Tag: mystery

Those Who Disappeared by Kevin Wignall

Having read all of the awesomely named Kevin Wignall‘s books, when given the opportunity to grab Those Who Disappeared on NetGalley I jumped at the chance. And like most Wignall books, I can say that I enjoyed this one and read it pretty quickly.

Those Who Disappeared
Fiction
Thomas & Mercer
238
NetGalley

When a man’s body is discovered in a Swiss glacier thirty years after he went missing, his son, Foster Treherne, hopes he’ll finally have closure on what happened to the father he never met. But then the autopsy reveals signs of a struggle, and what was assumed to be a tragic accident suddenly looks more sinister.

Foster tracks down his father’s old friends, but when he starts to ask questions it becomes clear that there’s something they don’t want to tell him. While some are evasive, others seem to wish the body had never been found. What exactly is their connection to each other, and why are they so reluctant to discuss the day his father disappeared? Who are they trying to protect?

If he wants to uncover what really happened, Foster must follow the trail of secrets and lies—no matter how devastating the consequences, and what they might reveal about his father. Because the truth can only stay buried for so long…

It was a thought provoking and engaging read. Wignall’s characters are always interesting and unique and Faster is no exception

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Posted on by Kevin Holtsberry 0

A Man by Keiichirō Hirano

An interesting but disjointed and convoluted Japanese mystery in translation

As is all too typical these days, I can’t recall why I had A Man on my To Be Read list. Perhaps it was because the author is Japan’s award-winning literary sensation” and this is first novel to be translated into English. But for whatever reason the $1.99 Kindle price was right and I added the Audible version for a few dollars more.

A Man
AmazonCrossing
Kindle/Audible
295 pages

Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido’s life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man—her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. Upon his death she discovered that he’d been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a total stranger. The investigation draws Kido into two intriguing mysteries: finding out who Rié’s husband really was and discovering more about the man he pretended to be. Soon, with each new revelation, Kido will come to share the obsession with—and the lure of—erasing one life to create a new one.

Because I purchased both the ebook and audiobook, this was another book that I both read and listened to at different times. I do this sometimes when I am juggling multiple books and employing strategies to maximise the books I finish (I was trying to read 100 in a year in 2020).

And that may have played a role in why I found it interesting but rather disjointed and/or convoluted. It seemed to meander and jump around and as a result left me rather confused as to what it was all about.

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Posted on by Kevin Holtsberry 0

The Gatekeeper (Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries) by Charles Todd

A good mystery is a page turner that can’t be put down and that has many plot twists. Charles Todd’s The Gate Keeper meets those qualifications.

The book is the 20th in the Ian Rutledge series written by mother and son duo Caroline and Charles Todd.  As those who have read the series know, Inspector Ian Rutledge is the protagonist. However, several characters (suspects?) are introduced and the authors keep you guessing on who the murderer could be. They introduce doubt into your mind about almost all of the suspects.

Hamish – the voice of a corporal that Rutledge shot during World War I because he refused a direct order – haunts Rutledge’s mind throughout the books, including this one. Hamish focuses Rutledge on the questions to ask and the leads to follow.

Although it may seem odd to have Hamish’s voice in Rutledge’s head, it highlights the struggles of men in previous wars. Rutledge is suffering from shell shock (now called PTSD) from the horrendous things he saw when he was in France. Not only did he have to shoot a man in cold blood, but he also saw his men slaughtered by the bunches. I think it is fascinating how the authors incorporate the shell shock into the story and how it influences Rutledge and some of the other characters that survived the war.

The authors highlight the dogged nature that detectives need in order to solve a case. Rutledge is no different. He ceaselessly looks at all angles until he solves the case.

An excellent mystery that piques my curiosity on the other books in the series.

Posted on by Jeff Grim 0

The Sphinx’s Secret by Gwenda Bond & Christopher Rowe

Continuing our summer trend of reading books by “friends of the blog” (i.e. authors I have been reading for some time and who I have interacted with as a result of this website), we turn to Gwenda Bond & Christopher Rowe’s middle grade series The Supernormal Sleuthing Service.

I enjoyed The Lost Legacy enough to look forward to reading book #2 and The Sphinx’s Secret did not disappoint.  The focus remains on Stephan and his friends, and how they work together to face the challenge, but this book had a little more tension and action than the first.  Both the introduction of the mysterious wizard and Sphinx kind added another element to the already fun cast of characters.  There was a real sense that something was at risk; which is not something you always get with books in this category.

This is a fun, creative middle grade series with a focus on friendship and solving mysteries.

