November is here. The leaves are giving the final display of colour. The nights are longer. The days are colder. Perfect reading weather really. I’ve been stocking up on Christmas reads and indulging in thrillers and mysteries. I’ve also made a start on my JANE AUSTEN 250TH ANNIVERSARY BINGE READ with the appropriately mock-gothic ‘Northanger Abbey‘, which I fell so far into that I’m already behind schedule.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve read and bought this week and what’s up next.

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The first two books I read this week were contemporary accounts that took me back to England in the 1960s and 1970s. I was reminded of the grim realities faced by the Intelligence Services in the Cold War and the casually misogynistic attitudes of authority figures in the 1970s toward rape and sexual assault. The third book was an historical fiction thriller that dragged me through the depravity and corruption of 1920s Hollywood. The fourth book was a thriller set in New Zealand that grew darker and darker. I started, but haven’t yet managed to finish, Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’, the silliness of which provided much-needed respite from the violence of the other books. 

A letter from beyond the grave One last request An unsolvable crime 
When Miss Marple receives a letter from the recently deceased millionaire Jason Rafiel, she’s not sure what to make of it.
Knowing her deductive skills, he challenges her to solve a crime. If she does so, she will inherit £20,000.
The only problem is that he has failed to mention who was involved, or where, and when the crime was committed. Jane Marple is intrigued.

I thought ‘Nemisis’ (1971) was one of the best Jane Marple novels. It was an intriguing, unconventional mystery.

I liked that Jane Marple was credibily portrayed as being very old, with the physical limitations and discomforts that brings and with the knowlldge of life inevitably coming to an end but not yet being over.

I enjoyed watching Jane Marple think. I liked that she was doing more than solving a puzzle. She was assessing and reassessing herself and the people she meets, so that she can be sure she’s seeing them clearly.

The attitudes of authority figures to rape and sexual assault accurately reflect the misogyny of the 1970s with victim-blaming, a tendency to minimise the seriousness of the offence and to be willing to show leniency so a young man should not have his life ruined. I’m not sure that much has changed in England. ONS figures for 2024 show that only 16% of rapes are reported to the police ond only 2.6% of the reported cases result in a charge or prosecution.

For two secret agents, there’s no such thing as a quiet life in the countryside…
In a peaceful Kent village, Mr Behrens lives with his aunt at the Old Rectory, where he plays chess and keeps bees. His friend Mr Calder lives nearby with Rasselas, a golden deerhound of unnatural intelligence. No one would suspect that they are in fact working for British Intelligence, carrying out the jobs that are too dangerous for anyone else to handle – whether it’s wiping out traitors, Soviet spies or old Nazis – in these gloriously entertaining stories.

BookBub brought this book and the rather wonderful Penguin Modern Classics – Crime & Espionage series to my attention. Amazon were offering it for £0.99 so I gave it a try. It’s the first of two short story collections dealing with two allegedly retired spies who are actually working in a special department that takes care of the more unpleasant operational tasks performed in the interests of national security.

The stories were short and grim. They were made grimmer by the civilised, cultured matter-of-fact tone of these two retired men as they killed for their country.

The prose was sparse but very effective. It reinforced the air chillingly efficient violence that our two main characters brought to bear on every problem,

These stories were like opening a time capsule to the 1960s as seen from the point of view of men who were already adults when World War II started. It’s grim but thoughtful. It speaks of a generation who drew their energy from a dogged determination not to lose what they have, rather than from hopes for a brighter future.

A dark, riveting thriller set in 1920s Hollywood about “the greatest horror movie ever made”, the curse said to surround it, and a deadly search, decades later, for the single copy rumoured still to exist.
1927: Hollywood studio fixer Mary Rourke is called to the palatial home of “the most desirable woman in the world”, silent movie actress Norma Carlton, star of The Devil’s Playground. When Rourke finds Carlton dead, she wonders if the dark rumours she’s heard are true: that The Devil’s Playground really is a cursed production. But nothing in Hollywood is ever what it seems, and cynical fixer Rourke, more used to covering up the truth for studio bosses, finds herself seeking it out.
1967: Paul Conway, film historian and fervid silent movie aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumour: that a single copy of The Devil’s Playground-a Holy Grail for film buffs that was supposedly cursed and lost to time-may exist. His search takes him deep into the Mojave Desert, to an isolated hotel that hasn’t changed in forty years but harbours only one occupant-and a shocking secret.
Separated by decades, both Rourke and Conway begin to suspect that the real Devil’s Playground is in fact Hollywood itself.

