Book Review: The Only One Left by Riley Sager + Just Desserts meeting reminder

The Only One Left
by Riley Sager (Sager)

When the libraries’ Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group used Riley Sager’s The Only One Left as our book for discussion at the February 2024 meeting, it was my first time reading anything by thriller writer Riley Sager (a pseudonym for Todd Ritter), despite the fact that he’s had a string of hit novels in the past several years.

 

The Only One Left is definitely a psychological suspense thriller, with numerous twists and turns to its plot. After being penalized for a lapse of judgement which led to the death of her last client, home healthcare worker Kit McDeere is offered a “take it or kiss your job goodbye” position providing round-the-clock aid to reclusive and paralyzed senior Lenora Hope in her decaying old mansion on the Maine coast. The catch? Lenora Hope was the young woman who was the only survivor when her family was all killed when she was 17 — the police (and most of the populace) believe she killed the rest of her clan but could never prove it. But the case remained so notorious that a sing-song schoolyard chant permeates the local culture:

 

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

 

Kit’s introduction to the household has her meeting a colorful cast of supporting players, but it is initial interactions with the enfeebled Lenora, mute and paralyzed except for limited use of one of her arms/hands, that sets a series of mysterious events in motion. After building up some mutual trust, Kit helps Lenora use a typewriter, and one of her first messages is “I want to tell you everything”. But can Kit believe what Lenora types out? And is there anyone else who’d rather not have Lenora sharing secrets, even after 50 years have passed?

 

I fond The Only One Left to be a suspenseful, engaging story, filled with intriguing characters. Unfortunately, both I and most of the other Just Desserts attendees at our discussion agreed that we found the ending disappointing. But the journey of getting to that ending was still worth the trip!

 

( official Riley Sager web site )

 

See the handout The Works of Riley Sager prepared for the libraries Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

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If you're a mystery fan, you're invited to join us for this month's Just Desserts meeting this Thursday, March 28th, at 6:30 p.m. in the 4th floor auditorium of the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown at 14th & "N" St. -- this mystery-themed discussion group meets on the last Thursday of each month, January through October. Tonight, we'll be discussing the the first six entries in the Flavia de Luce series by British author Alan Bradley.

 

Even if you haven't read any of the Flavia de Luce entries for this specific discussion, you can still participate, and learn about other great new mysteries to try! For more information, check out the Just Desserts schedule at https://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/book-groups/#justdesserts

Audiobook Review: Misery by Stephen King, narrated by Lindsay Crouse

Misery
by Stephen King (Compact Disc King)

Misery was best-selling author Stephen King’s 20th book (approximately), originally released in 1987. King, to that point, was known primarily as a horror writer who often featured supernatural elements in his stories — ‘Salem’s Lot, Carrie, The Shining, Cujo, Christine, The Stand, Firestarter, Pet Sematary — he wrote Misery in part as a reaction to being pigeonholed by his fans as a particular type of writer. His ardent fans did not gracefully appreciate his classical fantasy novel, Eyes of the Dragon, and insisted he return to what he was best known for. Also, and King has been clear about this in his own non-fiction writings, he had been dealing with drug addictions and abuse, and Misery was a chance to anthropomorphize those addictions as a destructive human character.

 

In Misery, Paul Sheldon is the author of a best-selling series of Victorian romantic suspense novels featuring plucky heroine Misery Chastain — a series he has grown to despise. Sheldon has just finished a personal writing retreat at a lodge in the Rocky Mountains, having completed what he believes to be his first “serious novel”, and after too much to drink, he drives off a mountain road, overturning his car and doing himself grave bodily harm. When he next awakens, he finds himself in the remote mountain home of ex-nurse Annie Wilkes, who identifies herself as “his #1 fan” and tells Paul she pulled him from the wreckage of his car and has been treating his two broken legs. Unfortunately, Annie has more than a few screws loose, and has a hair-trigger temper. When she discovers in the latest Misery Chastain novel that Sheldon has killed off her beloved literary hero, Annie goes off the deep end. Reliant on Annie for illicit pain meds and help surviving his injuries, and aware that no-one knows where he is, Paul Sheldon has no recourse but to agree, when Annie buys him a second-hand typewriter and demands that he write a new Misery novel, resurrecting the doomed character. What follows is a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse and psychological terror. But Paul has yet to realize just how demented Annie Wilkes truly is…and how many people may have died at her hands already.

