A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I read this for the first time a few years back*, in between books of “The Men who Hate Women”. Also, oddly enough, I finished it while we were on our way to This is the Place. (Please don’t ask me to explain This is the Place. You either know or you don’t: suffice to say that there is a tie-in to A Study in Scarlet, however loose).
The Murder on the Links (Hercule Poirot, #2) by Agatha Christie
Okay, first of all, Hastings is an *idiot*. I don’t think I quite realized that in the other books I’ve read with him in them. He’s supposedly modeled after Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories, an audience surrogate character, but Watson gets an unfair rap about his bumbling—a side effect of his characterization on film rather than evidence in the canon—whereas Hastings is genuinely a boob, and one that doesn’t realize the extent of his boobitude. In this one, not only does he get everything […]
An Engineered Injustice (Philadelphia Legal #2) by William L. Meyers Jr.
A Killer's Alibi (Philadelphia Legal #3) by William L. Meyers Jr.
Ok guys, this is a two for one deal! I ready the first book in this series a few years ago, and kinda lost track of the author. Thankfully Amazon remembered, and let me know when two more books in this world were available. An Engineered Injustice is Book 2 in the Philadelphia Legal series. Like I said above, I didn’t even know it was a thing. Just as the first book centered around one of the lawyers in the group, this book centers around […]
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
Yet another book for the people who enjoyed Gone Girl and Girl on A Train. I am actually far over seeking books out that say this on the cover because I’ve been burned. And also? Gone Girl was fun because it was new and different. It was fun deciding if I wanted to root for evil…but now? Old hat, I’ve read thousands of books for fans of GG and GoAT…none of them really seemed anything like that. This is no exception, but I’m happy to […]
The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum
The Poisoner’s Handbook is one of those rare non-fiction books that reads more like fiction. The basic narrative follows the head medical examiner of New York City and his chief toxicologist as they essentially help invent forensic science during Prohibition. Each chapter focuses on the problems, mostly murders, that revolve around a particular chemical compound including chloroform, wood alcohol, arsenic, radium, carbon monoxide, and thallium. There’s a lot of chemistry involved but it’s explained in a way that someone who hasn’t taken the subject since […]
The Killer Book of Serial Killers by Tom Philbin and Michael Philbin
For a research library, my university’s stacks are pretty lacking in texts that are actually helpful to most students’ work, so I often help out my students by taking out books from my own library system. This is how I ended up with The Killer Book of Serial Killers. I would never have selected this myself based on the cover alone, but my student found it and was intrigued, and who am I to judge the sources he wants to use for his Criminology final? We […]
