This one had me at conjuror. The crime-solving magician sounds like an awesome character for a story. Not just any story either, a murder mystery, specifically an impossible by design locked variety of one.
This was a pitch perfect pastiche of golden age mysteries, from personae dramatis to the appropriately convoluted solution to the puzzle. Twisting and turning and casting suspicion this way and that, with a bunch of perfectly golden-age-style characters all of whom could theoretically do a murderous turn or two, this challenging murder nugget has a lot to offer. The lead detective and the detecting magician certainly have enough to stay busy. I really enjoyed this read. It had all the charm of a bygone era without any of its dated nonsense and a charming meta-wink-wink-nudge-nudge quality to it too daring the readers to play along. This cunning nostalgia tinted mystery is sure to delight armchair detectives. The solution is tougher than you think. All my early suspicions were going out fo the window chapter by chapter. Made it all the more fun. Such a quick read too. Like a good magician, this book tricks you and makes you enjoy it. And yes, there are some magic tricks in here too along with the other tricks, of a more murderous variety. Conveniently enough, all of the tricks come with explanations. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
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It’s been much too long since my forensic science class. I’m a huge Agatha Christie fan. I love mysteries. There were so many reasons to select this book from Netgalley, and I’m glad to have read it AND I liked it as much as I figured I would.
Some people have jobs, and some people have vocations. Carla Valentine is of the latter fortunate variety of individuals who gets to do what she loves for a living – she is a forensic pathology technician. She’s also a huge Agatha Christie fan. In this book, she combines her two passions for a comprehensive and engaging look into the titular science of murder. It’s fascinating, really. Some kids read mysteries or dissect frogs in school and don’t think twice about it, some get grossed out by it and some…well, some become forensic scientists and authors like Carla Valentine. Agatha Christie didn’t have forensic training. In fact, that entire field was fairly new in her time, evolving steadily throughout the past century. What she did have was a working knowledge of poisons, a curious and bright (and twisted) mind, and an appetite for murders, fictional and otherwise. This appetite resulted in a strikingly prolific career leading her to become the world’s number one bestselling author. Nothing outside of the Bible and Shakespeare has outsold Christie. And while modern day bestselling label more often than not implies a bland pandering sellout, especially in genre fiction, with Christie you actually got a quality tale every time. This required the author to stay on top of the latest crimes and crime solving methods of her time. The more the science evolved, the more Christie used it in her fiction. Meaning you can trace the evolution of forensic science throughout the five decades of Christie’s work. That’s pretty much exactly what the author of this book does, chapter by chapter, as she clearly and engagingly talks about various aspects of the science of murder from both perspectives – her own professional one and Christie’s fictional one. And Carla Valentine is something of a superfan too, her knowledge of Christie’s oeuvre is encyclopedic and her passion for those mysteries comes across loud and clear. So reading this book is kind of like having a fun and informative, albeit necessarily one-sided, conversation with a fellow fan who’s actually knowledgeable on the nuts and bolts of it all. Christie didn’t always get it right, but she made every effort to do so and steadily improved as her career progressed. Attention to detail was paid. In the way her characters were dispatched, in the way their murders were solved. Sometimes Christie followed the science, sometimes she led the pack, including being the first person to use the words scene of the crime and the first to mention having an investigator having a crime scene kit. And that’s just one of the fascinating tidbits of information you’ll learn from reading this book. All in all, lots of fun. Entertaining and educational in equal measure, including a handy guide to all of Christie’s fictional murder methods. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley. I’ve read the author’s work before and found it enjoyable, so I had some expectations going in. This proved to be a strange book, though, a book that tried to do too much, a book that didn’t know what it was or wanted to be. So much so that it ended up dropping steadily from 4 to 2 stars throughout the reading. And here’s why…
