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.