As the tagline for the novel Misery says, “Paul Sheldon used to write for a living. Now he’s writing to save his own life!”

 

I’ve seen the 1990 feature film adapted from King’s novel by Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman. That film starred James Caan as author Paul Sheldon and Kathy Bates as “his #1 fan”, the psychotically obsessive Annie Wilkes. Bates won the Best Actress Oscar as Wilkes, and most fans of King agree that the film Misery is probably one of the best adaptations of a King novel to film or TV. Screenwriter Goldman later also adapted his own film screenplay into a stage play, which premiered in a limited theatrical engagement in 2015, starring Bruce Willis as Paul Sheldon and Laurie Metcalfe as Annie Wilkes. The news that a local community theatre production of Misery is being mounted for early 2024 excited the actor in me, and made me realize I’d never actually read the original novel…so I fixed that by listening to the audiobook, narrated very effectively by actress Lindsay Crouse.

 

(The novel Misery is much like many of King’s early works from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, though in this case there is no supernatural element, only an all-too-human psychopath. Considering that there's only two primary characters, and one of those is left by himself a lot of the time -- there's a LOT of internal monologues, frequently peppered with "adult language". It was intended to be released under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman, but King was "outed" as Bachman before that could happen, so it came out under his own name. I do recommend seeing the Misery film, directed by Rob Reiner. You’ll never look at a sledgehammer the same way again, much like you’ll never look at an axe the same way after reading or listening to the novel.)

 

( official Misery page on the official Stephen King web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Grownup by Gillian Flynn (2nd review on BookGuide)

The Grownup
by Gillian Flynn (Flynn)

This is a short, suspenseful, little novella, written by the author of Gone Girl originally for inclusion in an anthology edited by George R.R. Martin, but which has now been published in a stand-alone edition. The story is narrated by a never-named young woman who has grown up with a hard life, who has figured out the ways to manipulate not only the system, but everyone around her. Working as a psychic in a house of ill-repute, she believes she has discovered an easy mark when a middle-aged women begs her to investigate her home, which may be haunted, and which may be influencing her morose young son. Only, what our narrator thought was going to be an easy con job turns out to possibly be “real” — to be so multi-layered, and to have so many twists and turns, readers may be gasping by end of the story. Definitely a fun, quick read. A nice introduction to Gillian Flynn if you’re unfamiliar with her full-length suspense novels, and a perfect read for right around Halloween.

 

( official Gillian Flynn web site )

 

Read Jeremiah J.’s review of Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl, in the May 2013 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!
Read Wyatt P.’s review of Gillian Flynn’s novel Sharp Objects, in the February 2014 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!
Read Tracy B.’s previous review of The Grownup, in the February 2016 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Audiobook Review: The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

The Woman in the Library

by Sulari Gentill, audiobook narrated by Katherine Littrell (CD Gentill)

 

Based on the “jacket blurb” description, I thought The Woman in the Library was going to be a “locked room” mystery — four strangers — Winifred “Freddie” Kincaid, Whit Metters, Marigold Anastas and Cain McLeod — are sitting in the central Boston Public Library’s reading room, when a scream rings out elsewhere in the building. Security asks that the foursome remain where they are while the building is searching, and the four strangers share an extended conversation that turns into friendship…except that one of them is a murderer. I presumed that this was going to be a mystery in which all of the action took place in the library, and the tricky, unfolding story would reveal how one of them managed to commit a murder in the library, with the ultimate goal of revealing who the guilty party is.

