Eeny Meeny is a serial killer novel, but not an ordinary one. The killer is kidnapping pairs of people and one must kill the other in order to be released.  It reminds me of the Saw movies. How far will you go to survive? Will you kill?  Are surviving and living the same thing? 

The killer is playing a game with the police, a game that's twisted, dark, and smart. DI Helen Grace is smart and dark, too - but that isn't helping the victims. A strong, well-respected team leader, juggling an increasingly horrific case and problems within her team, Helen has to face her own issues if she wants to come out of this alive and on top. 

Character development, pacing, action, creativity of plot - everything was there and top-notch. Why can't I give this 5 stars? Because the structure of the novel was at time a barrier I struggled to cross. I don't  mind multiple POVs in a novel. I do mind when the POV switches mid-paragraph.  Or the POV changes in the middle of a scene, then after a short paragraph switches back to the original POV/scene. This happened throughout the novel. It was intrusive enough, and at times so difficult to decipher, that if not for the great plot I would have given up less than 10% into the book. 

I strongly suggest re-editing this book, as it takes a strong 4.5 star book down to a weak 3. I suspect no small number of readers would give up on this book early in  due to the structural and formatting issues. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Berkley NAL/Signet Romance, DAW for the opportunity to read this book for free inexchange for an honest review.

Hayes' New Series Starts Out Strong!

Until You're Mine is the first novel in a new British crime series from Samantha Hayes, and an excellent psychological thriller.  I was drawn in from the very first page, and its twists and turns kept me enthralled til the end. 

Claudia is pregnant, stepmother to twin boys, and her Navy husband James is away more than he's at home. She also loves her job, investigating homes for signs of child abuse or neglect - sometimes removing children from the homes when the situation is bad enough. Luckily, the family is able to afford a live-in nanny. James first wife came from money, and when she died he was left the house and her share of the family fortune.

Enter Zoe - on the face of it she's the perfect nanny. My first impression is that she's barking mad. And when someone starts attacking pregnant women, slicing them open and attempting to remove their babies, I was afraid for Claudia. 

DCI Lorraine Fisher has never seen anything as horrific as this series of murders. There are very few clues, and they seem to run  the police round in circles. Add on to that the stress of being partnered with her husband, whose infidelity she's still trying to come to turns with. 

The story is revealed through multiple POVs but is clear and very understandable. Strong characters, and quite believable. Even as the big reveal was unfolding, I wasn't certain who the murderer would be. Of course I had my suspicions, but the layers of the story were so well put down that I could never be sure. 

This novel is especially scary because we all place ourselves in situations that make us vulnerable, necessarily if we have young children. The only time I questioned the plausibility of any part is the partnership of the two married detectives. I don't believe for a moment that any department would allow a married couple to work in the same division, as partners, with one technically the others supervisor. No way. But I don't know much about English police so maybe that can and does happen. Still seems unlikely. However, DCI Fisher's personal storyline doesn't detract from the mystery in any way.

Until You're Mine has the best last line I've ever read. I strongly recommend. 

The second novel in the DCI Lorraine Fisher series, What You Left Behind, is due out April 14, 2015. 

Thank you NetGalley and Crown Publishing for a free copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Thomas De Quincey is Back!

4 of 5 stars

I'm always excited when some of my favorite things are brought together: Victorian London, murder and conspiracy, Scotland Yard, sexy red-headed Irishmen, and women pushing societal boundaries. Granted, all these things were in the first Thomas De Quincey book and the mystery was better, but this one is still a strong 4 stars. 

We first met Thomas De Quincey, aka The Opium-Eater, in Murder as a Fine Art. The series is based on the life of an actual person. Fictional elements are blended with real-life events and people for the highest level of authenticity. I'm not a scholar of the era, but I've been knocked right out of the story in novels where fact and fiction clash. This never happens in this series. 

Just as they're leaving London, opium addict De Quincey and his daughter/caretaker Emily are drawn into yet another series of murders setting London and the Yard on their ears. It's important to note that De Quincey is not an ersatz Sherlock Holmes and Emily his Watson.  Although Holmes and De Quincey both see the world from a perspective most of us never attain, they are standing across from one another rather than side by side.

