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.

“He thinks he’s a wizard,” they said.
For five grand a month and a million-dollar chaser, Roger Mulligan didn’t care how crazy the old geezer was. All he had to do was keep Joseph Perry Shackleford alive and keep him from squandering the estate for a year.
But they didn’t tell him about the pixies.
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.

Quill has lived on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her whole life. She knows what happens to women who look like her. Just a girl when Jimmy Sky jumped off the railway bridge and she ran for help, Quill realizes now that she’s never stopped running. As she trains for the Boston Marathon early one morning in the woods, she hears a scream. When she returns to search the area, all she finds are tire tracks and a single beaded earring.
Things are different now for Quill than when she was a lonely girl. Her friends Punk and Gaylyn are two women who don’t know what it means to quit; her loving husband, Crow, and their two beautiful children challenge her to be better every day. So when she hears a second woman has been stolen, she is determined to do something about it—starting with investigating the group of men working the pipeline construction just north of their homes.
As Quill closes in on the truth about the missing women, someone else disappears. In her quest to find justice for all of the women of the reservation, she is confronted with the hard truths of their home and the people who purport to serve them. When will she stop losing neighbors, friends, family? As Quill puts everything on the line to make a difference, the novel asks searing questions about bystander culture, the reverberations of even one act of crime, and the long-lasting trauma of being considered invisible.
‘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.

Maggie Bird’s ‘book group’ is an unusual one – a group of retired spies living an anonymous life in the seaside town of Purity. And this summer they plan little more than ‘reading’ (whilst sipping martinis), and some gentle birdwatching.
But trouble is just around the corner as the summer guests arrive.
For acting Police Chief Jo Thibodeau, summer brings its own problems – packed streets, bar brawls, petty theft. And now, a missing teenager down by the lake.
When their good friend becomes a prime suspect in the girl’s disappearance, Maggie and her Martini Club must put down their binoculars and roll up their sleeves. Leaving Jo to deal with not only a powerful family desperate for answers, but a meddlesome group of retirees.
Can Jo and the Martini Club find a way to work together, as they uncover one of the deadliest scandals their small town has ever seen?
‘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.

Akureyri, Northern Iceland, 1983.
High up in the most northern part of Iceland stands The Akureyri Sanatorium. Once a hospital dedicated to treating tuberculosis, it now sits haunted by the ghosts of its past.
One wing of the hospital remains open and houses six employees: the caretaker, two doctors, two nurses and a young research assistant.
Despite the wards closing decades ago they remain at the hospital to conduct research. But the cold corridors, draughty windows and echoey halls are constant reminders of the building’s dark history.
When one of the nurses, Yrsa, is found brutally murdered, they discover that death has never left this place – and neither did its secrets. None can escape this terrifying legacy.
Despite just five suspects the case is never solved and remains open for two decades. Until a young criminologist named Helgi Reykdal attempts to finally lay the ghosts of the hospital’s past to rest . . .
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.

On the Yorkshire moors, celebrated author Faye Mathis is coming to terms with her early-onset dementia. She has begun writing her memoir, committing her past to paper before her memory betrays her. But her family history is full of gaps, bloodlines cut short, family ties all ending in knots…
When a picture of Faye – dirty and dishevelled, stumbling alone on the moors – goes viral, her life is thrown into chaos. Faye is convinced she is not that person in the photograph. But how can she be sure?
Faye sets out to find the true identity of the woman in the photograph. But the more questions she asks, the more confounding the truth becomes. As her darkest suspicions begin to bear true, Faye is forced to question all that she knows and everything she doesn’t.
Because every family has secrets, and there’s always someone who wants them to remain that way.
‘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.

