Tricks of Fortune is the second Katie True cozy mystery by Lina Chern. Released 1st July 2025 by Penguin Random House on their Bantam imprint, it's 352 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.
According to the author's afterword, this is a *very* fictionalized story based on a real life true-crime case (with local repercussions and with which most readers won't be familiar). At any rate, it's a well constructed mystery, slightly more gritty than the average true small-town cozy, but not too much for the genre. Violence occurs mostly off-page and the language is moderately rough with scattered uses of the "f-bomb" but again, nothing too egregious.
It's not derivative at all, but fans of Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich will probably like this series too.
Four stars. It would be a good choice for public library acquisition, home use, or possibly a binge/buddy read.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment