Unusual cozy in some senses.

Motts is easily the amateur sleuth with the hardest task: she’s autistic, so talking to people - let alone possible suspects - gives her anxieties. Still, she tries her darndest and even manages to ruffle enough feathers that someone tries to run her off the road for being nosey.

Classic cozy in that sense.

It’s exhausting to be in Motts’ head for a length of time. But then, it’s exhausting to have an autistic head.

Yay for realism.

Motts has a terrific bunch of friends that come to her aid when her anxieties cause a melt down. Like all the time, and at their own initiative. Where does one find such friends? According to Vina, Motts is the only person that can’t see how terrific she is. Hmm. I don’t see it either. Not terrific enough to have three (later four) friends that are always there for her. Most friendships have some form of reciprocity in them. Not because friends are calculating, but because that is what distinguishes friends from first responders.

So, not so much realism on that front.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

A Dark Comedy Mystery it says on the cover. It's dark and though I laughed, I would not call this a comedy. It's a sad, sad tale of a man that has lost everything and more and more comes to realize that the serial killer everyone believes is dead, is not.

I liked the deadpan style of the narrator. And perhaps there are many comical situation, such as when Brosset has to attend a church service in a cop clown's suit and forgets that his mic is on, or Johnson's were washed up cops go to forget and be forgotten.

Well plotted and very entertaining.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as others I've read in the genre. Perhaps I've read too many in a short span of time. But also, some of the advice is kind of an open door:
- make lists of the tasks you like and the tasks you'd rather not do. See if you can get someone else to do the tasks you don't like.
- make a list of the skills you need to do the tasks you'd like to do. Develop those skills.

I guess some people are stuck in such a rut that they don't even see the obvious.

Some new concepts for me were SCARF threats -- Those are threats to your Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness -- and the Ladder of Inference, where a situation triggers one of your SCARF threats and you determine someone did that on purpose, dig your heels in and notice a pattern.

Some good advice on how to climb back down that ladder. It's better for the relationships you have at work.

A few days after I read the book I've forgotten what it was about for the most part. So very few concepts I wanted to put to practice immediately.

I read an ARC through NetGalley

Another lovely story from Portia MacIntosh.

Sadie has a horrible boss, that can't seem to be able to do anything for himself. She bonds with a coworker she's never met over post-it notes left in the drawer of the desk they share.

Then Sadie lands herself another job and the day she wants to hand in her notice, her boss invites himself to spend Christmas with her and her family. Would be totally weird (is probably totally weird), but Damian turns out to be a nicely adjusted human being, if he makes a bit of an effort.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

Gedegen betoog, goed onderzocht, maar ik heb weinig nieuwe inzichten opgedaan. Boek is uit 2012, mogelijk heeft alles inmiddels al in de krant gestaan.

Amazing story.

After finding out the truth about her husband, Tara runs away to a small Yorkshire town and sets up a new life for herself. A life she lets no one else into. Fourteen years later she finally decides to open up.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.

On Deadly Tide is a murder mystery where the murder investigation progresses slowly. Actually, the first half of the story is mostly about Penny’s budding romance and the death of a young journalist is mainly seen as tragic. Though there are some oddities.

Things change when Jessica’s mother Louise comes to Wales to see the place where her daughter died and to take her body home. When staying at the hotel where her daughter stayed Louise takes a near fatal overdose of sleeping pills. Adamant she did not take any sleeping pills herself, this convinces Penny - and local police - there might be more to Jessica’s death after all.

The culprit is pretty obvious and I was reading on to be proven wrong. I’m actually a bit disappointed that I wasn’t.

There are a few other things I’m a bit disappointed in. For instance: Louise describes her daughter was a very ethical journalist, but then she gives an example of a story her daughter has worked on about a politician taking bribes, that doesn’t quite make Jessica shine as an ethical journalist. Apparently, Jessica rang the politician the evening before the story ran in the newspaper “to prepare him”. That makes it sound like she has not tried to speak to him before on the topic of taking bribes. It’s a good journalistic practice to try to get all sides of the story, i.e. to talk to the politician well before the story is going to run so you can add his perspective in a side bar (or mention that the politician declined to comment).

And I can't quite believe

Spoiler

that if a corpse washes up on the Irish shore they don't check the tides and call Wales to ask if they got any missing persons on their end.

The story was well-written, but I’m quite certain that if I didn’t have an ARC that is only available for a limited time (so there was some pressure to finish it), I would have probably put this book aside at some point and forgotten to ever get back to it.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.