Tag Archives: Mystery

Baltimore Blues

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Author: Laura Lippman
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Mystery
Source: Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

 

Goodreads:  In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz’s death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer’s notoriety—and his taste for illicit midday trysts—makes the case front-page news in every local paper except the Star, which crashed and burned before Abramowitz did.

A former Star reporter who knows every inch of this town—from historic Fort McHenry to the crumbling projects of Cherry Hill—now-unemployed journalist Tess Monaghan also knows the primary suspect: cuckolded fiancé Darryl “Rock” Paxton. The time is ripe for a career move, so when rowing buddy Rock wants to hire her to do some unorthodox snooping to help clear his name, Tess agrees. But there are lethal secrets hiding in the Charm City shadows. And Tess’s own name could end up on the ever-expanding list of Baltimore dead.

Ope’s Opinion:  This was a great balance of who done it and meeting Tess and the people around her.  Knowing this is the first in the series, made me keep track of who is her life, who might show up in her next books.

If you care about the people in Tess’s life, it is best to read these books in order.  if you just want to read a good who done it – you can read them in any order.

Out Now

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Looking for a mystery to start you new year of reading?
This one is out today.

Goodreads: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a propulsive thriller featuring an ordinary woman who will stop at nothing to find the missing people that the rest of the world has forgotten

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will–searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.

A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim’s wary family tells Frankie she’s on her own–and she soon learns she’s asking questions someone doesn’t want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.

Enjoy the mystery read!

Layover

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Author: David Bell
Publisher: Berkley Books
Genre: Mystery
Source: Purchased

 

Goodreads:  In this high concept psychological suspense novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Somebody’s Daughter, a chance meeting with a woman in an airport sends a man on a
pulse-pounding quest for the truth…

Joshua Fields takes the same flights every week for work. His life is a series of departures and arrivals, hotels and airports. During yet another layover, Joshua meets Morgan, a beautiful stranger with whom he feels an immediate connection. When it’s time for their flights, Morgan gets up to leave, leans over and passionately kisses Joshua, lamenting that they’ll never see each other again.

As Morgan slips away, Joshua is left feeling confused by what just happened between them. That’s when he looks up and is shocked to see Morgan’s face flashing on a nearby TV screen. He’s even more shocked when he learns the reason why–Morgan is a missing person.

What follows is a whirlwind, fast-paced journey filled with lies, deceit, and secrets to discover the truth about why Morgan is on the run. But when he finally thinks every mystery is solved, another rears its head, and Joshua’s worst enemy may be his own assumptions about those around him… 

Ope’s Opinion:  I bought this book while I was on vacation at the beach thinking I would read it when I got home to savor it.  I really like David Bells writing and his short chapters keep a book moving.  This one was a bit of a disappointment.  I do understand that this book is fiction, but you really have to suspend your reality in this one.  

What kept me reading was wanting to know how it would end, but I wasn’t anxious to get back to the book when I put it down.  The ending answered your questions, but it was not very satisfying.

What Was Mine

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                                                               Author: Helen Klein Ross
Publisher: Gallery Books
Genre:  Mystery
Source:  Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

 

Goodreads:  Simply told but deeply affecting, in the bestselling tradition of Alice McDermott and Tom Perrotta, this urgent novel unravels the heartrending yet unsentimental tale of a woman who kidnaps a baby in a superstore—and gets away with it for twenty-one years.

Lucy Wakefield is a seemingly ordinary woman who does something extraordinary in a desperate moment: she takes a baby girl from a shopping cart and raises her as her own. It’s a secret she manages to keep for over two decades—from her daughter, the babysitter who helped raise her, family, coworkers, and friends.

When Lucy’s now-grown daughter Mia discovers the devastating truth of her origins, she is overwhelmed by confusion and anger and determines not to speak again to the mother who raised her. She reaches out to her birth mother for a tearful reunion, and Lucy is forced to flee to China to avoid prosecution. What follows is a ripple effect that alters the lives of many and challenges our understanding of the very meaning of motherhood.

Author Helen Klein Ross, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, weaves a powerful story of upheaval and resilience told from the alternating perspectives of Lucy, Mia, Mia’s birth mother, and others intimately involved in the kidnapping. What Was Mine is a compelling tale of motherhood and loss, of grief and hope, and the life-shattering effects of a single, irrevocable moment.

Ope’s Opinion:  When you read this you will have to accept the story as is because there are several things that are just not realistic.    It started out very intense, but quickly got into every day mundane life.  Then an unbelievable event and some more intense parts.

The story is told from a lot of different points of view.  It is interesting to hear from the kidnapper as well as the mother, and many more people effected by the kidnapping.

I was back and forth between three and four chairs until the end – it was left wide open – the book felt unfinished.  I don’t want to say too much more, so I don’t spoil it.

