Malice Aforethought

Author, Avree Kelly Clark, surprised me with this very interesting novel, Malice Aforethought.

Very intriguing story of two women killed in New England and how the police and town officials went about solving the crimes and finding the killer.  Written as a novel but in the style of a police procedural ... this is a captivating plot with interesting characters.  The reader is caught up in the mystery and concerned about how the criminal will be caught.  There is no scientific DNA discovery ability at this time.  Timeline and the ability to travel between locations along with personality assessments ments become very important to the evidence and in determining guilt or innocence.

This is a story that takes place in New Hampshire which in itself is interesting.  It is written as a novel but follows true facts about women who were killed in neighboring towns.  Thinking of the period it takes palce in, it is interesting to see how they solve the crime without all the modern forensics that are at our disposal today.

The Retirement Plan

 The Retirement Plan by Sue Hincenbergs.  It is an entertaining beach read about marriage and relationships. 

Very relatable to those of us of a certain age who have raised children with a group of friends. The kids have flown the coup and now the four couples are still friends.  The men all fish together and share drinks over barbeque.  The women are all best friends and share their confidences.  

But every person has a secret they are not sharing, not with their friends or with their spouses .  It is hard to keep those secrets without impacting your relationships.  When one of the husbands, Dave,  is found dead in his  driveway everything goes sideways.  Then men are worried someone is after them, they reach out for protection.  The wives see that Dave’s wife collects a big insurance claim and looks like she is set for an exciting future.  That gets the other wives thinking, maybe they want to take out a hit on the remaining husbands.

Food for thought, about marriage, your relationships, trust and love.  

Deep Lake House

 Deep Lake House by DJ Geribo, written from the point of view of the house itself, this slim novel follows the guest who have come and stayed there over the years.  A guest house that welcomes guests for a week or two at a time.  Looking at the guests who have stayed there in each decade, from the 1890s to present day.  Some families return year after year, some only come once.  The house watches the family dynamics and intereactions as it ages in place.

A Swim Back Home

A Swim Back Home by Denise Sawyer, has an interesting storyline about a woman who is trying to hold onto a childhood interrupted. Her parents moved from her childhood home in NJ to MA and she has always regretted it. It has made her a hoarder. 

When she experiences an accident in her swimming pool, she feels like she is time traveling back to her childhood. Now an adult in a her 11 year old body, she is back in her NJ home.

 A different concept makes for interesting reading and also brings in a rare scientific phenomenon that was something this reader had never heard of before.

The Spy Coast

 The Spy Coast , the first in a new series by Tess Gerritsen.  This was a mystery novel about a former CIA operative named Maggie Bird, who has retired to a small town in Maine.  She is enjoying retirement as chicken farmer and living a quiet life on the beaten pat.

When a young woman shows up at her door looking for another operative from the past, Maggie is not happy to have been found.  This is the beginning of a run for her life.  Now she has to figure out who is looking for her and why.  She and a few other friends from the past gather for a book discussion group and call themselves the Martini Club.  When things get really dangerous for Maggie, they gather together behind her to help save her life.

This seems like the beginning of a new series of cases the Martini Club will be able to start solving, keeping their hand in with the talents they used in their former lives.  They are also getting to know the new police chief in town,  Jo Thibodeau.

Maggie has to return to her past and confront her ghosts and some of the horrible things that happened to her as worked in the field for the US.  It is a matter of who you can trust and who is out to get you, to save themselves.

Fair Play

 I am going to admit something right here and now.... I did. not get what was happening in this book at all.

There ... maybe it is just me but Fair Play by Louise Hegarty was very confusing and though I finished it I was not sure what was happening for the whole second half of the story. I read to the end hoping it would all make sense by the end but alas no such solution was offered.

The plot starts out like a group of old friends who get together every New Year's Eve and spend the night in an AirBnB with a mystery themed party.  As the friends arrive you get a description of each character and how they fit into the group.  Then dinner is served the aprty begins and the scripted mystery party starts.  Of course one character plays the victum and the others figure out the solution.  

The next morning there is an actual guest who turns up dead.  That was totally what I expected.  But then somehow the plot seems to change and the characters that were there now some are the same names and some are different.  The relationships seem altered and a detective, a copy of Hercule Poirot with his sidekick show up to help the police with the murder.  

Here is where the two stories got so muddled I am not sure what was happening.

Then the ending, the detective comes back six times with six different solutions to the murder. Each chapter labeled "The Solution"," Another Solution", etc...

So in the end I am not sure what to say but if you read this book and understand the plot ...cacll me and explain it to me.

6:40 To Montreal

 Another fabulous story plot by Eva Jurczyk.  The story twists and turns at just the right moments.  Just when you think you have it all figured out there is another fact revealed that sends the plot in a new direction.

The story of Agatha, a writer in a slump, is on the 6:40 train.  She has the day planned out, when the train gets stuck in a snow storm.  There are only a few people on this train car.  The reader gets to know each of the characters very well. The first victim is a shocking surprise, then it is like sharks smelling blood in the water.  In a closed car mystery, the murder must be one the people in the room and Jurczyk is practiced at pitting one against another.  Will the train make it to its destination before there are more bodies?  Only time will tell.