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.

Books Read in March 2026

 

March was a very good reading month for me. I enjoyed every book I read. There was enough variety to make me happy. A nonfiction graphic novel, an epistolary novel, science fantasy, a book of short stories in the historical fiction genre, a vintage mystery and two contemporary mysteries.

Here are the books I read:

Graphic novel / Nonfiction

Do Admit! (2025) by Mimi Pond (Writer and Artist)

My husband and I both read this graphic nonfiction book in March. It was perfect book for me. I am very interested in reading about the Mitford sisters. Mimi Pond writes about her own obsession with the Mitfords in this book. The full title is Do Admit!: The Mitford Sisters and Me. The art is gorgeous and the information is presented well. The only problem with this book is that it is so full of information that I am sure I missed a lot the first time I read it. I will definitely have to read it again.

Epistolary Fiction

The Correspondent (2025) by Virginia Evans

This is an epistolary novel, made up of the correspondence in letters and emails, etc. of an older retired woman. I have always enjoyed this type of novel, and this one was especially good. The main character is Sybil Van Antwerp and she spends most of her time writing letters to people. Some of her friends and relatives respond and some of the famous people, often authors, respond. Others just email her and she does not like that kind of correspondence very much. She is cranky at times and very outspoken about her views and feelings. 

I loved that Sybil included what she was reading in almost every letter she wrote, and also asked the recipient what they were reading. Occasionally Sybil would give her opinion or thoughts on the books. Over time, the reader discovers more about Sybil and events in her life. Family relationships are a big part of the story, and I always like reading about families. The end of the book was extremely moving, and I was very emotional at times.

Science Fantasy

A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle

This is a classic young adult science fantasy novel about three children who have an adventure in space and time. The main characters are Margaret Murry (called Meg), her younger brother Charles Wallace Murry, and their friend, Calvin. Calvin is two years older than Meg, and Charles Wallace is much younger than either of them, but they make a great team working together. A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in the Time Quintet. I did not know this until after I had read the book and reviewed it, but each book in the Time Quintet is very different and has a different focus. See my review.

Crime Fiction

Contemplation of a Crime (2025) by Susan Juby

Juby is a Canadian author, and the setting is a small island off Vancouver Island. This is the third book in a mystery series about a butler with a Buddhist / contemplative background. Helen Thorpe works for a very rich couple and she ends up having to rescue her boss after he and his son are kidnapped. All of the characters are eccentric. This is the third in a series and I liked the first two also. I like the way that the main character handles unexpected and stressful events. My favorite part of the book is the mindfulness theme. Helen is a very appealing character, who is (almost) never ruffled by anything.

A Brush with Death (1950) by Sheila Pim

Between 1945 and 1952, Sheila Pim, an Irish crime novelist and horticulturist, published four mysteries set in Ireland and with a focus on gardening. A Brush with Death was the third of those mystery novels, published in 1950. The story involves two families. Paul and Hester Fennelly and their daughter Barbara live in Dublin. Hester's brother, Fergus Gandon, is a well-known artist who lives in an isolated rural area with his wife, Nell, and their three young children. They live in the Dower House of Castle Kiskour, and act as caretakers for Lord Kiskour when he is away, which is much of the time. See my review.

Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (2013) by James Runcie

The Grantchester Mysteries is a series of short story collections by James Runcie. The short stories are all connected and follow the criminal investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. This is the second book in the series.  I enjoyed the first book, and this one was even better. See my review.

First Do No Harm (2026) by S.J. Rozan

This is the 16th book in the Lydia Chin / Bill Smith series. They are private investigators. Bill Smith lives in Manhattan; Lydia Chin is an American-born Chinese who lives in New York’s Chinatown with her mother. They are not officially partners but they often work together. The unique element in this series is that the narrator of the books alternates. Usually books centered on Bill's cases are grittier; Lydia's cases are more fun. In this book, Lydia's brother, a doctor who is in charge of the ER department, has asked her to suggest a lawyer for a man who works in the hospital morgue, who has been accused of the murder of a nurse. The lawyer then calls in Lydia and Bill to investigate when the morgue assistant is arrested. This is an eye-opening view of hospital politics and corruption. S.J. Rozan is one of my favorite authors and I have read all of the books in this series. I loved this book.

