Christine A. (965 KP) rated The Secret Child (DI Amy Winter #2) in Books
Apr 2, 2019
The Secret Child is the second novel in Mitchell's DI Amy Winter series. I learned my lesson from binge reading the first book and set a timer to remind myself to take a break from reading. I forced myself to take a few breaks but finished reading it in one day. It is not a very long book, 330 pags, but I just could not find a place to stop reading for the day. I just had to keep reading!
Detective Inspector Amy Winter returns with her high-priority crime unit tracking down a kidnapper. He is using the kidnappings to extract revenge on those who had used children for dangerous and illegal experimentation years ago. Also returning is Lillian Grimes, Winter's biological mother who is imprisoned for being half of a serial killer husband and wife team known as the Beasts of Brentwood.
The Secret Child is as riveting as Truth and Lies. Both are character-driven and fast-paced, suspenseful, and well written.
Review published on Philomathinphila.com, Smashbomb, Goodreads, and Amazon on or before 4/2/19. Will publish on Twitter, Facebook, and Barnes and Noble on its release date, April 18, 2019.
Ross (3284 KP) rated Age of Assassins in Books
Feb 5, 2018
I had no real expectations of this other than people rated it highly (which tends to make me more critical).
The premise was a little unusual for me - a detective thriller but in a fantasy setting. A young assassin in training, Girton, and his master are hired to find who hired another assassin to kill the heir to the throne. They then work undercover to determine who had the motive to kill the obnoxious heir. Girton becomes embedded within the squires and starts to see what a real childhood would have been like, growing up with other children rather than his master. His emotional frailty, alongside how hard he has to try not to kill them all and show how much more skilled he is than the bumbling, club-footed oaf he is presumed to be.
The plot itself is pretty much all revealed at the end with a Poirot-esque "I suppose you're wondering why I asked you all here" chapter, which I thought was a bit of a cop-out, more could have been hinted at along the way. Rather than the whole plot being revealed in a oner, people like to have enough to stitch it all together and I felt it maybe kept a little too much in the tank for the final scene.
I enjoyed it as a fantasy novel, though its scope was so much smaller than other books I have read recently, though the action scenes were well narrated.
As a detective novel, I thought it left a little too much of the reveal to the end and didn't reveal enough along the way.
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Christine A. (965 KP) rated The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) in Books
Feb 11, 2019
If you have never read any of Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware series you need to do so immediately. The Wedding Guest is Kellerman's 34th Alex Delaware novel. It would definitely help with the backstory but you do not need to start at book 1, "When the Bough Breaks", to appreciate the story. Each novel is part of the series but can stand alone.
Kellerman's Alex Delaware is a psychologist who helps Detective Milo Sturgis with difficult cases. As you can guess, having a psychologist as the main character gives the reader a hint that Kellerman's book are more than the ordinary cop vs bad guy type of book. You are almost guaranteed the story will be a psychological thriller.
The Wedding Guest is no exception. Someone is murdered at a wedding reception. Were they invited? Did they crash? Do the bride and groom know them? Do any of the family members or guests know them? Why kill someone during the reception?
The characters surrounding Alex and MIlo help round out the story and make them seem more human and approachable. They are not perfect. They make mistakes. They are a perfect team for working together to catch the bad guys.