Ursa Major
Yves Bonnefoy and Beverly Bie Brahic
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Yves Bonnefoy is one of the greatest living voices of contemporary French poetry. In this, his sixth...
Vintage Murder / Death in Ecstasy / Artists in Crime
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Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime's first book, the second volume in a set of...
Lila
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Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa...
Orphan Train: A Novel
9.1
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The #1 New York Times Bestseller Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train is an unforgettable story of...
Curious Minds
Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton
8.0
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Book
A New York Times bestseller CURIOUS MINDS by No. 1 bestselling author Janet Evanovich and...
Finding Alison
Book
In Carniskey, a small fishing village in Ireland, the community is divided, wracked by grief and...
Impulse: Why We Do What We Do without Knowing Why We Do it
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When you make a decision or form an opinion, you think you know why. But you're wrong. The truth is...
Thinking: The New Science of Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction
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Unlock your mind From the bestselling authors of Thinking, Fast and Slow; The Black Swan; and...
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2516 KP) rated Design for Murder in Books
Nov 15, 2020
Unfortunately, this was a disappointment after the fun series debut. We spend too long with Annie planning the fictional mystery with multiple ideas discarded before she settles on one. The book and author name dropping is especially tedious here, too. We are meeting suspects and learning motives, so when the body does finally drop, the book picks up. It was still a bit of a struggle to keep the suspects and the parts they played in the fictional murder straight. Even so, the suspects are strong, and both mysteries are wrapped up well. Annie and Max are wonderful main characters, and I definitely enjoyed spending time with them. I’m looking forward to more of their adventures even if this wasn’t quite as good as the first one.
This is one I know I read years ago, and parts of it came back to me as a reread it. I quickly got caught up in the action and danger again. There is a lot going on here, and I knew it would all tie together. The biggest mystery to me was how. I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes a bit at all the coincidences involved, but I was having fun. Nancy and her friends get a bit of time to have some character development early on, but they are still pretty thin characters. Some of the elements in the book are dated since the version I read came out in the 1960’s. Still, I think kids of all ages will enjoy the action and mystery of this book.
