Snowdonia Murder Mysteries

We did a North Wales tour last year and it was brilliant. The places are so gorgeous and beautiful. We did not cover the whole of it, but enough to know the various places when someone mentions it. I stumbled upon this Snowdonia Murder Mystery series by Simon McCleave. They were available on Kindle Unlimited and I managed to rent all the three available books and finished them one after the other.

All three of them get 4/5 stars from me. They were very good. I enjoyed the pace, the description of places, the characters (most of them flawed), the speed of the narrative etc. It was very enjoyable during these trying times. Since I could picture most of the places mentioned, it helped me imagine the whole flow very easily.

Also, for Agatha Christie fans, I recently found a few books available on Kindle Unlimited. I read “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” recently and I have got “Murder on the Orient Express” next. I am very much enjoying reading these fictions now more than ever.

DI Nick Dixon – ****

Finally, I finished the last book (at least for now) of DI Nick Dixon’s series by Damien Boyd. Once I started the first book, I decided that I will finish the series. It was only 8 books. It wasn’t that difficult even though I had to slow down on School days. Each story was unique and different characters were involved in solving the crime and the team with Nick was very efficient. I also loved the small backstories that went into each of these novels. The subtle humour is amazing 😉

If you fancy murder and detective series situated in Somerset and Avon area, try Nick Dixon. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

DI Hillary Greene

I haven’t said much about any books I have read over these three/four months. Since I have some time now, might as well get it written down. I picked up Faith Martin’s DI Hillary Greene books on Kindle Unlimited because it had a female detective and it was a series and you know how I love female based bad-ass characters and a good mystery and detective story. It was a lovely combination to not give it a go. Never did I think that I will be hooked on it once I start it. Whenever I had some time for myself, I had two options: to write something on my blog or to continue with my DI Hillary Greene books (and I had something to always write). There was no competition really. Hillary Greene always won. Here is the list of books of hers in that series I had completed. Only two of them are left but it is because they aren’t available as an e-book on Amazon’s Kindle yet. I am waiting sincerely for those to get published.

I tried to break the series by picking up a couple of romance books in between but couldn’t be on a break for too long. The allure was too much to ignore.

DI Hillary Greene reminded me of Dr Frost (TV series) in many ways, the dry humour, the intelligence, the no-nonsense approach, issues with relationships, workaholic, placed in a small town (Kidlington in Hillary’s case and Denton in Frost’s case) you name it. It also had characters who stay with her throughout the series and many who come and go for a couple of books. There is a natural progression. It was a delightful read and I would love to see this as a TV series (hopefully well written). It also has a lot of English Slang which taught me a few choice words 😉

Crosswhite & Naturalist

Time for some books. I finished one series (4 books in the series, to be precise) before the break and one new book this week.

Tracy Crosswhite Series:

As part of Kindle Unlimited, I started off with the 2nd book in the series, so I haven’t gone back to the first one because I know how it ends and what actually happened in that (to most extent). It was very interesting and very gripping. It made me go ahead and finish all the other books in the series until book 6, which is yet to be released. As it happens with any mystery, thriller, detective series, I end up forsaking my sleep (totally annoying Mr M in the process) to finish these books. It was a good series actually, building up slowly and steadily. As it usually happens in these series, over a few books you tend to get the pattern and you might even start to guess who the culprit is. But then something else gets thrown in the loop and your theory goes awry. It was fun. Kept me on my toes, or rather the fingertips (kindle!)

The Naturalist:

I love patterns, in everything. I try and see patterns in all things possible to make sense of it. That is one of my quirks or an unconscious habit, one of those. When I read the premise of this story on Kindle Unlimited list I was very intrigued. A Computational Biologist who loves the patterns and such…what is not to like. When I started the story, I didn’t expect it to complete it in a day and a half (yes, including my sleep time). It became a little dramatic towards the end, but then this fellow is no superhero or trained to fight like the cops. All he has are his data, his patterns, and his belief in them. It was very gripping and very intriguing. There is definitely some drama in it, which is OK for me. I was wondering if they would make a TV series from such books. It will be interesting. Or maybe they already do and I haven’t bothered to check. The ending was a little blunt when compared to the other series I read. Not that I am complaining. I am definitely looking forward to the next book in the series.

Book updates

Our school started last week and the chaos has begun 🙂 Apart from computer science, I teach a little bit of maths this year but only for a small group. Have to see how that goes. I broke two brollies (umbrellas) yesterday. How did that happen? I have no clue. Mine was a souvenir from Singapore, so I removed the cloth and have saved it. I was trying to fold Mr M’s and ended up breaking that one too. I shouldn’t have tried that before I have had my coffee, you see. I should have followed the rules of procaffeination.

I realized that I haven’t told you about some of the books I read over the break (am yet to read one non-fiction, which was my goal for this year). So here they are.

a) Animal Farm – George Orwell – Mr M bought this book some time ago and kept it on my to-read list once he finished it. It took me more than 3-4 months to pick it up. I finished reading it in 2 days during my trip to Carmarthen. It is surprising how that story can be applied to any timeframe of humankind. Mind blowing isn’t it? Is there any point to even talk about it when everyone knows how great that story is? 5/5

b) The Woman on the Orient Express – Lindsay Jayne Ashford – A very interesting premise. A fictional story (with some true events woven in) about the woman who wrote the famous “The Murder on the Orient Express”, Agatha Christie. How her life adventures led her to write those amazing stories with Mr Poirot. A very interesting take and done well. The author also gives us the list of true events which she picked up from Agatha Christies biography. I enjoyed it a lot. 4/5

c) The Good Widow – Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke – A Kindle Unlimited book which starts all nice and sad about two people who are grieving for their spouses who were found dead in Maui whilst having an affair there. Slowly and steadily they retrace their steps to try to find out what made them cheat and why. I was totally into it until the very end. That final surprise came out of nowhere and kept me awake during the school night last week to complete the book. 4/5

d) Strike (TV Series) – I had read all the Strike series books but have forgotten the stories over time. We weren’t sure of how this was going to be and given that it is only a three series adaptation. Of course, the whole story is condensed and even though Tom Burke didn’t match the Strike of my imagination, he was OK. It was short and was done OK. Felt a bit rushed though. The personal touch to the involved characters was missing for some reason. Would give a 3/5 for sure.