The other day I mentioned all of the ARCs I’ve received but I left of the eBooks as those deserved their own post. I’ve had my Kindle since the Spring but have only read one book and one story on it. I liked it a lot but I guess all of my unread books sort of keep me from going back to it. As we are getting close to doing some travel soon I’m excited that I have my Kindle ready with some books I’ve bought and now with some ARCs too.

Here’s what I’ve received:

• The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson. Set in the lush countryside of Provence The Lantern is an atmospheric modern gothic tale of love, suspicion, and murder, in the tradition of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Oh I can’t wait to read this one.
• The Corn Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates. I’ve enjoyed several of her books and this one which is a series of suspense stories promises to be very good.
• Call Me Princess by Sara Blaedel. We all know I love Scandinavian crime thrillers so I hope this one from the Danish bestselling author is a keeper.
• The Preacher by Camilla Lackberg. I wasn’t too impressed with her first book and it was actually a DNF for me but I think it was also partly timing. Anyway, I’d like to give this author another try and see what I think.
• The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock. I’ve read some great reviews of this one so I’m looking forward to it.
• The Twisted Thread by Charlotte Bacon. With The Twisted Thread, Charlotte Bacon has crafted a gripping and suspenseful story in the tradition of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, one that pulls back the curtain on the lives of the young and privileged.

I also have a couple of other books I bought, Town House and Postcards From A Dead Girl thanks to the super Harper Perennial ebook deal. Check it out!

So yes, I’ve been busy filling up my Kindle with some ARCs, new books and some classics too. I can’t wait to be on vacation, resting and reading some great books.

“His name was Ishigami. She had gone to his apartment the night she moved in to introduce herself. That’s when she’d learned he was a teacher. He was a heavyset man, with a big, round face that made his small eyes look thin as threads. His hair was thinning and cut short, making him look nearly fifty, though he might easily have been much younger. He wasn’t particularly fashion conscious, always wearing the same sort of clothes. This winter, when he came in to buy his lunch, he was wearing the same coat over a brown sweater. Still, he did do his laundry, as was evidenced by the occasional presence of a drying rack on the small balcony of his apartment. He was single and, Yasuko guessed, not a divorce or widower. She thought back, trying to remember something that might have clued her in to his interest, but came up with nothing. He was like the thin crack in her apartment wall. She knew it was there, but she had never paid it that much attention. It just wasn’t worth pay attention to.”

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigho Highashino.

Yasuko’s new life revolved around her job at the shop selling boxed lunches and being there for her daughter, Misato. She finally left the nightclub where she worked but most importantly she is free from her ex-husband, until one day he decides to look for her again. Togashi is back to make life miserable for Yasuko, exhorting money from her and intimidating her but Yasuko realizes in an instant that there is only one way to be free from Togashi forever.

After a struggle in Yasuko’s apartment, Togashi is dead and Yasuko and Misato have to plan a way out but what they never counted on was their neighbor, Ishigami, showing up to help. The quiet man who has barely spoken to them all of a sudden takes the lead and tells them what to do. If they follow his instructions they can escape punishment. Yasuko doesn’t question Ishigami much, perhaps she’s shocked and most of all she wants to protect Misato, so she follows Ishigami’s carefully detailed plans.

Meanwhile, the investigators seem to zero in on Yasuko but they can’t crack her story or get anywhere with Misato either. It looks like they are telling the truth, but one of the investigators has a deep friendship with a physics instructor who so happened to know Ishigami in his youth. Through Dr. Yukawa perhaps the investigators can learn more about Ishigami and what happened on that fateful day.

Intense and tightly-plotted, this is one of those books that left me totally surprised at the end. It’s what a great mystery/thriller should do and this one did it so well. This book isn’t so much about characters, in fact, Yasuko seems quite ordinary but it’s about what drives people to their actions. What has all of a sudden turned a quiet and almost forgettable man to be a force to be reckoned with?

There were a few things that did make me wonder if they could have worked so well, for example Misato, a teen, was able to get through a police interrogation by herself and did it quite well. I would have also liked more interaction from her as she seemed to be very much in the periphery but these are really just nitpicks. This book had me totally entranced from the beginning until the last page. From the book jacket it seems that Keigho Higashino has several novels and I can only hope that more will be translated in English. I highly recommend this one and no doubt it’ll probably even appear on my end of year favorites list.

Source: Library copy