A collection of 15 cases which offer a glimpse into the world of forensic science & its use in solving crime.

Forensic science is endlessly fascinating to me & the real life cases obviously provided a wealth of knowledge, but unfortunately that didn't transfer into the written word. In the ARC version I had, it read as if a foreign language book had been translated into English by AI, it was phrased oddly & was very disjointed. (continued)

The Zapruder film: a staple in JFK documentaries & films, it is regarded as the most critical visual record of President Kennedy‘s assassination. This book asks what would it mean if it could be proved that this version is not the original footage captured by Abraham Zapruder on November 22, 1963?

It was certainly an interesting read & will add to the ever-growing pile of evidence that a conspiracy was covered up. 3.75🌟

Didn't manage to read any of last month's picks 😒 Hopefully August will be better.

#ReadYourKindle
@CBee

Good pace, a well-thought out plot, & two appealing main characters made this one of those books you can't put down! The narrative is told from both Lizzie & Bex's points of view & it lifts the lid on the disconnect that these women are selling traditional gender roles whilst raking in millions of dollars & that probably very little of what is seen online is real. (continued)

England, 1910 & John Innes Nisbet boarded a train to work, carrying with him the colliery wages as usual but by the end of the journey, his body was found stuffed underneath the carriage seats in an empty carriage compartment. Nisbet had been shot 5 times with 2 different guns & the money stolen. A local man, John Alexander Dickman was arrested after several witnesses saw Nisbet with a man identified as Dickman at the station before boarding.

Then: 1991 & 4 teenage girls form the Dead Girls Club. When Becca starts to tell stories about the Red Lady, the vengeful spirit of a witch murdered centuries before, things start to go wrong. The girls feel haunted by the witch & Becca says it's because the Red Lady is real. Heather doesn't want to believe it & insists that the stories are just stories & their friendship fractures until one night everything erupts. (continued)

When DCI Jane Tennison transferred to the Metropolitan police, she expected to be at the helm of some of the bigger cases, instead she has been handed everything the other DCIs didn't want to do. When a sex worker is found murdered in a bedsit, DCI John Shefford is given the case, even though Tennison was on call that night.

Just as Tennison starts to think that perhaps she will never be given a fair chance, (continued)

This is the story of two women trying to live & work in a man's world in 1981: Janice Starr, student & US Army veteran, & Det. Kay Schucker who investigated Janice's disappearance & eventually recovered her remains.

A really interesting case. What I liked about this one was the fact that although we got some background info on some of the other players in the case, the narrative didn't go off on tangents but kept the focus on the two women.

Investigators Lincoln Rhyme & Amelia Sachs are brought in to track down a dangerous human smuggler & killer known as the Ghost. He is currently onboard a cargo ship carrying two dozen illegal Chinese immigrants & Rhyme has pinpointed the ship's location, but the capture goes wrong & the ship starts to sink. Only two families & the Ghost survive the sinking, & they all disappear once reaching land (continued)

Famous actress & current Lady Edgware, Jane Wilkinson, asks Hercule Poirot to help her obtain a divorce from her husband, Lord Edgware. Poirot visits Lord Edgware, who surprisingly enough agrees to a divorce quite easily, but the next morning, Edgware is found murdered in his study.

Edgware's staff are adamant that Lady Edgware visited her estranged husband the night of his death, & she had 'joked' about bumping him off to people before,

This is a slightly underwhelming sequel to the first book (which I really enjoyed). There's some tragic deaths, adventure, & a smattering of romance (Violet remembers Ash but does he remember her?) & yet there's something missing. I think it's the fact that the plot seemed to barrel along without taking a breath & the ending seemed to be wrapped up far too quickly. 4🌟

Sanctuary, a small town in Connecticut, is shocked by the death of Daniel Whitman, star of the local college football team. Initially thought to be an accident during a party, rumours begin to circulate that he was killed by his ex-girlfriend, Harper Fenn, who was also at the party. Harper's mother, Sarah Fenn, is a registered witch & although Harper is said to have no magical powers whatsoever, gossip & paranoia begin to spread. (continued)

Following a serious neck injury which left him paralysed, Ed Jackson has defied the odds. Not only to walk again but to climb 'Himlung Himal', one of the Himalayan peaks which stands at just over 7000 feet high. Climbing can be a test of anyone's strength, endurance, & resilience, but especially if the climber has a physical disability. This particular peak had not been climbed for 2 years & this account details the journey, (continued)

A group of writers are invited to the reading of the will of legendary horror author Mortimer Queen. Queen passed away recently & the group find themselves assembling at his eerie manor house. Each of the guests were linked to Queen in some way & are a beneficiary in his will, but first they have to play a game. Each room in the house contains a riddle, & the group must solve the riddle, before progressing onto the next room. (continued)

Marie Leautey decides to take on the challenge of becoming only the second woman to run around the world. This involves crossing at least 4 continents & there are many more rules - more than you would think even when running in a competitive challenge for a world record. After months of preparation, Lootie (name based on many people's pronunciation of her surname) sets off by running through Europe just as Covid strikes.

The second outing for barrister, Lee Mitchell, sees her defending someone from her legal Chambers - Junior Clerk, Dean. Dean's boss, Tom Mannion, was found dead in a dark alley after a night out drinking, & Dean was the last person to be seen with him. Even though the evidence, what there is of it, is mostly circumstantial, the police & judiciary seem oddly keen to prosecute the case. (continued)

I'll say right from the off that I have always believed that Marilyn Monroe was murdered. Her death was just too convenient for certain people & the evidence & changing testimony of those there that night just don't fit with suicide or accidental death. The scenario posited by this book hangs together with the evidence a lot better than the bs we've been fed for decades. (continued)

Leanne (Lee) Mitchell is a young barrister, she's a woman, working-class, & Black so the odds are against her. Having moved from her childhood home to a house in a richer part of town, Lee is also viewed with suspicion by some in her old community.

When the younger son of the local pastor is shot, the community is shattered but vengeful, especially when evidence suggests thar a police officer, Sergeant Jack Lambert, was the shooter.

At a petrol station in a quiet Manchester suburb, a man watches horrified as someone walks up to the pump, pours petrol over themselves & sets it alight. Meanwhile, a 14-year-old girl is arrested for killing her mother but she seems confused over the details.

At the Coroner's Officer, Mrs Challinor is back even if it is only part time at present, but the Major Incident Team want Detective Inspector Ridpath back working on their cases.

In Jan 1993, Palatine, Illinois, two men entered the 'Brown's Chicken' restaurant around closing time. At 3am police investigated reports that the workers had not returned home & found seven bodies in the walk-in freezer & fridge. Seven members of staff, including the two owners, had been killed & it would take a decade to bring their killers to justice.

“Can you uncover the dark secret of these strange houses? When you do, an unforgettable truth will be revealed.“

This is one of the strangest books I've ever read. It's fairly short, I read it in a couple of hours, & it's based around the floorplans of three houses. It's difficult to give a synopsis without giving anything away - I will say that it is dark in tone. (continued)

In the history of the legendary Wild West, Belle Starr's name is up there with Calamity Jane & Annie Oakley. Like those other two women, Belle's life history has been romanticised & sensationalised until many would not know where the truth & the lies begin & end.

Through the American Civil War & its aftermath, the author painstakingly recreates the events of Starr's short life, & finds that in most cases, (continued)

1546 is the sunset year of King Henry VIII's reign but he is still alive for now & his councillors are locked in a power struggle between the Catholic faction & the Protestant Reformers. Radicals are being burned at the stake & Queen Catherine Parr is teetering on the edge of disaster.

Shardlake is summoned by Lord Parr, uncle to the Queen & asked to take on one more investigation. (continued)

Managed 2 off the list for June. This is my July list for #ReadYourKindle

@CBee

In Holly May's family, every granddaughter is invited to their estranged paternal grandmother's house when they are about to turn 17 & usually leave with an expensive present. It's soon to be Holly's turn, but all Holly wants is to fix the rift between her father & grandmother.

