Tag: book-reviews

Book Review: Murder Of The Coldest Kind

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Snow is an unfortunately predictable murder mystery written by John Banville. The story takes place in Ireland during the year of 1957. A young detective named St. John Strafford is the protagonist investigating a gruesome murder of a Catholic priest.

Detective Inspector Strafford is understandably perturbed by the murder and mutilation of a priest in a manor owned by the influential Osborne family. The case takes an even stranger turn when his deputy disappears. Strafford is told that the priest was popular in the community, but some very dark secrets are unearthed, and the victim may not be as virtuous as one would hope.

It’s an interesting setting. I have an automatic affection for stories that take place in Ireland. I just had a hard time staying interested in the plot, and Strafford doesn’t really draw me in. He seems kind of boring, honestly.

The motive for the murder is something would easily expect considering that it’s a Catholic priest who is the target. He was castrated, so it’s not hard to guess why the killer took that extra step.

Banville does have a nice prose style. He isn’t a terrible writer, but this particular novel may have just been the wrong one to introduce me to him.

My efforts to read new authors sometimes misfires, and Banville just didn’t do it for me.

Time to move to an old favorite of mine in the world of fictional detectives with Robert B. Parker’s Broken Trust, which is actually written by Mike Lupica, who has continued the Spenser series since Mr. Parker has been deceased for some time now.

Book Review: A Wounded Sheriff In Hiding Catches A Case

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Copper River is my first sampling of William Kent Krueger’s writing and is unlikely to be my last since I enjoyed this novel quite a bit.

Krueger has a protagonist named Cork O’Conner, a sheriff in Minnesota. O’Conner has apparently had quite a difficult time in the previous novels that I have yet to read. He starts off this story with a bullet in his leg and in hiding from a crime family who believe that he had killed one of their members. He ends up in Bodine, Michigan where he has a cousin that is able to meet some of his medical needs. The cousin, Jewell, is a widow with a young son, who is able to help with the bullet wound.

Cork’s investigative instincts awaken when a body is discovered in the river. A young girl has been murdered, and Cork needs some help when it appears that there is a conspiracy involving runaway teens. The killing doesn’t stop with one girl in the river. Cork has his own troubles and needs to get back to his wife and children, however he is not going to leave his cousin and her to face their threats without him.

Krueger is a pretty good writer and is not afraid to put his main character through the wringer. O’Conner is a typically pragmatic and likeable law enforcement officer. Of course, I am meeting this character in the middle of the series, but Krueger does a decent job of catching up the reader on events in the more recent novels without it seeming too clunky.

Apparently, Krueger also has some interest in Native American culture and history which he peppers in quite effectively.

Anyway, Krueger is a writer I am going to revisit in the not-too-distant future.

Next up, I haven’t read a Mickey Spillane novel in a while, but I do happen to have “Vengeance is Mine” in my stack of books on the dresser.

Book Review: Christmas Cheer And Trouble On Baker Street

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

What Child is This? is an adequate Sherlock Holmes novel written by Bonnie MacBird. It takes place during the Christmas season of 1890.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson foil an attempted kidnapping on the streets of London and are engaged by the mother to identify the would-be adductor. The father of the child has made his own arrangements for an investigation. Also, another case of a wayward son presents itself when an aristocrat shows up at Baker Street to enlist the assistance of the consulting detective. Holmes is engaged to ensure some peace for two families in time for Christmas, but he and Watson have to navigate some dangerous waters so they can find some contentment in the holiday as well.

Bonnie MacBird is one of the better writers to carry on the legacy created by the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but this is not one of the better ones in her series of Holmes novels. Holmes does display a certain compassion that can be overlooked in other pastiche works at times, so that is kind of a nice touch.

I just found myself less than enthralled by the cases Holmes was investigating. My interest was only mildly piqued from time to time.

There were some illustrations peppered throughout the book that were done by Frank Cho. I didn’t hate this entry into the series, but I was sort of just going through the motions in reading this.

I am still interested to see what MacBird’s next Holmes venture will contain. She is a talented writer, but she rather missed the mark with this particular release.

Now that is done, the next reading indulgence is going to be a visit to Copper River, where Sheriff Cork O’Conner, recovering from a gunshot wound, has involved himself in a very disturbing murder investigation that also involves abducted children. I have yet to read one of the thrillers by William Kent Krueger, but Copper River seems to be a promising introduction.

