Surprisingly, Summer has tried to make a comeback this week. Sunny skies, temperatures in the low twenties Celsius. It’s given me the odd spectacle of blooming roses and falling leaves.
I got wrapped up in a book nerd task this week. GoodReads finally saw sense and has set up the system to allow half-stars. Was I the only one who spent revising a few hundred ratings on GoodReads so they match the half-star ratings I have on LibraryThing?
Of course, I also read some books, bought some books and planned what to read next. Read on to learn the details.
This was a mixed reading week. I set aside two novels I was reading for Halloween Bingo: ‘There’s Something Wrong With The Cats’ and ‘The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances’. Neither book was awful; they just weren’t working for me. I replaced them with ‘To Kill a Labrador ‘, a solid three-star cosy mystery with a dog as one of the lead characters, and ‘Vigilance ‘, which presented a chilling vision of America collapsing in on itself in 2030. I also read ‘The Noose of the New Moon’, an engaging werewolf spinoff from Helen Harper’s Firebrand series. My best book of the week was ‘Ask for Andrea,’ which was as good as everyone told me it would be.
Marcia (pronounced Mar-see-a, not Marsha) likes to think of herself as a normal person, even though she has a rather abnormal vocation. She trains service dogs for combat veterans with PTSD. Then the former marine owner of her first trainee is accused of murdering his wife, and Marcia gets sucked into an even more abnormal avocation – amateur sleuth.
Called in to dog-sit the Labrador service dog, Buddy, she’s outraged that his veteran owner is being presumed guilty until proven innocent. With Buddy’s help, she tries to uncover the real killer. Even after the hunky local sheriff politely tells her to butt out, Marcia keeps poking around. Until the killer finally pokes back.
Author’s note: no dogs die in this series; the titles are take-offs from classic book, movie, or song titles.
‘To Kill a Labrador’ introduces Marcia Banksm who trains service dogs for combat veterans with PTSD, and Buddy, a very smart Labrador who was the first dog Marcia trained.
It was an entertaining cosy mystery. The plot was complicated enough that I stayed interested in the mystery of who killed the former marine’s wife. Most of the violence was off-screen, but the sense of threat grew throughout the book and at least one of the deaths was upsetting. Once I understood what was happening, I really wanted the bad guys taken down – sadly – being a Labrador, Buddy is not an attack dog, but he still played his part.
My review is HERE
Curiosity didn’t kill the cat; it mutated it into a vigilante crime fighter.
Dan’s cats are acting weird. One has grown into a strength powerhouse, the other wants to communicate… verbally. And now other kitties have begun to go missing from his quiet suburban street. Could the man in the parka that haunts a nearby industrial estate have answers? Or perhaps it’s something to do with the strange disappearing woman in the woods? Can our hero figure out the conspiracy before it turns into a catastrophe?
‘I’d hoped this book would introduce me to a quirky supernatural series, but it turned out not to be for me. I set it aside at 18%.
The humour wasn’t making me smile. Dan was too hapless for me to have much sympathy with him (actually, he was almost too hapless to have survived into a semblance of adulthood). The pace was slow, and not enough time was spent seeing things from the cats’ point of view.
In a self-running smart house, a young sentient hoover listens as her owner, Harold, reads aloud to his dying wife, Edie. Mesmerized by To Kill a Mockingbird and craving human connection, the little vacuum renames herself Scout and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.
But when Edie passes away, Scout and her fellow appliances discover that the omnipresent Grid, which monitors every household in the City, wants to displace Harold from the home he’s lived in for fifty years. With the help of a neighbourhood boy, and Harold and Edie’s daughter, the humans and the appliances must come together to outwit the Grid before they lose everything they hold dear. . .
I set this aside at 30%. It was too sweet for me. The plot was sad. The future world was dystopian. It should have engaged my empathy. I should have been rooting for the little vacuum cleaner to find a way to subvert the oppressive regime of The Grid and help it and its humans find happiness, but the childish, mono-dimensional way the characters were presented made me feel like I was watching a remake of Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ without the singing.
Meghan, Brecia, and Skye have just one thing in common. They were all murdered by the same man.
