Mystery Books

[TJ]

Original Thread started on: Nov 23rd, 2003, 3:32pm By: TJ

Tell Us Those Awesome
MYSTERY BOOKS
You've Read & Give Us
Your Run-Down Of The Book
But Not The Clincher

[TJ]

« Reply #1 on: Dec 9th, 2003, 10:22am By: MAC »


I always have certain doubts about 'hypes'. So I was a bit sceptical to that 'Nicci French' writers-couple.
But I thought I should give it a try and read 'Killing me softly' a few weeks ago.
It's about a girl, Alice, who lives together with her boyfriend (both very happy, nice appartment, great jobs, etc.).
One day Alice runs into the mysterious Adam, a sexy mountaineer, and you can guess what happens then : right, steamy sex.
Alice and Adam start a secret relationship. After a while Alice leaves her boyfriend and Adam proposes to her. She says yes, although she discovered a few characteristics in Adam, which are not so charming : he's agressive, very quiet about his past, esp. about certain events on a K2-expedition.
Adam's past love-life was very filled with beautiful women which haunts Alice.
One day Adam is interviewed by a journalist. She portraits him like a real hero. But someone writes a letter to her that she was raped by Adam years ago. The journalist contacts Alice about this and then all kinds of things happen.
I don't want to tell more, because that would spoil it for you dear readers!



_{« Last Edit: Dec 9th, 2003, 10:23am by Mac »}

[TJ]

« Reply #2 on: Dec 9th, 2003, 11:53am By: MAC »


Another Nicci French-book is 'Secret smile' (a recent one). It's about Miranda, a house-decorator who meets a guy when she's ice-skating. They have a very short relation until she founds out the guy, Brendan, reads her diary. So she kicks him out.
A short time later Miranda's sister tells her she has a fantastic boyfriend who turns out to be : Brendan. A few weeks later they announce their wedding. Miranda is pissed off when Brendan says something dirty to her, but is also alarmed because she's afraid he'd hurt her sister.
Some time later Troy, Miranda's brother, commits suicide. Miranda thinks that Brendan is involved and is very suspicious about everything he says or does. But her sister and parents get angry with her about that.
Miranda has a good friend Laura. She tells everything about Brendan, but Laura thinks he's an ok guy.
A bit later Brendan leaves Miranda's sister for Laura. They get married. Laura dies a few weeks later in a weird incident. But the manipulative Brendan says he has nothing to do with. More things happen but I won't tell them here.
It's a great book. According to many critics the best Nicci French book.

[Mac]

A good tip for a 'whodunnit'-novelist is R. Wingfield. An English writer who writes great detectives about his character Jack Frost.
(Frost is also an English tv-detectives based on the novels (fantastic role of David Jason BTW).
Jack Frost is a very unconventional, onorthodox inspector who is always having fights with his superior Mullet ;D
He hates filling in forms and reading files but he's a hell of a detective. And he has lot of bad habits like smoking, drinking, making wrong jokes in wrong circumstances, swearing, dresses like a wanderer, etc.
You can compare him a bit with Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, but Frost is the rough, unpolished version.