NetGalley – Page 9 – Carol's Notebook

Murder at an Irish Castle by Ellie Brannigan

February 2, 2023February 2, 2023 by Carol2 Comments

I wanted to love Murder at an Irish Castle. On her 30th birthday, Rayne's boyfriend leaves her, taking all of her money and the wedding dresses she's made with him. As the police search for him, Rayne heads to Ireland for her uncle's funeral and finds out she's inherited a castle, but with stipulations. And the uncle's death was murder. Rayne was fine enough as a character on paper, kind of a fish out of water, but creative and determined. I just never really connected to her. Why didn't she check the weather before she packed for Ireland? Why does she not have any normal clothes? Yes, I get that she loves fashion and comes from Hollywood, but it's no wonder her cousin, Ciare, calls her princess. Ciare thought she was going to inherit the castle and is angry that Rayne got it instead. But Ciare is angry and mean and prickly almost the entire book. It's a bit too much....

A Good Day to Pie by Misha Popp

January 28, 2023January 30, 2023 by Carol4 Comments

I loved A Good Day to Pie. This is the second in the series featuring pie baker Daisy Ellery. I would suggest reading the first, Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies, before starting this one. Daisy has magic that she can bake into her pies and she most often uses that skill to kill abusive men. This time around Daisy has entered a baking contest, apparently like the Great British Bake Off which I've never seen - I've watched enough competitions on the Food Network to get the idea though. It turns out that one of the judges is a man she is supposed to deliver a murder pie to after the contest, which is a bit worrying. It becomes an even bigger problem when the man ends up dead before she can even give him the pie. Now she needs to find out who killed him and whether there is any way the cops might be able to connect Pies...

The Motion Picture Teller by Colin Cotterill

January 26, 2023February 9, 2023 by CarolNo Comments

The Motion Picture Teller is an odd book, enjoyable but meandering and soft around the edges. Does that make sense? It's being marketed as a mystery, but I think that's a little misleading. Yeah, there's kind of a mystery, but it's more about the people and the places. The book is set in Bangkok in 1996, when you could still go to video rental stores and browse the aisles. Supot, our main character, works for the Thai Royal Mail but isn't really dedicated to his job. His friend, Ali, owns a video store and the two of them spend hours in the back of the store watching classic Western movies. In a batch of old tapes they find a movie, Bangkok 2010. The two men love the movie, which is set in a slightly dystopian future, and they watch it several times before attempting to discover who made it and why it hasn’t been released to the public. The mystery...

A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino

January 20, 2023January 19, 2023 by Carol2 Comments

A Death in Tokyo is the third entry in the Detective Kaga series that has been translated into English. Once again, it's a solid, enjoyable read, with a couple of good twists. Kaga is part of a squad investigating the brutal murder of a middle-aged man. The man was stabbed but stayed alive long enough to drag himself to the famous Nihonbashi Bridge, in order to die at the foot of the statue of a kirin adorning it. Not far away, a young man in a park flees police and runs out into traffic where he is struck and seriously injured. The young man, Yashima, is carrying the murdered man's wallet. Unfortunately, the man ends up in the hospital in a coma, unable to answer questions. This is a police procedural. Kaga is unsatisfied with Yashima as the killer, so he keeps questioning people and walking the neighborhood where the crime occurred. He's persistent, follows his hunches, and step by step...

Invitation to a Killer by G.M. Malliet

January 19, 2023January 19, 2023 by Carol2 Comments

Our amateur sleuth in Invitation to a Killer is Augusta Hawke, who doesn't seem to actually do much writing. I guess she isn't quite an amateur, she got her PI license after helping solve the case in the first book, which I didn't read. This time around she's at a party hosted by a lobbyist's wife when a celebrated doctor dies. At first, the death is written off as a heart attack, but of course, we're not surprised when it turns out he was murdered. Someone at the party killed him. Was it one of the CIA couple, the lobbyist or his wife, the book publisher, the image consultant, the congressman or his wife? It could even have been the cook or the butler. Augusta decides the police aren't treating the death as the murder it clearly was, so starts investigating on her own. Augusta is kind of a bland character, but hearing the story (I listened to the audiobook) from...

Murder After Christmas by Rupert Latimer

December 19, 2022December 19, 2022 by Carol4 Comments

Uncle Willie is rich and old, and therefore would be much more useful to his greedy relatives dead than alive, if only they could be sure who he’d left his money to. Several of his relatives joke on a regular basis about murdering him. The Redpaths have reluctantly invited him to stay over Christmas and would be quite happy if he included them in his will. They’re not the only people who want Uncle Willie’s money though, and soon others are turning up to try to inveigle themselves into his good graces. And of course, Uncle Willie is indeed murdered - after Christmas. Murder After Christmas is an odd book. It's full of holiday cheer - Santa Claus, mince pies, snow, Christmas decorations, and food. It's funny, even if the jokes get a bit repetitive, and the characters are eccentric to say the least. The plot is twisty and turny and people act in all kinds of odd ways. The plot...