It’s a bit weird coming to this book after reading the author’s excellent, bleak Nobody Walks. At about the halfway mark of Slow Horses, I felt an uneasy stirring of familiarity, much like I had upon reading Agatha Christie’s The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd after her excellent, bleak Endless Night. While the plot twist in …
Category: Mystery
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/02/09/slow-horses-slough-house-1-by-mick-herron/
Jan 08 2018
The Snowman (Harry Hole #7) by Jo Nesbø
Why, yes, I borrowed this in anticipation of the movie, and while I never got around to watching the latter (and likely never will,) I can safely say that it’s much smarter than those insipid trailers. Also, oddly, I kept picturing Daniel Craig as Harry Hole instead of Michael Fassbender, who is just too darn …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/01/08/the-snowman-harry-hole-7-by-jo-nesbo/
Dec 22 2017
Wrapping Up
Time for some short takes, to mostly clear the desk for the coming year. The Inexplicables by Cherie Priest. In the fourth of her five Clockwork Century novels, Priest takes a stab at telling her story mostly from the point of view of an unsympathetic narrator. Rector Sherman is an addict, hooked on the “sap,” …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/22/wrapping-up-2/
Dec 16 2017
The Frangipani Tree Mystery (Crown Colony #1) by Ovidia Yu
So, full disclaimer, Ovidia Yu sent me this herself as we’ve developed a quite friendly professional relationship. I super love her Aunty Lee mystery series, feeling it’s gone from strength to strength as the series progresses, so I was quite thrilled to receive the first in Ms Yu’s new series. The setting is terrific — …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/16/the-frangipani-tree-mystery-crown-colony-1-by-ovidia-yu/
Dec 06 2017
The Sinner by Petra Hammesfahr
Y’all that was messed up. I’m a fan of mysteries from way back and have read or watched nearly every type of depravity imaginable, and the reason why Cora Bender, innocuous middle-class housewife, slashes the throat of a stranger on a crowded beach still strikes me as fuuuuuuucked up, even as it is thoroughly convincing. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/06/the-sinner-by-petra-hammesfahr/
Nov 17 2017
The Daughter of Time (Inspector Grant #5) by Josephine Tey
The premise of this novel is so inherently flawed that the fact that it convinced me of Richard III’s innocence by the end is quite the achievement. Essentially a re-examining of the history of one of England’s most vilified regents, it begins because a bedridden Inspector Grant refuses to believe that such a “sensitive” face …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/17/the-daughter-of-time-inspector-grant-5-by-josephine-tey/
Nov 13 2017
Bonfire by Krysten Ritter
I don’t think it’s weird of me to have a girl crush on Krysten Ritter after reading this book, given how phenomenally talented she is in the fields I care most about professionally: acting and writing (I would be completely unsurprised if she was also terrific at waitressing and corporate training, but then I’m just …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/13/bonfire-by-krysten-ritter/
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/03/tom-sawyer-detective-by-mark-twain/
Oct 22 2017
Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #13) by Louise Penny
Another excellent installment in the Gamache series, tho certainly not the best. The format is very clever: it opens in a scorching midsummer, where an unnamed defendant is on trial for a murder committed the previous winter in Three Pines, Gamache’s beloved village home. Gamache is on the witness stand as the star witness for …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/22/glass-houses-chief-inspector-armand-gamache-13-by-louise-penny/
Oct 13 2017
Her Nightly Embrace (Ravi PI #1) by Adi Tantimedh
Okay, I love the idea of this book. And when I started reading it, it was just as charming as advertised (and who doesn’t need more Sendhil Ramamurthy in their lives?) The twists and turns are entertaining (with one very large exception that I’ll get to in a minute) and Adi Tantimedh’s inclusion of a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/13/her-nightly-embrace-ravi-pi-1-by-adi-tantimedh/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire