Tag: #MoreMysteryPlease

Clever five-star suspense

From the first page to the last, award winning author Maggie Smith delivers a clever, five-star suspense thriller in Blind Spot.

The tantalizing first chapter finds Assistant District Attorney Rachel Matthews, in court for the defense, in the most important criminal case of her career. Having always prided herself on the fact that she could read people, now she’s never been so wrong. Who can she trust?

Raising a teenage daughter as a single mom is never easy. With old family secrets, office politics, a stalker, not to mention a murder to solve, juggling takes on a whole new dimension for the ambitious attorney.

In this, her second novel, Smith offers a deftly plotted mystery with rich characters, red herrings, and twists and turns that keep you guessing, plus a WOW ending!

I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend Blind Spot, published by Puzzle Box Press, to mystery and suspense thriller fans. I received my copy courtesy of the author.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Fun book-themed cozy

Loving cozy British mysteries set in bucolic villages with the most amusing of names as I do, I couldn’t pass up the chance to read The Murders in Great Diddling by New York Times bestselling author Katarina Bivald.

Berit Gardner moved to inland Cornwall and Great Diddling to escape London, her agent and writer’s block, hoping for peace, a little intrigue and inspiration for her next novel.

A manor house tea party murder in a town with more secrets and lies than residents was all the bestselling author needed to start the wheels spinning and put her novelist powers of observation to use, not only in hopes for her next book but to solving the crime as well with a little help from her assistant/agent’s daughter, Sally, and DCI Ian Ahmed.

When the town’s tourism board decides they should capitalize on the explosive murder in Tawny Hall’s grand library with a murder and books festival, the flawed and amusing characters as suspects came out of the woodwork, along with a red herring or two for a fun cozy read.

I recommend The Murders in Great Diddling to fans of cozy book-themed British mysteries and anyone who enjoys literary-themed mysteries. I received this advanced reader copy of The Murders in Great Diddling from Poisoned Pen Press, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Brilliant series debut

The Brampton Witch Murders cover
I jumped at the chance to read Ellis Blackwood’s The Brampton Witch Murders, A Samuel Pepys Mystery, and I’m so glad I did.

In a brilliant series debut, we find the famed diarist’s personal inquisitors, Abigail Harcourt and Jacob Standish, tasked with proving the innocence of Samuel’s younger sister, Paulina Pepys, accused as a witch by the son of the late Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins.

My excitement never waned as the book is perfectly paced, plotted, and artfully set. Blackwood does an amazing job painting the world of 1666 England, where the flames of what would become the Great Fire of London had just ignited the bakery on Pudding Street, in the city that just the year before had been besieged by plague.

For a setting almost 400 years ago, Blackwood’s narrative flows naturally, his detailed description is subtle, never forced. With his richly drawn characters, supporting and otherwise, their back-stories and humor, it was a most enjoyable read, not to mention a satisfying mystery with clues and suspects aplenty.

I especially loved getting to know housemaid turned inquisitor Abigail, her cleverness, strength and determination in finding the truth and seeing justice done despite it not being given to her family, years earlier.

I highly recommend The Brampton Witch Murders for anyone interested in puritan-era witch trials, historical fiction readers, as well as fans of cozy mysteries. I can’t wait to see what Blackwood has in store for us in future installments of the series to be published in the coming months.

I received this advanced reader copy of The Brampton Witch Murders from Vintage Mystery Press, courtesy of the author. Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Note: Having been a bit familiar with Pepys, his diary entries from 1665 woven into the narrative of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Great Plague by Dorothy and Lloyd Moot (for which I was privileged to host a C-Span BookTV episode) I was quite intrigued to read mysteries inspired by the diarist and bon vivant. After finishing The Brampton Witch Murders, I found myself going down a rabbit hole of sorts, trying to learn whether characters were real or fictional. In my queries, I was delighted to find that not only The Diary of Samuel Pepys is available online but the self-appointed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins’ The Discovery of Witches, as well.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Fun beach read

Anyone who has ever read a British mystery or watched one on-screen knows that if there is a festival, a village fete or a jumble sale for that matter, a body is bound to turn up. Fiona Leitch’s The Cornish Campsite Murder, the sixth installment of her Nosey Parker Mysteries, is no exception.

