Mystery
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The first sign of trouble came disguised as gossip. Like a curl of smoke, it slipped through my bookshop’s half-open windows with meandering confidence, snaking its way through the Latin Quarter. When the rich and prominent Fournier, owner of the glamorous Maison Fournier department store in Paris, dies under very public circumstances right after having…
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Book 1 in the River Cruise Cozies series. Adelle is retired and bored, so when her friend asks her for help, she agrees to cover for her as a tour host for a small group of women going on a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam. She is looking forward to meeting new people, but…
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My January reading was dominated by great debut novels, from Tudor-era action in A Bastard’s Bosworth to delicious Japanese food in The Kamogawa Food Detectives, gothic Holmesian mystery in the early 1900s with Strange Beasts, a character-driven crime drama in Blood Between Us, colonialism and identity in A Memory Called Empire, strong women, representation and…
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“Fenway,” Nathaniel Ferris said, putting on his pontificating voice, “with me as your father, people are always going to think you’re in my pocket…” When Fenway Stevenson loses both her mother and her job, she reluctantly accepts her estranged father’s offer of an apartment and a temporary job as a coroner in Estancia, her old…
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Her mother had never visited Elkhorn Slough. And no one had ever been murdered there. But there was a first time for everything. Mother-daughter murder night, is what Beth and her mother Lana would call it when they would relax together, watching detective shows in bed all evening. Now Beth is living a quiet life…
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There was nothing safe; there were only gradations of exposure to danger. Mahit Dzmare is the newly appointed ambassador to the Teixcalaanli Empire. Coming from a small, independent mining Station, Mahit’s diplomatic mission is to try to ensure that the Empire allows the Station to continue to stay independent while still allowing for trade and travel…
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“I’m completely bewildered,” said Bundle. “Nothing is what it seems.” Young Gerry Wade is a heavy sleeper and always late for breakfast, much to the chagrin of his hostess, Lady Coote. One day his friends decide to play a prank on him by filling his bedroom with alarm clocks, but much to their shock, it…
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“Family secrets, a celebrity murder, a wrongful conviction, Hollywood drama. It’s got everything.” An intolerable celebrity actor goes missing, and DI Ryan Hale and his team get a taste of the drama of Hollywood productions with all its lies, deceit, backstabbing, and power plays. At the same time, Ryan is presented with new evidence concerning…
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Book 1 in the Harker & Moriarty series. A brilliant gothic fantasy horror mystery set in Paris in 1903. Samantha Harker, the daughter of Jonathan and Mina Harker, works for The Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. Originally a researcher, Sam is desperate to leave the library and be assigned as a field…
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Brother Cadfael is a series of 20 books by Ellis Peters (pen name of Edith Mary Pargeter) and a 1990s TV series of 4 seasons, following the life of the 12th century amateur sleuth and monk, Brother Cadfael. An immersive historical setting and a really interesting main character is what makes this series so appealing.…
Mostly Murders 