Category Archives: Mystery

June 14, 2026 · 3:46 pm

Slough House – Mick Herron (Slough House #7)

Slough House – Mick Herron

I accidentally skipped this one – I realised while reading Bad Actors, so I have gone back to listen to it.

Here’s the blurb …

A year after a calamitous blunder by the Russian secret service left a British citizen dead from novichok poisoning, Diana Taverner is on the warpath. What seems a gutless response from the government has pushed the Service’s First Desk into mounting her own counter-offensive – but she’s had to make a deal with the devil first. And given that the devil in question is arch-manipulator Peter Judd, she could be about to lose control of everything she’s fought for.

Meanwhile, still reeling from recent losses, the slow horses are worried they’ve been pushed further into the cold. Slough House has been wiped from Service records, and fatal accidents keep happening. No wonder Jackson Lamb’s crew are feeling paranoid. But have they actually been targeted?

With a new populist movement taking a grip on London’s streets, and the old order ensuring that everything’s for sale to the highest bidder, the world’s an uncomfortable place for those deemed surplus to requirements. The wise move would be to find a safe place and wait for the troubles to pass.

But the slow horses aren’t famed for making wise decisions.

I am always completely horrified by the machinations between people who are meant to be on the same side. Lady Di in particular.

Lamb was awful, Catherine Standish sensible and resolute, Dander impulsive, River heroic, Roddy as useless and useful as ever, and Louisa and Lech just trying to get by. The pace is fast, and some of their ‘on their feet’ thinking is hilarious (Lech describing a dead person as pretending to be a corpse for sexual reasons). The descriptions are great, and this one is very current.

I think there is only one more to go – Clown Town.

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June 10, 2026 · 1:34 pm

All the Devils are Here (Gamache #16) – Louise Penny

All the Devils are Here – Louise Penny

I love Gamache novels. I am restricting myself so I don’t run out.

Here’s the blurb for this one …

On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand’s godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Gamache knows is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on the elderly man’s life. 

When a strange key is found in Stephen’s possession it sends Armand, his wife Reine-Marie, and his former second-in-command at the S ret , Jean-Guy Beauvoir, from the top of the Tour d’Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives, from luxury hotels to odd, coded, works of art. 

It sends them deep into the secrets Armand’s godfather has kept for decades. 

A gruesome discovery in Stephen’s Paris apartment makes it clear the secrets are more rancid, the danger far greater and more imminent, than they realized. 

Soon the whole family is caught up in a web of lies and deceit. In order to find the truth, Gamache will have to decide whether he can trust his friends, his colleagues, his instincts, his own past. His own family. 

For even the City of Light casts long shadows. And in that darkness devils hide.

I wondered, after I finished the last book, how things would progress with Jean-Guy and Annie in Paris. But I didn’t need to worry because the action moved to Paris!

This book has a lot going on – conspiracy theorists would be in seventh heaven, but, as per usual, I liked the relationships (particularly between Armand and Daniel), not to mention the Paris scenery. The crime is complicated and many people are involved in solving it – it gets very tense at times. Who can be trusted? And why does Stephen have two nickels glued together? And how can Daniel afford a new appartement and to send his girls to an elite Parisian private school?

It’s so good! And now I need to pause before reading/listening to the next one.

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May 30, 2026 · 4:40 pm

Yesteryear – Caro Claire Burke

Yesteryear – Caro Claire Burke

This novel is apparently all the rage at the moment. Anne Hathaway has bought the film rights and I believe it is a TikTok sensation. I listened to it.

Here’s the blurb …

A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.

My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.

Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. 

I am fascinated by the traditional wife movement. Does it exist anywhere outside of the United States? And I have often thought that those perfect online lives must hide mess and mayhem.

Natalie is not a sympathetic character and a very unreliable narrator. Just like her posts on social media she is telling us a different story. She moves from an amateur doing everything herself to having two nannies, a producer, and multiple farm workers (all kept hidden from the cameras). All appears well in her world until her husband has an affair with the producer. There is an altercation – she can bring them down with her knowledge of behind the scenes.

Natalie then finds her self back in 1855 and finds life without hidden modern conveniences is very unpleasant. How does she end up back in 1855? Is it time travel?, a reality TV show, is she mad?, in a coma? From this point the narrative shifts backwards and forwards between the past and present day Yesteryear Ranch. How it is resolved is very good – in my opinion, no spoilers.

There is a great review at The Guardian

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May 14, 2026 · 2:09 pm

Holding – Graham Norton

Holding – Graham Norton

I started listening to this one on a road trip and finished it later at home. It’s narrated by Graham Norton! This is the second of his novels that I have read – I have also listened to A Keeper.

Here’s the blurb …

From Graham Norton—the BAFTA-award-winning and hugely popular BBC America television host—comes a charming debut novel set in an idyllic Irish village where a bumbling investigator has to sort through decades of gossip and secrets to solve a mysterious crime. “With its tale of provincial life, gimlet-eyed spinsters, and thwarted love…it feels almost like a Miss Marple mystery written by Colm Tóibín” (New York Times).

