Some victims become detectives in new detective stories | Book reviews

Unfortunately, the mass murdered women, all nightclub hostesses, arrive in front of the café where Louise works, prayer cards in hand. Will she be able to win the favor of the survivors in time to stop the carnage? Suspending disbelief that this crime-solving scenario would actually happen, “Dead Dead Girls” still has structural issues that a good editor could have helped. The story often skips without any flow, leaving the reader momentarily lost, only for the chapters to end on a prefiguring “if I only” note.

And overall, the storytelling seems thin. From a novel set in 1926, with the Harlem Renaissance in full swing, I wanted a lot, a lot more atmosphere. Afia is good with close-up detail at the expense of the big picture. And sometimes his 2021 prospect comes in too harsh a way.

“Dead Dead Girls” is billed as the first in a series of Harlem Renaissance mysteries. Afia, who is only 24, is a writer who will be interesting to watch grow up.

Clare mackintosh “Hostage” is, and rightly so, a book to browse.

I enjoyed Mackintosh’s previous books, including ‘I See You’ from 2019, in which a London woman who thinks she and others are being stalked via newspaper ads tries to stop the chain of carnage .

But “Hostage” is a departure, a “closed-room thriller” set on a flight between London and Sydney. Lisa Jewell, another of my favorite mystery authors, likens it in a blurb to “watching a blockbuster movie”. Indeed, “Hostage” looks like this, and you may find yourself throwing it away as you read.