I’m posting this Saturday Summary very early on Sunday morning my time. It’s been that kind of week.

Books have been a bright spot in a cheerless week. Forutnatley, the reading and buying have bot been rewarding. My wife and I have been continuing to holdthe too-early darkness at bay by listening to audiobooks together. That one of the book was about a massacre at an old people’s home is the kind of gentle irony that amuses me.

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

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I spent most of this week reading books about people getting killed, often in unusual ways and by unlikely people. I’m not sure what it says about me that I was engaged and entertained all week.

When your boss is at a conference in a city where there’s a suspicious death, it’s unlucky. If it happens twice, it’s odd. But when she’s in the same city at the same time as a third unexplained death . . .
Could she be a stone-cold killer?
Millie’s always known her boss Freya is a psycho – the demanding and ever-changing coffee orders, the cryptic instructions, the apparently expected mind reading and don’t even start on the insistence that Millie wears heels . . . All. The. Time.
But it only extends as far as exacting office standards. Right?
As Freya’s assistant, Millie has privileged access to her diary and travel history and when a pattern emerges of men (who seem to have no connection to each other) dying in cities where Freya is travelling, Millie is determined to figure out what’s going on.
After all, a stone-cold killer could be exactly what Millie needs . . 

This was fun. I let myself suspend disbelief and enjoy the many, many twists and turns of the plot. I liked that the story was told, mostly, from two points of view and that the audiobook dedicated a narrator to each. The story is powered by a mixture of rage at misogenistic men and an a burning desire for revenge. The bodycount is outnumbered only by the number of times I had to reasses what I thought I knew about the two women. Sarah Bonner kept me listening eagerly throughout the book and kept me guessing at the outcome to the end.

In cyber-security, RED TEAM plays attack. BLUE TEAM plays defence.
Marty Hench’s career in tech is almost as old as Silicon Valley. He’s the most accomplished forensic accountant in town, an expert on the international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500s, divorcing oligarchs, and international drug cartels alike (there’s more crossover than you might imagine).
Marty was born to play attack. If there’s a way to get under the walls and bring the castle down, he’s the one to do it. There’s no better financial Red Teamer in the Valley.
Now he’s on the trail of a stolen key, one that unlocks an illicit backdoor to billions in crypto. More than reputation and fortune is on the line – Marty’s adversaries are implacable criminal sadists who will spill oceans of blood to get what they want.
Finding the stolen key is going to be the least of Marty’s problems: now he has to save his skin. To do that, he’ll have to play defence. And Marty hates playing the Blue Team.

It was refreshing to read a book where the main character, a tech veteran of many decades, won’t buy a Tesla because he doesn’t like Musk and applauds someone who, after their company was bought by Oracle, resigned five minutes into their first face to face with Larry Ellison. I enjoyed having a protagonist of about my own age who shares all my tech prejudices and my attitude to money.

The plot was grounded in an insider’s understanding of blockchain technology, crypto currency and the insanity of the Palo Alto venture captial shark pool. It was an engaging thriller with perphaps just a little too much wish fulfillment towards the end. Still, I felt our hero deserved a little luck because I like the way he thinks

I’ll be reading more Cory Doctrow soon.

Rose DuBois is not your average final girl.
Rose is in her late 70s, living out her golden years at the Autumn Springs Retirement Home.
When one of her friends dies alone in her apartment, Rose isn’t too concerned. Accidents happen, especially at this age!
Then another resident drops dead. And another. With bodies stacking up, Rose can’t help but wonder: are these accidents? Old age? Or something far more sinister?
Together with her best friend Miller, Rose begins to investigate. The further she digs, the more convinced she becomes: there’s a killer on the loose at Autumn Springs, and if she isn’t careful, Rose may be their next victim.

This was an absolute romp of a book. It has everything: a serial killer, witches, a visit from an alien, some of the most creative ways of killing people that I’ve seen in a long time, a rich suspect pool, a constantly shifting sense of where the book was going and an unstoppable momentum. At times, it was a little too busy and motives seemed fairly thin on the ground but it kept me listening and speculating and going, “surely they wont’… Yep. They did. Wow.” at regular intervals.

