Another post from me with reviews of the books I read for pleasure this month (so this doesn't include books I read for review, for my radio show, or for research). I actually read seven novels this month, though I got onto a bit of a series kick as you'll see!
In case you're curious, here's the other post from this year so far:
January. And here are the books I read in February...
Hope to Die by Cara Hunter (2022)
I read a Cara Hunter standalone book last year –
Murder in the Family – and really enjoyed it, particularly the way it unfolded through various types of narration, like newspaper articles and podcast transcripts. I saw one of her series detective novels in the library and thought I might give it a go to see if it was like the standalone. It was a bit different, obviously, as there’s a lot of police procedural elements, but I was still hooked.
Hope to Die is the sixth book in Hunter’s D.I. Fawley series (and if you’ve read any of my posts before, you’ll know my tendency to read series out of order). The mystery begins when an old couple living in the countryside shoot a burglar, claiming it was self-defence. The burglar turns out to have no ID, and the couple turn out not to be quite who they say they are. The whole thing links up to a high-profile case from the past that may or may not have been a miscarriage of justice. I enjoyed the way the mystery in this one developed, and I also loved the various unreliable narrations with different people describing the same events but in very different ways. I only discovered in the author’s note at the end that the story was inspired by a real-life case, and we’ve since watched a documentary about that case too. This was a great read, and I’m looking forward to catching up with the rest of the series.
The Other People by C.B. Everett (2025)
This next book looked like it was made for me. I got it in a recent Abominable Books box and just started reading it almost right away. One of the characters in the book describes their situation as a cross between an Agatha Christie novel and
Saw… so you can see why I thought this was my perfect book. Ten strangers wake up in a house with no memory of why they’re there, how they got there, or where ‘there’ actually is. They are then instructed that a young woman has disappeared, and they have twelve hours to discover what happened to her. And then the crazy violence starts. I loved the set-up to this, and I loved the references to both Golden Age detective fiction and horror cinema. I also liked the meta-narration from (no spoilers) a very different perspective, and the sense that no one is actually who they say they are. The really odd moments of ‘why is this happening?’ were great too, with a nicely off-kilter, horror-flavoured
And Then There Were None vibe to it. I loved all of it… until I realized where the story was going. Unfortunately, this one careens towards a really clichéd and annoying explanation that I really don’t like. I won’t say what it is, because if the set-up sounds good and you don’t share my specific pet peeve here, then I think you’ll really like this one. But it was a ‘no’ from me because of the ending, I’m afraid.
All the Rage by Cara Hunter (2019)
I enjoyed
Hope to Die so much that, when I took it back to the library, I immediately picked up another book in the series. And I think I enjoyed this one even more! It’s the fourth book in the series – so I am jumping around a bit with it – but that’s not a problem. Although, as I’m discovering, there’s a series arc for the main characters, it’s not one that you need to follow in sequence to enjoy the books.
All the Rage begins with a teenage girl being abducted and assaulted, and then being weirdly reticent about talking to the police. But then another girl goes missing, and D.I. Fawley starts to notice something disturbingly familiar in the pattern, far too reminiscent of a traumatic past case of his. I can’t really say anything else about this one, because one of my favourite things about
All the Rage is the bait-and-switch aspect, and the fact that we may not be paying attention to exactly what case is actually unfolding. It also has one of the most satisfying clues I’ve read in a detective novel for a while, but if I told you what it was and why I enjoyed it so much, I’d give away way more than I should. I also loved the final explanation, not only of means and motive, but also of methodology (or how the killer managed to fool the police so well). I found it narratively satisfying, a real ‘oh, of course’ moment.
Middle of the Night by Riley Sager (2024)
I’m pretty sure this is the second Riley Sager book that I’ve read. I read – and really enjoyed –
The Only One Left back in 2024, so I’m not sure why it took me so long to read another of his books.
