Yzabel

[I read this book through Pigeonhole.]

It's the first time I read a mystery by this author, and I had no idea what to expect, but the setting (a book store, its owner as the narrator, and the whole "list of mystery books prompting murders" blog post) appealed to my inner bookworm, so here I am.

In general, I really liked it—I'm glad I started it slightly late, since that meant being able to read more than one stave a day. It had a lot of characters with uncertain motives, dark areas, and overall suspicious traits that kept me guessing throughout the whole story. Is Malcolm the murdered? Is the list a coincidence? Is someone trying to frame him? What are the FBI agent's actual motives? And so on. I did end up guessing who the murderer was, but only a few page before the reveal, so I almost didn't see it coming at all, and that's pretty good.

I'm not sure I really liked the ending. It made sense, but it felt slightly... low-key, compared to the rest? I don't know. I'm not sure what else I would've expected here anyway.

A warning: while the books in Malcolm's list are old enough now that many people have read them, the way the narrator tells about them is still liable to spoil them if you haven't (it was my case for a couple, but I trust my memory to forget about the spoilers at some point, and then I can read the books, haha).

Conclusion: 3.5/4 stars.