 

The “blurb” didn’t lie, but my presumption about the book was incorrect. It is, indeed a mystery novel. In fact, it is two mystery novels in one. The mystery of the foursome in the library is merely a work of fiction — the “book within the book”, written by the The Woman in the Library‘s Australian narrator, interspersed with chapters that take the form of letters from a Boston resident to his Australian writer pen pal, which grow increasingly troublesome. The reader must watch as the plots of both the “library” story and the “real world” story increase their levels of tension, and begin to affect each other’s plots.

 

I’ll have to admit, I thought that the endings of both stories felt a touch anticlimactic, and yet I really did enjoy listening to this one in audiobook format. Narrator Katherine Littrell does a terrific job of bringing Freddie Kincaid to life, and I really found myself invested in the lives of the foursome of library customers. And then the plot of the other layer — the correspondence between the novel’s author and her Boston “friend” becomes more and more creepy. All in all, a fun read, and I recommend trying it on audio!

 

( official Sulari Gentill web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Mastermind by Amy Lane

The Mastermind

by Amy Lane (Hoopla)

 

The Mastermind is the first book in the Long Con series by Amy Lane. It features recurring characters, a “Leverage” TV show type of criminal activity, a gay romance in each book, and created family.

 

In this book, Danny and Felix meet as young men in their late teens/early twenties, and grift and thieve their way through parts of Europe – but they only steal from those who can afford the loss, as a way to survive, and to right any wrongs.

 

This book alternates between the past and current times. In the past, we learn about Danny, Felix, and how they met Julia — and how the three of them create a family without her abusive father learning the truth about her son. In current times, a now-media magnate Felix is facing false accusations that he must defend himself against. By now son Josh has created his own thieving crew and becomes involved in the behind-the-scenes machinations to prove Felix’s innocence.

 

Aside from the romance between Felix and Danny — and their reunion and efforts to patch up their relationship — watching the crew put together the sting to clear Felix was fun to watch and satisfying. I will admit this is not my favorite of the series, but it provides background on the characters for the future installments.

 

The rest of the series (The Muscle, The Driver, The Suit, and The Tech) are also available as ebooks on the library’s Hoopla app. The newest title The Face Man is coming out October 31, but it’s unknown if the library will acquire it immediately.

 

If you’re seeking a fun, angst-filled, exciting story of a group of friends who have become family and work undercover on their own to play Robin Hood, you should enjoy this series.

 

( official Amy Lane web site — https://greenshill.com/ )

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Audiobook Review: Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

Daisy Darker
by Alice Feeney (Compact Disc Feeney)

Daisy Darker showed up on many “Best Mysteries/Thrillers of the Year” lists for 2022 releases, so I was excited to read (or listen to) this for the June 2023 meeting of the libraries’ Just Desserts mystery book group. Indeed, I chose to enjoy this as an audiobook-on-cd, narrated by Stephanie Racine.

 

It’s a little hard to effective review this, since Alice Feeney’s stock in trade is mysteries or thrillers with a shocking twist near the end, that completely recalibrates the reader’s interpretation of the novel. In a nutshell, however, this novel features an awkward family reunion on an island off the British coast, isolated until the next day by changing tides. The novel is narrated by Daisy Darker, seemingly the only family member who actually loves her grandmother, Nana, a famed children’s author. When a dramatic death occurs, and it’s only the first of several, the survivors must come to terms with some unresolved issues from the past, while scrambling to survive until the receding tides will allow them to escape in the morning.

 

The suspense ratchets up effectively, though jumping back and forth between modern scenes and flashbacks to the past diminishes some of that building tension. The ultimate twist is telegraphed somewhat early on in the novel, but several of our Just Desserts members were still surprised…which may be reason enough to recommend this title. Personally, I really enjoyed the narration by Racine, so I do recommend Daisy Darker, particularly, as an audiobook. And if you like twisty, turny plots, check out Feeney’s other novels as well!

