Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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A Whole Cast of Jessica Fletchers

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

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In The Thursday Murder Club a group of retirees gather weekly to solve puzzles and mysteries – courtesy of a friend who has retired from the police force and who has a pile of unsolved cold cases to amuse and intrigue them. The story is told from more than one viewpoint and the reader is given the choice to read between the lines of some accounts, or to consider the reliability of the narrator. The Club soon evolves from being armchair detectives to the real thing […]

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 […]



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