Title: The Secret Place
Author: Tana French
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Summary: Stephen Moran is looking for a chance to join Dublin's Murder Squad. He gets his chance when 16 YO Holly Mackey, a witness from an old case, approaches him about a picture that was posted of a boy that was murdered a year ago at her boarding school. Stephen joins the case with Detective Antoinette Conway and they enter the strange and dangerous world of boarding school.
Review: I really liked the previous two books in the Dublin Murder Squad series, so I was looking forward to this book. But for some reason, I just couldn't get into this book. I'm not entirely sure why, I didn't look forward to reading it each night. Maybe it was too long, maybe I was annoyed by the Irish slang, I don't know. Whatever the reason, this book took forever to read. The only reason I finished it is because I felt so invested and I'd passed the point where I could give up without feeling like I hadn't invested too much time in it. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed.
Time to write: 4:04
Showing posts with label detectives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label detectives. Show all posts
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Book review: The Dead Will Tell
Title: The Dead Will Tell
Author: Linda Castillo
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Summary: Many years ago a terrible tragedy happened at the Hochstetler farm. The deaths that happened went unsolved for many years. One night years later Police Chief Kate Burkholder is called to an apparent suicide in her small town in Amish country. The suicide turns out to be murder and when more people start dying, Kate has to figure out the link between all of them and go back to that tragedy so many nights ago before somebody else dies.
Review: As you know, I get backlogged on these reviews. When I came upon this one, I couldn't remember what this book was about. At all. I suppose that I could have dropped my rating down to two stars, but it's not that it was bad, it just wasn't memorable. But not all books can be memorable. This is a good beach or vacation read. It was your typical murder mystery story. I liked that the main character was a woman and a Chief of Police at that. She has relationship issues (what Chief of Police doesn't?). Her boyfriend has his own baggage (what boyfriend of a Chief of Police who's also a state agent doesn't?). The story was suspenseful and I didn't quite know where it was going. It certainly painted an interesting image of the Amish.
Time to write: 5:40
Author: Linda Castillo
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Summary: Many years ago a terrible tragedy happened at the Hochstetler farm. The deaths that happened went unsolved for many years. One night years later Police Chief Kate Burkholder is called to an apparent suicide in her small town in Amish country. The suicide turns out to be murder and when more people start dying, Kate has to figure out the link between all of them and go back to that tragedy so many nights ago before somebody else dies.
Review: As you know, I get backlogged on these reviews. When I came upon this one, I couldn't remember what this book was about. At all. I suppose that I could have dropped my rating down to two stars, but it's not that it was bad, it just wasn't memorable. But not all books can be memorable. This is a good beach or vacation read. It was your typical murder mystery story. I liked that the main character was a woman and a Chief of Police at that. She has relationship issues (what Chief of Police doesn't?). Her boyfriend has his own baggage (what boyfriend of a Chief of Police who's also a state agent doesn't?). The story was suspenseful and I didn't quite know where it was going. It certainly painted an interesting image of the Amish.
Time to write: 5:40
Friday, October 17, 2014
Book review: A Circle of Wives
Title: A Circle of Wives
Author: Alice LaPlante
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Summary: Dr. John Taylor, a successful plastic surgeon, is discovered dead in a hotel room. The autopsy reveals his death wasn't accidental. His funeral brings together his three wives. Not his two exes and a current wife--his three current wives. It turns out that he was a bigamist. Stranger still, his first wife knew about and encouraged the two additional marriages. Needless to say, several people have motives for why they'd be angry enough to kill Dr. Taylor.
Rating: This book was intended to be sort of a palate cleanser for me. It seems like my last few reads have been on the intense and/or serious side, and I wanted a break from that. This was seemingly a good choice for that, but it was like I was expecting a mango sorbet but got lemon sorbet instead. It's fine, it's just not what I really, really wanted. There wasn't a lot of depth to the characters. I had a hard time keeping the wives straight, too. Also, the detective was the usual cliche--are detectives ever happy people? I'd like to see a book about a happy go lucky detective with a happy home life. Is that too much to ask?
