Silent Parade by Keigo Higashino

Silent Parade by Keigo Higashino

SIlent Parade is the eighth in the Detective Galileo series, not all of which have been translated into English. It's the fourth that I've read, but it works perfectly fine as a stand-alone. The story begins shortly after the third anniversary of Saori Namiki's disappearance when she was nineteen. A decrepit house has burned down in Tokyo and her remains were identified in the rubble. Chief Inspector Kusanagi and his team are assigned the case because of a curious connection they have to the chief suspect. But it's not Saori's murder that's the focus. When her presumed killer is let free, he ends up dead and it's that murder the police are trying to solve. There are tons of characters, which can get a little confusing in the audio occasionally, but they each have their roles and are important to the plot. The plot itself is twisty and turny and some things are obvious and some are not what you expect....
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Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart

Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart

It took me a few chapters to get into Jade Dragon Mountain. The setting is amazing, but very different from most books I read. The pace at the beginning was slow, or at least the audio made it feel that way. However, once Li Du was settled in to his cousin the magistrate's home and we met all the others there, both the household and the foreigners, the story became engrossing. People have gathered in Dayan because the Emperor is coming and there will be a celebration of the eclipse. One of the visitors, a Jesuit astronomer, is killed in his room, poisoned. Li Du is not content with the official story and the magistrate allows him to investigate the crime. There were many people with access to the room and the tea that was poisoned, but, it's difficult to see who gained from the older man's murder. The author does a wonderful job at making us feel like we're in eighteenth-century...
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