mystery

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254. The Word is Murder

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Michael Koss

Author:   Anthony Horowitz

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Suspense

400 pages, published June 5, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The Word is Murder opens with Diana Cowper, a wealthy woman who is the mother of a famous British actor, planning her own funeral.  Six hours later she is strangled.  Daniel Hawthorne, a bigoted, gruff, yet brilliant investigator teams up with author Anthony Horowitz (who inserts himself into the story under the guise of documenting Hawthorne’s exploits) to solve the crime.

 

Quotes 

“Again, I found myself wondering what it must be like to work there, sitting in a room with those miniature urns, a constant reminder that everything you were and everything you’d achieved would one day fit inside.”

 

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”

 

“But the thing is, you see -and to be honest, I don’t like to mention this- I’m a bit short. There just aren’t enough people getting murdered.”

 

“I’ve often wondered how I would have managed if I’d been born with a stammer or chronic shyness. The modern writer has to be able to perform, often to a huge audience. It’s almost like being a stand-up comedian except that the questions never change and you always end up telling the same jokes.”

 

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”

 

My Take

Having recently read several of Anthony Horowitz’s books (especially the terrific Magpie Murders), I really looked forward to diving into The Word is Murder.  While not as good as Magpie, it was still a thoroughly entertaining mystery with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. I especially enjoyed how Horowitz uses himself as a foil to the grumpy, eccentric Investigator Daniel Hawthorne.

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248. Gwendy’s Button Box

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Stephen King and Richard T. Chizmar

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Novella

171 pages, published May 16, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Gwendy Peterson is your typical thirteen year old girl from the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.  It is 1974 and Gwendy is not happy with the few extra pounds she carries and has the usual young teen issues.  When the mysterious Mr. Fariss approaches her and offers her an curious button box, Gwendy reluctantly agrees to take it.  Gwendy soon discovers that the mysterious button box has powers she can only begin to imagine.

 

Quotes 

“Secrets are a problem, maybe the biggest problem of all. They weigh on the mind and take up space in the world.”

 

“I am what you might call a rambling man, and America is my beat.”

 

“Wanting to know things and do things is what the human race is all about. Exploration, Gwendy! Both the disease and the cure!”

 

“Nailed it. So okay. The media says, ‘Girls, women, you can be anything you want to be in this brave new world of equality, as long as you can still see your toes when you stand up straight.’” He has been watching me, Gwendy thinks, because I do that every day when I get to the top. She blushes. She can’t help it, but the blush is a surface thing. Below it is a kind of so-what defiance. It’s what got her going on the stairs in the first place. That and Frankie Stone.”

 

My Take

I always enjoy Stephen King books and his brief novella Gwendy’s Button Box was no exception.  Even though it is short, the engaging characters, engrossing plot and the sense of dread that hangs over the whole story hooked me in.  Recommended if you are looking for a quick, fun read.

 

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244. The Child Finder

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Rene Denfeld

Genre:  Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Suspense

256 pages, published September 5, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Three years after five year old Madison Culver disappeared without a trace in a snow filled Oregon forest while her family was choosing a Christmas tree, the authorities believe she is dead.  Holding on to hope that their daughter is still alive, her parents turn to Naomi, a private investigator with a track record of finding lost and missing children who is known as The Child Finder.  Naomi understands children like Madison because she herself was once a lost girl.

 

Quotes 

“No matter how far you have run, no matter how long you have been lost, it is never too late to be found.”

 

“Fear never keeps anyone safe.”

 

“No one ever told you what to do when love went away. It was always about capturing love, and keeping love. Not about watching it walk out the door to die alone rather than in your arms.”

 

“In the years since, she had discovered the sacrament of life did not demand memory.”

 

“But he saw Naomi as the wind traveling over the field, always searching, never stopping, and never knowing that true peace is when you curl around one little piece of something. One little fern. One little frond. One person to love.”

 

“I’m afraid,” she confessed, her voice quiet.

“Of what?”

“That if the box is opened I might want and want and never be filled.” She took a breath. “That you will get tired of filling it.” She paused and spoke her deepest fear, turning to his ear. “That you will use me and throw me away.”

 

“A farm without stock, a home without children. The world here was dying.”

