Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs

Started: 2/21/2024

Finished: 2/24/2024

Year: 2001

Pages: 432

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: continuing with the series, library book

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "The journey begins with Temperance Brennan hearing shocking news on her car radio. An Air TransSouth flight has gone down in the mountains of western North Carolina, taking with it eighty-eight passengers and crew. As a forensic anthropologist and a member of the regional DMORT team, Tempe rushes to the scene to assist in body recovery and identification.

"As bomb theories abound, Tempe soon discovers a jarring piece of evidence that raises dangerous questions—and gets her thrown from the DMORT team. Relentless in her pursuit of its significance, Tempe uncovers a shocking, multilayered tale of deceit and depravity as she probes her way into frightening territory—where someone wants her stopped in her tracks."

Opinion: What started off as a plane crash turned into so much more.

Murder of a Chocolate Covered Cherry by Denise Swanson

Started: 2/19/2024

Finished: 2/20/2024

Year: 2008

Pages: 238

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: continue with the series, library book

Blurb (from Amazon): "Grandma Sal's Soup-To-Nuts Cooking Challenge is coming to town, and Skye Denison is entering. And though she can't solve the mystery of the perfect mousse, murder is another story. Because a cocky contestant has been found delectably drowned in a chocolate fountain..."

Opinion: Slightly more complex than some of her other books in this series. Two mysteries were needing to be resolved and tied in at the very end.

Puzzle House by Duncan Ralson

Started: 2/18/2024

Finished: 2/19/2024

Year: 2023

Pages: 181

Genre: Horror/thriller

Grade: B

Reason for reading: local book store horror book club pick, library book

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Six strangers.Six puzzles.Six ways to die.

"Six strangers arrive at the home of preeminent puzzle master Alexei Vasiliev for the reading of his will. Among them are the deceased's widow, who'd already begun divorce proceedings, a virologist troubled by actions in his past, and a convicted murderer on day leave.

"The choice is simple: leave with nothing, or continue in the hope of solving the six interconnecting escape rooms with this house.

"Once there, the participants soon discover Puzzle House is far deadlier than it appears, and that making their way through the rooms may be a matter of life and death. Someone is watching their every move, toying with them, turning them against each other. With their lives on the line, they are forced to wonder: Is it all a deadly game created by a gleeful sadist, or something far more sinister?"

Opinion: An escape room taken to a new level. Predictable on who "wins" but still enjoyable trying to figure out how the escapees needs to get out of the rooms.

Over the Edge by Jonathan Kellerman

Started: 2/12/2024

Finished: 2/16/2024

Year: 1987

Pages: 525

Genre: mystery

Grade: B-

Reason for reading: continuing with series, library book

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "When the phone rings in the middle of the night, child psychologist Alex Delaware does not hesitate. Driving through the dream-lit San Fernando Valley, Alex rushes to Jamey Cadmus, the patient he had failed five years before—and who now calls with a bizarre cry for help. But by the time Alex reaches Canyon Oaks Psychiatric Hospital, Jamey is gone, surfacing a day later in the hands of the police, who believe Jamey is the infamous Lavender Slasher, a psychotic serial killer. Wooed by a high-powered attorney to build a defense, Alex will get a chance to do what he couldn’t five years ago. And when he peers into a family’s troubled history and Jamey’s brilliant, tormented mind, the psychologist puts himself at the heart of a high-profile case. Because Alex knows that in a realm of money, loss, and madness, something terrible pushed Jamey over the edge—or else someone is getting away with murder."

Opinion: There was just too much going on that did not need to be there for this to be a good psychological mystery.

The Coworker by Freida McFadden

Started: 2/9/2023

Finished: 2/12/2023

Year: 2023

Pages: 358

Genre: mystery/thriller

Grade: B-

Reason for reading: library book

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Dawn Schiff is strange.

"At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.

"So when Dawn doesn't show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrell―beautiful, popular, top sales rep five years running―is surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything…

"It turns out Dawn wasn't just an awkward outsider―she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds herself caught in a twisted game of cat and mouse that leaves her wondering: who's the real victim?

"But one thing is incredibly clear: somebody hated Dawn Schiff. Enough to kill."

Opinion: Interesting twist and turns. Some of them could have been deleted from the story and it still would have been a good thriller.

A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan

Started: 2/3/2024

Finished: 2/9/2024

Year: 2022

Pages: 322

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Morgan Carter, owner of the Odds and Ends bookstore in Door County, Wisconsin, has a hobby. When she’s not tending the store, she’s hunting cryptids—creatures whose existence is rumored, but never proven to be real. It’s a hobby that cost her parents their lives, but one she’ll never give up on.

"So when a number of bodies turn up on the shores of Lake Michigan with injuries that look like bites from a giant unknown animal, police chief Jon Flanders turns to Morgan for help. A skeptic at heart, Morgan can’t turn down the opportunity to find proof of an entity whose existence she can’t definitively rule out. She and her beloved rescue dog, Newt, journey to the Death's Door strait to hunt for a homicidal monster in the lake—but if they’re not careful, they just might be its next victims."

Opinion: An interesting mystery that starts off as a cryptozoology paranormal case to a case of buried treasure. I'll be continuing on with the monster hunter mystery series.

In Cold Pursuit by Sarah Andrews

Started: 1/24/2024

Finished: DNF

Year: 2007

Pages: 368

Genre: mystery/thriller

Grade: D

Reason for reading: TBR pile

Type: mass market paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Valena Walker is a master’s student headed to Antarctica to study glaciology with the venerable Dr. Emmett Vanderzee. Being on the ice is something Valena has dreamed about since she was a little girl. But when she arrives at McMurdo Station, she soon discovers that her beloved professor and mentor has been shipped out. Arrested. And charged with murder in the first degree.

"What really happened to the newspaper reporter who dared to contradict Emmett’s research? Most believed that he died from exposure. But the evidence suggests a different story on a very, very cold case. Now Valena must brave the elements and chart a course among local scientists and McMurdo military personnel to clear Emmett’s name. But there are others who will go to terrifying lengths to stand in Valena’s way as she searches for the truth through a harsh and unfamiliar land…before it’s too late."

Opinion: It is a technical book in regards to what is done on Antarctica-which normally is fine but then it got into a little bit of ridiculous of what Valena was allowed to do as never even having been on Antarctica before and gone through all of the necessary trainings.