Author: Alice LaPlante
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Summary: Dr. John Taylor, a successful plastic surgeon, is discovered dead in a hotel room. The autopsy reveals his death wasn't accidental. His funeral brings together his three wives. Not his two exes and a current wife--his three current wives. It turns out that he was a bigamist. Stranger still, his first wife knew about and encouraged the two additional marriages. Needless to say, several people have motives for why they'd be angry enough to kill Dr. Taylor.
Rating: This book was intended to be sort of a palate cleanser for me. It seems like my last few reads have been on the intense and/or serious side, and I wanted a break from that. This was seemingly a good choice for that, but it was like I was expecting a mango sorbet but got lemon sorbet instead. It's fine, it's just not what I really, really wanted. There wasn't a lot of depth to the characters. I had a hard time keeping the wives straight, too. Also, the detective was the usual cliche--are detectives ever happy people? I'd like to see a book about a happy go lucky detective with a happy home life. Is that too much to ask?
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Book review: The Silkworm
Title: The Silkworm
Author: Robert Galbraith
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Summary: This book is the second in a series about a detective named Cormoran Strike. Owen Quine is an author of questionable skill who goes missing. His wife approaches Cormoran because while he has disappeared in the past, he usually comes back. This time he hasn't. The wife asks Cormoran to find Quine. Quine is found, but he's been murdered. It turns out that Quine has just written a book that exposes secrets of players in the literary world. To find a list of suspects, one just has to look to the book to see who was exposed the most. It's a pretty long list but Cormoran, along with his assistant Robin, is on the hunt for Quine's killer.
Review: For those that don't know, Robert Galbraith is a pen name for JK Rowling. Cuckoo's Calling was the first book in the Strike series and I had resisted it for a long time because of this. I have never read the Harry Potter series and I have a tendency to avoid things that are so overexposed, like Harry Potter was in its heyday. Yet every time I read about Cuckoo's Calling, I was drawn to it.
I finally gave in and I loved Cuckoo's Calling. So I couldn't wait for this to come out and I wasn't disappointed. I have a tendency to shy away from ongoing detective series because after awhile they become very formulaic. This series is either still too young to be formulaic or Rowling is a good enough writer that they won't. Plus, these books are fun. I have immensely enjoyed these books for a few reasons:
Author: Robert Galbraith
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Summary: This book is the second in a series about a detective named Cormoran Strike. Owen Quine is an author of questionable skill who goes missing. His wife approaches Cormoran because while he has disappeared in the past, he usually comes back. This time he hasn't. The wife asks Cormoran to find Quine. Quine is found, but he's been murdered. It turns out that Quine has just written a book that exposes secrets of players in the literary world. To find a list of suspects, one just has to look to the book to see who was exposed the most. It's a pretty long list but Cormoran, along with his assistant Robin, is on the hunt for Quine's killer.
Review: For those that don't know, Robert Galbraith is a pen name for JK Rowling. Cuckoo's Calling was the first book in the Strike series and I had resisted it for a long time because of this. I have never read the Harry Potter series and I have a tendency to avoid things that are so overexposed, like Harry Potter was in its heyday. Yet every time I read about Cuckoo's Calling, I was drawn to it.
I finally gave in and I loved Cuckoo's Calling. So I couldn't wait for this to come out and I wasn't disappointed. I have a tendency to shy away from ongoing detective series because after awhile they become very formulaic. This series is either still too young to be formulaic or Rowling is a good enough writer that they won't. Plus, these books are fun. I have immensely enjoyed these books for a few reasons:
- Rowling does a great job with the development of Strike and Robin's relationship. Robin's engaged and her fiance isn't thrilled with her job. This is causing a fair amount of tension in their relationship. They end up having to postpone their wedding and you start to wonder if it will be postponed indefinitely. I liked how Rowling resolved this (for now).
- Maybe it's obvious to you, but I have yet to figure out who the killer is ahead of time. This book kept me interested to read on and find out.
- I couldn't help but wonder if Rowling modeled some of the characters about people she knows in the literary world, so that piqued my interest.
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