Earthshaker: The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico (1969)

There are minor spoilers in this post so please consider yourself warned. Then why did hope persist? Why this upward striving, this eternal climbing by himself and these ill-assorted people, castaways in a floating tomb, the odds on whose chances for rescue were astronomical? A group of people, herded together because of some natural calamity …

The #1956 Club: The Diehard by Jean Potts

"You've had your cake and et it too, all these years." Lew Morgan is the undisputed king of Turk Ridge. Once a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, Lew has made it to the top, by his enterprise and industriousness, as well as by marrying Olive Whitt, whose father had owned everything in …

Cloak and Dagger Challenge

There are Reading Challenges that you just love the sound of. One such is the Cloak and Dagger challenge which involves (yes you guessed it right:) the reading of mystery and suspense. Hosted by Stormi and Barb, you can find the details of the challenge here. There are various levels to choose from. I am …

Review: The Stroyteller of Marrakesh by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

Is Truth something set in stone or something shimmery seen differently in different lights? This is the question that Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya attempts in his novel: The Storyteller of Marrakesh.A young couple - the man an Indian, the woman a westerner - are seen walking round the Jemma on a particular day. Soon afterwards the couple …

Diseased Society: Dan Vyleta’s The Quiet Twin

Vienna. 1939.The Second World War has started, Austria is part of the German Reich, and the times are full of danger.Dr. Beer is called to examine the niece of Professor Speckstein, Zuzka. The professor is supposed to be a Nazi spy and his dog had been brutally killed a couple of days ago. Even as …

Death of a Family: Andrea Maria Schenkel’s The Murder Farm

In a remote farmhouse, six people have been brutally murdered, two of them kids ( one of them barely out of the crib) and one a maid who had but joined the house-hold. The village community is shocked. Who could have been the devil to murder defenceless people thus? Andrea Maria Schenkel's award-winning debut novel, …

Forgotten Book: V is for (The) Vision by Dean R. Koontz

He went out closing the door behind him, leaving her alone with Max.Mary Bergen is a psychic who helps the police track down and capture serial-killers, at times right at the moment they are about to murder somebody. However, lately there has been a change in Mary's life. For long, it was her brother Alan …

Forgotten Book: The King’s General by Daphne du Maurier

A middle-aged Honor Harris is visited by two young men of her acquaintance who appraise her of various happenings around the world even as the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, rules over England. Then one of them asks about the mysterious disappearance of Dick Grenvile and this question sets Honor reminiscencing about the past.I had no …

FFB: N is for No Comebacks by Fredrick Forsyth

Frederick Forsyth is one of my father's favourite authors and when my sisters and I were young, Papa would often narrate to us certain incidents/ episodes from his novels: The Day of the Jackal., The Odessa File, The Dogs of War etc. Though, these novels, esp Jackal, have long been on my wishlist, somehow I …

Death of a Detective: Pablo De Santis’ The Paris Enigma

Books always contain secrets. We leave things between their pages and forget about them: lottery tickets, newspaper clippings, a postcard we've just received. But there are also flowers, leaves that attracted us with their shapes, or insects trapped in a paragraph's snare.Renato Craig, the famous detective of Buenos Aires, and one amongst the elite group …