(73) The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (1934, 170 pages) (crime drama, classic). Paper book. Another classic by a master of the genre. Set in the early 20th century in rural California, a drifter and the disenchanted wife of a Greek diner owner begin an affair and conspire to murder “the Greek.” Alas they may have both bitten off more than they bargained for. A dramatic tragedy in the most Greek (no pun intended) sense of the word. No mystery here, just hard-boiled crime drama.
(74) The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne (1922, 156 pages) (crime mystery, classic). Paper book. Oho, you didn’t know the Winnie the Poo guy wrote a murder mystery, did you? And not just any old murder mystery, the best murder mystery–according to Milne–ever written. (That’s supposedly why he wrote only one!) This is a classic locked room mystery where a country gentleman, Mark Ablett, is visited by his mysterious estranged brother Robert; after a servant hears them arguing in a locked room, Robert is found dead while the gentleman has disappeared. It then falls to two would-be detectives–Mark’s friend Bill and his friend Tony–to solve the murder and find Mark. Gotta say, this one was quite clever and a classic for a reason!
(75) The Girl Who Survived by Lisa Jackson (2022, 452 pages) (crime, mystery). Audio book. Seven-year-old Kara McIntyre was the only survivor of her family’s horrific Christmas Eve mass murder--other than her teenage brother Jonas who was convicted of the crime, and her older sister Marlie who hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Twenty years later Jonas is out on a technicality and Kara is receiving mysterious phone messages from someone she believes is Marlie. Meanwhile, a local journalist–coincidentally, also the son of the cop who died rescuing Kara–is desperate for a twenty-year-anniversary story from Kara. This book was full of troops, super predictable, and just not that interesting. It felt bleak and angsty without many other redeeming qualities.
(76) Fairy Tale by Stephen King (2022, 599 pages) (YA, fantasy). Paper book. A series of unlikely and traumatic events lead seventeen-year-old Charlie Reade to befriending the old man who lives in the imposing house on the hill with his equally ancient dog. Then Old Mr. Bowditch suddenly passes, leaving Charlie with an unbelievable story and a task he can’t refuse. Charlie soon finds himself navigating a real-life fairytale in a strange yet oddly familiar land, where the stakes are not only the survival of his new compatriots but that of his own world. This is definitely a contender for best book I read all year! I’ve said before and I’ll say it again; King is a damn fine writer, and if you only know him for his more classic horror/sci fi works, you’re missing out.
(77) The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne (2015, 373 pages) (psychological thriller/drama). Paper book. Angus and Sarah Moorcroft have had more than their share of trials in the last year–first losing one of their seven-year-old identical twins in a tragic accident, then the crumbling of Angus’s career, the chilling of their marriage, and now financial near-ruin. Their last hope seems to be selling their overly-mortgaged London home to move to the dilapidated cottage on the tiny island in Sky that Angus’s grandmother has left him. Alas the move is anything but smooth, and to cap things off the surviving twin Kirstie is now insisting that she is not Kirstie but in fact Lydia, the twin they believe to be dead. As (Kirstie? Lydia?) grows more disturbed, Sarah begins to doubt what she really knows about the last year. This book was deliciously dark and twisted and even gave me a few nightmares!
(78) How To Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine (2022, 304 pages) (YA, crime/mystery thriller). Audio book. A year after witnessing the death of her vivacious theater star sister Clare on Halloween night, horror movie-obsessed Alice Lawrence is flash-backed in time by a mysterious Sidney Prescott-lookalike to the night of her sister’s death. Now she has until midnight to figure out what really happened, prevent Clare’s death, and save her broken family. I didn’t love this one which is partly on me because somehow I missed that it was YA, and while I do appreciate a good YA, this one managed to feature all the tropes that annoy me the most. It was hard to take it seriously from the very beginning and then the ending was bleak as hell. So not really for me.
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