The Alienist by Caleb Carr

September 25, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Simon & Schuster, 2012. 20 hours, 3 minutes. Purchased.  On a cold March night in 1896, New York Times crime reporter John Schulyer Moore is summed to the East River of New York City by his friend, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler. As a psychologist – or, “alienist”, as the profession was then known – Kriezler has been brought in by the newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in examine the mutilated body and help […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Chunkster, Crime, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Caleb Carr, George Guidall

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

September 23, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. W.W. Norton, 2012. Originally published 1950. 292 pgs. Purchased.  On a cross-country train trip, Guy Haines makes the mistake of telling a stranger his business. Upon hearing how much Guy desires a divorce from his estranged, pregnant wife in small town Texas, Charles Anthony Bruno decides to murder the young woman and free Guy from her derailing his career as a budding architect. The offer originally sounds like a joke to Guy; something Bruno offers as […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Book Club, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Patricia Highsmith

The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo

August 12, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Atria Books, 2015. 417 pgs. Purchased. In 1987, fourteen-year-old Ted Systead and his father were camping in the backcountry of Glacier National Park when a grizzly bear attacked Ted’s father, dragging him out of the tent and to his death. Ted managed to stay awake all night, starting a fire to keep himself warm and plotting how he would get help. But, in his delirious and anxious state, Ted tripped over a rock, smashing his head […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Animals, Crime, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, United States • Tags: Christine Carbo

The Last Summer by Ricarda Huch

August 7, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch. Peirene Press, 2016. Originally published 1910. 121 pgs. Purchased. Amid the political upheaval of the beginning of the twenty century in Russia, the governor of the state university in St. Petersburg shutters the university’s doors and decamps to his summer residence with his family. There, a letter arrives in the post, promising to kill the governor is he fails to take the “right” side by reopening the university. Concerned for […]

Categories: 20BooksofSummer, Crime, Europe, Fiction, German, Peirene Press, Russia, Translated • Tags: Jamie Bulloch, Ricarda Huch

Prime Cut by Alan Carter

July 31, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Michael O’Mara Books, 2014. Originally published 2011. 348 pgs. Purchased.  While the rest of the world teeters on the precipice of what will be known as the Great Recession of 2008, the Western Australian town of Hopetoun is alight with quick money from the 50-year mine next door. Home prices have soared as miners from around the world flock to Hopetown in hopes of working in the mine, and the local police sergeant Tess Maguire is […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Crime, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Alan Carter

Don’t Look Back by Karin Fossum

July 10, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the Norwegian by Felicity David. Mariner Books, 2005. Originally published 2004. 320 pgs. Purchased. Near the base of Kollen Mountain, a little girl leaves her friend’s home after a sleepover and sets out with her toys, including a baby buggy, for the short walk home. Along the way, the little girl encounters neighbors who hastily say hello as they head to work until one man stops to offer her a ride home. A few hours […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Awards and Prizes, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Glass Key Award, Norwegian, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Karin Fossum

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

June 17, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the Swedish by Steven T. Murray. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2003. Originally published 1991. 280 pgs. Purchased. On a cold January night, an elderly Swedish farmer awakens in the middle of the night to an eerie feeling. As his eyes and ears adjust to the faint light cast across the remote landscape, the farmer realizes the back window of his neighbor’s home has been broken into. Hurrying next door, the farmer finds his neighbor bludgeoned to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Awards and Prizes, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Glass Key Award, Scandinavia, Swedish, Translated • Tags: Henning Mankell

Broken Harbor by Tana French

June 7, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Penguin Books, 2013. Originally published 2012. 450 pgs. Purchased. First introduced in Faithful Place, Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy returns as the main detective in the fourth novel in French’s Dublin Murder Squad series. Known for his high closure rate, Scorcher is his supervisor’s go-to guy for training new murder detectives and for cases that are sure to attract attention from the news media. Hence why Scorcher ends up serving as the primary investigator into the death of Patrick Spain […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Ireland • Tags: Tana French

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

May 1, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Flatiron Books, 2019. Originally published 2018. 352 pgs. Purchased. In the desolate outback of Queensland, Australia, Nathan meets his youngest brother, Bub, at a solitary, weather-battered grave dating back to the nineteenth century. A spooky air has always surrounded the grave; the locals imagining a number of horrible fates for the man buried there. Nathan, though, has always figured the man died from exposure to this unforgiving landscape – a landscape where heat and a scarcity […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Crime, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Jane Harper

Faithful Place by Tana French

April 12, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Viking, 2010. 400 pgs. Purchased.  In 1985, Frank Mackey stood on around the corner of the Faithful Place flats in Dublin waiting for his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, to appear. For weeks, he and Rosie had cobbled together a plan to run away to London together where they planned to marry against the wishes of Rosie’s parents and, hopefully, break the cycle of poverty and alcoholism that marked their – read Frank’s – lives in Ireland. Yet Rosie […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Ireland • Tags: Tana French

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

March 27, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Mulholland Books, 2018. 656 pgs. Purchased. The fourth installment of Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series opens with the wedding of Strike’s assistant turned junior private investigator, Robin Ellacott, and the fallout of Strike firing Robin at the end of Career of Evil over concerns for her safety.  Robin wants to go back to working for Strike as a private investigator, but Strike still hasn’t contacted her and her family, especially her fiancée Matthew, aren’t keen on the idea […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Chunkster, Crime, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: J.K. Rowling, Robert Galbraith

Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon

March 8, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Jeff Woodman. Recorded Books, 2007. 9 hours, 41 minutes. Library copy. Lord John Grey was first introduced in Dragonfly in Amber, the second book in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, as a young English soldier who attempts to save Claire from the wanted rebel Jamie Fraser. Jamie spares Grey’s life after he tricks the young boy into sharing information about the location of the English forces in the area. Grey and Jamie would cross paths again […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Crime, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Diana Gabaldon, Jeff Woodman