Review: Someone We Know

Someone We Know by Shari Lapena
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very good read. A woman is missing. She told her husband that she was going for a weekend of shopping with her friend, but on Monday she hadn't returned. The plot thickens when we discover that she was working as a temp and had a few different "gentleman" friends.

Some of her gentleman friends were husbands of her neighbours, who also had teenaged boys. When her car is found in a lake and her body in the trunk, the search starts for her killer. But there does seem that quite a few people had reason to want her to disappear.

Some surprises kept me reading this very interesting story.

Review: The Giver of Stars

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A very enjoyable read. Alice, an English woman meets an American named Bennet who is travelling with his father and they fall in love and marry, very quickly. Alice returns to the US, Kentucky, with Bennet and his father but very soon she becomes disenchanted with life as a lady in Kentucky. As well, her marriage is not going as she had hoped.

As an aside, an historical event that was started by Eleanor Roosevelt was taking place in the Kentucky hills. A mobile library, women had routes to follow to take books to the isolated farms and homesteads. It was a wonderful undertaking and so appreciated by most of the inhabitants.

It is so good when as well as being an enjoyable story, a book can tell you things that you previously had no knowledge of.

A great read.

Review: Eight Perfect Murders

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely loved this book. It was the type that had a flow that you wanted to just keep pushing forward. Even the end game was a surprise, although maybe not for everyone, I was certainly quite taken back by it.

Ages ago, Malcolm Kershaw, a bookshop owner, was doing a blog for the shop he worked in and he compiled a list of the eight murders in novels that were what he classed as perfect, unsolveable, murders. The list contained a very interesting array of books including a Ruth Rendell and Agatha Christie.

Now, years later, it appears that someone is using his list and the methods of murder to kill people, or possibly test the list. Malcolm is surprised when he gets a call from an FBI agent who has questions for him regarding his list from the past.

An excellent read.

Review: Heart of a Killer

Heart of a Killer by David Rosenfelt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great story, kept me turning pages and guessing.

I love his Andy Carpenter series, a lawyer with the Golden Retriever, Tara, & I have to give Rosenfelt a lot of credit for running a dog rescue operation while writing crime novels. This might be the best book I've listened to by him, a stand alone.

The main character is a rather lazy, directionless, dissatisfied lawyer, a drone. There are two main threads; a woman who wants to donate her heart to her daughter & a computer terrorist wreaking havoc. Both are very believable, give plenty of food for thought, & come with ready-made twists.

Donating your heart is suicidal, but so is jumping on a grenade & both are heroic. Yet the first is illegal, while the second is not only legal, but praiseworthy. Our hero must solve this dilemma among other things.

With all this going on, the book could have bogged down, but it never did. The characters all popped & moved it along to a conclusion. I won't say more about that, but the journey is a lot of fun.

Review: The Secret Letter

The Secret Letter by Kerry Barrett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Two interlinked storied make up this book and they are perfect companions for each other. Esther in 1910 is fighting for women’s rights after being left in poor circumstances due to her father’s’ death and gambling problems.In 2019 teacher Lizzie needs to begin again after being unwittingly implicated in her ex-husband’s less than ethical dealings. Both women need grit and determination to solve their problems and build a life worth living. I was cheering on the sidelines with this one and can’t wait to read more from this author.

Review: On Borrowed Time

On Borrowed Time by David Rosenfelt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I almost stopped reading On Borrowed Time soon after the accident and mysterious disappearance of the main character, Richard's fiancee, Jennifer. It just seemed like such a trope. But, I really like David Rosenfelt and he has never let me down yet so I continued. The story had enough twists and turns to keep me guessing and I liked the added angle of the newspaper investigation - mixing the personal with the professional points of view. Though it was not my favorite of his books, I would still recommend On Borrowed Time - or any other book by David Rosenfelt.

Review: Pardonable Lies

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really like the idea of a young woman setting up an investigative agency in the 1930s and Maisie Dobbs is becoming more independent and confident as she sets about her cases. She is asked by the police to help them interview a young girl accused of murder and sets out to investigate her guilt or innocence. At the same time she is approached by an eminent KC who promised his wife on her death bed that he would confirm that their son, a pilot, was killed in the war. His wife had never accepted that their son had died and had her beliefs supported by several psychics. Maisie must return to France and face her own past as a nurse in the war, as she investigates the fate of the young pilot.

An excellent read and the third in this series. Can't wait for more.

Review: The Alice Network

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Enthralling, captivating and breathtaking, The Alice Network is all I love in a historical fiction novel – and more.

1915 and Eve Gardiner was desperate to be involved in the war effort, but because of a stutter, she was refused – filing was all she was good for apparently. Until Captain Cecil Aylmer Cameron came into her life. Eve was trained at Folkestone to be a spy – to join the Alice Network in France and deliver the many German secrets which would help to win the war. Alongside Lili; invisible, ghostly “Queen of Spies”, and Violette, the three of them created havoc among the Germans – risking their lives on a daily basis.

In 1947, Charlie St. Clair was travelling on a cruise ship from New York with her mother, destined for Switzerland. Their stop off in England allowed Charlie to clutch her courage in both hands and leave the hotel – her destination an address in London, and a person she didn’t know. But this person was the only link to Charlie’s beloved cousin Rose who had gone missing from France during WWII. Charlie was determined to find Rose, and equally determined not to believe she was dead, as her parents had told her.

When Charlie knocked on that London door, and Eve Gardiner opened it, their lives were both destined to change. What followed was a search to find answers, both for Charlie and for Eve. And heartbreak, courage and retribution kept them company along the way…

The Alice Network blends fact with fiction – the Author’s Note is a fascinating one, and covers little known facts about the courage and resourcefulness of those women who bettered the brutal Germans every day. Author Kate Quinn has done a masterful job in creating a fictional story of one of the war’s most spectacularly successful spy rings. Poignant and utterly intriguing, The Alice Network is one I highly recommend. 

Review: Dachshund Through the Snow

Dachshund Through the Snow by David Rosenfelt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In this installment Laurie, Andy's wife and also an investigator, loves Christmas and starts her celebrating early. Even as Thanksgiving is not over, Laurie is already planning for Christmas, carols and all. The local pet store has a Christmas tree and instead of ornaments they have wishes from people. One little boy has asked for a coat for his mother, a sweater for his dog and to bring his father home.

Well, Laurie can't let this one go and before long Andy is also involved.

An excellent read.

Review: Open and Shut

Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What an excellent read and so happy that I found this series. And, best of all, there are quite a few in the series to look forward to.

This is the first of the series, but unfortunately I will probably have to read them out of order, but it will be a feast anyway. The first in the series caught my eye because of the golden retriever. We lost our lovely golden a couple of years ago and we have Buddy now. But Rusty is still a big miss.

The story involves a favour that Andy's father asked of him just before he died. They were both lawyers and his father had been a prosecutor. He wanted Andy to try to get a case appealed where the man was on death row for murder. He didn't tell Andy why he wanted this, but just asked him to do it.

After Andy's father died, Andy discovered things about his dad that may, or may not have been about the case in question.

A very enjoyable read.