Tuesday book review on Wednesday

Four-star review of Skylar Robbins: The Mystery of the Hidden Jewels: Skylar Robbins Mysteries Book 2 by Carrie Cross

 Shades of Nancy Drew and some of the other mystery series I read as a kid, this one features thirteen-year-old Skylar Robbins. When her parents can afford a larger house, Skylar and her father convince her mother to purchase a one hundred year old four-story mansion on a hill near Santa Monica, California so Skylar can attend Pacific, the same middle school as her BFF dyslexic Alexa. Along with the house comes the mystery of the disappearance of former owner Xandra Collins and her box of valuable jewels. Skylar, who’s determined to start a detective agency as well as to attract the attention of classmate Dustin, sets out to solve the case of the missing jewels following clues Xandra left. Whoever can find the box can keep the jewels inside. 

Tuesday Book Reviews

Four-star review of Hidden in Snow (The Åre Murders Book One) by Viveca Sten translated by Marlaine Delargy

This start to a Swedish murder mystery set in the northern skiing area of the country made me shiver for many reasons. A few of the flawed central characters were well-developed because it was told from multiple POVs. Hanna Ahlander is taking a break from her stressful job working with battered women for the Stockholm police but the young woman who comes to clean at the home where she’s staying, her sister’s place in the mountains, shows signs of being battered. Meanwhile, an eighteen-year-old woman from the area has gone missing after a party and the local police, led by Daniel Lindskog, set out to investigate. As others have noted, there is some strange formatting in a few of the early chapters at least in the Kindle version of the story, which distracted from the multiple plots. Otherwise, this is a solid Nordic noir story. 

Tuesday Book Review

Five-star review of The Case of the Canterfell Codicil (Anty Boisjoly  Mysteries Book One) by PJ Fitzsimmons

This fun quick read features two locked room mysteries and, to solve them, as the POV main character, Anthony Boisjoly, a witty Englishman whose greatest accomplishment was being on the Oxford rowing team. Former teammate Evelyn Fairfax (‘Fiddles’) Canterfell invites Anty to join him at the families manor in Sussex when his uncle jumps from a window of a locked room and that’s just the start of the excitement. Like most amateur detectives, he notices much the police don’t. The setting is very British including the town where the manor is located. I enjoyed this novel enough to look forward to the next one in the series.