For the past month and a half 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 a lot of new plants, mostly geraniums and succulents. We have been to the nearby plant nursery multiple times to get plants, bark, and potting soil. The photos at the top and bottom of the post were taken by my husband at the nursery. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Short Story Wednesday: "Lucky Dip" by Liza Cody

A few weeks ago I transferred a group of books from one wire cube to a new improved one. In the back of the cube, I discovered some books I had forgotten I had. One of them was A Woman's Eye, an anthology of short stories published in 1991 and edited by Sara Paretsky. That book consists of 21 short stories by women; the stories all feature female sleuths. The first story in the book is "Lucky Dip" by Liza Cody.

"Lucky Dip" by Liza Cody

The primary character in this story is a homeless young woman, Crystal, eighteen years old, who supports herself by begging for handouts or looking for food in dumpsters. One night she happens upon the body of dead man. He is dressed well; she quickly takes his wallet and his watch and leaves the area. When she discovers that the wallet has a lot of money in it she is pleased, but there is a downside, because the bills are too large for her to spend without getting into trouble. The other downside is that now she has people looking for her, thinking that she took something important to them. This story is about how she deals with that situation.

The story is told in 1st person narration by Crystal and I liked hearing her thoughts about her predicament, her life, and her actions. 

Previously I have only read one novel by Liza Cody, Dupe, the first book in her Anna Lee detective series, and three of her short stories. In all cases, I was very impressed with her writing. Cody tells a story well and creates interesting characters. 

 

A Woman's Eye features 20 more stories, all published in 1991. Other authors featured are Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller, Julie Smith, Amanda Cross, Carolyn G. Hart, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Dorothy B. Hughes, Antonia Fraser, and more. 

 

Short Story Wednesday: More Hercule Poirot Short Stories

 

These stories came from Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories; the collection has 867 pages and was published in 1999. It consists of 51 short stories; the short stories are in chronological order.

"Four and Twenty Blackbirds"

This story was first published in the USA in Collier's Magazine, November 9, 1940. Later published as "Poirot and the Regular Customer" in The Strand, March 1941.

First few paragraphs of the story:

Hercule Poirot was dining with his friend, Henry Bonnington at the Gallant Endeavour in the King’s Road, Chelsea.

Mr. Bonnington was fond of the Gallant Endeavour. He liked the leisurely atmosphere, he liked the food which was “plain” and “English” and “not a lot of made up messes.” He liked to tell people who dined with him there just exactly where Augustus John had been wont to sit and draw their attention to the famous artists’ names in the visitors’ book. Mr. Bonnington was himself the least artistic of men—but he took a certain pride in the artistic activities of others.

Molly, the sympathetic waitress, greeted Mr. Bonnington as an old friend. She prided herself on remembering her customers’ likes and dislikes in the way of food.

Poirot goes to dinner with a friend, Mr. Bonnington. The friend and the waitress tell Poirot about a man who always eats at the restaurant every Tuesday and Thursday. But one day this man comes on a Monday and orders foods that he has never eaten before. Poirot is very puzzled by this. Then later he finds out that the man had not come there to eat for a few weeks. The last time he came, he again ate different foods, not the man's normal fare at this restaurant. Neither Mr. Bonnington or the waitress knows the diner's name. But Poirot wants to know why the man hasn't visited recently, so he takes it upon himself to find the man. It turns out that the man died unexpectedly following these events.

I liked this story. As far as I can tell this was the last short story written which featured Poirot. It was complex although the story was not very long. I missed the presence of Hastings in the story.

"The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly"  

This story was first published as "The Kidnapping of Johnnie Waverly" in The Sketch, Ocober 10, 1923.

This story seemed very short and not complex at all. Here Poirot discovers who kidnapped a rich couple's son, Johnny Waverly. The child's parents go to visit Poirot to ask advice about whether they should pay the ransom. They have lost faith in the police. When Poirot visits their home, Waverly Court, he soon sees how the plot to take the boy took place, and why the police were not successful.

The ending was interesting in multiple ways: (1) the culprit was surprising, at least to me and (2) Poirot dealt with the culprit in a very unusual way. 

