First Lie Wins

First Lie Wins is my selection this month for the Key Word Challenge. It is an exciting, page-turning read that keeps you hooked until the end.

The publisher's summary:

Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn't like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there's still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn't be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .

It took a few chapters for me to engage in this book. I needed to understand what Evie was about before getting hooked. The story took off around the third chapter. Evie steals high end items such as jewelry and paintings for her boss Mr. Smith. Another character, Devon, assists Evie in planning and executing her jobs. The story has the feel of a spy thriller. No one knows the identity of Mr. Smith or why he is interested in obtaining these goods. Sometimes he just wants information to be stolen. 

Evie uses a different name for each job. These jobs are sometimes quick but can last for months and be in different locales. While she is with Ryan, Evie is introduced to a woman who is using her real name and life history which throws her off her game. Evie cannot imagine why this woman, claiming to be Lucca Marino, was in her path.

The novel is more of a whydunit than a whodunit. I was surprised by the big reveal (how all of the characters were related) and then by the ending. None of it was anticipated.

First Lie Wins is a  fun read. 4 out of 5 stars.

Hard Eight

Hard Eight is the 8th book in the Stephanie Plum comedic mystery series. Author Janet Evanovich just published #31 so this is a lengthy series. In fact, Evanovich has stated that the series will never end. I selected this book for the Clock Reading Challenge. The Challenge Rules require a number from 1 through 12 to be in the title.

With this installment of the series Stephanie is  asked by her parents' next-door neighbor, Mabel Markowitz, to find her granddaughter, Evelyn and great-granddaughter, Annie, who have disappeared. During a messy divorce with her ex-husband, Steven Soter, Evelyn was forced to post a child custody bond, and Mabel used her house as collateral. If Evelyn is not found, then the bond company will foreclose on her house, and the money will be forfeited to Steven. Mabel asks for Stephanie's help, since as a bounty hunter she is the closest thing Mabel knows to aaa detective. Stephanie is unable to refuse, even though she is not a private investigator.

The plot was light on action but heavy on the comedy. I found it difficult to maintain interest in the story because there were so many funny statements. I prefer a tight mystery that has no fluff and Evanovich is all fluff. I am not sure whether I will read more of the series for the Clock Reading Challenge or not. I might go back to one of Luana Ehrlich's series. Neither of these authors excite me much but they're the only authors I have found with numbers in their titles.

2 out of 5 stars.

Girl in the Dark

J. M. Cannon wrote last year's Blood Oranges novel. I loved that book so much that I could not keep myself from reading his newest novel Girl In The Dark. It was published on February 15, 2024 and it is just as intriguing as Blood Oranges.

The publisher's summary:

On a cold evening in November, Zoey Knight gets a frantic call from her sister. Their childhood home in remote Maine has burned to the ground. Two bodies have been discovered in the basement.

When the FBI suddenly takes over the case, it's clear something more sinister than a random double homicide has taken place.

Rumors go back to The Family--cult or commune, the wealthy enclave of Black Castle, Maine has never been sure. Twenty years ago, after the disappearance of a local girl, the group vanished. Now, signs of them are resurfacing.

Zoey finds this is no ordinary conspiracy. It doesn't just involve strangers, but the very people she loves. And if she wants the truth, she'll have to risk everything to find out.

 

The book opens with a gruesome scene. A woman is in the basement of a house that is on fire. She tells herself to wait until a particular time before going upstairs to get the two bodies that she killed. When it is time to leave the basement she wets two hand mittens and runs up the stairs into the fire. The woman grabs the bodies, drags them to the basement, and dumps them in a well that is in the basement.  She then leaves the house feeling positive that her crime has been covered up.  What a prologue! I am now engaged in the story and cannot stop reading until I have finished the book in one sitting.

The plot was amazing. The only suspicious characters in the beginning are Zoey and her sister Evie. As the story progresses you get an inkling that others could have done the crime. Toward the end every character held secrets about the crime and with all of them being depraved, it was impossible to determine the whodunnit. These characters were pathological liars, thieves, and murderers. The ending was quite a surprise and the reason for the title isn't revealed until the last sentence.

This book is an engrossing page turner. Mystery fans will love it. 5 out of 5 stars.

Where the Body Was

I was excited when I found out Net Galley would provide me with a copy of this comic. Author Ed Brubaker writes awesome stories and this one is no different. The story takes place in Summer 1984 in an abandoned boarding house on Pelican Road that junkies have taken over. 