 

My Take

The Child Finder is a quick and compelling read that had me hooked from the get go.  The story hums along with well drawn and indelible characters.  While the subject is disturbing (kids kidnapped or disappeared), it is handled well, in a non-gratuitous manner.  Recommended.

 

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235. The Good Father

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Noah Hawley

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

320 pages, published March 20, 2012

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The Good Father tells the story of Dr. Paul Allen, the Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, who has young twin boys from his happy second marriage and Danny, a wayward, somewhat troubled son from his unhappy first marriage.  When twenty year old Danny is arrested for assassinating a Presidential candidate, Paul sets out a journey to clear his son and try to figure out where things went wrong.  As he delves into his son’s past, his research leads him to explore the lives of other assassins to find out what made them tick.

 

Quotes 

“There are things in this world that no human being should be able to endure. We should die of heartbreak, but we do not. Instead, we are forced to survive, to bear witness.”

 

“I was an old man, the father of the vilified. Would this be my life from here on out? Was I to become the argumentative man who can’t control the volume of his own voice? The conspiracy nut with boxes of data who spouts dates and facts, as if coincidence alone can prove the existence of God?”

 

“He worried that he was destined to be a hobbyist, a dreamer incapable of finishing anything. The fact that the college seemed to encourage this kind of “experimentation” made him doubt its motives as an institution of higher learning.”

 

“Staring up at me, hearing my tired voice, he reached out his tiny hand. He knew me, even though he had never seen me before. And I knew him. He was the love I’d been trying to express my whole life.”

 

“I’m sorry,” I said, “did you just say elections are about hope?”

 

My Take

After enjoying the first two seasons of the FX series Fargo (especially the characters and dialogue from first season), I was interested to read a book by Noah Hawley, the show’s creator.   Hawley is also an Emmy, Golden Globe, PEN, Critics’ Choice, and Peabody Award-winning author, screenwriter, and producer, so he has an amazing pedigree.  The Good Father was an intriguing portrait of a confused father who tries to unravel the mystery behind his estranged son’s assassination of a Presidential candidate.  This well written book made me think about lots of issues related to parenting, including the question of how well do we really know those who are closest to us.  Recommended reading.

 

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232. Into the Water

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Paula Hawkins

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

368 pages, published May 2, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Summary:   Into the Water is a mystery/thriller by Paula Hawkins, author of the wildly successful The Girl on the Train.  This book tells the stories of different women, from the days of alleged witchcraft to the present, who died in a place called the Drowning Pool.

 

Quotes 

“Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.”                    

 

“There are people who are drawn to water, who retain some vestigial primal sense of where it flows. I believe that I am one of them. I am most alive when I am near the water, when I am near this water. This is the place where I learned to swim, the place where I learned to inhabit nature and my body in the most joyous and pleasurable way.”

 

“No one liked to think about the fact that the water in that river was infected with the blood and bile of persecuted women, unhappy women; they drank it every day.”

 

“Yes, it is. It’s, like, when someone has an affair, why does the wife always hate the other woman? Why doesn’t she hate her husband? He’s the one who’s betrayed her, he’s the one who swore to love her and keep her and whatever forever and ever. Why isn’t he the one who gets shoved off a fucking cliff?”

 

“We now know that memories are not fixed or frozen, like Proust’s jars of preserves in a larder, but are transformed, disassembled, reassembled, and recategorized with every act of recollection.”

 

“Watching someone in the throes of raw grief is a terrible thing; the act of watching feels violent, intrusive, a violation. Yet we do it, we have to do it, all the time; you just have to learn to cope with it whatever way you can.”

 

“She had never realized before her life was torn apart how awkward grief was, how inconvenient for everyone with whom the mourner came into contact. At first it was acknowledged and respected and deferred to. But after a while it got in the way—of conversation, of laughter, of normal life.”

 

My Take

After thoroughly enjoying The Girl on the Train, I had high hopes for Paula Hawkins follow up effort Into the Water.  While Into the Water is not bad, it not nearly as the captivating read of The Girl on the Train.  The character development was fine, but the plot and twists were just so-so.

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227. Bangkok Eight

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  John Burdett

Genre:  Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Foreign

317 pages, published June 3, 2003

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Bangkok Eight is a mystery/thriller set in District Eight of modern day Thailand. When a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz, two of the witnesses are the only cops in the city not on the take.  After one is also murdered, his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep (a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I.) sets a mission for himself to track down the killer and exact revenge.