Large sections of ‘The Devil’s Playground‘ (2023) captured my imagination. Some of the visuals were stunningly good. The action scenes were vividly described. There was a strong sense of time and place. The plot put its claws in my curiosity and dragged me forward. For the most part, I was entertained.

Sadly, it pushed the “no one in Hollywood is who they seem to be” theme too far. The plot twists started to feel like mischievous tricks the author was playing on the reader. The penultimate big reveal called the whole plot into question. The ending was deeply disappointing. It made sense in a “see how clever I am” way, but left me feeling that, at the end of the magic show, the magician showed me an empty top hat when they’d led me to expect a rabbit.

My review is HERE‘

A young girl wanders into the small town of Koraha, her hands stained with blood. She won’t speak, but her path is tracked through New Zealand’s unforgiving wilderness to a cabin – and the scene of a double murder.

The townsfolk know this cabin; it has a violent history. Twenty years ago, another girl was forced to flee, leaving her siblings and father behind. But now that her family’s secrets have led to more victims, Effie has no choice but to return to the bush and face the truth of what happened there… and why she ran.

My wife and I have been listening to this together for the past week. Wow, what a read. It’s intense, complicated, very dark and disturbing in parts and deeply engaging. I particularly liked the parts of the story that were told from a child’s point of view. The plot is almost, but not quite, a cheat. Everything works, but there’s no way you could work everything out for yourself. I think that’s OK because this is a thriller, not a mystery, and it’s a hell of a ride. Amazingly, this was a debut novel. You’d never guess from the prose, the pacing or the complex plot. 

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Buying eight books in a week when I only finished three may seem a little excessive but four of them were Christmas reads that I’m stocking up on and three are quite short. Now, all I have to do is find the time to read them.

Two weeks ago, Christine Sinclaire’s husband slipped off the roof while hanging Christmas lights and fell to his death on the front lawn.
Desperate to escape her guilt and her grief, Christine packs up her fifteen-year-old son and the family cat and flees to the cabin they’d reserved deep in the remote Pennsylvania Wilds to wait out the holidays.
It isn’t long before Christine begins to hear strange noises coming from the forest. When she spots a horned figure watching from between frozen branches, Christine assumes it’s just a forest animal—a moose, maybe, since the property manager warned her about them, said they’d stomp a body so deep into the snow nobody’d find it ’til spring.
But moose don’t walk upright like the shadowy figure does.
They don’t call Christine’s name with her dead husband’s voice.

I enjoyed ‘Bless Your Heart‘ (2024), Lindy Ryan’s horror novel about a family funeral parlour dealing with the rising dead in Texas in 1999, so I took a look at her back catalogue and found this Christmas-themed novella, dealing with grief. She published ‘Cold Snap‘ last year, but it was only released as an audiobook in April 2025. A Christmas horror about grief and loss may not feel seasonal, but I think it calls out the darker side of the holiday.

Two of Meg’s cousins, members of Mother’s vast Hollingsworth clan, are getting married, and both have chosen Caerphilly for their Christmas destination wedding . . on the same day, in the same venues. But while they’re cousins they’re also lifelong enemies. Mother’s efforts to keep the peace are wearing her down, and the battling brides (and their mothers) are making the holiday season miserable for everyone. So Meg steps in to keep the peace. And it was going badly even before she stumbles over the murdered body of the wedding photographer.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of suspects. The photographer has been hitting on many of the guests, bridesmaids . . . possibly even one or both of the brides. He’s also been slinking about and taking candid shots that are unflattering, embarrassing . . . occasionally even incriminating.
Can Meg help the local police nab the killer in time for the weddings to go on as planned? Unless, of course, the killer was one of the brides or grooms, in which case she needs to identify the killer in time to reveal their identity when she hears those fateful words, “If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else forever hold your peace.”

Listening to a Meg Langslow Christmas mystery has become a seasonal tradition in my house. Some are better than others, but they always keep me entertained. I like the idea of adding wedding drama to the seasonal mayhem.

Out of work for months, Lussi Meyer is desperate to work anywhere in publishing. Prestigious Blackwood-Patterson isn’t the perfect fit, but a bizarre set of circumstances leads to her hire and a firm mandate: Lussi must find the next horror superstar to compete with Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Peter Straub. It’s the ’80s, after all, and horror is the hottest genre.
But as soon as she arrives, Lussi finds herself the target of her coworkers’ mean-spirited pranks. The hazing reaches its peak during the company’s annual Secret Santa gift exchange, when Lussi receives a demonic-looking object that she recognizes but doesn’t understand. Suddenly, her coworkers begin falling victim to a series of horrific accidents akin to a George Romero movie, and Lussi suspects that her gift is involved. With the help of her former author, the flamboyant Fabien Nightingale, Lussi must track down her anonymous Secret Santa and figure out the true meaning of the cursed object in her possession before it destroys the company – and her soul.

