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.

Books Read in November and December 2025

 

I had some very good reading in both November and December of 2025. Seven books per month. I completed two short story books, which is unusual. I usually read a few stories from a collection and take forever to finish the book. Plus two nonfiction books! And a book from my Classics Club list. I managed to complete my goal of reading six books by Elizabeth Strout in 2025.

So here are the 14 books I read...

Nonfiction

Eight Days in May (2020) by Volker Ullrich, translated by Jefferson Chase

The subtitle of this book is "The Final Collapse of the Third Reich." My husband suggested this book to me. It was a perfect nonfiction read for me and the text was very readable, not dry at all. It covers the events that took place in Germany in the eight days following Hitler's death by suicide on April 30, 1945. May 8th, 1945 was the day when Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces. I learned so much about the events in Germany at that time. The book was a good length, 271 pages of text, plus a section of notes citing the author's sources. Volker Ullrich is a German historian and journalist.

Dear California (2023), edited by David Kipen

I borrowed this book from my husband; he read it in 2024 and liked it a lot. I read it off and on throughout 2025. For the most part I found this to be a very interesting book, but it had its highs and lows. Some of the entries are over a page long, but many are only a few sentences. The entries for each day may cover several years, sometimes as early as the 1600s or the 1800s, and others as late as 2020, during the height of Covid. That can be confusing at times. 

Examples of events covered:  For April 18 there are two entries for 1906, immediately after the San Francisco Earthquake. The third entry is from Dylan Thomas, while in Hollywood, to his wife back in Laugharne, a town on the south coast of Carmarthenshire, Wales. The entries from various famous writers who spent some time in Hollywood were especially interesting; same for the entries from people who were interned in the American internment camps during World War II.

Fiction

The Women (2024) by Kristin Hannah

One of the author's goals in writing this book was to recognize the contribution of the women in the armed forces who went to Vietnam and worked as nurses in the hospitals which were near to the fighting. I don't think the book was perfect, but I learned so much about the Vietnam War between 1966 - 1968, and the role of the nurses in the hospitals there, that it eliminated all quibbles that I had with the book. I was born in 1948, and I felt like I should have known much more about the events that took place there. About half of the book is about the years that the protagonist was in Vietnam, and the second half is about her return to the US and the difficulties of adjusting to normal life and dealing with the traumas that she experienced in Vietnam. Not a fun book but an important one, for me.

Lucy by the Sea (2022) and Tell Me Everything (2024) by Elizabeth Strout

I read Oh, William! by Strout in early October. I read Lucy by the Sea and Tell Me Everything in November. I have loved all the books that feature Lucy Barton. But I find it almost impossible to review them. Personally, I would not have enjoyed reading them if I had known much about the books in advance. In My Name is Lucy Barton, Lucy tells of one event in her life while she is married to William, and I really disliked him in that story. In each succeeding novel about their relationship I grew to understand him and Lucy more. Lucy by the Sea takes place during the Covid-19 pandemic. In Tell Me Everything, Olive Kitteridge meets Lucy, and Bob Burgess plays a bigger part. I loved all of those books.

Goodbye to Berlin (1939) by Christopher Isherwood 

This book was on my Classics Club List. I did not particularly enjoy reading it, I found it too depressing, but I think I am in the minority. Before reading it, I did not realize that it is a series of six connected short stories. "Sally Bowles" is about one of the characters in the film, Cabaret, although I did not see many similarities between the story and the film. I liked the connections between the stories, although it took me a while to pick up on some of them. "On Ruegen Island" is about three young men spending the summer on an island.  "The Nowaks" is about a strange and impoverished family that Christopher lives with; Otto Nowak was one of the characters in the previous story. In "The Nowaks", they talk about the Landauer family, which is the subject of the fifth story.

Anxious People (2019) by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith

This is another book that is really impossible for me to describe. This is only the second book I read by Backman. I was very impressed by this book; it is very humorous, but it also has its sad moments and talks about some serious subjects, such as suicide, divorce, losing a spouse to an illness. A person decides to rob a bank, but they don't really know what they are doing and it ends up turning into a hostage situation. I found the book very confusing at times, but still very readable and uplifting. My favorite characters are the two policemen.

Mystery / Time Travel / Science Fiction

The Frozen People (2025) by Elly Griffiths

This is the start of a new time travel/mystery series. Ali Dawson is a detective in a Cold Case department, and the group attempts to solve crimes by going back in time for clues. I liked the premise, the characters, and the story was good. The level of tension was just right. Some of the story strains disbelief, but the story is enough fun that I was not bothered by that.

