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.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: Muriel Spark

 

Description at Goodreads:

'Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life...'

Passionate, free-thinking and unconventional, Miss Brodie is a teacher who exerts a powerful influence over her group of 'special girls' at Marcia Blaine School. They are the Brodie set, the crème de la crème, each famous for something - Monica for mathematics, Eunice for swimming, Rose for sex - who are initiated into a world of adult games and extracurricular activities they will never forget. But the price they pay is their undivided loyalty ...

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a brilliantly comic novel featuring one of the most unforgettable characters in all literature.

 

This book was my Classic Club Spin for Spin #41, from October 2025. I put off reading it, so only just finished it in February. It was first published in 1961, but the story is set in the years leading up to World War II. I read it in eBook format, which I don't do very often. This year I have a goal to read at least 12 books on my Kindle.

My thoughts:

I think I was prejudiced against this novel from the beginning because I dislike the idea of teachers with favorites or pet students, and I dislike cliques in academic situations (or anywhere I guess). I tried to let go of my assumptions before reading it, but from the beginning I was appalled by Miss Jean Brodie's behavior, and it became even more disturbing later in the story.

So, I did not enjoy reading this book at all. In retrospect, I can appreciate the good points of the book, especially the way the story was told. It has an interesting structure with shifts in time both backwards and forward, and the end result is interesting and sometimes confusing. 

But for me,  there was no one to like in this story at all. I can deal with unlikeable characters, but I need someone in the story to care about. The main character seems admirable at the beginning, trying to enlighten her students with new and different ideas. But she is revealed as a narcissist, only interested in controlling others. The school girls that she has chosen for her "set" of six proteges are of course only young girls; some are more perceptive than others. I gradually realized that most of them were not taking her ideas all that seriously, for various reasons.

One of the girls in the set, Sandy Stranger, was a very interesting character and a lot is revealed about her towards the end. I did not realize that so much emphasis was placed on her character until I read some other reviews. But in some ways she was as manipulative as Miss Brodie.

Even though I found the book distasteful, the end result is that I want to try more books by this author, and I hope that I will like them better. Most (maybe all?) of her books are short, novella length. 

Going to Beautiful: Anthony Bidulka

 

From the description at Goodreads:

International chef Jake Hardy has it all. Celebrity, thriving career, plenty of friends, a happy family and faithful dog. Until one day when a tragic accident tears it all apart. Struggling to recover, Hardy finds himself in a strange new world–a snow-swept prairie town that time forgot–a place where nothing makes sense. Cold is beautiful. Simple is complex. And doubts begin to surface about whether Jake's tragedy was truly an accident after all. As the sun sets in the Land of Living Skies, Hardy and his glamourous, seventy-eight-year-old transgender neighbour find themselves ensnared in multiple murders separated by decades. In Bidulka's love letter to life on the prairies he delivers a story of grief and loss that manages to burst with joy, tenderness and hope. Redolent of his earlier works, Going to Beautiful brings us unexpected, under-represented characters in settings that immediately feel familiar and beloved. Beautiful–a place where what you need may not be what you were looking for.

Praise for Going to Beautiful:

Going to Beautiful is poignant, often funny, always wise…the quiet joy and hopefulness of this novel are gifts readers will value for years to come.

--- Gail Bowen, author of the Joanne Kilbourn Shreve mystery series including An Image in the Lake

My thoughts:

It took me a while to get around to reading this book, and I am glad I finally did. It was a great experience for me. It 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. 

After months of grieving the loss of his husband, Jake finds some information about where Eddie grew up while going through his papers. He decides to go to the town where Eddie lived and try to find more about his early life and why he left it behind. Baz, his transgender friend from Toronto, goes with him. 

The town where Eddie grew up was Beautiful, in the province of Saskatchewan. Most members of the community are of Ukrainian descent. The town is dying; it has nothing to offer its youth. But the loyalties and relationships among the variety of residents still living there is inspiring, and they offer their friendship to Jake and his friend Baz. Two of my favorite characters are Chung, the owner of Ming's Café, a gathering place in town, and Sister Genowefa, who is the last remaining nun at her convent. She is over 90 years old and when she dies, the beautiful convent will be sold.

Eddie never told Jake anything about the town of Beautiful or his family, and when he finally meets Eddie's family, Jake is surprised to find out that Eddie had a twin brother. Gradually Jake gets to know more about Eddie's family and truly appreciate the people in Beautiful. Along the way, he clears up some mysteries related to Eddie's death.

This book was a magical read. It is hard to explain why I enjoyed it so much. The story was moving and uplifting without being maudlin. And I learned so much more about Saskatchewan.  

