Doreen Sheridan

In a word: no. Lol. I’m usually quite good at solving mysteries because I’m good at two other things: understanding human behavior and understanding storytelling. Foreshadowing might as well be my hairdresser, as it generally tells me everything I need to know before it becomes common knowledge. That, I think, was a large part of why I had such a hard time trying to solve the murder in this book.

This would have been way more successful for me were it the overly wordy storyboard for an anime — most likely a repetitively depressing one like Berserk — than an actual book. And look, I get it. Depression sucks. It’s a legit mental illness that you can’t just will yourself out of. But that doesn’t mean that it automatically makes for interesting fiction. Reading this book was like listening to a depressed person drone on and on about their dreams.

The first weekly roundup of October has three awesome titles to choose from, beginning with a globe-trotting historical mystery reminiscent of both classic Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. A E Goldin’s Death On The Pearl River is the sophomore novel of the Ben Canaan mystery series. It’s 1856 and young Ben has established himself as a star detective on the payroll of Her Majesty’s Executive, after successfully solving a string of challenging cases.