**SPOILERS BELOW** I don't usually listen to audiobooks because my mind wanders and it's more difficult to pinpoint where my brain strayed than in a physical/ebook. However, in staunch defiance of the Quebecois early-Spring snowstorms, I've been walking a lot and needed a bleak, character-fuelled, wry companion. I couldn't have made a better choice than In The Woods' narrator, Detective Adam Ryan (Ryan). A twelve-year old girl's body, Kathy, is found on an archaeological dig

**SPOILERS BELOW** This has swiftly become a must-read series for me! The characters are so nuanced and hilarious that I can't wait to spend more time with them. Like the first book , we have plenty of luscious, sweeping locations (Venice, predominantly, but also Egypt and Montenegro). I'm not quite sure how Deanna Raybourn knows so much about international espionage and assassinations, but every detail rings both viscerally true and fascinating. I loved that we got more bac

**POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW** Another superb mystery thriller read from Lucy Foley! I'm an enormous fan of Lucy Foley's mystery thrillers. She cuts her characters with razor-sharp wit and social observation; there's often a fair amount of class commentary , and her books play out for me as if I'm watching a film. Like her other books (at least her most recent ones), the mystery unfolds through multiple POVs . Foley begins her novels with a prologue introducing an unnamed dead

**SPOILERS BELOW** I thought this was AMAZING. Much as I love true-to-period retellings of Greek mythology, I'm always more partial to a modern retelling. This captured the very essence of The Bacchae (one of my favourite tragedies): every roar, every squirm, every rasping beat. Rich, dissatisfied widow Lena is our Agaue, and, in a contemporary setting, her tragedy hits home all the more extravagantly than in Euripides' play (in my very humble opinion, sorry Euripides). Read

Unpopular opinion, but this is one of my favourite Christie books! Up there with the 4.50 From Paddington (a favourite in my current re-read sprint, which is unexpected because I am usually Poirot-aligned!). The archaeological dig/setting element stole my heart, here. I did guess whodunnit, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment one bit. According to the ending, Poirot takes the Orient Express home. Murder on the Orient Express was written two years prior in 1934, but it's

Oh wow, this was very dark and brooding and icky. The murder of a young girl sends a Kentish village, where Mary Rose lives with her spectral, neurotic mother and is occasionally visited by her father, into disarray. The preceding and proceeding events are told from the perspective of Rowan, Mary Rose's father, who was blind-drunk on the night of the murder and cannot remember his whereabouts. Rowan, is a bit of a Humbert Humbert figure in the sense that he's detestable whil

An immensely enjoyable read. A remote Scottish island with a healthy side order of murder is always going to be a hit for me. I found Grady's character to be mesmerising – his relationship with Columbo the Dog is touching, but I also like reading about self-loathing and existential doubt (there will be a reason for that, I'm sure, haha). I particularly enjoyed the commentary about how perspective plays tricks on us in terms of relationships, especially when remembering certai

Meet Billy, a sixty-something assassin for a global secret agency called The Museum. She and her killer friends are recently retired, however they're forced back into the world of disguise, espionage, and murder-most-elaborate after their old organisation turns on them. I am a sucker for luscious locations, especially when they play host to crime. KOACA ticks all the boxes in this respect. We're in Rome, Paris, New Orleans, a big old cavernous house in the English countryside

We open with an email to a television producer and learn that its sender, Dominic Eastwood, has a story to share about his aunt and uncle. Landlords Sue and Mal run a weekly pub quiz at their rural pub, The Case Is Altered. One week, a new team named The Shadow Knights attends: they are brilliant, yet seem socially off-kilter. Worst of all, they decimate the regular teams with encyclopedic levels of general knowledge (cue for a hilarious subplot as cheating allegations fly!).

**SPOILERS BELOW** So, so up my street! Lexicographer Martha's sister has been missing for over a decade. After returning to Oxford from Berlin, she takes up the position of editor at the Clarendon Dictionary, to which mysterious coded letters begin to be sent regarding Martha's sister. I absolutely loved learning about being a lexicographer and am annoyed that I never realised this was a career option! The novel is also packed with gorgeous historical and etymological tidbit