Sunday Salon: A Kitchen in Havana and a Coffeehouse in NYC

Still waiting for spring. There is no new greenery to speak of in the yard, but the sun has come out the past few days!Hope for spring!

Two new books for review:

Death Comes In Through the Kitchen by Teresa Dovalpage
March 20, 2018; Soho Press
Genre: mystery set in Havana, Cuba
Set in Havana during the Black Spring of 2003, a charming but poison-laced culinary mystery reveals the darker side of the modern Revolution, complete with authentic Cuban recipes (publisher)


Shot in the Dark by Cleo Coyle
April 17, 2018; Berkley
Genre: Coffeehouse Mystery #17
A new smartphone dating game turns the Village Blend into a hookup hot spot, until one dark night, when a gunshot leaves a dead body behind and the landmark coffeehouse becomes the center of a whole new scene--a crime scene. (publisher)

Finished reading:

Blue Light, Yokohama, Inspector Iwata #1
Author: Nicolás Obregón
Setting: Tokyo
Genre: mystery, police procedural
Source: library book
My comments:

A new mystery series with a very sympathetic main character, Inspector Iwata of Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. A complex plot involving cults, murder, and corruption. I'm looking forward to the second in the series!

Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey
June 10, 2014; Harper
Genre: mystery, thriller

My comments:

A surprising main character, Maud is in her late seventies or early eighties, is increasingly forgetful, and seems to get more disoriented as the book progresses. However, she remembers her childhood clearly, and her missing sister, Sukey, who left home and never returned. Maud is obsessed with finding her elderly friend, Elizabeth, who doesn't answer her phone and is not at her home. Between periods of forgetfulness, Maud clings to a few memories - her missing friend Elizabeth, and her memories of childhood and Sukey. She pieces bits of items and clues together and her persistence pays off, even after the police have written her off as just a forgetful, demented lady who has to be humored when she insists on finding Elizabeth. With her patient daughter Helen and her young granddaughter Katy, Maud eventually points the way to solving a murder. Engrossing and unusual. the book is being made into a TV movie by the BBC. Ebook borrowed from the library.

An Event In Autumn by Henning Mankell
August 12, 2014, Vintage
Genre: police procedural, crime fiction
Source: library book
My comments: 

Enjoyable police procedural with a Swedish policeman whose personal characteristics make him endearing. I have read two in the Wallander series and looking forward to the others.

What books are you reading this week?

The Sunday Post  hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer,  It's Monday, What Are You Reading? by Book Date., and Mailbox Monday.

Sunday Salon: Mystery Novels Around the Globe

Recently borrowed:
I amazed myself with the type of books, the variety, though all mystery novels, that I came out with after a visit to the library yesterday.  I gravitate towards books set in other places. These are set in Tokyo, Moscow and Laos, and Australia. Armchair travel at its best!

Blue Light, Yokohama, Inspector Iwata #1
Author: Nicolás Obregón
Setting: Tokyo
Genre: mystery, police procedural
Tokyo Police Inspector Iwata, recently reinstated to a new post, is assigned to investigate a disturbing multiple murder.
Am so glad I get to read the first in a new mystery series set in Tokyo! This way, I hope to get more of the flavor of the great city, even if only from a novel. By a writer who fell in love with Japan.

And another thriller set in Tokyo:

Soul Cage by Tetsuya Honda
Published July 18, 2017, Minotaur Books
Setting: Tokyo
Genre: police procedural
This is the second in the series featuring the detective in Tokyo. A severed hand, a missing body, and a victim who was living under a false identity all add up to the most complex and challenging case yet for Homicide Detective Reiko Himekawa.

Setting: Laos and Moscow, Olympic Village

The Rat Catchers' Olympics by Colin Cotterill
Published August 15, 2017; Soho Press
Genre: mystery, Dr. Siri Paiboun series #12

1980: The Democratic People's Republic of Laos is proud to be competing in its first-ever Olympics.  Ex-national coroner of Laos Dr. Siri Paiboun begins to suspect that one of the athletes is not who he says he is. Fearing a conspiracy, Siri and his friends investigate, liaising in secret with Inspector Phosy back home in Laos to see if the man might be an assassin.

Setting: isolated bushland in Australia


Force of Nature: Aaron Falk #2 by Jane Harper
Published February 6, 2018; Flatiron Books
Genre: mystery, thriller
When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the muddy path.

But one of the women doesn’t come out of the woods. And each of her companions tells a slightly different story about what happened.

I finished reading

Lie To Me by J.T. Ellison, Septemer 5, 2017, Mira Books
Genre: psychological suspense
My review: 

A married couple, both writers, have an ideal married life with success and fame until they begin to drift apart due to professional jealousy, betrayal, domestic fighting, and the sudden death of a child to SIDS. But what seems obvious on the outside is anything but, and as readers we plumb the depths of several twists and turns that land you in unexpected places in the story. Somewhat suspenseful and surprising, this was an enjoyable though not always believable read. A domestic thriller that is entertaining and easy to read.

What books are you reading this week?

The Sunday Post  hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer,  It's Monday, What Are You Reading? by Book Date., and Mailbox Monday.