November 2024 Reads

A bit below my monthly average, but I thoroughly enjoyed the books I read during November. For some reason it completely escaped my attention that I read both the first and the latest book in the Lady Eleanor Swift series by Verity Bright. It's hard to believe we're getting close to Christmas and the end of the year. Before I do a reading round-up for the year, I've got a few more books to read first. If I posted longer or related reviews, the links can be found below.

A VERY ENGLISH MURDER (Lady Eleanor Swift #1) by Verity Bright (4*)

A fun, somewhat over the top but overall, very amusing and easy to read vanishing-corpse mystery. I’m looking forward to spending more time in early 20^th century England solving mysteries with Lady Eleanor, her butler Clifford, and her English bulldog Gladstone.

 

AGATHA CHRISTIE: A MYSTERIOUS LIFE by Laura Thompson NF (4.5*)

This was more than ‘just’ a description of Christie’s life. This biography also deep dives into her books, her writing, her storytelling powers, as well as the puzzles she created and solved. The author takes links and hints about Agatha’s life from her (mostly Mary Westmacott’s) fiction. All of it sounds plausible but none of it can be taken as fact since they are conclusions drawn by Laura Thompson and not biographical details provided by Christie herself. It is noteworthy that the author uses the word ‘elusive’ with regard to Agatha Christie given that Lucy Worsley titled her biography Agatha Christie: an Elusive Woman. This has been a most enjoyable bedtime read. Sure, at about eight pages per evening it took a looooong time read, but I wasn’t in a hurry. I’m going to miss my nighttime encounters with Agatha Christie.

 

LIAR’S ISLAND (CSI Ally Dymond #3) by T. Orr Munro (3.5*)

Two CSI investigators find themselves stranded on a small island with a tiny group of inhabitants, one of whom may well be a murderer. I enjoyed Liar’s Island and I’d call it a well-plotted and easy-to-read mystery that for me personally could have done with a little more tension and a little less personal backstory. My full review can be found here:  https://helenasheat.blogspot.com/2024/11/liars-island-by-t-orr-munro.html

 

A MIDWINTER MURDER (Lady Eleanor Swift #20) by Verity Bright (4+*)

A delightful new instalment in the Lady Eleanor Swift series. The setting combined with the reclusive Earl who lives there create a wonderful contrast with the charming Christmas atmosphere Eleanor’s staff create in the gamekeeper’s cottage. Just as the mystery is wonderfully balances with the developing romance between Ellie and her Chief Inspector fiancé. My full review can be found here: https://helenasheat.blogspot.com/2024/11/a-midwinter-murder-by-verity-bright.html

 

OUT OF SIGHT (Second Sight #3) by K.C. Wells 4*

Detective Gary Mitchell and psychic Dan Porter tackle their third baffling case while their relationship continues to flourish. What should have been a cold-case investigation almost immediately turns active and takes them far out of their comfort zones in more ways than one. In the background runs the continuing unsolved mystery of Gary’s brother’s murder. Because this story arc stretches over all the books in this series, they should be read in order.

 

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE (Ernest Cunningham #1) by Benjamin Stevenson 4.5*

Gripping, well-plotted, and at times funny mystery in which the first-person narrator strictly follows the Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction as established during the Golden Age of Crime Writing. More than once I feared the story was trying to be too clever only for the ending of the story to prove that the plot was indeed that clever. I’m sorry now that I already read Everyone on This Train is a Suspect and Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret earlier this year. Not because they spoiled this book for me but because I’d love to be able to look forward to reading them.

Liar’s Island by T. Orr Munro

CSI Ally Dymond #3

400 pages

Publisher: HQ

Release Date: November 21, 2024

 

Blurb

When the body of Kieran Deveney is found on Liars Island, it sends shockwaves through the tiny, close-knit population. The rugged coastline has a history of smuggling and shipwreck, but there has never been a murder – until now.

With the hunt for the killer underway, two locals confess to the crime. Each claims they acted alone, and neither can be convicted while the other stands by their story. Which of them is telling the truth?

CSI Ally Dymond arrives to uncover the evidence that could crack the case. What she finds is a community awash with secrets. As a storm closes in, and with the identity of the murderer still in doubt, no one can leave the island. But it’s not the treacherous weather that Ally fears, it’s the people she’s trapped with…

 

Review

Kieran Deveney is the co-owner of a sports centre on Liar’s Island. His father is on the board of trustees for the island and more or less determines what happens there. When Kieran’s body is discovered on the island the question is who killed him. The island only has a tiny population and when two of them individually confess to having murdered Kieran singlehandedly, the police are facing a stand-off as far as their investigation is concerned.

CSI Ally Dymond and a junior colleague are sent to Liar’s Island to uncover evidence that will prove or disprove either of the confessions. Before they can return to the mainland with what little potential evidence they have found, a storm descends on the island, and they find themselves stranded in close proximity to a murderer.

The story is told in the first person from Ally Dymond’s perspective. However, interspersed throughout the story are CSI reports for each of the island’s inhabitants as well as passages printed in cursive that describe relevant details about those inhabitants’ pasts. I’m not sure how I felt about those cursive parts. On the one hand, they allowed the reader to join the dots and be part of the solving of the puzzle. On the other hand, those sections weren’t the result of the on-the-page investigation so it created the weird situation where the reader knows more than Ally Dymond did. One thing they made perfectly clear though, is that everybody on the island had a motive for killing Kieran.

Liar’s Island is an atmospheric story with the placenames creating the atmosphere. For example, Kieran Deveney is found in a bay known as Devil’s Cauldron on Liar’s Island. This is also a rather slow-moving story and a relatively large section of it deals with Ally Dymond’s private life. This book is very well written and easy to read but it also felt a bit flat. Despite the atmosphere, the location, the murders, and the storm there wasn’t any real tension or urgency in the story.

This is the third book in the Ally Dymond series by this author. I didn’t read the previous two books, and I don’t think it is necessary to have done so in order to enjoy this title. Having said that, if you think this series sounds like something you might enjoy, I advise you to start with book one (Breakneck Point). I may be wrong, but I think Liar’s Island contains at least one spoiler for the previous stories.

Overall I enjoyed Liar’s Island and I’d call it a well-plotted and easy-to-read mystery that for me personally could have done with a little more tension and a little less personal backstory.