Tag: mystery

4.5 star

Review: A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.

Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren’t really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?

In a debut novel that has already been optioned for a limited series by actress Emma Stone and sold to a dozen countries around the world, Stacy Willingham has created an unforgettable character in a spellbinding thriller that will appeal equally to fans of Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter.

Four months into the new year but I’m still picking random books off the shelf, oops! However, this one was a good one and I’m glad to be sharing it all with you. It was a super tense and suspenseful thriller, despite the overall plot not being too too surprising. I still enjoyed it though, and hope you will too.

A Flicker in the Dark follows a woman, Chloe Davis, who is now a successful psychologist. However, she has a dark background, her father was charged and imprisoned for the abduction of teenaged girls over twenty years ago. The trauma of her childhood constantly haunts her though she tries to help others with their psychological problems. When suddenly another teenager goes missing, Chloe feels as if she’s falling back into her past, the trauma resurfacing where it was barely suppressed before. Do these abductions have anything to do with her? Or is she just being paranoid?

Continue reading “Review: A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham” →
4 star

Review: The Dinner Guest by B. P. Walter

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Four people walked into the dining room that night. One would never leave.

Matthew: the perfect husband.

Titus: the perfect son.

Charlie: the perfect illusion.

Rachel: the perfect stranger.

Charlie didn’t want her at the book club. Matthew wouldn’t listen.

And that’s how Charlie finds himself slumped beside his husband’s body, their son sitting silently at the dinner table, while Rachel calls 999, the bloody knife still gripped in her hand.

Agatha Christie meets Donna Tartt in this nerve-shredding domestic noir thriller that weaves a sprawling web of secrets around an opulent West London world and the dinner that ends in death. 

This one seemed like a rather popular book on hold, so I decided to give it a try myself too. A very simple premise where there is a dinner party in which 4 people walk in but only 3 manage to walk out. One confesses to the murder right away. End of the story, no?

The Dinner Guest revolves around the idyllic life of Charlie and his husband Matthew, and their son Titus. That is, until a woman named Rachel shows up. Slowly but surely she becomes completely entangled with their lives, a woman seemingly from nowhere. Charlie has suspicions about her, but can never prove anything. Besides, just what does she want anyway? How does the situation end up with Rachel with a knife in her hand over the dead body calling the policy?

Continue reading “Review: The Dinner Guest by B. P. Walter” →
4 star, YA

ARC Review: Sense and Second-Degree Murder

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Jane Austen Murder Mystery #2

Three of Jane Austen’s classic novels receive a murder mystery makeover in this romantic and thrilling three-book series that’s perfect for fans of The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy and Stalking Jack the Ripper. In Sense and Second-Degree Murder, aspiring scientist Elinor Dashwood and her sister Marianne, a budding detective, work together to solve the mystery of their father’s murder.

When eighteen-year-old aspiring scientist Elinor Dashwood discovers her beloved father slumped over the desk of his office study, she knows his death means dire straits for the Dashwood women. To make matters worse, an outdated will entails his estate—including Norland & Company, the private investigation firm where her younger sister Marianne worked as her father’s partner and protégé—to their half-brother and his haughty wife, who waste no time in forcing the Dashwoods out of their home and into a cramped apartment on London’s Barton Street.

But before they go, the Dashwood sisters make a startling discovery that points to foul play, and the killer might be family.

Obviously, the girls must investigate. It could be dangerous; it could ruin their reputations; and most importantly, it won’t bring back their father. But if the Dashwood sisters can combine their talents and bring their father’s murderer to justice, it may bring them all some comfort—and it might even lead to love.

**Sense and Second-Degree Murder comes out April 5, 2022**

Thank you Edelweiss and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Tirzah Price continues to amaze me with her ability to take on a familiar Jane Austen book and add a mystery twist. Sense and Second-Degree Murder took all the beloved characters of Sense and Sensibility and really drove home a few key things: the sisterly bond, romance in its different forms, and science.

Continue reading “ARC Review: Sense and Second-Degree Murder” →