A Graveyard for Lunatics: Ray Bradbury

 

Summary from Goodreads...

Halloween Night, 1954. A young, film-obsessed scriptwriter has just been hired at one of the great studios. An anonymous investigation leads from the giant Maximus Films backlot to an eerie graveyard separated from the studio by a single wall. There he makes a terrifying discovery that thrusts him into a maelstrom of intrigue and mystery—and into the dizzy exhilaration of the movie industry at the height of its glittering power.

The narrator of the story is a writer who is hired to work with his friend on a film for a Hollywood movie studio. The story gets so complex and changes directions so fast that initially I had no idea what was going on and who was doing what. It is a mix of many genres and the way it was written was often very confusing for me. 

A lot of the characters represent real persons but have different names, and I don't know enough about Hollywood studios (past or present) to know who they are referencing. But Ray Bradbury writes about Hollywood with love and his enthusiasm for the movies is catching. The story appears to be autobiographical. He did spend some time working in Hollywood, especially working on screenplays. 

This is the 2nd in a three-book mystery series. The first book, Death is a Lonely Business, is a homage to mystery writers such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Ross Macdonald, who are mentioned in the dedication for that book. A Graveyard for Lunatics seems to be more about Bradbury's experiences in Hollywood in the 1950s and 60s. Both books include bizarre happenings and strange, eccentric characters.

Some readers of this book who are looking for a mystery may be disappointed; I did not find it very mysterious. The book may also leave readers expecting a fantasy unsatisfied. But in the end I enjoyed the story and was very glad I read it. The magic of Ray Bradbury's writing turns it into a lovely story. 

My only regret is that I read this book so long after I read the first book in the series. Both books share some characters and I think it would have improved my reading experience to read them together. I hope to read the 3rd book in the series, Let's All Kill Constance, soon.

Ray Bradbury's dedication in A Graveyard for Lunatics...

With love, to the living:

SID STEBEL,
who showed me how to solve my own mystery;
ALEXANDRA,
my daughter, who cleaned up after us.
GEORGE BURNS,
who told me I was a writer when I was fourteen.

And to the dead:

ROUBEN MAMOULIAN, 
GEORGE CUKOR,
JOHN HUSTON, 
BILL SKALL, 
FRITZ LANG,
and JAMES WONG HOWE.

And to

RAY HARRYHAUSEN
for obvious reasons.

[A note on the dedication:

Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen were good friends for many decades, until Bradbury died in 2012. Harryhausen was a highly regarded animator and special effects creator.]

Short Story Wednesday: Feuille D'Album by Katherine Mansfield

 

I discovered this story accidentally when I ran across some short story collections by Katherine Mansfield on Amazon. I had not read anything else by Katherine Mansfield and I looked for one of her stories to try out online. This was the first one I found.

"Feuille D'Album" 

The setting is Paris. The story was published first in The New Age in 1917, under the title of "An Album Leaf." A revised version later appeared in Bliss and Other Stories, a collection published in 1920.

A young man is noticed by several women. He looks sad and forlorn and seems very shy. Various women approach him, try to befriend him. He is civil but not really interested in them so they finally give up on him. 

The story continues on to describe the young man and his life in a small studio at the top of a tall building. Eventually he notices a young woman about his age who lives in a small shabby house across the way from his small studio. From this distance he falls in love with her and imagines what her life is like. The story has a nice, ambiguous ending.

Mansfield's descriptive writing is lovely in this story. Here is an example:

He lived at the top of a tall mournful building overlooking the river. One of those buildings that look so romantic on rainy nights and moonlight nights, when the shutters are shut, and the heavy door, and the sign advertising "a little apartment to let immediately" gleams forlorn beyond words. One of those buildings that smell so unromantic all the year round, and where the concierge lives in a glass cage on the ground floor, wrapped up in a filthy shawl, stirring something in a saucepan and ladling out tit-bits to the swollen old dog lolling on a bead cushion. . . . Perched up in the air the studio had a wonderful view. The two big windows faced the water; he could see the boats and the barges swinging up and down, and the fringe of an island planted with trees, like a round bouquet.

The story was very short and simple and I liked it. At first I saw it as a slice of life story, but later decided it may be too romantic or imaginative to be categorized that way.

I found a copy of the story online here.