The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little drama, and yet its inhabitants are troubled: Sergeant P.J. Collins hasn’t always been this overweight; Brid Riordan, a mother of two, hasn’t always been an alcoholic; and elegant Evelyn Ross hasn’t always felt that her life was a total waste.

So when human remains—suspected to be those of Tommy Burke, a former lover of both Brid and Evelyn—are discovered on an old farm, the village’s dark past begins to unravel. As a frustrated P.J. struggles to solve a genuine case for the first time in his professional life, he unearths a community’s worth of anger and resentments, secrets and regrets.

Darkly comic, at times profoundly sad, and “especially inviting because of its tongue-in-cheek wit” (Kirkus Reviews), Holding is a masterful debut. Graham Norton employs his acerbic humor to breathe life into a host of lovable characters, and explore—with searing honesty—the complexities and contradictions that make us human.

This was great – witty and moving with a lot of insightful observations about small towns, relationships, etc.

How is it possible for people to be so talented in a number of fields? His talk show is fabulous and now he is a wonderful author. Although, I suspect his ability to engage with people makes him good at both.

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May 8, 2026 · 2:13 pm

A Better Man (Gamache #15) – Louise Penny

A Better Man – Louise Penny

I really like these Gamache novels – I think there is 21 altogether, so I am catching up.

Here’s the blurb …

Catastrophic spring flooding, blistering attacks in the media, and a mysterious disappearance greet Chief Inspector Armand Gamache as he returns to the S ret du Qu bec in the latest novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny. 

It’s Gamache’s first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter. 

As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father. 

Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel…, he resumes the search. 

As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made. 

In the next novel in this “constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves” (New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question. 

What would you do if your child’s killer walked free?

As usual, this was beautifully written, with literary references and a few surprises. I cried when Jean-Guy and Annie headed off to Paris – I am intrigued as to how that will all be handled in the next book.

The solution to the crime(s) was intriguing, particularly after the ‘poisoned fruit’ made them start investigating again. This was also a love letter to the Armand Jean-Guy relationship.

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April 25, 2026 · 2:24 pm

The Hiding Place – Kate Mildenhall

The Hiding Place – Kate Mildenhall

I heard Kate speak at Beaufort Street Books and obviously I had to buy her book.

Here is the blurb …

When Lou sees an ad for a long-abandoned mining town up for sale, it doesn’t take her long to convince her sister and their oldest friends to go in on the idyllic property buried in the bush – a place where the four families can hide away on weekends, get back to nature and unstick the kids from their screens.

But things start to go wrong before they even arrive for their first camping trip – a rogue deer sends a trailer off the road, a neighbour complains about the fence line and squatters have set up camp down by the river. Soon none of that will matter, though, because by the end of the first night someone will be dead.

At first it seems that hiding a body is easier than keeping other sorts of secrets: a lost job, an illegal crop, an outrageous affair, a little embezzlement. But what’s buried has a way of coming to the surface, and even in the bush, it’s hard to remain unseen.

I think the comparison to White Lotus is very apt – none of these characters are particularly likeable. I thought it was going to be Australian Noir, but it’s not that. The story is told from different view points – and each of these characters has a secret (and they are all going to be outed by the end of the weekend). There are terrible decisions – a secret that spreads through the group and finally explodes into the light of day. A creepy neighbour, an even creepier squatter with a gun, and a group of self-absorbed entitled people – what could go wrong?

The writing is good and the sense of place superb – I could picture the pub and the creek, and the creepy man from next door (haven’t we all meet one of them?).

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April 8, 2026 · 3:33 pm

Prophet – Helen MacDonald + Sin Blaché

Prophet – Helen MacDonals + Sin Blaché

I really enjoyed H is for Hawk. I saw this while on holiday in Dunsborough (here). I did know it was going to be completely different, but good writing is good writing.

Here’s the blurb …

A genre-bending, strikingly original tour-de-force about an unlikely spy duo on the most dangerous and otherwordly mission of their lives, from the New York Times–bestselling author of H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald, and the stunning new voice of Sin Blaché.

Adam Rubinstein and Sunil Rao have been nemeses and reluctant partners since their Uzbekistan days. Adam is a seemingly unflappable American Intelligence officer; Rao is ex-MI6, an addict and rudderless pleasure-hound with an uncanny ability to discern the truth about anything and anyone—except Adam.

Adam and Rao have gone their separate ways until they are called back together when a full-sized, 1950s American diner shows up in an English farmer’s field and a mysterious death ensues. What follows is a reality-twisting, action-filled quest as the unlikely duo begin to uncover how and why people’s fondest memories are being manifested and weaponized against them, in increasingly bizarre and tangible forms, by a spooky, ever-shifting substance called Prophet. Adam and Rao must find a way to stop these malevolent entities from taking over a world that is just one perilous step from our own.

