Part-way through The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen I thought, ‘She’s done such a great job with these characters this will have to become a series.’ And sure enough, after I’d finished reading I went to add it to Goodreads and noticed it’s called The Martini Club #1.
It’s very reminiscent of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series – though given our lead cast are all ex-CIA agents – they’re like the residents of the Coopers Chase Luxury Retirement Village, but on speed.
US author Anne Frasier has several series under her belt, standalone books as well as romance novels under the pseudonym Theresa Weir. This (however) is my first book by Frasier and it features investigative journalist – the spectacularly named – Jupiter (Edwina Delilah) Bellarose. I suspect it’ll become the first in the series and though I found it a little overly-convoluted and ‘fantastique’ (in the end), I liked Jupiter and would happily spend more time with her.
Kaira Rouda’s Best Day Ever was one of my favourite books of 2017. I haven’t received any since for review but managed to read The Favourite Daughter just recently.
Rouda’s talent seems to lie in offering up flawed characters but luring us into their world, so we bond and feel sympathy or empathy before twisting things until we realise we’ve been duped. Often along with other characters we’re following on the journey.
This book opens with a murder. It’s one of a series by a killer known as the Nine Elms Cannibal. We meet Kate Marshall, a detective on the case, some of her colleagues including her boss Detective Chief Inspector Peter Conway. As I hadn’t really read the backcover blurb properly it came as a surprise then that the usual crisis / climax (ie. Kate’s life threatened by the baddie) happens just after the book kicks off. And the killer is found. Huh?
Of course we then leap forward 15 years to meet Kate in the (not quite) present day. I’ve not read any of Bryndza’s books before so did wonder briefly if Kate had been referenced in another series as the information we receive about the preceding decade and a half is pretty scant, though more is eventually shared.
I recently commented on the fact it’d been a while since I’d read a legal thriller. Brad Park’s Say Nothing was the first in a while and now I’ve added to that with a debut novel by practising lawyer William (Bill) L Myers Jr who – most certainly – knows his stuff.
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