didn’t like this trendy book… sorry!

Stalking Jack the Ripper – Kerri Maniscalco

Mystery, detective, serial killers, Jack the Ripper, London, 19th century, Great Britain, Victorian, young adult, fiction,

Rating 4/10

Audrey loves criminal forensics and working in her uncle’s lab as his apprentice engages her interest in that field of study. She takes on the recent murder case of a victim of Jack the Ripper. She is immediately intrigued and further her own investigation of who murdered these women at night. When more bodies turn up, she notices a disturbing pattern that leads to her sheltered world shattered. 

This was a little too hyped up and I don’t understand why folks liked this book. I am glad I borrowed this novel from the library. I predicted who was the murderer so fast and the book was yawn inducing in my opinion. I’m sure there is a demographic that loves this type of stuff but this was not my cup of tea. That is all I can say. However, for those who love these type of novels and the plot then it’s for that demographic.

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who is lying?

One of Us is Lying – Karen M. McManus

Mystery, detective, murder, high school, teens, young adult, fiction.

Rating 7/10

Five students are in detention for crimes they did not commit. Someone had placed phones into their backpacks and this one teacher who has a strong hatred for technology head searched them to find them. Each of them knows their innocent. An incident occurs in the parking lot causing the detention teacher to leave the room. One of them goes to drink their water when they experience a bad allergy reaction. The four other students scramble to try to save his life, but it is too late. The next day the four students are called into the principal’s office to tell them that the student died and now being investigated as a homicide. Each of them is a suspect. Who killed him?

This was alright. I felt this was too much like Pretty Little Liars and Riverdale vibe. The writing was good and organized with the various perspectives. Half way through the first quarter of the book predicted who did the crime and was right in the end. There was not much of a mystery but its very tame. For a teenager who might be wanting to start reading mystery novels this might be exciting for sure.

witness protection mystery?

Pieces of Her – Karin Slaughter

Mothers and daughters, violence, identity, family secrets, mystery, detective, police procedural, suspense, fiction.

Rating 7/10

Andrea is at a local diner, having dinner with her mother, and having a long day already. Suddenly a man comes in and shoots at some people that sit in a booth next to hers. The attacker sees Andrea and her mother and tries to shoot them. Laura, Andrea’s mother, tries to come between her daughter and the shooter telling her daughter to run away and for the shooter to shoot at herself. The shooter sees Andrea’s work uniform and begs for Andrea to use her gun, but Andrea is frozen in spot. She watches her calm mother take out the shooter. After that ordeal, her mother gave her instructions to move out and let Laura be alone. Andrea becomes so confused and tries to understand what had gone wrong as well as trying to understand why her mother was skilled in what she did to the shooter. A day later, Andrea sees a hooded man circling around her mother’s house and goes inside. Being extra precautions Andrea follows behind and hopes her mother isn’t home. Unfortunately, her mother was home and the intruder were about to do some serious harm to her mother. Andrea did what she could only do was protect her mother by calling the police and knocking the man out. Her mother tells her to take the makeup bag, gave specific instructions, and run away to never come back until her mother calls her to tell her so. When Andrea comes across the storage unit and sees a past that Laura never told her daughter about. Andrea is left to try to put the pieces of what happened to her mother and the truth of her mother on her own while on the run.

This novel was alright and was decently paced. I never had read anything like this before and I had my doubts that this novel as going to be good. I was a little wrong but the novel like I said before was decent. There was no cliché besides the whole hidden identity, but the author had kept it refreshed and gave the novel some depth. There are timeline switches going from the point of view of Andrea in the modern timeline and her mother’s perspective. That has clear and distinct to the switching perspectives that add onto the storyline to create clarity of the plot. I found this novel to be as good as the reviews this book had. I hope to read more of this author soon once this quarantine is over and social distancing is gone. I miss going to the library.  

Meh Didn’t Really Care For This Novel…

Friction – Sandra Brown

Thriller, mystery, detective, fiction.

Rating 0/10

Crawford Hunt is a widowed man who only wants his baby girl, Georgia back. However, his parent in-laws don’t want Georgia with Crawford due to certain actions he committed in the past. Crawford had worked in cleaned up his act and is awaiting his fate with Judge Holly Spencer. During his court hearing is occurring, a shooter breaks into the courthouse, shooting at people, and escaping. Crawford saved Holly, but this is the only beginning of what sinister acts to follow. Crawford is on the hunt to discover the truth as well as regaining custody of his baby girl. He succeeds in both discovering the truth of the court hearing shooting and getting his daughter back.

Didn’t really like this novel at all. It wasn’t really intriguing enough for me. It was a light read and too mediocre. It was predictable from the first few chapters and I prefer something more challenging and more page turning suspense. This lacked a lot of suspense. Too quick paced to the point where I couldn’t and didn’t understand what on earth was going on with the novel. It went back and forth between Crawford and Holly in a manner that I couldn’t keep track of the plot line.