Bloody Thrilling - Recent Mystery and Thriller Reads

Some murder mystery or crime titles that I have caught from the Hammett clients or from what my local library offers. Enjoy!

The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

A Gothic castle, you say? A dark, Byronic host who, at all time, wears a white rubber mask and gloves? A lost picture from a renowned painter? A yearly reunion of old friends? A damsel in distress? A murder? A missing monk? Count me in, by all means!

The ending shocked me, very satisfying. Also shocking was how bland and boring, how absolutely gorgeous, but absolutely written by a man the only female character was... Other than that this was a hit.

Apparently, this is a Japanese classic and the second book of a series, of which three have been translated into English, and looking at their titles, they're all set in some kind of unusual house. More of these go into my TBR.

White Tears by Hari Kunzru

Two young New Yorker musicians, the shy and awkward Seth and rich boy Carter, are pulled into the underworld of record collecting when they accidentally record an unknown singer in a park. They release the song but and to make it all a little mysterious, they make up a myth that it's a long lost 1920s blues recording by a musician called Charlie Shaw. The track goes viral but when an old collector reaches out to point out that bluesman is actually real, the ensuing adventure will take them places they never could have guessed; from the trendy New York music scene and their parties to the dark side of American history, exploitation and oppression.

White Tears is such an interesting book! It takes the reader back and forth between a murder mystery and commentaries on race and the dark side of American music. It does unfold a little slowly, which only augments the effect of the absolutely breathtaking finale!

Seven Years of Darkness by You-Jeong Jeong

Little Seryong, not having any close friends, celebrates her eleventh birthday on her own, and later her dead body is found in Seryong Lake, a South Korean reservoir. One of the guards of the dam is convicted of her murder and his son, Sowon, has to live in the shadow of his father's incomprehensible crime, and he is excluded and stigmatized. He one day receives a bundle of manuscripts which promise to shed light on what really happened at Seryong Lake, but is it really a real account, an important piece of evidence or just fiction?

This book, although not terribly thrilling, keeps you reading compulsively and jumps from one sad life to another. I feel rather melancholy in front of all the unfairness than the satisfaction of a good mystery resolved, but it's a good feeling too, not everything has to be written the same way.

It is narrated in a "story within story" frame and resorts to frequent time jumps in order to explain background and clarify why a character acts the way it does.

A very worthwhile book all in all, I enjoyed it.

The Trees by Percival Everett

In the rural Mississippi town Money, a series of brutal murders are taking place and they all fit into one pattern; a white guy dead and his testicles mutilated, and beside him a black corpse and in his hands, the first guy's balls. The local police overwhelmed, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation sends two black detectives to solve the murders, and the FBI pitches in a third investigator, a black woman. The killings seem to be retributional in nature and it soon turns out they have been taking place all over the US. To what end?

Amazing how Everett treats such heavy themes such as racism, police violence, lynchings or white supremacy in such a light-hearted, even, dare I say, fun manner. The book is composed of partly hilarious little scenes, almost comedic sketches, with some absurd stereotype at their heart, but also offers razor sharp critique and condemnation. Wonderful, brilliant.