Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

 

Four-star Review for Closed Circles (Sandhamn Murders Book 2) by Viveca Sten

This early entry in the Sandhamn Murders mysteries wasn’t as engaging as other books by the author or especially the YA books she’s written with her daughter. The story begins when the deputy chairman of a Yacht Club, Oscar Juliander, is shot dead at the start of a regatta. All of the characters, including the police and other main characters, seem filled with angst about something or other and that clouds their thoughts. Still, I liked the characters and especially the setting on the islands of the archipelago not far from Stockholm, an area where the rich Swedish people go to summer.

 

Tuesday Book Review on Thursday

 

Four-star Review for A Voice in the Dark (Benedict Hoffman and Helen Belle Book ) by Barbara Nickless

This psychological thriller was written well. The main characters of FBI agent Helen Belle and now-professor Benedict Hoffman were engaging. They’d previously worked together in a failed effort to prove the existence of The Midnight Man, and that he’d used video games to influence a teenager to kill. Now, they separately linked that case to a more recent murder of a family and torching of the family home by another teen boy. Both studied the effects of games on susceptible and easily-influenced youngsters. Once more they end up working together. With the current fears about AI so prevalent, this book can be a cautionary tale about what’s to come.

Tuesday Book Review

 

Four-star Review of God of the Woods by Liz Moore

In this novel that relates events from two different times when a boy, nicknamed Bear, and then his sister, Barbara, disappeared, was well-written. Moore handled the multiple POVs and timelines very well.  She fleshed out many of the characters. My only quibble was that I guessed from the beginning what happened to Bear and clues about Barbara also made it easy to guess how she disappeared. There were also several characters, who we came to know, but whose stories went nowhere. I know the area where the story took place, which helped me to picture the settings; those settings also helped set the atmosphere of the story. The campground where much of the story takes place, the nearby home of the fabulously wealthy family of the brother and sister, and the small towns and woods in the area were described very well.