Former Met police detective Jodie Parker and her betrothed, DI Nathan Withers, are helping out a friend, manning a Cornish pie van called Pie Hard for a camp-out weekend music festival, just down the coast from her home in the fictional Penstowan.

I liked Jodie from the start — her sense of humor, her family and her detective’s curiosity. In The Cornish Campsite Murder, a body of a former lead band member of one of Jodie’s favorites is found by the beach and her teen idol is one of the prime suspects.

I could relate to the universal feeling of actually getting to meet/speak to your teen idol and fearing they won’t live up to your expectations or if they do, that you’ll make a fool of yourself. But what if they are murderers or you falsely accuse them, ruin their reputation and they hate you? That’s the dilemma in which Jodie finds herself.

Fiona Leitch offers a humorous mystery with some fun twists, a host of colorful characters and a satisfying ending. What more could you ask for in a summer read? How about a recipe for a leek and sausage pie at the end of the book? (Having enjoyed a leek and potato pasty on a train ride from Cornwall to London, the Pie Hard’s Die Hard-themed pies sounded both delicious and a little adventuresome. I can’t wait to return for another authentic Cornish pie.)

I highly recommend The Cornish Campsite Murder for British cozy mystery fans, humorous mystery fans and beach readers. This one fits the bill for all of the above.

I received this advanced reader copy of The Cornish Campsite Murder from One More Chapter, an imprint of Harper Collins UK, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Review by Di Prokop, More Mystery Please

Hats off to Hope

Hats off to The New York Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly and USA Today-bestselling author Susan Elia MacNeal for the outstanding finale to her phenomenal Maggie Hope mystery series with The Last Hope.

When I read the last page, my head was buzzing. I was dying to talk to someone else who read the 11th and final novel in the series, due out on May 21. How I wished I could talk about everything I loved about The Last Hope without loading this review with spoilers. I even fist bumped the air when I read a reference to my favorite minor supporting character, making sure she had survived the war thus far.

This installment comes full circle for Maggie from when we first met her in Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, the premiere book of the series, as a British-born, Boston-raised young mathematician, who after returning to London to sell her grandmother’s home lands a job working as a typist in the prime minister’s office in 1940. That’s where the adventures of one of my favorite heroine’s begin – second only to Nancy Drew.

With her courage, perseverance and keen intellect, readers have enjoyed seeing Maggie keep buggering on through tragedy, solving murders, foiling assassination attempts, and in her role as a special agent with the British Special Operations Executive (SEO), protecting princesses, coming to the aid of Eleanor Roosevelt, parachuting into Nazi-occupied territory, diffusing bombs, ferreting out a Nazi cell in Hollywood, all the while peeling back layers to family secrets that never seem to end.

While this final novel and the entire Maggie Hope/Mr. Churchill’s Secretary series is a work of fiction, its characters and situations were based on or inspired by real people and events. The Last Hope finds Maggie, having climbed the ranks to Major, in 1944 Spain and Portugal on a dual mission ordered by British intelligence officer Kim Philby, (whom we know today was a spy for the Soviet Union), to assassinate the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg, who was instrumental in the Nazi nuclear program.

Maggie was also tasked to pass a letter from Coco Chanel, who saved her life in The Paris Spy, to Winston Churchill, as part of the perfumer/designer/Nazi spy’s mission from Heinrich Himmler and Walter Schellenberg to use her connections with Churchill to broker a separate peace between England and Germany.

Thank you Susan Elia MacNeal for giving us Maggie Hope, for all of your heart and research that has gone into The Last Hope and the entire series, whose topics could sometimes be rather heavy to write about. While I’m disappointed this is the last of the series, I still hold out hope that someday we’ll see Maggie again, perhaps with John as the Sterling Spies?

I’ve learned more about life in WWII Europe and the UK from this series than I ever did in school. As I’ve written in previous reviews, I believe MacNeal’s work should be required reading, not only to give context to the world we live in today but to more importantly show how unsung bravery can make all the difference.

Be sure to read the Historical Notes chapter at the end of the book for the incredible true details the author drew from for the book. Hats off indeed.

I highly recommend The Last Hope for fans of historical mysteries, suspense, female heroines and WWII era fiction. While I received this advanced reader copy of The Last Hope from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine – Bantam, courtesy of NetGalley, I’ve also pre-ordered my hard copy so that I can add it to my Maggie Hope collection.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Fascinating Five Stars

In Hitchcock’s Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession, New York Times bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer offers readers a fascinating look at the stories of the women Alfred Hitchcock handpicked to star in 14 of his movies, casting a golden glow on the silver screen, and not just through the lens of the legendary director.