He hunted them online, masquerading as an eligible bachelor. Then he played the perfect gentleman, a thick layer of charm and a thousand-watt smile hiding the fact that his first dates end in shallow graves.
He’s gotten away with murder three times now. The only thing that might keep him from killing again? The women he murdered.
Meghan, Brecia, and Skye might be dead, but they’re not gone. They’ve found each other. And they won’t rest until they find a way to stop him.
‘Ask For Andrea‘ (2022) was wonderful. A much needed book that focused on the victims rather than the serial killer. Packed with empathy, anger and suspense. Leavened with a little hope and a lot of compassion.
I want to read more by Noelle Ihli starting with ‘Forget You Saw Her’ (2025) a prequel that tells the story of the Andrea, who appears only as a name on a poster in the 2022 novel, and ‘The Last to Drown‘ (2026)
Step into the mystical streets of London’s supernatural society with Devereau Webb.
Devereau is in uncharted territory. As a newly formed werewolf, he finds himself navigating a strange new world where power dynamics shift like shadows.
He quickly realises that he won’t be easily accepted into this new world but he has weathered hardships all his life and he knows the gritty underbelly of city life all too well. However, when fate intertwines his path with that of a young werewolf girl who shouldn’t exist, his life takes an even more perilous turn.
Soon Devereau will discover just how difficult life can be for supernaturals – and also how far his own predatory powers extend.
I’m a fan of Helen Harper’s seven-book Firebrand urban fantasy series about Detective Constable Emma Bellamy, a member of the Met’s Supernatural Squad, who, each time she’s killed (it happens a lot), rises like a phoenix twelve hours later (every time so far, at least…).
One of the most unconventional characters in the series was Devereau Webb, a local gang leader who sees himself as a Robin Hood figure and who sets out to become a werewolf through illegal means.
Having finished Emma Bellamy’s story, Helen Harper has brought Devereau Webb into the limelight with two novels of his own.
The book was fast, tense fun. I’m already looking forward to reading the next one.
A dark science fiction action parable about an America that has permanently surrendered to gun violence.
The United States. 2030.
John McDean executive produces Vigilance, a realiy game show designed to make sure American citizens stay alert to foreign and domestic threats. Shooters are introduced into a “game environment,” and the survivors get a cash prize.
The TV audience is not the only one that’s watching though, and McDean soon finds out what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera.
I enjoyed Robert Jackson Bennett’s innovative Shadow of the Leviathan fantasy murder mystery novels, starting with ‘The Tainted Cup‘ (2024), so I searched his back catalogue and found his 2019 dystopian nightmare novella, ‘Vigilance‘.
Wow, what a dark ride!
It’s very different from his fantasy novels in everything except its originality and its ability to imagine betrayal, subterfuge, and creatively violent deaths.
This novella imagines a 2030 America where, despite (or perhaps because of) being in steep economic decline, engaged in multiple foreign wars, plagued by fires and floods and weakened by net emigration, people still cling to their guns and their belief in an American exceptionalism that the rest of the world is constantly threatening and trying to undermine.
Pouring gasoline onto this bonfire in order to push up advertising revenue, John McDean has launched a live TV active shooter ‘game’ enhanced by AI fakes and made addictive by AI-scripted bots on Social Media.
The result is devastating and impossible to look away from.
This week, I bought six books: a vampire novella, a thrillers about a killer school. the latest book in a series about a retired FBI agent, a speculative fiction murder myster, a gangster novel and a book about a werewolf who is asked to joins the British security services. Not a high-brow selection, but they should be a lot of fun.
‘Show Me Your Teeth‘ (2024) is a sequel to ‘We’re All Monsters Here’ , quirky, bloody, original vampire novella that I enjoyed in 2023.
Given the time of year ‘Killing November’ (2019) was an irresistable title. I’m hoping it will finally provide me with a Dark Academia novel that lives up to its name.
