Review: LoveMurder (Valerie Hart, #2) by Saul Black

★★★★

Orion | 2017

Filed Under: Hannibal Lecter’s psychotic sister.

I’m not the religious type, but give me a book like this and I suddenly start worshiping the Gods of Literature. You know – Stephen King, Agatha Christie and… I don’t know, who else do you guys like? Ugh, whatever.

Six years ago Katherine Glass abducted, heinously tortured and killed young women all over San Francisco until Det. Valerie Hart caught her and put her away for life. *cue the sound of prison gates slamming shut*

But Katherine didn’t commit her crimes alone, and her partner — The Masked Man, who is probably even more deranged than Katherine — was never caught.

Now, the murders have started again. The Masked Man is back on his bullshit. Left with each body is an envelope addressed to Valerie containing complicated clues and ciphers that will point the police to the next victim. Figure out the puzzle fast enough, save a life. But only Katherine Glass has the personal insight to decode the Masked Man’s clues, forcing Valerie to work with a killer.

Katherine promises she only wants to help – she’s never forgiven the Masked Man for leaving her high and dry. She just wants time out of her cell, maybe some mental stimulation. But can Katherine really be trusted? (I mean, obviously, the answer is “probably not”, but let’s just go with it.)

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Review: Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

“People turned a blind eye, though, didn’t they? No one liked to think about the fact that the water in that river was infected with the blood and bile of persecuted women, unhappy women; they drank it every day.”

★★★½

Riverhead Books | 2017

Filed Under: Troublesome women for the win.

My favourite book of 2016 was The Girl on the Train. And yes, I know that’s such a cliché thing to say in starting this review. And it’s such a shit thing to do — to compare these novels. It’s not like I want to compare them. I’m trying really hard not to, but I read this novel because I wanted to consume The Girl on the Train in order to have it inside of me, I LOVED IT SO MUCH (shit movie though.)

So, honestly, I’m going to try to divorce myself as best I can from my previous experience with Paula Hawkins, and just focus on the merits of this novel as a standalone piece of fiction.

That said, I did like this. But I didn’t LOVE IT.

Quick synopsis: Small UK town. Nel Abbott is writing a novel about the many deaths in a local river nicknamed The Drowning Pool. Then Nel dies in The Drowning Pool. Was it suicide or murder?

“Beckford is not a suicide spot. Beckford is a place to get rid of troublesome women.”

I got off to a shaky start with this because of the sheer volume of characters and changing POVs. I think there are 10 different voices, as well as excerpts from Nel’s manuscript that are essentially quick POVs of each of the women who have died in The Drowning Pool. Bringing the grand total up to 14 voices (if I’ve not forgotten anyone.)

I settled in about 50% of the way through, finally getting a handle on whom each character was and why their POV was important. There wasn’t a single time I thought a character’s chapter was useless, but I still have to question whether there was a way to write this novel by cutting some of them out? Just to un-muddy the waters, no pun intended.

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Review: And The Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich

“Rotting in your skin, rotting in your mind. You are rotting in this house. In this house you’ll die.”

★★★★

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers | 2016

Filed Under: Stay out of the forest.

This book is a love story between sisters. It’s a love story about a boy who can’t love. It’s a story about a teenage girl trying to decide what decisions are best while carrying guilt and confusion and stumbling through her reality, unsure and uneasy.

But mostly it’s creepy AF.

Silla Daniels, and her mute sister Nori, arrive at their aunt’s decrepit mansion, La Baume, after having escaped their abusive father. They are looking for peace, for a place to call home, and they have pessimistic hopes that La Baume will be that for them.

But, you know, it’s not.

Because something is off. Their aunt is odd. The house makes noises that fill Silla with dread. And the woods surrounding the property seem to be moving closer to the house; woods where something dangerous lurks, something that won’t let them leave. Could it be the Creeper Man?

As the food supply runs dangerously low, Silla starts to lose her mind. Because at La Baume, nothing is what it seems.

“He’s out there,” I say, turning back to the window. “Always watching. Getting stronger.”