While the impact Hitchock had on actresses June Howard-Tripp, Madeleine Carroll, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Janet Leigh, and Tippi Hedren is central to the book, we also learn more about what their lives were like pre-and post-Hitch.

Leamer also takes a look at Hitchcock’s early life. Born in 1899 Victorian London, the young Alfred was not coddled or showered with affection. After one unspecified naughty deed, his father sent him to the local police, where he was locked in a cell. A visit to hedonistic 1924 Berlin, may have sewn the blonde fixation seed and Hitchcock’s need for control, after an encounter with two German women. Both events embedded in his psyche.

For younger readers, it should be noted Hitchcock created his films at a time in Hollywood, where there was no #metoo movement, there was a casting couch and the industry was ripe with sex and misogyny. While it seems that Hitchcock didn’t take things to the level we’ve heard in recent years, he did enjoy telling dirty jokes and making some of his blonde actresses blush.

The director also did his best to mold every detail of his actresses’ lives to his vision, not just for the film but the way they dressed, wore their hair, and who they were involved with offscreen.

For a few, his control was torture. If you’ve ever seen The Birds, Tippi Hedren was incredibly brave to concede to Hitchcock’s insistence that real birds should not only attack her, but that on the fifth day of filming the attic scene, several would be attached to her with elastic bands to show a frenzied attack, where she was just an inch or two away from her eyes being pecked out.

The stories of each of the women was engaging, one more intriguing than the next. You’ll have to read to find out. Born before most of these films were released, I’ll share just this one impression. After growing up naïve and Catholic in Philadelphia, I was rather astounded to read about the promiscuity of some of his actresses including Ingrid Bergman, who I watched on our living room television set portray both Joan of Arc and Sister Benedict in The Bells of St. Mary’s, not to mention Philadelphia’s own ethereal princess – Grace Kelly. No moral judgement here just something I was quite surprised to read.

The book also gives us a sneak peek into the making of some of Hitchcock’s most iconic works – Notorious, North by Northwest, Vertigo, To Catch a Thief and The Birds. In fact, I want to go back and rewatch those favorites, along with some of his older thrillers.

I highly recommend Hitchcock’s Blondes to Hitchock fans like myself, film buffs, and the general reader. I received this Advance Reader’s copy of Hitchcock’s Blondes from G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House, courtesy of NetGalley.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.

Mother Daughter Traitor Spy

By Susan Elia MacNeal

The New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary and the Maggie Hope mysteries, Susan Elia MacNeal has a rare gift for making historical fiction real and relevant in today’s world.​

Mother Daughter Traitor Spy is no exception.

In this standalone suspense thriller, the award-winning author introduces us to mother and daughter Violet and Veronica Grace, just as Veronica graduates from college about to set off on a promising and exciting career in journalism.

Life and our grand plans for it, however, can unravel like the delicate thread of a cherry blossom on a silk blouse. That’s when life gets interesting and can become more than a bit scary.

Based on a real-life mother/daughter team, Grace and Sylvia Comfort, MacNeal shines a light on a shocking World War II-era story previously relegated to the edges of our history – of Hollywood Nazis, two brave women and the Jewish spy ring that worked together to take them down.

MacNeal’s compelling storytelling had me on the edge of my seat, sometimes yelling at the characters. While I was afraid for the inexperienced mother and daughter spies as they infiltrated a Nazi cell, I was terrified for the Jewish undercover operatives with whom they worked, worrying what would happen to them, to their families, should they be found out. 

What makes this story all the more frightening is that you can see current-day forces in play that could make it feasible for these unbelievable events to happen in our country today.

I received a free advanced reader copy of of Mother Daughter Traitor Spy courtesy of Bantam Books, Random House Publishing Group, through NetGalley. This review is fair and impartial.
 
I highly recommend Mother Daughter Traitor Spy. In fact, I believe it along with MacNeal’s Maggie Hope series, should be required reading not only to give context to the world we live in today but to more importantly show how unsung bravery can make all the difference.

Order online or buy now at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Sellers Books and Art in Jim Thorpe, PA.
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