Friends, itβs the most wonderful time of year: spooky season!! Halloween is my favorite time of year (yes, I consider it a time of yearβnot just a single day!), and itβs the perfect time to cozy up with an extra-chilling crime, suspense, or thriller read. Iβm so excited to share with you a blog post that has been quite a while in the making: my Halloween 2020 Reading List! While many (if not most!) of the books I read and cover here on Crime by the Book could fit on a Halloween reading list, the books Iβve chosen for this blog post have that little something extra that will make each of them perfect for Halloween reading (think: ghosts, supernatural sightings, extra-creepy villains, and more!). Dive on in and find your perfect Halloween read!
Read MoreMy Quarantine Reading List (So Far)
Iβve officially been in lockdown for a full month now, and I thought Iβd mark this very odd milestone with a different kind of blog post: a roundup of the crime books Iβve read so far in my time staying home! Iβm very fortunate to be able to work from home, which has been keeping me quite busy over the past few weeksβbut when Iβm not busy working, Iβm busy reading. In these crazy times, Iβm more thankful than ever before for a great crime book to escape into when I need to clear my head, and the books Iβve been devouring in lockdown have been doing an excellent job of that! My lockdown reading list includes a mixture of upcoming releases and older titles Iβm finally making time to read. For any book on this list that hasnβt yet been published, Iβve included two suggestions for books you can dip into right away, just in case youβre in the market for a new quarantine read yourself. As always, happy reading!
Read MoreBook Review: BIRDMAN by Mo Hayder
You know those books that have been sitting on your to-read list for ages, but you just never seem to find the time to read them? Iβve got plenty of crime novels like that, and one of my goals during this period of self-isolation is to tackle a couple of them. First on my list: Mo Hayderβs BIRDMAN, a serial killer thriller that Iβve had my eye on for years. Compared to the work of Thomas Harris, Mo Hayderβs BIRDMAN promises a gritty, psychologically complex reading experienceβand boy, does it deliver. BIRDMAN is an excellent piece of crime writing: a detailed procedural, a masterfully-crafted thriller, and an arresting deep-dive into the psychology of a twisted criminal. Blending the classic British procedural with the blood and guts of a terrifying serial killer thriller, BIRDMAN casts an enticing and chilling spell over the reader. The premise is simple: a newly-appointed detective finds himself in over his head, chasing down a killer with a penchant for not just kidnapping and murdering young women, but mutilating them, too. What Hayder does with this premise is far from ordinary. Moving from the police department to the underbelly of London to the personal lives of its characters, BIRDMAN puts readers up close and personal with the crueltiesβbig and smallβthat people inflict on one another. Not every scene in this book is dripping with blood and guts, but the scenes that are violent are violent enough to put you off your next meal. Hayderβs writing is methodical and precise, and layer by layer, she paints a vivid picture of a deeply damaged individual and the truly horrific atrocities he commits on women unlucky enough to cross his path. BIRDMAN is not a book for the faint of heart, but readers in the market for a deeply twisted crime novel will find it an irresistible ride.
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