I later discovered that I already own a Kindle version of The Garden Party and Other Stories, with an introduction by Colm Toibin. I also recently purchased a Kindle copy of The Complete Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield, and I read an additional story from Bliss and Other Stories, titled "The Dill Pickle." That story was sadder, and more serious, than "Feuille D'Album." It was about a man and a woman who meet unexpectedly after not having seen each other for six years. Their memories of the time they spent together when they were younger are different. I enjoyed that story equally as well. I am motivated to read more stories by Mansfield and will look for a print copy of one of her short story collections soon.

Murder on the Yellow Brick Road: Stuart M. Kaminsky

The Toby Peters mystery series is set primarily in Hollywood, California. Each book in the series is centered around a celebrity. Toby is a perpetually down-on-his-luck private eye; the books are humorous and clever. There are 24 books in the series.

Murder on the Yellow Brick Road is set in 1940, and Judy Garland is one of the primary characters. Toby gets a call from Warren Hoff at M.G.M., who requests that he look into the death of a little person dressed up as a Munchkin. The body was found on an old set of The Wizard of Oz, which had come out the previous year. Toby soon meets Judy Garland, who had heard his name at a party recently and wants him to work on the case. In addition to the humor and the intricate mystery plot, this book also features cameos of Clark Gable and Raymond Chandler.

About the author:

Stuart M. Kaminsky (September 29, 1934 – October 9, 2009) was an American mystery writer and film professor. He is best known for the Toby Peters mysteries and the Inspector Rostnikov series set in Russia, consisting of 16 books. He received the 1989 Edgar Award for Best Novel for A Cold Red Sunrise, a novel in the Inspector Rostnikov series. He was a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and in 2006 received the Grand Master Award from that organization. 

Kaminsky also published two shorter series. The Abe Lieberman series of ten books is set in Chicago; Lieberman is a sixty-year-old Chicago police detective. The Lew Fonesca series is set in Sarasota, Florida. Fonesca is a process server who ends up investigating crimes. There are 6 books in the series.

I am a big fan of Kaminsky's mysteries. I have read all but the last book in the Inspector Rostnikov series. I would like to read all of the Toby Peters books, but I have to find out how many books I already own. I have read the first book in both of the other two series and I thought they were excellent. The series are all different. 

Short Story Wednesday: "Kill Now—Pay Later" by Rex Stout

 

I read "Kill Now—Pay Later" in June, I think. Or it may have been early July. I have been having trouble reading short stories lately. This is one of the mystery novellas starring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. The length was 70 pages. It is one of three stories in Trio for Blunt Instruments by Rex Stout, published in 1964.

This is how the  story begins:

That Monday morning Pete didn’t give me his usual polite grin, contrasting the white gleam of his teeth with the maple-syrup shade of the skin of his square leathery face. He did give me his usual greeting, “Hi-ho, Mr. Goodwin,” but with no grin in his voice either, and he ignored the established fact that I expected to take his cap and jacket and put them on the rack. By the time I turned from shutting the door he had dropped his jacket on the hall bench and was picking up his box, which he had put on the floor to free his hands for the jacket.

“You’re an hour early,” I said. “They going barefoot?”

 “Naw, they’re busy,” he said, and headed down the hall to the office. I followed, snubbed; after all, we had been friends for more than three years.

Pete came three days a week—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—around noon, after he had finished his rounds in an office building on Eighth Avenue. Wolfe always gave him a dollar, since it was a five-minute walk for him to the old brownstone on West 35th Street, and I only gave him a quarter, but he gave my shoes as good a shine as he did Wolfe’s. None better. I never pretended to keep busy while he was working on Wolfe because I liked to listen. It was instructive. Wolfe’s line was that a man who had been born in Greece, even though he had left at the age of six, should be familiar with the ancient glories of his native land, and he had been hammering away at Pete for forty months. That morning, as Wolfe swiveled his oversized chair, in which he was seated behind his desk, and Pete knelt and got his box in place, and I crossed to my desk, Wolfe demanded, “Who was Eratosthenes and who accused him of murder in a great and famous speech in four-oh-three B.C.?”

 

Pete Vassos is a bootblack. He had walked into the office of Dennis Ashby, vice-president of Mercer's Bobbin's, for his first scheduled appointment of the day, and the room was empty. He looked out the office window to the street below and saw a man's body on the sidewalk, with police around the body. It was his client, and Pete left the building and came directly to Nero Wolfe's office. When he described the situation, Wolfe tells him to go the police immediately. Pete is clearly perturbed and leaves.