A little slice of Christmas horror (the audiobook is 5 hours 25 minutes long) with a dash of humour. Set in the NYC publishing industry in the 1980s, this book offers a little nostalgia as well Festive Fear.

A hit woman’s work doesn’t stop for the holidays. As the advent calendar winds down, Paige slips into a palatial house, ignoring a blizzard of texts from her ex-husband. No surprise—Julian always gets maudlin this time of year. The realshock comes when the target is not alone. His young daughter is there too.
Risking the wrath of her organization, Paige retreats. There are some lines that, for personal reasons, she just won’t cross. But when she returns on Christmas Eve to finish the job, the girl is still there…along with someone even more startling. As the ghosts of her past gather—to haunt or to help, it’s unclear—Paige must confront old traumas and outwit her superiors to make it to Christmas morning alive.

I’ve got a couple of Lisa Unger thrillers on my shelves that I’ve been meaning to get around to. When I saw that she’d published a short story about a Christmas assassination attempt and an assassin with a troublesome conscience, I thought it would be a great opportunity to sample her work and encourage me to pull her books to the top of my TBR pile.

Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn’t leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate need to get into the safe, Merricat must do everything in her power to protect the remaining family.

‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ (1962) is a horror novella I’ve been meaning to get to since I read Shirley Jacksons ‘The Haunting of Hill House‘ (1959).

In To Kill a Labrador (no dogs die!), Marcia is called in to dog-sit her first trainee, a Black Labrador/Rottie mix named Buddy, when his former Marine owner is accused of murdering his wife. Outraged that his small town is assuming he’s guilty, she sets out to uncover the real killer, despite the protests of the hunky local sheriff.
In Arsenic and Young Lacy, Marcia deals with a challenging client, a neurotic former Army nurse who’s being stalked. When both sweet Lacy and Marcia are caught up in the stalker’s malicious orbit, she’s torn. The young woman desperately needs her service dog, but how can Marcia put her dogs at risk? Not to mention herself…
In The Call of the Woof, Marcia’s former client, a motorcyclist and traumatic brain injury sufferer, is accused of robbery and murder. Marcia and Buddy set out to clear his name, fighting misconceptions about bikers and TBI along the way. Her boyfriend isn’t happy, though, that she’s putting herself at risk…again.
In A Mayfair Christmas Carol, Marcia’s adopted town goes off the rails and decides to build an ice skating rink, in Florida. What could go wrong? Plenty! A decades-old skeleton is uncovered and its secrets threaten more than the town’s Christmas plans. Can Marcia and Buddy keep the ghost of Christmas past from destroying what’s left of Mayfair’s founding family?

This is a roll of the dice. I’m hoping for an amusing set of cosy mysteries, with a Labrador/Rotweiler mix as one of the main characters.

Meet Andy Warner, a recently deceased everyman and newly minted zombie. Resented by his parents, abandoned by his friends, and reviled by a society that no longer considers him human, Andy is having a bit of trouble adjusting to his new existence.
But all that changes when he goes to an Undead Anonymous meeting and finds kindred souls in Rita, an impossibly sexy recent suicide with a taste for the formaldehyde in cosmetic products, and Jerry, a twenty-one-year-old car-crash victim with an exposed brain and a penchant for Renaissance pornography.
When the group meets a rogue zombie who teaches them the joys of human flesh, things start to get messy, and Andy embarks on a journey of self-discovery that will take him from his casket to the SPCA to a media-driven class-action lawsuit on behalf of the rights of zombies everywhere.

I’d been hoping to buy ‘I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus: A Breathers Christmas Carol’ (2012), sadly there’s no digital version available in the UK, but I saw that some of the same characters had been in an earlier book ‘Breathers: A Zombie Lament‘ (2009) and decided to start there.

Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, is in dire need of healing. Naturally – such is the grim comedy of fate – the only healer who can help is Aurienne Fairhrim, preeminent scientist, bastion of moral good, and member of an enemy Order. 
Aurienne is desperate for funding to heal the sick – so desperate that, when Osric bribes her to help him, she accepts, even if she detests him and everything he stands for. 
A forced collaboration ensues: the brilliant Woman in STEM is coerced into working with the PhD in Murders, much to Aurienne’s disgust. As Osric and Aurienne work together to heal his illness and investigate the mysterious reoccurrence of a deadly pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction, which only fuels the heat between them.

