Ricky Pine's Blog

Review: One Final Turn

One Final Turn by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The fifth and final mystery in this series finally goes to Lisbon as its predecessor promised, and also resolves the longest standing family mystery cliffhangers going all the way back to Book 1. While each book is a relatively short one, and the time frame in which the whole series takes place feels shockingly short as well, it still earns its place as one of my new favorites with all the drama that comes with it ...

Review: Empire of the Dawn

Empire of the Dawn by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dear Mister Kristoff:

Fuck.

My.

Face.

Over the course of so many trilogies, Kristoff has well earned his reputation as one of the most rockstarinest writers in the biz, and as we finally end his most epic trilogy yet, it’s a hard fought run for Gabriel de Léon and Dior Lachance and even Mlle Celine Castia. To say nothing of Marquis Jean-François perving out like the perpetual hornyboy he is.

Never more has Kristo...

Review: The Impossible Fortune

The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Thursday Murder Club returns after a brief hiatus for the fifth mystery in the series, and this one’s a 3.5 rounded up to 4 in large part because returning to these characters is a stark reminder that Osman utterly goofed it by pivoting to We Solve Murders and its much more annoying cast of characters last year. By now, this series is so well lived in that I’m much more invested in them than ever, even ...

Review: Locked in Pursuit

Locked in Pursuit by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The fourth Electra McDonnell promises quick resolution to the dramatic reveal from the very end of the previous book, and delivers there. What it doesn’t deliver on as much is its promise of traveling to Lisbon, capital of the neutral (though still fascist) Portuguese state, as part of Major Ramsey’s ongoing investigations into Nazi spycraft. Luckily, the ending of this book suggests there might finally be more ...

Review: Every Spiral of Fate

Every Spiral of Fate by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tahereh Mafi’s fourth book in her lavish Persian style fantasy series - now being marketed more heavily than ever as romantasy these days - takes everything on the drama scale up a few notches to the greatest effect yet. From a long awaited and long dreaded wedding to an expedition across the most far flung reaches of the empire, leading to some revelations I didn’t see coming…let’s just say that while Mafi pl...

Review: Playing It Safe

Playing It Safe by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Electra McDonnell’s third mystery is a bit more of an adventure as Major Ramsey brings her to the northern English port city of Sunderland, away from the ongoing London Blitz (it’s still 1940 here in the timeline). While there’s still a bit of Nazi bombing threat to this important shipbuilding harbor, the Nazis’ true intentions here are far more insidious, as they’ve started counterfeiting national ID cards to hel...

Review: The Key to Deceit

The Key to Deceit by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The second novel of five in the Electra McDonnell series is all too brief, but still quite classical in its stylings, as Ellie and her family get swept into another assignment from the utterly straitlaced Major Ramsey: a dead woman with some very interesting jewelry found on her body. The setting remains very unique for this genre, amidst the Blitz, although since we’re still in 1940 here, it leaves me to wonder...

Review: Red City

Red City by Marie Lu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s easy to look at Marie Lu’s adult debut and think it might still be more teen friendly at the start, since we begin by following our two protagonists Sam and Ari from a very young age when they were both immigrant children in Angel City (the DC Comics-like alternate Los Angeles of this book). But it becomes very clear, very quickly, that once we we move into their grown up lives, they really do deal with grown up concerns...

Review: The God and the Gumiho

The God and the Gumiho by Sophie Kim
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Set in the fictional Korean city of New Simsi, somewhere in the middle ground between the human world and the underworld, in 1992, is this combination of romantasy and mystery. Not really the cozy kind, but it’s a fast paced combo of love story and bizarre murder, following two figures from Korean folklore secretly pitted against each other despite their growing feelings - a fallen god serving as a grumpy co...

Review: A Peculiar Combination

A Peculiar Combination by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I recently found the fifth (and final) book in this series on the new book shelf at my new library, and luckily they had the entire series upstairs in the mystery section. This book introduces us to Electra “Ellie” McDonnell and her family of master thieves, who get caught on a heist during the Blitz…except it’s an important test posed by Major Ramsey, who needs a safe cracker of a certain skill level to li...