December Wrap-Up

Three great December reads — all mysteries, all within this month, and all pretty good! I am already adding some of them to my Best of 2023 list.

Night Will Find You by Julia Heaberlin

Phenomenally well-written, terse suspense. Astronomer Vivvy Bouchet also has unsettling psychic insight and gets pulled into looking for a missing girl by cops. Is she a quack or is it real – nobody can make up their mind about it. As a narrator, Vivvy is unusually talkative but also just a bit unreliable, and this makes her a supremely interesting character. Equally interesting is her public fight with a cult-ish conspiracy podcaster Bubba Guns.
The tense pacing of the first half dwindles later, but Heaberlin still manages a very decent wrap-up at the end. I hear  the book’s already up for TV adaptation. And with a title like that, how can you possibly ignore this book? Highly recommended!

Wherever She Goes by Kelley Armstrong

Another solid thriller from Armstrong. Recently divorced single mother Aubrey Finch believes she has spotted a kidnapping, but nobody wants to believe her. But Finch has other ghosts from her past, which compel her to pursue the case and in the process, reveal her own ghosts to the public eye. The pacing is excellent. If you can ignore the fact that most of Armstrong’s heroines seem very alike, you will like this one — not as much as the Rockton series, but still quite engrossing.

Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles

A must read for lovers of noir and black comedies. The philandering Dr. Bickleigh falls in love, this time rather seriously, with Madeleine. He decides to off his wife, and really, it seems to be the “perfect murder” — will he really get away with it? The book is more of a character sketch of Bickleigh, a man too clever for his own good, and is absolutely *dripping* with irony.
You watch with fascination as Bickleigh becomes a train wreck, but not the reasons that you would suspect. It’s hard to put down this book and no wonder it’s there on the Top 100 list by Crime Writers’ Association (CWA). Recommended for fans of the movie, Kind Hearts & Coronets (1949).

The Black Spectacles / The Problem of the Green Capsule by John Dickson Carr

Don’t be fooled by this unprepossessing title. Carr conjures up the most bizarre, most sinister plot set-ups and manages to turn the most innocent bystanders into suspects one by one. Marjorie Chesney is suspected of poisoning several children in her village, and that with a callous nonchalance. Her uncle stages a show to highlight the mechanics of the crime, but ends up poisoned too.

“All witnesses, metaphorically, wear black spectacles. They can neither see clearly, nor interpret what they see in the proper colours. They do not know what goes on on the stage, still less what goes on in the audience. Show them a black-and-white record of it afterwards, and they will believe you; but even then they will be unable to interpret what they see.”

The “black spectacles” in question refers to the highly subjective lens of any witness, which makes them horrifyingly unreliable. Brilliant stuff!

I am writing this post a few days before the eve of 2024, so happy new year 2024 in advance to everyone! Everyone, I hope 2024 brings some superb thought-provoking and fun books and shows your way.