Short Story Wednesday: Christmas Stalkings, ed. Charlotte MacLeod

 

Christmas Stalkings, published in 1991, was the second Christmas short story anthology edited by Charlotte MacLeod. All of the stories in the book appeared in print for the first time in this book. This week I finished reading all the stories in that book. 

In my original post on several short stories in Christmas Stalkings, I noted that the stories in the book had been described as mostly dark. These two stories are on the lighter, cozier side and I enjoyed them very much.

"The Fabulous Nick" by Mickey Friedman

In this story, the real Santa Claus gets a letter from a child saying: "I hate you! Stay away from us!" It is signed by Jason T. McGuire. The address is in Greenwich Village in New York City. Nick, as Santa is called in this story, decides to go undercover in Jason's neighborhood and see why Jason hates him so much. It turns out that Jason's father was arrested for stealing valuable jewels in another apartment in the same building that they live in and is in jail. The family has no way to get him out on bail, so he will still be in jail over Christmas, although his family is sure he is innocent. Nick decides to investigate further. He introduces himself to Jason's mother as Nick Santos, a chimney specialist who has come to work on the chimneys in the apartment building. He then talks to several people who live in the building as he works on their chimneys. Santa Claus is a pretty good investigator in this story.

Mickey Friedman is a new author to me. Her mystery novels were published in the 1980s. There are reviews on Publisher's Weekly, and there was a review of Hurricane Season in 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller. (See this post at MysteryFile.) When I looked the author up on Fantastic Fiction, the mysteries attributed to Mickey Friedman showed up under another name, Michael Jan Friedman, along with a lot of science fiction novels. On Goodreads, the mystery novels show up under two names: Mickey Friedman and Michaela Thompson (which I believe is correct). If anyone else reading this has more information, I would love to hear about this author.

"Fruitcake, Mercy, and Black-eyed Peas" by Margaret Maron

I saved this story for last because it was one of my favorite stories in the book, AND because it can be considered a New Year's Day story, and I don't run into those very often. 

In this story, Marnolla Faison, a middle-aged black woman who lives in Dobbs, North Carolina, has been arrested for shoplifting, and not for the first time. She called Deborah Knott, a lawyer she has known for many years, to bail her out. She was arrested for stealing diapers and there are mitigating factors. Billy Tyson, owner of the Bigg Shopp where Marnolla had perpetrated her crime, is not in any mood to be talked out of pressing charges, as he had in the past. 

This story was the least-crime related in this book, if I remember correctly. Yes, there is a crime, but it is not serious. The story is more about the people involved in and connected to the shoplifting incident, and community relations.

In addition to the fact that this story addresses some social issues in a sensitive and humorous way, I love this story because it ends with a New Year's Day dinner featuring black-eyed peas. It is a tradition in the South to eat black-eyed peas on the first day of the year for luck during the coming year. My husband cooks Hoppin' John, a dish containing black-eyed peas, every year on New Year's Day.

Margaret Maron wrote two mystery series. My favorite books by her are from the Sigrid Harald series, about a female New York City police detective who has to deal with the obstacles of being a woman in a male profession in the 1980s. The first book, One Coffee With, was published in 1981. 

Maron's series starring Judge Deborah Knott was her most well-known series, and is set in North Carolina.  The story in this book features Deborah Knott before she became a judge, and was written before the first book in that series was published in 1992. 

Books Read in September and October 2025

 

I am so far behind on summarizing my monthly reading that I decided to combine my September and October books in one post. I read 5 books in September and 7 books in October and I enjoyed all of them.

Nonfiction

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (2017) by Margareta Magnusson

The subtitle of this book is: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter. I read it about six years ago, and enjoyed it. On a second reading it did not inspire me so much, even though I have plenty of things to get rid of. This brief book (only about 100 pages) is full of humor and useful hints and reminders of how much you need to let go of as you get older, and written from the author's personal experience. 

Fiction

State of Wonder (2011) by Ann Patchett

This book is set mostly in Brazil. The story is about Dr. Annick Swenson, an older woman who has been researching a proposed fertility drug for a pharmaceutical firm based in Minnesota. She is living in the Amazon jungle working in a lab but she has not reported back on her progress for a long time. The other major character is Dr. Marina Singh, a pharmacologist working for the same firm; she is sent to Brazil by her employer, to find out the status of Dr. Swenson's research. There are many other characters, and they are all interesting. It is a very bizarre story, although it gets very much better at the halfway point. In the end, I liked the story very much. 

Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf

Reading Mrs. Dalloway was a good experience for me. It was the first book I had read by Virginia Woolf, plus I had never read anything written in stream of consciousness style. It did take me a good while to adjust to that style of telling a story, and it got even more confusing when the story moves from Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts to various other people's ruminations.

The story is basically a day in the life of Mrs. Dalloway, but as Clarissa Dalloway goes through her day she muses about her past and her future: her daughter; her daughter's friend, who she doesn't like; and her own relationships with men over the years. My review is here.

Get in Trouble (2015) by Kelly Link

This short story collection was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. There are nine short stories; there are some that are science fiction, some are fantasy, and even one story that is straight fiction. I liked the stories and plan to read more by this author. My review is here.