 

( official Alice Feeney web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Troubleshooters series -- novellas by Suzanne Brockmann

The Troubleshooters series
by Suzanne Brockmann (see hotlinks for each individual story)

Four short stories and a novella from the Troubleshooters series By Suzanne Brockmann.

 

Only download the following Hoopla and Libby audio books if you are a fan of the Troubleshooters series by Suzanne Brockmann. These five stories are novellas and shorts that are hilarious, scary, thoughtful, and poignant. They catch you up with some of our favorite characters, giving you more insight into the lives of Adam, Izzy, Gilman, Jules, Robin, and others beyond what we’ve read in the full-length novels. The narrators, Patrick Lawlor and Melanie Ewbank, are perfect as they portray our characters.

 

Book #12.1 “When Tony Met Adam” 2hrs/10min, story timeline Dec 2007-Feb 2008.

Main characters: Navy SEAL Tony Vlachic, actor Adam Wyndham.

This story starts at the end of book #12, “All Through the Night” (the night before Jules and Robin’s wedding), when Adam has been escorted out of Jules and Robin’s home after the stalker has been captured. If you remember, as he’s walking down the street to the corner, Tony is one of the SEALs guarding the house and recognizes Adam as his favorite actor, runs up to him and writes his phone number on Adam’s palm, then they go their separate ways. “When Tony Met Adam” picks up their story over the course of the next several months. By the end we understand Adam much better, he’s pulled his life together, and he becomes one of our likeable characters.

 

Book #18.1 “Free Fall” 1hr/29min, story timeline early Jan 2010.

Main characters: SEAL Team 16.

This take places after novel #18, “Do or Die,” with our favorite SEAL team doing a High Altitude training jump when Tony’s equipment fails. Izzy to the rescue with an innovative plan which will either work, injure one or both of them, or kill one or both.

 

Book #18.2 “Home Fire Inferno (Burn, Baby, Burn!)” 1hr/29min, story timeline Jan 2010, just a couple of weeks after 18.1 “Free Fall.”

Main characters: Navy SEAL Team 16 including new guy Hubert Bickles (HoBoMoFo), Eden Zanella, Jenn Gillman, Brianna Bickles, Brianna’s 5th grade teacher Carol Redmond, and Adam Wyndham.

SEAL Team 16 is at the airport Mission Ready for an overseas job – meaning they are set to leave at any moment for location unknown for reason unknown for mission-length unknown with no communication with anyone outside of the team. Then Jenn goes into labor a month early while stranded in the California desert, unable to contact anyone. Jenkins, recovering from a knee injury in the previous story, fills-in for HoBoMoFo for his daughter’s Career Day at school and sets his eye on the teacher.

 

Book #18.3 “Ready to Roll” 6hr/8min, story timeline four weeks after #18.2 (late Feb 2010).

Main Characters: SEALS Izzy, Gillman, Jenkins, and Tony, Eden and her brother Ben, with cameos by Kelly, Sam, Alyssa, and Robin, and we meet Lt. ‘Grunge’ Green (who gets his own story in novel #19 “Some Kind of Hero”).

 

Three stories going on with this one. Eden’s 16-year-old brother Ben is dealing with a homophobic classmate, but things may not be as they appear. Izzy is an instructor, along with Lt Grunge, at BUD/S SEALs training during Hell Week where we meet the most interesting crew – Boat Squad John. And Dan and Jenn’s new baby cries constantly, what in the world is wrong?

 

19.1 “Beginnings and Ends” 1hr/12m, story timeline June 2012. This takes place five years after Jules and Robin’s 2007 wedding in book #12 (and two years after the final novel, #19, “Some Kind of Hero”).

Main characters: FBI Agent Jules Cassidy, actor Robin Chadwick Cassidy.

Robin has been starring in an award-winning TV series but is ready to leave the show. What will the future bring? This story pretty well ends the series and it’s a perfect ending – unless Brockmann writes further in-between shorts.

