Tag Archives: Mystery

August 18, 2026 · 12:53 am

London Falling: Good, good, very good

Patrick Radden Keefe’s books read the way I like non-fiction to read: like fiction. True of London Falling, too, where we follow the life and death of Zac Brettler and the web of people wrapped up in his mysterious death. It’s an astonishing read for the depth of the research (reporting? I’m not sure the difference) and the way Keefe manages to bring depth in history/biography to full families in ways that make the subsequent choices these people make feel consequential and reaching.

I don’t want to give too much away because it is something of a mystery in its unfolding, but I’ll say that there are a few spots where the characters get a bit thick in their backstory and you have to Pay Attention, as well as some moments where I lost a bit of the sharper focus on the way Brettler’s death was meant to be both particular and standing in for the whole (synecdoche, right?) and instead got lost in the weeds of his very particular – and poignant – story.

Strong recommend on this one – enjoy (as much as you can the story of a dead 19 year old).

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August 18, 2026 · 12:32 am

The Drowned: Meh

John Banville won some kind of award and now every mystery he publishes is like “from the author of this award” and so I was convinced to pick up The Drowned because I like a well written murder mystery as much as the next gal.

Only problem with this one – I read it a couple of weeks ago (guys, the summer is great and I have been reading and faster than I can find my way to write about them) and can remember Very Little which isn’t a problem of my memory because I remembered All of One Day, Everyone Will Have Been Against This and is instead a problem of this book which is very… unmemorable.

I recall it being a murder mystery with a first-missing, then-dead woman and the circumstances are Fishy and the investigator is… uhh… I think he’s a good guy but he’s no Gamache in the sense you do not care about him at all. There’s something to do with a love triangle and a very weird scene of the detective having sex with one of the suspect’s wives?

Honestly I’m just telling you about it so I remember I read it, but you should absolutely not seek it out. This is, indeed, why I have the tag category “books I’ll forget I read” lol lol

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July 12, 2026 · 3:37 pm

The Drowned: Skip it

Sean O’Brien won the Booker and now any book you pick up of his is like “this guy won the Booker,” and so you think you’re going to be getting an absolute gem. And sure, The Drowned was well written in that its atmospheric and well paced and writing that is good enough not to be noticed, but also it was about too many things and with characters that (I guess because it’s part of a series?) have too little and too much character development going on.

Ostensibly about the disappearance of a woman, Dee, under suspicious circumstances – the husband Armitage reports her as having ‘run off’ the book is more about the relationship between Stafford, the detective, and the others in his life (girlfriend, boss, partner) but without knowing Stafford from other books I was a little lost for why I ought to care about him.

And also a little unsure about the Irish politics (like the Catholics are bad?) and the time period – when are we? Why is everyone smoking so much?

Anyway, all this to say I wouldn’t throw it out a train window, but I also wouldn’t seek it out, and will absolutely for sure forget I read it.

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June 29, 2026 · 3:24 pm

Under the Same Stars: Stand Up

I remembered liking Libba Bray from a hundred years ago when I read Going Bovine but on reading that review it turns out that book was just “okay,” and so is Under the Same Stars: just okay.

In this case a three-part time frame set around the same loosely connected family and a quasi-mystery. The mystery: two girls disappear in a German forest during WWII presumed dead. The loosely connected family are the girls and the generations that follow – connected in some cases by family but more through place.

It is mostly a book that repeatedly and excessively emphasizes its theme (it all but quotes the poem ‘first they came for the X and I did nothing) that against moral outrage we have responsibilities to stand up and resist. And while the current political moment is not named, the book makes very clear the repeated instances of authoritarian violence and the obligation for people of good conscience to do more than passively observe.

This morning L. was telling me how her friends play a game where one child is excluded by the rest – the excluded game – and she was trying to explain that she wasn’t doing anything because she was just walking around with them. And while rushing out the door to camp was not the moment to get into bystanders and the immorality of inaction, I did strike me then, as it did when I was reading the book, how obvious it is that we should each act in the face of injustice and how difficult it seems to be to exercise that kind of agency and courage when the appeal of just walking around is so tempting.

Anyway, it’s not a very good book in that the characters are not that rich, the plot not all that surprising (you can call the outcome to the mystery pretty early on) and the theme so transparently aggressive that one does want to scream a bit (though reminding myself it is YA I’ll try to be more generous).

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