Graham Richards, the sole survivor of a deadly shooting, has retreated to a remote cabin in the woods to escape the pain of his past. Living off the grid, he grows his own food and uses solar power for his energy needs, hoping to spend the rest of his life in obscurity.
However, Graham’s desire for solitude is shattered when a little girl goes missing in the nearby town, and the scarred man in the lonely cabin becomes the prime suspect. Graham finds himself pulled back into the world he wanted to leave behind, using his survival skills and instincts honed from years in the wilderness to clear his name and find the missing girl. But as he delves deeper into the case, he realizes that the threat is far greater than he ever imagined.

Don’t judge this one by its cover. It isn’t a cosy, or even an upbeat, book. It’s exciting and surprising but it’s also filled with graphic descriptions of savage violence, sexual predation and gleefully viscious murders. Does it sound bad if I say that I enjoyed this book a lot?

Here’s what I wrote at the 32% mark:

“I’m enjoying this. I’m eager to read more. It feels quirky, not in a trying too hard to be zany way but in na I see the world differently way. The story is engaging. Some of the writing shines. The pacing works AND I have no idea where this is heading.”

At the 62% mark I wrote:  

“This is vivid and surprising. Much of it is told from the point of view of people in serious trouble and it’s told in a way that gets me deeply engaged with their fear and their hope. There is a lot of violence. It’s not gratutitous but it pulls no punches. This is a world where bad things happen to people who don’t deserve it and where no one’s survival is guaranteed.”

The violence in the book was sometimes hard to take but it was central to what was happening. The plot pulled me along and kept me engaged with the people. The ending surprised me but didn’t disappoint me.

When a traveling carnival arrives in Hollowbeck, it promises magic and mayhem. It’s also an opportunity for Morgan to find someone who can transform her brother, Ruiner, back into a human – he’s a little tired of being a talking cat, and she’s a little tired of cleaning his litter box.
Things look promising until the curtains rise on rehearsal night to reveal Ruiner sitting on the lifeless body of the wizard who promised to help him.
Ruiner swears he’s innocent, but that doesn’t stop the carnival boss from seizing him. He’ll be tried under carnival law. If found guilty, he faces certain death – and it’s not like it’s going to be a fair trial.
Morgan can’t lose her brother, but she can’t do anything from the outside, either. Her only hope is to infiltrate the carnival and find the real murderer before it’s too late.
But the magic carnival holds dangerous secrets of its own, and it’s soon clear Ruiner’s life isn’t only one at risk…

I’m a fan of Kim Watt’s books and I enjoyed ‘Witch Slap‘, the first book in this series, but I set ‘One Smart Witch‘ aside at 35% because it wasn’t working for me.

My review is HERE

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I’ve been shopping the sales this week. The five Kindle books cost me a total of £3.96. I find it hard to resist that. Of course, I’ll also find it hard to make time to read everything I’ve bought but it will be nice to try. The audiobooks weren’t in the sale but two of them have been on my Wishlist for a while and the other one has a great cover.

Frontenac is a corrupt city of vice, sin, and murder. On a rainy day (but what day isn’t rainy in that industrial wasteland?) an underage prostitute and a rookie cop are murdered.
No one cares. No one lifts a finger.
Killebrew cares. Recently returned from the big war overseas, Killebrew has learned a few skills, like how to break things and kill people. He is now determined to use his knowledge to remove anything and anyone standing between him and justice for his kid sister.
With the help of a beautiful lounge singer and some of his old pals from the war, Killebrew intends to smash Frontenac down to its dirty core and stomp all the cockroaches who attempt to flee.

I enjoyed Scott Bell’s quirky thriller ‘Welcome To Cottonmouth‘, so I’ve selected ‘Murder City Blues‘(2025) from his back catalogue. I’m hoping for something stylish, slightly over the top and fun.

Cornwall, 1910. On a remote tidal island, the Viscount of Tithe Hall is absorbed in feverish preparations for what he believes will be the apocalypse.

The Hall must be sealed from top to bottom, but what the foolish Viscount has failed to take into account is the danger that lies within… By morning, he will be dead in his sealed study, murdered by his own ancestral crossbow.

All eyes turn to Stephen Pike, the newest member of staff. Fresh out of Borstal for a crime he didn’t commit, he is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. His unlikely ally? Miss Decima Stockingham, the fearless, foul-mouthed, eighty-year-old matriarch who relishes chaos and puzzles alike. A murder is just the thrill she’s been waiting for.

Together, this mismatched duo must navigate secret passages, buried grudges and rising terror to unmask the killer before it’s too late…

If this lives up to its potential, it’ll be a lot of fun and should begin a new series for me to follow. It all depends on whether the humour works…

Meet Lex Tyler. 