 

I have only read one of the books in Bidulka's Russell Quant private detective series, but now I am going to go back and read more in that series. 

Murder of a Lady: Anthony Wynne

 

Description from the back of the book:

Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her bedroom -- but the room is locked from within and the windows are barred. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish's scale, left on the floor next to Mary's body. Inspector Dundas is dispatched to Duchlan to investigate the case. The Gregor family and their servants are quick -- perhaps too quick -- to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman.

An amateur sleuth, Dr. Eustace Hailey, is visiting in the area, and because of his reputation with solving crimes, was called in before Inspector Dundas arrived to check out the body and the scene of the crime. Dundas is not happy with that situation and does not wish to work on the crime with anyone else. Yet he doesn't make much progress with his investigation, and irritates the family and the people who live in the surrounding area. Eventually he changes his mind and asks Dr. Hailey for his help. 

From the first, the victim is presented as a saintly woman who was always trying to help people and was loved by all. Eventually this is debunked as the depth of the toxic family relationship between the laird of Duchlan and his sister Mary, and the younger members of the family, the Laird's son, his wife, and their young son, is revealed bit by bit.

Most of the book focuses on the locked-room aspect,  which is one of the problems I have with some locked-room stories. The search for the answer to who could have done the crime and who had the motivation, plus how the murderer could get into and out of the locked room, seemed very repetitive.

Although I had a negative attitude about reading this book when I found out that it was a locked-room mystery, I did not regret reading it. I would even read another in the Aubrey Heiling series if I could find one. There were some good points. I enjoyed the setting in a castle in Scotland in the early 1930s. The solution at the end was a big surprise to me and there was more variety than I realized because of the contrasting of the varied approaches and the skills used by the sleuths, both from the police and the amateur sleuth. Also, it has a gorgeous cover.

Short Story Wednesday: More Short Stories by the Lockridges

 

I read the first few stories in Flair for Murder by Francis & Richard Lockridge in January 2025. Now, over a year later, I have finished the remaining 10 stories in the book. My earlier post from January 2025 provides more information about the short story collection and all the series that the two authors wrote together.

All of the stories in the book are relatively short. Of the stories I recently read, the lengths of the stories were between 6 - 10 pages, and they feature Captain M.L. Heimrich of the New York State Police. The stories take place in Westchester County, usually in rural areas. I have fond memories of reading some of the Captain Heimrich novels years ago, so it was fun to revisit that character.  This was the perfect set of stories for me, since they are in a subgenre I like, police procedurals.

With the briefness of these stories, the solution had to be quickly resolved and not dependent on long investigations or interviews with many suspects. In many cases, the culprit seems to be obvious, but soon new evidence comes to light and / or Heimrich has an "aha" moment when some event he sees or experiences how the death could really have happened. Several of the stories revolved around deaths caused by automobile accidents. The last two stories were related to gardening which I especially enjoyed. 

I actually liked every story in this book, which is unusual. Probably because I like how the Lockridges tell a story, very conversational and matter of fact, and I think it suits short stories especially. Also, I think Captain Heimrich is a great character. Now I want to go read some of the books featuring that character. I have several in eBook format that I can try.

Spin #43 for the Classics Club, February 2026

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty unread books from my classics list and list them in a post before Sunday, February 8th, 2026.  On Sunday, the Classics Club will generate a random number between 1 through 20 and post it at the website. Then I will read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by March 29th, 2026.

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

1. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
2. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
3. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)   
4. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
5. Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles (1950)
6. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
7. Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
8. Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five  (1955)
9. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
10. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
11. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
12. J. D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye (1951)
13. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958) 
14. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
15. Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest (1929)   
16. Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre (1847)
17. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Sign of the Four (1892)
18. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
19. Edna Ferber – Giant (1952)
20. Edna Ferber – Show Boat (1926)

The four books I would most like to read for this spin are A Wrinkle in Time, The Talented Mr.Ripley, Jane Eyre, or Our Man in Havana. But, really, any of the books on my list would be fine.  

Books Read in January 2026

I am always excited to start a new year of reading. This year I would like to read one each of the following every month:

• A vintage mystery
• A mystery published between 1970 and now
• A book in any other genre, including nonfiction
• A book in eBook format
• A graphic novel or graphic nonfiction
• One classic, preferably from my Classics Club list
• One Canadian book
• One short story book

Some of these categories can overlap, so it is not as hard as it sounds (to me, at least). 

This month I read seven books and the only categories I missed are: a short story book, an eBook, and a classic. I started reading The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, which is on my Classics Club list, in eBook format, but I haven't finished it yet.