 

Quotes 

“I don’t want enlightenment, I want him. Sorry Buddha, I loved him more than you.”

 

“The sound she is making is the sound hearts make after they’re in pieces and the fragments dissolve into the overwhelming sadness of the universe. The power to hear it may be the only privilege of the thoroughly dispossessed.”

 

“We do not look on death the way you do, farang. My closest colleagues grasp my arm and one or two embrace me. No one says sorry. Would you be sorry for a sunset?”

 

“The dharma teaches us the impermanence of all phenomena, but you cannot prepare yourself for the loss of the phenomenon you love more than yourself.”

 

My Take

I read Bangkok Eight in advance of trip to Thailand to get some local color and insight before departing.  Judged by that metric, the book delivered.  While uneven and slow in parts, on the whole Bangkok Eight provides some very interesting insights into a country I knew little about.  Recommended to those who are planning a trip to Thailand.

 

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229. The Pearl Thief

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Elizabeth Wein

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Foreign

320 pages, published May 2, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The Pearl Thief is a prequel to Code Name Verity and follows the life of fifteen-year-old Lady Julia Beaufort-Stuart before she became a World War II spy operating under the code name of Verity.  When she returns to her grandfather’s Scottish estate, Julia gets entangled in a mystery involving some very valuable river pearls.

 

Quotes 

“It is possible there are some things you want so badly that you will change your life to make them happen.”

 

“I need complicated railroad journeys and people speaking to me in foreign languages to keep me happy. I want to see the world and write stories about everything I see.”

 

“I love the story of a thing. I love a thing for what it means a thousand times more than for what it’s worth.”

 

“It’s like being raised by wolves — you don’t realize you’re not one yourself until someone points it out to you. Sometimes it makes me so mad that not everyone treats me just like another wolf.”

 

“For the pleasure of giving, because what’s the point of just having? If I give a thing, I remember how happy we both were when I made the gift.”

 

“Inspector Milne’s suspicious prying appeared to have awakened her inner Bolshevik, and so I discovered my own lady mother is not above quietly circumventing the law.”

 

“That is a terrifically intimate thing, you know? Letting a stranger light your cigarette. Leaning forward so he can hold a flame to your lips. Pausing to breathe in before you pull back again.”

 

My Take

After reading and really enjoying Code Name Verity, I put in a request at the Library for the prequel and sequel.  The prequel, The Pearl Thief, was first up.   I liked it, but not nearly as much as Code Name Verity.  It was a bit hard to follow at times and I had trouble keeping some of the characters straight.  While Julie, the main character, has a lot of appeal, I still found the book to be limited in other regards.

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224. Celine

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Blair Norman

Author:  Peter Heller

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

352 pages, published March 7, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Celine tells the story of Celine, a private investigator with a blue blood background who specializes in reuniting families.  After she is approached by Gabriela, a young woman who asks for help in finding out what happened to her missing father, Celine is drawn into a new mystery and a shadowy past.

 

Quotes 

“No: Human beings, by orders of magnitude, remained the most vicious animal on the planet.”

 

“A road trip frees the mind, revitalizes the spirit, and infuses the body with Dr Pepper and teriyaki jerky.”

 

“There might not be a measure of happiness left in a life, but there could be beauty and grace and endless love.”

 

“Pursuing fun is exhausting. Having fun is just fun. Much more relaxing just to do your work, don’t you think? I mean if you enjoy it.”

 

“Happiness was not a word that seemed to apply anymore, when she had lost so many close to her. There was a contentment that felt deeper, that acknowledged and accepted the quieter offerings of small joys– of love and occasional peace in a life that was full of pain.”

 

“The most indisputable beauty may be the one that people cannot ever touch. That God exists up there somehow, in the peaks and remote lakes and the sharp wind. Who knows why that picture stirs joy. It speaks directly to our impermanence and our smallness.”

 

“When we are most scared is the time to summon our clearest concentration and move forward, not back.”

 

“Dusk was moving over the water with a stillness that turned half the world to glass. The wall of mountains had gone to shadow as had the reflections at their feet. In the stillness the rings of rising trout appeared like raindrops. Slowly, in silence, the dark water tilted away from the remaining daylight.”