Oh William! (2021) by Elizabeth Strout

I have loved all of Strout's books that feature Lucy Barton. In My Name is Lucy Barton, Lucy tells of one event in her life while she is married to William, and I really disliked him in that story. In each succeeding novel about their relationship I grew to understand him and Lucy more. The books are all about relationships; in this book, William is married to his third wife and Lucy's second husband died recently. See my thoughts here.

Alternate History / Espionage / Fantasy

At the Table of Wolves (2017) by Kay Kenyon

This is a spy story set in an alternative version of the UK and Germany in the years leading up to World War II. In both countries, there are people with fantastical paranormal abilities; these powers started showing up after World War I. For the most part, the "superpowers" are not very obvious and people have to be trained to use them. See my review here.

Fantasy

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea (2022) by Rebecca Thorne

My son purchased this book at the book sale this year.  I was interested in checking out what a cozy fantasy was like so my son let me read it first. The story is about a lesbian couple who want to leave their current lives behind and open a bookstore in a remote location where no one can find them. The problem is that Reyna is a private guard to a powerful and cruel queen, and Kianthe is a powerful mage. Somehow they both manage to leave their responsibilities behind and move to a small town far from their previous lives to set up a book shop. My review is here.

Guards! Guards! (1989) by Terry Pratchett

This book is the 8th book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and the 1st book in the City Watch sub-series. The series stars Sam Vimes, but in this novel, the City Watch police force don't function very well in keeping the peace, because of the corruption at high levels in the city of Ankh-Morpork. This is only the third Discworld book I have read by Pratchett; I read Mort in 2016. So I had to get used to Pratchett's style of writing again. I enjoyed the book, even though it took me about half of the book to get into it and be able to keep track of the characters. The characters are all very strange and the book is satirical. I now have the next book in the City Watch series to read (Men at Arms).

Crime Fiction

The '44 Vintage (1978) by Anthony Price

This is the eighth book in Price's David Audley series of nineteen books, all published between 1970 and 1990. The series is in the spy fiction genre, and the stories are Cold War espionage. Except for this one, which takes place near the end of World War II, and is kind of an origin story for the two main characters in the series, historian and intelligence agent David Audley and Colonel Jack Butler.  I loved this book and all the other books I have read in the series; each book focuses on different historical event. The '44 Vintage would not be a good place to start the series, though.

The Satan Sampler (1979) by Victor Canning

This is the 6th book in a spy fiction series called the Birdcage books. They all revolve around a covert security group in the UK, a branch of the Ministry of Defense. I enjoyed this book, although it wasn't as good as earlier entries in this series. See my thoughts here.

The Dentist (2020) by Tim Sullivan

This is the first book in a series that features an autistic police detective. I was very pleased with the book. The plot was very good,  complicated but realistic. I liked the protagonist, Detective Sergeant George Cross, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. I liked everything about the book, including seeing what a person with Asperger's would encounter in a job, and how the person's coworkers may be affected. 

This series started in 2020 and there are already eight books in the series. I have already purchased the second and third books in the series and will be reading them in 2026.

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect (2023) by Benjamin Stevenson

This is the 2nd book in the Ernest Cunningham series; I read the 1st book earlier this year. Both of the books are highly entertaining and humorous. Ernest, who narrates the story, makes a living writing about how to write mysteries. Prior to this book he has written a memoir about his experience with a serial killer. As the book begins, he is attending a writing conference set on a train.

More cat pictures...

London has now been with us five months. We are still adjusting to London and he to us. When we first got him he sat or slept on cat beds. Now he ignores them and uses the furniture (or sits on books). Click on the images for the best viewing quality. 

Oh William!: Elizabeth Strout

I read this book in early October. I read Lucy by the Sea and Tell Me Everything, later books by Elizabeth Strout, in November. 

I have loved all the books that feature Lucy Barton. But I find it very hard to review them. For one thing, each story moves Lucy to a new place in her life, and that was why I read the books in order and did not read any reviews of the books until I had read the book. In My Name is Lucy Barton, Lucy tells of one event in her life while she is married to William, and I really disliked him in that story. In each succeeding novel about their relationship I grew to understand him and Lucy more. The books are all about relationships, and in this book and the next two books are also about relationships and aging.  

At the beginning of Oh William!, Lucy's second husband, David, had died about a year earlier. They had been married five years, and she misses him very much. Lucy talks about her marriage to David a bit, but most of the story focuses on her previous marriage to William, which lasted about twenty years, and their relationship since then. William was an only child, and very close to his mother. So Lucy and William and their two daughters spent a lot of time with her. After having a paternity test, William learns things about his mother that he did not know. 

The writing style that Elizabeth Strout uses in the books focused on Lucy Barton drew me into the story. It feels like Lucy is talking to the reader. Some of her other books are more a sequence of related stories, and the style in those seems different to me, although they are just as compelling to read.

If you liked My Name is Lucy Barton, you would probably like this too. Anything is Possible also has stories related to Lucy Barton.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:  Random House, 2022 (orig. publ. 2021)
Length:     240 pages
Format:    Trade Paperback
Series:     Amgash series
Setting:    USA
Genre:     Fiction
Source:    I purchased my copy in 2024.

