Mystery Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: The Dissector by L. L. Spriggs ★★★★

The Dissector, by L. L. Spriggs, is medical school mystery that will make most readers think twice the next time they see their doctor.

Dr. Sarah Whitley is ecstatic when she’s hired as an Assistant Professor of Anatomy in a prestigious medical school in New Orleans. Soon she learns that not everything is as it seems. When Sarah was a student she admired her professors. Now that she witnesses what happens behind the scenes, she starts questioning the motives, qualifications, and morals of those she teaches with. When Sarah is asked to help out in the morgue she learns […]

T B Markinson2017-03-24T10:56:02+02:00April 13th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Mystery Book Reviews, Thriller Book Reviews|

Review: Sleeping to Death by G. D. Baum ★★★★

Sleeping to Death, by G. D. Baum, is the second book in the Lock Tourmaline murder mystery series.

Lock Tourmaline is a New Jersey private investigator. Lock, a former cop, is working as a bodyguard for Korean druglords. Jason Heung, the brother of the head of the Korean organization, is murdered in prison. Susan Heung wants Lock to find out who murdered her brother since the authorities aren’t looking into his murder.

While trying to solve the mystery, Lock is also dealing with his ex-wife, who wants to buy DVDs that show her performing a sexual act with her […]

T B Markinson2017-03-24T11:03:48+02:00March 24th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Crime Fiction Book Reviews, Mystery Book Reviews, Noir Book Reviews|

Review: The Alcatraz Rose by Anthony Eglin

The Alcatraz Rose: A Lawrence Kingston Mystery by Anthony Eglin is a cozy mystery that sticks with the reader well after finishing.

When Lawrence Kingston is approached by a thirteen-year-old child, who wants him to look into her mother’s disappearance, he has no idea what he’s about to get into. The case has been unsolved for eight years. Then another mystery falls into his lap when he learns that an English rose thought to be extinct has been sighted on Alcatraz Island. How did the rose travel 5,000 miles and end up outside one of America’s most notorious prisons?

During […]

T B Markinson2020-12-23T05:54:32+02:00January 14th, 2015|Categories: Lead Story|Tags: Crime Fiction Book Reviews, Mystery Book Reviews|

Uprush by Jo Barney

Uprush is by Jo Barney set in the Pacific oceanside town of Greensprings, where Lucius Baker the sheriff gets involved with the disappearance of Madge, an elderly resident, and the stories she leaves behind. The book tells the story of college friends Joan, Jackie, Lou and Madge in 1955 and the present day, as they grow and learn about life, ending up in the town they are now in, wondering what has happened to Madge. Family, death, love and life are woven through their experiences in the book.

The book is incredibly delicately written in a sometimes almost onomatopoeic style […]

Cate Baum2014-10-07T09:38:22+02:00October 7th, 2014|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Mystery Book Reviews, Women's Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: The Fo’c’sle Door By Les Cribb

The Fo’c’sle Door by Les Cribb is a time-traveling mystery saga set in seafaring 18th Century/21st century Cornwall England.

The forecastle, a superstructure in the bow of a merchant ship where the crew is housed; – the spelling is intended to reflect the common pronunciation among seamen.

When unsavory character Whitt arrives from Canada for a friend’s wedding in the Cornish fishing village of Ryeport, he is met off the plane by the mysterious Sexton, a man intent on talking about voodoo and reincarnation. As Whitt struggles to understand why everything is so familiar to him, events intensify, and […]

Cate Baum2019-01-22T17:14:35+02:00February 22nd, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Detective Fiction Book Reviews, Mystery Book Reviews|

Review: The Sovereign Order of Monte Cristo By Holy Ghost Writer

Sherlock Holmes is smoking pot with Watson, as they discuss his friend Arthur Conan Doyle. And then Holmes retells the story of The Count Of Monte Cristo.

If this isn’t confusing enough, this classic tale is then ” retold” for a good 30% of the book, with small changes here and there. It isn’t written in any particular Dumas or Doyle style, although it tries to do both at certain points. It seems to be an intentional dumbing-down of a public domain novel many modern-day readers would have lazily skipped over as it’s so “long and boring”, to garner kudos […]

Cate Baum2017-03-24T04:52:02+02:00September 18th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Mystery Book Reviews|

Review: Rosetta (Jim Meade: Martian P.I.) by R. J. Johnson

Jim Meade is an underachieving private investigator who lives on a Martian mining colony. Nuclear war has rendered Earth habitable by only a horribly oppressed underclass; the more fortunate survivors dwell in orbital cities surrounding the planet. Meade has loyalties to neither of the superpowers who run the post-apocalyptic galaxy, a duo of empires reminiscent of old cold-war foes USA and USSR. Jim’s ultimate goal in life is strictly mercenary. He wants to make enough money to retire to one of those orbital cities.

In typical P.I. novel fashion, Meade, who has never left Mars and has no plans to […]

Avery Hurt2014-05-06T22:45:17+02:00January 2nd, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Mystery Book Reviews, Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: The Puddingstone Well by William Westhoven

Glancing at the cover of this book we know right off the bat something is up with that well. There are too many historical writings about fountains of youth to count, not to mention the legendary island of Avalon and utopian villages such as Shangri-La. In The Puddingstone Well, the second novel from William Westhoven, variations of these myths are indeed relied upon, but with a contemporary spin. In the Prologue to Part One, the phrase “what history does not recall” lets us know this is Westhoven’s tale for the telling.