So, here are the books I read:

Nonfiction / Nature

The Backyard Bird Chronicles (2024) by Amy Tam

I always like to read about birds in fiction or nonfiction. I was expecting to enjoy this book because of the format, similar to a diary, and the illustrations, which were a mix of rough sketches and very polished, detailed bird portraits. Amy Tan did all of the illustrations herself. The text was very informal; Tan took drawing lessons and she delighted in discovering birds that were new to her and drawing them so that she could identify them later. She talked a lot about mating behavior and which birds mate for life. I loved her enthusiasm for the subject. The book covered part of 2017 through 2022. It was the perfect book for me. 

Graphic Nonfiction

What I Hate: From A to Z  (2011) by Roz Chast

This is a very short book, 64 pages, about twice the length of the average children's picture book and in the same format. Chast has illustrated twenty six of the things she hates (or is very anxious about), one for each letter of the alphabet. It is the first book by Chast that I have read, although I have admired her cartoons in the New Yorker for years. What we hate or are anxious about is very personal. So, although some of the things that cause anxiety in Roz Chast seemed silly to me, who am I to judge? The book is fun and funny.

Fiction

I See You Called in Dead (2025) John Kenney

I borrowed this book from my husband, before he had even read it. The protagonist works for a newspaper writing obituaries. He likes his job, but his life changes for the worse when his wife divorces him. He loses any zest for life that he had, starts drinking to excess, and ends up writing his own obituary. And publishes it. He is immediately suspended, but he is still getting paid, so he has plenty of time to wallow in self-pity. Fortunately he has caring friends and meets some new ones. These characters are the ones who make this book so satisfying. This book is described as humorous, and it has plenty of humor, but I would say it tends more towards sadness than humor. Just a warning. I thoroughly enjoyed it but parts of it are heartbreakingly sad. 

Historical Fiction

Old Filth (2004) by Jane Gardam

I could not decide whether to call this Historical Fiction or not. It begins and ends in the early years of the 21st century, but most of the story is about the years between World War I and through World War II. It is the first book in a trilogy by Jane Gardam and I will be reading book 2 for sure. See my thoughts on the book.

Crime Fiction

Hidden Agenda (1985) by Anna Porter

This is mystery by a Canadian author, set in Toronto, New York, and London. The main protagonist is Judith Hayes, a single mother and journalist based in Toronto who has ties to various publishing houses. The story starts with the death of a man run over by a subway car. Inspector Parr talks to Judith Hayes, who had a meeting with the man, an editor in a publishing house, just hours before he died. The police tend to think it was suicide. Judith says he gave no indication in the meeting that he would commit suicide. Then more deaths occur in publishing houses, all seemingly connected to a missing manuscript. The stakes keep escalating and it seemed to be a  cross between spy fiction and a political conspiracy plot. I admit that it strained my ability to suspend disbelief, but I liked the characters and the international locations and the look at the publishing industry. The author was a publisher for many years in Canada. 

The Murder at the End of the World (2024) by Stuart Turton

This book is a dystopian mystery. The story is very convoluted. There are two sets of characters on an island that has been isolated by an event in the past. The island is run by three elders, who have lived very long lives (over 100 years) and all have scientific or engineering backgrounds. The larger group on the island function to serve them, and all have lives limited to 60 years. One day, one of the elders is killed and this leads to the whole island being threatened by a poisonous atmosphere that will kill them all if they don't solve the murder. I was confused most of the time, and I think that was intentional. In the end it all came together and made sense. The book has two elements I love in a mystery: a lovely map of the island on the endpapers of the book and a list of characters.

Death of a Busybody (1942) by George Bellairs

When I sat down to write my thoughts on this book, I was dismayed to realize that I don't remember much about the plot of this story. Yet I do remember that I enjoyed reading the book and I plan to keep reading this series. Basically, the title describes the major plot element. A busybody, Miss Tither, who lives in a very small village, Hillary Magna, is killed. She has no friends. She snoops on people, offers her advice, and interferes in their lives. When she is killed, the local police are unable to handle the investigation and Inspector Littlejohn is called in to help. The procedure of tracking down the clues and suspects is not exciting, but the way the police work together and the relationships within the village are interesting, and there is subtle humor throughout. The final solution was much more complex than I expected, but it was very satisfying. The Inspector Littlejohn series has at least 50 novels in it, and many are available at affordable prices as eBooks.

The photos at the bottom and top of the post are of plants we purchased in early Summer of 2025. They were sitting on the patio waiting to be repotted. The photos were taken and processed by my husband. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.