Make the Most of Murder

Book Reviews by a CSI

Welcome to the ‘Make the Most of Murder’ book reviews where I’ll be going through books as both an avid reader of mysteries and a retired death investigator.

As a writer, it’s important to also be a reader. And I am. I’ve always been absorbed in my own world of fictional characters, but I credit Janet Evanovich and Stephanie Plum for turning me into a writer. Before I became a crime scene investigator, I was on a divisional tactical team running felony warrants and narcotics. (This was well before retirement and my love of sourdough bread slowed me down.)

At that time, I absolutely devoured the Stephanie Plum books. (And Harlan Coben. And Robert Crais.) One day, after finishing the latest Stephanie Plum novel, I was sitting in a patrol car and said to my partner, who was also a big Stephanie Plum fan, “Maggie, we should write books like this. We LIVE these books. Janet Evanovich is writing about the same kind of stuff that we do every day.”

“But I can’t write. You can. You do it.”

She was wrong. I’ve read her police reports and her booking charges. She could write too. She just left out the comedy. For some reason the district attorney’s office frowns on comedy in police reports. More’s the pity.

So, I started writing. And I kept reading. While I love the idea of book clubs, I never joined a book club because I want to read what I want to read, when I want to read it. But I do love sharing good books. Immensely. So recently I joined Goodreads and Fable. These are book platforms where readers review books, form reading groups, and track their reading stats. I tend to be a solitary reader, so I haven’t joined in the past, but now I’m finding that I love them both.

I got an insane amount of satisfaction just uploading my reading book list, which was woefully incomplete because I could only remember the titles of the good ones. Thus, I leaned toward 4- and 5-star reviews. And I didn’t review the bad ones, because as an author, I didn’t want to give another author a low star/bad review simply because their book failed to speak to me. It may be someone else’s cup of tea.

So, each week now, I will review a few books. I just finished Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series. I’m currently reading The Hunting Wives by May Cobb, The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blue, and Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife by Martin Edwards.

So, if you’re on Goodreads or Fable, get in touch so we can share books. My handle is “forensicfarmgirl.” Stetson is my profile picture, because, duh, everybody notices a dog.