Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

So glad I made it past the late 90s, I would’ve been an embarrassing ghost then.

Grave Expectations by Alice Bell

The Crime Brulee Bake Off by Rebecca Connolly

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You ever just start scrolling down your library’s “available now” page, even though you have eleventy-seventy thousand books in your TBR mountain? Yeah, me too. And that’s how I wandered into two pretty good, but out of my usual genre, cozy-ish mysteries that I came here to recommend. They’re both debut novels, and I read them on audio – They have the same narrator, Sophie Roberts, who did such a great job w/The Crime Brulee Bake Off, and that I clicked her name to see […]

Be Gay, Solve Crime, Take Naps

The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth

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I would never regret dying in a cat costume. I am now actively plotting how I can do so. Should I dress like a cat all the time just in case?  Because I am totally willing to do that. The Undetectables came together when they were fourteen at the site of their first murder, that of Theodore Wyatt of the infamous cat costume. Six years later his murder is still unsolved and the girls have scattered. Mallory has been struggling with fibromyalgia, Diana is busy […]

If You’re Curious About the World of Anora…

Soft Core by Brittany Newell

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Note that this is suggested for people curious about the world of Anora, not people who want to read something like the actual movie. This book is likely to frustrate some readers if they don’t know what to expect. My guess is many folks will come to this looking for a trippy missing person mystery featuring a sex-worker-turned-amateur-sleuth. That’s not what this is at all. Yeah there is a missing person aspect to it and that sort of draws the character down to a rabbit hole. […]

Amazing Grace

How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

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Total psychopath or justifiably big mad at her treatment at the hands of her wealthy bio-family? That’s for us and a jury of her peers to decide! Grace Bernard has been imprisoned for a murder she didn’t commit. But not for any of the several murders she did carry out. Getting away with all of the murders is the ultimate goal, but as Grace languishes in prison waiting for her appeal she’s got some time to kill. What better way to fill that time than […]

Two Writers

We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin

Saint of the Narrows Street by William Boyle

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I finished two books this past week and enjoyed them to varying degrees. One was by a favorite author, another by an author I’ve struggled with in the past. Let’s get to the latter first since I like going in reading order… We Are Watching**** I’ve always felt cold toward Alison Gaylin’s work. She’s a very good writer and yet, there’s an emotional distance in her books that I can’t land with. It’s the same issue I get when watching most Christopher Nolan movies: yeah […]

He Is Your Father

Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right by Walter Mosley

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Walter Mosley has two idiosyncratic mystery series set in New York City: Leonid McGill and King Oliver. I’ve written before about my fondness for the McGill series. They’re not significantly different from the King Oliver books but I like how Leonid is a former crime fixer who is trying to do right in a neo-surrealist Manhattan. Oliver’s story is interesting but I don’t find the character as compelling. That changed a bit with this one. Amidst several plots, King has to try and find his […]



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