crime/thriller – Home | The Blind Scribe

Happy Monday bookish people! The fourth book review today is for An Unwanted Guest. I’ve recently gotten into reading the mystery/thriller genre and so far I am loving it.

In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy the book review!

An Unwanted Guest Plot:

The plot of this novel gave me classic crime, Agatha Christie’s Poirot style vibes. With the remote Inn where all the guests get snowed in and then a murder happens. This is the style of murder mystery I truly enjoy. The whole time my brain was whirring trying to figure out who the murderer was and why they did it. I will admit now, I did not guess it correctly. There are so many twists in this book, secrets hidden by all of the guests and none of them can be trusted. I read this book in an afternoon and loved every second of it. I felt that the changing between the scenes could have been smoother because sometimes I did get confused about where I was but this didn’t impact much on my enjoyment.

An Unwanted Guest Characters:

You get an introduction to almost all of the characters and all of them have mystery surrounding them. Some have marital problems, some have jealousy and some have even worse secrets. I found each character to be engaging and interesting however, I didn’t feel that I liked any of them and I certainly didn’t trust any of them.

Writing and Dialogue:

The dialogue in this book worked brilliantly with the atmosphere. It gave the characters personalities and their interactions with each other spoke volumes with minimal words. The writing style was clever, dynamic and creative. It was smooth to read and I barely remembered that I was not in the story myself because of this.

An Unwanted Guest Overall Rating:

I gave this book four stars because I really enjoyed the mystery, the atmosphere and how everything came together. I felt that some parts of the book needed a tiny bit more explaining and some things weren’t fully resolved at the end but overall I loved the book.

Blurb/Synopsis:

A weekend retreat at a cozy mountain lodge is supposed to be the perfect getaway . . . but when the storm hits, no one is getting away

It’s winter in the Catskills and Mitchell’s Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing–maybe even romantic–weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge woodburning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery.

So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity–and all contact with the outside world–the guests settle in and try to make the best of it.

Soon, though, one of the guests turns up dead–it looks like an accident. But when a second guest dies, they start to panic.

Within the snowed-in paradise, something–or someone–is picking off the guests one by one. And there’s nothing they can do but hunker down and hope they can survive the storm–and one another.

That’s it for this book review, I hope you enjoyed it!

Happy Monday Bookish people! This is book review 2 of 5 today. The first was The Windsor Knot by S J Bennett if you’d like to check that out. This review is for The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths. I was given a copy of this book for Christmas 2020 and I ended up reading it in January of this year.

In this book review I will give star ratings for four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy me book review.

plot of The Postscript Murders:

I found the plot of this novel to be exciting and fast paced. The opening was full of tension and set the scene beautifully. I felt that the ages of the characters was a unique addition to the plot of a murder mystery novel and this was what caught my interest to begin with. Throughout the novel I felt that the changes of location and the events that happened in each place continued to create tension filled scenes. I knew I was getting caught up in the story because I could feel my heart racing for most of the book. The plot was clever and intricate.

The Postscript Murders Characters:

The characters of this novel were quirky and interesting. I found them easy to connect to and this was one of the reasons I ended up enjoying the novel. There was a good balance between character and narrative which I enjoyed even though I usually enjoy character central novels the best.

Writing and Dialogue

The writing style was smooth and clear, it helped me to keep track of the story as it went between different days and locations. The dialogue was authentic and engaging, I felt that I knew the characters personally because of the great dialogue. In my opinion I think there were some points where I would have liked more dialogue and more explanation about what was happening in a scene.

The Postscript Murders Overall Rating:

I gave this novel four stars because the mystery was intricate, well plotted and well written and I found the characters engaging and humorous. At the time of reading it I gave it four stars because I had just read my first five star read of the year and I didn’t feel this book was quite up there with it however if I had read this book after a three star or another four star read my rating might have been different.

Blurb/ Synopsis:

“This droll romp is a latter-day Miss Marple.”— Washington Post

Murder leaps off the page when crime novelists begin to turn up dead in this intricate new novel by internationally best-selling author Elly Griffiths, a literary mystery perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Agatha Christie.

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy’s caretaker, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith’s passing.

But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy’s flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy. And each psychological thriller included a mysterious postscript: PS: for PS. When a gunman breaks into the flat to steal a book and its author is found dead shortly thereafter—Detective Kaur begins to think that perhaps there is no such thing as an unsuspicious death after all.

And then things escalate: from an Aberdeen literary festival to the streets of Edinburgh, writers are being targeted. DS Kaur embarks on a road trip across Europe and reckons with how exactly authors can think up such realistic crimes . . .