A day later, Pete's daughter, Elma, comes to see Wolfe to tell him that Pete is dead. He was found at the base of a cliff, dead. And from there the story gets very complicated.

My thoughts on the story

This is one of those stories where the mystery is so-so but the content of the story is interesting and entertaining. In the Nero Wolfe mysteries, I like the setting in New York City (in this case, in the late 1950s). I spent some time looking into the history of bootblacks and whether there are bootblacks today (the answer is yes). It was all very interesting.

In this story, Wolfe works for nothing. That is not unheard of, but it is unusual. Pete Vasso's daughter insists that Wolfe clear her father's name and find out who killed him because Pete worshiped Nero Wolfe. 

Regular characters featured: Inspector Cramer, at his crankiest. Two of the freelance investigators, Saul and Fred. Saul is a genius but prefers to freelance.

Archie has a lot to do in this one; he does get quite irritated with Wolfe for not keeping him in the loop, but that is is a normal occurrence in this series.

 

Short Story Wednesday: The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century

 

The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century is an anthology edited by Tony Hillerman and Otto Penzler and published in 2000. The anthology contains 46 short stories, and is 813 pages long. This is my husband's book, which he purchased in 2025 at the Planned Parenthood book sale which we attend every September.

In addition to the short stories, the book has a Foreward by Penzler, an Introduction by Hillerman, and Biographical Notes for each author at the end.

I haven't read any of the stories in this book, but I have read several of the stories from other sources. All the stories listed below were good reads.

• I read "A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell, published in 1917, from an anthology of short stories selected by Elizabeth George, A Moment on the Edge. 
• I read "The Possibility of Evil" by Shirley Jackson online. I think it was the first short story I read by her, except for "The Lottery." It was published posthumously, in 1965.
• Two of the stories I have read were published in 1996. I read "Red Clay" from Red Clay, Blue Cadillac by Michael Malone. 
• The other story from 1996 was "The Dark Snow" by Brendan DuBois. My notes indicate that it was very well done, a great read, but the ending so very dark that it turned me off.

As with most anthologies of short stories, there are mixed reactions to this volume and the stories chosen. For anyone interested in comparing how the styles of the mystery short story changed over the years, this book would probably be very useful.

I am including a list of the stories in the book below. The list is in chronological order. 

• A Retrieved Reformation / O. Henry
• Paul's Case / Willa Cather
• The Problem of Cell 13 / Jacques Futrelle
• Blind man's Buff / Frederick Irving Anderson
• Naboth's Vineyard / Melville Davisson Post
• A Jury of Her Peers / Susan Glaspell
• The Gutting of Couffignal / Dashiell Hammett
• Haircut / Ring Lardner
• Blue Murder / Wilbur Daniel Steele
• The Perfect Crime / Ben Ray Redman
• The Baby in the Icebox / James M. Cain
• The Murder / John Steinbeck
• Sense of Humor / Damon Runyan
• Ransom / Pearl S. Buck
• Red Wind / Raymond Chandler
• The Catbird Seat / James Thurber
• The Rear Window / Cornell Woolrich
• An Error in Chemistry / William Faulkner
• The Nine Mile Walk / Harry Kemelman
• The Adventure of the President's Half Disme / Ellery Queen
• The Homesick Buick / John D. MacDonald
• Gone Girl / Ross Macdonald
• The Moment of Decision / Stanley Ellin
• First Offense / Evan Hunter
• The Couple Next Door / Margaret Millar
• The Day of the Execution / Henry Slesar
• The Terrapin / Patricia Highsmith
• The Possibility of Evil / Shirley Jackson
• The Comforts of Home / Flannery O'Connor
• Good Man, Bad Man / Jerome Weidman
• Goodbye, Pops / Joe Gores
• The Whimper of Whipped Dogs / Harlan Ellison
• The Wager / Robert L. Fish
• Do With Me What You Will / Joyce Carol Oates
• Quitters, Inc. / Stephen King
• The Absence of Emily / Jack Ritchie
• By the Dawn's Early Light / Lawrence Block
• Iris / Stephen Greenleaf
• Three-Dot Po / Sara Paretsky
• The Parker Shotgun / Sue Grafton
• Too Many Crooks / Donald E. Westlake
• Hot Springs / James Crumley
• The Dark Snow / Brendan DuBois
• Red Clay / Michael Malone
• Poachers / Tom Franklin
• Running Out of Dog / Dennis Lehane

Books Read in May 2026

 

I read nine books in May, more than I expected to, but it is a good thing, because with only 3 days left in June, I have only read three books. Plus I thought all of the books read in May were very good reads.