Two Truths and a Lie

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Author: Meg Mitchell Moore
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Mystery
Source:  Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

Goodreads:  From the author of The Islanders comes a warm, witty and suspenseful novel filled with small-town secrets, summer romance, big time lies and spiked seltzer, in the vein of Liane Moriarty.

Truth: Sherri Griffin and her daughter, Katie, have recently moved to the idyllic beach town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Rebecca Coleman, widely acknowledged former leader of the Newburyport Mom Squad (having taken a step back since her husband’s shocking and tragic death eighteen months ago), has made a surprising effort to include these newcomers in typically closed-group activities. Rebecca’s teenage daughter Alexa has even been spotted babysitting Katie.

Truth: Alexa has time on her hands because of a recent falling-out with her longtime best friends for reasons no one knows—but everyone suspects have to do with Alexa’s highly popular and increasingly successful YouTube channel. Katie Griffin, who at age 11 probably doesn’t need a babysitter anymore, can’t be left alone because she has terrifying nightmares that don’t seem to jibe with the vague story Sherri has floated about the “bad divorce” she left behind in Ohio. Rebecca Coleman has been spending a lot of time with Sherri, it’s true, but she’s also been spending time with someone else she doesn’t want the Mom Squad to know about just yet.

Lie: Rebecca Coleman doesn’t have a new man in her life, and definitely not someone connected to the Mom Squad. Alexa is not seeing anyone new herself and is planning on shutting down her YouTube channel in advance of attending college in the fall. Sherri Griffin’s real name is Sherri Griffin, and a bad divorce is all she’s running from.

A blend of propulsive thriller and gorgeous summer read, Two Truths and a Lie reminds us that happiness isn’t always a day at the beach, some secrets aren’t meant to be shared, and the most precious things are the people we love.

Ope’s Opinion: There are a lot of people with a lot going on in this book.  It is not hard to keep it straight because each chapter is labeled.  One of the things I really liked about this story was that the secrets came out throughout the whole book, little by little.  There were some things that were held to the end, but it didn’t all come out at once.

The Mom Squad was a bit over the top for me, but I am sure they exist some where.  They were a bit too catty for my liking.  I was glad I was not the move-in of their group, actually I was glad I was not a part of their group at all!

Although this book is the mystery category, I think it more women’s fiction with a little mystery on the edges of it.

Bring Her Home

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Author:  David Bell
Publisher: Berkley Books
Genre: Mystery
Source: Kristin of Kritters Ramblings

Goodreads:  In the breathtaking new thriller from David Bell, bestselling author of Since She Went Away and Somebody I Used to Know, the fate of two missing teenage girls becomes a father’s worst nightmare….

Just a year and a half after the tragic death of his wife, Bill Price’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Summer, and her best friend, Haley, disappear. Days later, the girls are found in a city park. Haley is dead at the scene, while Summer is left beaten beyond recognition and clinging to life.

As Bill holds vigil over Summer’s bandaged body, the only sound the unconscious girl can make is one cryptic and chilling word: No. And the more time Bill spends with Summer, the more he wonders what happened to her. Or if the injured girl in the hospital bed is really his daughter at all.

When troubling new questions about Summer’s life surface, Bill is not prepared for the aftershocks. He’ll soon discover that both the living and the dead have secrets. And that searching for the truth will tear open old wounds that pierce straight to the heart of his family…

Ope’s Opinion: Wow!  This is my first David Bell book – I can’t wait to start reading his other books now! 

This book will grab you from the very beginning.  The chapters are short, so I kept thinking one more chapter…. One more.  It read really fast and the story was great.  I thought I knew who did it, then some thing happened ( no spoilers ), so I figured I was wrong.  Well, I was right, it just threw me off for a minute.  

There was a bit of the story about two thirds of the way through that I felt was a wild goose chase and didn’t add to the other part of the story.  The end revealed some things I was not expecting ( this is good ), but everything came to a conclusion.

The Silent Patient

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Author: Alex Michaelides
Publisher: Celadon Books
Genre: Mystery
Source: Borrowed from a friend

Goodreads:  Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him…

Ope’s Opinion:  It took me a little while to get into this story.  There were two story lines you knew where going to cross at some point, so it was a little confusing at the start.  Once I got into it, it moved really fast.  The short chapters kept the pace going.  

There were definitely some unexpected twists in the story – maybe not completely believable, but it is fiction!

The ending felt a little rushed, not exactly what I expected and sort of odd.  You have to read it to understand – I don’t want to give anything away.

