JK Rowling has written a wonderful mystery story. Cormoran Strike, private detective, amputee, and ex military police (but not Jack Reacher, don’t worry) is broke, has a temporary assistant he injured on her first day and didn’t even want, and is sleeping in his office having been thrown out by his girlfriend. The brother of a model who died in a fall from her balcony arrives to beg Strike to investigate her death, driven by a conviction very few share. Strike’s meticulous investigations, aided by […]
Should One Twist an Oft-Trod Twist?
Though I have not read or watched everything the Sherlock world has to offer, I am fond of smart people who are good at their job, so the consulting detective’s universe is interesting to me. Between those characters and enjoying Anthony Horowitz’s work on Foyle’s War, I wanted to like Moriarty a lot more than I did. Taking place shortly after Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty’s “deaths” at Reichenbach Falls, private detective Agent Frederick Chase arrives from New York and soon meets up with Scotland […]
I Wasn’t Charmed
I wanted to like this book, and there were moments of it that I enjoyed, but the sixty or so pages in between these precious paragraphs were enough for me to not recommend this book to any serious urban fantasy readers. The bones of a good story are there: a fairly congenial and funny protagonist, a supernatural world, a believable love interest, and a manageable cast of semi-interesting major characters. Where this book failed to capture my attention was in the protagonist’s narration and the […]
Oh Just Read The Damn Book Already
I didn’t want to like this book. I went into it planning how I was going to be apologetic in my review; I tried, but it just wasn’t my thing. I’d seen it pop up in my Amazon recs, on a few year end lists. I read the summary. I thought it was going to be “Mommy Lit,” those books about rich, white mommies who have problems with cheating husbands and thieving maids and out of control children. This just isn’t for me, I thought, buying the $3.99 […]
She’s Just a Little Old Lady; Who Cares if We Left the Keys in the Helicopter (Said No Terrorist Ever)
Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist (1997) I’ve loved Mrs. P from the beginning (14 books ago!), but I didn’t realize she was married and still having adventures until I picked up Innocent Tourist. Although a little formulaic (I’ve only read the early ones), they are about the most atypical spy hero imaginable. Picture a little old lady in New England who got tired of volunteering for local charities after her husband passed away. What does she do? She goes to the CIA and tells them she’s […]
A New Year, Same Old Crazy
(Several words of warning: There are very mild spoilers for the book down toward the end, but nothing an astute reader couldn’t figure out from the description and the genre.) I figured that, as it’s a whole new year and all, that it was time to pay a third visit to Lil Littlepage-Eller, Boris, and the rest of the free-form asylum also known as Crazy, VA. So far, the Lil & Boris series has been a nice series of comfort nibbles with inhabitants I’ve always described […]
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