Recommendsday: November 2021 Mini Reviews

November was a really good month for books I want to talk about, but things were made easier on the picking front by the need to save the festive stuff for my Christmas reading post. So this round up is dominated by crime (and with a slight locked room, closed group twist) because that’s most of what else I was reading last month!

Weekend at Thrackley by Alan Melville 

This isn’t a murder mystery exactly but it is another British library Crime Classic, and another featuring a closed group. Jim Henderson is invited to a weekend party at the house of a man he’s never met, but who claims to have been a friend of his father. On arrival he finds a strange assortment of guests – including one of his friends – a sinister Butler, and an attractive daughter of the house. Cue attempted robbery, a missing guest and much danger. It’s fast paced and you’re never quite sure what it’s going to do next. It’s in Kindle Unlimited too.

IQ by Joe 

The Dublin Railway Murder by Thomas Morris*

This is a meticulously researched investigation into a real life locked room mystery in Dublin in 1856. It is undoubtedly very well researched, but oh boy is the author going to make sure we know about it. The start of the book, setting out the crime is actually quite pacey but it feels like it all gets a bit bogged down in the minutiae of the investigation. There are also so many people to keep track of and that doesn’t help. I think I was expecting a bit more of a conclusion at the end, but maybe that’s me being over optimistic about what can be achieved in a book about a 150 plus year old Murder.  I picked it up because I enjoyed The Haunting of Alma Fielding, and was hoping for something similar – so a solid read, but not as good as say The Five.

Murder of a Martinet by E C R Lorac 

I know I’ve already written about another Lorac book this month, but this one is also really good. A horrible matriarch is murdered in the house where all her family live. If it wasn’t for the indisposition of the old family doctor, it might have gone down as natural causes, but as soon as it doesn’t Inspector MacDonald is called in. He has to try and figure out what on Earth happened in a house seething with tensions and rivalries. I liked it a lot. And apologies for the picture quality on this – it’s the best I could do with the cover it had on Kindle Unlimited…

The Ex Hex by Erin Stirling 

I’m just throwing in one romance quickly to finish! When Rhys Penhallow returns to a Graves Glen to recharge the town’s ley lines, he thinks the worst that can happen will be running into the woman whose heart he broke (unwillingly) nine years earlier. But it turns out Vivienne nursed her broken heart with tears… and a curse. Now the two of them will have to work together to fix the problems they’ve caused with the town’s magical energy. This is much less dramatic than I was expecting but was a nice sweet second chance-y romance with witches. I’m too late for Halloween but it’s still worth a look.

Happy Reading!