Short Story Wednesday: More Stories from Christmas Stalkings

 

Christmas Stalkings, published in 1991, was the second Christmas short story anthology edited by Charlotte MacLeod. As the subtitle "Tales of Yuletide Murder" suggests, these are all mystery stories. All of the stories in the book appeared in print for the first time in this book. Last Wednesday, I reviewed three of the stories. I have several more stories to talk about today. Here they are:

"Counterfeit Christmas" by Charlotte MacLeod

MacLeod is a Canadian crime fiction writer who has written two series under her own name, and two under a pseudonym, as Alisa Craig. One of her series features Peter Shandy, a professor at Balaclava Agricultural College in rural Massachusetts. 

This story also features Peter Shandy, who lives in a faculty dwelling alongside the homes of seven other members of the faculty. Each year at Christmas all of the homes are decorated, and tourists come on campus to enjoy the decorated homes. Food is sold by the students to make money. This year, the campus comptroller, Moira Haskins, finds a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill in the funds from the previous days' sales. The bill has the portrait of President Thorkjeld Svenson on the bill rather than that of President Andrew Jackson. As more counterfeit bills show up the next night, Shandy helps to figure out what is going on and how to deal with it. It is a tame story, but the solution is clever and fun. This story features Peter Shandy's cat, Jane.

"The Running of the Deer" by Reginald Hill

Reginald Hill's most well-known mystery series is his Dalziel and Pascoe series. I have read 14 of the 24 books in that series. The character in this story is Joe Sixmith. At the time this story was published, there were two short stories about Sixsmith. Two years later, in 1993, Hill published the first novel in the Joe Sixsmith series, Blood Sympathy. I haven't read any novels in that series but I have copies of all five of them.

In "The Running of the Deer," Joe Sixsmith is hired to look into "lamping" incidents on an estate in Cumbria. Lamping is using extremely bright lights in hunting, in this case for deer. Joe is invited to stay in a converted barn while he is investigating. I liked this story because events take a surprising sharp turn at the end. And because Sixsmith has a black and white cat that travels with him. And now I am going to get moving on reading the first Joe Sixsmith novel.  

"A Political Necessity" by Robert Barnard

Robert Barnard is one of my favorite authors. I have read all of his Perry Trethowan series, most of the Charlie Peace series (which broke off from the Perry Trethowan series), and a lot of his standalone novels. His books are quirky, often have interesting twists, and are generally considered in the cozy sub-genre. They have bite but they are not violent or gritty.

"A Political Necessity" is a story about a politician who has recently gotten a promotion to a position in the Home Office. Immediately he starts planning to kill his wife.

First few sentences in the story:

It must be rare for the first thought of a newly appointed government minister to be: Now is the time to kill my wife. Don’t get me wrong—I’m sure many of my colleagues would like to, with that dull, insistent sort of wishing which will never actually impel them to action, and which is characteristic of second-rate minds. My thought was not If only I could but Now I can.

This is a pretty dark story, but I loved it.

"The Only True Unraveller" by John Malcolm

"Death is the only true unraveller" is a quote from The Gondoliers by Gilbert and Sullivan. This story starts with two men, long time friends, going for a walk on a cold night in December, on Christmas Eve. They are walking through a cemetery near to Quentin Cranbrooks' home. The protagonist is visiting Quentin at Christmas because he has been widowed for two years and has no one to spend Christmas with. The story is atmospheric, the mood gradually gets darker, and the setting is wonderful. If you like Gilbert and Sullivan and/or cemeteries, you might enjoy this story.

"The January Sale Stowaway" by Dorothy Cannell

This story is very cozy. It doesn't truly take place at Christmas but is about the days following Christmas and into January at a time when the main character was alone and lonely. And it also involves a department store Father Christmas who is bitter because he has been accused of theft. I loved the story and was very glad I read it.

The first Christmas anthology edited by MacLeod was Mistletoe Mysteries, published in 1989.

The Satan Sampler: Victor Canning

This is the 6th book in a loose series called the Birdcage books. They were published between 1971 and 1985. They all revolve around a covert security group in the UK, a branch of the Ministry of Defense. The officials and the agents attached to the Birdcage group are generally amoral, although they believe that their mission is important to the welfare of the country.

Since this is a very difficult book to summarize, I am using the description on the dust jacket: 

On the death of his elder brother, Richard Seyton inherits the Seyton estate, which had been in the family since the fourteenth century. But the great Seyton Hall–showpiece of the estate–has been leased to an international charitable organization, the Felbeck Foundation for the Preservation of the Christian Heritage, which is not all that it seems to be. Determined to find a way to break the lease, Seyton is slowly enmeshed in a dangerous web of intrigue and underground politics, especially when the sinister intelligence organization know as Birdcage intrudes upon his affairs.

 

This story isn't quite as good as the earlier books. Some of the characterizations have less depth, and the spy story is very similar to the previous book. The evil practices and deceptions of the group are just as nefarious as ever, though. The story does feature several of the Birdcage characters from the previous two books, and I liked that. And the emphasis on the beauty of the countryside, the descriptions of the birds and animals, is still there. I loved the setting, the atmosphere, the use of nature. 

