Category / 52/52

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Book 38 (of 52) – Desert Star

Desert Star – Michael Connelly

A year after quitting LAPD, Detective Renée Ballard was brought back to run a revamped cold case unit.  With a rag tag bunch of civilian volunteers, Ballard reaches out former detective Harry Bosch, using a case from his past as the bait.  Focusing on the death of a councilman’s sister as a teen, they get lucky with some DNA that would have been useless at the time, finding a match to another cold case.  Working the two, they are able to uncover a suspect, one close to their vest.  Meanwhile, Bosch works his own case, tracking his suspect down to Florida.

In the fifth entry of his Renée Ballard series, Desert Star, Michael Connelly continues to team her up with his old Harry Bosch character, first introduced in 1992’s The Black Echo.  At the end of this book, Connelly seems to indicate that Bosch is on his way out, but there is another entry in the Ballard series that he appears in and another mainline Bosch book due out later this year, so who knows what the future holds.  This book was the basis for the first season of the Ballard series on Amazon Prime, which I stopped watching after two episodes once I found out and will now pick back up.

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Book 37 (of 52) – Margo’s Got Money Troubles

Margo’s Got Money Troubles – Rufi Thorpe

When Margo, a young college student with no real plan for life, finds herself with child thanks to her English professor, she is unprepared for the realities of what keeping the child will mean.  After getting a small payoff from the father’s family in exchange for dropping out of school and leaving them alone, she finds that the only way for her to make ends meet is to start an OnlyFans page.  With the help of her roommate and her ex-wrestler junkie father, she starts to make things work, but a sudden custody battle and a separate CPS complaint by her estranged mother leaves her questioning her choices.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles, a 2024 Goodreads Choice nominee from Rufi Thorpe, first came to my attention earlier this year thanks to the Apple TV adaptation starring Elle Fanning.  It is an interesting tale, following the young protagonist and she struggles to find a place in the world and leaving her with a clear plan that should lead to future success.

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Book 36 (of 52) – A Box Full Of Darkness

A Box Full of Darkness – Simone St. James

Three siblings return to their childhood home to finally find out what happened to their younger brother, who mysteriously disappeared at age six and was never found.  As they encounter strange things in the long-abandoned house, they each realize that the secrets they kept as kids had been happening to all of them.  The more they learn about the past, the odder things seem, until only the most outrageous explanation remains: their brother was a ghost who had been killed years earlier in their home.

Simone St. James returns after a two-year absence with A Box Full of Darkness.  This time, she fully leans into the supernatural, with ghosts playing a central role in the plot.  One of these days, I will have to dive into her back catalog, as she’s quickly becoming a favorite and has yet to disappoint.

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Book 35 (of 52) – Trouble In Paradise

Trouble in Paradise – Elin Hilderbrand

With most of their assets seized by the FBI, the Steele family finds themselves scattered around St. John, trying to rebuild their lives.  After reading Rosie’s journals, Irene’s anger resurfaces and she leaves Huck, both the job on the boat and his house, moving in to Baker’s new villa.  When she runs into the mysterious Marilyn Monroe, she learns the truth about Todd Croft and how he used and trapped Russ as his fall guy, leading to his ultimate death.  After everyone reunites with their respective new loved ones, a hurricane hits the island and destroys nearly everything.

Troubles in Paradise, released in 2020, is the third and final entry in Elin Hilderbrand’s Paradise trilogy.  Well, I wouldn’t quite say that I got the satisfying resolution that I had hoped for, the series overall was a net positive.  This probably could have been trimmed down to two books, and the whole hurricane plot that wrapped up this one seemed oddly placed, though I understand the reason for doing so.  At least this once again has me thinking of vacations to the Virgin Islands, though that seems unlikely at this point.

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Book 34 (of 52) – This Is Me

This Is Me: A Reckoning – Hayden Panettiere

This Is Me: A Reckoning, the new memoir from Hayden Panettiere, covers the beginnings of her career as a child actor in New York, starting with commercials and soap operas before moving into movies and network television.  She also details her family dynamics and her on-again/off-again with Wladimir Klitschko, the father of her daughter, and how her addictions impacted the relationships between them all.  The book ends with the unfortunate death of her younger brother in 2023.

I first was introduced to Panettiere in 2001 when, at the age of 12, she joined the cast of Ally McBeal for its final season.  That role, surprisingly, did not get mentioned in the book at all.  From there, she would star on Heroes and Nashville on television and movies such as Scream 4 and I Love You, Beth Cooper.  I knew she had a relationship and a child with Klitschko, and that she had given up custody of their daughter to him, but not the details nor the depths of her addiction.  All told, this was an interesting look behind the curtains of her life, taking responsibility for some of the screwups she has made along the way.  Hopefully, as she approaches her forties, she’s able to maintain her family relationships and her career.

