I’m afraid this one wound up as a DNF for me. Why?

There are a ton of characters introduced right off the bat. There are also conversations and musings by a couple of characters that were boring and mentioned even more people, and it was difficult to keep track of them. Mike, Mark, Mitch., Cindy, Vicky, Larry, Cody, some guy whose name I’ve forgotten while typing this, Sippy, Doug, the Australian detective whose email the chief ignores, and so on.

In one of the opening chapters, we also get a story on how the chief has moved his mother out of a retirement condo building in California back to his house in Nantucket. Why? Who knows? As I’ve said about books that detail a character’s every transition from point A to point B, unless we absolutely need to know about what they were doing or the details of their actual move, leave it out.

I gave up at about 25%, as I was getting fairly annoyed. I skimmed through a bit from there, found the reveal at the halfway point, and reckoned I was happy to have stopped when I did.

Sorry, this one just did not work for me, and lands in the DNF list. Two stars out of five.

Thanks to Poisoned Pan Press and NetGalley for the reading copy.

This appears to be the second book in the series – I have not read the first; however, this can stand on its own without any problem at all. (Edit: it is book four in this series.)

Geneva Chase, former reporter, now freelancer and information analyst for Lodestar Analytics, is assigned by her boss to look at the apparent murder-suicide of Morris Cutter and his wife. While the local authorities see it as open and shut, Lodestar is hired by the family to go over it again. To Geneva and her boss Nathaniel, it is anything but apparent.

Cutter dies just days before he was to present a report before Congress, about environmental issues with fracking and so forth. Thee are plenty of suspects: the remaining family, Cutter’s brother, who accepted a buyout at a cheap price before the company they ran went public and was worth tons more than he got, a couple of radical environmentalist groups, and even the board of the company itself. There are some goons who appear – courtesy of the board – and offer Geneva $250K an then a half a million dollars to agree that it was a murder- suicide and issue a report saying so. Geneva refuses, finds that people are following her, and the stakes are even higher when Cutter’s daughter disappears, the lead scientist on the report vanishes, and Nathaniel is brutally beaten.

The pace of the book is good. There are no real laggy parts, and no giant holes in the narrative. I did have an issue with the ending – not with the ending itself, but with the main character screaming and seeming to be a it out of control. The circumstances were pretty dire, but still, I’d have liked her to not freak out “We’re going to die!!!” style.

Overall, a satisfying read, and a solid four stars.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the reading copy.

Lindsay Jackman is a detective in the Pacific Northwest mourning the loss of her partner/mentor to suicide when she’s called out to the scene of a murder. The young woman at the bottom of the ravine is a college student, researching a story – one that is more an expose, and that appears to be about Marnie Spellman, who hawks bee-inspired cosmetics.

The Hive note in the title is a group of five women who were closest to Spellman, the majority of whom were nurses. While the original five are no longer on Lummi island, where Spellman lives and where she creates her cosmetics lines, there are other women who live an work on Spellman’s farm and who help with the business.

As it seems all roads lead to Spellman, Jackman picks up Spellman’s first book and beings to read it. I’ll say here that this book within a book is filled with the usual pablum found in most “you’re the owner of your life” type books, except for Spellman, not only is the future female, so is the now.

This is a multi-POV book that also bounces back and forth in time. Specifically, we go from the present in 2019 to the past, in 1999, when one of the women in the Hive (Calista) died under mysterious circumstances. It appears the murdered journalist was hot on the trail of this story and had to be killed to stop her snooping. There’s a twist there that comes from nowhere, which I’m definitely not a fan of – I’ve read mysteries where the murderer is only introduced in the last ten pages or so, and to me, that’s cheating the reader out of a fundamental involvement in the story.

Meanwhile, we are told Spellman has some kind of charisma that draws people – especially women – to her, even to the point of women like Calista, who leave their husbands and their kids to go work on Spellman’s farm. I don’t doubt this happens; Spellman is, after all, running a cult, although she and everyone associate with it claim it isn’t.

As we go along with the pieces of the story told by the token cliches -a woman running for Congress, a past-her-prime actress, a woman who faked her own death, and another who blackmailed Spellman to not say anything about what they were doing on the farm. The threads begin to come together, and the reveal of the truth behind Spellman’s products is likely to elicit a shrug. It did for me, anyway, as at most I could see the nurses getting in hot water for theft, and not for making items with the ingredient. The substance cited has been in use for quite some time, with its efficacy in this particular, specific use questionable.

