mystery – Page 4 – Reading While Fat

The Old Woman With the Knife

The Old Woman With the Knife (2013, audiobook released 2022) by Gu Byeong-mo, translated by Chi-Young Kim. The author is a popular South Korean writer, but this is the only book she’s written that has been translated into English, that I could find. Hornclaw has spent her career as a “disease control specialist,” the euphemisticContinue reading “The Old Woman With the Knife”

Rebecca

Rebecca (1938) by Daphne du Maurier is considered a classic of modern gothic fiction, and was voted Britain’s favorite book written since 1800, but I hadn’t read it until late 2022, having felt guilty that I had never picked it up. I should not have felt guilty, as I had a near-instant strong dislike ofContinue reading “Rebecca”

Amy Among the Serial Killers

I didn’t know that Amy Among the Serial Killers (2022) by Jincy Willett was the third book in a series that begins with The Writing Class and Amy Falls Down when I picked it up at the library, but it worked as a standalone. Carla is just fine; she is a grown-up former child starContinue reading “Amy Among the Serial Killers”

The Maid

In The Maid (coming 4 January 2022), Nita Prose has created a quirky, socially awkward character, Molly, a hotel maid who finds a murdered guest, who is reminiscent of another quirky character–Eleanor in Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Molly works at a boutique hotel and has been all alone since her GranContinue reading “The Maid”

Lightning Men

Lightning Men (2017) by Thomas Mullen, is the second in a series of historical mystery/ police procedural novels that begins with Darktown (2015), which I reviewed here. They are set in Jim Crow Atlanta, and are centered around the first black police officers, who patrol the black part of town, known as Darktown. Lightning MenContinue reading “Lightning Men”

The Night Tiger

The Night Tiger, by Yangsze Choo (2019) transported me back to 1931 Malaya (now Malaysia) with a tale of murder, romance, and weretigers. I loved Choo’s 2013 The Ghost Bride and have no idea why I didn’t highlight it in my best of 2020 posts, so I was looking forward to The Night Tiger. IContinue reading “The Night Tiger”

The Cutting Season

The Cutting Season, by Attica Locke (2012) is an adept, completely absorbing crime/ mystery novel that grapples with race and history. Set in 2009, five years after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, Caren Gray, law school dropout and mother to 9-year-old Morgan, is managing the historical plantation Belle Vie south of Baton Rouge. Belle VieContinue reading “The Cutting Season”