The Birdcage novels are usually somewhat of a downer in the end, which is realistic for spy fiction, but this one had a more upbeat ending than usual.

This quote is from the back flyleaf of the dust jacket of the first US hardback edition:

"For years now, Victor Canning has been moving into new directions with the suspense story. The spy thriller has become a novel of character with him. The doomsday book of fate intertwined with old family histories has moved into fresh insights of human foibles. The chase genre has been brought to three-dimensional life by the astute use of settings, where every bird and leaf become a part of the narrative." (Ed Hutshing, Book Editor, San Diego Union)

There are only two more books in the series, and I am looking forward to both of them.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   William Morrow and Co., 1980 (orig. pub. 1979)
Length:       233 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Birdcage books #6
Setting:      UK
Genre:       Espionage fiction
Source:      Purchased in December, 2024.

Short Story Wednesday: Short Stories from Christmas Stalkings

 

The subtitle for this book of Christmas short stories is "Tales of Yuletide Murder." Based on the cover, you might think the stories are all cozy, but one reviewer of the book described the stories as mostly dark. In the small sample I have read so far, one is on the cozy side, and two are definitely darker. Christmas Stalkings was published in 1991, and all of the stories in the book appeared in print for the first time in this book.

 

"The Santa Claus Caper" by Bill Crider

Bill Crider is one of my favorite authors. I have read nine books in his Sheriff Dan Rhodes series and I plan to read all of the Dan Rhodes mysteries. Another mystery series by Crider features Carl Burns, a professor of English Literature at a small college in Texas. (Crider was the chairman of the English Department at Alvin Community College in Alvin, Texas.) 

"The Santa Claus Caper" introduced me to the characters in the Carl Burns series, including R. M. “Boss” Napier, Chief of the Pecan City, Texas, police. Carl Burns has talked Napier into playing a part in a "reader's theater" version of A Christmas Carol. In turn, Chief Napier wants Burns to go undercover as a department store Santa Claus, because the store was having high losses due to shoplifting. Neither one of them is happy playing their new role.

"Family Christmas" by Patricia Moyes

I like Patricia Moyes' mysteries and I have read all nineteen books in her Inspector Henry Tibbett series. The short story in this book does not feature her series characters.

"Family Christmas" is a clever and poignant story. Robert Runfold and his wife, Mary, live a comfortable life with lots of money. They have two married daughters, who are coming home for Christmas. Robert is curmudgeonly and suspicious. He thinks that both of his daughter's husbands would gladly kill him for the money that their wives would inherit after his death. So he has changed his will so that they will not inherit any money until both daughters are over forty. I had no idea how this story would end.

"Miss Melville Rejoices" by Evelyn E. Smith

Evelyn E. Smith is new to me. Early in her career, she wrote science fiction and fantasy, both short stories and novels. In 1986, she started a five book series featuring Miss Melville, a middle-aged assassin. The story in this book, published in 1991, was her first short story featuring Miss Melville.

This story begins on Christmas Eve, with Miss Melville breaking into the Melville Foundation for Anthropological Research, where later in the evening there would be a party in honor of the deposed dictator of Mazigaziland, the infamous Matthew Zimwi, the man for whom Time magazine had established the category of Monster of the Year. Miss Melville is planning to assassinate Matthew Zimwi during the party. The story is very complicated and I enjoyed the outcome very much. 

I will definitely be reading the first novel in the Miss Melville series, Miss Melville Regrets.

Following is a list of the authors and short stories in this book:

• Charlotte MacLeod: Counterfeit Christmas 
• Reginald Hill: The Running of the Deer 
• Elizabeth Peters: Liz Peters, PI 
• Medora Sale: Angels 
• John Malcolm: The Only True Unraveller 
• Dorothy Cannell: The January Sale Stowaway 
• Bill Crider: The Santa Claus Caper 
• Patricia Moyes: Family Christmas 
• Evelyn E. Smith: Miss Melville Rejoices 
• Eric Wright: Two in the Bush 
• Mickey Friedman: The Fabulous Nick 
• Robert Barnard: A Political Necessity 
• Margaret Maron: Fruitcake, Mercy, and Black-Eyed Peas

Six Degrees of Separation: From Seascraper to Tokyo Express

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. Usually Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, which was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize. The protagonist is a young man living with his mother in Longferry, a town on the English coast. He supports both of them by scraping fish off the sea shore, although his real goal is to be a successful folk musician. 

1st degree:

Using the title of the starting book, and the setting, I am starting my chain with The Seaside: England's Love Affair by Madeleine Bunting.  This is a nonfiction book about the seaside towns and resorts set on the coastline of England. For this book, the author traveled around the edges of England, staying in forty resorts in various types of accommodations. This is my husband's book, which he read in 2023 and gave a 5 star rating. I hope to read it someday.

2nd degree:

In The Seaside, Madeleine Bunting mentions a novel that is set in Bognor, a seaside resort town. The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff was published in 1931. I haven't read that book either, but I do have a copy to read, soon I hope.