Crime Fiction

El Dorado Drive (2025) by Megan Abbott

The first book I read by Megan Abbott was Queenpin, which won an Edgar award. It was a great book, beautifully written, but also very, very tense. I knew I would like the setting of El Dorado Drive (Detroit, Grosse Point, in 2008-2009, when the economy was in such bad shape) and it was not as tense as I expected. It is a thriller; I found it to be fast-paced, a page turner. And it is about a family of three sisters, and their money problems. The family relationships pulled me in. Some reviewers talked about it being too slow but I did not see that at all. So I will be reading more by Abbott. I have three of her novels, including Turnout, Beware the Woman, and You Will Know Me.

The Guest List (2020) by Lucy Foley

I was surprised that I ended up reading two thrillers in December. They were both entertaining, but El Dorado Drive had more depth. The Guest List is set on a tiny isolated island off the coast of Ireland; the characters are on the island to attend the wedding of a TV star and the publisher of a well-known magazine. Many of the characters have baggage from their childhoods; most are unlikeable and/or superficial. 

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (2012) by James Runcie

The Grantchester Mysteries is a series of short story collections by James Runcie. The stories are all connected and follow the investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. There were only six short stories in the collection, and they are all novella length. I covered two of the short stories HERE and HERE.

The Shanghai Moon (2009) by S.J. Rozan

This was a reread of the ninth book in the Lydia Chin & Bill Smith series. I read it about 15 years ago, and I remember at the time I did not enjoy the story, even though Rozan is one of my favorite authors. I have no idea why I did not like it originally, because the subject matter is something I am currently interested in. Lydia is working on a job to help recover stolen jewels that once belonged to a Jewish refugee who fled from Austria to Shanghai in 1938, so it includes some history from that pre-WWII time. For me, the biggest attraction of this series are the characters. Not only are the main characters interesting, but Lydia's family members who have recurring roles in the books are well done, and many of the secondary characters are fully developed. After this reread, I rank this book as a favorite in the series.

The Big Four (1927) by Agatha Christie

I have read many negative comments on The Big Four, but in my opinion it is not that bad. It is sort of spy fiction and adventure. I certainly would not recommend this one as anyone's first Poirot book; it is not representative of the series. I mostly enjoyed the interplay between Captain Hastings and Poirot, and did not take the plot all that seriously. I read that the novel was a mashup of several short stories that Christie wrote earlier, and that explains why it feels disjointed and disorganized at times.

Christmas Stalkings (1991) edited by Charlotte Macleod

This was the second Christmas short story anthology edited by Charlotte MacLeod. All of the stories in the book appeared in print for the first time in this book. I covered all of the stories in this book in three posts in December. My favorite short story in the book was "A Political Necessity" by Robert Barnard (reviewed here), although all of them were good.

End of Year notes

I read 78 books in 2025, compared to 89 in 2024. The longest book I read was 800 pages: The Charm School by Nelson DeMille. The average number of pages for the books I read was 323. In 2024, that number was 302, which means I must have read more longer books in 2025.

• I read less mysteries than last year, 40 as compared to 48 in 2023. Only 6 of the mysteries published were before 1970, which is a big change from my early blogging years, but in line with last year's reading.
• I read 6 nonfiction books.
• My reading included 13 books in the science fiction or fantasy genres, which is higher than last year.
• I read 16 novels that I categorize as general fiction.

• I completed 8 short story books, and read 16 books by authors from Japan, Ireland, Canada, Denmark, Argentina, Australia, and Germany.

Short Story Wednesday: Two Hercule Poirot Short Stories

Recently I read two short stories from Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie. The collection has 867 pages and was published in 1999; it consists of 51 short stories.

 

"The Adventures of the Clapham Cook"

First published in The Sketch in November 1923. Later published in the US collection The Under Dog and Other Stories in 1951, and then in a UK collection in 1974, Poirot’s Early Cases.

One thing I like in the Hercule Poirot short stories is that they are often told in first person by Captain Hastings; I also find the conversations between Hastings and Poirot very entertaining. This story fit that model, and I enjoyed it. 

These are the opening lines of the story:

At the time that I was sharing rooms with my friend Hercule Poirot, it was my custom to read aloud to him the headlines in the morning newspaper, the Daily Blare.

The Daily Blare was a paper that made the most of any opportunity for sensationalism. Robberies and murders did not lurk obscurely in its back pages. Instead they hit you in the eye in large type on the front page.

ABSCONDING BANK CLERK DISAPPEARS WITH FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS’ WORTH OF NECOTIABLE SECURITIES, I read.

HUSBAND PUTS HIS HEAD IN GAS OVEN. UNHAPPY HOME LIFE. MISSING TYPIST. PRETTY GIRL OF TWENTY-ONE. WHERE IS EDNA FIELD?

"There you are Poirot, plenty to choose from an absconding bank clerk, a mysterious suicide, a missing typist--which will you have?"