The murderer of Calista is eventually discovered, and the murderer of the journalist is not, thanks to a lie from a major liar and blame cast on someone unable to defend themselves. There is a short epilogue at the end that reads like a closing card on a TV show detailing what happened to the people seen on it.

Overall, it’s a moderately good read, with a little too much bouncing around in time for my taste. There is also one large issue I have with the book, since I am a beekeeper. I’ll give my rating here, and will put the bee-related kind of, but not quite, rant, below.

Three out of five stars. Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the review copy.

Spellman’s backstory is that she had some kind of epiphany when she saw a swarm of honeybees and they lifted her off the ground and spoke to her. That’s fine: people have weird visions or voices in their heads all the time. She claims the bees tell her what direction she should go, and she does. She is, of course, known as the queen bee on her island, and the five women who are closest to her back in 1999 are of course called the Hive for this reason and because they’re making cosmetics with bee products. This is fine.

What is not fine, however, is something so basic that it is incorrect in this book not once but three times, and there’s another bee-related error as well.

“Pulsing noises lay atop each other as drones bring nectar stolen from the clouds of blossoms that hover over blackberry brambles that line the roads of Lummi Island.”

“‘contains royal jelly.’ From her reading, Lindsay knew that royal jelly was the substance drones fed a bee to turn her into a queen.”

“”Scout,” Calista said, her voice growing weak. “The most important role for a male in the hive.””

Even a cursory look at Wikipedia, or just a generic search would, in 30 seconds or less, return information on who does what in a beehive. I’d expect that a book revolving around bees would get this fundamental item correct: drones (male honeybees) do not gather nectar, do not feed larvae royal jelly or anything else, and are not scouts. Drones primarily exist to mate with virgin queens, and otherwise hang out in the hive, cared for by the nurse/worker bees – all of whom are female. All work that relates to the upkeep of a hive is done by female bees. That includes gathering nectar and pollen, caring for larvae, guarding the entrance, and scouting out new locations for a swarm. Drones, if they are still around when winter comes, are unceremoniously kicked out of a hive to save on resources.

“Nectar is honey transformed.”

Exactly the opposite: honey is nectar (gathered by female forager honeybees) transformed (by female honeybees).

No Going Back is the third, and final(?) book in the Sawyer Brooks series. I’ve read one of the two preceding books – while this does work as a standalone, readers would do better to read one or both of the books that came before this one, if only to understand the emergence of The Black Wigs and how their actions have change over time.

The Black Wigs is a group of female vigilantes, meting out justice to (male) sexual predators. Previously, they only worked to embarrass such men, but here, in this book, things have taken a decidedly more macabre turn, and the group is engaging in outright torture and murder. While their reasons for doing so make sense, in the context of the world they inhabit in their heads in this book, it isn’t an easy task to take a life. However, at least one of the women in the group is psychopath who sticks to their plans without deviation, and it’s a bit disturbing that the other women, who express some hesitance in the case of one man who did indeed turn himself around and do good things to atone for his previous behavior, do next to nothing to stop his victim from killing him. There’s a lack of humanity floating in the pool at some points here, and there should probably be a trigger/content warning somewhere before the book begins.

This book identifies all of the members of the group, and we get chapters from the viewpoint of several of them – their day to day lives, their failing marriages, their thinking on the nature of the crimes they are committing, and how they’re planning the next snatch and kill. There are also a few chapters from the viewpoint of the victims – but not victims of The Black Wigs. This time, there’s a copycat engaging in their own level of justice, and impersonating The Black Wigs. As the story goes along, it becomes clear that one of the targets is in the crosshairs of both the copycat and the actual group.

Sawyer Brooks, last found being completely unaware that one of her sisters is in The Black Wigs, is now investigating the group, following leads wherever they can be found. She’s also convinced that some of the murders are not being done by the group, but by a copycat. Her sister Aria, also somehow unaware that their sister is part of The Black Wigs, assists Sawyer when she can.

Teaming up with Sawyer on the journalistic investigation is Lexi, a stunningly beautiful (of course) hard nosed reporter who has about as much use for Sawyer and Sawyer does for her – not much. Their differing styles are drawn very well, and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The scenes where they are together are very well done, from the simmering resentment of Sawyer and the initial dismissal of her by Lexi to their eventual is not friendliness, at least respect for each others methods.

The ending comes together as both the police and Sawyer race to get to the final victim before the copycat and/or The Black Wigs do, and various loose ends are tied down.