I'm giving very limited plot details: the murder victims are aristocrats, and there are hints at a conspiracy that may place Queen Victoria in danger. 

Although second in a series, there's no reason this book can't be read as a standalone.  Any required character history is given by the author in the forward. 

I highly recommend!

Disappointing New Release from Anne Perry

2 of 5 stars

My reading history with Anne Perry is limited to the first five William Monk books and the first book in the Charlotte & Thomas Pitt series, so I had no experience with her recent output prior to reading this novel. I love the books I've read previously. Unfortunately, this novel does not meet my expectations from her.

The premise is an interesting one. A prominent young British woman starts life anew in Spain after rejecting an advantageous marriage proposal. After marrying a Spaniard, she experiences a religious transformation and picks up a group of followers. A decade later, 'Saint Sofia' has come to London under serious threat, ostensibly to bring her new religion to the British masses.

Harlan Coben's latest stand alone is a winner!

4 of 5 stars

Adam Price has a great life in suburban new Jersey. Beautiful wife Corinne and two active boys, lovely house, involved in his community. Then The Stranger approaches, and in a few short words he rips Adam's life into pieces. 
    
The Stranger is an excellent stand alone psychological thriller. Not only was it interesting and suspenseful, but it prompted me to examine the nature of secrets. Are they dangerous in and of themselves, or is the danger in the lengths we go to in order to keep them? Is the fallout after they're revealed the greatest danger of all?


There are multiple  twists and turns, expected and unexpected. Some plot points require a bit more suspension of disbelief than others, but are not so implausible that tension is broken. I was kept guessing about multiple things until nearly the end, and even then I wasn't sure exactly how it would play out. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Weight of Blood from Laura McHugh

4 of 5 stars

A young teenaged girl disappears from a rural Ozark community and is hardly missed until her body turns up in pieces, lodged in the branches of a fallen tree on the river bank across from Henbane's local store. The murdered girl was Lucy's neighbor, and her disappearance a year earlier struck a chord with the young girl whose own mother disappeared 15 years ago just as mysteriously. 

Are these disappearances as connected as the ties that bind the people of Henbane? Lucy thinks so, and her exploration takes her on a dangerous journey. She'll find out what happened to them both, and discover in the process that nothing is as it seems.

Review: Darkside

Darkside by Belinda Bauer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Published December 2010


Belinda Bauer's second volume in The Exmoor Trilogy is a psychological thriller even better than the first.

Four years after the events in Blacklands, Shipcott is shaken by the murder of an elderly invalid in her own home. Local constable Jonas Holly is pushed out of the investigation early on as DCI Marvel and his crack CID team arrive to take over.

Holly, whose wife Lucy suffers from advanced MS and needs his help, should be relieved. He is not, as he soon starts receiving intimidating notes, increasingly threatening, and is compelled to assert and insert himself in order to protect the village.

Review: Flesh and Blood

Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



After giving Cornwell's most recent Scarpetta novel a dismal one star, I must be thoroughly impressed with this one as I've rated it three stars. Not so, but I do believe it's at least three times more likeable than the awful Dust.

The novel begins with the most important thing, Scarpetta rhapsodizing over the wondrous Benton and cooking him breakfast. Cornwell spends so much time on this that I thought it was of vital interest to the plot. I can't remember exactly what it was despite having read it only yesterday, but I'm sure it was something Italian and complicated and made with ingredients that you and I only see in Ina Garten's kitchen. (I always imagine Scarpetta using exaggerated Italian in these passage, much like Giada de Laurentiis makes 'spaghetti' sound like she's scolding her dog).

Scarpetta finds seven bright and shiny pennies, all with the same date, lined up perfectly on her back wall. These pennies will slowly but surely connect themselves to the murder that cancels Kay's and Benton's Miami vacation.

It's a day of no coincidences. Seemingly random victims are connected to Kay, and it appears that the cyber crimes she and her inner circle have been experiencing for the past few months are connected as well. Who could be doing this, and what is the ultimate goal? Who could hate them all this much?