Book Review: Writing The Perfect Conspiracy

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill is an implausible, yet still enjoyable thriller dealing with new starts, eccentric families, and disturbing conspiracies.

Theodosia Benton is a young woman who has left law school and shows up on her brother’s doorstep with aspirations to be a writer. The Benton siblings are originally from Australia, but Gus Benton has established himself as a formidable attorney in Lawrence, Kansas. Theo begins her wiring project as she starts her new life under the care of her older brother. She meets a fellow writer, who takes on a mentor role in her life. When the relationship starts to develop into something more personal, the mentor is murdered quite brutally. Gus falls under suspicion, which forces Theo to take some drastic actions to protect her beloved brother. The more Gus and a good friend named Mac Etheridge start to uncover, they find that there may be a darker conspiracy at the root of their troubles.

Gentill takes her readers though quite a journey to arrive at the truth. Her characters were pretty interesting. The plot becomes a bit outlandish, but Gentill still makes it work. There are some interesting twists and surprises. I liked that there were some time jumps in this one. The story does not reach its resolution all that quickly for the characters.

Gentill has a writing style that flows pretty easily without seeming too boringly rudimentary. The characters are pretty likable and easy to care about. It seems that both Mac and the Bentons grew up with unconventional families. Mac’s family are conspiracy enthusiasts and doomsday preppers, yet it’s hard to not find them charming when comes onto the scene. Mac obviously loves his family but does find them somewhat exasperating.

Gentill does pepper some humor throughout her tale, but some serious revelations about the Bentons’ past comes to light.

Gentill seems capable throwing in some impressive twists which seems to be getting harder to do in this genre. I don’t know if she is the greatest mystery writer of the age right now, but she is certainly interesting enough for me to keep an eye out for her other works.

The Christmas holiday is behind us, but that’s no reason to avoid revisiting the Yuletide season during the 1890’s from the rooms of 221 B Baker Street, especially since Bonnie MacBird has continued her series of Sherlock Holmes novels with What Child is This?

Book Review: Even The Perfect Son Has Some Dangerous Secrets

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden is an interesting and competent thriller about how far a mother can go to protect her son even if she is not sure of his innocence of a horrific crime.

The Cass family seem to be a typical American family. The older son, Liam, is a popular, charming teen-ager, however the Erika Cass has picked up a strange distance in him. Liam may be a dangerous sociopath who is getting too old her his mother to control. When one of his classmates goes missing, Erika fears the worst, especially when the police show up on their door.

This has been a plot that has had a few iterations over the years. The seemingly perfect child who is more dangerous than he appears is kind of overused. McFadden is a competent writer though, so it’s no worse than anything else with this type of story.

It’s told in first person with most of the narration alternating between the mother and a classmate of Liam’s who has a pretty intense crush on him. It’s a pretty quick read, and McFadden does well with ratcheting up the tension throughout. Unfortunately, her plot twist isn’t that hard to predict, but it’s still a pretty good read for us thriller aficionados.

Vince Flynn was a novelist who died several years ago, but his creation Mitch Rapp lives on with the continued writing talents of Kyle Mills. Mills has moved on from the series since writing my next read, but Rapp is not going anywhere as another writer steps up to continue. I have one more Mills installment to read, and that would be Code Red.

Book Review: Spike Brings More Than An Umbrella

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Bad Weather Friend is one of Dean Koontz’s more bizarre additions to his bibliography, but it’s pretty entertaining and not without some creativity.

An amiable realtor named Benny Catspaw suddenly has his life come apart at the seams when he loses his job inexplicably. Even more troubling is when his fiancée ends their relationship. As Benny is trying to understand this onslaught of misfortune, he suddenly receives an unexpected message from a man claiming to be a previously unknown uncle. A crate is delivered which Benny later finds contains a giant of a man called Spike who says that he is a being who is assigned to people who are apparently too nice for this world. Benny also meets a waitress who is an aspiring private eye, and she is an enthusiastic ally. During the present-day adventure, Benny recalls his peculiar family history and his time at an unusual boarding school where he did have a couple of friends. Benny finds that he has been targeted by a powerful group, but he has a rather interesting being known as a craggle working on his behalf as well. Spike is sworn to keep Benny from the worst the world is able to throw at him and will employ some unusual and fantastic tactics to do just that.

Koontz remains an imaginative and witty author. This story is rather strange but pretty entertaining. Koontz is pretty skilled at the art of witty banter. The protagonists are likeable enough. Spike is a rather unique creation, but the story sort of loses some sense of suspense because he is pretty invulnerable.

The themes in this novel are little too familiar in Koontz’s works. Once again, it is someone with an ideal sense of morals and outlook on life. The villains that are revealed are a little too cartoonishly narcissistic to be really believable, but I suppose such people do exist. Koontz also is back into the realm of strange conspiracies and shadow organizations, which feels annoyingly repetitive.

Koontz does have a distinctive turn of phrase which keeps the story compelling. There are some pretty amusing passages throughout the novel.

Koontz does seem to be a literary one-trick pony sometimes, but this novel still is worth the time. I read a lot of Koontz in my younger years, and I don’t regret revisiting his prose this time in spite of mixed reactions to this particular novel.

The lifelong reading binge continues with C.J. Box’s Free Fire.

Book Review: Retirement Gives People Plenty of Free Time To Solve Murder Cases

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is an amusingly implausible mystery that may be a little overrated, but not by much.

A group of friends in an English retirement village meet on Thursdays to discuss and work on unsolved murders. When a developer is killed in their community, they get the opportunity to test their mettle in a current case. It’s a motley little group led by a woman named Elizabeth Best with a somewhat enigmatic past. A newcomer named Joyce gets invited to the group and seems to have the right kind of enthusiasm for these shenanigans. Interestingly enough, some of the chapters are Joyce’s diary entries, and the sudden changes in perspectives sort of work here. A couple of police officers become entangled with this unorthodox group as well.

Anyway, another murder adds to the mayhem, and the Thursday Murder Club have the chance to add some adventure into their retirement.

Osman creates a pretty good, diverse group of characters here. He doesn’t give too much away about the past of the four protagonists and manages to keep them interesting. Elizabeth is the determined, practical leader of this group and seems to have some unexpectedly useful connections. I don’t remember if her past was ever fully explained, and I kind of like that for some reason.

Older characters being in the lead solving crimes is not really a new idea in crime fiction, but Osman brings enough creative plotting and character development to be a welcome addition to the trope.

It is one of those books with chapters of widely varied lengths, which kind of makes the story seem a little too choppy. The shifting perspectives also threaten some distraction from the story, but Joyce Meadowcroft’s meandering diary entries were pretty funny.

The solution was a bit of a surprise but too far out of left field to be disappointing. I am not a big fan of stories like this being related in the present tense, but I am getting used to it being more common in today’s literature.

Overall, Osman is a welcome addition to the world of recent crime fiction, and I will likely peruse the other books in this series. If I ever end up in a retirement community, hopefully there will be a Thursday Murder Club I can join.

Next up, I will be returning to an old favorite author who I have not read for some time. I will allow author Dean Koontz to introduce me to The Bad Weather Friend.

Book Review: Myron Bolitar Is Welcomed Home By Murder

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Final Detail is a reliable and interesting mystery novel by prolific author, Harlan Coben, which features a sleuthing sports agent, Myron Bolitar.

Bolitar has been hanging out with a new lady friend on a Caribbean island when his best friend, Windsor Horne Lockwood III, tracks him down and informs him that his business partner has been arrested for the murder of a client. A baseball player who was attempting a comeback has been shot, and Myron’s other best friend is on the hook. Bolitar already has some practice with solving troubling crimes. Win, his wealthy and somewhat psychotic sidekick, is willing to assist as well with his usually morally questionable methods. Myron has to explore the past and figure out how a vanished daughter of the owner of the victim’s baseball team factors in.

I have read a few of Coben’s novels, but I had yet to meet Myron. I enjoyed this one. The plot was interesting, and there were a few effective twists. I thought Win was a bit of a scene stealer, but who doesn’t love a psychotic best friend who will break the rules that the hero won’t?

I thought Bolitar was pretty intriguing.as well. He surrounds himself with some eccentric cohorts. He is rather unlucky in love, but he does seem to be a decent guy with a nose for trouble.

This was a pretty enjoyable read, and I doubt that it will be very long before I am immersed in another Coben novel.

