Audible Plus – Carol's Notebook

Death Comes in Through the Kitchen by Teresa Dovalpage

May 31, 2024May 31, 2024 by CarolNo Comments

I was looking for a book set in Cuba when I ran across Death Comes in Through the Kitchen. It sounded like one I would enjoy - an interesting setting, an interesting main character, and Cuban food. I ended up being disappointed. Matt arrives in Havana to meet his Cuban fiancée, Yarmila, hopefully get married and persuade her to return with him to the States. Things go down hill immediately when he finds Yarmila dead in her apartment He becomes a suspect in her murder and the authorities believe he may be an American spy. We see most of the story from Matt's viewpint.. He's pretty clueless really, about Yarmila's death, but also about life in Cuba. We also get to see the case, and Cuba, from Detective Martinez's point of view. She's in charge of the official investigation, but she's not getting much cooperation from the other people involved. And finally, we have El Padrino, a former police officer turned...

Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 by CarolNo Comments

Murder at Mallowan Hall takes us to the fictionalized home of author Agatha Christie and her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan. I will admit to being a huge Christie fan, which is why this series caught my eye. Our amateur sleuth is the housekeeper, Phyllida Bright, who is extremely competent at her job. She is the one who finds the body in the library. The murdered man was an uninvited guest at the Mallowans' house party, and Phyllida questions whether local police are capable of solving the crime. So, between serving the demanding guests and managing the nervous staff, she starts investigating on her own. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters in this one - not the guests, but the staff. Phyllida is shrewd and charming. The butler has his own views on the way things should be run, but has her back when push comes to shove. The chauffeur is a good foil for Phyllida - irreverent, mysterious, always getting...

A Murder to Remember by Brynn Kelly

March 20, 2024March 19, 2024 by CarolNo Comments

I have to admit, A Murder to Remember was a bit silly and predictable, but I enjoyed it. It's a fun cross between rom com and murder mystery with a bunch of Austen references. Amelia goes on a tour to England to clear her mind and enjoy all the Austen related tourist stops. She skips out of the official tour at a rather worse for wear manor house and while she's exploring on her own, she meets Tom, the current heir. Tom invites her to join him in drinking his way through the wine cellar and they have a fun evening together. But when morning comes around they have vague memories of having witnessed a murder. Amelia and Tom are good characters. They've each been through a lot and it's affected how they look at the world. The audiobook has alternating narrators for their two points of view and it works well. The mystery itself was fine. It turns out Amelia...

The Sacrifice by Rin Chupeco

January 23, 2024April 10, 2024 by CarolNo Comments

YA Horror - not my usual genre, which is why I love reading challenges, they get me out of the mystery aisle occasionally. Tales of a cursed island in the Philippines bring a television crew hoping to gather footage to produce a new reality show starring a famous ghost investigator who needs to rehabilitate his image. No one lives on the island, but the film crew needs a guide and they find a teenager, Alon. Alon is the only one willing to help them, but even they tell the crew that it would be best for everyone to leave. Most of the legends are true and people could end up hurt. Alon stays and helps, though, as they believe that's the best way for the most people to survive. Within minutes of their arrival, a giant sinkhole appears, revealing a giant balete tree with a mummified corpse entwined in its gnarled branches. And the crew start seeing strange visions. The island...

Much Ado about Nauticaling by Gabby Allan

April 10, 2023April 10, 2023 by Carol2 Comments

Much Ado about Nauticaling is a breezy cozy mystery set on Santa Catalina Island, California. Whitney Dagner has left the corporate world to return to her hometown to help her brother, Nick, run the family glass-bottomed boat tour company and open her own island gift shop. Everything is going well until a wealthy businessman is found in the water, strangled to death. Nick quickly becomes the number one suspect, and Whitney is determined to clear his name. Much Ado about Nauticaling was fine. I liked the small island setting and some of the characters, especially Whitney's grandparents, were charming. Whitney herself was persistent but needs to hone her investigative skills a bit more. Felix, her potential love interest, was almost too perfect. And to be honest I didn't feel like Whitney was special enough for him and her best friend to just up and move for/with her. I did love her cat though. Whiskers is a pretty good partner, The mystery was...

Death Claims by Joseph Hansen

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023 by CarolNo Comments

Death claims insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter is suspicious of the apparent drowning of John Oats. The superb swimmer was found washed up on a beach along the Californian coastline. John recently called the insurance copy to change the beneficiary on his policy, but the paperwork hadn't been completed yet. Does his death have anything to do with John’s recent desire to change the beneficiary on his life insurance policy? And now the beneficiary, Oats's son Peter, has disappeared. Dave takes nothing at face value. He is intent on discovering the truth and doesn't mind hurting people along the way. The case is, of course, much more complicated than it seems. It turns out John and almost everyone in his sphere were keeping secrets and Dave is good at finding connections, at understanding what people are hiding. We also get to know about Dave's life away from the case. He and his lover, Doug, who he met in the first book of...