I read this on audio, and I have to say it’s probably the most interesting, engaging, well-done audiobook I’ve ever listened to. I almost felt like I was back in the days when there was no TV and families gathered around the radio to listen to shows. The narration was beautiful and bold, and the production value filled my ears with so much tangible setting that I felt like I was there, an unseen observer.

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Review: Lie to Me by J.T. Ellison

★★★

MIRA | 2017

Filed Under: People really be trying to get on an episode of Dateline instead of going to therapy.

“They built a life on lies.”

Okay, if you say so.

I was expecting a dark domestic noir thriller, and instead what I got were two assholes who married each other and could have avoided a lot of shit if they’d just, I don’t know, talked like people who got married for a reason.

Failing that, try therapy.

Their marriage issues were all tales as old as time. Nothing really shocking – He has a wandering eye. She can be cold and distant. They don’t communicate well. Sometimes they love each other, and sometimes they want to chuck plates at each other’s throats. Big deal, that’s marriage for a lot of people.

What’s not normal life for most of us, however, is the amount of money these two assholes have. Or the death of their child. Or the sinister events that engulf their lives very quickly.

Much of the mundane “crumbling marriage” tropes take place in an oversized, fantastical world of good looks, success, wealth and travel – extremes that are not realistic for the general population. So, somewhere between the banal issues of their marriage and the over-the-top baseline for their way of life, is where you will find me still deciding whether or not this book resonated with me.

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Review: UNSUB (UNSUB, #1) by Meg Gardiner

★★★★★

Dutton | 2017

Filed Under: I don’t reread books but I would reread this

I love Meg Gardiner. She is a favourite author of mine. Anything she writes I want to read. Anything she has to say about writing, I want to hear. She is a brilliant author with a talent for writing action-packed mysteries with perfectly placed twists.

UNSUB is, by far, my new favourite novel by her.

Hands down.

It takes elements from famous serial killers, both real and fictional, and boils it down into one epic, smart and intricate serial killer crime thriller.

Universe have mercy on my mystery-book nerd soul!

A quick synopsis: Caitlin is a cop. Her dad is a retired cop and he’s gone coo-coo for Cocopuffs after hunting a madman, The Prophet, 20 years ago and never catching him. Present-day, The Prophet is back, killing again in bloody crazy fashion and it’s Caitlin’s turn to stop him.

Obviously inspired by the Zodiac killer, this also takes elements from things like Se7en, Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Untraceable… and those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my stoned head, though I am sure there are more.

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Review: The Next Girl (DI Gina Harte, #1) by Carla Kovach

★★★

Bookouture | 2018

Filed Under: Prom Night Dumpster Baby

This was pretty enjoyable, I have to say. For a debut in a series, it hit mostly all the right notes. But, at the same time, it was missing aspects that I look for to really make a procedural more than just the typical.

The story boils down to an abandoned baby, a woman who’s been missing for four years (who is the mother of that baby), and one seasoned — but borderline PTSD — detective on the case.

You hear all of that and you think, yes gimme! It sounds like the perfect recipe.

But I’m left feeling a bit like Gordon Ramsay on Master Chef when someone brings up a beautiful looking dish and he tastes it and says: “It looks fantastic, but where’s the seasoning? Did you salt the fucking chicken?”

Carla Kovach forgot to salt the fucking chicken on this one.

It’s a minor mistake in the grand scheme of things, but it means something is off the whole time you’re eating.

I don’t know why I’m doing a food metaphor, honestly. I hate food metaphors. And I hate cooking.

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Review: The Lies They Tell by Gillian French

★★½

HarperTeen | 2018

Filed Under: Rich people getting lit (on fire)

I was really hoping this was going to be a sweaty, atmospheric summer thriller. But I only got one out of two from that list.

Depending on what’s important to you – the atmosphere or the thrills – you’re either going to love this or not.

Immediately upon starting this, I got a Revenge meets Gossip Girl meets Riverdale vibe. It’s got that “spoiled teens with no adult supervision in the Hamptons” thing going on.

