Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The only way I can put it is that we recognized, too surely even for surprise, that we shared the same currency.”

In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad #1) by Tana French

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I can see in this book where everything I loved about The Searcher got its start. However, I am not sad to no longer be in the minds’ eye of Detective Rob Ryan. The narration of In the Woods is entirely in first person, he is telling the reader the story as it happened from somewhere in the near future. He opens the book by announcing that he is an unreliable narrator. It is both true and not, depending on how you define that style […]

“After a certain age, you can pretty much do whatever takes your fancy. No one tells you off, except for your doctors and your children.”

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

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In one word: Charming Once again, the recommendations of the Cannonball Read community came in with a flawless pick that I absolutely adored. I believe it was at the last CBR Zoom meet-up that this book was mentioned. I know by now if more than two or more cannonballers chime in with YES YES THAT’S A GOOD ONE about a book that I should just go ahead and bump it up to the top of my list. (Three cheers for internet friends who though you […]

What Do We Do When Doomsday Doesn’t Come?

The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family by John Glatt

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When Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell meet, they have long held alternate beliefs about souls and the coming of the end times. But together, they advance down the path of delusion, culminating in the murder of Lori’s children Tylee and JJ. I knew of this case from fairly recent developments, when the bodies of the children were found last year, but through this book I learned that the murders had been decades in the making. The author follows Lori and Chad from their childhoods, tracing […]

Morally Repellent and Ethically Bankrupt True Crime

The Making of a Serial Killer (2nd edition) by Danny Rolling and Sondra London

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Writers seem to think that by forming some sort of connection with a serial killer, they’ll get unprecedented insight into why these murders happen and why the killer is the way he is. But when they get that close, they lose the distance and perspective that would make the book actually insightful. And the issue with trusting a serial murderer is that they’re also usually compulsive liars and master manipulators. In this case, Sondra London fell in love with Danny Rolling and they got engaged, […]

A quiet book with a powerful story of connection and survival

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

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This was the second book that the marvelous and generous faintingviolet got for me last year during the Holiday Book Exchange. This book is outside of what I usually pick up to read, but I’m thankful that I gave it a chance. Agnes Magnusdottir has been convicted of murder and sentenced to die in the early 1800s of Iceland. While she awaits her execution she is sent to live with a district official and his family. There’s his wife Margret, a very sick woman who […]

“She accepted the visit and lived in anticipation, wondering what was to come. It was November 19, 1950. She would be dead in ten days.”

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

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I’m not going to compare this to The Sun-Down Motel, which is the only other book of hers I’ve read, because they are very different books, which I wasn’t expecting because of their seeming similarities (dual timelines, ghosts, murder). And on its own, I enjoyed listening to this book very much. (Rebecca Lowman does a good job with the narration, although her male performances sometimes slip into silliness.) The two timelines are: Vermont, 1950, at the boarding school of Idlewind, a school for girls who […]



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