There are a couple of false notes rung here and there (especially in one particular item in the finale, which I won’t go into for spoiler reasons) but these do not detract from the story and are not sufficient or jolting enough to take the reader out of the story.

A solid four out of five. Hopefully, this is not the last we see of Sawyer Brooks.

Thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the review copy.

How could you go wrong with something that starts “Teacher needed for the edge of the world”? That sounds promising, doesn’t it?

Alas, although I am a fan of Ragnar Jonasson otherwise, The Girl Who Died just does not live up to his other books.

The teacher is Una, the edge of the world is the remote village of Skalar (population:10), and there are two girls who die, one in this time, and one in a previous time. There is – remarkably – even a hunky guy for Una to crush on, which is a good respite from the weirdos who otherwise populate the town. Her charges are two girls, and that’s the extent of her classroom. We don’t get a lot of lookins on lessons: just enough to know that one girl is outgoing, can sing, and is the swan, the other is introverted, can’t carry a tune, and is probably an embarrassment to her mother and her lech of a father, who hits on Una when she meets him.

The best thing about this book is the setting – and more specifically, the outdoor setting. The bleak and barren landscape is described with a suitable creepiness, and may as well be on the dark side of the moon on the remoteness scale.

The plot moves along – Una sees ghost her first day in town, which told me right off I[‘d chosen poorly in this instance. I’m just not a fan of ghost stories, and while Una’s feelings while in house, alone, were well-described, at times she seemed on the edge of the hysteria abyss, about to fall in.

There’s a random subplot that suddenly pops up about 3/4 of the way through, which just dissolves into nothing, and there is a death that was intended for someone else.

The end just fizzled for me, as it was terribly anticlimactic. Una may be part of the town now, but to me, she belongs back in the city.

Two stars out of five. I’m treating this as a one-off and look forward to Jonasson’s next book.

Thanks to St Martin’s and NetGalley for the review copy.

I love Vera Stanhope, cranky old broad and DCI.

In her latest outing, Vera drives home while a blizzard rages. After taking the wrong turn – that happens to be the road to her ancestral home – she comes across a car blocking the road, mired in the snow. The driver’s door is open, and there’s a baby in a carseat in the back, but the driver is missing. As the snow continues to fall, Vera takes the child into her car, leaves a note on the car, and carries on to said ancestral home, knocking on the door to seek harbor from the storm, and in the process seeing relatives she hasn’t seen in quite a long time.

When a young woman’s body is found on the property, it’s clear the woman is likely the mother of the child, and that the people in the house (both er relatives and the dinner guests they are hosting) probably know more about the woman than they let on.

The investigation is then off, with no shortage of suspects and Vera and her team wringing information out of people and chasing down leads and connections, no matter how slim they may appear.

We get more background on Harold, Vera’s father and black sheep of the Stanhope family, and more insight into how Vera views the familial tree (spoiler: she’s not into having to put on the facade of genteel landowner, benificent landlord). I believe these short interludes were both worthy of inclusion to the story and not disruptive to the narrative. Well done on that.

As Vera and her team put together the puzzle of circumstances, the perpetrator becomes more violent and aggressive, and the final showdown is a lulu.

Highly recommended. Five out of five stars.

Thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the review copy (which was approved after I’d already bought it ).

In Cold Blood is a mystery with quite a bit of social commentary on the route between the discovery of a skeleton buried in someone’s back yard and the ultimate apprehension of the perpetrator(s). If you have issues with the pronouns people apply to themselves, you should move along.

For everyone else: DI Isabel Blood (nice name for a detective) and her team are called to the site where a skeleton has been unearthed by a brother and sister rehabbing a house in which she used to live. DI Blood has some anxious moments where she considers if the bones could belong to her long-missing dad, and the teeniest thought that her mother may be a murderer.

Fortunately, that turns out not to be the case, but it raises another question: whose body is in this shallow grave, and what, if anything, do all the neighbors remember about the woman who lived there?

Most have no idea about Celia, the woman who lived in the house, what she did, or who she was. The next door neighbor and her autistic son are about the best witnesses, but they also track down Celia’s niece, who was in Australia during the timeline reconstructed by DI Blood and the forensics team.

The investigation continues, with some lines of inquiries trailing off into nothing, which is not very exciting when it happens, but it’s realistic.

This is a debut novel, but doesn’t read like one. – the story is well told, and the twisting, winding road to the truth and the perp is an interesting one.

Solid four of five stars.

Thanks to HQ Digital and NetGalley for the review copy.