Finished reading Inspector French and the Sea Mystery! Not gonna lie, I wasn't a huge fan by the middle of the book, it felt too slow and convoluted, HOWEVER oh boy did the plot twist gave me a run for my money. I have to admit that after pondering on the book for the night I did realise that the pacing really did make sense for what the author may have wanted, I felt like I was figuring out the case with the inspector the whole time and it was really fun!!
3.75/5 Not my favourite mystery, but a recommended one if you don't mind some convolutedness and slow pacing!
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I was left speechless. To be honest when I started this book I was on a slump and in a really bad mental space so I wasn't reading at my normal pace; BUT THIS BOOK, it got me out of it and had me screaming and genuinely feel a rollercoaster of emotions while reading. The pacing, the world-building, the characters, everything was so good and perfectly written, I'm happy I finally got around to reading it and can't wait to get my hands on Vow of Thieves (even if I have to spend money on overseas shipping idc)
I fucking loved this book so much I cannot even begin to explain it omg. I finished it in a day and want to reread. Im genuinely kicking my feet under the covers and screaming a bit tbh
After taking a break for a job interview process I was in, I decided to take my book to the beach and read for three days. Ngl it has been really relaxing to have a change of pace. Also Im severely sunburned and in pain which makes me further hate summertime
As someone with a really morbid curiosity and fascination for horror/slashers and true crime this book just hits the mark. It's a short novel that starts giving us our setting, the author's real-life childhood town complete with mostly real people and places. The fact that Chizmar writes this in first person and almost diary like makes this story feel like it actually happens, I remember even trying to look it up the first time I read it (I am not proud to announce that I accidentally skipped the part where he explains what is fiction and what isn't) The pacing was great, we get a slow start to set the tone and place where it all takes place and the narrator's mind. The setting and characters complement the main theme perfectly and the personal family stories to murder case ratio makes it enjoyable and even more realistic
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Written by Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov, the first book in The Kyiv Mysteries series marks his return to fiction after over a year of writing about the ongoing war back in his home country. Before I go on to talk about the story itself I just want to say something, I LOVE MAPS ON BOOKS, they're my guilty pleasure and JUST LOOK AT IT!
ALSO SPOILERS AHEAD SO PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!
Ok, so starting with how gut wrenching Samson's father's death is, and we don't really get to know much about him, just that he saved his son from death but ended up dying himself.
The way Kurkov writes about early soviet Kyiv and the struggles of a mid-war life as well as the life of the main character helps us understand and empathise with Samson but not feel pity for him. As I read and reached the 100 page mark, I found myself feeling both proud and excited for what he would accomplish; I felt for him at the beginning with such a change in his life but as the pages went on, he grew up in the sense that he tried his best to rise up to the situation and also, speaking about how he is written now, not fall into weird clichés some main characters from mystery novels sometimes fall into like being know it alls and extremely lucky when going through the respective mystery. The ending marks the great beginning of a series and the case was wrapped up just fine. I overall enjoyed this book and look forward to the next book in the series.
It seems fair to mention that this is a reread and that the first time I read this book I DNF’d the shit out of it, I found it hard to concentrate on it and truly connect and enjoy the book. That being said, I decided to give it a second chance since I needed a book to take with me on a trip and let me say, I loved it. Adelstein shows the struggles of being a gaijin (foreigner living in Japan) in a way that you empathize with his struggles and celebrate his accomplishments. To be honest I never really saw myself as the type to like journalism in general but reading this book gave me a deep respect for the trials and tribulations investigative reporters go through for their stories. It also helps bring light to certain practices done by the yakuza in the 90s/early 2000s and how Japanese society worked during that time. All in all, if you are someone who likes history, journalism and/or have a fascination for mafias and their way of working, I would really recommend this book. It has a lot of fiction elements of a crime novel but it actually is a non-fiction journalistic and biographical work that serves as a memoir to recount a very important case in the author’s life. To be fair I would probably rate this book a 5 BUT the edition I got (Espasa, 2022) has some really weird translation that took me out of it quite a lot of times
{04/02/2024} Part III: The Pharaoh, the snitch, and the audacity of that bitch
Ok first commentary on the book: As of right now Im really enjoying it. The “antagonists” really think this lie is the solution to their problem and, although one of them knows this whole situation is wrong, he doesn’t try to fix this situation he kind of enabled. Although their initial problem is one of jealousy, with the introduction of Villefort and his father, a new layer of trouble is added to Dantes’ situation when the substitute finds out the letter out hero carried had his father’s name as the recipient. The imprisonment of Dantes was now a matter of importance to forbid him from tarnishing his reputation and future since Bonaparte’s anti-royalist movement was a direct opposition to Villefort’s aspirations