A plus in this case is that Hastings narrates the story. Having Hastings involved usually gives a Poirot short story more humor. Yet for some reason, I did not like this story as well as "Four and Twenty Blackbirds."

While reading these stories I discovered the answer to a question I had wondered about for a while. Was Hasting's the narrator for all of Agatha Christie's short stories. The answer is no, but I don't have any numbers on how many of the stories included Hastings.

A Wrinkle in Time: Madeleine L'Engle

This is the story of Margaret Murry (called Meg) and her younger brother Charles Wallace Murry, and their friend, Calvin. Calvin just shows up one day, out of the blue. Calvin is two years older than Meg, and Charles Wallace is much younger than either of them, but the three children become friends almost immediately.

As the story opens, Meg is very unhappy because she is having trouble in school; she is acting out in classes and is mad at everyone. The real problem is that her father has been missing for over a year, and no one will tell her why, not even her mother. Meg's mother doesn't know where her husband is, and she is trying to hold the family together. Charles Wallace is too young to go to school, and people think that he is mentally slow, and he lets them think that so they will leave him alone.   

My thoughts:

The author just jumps into the story and lets the characters tell the story without excessive exposition. That worked well for me. Meg is the point of view character but she does not narrate the story. I loved all three of the main characters, once I got to know them. They had flaws; we all have flaws, even as adults. But they learned from their experiences.

I did not know what to expect from this book. Before I read it, I assumed that it was a fantasy and a time travel book. After reading it, I think it is science fantasy and I did not get any sense of time travel in it. There were a few times when I had difficulty suspending disbelief. Regardless, none of that impacted my enjoyment of the story. Once I got into the book, I was focused most on the characters and character development.

This book is very short, under 200 pages. By the time I was 40 or 50 pages in, I was totally caught up in the story and did not want to stop reading. That, and the fact that I cared about the characters, even when I did not exactly understand what was going on, were my favorite parts.

This is the first book in the Time Quintet; I have a very nice edition of the second book, so I will be reading it sometime.

Spell the Month in Books — March 2026

Spell the Month in Books is a monthly meme hosted by Jana at Reviews from the Stacks. Each month one or two themes are suggested for the books that are chosen. One of the themes for March 2026 is "March Madness," and I am focusing on books related to madness.

You will notice, of course, that I am just barely finishing this one on time, with only a little over one day left in the month of March.

M is for The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny

I have read twelve books in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny. This is the seventeenth book in the series, so I have a few more to read to get there. The book was published in August 2021, at a time there was some relief from Covid but it still felt very present and threatening. I haven't read much about the book (on purpose) but I think that the pandemic, and its effects on society, is one of the themes.

A is for Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

I have read four books in the Maisie Dobbs series. This is the sixth book and I do have a copy on my TBR. Among the Mad begins on December 31, 1931; Maisie Dobbs gets involved in tracking down a madman who has threatened that many lives will be lost if his demands are not met.

R is for Road Rage by Ruth Rendell

I chose this title because I see road rage as a type of madness. However, the plot seems to be more about five kidnapped hostages. The kidnapping is related to the planned construction of a new highway; the construction will destroy a beloved woodland area. I thought I had read all of the Inspector Wexford series by Rendell, but I since discovered that I may have missed some titles published in the 1990s, and this could be one of them. 

C is for Crazy Rich Asians by Keven Kwan

I read this book in December 2019. It is about extremely rich Chinese families in Singapore, and a young American-born Chinese woman who is dating the son of one of the families. There were many things about the story I found impossible to believe (even though I am sure many of them are very true) but even so, I just settled in and enjoyed the ride. It seemed like a fairy tale to me, but it could also be described as a soap opera, and both of those can be very entertaining.

H is for The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 

This is a quote from the first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House: "Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more." I haven't read this book; I have always avoided the horror genre. But I have a beautiful edition of The Haunting of Hill House, and now and I think I will try it. I have read that it falls somewhere between supernatural and psychological horror.

Short Story Wednesday: Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night

 

The Grantchester Mysteries is a series of short story collections by James Runcie. The short stories are all connected and follow the criminal investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. 

Sidney Chambers and the Peril of the Night is the second book in the series. I read the first book (Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death) in 2025 and I liked the stories so much that I started reading the next set of stories in late February. 

