LitPicks Book Reviews—February 2013

Theme—Mystery Meet What makes people do what they do: fall in and out of love, hurt those closest to them, even commit murder? And how is justice best served? These are some of the tough questions our three books ponder in this month's mystery meet.

Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn, 2012
432 pp.

Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February 2013
Gillian Flynn hit pay dirt with her third book, a disturbing yet devilishly clever novel that topped the best seller lists as soon as it reached bookstores. As of this writing Gone Girl remains at or near the top of every list—and for good reason. A mystery cum psychological thriller, Flynn ratchets up the suspense until the very last page.

Faithful Place
Tana French, 2010
435 pp.

Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February, 2013
James Joyce left Ireland in his 20s, never to live there again. Yet Ireland never left Joyce. One of his enduring themes was how the past entraps us, in particular the Irish—how it suspended them in a state of paralysis, unable to move forward.

Ireland's Tana French deals with much the same issue—just when they think they're safe, characters in all of her novels are pulled back into the tragic events of their youth.

And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie, 1939
320 pp.

Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February, 2013
Agatha Christie is the doyenne of murder mysteries—not because she was a prose stylist (she wasn't) nor because she was prolific (though she was). Her staying power is due to the sheer inventiveness of her stories and tight structure of her plots—plots that surprise, even though the clues have been there all along. For nearly a century, mystery writers have marveled at her technique.

Her classic And Then There Were None remains Christie's best selling novel—and the top-selling mystery of all time. It's a bone-chilling, deadly story.