From the French flap of the paperback edition I own:

Meet the Stevens family, as they prepare to embark on their annual holiday to the coast of England. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens first made the trip to Bognor Regis on their honeymoon, and the tradition has continued every September since. They follow the same carefully honed schedule – now accompanied by their three children, twenty-year-old Mary, seventeen-year-old Dick, and little brother Ernie. 

Arriving in Bognor they head to Seaview, the guesthouse where they stay every year. It's a bit shabbier than it once was – the landlord has died and his wife is struggling as the number of guests dwindles. But the family finds bliss in booking a slightly bigger cabana (with a balcony!) and in their rediscovery of familiar beloved sights.

3rd degree:

I will continue in the beach theme for this next book in the chain: The Mask of Memory by Victor Canning. Canning is the author of one of my favorite espionage series, about a covert security group in the UK. The secret wife of one of the most experienced operatives in the group lives in North Devon and often walks on the beach, enjoying the scenery and the birds in the area. One of my favorite parts of the books in this series is the beautiful descriptions of the countryside and the wildlife, especially birds, in each of the locations.

4th degree:

And now I am linking to a mystery novel with a beach setting in Argentina. Where There's Love, There's Hate, published in 1946, was written by Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, Argentine writers who were married to each other.

Dr. Humberto Huberman is visiting the seaside at Bosque del Mar, Argentina. He is staying at a hotel owned by relatives. It is a small hotel and not many guests. On the first evening after his arrival, one of the guests dies, by poison. Dr. Huberman appoints himself the investigator, but of course the real policemen arrive soon enough. 

5th degree:

Fall from Grace by L.R. Wright, published in 1991, is a another mystery where a dead body is found on a beach. Sechelt is a real-life seaside community on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, northwest of Vancouver. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Karl Alberg is out sailing with his lover Cassandra when they see the body of a man on the beach. It turns out that he had fallen from a cliff above. The dead man was Steven Grayson, who grew up in Sechelt but has been living in Vancouver for the last ten years. The story is told from multiple perspectives (Karl Alberg's, Cassandra's, the various members of the community that are affected by the death).

6th degree:

The last book in this chain is also a mystery; two bodies are found on a beach, and the setting is Japan. In Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto, published in 1958, two detectives in different cities in Japan investigate the same crime and collaborate, sharing their thoughts and discoveries. A man and a woman are found dead on a beach in Kashii, and the police assume that it is a double suicide. Inspector Torigai in Kashii is first assigned to the case, and he has no reason to disagree with that determination, but he does notice some puzzling aspects and continues to have nagging questions. Later Inspector Mihara from Tokyo comes to discuss the case with Torigai.  Mihara thinks the deaths are related to a bribery scandal in the government. This novel was first published in English translation as Points and Lines.

My Six Degrees started out in England, then went on to stops in Argentina, Canada, and Japan. Have you read any of these books? 

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

The next Six Degrees will be on January 3, 2026. Kate has decided that the starting book will be a wildcard. Those participating in Six Degrees can either start with the last book in the December 2025 chain or, if you did not play in December, begin with the last book you read.

Short Story Wednesday: Two Christmas Stories by Lorrie Moore

 

In May 2024, I read several stories in Birds of America by Lorrie Moore. The first few stories were confusing to me, and it took me a while to adjust to Moore's style of writing. 

Here are some general themes I noted when reading the stories in Birds of America. 

• First of all, each story features birds in some way. Sometimes just one offhand sentence, sometimes a brief scene. I liked that. 
• The stories usually focused on relationships and the people tended to be quirky. 
• Most of the stories, maybe all, were somewhat depressing, sometimes sad. But in most of them, there was also humor.

There were two stories in Birds of America set at Christmas, and I left those to read in December. I did not get around to reading them until this year. 

"Charades" is set on Christmas Day. The family has gathered at their parents' home. Therese is the oldest and has gotten an appointment as a circuit court judge; Ann is ten years younger and in law school; Andrew is the middle child, and an electrical engineer. Therese and Andrew both have spouses, and Ann is getting married soon to Tad. Their parents are in their seventies. They are playing charades. Therese has a plane to catch at 4:30; Ann is irritated because her sister did not schedule a later flight and spend more time with the family. Mostly the grown children just seem to bicker with each other. That seems like a fairly normal Christmas atmosphere for a family of only adults (there is just one very young grandchild). My description makes the story sound really dreary, but it left me with a good feeling nevertheless.

"Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens" is more a cat story than a Christmas story, but it ends on a happier note than "Charades" did. It begins in November and ends on Christmas Day.

Bert, Aileen's cat, died on Veterans Day. Aileen is deeply affected, and begins drinking heavily. She has a loving husband and a beautiful child, and neither her friends or her family understand the level of grief she is feeling after Bert's death.

Her husband eventually convinces Aileen to see a therapist. She finds a therapist who guarantees she will be cured by Christmas. 

Favorite quote:  Jack, Aileen's husband, says...

"Life is a long journey across a wide country... Sometimes the weather's good. Sometimes it's bad. Sometimes it's so bad, your car goes off the road."

I still have three stories left to read in Birds of America. They are longer stories, each about 35-40 pages. 