She’s a covert operative for Platform Eight, the assassination department of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and one of the very few women to successfully negotiate the old boy’s network of the espionage world. 

She’s smart, resourceful and very deadly – and she’s not your average back-to-work mum.

Her new assignment is a high-stakes hit. Her target: Russian oligarch Dmitri Tupolev. But the more she digs into his life, the more Lex wonders if there isn’t a different game going on – one in which she might be an unsuspecting casualty. 

With her own family now to worry about, Lex needs to work out who is really pulling the strings, before she too becomes a loose end. 

In her world, failure is not an option.

I like the slightly unusual approach to spy fiction that Asia Mackay has taken. If the humour works, I’ll read ‘The Nursery‘ the second book in this series.

My life has been turned upside down by my inheritance, but my only complaint is the cat that came along with the new house.
I swear he’s judging me as I settle in and try to make new friends in my new small-town Louisiana neighborhood.
And just when I start to settle into my new job and get back to reading my classic novels, I’m pulled chapters deep into a mystery.
The Beauty Queen in the town has been offed. Someone has killed the darling.
Wouldn’t you know it? An innocent man has been framed.
I shouldn’t get involved, but somehow, my cat seems to have a way with finding clues in some of my favorite stories. Not that any of that makes sense.
Why would it?
The cat is the sleuth, I’m the amateur, and we have alligators in the backyard.
Throw in a dead body, a book club that’s filled with suspicious characters, and you have my new life.
And I thought being a librarian in Louisiana was going to be dull.

Amazon were offering this book for free, I assume in the hopes that I’ll buy the next two books in the series. I love the title, the cover, the cheeky use of so many cozy mystery tropes in one book and the fact that part of the story is told from the cat’s point of view. I have great hopes for this.

When Lady, the beloved therapy dog of the Harbor View residential home goes missing, private investigator Rachel Alexander and her dog Dash slip in easily as the new service dog and trainer, though figuring out who murdered Harbor View’s owner is not so simple. Dash brings order and calm to Harbor View’s residents, but Rachel is deeply disturbed when her client and chief source of clues is badly injured in an “accident.” Suddenly the stakes are even higher—for Rachel, Dash, and the ensemble of eccentric residents they have come to care for . . .
 

This is the fourth book in the Rachel Alexander & Dash series. I read the opening pages of the Kindle version and bought the book after reading Rachel’s reaction to jay walking/running in Manhatten traffic:

“I didn’t ask Chip why we had to risk-getting mowed down in the prime of life. It’s not as if Waterloo took reservations. But New Yorkers don’t argue about their relationship with time. It’s always of the essence. You never kill it. More often than not, it kills you. Worst of all, if you’re caught in the act of not rushing, people will think you’re from Kansas.”

“Unicorns never were that bright,” I said. “That’s why they’re the only kind to stab their own entire species into extinction.”
“Not quite the entire species,” Callum said.
A man from Callum’s past shows up claiming he lost the last herd of unicorns — and his sister.
Should be a hard pass, but Callum can’t resist a damsel in distress.
Now G&C London, Private Investigators, are diving into Leeds’ magical underbelly, dodging criminal dynasties, cross-dressing trolls, attack lizards, and philosophical donkeys.
Find the sister. Get out before the Watch gets involved.
Why? They’ve killed me three times already.
Yeah. I preferred extinct unicorns.

After being disppointed with ‘One Smart Witch‘, I decided to read something from Kim Watt that I know I’ll enjoy, so I went looking for the next Gobellino London book. It’s about unpleasant unicorns. How could I resist that?

Wildlife ranger Lisa Thomas is no stranger to violence. When an abusive ex comes rolling into town and animal entrails not-so-mysteriously land on her doorstep, she knows full well who the culprit is. But as strange killings and stranger wildlife sightings plague her little Australian town, Lisa herself becomes one of the suspects.
Desperate to clear her name and be rid of her ex, Lisa follows the trail of a giant white kangaroo spotted before several of the deaths. Except the further she tracks it, the less natural the beast appears—and the more sinister both the woods and her ex become. Can Lisa solve the mystery and save herself before she becomes prey, or will she learn that deep in the eucalyptus forests, no one can hear you scream?

This is another £0.99 Kindle offer from Amazon. It calls to me because the cover is unusual, I love the idea of a giant kangaroo cryptid and I’m in the mood for some Australian horror.