The story opens with an introduction to the boarding house. We meet the couple who were the original owners as well as their neighbors. After they pass on the boarding house falls into disrepair and junkies and other criminals move in. A girl who thinks she is a superhero, wearing a mask and a cape, has a crush on Palmer who is doing drugs with a woman he is sleeping with, Toni. In order to get cash for their fix, the couple burglarize homes. She threatens him with going to the cops if he doesn’t stop. Palmer tells everyone that he is a cop and flashes a badge at anyone whose behavior he does not like. Despite this, I found him to be a sympathetic character. Another character that I liked was Ranko. He is a homeless man who sees everything happens on the street even though no one sees him.

There were alot of characters introduced in the beginning and I didn't even try to remember who was who. I knew I would get them straight during my read which I did. Each of these characters get to narrate their own chapters and the reader begins to see the well crafted plot through their eyes. The body was not introduced in the book until the halfway point. 

Normally I would complain about this but the story was so absorbing that I didn't even notice its absence. 

Where the Body Was is an entertaining mystery that satisfies. Comic fans will want to read this one. 5 out of 5 stars.

A Beautiful Blue Death

A Beautiful Blue Death is the first Charles Lenox Mystery.  Last year I read his The September Society and loved it. I decided to go back to the beginning of the series and read all of the books in order. 

The publisher's summary:

Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, likes nothing more than to relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, Lenox cannot resist the chance to unravel a mystery.

Prudence Smith, one of Jane's former servants, is dead of an apparent suicide. But Lenox suspects something far more sinister: murder, by a rare and deadly poison. The grand house where the girl worked is full of suspects, and though Prue had dabbled with the hearts of more than a few men, Lenox is baffled by the motive for the girl's death.

When another body turns up during the London season's most fashionable ball, Lenox must untangle a web of loyalties and animosities. Was it jealousy that killed Prudence Smith? Or was it something else entirely? And can Lenox find the answer?

What can I say? This book was just as good as I expected. Poison was the method of murder. It was quickly identified as bella indigo, known as "the beautiful blue," but during the time period of the story, the Victorian Era, there wasn't much known about it. Another twist was that there was arsenic on the bottom of the bottle of bella indigo. Part of the mystery that was being unraveled was who had access to it, how was it used and what it really did to people exposed to it. The middle of the story was taken up with this howdunnit. The latter third concerned the whodunnit.  

I learned from the novel how the British police became known as bobbies. Robert Peel founded the police department on 1829. New officers used a variant of his first name when describing themselves.  Alot had changed regarding policing during the time period of the story. I enjoyed learning how procedures came into being. This was another fascinating part of the story. 

I think I enjoyed the howdunnit more than  the whodunit. It cannot be beat. I am rating this magnificent novel 5 out of 5 stars.

Mandarin Plaid

Mandarin Plaid is book 3 in the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Mysteries.  6 novels in the series have already been published. The story opens with the theft of designer Genna Jing's sketches of her inaugural collection of her new Mandarin Plaid label. Genna is positive that these designs are worth a fortune so when she is contacted by the thief who demands a $50,000 ransom, she is willing to pay. Genna contacts Lydia Chin, a Chinese American private investigator, to perform the drop. However, during the drop everything goes wrong. Lydia loses the ransom money and her partner Bill Smith is arrested. Genna is shocked about the loss of her money and sketches and fires Lydia. Unable to let it go, Lydia and Bill continue to look into matter and are led from sweatshops in New York City's Chinatown to the drawing rooms of New York's wealthiest citizens and into the dark underworld of prostitution, drugs and murder. The task they have taken on includes no only to find out who stole the ransom money but also who is willing to kill in order to keep all of this a secret.

The story started out slow. A conversation about the need to drop the ransom ran several pages and some of the characters repeated the same information over and over. While the conversation was realistic it did not advance the plot and I was bored. The author wrote about the fashion business which was appealing to me as I enjoy sewing. There were a number of aspects to putting on a runway show that I was not familiar with and it added some enjoyment to the story. However, I still  could not become engaged in the novel. The characters didn't captivate me either. The dialogue between Lydia and Bill was boring. Yes, people actually talk like they did but it detracted from solving the mystery. The slow beginning seemed to have a snowball effect that I was unable to overcome. The plot premise was good though and the title of the fashion collection was sublime. 

An entire series could be written about the travails of the fashion business and this fashion label specifically. It would need to be executed better. Unfortunately, I can only rate this mystery 2 out of 5 stars. I feel bad about the rating because this story had considerable promise and is highly rated by other reviewers.

The Fire Thief

The Fire Thief is set on the Hawaiian island of Maui. It begins with the discovery of the dead body of a surfer who had washed up on shore.  The first few pages are about the murder. However, the story quickly switches to a ghost story and then a theft story. Hawaiian lore is used to tie them all together.