At the Table of Wolves: Kay Kenyon

 

For the 52 Book Club Challenge, I asked my son to suggest a genre for me to read (Prompt 37: Genre Chosen for you by someone else). He chose Alternate History as the genre, and suggested a fantasy to fit that category. So I ended up reading a very entertaining cross-genre novel with a strong female character in the lead role.

Description provided by the publisher:

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy meets Agent Carter meets X-Men in a classic British espionage story. A young woman must go undercover and use her superpowers to discover a secret Nazi plot and stop an invasion of England.

In 1936, there are paranormal abilities that have slowly seeped into the world, brought to the surface by the suffering of the Great War. The research to weaponize these abilities in England has lagged behind Germany, but now it's underway at an ultra-secret site called Monkton Hall.

This description of the book, especially the first paragraph, is misleading in my opinion. It sounds like the novel is an over-the-top spy story. The novel is a very good spy story, but it is more of an adventure than the quiet, somber stories written by John le Carré. It is set in an alternative version of the UK and Germany in the years leading up to World War II. Within the British government, there is strong support for an alliance between the UK and Germany and many think that a cooperative relationship between the two countries can be successful; some citizens support that view, others don't trust the German government. 

There are people with fantastical paranormal abilities in both countries; these powers started showing up after World War I. For the most part, the "superpowers" are not very obvious and people have to be trained to use them. 

The heroine of the story, Kim Tavistock, has such an ability, called the "spill." She is capable of influencing other people to reveal secrets to her. Her supervisor/trainer at Monkton Hall requests that she go undercover to a country house weekend party. There will be highly placed Germans at the party. She will try to get some information on what the Germans are planning. Kim and her supervisor are doing this on their own, with no backing, which puts her in danger at times. 

My thoughts:

I like the central female character. She has no training in espionage and her supervisor is not sufficiently knowledgeable in that area to guide her, but she is determined to be successful at her mission and willing to take chances. She is living with her father in England after having spent the previous ten years living with her mother in the US. Thus there is a strained relationship between her and her father, and they are keeping secrets from each other.

I liked the setting, both in time and place. Especially at the beginning, the action takes place in both England and Germany. I thought the depiction of the time period was very well done and convincing. Germany takes the new powers more seriously and invests heavily in experiments to test the ability to use them to take over other countries. 

I love reading espionage stories, realistic or not. This book has enough grounding in the history of the years prior to World War II and a story that moves at a swift pace, so I think it would appeal to a wider audience. And the paranormal parts are very well done without seeming over the top. 

This book is the first in a trilogy. However, the book does not end in a cliffhanger and has a satisfactory conclusion. I will be getting a copy of the 2nd book soon.

Short Story Wednesday: Thrilling Tales

 

Early this week, I started reading stories in McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, edited by Michael Chabon. I was a little bit confused by the introduction, which seemed to be describing what kind of stories would be in the book, but did not help me at all. The title indicates that the stories would be thrilling, but the four stories I read were not in any way thrilling. That description makes it sound like I did not like the stories, but I did, for the most part. 

My favorite story was "Chuck’s Bucket" by Chris Offutt. That story was all over the place, with time travel and a ghost and alternate universes. Plus the main character was Chris Offutt himself, writing about his difficulties in writing the story. Because he thinks that there is a ghost in his apartment, he goes to visit a university professor to ask for help. Instead his professor decides to use Chris as the subject for a time travel experiment. I liked that story very much; it was original and fun.

In "Blood Doesn't Come Out" by Michael Crichton, a private investigator's day starts off badly. He proves that an employee was stealing from his store, but it turns out that the guilty employee was the employer's lover, and the employer is very unhappy with the result. Then the PI's girlfriend walks out on him. From there, things go from bad to worse. The story was good and the ending was unexpected. 

"Private Grave 9" by Karen Joy Fowler was more of a supernatural story. It is set at an archaeological dig in Mesopotamia, around the same time as Howard Carter's dig. Those at the dig are unhappy because they are not finding anything as important as Howard Carter was finding at Tutankhamen's tomb. Finally they find the royal tomb of a princess. The narrator of the story is a photographer and takes photos of all the finds. On the photo of the princess, a face was superimposed over the skull. It was an interesting story because of the setting, and I like Fowler's writing, but it did not seem to go anywhere.

The last story I read, Aimee Bender’s "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers," was closest to a mystery puzzle. A married couple is found dead in a room, the wife poisoned, the husband stabbed. The strange thing is that they have a collection of salt and pepper shakers. The police detective who narrates the story wonders if they killed each other. The end of the story is inconclusive. It was a decent story but not really satisfying. 

