Reviews :: Book Genre :: Mystery
This archive contains links to all of the Mystery Book Reviews we've written over the years. Bet you can't guess how many we've done. Oh. Right. Well, if you've come here looking for something in that realm, you're in luck! We just happen to have more than a few suggestions lying around the place waiting for your perusal.
If you're looking for something else, say a book in another genre or maybe just any book that we happened to think was awesome-sauce, browse around the site for a bit and check out our reviews.
Just don't forget to let us know what you thought of a book you've read or if there's a suggestion you have for something we'd like to read! We're always looking for something else to pull us in and keep us guessing until the bitter end.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
From the very first chapter, you realize that any notions you may have about this being a standard mystery story are going to be turned on their heads. Our main character wakes up in the middle of the woods with amnesia, and believes that he hears a murder being committed. From that point on, we are plunged into a story that unfolds piece by piece from the POV of seven characters–who are actually one character. His name is Aiden Bishop and he wakes up in the body of seven different guests at Blackheath Manor each morning, and he has one day to solve the mystery of the death of Evelyn Hardcastle.
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Vallista
VALLISTA is a weird story, and Vlad Taltos, Steven Brust’s long running, on-the-run ex-gangster fantasy series, embodies the series’ increasing strangeness. The novel focuses predominantly on everyone’s favorite time and worlds-travelling stealth hi-byer, Devera. While Devara drags her Uncle Vlad into a search to help her escape her predicament (it makes sense as you read), Vlad soon finds himself in a strange manor where rooms lead nowhere, the patrons and denizens are a lot of miserable secrets and wretched histories, and a monster stalks the halls. The House itself, which is alive and delightfully a character with its own soul and history, takes the center stage.Read the rest of this review »
The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss
Our heroine’s life is currently a sad state of affairs. She’s been unemployed for a year, living off the generosity of a roommate who doesn’t demand rent. Her boyfriend cheated on her with his dental hygenist. And now Dahlia’s bank account is so depleted she’s even considering accepting a job as a private detective–and is hired to discover who stole the Bejeweld Spear of Infinite Piercing from an MMORPG character’s account.
It sounds like an easy $2000. A fool and his money are easily parted and all that. Alas, it doesn’t turn out so simply, especially when said fool Jonah turns up dead.
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Fear City
Now that it’s all done, I’m going to share a little secret. When it was announced that F. Paul Wilson was going to do a prequel trilogy for his Repairman Jack series, I was super excited. More Jack is always awesome. But I was also a bit nervous. Prequels are tricky. They have a bad habit of diminishing the overall series. Thankfully, all that worry that I kept hidden inside was all rendered pointless. FEAR CITY (Amazon), the final novel in the Repairman Jack: The Early Years Trilogy, is terrific.
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Edge of Dark Water
I’ve been on a bit of a Joe Lansdale kick lately. He’s become one of my favorite short story authors, and I am continually impressed by how easily he seems to transition between short and long fiction. You’ll recall that I loved his novel THE THICKET (EBR Review), and once I finished it I immediately purchased a copy of his prior novel, EDGE OF DARK WATER (Amazon).
I loved it.
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Cold City
Do you know Repairman Jack? If you don’t, you’ve been missing out on a terrific series of books by F. Paul Wilson. The Repairman Jack series has, over the years, grown into one of my favorite series. It has a near perfect mix of horror and thriller elements while managing to inject humor here and there.
Through the series, I’ve always had questions in my mind about Jack. I know what happened to his mom (and his reaction to it), but what did he do after? How did he meet Julio and Abe? What events forged him into the man we meet in THE TOMB? (Amazon)
Those questions start to be answered in COLD CITY.
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Gone Girl
I don’t often read outside of my comfort zone. I love Science Fiction and I love Fantasy and not much else holds my interest. Every once and a while though I’ll take a risk and venture outside my safety bubble. GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn (Amazon) was recommended to me with infectious enthusiasm. It wasn’t my usual cup of tea, but the premise was perplexing and so I decided to give it a shot. WOW, I am so glad I did not let this one pass me by.
On the morning of Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary she goes missing. As the investigation gets rolling evidence leads the police and the public to suspect the obvious: it’s always the husband. There is more to the story than Nick Dunne will let on but does that necessarily mean he is to blame for the disappearance of his wife?
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Dark Jenny
Important disclosure: this book was completely not for me. At the same time though, I think that there are a bunch of people that will really like the thing. Let’s make this clear though: I’m not one of them.
DARK JENNY (Amazon) is the third Eddie Lacrosse novel by author Alex Bledsoe. I haven’t read any of the other novels in the series prior to this, but I don’t think I suffered because of that. This time is told as a frame story about something that happened a while ago in Mr. Lacrosse’s life, dealing with the history of Great Britain… erm… Grand Bruan.
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Changeless
As much as it pains us, because we love Gail Carriger, we were a bit disappointed when we finished CHANGELESS (Amazon), book two in The Parasol Protectorate. It’s possible most of what we didn’t like about CHANGELESS comes from a comparison to SOULLESS (EBR Review). It just didn’t match our expectations following her excellent first effort.
You see, all the cute things that worked FOR Gail in Book 1 (SOULLESS), started to work against her here in CHANGELESS. We thought the plot basis in Book 2 was much more interesting than the first book, but it was slowed waaaaay down by the dialog and interchange between characters. This led to the great idea for the story feeling unfocused.
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Neuropath
Sometimes, no matter how much you like an author, their latest book ends up being a disappointment. NEUROPATH by R. Scott Bakker (Amazon), fit that description for us. As you all well know, we love his Prince of Nothing series. NEUROPATH is Bakker’s attempt to put his spin on the thriller genre.
It is evident within the first 20 pages (probably less to most people) that Neuropath is written with a very strong bias and moral (if there is such a thing… dun dun DUN) bent. This book, while a mystery/thriller, is not the typical fare in the genre. There are lengthy discourses about free will vs. determinism, what free-will is exactly, identity issues, and the possibilities of contemporary neuroscience.
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