There were only six stories in this collection, and they are all longish stories, between 50-75 pages each, so I consider them novellas. The crimes are not all murders, but they are all treated seriously. 

"The Perils of the Night" is the first story in the book and takes place in January 1955. Valentine Lyall is a research fellow at Corpus Christi college, the same college Sidney attended. One evening, he and three other men at the college decide to scale one of four octagonal turrets of the King's College chapel as a prank. This results in a fall that kills Valentine Lyall. Sidney is drawn into an investigation into whether the death was accidental or not. There is suspicion that espionage is involved, and the story takes an unusual turn. I found the ending of this story to be interesting but also unsettling.

In the third story, "Unholy Week," Sidney is in the midst of Easter activities, plus he is expecting a visit from his German friend, Hildegarde. He has visited Hildegarde several times in Germany but this is her first trip back to Grantchester since they met several years earlier. While she is visiting, a mathematics teacher dies in his bath and the death is blamed on a heart attack. Both Hildegarde and Sidney suspect foul play and they investigate together. One of my favorite stories, and the longest one at 75 pages.

The last two stories are exceptional good. Both take place in 1961. In "The Uncertainty Principle," Sidney suspects that Amanda's newest beau is not all he claims to be. Amanda is a friend from childhood, and Sidney and Amanda have always been attracted to each other. This one has some very funny moments, but it is also very sad.

In "Appointment in Berlin," Sidney visits Hildegarde. When he gets there, he finds that Hildegarde has gone to East Germany to see her mother in the hospital, after she had a serious fall. He goes to meet her there, but is detained by officials on the way. This story has ties back to the first story in the book. Their return to Berlin is exciting. 

I am enjoying these stories very much and I can't wait until I can get a copy of the third book of stories. We have started watching the Grantchester TV series. There are differences, but I like both versions. 

A Brush with Death: Sheila Pim

 

Between 1945 and 1952, Sheila Pim, an Irish crime novelist and horticulturist, published four mysteries set in Ireland and with a focus on gardening. A Brush with Death was the third of those mystery novels, published in 1950.

The story involves two families. Paul and Hester Fennelly and their daughter Barbara live in Dublin. Hester's brother, Fergus Gandon, is a well-known artist who lives in an isolated rural area with his wife, Nell, and their three young children. They live in the Dower House of Castle Kiskour, and act as caretakers for Lord Kiskour when he is away, which is much of the time.

The first thing that happens in A Brush with Death is that Hester Fennelly gets a letter from Fergus, with whom she has had very little contact for the last 10 years. He asks her if he can come and stay with her and her family while he recovers from the aftereffects of arsenic poisoning. He suspects that someone may be trying to poison him deliberately, and wants to isolate himself for a while. Hester agrees to his visit, after discussions with her husband and their doctor, who is a family friend. 

Per the summary on the back of my copy of this book, Fergus "quickly installs himself  as the Irish version of The Man Who Came to Dinner, much to the dismay of Hester's husband, Paul." That is a perfect description of events that follow. With his "irascible" behavior and argumentativeness, he alienates some of the servants and disrupts the family.

The possibility of deliberate poisoning has not been raised with the police because the doctor who is treating Fergus thinks it is possible that the poisoning is accidental. Both Fergus and his wife are very reluctant to get the police involved. Why?

My thoughts on Sheila Pim's mysteries in general

• The  four mysteries written by Sheila Pim are grouped on Goodreads as The Irish Gardening Mystery Series. So they may be considered a series, but I don't think that they share any characters. At first I was disappointed, since I liked the characters in the first book a lot. 
• When I first heard about this series, I was interested more in the focus on gardening than the Irish setting. However, I have to say that this book describes Ireland in the post-war years very well. The primary setting is in Dublin, but some of the characters live in a small isolated village, on the grounds of a castle, so the reader gets a broad picture of Ireland. In Common or Garden Crime, the first book in the series, the setting in Ireland during the war was very interesting, since Ireland was neutral during World War II. I liked especially that the author was writing the story based on her own experiences at the time. In that book the war is referred to as the Emergency and many items were restricted.

