The "I am currently reading" thread

[Brooker11]

The Closers - Michael Connelly - I normally like Connelly's books especially the Harry Bosch series but this one is longer than normal and is a bit of a slog, not terrible though.

[Sierra]

The Devil at His Elbow, Valerie Bauerlein.  The author did a wonderful job researching and writing this true story of how Alex Murdaugh came to murder his wife Maggie and son Paul. 

 

For those interested, there is an interview with the author here.  I could not put this book down. 

[metalman]

Only managed to read 8 this month but one of them is pretty long. 

 

Robert B. Parker - Spare change. The first mystery featuring Sunny Randall, where she's hunting a serial killer who leaves a few coins by the bodies. As good as ever.

Benjamin Stevenson - Everyone on this train is a suspect. Ernest Cunningham, the hero/survivor of Everyone in my family has killed someone, is now at a crime writers' convention on a train travelling the length of Australia. Needless to say it doesn't go well. Can a handful of authors solve some murders? Just as funny and clever as the first one.

David Mitchell - The bone clocks. Teenager Holly Sykes runs away from home, thus unwittingly setting in motion a chain of events in which she becomes embroiled in a conflict between two groups of immortals, spanning 60 years from the 1980s to the 2040s. 600 pages of sheer brilliance.

Ted Wood - Dead in the water. Reid Bennett and his Alsatian Sam are the only police force in a small lakeside settlement in Ontario, so he's on his own when a corpse is pulled out of the lake. Not bad.

Richard Keverne - The man in the red  hat. It's a painting, and when Mark Wickham sees it he also uncovers a plot to kill its old lady owner and steal her valuables. An enjoyable thriller from 1930.

Richard Hull - Excellent intentions. Someone is on trial for the murder of Mr. Cargate, poisoned on a train with cyanide in his snuff. But who it is isn't revealed until right at the end. Another witty, clever detective story from this author.

Agatha Christie - Taken at the flood. Hercule Poirot pulls the rabbit out of the hat again. Having read so many of these I should have seen it coming but of course I didn't. 

Michael Wood - The murder house. The fifth Sheffield-set DCI Matilda Darke novel, involving a family slaughtered after a wedding reception. It's a really good page-turner again, but I wish he'd get a better proof-reader. Something odd happens with geography at the end: somebody drives through Ashopton village (which is of course underwater these days) and somebody else heads to Ladybower from Barnsley by going miles round through Penistone and Glossop for no apparent reason.