Continued enjoyment

I read two books this week. One was the sequel to the cozy mystery I reviewed in my last post. The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting, by Naomi Kuttner, would seem to follow one theme from the… Read More

A cozy assassin

I am a long-time mystery reader, but not in general a particular fan of the “cozy”—I tend to like my mysteries on the darker side. But I just read a charming and unexpectedly funny one that made me… Read More

Re-read break

I have three books on the holds list at Los Angeles Public Library for which I am #1 in line, so while I was waiting i decided to do some rereading, because every time I have books on… Read More

Grainger, cont’d

I have to date read two more of Peter Grainger’s mystery novels featuring DC Smith. Although the second in the series felt a little lackluster to me, being exceedingly low-key and petering out into a “solve” that everyone… Read More

New-to-me fantasy

Sorry for the long silence—I have been reading steadily, albeit slowly, but haven’t been able to sit up at the computer to post due to an illness that put me in hospital for five days and has taken… Read More

Re-reads

I got frustrated by the length of time I was having to wait for new library books and decided to do some rereading this week, since older books are easily obtainable. I chose the first book, The Good… Read More

What makes a mystery?

This is a question I have been pondering this week as I started reading Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders, a book that has been recommended over and over again by readers on the various Facebook reading groups to which… Read More

Best or worst?

It is almost unprecedented that contemporary romance writer Emily Henry would have a rating under 4.0 on Goodreads for one of her books, but Great Big Beautiful Life is scoring a 3.99. It is even more rare for… Read More

Cozy with nuance

I don’t remember who recommended this book to me; maybe I just read a review of it somewhere, or it popped up in my Kindle best buys or something. But probably someone told me about it because the… Read More

Still waiting

I finally picked up Michael Connelly’s latest, The Waiting, which features Detective Renée Ballard, backed up in one of the three plotlines by the retired Harry Bosch and in another by his daughter, Maddy, a fledgling police officer…. Read More