Well, it looks like we’re into summer weather, and I know Kevin Tipple is. He’s in Texas. I like it hot, just not humid. I guess we don’t really have much of a choice. Take care of yourselves, no matter what your weather!
I’m ready to talk about what we’re all reading this week. I’m reading a galley of a book that doesn’t come out until September, but I’m really enjoying it. And, some of you might want to watch for it. I’ll remind you in the Treasures in My Closet post next month, and again when I review it in September. You’ll like it if you were a fan of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. I actually preferred her over Hercule Poirot. Marple is a collection of twelve new mysteries featuring Miss Marple, written by some well-known female mystery authors such as Val McDermid, Lucy Foley, Alyssa Cole, and Elly Griffiths. I’m two-thirds of the way through the book, and my favorite so far has been “Miss Marple’s Christmas” by Ruth Ware. Some of the authors took Miss Marple to New York City, or set the story in the 1960s or ’70s. I prefer a more traditional story and setting. Ware’s story felt as if it could have been written by Agatha Christie, set in a typical English Christmas at a house where a number of people had gathered for the holiday, including Miss Marple.
So, what about you? What have you been reading this past week? Tell us, please.
I’ll look forward that that book. I had to enter the full title “Marple: Twelve New Mysteries” to locate it in the library catalog. Beautiful weather here, sunny with a few high clouds and never humid. Perfect for breakfast in the garden.
Two great reads for me this week:
LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, a wonderful debut by Bonnie Garmus
Set in the 1960’s, Elizabeth Zott, a no-nonsense and determined chemist is fired from a research lab because (so they said) she was pregnant and unwed. Through an unexpected series of circumstances, Elizabeth ends up hosting the local cooking show “Supper at Six,” where she focuses on the science of cooking. But the book is so much more than the plot; the dialog is wonderful and the characters sparkle.
The book was just released, but Margie Bunting spotted it early and had as her number one recommendation last year.
THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES by award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak.
The novel starts is 1974 on the island of Cyprus and continues on to London decades later. It is about belonging, relocation, love and transgenerational memory, all witnessed and narrated by a fig tree. Sounds odd, but amazingly it works and is beautifully written.
“Human-time is linear. Arboreal-time is equivalent to story-time, it bends & twists throwing out branches of wonder and arcs of invention”
And the downside to reading such good books, the next selection went back to the library unfinished!
Oh, that is the downside, isn’t it, MM? It’s so hard to get into the next book after reading such wonderful ones. I just added Lessons in Chemistry to my holds list at the library.
I’m currently working on TUESDAY NIGHT SURVIVORS’ CLUB by Lynn Cahoon. I’m about a third of the way into it, and enjoying it.
I hope your week is going okay, Mark. I know it’s the end of the quarter/fiscal year/something. Stay sane!
End of quarter. Because of the Queen’s platinum jubilee, the UK offices are closed today and tomorrow, which means we actually have an extra day to get stuff done, which is wonderful. However, we’ll pay for it next week when we have less time to do our extra end of quarter reporting.
I knew you were winding something up this week, Mark. Good luck!
We had a heavy thunderstorm last night and the highway near us flooded. Fortunately we’re higher up and didn’t have any problem. Hopefully today’s weather will be dry.
I read DEATH BY WINDMILL by Jennifer S Alderson. A member of a tourist group in The Netherlands is killed when she falls from a windmill. I liked the characters but it was too easy to figure out who done it and why.
MCBAIN DUET by Ed MCBAIN. A book of two non 87th Precinct novellas. Definitely a read once book.
An ARC of MRS CLAUSE AND THE EVIL ELVES by Liz Ireland. Murder, mayhem and a reindeer strike at the North Pole the week before Christmas.
I have Liz Ireland’s book on my TBR pile, too, Sandy. Thank you! Stay safe!
Mornin’ Thursday at Lesa’s Peeps!
My most recent read was an ARC of Laurie King’s Back to the Garden.
“A fifty-year-old cold case involving California royalty comes back to life—with potentially fatal consequences—in this gripping standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series.
A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colorful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a twentieth-century Eden.
And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its art digs up a grim relic of the home’s past: a human skull, hidden away for decades.
Inspector Raquel Laing has her work cut out for her. Fifty years ago, the Estate’s young heir, Rob Gardener, turned his palatial home into a counterculture commune of peace, love, and equality. But that was also a time when serial killers preyed on innocents—monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just surged back into the public eye.
Could the skull belong to one of his victims?
To Raquel—a woman who knows all about colorful pasts—the bones clearly seem linked to The Highwayman. But as she dives into the Estate’s archives to look for signs of his presence, what she unearths begins to take on a dark reality all of its own.
Everything she finds keeps bringing her back to Rob Gardener himself. While he might be a gray-haired recluse now, back then he was a troubled young Vietnam vet whose girlfriend vanished after a midsummer festival at the Estate.
But a lot of people seem to have disappeared from the Gardener Estate that summer when the commune mysteriously fell apart: a young woman, her child, and Rob’s brother, Fort.
The pressure is on, and Raquel needs to solve this case—before The Highwayman slips away, or another Gardener vanishes.”
While i do enjoy some of Ms. King’s Mary Russell series, i have also put some of them aside without finishing them. I do, however, enjoy her stand-alones. Folly remains one of my very favorite books ever.
I enjoyed the characters in Back to the Garden, especially the interestingly flawed Raquel.
Thank you, Kaye! I may have to try Back to the Garden. I love cold cases!
Jealous of your ARC! I’m waiting for Back To The Garden, I think Laurie King is a wonderful storyteller. Locked Rooms was probably my favorite. Mary Russell in San Francisco, Dashiell Hammett and the 1906 earthquake.
Interesting. We’ve been watching the Joan Hickson Marple series on Britbox, one each Saturday. To me, she was the perfect Marple. Some good authors there, so I might read the book.
Weather has been weird. On Monday it was a near record 93, while yesterday it barely got out of the 60s all day. Needless to say (probably), but I prefer the latter
Books. Jackie finished her Keri Arthur book and is reading the latest J. R> Ward Brotherhood book, LOVER UNVEILED.
Anne Hillerman, THE SACRED BRIDGE. This one starts out much more of a Jim Chee book than Bernie Manuelito, though the balance shifts as the book goes on. I don’t like how she always seems to find herself in a “Had I But Known” situation, though this time it isn’t totally her fault, and Chee comes close to being caught that way himself. Totally separate cases, with Chee in the Lake Powell area near the famous Rainbow Bridge. Joe Leaphorn is referred to, but absent. Good book.
DRIVING TO GERONIMO’S GRAVE and Other Stories by Joe R. Lansdale came out in 2018, but somehow I missed it. Lots of good reading as always, with the title story being the highlight for me. IN the Depression, a woman sends her teenage son to pick up an uncle’s dead body in Oklahoma and bring it back to Texas for burial, and his feisty, hilarious 12 year old sister goes along for the ride. Good thing she does, as they meet trouble and adventures along the way. Great stuff.
Jeffrey Siger, ONE LAST CHANCE. The latest in his terrific Greek series is different from the usual pattern, as Andreas Kaldis stays mostly at home in Athens while his assistant Maggie takes center stage. Her 104 year old yaya dies suddenly on Ikaria (supposedly the island was named for Icarus), an island full of 90 and 100 year olds. But she is only one of several very senior citizens who have seemingly died suddenly for no apparent reason, several with IV marks in their arms. It’s a complicated and nasty tale, with Andreas’s right hand man Yianni helping on the ground, before the satisfactory solution. Learning about the different islands is always a high point in this series, and I knew nothing about Ikaria before this.
Besides the Lansdale, I am reading three other short story collections, including the previously mentioned Bill Pronzini. The others are Amy Bloom’s COME TO ME, her first, published in 1993, and a new Edward D> Hoch collection (from Crippen & Landru), CONSTANT HEARSES and Other Revolutionary Mysteries. The majority here are about Alexander Swift, who assisted George Washington during the Revolution and helped trap Benedict Arnold.
I’m also reading a couple of essay/memoir collections, which I will talk about when I finish them. The first was recommended somewhere and it appealed to me, so I borrowed it and I’m enjoying it quite a bit,. This is BOMB SHELTER: LOVE, TIME, AND OTHER EXPLOSIVES by Mary Laura Philpott. It opens with her discovering her 15 year old son having a seizure on the bathroom floor at 3 am, which turns out to be a form of epilepsy. I doubt you’ll be able to stop reading after that opening.
Baseball fans (and New Yorker readers) are probably aware of the recent death of writer Roger Angell at 101. He was a terrific baseball writer, the son of Katherine White and stepson of E. B. White, who he followed at the magazine. I’ve read several of his books before but just discovered an episodic memoir he wrote in his 80s called LET ME FINISH. Whether it is about driving cross country with his father in the Depression, his time away at school, or skipping school to go to the movies on 86th Street in Manhattan, he paints a vivid picture of a bygone age that will draw you in. Definitely recommended.
Not sure what I will be reading next, but I started one mystery. I got the third Hayley Chill (former White House aide and secret “deep state” operative) book, STORM RISING from , only to discover there was a 150 page novella about Chill written first. But I was not enjoying that one at all, so decided to skip it and read this one first. Too soon to tell, but if it is anything like the first two (DEEP STATE and SAVAGE ROAD, it will be a fast moving thriller.
Hope everyone has a safe and healthy week. Jackie’s first cataract operation went very well last week (she says she is seeing “High-D” now) and the second one is next Tuesday.
I really liked some of the stories in Marple, Jeff. Several, not so much. The ones that took Miss Marple out of her element – really? Off-Broadway in the 1970s?, just didn’t work for me.
I love Jeff Siger’s books, the settings & the cast of characters. And, it was time Maggie had her own book.
Good luck to Jackie for the second operation! I hope it goes as well as the first one.
Let Me Finish sounds very interesting Jeff. I’m also about to look up the Jeffrey Siger series, it’s not one I am familar with.
Only two books this week. Crazy to Leave You by Marilyn Simon Rothsein from Kindle Unlimited. Forty-one year old Lauren Leo is jilted at the altar. She then has to pick up the pieces of her life and move on. Although it doesn’t sound like it, this was funny and honest about relationships between sisters.
Next I Read The Marlowe Murder Club bt Robert Thorogood. I didn’t find it quite as good as the Richard Osman books but I liked Judith and the crossword puzzle aspect.
We are getting a little respite from the nearly 90° heat in Cincinnati today after a night of rain but it will be climbing again for the weekend.
Happy Reading!
I liked The Marlow Murder Club, but you’re right, Sharon. Not quite as good as Richard Osman’s books.
PS – I should have mentioned Chris Hauty is the author of the Hayley Chill books.
Good morning.
This week I listened to Recovery Agent by Janet Evanovich. I wasn’t “feeling “this one. It is a cross between Romancing the Stone and Raiders of the Lost Ark. An interesting premise but it just did not work for me. I listened to about 60% of it and realized that my mind was wandering. I was just continuing with it so I could finish it. I didn’t care what happened to the characters or how it would end. At that point, I decided that it was time to move on. I moved on to a Peculiar Combination by Ashley Weaver. This is an historical mystery set in England during WWII. Electra McDonald is a safe cracker turned spy. An interesting start to a new series.
I just finished reading The Homewreckers by Mary Kay Andrews. Summer does not begin until you have read the newest Mary Kay Andrews book. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it. My next read will be The Good Left Undone: A Novel by Adriana Trigiani. I am looking forward to this one. She is a favorite author of mine.
Wishing you all a wonderful week.
Good morning, Kathleen! I don’t blame you at all for moving on when Recovery Agent wasn’t working for you. It must have been time.
I understand John Searles gave The Homewreckers a good plug on The Today Show yesterday. Her books are always so much fun. The Adriana Trigiani is still on my TBR pile, although my mother liked it.
Have a good week!
Good morning, everyone! It was an interesting week of reading. Here are the (long, as usual) highlights.
Jennifer Weiner’s newest release, THE SUMMER PLACE, is a family drama set on Cape Cod in the days leading up to a wedding. But all is definitely not well. It seems that just about every family unit that is part of the larger extended family has sordid secrets, huge communication gaps, sexual misbehavior, poor decision-making, profound regret or disappointment, and everything else that is normally present in a potboiler. I find Weiner’s recent books easy reads and full of detail, but lacking in likable characters. There is some redemption as the novel ends, but it doesn’t make up for all of the turmoil.
I agree with the blurb that Trish Esden’s debut mystery, THE ART OF THE DECOY, is “perfect for fans of Jane K. Cleland and Connie Berry.” I’m an enthusiastic fan of both, and I definitely see the similarities. Edie and her mother were often at odds about running the family antiques business in Vermont, but now she has to take over when her mom is jailed for art forgery. Along with her uncle, she sees an opportunity to restore the business’s shaky financial status and reputation by nabbing a contract to appraise and hopefully auction off a new customer’s legendary waterfowl decoy collection. Things are looking up, but suddenly part of the collection goes missing, and the owner threatens to sully Scandal Mountain Antiques’ reputation once again. The result is that Edie desperately takes too many chances while investigating on her own, but the mystery and the writing are solid. Edie and the supporting characters–particularly her uncle, their computer-whiz new employee, and Edie’s ex-probation officer (for a minor infraction) are ingratiating and interesting. I’m happy to see that this is the first in the Scandal Mountain Antiques Mystery and will look for the next book in the series.
In THANK YOU FOR LISTENING, Julia Whelan, an extremely popular audiobook narrator herself, has given us some insight into the workings of audiobook narration while telling the entertaining story of two such narrators who strike up a spirited relationship while voicing different characters in the same romance. It’s the last book written by a beloved author whose books include a series narrated by Suwanee, who won accolades for her work. Personally, however, Suwanee doesn’t believe in the happily-ever-after endings that are the hallmark of romantic novels. She’s also had a personal injury that ended her budding acting career. Brock has a golden voice that has enamored him to a host of female readers/listeners, but no one really knows who he is, and he is eager to drop his pseudonym in favor of his real name. I loved the characters of the two narrators–their texts back and forth are often hilarious as they get to know each other virtually. Suwanee’s best friend, actress Adaku, is also memorable and a great foil, and her grandmother, BlahBlah (a nickname based on a child’s pronunciation of Barbara), is feisty and supportive, even as her dementia begins to advance. I found the plot and the writing style unique and interesting and raced through the book in a day–time well spent! (August)
FLIGHT RISK, the second entry in Cherie Priest’s delightful Booking Agents series, continues the story of psychic travel agent Leda and Seattle PD detective Grady, who sometimes work together on a case. Leda is building her one-woman travel business and is still performing at a nightclub as the Psychic Psongstress (she prefers to call the act Klairvoyant Karaoke). But because of some publicity resulting from her earlier collaboration with Grady, a potential client asks Leda to use her psychic abilities to help locate his missing sister, who disappeared with a bag of money belonging to her employer. Coincidentally, Grady is investigating the identity of a human leg unearthed by his dog–could it belong to the same woman’s husband, a college professor who has an affair with a different student each year? Time for Leda and Grady to again join forces to find the couple . . . or their remains. The mystery isn’t really the reason to enjoy this book, although it builds well and there are multiple suspects. it’s the wonderful, likable personalities of the two protagonists, in addition to supporting characters such as Leda’s often-outrageous best friend, Leda’s flamboyant mentor on all things psychic, the nightclub’s eccentric owner, Grady’s first-time-dad colleague on the police force, and Grady’s teenage daughter. And it’s the author’s light, breezy touch with dialogue and humor. I look forward to the next collaboration between these engaging characters.
LIZZIE BLAKE’S BEST MISTAKE by Mazey Eddings is not your usual contemporary romance. It’s more of an in-depth look at one young woman who longs to be loved while struggling with uncontrolled ADHD. Lizzie has many wonderful qualities. She is a talented baker, a loyal friend, someone who notices and rhapsodizes over the little things in life. But a mother who never tried to understand her, was embarrassed by her, and convinced her she was “too much” to attract a man has led her to a one-night-only policy. Rake is an Australian man on a business trip to the US when the two meet. He isn’t bothered by Lizzie’s loud, boisterous personality or the fact that she has lost several jobs due to chronic lateness and disorganization. But he has to return to Australia and isn’t able to pursue the obvious attraction between them. Then the shocker: their brief relationship has resulted in a pregnancy–and yes, Rake is the father. Still suffering from a broken love affair two years earlier, Rake nevertheless volunteers to move immediately to the US and agrees to a platonic live-in relationship with Lizzie so that he can participate wholly in preparations for the birth and parenting of the baby. Although I didn’t feel his decision was realistic based on how little we knew about him (I would have liked his character to be more fleshed out), I later came to admire Rake more than I had expected. I also appreciated learning more than I ever knew about ADHD and its effects, which the author provided from her own experience. Mazey Eddings is an author to watch! (September)
That’s the second review I’ve seen in two days for Cherie Priest’s Flight Risk, Margie, and it really makes me eager to read it. I read the first one for Library Journal, but now I’ll have to wait for that one until the library gets it. (sigh) First world problems.
Thank you for your reviews!
Heat and Humidity hang out here together and it is very hard to deal with for me and my health issues. We are getting a bit of a break today and that started yesterday with unpredicted storms. We got storms again very early this morning and those were predicted. Storms are in the forecast off and on the next coupe of days. The rain is great and things are not supposed to be severe. The downside is Scott and I have medical stuff to do the next couple of days and I don’t like trying to go out with my cane or drive in this stuff.
As to reading, I was approved for THE HIDDEN ONE by Linda Castillo via NetGalley so I am working on that. Not very far into it so I will not try to explain what is going on beyond the fact that it appears Burkholder is going out of state on a personal case.
KRT in the Big D
I don’t blame you for your lack of excitement about your weather, or the lack of eagerness to be out in in. Stay safe.
I’m a big fan of Linda Castillo, and I have introduced several readers who became avid fans, but I’m not very excited about The Hidden One, Kevin. As you know, I’m not keen when the sleuth leaves familiar territory and familiar characters.
Hi Lesa — I’m reading Linda Castillo’s first Kate Burkholder thriller, Sworn to Silence. I’ve had Castillo’s series on my “want to read” list for a long time. Now that I’ve taken the plunge, I’ll be reading lots more.
Oh, good, Patricia! I’m glad you’re enjoying Sworn to Silence!
Hi Lesa! I just finished Honour of Thieves: A Highwayman of Moot Hill Short Story by Cryssa Bazos. The blurb was irresistible: “An ill-gotten treasure, an old betrayal and an impenetrable castle.” and the story was totally engaging. It also helped me understand the idea of “writing a short story that’s independent but connected to your series.”
You’re right, Ana. That is a terrific blurb. I’m glad the story worked!
Starting two new (to me) books…”Lincolin on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington,” non-fiction, Lincoln traveling from Illinois to Washington DC for inauguration; and Blackhouse by Peter May.
Good afternoon all,
After a lot of rain recently we have a beautiful day here in Aberdeenshire. And today I did something I’ve intended to do for weeks – got up early and was down by the river well before 8am. There were very few people around, the sun was shining, the birds – especially the blackbirds – were singing, and the water was glittering. A guy I meet almost every day when i am walking had told me that he has been seeing the otters frequently of late, usually around 8.30am. I didn’t see any today, but I will try to keep this up now and maybe one morning I will be lucky. Our temperatures today are around 55F, which I find a pleasant; once we get up to the 70s and 80s I droop very quickly.
I stopped off in the old churchyard (which is full of beautiful trees and overlooks the river) to sit and read. My current book is THE GARRICK YEAR by Margaret Drabble. I think I probably read all of Drabble’s 1960s novels when i was a teenager – they all feature the chattering classes of that era (she reminds me of writers like Penelope Mortimer, and indeed both Mortimer and Drabble were part of that milieu.)
Emma, an ex model from an academic family, is married to David, a somewhat fiery working class Welsh actor. They live in Islington (not quite as fashionable then as it is now, but still fairly smart) but David takes a job at a new theatre in Hereford (Welsh borders) for the summer. Emma does not want to leave London, especially as she has the offer of a TV contract, but she has little choice, so they decamp to the provinces with their two very small children and the au pair. We are introduced to the group of actors who have been assembled by the acclaimed director Wyndham Farrar, but the focus of the book is really on Emma, who loathes the country, is fed up with being ‘just’ a mother, and is bored to tears.
This being Margaret Drabble, Emma is an excellent character – she is not a always a nice person, and – thank goodness – is not one of those heroines who think they’ll hate the village/seaside town/remote island they’ve been forced to move to, then in no time find fufilment and love, usually accompanied by unfeasible success in some very stereoptypical fantasy-land job involving baking/books/etc, and realise they can never return to the city. Emma can’t wait to get back to the anonymity of London, and in the meantime starts an unsatisfactory affair with the director himself.
But the best bits of the book are Drabble’s observations, through Emma, of the frustrations and limitations of a woman’s life at that time. It’s a short book, and often a funny one. More importantly (at least for me), I find myself recognising situations and behaviours, especially perhaps the combined elation and frustration of being the parent of small babies.
Before this I read HONEST DOUBT, the 13th and last Kate Fansler book by Amanda Cross (Carolyn Heilbrun.) As many of you know, I love the early books in this series, though I appreciate they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. Unfortunately this one was a disappointment. For some reason Kate becomes a secondary character, the main one being a younger private detective, who goes to Kate for advice when she is asked to find out who killed a universally loathed professor at a very conservative college in New Jersey.
Cross always used these books to look at the way women are treated in society, and especially in academic life. It is a well known fact that she resigned from her own professorship at Columbia in protest at the way she felt that she had been sidelined and mistreated. When Kate is in charge, I enjoy her discourses on feminism and politics, just as I enjoy her frequent sidesteps into literature (she is, after all, a professor of Eng Lit). She is so witty, especially when talking to her perfect husband, Reed, and I like that she drinks, smokes and eats what she likes (even if she does stay annoyingly slender), lives in a Manhattan penthouse and has staff. The new detective, Estelle Woodhaven, is also ‘alternative’ in that she rides a motorcycle, but otherwise she is just not that interesting. And she goes on and on and on about her weight. I was at college in the late 1970s; we were radical feminists and Susie Orbach’s Fat is a Feminist Issue was our Bible – but unlike Orbach, Cross makes no attempt to investigate the poliitics of size and society’s attitudes to women’s bodies, she just has Estelle going on and on about the same thing.
And although I never really care too much about the solution to these mysteries, they do at least usually make sense. In Honest Doubt Estelle wanders about for 9/10ths of the book complaining that she has not a clue who the murderer could have been, then Kate pulls the solution out of a hat with no justification whatsoever. Even when she has expounded her (unproven) theory about what happened, there is no attempt to fit the theory to the facts – the book simply ends. In some ways it is an homage to one of Agatha Christie’s most famous books, but it just does not work.
i was so disappointed that Heilbrun went out with this one. Having said that, I did come across a few quotes that still felt very apposite today, eg:
‘The trouble with most of the right-wing boys, frankly, is that they lie so easily there’s no reason to believe anything they say.’
(Re academia:) ‘When a woman suggests something at a meeting she is unheard; later, when a man suggests the same thing, the suggestion is seriously taken up.’
I can’t remember if I mentioned Ann Scott Moncrieff’s ABOARD THE BULGER last week? It is a children’s book written in 1935, and is about a group of children who escape from an orphanage and eventually find a magical boat, on which they have adventures around the Hebridean islands off the west coast of Scotland. It does include some very dated attitudes (eg ‘witches’ should be burned) but it is a good, fast-moving, story and the characters are well developed and defined. I had not heard of Ann Scott Moncrieff before, but I now want to find out more about her. She was from Orkney, and became the first wife of the novelist George Irving Scott-Moncrieff, but she died at the young age of just 29. Both she and George were part of the group of writers who were later referred to as the Scottish Renaissance – others included Hugh MacDiarmid and James Fergusson.
On the radio I have been listening to an adaptation of Monica Ali’s latest novel: LOVE MARRIAGE. It’s about a London born Indian woman who is engaged to an English man. They are both doctors in a large hospital. Yasmin comes from a traditional Indian family in which her father’s word is law and her mother has a purely domestic role, Joe is the only child of an affluent North London media person who thinks she owns him. Over the course of a few months, Yasmin starts to question her choice of career and partner, and also learns far more than she could ever have imagined about her parents’ relationship and her mother’s life in particular. It’s very good; funny but also spot-on about family relationships in particular.
I’m now listening to THE LADY IN A FOG by Lester Powell, a detective story first broadcast in 1958. Philip Odell is the (Irish) detective, asked by his friend Heather MacNamara to look into the death of her brother, who has been found drowned in the Thames. It’s dated of course, but still enjoyable. I’ve also downloaded an adaptation of PD James’s COVER HER FACE, but I haven’t started that yet.
I’m scratching around a bit to find something gripping on TV. Last night I watched the last episode in the current series of GRACE, which is set in Brighton. This one was about refugees and the illegal – but apparently widespread – trade in body parts for transplants. I think it was the strongest one in this series. I dug out my DVD of HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT – has anyone seen it? I might try that tonight.
This weekend we have public holidays for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. It is not a big thing in Scotland, or at least not in my part of it. I think some shops, libraries, etc will be closed tomorrow. My husband is away and I’m just hoping for a quiet weekend and lots of reading, possibly even in the sunshine.
Best wishes everyone!
I hope you have sunshine, Rosemary, and lots of time for reading! Is Charlie a lap cat while you read? My Josh loves nothing more than for me to spend hours sitting on the couch reading so he can curl up on my lap or on a pillow beside me. He’s definitely a lap cat.
I hope you find otters, though! Good luck with that.
Again, I want to thank you every time you send a lengthy post about your life in Scotland. The books, the setting, everything is different. It’s so great that you share it with us. Thank you.
Nice coincidence, Rosemary, as we watched the first GRACE (based on the first novel, I believe). It was a pretty evil story, but they did a nice job. I hope his boss is not so tedious and offensive in future episodes..
That was indeed a coincidence Jeff! His boss is really quite tedious, isn’t she? I feel sorry for the actress, she has not been given a good part, and I’m sorry to say she does not improve. But I like the rest of the characters.
Isn’t it wonderful, Laurie, that no matter how old the book is, if we haven’t read it before, it’s a new book? I liked your phrasing of that – “new (to me) books”. I need to read Peter May sometime. And, that trip to DC was a dangerous one.
Last week I stopped in to say I had started Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Well, I finished it and want to run through the streets holding up a copy and shouting to the world to read it. It seems that every so often a fiction book comes along that’s not in my preferred mystery/crime genre that touches my soul, connecting with me on a special level. Last year it was The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. The year before it was The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes. Others over the years have included The Girls by Lori Lansens, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, Moloka’i by Alan Brennert, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, and more. And, now I add Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. One of the main characters is a favorite creature of mine, an octopus. Marcellus is a giant Pacific octopus living at Sowell Bay Aquarium in Washington state. Tova Sullivan is a widow who started working the night shift of cleaning the small aquarium to keep busy.. The bond that develops between Marcellus and Tova is one of those beautiful bonds of animal and human that seems a miracle. There is a young man (30 years old) who comes to Sowell Bay looking for his father, whom he never knew and finds the place he’s meant to be. There are several lost souls, including Marcellus, who are trapped by their circumstances, and the journey of connection is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Remarkably Bright Creatures is a special book, and I do so hope some of you here will read it.
Kathy, Would it be okay if I passed your note here on to Virginia Stanley at HarperCollins? Virginia promoted the heck out of Remarkably Bright Creatures to librarians, and I’d like her to see what you wrote.
Absolutely, Lesa. I’m working on a review now.
Good Afternoon, Lesa, I live nprth of Kevin and the storm woke me up at 4:00,a,m, a lot of heavy rain, lighteniing and thunder. I has been hot, humid, high pollen count,high UV and a lot of polluted air. It has cooled down today but I have two doctor appointments next week, both in the afternoon and with all the bad stuff in the air, I am afriad of an asthma attack.
I am reading The Horrible Chocolate, on, my desktop Kindle by Jacob M. Ronson and it is fullof laughs.
Also reading, Digging to America by Anne Tyler, I had ordered an audiobook and the sellers sent me a banged up, stepped on hard copy instead. Amazon made the seller return the money to me. I could not bear to throw it away, so I covered it with typing paper. The inside is not too bad shape, although three tiny ants crawled out of the book so far! I will dispose of it after I am done reading. It is about two families who adopted a Korean baby each. One famiily is a regular white family who could not have a baby and they are trying to preserve the baby’s culture, not changing her Korean name and other ore is a Iranian-American mother, her husband who never learned Farsi, and his mother Maryam who fled Iran for an arranged but happy marriage. There are a lot of cultural differences and different membes of both familier don’t like or bond with each other. The author was married to an Iranian-American.
Carolee, I guess I didn’t know enough about Anne Tyler. I didn’t realize she was married to an Iranian-American.
I’m so glad Amazon made the sellers give back your money. That’s horrid that they tried to palm off an old copy on you.
Take care of yourself. I’m sorry about the weather and your upcoming appointments.
Hi everyone! This week I’ve been reading the Kate Hamilton mysteries by Connie Berry. I was able to get all four from my library at once and didn’t lose track of the books while we were moving. That feels like an accomplishment! I enjoyed them all and finished the fourth recently. I liked the way the last looks more at Vivian, whose lifestyle I admire. Tom seems a little too perfect, it’ll be interesting to see if he gets more depth.
Trisha, I’m glad you enjoyed Connie Berry’s books. I really liked the latest one. Maybe it was in comparison to the previous one that seemed a little disjointed to me.
Our big event this week was a chalk painting event at the Santa Barbara Mission. It is always on Memorial Day weekend, and we go every year to take photos of the art, and we go early the first day to see the beginnings of the pieces, and on the last day to see the progress. This is the first time that they have had it there since 2019, due to Covid, and we were very excited. We were there early both days and it was not crowded so it felt safe, since it was outdoors.
