Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb

Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb - 356 pages

Eve Dallas is up against one of her most confusing cases ever.  A video game developer was killed in a locked room with his head decapitated.  No one else was in the room.  How was he killed?  Did the killer somehow sneak in?  How did he get burns on his body?  Eve must work quickly to determine the killer before he strikes again.

This was a very interesting locked room mystery.  It was a little frustrating to watch the characters continually search for a way for the killer to enter the room when the readers were able to "see" the murder in the very first chapter knowing he was in the room alone.  Still, the eventual discovery of the method of killing was fascinating.  This was a great addition to the series.

The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes

The Mitford Murders: A Mystery by Jessica Fellowes --- 421 pages including a Historical Note, Acknowledgements and a brief Bibliography.

The facts are as follows: in January1920, Florence Nightingale Shore, a British nurse, was found murdered on a train travelling between London's Victoria Station and St. Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex. Witnesses saw a man in a brown suit  leaving the train but the police were never able to identify him and the crime remained unsolved.

Enter Jessica Fellowes, journalist and author of the Downton Abbey companion books, who has taken the bare bones of the murder and dressed it up as the first in a projected series of mysteries featuring the notorious Mitford sisters, whom she calls the "Kardashians" of British society in the first half of the 20th century.  In Fellowes re-imagining, it's then 16-year-old Nancy Mitford, eldest of the brood, who becomes obsessed with solving the crime. The (fictional) link in the book is that the Mitford's nanny's sister is a friend of Miss Shore.

An impoverished young woman running away from an abusive home life, equally improbably,  happens to be an old classmate of a girl who is friends with Nancy Mitford, and through this connection lands a job as a nursery maid for the Mitfords, where she becomes the confidante of young Nancy.  There is lots of period detail and nostalgia, but not quite enough to overcome the torturous convolutions of the plot or the stereotyped characters. 

The author's intention is to have each of the six Mitford sisters serve as the heroine of one of the books in the series.  Alas, Downton Abbey this isn't.

If you'd like to read about the real Florence Nightingale Shore, who was the god-daughter and namesake of Florence Nightingale, find a copy of Rosemary Cook's The Nightingale Shore Murder (2nd ed. 2015).

Click HERE to read an interview with the author from British Heritage Magazine.

Click HERE to read a review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus Reviews.

The Paris Librarian by Mark Pryor

The Paris Librarian: A Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor --- 262 pages

Hugo Marston, an ex-FBI profiler, now works in Paris as head of security for the U.S. Embassy. But his job seems pretty flexible, as he always has time to conduct his own investigations on the side. In this sixth book in the series, Hugo discovers an acquaintance, Paul Rogers, the director of the American Library in Paris, dead, in a locked room in the basement of the library. The police and the medical examiner say Rogers died of a heart attack. But Hugo's getting that tingling sensation on the back of his neck that says otherwise.

But then another library employee nearly dies while on duty, his symptoms eerily similar to Rogers'. And Hugo discovers Paul's fiancee dead, an apparent suicide, just a few days later. If anything that tingling sensation is getting stronger and stronger.

As Hugo delves deeper into the lives of the employees at the library he begins to suspect that the roots of this case go further back than anyone else realizes. But to find the proof, Hugo must visit the scene of a decades-old tragedy, putting more than just his life in danger.

Mystery fans will enjoy the twists and turns of Pryor's tale; lovers of Paris will revel in the descriptions of the city and its neighborhoods, cafes and joie de vivre as the plot unfolds to its unexpected conclusion.

Click HERE to read the review in Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read an interview with Mark Pryor posted on the Bonjour Paris web site..

Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie --- 272 pages

A reissue, with a new title, of Christie's 1938 mystery, previously published as Murder for Christmas and A Holiday for Murder.

A family reluctantly gathers for Christmas in response to the summons of the patriarch, Simeon Lee, whose disdain for his offspring is only matched by their loathing for him. Can anyone really be surprised when the old man is found murdered in a locked room with a fortune in uncut diamonds missing from the safe?

The old man's valet, who has a dubious past, is suspected but able to produce a watertight alibi. The local police, represented by Superintendent Sugden, are stymied, but fortunately the Chief Constable for the County, Colonel Johnson, has a house guest for the holidays who is happy to assist. Enter the redoubtable Hercule Poirot.

This is vintage Christie: a locked room, a family at odds, a fortune at stake, and every suspect with disreputable secrets they are anxious to hide.  The investigation unfolds over seven days, and concludes with Poirot, in typical style, gathering all the suspects together to reconstruct the crime  and reveal the murderer.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, 465 pages

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, 465 pages

Mikael Blomkvist has been convicted of libel against a pretty corrupt businessman.  So when Henrik Vanger calls and says that he can give Blomkvist proof of the man's corruption if he agrees to investigate an unsolved murder, of course Blomkvist agrees.  He starts investigating a family mystery from the 1960s, and with the help of Lisbeth Salander, hacker extraordinaire, he comes so close to the truth that his life is in jeopardy.

I really wanted to like this book, because Lisbeth Salander is an appealing character- a tech-savvy young woman who doesn't care about anyone or anything, but handles her own and takes care of business.  However, this book was really unpleasant with the amount of graphic violence and rape.  I want everything to turn out alright for Lisbeth Salander, but not enough to finish the series.