None of these headlines interest Poirot. He prefers to spend his day at home, taking care of personal issues, such as trimming his mustache.

But shortly after this discussion, they have a visitor, a woman who wants Poirot to find her cook. He does not take her seriously, and she accuses him of being a snob. Poirot gives in and investigates the case, uncovering a diabolical plot related to another crime at the same time.

"Murder in the Mews" 

This story is novella length. First published in the US in Redbook Magazine, September/October 1936. It was published in the short story collection, Murder in the Mews and Other Stories, in 1937.

In this story, Captain Hastings does not show up at all and the story is told in third person viewpoint. However, Poirot is working with another favorite character, Inspector Japp. 

One morning, Inspector Japp calls Hercule Poirot to tell him that a death had occurred in Bardsley Gardens Mews the night before. That night, Japp and Poirot had been walking through the Mews after leaving a bonfire on Guy Fawkes night, and they are discussed how all the fireworks could cover the sounds of gunfire. 

Poirot joins Inspector Japp at the woman's residence where the death occurred. At first the assumption is suicide; very soon after the police arrive, they determine that it was a murder set up to look like suicide. And thus begins an investigation into the friends of the dead woman. She was living with another woman, a friend, and was engaged to Charles Laverton-West, an "M.P. for some place in Hampshire.” The resolution is unusual and Poirot is clever as expected.

"Murder in the Mews" was the best mystery of these two stories. I think the novella length provides more time for development and depth in the story. The characters in "The Adventures of the Clapham Cook" were more interesting, but the story felt more rushed, and some parts of the ending were not resolved for me. Both stories had their high points, and the character of Hercule Poirot is always entertaining to read about.

Both of these stories were adapted for Agatha Christie's Poirot, starring David Suchet, and the adaptations were very well done.

Spell the Month in Books — August 2025

 

Spell the Month in Books is a monthly meme hosted by Jana at Reviews from the Stacks. The link up post is posted on the first Saturday of each month. Each month one or two themes are suggested for the books that are chosen. The theme for August is “favorite authors.”

Once again, I am getting this post in very late in the month. 

A is for And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

This is one of Agatha Christie's most well-known mysteries. I have read at least 50 of Christie's mystery novels, but I did not read this one until 2020. I knew the general setup but had not watched any film adaptations, and was wondering how it all ends. Could it live up to the acclaim it has always gotten? It did for me. The writing is very suspenseful. I could not help trying to figure out not only who was the killer but how it was all managed. I did at one time suspect the actual culprit but Christie is very competent at making you second guess your deductions.

U is for Unruly Son by Robert Barnard

This book was published in the UK as Death of a Mystery Writer. The main character is an obnoxious and overbearing mystery author who has made many enemies and insulted just about everyone he encounters. His wife and daughter love him, or at least tolerate him, but his two sons don't have much good to say about him. Of course, all of his children would like to inherit his money. So when he dies by poisoning they are the first persons the police consider as suspects. This was a very good read, which I expected because Robert Barnard is one of my favorite authors. He rarely disappoints me. 

G is for Gambit by Rex Stout

Rex Stout is my favorite author of all. He wrote 33 novels and 41 novellas about the private detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin. The books are narrated by Archie. The series began in 1934 and the last book in the series, A Family Affair, was published in 1975, shortly before Stout's death. The Nero Wolfe series is fun to read because Wolfe has so many quirks. He hates to leave his home, thus he needs Archie Goodwin to do the legwork for him. He raises orchids and spends four hours each day in the plant rooms.  Eating and good food are very important to him and he never discusses business when eating. And those are just a few of his quirks. However, Gambit has one of the most straightforward plots of the 33 novels that Rex Stout wrote. Less of the quirks are evident or emphasized. The plotting is intricate and the mystery is especially challenging.

U is for The Unfortunate Englishman by John Lawton

I have been a fan of John Lawton's writing for years. His Inspector Frederick Troy series consists of eight novels published between 1995 and 2017. Those novels are a mix of police procedural and espionage, and are set between 1934 and 1963, with many of them covering multiple timelines. The Unfortunate Englishman is the second novel in the Joe Wilderness series. That series (so far) has focused on English / Russian / German relations in Berlin following World War II. The books in this series are really good spy fiction, but also complex and confusing. I love the focus on Berlin and the wall. This second novel in the series doesn't make as much sense if you have not read the first book.

S is for SS-GB by Len Deighton

SS-GB is an alternate history in which England has been invaded by Germany. The protagonist in this story is Detective Superintendent Douglas Archer of Scotland Yard, working under Gruppenführer Fritz Kellerman of the SS. The story is very complex. Len Deighton is one of my favorite authors, and I especially enjoy his spy fiction novels. I love his writing. This book, which is both a whodunit and a spy story, is no exception.