I will continue reading the stories in this book. The full list of authors and stories is below: 

• Jim Shepard’s "Tedford and the Megalodon"
• Glen David Gold’s "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter"
• Dan Chaon’s "The Bees"
• Kelly Link’s "Catskin"
• Elmore Leonard’s "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman"
• Carol Emshwiller’s "The General"
• Neil Gaiman’s "Closing Time"
• Nick Hornby’s "Otherwise Pandemonium"
• Stephen King’s "The Tale of Gray Dick"
• Michael Crichton’s "Blood Doesn’t Come Out"
• Laurie King’s "Weaving the Dark"
• Chris Offutt’s "Chuck’s Bucket"
• Dave Eggers’s "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly"
• Michael Moorcock’s "The Case of the Nazi Canary"
• Aimee Bender’s "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers"
• Sherman Alexie’s "Ghost Dance"
• Harlan Ellison’s "Goodbye to All That"
• Karen Joy Fowler’s "Private Grave 9"
• Rick Moody’s "The Albertine Notes"
• Michael Chabon’s "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance"

My Books from the 2025 Book Sale

Every year we look forward to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale, which was held between September 12 – 21, 2025. We go to the sale five times, and the last day the books are half price. So, two months after the book sale, I am listing seven of the many books that I purchased at the sale. I have not read any of these yet, but I will read the first one on the list before the end of the year.

These are listed in no particular order, although I started with books that were not mysteries, and ended with mysteries.

Tell Me Everything (2024) by Elizabeth Strout

Why did I buy this book? It was on my list of books to look for at the sale. I just finished reading Oh, William! by the same author in October. I will be reading Lucy by the Sea this month (November). And I want to read Tell Me Everything by the end of 2025. All of those novels have some of the same characters. So I was happy to find a copy.

I don't know much about Tell Me Everything (and I don't want to at this point), but it is set in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine, and features several characters from previous books by Strout: Lucy Barton, Bob Burgess, Olive Kitteridge and more.

Pearly Everlasting (2024) by Tammy Armstrong

Why did I buy this book? It was another book on my list that I had hoped to find. The author is Canadian and the setting is New Brunswick during the Great Depression. If I hadn't found a copy I would have been buying a copy soon, probably for much more than I spent at the sale. 

I don't know much about this story. The Goodreads description notes that it is about a cook in a logging camp who rescues an orphaned bear and brings it home. The bear lives with him and his wife and daughter. Years later the bear is sold and the teenaged daughter goes to rescue it. I have seen Pearly Everlasting classified as a fantasy. I don't think it fits well into my definition of a fantasy, but I think the basic story of a bear bonding with a girl is not based on realistic bear behavior. So it sounds more like a folktale to me. See Susan's review at The Cue Card. In that same post, Susan also reviews Tell Me Everything (above).

The Grammarians (2019) by Cathleen Schine

Why did I buy this book? I saw the cover, read the description, and was intrigued by the book. The author is new to me. I don't focus on grammar so much but I love words, so it sounded good.

From the dust jacket on the book:

The grammarians are Laurel and Daphne Wolfe, identical, inseparable redheaded twins who share an obsession with words. They speak a secret “twin” tongue of their own as toddlers; as adults making their way in 1980s Manhattan, their verbal infatuation continues, but, lo and behold, this love, which has always bound them together, begins to push them apart.

Lilian Boxfish Takes a Walk (2017) by Kathleen Rooney

Why did I buy this book? It was pretty much the cover that decided me. I had heard of the author vaguely but had seen this cover here and there. The description sounded good, AND the book has a map of New York on the end papers.

From the dust jacket of the book:

Now it’s the last night of 1984 and Lillian, 85 years old but just as sharp and savvy as ever, is on her way to a party. It’s chilly enough out for her mink coat and Manhattan is grittier now―her son keeps warning her about a subway vigilante on the prowl―but the quick-tongued poetess has never been one to scare easily. On a walk that takes her over 10 miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be, while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak...

The Spy Coast (2023) by Tess Gerritsen

Why did I buy this book? I like espionage books, and this one is by an author who I am familiar with. The ratings are good. I have read five books in the Rizzoli and Isles series. 

From the back of the book:

Former spy Maggie Bird came to the seaside village of Purity, Maine, eager to put the past behind her after a mission went tragically wrong. These days, she’s living quietly on her chicken farm, still wary of blowback from the events that forced her early retirement.

But when a body turns up in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her.

Invisible Helix (2021) by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray

Why did I buy this book? My husband introduced me to this author and I have read as many books by him as we can find. This is the fifth book in the Detective Galileo series that has been translated to English, and I have read the four previous books.

From the description at Goodreads:

Detective Galileo, Keigo Higashino's best loved character from The Devotion of Suspect X, returns in a case where hidden history, and impossible crime, are linked by nearly invisible threads in surprising ways.

The body of a young man is found floating in Tokyo Bay. But his death was no accident-Ryota Uetsuji was shot. He'd been reported missing the week before by his live-in girlfriend Sonoka Shimauchi, but when detectives from the Homicide Squad go to interview her, she is nowhere to be found.

To Fetch a Thief (2010) by Spencer Quinn

Why did I buy this book? This was another one I bought for the cover. I have read the first book in the Chet and Bernie series and enjoyed it. I like books about the circus, although I haven't read that many. It was too good to pass up.

The books in the Chet and Bernie series are narrated by a dog named Chet. Chet is not a superdog; he flunked out of K-9 training, but still has the heart of a detective. His owner, private investigator Bernie Little, is not perfect either but never gives up on the case. The setting seems to be Arizona.

Short Story Wednesday: The Grantchester Mysteries

 

The Grantchester Mysteries consists of six short story collections by James Runcie. The short stories are all connected and follow the investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. This first story is set in 1953, the coronation year of Queen Elizabeth II. 

