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Hazel (2934 KP) rated Cry Baby in Books

Aug 9, 2020  
Cry Baby
Cry Baby
Mark Billingham | 2020 | Crime, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I am a huge fan of Mark Billingham and of his character, Tom Thorne, and have avidly followed the series and so I was absolutely thrilled to see a prequel was available which went back to the beginning in 1996 when "portable" phones are a novelty, smoking in pubs was the norm and England weren't doing too badly in the Euro's!

Tom is a young Detective Sergeant going through a bit of a rough patch after separating from his wife and experiencing recurring nightmares of an old case when along comes every persons worst nightmare ... the abduction of a little boy from a local park. The book follows the investigation into the abduction where everyone is a suspect and the mystery deepens when the body of one of those suspects turns up, quickly followed by the body of the boy's father.

This is a tense read written mainly from the perspectives of Tom, Cat (mother of the abducted child) and Kieron (the abducted child); the pace built up as the investigation progressed and I loved it. I particularly enjoyed meeting the characters that I have grown to love at the beginnings of their relationship with a particular highlight being the first meeting between Tom and Phil Hendricks which made me literally laugh out loud.

I would most definitely recommend this book and you don't have to have read any of the others in the series as this makes a really good starting point for those of you who haven't discovered the delight that is Tom Thorne and who have clearly been living under a rock!!

I was extremely lucky to have won a copy of this book via a Facebook competition but thanks also to Little, Brown Book Group via NetGalley for an e-copy in return for an unbiased and honest review.
  
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers [Audiobook]
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers [Audiobook]
Jesse Sutanto | 2023 | Crime, Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
After initially thinking "oh dear, I'm not going to like this", the more I listened the more I grew to love Vera Wong.

Vera lives on her own after the death of her husband, her son being successful and not in her life quite as much as she would like. Once a thriving tea shop, Vera Wang's World Famous Tea House is now on it's last legs having only one regular customer so when she discovers a dead body in the middle of her shop one morning, she decides it has to be murder and begins to investigate and find out who killed Marshall.

Using her own logic, Vera decides that those who turn up at her shop to ask questions about the body immediately become suspects and she begins to ingratiate herself into their lives using her forthright nature, a little bit of manipulation, fantastic cooking and, if course, tea.

As the story develops, we get to know each of the characters and suspects more so by the end, you don't want any of them to be guilty of murder but one of them must be surely?

This is definitely within the 'cosy mystery' genre and whilst there is little action, I was caught up in the story hook, line and sinker and desperate to know what the ultimate outcome was going to be and I definitely wasn't disappointed.

The narrator was excellent and she totally drew me into the story and into Vera's life. This, for me, was definitely a book to listen to rather than to read myself and I am hopeful that Vera will do more investigating in the future.

Many thanks to HarperCollins UK Audio and NetGalley for enabling me to listen to and share my thoughts of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.
  
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
2022 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Technically well-made (1 more)
Acting
Plot (0 more)
What a disappointment.
Contains spoilers, click to show
Spoilers below!!!

I'll say this: Sam Raimi used to be one of my favorite directors, but with this movie he has officially turned me off the Marvel universe. It is nonsense.

Example A: dreams are actually real events happening in alternate universes, so if you dream about showing up naked to work, a version of you really did that.

Example B: reading the book of evil allows a witch or sorcerer to "dream walk" and inhabit the body of an alternate version of themselves. It never explains how this works, but apparently you can "aim" your dream-self because Doctor Strange is able to intentionally dream walk into a dead body and use it. He can't move between universes, but somehow he can do this.

Example C: the city of Kamar-Taj is destroyed and everyone killed except for Wong and Strange. Yet in the last scene the city is full of warriors practicing. Where did they come from?

Example D: Cool cameos! Mr. Fantastic! Professor X! But they all die. Every single one.

Example E: Wanda's whole motivation is to go to a different universe to be with her kids. But why not go to a universe where Vision is still alive? Wouldn't that be her goal? NEVER EXPLAINED.

It doesn't stop there, but that's a good sampling of how nonsensical the plot is. Nothing is explained, nothing make sense, and rules are made up out of whole cloth. Doctor Strange as a zombie? Sure. How? We don't know.

I'll never watch this again and might not watch future Marvel movies, especially considering you have to watch WandaVision on Disney+ to fully understand this movie.