The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

by Carol4 Comments
I really wish blurbs would stop comparing book to Agatha Christie's. Lucy Foley is not Agatha Christie and her book really has little similarities to Christie's except a dead body. We don't have a detective, amateur or otherwise. This isn't even a traditional mystery, more of a psychological thriller. I think the comparison is misleading and not fair to Foley. The Guest List alternates between many points of view, with a different narrator for each. Usually, I'm not a fan of multiple narrators but it works well here. We have the bride, the groom, the best man, the plus one, the wedding planner, and the bridesmaid. We know something bad has happened but we don't know exactly what or who got hurt. The timeline also jumps back and forth between the past, two days before the wedding, to the chaotic wedding day in the present. Details are revealed slowly. The tension just keeps building as we learn the characters' fears, secrets,...
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A Colder War by Charles Cumming

by Carol6 Comments
Maybe it was a mistake to listen to this one so soon after The Cairo Affair since they are both spy thrillers, but I found A Colder War more annoying than anything. You have Kell, a train agent in his 40s who knows the game, knows the people, knows how it all works. You have Amelia, his boss, who has called him back to look into Wollinger's death and then do some searching for the mole. She's obviously intelligent, and also, we're told, his actual friend. So far, so good. Amelia's keeping info from Kell, but he's doing the same things. They can't trust the Americans, but have to pretend to cooperate with them. Standard spy stuff and it could have been a good thriller. Until The Girl enters the picture and Kell apparently loses his mind. He becomes obsessed, or "in love," and stops thinking clearly. And I just wanted to smack him.  It's obviously not going to be in his...
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