The publisher's summary:

"Under a promising morning sky, police captain Walter Alaka’i makes a tragic discovery: the body of a teenage surfer bobbing among the lava rocks of Maui’s southeastern shore. It appears to be an ill-fated accident, but closer inspection reveals something far more sinister than the results of a savage wave gone wrong. Now that Alaka’i is looking at a homicide, he solicits the help of his niece, Detective Kali Māhoe.

 

The granddaughter of one of Hawaii’s most respected spiritual leaders, and on the transcendent path to becoming a kahu herself, Kali sees evidence of a strange ritual murder. The suspicion is reinforced by a rash of sightings of a noppera-bō—a faceless and malicious spirit many believe to be more than superstition. When a grisly sacrifice is left on the doorstep of a local, and another body washes ashore, Kali fears that the deadly secret ceremonies on Maui are just beginning. 

 

To uncover a motive and find the killer, Kali leans on her skills at logic and detection. But she must also draw on her own personal history with the uncanny legends of the islands. Now, as the skies above Maui grow darker, and as she balances reason and superstition, Kali can only wonder: Who’ll be the next to die? And who—or what—is she even on the trail of?"

While I enjoy reading about my favorite state, the book did not have a cohesive plot. The author should have decided what type of story she wanted to tell. I thought the murder would have been the best storyline to go with as the body was found with a shark's tooth imbedded in the head but no signs of a shark attack. The howdunnit and whodunnit would have been an interesting read. We don't really learn how the murder was done. The identity of the killer is revealed at the end but with no twists, turns, or red herrings. Nothing. The ghost storyline carried most of the pages and was minimally related to the murder. The theft of solar panels was not connected to the murder other than the thief being related to the killer. 

The Walter and Kali detective team are a great pair. They both have distinctive personalities that the author fleshed out well and I can see them investigating crimes together in the future. However, the author needs to come up with a better plotline if she wants to have a series to write. This is her first book so perhaps she will surprise us in years to come.

2 out of 5 stars.

The Night Gate

The Night Gate is the final installment of Peter May's The Enzo Files series.  I have loved this series since it began and hate to see it end but I understand that authors need variety in their writing to keep it crisp. 

The publisher's summary:

"In a sleepy French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree.  A week later a famous art critic is viciously murdered in a nearby house.  The deaths occurred more than seventy years apart.  Asked by a colleague to inspect the site of the former, forensics expert Enzo MacLeod quickly finds himself embroiled in the investigation of the latter.  Two extraordinary narratives are set in train - one historical, unfolding in the treacherous wartime years of Occupied France; the other contemporary, set in the autumn of 2020 as France re-enters Covid lockdown. 

Tasked by the exiled General Charles de Gaulle to keep the world's most famous painting out of Nazi hands after the fall of France in 1940, 28-year-old Georgette Signal finds herself swept along by the tide of history.  Following in the wake of DaVinci's Mona Lisa as it is moved from chateau to chateau by the Louvre, she finds herself just one step ahead of two German art experts sent to steal it for rival patrons - Hitler and Goring. What none of them know is that the Louvre itself has taken exceptional measures to keep the painting safe, unwittingly setting in train a fatal sequence of events extending over seven decades.

The Night Gate spans three generations, taking us from war-torn London, the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, Berlin and Vichy France, to the deadly enemy facing the world in 2020."

I was disappointed in this novel.  There were many passages of writing that were not central to the solving of the crime.  For instance, there was a 40 page section on the military training of women who were going to be dropped into Nazi held France. In addition, the relationship of the characters who were mentioned in the beginning of the book was not explained.  I knew from past books in the series that they were related but could not remember exactly how.  I think the author should have explained who the characters were and what made them tick. There was no development of the characters during the story either so I expected a tighter plot.  I got neither.  As far as the settings descriptions are concerned, I did not feel that I was in Scotland, London, France or Berlin. In the earlier books in the series you could see the Scottish Enzo's semi-assimilation in France where he lived.

What a disappointing end to a great series.  2 out of 5 stars.

British Ice

British Ice is a fictionalized account of a commissioner's year on Reliance Island off the northern coast of Canada. At the time of Commissioner Harrison Fleet's visit, the island was part of the British Arctic Territory. British Ice is a graphic novel. It was published two weeks ago by Top Shelf Productions.

Since the plot revolves around the setting, it will need some explanation.  The British Arctic Territory is an imagined territory that consists of one main island, Reliance, and a few smaller ones including rocks and underwater formations. It was discovered in the early 1800s by Captain Netherton and the main island was named after his ship. It has remained British land since its discovery and has been constantly manned by a member of the British High Commission even though it is in remote, freezing location. The artwork contributes to the setting. It has been colored entirely in an icy blue tone to match the setting. Drawings in comic strip panels complete the look of this book.