 

Posted on by Kevin Holtsberry 1

The Child by Fiona Barton

I didn’t read The Widow by Fiona Barton, which was apparently an international best seller, but the teaser for her second book, The Child, intrigued me:

While razing an old neighborhood, construction workers make a grisly discovery at the building site: the remains of a baby buried years earlier. Thrown by the ongoing changes at her newspaper—where hastily written online content is increasingly valued over long-format investigative journalism, and layoffs loom—reporter Kate thinks finding the truth behind the baby’s story will put her byline back on the front page. Digging into the history of the working class neighborhood where the baby was found, Kate soon finds herself entangled in the lives of two women, Emma and Angela, whose lives and long-kept secrets are upended the discovery of the child. The story is told through the alternating perspectives of each woman, as their search for answers sets them on a shocking collision course.

So I agreed to participate in the blog tour and offer my thoughts. I grabbed the book on NetGalley and dove in.

I found it to be a mostly well done psychological thriller/mystery with a clever hook.  But I am wondering if it was just not my style.  A little too much drama and perhaps the dark subject matter made it slow going at times.

Plus, I found a lot of the characters unlikable and the early setup of the story a little slow. To be fair, as the mystery unraveled it picked up speed and there was definitely tension and excitement as it drove to its conclusion.  It was interesting enough to keep me reading but it just never switched gears and sucked me in.

At the risk of being accused of sexism or gender stereotypes (or whatever term is used for this particular sin these days), let me also note that there is likely a bit of an extra appeal to women due to the themes of motherhood, mother-daughter relationships, and the role of women in relationships and family, etc. If those themes and roles interest you, there is likely a great deal more emotional punch to the story.

I do think the character of Kate Waters gets stronger as the book develops.  I enjoyed her sense of humor and her often emotional reactions combined with, or perhaps driven by, her dedication to her career and desire to again break a big story.

Publishers Weekly notes the slow start but likes the finish:

Readers patient with the relatively slow initial pace until the intertwining stories gain momentum will be rewarded with startling twists—and a stunning, emotionally satisfying conclusion. Author tour.

Kirkus notes the melodrama:

Barton flirts with melodrama at times but pulls back and allows her characters to develop into fully realized, deeply scarred women whose wounds aren’t always visible.  This is as much a why-dunit as a whodunit, with the real question being whether it’s possible to heal and live with the truth after hiding behind a lie for so long.

Marry Cadden at USA Today was a big fan:

In addition to being a page-turning whodunit, The Child is also a subtle exploration of the relationships between mothers and their children, their bonds and battles. What makes a good mother? When it comes to maternal love, is there a fine line between helping and hindering?

Barton again weaves a tale that keeps us on our toes. A novel that is both fast-paced and thought-provoking, it keeps the reader guessing right to the end. The Child truly is the best of both worlds.

Maureen Corrigan at the Washington Post was a bit more harsh that I was:

“The Child” is a middling and much-too-long suspense story that would have benefited from a ruthless red-pencil. As she did in “The Widow,” Barton relies on multiple points of view to tell (and retell) the larger story of the “Building Site Baby” as the unidentified infant comes to be known. Three other female characters get drawn into this story by learning about that same news item that piqued Kate’s curiosity.

[…]

Figuring out how all these women are connected — to each other and to the unidentified infant — is the hypothetical draw of this kind of fragmented, multi-perspective type of storytelling. I say “hypothetical draw,” because “The Child” is more tedious than tense. Characters chew over the same events from chapter to chapter until they’re as worn out as a stick of used Trident; even when the final revelation seems undeniably clear to readers, it takes Barton a good 80 pages or so to wrap things up. “The Child” isn’t a terrible novel; it’s simply much too much of a just okay one.

If you like the psychological drama of the women, the internal monologues if you will, I think you would enjoy The Child.  This seems like a great beach read for example. But if this style and the themes noted are not your preference than it might not live up to its hype.  Alas, I can’t tell you if reading The Widow makes the second book better or whether the expectations are lessened by not having read it.

 

 

Posted on by Kevin Holtsberry 0

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor is a quirky and odd tale of two women and two mysteries in Night Vale – a small town where the weird is normal. The book is based on the podcast by the authors that chronicles the strange events that occur in the town.

I am more of a grounded-in-realism reader and this book is not that. It has shape-shifting characters, alien sightings, and other odd occurrences. Although this is not my type of book, it does keep the reader’s attention.

The main characters Jackie Fierro (a pawn shop owner who is given a piece of paper with the only words “KING CITY” on it) and Diane Crayton (her son is a shape-shifter who is increasingly interested in knowing more about his absent father) try to figure out the weirder things going on in the town.

Two mysteries abound: who is a mysterious man who keeps handing out “KING CITY” notes and why does Diane’s ex keep popping up in town. In Jackie and Diane’s quest to find information, they escape with their lives as they visit the local library (local librarians are monsters).

Expect the unexpected and hang on for the weirdest ride of a tale.

Posted on by Jeff Grim 1

Tracking the Beast by Henry Kisor

I stumbled on Henry Kisor and his character Steve Martinez in Northern Minnesota while visiting my in-laws.  Which seems appropriate since the Steve Martinez novels are set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan which share much with its neighbor rural northern Minnesota.