‘Undercover’Lies‘ (2026) is the fourth book in a series about a seventy-five-year-old retired FBI Agent who now runs a boarding house in Washington DC for various government agencies and gets involved in off-the-books shenanigans. I’ve only read the first one so far ‘Secret Lives‘ but the second and third novels are on my shelf, so when the newly released fourth book was offered at £0.99 in its first week, I snapped it up.
‘Godfall‘ (2023) is a roll of the dice. The reviews are positive and the premise is intriguing so I’m hoping for a gripping thriller.
‘The Winter of Frankie Machine‘ (2006) is a humorous novel about a retired Mafia hitman who isn’t be allowed to stay retired. I normally don’t read Mafia books but this one is by Don Winslow so I’m making an exception.
‘Licence to Howl’ (2021) is the sequel to ‘The Noose of a New Moon’ which I read this week. I want to see what newly turned werewolf Deveraux Webb does next, especially now that I know it involves becoming a supernatural spy.
A little over a year after the company retreat that saw the end of the Beyer Corporation, paranoia begins a slow climb up Anna’s back. She wants to leave Dublin before hunters catch up with her and Michaela, but the familiar twinge of hunger adds a layer of difficulty she’d thought she’d dealt with. Not only that, but Anna reconnects with an old friend at the wrong time, drawing the attention of hunters.
And, at long last, the woman she can’t get out of her head.
Reconnecting with Saira seems wonderful on the surface, but it comes with a price. Anna finds herself firmly on the hunter’s radar and the only way out seems to be a path no vampire has dared tread in a century. But Anna isn’t one to back down from a fight, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t destroy them first.
Devereau Webb is riding high. He’s a powerful werewolf with a killer combination of intelligence, wits and strength and he’s learning more and more about his abilities every day. He isn’t usually the type to take orders, however, and that has to change with his new role as a supernatural spy within the British security services.
Tasked with heading to Rome to infiltrate a mysterious gang with terrorist links, Devereau has to call on all his newfound skills to prevent disaster from happening. That might be prove to be the easy part. He’s also determined to convince a certain sexy vampire that he’s the man for her.
What could possibly go wrong?
November is as good as dead. She just doesn’t know it yet.
At the international Academy Absconditi, there’s no electricity, no internet, and an archaic eye-for-an-eye punishment system. Classes range from knife throwing and poisons to the art of deception. And the students? All silver-spoon descendants of the world’s most elite strategists–training to become assassins, spies, and master impersonators.
One is a virtuoso of accents–and never to be trusted. Another is a vicious fighter determined to exploit November’s weaknesses. And then there’s the boy with the mesmerizing eyes and a secret agenda.
November doesn’t know how an ordinary girl like her fits into the school’s complicated legacy. But when a student is murdered, she’ll need to separate her enemies from her allies before the crime gets pinned on her . . . or she becomes the killer’s next victim.
MEET ETHEL FIONA CRESTWATER — RETIRED FBI AGENT-TURNED-LANDLADY. STILL DANGEROUS AT SEVENTY-FIVE.
Ethel is almost getting too old for a secret FBI mission – almost! Her expert investigation skills are needed again when her elderly neighbor and close friend Sarah Phelps is found dead in her own dining room – with an unknown male body next to her.
It looks like Sarah’s new boyfriend, the one she met on a senior dating app, killed her and then turned the gun on himself.
But Ethel doesn’t buy it for a second.
The FBI traces cash that Sarah had withdrawn hours before her death. It leads to a wire-fraud operation with the fingerprints of organized crime all over it.
Ethel calls in favors from contacts on both sides of the law and goes undercover to find out who’s really running the scam, before it claims another victim.
This time, the mark might be her.
A massive asteroid hurtles toward Earth and humanity is braced for annihilation – but the end doesn’t come ...
Because it’s not an asteroid . . . it’s a three-mile-tall alien figure that comes to earth outside Little Springs, Nebraska.
Dubbed ‘The giant’, its body apparently pierced by a blade, its arrival transforms this quiet red-state farm town into a top-secret government research site and major metropolitan area, flooded with soldiers, scientists, government agents, bureaucrats, spies, criminals, conspiracy theorists . . . and a killer.
