The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

Strangers meet in an airport bar and end up planning a murder. Is it just folly, or will they follow through?

Ted's a rich dude with a cheating wife and a mansion under construction. Lily is a librarian with no connection to Ted, and a plan that might help him. But wow is this twisty, and even right up to the last line there's a surprise.

I picked up this pop suspense novel because a friend said she couldn't put it down. And I have to say - I didn't see it coming, and that's not what I thought would happen. (Which is the highest praise I give - I hate it when books are super predictable!)

King Maybe by Timothy Hallinan

You don't double-cross a double-crosser, and nobody gets away with setting up thief Junior Bender. It's a good thing he's such a quick thinker, because this is a rare Bender book where he's not on his "A" game: he's targeted, burgles are bungled, and he's about to take a big fall. Plus, there are problems in paradise as his lady love, Ronnie, isn't speaking to Junior for much of the book.

I was prepared to say I didn't like this book, and then I actually really did love it. I thought maybe I was growing bored with Junior ... and then I loved the way this story twisted, turned and came around.

Hallinan does a great job with all the ancillary characters in his stories. I love the teenage wiz team of Anime and Lilli, and there's a whole high school drama substory to this book with Junior's daughter Rina. You'll love to hate the bad guys (or gals) in a story where some of the good guys are kind of bad guys.

Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

A girl is entrusted with a very special box yet given little information on its use or implications.

When almost-middleschooler Gwendy meets the suited man, she is strangely drawn to the box he offers. She needs to have that box! But then he's gone, and she's left with a million questions and one strange, small box with a series of colored push buttons on top.

This is my favorite kind of Stephen King story: it's creepy and sinister, yet really left up to your imagination to fill in the blanks. Because what's scariest is very personal, and you create your own nightmare with his subtle framework and direction.

Also, this audiobook recording includes a bonus short story, "The Music Room," based on an Edward Hopper painting. Also fantastic, and very, very minimal.

History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

When a lonely teenager attaches herself to the new neighbors, their problems become a part of her, too.

This was a strange story. When it finished I sat for a minute just trying to figure out what really happened in the end. I'm still not sure why the book is entitled, "History of Wolves."

It shifts back and forth from the summer she - Madeline, Linda, whatever her name is - was 14 and babysat for the family across the lake, and to more recent times, as she's still affected by the traumas of her childhood.

We know right away the little kid, Paul, is dead (in the current timeframe). We don't know what happens to him until halfway through the book, and really, the book isn't about that. It's about Linda's needy, strange relationship with Paul's mom, Patra. It's about Linda's strange relationship with a girl from school. Or about her strange relationship with a teacher. Or about how she was born into a commune. OK - so it's about Linda's strangeness? I'm just working through it here.

I listenened to the audiobook, which was well-read by Susan Bennett. The story keeps you going, and it's well written. I'm just unsure about my own feelings about the conclusion.

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

Something happened in the backyard, with six adults and three children in attendance, and everybody has the feels about it.

But you'll have to wait more than 200 pages to find out what happened, because the author keeps you in suspense through half the book as chapters flip back and forth between "we still haven't recovered from the barbecue" and "the day of the barbecue."

If I hadn't been reading this for book discussion, I probably would have quit at about page 25: too glossy and suburban for my taste. But I can't actually say I disliked the book overall - I'm gonna give it more of a meh, with bonus points for the quality of discussion that can (and did) spin out of it. Friendship, marriage, responsibility, guilt, sex, mental health - it's all in there.

The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer

On the run from the same government she once worked for, Alex (not her real name) is a human knot of neurosis, suspicion, chemical booby traps, deadly weapons and taciturn distrust. But the whole situation shifts when a lethal trap misfires and she ends up partnering with her would-be assassin to turn the tables and take down their pursuers.

Yes, I listened to 17 hours of this book. And the book was OK - probably even good because I did actually spend 17 freaking hours of my life with it - but I'll only recommend it with a shrug.

It's a government agent novel, with espionage and backstabbing and digital footprints and lots of "trust no one." Yet there's still plenty of time to ponder the luxury of the curls in his hair - my god those curls (she's obsessed). It turns into a romance of unlikely partners that smolders and stalls so long I wanted to beg them to just consummate and put us all out of our misery! (maybe I used slightly stronger words)

Do you like that kind of thing? Then you'll love this.

