Review: The Mysteries by Lisa Tuttle
Title: The Mysteries
Author: Lisa Tuttle
Series: None
Rating: 4 Stars
464 pages
Published September 4th 2014 by Jo Fletcher Books
Review copy provided by the author
The Mysteries is The Cuckoo’s Calling with fae. It follows private investigator Ian, from his earliest encounter with a missing person in his childhood, to his latest disappearance case. There are several timelines in the book, criss-crossing, interspersed with short memoirs of historical people gone missing.
It took me a while to figure out what The Mysteries was about. It was rather, forgive me, mysterious. The fae aspect of the book doesn’t come to the foreground until relatively late, leaving the reader guessing and trying to form an image of the extent of supernatural-ness in the book. Often a lack of certainty is frustrating in a book, but the plot kept moving through the mystery/thriller conventions it relies on. A huge part of the book is a simple girl-gone-missing plot – until we find out that things aren’t adding up.
The Mysteries held me enthralled for its slightly hefty 450 pages. There just is a certain something so fascinating about the fey, a quality that has intrigued people for centuries. The Mysteries does an amazing job in balancing the unworldly aspect of the fae versus the view of a modern sceptic.
I had only one issue with The Mysteries – and that was that the resolution of the main storyline didn’t feel climactic enough. It was satisfying, but not epic or emotional enough for my liking. A mind-blowing ending would have carried The Mysteries into 5-star territory. As it is now, The Mysteries is the best fae-thriller mash-up I’ve ever seen.
It’s also the only fae-thriller mash-up I’ve ever seen. But shhhhh.
A blend of mystery, thriller and fantasy that will leave you looking over your shoulder.
Laura Lensky’s daughter, Peri, has been missing for two years. For the police it’s a closed case – she wanted to run away – but for her mother and boyfriend, Henry, it’s a different story. When Laura hires private investigator Ian Kennedy, it is a last-ditch attempt to find her daughter before she leaves for America. Drawn in by strange parallels to an obscure Celtic myth and his first, almost unexplainable case, Ian takes the job. But his beliefs are about to be stretched to their limit – there are darker and more devious forces at work here than any of them imagined.
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- Review: Lament by Maggie Stiefvater (3 Stars)
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- Review: Bellman and Black by Diana Setterfield (3 Stars)
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