 

( official Troubleshooters page on the official Suzanne Brockmann web site )

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Audiobook Review: I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai

I Have Some Questions For You

by Rebecca Makkai (Downloadable Audio)

 

Your roommate is murdered during your senior year of high school at boarding school. Now you are back to teach a class at your alma mater. Was it really the school athletic trainer who killed her in a love affair/drug deal gone bad? If you had just been more forthcoming and told the police everything you knew back then…

 

A now-famous podcaster and film professor, Bodie Kane, returns to Granby High in New Hampshire to teach a class about podcasts. It’s an emotional return, considering that Bodie’s roommate Thalia Keith was found drown in the gymnasium pool in 1995. The conviction of the athletic trainer Omar Evans never sat well with Bodie. She feels guilty that she initiated the idea that drugs were an issue; Thalia wasn’t into drugs. Bodie never forgave herself for not revealing Thalia may have been having an affair with a teacher. Could that have been a factor in her death?

 

As part of the podcast class, Bodie instructs students to pick an old unsolved crime to review. Of course one of her students picks Thalia Keith — Omar has been looking for a retrial. Bodie struggles with the choice. Will justice really be served by stirring up old secrets? Will she be perceived as a fame seeker? Is everyone better off just moving on?

 

I loved this modern whodunit by award-winning author Rebecca Makkai. I Have Some Questions for You grabs you in the first chapter and keeps you guessing if or how justice will be served. I enjoyed the inclusion of modern elements in Makkai’s novel: the true-crime podcasts, and the social media outrage and trolls. This is the world we have come to live in now. I also am a fan of how the main character envisioned how each suspect could have committed the crime. Don’t we all have a little bit of a dark side?

 

If you love a good mystery, check this one out.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try One by One by Ruth Ware or The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.)

 

( official Rebecca Makkai web site )

 

Recommended by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Audiobook Review: My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry

My Husband’s Wife
by Jane Corry (Downloadable Audio)

A patron recently recommended the author Jane Corry to me, and I’m so glad she did. If you enjoy suspense authors such as Liane Moriarty or Gillian McAlister, you are going to love Jane Corry. I started with her first novel My Husband’s Wife. It has so many twists and turns, you will keep guessing until the end.

 

The book opens as lawyer Lily is on her way to visit a potential client in prison. She just returned from her honeymoon with Ed the artist and is excited for her new life. The new client, however, puts Lily to the test, making her solve puzzles and clues to uncover a defense for his case. As she works to prove his innocence, she finds herself oddly attracted to the peculiar man.

 

At the same time, the story follows nine-year-old Carla, who lives next door to Lily and Ed. As a young Italian girl growing up in London, she suffers from bullying in school. To survive, Carla learns that sometimes she has to lie, steal, and even blackmail, to get by.

 

The second half of the story jumps ahead several years when Carla returns to England as a young woman and walks back into Lily and Ed’s lives. Old secrets come back to haunt anyone who thought they were long past — secrets so dangerous it may cost them their lives.

 

Fortunately, My Husband’s Wife is just the beginning of Corry’s catalog. Unfortunately, Lincoln City Libraries only offers two other titles by this author: Blood Sisters and The Dead Ex.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Blood Sisters by Jane Corry or Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.)

 

( official Jane Corry web site )

 

Recommended by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Verity by Colleen Hoover

Verity
by Colleen Hoover (Hoover)

You are waiting for the light to change to cross the street. A man in front of you steps off the curb and gets hit by a truck. You hear the crack of his skull. You are plastered with his blood. What a way to start a day—and a book. In the suspense novel Verity by Colleen Hoover, it only gets creepier from there.

 

Author Lowen Ashleigh is struggling. Her live-in mother just passed away from cancer and left her with bills. She is being evicted from her apartment. She is all alone and needs an income. Her literary agent contacts her with an opportunity. Bestselling author Verity Crawford was injured and is no longer able to finish her six-book series. Her husband Jeremy Crawford is looking for someone to co-write the remaining novels. If she accepts the offer, Lowen is invited to visit the Crawford home, look through Verity’s notes, read her books, and study her outlines. In exchange Lowen will be financially set and her career will get a huge boost. Sounds like a much needed deliverance.

