Delightful. It’s a bit as if Mick Herron’s superlative Slow Horses were instead a group of washout French cops, though with a far less bleak outlook on life. Commissaire Anne Capestan is in charge. She’s a highly competent, seemingly level-headed professional who has, unfortunately, a tendency to go homicidal when faced with criminal cruelty. Returning …
Tag: Mystery
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/03/21/the-awkward-squad-by-sophie-henaff/
Mar 06 2019
An Interview with Fran Dorricott, author of After The Eclipse
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did After The Eclipse evolve? A. I first had the idea for After the Eclipse during the 2015 solar eclipse. It started off as a flash of inspiration – what if something bad happened right …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/03/06/an-interview-with-fran-dorricott-author-of-after-the-eclipse/
Mar 05 2019
After the Eclipse by Fran Dorricott
Cassie Warren is a hot mess, and for pretty good reason. Now entering her third decade of life, she’s recently lost her job as a journalist as well as her relationship and flat in London, and come back to Bishop’s Green, a town that fully capitalizes off the mysticism of its surrounds, to look after …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/03/05/after-the-eclipse-by-fran-dorricott/
Feb 26 2019
Last Night (The Searchers #2) by Karen Ellis
This starts out as a stunningly impressive display of teenage emotion, bringing together three kids — Crisp, the biracial overachiever; Glynnie, the privileged white wild child, and JJ, the street kid doing whatever it takes to survive — on a night of reckless camaraderie that turns into a really bad time when adult criminals get …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/02/26/last-night-the-searchers-2-by-karen-ellis/
Feb 25 2019
All the World’s a Stage by Boris Akunin
For a number of years, I was worried that Boris Akunin’s English-language publishers (the estimable Weidenfeld & Nicolson) had despaired of finding an audience for the Russian mystery writer’s work, and I would have to read the remaining stories in German and miss out on Andrew Bromfield’s witty translations, or really really really improve my …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/02/25/all-the-worlds-a-stage-by-boris-akunin/
Feb 22 2019
A Map of the Dark (The Searchers #1) by Karen Ellis
Insofar as flawed protagonists go, this was a surprisingly satisfying novel. At “only” 290 pages, it isn’t a dense novel, which works in its favor, honestly, as it keeps the plot moving. I can’t help but compare and prefer it to Tana French’s mystifyingly overrated Dublin Murder Squad series. Sure Ms French has moments of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/02/22/a-map-of-the-dark-the-searchers-1-by-karen-ellis/
Feb 14 2019
The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2) by Maureen Johnson
In book two of the Truly Devious series, Stevie’s return to Ellingham Academy comes at a price. Her benefactor, the abhorrent politician Edward King whom her parents idolize, wants her back at the school in order to keep an eye on his wayward son, noting that her relationship with his kid seems to calm the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/02/14/the-vanishing-stair-truly-devious-2-by-maureen-johnson/
Jan 29 2019
The Dead Queens Club by Hannah Capin
The sordid tale of King Henry VIII and his six wives is probably the one most well-known to those with even only a passing interest in English history. As an Anglophile myself, I grew up reading Antonia Fraser’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII alongside other titles more obscure on the topic, and heartily enjoyed …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/01/29/the-dead-queens-club-by-hannah-capin/
Jan 05 2019
Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl
I absolutely adored Marisha Pessl’s debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and was one of many fans disappointed and confused by her follow-up, Night Film (tho the multimedia aspect of that novel was really, really nice.) So I put her third novel, Neverworld Wake, on my to-read pile but didn’t feel any burning need …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/01/05/neverworld-wake-by-marisha-pessl/
Dec 23 2018
Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton
Shamefully, I have never read The Talented Mr Ripley, electing instead to read the Wiki page to see how much symmetry there is between that classic and this novel that does not pretend not to be very much inspired by that earlier book (in my defense, there are only so many hours in the day, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/23/social-creature-by-tara-isabella-burton/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire