Smorgasbord Fantasia

 I haven't read a great 'cozy mystery' in a long while and so, The Maid by Nita Prose was in all senses, a delightful little read. Quick, suspenseful and elegant. Just like the work done by Molly Gray, our protagonist, a maid at this prestigious five-star hotel where she takes absolute pride in her work.  Featuring a person, who possibly suffers from being neurodivergent (I admit, I had to look up this word and no, the author never really mentions this at all!) or autistic to an extent, Nita Prose whips up a delightful debut with this mystery book, released earlier this year. Nita knows her 'prose' - pun intended because the language and the writing is as much a pivotal character in this book as is her characters. Nita chooses an unknown setting someplace in America for her novel, the chief location being the five-star hotel Regency Grand where Molly works. Now Molly is peculiar and very dedicated to both her craft and her gran, now deceased. In fact, she recognize...

Dead Space by Kali Wallace was one of the few recent science fiction books based on a story set in space, that really appealed to me. A rare combination of murder mystery and science fiction, this one is excellently paced, presents a fascinating premise of the mankind's space-faring ambitions set right at the centre of a multi-layered conspiracy that unravels with a gruesome murder aboard a remote space-station in the asteroid belt between Mars and Earth.  I am watching the new Korean series on Netflix, The Silent Sea at the moment, so can appreciate the nuances and finer details that Kali Wallace effortlessly weaves into her narrative about living in space. The story unfolds in this faraway asteroid called Nimue, a lump the size of a potato in the whole universe, where Parthenope, one of the corporate bigwigs, have set up a mining operation. Our protagonist, Hester Marley is an AI scientist whose whole life got derailed when a terrorist organisation bombed the space-station they ...

 If you have been obsessed with games, counter-culture, mysteries and in general, a good twisty read that fucks with your mind, then you will dig this one, Rabbits by Terry Miles . Based off on a long running podcasts about an allegedly secret game based on alternate reality, Rabbits is a thriller that is full of so many interesting forgotten culture/ game references that by the time you get to the bottom of the mystery, you are so mind-fucked that you don't even care.  Set in Seattle, the main protagonist is K, who is obsessed with games and mysteries all his life. He's the kind who frequents dark web forums, hangs out at old gaming arcades and loves dispensing tidbits about mysterious ARG's that the underworld gaming fanatics have only heard about and are drawn to. A self-professed expert on this game called Rabbits, that is one of the most secretive alternate reality games out there, K gets pulled deeper into this game, when a reclusive billionaire named Alan Shapiro see...

The Guest List by Lucy Foley is my first book by the author - a mystery whodunit that am reading after such a long time - and definitely the first of her many other books, I have decided. With strong shades of Agatha Christie about this mystery novel, The Guest List was one of the best-sellers of last year and with the right good reasons to be. The intriguing premise here is that of a 'destination' wedding happening in a remote island off the coast of Ireland where Jules, a successful entrepreneur is about to get married to the man of her dreams, Will a rising TV star. The story starts off on the wedding night where the storm is blowing in and a waitress discovers a 'body'. And then we start peeling off the layers to figure out who the dead body 'was'. That's of course half the fun, the main part being the grubby grimy details of the past of the main guests who have been invited for the wedding. Watching the sordid past come alive in their own words as we ...