It’s been a quiet week here, so I have nothing to discuss except for tomorrow and the book I’m reading. Tomorrow, we’re going to talk about libraries, favorites or memories. I have no other bright ideas about Friday topics, so unless one of us comes up with a bright idea for a June topic, we’ll forget it for now.
In the meantime, what have you been doing? What are you reading?
I’m about a third of a way into Allan Gaw’s The Silent House of Sleep. The historical mystery won The Bloody Scotland Debut Prize in 2024, although it was just released this week in the U.S. Here’s the brief summary – In 1929 in London, a brilliant pathologist investigates two corpses found in a park, using cutting-edge forensics.
Now, here’s my summary. In the first Dr. Jack Cuthbert mystery, we’re introduced to the brilliant pathologist who is Senior Pathologist at St. Thomas’s Hospital and Senior police surgeon with the Metropolitan police. He’s also a WWI veteran who suffers not only from shell shock, but with his own personal demons that he refuses to name. Because he is painstaking, he doesn’t always get along with the police who want answers fast and cases closed quickly.
I don’t always finish the books I mention on Thursdays. Sometimes, I can’t get into them, or don’t care for the characters. Despite some of the gritty details in this book, I’m hooked. I’m sure I’ll be finishing The Silent House of Sleep, unless it takes a strange turn in the rest of the book. The forensic details do not appeal to me, and I seldom read medical mysteries. For me, though, it’s another aspect of a police procedural. I like Cuthbert, and I like reading about post-war London. I’m reading this one quickly.
What about you? What have you been reading this week?
I’m so excited to be able to access the blog again!! I feel like I’ve been in “time-out”, but just the wonders of rural internet.
I just started The Most Mysterious Bookshop in Paris (Paris Bookshop Mysteries Book 1). It’s a new series by Mark Pryor featuring the same protagonist, now retired, from the Hugo Marston series. A bookstore and a boutique chocolate emporium! I think I’ve read all the books by this author including the creepy Hollow Man duo.
And coincidentally, I downloaded the Silent House of Sleep via Libby just a few hours ago. Lesa, you’ll probably finish it before I even start.
I’m glad to see you back here again MM! Long may your internet access last.
Yay! Welcome back, MM! I hope you’Ve been reading some good books while you’ve been lost to the problems of Internet.
I have a ways to go in the Hugo Marston series before I get to the new one.
But, I did finish The Silent House of Sleep a couple hours ago. Excellent! I have so many things to say about it on Saturday. No spoilers!
Haven’t been doing much of anything this week, except for running errands and enduring unseasonably warm weather for this time of year with four consecutive days of 28-29 C (82-84F). Statistics show that the average temperature is usually 13C (55F) here right about now which would be much more my speed. We also went out for breakfast one day which was delicious – rye bread with a drizzle of hot honey, avocado slices, topped with perfectly cooked eggs, and a generous amount of pea shoots.
Books this week:
SMEG by Diane Wishart
This is ‘The First Detective Smeg Mystery’.
Within the first few pages I was drawn right into the world of widower Detective Charlie Smeg and his stepson, Paul. They spent a lot of time together when Paul was young but now that he’s a young adult, Charlie is not as close to Paul as he feels he should be. They’ve not had much in common for a long time now.
Charlie left the police force after an incident concerning his former partner, for which he feels responsible. Two months into retirement he’s (still) grouchy, unsettled, and unmoored.
He’d like to be left alone but his former boss has asked him to mentor a young policewoman named Meaghan Byatt as she navigates her way through her first homicide investigation. Because the case seems like an odd one and because he has briefly worked with Meaghan before and sees something special in her, he says yes.
It’s fun watching Charlie and Paul become closer again as their individual areas of strength come into play. The homicide case is complicated and I was torn between which of the two main suspects was the guilty one, as they were both highly suspicious in my opinion. I enjoyed the talk back and forth about the case and how working together opened up a variety of viewpoints on who did it and how. Not a cozy, not a hardboiled procedural, but something in between with believable characters who methodically work the case. I look forward to the next book in the series.
A TRAITOR IN WHITEHALL by Julia Kelly
An enjoyable whodunnit, published three years ago, 1st in a series.
Set in 1940, just before the beginning of the Blitz.
Evelyne Redfern is working at the most boring, yet dangerous, job ever at the munitions factory, filling anti-tank shells with powder to precise measurements. She shares a room in a boarding house with her best friend Moira. Moira will seize any chance for a fun night out while Evelyne would just as soon stay home and read a detective novel.
On a rare evening out, she unexpectedly runs into Mr. Fletcher, one of her estranged father’s friends. They chat for a bit and when he hears how dull she’s finding her job, he invites her to meet with him at his home. It seems he might have a line on something she would find more interesting. Which is how she finds herself working as a typist in Churchill’s cabinet war rooms.
Mere days after she begins working there, one of the women is murdered. The military police begin their interviews but quickly decide it was a crime of jealousy. Evelyne thinks there’s more to it than that so she sets out to put her very amateur sleuthing skills to use, as she’s determined to find out the truth of who killed the woman. She keeps running across David Poole, a man working for the Ministry of Information, who seems intent on thwarting her efforts. It turns out he is on the trail to solve his own mystery which is to discover who in the cabinet war rooms is leaking sensitive information to the Germans. Very reluctantly on his part, he and Evelyne team up to work together.
Although a little unrealistic in that people are so easily persuaded to talk to Evelyne, given she’s only worked there for a matter of days, it’s still fun reading about how the two ‘detectives’ sort their way through the suspects and red herrings of their respective cases.
Evelyne is smart, likeable, and sometimes a bit impetuous but she and the steady, practical David work well together. Evelyn’s backstory is believable. Many of the secondary characters add much to the enjoyment of reading the book. There’s a lot going on but it’s never confusing. And the ending nicely paves the way for the next book in the series.
A light historical mystery where the wartime setting doesn’t take over the story but acts as an interesting backdrop.
Oh, I love the sound of SMEG, Lindy. I’ll have to look for that one. I’ll admit, the title made me think it was about a dragon. To close to Smaug, I think.
As much as I like your temperatures, that’s too warm for May. Darn climate change.