Tag: book-reviews

Book Recommendation: Death Comes to Marlow

You may recall that a couple weeks ago I wrote about the Marlow Murder Club. It is very similar to the Thursday Night Murder Club books. I loved it. You can read about that here:

Book Recommendation: The Marlow Murder Club

I was glad to see that the second book in the series was also available in audiobook form and I checked it out immediately. It did not disappoint, even though I had an idea of how the murder was accomplished without knowing who the murderer was.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

It’s been an enjoyable and murder-free time for Judith, Suzie and Becks – AKA the Marlow Murder Club – since the events of last year. The most exciting thing on the horizon is the upcoming wedding of Marlow grandee, Sir Peter Bailey, to his nurse, Jenny Page. Sir Peter is having a party at his grand mansion on the river Thames the day before the wedding, and Judith and Co. are looking forward to a bit of free champagne.

But during the soiree, there’s a crash from inside the house, and when the Marlow Murder Club rush to investigate, they are shocked to find the groom-to-be crushed to death in his study.

The study was locked from the inside, so the police don’t consider the death suspicious. But Judith disagrees. As far as she’s concerned, Peter was murdered! And it’s up to the Marlow Murder Club to find the killer before he or she strikes again…

For a long time, I tried to steer away from some of the books that featured the same main character(s). Many years ago I read the Ben Kincaid series from William Bernhardt. I enjoyed the first couple, but then I felt like each book after consisted of recaps from the books before. It got old and I stopped reading them.

Lately, however, the series I have read with returning characters have been fantastic. Much like watching Columbo, Perry Mason, or Murder She Wrote, it is a joy to revisit these main characters. 

There was a point in the middle of the book where a piece of evidence is presented and I began to realize just how the murder was committed (in a sense). Despite that knowledge, I didn’t know who the killer/killers was/were. It was a satisfying ending and another great mystery.

The third book of this series was just released to bookstores and it is called “The Queen of Poisons.” I will be looking for that one soon!

Book Recommendation – Everyone On this Train is a Suspect

You may remember that I stumbled on Benjamin Stevenson’s Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone last year and I just loved it! You can find my review of it here:

Book Recommendation: Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone

I have been waiting a long time for the follow up sequel – Everyone on This Train is a Suspect. Thanks to the good folks at NetGalley and Mariner Books, I was able to read an advance copy of it. It did not disappoint.

The main character of the book is again Ernest Cunningham. In this sequel, he has had great success with his first book (Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone) and comes face to face with some authors who are, well, much better known than he is. Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Ernest Cunningham returns in a deliciously witty locked room (train) mystery.

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty: the debut writer (me!), the forensic science writer, the blockbuster writer, the legal thriller writer, the literary writer, and the psychological suspense writer.

But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime. Of course, we should also know how to commit one.

How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?

It is just as entertaining as the first book. Ernest will, as he did in the first book, keep you abreast of things that you need to know. He offers up hints as to what is coming, etc. That was one of the things that I loved about the first book.

We see a bit of insecurity in Ernest this time around. He is the newly successful writer who is now among all of these other writers and he feels that he really doesn’t belong. He feels that way because he really didn’t come up with the story he wrote, he just wrote down what he experienced. He didn’t actually come up with the plot. He feels these other authors are way above his level of writing.

Now, his publisher wants another book from him. We learn fairly quickly that he has – nothing. No idea, no story, no nothing! Well, that is until one of the authors is murdered. The events that unfold on the trip come together and wind up being this story.

Once again, I was guessing right up to the end. Benjamin Stevenson does such a wonderful job in keeping you guessing. I love that we get the thoughts of Ernest and how he speaks directly to the reader at times. How it all plays out and how it all comes together is like wrapping a Christmas present – everything falls into place and it is tied up with a nice ribbon on top. 

I loved it just as much or more than his first book. I truly hope that there might be another book in the future. I enjoyed this so much!

Thanks again to Net Galley and Mariner books for allowing me to read such a wonderful mystery!