Mostly Mysteries

River Kings: The Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman is on sale today in the UK

I haven’t read River Kings: The Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads, by Cat Jarman, but it looks fascinating, and it’s on sale for £0.99 at Kindle UK today (25 Sept 2022) as part of the Daily Deal. Jarman is a bioarcheologist, and the blurb indicates that she takes a small bead found in […]

River Kings: The Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman is on sale today in the UK Read More »

The Kindle UK Big Deal today is eleven crime/thriller/mystery books

Review of Fall Guy by Archer Mayor – coming soon

Leave a Comment / Contemporary Mysteries and Thrillers / By Sue

The case that doesn’t stop metastasizing… One of the things I love about police procedurals is the way that the detectives typically don’t get to concentrate on one case at a time. This seems to me to be a lot like real life. After all, who among us is lucky enough to get to think

Review of Fall Guy by Archer Mayor – coming soon Read More »

Review of Round Up the Usual Peacocks by Donna Andrews – recently published

3 Comments / Contemporary Mysteries and Thrillers / By Sue

Peacocks and weddings and some not-so-cold crime… The Meg Langslow series is one of a very few series that I have to read by myself, because I end up unexpectedly laughing out loud at least a couple of times in every book – and often more than a couple! And in Round Up the Usual

Review of Round Up the Usual Peacocks by Donna Andrews – recently published Read More »

Terns of Endearment by Donna Andrews – a review

Leave a Comment / Contemporary Mysteries and Thrillers / By Sue

Still a great series! I read and really enjoyed a bunch of the early titles in this series, published back in the early 2000s. Then, between kid-raising and stressful job and a bunch of other stuff, I sort of lost track of this series, so I was happy to receive a review copy of Terns

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The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett is on sale in the US today

2 Comments / Price Drops / By Sue

The Key to Rebecca is a non-series thriller by Ken Follett. It has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle and Kobo US. Buy at Kindle US | Kobo US

The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett is on sale in the US today Read More »

Spitfire by ML Huie is on sale in the US and UK

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith is on sale in the UK

1 Comment / Price Drops / By Sue

I’m not a huge Patricia Highsmith fan, but lots of folks are, so… Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train, which was a finalist for the 1951 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, is on sale at Kindle UK for £0.99. Buy at Kindle UK

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All three Arc of a Scythe books by Neal Shusterman are on sale today in the US

Icon by Frederick Forsyth is on sale at Kindle UK right now

1 Comment / Price Drops / By Sue

Icon is a non-series title by Frederick Forsyth. It’s £0.99 at Kindle UK right now, but more importantly, although Forsyth is known for his thrillers, this is listed as the #1 best seller in “Call Centre Management”. Gotta love Amazon’s genres sometimes… Buy at Kindle UK

Icon by Frederick Forsyth is on sale at Kindle UK right now Read More »

About Mostly Mysteries

Whether you are a non-stop reader looking for your next series to binge-read, or someone without much spare time, wanting to make sure the next book you read is great, I hope my reviews will help you out. I hate reading reviews that just say “five stars” or “I loved the book, it was great”, and I’m sure you do too. So you won’t find any of those here! Instead, I take the time to read and think about a book, and then write a review that (1) doesn’t just parrot the blurb, (2) talks about what I liked and didn’t like, and (3) has some additional info to help you decide if the book might be right for you.

I’ve been a huge fan of mysteries since my earliest days of reading, cutting my teeth on Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew, and quickly moving on to Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. From there, I bounced around a bit, trying some thrillers, like Alistair MacLean, and some romantic suspense, mainly Mary Stewart. And then I started branching out. I discovered historical mysteries, and British mysteries (Sarah Caudwell is my idol), and cozy mysteries, and police procedurals, and mysteries set in foreign climes, and noir, and…well, you get the idea! Just about the only mysteries I’ve never quite gotten into are psychological thrillers.

This blog reflects my own personal tastes, so, as you might guess, you’ll mostly find reviews of mysteries here. But, over the decades, I’ve also picked up some other reading habits. I read a fair amount of history, especially books about the Great Game rivalry between Britain and Russia. I’ve gone through all the Asterix comics (a big thank-you to my middle-school French teacher), and I even read a bunch of them out loud to my son when he was young. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read and re-read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and those books have led me into a little bit of fantasy and science fiction as well. Oh yeah, and recently, I’ve been reading some social and political science books too. So check out the Science Fiction/Fantasy, Nonfiction, Romance and Other Stuff tabs up in the menu as well!

Finally I’d love to hear from you too, so please make use of the comments sections available for most of my posts, or use the contact form, down at the bottom of the page.

Reviewing and Rating Info

I rate books on a scale from 1 to 5 stars, with occasional half-stars when a full star just won’t do.

Many of the books I review are provided to me by the publisher or author as a reading copy – in other words, at no cost to me. In other cases, usually for older books, I’m reviewing books I borrowed from the library or bought myself. My rating and review do not depend on whether I was provided a free reading copy. However if I did receive a free reading copy, I will disclose this in the review.

I do not post reviews of every book I read – not even close. It takes a lot of time and effort to craft a good review, and so I tend to be biased towards reviewing books that I enjoy or that excite me. As a result, you’ll find mostly 4- and 5-star reviews on my blog. Also, I do not post 1- or 2-star reviews on my blog unless the author or publisher asks me to.