Category / 52/52

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Book 28 (of 52) – Anatomy Of An Alibi

Ashley Elston – Anatomy of an Alibi

When two women switch identities for a day, they think they are giving each other cover as they try to learn what role the one’s husband played in the death of the other’s parents.  But when the husband turns up dead the following morning, their original plan is thrown for the loop.  With the help of a friendly lawyer and a criminal enforcer, both women try to protect their own interests while staying a step ahead of the police, who may know more than they are letting on.

Anatomy of an Alibi is the second adult novel from Ashley Elston. While I did enjoy this, I did find myself a little confused when the twist came up at the end as I didn’t remember which character’s name showed up as the ultimate antagonist.  Hopefully we will see more from Elston going forward.

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Book 27 (of 52) – The Case of the Careless Kitten

The Case of the Careless Kitten – Erle Stanley Gardner

When a mysterious phone call leads Helen Kendal to believe her long-missing uncle is ready to make his return, Perry Mason finds himself caught up in multiple mysteries, including what happened to the missing uncle, who shot Helen’s boyfriend, who poisoned Helen’s aunt and cat, and how does the whole thing tie together.  When Hamilton Burger assumes Mason has stashed the missing uncle out of sight and charges Della with obstruction, it forces Perry to put the puzzle together to prove Della’s innocence.

Originally published in 1942, The Case of the Careless Kitten is 21st entry in Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series.  This case, though heavily modified, was featured as the 24th episode of season eight in the Raymond Burr version of the show in 1965.  Since this is a little further along in the series, the characters align more closely with those we are familiar with from television compared to the earlier entries.  This was the final book I managed to snag during a New Year’s sale in the Kindle store, so it may be some time before I am able to return to Gardner’s oeuvre.

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Book 26 (of 52) – The Grave Artist

The Grave Artist – Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado

When their sophisticated AI identifies that a death at a wedding ruled accidental may in fact be a homicide, HSI agent Carmer Sanchez and her civilian partner Jake Heron find themselves on the trail of a potential serial killer.  While they track down the killer, Sanchez’s sister digs deeper into their father’s murder.  When the two cases intertwine, Sanchez and Huron have to hurry to stop the killer before his next victim hits too close to home.

Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado return for The Grave Artist, the second entry in their Sanchez & Heron series.  The tale once again includes plenty of twists and turns, including the introduction of a blatantly incompetent new temporary boss who hopefully will not be heard from again.  The ending set this group up as an ongoing concern in-universe, so I expect we will be seeing a new entry sooner rather than later.

 

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Book 25 (of 52) – This Story Might Save Your Life

This Story Might Save Your Life – Tiffany Crum

When his best friend and podcasting partner goes missing with her husband, Benny starts looking for clues in their shared drives and past episodes.  When the husband is found dead, the police, and the media, turn their attention towards Benny.  After he is arrested for assault and hiding evidence, he learns that his friend is alive and in hiding.  Once they are reunited, the husband’s death is ruled an accident, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Tiffany Crum’s debut novel, This Story Might Save Your Life, mixes mystery and romance.  I seem to be a sucker for mysteries and thrillers with a podcast, so this was right up my alley.  I look forward to what else she has up her sleeve.

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Book 24 (of 52) – Nuclear War

Nuclear War: A Scenario – Annie Jacobsen

In Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen posits how a nuclear attack on the United States by a rogue nation might play out, requiring a response that draws in other countries until over half of the planet’s population is killed and most of its landmass is left uninhabitable in less than 24 hours.  It is based on interviews with the scientists and policy makers that have insider knowledge of the protocols in place, both here and abroad, and is frightening on how precarious peace and survival is.  An interesting, if downright terrifying, read, especially given some of the current players who have their fingers on the proverbial triggers.

 

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Book 23 (of 52) – The First Time I Saw Him

The First Time I Saw Him – Laura Dave

Five years after her husband disappeared, Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter, Bailey, have acclimated to their new normal.  When Bailey’s grandfather Nicholas is reported to have died, though, they quickly find themselves back in danger and on the run once again.  Thanks to mysterious messages Hannah has received from her missing husband, they head to France, where a surprise reunion leads them to a final gambit to ensure their safety and freedom forever.

Laura Dave returns with The First Time I Saw Him, a sequel to 2021’s best-selling The Last Thing He Told Me.  I don’t know that a sequel was narratively needed, but I suppose its success, both in book-form and on Apple TV, meant one was inevitable.  It was an enjoyable, if somewhat predictable, tale and a good ending for these characters.  I look forward to her next original work and seeing where that takes us.