 

As you might expect, Lowen discovers the situation is not what it seems. The Crawford house is overwhelmed with tragedy. Both of the young Crawford daughters passed away from accidents. And since her automobile accident, Verity is an unspeaking and unresponsive shell of herself, with a day-time nurse who cares for her every need.

 

As Lowen pages through Verity’s papers, she discovers an autobiography with some shocking revelations. Is everything that has happened to the Crawfords a coincidence, or is there something sinister at work? Is everyone who they seem?

 

Verity is a page-turner, sprinkled with Hoover’s racy romance, that will have you sprinting to the end of the book to discover the shocking conclusion.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, or The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.)

 

( official Colleen Hoover web site )

 

Check out our If You Like…Colleen Hoover readalikes list on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Winter's End by Paige Shelton + reminder of this month's Just Desserts meeting tonight

Winter’s End
by Paige Shelton (Shelton)

It’s spring in Benedict, Alaska. Time for mud and the annual Death walk, where citizens come to town to mark down that they made it through the winter. When an older gentleman named Al doesn’t show up. Beth and Orin hike up to check on him. When they find him he’s ill and hadn’t eaten in a while. Beth fixes him food and begins to care for him while Orin goes for help.

 

Though help arrives Orin doesn’t return, soon after that Beth realized her new friend Kaye was checked off the “census,” but hasn’t been seen for a while. When someone finds her dead Beth starts to ask questions. The Millers (Kaye’s husband’s family and the Oliphants are the modern Alaskan Hatfield and McCoys, it comes to light that Kaye has been hanging around with the Oliphants and may have been having an affair with Cyrus the younger son. Beth is also still looking for her father who’s been missing for many years. Could the killer have been Kaye’s husband? Her lover? Or did she stumble on Beth’s own father?

 

I like the characters in this series and this is a great addition. Beth is becoming more comfortable with her new role in life and we’re learning more about the townsfolk. I was attracted to the series because it’s set in Alaska and this book does not disappoint in the mystery or the description of life in Alaska.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Breakup by Dana Stabenow, or Bitter Rain by Shannon Baker.)

 

( official Paige Shelton web site )

 

Recommended by Marcy G.
South and Gere Branch Libraries

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

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If you're a mystery fan, you're invited to join us for this month's Just Desserts meeting tonight, April 27th, at 6:30 p.m. in the 4th floor auditorium of the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown at 14th & "N" St. -- this mystery-themed discussion group meets on the last Thursday of each month, January through October. This month's book assigned topic of discussion is also the title selected for annual statewide One Book One Nebraska reading program, Mignon G. Eberhart's 1930 novel, The Mystery of Hunting's End.

 

Even if you haven't read anything for this specific discussion, you can still participate, and learn about great new mysteries to try! For more information, check out the Just Desserts schedule at https://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/book-groups/#justdesserts

Book Review: Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak (2nd review of this on BookGuide)

Hidden Pictures
by Jason Rekulak (Rekulak & Compact Disc Rekulak)

If you like thrillers and ghost stories, you will love this book! Mallory, a recovering addict, becomes a nanny for Teddy, a young boy with an imaginary friend named Anya. When Teddy begins to draw sinister scary pictures of a man dragging a woman’s body through a woods; Mallory becomes suspicious, especially when Anya begins to communicate with her. It turns out that Teddy’s family has some secrets of their own.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney.)

 

( official Hidden Pictures and Jason Rekulak web site )

 

See Charlotte M.’s earlier review of Hidden Pictures in the August 2022 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Susan S.
Eiseley Branch Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Audiobook Review: Always the First to Die by R.J. Jacobs

Always the First to Die
by R.J. Jacobs (Downloadable Audio)

What a nice little thriller to break up the monotony of winter. Always the First to Die by R. J. Jacobs is full of secrets, storms, and suspense to the very end. I’m generally not a fan of “scary” books, but I found this thriller to have just the right amount of suspense without all the gore, and I was hooked.