 

Stranger in the Lake

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Author: Kimberly Belle
Publisher: Park Row
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Source: Emer at Harper Collins

Goodreads: “Spellbinding. Another outstanding novel by Kimberly Belle, masterfully written to lure you in and never let go.” – Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author of My Lovely Wife

When Charlotte married the wealthy widower Paul, it caused a ripple of gossip in their small lakeside town. They have a charmed life together, despite the cruel whispers about her humble past and his first marriage. But everything starts to unravel when she discovers a young woman’s body floating in the exact same spot where Paul’s first wife tragically drowned.

At first, it seems like a horrific coincidence, but the stranger in the lake is no stranger. Charlotte saw Paul talking to her the day before, even though Paul tells the police he’s never met the woman. His lie exposes cracks in their fragile new marriage, cracks Charlotte is determined to keep from breaking them in two.

As Charlotte uncovers dark mysteries about the man she married, she doesn’t know what to trust—her heart, which knows Paul to be a good man, or her growing suspicion that there’s something he’s hiding in the water.

Look for these other pulse-pounding thrillers by Kimberly Belle:

Three Days Missing
The Marriage Lie
Dear Wife 

Ope’s Opinion: Kimberly Belle can write the perfect amount of character build up and suspense for me.  The more of her books I read, the more of them I want to read.

This one started out as what “seemed” to be a simple who done it mystery.  All the characters were introduced, there was already one murder in the past and another one just happened.  So who did it?  Who is hiding secrets? Or should I say who isn’t hiding secrets?

About half way through the pace starts picking up and the tension starts to really build… oh, the fun of reading this part – at this point make sure you have time to finish it!  You will not want to put it down.

The ending told you all you wanted to know.  And made me want her next book!

 

This is How I Lied

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Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Publisher: Park Row
Genre: Mystery
Source: Emer at Harper Collins

 

Goodreads: Gudenkauf proves herself the master of the smart, suspenseful small-town thriller that gets right under your skin.” —Gilly Macmillan, New York Times bestselling author of The Nanny

Everyone has a secret they’ll do anything to hide…

Twenty-five years ago, the body of sixteen-year-old Eve Knox was found in the caves near her home in small-town Grotto, Iowa—discovered by her best friend, Maggie, and her sister, Nola. There were a handful of suspects, including her boyfriend, Nick, but without sufficient evidence the case ultimately went cold.

For decades Maggie was haunted by Eve’s death and that horrible night. Now a detective in Grotto, and seven months pregnant, she is thrust back into the past when a new piece of evidence surfaces and the case is reopened. As Maggie investigates and reexamines the clues, secrets about what really happened begin to emerge. But someone in town knows more than they’re letting on, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep the truth buried deep.

Ope’s Opinion: Heather Gudenkauf is one of my authors that I automatically say, yes, I want to read her books.  She draws me in from the beginning with characters that are real and you want to follow their stories.  

There was more creepiness in this book then I usually read or care for, but it really did have to do with the story – it wasn’t just thrown in there to give you chills.  This was not as intense as some Gudenkauf’s books, but still kept my attention and drew me to the end.

I thought I knew who did it, then I changed my mind – should have stuck with my first guess, but wasn’t sure until the end.

Last Day

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Author: LuAnne Rice
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Genre: Mystery
Source:  Brittany Russell at Amazon

 

Goodreads:  From celebrated New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice comes a riveting story of a seaside community shaken by a violent crime and a tragic loss.

Years ago, Beth Lathrop and her sister Kate suffered what they thought would be the worst tragedy of their lives the night both the famous painting Moonlight and their mother were taken. The detective assigned to the case, Conor Reid, swore to protect the sisters from then on.

Beth moved on, throwing herself fully into the art world, running the family gallery, and raising a beautiful daughter with her husband Pete. Kate, instead, retreated into herself and took to the skies as a pilot, always on the run. When Beth is found strangled in her home, and Moonlight goes missing again, Detective Reid can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu.

Reid immediately suspects Beth’s husband, whose affair is a poorly kept secret. He has an airtight alibi—but he also has a motive, and the evidence seems to point to him. Kate and Reid, along with the sisters’ closest childhood friends, struggle to make sense of Beth’s death, but they only find more questions: Who else would have wanted Beth dead? What’s the significance of Moonlight?

Twenty years ago, Reid vowed to protect Beth and Kate—and he’s failed. Now solving the case is turning into an obsession . . .

Ope’s Opinion:  The story was good, if you could get through all details and the wandering off the who did it part.  Every time I thought we were getting closer to who committed the murder, the author wandered down another memory lane.  There was also a lot of repeating of facts and reminders of the first murder that happened years earlier.    

So if you are the kind of reader that reads fast or can skim past the unnecessary parts, this would be a good read for you.  The detective goes down a long road to find his answers.

The ending was strange – there were plenty of answers.  The  last few chapter were peculiar.