One of Us by Tawni O'Dell

Danny Doyle overcame a tragic, white-trash childhood to become a slick TV-ready criminal psychologist, but when his beloved grandfather becomes ill, Dr. Sheridan Doyle is forced to revisit his past. On a whim, he finds himself helping an old friend with a murder investigation that has stirred up generations of bad blood and ill will in this small Pennsylvania town.

Scarlet Dawes is the mine owner's daughter, rich and spoiled ... and a complete psychopath. Chapters alternate perspective between Danny and Scarlet, so we know right away that she's guilty. But maybe that's not the real mystery.

I love Tawni O'Dell's Appalachian mining town fiction - she's got such a good voice for the small town people in these depressed communities. This one's got intense suspense and a lot of history - but also a lot of fashion: both Danny and Scarlet love proving they're no longer po-dunk, with all their designer labels!

I listened to the audiobook - read by Nick Podehl and Amy McFadden - and the eight hours passed in no time while I was wrapped in the drama.

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

A fake mystic scams her way into a "home cleansing" job and gets way more than she bargained for.

This short story (60 pages) was originally published in the 2014 anthology Rogues, edited by George R.R. Martin and now has been published as a stand-alone title.

Perhaps my favorite part of this book was that you don't know what you're in for: Is this going to be serious or funny? About the supernatural, or a crime? The back says, "You like ghost stories?" Yes, please! But we're not really given any other clues.

It begins with a hand job - or more accurately, approximately 23,546 hand jobs. Our narrator grabs you from page one, and you're captivated by her tale. Amazing!

Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss

In her first foray into fiction, punctuation expert Lynne Truss brings us an absurd, completely horrifying novel about the evil inner lives of cats. I'd forgotten how subversively funny Truss can be, but her nonfiction books were both informative and hysterical. This novel sneaks up on you with the laughs ... and the cold heebie jeebies.

A man on a grief sabbatical gets bored and begins reading a document emailed to him by a former colleague. What starts out fantastical and unbelievable begins slowly to make more and more sense until you're scared of your own housecat and can't put the damn book down.

It's a gothic horror premise: Let me tell you my tale of death and immortality. But it's told in a more contemporary manner, in a shifting variety of forms: sometimes it's straight narrative, other times it's transcripts of oral recordings, descriptions of images, email correspondence and more.

I love horror, and I have a cat. That said, I had to put this down for a bit in the middle because I made it half-way through after dark and I got the creeps. I finally got up the guts to finish, and I loved it - but I'm still giving my cat the side-eye treatment.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

In this twisty mystery, a suburban London neighborhood churns with private dramas after a woman goes missing. Three women - and two timelines - converge into one unexpected climax.

Every day, the train stops or slows at the same signal - right behind the house where Rachel lived with her now-ex-husband. Her life's not so great, and it's a small pleasure to make up domestic stories in her head about one set of neighbors who she glimpses almost every day. Then one day she sees the woman kissing another man. The next day, the headlines indicate that same woman is now missing without a trace.

Critics love to say a book is hard to put down, but that really is the case sometimes; this story hooked me early with a narrative peek into the private lives of these women. Chapters alternate between Rachel, her ex's new wife Anna, and the missing woman (from a year prior). I consumed the book over a weekend, and will be recommending it to fans of domestic suspense.

Tunnel Vision by Aric Davis

Under the ruse of a research paper, two high school girls investigate a 15-year-old murder case after they discover the victim was one girl's drug-addicted aunt. They get help when their paths intersect with kid-detective (now teen detective) Nickel.

Sorry - that's a lame plot summary, but I don't want to give too much away. I adored the first Nickel book (Nickle Plated) and one of the best parts about that character is that he's unique; he's a kid who can do what few adults would. That plays out in various ways throughout the story arc. This book's less gory than the first - but we still see bits and pieces of Nickle's tragic, horrific past in flashbacks. Plus, there's a bit of a time-gap between the books and apparently Nickle hasn't been on vacation.

Honestly, this is mostly the girls' story and they carry the bulk of the narrative. Unfortunately, that also makes the book feel a lot more commonplace and less fresh that the first, truly dynamic book.