Time to welcome the Christmas season with a certain Belgian detective. Sophie Hannah has resurrected Agatha Christie’s most famous sleuth, and another murder needs to be addressed in Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night.

Book Review: Cormoran Strikes Again

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Silkworm is a decent continuation of the Cormoran Strike mystery series by Robert Galbraith, who is really J.K. Rowling. This is the second outing for the one-legged gumshoe.

Strike’s detective business has received a bump since his highly publicized murder case was solved in the debut novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling. One of his clients is a distraught wife who is wanting to find her husband who walked out of the house in a huff. The husband is moderately well-known novelist and was apparently planning to publish a novel which would be rather embarrassing for some of his associates. Strike eventually finds the writer after he has been eviscerated in an abandoned house. Suspicion falls on Strike’s client, which doesn’t sit well with the detective. Strike gets an up-close look at the publishing industry as he proceeds to uncover the truth.

Cormoran Strike is getting a little more interesting as the reader rides along on a new case. Strike also is contending with the news that his ex-girlfriend is getting married. He has a bit of an erratic psyche, but I am finding him more likeable, and he seems to be a sharp investigator. His new assistant, Robin, wants to learn more about investigating crimes, but she has a fiancée who is not quite on board with her current job.

The case itself is kind of interesting, but Galbreath seems to be indulging in a bit of overdone gruesomeness. The book in question that was written by the victim is pretty explicit and gross. I found the gorier aspects of the plot to be somewhat distracting.

The plot was pretty average, but it did the job as far as holding my attention. I think Galbraith’s strength lies in the creation of interesting protagonists. Some of Strike’s struggles with getting around on a prosthetic leg does make him rather unusual among fictional detectives.

The Silkworm isn’t likely to set the genre on fire with its greatness, but it’s not without any merit or interesting features. Galbraith is a talented writer, so I have some expectations that each novel gets better in this genre. I will see once I get to the next installment.

Time to delve into a newer author in both my book collection and the literary scene as a whole. Amiee Gibbs kicks off her novel writing career with The Carnivale of Curiosities.

Book Review: Lonesome Dove Isn’t For The Faint Of Heart

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Lonesome Dove is a western novel by Larry McMurtry that does often feel as long as it is, but it’s still easy to see why it has become so acclaimed. It was written by the now deceased author in 1985 and was the basis for one of the most highly regarded mini-series in television history.

Lonesome Dove is a name of a small Texas town, and the story takes place not long after the Civil War. Two former Texas Rangers have a cattle ranch together and are tasked with herding number of cows to Montana. Along the way, they encounter all kinds of dangers ranging from the wrath of nature to Indian attacks. A ruthless outlaw has caused a fair bit of trouble as well. Plenty of bullets and arrows are let loose on the journey, but grit and courage are displayed as well.

I have probably over-simplified the story because McMurtry delves into some pretty intense emotional journeys as well for all sorts of characters. The two Rangers are pretty fascinating, but McMurtry does not stay limited to their perspective. There is a sheriff from Arkansas who finds that his wife has run off while he was pursuing a fugitive. A former prostitute has joined one of the Ranger on the cattle drive. The reader is not quite sure which character is going to feature in the next chapter for a while.

Sometimes, the novel seems a little unfocused as various threads are laid out. It is almost 860 pages long, so it does drag at times, but I was still determined to get through it and was not disappointed.

McMurtry’s prose at times feels long-winded, but there is undeniable eloquence in his style. I didn’t mind the unpredictability as to which element of the story I was going to land as I progressed through the chapters.

The Rangers, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, were a fascinating pair and typical of the rugged, no-nonsense western archetypes of the genre. McMurtry displays a vivid and creative imagination when it comes to the threats the cowboys face on their long journey.

The title also has some metaphorical meeting which is explained in a foreword written by McMurtry, but I won’t spoil it. I still found it amusing that very little of the story actually takes place within the town the bears the name.

The story does suffer a little from being as long as it is, but it’s still a rewarding journey for the reader to take. I don’t usually read westerns, and I doubt that I will devour the genre as voraciously as I do when it comes to crime fiction, but I doubt this will be my last visit to the world of Larry McMurtry or to westerns.

Next up, private detective Cormoran Strike has a missing novelist to find in Robert Galbraith’s The Silkworm, and I am going along for the ride.