Review: Blacklands

, Mysteries

Blacklands by Belinda Bauer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Twelve year old Steven is obsessed with digging holes in the moor. He's been digging for three years now, because eighteen years ago his uncle Billy disappeared on the way home from the shops and his body has never been found. Billy's little boy room is still as he left it, a forbidden shrine to a life cut short. Arnold Avery confessed to the murder of six children whose bodies he buried on the moor, but Billy Peters wasn't one of the six. It's as if he vanished into thin air, with only his room to show he ever existed at all...

Review: Snow Angels

Snow Angels by James Thompson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Although it's only 265 pages, this novel is packed full of everything I like in my noir. It's got graphic violence, great dialogue, a few red herrings, and a setting that is as much a part of the story as Inspector Kari Vaara. I don't want to go into any detail about the plot. It's tight, and the book starts with a bang.

James Thompson really made Finland come alive to me, and that was a critical part of the story. By the end of the book, I believed anything was possible during the Dark Season in Lapland; round the clock darkness and sub-zero temperatures would certainly make me crazy. The setting somehow managed to feel desolate, despite being a tourist town. I didn't just feel the cold, I could smell the cold.

Thompson's characters are very rich. If there was anyone for whom I didn't have any feelings, it would have to be his wife. She's the only character that felt flat to me, but perhaps I just didn't connect with her.

It's not impossible to guess the identity of the killer, but this book is about a lot more than just whodunnit. He sets up the foundation for the series in the book as well.

With James Thompson's premature death last year leaving us with so few of his novels, I'll have to pace myself carefully. No marathon reading session of the four Kari Vaara novels.



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Review: The Chessmen

The Chessmen by Peter May

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The Chessmen is the third novel in the Lewis Trilogy, and I strongly advise reading the books in order. This is especially important in this trilogy because the books are at least equal parts back stories and front stories and really really back stories and central mystery. Some of the importance of what is revealed about MC Fin Macleod (and others)just won't carry the same weight if you don't know the history.

If you've read the first two, you already know that there's never just one crime or mystery. And on the Isle of Lewis, everyone is connected to everyone else in some way. Peter May doesn't tell a linear story here. He starts with the discovery of a murder, rewinds to a couple of days earlier, then puts in an entirely new tape to tell the high school/uni stories.

I don't normally have a difficult time with all the time jumping, but I already struggle with the Gaelic words. There is a pronunciation guide in the back of the book, but I'm on my third book now and I can only remember that 'Dubh' is pronounced 'Doo'. I have to look up any words that I can't pronounce or don't know. Always have. So that slows me down a bit and makes keeping track of the two present/near-present timelines more difficult.

May's mysteries have a lot of parts and pieces but aren't difficult to figure out. The complexity of his characters and relationships is what draws me to his books. Although I didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous two, that may be due to my own deficits and not the novel's.



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Review: A Fine Summer's Day

A Fine Summer's Day by Charles Todd

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Somewhere in this house there's a copy of A Long Shadow, the 8th Inspector Ian Rutledge novel, 1/3 finished but probably missing its bookmark. I took a detour into Scotland, and I've since been reading a lot of Tartan Noir. It's great to be back in London, though, and being a little behind in the series is perfectly fine as A Fine Summer's Day is a prequel.

I've had a lot of questions about pre-war Rutledge, mostly centered around Jean. Did he believe she truly loved him? Did she love him? Did he only think he loved her, and the pain of the betrayal is worse than the loss of her companionship? I don't wonder how he could love a woman so shallow, as Ian seems to fall for women easily. As naturally suspicious as he is of everyone, he's entirely too trusting of attractive women.

I won't reveal any details about Ian and Jean and their engagement. The book is predominantly a mystery, a very good one, and the moments spent on Ian's personal life are precious. So too, are the appearances of friends whose names you'll recognize. Some will die in the war, but in this novel they're all untouched by grief and loss with the exception of Ian and Frances. Their parents' deaths are relatively recent, and the pain of it is still sharp.

This book is for those die-hard Rutledge fans as well as historical mystery fans entirely unfamiliar with this series and its characters.  Rutledge's last mystery before he leaves for the war takes him all over England, and 30 years into the past. It's a fascinating parallel to what this novel is accomplishing by taking us back into Ian's past, though it leaves it for us to see the impact of those pre-war relationships on the post-war detective.

Highly recommend for followers of the series and newcomers alike, but it will be more appreciated by those with a connection to Ian Rutledge already.



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