When she arrives at the manor house, there are some oddities: her phone doesn't work, the staff seem strangely reticent except for the charming yet obsequious Austin,

When her parents die from an illness, 16-year-old Cissie Brodie & her younger siblings are left penniless & homeless & facing the shadow of the workhouse. To prevent them being split up, Cissie searches for somewhere else to live but with no money they cannot afford anywhere, except a cave on the moor. Cold & drafty to start with, the local carpenter helps Cissie turn it into something resembling a dwelling place, if not a home.

Why did the 9th Duke of Rutland, owner of the spacious Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, die on a couch in a cramped. cold, suite of rooms in the servants' quarters? In 1940, in poor health & fading fast, the Duke refused to be removed to more comfortable surroundings & insisted on being left alone in the rooms, which were then locked up & left untouched for 60 years after his death. But why?

Stephanie 'Stevie' Diaz is happily married to Troy, but has a job as a 911 operator that she hates. One night, Stevie answers a call & hears a woman who is being followed by someone in a truck. Whilst online, the woman is forced off the road in an isolated area & starts running for her life, Stevie hears a gunshot, but the call is ended. The officers sent to the area find the woman's car but there is no sign of her or the other driver. (continued)

Det Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called to the scene of a puzzling murder.. The founder of computer gaming company U-Play, has been found murdered in his locked holo-room. According to the security logs, no-one else entered or left the room during the time of the murder, not even the house droid, so how did Bart Minnock end up literally losing his head?

Archaeology graduate Eoin Ryan leaves his soul-crushing call centre job for a position as a teacher at a remote island commune. Mainly self-sustaining, the group sounds like the perfect solution to his problems, but if something sounds too good to be true.....

First of all, I thought the plot & setting were intriguing & having studied archaeology & history, an MC from that background & the bits about Irish mythology were interesting. (continued)

In the early hours one morning, Joseph Carver finds his teenage son, Max, in the kitchen frantically trying to clean his bloodied hands. Max says there's been an accident - he killed someone with his car, tried to help them but when it was obvious they were dead, he panicked & fled the scene with the body. Joseph promised his late wife that he would always protect Max so he decides to cover it up & helps Max bury the body.

When 90-year-old care home resident, Daphne St Clair, confesses to being a serial killer, everyone wants to be the one to break the story. Why would someone who has gotten away with decades of murders suddenly confess? Podcaster, Ruth King, is the person Daphne chooses to tell her story, but as they get to know each other during the interviews, it becomes clear that neither of them are telling the whole truth.....

The prequel to 'The Final Hunt' & 'The Last Hunt' is set in 1985 & is about the making of a serial killer. Weaving in parts of the story from the real-life Green River Killer, this one has pace & some surprising twists. Like Cameron (the female MC in the main two books), Holly Sparks is a lead character that the reader can't help rooting for & you really want her to find the evidence to uncover her sister's killer. (continued)

Ten lucky winners are on their way to the grand opening of the Hotel Artemis, the first hotel on the moon. Two weeks of luxury & pampering awaits, however, the guests soon discover all is not as it seems. It soon becomes clear that they are the only people there, all the staff have mysteriously left. Detective Penelope Strand is sure that something nefarious is about to happen & sure enough, the next morning one of the group is found dead. (cont)

An account of an expedition to Everest which culminated in the deaths of 8 people including 2 experienced guides. In March 1996 three separate groups were caught out not far from the summit by a severe storm. This is a detailed account of the climb & an examination of the factors which led to the tragedy & leaves the reader wondering if such exploration is really worth the cost in lives.

Violet is attending Comic Con where the actors from her favourite book-turned-into-a-film 'The Gallows Dance' are due to appear, when a freak accident transport Violet, younger brother Nate, & friends Alice & Katie into the story world for real. Now they are right in the midst of the struggle between the perfect 'Gems' & the 'Imps' (Imperfects) but their appearance derails the story & causes the death of 'Imp' heroine, Rose.

Following the death of their 3-year-old son, Anthony, Sondra & husband Travis move to the mountains of Montana for a fresh start. After their house in Seattle, the rustic cabin in Montana is a shock for Sondra especially when she notices the strange footprints on the walls of the cabin which look like they were made by a child. It soon becomes clear that the townspeople are haunted by a spirit which feeds on guilt & lies - can it be defeated?