Graphic novel, Nonfiction

My Cat is Such a Weirdo, Vol. 1 (2023) by Tamako Tamagoyama (Writer and Artist)

This is the first in a manga series about cats. In this case the stories are true, based on the author's blog, and the emphasis on the weird behavior of the author's cats. We thought our latest cat was pretty crazy, in comparison to previous cats we had owned, but really some of his weirdness could be due to his age, about 4 years old, acting much like a teenager. One chapter in the manga was about the cats her parents had, and that one was especially good.

Fiction

Dept. of Speculation (2014) by Jenny Offill

This is the story of a marriage in vignettes. It is novella length, in 46 short chapters. The man and woman are not young when they marry and they suffer through some trials and tribulations. They have a child; the wife is not prepared for how much she loves their daughter. The wife tells the story, and when she talks about herself, she calls herself "the wife." The descriptions of her daughter as she grows up are lovely. I had some problems with the style; too fragmented I think. But I look back and think about how much it affected me, and that I liked it very much.

Nosy Neighbors (2024) by Freya Sampson

This was the first book I read in May, and I could not remember why I had purchased it. I like books with elderly protagonists and it is a mystery of sorts. In the end, I liked it very much, so it is good that I did read it. Nine residents live in a beautiful old Victorian apartment building that has not been kept up. There are young tenants, elderly tenants, and others in between. They soon learn that they will be evicted and their home will be torn down. Many of the tenants do not get along, but when faced with eviction they band together to fight against it. That is a very pared down version of the story and there is much more depth to it. 

Science Fiction

The City in the Middle of the Night (2019) by Charlie Jane Anders

The focus of this book was climate fiction; the setting is a colonized planet, where half of the planet is perpetually cold and in the dark, and the other half is always in the light and hot. It wasn't perfect but I found a lot to like. My review is here.

Crime Fiction

The Ivy Tree (1961) by Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart was an author well-known for her romantic mystery novels and her Merlin series. The Ivy Tree is an impersonation novel, and doesn't have much romance in it. A beautiful young woman who is visiting England from Canada is convinced by a man she meets while traveling to pose as a missing heiress in a scheme to get the inheritance. I liked it very much. See my review here.

Three for the Chair (1957) by Rex Stout

This is one of the Nero Wolfe books that consists of three novellas. Back in 2025, I read and reviewed "Immune to Murder," the second story in this book. In May of this year, I read and reviewed the other two novellas in Three for the Chair. They were all excellent stories.

An Ordinary Decent Criminal (2005) by Michael Van Rooy

I will say first that I enjoyed reading this book and could hardly put it down. But, in some ways it was the most shocking, violent mystery I have read in a long time. The protagonist is an ex-con who has turned his life around and has a wife and a young son. But many people will not give him a chance to prove that he has changed. The first two chapters were so violent I nearly quit reading it. I am glad I stuck it out to the end. Bill Selnes at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan wrote a very good review of this book.

People Who Walk in Darkness (2008) by Stuart Kaminsky

This was the 15th book in the Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov mystery series and every bit as good as all the prior ones in the series. Rostnikov is the head of a team of investigators in the Office of Special Investigations in Moscow. His boss is Igor Yakovev, formerly of the KGB. In this book the Inspector is sent to Siberia to investigate the death of a Canadian man, who was killed while inspecting a diamond mine. Others on his team are sent to Kiev related to the same case. It was wonderful to get back to all the characters I had loved in previous books in the series. Sadly, the next book in the series was the last book, and after that one, I will have no more of them to read. On the other hand, Kaminsky wrote three other series and I can read more books in those series.

The Man Who Died Seven Times (1998) by Yasuhiko Nishizawa

This is a cross-genre novel. I see it primarily as in the mystery genre because the main theme is solving a murder, but the protagonist is stuck in a time loop so that firmly places it in the time travel genre. There are many versions of time loop novels, and this one is different than any of the ones I have read. It is far from perfect, but I liked it so well that I would read others by him if they were translated to English.

