Join us on the third Thursday of the month, 6:30pm Arizona time!
​It's easy, fun, and free!

Zoom link: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/670502630

Here are the 2023 books:

January 19: Baby, Would I Lie?, Donald Westlake

February 16: Widow of Malabar Hill, Sujata Massey (Left Coast
Crime speaker in March)

March 23: FOURTH THURSDAY, 3/23 The Girl in the Spider’s Web. David Lagercrantz. Trans. George Goulding.

April 20: Morality Play, Barry Unsworth.

May 18: Indian Killer, Sherman Alexi

June 15: Mango, Mambo, and Murder, Raquel V. Reyes

July 20: Murder in the Executive Mansion, Elliott Roosevelt

August 17: Grandmother Spider: A Charlie Moon Mystery, James Doss.

September 21: The Conspiracy of Tall Men, by Noah Hawley

October 19: Midnight at Malabar House, Vaseem Khan

November 16: The Bell Tower, Andre Charles.

​December 21:The Law of Unintended Consequences, Davies Jandry 

Mysteries for 2022

Here are our 2022 books! Join us to talk about them on the Third Thursday of the Month!

6:30-8pm Tucson time   https:://arizona.zoom.us/j/670502630

January: Highsmith, Patricia. Strangers on a Train. 1950.
February: Brearton, T.J. Buried Secrets, 2017.
March: Christie, Agatha. Cards on the Table. 1936.
April: Carson, Jeff. Foreign Deceit, 2014.
May: Santlofer, Jonathan. The Last Mona Lisa, 2021.
June Grisham, John, The Reckoning, 2019.
July Grainger, Peter. An Accidental Death, 2013.
August Raina, Rahul. How to Kidnap the Rich, 2021.
September: Sayers, Dorothy. Clouds of Witness. 1926.
October: Singh, Nalini. Quiet in Her Bones, 2021.
November: Robinson, Peter. In a Dry Season. ​1999  
December: Osman, Richard. The Thursday Murder Club, 2021

October's book was by Scottish writer Martin Walker. His series is set around St. Denis. His protagonist Bruno tells us about French cuisine and the pleasant countryside. There was a murder, too, and a race. For me, the book was a little too full of food, though. All those cooking tips were lost on me!

(The UK version was published as Eight Perfect Murders.) We generally enjoyed Swanson's romp through favorite mysteries.  Protagonist Malcolm Kershaw plays with the devil when he imitates Strangers on a Train a little too closely. He runs a bookstore, but when he gets a visit from an FBI agent, the game is on.....(Readers--keep a close eye on Ginger the cat!)

​

While one group member is totally in love with Fforde's series, the rest of us didn't appreciate the book so terribly much. We acknowledged its cleverness, but we felt too lost to embrace it.

We did love the name of the protagonist: Thursday Next. I especially appreciated the work the character did in her first adventure: changing the ending to that dratted Jane Eyre I absolutely hated in high school!

​Although we had some reservations about the frequent violence, we admired this story about a serial killer who is jealous enough of others to ruin lives. In this case he infiltrates the jury, causing lawyer Eddie Flynn to have special trouble. Flynn is likeable, and we enjoyed following his logic as he slowly puts together a case against Kane. He gets help from a former FBI agent and a current one, and together they tackle the seemingly unconnected spray of killings. 

This is the 4th book in the series, but the book works well as a standalone, and some of us might check out the other Cavanaugh books. Interestingly enough, the author is Irish! Yet he uses NYC as his backdrop. Flynn sounds perfectly American, as do the other characters. Hat's off!

Most of us enjoyed Dog on It and appreciated being in the head of a dog. (As a cat person, perhaps I had more trouble with this one!) Good humor and an actual plot that we could follow.

Case Histories had a nice voice, but some of us got lost in the multitude of characters. We really liked the main character, though. Jackson was hysterical whether he was dealing with a house fire or being kind to Binky, the cat lady who hired Jackson to find her black cats that started going missing ....

Brodsky's tale was a run romp through Thailand. We appreciated the humor and the unusual characters. For those who had traveled to Thailand, the book provided a chance to relive happy travel memories. For others it served as a reminder that Thailand is only a few flights away.
However, as a writing instructor, I will point out the lack of editing was annoying. Commas were misplaced or not placed, and the formatting was not always uniform. Those are easy fixes, however, perhaps for a future addition.