Month: July 2026

Book Review: Dead Men Don’t Play Fetch

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Dead Men Don’t Play Fetch
Andy Carpenter #33
by David Rosenfelt
read by Grover Gardner

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Mystery

Though Andy Carpenter dreams of one day removing the “semi” from his semi-retirement from his defense attorney career, he’s not as reluctant as usual to take on a new client when the favor is asked by a man that runs a rehab center and is viewed by all who know him as a lifesaver.

Rosenfelt hasn’t lost his touch 33 books into the series, as Andy is in prime sarcastic, mocking form in this story, and I loved every moment of it. Most of Andy’s team is as enjoyable as I’ve come to expect, though some are absent/extra quiet in this particular book. Since the team is a large part of what makes this series so fun, I’m starting to realize that Andy’s current 2nd-chair lawyer, Eddie Dowd, has almost no purpose. Andy’s always had an underling lawyer on this team who always had his own quirks, and when Hike left and Eddie joined up, I think that spot on the team mostly died. Not a big deal, just an observation I made.

My main gripe with the book, which is not uncommon for me as I listen to this series, is that I lost track of who some of the characters were. When the main culprit was revealed, my mind was completely blank on who that even was for a while, which is obviously not a moment you want that to happen. I don’t know if it would have been better if I’d been reading, rather than listening (and if so, that probably just means that my mind wandered, as it sometimes does when I’m listening to audiobooks, at just the right moments for this person to leave that blank spot). Still, the book was a lot of fun to listen to, and Grover Gardner continues to portray Andy perfectly. If it’s not clear, I recommend this book (especially the audio) for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, as well as the books that precede it in the series.

Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Publication date: July 7, 2026

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June in Review

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I read 16 books last month, which, frankly, is insane for June for me, especially this June. Our church’s Vacation Bible School, for which I’m a co-director, is in June, and that’s always a super busy time, not just that week but leading up to it. Plus my family went on a camping trip for a weekend, and though I read a little, it wasn’t much. Even with my recent uptick in audiobook listening time, I’m really surprised by this amount. It was my 2nd-highest monthly book count for the year, and near my all-time record for page count.

Another interesting thing about my June reading is that more of the books were re-reads than I’ve ever done in a month. That was incredibly helpful in keeping me from getting way behind on my review writing, which I definitely would have done, though that’s not the reason I chose so many re-reads. It was various different reasons that all conglomerated in one convenient month.

Here are the books I read in June:

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (5 / 5)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (4 / 5)
The Man on the Bench by Hy Conrad (3 / 5)
The Rags of Time by Peter Grainger (3.5 / 5)
The Secret Winners Club by Donna Galanti (2.5 / 5)
The Raven by Mike Nappa (5 / 5)
Daican’s Heir by Jaye L. Knight (4 / 5)
Beatrice and the Basilisk by Bruce McCandless III (3.5 / 5)
A Lady’s Guide to Marvels and Misadventure by Angela Bell (5 / 5)
The Oath by Frank E. Peretti (5 / 5)
Mandie and the Medicine Man by Lois Gladys Leppard (3.5 / 5)
Night Terror by Vincent Ralph (2 / 5)
The Librarians and The Lost Lamp by Greg Cox (4 / 5)
The Hot Marble by Rosemary B. Althoff (2 / 5)
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (4.5 / 5)
Murdle, Jr.: Sleuths on the Loose by G.T. Karber & Chris Grabenstein (4 / 5)

This list includes 2 ARCs and 8 re-reads. My favorite book from June was The Oath (yes, it was a re-read, but since it was my first time listening to the audiobook of my long-time favorite book, I’m counting it). I started 2 series, continued 4 series, and finished 1 series. My ever-changing short list of to-be-reads, as well as a flag for the book I’m currently reading and an ongoing list of those I’ve read and posted about can be found here.

I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads. Despite my almost too-long TBR list, I’m always looking for more to add. Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites or just recent reads you enjoyed.

Book Review: Murdle, Jr.: Sleuths on the Loose

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Murdle, Jr.: Sleuths on the Loose
by G.T. Karber & Chris Grabenstein

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade mystery

Jake is a junior detective who learned everything she knows from the great Deductive Logico (of Murdle fame) himself. When a teacher at her school goes missing, after Jake watched a scuffle between that teacher and an unknown person, Jake, her sidekick Sterling, and school bully Brick sniff around for clues and use logic to try to find the teacher.

Murdle is a daily online logic puzzle, which several printed books also full of logic puzzles. For those that know it, they know that the suspects all have color-based names (Miss Saffron, Sister Lapis, Major Red, etc.) and that each puzzle boils down to figuring out who committed a murder, with which weapon, and in what location. I have to admit that that doesn’t necessarily translate very well to the real world, but Grabenstein does a great job with it anyway. I don’t know what leads Jake to assume that only one weapon could have been present in each of the four possible locations that the suspects were in, but other than that, the story flows decently well. Jake, Sterling, and Brick are are a fun trio of characters, even if they are fairly stereotypical in their individual archetypes. There are several funny moments and jokes in the book, including one related to Sterling’s name, which may have been the entire reason he was given that name in the first place. The book pauses shortly before the resolution, giving the reader a chance to think through what they’ve read so far and see if they can solve the mystery themselves. I kind of wish that, instead of the deduction grid being filled in by Jake along the way, the reader had been given a blank grid and instructed to fill it in for him/herself along the way. But the mystery was more involved than the basic “4 suspects, 4 weapons, 4 locations” it’s set up to be, and I was really glad for that extra depth. I did follow the clues to the right answer, which I’m sure some kids would be able to do as well, just as I’m sure that many will miss some of them. Overall, this is a fun adventure for kids aged 10-14 to enjoy.

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Book Review: The Hot Marble

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The Hot Marble
by Rosemary B. Althoff

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Christian sci-fi

When 10-year-old Patrick and his 8-year-old sister Gracie watch something fall from the sky and find a hot marble. Patrick asks his physicist brother Lewis to analyze the otherworldly marble, and that leads to all three siblings, plus Lewis’s engineer friend Fred to another world. Lanthra has two moons, a near-total ban on electricity, and heavy conflict between two sides—those who follow Earth’s Jesus and those who follow earthly demons.

I was intrigued by the melding of sci-fi and Christianity when I decided to read this book. The author does have some interesting ideas here, particularly on the sci-fi side of things. The ban on electricity and also on traveling to Earth makes this a medieval-type world, but with pockets of technology that come across like magic. But the Christianity side is underwhelming, if not downright confusing at times. First and foremost, the theology of creation, the fall, and the redemption provided through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is questionable here. God created the entire universe, and when Adam and Eve sinned, the entirety of the creation was cursed. This means there can’t be planets out there with people who are not under the curse, but that is what Althoff is presenting here. The people of Lanthra have observed Earth enough to know about the curse (which they say affects only people from Earth, though I guess it can spread to people of Lanthra via demons that travel there?) and the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I guess all of this means that people of Lanthra aren’t under the curse of sin (not that they refer to sin or even creation or the fall at all, just a vague curse), so it really don’t matter if they worship Jesus or not, though it still seems to be a bad thing that some worship Satan/demons. Beyond that, one character from Lanthra seems to be a sort of prophet, in direct communication with God in some form. And characters are said to have inner “dragons” that could be seen to simply be their consciences or inner desires, but one character’s inner dragon talks to him? And it’s all presented as if this is some well-known concept that shouldn’t seem unusual to the reader, but I was really lost.

I understand that, even when a book is written with a Christian worldview, unbelievers will have sinful, fallen natures. Fred and Lewis want nothing to do with Christianity, and their character arcs seem to be the driving force behind the religious aspects in this book. But Fred, in particular, made me really uncomfortable ogling women all the time. And there was a line that really stood out to me as a red flag, which involved one character telling Fred that the “Master” wants to enjoy various things about him, including his “taste for busty women.” Um…no…just no.

There truly are some great allegorical moments in this book, and I think I can see what the author was going for. But in the end, I think there was too much going on in too many different directions for me to be able to pick out one cohesive story to enjoy. And the book ends on a cliffhanger that I was fortunately able to see coming. As for recommendations, the book is marketed, at least on Amazon, in teen and children’s categories, but I would not recommend it to those ages at all. All 4 of the characters mentioned in the synopsis have POV sections, but he older brother and his friend are in their 30s, and they are larger characters than the 10- and 8-year-old. There’s also a fair amount of language in the book. (In fact, now that I think about it more, it bugs me A LOT that this book is listed in the categories of “Children’s Action & Adventure Sci-Fi Books” and “Children’s Science Fiction Books” on Amazon with the amount of language and discussion of women’s bosoms that is included in it!) If you’re interested in the premise of spiritual warfare crossed with physics and aren’t bothered by the issues I had with it, you might be interested in this book.

I received a copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review.

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