 

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Book 22 (of 52) – I Want My MTV

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution – Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks

From its inauspicious beginnings, starting with an August 1, 1981 launch that was available in less than a million households, to the end of its golden age with the launch of The Real World in 1992, MTV revitalized and revolutionized the music industry.  In I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, authors Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks tell the story, using the words and memories of the people who were there, from the executives and kids running the network to the bands and the neophyte directors hired to take advantage of this new format.  The more successful MTV became, the more money started to take over, which led to its eventual downfall as a place to hear music and a driver of that part of pop culture.

It would be extremely difficult to explain the power MTV had in the 1980s and early 1990s to someone today who didn’t experience it firsthand.  First, popular culture is so fragmented and self-service now that just the experience of having someone pick what videos you were going to see, whatever the genre, seems strange.  Secondly, MTV, as it exists today, has nowhere near the cultural clout that it did at the time.  I’m sure they are still making money hand over fist, but they traded their cultural cache to get it.  Maybe the rise of the internet would have forced the issue either way, but a touchpoint for the majority of Generation X died with the end of “our” MTV.

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Book 21 (of 52) – Another Thing To Fall

Another Thing To Fall – Laura Lippman

When Tess literally rows into a television production, she finds herself with a new job: protecting/babysitting the show’s starlet.  As the production continually runs into increasingly elaborate pranks that threaten to derail the show’s future, Tess starts investigating, starting with her charge.  When those mishaps escalate to murder, she starts to make some headway, she needs to track down the clues that will lead her to the culprit before the whole production is shut down and Hollywood leaves Baltimore behind.

In Another Thing to Fall, the tenth entry in Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series, the action gets a little meta, as Lippman was married at the time to David Simon, the man behind the Baltimore-set HBO hit The Wire.  With only two more entries to go in the series, we are nearing the end and I should wrap things up later this year.

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Book 20 (of 52) – Chili Dog MVP

Chili Dog MVP: Dick Allen, The ’72 White Sox and a Transforming Chicago – John Owens and David J. Fletcher

The early 70s were a time of change on the south side of Chicago.  As the ballclub that called Comiskey Park home recovered from the then-worst season in franchise history in 1970 and threats to move the club out of the city they’d called home for seven decades, the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods started to shift and noted White Sox fan Richard J. Daley, longtime mayor of the city, started to lose his vice-like grip on the Democratic party.  Those changes crystalized in 1972, with the arrival of Dick Allen, a baseball superstar whose reputation was perhaps less than stellar.  But, taking a young ballclub under his wing, he led the upstart White Sox to their best season in five years, challenging the budding dynasty in Oakland for the AL West title.

Chili Dog MVP: Dick Allen, The ’72 White Sox and a Transforming Chicago, by authors John Owens and David J. Fletcher and editor George Castle, tells the tale of that 1972 White Sox team, while also touching on the things going on around it, both physically and temporally.  They cover the ownership transfers from Arthur Allyn to his brother John in 1970 and then again to Bill Veeck in 1975.  The interconnected revival of Harry Caray’s career announcing for the White Sox with the rise of young organist Nancy Faust, who would spend 40 years with the franchise.  The arrival of Roland Hemond and Chuck Tanner in late 1970, who helped turn the franchise around and were instrumental in the acquisition of Allen and convincing him to come play in Chicago.  And, of course, the career of Dick Allen, especially his three years in Chicago, from the promising beginning to the bitter end, when he quit on the team and temporarily retired towards the end of the 1974 season.

The 1972 White Sox were just a little before my time, so this was a nice glimpse into the franchise just a few years before I was born.  If I have one complaint about its composition, it is that it is treated, and edited, more a collection of one-off essays rather than as a comprehensive story, so details and characters are re-introduced and re-described numerous times.  That small change could have streamlined the tale and probably cut a good ten pages or so from the tome.

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Book 19 (of 52) – The Widow

The Widow – John Grisham

A small-town lawyer in Virgina thinks he has hit the jackpot: a rich client with no family looking to prepare a will.  When she then dies suddenly, an autopsy shows she was poisoned and that will, which looked like a godsend to the financially struggling lawyer, now acts as a motive for murder.  When he is convicted of the crime despite a distinct lack of non-circumstantial evidence, he goes on the offensive, looking for the real killer before he reports to prison.

The Widow, the latest from John Grisham, was a 2025 nominee for Favorite Mystery & Thriller in the Goodreads Choice awards.  This was a small change of pace from Grisham, adding a who-done-it mystery to his usual legal thriller genre.  I’ve been reading Grisham’s work for well over 30 years now, albeit with a few fallow years along the way, so a little variety in approach is not a bad thing.