Saturday Summary 2025-04-12: Books Read, Books Bought, Books Up Next

This week, I’ve read three good books and set one book aside. I’ve also been tempted by two-for-one sales and offers of freedbies so I’ve added more books than usual. Anyway, here’s what happened this week and what’s coming up next.


Thk week’a reading was heavy on crime although the books were very different from one another. One was a British golden age mysvery set on a sunny island. One was an FBI thriller set in rural Oregon. One was a twisty, character-driven murder mystery set in Cork. The only book that didn’t work for me was a British satifical Urban Fantasy that I ended up setting aside.

A Caribbean Mystery‘ (1964) takes Miss Marple away from her small English village and has her at a hotel on a Caribbean island where she spends time with monied, pleasure seeking thirty-somethings, a vicar and his sister, a retired military man who thinks he’s a raconteur but is actually a bore and a very rich, very rude, very old man and his small staff.

I always enjoy spending time with Jane Marple. The mystery in this was a little thin and I felt Christie came close to cheating on the way information was presented but I didn’t care because the characters were so engaging. Lots of interesting observations on being old and on the way men wrap themselves in fantasy while women compromise with reality. The chemistry between Jane and the grumpy millionaire made me smile.

‘A Merciful Truth’ (2017) is the second Mercy Kilpatrick book. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first book ‘A Merciful Death’ but it was still entertaining. I liked the more-empathetic-than-usual look into why and how militias are formed. This was more a thriller than a mystery. It had some very tense moments towards the end. For me, it has one twist too many in the plot and I sighed when the romance, which seemed over-blown and unrealistic to me, inevitably took centre stage. Even so, this is a series I will continue with

The Seventh Body‘ (2025) was a pleasant surprise. It was more complicated and more character-driven than the police procedural that I’d expected.

The story was told mostly from the point of view of a detective in Cork who is recovering from some mental health issues and is stuggling to establish herself in Cork after transferring there from Dublin to attempt a new start after a debacle of her own making. The detective’s account is cut across by two other voices who, initially are unidentified but are closely linked to the murder being investigated.

I liked the strong sense of place. I got a feel both for Cork as it is now and for how it was in the mid-i990s. The book has a much bigger emotional impact than most police procedural novels, mostly because it was more focused on the people than the mystery. The ending surprised me in a good way, making the whole book richer.

This is a fine standalone novel but I’m hoping it will continue as a series.

‘Fiends In High Places’ (2014) has a great title and a quirky eye-catching cover. It’s the first book in a satirical British Urban Fantasy series that I’d hoped to fall in love with.

Instead, I set it aside at 25% because the writing style annoyed me, I didn’t like the main character and the humour didn’t work for me.

My review is HERE


I let myselr get tempted into adding a lot of books this week . I shopped at Audible’s two-for-one sale, picked up an ‘included in your membership’ book and two series bundles My TBR is now bigger than ever.

I picked up ‘The Wizard’s Butler’ (2021) as the second book in an audible.com two-for-one sale. I thought of it as a freebie that I could take a risk with. I like the title and the quiet humour in the sample. It seems to be a slice-of-life book with the focus on a character who would normally be mostly behind the scenes in a fantasy novel – I’m thinking a Batman story with Alfred as the main character. Tom Taylorson won the 2021 Voice Arts Award, Audiobook Narration — Fantasy. for his narration, so I’m hoping this will be an engaging audiobook. It’s listed as Book 1 but there’s no sign of a sequel yet.

‘Where They Last Saw Her’ (2024) is the last novel from Marcie Rendon. I thought her debut novel ‘Murder On The Red River‘ (2017) was exceptional That book was set in the 1970s. I’m interested to see whether the tone changes with a book set in the present-day when bad things can’t be blamed on how things used to be.

The Summer Guests‘ (2025) is the second book in Tess Gerritsen’s Martini Club series. I’m reading the first book ‘The Spy Coast’ this week but my wife has already read it and was keen for the second one so, onto the TBR pile it goes.

I enjoyed the first two books in Ragnar Jónasson’s ‘Hidden Iceland’ series ‘The Darkness‘ and ‘The Island‘ so, when I saw that his latest book (available in English) was an Agatha Christie influenced period piece, I had to give it a try. Based on the audiobook sample, I’m looking forward to Sam Woolf’s narration. He has a very rich voice.

‘Secret Sister’ i2025) is an Audible Originals production that was included in my membership. It’s a domestic noir thriller with five narrators, I’ve already got Sarah Denzil’s ‘The Woman In Coach D’ and ‘Poison Orchids’ in my TBR. I’m adding this one as it’s free and it promises to be a good performance piece.

‘A Secret Book & Scone Society’ is a roll of the dice. The title and the premise sound fun but everything will depend on the writing and the characters. I’d only intended to buy the first book in the series I bough the bundle when I saw that I’d get the first three books for the same price as buying only the first one. If I like the series, it’s a good deal. If not, I’ve wasted nothing.

A Most Unusual Demise‘ (2023) has all the right ingredients for a cosy mystery series: a retired librarian playing amateur sleuth, dogs and an English village setting. Now it depends on how well this cake has been baked.

This is another roll of the dice and another instance of buying a bundle because it’s the same price as a single book. This is self-published Urban Fantasy series. The first book, ‘Unleashed’ was published in 2011. There are now nine books in the series. Oh and the dog is still there in the ninth book.

Stone Yard Devotional‘ (2023) was the first Australian book to make the Booker Shortlist in many years. It’s also a nominee for the Dublin Literary Award. This sounds like a quiet, reflective book that will make a pleasant change of pace from reading genre books.


This week, I’m reading a Noirish Science Fiction book, a low-key Japanese mystery and a thriller about retired American spies.

Sleeper Beach‘ is the sequel to ‘Titaniam Noir’ which was one of my best reads of 2023. I loved the way Nick Harkaway took great speculative fiction questions, wrapped them in a solid mystery and told the story in a self-consciously Noir style: think Raymond Chandler but replace the misogyny with dry, sometimes self-effacing humour.delivered it all through speculative fiction. I’m hoping for more of the same in this book

The North Light‘ (2019) was one of my wife’s favourite reads last year. She read the hardback. I’ve been holding out for the audiobook but there’s no sign of one so I’ve gone for the Kindle instead.

I love the premise of the book: an architect whose life is in crisis, focusing on solving the mystery of why his dream house has been abandoned. I’m hoping for a quiet, relective, slice-of-life, character-focused mystery.

I’ve had a couple of Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli and Isles books in my TBR pile for years now but I’ve never gotten to them. I enjoyed the TV series but I feel like I’ve missed the window for reading the series. Then I saw that, at the age of sixty-nine, Tess Gerrittsen had started a new series, ‘The Martini Club’‘ with ‘The Spy Coast‘ (2023) about retired spies. I’m curious to see what she does with her characters when they are approaching the end of their lives rather than struggling through the middle. The second book, ‘The Summer Guests’ was published last month so I’m hoping to have a new series to follow.

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