Upon his arrival on Reliance Island, Fleet immediately realizes he cannot speak the native language. He soon meets Ana and Abel, the Community Engagement Officer, both whom treat him with plenty of distrust and sarcasm. After snowmobiling to Netherton's home, a townhome, Fleet settles in for what is supposed to be a four year post. Inside he finds a few items owned by the prior commissioner, who disappeared without a trace. The natives refuse to communicate with him so Fleet must rely upon his pilot, Ana and Abel to determine why the indigenous people have always mistrusted the British.

I did not expect this book to be a mystery but love that it is a historical mystery. Fleet did an investigation into the background of the natives anger toward British rule and was surprised at what he discovered. It wasn't just a reaction to colonial rule. I won't be a spoiler but the answer to that question connects to the first chapter. He also asked plenty of questions about his predecessor. Why did he disappear?  Fleet was able to figure this out after snowmobiling around the island looking for clues.

I was impressed with the author's creation of the setting. He went into great detail in the beginning of the book to tell the reader about the geography of the area, the person who discovered it and British colonialism. Then he began the story.  Incredible!

5 out of 5 stars.

By Any Means

I have read all of the books in this Ash Rashid detective series and loved them all.  By Any Means was published in 2014 so I am a little behind in my reading.

In this installment of the series Ash is no longer working as a detective for the Indianapolis Police Department but has been reassigned to the community relations department. He primarily gives speeches to schools. However, on his way home from work one day he finds a car accident.  Since no other officers are available, Ash is told to stay at the scene until an officer can arrive. Ash is unable to not investigate so he begins asking questions to those who were in the area when the accident happened. He determined that these responses do not add up and begins to investigate what he feels is a homicide.

As usual, author Chris Culver outdoes himself with his writing.  It is fast paced with plenty of twists and turns and there is a cliffhanger ending. I also love that his protagonist is an American Muslim, albeit not much of a practitioner of his faith.  Ash is an alcoholic. This is a welcome addition to American fiction and normalizes the viewpoint of Muslims in our society.

A great read!

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

This is the first book of Dominic Smith's that I have read and it was fabulous.  The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is part mystery and part historical fiction.  The book alternates between the 17th century, the 1950s and year 2000.

The back cover blurb summarizes the book as follows:  "Amsterdam, 1631: Sara de Vos, the first female master painter in the Guild of St. Luke, defies convention by painting a haunting landscape. New York City, 1957: Her only known surviving work, At the Edge of a Wood, hangs in the bedroom of a wealthy lawyer descended from the original owner. Ellie Shipley, a struggling art history student, paints a forgery for an art dealer. Sydney, 2000:  Now a celebrated art historian and curator, Ellie mounts an exhibit of female Dutch painters and finds that both versions are en route to her museum."

Loved, loved, loved this book.  Each era depicts women artists in the male dominated art world.  There was alot of information on art history, art restoration and forgeries which I found to be exciting.  Of course, there is also alot of information about Dutch painters of the 17th century.  The author was well researched in these areas.

All of the characters were appealing, especially Sara.  I enjoyed reading about her life even though the author created her from a composite of real Dutch female painters.  She seemed real to me and I felt that I had known her.  Another great feature was that there were at least 3 strong female characters, remarkable in a book written by a man and done so well.

This book is a must read.

The Empress of Tempera

The Empress of Tempera by Alex Dolan begins with protagonist Paire Anjou watching a man stab himself to death after sobbing in front of a painting in the window of the Fern Gallery where she works.  The  Empress Xiao Zhe Yi, Seated was painted on wood with tempera paint by an artist named Qi and was on loan from an unknown source.  Paire, while being in shock from watching a man kill himself, was surprised to see the painting in the gallery as the gallery was hosting an exhibition of works by her boyfriend Derek Rosewood.  Hundreds of people from all over the world come to the gallery and obsess over the Empress's stare and clothing, including Paire.  The painting is stolen, stolen again and stolen a third time as Paire researches the painting and the artist's histories.  She sets in motion a plethora of crimes by others as they bribe, steal and kill in order to possess the painting.

The story shows the dark underside of the art world. It is also about art history and the family secrets of those who are trying to possess the painting.  Paire's own family background is a part of the story which was interesting to read about.  Nobody seems to be whom they say they are which gave the novel a lot of suspense.  The plot was complex with many twists and turns.

I loved this second novel by Mr. Dolan.  He is a new author for me and I will be following him in the future.