The brilliant minds of Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché have created a tantalizing fusion of sci-fi, detective noir, action, and romance in this high-tension, fast-paced adventure. Prophet is a triumph of storytelling.

Like a lot of science fiction this was a bit too long. However, I loved the premise and the relationship between Adam and Rao. This novel has emotional heft – damaged people, working together to save the world. But at its heart it’s really about Adam and Rao, so relationships, courage and trust. And two people who really need to have a conversation.

A review

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March 19, 2026 · 2:25 pm

Bellman & Black – Diane Setterfield

Bellman & Black – Diane Setterfield

I loved Once Upon a River, and so when I saw this one at the local second hand book shop, I couldn’t resist. That book shop closed a few years ago – it just took me a while to get to this.

Here’s the blurb …

As a boy, William Bellman commits one small cruel act that appears to have unforeseen and terrible consequences. The killing of a rook with his catapult is soon forgotten amidst the riot of boyhood games. And by the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, he seems indeed, to be a man blessed by fortune. 
Until tragedy strikes, and the stranger in black comes, and William Bellman starts to wonder if all his happiness is about to be eclipsed. Desperate to save the one precious thing he has left, he enters into a bargain. A rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner, to found a decidedly macabre business. 
And Bellman & Black is born.

I love historical fiction and this had a bit of magical realism thrown in as well. Set in Victorian times during the Industrial Revolution, I enjoyed all the mill references – improving the mill, improving the dying techniques, feeding the workers to keep them loyal, etc. And then the Bellman & Black emporium – an emporium for mourning – everything you could possibly need or want, coffin?, stationery? a mute to follow the coffin? All possible.

There is also chapters about rooks – different collective nouns, behaviours, two mythical rooks called Thought and Memory (‘They know everything and they do not forget’). I enjoyed the part about the rooks playing on the thermal air currents.

What does it mean to be alive? Who will tell our story when we are gone? What does it mean to be successful? All big questions tackled by this novel.

One of my favourite quotes

Dora will be sad and happy and ill and well. She will live the best she can for as long as she can and when she can do that no longer, she will die.

Sounds like a good formula.

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March 3, 2026 · 7:52 am

The Sign of Four – Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of Four – Arthur Conan Doyle

I have continued my Sherlock Holmes adventure with number two. Also read by Stephen Fry.

Here’s the blurb …

Sherlock Holmes is bored and case-less, and relieving his boredom by alternating morphine and cocaine. Enter the charming Miss Mary Morstan, with whom Watson is instantly smitten. She requests the assistance of Holmes and Watson to solve the mysterious disappearance of her father, and the subsequent invitation to ‘have justice’ by an anonymous letter writer.

Holmes and Watson happily accompany her to see the anonymous letter writer; only to become deeply embroiled in a mystery concerning treasure, murders, India, escaped convicts and small savages with poisoned blowpipes. 

I enjoyed this – the interesting locations; India, and the Andaman Islands, there is treasure, a man with a wooden leg, an Indian uprising, and a murder in a locked room.

It had the same structure as number one – first half solving the crime and the second half from the criminal’s perspective. Is this the standard Sherlock Holmes’ structure?

Dr Watson meets Mary! What happens now? How can he continue to live with Sherlock?

I am having a bit of a pause while I listen to Bad Actors by Mick Herron (I always like a Slough House novel).

Wikipedia The Sign of the Four

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February 27, 2026 · 9:09 am

A Study in Scarlet (#1 Sherlock Holmes)- Arthur Conan Doyle

A Study in Scarlet – Arthur Conan Doyle

I read the Anthony Horowitz’s The House of Silk, which is a Sherlock Holmes’ novel written by Horowitz with approval from the estate, and I enjoyed it so I thought I would tackle the real thing. I remember a friend telling me to read them years ago – sorry Jacq I am finally onto it!

This is the first in the series, here is the blurb …

Dr. John Watson, discharged from military service after suffering severe wounds, is at a loose end until a chance encounter leads him to take rooms with a remarkable young man. The arrogant, irascible Sherlock Holmes is a master chemist, a talented musician and an expert on all aspects of crime. And when Watson is drawn into the investigation of a bizarre murder in which Holmes is involved, he is unaware that it is the beginning of the most famous partnership in the history of criminal detection. 

First, Stephen Fry is a fabulous narrator.

In this first novel we get most of the characteristics that Sherlock is known for – amazing detection skills, cocaine taker, musician, weird experiments (he was beating a corpse to see if bruises can happen after death) etc. This novel is written in two parts (and possibly they all are?). In the first part, we get to the point where we know the murderer and then in the second part we get his back story – in this case set amongst the mormans in Utah!

I love how they are written – a bit Dickensian, with gentlemen, street urchins, and young ladies who require protection.

Here’s the wikipedia entry.

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