Tag Archives: mystery

Aurora Teagarden Mysteries by Charlaine Harris

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I love mystery novels and if its a mystery series… so much the better. You get attached to the characters by the time you read the last chapter and the knowledge that your association with them is going to last for a couple of books more, is vastly reassuring. I devoured Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series a long time ago. When I began the Aurora Teagarden series, I had no idea it was penned by Charlaine Harris. When I had finished the first book Real Murders in the series, I was intrigued but mildly nauseated with the ending. I decided I won’t read any more. But the next day, I started the next book in the series. And I was hooked. The protagonist of this series is a tiny, bespectacled single librarian with the charming name of Aurora Teagarden, who has a penchant for reading about famous murders and murderers. And in each book, a murdered body turns up somewhere in her vicinity and she finds the murderer with her trademark blend of snoopiness and spunk.

Apart from the superbly handled mystery aspect of the books, what I like the most about this series, is how the heroine Aurora blossoms as the series progresses. She becomes more self possessed, more outspoken, comes to possess an outstanding array of spectacles and becomes increasingly more lovable. I love the way Harris has handled the part where Aurora grieves for her first husband, Martin Bartell and how she emerges a stronger and more mature woman from her misery. I like how the mysteries sound at the outset, as if the perpetrator is a person unknown but how slowly one small thing fits into the other and the killer is revealed to be very much a resident of Lawrenceton, the fictional town where the book is based. The supporting characters are also well sketched out and Harris gently draws the reader into their world, so that you really feel for the characters and find their everyday doings interesting, as if they are people living in your own street. As I write this post, I am down to my last book in the series, the tenth! Need I say more… go and read this book!

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

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Had been meaning to read this book since quite a while and am glad I finally picked it up. And what a story it is! It is a story of Theo, a psychotherapist and his patient, Alicia Berenson. Alicia has supposedly killed her husband six years ago. And since then she has been living in a mental care facility where she has not spoken a single word Why? That is what Theo desperately wants to find out


Theo is not without his own demons that hound him round the clock. A terrifying, hot tempered father whom he still carries around with him, even though he fled from the family home in his teens. His own “fucked up life” is what drew Theo towards psychotherapy. He can still remember Ruth, the lady who listened to him and cried for him when he thought his tears were frozen over. That is what he is determined to do for Alicia. Save her, just as Ruth saved him.


But how can he do that when Alicia refuses to talk? Undeterred, he seeks out her lawyer, Max, who is also her husband’s brother. Max is hiding something but what? He also pays a visit to Jean Pierre, Alicia’s art dealer and supposed best friend who has not visited Alicia once since the time of her husband’s death. Theo finds out about Alicia’s troubled childhood and a meeting with her cousin brother suddenly provides him with the key to the mystery.

So, mystery solved then, right? Nu..uh. This is the part where I sat with my nose touching the page till I had turned the last page of the book. Now, that’s a mystery. If you haven’t already, read this book right now.

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

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Read Lisa Jewell’s Then She Was Gone yesterday. Started it in the evening and I couldn’t put it down till I had finished it. Then I couldn’t sleep because the story kept buzzing around in my head. I completely forgot that we were in the middle of the Corona pandemic. It is that kind of book… completely absorbing.

The story revolves around Laurel, a middle-aged mother whose teenage daughter Ellie, simply disappeared from the face of the earth ten years ago. Ellie was pretty, smart, charming and her mother’s darling. Police investigation revealed nothing and it was assumed that Ellie was just another teenage runaway. But Laurel refused to believe it. She becomes obsessed with finding out something, anything about Ellie to the point of the ruin of her marriage and alienation of her other two children. Her husband Paul and she part ways. Her other two elder children move out. She exists, just filling in her days, waiting…

Suddenly, ten years later she meets Floyd, a charming mathematician who makes her come alive again. Things which had meant nothing to her for so long suddenly become important…cooking, looking good, reaching out to her family. Her life has meaning again. Then she meets Poppy, Floyd’s nine year old daughter who bears an uncanny resemblance to her Ellie. The book is told from different POVs… Laurel, Floyd and Ellie. Dear reader, I pity you because I have already read the book and you haven’t! Sorry, got carried away 🙂 The author cleverly switches between POVs, keeping you gripping your seat. It was Ellie’s POV that kept me sleepless for a long time. Then there is a fourth POV. Whose that? Hey…that would be telling! READ THE BOOK!!!