One Snowy Day
by Shari Low

‘I’m surprised you’re not doing a Joan Collins, luxuriating in your bed until lunchtime, wrapped in white fake fur, with thirty-year-old oiled-up bodybuilders feeding you grapes. Actually, I don’t know that Joan Collins does that, but I like to imagine it that way.’ ‘I’m not having oiled-up bodybuilders anywhere near my bed, thank you.’ Jessie countered. ‘I’d need to boil wash my sheets and it would take the pattern right off my duvet cover.’

…the little devil on her other shoulder hadn’t been able to get past hoping that Monica would dump him on his arse and he’d wither away, loveless and sexless until his penis fell off. The devil watched too many crime shows.

Eve, it’s been three years. And in that time, the only hot hip action in my life has been watching Strictly.

Being a lawyer must be like being a doctor, she imagined. As soon as people at dinner parties knew what you did, they wanted to ask your advice on their speeding ticket or their piles.

My Review:

This was a fun and wryly amusing read that was stuffed to the gills with engaging and entertaining storylines that converged in a brilliant and highly satisfying manner. Shari Low is a clever wordsmith and weaves absorbing, well-honed, and insightfully written tales that are laced together with witty humor and perceptive observations, while populated with admirable and endearing characters doing their best to get ahead while handling problematic family members. Every time I pick up one of her books, I want to stop time and rearrange my schedule to do nothing else but read her entire listing.

The Case of the Body on the Orient Express
(The Detection Club #2)
by Kelly Oliver

Paris, 1928: Agatha Christie and fellow writer Dorothy L Sayers board the Orient Express, bound for Constantinople. Christie in particular is looking forward to a break from recent dispiriting events in both her work and private life – the finalisation of her divorce from her philanderous husband Archie, and the miserly reception of her latest book.

But before the duo can settle in to enjoy the luxuries of their first-class journey, their journey is derailed when a fellow guest drops dead during the dinner service. And as the last person to speak to the victim, Dorothy finds herself a prime suspect in his murder.

As the train hurtles East, Sayers’ resourceful assistant Eliza and her friend Theo must navigate a maze of suspects. But with each passing mile, the stakes rise, and when another body is discovered, their search to find the killer before they reach their destination becomes increasingly complicated.

Can Eliza and Theo stay one step ahead, crack the mystery and clear Dorothy’s name? Or will this be one journey too far for the amateur sleuths?

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

For a large woman, Dorothy L. Sayers was quick on her feet. The only things quicker than her feet were her wit and her temper.

Why would anyone pretend to be poor? She knew from experience that poverty wasn’t romantic, but an unfortunate condition to be avoided at all costs.

Didn’t people read to escape the horrors of life rather than wallow in them? Theo was all for verisimilitude, but he had to draw the line somewhere: namely, sharing a toilet with someone who hadn’t bathed since the nineteenth century.

Apparently, MI5 suspected one of the writers, probably Agatha Christie, had access to classified information. From what Eliza had seen, the mystery writers had access to nothing more classified than overactive imaginations.

Like a moth between panes of glass, he was stuck between what he was and what he wanted to be.

My Review:

I adore Kelly Oliver’s smooth and amusing writing style. I so covet her word craft. She weaves an entertaining, easy-to-follow, and engaging tale that never fails to hold my interest with her well-plotted mysteries and clever arrangements of words that put a smile on my face with her colorful descriptions and authentic and quirky characters.

A police transcriber-turned-novelist returns to Black Harbor to help solve the case of her ex-husband’s murder in the next riveting Black Harbor, featuring the return of characters from Hannah Morrissey’s breakout debut, Hello, Transcriber.

Black Harbor is a tinderbox. Temperatures and violent crime have both risen to all-time highs, a new drug razes the city, and the scene to which Sergeant Nikolai Kole responds is anything but a rote homicide. In the back of a clubhouse lies a body wrapped in garbage bags and doused in bleach.

It isn’t just any body. Tommy Greenlee, the ex-husband of Kole’s former lover, Hazel, has been shot several times and left for dead. What’s more…the killer left what appears to be a calling card.

Elsewhere, Hazel is haunted by her memories of Black Harbor. Lured there after eight years, she returns to find out who killed Tommy and why. Now back in Kole’s orbit, their love affair can hardly pick up where it left off. They both used each other to their own ends before, which begs the question: would they do it again?

With the atmosphere growing more volatile by the second, Hazel and Kole call a truce, and as they work together to solve this murder, they will not only unearth Black Harbor’s deepest, darkest secrets–they’ll each have to face their own

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Not a lot of good comes out of there, but a lot of bad passes through.

While turning a funeral into a bender isn’t a crime, it is frowned upon, like driving naked or marrying your stepsister.

We always remember our firsts and lasts, don’t we? It’s everything in the middle that ends up in one congealed mess.

He takes that as his cue to get out of the car, skirting around a patch of fake hair flattened to the asphalt like roadkill. Tumbleweave comes with the territory. It’s all fun and games until someone’s wig gets yanked off.

I’ve finally accepted that some feelings are only meant to be felt, not explained.

My Review:

I consistently peruse over a hundred or more books a year and can’t recall but a few storylines from most of them soon after. However, even several years later, this dark and gritty series has stayed with me, far beyond the salient details. Hannah Morrissey has strong word voodoo and has mastered the craft of storytelling. She pulls me into an absorbing vortex with her compelling tales and paints complete and startling movie reels with her descriptive word choices, which are most often simultaneously heart-squeezing, consuming, and brain-tickling. I had been longing for Hazel and Cole to reconnect with each other since the first installment, and had cracked open each new addition to the series with that eager anticipation. Now my fervent hopes are for yet more installments of Ms. Morressey’s addictive missives.

Favorite Quotes:

She never meant to be late. Distractions just seemed to impede her arriving on time.

…they were met by the fantastically sculpted side whiskers and moustache of Monsieur Omfroy emerging onto the street. He regarded them with a look of alarm. She reciprocated with a genial wave, fleetingly wondering if there was a Madame Omfroy in his life, or if his facial hair was companion enough.

He smiled like a hungry crocodile.

I pity those knights of old who tried to rescue damsels in distress with a stubborn rhinoceros streak like you though. I’d have crept off quietly and left you to the dragon.

‘He’s signaling discreetly to that man in overalls over there.’ Clifford sniffed. ‘Hardly discreetly, my lady. A touch of St Vitus’s dance would have been less noticeable.’

My Review:

I continue my hero worship of all things Verity Bright, as I have adored each installment of this delightful series. Their well-honed writing style is smooth and polished, easy to fall into, and amusingly entertaining, while the enigmatic mysteries and murders are well-contrived and cleverly plotted. This volume ranks as one of my favorites because the couple is finally wed and on a Parisian honeymoon, which places the Scotland Yard detective on vacation and shows his unexpected, marshmallow-like, gooey, soft romantic side. Their honeymoon was certainly memorable and eventful.

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