Years ago, I read several reviews of the stories in the Grantchester TV series and some reviewers said that the TV episodes were better than the short stories. So for a while I avoided reading the stories. I still haven't seen the TV series, but now I have read the first story in Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death and I enjoyed it very much. 

"The Shadow of Death"

First paragraph:

Canon Sidney Chambers had never intended to become a detective. Indeed, it came about quite by chance, after a funeral, when a handsome woman of indeterminate age voiced her suspicion that the recent death of a Cambridge solicitor was not suicide, as had been widely reported, but murder.

The death is a suicide and the lover of the dead man, Pamela Morton, is the woman who asks Sidney to look into it. She doesn't believe that he would commit suicide. Sidney is a vicar, and although he doesn't see himself as suited to investigating such an issue, he agrees to talk to various people who knew the dead man. 

It helps that he has a good friend, Inspector Keating, who worked on the investigation of the man's death. However, his friend is somewhat irritated by Sidney's interest, and doesn't see that there is evidence that points to murder.

Other characters are:

• the wife of the dead man;
• the dead man's secretary;
• and his business partner, who is married to the dead man's lover.

I liked this first story very much. I enjoyed meeting the protagonist, Canon Sidney Sheldon. I liked Sidney's musings on his faith, and his misgivings on getting himself involved in investigating a possible crime. I thought the mystery was put together well, and I liked the depictions of the various characters. 

This first story is 80 pages long, so it is basically a novella. The other five stories in the book range from 50 to 70 pages in length. 

Books Read in August 2025

As you can see, I am more than a bit behind with my monthly reading summaries. August's reading was a bit unusual for me. I only read five books, partly because one of them was a nonfiction book, and I usually read them more slowly. I only read two mysteries, but the nonfiction book focused on mystery plots and narration in both novels and film, so it was related to mysteries. 

Nonfiction

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland (2002) by Jim Defede

When the terrorist attacks in the US occurred on September 11. 2001, US airspace was shut down indefinitely. Airplanes that needed to land there were diverted to other airports outside the US.  Thirty eight commercial airplanes were instructed to land at the Gander International Airport in Newfoundland. This book describes the stories of the men, women, and families who were on the planes that had to land there and the logistics of getting the planes on the ground and finding places for all the passengers and flight crews to stay. Many of the people in Gander and surrounding towns donated their time to support the many people who were temporarily housed there. This book did a great job of covering that situation, at least from my perspective. The writing style was not perfect, and the organization of the various stories about the visitors and the townspeople was sometimes haphazard, but I was so interested in reading about it all that I did not really care.

Perplexing Plots (2023) by David Bordwell  

The subtitle of this book is "Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder." Bordwell was an influential film scholar; this book, the last one he published, focuses on crime fiction and films in the 1900s up to more recent times. He discusses the development of crime fiction plots and narratives and notes the same developments in plays and film of that time. See my review.

Fantasy / Time Travel

Before Your Memory Fades (2018) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

This is the third in a series of five books about time travel that takes place in a café in Tokyo which has been serving a special coffee for more than one hundred years. When people sit at a particular table, drinking a cup of that coffee allows them to travel in time, but just for a short time. There are four connected stories in this book; each is novella length. The stories of the people who run the café are just as interesting as the time travel stories. In this book, some of the people who run the café in Tokyo visit a second time travel café in another city. You might think that the stories get to be repetitive, but I have found new approaches and ideas in each of the books I have read. The first book in the series is Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

Crime Fiction

The Killing of the Tinkers (2002) Ken Bruen

This is a very noir, but also relatively short, crime fiction book, the 2nd book in a series featuring Jack Taylor, a sort of private investigator in Galway, Ireland. Ken Bruen writes beautifully, and the main character is constantly talking about the books he is reading or the music he is listening to, but it is a really dark book. I have the third book in the series and I will read that one for sure, and if I had time, I would read all of them. I have also read the first three books in Bruen's Inspector Brant series, which I prefer.

Pesticide (2023) by Kim Hays

This book is the first in the Linder and Donatelli series. It is a police procedural set in Bern, Switzerland. Detective Giuliana Linder is an experienced homicide detective; she has worked with Investigator Renzo Donatelli before but this time they start out on different cases in very different locations. The author has dual Swiss/American citizenship, and has lived in Bern with her husband for 37 years. See my review.

Recently finished

At the Table of Wolves by Kay Kenyon is an alternate history with elements of espionage and fantasy; some characters have paranormal powers. It is set in 1936 in England and Germany; I thought the depiction of the time period was very well done and convincing.  

Currently reading

Actually I will start reading this nonfiction book tonight. Eight Days in May is about the eight days following Hitler's death on April 30, 1945. The author, Volker Ullrich, is a German historian; the book was translated from German by Jefferson Chase. 

And, more cat pictures...

London has now been with us three months. Per some pet behavior specialists, this is an important milestone in a new pet's adjustment. We are still adjusting to London and he to us. He is fun and so big compared to our previous cats. He is beginning to show more affection and easily accept it from us. All of the photos were taken by my husband. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.