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The Chocolate Lady (94 KP) rated Naming the Bones in Books

Oct 7, 2020

Louise Welsh knows how to intrigue her readers and, like any good mystery writer, gives them enough twists and turns to keep them interested to the last page. But instead of using a professional (like investigator or detective) to get to the bottom of this story, she puts the research in the hands of a Professor of Literature on sabbatical, trying to write the story of his favourite poet's brief life for a book. Using this as the basis of the story, the people in his life also get tangled into the strange circumstances of the poet's life and death. For people like myself, who don't care much for the mystery genre, Welsh proves once again that you don't need to be a fan to enjoy her works.

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Eleanor Luhar (47 KP) rated The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories in Books

Jun 24, 2019

It's getting a bit late to post these festive reviews so I'll keep it short. It's only a short book, anyway.

This book contains four short stories, all crime/detective tales, starting with The Mistltoe Murder. My personal favourite was the final story, The Twelve Clues of Christmas. Every story was great, though, and A Very Commonplace Murder was particularly surprising.

James manages to include a fantastic little hint/twist at the end of the stories, changing your whole perception on what you've just read. This made the crimes so much more interesting and real. They were relatively simple crimes - stabbings, poisoning - but there's always a lot more going on under the surface than you'd expect.

A fantastic little collection, with a foreword by Val McDermid too. 4 stars.