First thing first, Yardley can write, immersively and evocatively. The writing itself is fine. The plotting though left so much to be desired. Meet Cherry LaRouche, the darling of Darling, Louisiana. A wild child who’s made every possible wrong choice in her 20some years that led her to the place she’s when we meet her…a crappy apartment with a lecherous landlord with two young fatherless kids, one with severe special needs, and a cleaning job that barely allows her to get by. Oh, Cherry. If only you had listened to your mother…or I don’t know, used protection. Anyway, Cherry hated her mother, but now that mother has died and left Cherry her place – a ramshackle place that contains no good memories but it spacious, private, and paid off for five years. Cherry takes it. Moving back proves surprisingly easy. Quite literally, the moment Cherry sets foot back on Darling’s soil, she is surrounded by fawning admirers. People are just lining up to feed her, sand her deck, watch her kids. Why? All Cherry ever tells us is how evil Darling is. And yet… And then, there’s all the romance. If there’s one single thing that drags this novel down it is that…the fact that it so desperately tries to be a romance novel, which is…you know…yuck. Unless you’re into that sort of thing, which doesn’t make it any less yuck but might make this more of the right choice for you. As a teenager, Cherry hooked up with the most popular kid in Darling and vamoosed. The kid proved to be a royal penis and dropped her like yesterday’s trash the second their special needs kid was born, but that should give you some idea of Cherry’s taste in men. Also, the fact that her second child was created while she was prostituting herself trying to pay for the first one. Now, that she’s back, all the men who missed their opportunity the first time around with Cherry and who apparently have just been waiting around this entire time, come flocking in. She selects the hot one with a stupid name over her awesome brother-in-law with a strange name. (This is the South, y’all). Then she proceeds to toil in this cheesily torrid love triangle. Oh, also there is a serial killer around who seems to enjoy abducting, murdering, and dismembering small children. Also, there may or may not be a supernatural angle to it all. This includes the father of one of the victims, another devastatingly handsome Indian man with liquid eyes - a description the author is such a fan of, she uses it over and over again in an almost fetishistic manner. There’s also Cherry’s number one female friend, a blunt weirdo who lives alone with her mother in a distinctly Bates-ian sort of way. And then, Cherry’s baby girl gets abducted, and things get even crazier. So, what was the author trying to do here? Was she going for a Southern Gothic? (because she got there, again in a strangely fetishistic way). Was this meant to be a serial killer mystery? A romance? A tale of supernatural? Was the author, as a mother of a special needs child herself, writing an ode to moms such as her everywhere? Because that’s a lot for a single novel. And while there might be a way to make all of it work, this book doesn’t find that way. It crams too much and muddies the waters, especially for the serial killer mystery angle. Ambitious, sure, but in the end, a flop. Not a terrible flop, a readable, even mildly entertaining one, but overall, it underwhelms and disappoints more than it entertains. The writing’s good but doesn’t distract from the strangely nuanced yet clichéd characters. Some readers might fall under Cherry’s spell, but this darling’s charms are not for everyone. Thanks Netgalley. This is my third book by the author. I was already a fan going in. Enough of a fan to pick up a book over 400 pages (yes, I don’t love fat books and I cannot lie), enough of a fan to read a book about video games (not really my jam either).
So yeah, I did it and it was good. The writing just as terrific and engaging as I expected based on previous works. In fact, a writing so good it completely overrode most elements I didn’t much care for. If one was to describe this book, using other well-known books, and yes, it is grotesquely reductive but it’s all the rage and all the kids are doing it, this book is Adventures of Kavalier and Clay meets Ready Player One. Mind you, it’s nowhere near as good as the former (and few books are), but it’s substantially superior to the latter, which I found to be extremely overrated. Which is all to say, this is a book about a longtime friendship between two creative individuals and a story about their real lives intermingling with the fictional video game worlds they create. This is a story about Sam and Sadie and their complicated, loving, antagonistic, devoted, all-encompassing friendship of two plus decades. A friendship that gets challenged over and over again by the trials and tribulations of life and emerges battered but not defeated. It’s a story of second chances, as the title hints at, the infinite possibilities and endless opportunities of the willing and able, in real and virtual lives. In fact, the two are often cleverly juxtaposed for maximum effect. It’s a sort of proper literary novel that grabs you, draws you in and doesn’t let go. It has the power to delight you, to charm you, to emotionally devastate you and it knows it and relishes in it. It’s a novel good enough to make the not-especially likeable characters compelling. It’s a novel good enough to make a not-especially interesting (to some) subject of gaming compelling. So yeah, it’s long but worth it. Not a perfect novel by all means. Or not a perfect novel for me, I should say. Kavalier and Clay had comic books, which are awesome. Games…not so much. The author is a gamer, her enthusiasm shows. The main characters I didn’t especially like. I’m not even going to get into the tragic fate of the character I did like. But honestly, those are pretty small potatoes in a large perfectly seasoned and cooked stew that is this novel. Or no, maybe that metaphor doesn’t work – potatoes are always delicious. At any rate, this was a very good, just about great read that’ll remind you of the magic powers of real literature. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley. I love reading internationally and few locations are as evocative as Iceland, especially for a good scary story or a thriller. The place is so sparsely populated, it provides for haunting isolation and the weather is just an added bonus, because in Iceland it’s safer inside.