It’s the winter of 1975, and Duane Minor, back home in Portland, Oregon after a tour in Vietnam, is struggling to quell his anger and keep his drinking in check, keep his young marriage intact, and keep the nightmares away. Things get even more complicated when his thirteen-year-old niece, Julia, is sent across the country to live with her Aunt Heidi and Uncle Duane after a tragedy. But slowly, carefully, guided by Heidi’s love and patience, the three of them are building a family.
Then Minor crosses the wrong man: John Varley, a criminal with a bloody history and a trail of bodies behind him. Varley, who sleeps during the day beneath loose drifts of earth and grows teeth in the light of the moon. In an act of brutal retaliation, Varley kills Heidi, leaving Minor broken with guilt and Julia shot through with rage. The two of them are left united by only one thing: the desire for vengeance.
As their quest brings them into the dark orbit of immortal, undead children, silver bullet casters, and the bevy of broken men drawn to Varley’s ferocity, Minor and Julia follow his path of destruction from the gritty al-leyways of 1970s Portland to the desolate highways of the Northwest and the snow-lashed plains of North Dakota – only to have him turn his vicious power back on them. Who will prevail, who will survive, and what remains of our humanity when our thirst for revenge trumps everything else?

This got a lot of attention in 2025, including an endorsement from Stephen King. The author is new to me, but I figure that, priced at £0.99, ‘Coffin Moon’ was worth a roll of the dice.

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This week, I’m reading three flavours of mystery: the sixth book in a series about a dog trainer turned unlicensed PI in Manhattan, a cozy mystery with a twist about a violent criminal in Witness Protection running a mystery bookstore in a small town in coastal Maine, and the fifth book in The Thursday Murder Club series.

Rachel and Dash have a new client. Well, three new clients. A trio of transvestite working girls want Rachel to investigate the death of one of their own. Rosalinda’s throat was slashed on Halloween right after the Greenwich Village parade. Finding her killer isn’t exactly the NYPD’s top priority—and LaDonna, Chi Chi, and Jasmine are terrified that they’ll be next.
With her cash retainer in hand—and very few leads—Rachel starts digging. What is the connection between Rosalinda and a dead butcher? Soon, with the help of Chi Chi’s mini-dachshund, Clint, Rachel is breaking into a plant in the Meatpacking District. But her future is suddenly on the line when she sets herself up as bait to catch the killer. As Rachel follows a twisting trail with only Dash for protection, she discovers that her foray into “the life” could end with her own untimely death.

I’ve jumped from book 3 ‘A Hell of a Dog‘, to book 6 in the Rachel Alexander & Dash mysteries because books 4 and 5 aren’t available as audiobooks in the UK.

I’ve already started this one and I’m not liking it as much as its predecessors. The subject matter is darker, sleazier and more violent. I’ll stick with it to see whether Rachel can cope in this environment.

COZY MYSTERIES JUST GOT TOUGHER.
A man in hiding. A gang of outlaws searching for retribution. This is no time for cupcakes.
Today is Brody Steele’s first day as the new owner of The Red Herring, Pleasant Valley, Maine’s only mystery bookstore. The cute shop has a loyal customer base as well as an ornery cat.
Unfortunately, Brody doesn’t know the first thing about running a legitimate business, he doesn’t want to be in the small town, and he hates cats. On top of all that, he hasn’t read a book since high school.
When a woman walks into the store, he thinks his bad luck is about to change. But as she starts asking about the previous owner’s whereabouts, his safe new existence begins to unravel.
For Brody Steele is a man with a secret he must protect at all costs. The U.S. Government has invested a lot to keep it hidden, and his enemies will stop at nothing to expose him.
Does happiness or death await Brody in this charming seaside community?

I’d never heard of this series until it was offered on sale. I like that it’s set up like a typical cosy mystery: small town in Maine, bookshop owner, bookshop cat, but the bookshop owner is actually a hardened criminal in hiding, and he’s never read any of the books in his new shop. I also like that it started with a quote from Spike Milligan: “I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” 

Who’s got time to think about murder when there’s a wedding to plan?
It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favourite criminal.
But when Elizabeth meets a wedding guest who fears for their life, the thrill of the chase is ignited once again. A villain wants access to an uncrackable code, and will stop at nothing to get it. Plunged back into their most explosive investigation yet, can the gang solve the puzzle and a murder in time?

I bought this as soon as I finished ‘The Last Devil To Die‘. I’m hoping it will be the highlight of my reading week.