This bundle includes the first three books in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society series.
In the first book of the series, The Secret, Book, and Scone Society, Nora Pennington forms the Secret, Book, and Scone Society. As they untangle a web of corruption, they discover their own courage, purpose, and a sisterhood that will carry them through every challenge—proving it’s never too late to turn the page and start over.
In the second book, The Whispered Word, Nora believes that a well-chosen novel can bring healing and hope. When a customer is found dead in an assumed suicide, she uncovers a shocking connection. But after a second death hits town, Nora and her intrepid friends must help the new greenhorn sheriff discern fact from fiction.
In the third book, The Book of Candlelight, Nora buys a bowl from Danny, a Cherokee potter. The next day, Danny’s body is found. Nora decides it’s time for the Secret, Book, and Scone Society to spring into action. A crucial clue may lie within the stone walls of the Inn of Mist and Roses.
‘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.

Retired librarian and bookshop owner May Morrigan lives in the affluent village of Blackheath with Fletcher, her best friend since they met decades ago, and May’s two dogs. What could be more normal? But May is not your average little old lady . . .
After an unpleasant church volunteer and an annoying local butcher meet their untimely ends, Fletcher and May team up to do some sleuthing. Soon, the elderly pair start working with a young journalist to investigate the case of a missing girl and its possible link to previous unsolved crimes. May finds this new project quite intriguing. She’s never met a murderer before—and now she just may get the chance, if they play their cards right . . .
‘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.

My dog once took a bullet that was intended for me.
A bullet that ripped through his chest, narrowly missing his heart, and exited through his shoulder blade, effectively shattering it. Amazingly, this bullet did not kill him.
Ten years ago I adopted Blue as a present to myself after I broke up with my boyfriend one hot, early summer night with the windows open and the neighborhood listening. I asked the man at the pound to show me the biggest dogs they had. He showed me some seven-week-old Rottweiler-German shepherd puppies that he said would grow to be quite large. Then he showed me a six-month-old shepherd that would get pretty big. Then he showed me Blue, the largest dog they had. I knew I had to have him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Back then, at the beginning of this story, before I’d ever seen a corpse, before Blue saved my life, before I felt what it was like to kill someone in cold blood, I was still Joy Humbolt.
I’d never even heard the name Sydney Rye.
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.

Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback. She doesn’t believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.
As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of her new life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town, turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can’t forget.
But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.
‘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.

Cal Sounder is a detective first and a Titan second, but it’s not easy to make that work. It’s hard to be an ordinary guy when you’re fundamentally not ordinary anymore. Cal has recently taken a dose of T7, a rare drug that is usually the preserve of the rich, making its users – called the Titans – younger and bigger each time they take it, so that as they age the bodies of the ultra-wealthy become as immense as their bank accounts.
As Cal digs into the crime, he finds this forgotten town is simmering with wage disputes, strikes, and political conflict, and no one is quite who they say they are – not even the victim. As Cal second-guesses everyone he meets, he is forced to confront his own identity and ask himself who he wants to be from the far side of the mirror of power, age and greed.
‘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

Minoru Aose is an architect whose greatest achievement is to have designed the Yoshino house, a prizewinning and much discussed private residence built in the shadow of Mount Asama. Aose has never been able to replicate this triumph and his career seems to have hit a barrier, while his marriage has failed. He is shocked to learn that the Yoshino House is empty apart from a single chair, stood facing the north light of nearby Mount Asama.
How can he live with the rejection of the work he had put his heart and soul into, the dream house he would have loved to own himself? Aose determines that he must discover the truth behind this cruel and inexplicable dismissal of the Yoshino house and in doing so will find out a truth that goes back to the core of who he is.
‘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.

Maggie Bird is many things. A chicken farmer. A good neighbour. A seemingly average retiree living in the seaside town of Purity. She’s also a darned good rifle shot. And she never talks about her past.
But when an unidentified body is left on Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a calling card from old times. It’s been fifteen years since the failed mission that ended her career as a spy, and cost her far more than her job.
Step forward the ‘Martini Club’ – Maggie’s silver-haired book group (to anyone who asks), and a cohort of former spies behind closed doors. With the help of her old friends – and always one step ahead of the persistent local cop – Maggie might still be able to save the life she’s built.
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.






I loved Titanium Noir – it’s rare I go round enthusing about a book, but I did for that one. Very glad to see the sequel out.
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