Bloody Thrilling - Recent Crime and Mystery Reads

Hey everyone! Hope you survived October and Halloween just fine, and as we enter the dark and grisly part of the year, drinking tea and reading books sounds all the more appealing. And reading mysteries while the weather is raging outside is a comfy classic, so here are some recommendations for those days I hope you enjoy!

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

Put that in your mustache and smoke it!

Thirteen-year-old Joyce is boasting at a Halloween party that she witnessed a murder some time ago, but doesn't give any more details as to who it was that was killed nor who did it. Unfortunately, after the event she is found drowned, with her little head inside a barrel filled with water for an apple bobbing game. Did she really see a murder? Was someone scared she’d tell something? Is it something else entirely?

Luckily one of the attendees of the party is Ariadne Oliver, Sassy Hercule’s bestie, and although the case is standard, not great but not bad either, the book is worth reading alone for the dialogues between the two.

 Apparently this book was filmed by Kenneth Branagh under the title A Haunting in Venice which I haven't watched and will not watch (because I can't stand him and his work), but I'm dropping the info here just in case you want to. 

 

The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

Rilke is an auctioneer in Glasgow in the early 2000s and finds on one of his job outings a room full of snuff photography. As he can't let go of the thought of the girl on the pictures he decides to investigate the deceased owner of the photographs, Mr. McKindless, and ends up in a dangerous world of precarity and crime.

So we basically follow Rilke walking from one place to the next drinking tea or whiskey or wine and listening to saucy stories of prostitution, crime, politics and underground Glasgow, gradually giving the reader pieces of a bigger puzzle. I associate this kind of “underbelly in Scotland” type of stories with the time this book was written in, Trainspotting comes to mind, and I enjoy that, but The Cutting Room kind of fizzles out after a strong start. The ending was a surprise, well done that. I quite liked Rose, Rilke's femme-fatale boss.

Drei (Three) by Dror A. Mishani 

This book was not at all on my radar, and it wouldn't have been, if not for one of our regular clients at Hammett, to whom I had recommended Celia Fremlin's The Long Shadow (which, on the other hand, was recommended to me by a regular client while I was working at the Otherland years ago... I love interactions like these and how all goes and comes back in circles). She was praising this book so much, and told me I definitely need to read it, so I did.

 

It was OK, I think it was more about portraying two (of the titular three) women who unknowingly engage in an affair with the same man, and showcasing various standings of women in society, so it wasn't really a "thriller thriller", which is fine, but the expectations are set differently when marketed like that. I still don't know the murderer's motivation and that bugs me.

Ein widerliches kleines Gefühl by Regina Nössler

Another Hammett read!

Unfortunately, it might be unlikely that Regina Nössler's books will be translated into English even though, with her homoerotic earlier work, her crime mysteries set in Berlin, or books that feature both erotica and crime, she is an author widely appreciated by a German niche readership. So, if you read German anyway, or just want to practice your German skills this might be for you but don't be too optimistic to read it in anther language soon.

Evelyn is a successful business woman with a great flat in posh Berlin Schöneberg, and although she's still trying to cope with a recent breakup, she's doing good in life. Until one evening someone from her past suddenly appears on her door - her school friend Jennifer. The meeting is weird, they have a cup of tea but don't talk much otherwise, and Jennifer then leaves. After this initial meeting Evelyn's life slowly starts falling apart, first only slightly, then progressively noticeably she lets herself go. But what was it that happened? Was it the breakup? Or meeting Jennifer? And it seems like she's not the only one whose life gets out of hand: her usually peaceful neighbors start blasting loud music and fighting, her coworker falls into a deep depression and is more and more absent, after a bullying incident her coworker's son starts playing with fire... What's happening in Berlin?

This was an enthralling read and it shows - Ein widerliches kleines Gefühl ranks number one on the "October TOP 10"-List at the Hammett Bookstore. It's certainly not for everyone as the psychological downfall is something I guess too many people can relate to and it might hit close to home, but otherwise excellent.