Over a dozen years later and I am still reading Kisor (who retired from his role as the Chicago Sun-Times book editor and columnist to spend half the year in the UP) and he is still writing Steve Martinez novels.  The act of getting his books published has been a challenge but the stories continue to entertain.

The most recent novel, The Riddle of Billy Gibbs, came out in November but I wanted to get caught up by reviewing Tracking the Beast which I neglected when I read it last June.

Here is a plot teaser:

When the remains of three little girls turn up inside railroad hopper cars, Sheriff Steve Martinez faces a troublesome case, for the cars had sat for years on a siding deep inside his beloved Porcupine County. After Steve and his comrades do the spadework, the FBI moves in, thinking their Unsub is both rapist and murderer. But Steve believes the killer or killers instead hired someone to dispose of the bodies. With the help of lawmen of all kinds, including the Ontario Provincial Police, and even Detroit mobsters, Steve doggedly tracks the Beast.

What Kisor offers is a police procedural/mystery with an interesting hook and the people, history and culture of the Upper Peninsula as a setting and important background.

He uses the hook, in this case railroad hopper cars as a place to dispose of bodies, and turns it into an exploration of that world.  For this book that means trains and their enthusiasts or “foamers.”  But it also involves a tour of the coast of Lake Superior and the involvement of a number of law enforcement agencies state, local, national and international.

Kisor doesn’t offer fast paced thrillers or literary creations that explore the internal lives of their characters but intricately plotted and engaging mysteries that highlight a unique part of the country.  Even though Kisor is not a former police officer or detective, You get the sense that you understand law enforcement and crime solving better when you finish his books.  You understand what it takes to collect information, weigh clues, use your gut, and work together with others to find out what happened, as best you can, and compile the evidence needed to solve a crime.

You also get the perspective of the folks rarely on the mind of the so called coastal elites, those living in sparsely populated northern midwest. For Steve Martinez and his team, his longterm gal Ginny, and the other residents of Porcupine County the benefits of living in the UP outweigh the challenges.

Having gotten to know Steve and his world it is easy reading to slip back into that world and watch as he tackles the latest mystery (while juggling the politics of being a county sheriff not to mention a relationship).

In the minds of publishers Kisor may only be a regional mystery writer but I am glad he has continued to find a way to share his stories (more on that in the next review).  If you or someone you know enjoys police procedurals with a unique setting and style, I recommend Kisor’s Steve Martinez series.  As an added bonus, Kindle users can grab them for less than $4 each.

 

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Moon Over Soho (PC Peter Grant Book 2) by Ben Aaronovitch

As I noted last month, I have been listening to the Rivers of London or PC Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch during my daily commute to work.  It has been a great choice for audio-book listening. The narration is simply fantastic. And this series works perfect for the commute; entertaining and fast moving but not too complex or dense (which is hard to process when you are driving).  It is great blend of urban fantasy, police procedural, and mystery. Peter Grant is a strong lead character but there is a nice mix of secondary characters, including London itself, and with enough action to keep the plot moving. Highly entertaining.

Moon Over Soho is book two:

moon-over-sohoBODY AND SOUL

The song. That’s what London constable and sorcerer’s apprentice Peter Grant first notices when he examines the corpse of Cyrus Wilkins, part-time jazz drummer and full-time accountant, who dropped dead of a heart attack while playing a gig at Soho’s 606 Club. The notes of the old jazz standard are rising from the body—a sure sign that something about the man’s death was not at all natural but instead supernatural.

Body and soul—they’re also what Peter will risk as he investigates a pattern of similar deaths in and around Soho. With the help of his superior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, the last registered wizard in England, and the assistance of beautiful jazz aficionado Simone Fitzwilliam, Peter will uncover a deadly magical menace—one that leads right to his own doorstep and to the squandered promise of a young jazz musician: a talented trumpet player named Richard “Lord” Grant—otherwise known as Peter’s dear old dad.

If there is a weakness to the series it is the rather sprawling nature of the stories;  the plot is not particularly tight nor the mystery particularly suspenseful. It is the journey that make the book not the destination or route.

The hook is what holds the reader: a modern detective working out how to assimilate the existence of magic into his understanding of the world and do his job well.  Peter Grant’s background, perspective and personality give it its unique flavor.  And his, and the author’s,love of London also comes through.

What also make the series enjoyable is something that all series offer: an opportunity to build on the characters and history of previous books.  Characters, ideas, historical events, etc. all get further unpacked and developed as the series move forward.  Relationships develop, shift and evolve and the reader learns more about the chain of events that led the protagonist and central characters to this point.  Twists and turns leave you guessing what lies ahead on this path.

All this makes the series enjoyable but leaves each book less compelling as a stand alone novel from my perspective.  Listening to them as a serialized radio drama of sorts has been enjoyable but I am not sure any of the books would be a great read by itself.

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