If ‘The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy‘ (2025) was a serious romantasy, it probably wouldn’t be on my shelves, but this seems to be a tongue-in-cheek romantasy, not a parody, just something with a knowing edge. It’s been getting some good reviews. The audiobooks sample was engaging, so it’s now in my TBR pile.

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This week, I’m reading the second Jane Austen novel, a collection of new short stories inspired by the works of Alfred Hitchcock, the sixth Eve Ronin book and a standalone thriller about a woman in hiding. It should be a fun week.

‘Sense and Sensibility‘ (1811) is the second book in my JANE AUSTEN 250TH ANNIVERSARY BINGE READ. This will be my first read of the novel, so all I have to go on is Emma Thompson’s 1995 movie adaptation and what I can pick up from sites like The Jane Austen Society and JASNA (the Jane Austen Society of North Americ. I’m hoping that I’ll find the characters engaging and believable rather than just being emblematic of two opposing approaches to life.

Birds, Strangers and Psychos is a thrilling anthology that brings together the biggest names in mystery and crime fiction to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary filmmaker whose name is synonymous with suspense. Acclaimed editor Maxim Jakubowski curates 24 original short stories, each inspired by the mood, tension, and style that defined Hitchcock’s groundbreaking work. This anthology invites both emerging and established voices to reimagine the chilling atmospheres, twisted plots, and unforgettable characters of Hitchcock’s films, from Psycho and Vertigo to North by Northwest and The Birds.
Each author takes on the challenge of evoking the quintessentially ‘Hitchcockian’ elements that have captivated audiences for decades: ordinary lives interrupted by peril, psychological duels, and unexpected encounters that spiral into nightmares

Maxim Jakubowski is one of my favourite editors. I like the stories that he picks. He’s been around a long time and knows everyone so he can call on a lot of talent. I loved the premise of getting well-known writers to produce Hitchcockian stories.

Hitchcock also had an eye for talent He was the first editor to promote Roal Dahl’s short stories. He made Patricia Highsmith’s debut novel into a movie within a year of it being published. I grew up with his TV series and I’ve seen many of his movies.

Some of the authors that Maxim Jakubowsk has assembled, I already know and like: (Lee Child, S.A. Cosby, Peter Swanson, Joe Lansdale, Peter Lovesey, Ragnar Jonasson) some are on my shelves already ( Denise Mina, Sophie Hanna, Kim Newman) and the rest I’m looking forward to discovering.

A fifty-five-gallon drum washes up in the Malibu Lagoon stuffed with the corpse of Gene Dent, the key player in a bribery scandal that ensnared several local politicians. LASD detectives Eve Ronin and Duncan Pavone know the case—and all the likely suspects—well. Just as they begin their investigation, the sheriff publicly reveals evidence linking the crime to LA’s mayor.
But Eve and Duncan realize the bombshell allegation, true or not, arises from corruption within the sheriff’s own office…because they helped cover it up years ago. If the sheriff goes down, so will they.
Eve is agonizing over her moral dilemma when a helicopter crashes in the hillside below her Calabasas home. It’s not a coincidence. Eve soon discovers among the twisted wreckage and dead passengers shocking connections to her own past…and they lead straight to a fight for her life.

‘Fallen Star‘ is the sixth Eve Ronin book. It was an automatic buy for me. This is a series that always makes me smile.

Sadly, I couldn’t fit it in to Halloween Bingo, so it’s been sitting on my shelves since it was published last month..

JOANNE HAYNES HAS A SECRET.
THAT IS NOT HER REAL NAME.
And there’s more. Her flat isn’t hers. Her cats aren’t hers. Even her hair isn’t really hers.
Nor is she any of the other women she pretends to be. Not the bestselling romance novelist who gets her morning snack from the doughnut van on the seafront. Nor the pregnant woman in the dental surgery. Nor the chemo patient in the supermarket for whom the cashier feels ever so sorry. They’re all just alibis.
In fact, the only thing that’s real about Joanne is that nobody can know who she really is.
But someone has got too close. It looks like her alibis have begun to run out…

I enjoyed the first two books in C. J. Skuse’s series about a female serial killer, ‘Sweetpea‘ and ‘In Bloom’. I was curious to see what she did with a stand-alone thriller, especially one with such an unusual premise.

I’ve read the first 20%. So far, it’s been tense and emotional. The main character is a far cry from the serial killer in ‘Sweetpea’. She is vulnerable and afraid and has been living a lie for so long that she loses herself in fantasy moments in the present to avoid thinking about the future. The flashbacks to her childhood are beautifully done and painful to read.