When one must go Outside, one must prepare. The weather can change on a dime, turn lethal in a blink of a snowstorm. And yet, four longtime friends of the no-longer-should-be-friends-but-still-are-out-of-inertia-and-nostalgia variety decide to brave the Icelandic outside anyway for a hunting trip. They set off for a remote location, promptly get snowed-in, and the poop hits the blades. Oh, and there’s an armed man in the cabin, just kind of sitting there. Oh, and each of the characters has a secret. Well, of course, they do, otherwise what sort of a thriller would it be. But you know, what kind of thriller it ends up being? An underwhelming one. The one with a fairly thin plot bulked up by constant perspective shifts and minutiae-driven in style. It’s like…you know in cheesy soap-operaesque movies when something dramatic happens and the camera shifts from one face to the next for a reaction. It’s a really cheap sort of storytelling gimmick. Well, that’s exactly the style of this novel. All the author does is just pivot the camera from one character to the next and then gives them a few lines about their past and their motivations. None of the characters are likeable or especially engaging. None of their secrets are that exciting. The writing is quite flat, more than the usually Scandinavian matter-of-factness. There’s just nothing much here. It’s pretty underwhelming, really. I’ve heard about the author, but not caring for series as a format, never tried him until now with this standalone and I must say…it’s disappointing. Not a total waste of time, for it is mildly entertaining and an exceptionally quick read for the page count, and it randomly has a short story in the back which I really enjoyed. But not a glowing introduction to the author either. Going by reviews, many other readers share my opinion about the book. The location and the mood were there. The rest left a lot to be desired. Much like in Iceland in the winter...it might be best to avoid the Outside. Thanks Netgalley. Brash Publishers are digitally reissuing these oldies but goodies, though the only listing for this book on GR currently is that of an old paperback. Ok, let’s go with that, then. There’s also only one review, which doesn’t speak volume to the book’s popularity. Then book has been out for decades.
This is the fifth volume in Reynolds’ Nebraska series. It’s also a good indicator of why there were only ever six of them for it is much too long and drawn out of a story. The strategically never first named Nebraska has originally attracted me with his wham-bam thank you m’am approach. His neo-noir adventures were fun and succinct, entertaining while never overstaying their welcome. And Nebraska is a fun - and funny - guy, always juggling his aspiring writing career with his reluctant private eye work. This time, though, there’s less of the juggling, virtually none of the clever meta detective talk, less jokes and more words, great many words. It begins with Nebraska saving a teenage gay boy from lechery – kudos for Nebraska and how very progressive for the time. But by doing so, Nebraska steps on some toes he maybe shouldn’t have. The toes trace back to a wealthy connected family in Minneapolis and soon Nebraska finds himself at the proverbial crosshairs as a target of revenge. Nebraska is exposed now...hence the title. Get it? Get it? Good. In order to get out of this bind, Nebraska assumes one of his secret perfectly documented other lives (of which he has four…what? overkill? this has never been mentioned before), goes to Minneapolis and inveigles himself into the family that’s after him. And if he has to work out and get fit to do it (they own a gym among other things), so be it. And then for great many chapters Nebraska toes the line while trying to figure out how to get the target sights off of him. Which kind of makes it slower than usual, less fun than usual, less clever than usual even. Nebraska is still fun, but this volume seems to almost entirely rely on its protagonist’s inherent charms, which kinda sorta makes for a less far, less balanced and less interesting of a read. There’s virtually no mystery in here either. Just a sort of play by play games of power and manipulation. It’s still entertaining enough, but it leaves a lot to be desired, especially when compared to its predecessors. Many thanks to Brash publishers for providing a free copy for review purposes. I’ve been a fan of Masterton for a long time. I’ve also stepped away from his books for a long time…some of it was pure availability, some of it was his newly found penchant for series, but at any case, I read one of his recent supernatural detective stories (yes, from one of those series) and it was lots of fun. Made me think, why not read more Masterton. This was the only other book of his available on Netgalley at the time, plus, a standalone, so yeah…
