Reading Recommendations from Just Desserts members – February 2020 + a recipe!

Saturday, 29 February 2020 15:45

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At the February 27^th, 2020 meeting of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group, following the discussion of the assigned topic of the month – Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery – we held our monthly “round robin”, in which all 19 attendees were able to share recommendations of what other books they’ve been reading, listening to or viewing recently.

Here’s the list of mystery, thriller and suspense books recommended by Just Desserts members in February 2020:

• The movie Knives Out (now out on DVD) from director Rian Johnson
• True Fiction by Lee Goldberg
• The Big Kahuna (on CD) by Janet Evanovich and Peter Evanovich
• The Darkness, The Island, Blackout and Rapture, all by Ragnar Jonasson
• The Rabbit Hunter by Lars Kepler
• A Small Town by Thomas Perry
• A Colder War and The Moroccan Girl by Charles Cumming
• The Prisoner in the Castle by Susan Elia MacNeal  – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Girl Last Seen by Nina Laurin (didn’t like)
• The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
• November Road by Lou Berney
• Heat of the Sun (on DVD from PBS’ “Mystery” series on TV
• The Cat Who Wasn’t There and The Cat Who Went Underground (both as audiobooks) by Lillian Jackson Braun – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Front Runner by Felix Francis – past author selection for Just Desserts
• The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart – past author selection for Just Desserts
• The House of Silk (as an audiobook) by Anthony Horowitz
• Love and Death Among the Cheetahs by Rhys Bowen
• A Better Man, How the Light Gets In and The Long Way Home by Louise Penny – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Museum of Desire by Jonathan Kellerman – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay
• A Dream of Death by Connie Berry
• Distress Signals by Catherine Ryan Howard
• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger – past author selection for Just Desserts
• The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg
• Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
• The New Girl by Daniel Silva – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Venice Noir edited by Maxim Jakubowski
• The Heart of Barkness (both in print and audiobook) by Spencer Quinn – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Beating About the Bush by M.C. Beaton – past author selection for Just Desserts

And here were some non-mystery titles some group members also recommended in February 2020:

• Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• The Great Alone, The Nightingale and Winter Garden, all by Kristin Hannah
• Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?

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Added bonus: The Just Desserts book discussion group also involves sharing desserts during our discussions, and sometimes the attendees want to get recipes for some of the homemade treats. That happened with the following recipe from our February meeting:

PB Fritos: A No-Bake Treat — from Christy A.

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1 bag of Fritos corn chips (Fritos Scoops will work as well) – 18-oz or smaller

Instructions:

Spread the bag of Fritos corn chips in a greased 15″ by 10″ by 1″ baking dish.

Combine the syrup and sugar in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil for one minute over medium heat, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat, and stir in peanut butter until smooth.

Pour liquid mixture over bag of Fritos, stirring to evenly coat as much of the Fritos as you can, and let cool. Slice into individual portions or just break up into chunks for serving.