This week I finished MOUNTOLIVE, the third book in the Alexandra Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. I have loved each book in this series more than the one before because each reveals more about the original characters and adds new ones. This one was about political intrigue in Egypt in the years leading up to World War II, and since I like spy fiction, it was perfect for me. (It is not spy fiction though, just had similar elements.) After each of the books in the Quartet I have wanted to read the next one immediately, and the same is true here. I would like to move on to CLEA, the fourth book, right away. I have discovered I have that on my Kindle, I bought it when it was on sale at a lower price, so I may go that route and read it at the same time as other books.
I started reading my first book for 20 Books of Summer. It is THE LONG GOODBYE by Raymond Chandler. All of Chandler’s books (that I have read) are good, but I am enjoying this one because it is different in some ways from the others. Chandler’s writing is so gorgeous that it almost would not matter about the plot. The film version of this one is a favorite of mine, and we will watch that again after I finish the book.
I love the cover on that book of Marple short stories, but I am not drawn to stories of Christie’s characters written by other authors, so will probably pass. Maybe I would be more interested if I had read all of Christie’s novels and short stories featuring Miss Marple. I have only recently started reading any of Christie’s short stories and am way behind in that area. I have only read 6 of the 12 Miss Marple novels.
Tracy, I love that you’re going through an entire series, and loving each one more than the last.
It’s been years since I read The Long Goodbye. I’d have to look it up to see what it’s even about. Enjoy it!
Isn’t that a great cover? It’s funny. Writers have done great pastiches of Sherlock Holmes over the years, but, like you, I’m not fond of most characters written by others. I just never thought anyone wrote Spenser as well as Robert B. Parker, although I tried a few of those. And, I tried a Hercule Poirot, and was disappointed. Some of these stories were better than others.
Reading the Alexandria Quartet has been a great and unique reading experience for me, Lesa, and I owe it all to Rick Robinson who suggested the first book, JUSTINE.
I am currently reading Pay Dirt Road by Samantha Jayne Allen and Nightwork by Nora Roberts
I liked Pay Dirt Road, Katherine. And, Nora Roberts is always good.
Police procedural mysteries are among my favorite subgenre. Bangkok 8 was the mystery that I read most recently that fits that definition, sort of. And it is definitely about two policemen who were partners, but in that case one of them has just died and the other is seeking revenge for his death. I loved that book.
Sorry, Lesa, I was commenting at another blog, I thought, and put the comment here. So if you want to remove it, that is fine.
That’s okay, Tracy. You can always talk about police procedurals here.
The weather is alternating between hot and cool here. Some are predicting rain, which we desperately need.
This week I read:
Swing Low, Sweet Homicide by Joe Roeburt; Another Adaptation of a TV series I never knew existed, The Roaring Twenties. A tout is killed, and after a brief scene at a dance marathon, reporters wearing raccoon skin coats solve it.
Ultimate Weapon by Ben Sloane; 1990’s sci fi Men’s adventure, as a cyborg tries to find out who is manufacturing other cyborgs and sending them to assassinate people.
Broken Arrow Revisited by EL Glenn; A man goes back in time to visit Cochise, one of his ancestors. Despite having some high technology, he finds he can’t change history. Of course, there’s a doomed romance in the mix.
The Tennessee Truckers Roundup by John Lemay; A guy starts a trucking line, and drug runners want it. Plus a corrupt sheriff and a lot of sleeping around by employees give the owner almost more than he can handle. A book for the 70’s written in 1988.
Traitor’s Exit by John Gardner; A writer of espionage novels is recruited to abduct a Kim Philby analog from behind the Iron Curtain. He meets Boysie Oakes, whom he thought was a fictional character, along the way. The series must have running on fumes at this point, as Oakes isa guest star in his own series.
I forgot to add:
I watched Top Gun: Maverick over the weekend. While it isn’t the film classic the first one was, I have to say It is the best movie I’ve seen in a long while. There is some cgi, but also an actual plot, character arcs and acting, which too many modern movies eschew. The movie is irony-free, and is unabashedly patriotic, I really felt like I was back in 1986.
Glen, Thank you not only for the book reviews – fun as always, but for your comments about Top Gun: Maverick. A plot, characters arcs and acting? My gosh! Hard to believe.
I hope you get that rain!
Top Gun: Maverick was great. I saw it this weekend. My husband is a former Marine and really loved the f-18s and enjoyed telling me about them.