Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“He played the part of the devil too successfully. But he was not the devil. Au fond, he was a stupid man. And so – he died.”

Cards on the Table (Hercule Poirot, #14) by Agatha Christie

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I just love the atmosphere of a good Agatha Christie book. There’s not really anything like it. I was bit of a dum-dum and started listening to this one (with classic Christie narrator, Hugh Fraser) while doing stuff at work and didn’t pay it sufficient attention at first, and so was feeling a bit lost. Which is a shame! Because once I started paying attention, I had a really good time with this one. It’s a bit different than Christie’s other mysteries, in that we […]

Triple Cannonballing with one of the cleverest books I’ve ever read. #CBRBINGO – Minds

Malice (Detective Kyoichiro Kaga, #1) by Keigo Higashino

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Well, this was a ride. Malice was one of the most interesting and compelling mysteries I’ve ever read. I love it when authors play with the format of a genre, and that seems to be something Higashino does well. I really can’t say too much about this one without completely spoiling it, but this book’s plot covers the murder and murder investigation of the famous Japanese novelist, Kunihiko Hidaka. The book is told in alternating POVs from Hidaka’s childhood friend, Osamu—who is writing a chronicle of […]

Housewives, They Are Desperate…

One of Us is Dead by Jeneva Rose

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Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: recommended. This book was recommended by author May Cobb, whose “My Summer Darlings” is one of the best things I read this year. I was looking for a female-focused thriller with a similar lack of inhibition.  Ok, right off the bat, this book is bonkers. If you looking at the premise and expecting any degree of verisimilitude, give this a hard pass. But it’s the willingness to lean into its bonkers-ness (?), to go over the top and just […]

“It seemed absurd, a monster going monster hunting. But why not?”

Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara

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CBR14Bingo – Star: Julien’s the sort of actor who’s mostly recognizable, but his glory days seem to be behind him. I deeply loved the Big Bad Wolf series, so while I was happy to see Cooper and Oliver finally get their HEA I was sad to say goodbye to the world. Well, luckily we have a new spinoff series starring Eli. While he was a character in past books (and there’s more cameos as well), I’d say you could pick this up as a standalone, […]

The Convenience of Train Travel

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

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Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’m not a big fan of mystery but Agatha Christie has a way of making look past that. Set in the years between WWI and WWII, “Murder on the Orient Express” has murder, glamor, intrigue, and train travel. Oh, and Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective that features in many of Ms. Christie’s books. Poirot is between cases and is looking forward to a vacation. We start in northern Syria as he […]

Cozy Botswanan Mystery

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

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This is the first novel in the eponymous long-running series (22 books over 20+ years) by Alexander McCall Smith. It introduces us to Mma Precious Ramotswe, a canny and capable Botswanan woman who takes her inheritance from her father to start a detective agency in Botswana’s capital city of Gaborone. Rather than a single mystery, the novel is structured more like short stories with overlapping characters, albeit progressing in time- each chapter is a new small mystery for Mma Ramotswe to solve. This first installment […]



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