As the sheriff of Little Springs, David Blunt thought he’d be keeping the peace among the same people he’d known all his life, not breaking up chanting crowds of conspiracy theorists, busting drugs gangs, dealing with doomsday cults, struggling to control town hall meetings about immigrants, and invaders and the construction of a mosque. Or trying to catch a cunning and seemingly untraceable killer.
As the brutal, bizarre murders strike ever closer to home, Blunt – increasingly troubled by strange, unsettling dreams of a cosmos in chaos – throws himself into the hunt for a killer who seems somehow connected to The Giant.
With bodies piling up and tensions in Little Springs mounting, he realizes that in order to find the answers he needs, he must first reconcile his traditional sense of things with the town, and the world, he now lives in – before it’s too late.
Frank Machianno is the guy, a late-middle-aged ex-surf bum who runs a bait shack on the San Diego waterfront. That’s when he’s not juggling any of his other three part-time jobs or trying to get a quick set in on his long board. He’s a beloved fixture of the community, a stand-up businessman, a devoted father to his daughter. Frank’s also a hit man. Well, a retired hit man.
Back in the day, when he was one of the most feared members of the West Coast mob, he was known as Frankie Machine. Years ago, Frank consigned his mob ties to the past, which is where he wants them to stay.
But a favour called in by the local boss is one Frank simply can’t refuse, and before he knows it he’s sucked back into the treacherous currents of his former life.
Someone from his past wants him dead, and he has to figure out who, and why, and he has to do it fast. The problem is that the list of candidates is about the size of his local phone book and Frank’s rapidly running out of time…
This week, I’ll be reading my last Halloween Bingo book, P. D. James’ ‘Cover Her Face‘ and reading the next book is a cosy mystery and a cosy supernatural mystery series that I’m following.
May Morrigan is in her bookshop one morning when she—and everyone else in the shop—receives an anonymous text. It contains a reference to a Shakespeare quotation—and seems to be aimed at the vicar and his partner, Juan. The next morning, one of them is dead.
Meanwhile, May’s elderly mother, Minty, is staying with her, her old friend Fletcher, and her two dogs. To her dismay, Minty is quite preoccupied with death herself lately. She also keeps reminiscing about her past in ways that make May wonder what secrets she’s hiding.
As disturbing texts continue to arrive, the Blackheath residents are threatened with further revelations and titillations.
Then Fletcher becomes the focus of the tormenting texter… and barely escapes an attempt on his life.
It’s time for May to send a strong message—and block this killer permanently…
I had a gpod time with the first book in this series ‘A Most Unusual Demise’, so I’ve come back to see what May Morrigan does next.
When Ruby Young discovered that her Boston apartment was haunted, she did what any reasonable person would do: befriend the ghost. Their relationship overcame a shaky start—Cordelia Graves never wanted a roommate in life; she certainly didn’t want one in death. After working together to solve a few murders, the two are close friends, but there’s a lingering question neither of them have been able to answer: what led to Cordelia’s death?
Lately, things have been adding up that suggest foul play. And when Cordelia’s memories of that day start to come back, the roommates can’t ignore it anymore: Cordelia was murdered. Ruby and Cordelia are going to have to piece together what Cordelia’s final days looked like—otherwise a killer could go free.
This book will be released in the UK on Tuesday; I’m planning to dive straight in. The previous Ruby and Cordelia books, ‘A New Lease on Death‘ and ‘Death at the Door’ were 3.5-star reads that made me smile and kept me entertained. I hope the third book does the same. I’m also keen because this time it looks like the murder Cordelia is going to solve is her own.
When the body of Sally Jupp is discovered in her bedroom – the door bolted from the inside – the occupants of Martingale House are sure that the blame for this unthinkable crime will fall on an unknown intruder. But each of the household is hiding a secret that could shed light on the murder.
And there’s only one man who can sift through the layers of deceit and pretence to unmask the truth: Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgleish.
‘Cover Her Face’ (1962) was P. D. James’ debut novel and the first book of her fourteen-book Adam Dalgleish series. It’s a classic locked room mystery. I’m part way through it. I love the cadence of the language and the descriptions of the people and their thoughts.
