages across the island. A scream pierces the night. Nana is found dead. An hour later, another family member is discovered dead. A deadly mystery has come to the island and the Darker family is left wondering who is responsible. Stuck on the island where someone is murdering the members of the Darker family one by one, they all must pull out their past secrets until they figure out the present murder mystery. They just have to make it until the tide goes out and they can escape the island. The deadly force on island may not let them leave alive though. Only time will tell.

This book is also available in the following formats:

Cozy Mystery Reads: Pies Before Guys Mystery series by Misha Popp

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“Like there are these things that matter on a large grand scale, the kind of things Melly cares about, like stopping fascism and curing climate change, and that’s obviously super important, but then there are the little individual things, like a woman who’s getting hit at home or a girl whose rapist gets a free pass for being popular. Do you go for the big sweeping save-the-world changes that will help the most people, or do you chip away at the little problems, fixing one and another and another until you have this huge snowball of good deeds built up?”
― Misha Popp, Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies

Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies is the first book in the Pies Before Guys Mystery series. The description drew me in and I knew I needed to read it: a woman seeks vengeance on men who have wronged women by baking pies laced with deadly magic. Best part: there are recipes listed at the end of the book!

Daisy Ellery comes from a long line of magic women. Each woman’s magic manifests in different ways though: her grandmother sewed her magic into beautiful dresses, her mother opened a beauty salon where she used her magic to help cut women’s hair, and Daisy bakes her magic into pies. For years Daisy has believed that the family’s magic twisted and changed for the worse when it came to her. After all, her mother and grandmother used their magic for good, while Daisy’s magic mostly manifests for revenge.

Daisy’s first murder by pie was an accident. She has been on the move ever since, but has still found ways to deliver magic through baking. Daisy travels with her dog Zoe around the country in her refurbished RV baking vengeance into her pastries. Daisy delivers them to men who have done wrong to women in the towns wherever she chooses to stop.

Daisy currently parks her Pies Before Guys van outside a local diner, where she bakes pies for Frank, the diner owner. One day, Frank tells Daisy that someone has been prowling around her van. Daisy later discovers a letter stuck to her door. Her prowler knows about her secret murder pie business and is threatening to out her unless Daisy bakes pies for his own list of targets.

Daisy feels violated. Who dares blackmail her? This person obviously has no idea who or what they are dealing with, but without identifying who has it out for her, Daisy is left floundering. She decides to take whatever action she can: using her databases to research past abusive men, investing in security equipment, and staying aware of her surroundings.

When Daisy learns of a statewide pie contest that has the ability to help her promote Pies Before Guys everywhere, she decides to take the leap and enter. This contest, and the prize money, could change her life for the better as long as her blackmailer doesn’t get to her first.

Pies Before Guys Mystery series

  1. Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies (2022)
  2. A Good Day to Pie (2023)

‘The Murder of Mr. Wickham’ by Claudia Gray

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“How unfortunate for public morals that being unladylike feels so… exciting.”
― Claudia Gray, The Murder of Mr. Wickham

Claudia Gray is the pseudonym of author Amy Vincent. Amy has written multiple young adult novels, including the Firebird trilogy, the Constellation trilogy, and the Evernight series. She has also written several Star Wars novels. Her latest novel written under her pseudonym is the one that has captured my interest: The Murder of Mr. Wickham. This book is Claudia’s debut adult historical mystery. It’s a delightful read full of characters from Jane Austen novels.

Mr. Knightley and Emma are happily married and wanting to throw a house party. They have decided to bring together a group of distant relatives and some new acquaintances: Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, Marianne and Colonel Brandon, Anne and Captain Wentworh, Fanny and Edmund Bertram, and a couple others. Once the company has assembled at the Knightley’s country estate, they are shocked to discover an interloper: Mr. Wickham. He was not invited, but his arrival coincides with a storm that makes his much wished departure delayed. Wickham’s latest financial scheme has earned him a great number of enemies, quite a few of them at the Knightley’s house party. Tempers flare amongst the guests and secrets are revealed. As the party progresses, many people are heard discussing that they wish Wickham would finally be brought to justice.

What none of them expected though was that Wickham would be found murdered on the estate and that the killer would be one of them! Now almost everyone at the party is a suspect, so two of the youngest guests decide to solve the mystery (after all, they know that neither of them committed this crime). Juliet Tilney, the daughter of Catherine and Henry, is at the Knightley’s estate without her parents and eager to explore beyond Northanger Abbey. Jonathan Darcy is the Darcy’s eldest son with an almost militant adherence to propriety which rivals his father’s. Jonathan and Juliet must set aside their feelings for each other and their mediocre first impressions to discover who the guilty party is hiding amongst the guests.