My Year in Books 2023: August

I didn't get a huge amount of time for reading in the first couple of weeks of the month, but I had a few days booked off for my birthday and I planned to spend most of that time reading (partly because I was a bit poorly on my birthday so couldn't be bothered going anywhere). In the end, I read three novels this month. It's a bit weird, as I read two of them over the course of a day and a half, and then the other one much later in the month. So, in a way, it doesn't feel like I read very much at all!

If you're interested, here are my posts from the rest of the year so far... January, February, March, April, May, June, July

The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz (2023)

You may have noticed from previous posts that I’m quite a fan of Anthony Horowitz’s mystery novels. I bought the fourth Hawthorne and Horowitz novel just before Christmas, but, as is my habit, I’ve been saving it for a treat. I decided to read it on my birthday, which means this is a borderline tradition, as I read Moonflower Murders (the book that cemented my love of Horowitz’s mystery novels) on my birthday a couple of years ago. If you’ve read Moonflower Murders, you’ll know that there’s a very special reason why someone born in August would enjoy reading it on their birthday. The Twist of a Knife doesn’t have that particular connection, but it does have a Christie-esque theatre-based mystery featuring the fictional character Anthony Horowitz. This time, Tony is preparing for the opening night of his play Mindgame, determined that he is not writing any more books about former detective Hawthorne – and he’s certainly not getting embroiled in solving any more mysteries with him. But, for all his determination, there is (of course!) a murder on the opening night. Theatre critic Harriet Thorsby is stabbed shortly after publishing a scathing review of Mindgame, and the police arrest Tony for the murder. And there’s only one man he knows who can clear his name… I enjoyed The Twist of a Knife greatly, though I’m not sure it’s the most intricate mystery in the series. It’s still a very fun read though, and apparently there will be more to come!

Girls of Little Hope by Dale Halvorsen and Sam Beckbessinger (2023)

The next book I read this month was one of the novels in my most recent Abominable Books subscription box. The cover was pretty cool, and the blurb looked like it might be up my street, so I thought I’d give this one a go next. The book is set in 1996, in a small California town called Little Hope. Three best friends, Donna, Kat and Rae, decide to kill some time by investigating some of the weird stories about their town (rumours of a lost mine, and a decade-old tragedy). They go out into the woods and find a strange cave… but only Donna and Rae return alive, and neither of them have any real memory of what happened. Kat’s mother, Marybeth, is frantic to find out what happened to her daughter, and there are extracts from Kat’s diary to help the reader understand more about life in Little Hope. HOWEVER… this is a horror novel, not a mystery novel, and so while the set-up might make us think it’s going to go in one direction, it’s a bait-and-switch. That is not the direction we’re going to travel at all. It’s probably best that I stop there, as anything else would be a spoiler. Suffice to say, you need to expect the unexpected with this one, and try to remember the genre you’re reading! I enjoyed this one – the writing is engaging and immersive, and the story is intriguing. It’s got a surprisingly charming ending too, which was unexpected!

The Murder Box by Olivia Kiernan (2021)

I got The Murder Box out of the library recently. Although it’s a police procedural, rather than a whodunnit, the blurb looked like it might be up my street. Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan is sent a murder mystery game as, she believes, a birthday present. When she looks at the game properly though, she realizes its victim bears a creepy resemblance to a real missing person, a young woman called Lydia Callin who has just been reported missing by her flatmate. Frankie and her team investigate, and they’re drawn into the world of the ‘murder mystery game’ players. The team are also investigating a missing celebrity, Teddy Dolan, who disappeared a couple of months earlier. It’s clear early on that these cases are connected. There’s a lot to like about the premise of this one, but if I’m honest the execution didn’t quite live up to the promise. Ultimately, this is a fairly standard police procedural, with the ‘Murder Box’ stuff just window-dressing. The connections between the cases are made explicit from the start, and the focus shifts to the methods of investigation from then on (as you might expect from a police procedural). That said, there’s still a bit of mystery and a few surprises in store, and the good pacing means that it’s not a boring book to read. I don’t want this to seem like an overly negative review, as I knew from the start that it was not written in a genre I particularly enjoy!