Fortieth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. I like mysteries and thrillers, but this one didn’t impress me much. It might be because Agatha was such a pioneer in this genre that a lot of other writers must have borrowed from her and so, this particular story (the first perhaps, in her famous Hercule Poirot series) appears to be far too familiar.The plot was quite simple. I was even able to guess the most likely culprits. However, as soon as Hercule starts to […]
If a dead body falls in the woods, and no one hears it. . . .
I do love Miss Marple. She’s plucky and clever, and the nosiest old lady ever. In this one, a friend of Miss Marple’s thinks she has seen a man strangling a woman on a train. Not her train, but on a train going in the opposite direction. The cops can’t find a body, and no one believes the friend. So of course Miss Marple figures it out. She starts poking around with train timetables, maps, all kinds of stuff like that, and she determines where […]
Nearly Gone
Nearly Gone is about a girl named Nearly who finds herself in a cat and mouse game with a murderer. She was just trying to win a physics scholarship, get out of the trailer park. Alas, a killer has to prey on her obsession with the classified section and leave a bunch of clues, then a bunch of bodies, that all point to Nearly as suspect number one. It’s not too bad, especially considering that there aren’t many mystery/thrillers in Teen books these days. You […]
Buddhism, Sex and Snakes: Culture Shock in Thailand
Apparently Bangkok thrillers have a certain notoriety for sensationalism, and Burdett’s Bangkok 8 doesn’t fail in that regard, but it is also so much more. In fact, this noir detective story could be a Phillip Marlowe, if it weren’t for the fact that its hero’s name is a little harder to pronounce. Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam-era American soldier, is a little too comfortable with many of the denizens of Bangkok’s notorious red-light districts, is […]