 

My Take

I went back and forth as to whether to give Celine 3 ½ stars or 4.  I ultimately decided on 4 based on the two things:   the finely drawn character portraits (especially of Celine) painted by author Peter Heller and his beautiful descriptions of the natural world.  The mystery at the center of this book is what weighed on the side of 3 ½.  I found the plot a bit thin and uninteresting.  However, I still really enjoyed this book and can recommend it.  Also, if you like Heller’s writing style, check out The Dog Stars, which is a great dystopian read.

 

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195. Moriarity

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Michael Koss

Author:   Anthony Horowitz

Genre:  Fiction, Crime, Suspense, Mystery

285 pages, published December 9, 2014

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Moriarty is author Anthony Horowitz’s second entry into the Sherlock Holmes genre, following up on The House of Silk.   The books are not related and even have different characters.  Notably, there is no Sherlock Holmes in Moriarity other than as a remote figure.   The stand in for Holmes is Inspector Athelney Jones, a Scotland Yard detective and devoted student of Holmes’s methods, whom Conan Doyle introduced in The Sign of Four.

 

Quotes 

“Give him his due: this is a man who has always faced his fears square on, whether they be a deadly swamp adder, a hideous poison that might drive you to insanity or a hell-hound set loose on the moors. Holmes has done many things that are, frankly, baffling – but he has never run away.”

 

“Robert Pinkerton used to say that a lie was like a dead coyote. The longer you leave it, the more it smells.”

 

“It seemed that there was nothing you could find here that was not expensive and very little that was actually necessary.”

 

My Take

I would have given Moriarty three stars, but the big twist at the end deserved an extra half star.  I enjoyed this take on the Sherlock Holmes genre more than The House of Silk.  However, both pale in comparison to Magpie Murders which is the best mystery by Anthony Horowitz that I have read.  If you are a mystery devotee and a fan of Sherlock Holmes, then you will enjoy Moriarty.

 

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194. The Silkworm

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)

Genre:  Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Thriller

455 pages, published June 24, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The second in J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike’s detective series (the first was The Cuckoo’s Calling which I really enjoyed), The Silkworm picks up where the first book left off.  We rejoin Strike and his talented assistant Robin Ellacott in a new mystery.  Strike is hired by Leonora Quine to find her missing husband, novelist Owen Quine.  As Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist had just completed a poisonous book portraying many of his friends and acquaintances in a harsh light which means that there are plenty of motives for murder and a web of deceit and avarice for Strike to untangle and solve.

 

Quotes 

“The whole world’s writing novels, but nobody’s reading them.”                       

 

“We don’t love each other; we love the idea we have of each other. Very few humans understand this or can bear to contemplate it. They have blind faith in their own powers of creation. All love, ultimately, is self-love.”

 

“Though they spent so much time trying to make themselves beautiful, you were not supposed to admit to women that beauty mattered.”

 

“…writers are a savage breed, Mr. Strike. If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill.  If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.”

 

“Strike had always marvelled at the strange sanctity conferred upon celebrities by the public, even while the newspapers denigrated, hunted or hounded them. No matter how many famous people were convicted of rape or murder, still the belief persisted, almost pagan in its intensity: not him. It couldn’t be him. He’s famous.”

 

“In the depths of his tiredness, surrounded by these blank, sheep-like visages, he found himself pondering the accidents that had brought all of them into being. Every birth was, viewed properly, mere chance. With a hundred million sperm swimming blindly through the darkness, the odds against a person becoming themselves were staggering.”

 

“Keeping busy was the only answer: action had always been his drug of choice.”

 

“She emanated that aura of grandeur that replaces sexual allure in the successful older woman.”

 

“I said that the greatest female writers, with almost no exceptions, have been childless. A fact. And I have said that women generally, by virtue of their desire to mother, are incapable of the necessarily single-minded focus anyone must bring to the creation of literature, true literature. I don’t retract a word. That is a fact.”

 

My Take

The Silkworm provides a new murder mystery for Private Detective Cormoran Strike and his Assistant/Partner Robin Ellacott to solve.  After thoroughly enjoying the fantastically creative world created by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series, I was happy to see that her writing talent translates to Detective/Crime Thriller genre.  While the details of the mystery are not the most gripping, her two lead characters of Cormoran and Robin are so richly drawn, nuanced, and compelling that I loved spending time with them in the gritty world of modern day London.  The solution to the book’s central mystery was almost beside the point.

 

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