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Book 33 (of 52) – The Anniversary

The Anniversary – Alex Finlay

On May 1, 1992, two high school classmates in Nebraska, popular Jules and introverted Quinn, see their lives irrevocably changed, one via a sexual assault by a serial killer and the other through an unfortunate fight that lands him in juvie.  Over the next decade, their find themselves growing and, occasionally, reconnecting, as both deal with the repercussions stemming from the fateful night.  Eventually, they are brought together for good, which enables them both to put to rest the one thing that has haunted them both: her, the identity of her assaulter, known as the May Day Killer, and he, the secret of his mom’s “red flag file”, which he believes will reveal who was responsible for her death.  The only question is if they will both survive learning those answers.

Alex Finlay returns with The Anniversary, his sixth novel in the past six years.  He has become a steady, and enjoyable, presence on my bookshelf over that time.  This was a quick read, and the identity of the May Day Killer was rather predictable, but it was a fun ride while it lasted.  I’m sure he’ll be back with another good time next summer.

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Book 32 (of 52) – The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives

The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives – Elizabeth Arnott

In 1960s Los Angeles, three women, bound together by the heinous crimes committed by their husbands, try to do what the police will not: investigate a series of murders that they believe were committed by the same man.  Using their unique insights and access, they manage to uncover connections between the crimes and victims that the police and the press do not and manage to track down and identify the killer.  But can they stop him from turning on them?

The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives, the Good Morning America Book Club Pick for March of 2026, is the first novel from Elizabeth Arnott, at least under that name.  It is an interesting idea for a story, but the execution was a little spotty at times.  I’m sure it will have a decent adaptation from some streamer within the next five years or so.

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Book 31 (of 52) – The Future Saints

The Future Saints – Ashley Winstead

Theo Ford has his work cut out for him: finagle one final record from the Future Saints before the label can drop them.  He quickly learns, though, that the band is more than they seem at first glance.  Dealing with the tragic death of their former manager, and singer Hannah’s younger sister, their new songs are a departure, more personal and connecting more with their growing fans.  The higher their professional lives go, the lower Hannah goes, as she balances her grief with her growing attraction to this new man in her life.  Can they all get it together enough to get what they want, both professionally and personally?

The Future Saints, the latest from Ashley Winstead, is a big departure from my previous exposure to her work. Basically a workplace romance, the book brings you into the world of rock and roll, which I enjoy, and grief management.  I felt for the characters as they neared their end state, dealing with the issues that brought them together in the first place and looking at their unknown futures.  Winstead is now two-for-two with me, so I look forward to diving into her work again.

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Book 30 (of 52) – Mr. Monk Is Miserable

Mr. Monk Is Miserable – Lee Goldberg

On their way home from Germany, Natalie coerces Mr. Monk to stop in Paris for a real vacation.  When he finds a recently murdered skull in the famous catacombs, however, their vacation once again turns into a work trip.  When the skull is identified and tied back a crime in San Francisco, Captain Stottlemeyer and Lt. Disher join them in the city of lights, looking for the mysterious killer.

Mr. Monk Is Miserable is the seventh of 18 novels based on the USA Network dramedy that ran from 2002 to 2009 from series writer Lee Goldberg. This outing once again over exaggerates Monk’s reactions everyday occurrences way beyond what would be seen in the show and again adds in a pair of local Parisian detectives who are thinly veined copies of Stottlemeyer and Disher, but also eventually brings in the real deal, which helped this outing feel like a closer fir with the television series. I’ve got eleven more of these books waiting for me, so hopefully this upward trend continues.

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Book 29 (of 52) – Girl, Forgotten

Girl, Forgotten – Karin Slaughter

Andrea Oliver, fresh out of training to be a US Marshall, finds herself with an unusual assignment: protecting a federal judge while secretly investigating the 40-year-old death of the judge’s daughter, with her imprisoned father as the chief suspect.  With her new partner kept in the dark, Andrea tries to straddle the two tasks, but everyone and everything seems to conspire to bring the two together. Once she learns the truth about who is threatening the judge, the pieces of the other case fall into place.

In her follow-up to 2018’s Pieces of Her, Karin Slaughter picks back up the story of Andrea Oliver, now a newly minted US Marshall, in Girl, Forgotten.  It was interesting to revisit this character as she tries to find her place in the world following the events of the first book.  I’m not sure if there is more coming or if this was the end of the line, but Slaughter never disappoints and she’s sure to be back on my Kindle sooner rather than later.