I enjoyed this one, but I'm still hoping to see more of Nickle's story in the future.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Without fail, Cadence Sinclair Easton spends every summer on her grandfather's island off Martha's Vineyard with her aunts and cousins. There are four big kids alike in age: Cadence, Johnny, Mirren, and family friend Gat. They swim, read, flirt, canoe, avoid the "littles," explore, and talk the summers away.

But something happened on the island the summer the big kids were 15, Cadence was instead sent to Europe for summer 16, and only after a tantrum is she allowed a short 4-week island stay in this summer 17. She's got mega-migraines, complete amnesia of summer 15, and everyone is under strict orders to not answer her questions or tell her anything about what happened.

So what happened? From the start we know we've got an unreliable narrator - the book is named "We Were Liars," she's got holes in her memory, and it sometimes takes a while to determine when Cadence's stories shift into elaborately embroidered metaphor. I spent the whole book looking for answers and hidden meanings and lies - and yet, I still was blindsided when the truth was revealed.

I finished the audiobook today, and I'm starting right back over again from the beginning tomorrow with the paper copy of the book; I have to go back and do it all over again, now that I KNOW.

And I have NEVER said that before! Amazing.

Lexicon by Max Barry

As unlikely as it seems, this is a geeky word-nerd action-adventure novel with guns. Seriously!

A secret organization has discovered how to control people simply with language: using the right combination of sounds, and they can instantly hotwire your brain to believe anything or do anything they tell you. They call it "compromising" a person, and the expert practitioners of this art are called poets.

This is a fast-moving, hard to put down book. The story shifts around in time a bit, so you're often uncertain if the events are now, later, or before - which adds to the suspense. What students we meet will eventually become the poets? What on earth did they unleash in Australia? Seriously, a WORD could do that?!?

It's very good, and moves along quickly. Once I finally picked it up, I read it in just 2 days.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Stopping on the street to help a girl in need changes Richard's life - but not necessarily for the better. Besides the fact that his fiance is apoplectic with rage about the distraction, almost immediately weird things start happening: dangerous-looking men at the door, unbelievable occurrences, and then ... it turns out he's invisible.

See, this one act of kindness has essentially erased Richard from the real London Above world's consciousness; he's now part of London Below, where magic and the improbable rule. Fantasy, mythology, an epic quest - this book has it all. And maybe, just maybe, Richard will turn out to be more than anyone expects of him.

I picked up the book because it was recently banned in a high school in New Mexico; nothing makes me want to read a book more than somebody saying you shouldn't. The novel was created from the story Gaiman originally developed created for UK television, and the version I read is listed as the "author's preferred text" and was in fact an audiobook read by Gaiman himself.

I have to say that Gaiman is a masterful storyteller, but he's also an AMAZING reader for audiobooks. It's a different artform - more acting than storytelling - and the vocalization of different characters is a major part of the audio experience. Gaiman is a stellar audio reader. Is there anything this guy ISN'T good at? I don't want to find out. 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

It's a dark tale, full of suspense, that starts quite innocently: a trip back to his hometown takes a man down memory lane to a place and time he'd forgotten.

The new renter to the family's upstairs room brought bad things from the start for the young boy, his family, and his neighborhood. But it also introduced him to the family of women at the end of the road - the Hempstocks. What happens next is a tale strange, scary, and unexpected.

Gaiman is such a masterful writer, that as a reader you're just swept up and carried away in the story. I listened to the audiobook (read by the author), and enjoyed every minute. And what I loved most is that just as the story's winding down to it conclusion, Gaiman is able to sweep the rug out from under us in a truly fantastic way. I was left stunned and tearful at the end, more in love with Gaiman as an author with every story.

Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas

This is a STUNNING novel about a bad mother. And while you find yourself thinking "Josephine doesn't seem so bad ..." well, that's the thing!

Perfect eldest child Rose ran away. Middle child and hellraiser Violet tells us half the story. Protected, sheltered youngest, Will, tells the other half of the story. Between the lines, we may find the truth.

Years ago I read Zailckas' memoir, "Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood" (published in 2005) and I remember that I really enjoyed her terrifying but not wholly surprising story of alcohol abuse. I was curious about her transition into fiction writing - and then, I was utterly blown away when I read this.