About The Photos

At the top of the post is our wonderful cat, London. The photo was taken at the end of May; London had been with us about ten months then and he is close to four years old. His personality is very different from either of our two previous cats and he is huge; I can barely pick him up.

The other two photos were taken at the Rose Garden across from the Santa Barbara Mission. One was taken in June 2020 when most places were still closed down due to Covid. The other was taken in June 2021 when places were beginning to reopen after Covid. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

The City in the Middle of the Night: Charlie Jane Anders

My son read this book first. He liked it, with reservations. (More about that later.) The subject interested me, so I decided to read it also. It is science fiction, about life on a colonized planet, where half of the planet is perpetually cold and in the dark, and the other half is always in the light and hot. 

This summary is from the back of the edition I read:

Humanity clings to life on January–a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other.

Two cities, built long ago in the meager temperate zone, serve as the last bastions of civilization–but life inside them is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.

Sophie, a young student from the wrong side of Xiosphant city, is exiled into the dark after being part of a failed revolution. But she survives–with the help of a mysterious savior from beneath the ice.

The story takes place thousands of years in the future. The planet of January was populated by humans from earth and many nations worked together to create the ship that carried the people to January. The cooperation between the nations was not entirely successful (not surprising) and resulted in problems in setting up the cities for the settlers. There are two point of view characters: Sophie and Mouth. Sophie's sections are told in 1st person narrative; Mouth's sections are in third person. 

Sophie is the primary character in the book. She and Bianca are students in a school in Xiosphant city, but Sophie is lower class and won her place at the school with her intelligence. Bianca is from a rich family and is spoiled and manipulative; they are close friends, and Sophie has a strong attachment to Bianca.

Mouth is the last surviving member of a nomadic group called the Citizens, and was traumatized by losing her community at such a very young age. She feels like it is her duty to preserve their heritage. These things drive a lot of her behavior and decisions. When the story opens, Mouth is traveling with another nomadic group named the Resourceful Couriers, who carry contraband between the two major cities.

My thoughts:

• Overall, this was a good read. The pace was good, the story was good. It took me a good while to warm up to Mouth. Many of the characters were flawed, which is to be expected, but Sophie had a good heart to the end, so I hung on to find out how she weathered the vicissitudes she suffered. She and Mouth sort of balanced each other out.
• There were so many characters (besides the three I have mentioned), and most of them were interesting, with their own agendas and flaws, but it was hard to keep track of all of them. And I could have used a map.
• I think the book was too long although it was hard to say what could have been left out. The book was only 360 pages but I would have liked it to be closer to 300. But, this book has stuck in my mind since I finished it a month ago, and most books don't do that.
• The story goes in a weird direction in the last 80 pages. Very weird, and it would be too much of a spoiler to talk about it here. There are hints of this ending as the story progresses, but still I was very surprised. I liked the turn of events and I liked the way it was handled.

I asked my son what his one sentence review of The City in the Middle of the Night would be. He said it was "a well written book that doesn't quite know what it wants to be." He also thought it was longer than it should be.

The Ivy Tree: Mary Stewart

This story is about a young woman, Mary Grey, who bears a strong resemblance to the heiress to a fortune, Annabel Winslow, who disappeared several years before the story starts. Mary Grey lives in Canada but is visiting Scotland because her ancestors lived there. 

As soon as I read the first few pages of The Ivy Tree, by Mary Stewart, I was pulled into the story. It is rare that I get interested in the characters that early in a book. Partly it was the first person narration by Mary Grey, but also her encounter with Connor Winslow, in which he mistakes her for Annabel. He is convinced that Annabel has returned to the area so that she can take over the estate when her grandfather dies. Connor has been working as the manager of the estate, and believes that he should rightfully inherit it. Eventually she is persuaded to impersonate the heiress in a scheme to get the inheritance.

My Thoughts:

I was not sure if I would like the romantic suspense type of novel as much as I might have when I was younger. It ends up that I liked pretty much everything about The Ivy Tree. I was pulled into the impersonation story from the very beginning. I thought that the main character's voice was done very well. And the plot was very compelling and believable.

I usually don't like TV shows or movies where characters go undercover; the suspense is too much for me. And impersonation stories are very much the same type of thing. This one was very convincing and there were many tense moments for me. 

