A group of paranormal investigators, mostly college students along with a medium and two magazine employees, have gone to a remote mansion called the Clock House that is supposedly haunted by a teenage girl who died 8 years ago. They're locked into the old part of the mansion and, of course, there's a murder. Note: Don't get locked in at remote mansions. At the same time, the series amateur sleuth/mystery writer, Shimada Kiyoshi, is visiting the house with another college student who wasn't able to make the trip originally. So, inside the house, people are being killed in locked rooms surrounded by hundreds of ticking clocks with no way to escape - and yes they do try, while on the outside, Kiyoshi is trying to solve the riddle of the house and what happened 10 years ago.
This is the first I've read in the series and it worked fine as a stand alone. There were some references to previous cases,...
This is the second in the Novel Detectives series, which is a spin off of another series, but I think it be easily read as a stand alone. Annie and Fletcher run both a bookstore and a detective agency. Thankfully, they have solid employees at the store, so can take the time they need for their investigations. This time around they are in the office early, when running coach from the local high school arrives, covered in blood, with no memory of the night before. He wants their help figuring out what happened. Of course, it's not long till they find a dead body and start to wonder if their client is a murderer.
Our mystery centers around the high school and the track team. We have a couple of solid suspects and Annie gets to use some of their new techy purchases to gather clues. It's pretty easy to guess the killer though.
As always, I love Annie and Fletcher....
I genuinely disliked this book. The set up is good - a book club that typically reads serial killer book finds a real life murder that needs solved. Wendy, a local librarian, is dead - the police have decided it's a suicide, but Judy, the book groups oldest member, is sure it was murder and convinces everyone that they need to investigate. I even like the characters for the most part. The group consists of mostly women and one man. They are a variety of ages and have a variety of occupations, several of which are useful in their hunt for clues.
I was annoyed with how the author portrayed Judy. She's only in her sixties and works at least part time, but she can't even text? There are several text/ WhatsApp messages throughout the book. I listened to the audio and the narrator actually handled them well. And I honestly don't know any women of that age who have...
I thoroughly enjoy this series. Raven's Edge is a village that has a leaned into its past and maybe embellished it a bit. It leans into the spooky, and witchy, and ghostly.
We've got two mysteries this time around. A "ghost" has been haunting Blackheath Hall, where two older sisters, Lady Peony and Rose, live. Lady Peony is far from a scared, little old lady. She knows fully well that the knocking is not really a ghost, but someone trying to scare them out of the house. She hires Kieran Drake to figure out who is behind it, so he and Milla Graham have set up shop at the hall to keep watch. In the meantime and not too far away, DS Harriet March's date with Misha from the coffee shop, is cut short when, while on a ghost tour, they find a dead body in a shallow grave.
I like that Harriet was leading the investigation this time around,...
Homicide and Halo-Halo is the second in the series, and while it would work as a stand-alone, Lila is still processing the events that happened in the first one a few months ago. Detective Park has given her the name of a therapist, but Lila is adamant that she doesn't need help - and worries how her aunt would view counseling.
Lila has a lot going on. Not only is she dealing with PTSD, she is opening a new cafe with her best friend, Adeena, and Adeena's girlfriend, Elena, but is having trouble coming up with new recipes to serve, She's also a judge for the Miss Teen Shady Palms Beauty Pageant, which takes up an absurd amount of time. Do place still have pageants like this? At least it involves things like community service and creativity. It also brings up some of Lila's body image issues and mixed feelings about her mother, who died when Lila was a child.
We're...
I don't know why it's taken me so long to pick up this series. I love culinary cozies, especially when the food featured is not a style I'm familiar with. Lila has returned to her hometown after a bad breakup to help her Aunt Rosie run the family Filipino restaurant. It's not going well, though, and then a local restaurant critic/Lila's high school boyfriend ends up dead, poisoned after eating at the restaurant. Lila becomes the primary suspect, which is her reason for investigating. Every amateur sleuth needs a legitimate reason to nose into the investigation, at least for the first couple of books.
Lila's family and friends, mostly women, are wonderful- supportive and quirky. We have tons of yummy food and a couple of recipes in the back. Lila herself is not my favorite, yet, but has potential. I need her to be a little more focused and I don't like the potential love triangle forming for her.
The...