As a reader you don't know what happened - and maybe you don't even know what you don't know. It's become so trite this year to compare everything to Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl", except in this case there are true similarities in the way the novel is written and the way the storyline is revealed.

This is a wonderful book, and I'll be talking about it a lot in the near future. Don't miss this one!

Inferno by Dan Brown

Professor Langdon's back, puzzling through his next cryptic treasure hunt to save the world; this time, he's trying to prevent a plague inspired by the 14th century epic poem by Dante Alighieri.

I'm a sucker for these books - they're the perfect mix of contemporary issues with geeky art and history knowledge that strikes a chord with me. Plus, I can't ever seem to set the book down because Brown ends even the shortest, two-page chapters with some kind of cliff-hanger that keeps you going.

To admit that I read this book over 4 days doesn't mean that it isn't read-it-in-one-sitting material - only that it's 460 pages long. Over those 4 days, I was totally sleep-deprived due to late-night reading binges - I just didn't have the time to stay up and binge.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

In a desperate act, an unemployed professional takes a job night-clerking in a weird old bookstore. Customers are rare - most visitors instead stop to borrow from an immense and mysterious not-for-purchase collection shelved in the store. Then Clay's customer-less boredom and his attempt to impress a cute girl-hacker cause him to bumble upon the answer to a puzzle he didn't even know he was solving - and the start of an epic quest.

This book is like Dan Brown's stories ... but replace the religious iconography with book nerds and typography: old-school books versus new-fangled computers, a secret underground library, a shadow sect, and the ultimate search for truth in a coded codex vitae. Intrigue, suspense and a secret book club!

But I'm being unnecessarily flippant about it: this is actually a good book that I enjoyed immensely. Despite the unlikely trajectory of the story, it's not cheesy and the characters are all very true to life. Clay's biggest asset is the same as that of any good librarian: he doesn't have to know everything, he just has to know how (or with whom) to find it. Facilitation as super-strength!

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

When Catherine - the "simple, honest wife" wealthy Ralph advertised for - steps off the train we already know she's not what she appears. Ralph realizes also in that instant, but he's not about to cause an embarrassing scandal right there on the depot's platform in front of all these townspeople who work for him. So the couple hurtles off into the blizzard with a promise they'll sort this out in the privacy of Ralph's house. What happens next changes the whole trajectory of their plans.


It's not a typical murder-mystery, but rather a novel of literary suspense. The story is told in alternating perspectives, so the reader knows there's much more going on inside these characters' heads than their actions suggest - it's a very 1900's Wisconsin thing: stoic on the outside and a-boil in the heart or the head (around here, many had grandparents like this).


Our book club selected this title, but I've already missed that discussion ... and it certainly could have been a real barn-burner. (Apparently, they talked about the writing?!?) I joke because fairly often during this book, I thought, "Wow, with all the sex - that could have been a heck of a discussion!" But I may have noticed it more because I was listening to the audiobook in the car - it's always hilarious when somebody else gets in the car and you get caught in the middle of a florid sex scene!

I enjoyed the book, but I did think it sometimes moved glacially. Apparently some of the book club readers thought the writing was clunky - but I perceived that as indicative of repressed or stilted characters rather than ungainly writing. And that may be thanks to the audiobook narration by Mark Feuerstein.

The Dinner by Herman Koch

WOW. This book blew me away, and a big part of that is that I neither suspected nor anticipated the true story in this novel. Suffice it to say I will not be telling you much in this review, either, so as not to ruin it for you.

Two couples meet for dinner. The men are brothers, and one of them is a high-ranking politician. The other brother (whose perspective we share) is dreading this dinner - he'd rather grab a bite at the local cafe than go to this pretentious, trendy restaurant, he doesn't really like his brother much, the conversation will be intolerable. And while I thought the book was about that bad date or about class difference and culture trends, in reality it's much, much bigger. 

I got completely wrapped up - the novel is very well-written - and read the book in just a couple sittings. As the story spins out from dinner and them back again, I was confused and captivated by the characters: I'd find myself thinking, "Wait, what?" So then I'd have to read on. 

This would be stellar for a book discussion. I finished the book and just sat for a minute, absorbing. You'll want to talk about it!