At about 50 percent into the 400-page book, there is a big surprise that changes everything, and it makes perfect sense. And then there was at least one more major twist at the end but I had pretty much guessed that last one. 

I just cannot say enough good things about this book. The ending was great, the suspense was great, and the writing was beautiful, especially regarding nature and the setting.

I had not realized that there was a connection to Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey. The two books have similarities. I had read Brat Farrar when I was much younger, but I don't remember much about it. Brat Farrar was published in 1949 and The Ivy Tree was published 12 years later in 1961. Brat Farrar is mentioned in The Ivy Tree, as Connor's sister schools Mary Grey in all the facts she needs to know to play the part of Annabel. 

Also, the story begins as Mary Grey stands by a tree near Hadrian's Wall. That doesn't affect the plot much but there is a minor connection.

Also see two other reviews at Clothes in Books (by Moira) and Staircase Wit (by Constance).

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Post-Office Girl to Going Postal

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 The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zwieg. The book was published posthumously in 1982. Christine works in a post-office in Austria in 1926. Her mother is ill and they have little money. Christine has the opportunity to live with her aunt for a while and see how the rich live, then she has to return to the poverty of her previous life. I gathered all this from various reviews or summaries I read; I hope my description is reasonably accurate. 

1st degree:

My first link is to Rest in Pieces by Rita Mae Brown. The heroine of that book, Mary Minor Haristeen (nicknamed "Harry"), is the postmistress of the small town of Crozet, Virginia. She owns a farm, with horses, and has a grey tiger cat and a Welsh Corgi. Many of the residents of Crozet and the surrounding area are odd and quirky to say the least. In Crozet, everyone knows everyone and there is a lot of gossip.

The animals have a role in the story. They do not detect, but they do try to attract Harry's attention to clues, etc. They interact with other animals: Simon, the opossum; a barn owl; and Pewter, a neighbor's cat. The animals talk among themselves. At first I found that silly and distracting, but after a while, their conversations sounded much more intelligent that the humans.

2nd degree:

For my second link, I am sticking to the postal theme. My husband found this book for me: Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson. I found the best description of this book at Old Paper and Cats. S. Hargrave, who writes the posts on that blog, describes it as: "a trilogy of novels written by Flora Thompson about growing up in a remote English hamlet called Lark Rise and, later, her years working in a post office in the village of Candleford Green. These novels aren’t exactly ‘novels’ per se, in the sense that they are not traditionally structured narratives. Instead, they are more of a collection of stories about rural life in the later nineteenth century."

There are three short books in the series: Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941), and Candleford Green (1943). Only the last book in the series covers the time that the main character was an assistant at the post office.

3rd degree:

I am staying with the mail theme, but moving on to those who deliver the mail. My next link is to Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home by Stephen Starring Grant.  In Mailman, Grant has written a memoir about delivering mail in Appalachia, after losing his job for a consulting firm. He moved back to his hometown of Blackburg, VA and got a job as a rural mail carrier because he needed to have health care and support his family. This major change in his life took place in the first few months of Covid. My husband read this book and enjoyed it a lot; the writing was good and the author comes across as a mellow person. I want to read Mailman later this year.

4th degree:

Another book about a letter carrier is The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Thériault, a Canadian author. The setting is Montreal.  

This description is in my Kindle edition:

Secretly steaming open envelopes and reading the letters inside, Bilodo has found an escape from his lonely and routine life as a postman. When one day he comes across a mysterious letter containing a single haiku, he finds himself avidly caught up in the relationship between a long-distance couple who write to each other using only beautiful poetry. He feasts on their words, vicariously living a life for which he longs. But it will only be a matter of time before his world comes crashing down around him.

This book sounds appealing and in the Kindle edition it is only 106 pages long.

5th degree:

My next link will be to another book with postman in the title: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. The book is a classic noir mystery and also very brief, only 120 pages long in this edition. James M. Cain is a well known author of noir fiction; this was his first novel. I did not really enjoy reading this book (too noir, too grim, too gritty), but it is very well written, with good pacing. The last 30 pages was the best part and pulled the book together without going for an unrealistic "happy" ending. But what does it have to do with the postal service? Nothing. The title is symbolic and there have been many conflicting explanations for why it was used.

