My Book Reviews (Part 1) for February 2025

My Book Reviews (Part 1) for February 2025

My Book Reviews (Part 1) for February 2025 comprise titles – in literary, horror, teen, crime and mystery genres – published this month that I had the privilege of reading in advance. I thank the authors, publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity.

Before I review the NetGalley titles, here are details of a useful book on writing technique that I purchased and read this month:

Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It) by Janice Hardy

A great guide to what is meant by show not tell, illustrated with many examples.

With detailed sections on filtering and on cause and effect, it's also good for general editing.

I'd recommend it to writers of all levels of experience.

Now onto my NetGalley reads. It really was a privilege to read them.

The Killing Plains by Sherry Rankin

A well-written murder mystery with a likeable protagonist and a distinctive setting. 

Colly, a widowed ex cop, is asked by a serving cop, the brother of her late husband, to investigate a possible serial killer case that implicates a third brother.

Despite the implausibility of family members being on a police case, and the lead detective not even a serving officer, the plot reads well. Colly works her way around various witnesses and suspects in the rural Texas location and negotiates delicate relationships with other family members, including head of the family, Iris, mother of the three brothers.

I guessed the culprit early on, as I think many seasoned thriller readers will. However, being proved right added to, rather than detracted from, my enjoyment of the story. I'd happily read another book by this author. 

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths

Ali, a cold case detective, investigates a Victorian serial killer. The current Minister for Justice is a descendent of the lead suspect and wants to clear the family name. As he holds the purse strings for Ali's experimental unit, she has no choice but to take the case. What makes the unit experimental – and top secret – is that Ali is physically sent back in time to scenes of crimes to gather new evidence. But the furthest back she's travelled until now is 1976. Due to the untried technology, Victorian London could be a trip too far.

This is a good premise, written at the cosier end of the mystery spectrum. Ideal for readers who like lots of backstories, research details and light humour. This new series will not disappoint fans of the author.

Needy Little Things by Channelle Desamours

This mystery features an unusual teenage protagonist. Riyah is both blessed with and plagued by the ability to hear/sense the needs of anyone within a few metres of her. Because her head is constantly filled with requests for such things as mirror, pencil case, paperclip, bucket etc, she can’t concentrate in school and is failing her grades.

The mystery involves the disappearance of local girls, with the focus of the story being on the different ways media and social media respond, depending on the race of the missing girl.

Told in a breezy, American teen voice, this book is ideal for fans of YA stories that give an important message.  

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronicco, translated by Sophie Hughes

From the blurb:

Millennial expat couple Anna and Tom are living the dream in Berlin, in a bright, plant-filled apartment in Neukölln. They are young digital creatives, freelancers without too many constraints. They have a passion for food, progressive politics, sexual experimentation and Berlin’s twenty-four-hour party scene. Their ideal existence is also that of an entire generation, lived out on Instagram, but outside the images they create for themselves, dissatisfaction and ennui burgeon. Their work as graphic designers becomes repetitive. Friends move back home, have children, grow up. An attempt at political activism during the refugee crisis proves fruitless. And in that picture-perfect life Anna and Tom feel increasingly trapped, yearning for an authenticity and a sense of purpose that seem perennially just out of their grasp. With the stylistic mastery of Georges Perec and nihilism of Michel Houellebecq, Perfection, translated by Sophie Hughes, is a sociological novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence.

Ideal for readers who enjoy literary fiction that goes deeply into sumptuous visual description. I chose to read it because of the Berlin setting and the contemporary cultural references. However the style, despite being top-notch writing, was a little too rich for my taste. 

You are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego

From the blurb: Six thriller authors. One writing retreat. You’d die to be on the guest list . . . Legendary mystery author J. R. Alastor’s books are sold all over the world, but no one knows his real name. After years hiding in the shadows, he has sent out six invitations to an exclusive murder mystery retreat on his private island.

Ideal for fans of flamboyantly written, tongue-in-cheek stories that cross the comedy, crime and horror genres.

Making A Killing by Cara Hunter

DI, now DCI, Fawley revisits his first case, namely the disappearance of Daisy Mason. This was the mystery investigated in Cara Hunter’s debut Close To Home.

There has been a change of style between the two books as this narrative includes not only police interview transcripts but also newspaper articles, social media posts, emails, photos, diagrams, Wikipedia content, journal entries and so on. 

It’s a police procedural that’s ideal for readers who enjoy multi-viewpoint, mixed-media writing that follows up a previous mystery. Fans of this popular series will enjoy rediscovering that first case. (But perhaps buy it in paperback as the mixed media content didn’t work well on Kindle.)

So those are My Book Reviews (Part 1) for February 2025. I’ll post Part Two next week.