Thoughts on this book in particular

• This story starts out a bit slow; most of the first 30 pages (maybe more) is just dialogue and I was not impressed. But once the police get involved (around page 50 of a 150 page novel), events move faster and the story and the characters get more interesting. Along the way, the reader learns more about all of the characters, about their way of life, and why they do the things they do. 
• There is a good deal of humor; gentle, subtle humor for the most part. Some of the characters are quirky and entertaining. Fergus has a general factotum at the Dower House who is an ex-convict, and very proud of his trusted position in the family. Even the meetings of the police in Dublin with the police in the area where Fergus lives have plenty of humor, even though they are very serious about solving the crime, once they decide for sure that if it is a crime.  
• The two books that I have read both have gardening aspects but the first book was focused on garden club members in a small village. This one has more emphasis on art, artists, and the galleries that sell the art. Gardening and producing plants for food definitely comes into this one also, and it was all very interesting. Lord Kilskour, Fergus Gandon's landlord, carries on a lengthy discussion on the importance of organic farming (in 1950!), which is tangentially related to the arsenic poisoning plot.

These other reviews of this book provide more detail:

• At crossexaminingcrime
• At Clothes in Books
• At Peggy's Porch

Books Read in February 2026

 

This was another good reading month. Mostly mysteries this month, but that is OK. I read a very long, very heavy graphic memoir, but it was worth it. I read a book from my Classics list, in eBook format. And a mystery by a Canadian, set in Saskatchewan.

So, here are the books I read:

Graphic Memoir

You Can Never Die (2025) by Harry Bliss

This is a graphic memoir by Harry Bliss. My husband and I and both read this one. It is 400 pages and very heavy. But even with all the text, it is a relatively fast read. Initially I thought this book was mostly about his dog, Penny, that he had for 17 years. And there is a lot here about the grief that Harry Bliss experienced after Penny died. But there is a lot more about his life than that. His parents and siblings, what his childhood was like. The  writing is good, and I love Bliss's art. But in some cases I think he shared too much. He had a very difficult childhood; his parents were abusive and fought a lot; and he had drug abuse problems. Still I am very glad I read it and it is a book I will enjoy reading again.

Fiction, Classic

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) by Muriel Spark

I did not enjoy reading this book at all. In retrospect, I can appreciate the good points of the book; it had a unique structure with shifts in time both backwards and forward, which at times was confusing. I can understand why most people have a higher opinion of the book than I did. Read my review here.

Crime Fiction

Going to Beautiful (2022) by Anthony Bidulka

This book was the 2023 winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Crime Novel. It is a mystery, but the overarching story is about a man working through his grief after his husband of thirty years dies, and I found it very compelling. The mystery plot sort of sneaks up on you. The story starts out in Toronto, but it is set mostly in Saskatchewan. See my review here.

Violent Ward (1993) by Len Deighton

Len Deighton is best known for his spy fiction, but this book is not in that genre at all, it is comedic crime fiction, and very well written. The setting is Los Angeles, around the time of the Rodney King trial; the main character, Mickey Murphy, is a very shady lawyer in financial trouble. He has gotten himself involved financially with an old acquaintance primarily because he used to be madly in love with the man's wife. A man is killed and the police suspect that Mickey killed him. I enjoyed this book; it was a lot of fun. 

Flair for Murder (2024) by Frances Lockridge and Richard Lockridge

Frances and Richard Lockridge wrote three mystery series together starting in 1936 and ending in 1963: The Mr. and Mrs. North series, the Capt. Heimrich series,  and the Nathan Shapiro series.  Richard continued writing two of those series after Frances's death. This short story book consists of 13 short stories, one about Mr. and Mrs. North, and the others all about Capt. Heimrich. In this post I reviewed the first three stories in the book. In a more recent post, I talked more generally about the other stories in the book. Most of the stories were under 10 pages long.

Death at Greenway (2021) by Lori Rader-Day

I read this book because I wanted a book that had Agatha Christie as a character, but not acting as a sleuth; this fit the bill perfectly. And also because Glen had given me his copy of the book a few years ago. Greenway was Agatha Christie's home in Devon and this mystery is about a group of evacuees living a Greenway during the war. This is a fictionalized version but there really were ten young evacuees, some of them infants, moved to Greenway during the war along with two nurses. There are lots of details about living in a country house in Devon, and how the war affected the people who lived in the area. The mystery revolves around a stranger in the area who is murdered shortly after the evacuees arrive. This book was very well written, possible a bit long at 450 pages, and I enjoyed it very much.