6th degree:

My last link is very definitely about the postal system, but it is a postal system set in a fantasy world. Going Postal is the 33rd book in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Most of the books in the series are humorous and satirical. The main character in this book is Moist von Lipwig, a swindler and a con man, who has been sentenced to hang for his offenses. But he has been given the alternative option to take over the ailing postal service of Ankh-Morpork, Discworld's city-state. Thus Moist von Lipwig accepts the position of Postmaster. He is also assigned a golem watchdog to keep him in line. It sounds like fun to me and I have a copy on my shelves.

My Six Degrees took me from the state of Virginia in the USA to the fictional fantasy world of the Discworld Series. Along the way I also stopped in Canada and the UK. 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 July 4, 2026, and the starting book will be Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke.

Short Story Wednesday: Stories from Murder and Other Acts of Literature

Murder and Other Acts of Literature is an anthology of 24 short stories that include a crime but are written by authors who are not crime fiction authors. Some examples are William Faulkner, W.S. Gilbert, Nadine Gordimer, Gabriel García Márquez,  Rudyard Kipling, and Naguib Mahfouz. The stories are not whodunnits or puzzle mysteries, just stories that often include a death.

This is my husband's book. He bought it at the 2025 book sale and read all of the stories in May. He liked a bit more than half of the stories. His favorite stories were "The Hotel of the Idle Moon" by William Trevor and "Mr. Loveday's Little Outing" by Evelyn Waugh. 

Here are my reviews of three of the stories in the anthology.

"Montraldo" by John Cheever

This is the first story in the book and it is 9 pages long. It was first published in the print edition of the June 6, 1964, issue of The New Yorker. 

The first sentence is very good, and sets the tone of the story:

"The first time I robbed Tiffany’s, it was raining."

That is how the narrator of the story finances his trip to Italy. After his sea voyage to Genoa, he buys a second-hand car and drives to Montraldo. Instead of staying in a hotel, he decides to stay in a rundown villa on the cliff. Why would he stay there when he could stay in two luxurious hotels in the area?

He says:

"I stayed because of the view, because I had paid my rent in advance, and because I was curious about the eccentric old spinster and her cranky servant."

The spinster owns the villa, and she and her servant have a very contentious relationship.

I do not remember reading any of John Cheever's short stories before now. I liked this story a lot, and I want to try more stories by him. I like the style of his writing.

"The Hitch-Hikers" by Eudora Welty

A traveling salesman picks up two hitch-hikers. One has a guitar, the other man is kind of surly, and it appears that they have been traveling together for a while. The salesman decides to stay at a motel, one of his normal stops on his route. While he tries to get the motel manager to let the two men sleep on the porch in the back, the two hitch-hikers have a fight, and the man with the guitar is badly injured. There are reports that the two men were trying to steal the salesman's car.  

I haven't had much luck reading stories by Eudora Welty. I have read a few stories from The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, and I did not like any of them. I have not given up on her stories, but I did not like this one particularly. It sets a mood, which to me was depressing. It was not a bad story, it just did not do anything for me. It was not engaging, and I kept expecting more out of it. It was first published in 1939.

"The Portobello Road" by Muriel Spark

This was the only story in Murder and Other Acts of Literature that I had read previously. I covered it in a previous post, and I have copied my review from that post.

In this story, the narrator is a ghost. For some reason not described in detail, this ghost has not left the earth. She often strolls down Portobello Road, visiting the marketers and their stalls on the pavement. On one of her strolls she sees two people she knows, Kathleen and George. She speaks to the man and he can see her, although the woman cannot. From this point the ghost tells the story of four children who were friends: herself, nicknamed "Needle"; Kathleen; George; and a boy named "Skinny." They are very close friends while in school, but after they graduate, they go off to other areas, even other continents. George goes to manage his uncle's farm in Africa, and Skinny and Needle end up visiting him there. George later returns to Great Britain to see Kathleen, and eventually marries her. I am not that fond of ghost stories, but I liked this one.

Short Story Wednesday: "A Touch of Petulance" by Ray Bradbury

 

The story I am featuring comes from the collection Killer Come Back to Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury. It was published by Hard Case Crime in 2020; the stories were selected by Jonathan R. Eller.

Bradbury wrote three crime novels in 1985, 1990, and 2002, but most of his short stories were in other genres. About half of the stories in Killer Come Back To Me are from the 1940s, and the others are from later decades. This book has a very nice cover and includes illustrations preceding some of the stories.