No. Categorically not. Should have listened to the other negative reviews of it for this is definitely one of Masterton’s lesser works. Authors have those, especially ones with such a gigantic oeuvre…the one offs, the ones done for a paycheck, sure, but it’s always disappointing coming across them. It’s one of those…knowing what they can do and seeing how short of that standard the book lands. So, what’s wrong with Soul Stealer specifically? Oh, so much. It might have had any intention of being a decent read, possibly even a commentary on the seedy exploitative side of movie business, but instead it ended up being as seedy and exploitative of a read as a Weinstein’s casting couch. Too soon? For the backstory, and Masterton to his credit always done a fun one, he returns to his beloved Native American mythology. Ever since Masterton’s Manitou days, the man has been combing through the folklore and finding this or that terrifying deity’s myths to fictionally spin. In this book, it’s a deity that empowers the show biz movers and shakers…for a cost. Enter abduction, rape, and more rape, followed by sacrifice for good measure. Whatever statement this book had to make, it went way, way over the top with it, to the extent that it ends up gratuitous, prurient, and overall, dramatically cheap. The plot features amusingly named protagonists – a young woman and an older former detective – who team up to defeat the evildoer wizards behind the curtains of the silver screens. The plot is preposterous, silly and way too skinemaxy for its own good. The writing is crap too, which is surprising. Not the crappiest of craps - Masterton after all these years, can probably spin a readable yarn in his sleep – but it’s very much bottom of the barrel. Also, not at all Americanized the way it ought to be for a story set in Los Angeles. Usually, Masterton is aces at that, but this story is loaded with Americans spouting Queen’s English and all sorts of Britishisms throughout, which is just distracting. Masterton has written tons of US-set books and usually does a terrific job on realistic place depiction, so this just serves to highlight how much lesser-than this book is. Overall, with its leaf-thin plot and its thickly laid on sex and violence, often sexual violence, this depraved ditty will leave your soul intact, but is going to steal some of your time with nothing to offer for it. Pass. Thanks Netgalley. The mysterious symbol from the object that superpowered Mitch, the series’ main character, is appearing all over. Driving people to do terrible things. There is an absolutely delicious element of conspiracy here.
There are horrific murders, plus the subject of gay marriage (still not legal in the depressingly recent past this book takes place in) to tackle. Mitch is going to be a busy man. As always, flipping between timelines to create a well-rounded narrative, this book seems to be more beloved by the reader than its predecessor (at least, according to the reviews) but for me the two were very even in quality. Both interesting, both clever, both stunning rendered in gorgeous technicolor. I’m still not won over. Not like by Vaughan’s other series. But it continues to be worth a read. I’m very much a fan of Vaughan. Y The Last Man, Saga…all terrific. This one didn’t quite hit the same notes for me, but that has a lot to do with the sort of disgusted disinterest I have in politics – I’ll still read The New York Times daily, but it isn’t necessarily something to want in my comics.
And there’s much about politics here, because the protagonist is a mayor of NYC. That alone wouldn’t sell the story for me, but the fact that he also has a superpower of a mysterious origin did. The man can talk to machines. Or more like, command the machines. Pretty awesome. Enough to try making a life as a superhero, until he realizes he can make more of a difference by going into politics…a questionable choice but there it is. You can read this book and see how he does in his first act in a position of power. Whether or not this works for you thematically, the writing is great and visually it’s an absolute feast, the same cinematic realism (if that isn’t an oxymoron) that made DC/Vertigo such a powerhouse over the years. Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. Overall, interesting enough to continue. There’s an inherent danger of disappointment in revisiting things you once loved – by the same logic that tells us we can never stand int eh same river again, certain experiences can’t be expected to remain the same. We change, our ideas, standards and preferences change. Is it fair to expect books/an author who delighted us once to continue to do so throughout time?
Well, I’m delighted to say that in case of Agatha Christie the answer is a resounding yes. Sometimes classics are classics for a reason – it means they can withstand the test of time with grace and still maintain a certain appeal to a variety of audiences. I’ve not read Christie is ages, only watched various movie adaptations, and this collection was an absolute pleasure to spend time with. I’ve read a bunch of golden age mysteries and few and far in-between have the same effortless appeal, charm and timeless quality to them as Christie’s work. Sure, some of the language is dated – words like ejaculation have long been relegated to an entirely different level of meaning. Sure, some of the gender attitudes have changed since. But overall, these stories are remarkably free of the sort of patina that normally mars older works. These stories are still interesting and fun and the puzzles within them are still puzzling. This collection comprises stories of crimes of passion (or its opposite for that matter), but it’s all about love. There’s even a lovely excerpt from Christie’s biography at the end, where she wryly discusses the two misfire (albeit not lethally so) affairs of her youth. All in all, a very enjoyable read that only serves to prove Christie’s legendary status as the Master of Suspense. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley. |
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