Murder of a Lady (1931) by Anthony Wynne

This book is a vintage mystery and a locked-room mystery. So if you like mysteries about impossible crimes, this could be for you. I felt that this story spent too much time on the locked-room aspect, and not enough on the characters, but still I mostly enjoyed the book. And the setting in Scotland in the early 1930s was interesting. See my review here.

Shanghai (2024) by Joseph Kanon

This book is set in pre-World War II Shanghai in 1938, at the time many European Jews were emigrating to Shanghai because it was the only place that would take them. In December 2025, I reread Shanghai Moon by S.J. Rozan, which was partially set in Shanghai at the same time, and I was motivated to read more about that time and place. Kanon's book is set almost entirely in Shanghai prior to World War II. This is only the second book I have read by Kanon, and I will be reading more by him.

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken recently when we went for a walk at Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden. The garden has several lovely Hong Kong Orchid trees and Glen took photos of the pink flowers on those trees. The decorated stones were in a creek there. After our walk, we went to a favorite café nearby. The photo below was my son's breakfast (French toast), which he always orders there. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Six Degrees of Separation: from Wuthering Heights to Dancing in the Dark

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 Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Brontë. I don't remember ever reading that book, but recently when I read some reviews, it was described as being about obsession and revenge.

1st degree:

I searched on my blog for a book that combined obsession and revenge and the only one that came up was The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake. This book, a part of the Nigel Strangeways series, is widely acknowledged to be a crime classic. But I resisted reading it for years.

The story begins with these lines from Frank Cairnes' journal, in which he plans the death of the person who killed his son. 

"I am going to kill a man. I don’t know his name, I don’t know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I am going to find him and kill him…"

2nd degree:

I purchased my copy of The Beast Must Die at the Annual Book Sale in September 2019. The same year, I purchased four old paperback editions of books by Mary Stewart at that same book sale. One of them was The Ivy Tree, published in 1961. It is about a young woman, Mary Grey, who has a strong resemblance to the heiress to a fortune, who disappeared years before. She is persuaded to impersonate the heiress in a scheme to get the inheritance.  

3rd degree:

Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar is another impersonation novel, published in 1949. I read that novel but it has been so long that I want to read it again. From what I have read, Brat Farrar was an inspiration for Mary Stewart's book. I have read all of Josephine Tey's mystery novels. She wrote six Inspector Grant novels and two standalone mysteries.

4th degree:

Josephine Tey is the sleuth in a historical crime fiction series by Nicola Upson. I have read the first book in that series, An Expert in Murder. I don't always enjoy mysteries where the sleuth is a real person, and I had reservations about how much the sleuth in this book resembles the real Josephine Tey (whose real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh), but I did find the story compelling and enjoyed the setting, so I had planned to read more of this series. I have four more books from this series on my shelves so I should follow up on that.

5th degree:

Another mystery novel with a real-life author as the sleuth is Jane and the Man of Cloth. In this case the sleuth is Jane Austen. This 2nd book in the series was published in 1997 (and I read my copy in 2004). The 15th and final book in the series was published in 2023. I have only read the first two books but I have read many good things about the series and the way that Jane Austen is handled as a main character, so I may return.

6th degree:

My final book for this Six Degrees is from a historical mystery series that features real-life people as characters, but not as the sleuth. Toby Peters is a private investigator who is often asked to help movie stars of the 1940s with their problems. The first book in the series, Bullet for a Star, features Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, and Peter Lorre. In Dancing in the Dark, the 19th book in the series, Fred Astaire is being harassed by a gangster and his girlfriend. The series is written by one of my favorite authors, Stuart Kaminsky. 

And that concludes my Six Degrees. All my books were mysteries. All of them were either vintage mysteries or historical mysteries. And all of the books were set in the UK except for the very last one. I prefer more variety in my Six Degrees chains, either in genre or setting or both, but these are all good books, so I am happy with the chain.

If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you? Have you read any of these books? 

The next Six Degrees will be on April 4, 2026 and the starting book will be  Virginia Evan's epistolary novel, The Correspondent.