July 2022

    Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

    Five years ago, I was a huge fan of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, and I was happy to receive a copy of Our Missing Hearts from Penguin Group/Press and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.  It is one of my less-favorite genres, a dystopian novel… set in a time following a period of …

    Suspect by Scott Turow

    I’ve been a big fan of Scott Turow since I read Presumed Innocent back in the 1980s when I was working in a public library. His stories are generally set in “Kindle County,” and familiar characters recur throughout the books. This time, the PI is Pinky, granddaughter of renowned attorney Sandy Stern. Pinky spent many …

    The Prisoner by B.A. Paris

    I am a big fan of  “unputdownable psychological thrillers,” and a huge fan of B.A. Paris’s Behind Closed Doors (2016),   Bring Me Back (2018),  The Dilemma (2020), and last year’s The Therapist, I was happy to receive a copy of The Prisoner from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in return for my honest review. …

    The Rising Tide by Anne Cleeves (Vera #10)

    Last year, I had the joy of discovering a new favorite author…As an avid mystery fan, I’m not sure why I had never read anything by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera series (neither of which I ever got into). But  then I received a review copy of her 2021 book The Heron’s …

    Racing The Light by Robert Crais (Elvis Cole #19)

    As I have stated before, I have been a diehard fan of Robert Crais/Elvis Cole/Joe Pike for over THIRTY YEARS. Seriously, when The Monkey’s Raincoat was published in 1987, I was working in a public library, grabbed it as soon as it came in, and was HOOKED. Since then, this has been one of the …

    Bad City (Chapter Sampler) by Paul Pringle

    Thanks to Celadon Books and NetGalley, I received a copy of the Chapter Summary of Bad City, by Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Paul Pringle. Subtitled “Peril And Power In The City of Angels,” this nonfiction true crime thriller is a stunning expose of corruption in both city governments and academic institutions, featuring …

    The Zero Night by Brian Freeman

    In 2018, when I started reading Brian Freeman’s Alter Ego, (#9 In the Jonathan Stride series), I kept thinking “wait, I KNOW this Jonathan Stride, a cop from Duluth, I recognize his house…” But then I thought maybe I was getting him mixed up with a character in John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport/Virgil Flowers series – …

    Back To The Garden by Laurie R. King

    One of our local treasures in my hometown is author Laurie King. Her best-known books are part of a series, but the latest is a standalone – and it’s great fun!  The story in Back To The Garden is set in the Central Coast region of California, and skips back and forth from the present …

    Roll Red Roll by Nancy Schwartzman

    I somehow missed Nancy Schwartzman’s film Roll Red Roll back in 2018, which told the story of a notorious gang rape of a 16-year old girl after an early season football game in Steubenville, Ohio. The horrific events would perhaps (most likely, IMHO) never have come to light were it not for smart phones and …