It’s very rich versus poor. The pool owners and the pool cleaners. The Haves and the Have-nots.

The novel opens with a bang, so to speak, when the Haves suffer a tragedy the year prior – the Garrison estate goes up in flames, killing four members of the family. The only survivor is their teenage son, Tristan. The town is shaken, casting blame and suspicion on the members of the Have Nots, because of course the poor people want to kill the “elites.”

Right, ‘Murica?

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Review: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

★★½

Random House | 1966

Filed Under: How much bullshit in true crime is too much bullshit?

I have an ~~unhealthy obsession~~ totally normal interest in true crime. I love mystery-crime fiction. And I’m not comfortable just resting on my laurels and staying in the here-and-now. I want to know the history of the things I love. I want to develop an appreciation for those that came before and helped contribute to making these genres as accessible as they are, and as artistic as they’ve become.

I also want to be that girl who reads classic books and has a nighttime face routine and wakes up early to take her dog for a walk before making a fresh smoothie full of kale or cucumber or like, avocado toast. Whatever the healthy people are doing these days.

But if my reading experience with In Cold Blood has taught me anything it’s that I’m none of those things and classic books are boring as shit. I got out of bed this morning fifteen minutes before I needed to leave. And I don’t give a fuck.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic. I give a tiny baby of a fuck and not all classic books suck. #NotAllClassics.

Honestly, I’m super disappointed that I didn’t like this. I feel like I should have. It’s almost a rite of passage to read this book if you’re in the murderino scene. It’s so popular and has all those keywords on the cover – “spell-binding”, “masterpiece…”

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? This book is giving me an extensional crisis.

In Cold Blood was written over a period of seven years and published in 1966. It was not the first true-crime book ever written, but it is the first to bring the true-crime genre to mainstream culture. Capote created the blueprint. He’s a trailblazer.

And I didn’t like it?! I DIDN’T LIKE IT.

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Review: The Fifth To Die (A 4MK Thriller, #2) by J.D. Barker

“You can’t play God without being acquainted with the devil. “

★★★★½

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 2018

Filed Under: Mother Yod

This is what you have to know going into the 4MK series:

This story is a marathon, not a sprint.

And I’m not just talking about this particular book, number two in the series.

J.D. Barker has crafted a rich, intricate world full of robust, personality-driven characters and advanced storytelling meant for thicc-ass novels. You don’t get conclusions around here. There is no end until it ends.

It’s a train that never stops. It is always moving towards the next destination in this 4MK world where you’ll be given new threads and new clues and new revelations that put one more puzzle piece into the jumbled picture that is Anson Bishop and Detective Porter.

This series is detailed, not so much in the visual description, but in the depth of narrative and connections. They are flying all over the place, from past to present, from case to case. It could be too much for some readers’ tastes, but for me, I was filled with pure joy at how vast this puzzle really is.

And I don’t want to oversell this, but HOLY SHIT, YOU GUYS, IT’S THE GREATEST THING OUT THERE RIGHT NOW ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

…Yeah, that feels like the appropriate amount of cap locks.

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Review: Dark Game (DI Kelly Porter, #1) by Rachel Lynch

★★★

Canelo | 2018

Filed Under: Dan Abram’s Pecs

Welcome to another edition of Krystin Struggles To Write A Review For A Book That Was Just Okay!

These are my least favourite reviews to write. I think I’m a person who creatively operates best under strong swings on the emotional spectrum. I don’t know what that says about me psychologically, but I don’t want to either.

Writing a review for a book that didn’t get me fired up either way is kind of like being asked “how was your weekend?” by an expectant colleague and struggling to come up with an answer because all I did was lie around in my PJs mindlessly watching repeats of Live PD.

That Dan Abrams sure does like some tightly fit sweaters. And I am not complaining.

I don’t know, guys… Do you want to talk about this book or do you want to talk about Dan Abrams’ wardrobe? I’m leaning more towards the wardrobe. Blue is really his colour.