Books Read in April 2026

Basically in April I read four mystery novels and one graphic novel. So, not a lot of variety. But I enjoyed all the books, and that is what matters. Two of the mysteries were in the spy fiction genre, plus Death in a Darkening Mist, a historical novel set in Canada immediately after World War II ended, bordered on spy fiction. 

Here are the five books I read in April.

Graphic novel

Over Easy (2014) by Mimi Pond (Writer and Artist)

This graphic novel is about a young woman working in a diner in Oakland, CA, after having to leave art school due to losing her financial aid. It is based on events in the author's life. I liked the art and the story. It is 272 pages long.

Crime Fiction

Soviet Sources (1990) by Robert Cullen

I may have mentioned that one of my favorite genres is spy fiction. I only recently discovered this first book by Robert Cullen, published in 1990 and later reprinted by Felony and Mayhem in 2006. The main characters are an American journalist for the Washington Tribune, stationed in Moscow, and a Russian journalist who is being manipulated by the KGB. It took awhile to get started, a lot of setting up the individual characters, but it got very interesting at about 100 pages (out of 424). This is part of a three book series and I have all the books.

Death in a Darkening Mist (2017) by Iona Whishaw

This is historical fiction, set in Canada in 1946, immediately after World War II.  Lane Winslow moved to Canada to get away from the UK after her traumatic experiences as a British intelligence agent during the war. She gets involved with an investigation into the death of a Russian man at a local hot spring near King's Cove; is it suicide or was it murder? This is the 2nd book in the series; the first book was very good; this one was even better.

The Romeo Flag (1989) by Carolyn Hougan

I also discovered this book as a reprint published by Felony and Mayhem. I had read another book by this author, Shooting in the Dark, and was very impressed by that book. The Romeo Flag was even better than that book. I would rank it as one of the top espionage novels I have ever read. The plot was amazing; very complex and very convincing. Another very interesting thing in this book (for me) was the connection to Shanghai. I have read two books recently about Shanghai in 1938 and I find that time and place especially intriguing. A significant sub-plot concerns a group of people living in Shanghai in 1941. For anyone who is interested in spy fiction, this book is worth seeking out.

Tatiana (2013) by Martin Cruz Smith

This is the eighth book in the Arkady Renko series; the first book was Gorky Park, published in 1981. This is sort of a police procedural set in Russia; I say this because Arkady is a police investigator, still working for the Procurator in Moscow, but really going his own way in an unsupervised investigation. So there is not much procedure involved. I enjoyed this book tremendously; the story still sticks with me. See my review.

For the past 2-3 months we have been working on cleaning up and redoing the two garden beds we have at the front of our condominium. We still are working on potting new plants in that area; today we potted 6 geraniums. Usually when we go to the nearby plant nursery, my husband takes photos while we are there. The photos at the top and bottom of this post are from recent visits. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Spin #44 for the Classics Club, May 2026

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty unread books from my classics list and list it in a post before Sunday, May 17th, 2026.  On Sunday, the Classics Club will generate a random number between 1 through 20 and post it at the Classics Club website. Then I will read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by July 5th, 2026.

This list is very close to my last list; I only changed two of the books. Even so, I get excited every time I put out a spin list and wait to see which number will be picked.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
2. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)   
3. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
4. Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles (1950)
5. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
6. Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre (1847)
7. Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five  (1955)
8. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
9. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
10. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
11. J. D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye (1951)
12. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958) 
13. Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest (1929)   
14. Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
15. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
16. James Thurber – The 13 Clocks (1950)
17. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
18. Ford Madox Ford – The Good Soldier (1915)
19. Edna Ferber – Giant (1952)
20. Edna Ferber – Show Boat (1926)

The three books I would most like to read for this spin are Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Talented Mr.Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, or Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene. But, really, any of the books on my list would be fine.  

Short Story Wednesday: More Stories from Three for the Chair

 

A brief overview of the Nero Wolfes series by Rex Stout:

Nero Wolfe is a genius who supports himself (and his household) as a private detective. Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, is both his assistant and a private investigator, and he does most of the legwork. Nero Wolfe's main interests are good food, raising orchids, and reading books. Usually, he will avoid working on a case unless he needs the money to pay the bills. 

Recently I completed reading the three novellas in Three for the Chair by Rex Stout. Back in 2025, I reviewed the second story in that book, "Immune to Murder."  Now that I have read the two other stories, I think they are also excellent stories. 

The first story in the book was "A Window for Death."

Bert Fyfe's father died when he had pneumonia and Bert was accused of his murder. Members of his family testified at the trial. He was acquitted but he was very bitter and left town. His family had not  seen him for 20 years when he returned, wealthy after striking it rich in uranium mining.  Now Bert has died in similar circumstances as his father, and some members of his family want to know if it was murder. Wolfe proceeds to interview the people involved with the incident.

