The Verifiers by Jane Pek

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

by Carol4 Comments
The Verifiers is a fun book, part mystery, part family drama, and part exploration of the data we provide online to corporations and how they might use that. Claudia Lin, our amateur detective, is the youngest, and at least according to her mom the least successful, of three siblings. She has left her low-level corporate job to work at Veracity, but she hasn't told her family. Claudia is a mystery lover and Veracity is a bit like a detective agency, allowing wealthy clients to investigate people they meet on dating sites. Veracity takes on a new client, a woman who wants them to investigate two men she met online, but whom she is no longer in contact with. At first, it's just interesting, but then the client is found dead in her apartment, an apparent suicide. Claudia is a likable character. She's smart and funny. She loves books and bicycling through New York. She's a lesbian and a romantic by...
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The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

by Carol4 Comments
The Book of Cold Cases is atmospheric, suspenseful, and a bit spooky. Shea Collins works as a receptionist in a medical office, but her true passion is her website, the Book of Cold Cases. She writes about unsolved murders, a project inspired by her own abduction as a child. Divorced and alone, she has few friends aside from her sister, Esther, and an ex-cop, Michael, who helps her with research. Then a client comes into the office: Beth Greer, who was charged and acquitted for the murders of two men in 1977. When Shea asks rich and aloof Beth for an interview, Beth surprisingly agrees. Shea gets sucked into the case, talking to Beth, Beth's lawyer, the police officer who was assigned to the case back then, anyone she can find with a connection. But the closer Shea gets to the truth, the more troubling and threatening the past becomes. We've got two timelines, 2017 when the book is set and forty...
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Pay Dirt Road by Samantha Jayne Allen

Pay Dirt Road by Samantha Jayne Allen

by Carol2 Comments
Annie is back home after college, waitressing at the local diner and hanging out with her cousin and people she knew in high school. Her family is well known in town. Her grandfather used to be the sheriff, but now he owns a private investigation firm, run mostly by his partner, and drinks too much. When another waitress, Victoria, goes missing and is later found murdered, Annie is pulled in, needing to find the truth, and gets her grandfather involved too. Pay Dirt Road has a good sense of place. It's small-town Texas where land matters, where it's hard to keep secrets, where people without papers are afraid of the cops. It's a place where high school football carries a town's pride and the VFW turns into a honky tonk on Thursdays. It's a place Annie both loves and hates. Pay Dirt Road is a pretty standard mystery and Annie's not a great investigator. She shouldn't be. She's in her early twenties...
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Poison Ivy by Helena Marchmont

Poison Ivy by Helena Marchmont

by CarolNo Comments
Poison Ivy is the 12th in the Bunburry mysteries and I don't think it would be as good as a standalone - half of the fun is knowing the characters and how their relationships work. I was quite happy that Oscar is in town for most of this one, along with the rest of the usual cast. Emma and Alfie are planning a surprise party for Marg and Liz. At the hotel, Alfie meets a beautiful interesting woman. It turns out she's an old acquaintance of Oscar's and he's sure she's a murderer. This was another good entry in the series. The mystery had a twist or two. The characters are their delightful selves and I like how some of the newer ones have settled into recurring roles. It was a nice way to spend a few hours. ...
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Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke

Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke

by Carol6 Comments
Heaven, My Home is the follow-up to Bluebird, Bluebird and I really think they need to be read in order. Heaven, My Home has Texas Ranger Darren Matthews investigating a new case, a missing boy with connections to a white supremacist group, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT). But events from the first are still hanging over his head, threatening his career and marriage. In Jefferson, a 9-year-old boy, Levi King, was out at night in a ramshackle boat on Lake Caddo, but never makes it home. Levi is far from being a perfect child or even a nice child and his father is the head of the ABT, currently serving time in prison. An apparently reformed Bill is worried about Levi's disappearance, and Darren's boss sees the situation as a way to gain more information on the ABT. Locke sets the novel in the immediate aftermath of Trump's election and a Texas in which the repercussions are being felt in the...
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A Game of Cones by Abby Collette

A Game of Cones by Abby Collette

by Carol6 Comments
I really want to like the Ice Cream Parlor series. Our main character, Wyn, runs an ice cream shop in northern Ohio and has a great family and supportive, if quirky, friends. This time she's dragged into the mystery when a friend/ former co-worker from New York comes to town to see her and ends up being a suspect in a murder investigation. A lot is going on in this one. There were a bunch of suspects since the dead man worked for a company proposing to open a mall in the town, which would totally change the nature of the downtown area - not for the better. Rory is in town to try to convince Wyn to come back to her old company in New York. Aunt Jack is back and trying to stick her nose into how the shop is run. The solution to the mystery was well done, even if getting there was a little meandering. I think...
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