Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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The Girl on the Train saw the Woman in the Window was the Last House Guest

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

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I picked up this book at my favorite thrift and was excited to read it as I had read another Megan Miranda book, All the Missing Girls, and I really enjoyed it. But when I started reading through the first couple chapters of Last House Guest, I realized Miranda has a particular style of writing that she uses in in her books. I immediately recognized the plot beats, the similar use of flashback, the breadcrumbs left at the end of each chapter. I was left […]

Aggressively fine one-sitting read

Someone We Know by Shari Lapena

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A woman goes missing in a close-knit neighborhood in Shari Lapena’s Someone We Know. Her husband is clearly a psychopath, but then again, the woman has committed the grave sin of being an attractive flirt. Shortly into the novel, the woman is found in the trunk of her own car, kicking off a a pretty straightforward whodunnit. Told mostly from the perspective of a neighbor of the murdered woman, the plot adds a wrinkle right off the bat: the neighbor’s son has been breaking into […]

I Think I’ve Read This One Before

The Trespasser by Tana French

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When I like a book, I have the tendency to obsessively read everything the author has ever wrote.  Such was the case after I read In the Woods by Tana French.  I loved the atmosphere, the mystery, and especially the characters.  I of course, read all the Tana French books I could find.  When I was going through the epub files in my laptop to find a quick read, I was pleasantly surprised to find a French book I haven’t read yet.  Or have I? […]

I Loved Laura, Except for . . .

Laura by Vera Caspary

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Another book from my personal challenge of reading the source material for favorite classic movies: Laura, by Vera Caspary. This book is a detective noir, as hard-boiled and cynical as any of the genre, but written by a woman. It was originally published, a la Dickens, as a serial, “Ring Twice for Laura,” in Colliers Magazine in 1942/43. The  classic film noir, starring Gene Tierney as Laura and Dana Andrews as a detective who finds himself falling in love with a dead woman as he […]

Miss Marple Solves It Again (and Again and Again)

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie

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Keeping up my summer tradition of an Agatha Christie re-read I picked up Miss Marple: the Complete Short Stories. Hercule Poirot has always been my favorite Christie sleuth – it must be the Virgo in me that loves his precise mode of detection. I like a few of the Miss Marple novels, but wasn’t as familiar with the short stories. What’s great about Christie is that her books, no matter how intricately plotted, are (like Stephen King’s) character-driven. So, even if you have read them before […]

We get it, they’re out to get you.

The Trespasser by Tana French

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When Aislinn Murray is found dead in her home, alongside a table set for a romantic dinner, it seems like a classic case of “the boyfriend did it” to Detective Antoinette Conway. But further exploration of Aislinn’s past and cryptic clues from her close friends seem to point to something more sinister, along with the nagging feeling Antoinette had met the victim before. The core story of The Trespasser was a decently engaging mystery, with an end that I didn’t fully see coming, but didn’t […]



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