Rex Stout occasionally included romance in his Nero Wolfe novels and stories, and this one includes a romance, as much of one as you can have in 50 pages. It is a minor part of the story, but it makes for a nice ending.

The last story in the book is "Too Many Detectives."

Archie Goodwin is the narrator of all of the Nero Wolfe novels and short stories. He begins this story with these sentences:

"I am against female detectives on principle. It's not always and everywhere a tough game, but most of the time it is, with no room for the friendly feelings and the nice little impulses...

However, there are times when a principle should take a nap, and that was one of them. Of the seven private detectives present in the room, including Nero Wolfe and me, two were women, seated in a corner, side by side."

He then continues to describe Theodolinda (Dol) Connor, who runs her own detective agency, and Sally Colt, her employee. 

In this story, the seven private detectives have been summoned to Albany for an inquiry into their use of wiretapping by the state of New York. Nero Wolfe is disgruntled because he and Archie have been forced to go to Albany rather than be interviewed in New York City, where they live. He is further incensed when a man that he once did a wiretapping job for is found dead in a nearby office, and he and Archie are arrested. Within a few hours they get out on bail ($20,000 apiece), and in their hotel room they proceed to work with the other five detectives to figure out who killed the dead man.

Along the way, Archie and Wolfe both change their prejudices against women detectives.

Tatiana: Martin Cruz Smith

In late April, I read Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith, the eighth book in the Arkady Renko series. This is sort of a police procedural set in Russia; I say this because Arkady is a police investigator, still working for the Procurator in Moscow, but really going his own way in an unsupervised investigation. So there is not much procedure involved. 

Journalist Tatiana Petrovna has fallen from a six story building in Moscow and the death has been ruled suicide. Arkady is concerned because her body has disappeared, and then later the body reappears and is immediately cremated. The authorities are trying to conceal the truth of her death.

Tatiana was investigating a plot involving the Mafia and Russian officials. One of her sources was the interpreter who wrote up the notes of a meeting of mafia bosses in a code that is supposedly unbreakable. The interpreter gave the coded notebook to Tatiana. After her death, the notebook gets into the hands of Zhenya, a gifted teenager who is Arkady's ward. Zhenya and his new girlfriend are trying to solve the code with their expertise in chess and puzzles.

And that is just a small part of the plot. It is very complex and at times it is hard to tell who can be trusted and who is a foe. As often happens in mysteries, there are just too many characters to keep track of. However, that was a minor problem in this story. 

My thoughts:

I like the setting in Russia. This book was published in 2013 and I think it represents what Russia was like at the time. There is corruption and violence everywhere. 

I also enjoyed learning about Kaliningrad, an exclave of Russia bordered by Lithuania and Poland. It was formerly Konigsberg, part of Germany and was annexed to Russia by the Potsdam Agreement in 1945. A good portion of the book, maybe half, was set in that area. It is a coastal city, the only ice-free Russian port on the Baltic Sea.

It took me about half the way into the book to get invested in the story, which, as I remember it, was true of earlier books in the series. But it was so good; it got better and better as I was reading it.

It took a while to get to know the characters. There are a lot of them. Even with as many books as I had read in the series, I still find Arkady Renko a mystery, not sure what he is seeking in life. I don't think he knows either. I like Sergeant Victor Orlov, the detective he works with, who is in a difficult position, trying to support and help Arkady, yet not get in trouble with his superiors. However, once the story got moving and I understood more about the diverse characters, the book had me hooked. 

I read the previous 7 books in the series, but I read them between 2005 and 2021, so I have forgotten a lot. Therefore, I am pretty sure that you can read most of the books as standalones. Maybe the first three books (Gorky Park, Polar Star, and Red Square) should be read in order, because they lead up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Another similar series that I have read is Stuart Kaminsky's Porfiry Rostnikov series, also about a policeman in Moscow. 

Six Degrees of Separation: From Wild Dark Shore to Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

 

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. This is a brief description at Goodreads: 

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny weather-lashed island that is home to the world's largest seed bank. As Shearwater risks being lost to rising sea levels, the island's researchers have fled, and only the Salts remain. Until, during the worst storm in living memory, a stranger washes ashore.

What this description does not mention is that Shearwater is an island off Antarctica. I haven't read this book yet but I am fairly sure that either my husband or I will get a copy this year. I am a sucker for any novel set in or near Antarctica.

1st degree:

My first link is to another book by Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations. I have a copy of Migrations and plan to read it this year. This dystopian book is about a woman whose goal is to go to Greenland, then follow the Arctic terns on what will possibly be their final migration to Antarctica.