Middle of the Night has a great premise – when Ethan Marsh was ten, his best friend Billy disappeared one night when they were camping out in the garden. Billy was never found, and his disappearance has never been explained. Thirty years later, Ethan returns to his old neighbourhood – the wonderfully named Hemlock Circle – and his childhood home. He feels like he’s being haunted by Billy in some way, not necessarily a ghost so much as an unresolved story. And it might just involved the creepy, mysterious parapsychology research institute that sits not too far away from Hemlock Circle. I loved this book! The mystery of Billy’s disappearance works really well – including a great ‘oh, of course’ moment at the end (which apparently is what I need from all the books I read this month!). The research institute is nicely atmospheric and bizarre. But all this is tempered by some really human stories, not just about Ethan and Billy, but also the other people they knew in their childhood. The story of Johnny, the older brother of one of Ethan’s friends, and Ragesh is particularly moving. All in all, this is a great thriller-mystery book that flirts with the supernatural but keeps things grounded in the human. A strong recommendation.
The Confessions by Paul Bradley Carr (2025)
This next book came in a book subscription box I tried out for a few months – the End of the World Reading Club. Each box has an apocalyptic or dystopian novel, along with individually wrapped gifts that you open at different points in the book. I actually had two boxes to choose from – as I didn’t open them when they arrived – and I went with
The Confessions, because the premise looked really interesting and timely. The book centres around LLIAM, a powerful AI that has taken over almost every aspect of human life. What I found instantly fascinating was that LLIAM isn’t an evil robot overlord, but rather a model that has integrated into people’s lives to the point where they’ve delegated critical thinking (sound familiar?). But… at the start of the book, LLIAM goes offline, throwing the world into chaos. And then people start getting letters, ‘confessions’, containing all the worst things their nearest and dearest have been searching for and sharing with LLIAM. The protagonist of the book is Kaitlin, the CEO of LLIAM’s parent company who has to work out what is going on with LLIAM, whether it can be fixed, and – more importantly – whether it should be fixed. I loved this book. The presentation of AI – even a near-future advanced AI – felt really authentic, and the reveals about who, what and why were very enjoyable. It also had an amazing ‘oh, of course’ moment, which might just have been my favourite one so far this month.
The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk (2022)
Something a bit different next. This book was a library book, and not really the sort of thing I usually read, but I was – as always – drawn to the cover and the blurb. It’s historical mystery with a little bit of a supernatural flavour, but I think I was mostly drawn to the word ‘automata’ in the description! The titular Zachary is born in eighteenth-century London, the son of a master clockmaker called Abel who has turned his hand to clockwork automata. Zachary has a supernatural – or maybe magical is the better word – gift, as the title suggests. His upbringing is also a little unconventional, due to his father’s grief at his mother’s death. When a serious threat intervenes and separates Zachary from his father, the book becomes more of an adventure story, and also a coming-of-age story for Zachary that will take him far from home into a beguiling but dangerous other world. What I liked about the story was that, while a lot of the characters are undoubtedly ‘larger than life’ (though never to the point of caricature), Lusk is great at balancing this with a very human core. The relationship between Zachary and Abel is very nuanced and complex, at turns touching and frustrating. The later sections are moving, as Zachary travels in the hope of being reunited with his father, but the reader is aware of what has been happening during the intervening years. It’s a readable and engaging story, with plenty of whimsy and charm.
Close to Home by Cara Hunter (2017)
The last book I read this month was another one of Cara Hunter’s D.I. Fawley series. I really am reading this series completely out of sequence, because
Close to Home is actually the first one! The case in here is the disappearance of a young girl called Daisy Mason. Daisy vanishes at a family party, and no one claims to know anything about it. Fawley and his team suspect foul play – of course – and suspicion falls on those closest to Daisy, particularly her parents and older brother who are all acting a little odd. As with the other books, I liked the way different perspectives were presented, particularly the way everyone seems to be describing Daisy differently, so we never get a completely concrete picture of what sort of child she was. We start to distrust everyone as it’s impossible for every account to be true at the same time. I will say that I worked this one out a bit easier than the others in the series, though this might be partly because I’m a bit more familiar with the series now so I know what sort of twists to expect. It might also be partly because the solution uses a plot twist I’ve seen in a couple of other bits of detective fiction. It was still a very enjoyable read though, and I really like the way Hunter writes and the storytelling techniques she uses in the books. And I still have more of the series to read!