Keep your friends close & your frenemies closer.....

Milla receives an invite to a reunion at a ski resort in the French Alps. She doesn't really want to go but the invite is from Curtis, the man she has held a torch for all these years. She's surprised to hear from him after 10 years especially around the anniversary of his sister's disappearance at the same resort, but she can't pass up the chance to see if he has any feelings for her too.

I vaguely remember the repeats of 'Happy Days' but I was much more interested in spin-off 'Mork & Mindy' (shazbot!) in which the much-missed Robin Williams was absolutely hilarious. I digress, so anyway this is the autobiography of Henry Winkler, best known as 'The Fonz' (Ayyy) in Happy Days.

Winkler has been in a lot more than just 'Happy Days', not things that I have tended to watch in the main but I remember him in 'Scream'. (Continued)

Ten years ago Claire Moore narrowly escaped being the eighth victim of the Black-Out Killer, a serial killer who gained entry by cutting all power to the victims' homes & then killing couples by burning down their homes with them locked inside. Claire's husband, Owen, was killed & Claire has been struggling with grief, survivor's guilt & PTSD ever since, (continued)

How do you steal an archive? One file at a time.

This is the story of a quiet, introverted archivist who had access to the most heavily guarded files in the world. Vasili Mitrokhin had started out as a communist party believer until he was transferred into the archives of the KGB. What he read there angered him to such an extent that he decided to copy the files, one by one, in his own shorthand code to be rewritten in his own time at home.

There's too much animal cruelty for me to continue as it‘s a big trigger for me. DNF

Emily was in a coma for 4 months following an accident & to aid her recovery somewhere quiet, she agrees to move from London to 'Larkin Lodge', a house on the Devon moors. She hopes that this will give her marriage to husband Freddie a fresh start, but when they arrive, far from the pretty country home on the website, the house is shrouded in mist & inside the house is either unbearably hot or achingly cold.

A group of friends decide to have a secret party weekend in a remote castle owned by the parents of one of the teens. Undergoing development, the castle has limited electricity & heating & no-one will know they are there. Soon after they arrive a storm rages & only 10 of them manage to make it to the site. The weather traps them inside & their mobiles go missing on the first evening so they can't call for help, (continued)

Theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper are legion & a plethora of suspects have been proposed over the decades, but is there a suspect who has been overlooked all this time? Charles Lechmere (aka Cross) was a carman who was on the way to work in the early hours when he discovered the body of the first canonical Ripper victim, Mary Ann Nichols. (continued)

The Zodiac Killer, who committed his serial killings in the late 1960s in the San Francisco area, has never been caught. Over the decades, many suspects have been posited but in June 1999, Mike Rodelli followed a hunch & found evidence that suggested a suspect that had never been fully considered before. This book sets out Rodelli's 20-year quest to prove that this man was the Zodiac Killer. (continued)

My June list for #ReadYourKindle

I managed 1 from my list for May, but had a very heavy ARC month. Bit lighter load in June so aiming for 2.

@CBee

In a futuristic Chicago (Shytown), its human inhabitants have upgraded themselves with various bits of technology & cybernetic hardware. Cam Sexton traded his eyes for cyberoptics & works as a Looker - where followers subscribe to literally see through his upgraded eyes. (continued)

I was absolutely glued to the start of this book & the premise was intriguing, unfortunately it suffered from the tendency to prioritise romantic relationships over the Trials which made the middle section drag a bit. The ending almost made up for it though, I was surprised by that extra twist, & that doesn't happen often. I was 50-50 on carrying on but the ending caught my attention again, so I probably will read the next one. 3.75🌟

In a dystopian USA, children start dying from a new illness which has a high mortality rate. Those that do survive develop alarming new abilities, making the adults afraid of them. From the age of 10 all surviving children are taken into federal custody & placed into camps run by guards. The children are sorted into colours according to their abilities: green is the least dangerous, then blue, yellow, & orange, with red being the most dangerous.