2nd degree:

Next I link to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, using the author's first name, Charlotte. This book, published in 1847, is on my Classics List. I want to read this book soon, definitely in 2026.

3rd degree:

For this link, I am using the last name of the previous author, Brontë. In the last couple of years, I have read good reviews of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, written by Anne Brontë, sister of Charlotte, and published in 1848. Before that, I wasn't interested in the book because of its length. Now I am also interested in this book because it is categorized as an epistolary novel. The author uses letters and diary entries to create the structure of the story.

4th degree:

From here on, my Six Degrees chain will consist of epistolary novels. The fourth book is Dracula by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. For years I avoided reading Dracula, but many people, including my husband, told me that it is a very good read, and they were all right. The story is told through letters and diary entries and I enjoyed that format. It was much more accessible than I expected, although parts of it were challenging to read. This book is on my Classics List but I still haven't reviewed it.

5th degree:

Continuing with the epistolary theme, my next book is The Miernik Dossier, by Charles McCarry,  published in 1973. This was the first novel by McCarry and it is the first book in the Paul Christopher series. When it was published, this book was praised by Eric Ambler ("The most intelligent and enthralling piece of work I have read for a very long time."), among others. It is not my favorite in the series, but it is certainly a unique and entertaining novel.

The story is told entirely through documents, including but not limited to transcripts of conversations and diary entries. With this story-telling device, McCarry tells the story through five different characters. In this novel, Paul Christopher is not as much the focus as in later books.

6th degree:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2012) by Maria Semple connects to the previous books because the story is told entirely through a compiled collection of documents—emails, letters, faxes, police reports, and interoffice memos. It also connects back to the first book because the family is planning a trip to Antarctica. 

Bernadette Fox and Elgin Branch have promised their daughter a trip to Antarctica if she makes excellent grades. She succeeds, but unfortunately Bernadette get so mired down in the preparations that everything falls to pieces in their already precarious marriage. This is a real mishmash of a book, and there were many times that I was totally lost. Fortunately, it was worth the effort getting to the end. Bee Branch, their daughter, was my favorite character. 

My Six Degrees took me from Antarctica to England to Transylvania to Switzerland and the Sudan, to the USA, and back to Antarctica. Have you read any of these books? 

If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?

I rarely have a Six Degrees chain where the last link connects back to the 1st link, this time I did that.

The next Six Degrees will be on  June 6, 2026, and the starting book will be The Post-Office Girl by Austrian author Stefan Sweig.

Short Story Wednesday: Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood

 

Description on the back of the book:

Set in the 1930s, Goodbye to Berlin evokes the glamour and sleaze, excess and repression of Berlin society. Isherwood shows the lives of people under threat from the rise of the Nazis: a wealthy Jewish heiress, Natalia Landauer, a gay couple, Peter and Otto, and an English upper-class waif, the divinely decadent Sally Bowles.

I was disappointed when I read Goodbye to Berlin, and I think that was because my expectations of the book were based on Cabaret (the film). I did not expect the stories to be so depressing. And I expected more of Sally Bowles in the stories, since she is such a big focus in the film. I do much better reading a book when I go in with no expectations. 

Goodbye to Berlin, published in 1939, consists of six connected short stories. The stories are semi-autobiographical. They depicted the poverty in Germany in the early 1930s more realistically than the movie. So, this book is a better depiction of the time, but not what I expected. Isherwood uses his own name for the narrator. 

In the first story, "A Berlin Diary (Autumn 1930)," the narrator is living in a room in the house of a woman, Fraulein Shroeder, who once lived alone. She has been renting rooms for 30 years, but now, "Frl. Shroeder has not even got a room of her own; she has to sleep in the living room behind a screen on a small sofa with broken springs."

The second story, "Sally Bowles," is the longest in the book. It focuses on the time that Christopher knew Sally, a singer and actress. It was not my favorite story.

"On Ruegen Island" is about three young men spending the summer on an island.  "The Nowaks" is about a strange and impoverished family that Christopher lives with; Otto Nowak was one of the young men in the previous story. In "The Nowaks", the characters discuss characters in "The Landauers", the fifth story. Natalia Landauer is a very young Jewish woman, the daughter of affluent parents who hire Christopher to give her English lessons. Natalia is more interested in learning about Christopher and gossiping.

"A Berlin Diary (Winter 1932-3)," is the sixth and last story. It is the shortest story, only 25 pages. It consists of brief vignettes, written like diary entries, that describe the situation in Berlin as it gets worse and worse. Christopher decides he must leave for good. 

I suspect that if I take the time to reread the stories in Goodbye to Berlin, I will find the book more appealing on a second read.