Hollywood Ending is a fun, light-hearted and entertaining Hollywood-themed murder mystery. The series heroine is Dayna Anderson, a former actress (the semi-famous kind whom people mistakenly think they must’ve known back in high school) who now works as an apprentice private investigator, solving cases for the reward money. In this second book in the series, Dayna gets pulled into a murder case when a Hollywood publicist gets killed during an ATM robbery. Dayna finds the killer within the first few chapters, so it’s a pretty safe bet she’s got it wrong, and spends the rest of the book tracking down one red herring after another until she finally confronts the killer.

I had fun reading this book. It’s a quick read and an entertaining cozy mystery, and I love all the funny Hollywood-esque adventures. I also like the realism of the heroine in this case immediately calling police when she gets a lead instead of insisting on running after the killer herself (a fun trope in cozy mysteries, but somewhat unsafe in real life).

That being said, the number of erroneous tips Dayna calls in to the police did become annoying after a while. Like, how many times does your hypothesis need to be proven wrong before you become less confident that you’re absolutely 100% correct this time around? To be fair, I did have the benefit of knowing there was a whole stack of pages left to go in the story before the killer is revealed, but still, with all the erroneous leads she calls in, I’m surprised the police haven’t started blocking her calls yet.

Still, overall it’s a fun and funny mystery series. I enjoyed all the celebrity events, and particularly getting to peek at what could conceivably be inside an awards show swag bag. And for all my eye rolling at Dayna’s tendency to chase red herrings, I have to admit I didn’t guess the killer at all.

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Thank you to Thomas Allen & Son for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Marissa Parlette is celebrating her engagement and has invited to the party a childhood friend whom she hasn’t been in touch with since they had a falling out back in college. The engagement party turns out to be a disaster, since veiled insults and cryptic remarks are flying across the dinner table all evening, and Marissa’s friend appears to be flirting heavily with all the men at their table. The next morning, the friend shows up dead at the bottom of a cliff, and Marissa investigates the circumstances around the death.

I love Agatha Christie type mysteries in remote locations. I enjoy tense family and friend gatherings where the most casual comments are dripping with venom. And I especially adore mysteries where a murder turns out to be linked to some deep dark secret from the past that has been simmering for years and has finally exploded into violence. So A.J. Banner’s After Nightfall seemed like catnip for my reading tastes, and I was very excited to dive in.

The story was interesting, and the characters compelling, but the book overall didn’t keep me enthralled as much as I wanted it to. The last few chapters felt choppy, and while the big reveal wasn’t wholly unexpected, the pacing felt a bit rushed. There was also a last-minute revelation that just felt tacked on and unnecessary.

Overall, it’s a solid thriller, and a good quick read. I just wish it had a stronger grip.

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Thank you to Thomas Allen & Son for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Other Wife is the 9th book in the Joe O’Loughlin mystery series, and the first one I read. Joe O’Loughlin is a psychologist who works with police to solve murders, and he also has Parkinson’s disease. I love psychological thrillers — Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series is a long-time favourite — and I can’t believe I haven’t tried Michael Robotham till now.

In The Other Wife, the mystery hits close to home as Joe’s father is rushed to the hospital after being brutally attacked. Joe has always believed his parents have had a happy marriage for the past 60 years, so he’s taken aback to find another woman at his father’s side in the hospital room. This woman claims to be his father’s other wife, and was living with his father at the time of the attack.

Despite this being my first Joe O’Loughlin mystery, I found myself immediately hooked by the character and all the family drama he has to deal with. It’s traumatic enough to discover that your parents’ marriage isn’t as solid as you’d always believed, much less to make such a discovery at your father’s deathbed. When investigating the attack and considering suspects, how impartial can Joe really be when he studies the possible role his father’s mistress may have played in the attack? The mystery here somewhat takes a backseat to the intense family drama, but at the same time, the mystery is so intertwined with the drama that one can’t really separate them.

I also really like how Joe’s Parkinson’s is integrated into the story, such that it feels real — we see how Joe adapts to living with this condition, and we also see how it can sometimes affect his life despite all his efforts to keep it under control. There’s a really striking scene where Joe tries to say something to the cops, and because Parkinson’s is making him slur his words, they think he’s drunk and are dismissive of what he’s trying to say. It’s something that I can imagine does happen to some people with Parkinson’s, or possibly other types of neurological conditions or speech impediments, and I like that Robotham included such doses of realism about Joe’s condition.

As I said, I love psychological thrillers, and I really enjoyed this book. I’ll definitely have to check out more of this series.

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Thank you to Hachette Book Group Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.