The Living and the Dead by Christoffer Carlsson

The Living and the Dead by Christoffer Carlsson

by CarolNo Comments
In a small, remote town in Sweden, two eighteen year-old boys leave a party only to discover the next day that one of their friends has been found murdered in the trunk of a car. Each of the boys is a suspect, but the case is never solved. Twenty years later, another man is killed and old secrets are uncovered.It took me a while to get into this one. A lot of the names are unfamiliar to me, which can make the characters and places more difficult to keep track of. We had several points of view with the detectives and boys which worked well in the long run, but made it harder to connect to the characters at first. The story also takes place over twenty years and it takes a while before some of the scenes tie in with the rest.At some point, though, the story had me hooked. The plot is multi-layered and so many...
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Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

by Carol2 Comments
Yes, I've read Murder on the Orient Express several times. Yes, I've watched the movies, also multiple times. But somehow I always enjoy it. We all know the plot. Hercule Poirot is a last minute addition to the first class carriage on the Orient Express from Istanbul to Calais. All the other rooms are taken, unusual for winter, The following morning, the train is stuck in the snow and one of the passengers, an American named Ratchett, is found dead in his bunk, stabbed multiple times.Of course, I know the whodunnit and it's not one you can forget, but it's always fun watching Poirot collect all the clue, lies, and red herrings. His friend/ company director, Monsieur Bouc, sits in on the questioning and you have to admire how quickly he jumps to conclusions only to have them just as quickly upended by Poirot. He's a good character, light-hearted, but in the the end his position allows him to...
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The 52 Book Club Mystery Genre Challenge

The 52 Book Club Mystery Genre Challenge

by CarolNo Comments
The 52 Book Club just put out their first full-sized genre-specific challenge. All books read for this challenge must be mysteries, but there is not timeline for completing it. The mystery challenge contains fifty different “cases." Match one mystery to each case for a total of fifty different books. Cases are related to different mystery elements and tell you what to look for in a book.A classic mystery:An opening line that hooks you:An “impossible” crime:Murder disguised as an accident:A missing person:A cozy mystery:An unsettling read:Title includes the word “death” or “dead:”A white-collar crime:A humorous mystery:The “brilliant detective” trope:An amateur sleuth:Antagonist toys with the detective:Includes a podcaster, writer, or journalist:A crime-solving duo:Detective has to confront their own past:An iconic detective:Police procedural:A detective on the cover:Title starts with first letter of author’s last name:A serial killer:An unreliable narrator:A victim with lots of enemies:Features small town secrets:Written from multiple suspects’ perspectives:A “new-to-you” author:A crime of passion:A character wrongly accused:Set by a lake:A character...
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Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie

Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie

by Carol2 Comments
I thoroughly enjoyed Mrs. McGinty's Dead. This time around Superintendent Spence brings Poirot a case. A man has been convicted of Mrs. McGinty's murder based on Spence's investigations, but Spence is convince the man is not guilty. Poirot heads to the small town of Broadhinny to investigate. He stays in a poorly run guest house, which leads to several entertaining moments. We know how much Poirot loves comfort and good food, neither of which he gets here. Ariadne Oliver is also in town, working with a young playwright to adapt one of her books for the stage. Ariadne just makes me smile. She's the opposite of Poirot and yet they get along well. I love how Ariadne talks about her fictional detective, giving us a bit of insight into how Christie feels about Poirot.The plot was put together well, of course. The killer has to be one of the village residents, but Mrs. McGinty herself is rather uninteresting. Poirot,...
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This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum

This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum

by Carol2 Comments
This Story Might Save Your Life is part mystery, part thriller, and part romance. Best friends and podcast hosts Benny and Joy have built a career on survival stories, but now Joy has disappeared and Benny is the prime suspect.I enjoyed about the first half of the book. The story is told through Benny's point of view interspersed with bits from the podcast and from Joy's chapters of an unfinished memoir. I listened to the audio book which, with its two narrators, fit this format perfectly. They did a fabulous job with banter during the podcast clips and really brought each character's feelings and personality across.Benny and Joy are keeping secrets, form their listeners and from each other, as are the people around them. Those are slowly revealed and there are several twists. I was enjoying it, until I found myself thinking "can we just get to the end?" I wanted to know how it all played...
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