Thriller

After a string of disappointing and underwhelming mystery crime thriller reads picked off of Goodread’s best mystery lists, I picked up Charlie Donlea’s The Girl Who Was Taken on a blind Kindle app recommendation via Amazon’s Prime Reading hoping for something different. And different is what I got. The Girl Who Was Taken reads like a crime documentary reenactment that is colder, calculated, and more developed than many contemporary disappearance novels. The story primarily focuses on two women who work together to solve who is kidnapping young teenage girls across various stateliness and why. Livia Cutty is a forensic pathology student finishing up her fellowship performing daily autopsies whose career choice was inspired by the disappearance and of her younger sister Nicole Cutty. Megan McDonald is an overnight sensation after she miraculously escapes after being held captive in a basement for two weeks and publishes a book summarizing her experience. The twist is that Megan was kidnapped on the same night Nicole went missing, however only Megan was found two weeks later while Nicole is mia. What got my attention from the get-go was how well-researched and meticulous the book is with the details of the investigation and forensic pathology.…

Gillian McAllister’s Wrong Place Wrong Time is a perfectly fine book that was also unfortunately the Wrong book for me for a few reasons. A friend suggested this as a blind recommendation based on reviews and the synopsis involving reverse “time travel” where Jen Brotherhood gradually progresses backwards in time hoping to stop her song from murdering a seemingly random man named Joseph Jones. I was expecting a time traveling murder investigation that touched on familial drama but what I actually got was nearly all familial drama. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, however the delivery was not to my taste as I like both my mystery and drama genres to be more intense and complex than what I read. A middle-aged mother who’s overly concerned about how family is viewed is far from a character experience I empathize with, but moments when Jen reflects on how her past actions affected her family are thoughts that anyone can relate to. What Wrong Place Wrong Time does well is using the gradual reverse time-travel plot element as way for Jen to rediscover overlooked moments in her life while also providing a grounds hogs day setup where none of…

Two good signs that you’ve read a great mystery novel; the full reveal is a “wow” instead of a “well that just happened” and you feel the need to instantly re-read it with a notepad to jot down clues missed on a first read. I found Riley Sager’s The Only One Left to be a solid murder mystery novel that’s well-rounded and smartly constructed. As per my read of Home Before Dark, The Only One Left was a slow burn with an explosive yet still comprehensible whodunnit reveal. This is a book that rewards slow and attentive readers that enjoy piecing clues and evidence together. If you speed through mindlessly the reveal and ending may feel random with its endless plot twists (they’re not random if you pay attention). What I particularly liked about The Only One Left is the use of common mystery plot devices implemented in creative ways. Although the story is primarily told from home caregiver Kit McDeere’s perspective in the present real-time (that is, in 1983 when this story takes place), Sager also somewhat incorporates a 2nd split (abeit limited) perspective of Lenora Hope. Literally written in the past tense (via a typewriter as Lenora is…

At long last I’ve finally read a mystery novel in 2023 with an actually compelling mystery full of surprises, who knew that the bar would be so low after so many contemporary novels in the genre fail to deliver on their basic premise. Home Before Dark is a quality mystery horror novel that follows a similar premise of the Haunting of Hill House refreshed through it’s unique split presentation told from Maggie’s Holt perspective in the present and her father Ewan Holt from 25 years ago via his published nonfiction book House of Horrors. It’s this split perspective narrative that helps separate Home Before Dark from the countless other “family moves into a house with history, bad things happen” storyline as you’re never quite sure how much authenticity House of Horror portrays as an unpredictable unreliable narrator. The two perspectives also contrast each other by their distinctive tones and beliefs with House of Horrors firmly portraying a haunted house with malevolent spirits vs Maggie’s perspective as a skeptic who just wants to know what actually happened in the house 25 years ago. The two split perspectives are done well and not only drop clues relevant to each other, but focus on…

It would’ve been nice to end 2023 on a high note with my last read for 2023, but unfortunately it was not meant to be with The Sun Down Motel. At a first glance and for the majority of the book, there was nothing inherently wrong with the story. A murder mystery told via a split narrative perspective switching between Viv Delaney in 1982 and her niece Carley Kirk in 2017. Feeling listless after the recent death of her mother, she goes on a spur of the moment trip to Fell, New York. Looking into the great family mystery, Carley retraces Viv’s movements 35 years later in an effort to uncover what led to Viv’s sudden disappearance. Carley finds herself eventually working the night shift at the rundown and empty Sun Down Motel, the same job Viv occupied and happens upon some rather unusual and supernatural entities. Sounds interesting right? Unfortunately, the execution and contents are better suited and were probably written for a Book Club type of genre read. On the plus side, the Sun Down Motel itself (as in the actual building) is described well and is a great setting. I don’t know why the book cover design…