 

Lexi’s husband Cam went missing and was presumed dead a year and a half ago. They met at her teenage acting debut on the set of his father’s horror movie Breathless. Lexi was the first to die when the movie took place at the rundown Pinecrest Estate manor house in the Florida Keys. When one of the main stars dies at the end of Breathless’ production, people begin to question if the dilapidated Pinecrest property is cursed.

 

It just may be.

 

It is the same place her husband Cam disappeared from 18 months ago. It is the same place her teenage daughter Quinn snuck off to in order to stay with her estranged grandfather, the horror film director, to search for answers. And it is the same place about to be hit by a category four hurricane.

 

Now Lexi has to return to a place she hoped to never see again. Hopefully this time she will be able to save her daughter and get some answers. What suspicious discovery did Quinn make before the storm? Why did Cam disappear? Is the manor cursed?

 

You will have to tune in to a digital copy on Hoopla to find out who will be the first to die in a return to the Pinecrest Estate. Or, will anyone make it out alive?

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger, One by One by Ruth Ware or The Villa by Rachel Hawkins.)

 

( official R.J. Jacobs web site )

 

Recommended by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD Review: Magpie Murders + Just Desserts meeting reminder for tonight

Magpie Murders
(DVD Magpie)

This is a whodunit that takes place in present day and the 1950’s. Both the original book and this Masterpiece Theatre production were written by author Anthony Horowitz.

 

In the present-day story, author Alan Conway, who is famous for the fictitious Atticus Pünd murder mysteries that take place in the 1950’s, has recently died, apparently of a suicide. He had just turned in his most recent manuscript, but the final chapter is missing! Now his editor is trying to locate that chapter or figure out whodunit in the book so she can publish his final mystery, and also determine what happened in real-life to Conway. Did he actually kill himself?

 

This dramatization constantly criss-crosses between the mysteries of the two time periods – the 1950’s characters in Conway’s book and present-day. Everyone in the Pünd manuscript is based on someone in Conway’s life — and the same actors play them both. It was fascinating to watch how seamlessly this story moved between the two timelines. One of my favorite transitions was watching our contemporary character take a left turn in her car and drive out of our view, and the oncoming car contains our 1955 Pünd and we continue the manuscript’s 1955 story with him.

 

Both storylines kept the suspense going as we tried to solve all of the mysteries. The DVD version did an excellent job of abridging the book while remaining true to the characters and the mysteries.

As usual, an excellent production from the folks at Masterpiece Theatre. You can easily binge this two-disc, six-episode series in an afternoon and evening.

 

If you decide to read the original Magpie book (which I also enjoyed), keep in mind that the presentation is different from the DVD. The first part of the book tells the 1955 mystery as told in the manuscript (but we won’t know its ending yet because that chapter is missing), and the second part follows our editor as she tries to find that missing chapter and sort out Conway’s death. I actually preferred the DVD version of moving between both storylines at the same time.

 

And yes, we find out whodunit in all the mysteries including that missing chapter.

 

(Also available in traditional print format.)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this mini-series ) | ( official PBS page for Magpie Murders on Masterpiece )

 

See Scott C.’s review of Magpie Murders in the June 2021 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

 

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

 

The print version of Magpie Murders was used as the book for discussion at a Just Desserts meeting in 2021.

 

If you're a mystery fan, you're invited to join us for this month's Just Desserts meeting tonight, February 23rd, at 6:30 p.m. in the 4th floor auditorium of the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown at 14th & "N" St. -- this mystery-themed discussion group meets on the last Thursday of each month, January through October. This month's book assigned topic of discussion is the first three novels by American author S.A. Cosby.

 

Even if you haven't read anything for this specific discussion, you can still participate, and learn about great new mysteries to try! For more information, check out the Just Desserts schedule at https://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/book-groups/#justdesserts