There is an introduction by Jonathan R. Eller. At the end, there is an essay by Ray Bradbury that was intended to be an introduction to A Memory of Murder, a collection of crime stories published in 1984. This seems appropriate since a number of stories that were in A Memory of Murder are also in Killer Come Back To Me.

"A Touch of Petulance"

First sentence:

"On an otherwise ordinary evening in May, a week before his 29th birthday, Jonathan Hughes met his fate, commuting from another time, another year, another life."

I was surprised and delighted that this story has elements of time travel. 

Jonathan Hughes meets an older man on the train on the way home. He notices that this older man is holding a newspaper dated 20 years in the future, and that paper features an article about the death of his wife. The older version of Jonathan has come back in time to try to prevent her death.

The story was first published in 1980 in Dark Forces, a horror anthology edited by Kirby McCauley. It was adapted as an episode of the Ray Bradbury Theater TV series; Eddie Albert plays the older man in that episode.

Signing up for 20 Books of Summer 2026

This is my eleventh year of participating in the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge. The event was originally hosted by Cathy at 746Books. This year, Annabel from AnnaBookbel is hosting the event.

The challenge is very flexible. You don't have to aim for the full 20 books; instead, you can opt for 15 or 10. 

Here are some of the rules...

• The #20BooksofSummer2026 challenge runs from Monday June 1st to Monday August 31st
• The first rule of 20 Books is that there are no real rules, other than signing up for 10, 15 or 20 books and trying to read from your TBR.
• You can pick your list in advance, or nominate a bookcase to read from, or pick at whim from your TBR.

For more information and the place to sign up, check out this post at AnnaBookBel. There is also a book bingo card if that appeals to you.

I love to make lists of books to read, so I would start with a list whether I plan to stick with it or not. However, I do plan to stick with my list, and here it is, in no particular order.

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and his Mother) by Rabih Alameddine. Won the National Book Award for Fiction (2025).

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz. Mystery. 2018. 2nd book in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series.

Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards. Mystery. 2019. 2nd book in the Rachel Savernake series. 

The Customer is Always Wrong by Mimi Pond. Graphic Novel. 2017.

Wednesday's Child by Yiyun Li. Short Stories. 2023.

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography 2025.

Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote by Gordon A. Martin, Jr. Nonfiction. 2010.

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum, translated by Shanna Tan. Fiction. 2022.

Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis. Cozy Science Fiction novel, 2024. Read and recommended by my son.

Middlemarch by George Eliot. Classic novel. 1872.

Find a Victim by Ross Macdonald. Mystery. 1954. Book 5 in the Lew Archer series.

The Birds and the Beasts Were There by Margaret Millar. Nonfiction, Nature, Memoir. 1971.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Classic Novel. 1847.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Classic Novel. 1818.

Murder on the Yellow Brick Road by Stuart Kaminsky. Mystery. 1971. Book 2 in the Toby Peters series

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Katherine Rooney. Historical Fiction. 2017. 

The Sisters by Robert Littell. Spy Fiction. 1985.

A Graveyard for Lunatics by Ray Bradbury. Mystery. 1990. Book 2 in the Crumley Mysteries series.

Glass Houses by Louise Penny. Mystery. 2017. Book 13 in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. Set in Canada.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper. Mystery. 2015. Set in Canada.

Bleeders by Bill Pronzini. Mystery. 2001. Book 27 in the Nameless series.

Trophies and Dead Things by Marcia Muller. Mystery. 1990. Book 10 in the Sharon McCone series.

The Cyclist by Tim Sullivan. Mystery. 2020. Book 2 in the DS George Cross series.

Books Read in April 2026

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

Here are the five books I read in April.

Graphic novel

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

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

Crime Fiction

Soviet Sources (1990) by Robert Cullen

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

Death in a Darkening Mist (2017) by Iona Whishaw

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

The Romeo Flag (1989) by Carolyn Hougan

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

Tatiana (2013) by Martin Cruz Smith

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

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

Spin #44 for the Classics Club, May 2026

 

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

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

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

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

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

Short Story Wednesday: More Stories from Three for the Chair

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tatiana: Martin Cruz Smith

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

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

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

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

My thoughts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

1st degree:

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

2nd degree:

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

3rd degree:

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

4th degree:

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

5th degree:

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

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

6th degree:

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

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

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

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

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

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