Tag Archives: paperback

A Spy In The House by Y.S. Lee (2016) – BR00173 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

The PolyBlog
December 5 2019

Plot or Premise

An orphan in the mid-1800s is diverted from the gallows to a school for girls, gets her high school education, and graduates to become an operative for a special investigating Agency of women run by the heads of the school.

What I Liked

The story has a very strong “Anne Perry” historical fiction feel to it, but without the constant discussion of Jane Austen-style society. The mystery is solid, the characters are rich, and the investigator — Mary Quinn — is inexperienced, which shows in some of her actions. I didn’t guess the outcome, although I suspected some of it, and the hint of romance improves the flavour as it goes. She is more active than the Anne Perry-style heroines, and it shows as she breaks into various places.

What I Didn’t Like

Her age is a bit distracting as she is 17 passing for 20, which no one really believes.

The Bottom Line

Best mystery I have read all year.

The Burning Edge by Rick Mofina (2012) – BR00172 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
November 17 2019

Plot or Premise

A woman witnesses an armed robbery at a truck stop, and as the FBI closes in on the robbers, they worry that the woman saw too much.

What I Liked

The story is told from the perspective of four groups — Lisa, the woman who saw the robbers; Jack, a journalist digging for the story; the robbers themselves; and Frank, the FBI agent hunting them. The story jumps from person to person, which is great for seeing the different aspects of the investigation vs. home life. Short chapters, kind of Patterson-style, keep the action moving.

What I Didn’t Like

The short chapters seem a bit too jumpy in places, and the constant PoV shift isn’t even. The journalist is good, but the backstories for the witness and the FBI agent are overkill. Past losses, current illnesses, everything reads a bit more soap opera-ish than mystery novel. And the final motive for the robbery is ridiculous.

Disclosure

I am not personal friends with the author, but I have met him in person at a writers’ group meeting.

The Bottom Line

Well-written but superficial mystery plot.

No Second Chance by Harlan Coben (2004) – BR00165 (2019) – 🐸🐸⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
November 9 2019

Plot or Premise

A surgeon wakes up in the hospital, an apparent victim of a home invasion that left him shot in the head, his wife dead, and his infant daughter missing.

What I Liked

There were a fair number of possible red herrings running around in the story, and everybody gets suspected of something. His lawyer friend, his dead wife, his sister, an ex-girlfriend, a scummy adoption lawyer, even the police investigating the crime…all of them are a little bit off.

What I Didn’t Like

There are a couple of scenes that are completely over the top, and the ending is ridiculous. All of the work to find his daughter, with lives at risk all the way along and him accused of murder, and someone he knows knew the truth all along. But he’s semi-forgiving. Ridiculous.

The Bottom Line

Over-the-top plotting in places, ridiculous relationships, and absurd ending.

The Enemy by Lee Child (2004) – BR00163 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
November 3 2019

Plot or Premise

Jack Reacher is still in the military and gets transferred out of Panama just before New Year’s Eve, 1989. The Berlin Wall is falling, Panama is heating up with Noriega, and Reacher is watching grass grow at his new post, until a General drops dead at a seedy motel.

What I Liked

The story gives more of Reacher’s back story, and it is interesting to see the “man alone” working within a command structure with others. And it is an interesting premise — what do you do in the military when the future looks like you’re about to become obsolete? The supporting characters were good, and it was nice to see Reacher with his brother and mother. At the end, there is a twist about an error Reacher makes early on that comes back to bite him, and it is a great element to keep. The aftermath is kind of abrupt, with who went where and what happened next, but hard to avoid in a “flashback” style story.

What I Didn’t Like

The premise for the story is a little far-fetched, but when they get to the final reveal, the real specific motive is ridiculous as the people involved would never have done what they did, at least not on paper, and not openly. Reacher stumbles around in the dark long past where certain lines of enquiry should have been obvious, particularly for the identity of a specific witness. And the killer.

The Bottom Line

Nice backstory, weak mystery.

The Bookwoman’s Last Fling by John Dunning (2006) – BR00157 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
April 8 2019

Plot or Premise

Janeway is hired to appraise part of an estate, a collection of first-edition children’s books amassed by a woman who died 20 years before. Now the husband has died, and his children want to distribute the money, but first, everything has to be totalled up.

What I Liked

Early on, the case has some interesting bits including the discovery that someone has been slowly replacing some of the books with cheap duplicates, but not in any strategic way. Someone who knows something about value, but skipping some obvious choice books. It doesn’t take much for a daughter who also loves books to want Janeway to figure out if the mother was killed, and if so, by who. A bunch of brothers run around, and they’re all a little bit crazy, but who is the craziest? The dead husband was a horseman, and Janeway works for one of the brothers as a stable boy / horse walker to get in with the horse crowd. Reads a lot like a vintage Dick Francis book.

What I Didn’t Like

As with most Janeway novels, there are two mysteries interwoven — the death of the young wife 20 years before and the theft of the children’s books. Unfortunately, the story spends a LONG time with the horse crowd with not much happening. It read more like a personal diary than a mystery novel. Huge stretches of time with NOTHING RELEVANT to the mystery. Equally, neither of the mysteries are unraveled in an interesting way, just plodding in one case and almost happenstance in another. And one ending is so obvious yet it takes forever to get there. 

The Bottom Line

Slow book, too much about horses and not enough detecting.