T is for A Tale about a Tiger and Other Mysterious Events by S.J. Rozan

S.J. Rozan is the author of the Lydia Chin / Bill Smith mystery series, one of my favorite contemporary mystery series. Lydia Chin is an American-born Chinese private investigator in her late twenties who lives in New York’s Chinatown with her mother. Bill Smith is a private investigator in his forties who lives in Manhattan. They are not partners but they often work together on cases. The element that I have always liked about this series is that the narrator of the books alternates. The first book was narrated by Lydia; the second book was narrated by Bill; and so on.

In A Tale about a Tiger and Other Mysterious Events, published by Crippen & Landru in 2009, there are nine stories by Rozan; six of the stories feature either Lydia Chin or Bill Smith or both. 

Books Read in July 2025

 

Another month where every book was a very good read. I finished seven books in July. Two were short story books; that is unusual. Four were crime fiction, including one espionage thriller. And one science fiction story in a military setting. At the end of July I had only read 12 books for my 20 Books of Summer list. It is now mid-August (unbelievable!) and I have only read two more. So I don't think I will finish all 20 books for the challenge. We'll see.

Fiction

Five Tuesdays in Winter (2021) by Lily King

I started this book of short stories in December 2024. I read the first four stories and I liked them all; you can check out my thoughts on those stories here. In July, I read the remaining six stories in the book. Many of those stories are slice-of-life stories. I especially liked the characterizations; the stories were serious but ended on an upbeat note. Check here for my thoughts on the last six stories.

Olive, Again (2019) by Elizabeth Strout

Olive, Again is the follow-up book to Olive Kitteridge.  It is a very good book but not an easy read. Olive is in her seventies in this book. She is widowed and has a tenuous, troubled relationship with her son and his family. This is described as a novel composed of interrelated short stories. Only seven of the thirteen stories are directly about Olive and her life in Crosby, Maine. The other stories take place in the same area or nearby but Olive is not the main focus. See my thoughts here.

Science Fiction

Ninefox Gambit (2016) by Yoon Ha Lee

Ninefox Gambit is a military science fiction/science fantasy/space opera novel. I did not know a lot about the book going in, although I assumed it was a space opera because of the cover illustration. The world building was very complex and confusing for me, but the writing was very good and pulled me into the story. I loved the ending. See my thoughts here.

Crime Fiction

At Bertram's Hotel (1965) by Agatha Christie

This is a Miss Marple mystery with a huge cast; the plot can be confusing, but it is an entertaining story set at a lovely hotel. Chief Inspector Fred Davy is a Scotland Yard detective who does most of the detecting. See my thoughts here.

The Amateur (1981) by Robert Littell

Charlie Heller is a cryptographer for the CIA. When his fiancée, Sarah Diamond, is murdered by terrorists at the American Embassy in West Germany, the CIA decides not to pursue her killers. Heller is determined to find them and kill them himself. So this is a revenge thriller. Heller has none of the necessary skills, but he forces the CIA to train him. Nothing in this book is predictable; the story was compelling and I enjoyed it very much.

The novel has an interesting history; the story was first written by Littell as a screenplay, and was made into a Canadian film released in 1981. Shortly after that, the novel was written based on the screenplay. Recently another film adaptation was released starring Ramie Malek.

The Murder of Mr. Ma (2024) by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan

Reading this book was a no-brainer for me. I will try anything written by S.J. Rozan. I was a bit uncertain about a book that she co-authored but still, it seemed like a safe bet. 

The two protagonists of the book are fictionalized versions of Judge Dee Ren Zie and Lao She, a Chinese academic and author. I have never read any of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee mysteries, but my husband has. The story focuses on their investigation into the deaths of Chinese immigrants in 1924 London.

I was very happy with this book. It felt like an adventure story as much as a mystery, and was a lot of fun to read. John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan have come together in a great writing partnership and you can read about that at CrimeReads and Mystery Fanfare. The second book in the series is already out and I will be reading it.

A Death in Tokyo (2011) by Keigo Higashino, translated by Giles Murray

This is the third book in the Tokyo Police Detective Kaga series to be translated to English from Japanese. I have read the two previous books that are available in English, and they all work well as standalones. Detective Kaga is not part of the homicide division, but he often works with the homicide detectives when the case in in his district. He works in an intuitive way, and follows up painstakingly on every detail. In this case a prominent business man has been murdered; he is found at the base of a statue on a bridge, but that is not where the murder took place. His wife and two teenage children don't know why he was in that area of town. It is a very complex case, and has an interesting and complex resolution. 

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken by my husband at the garden center during our last visit. We enjoy both buying plants and supplies and viewing the variety of plants and pots and decorations on display. Click on the images for best viewing quality.

At Bertram's Hotel: Agatha Christie

 

Description at Goodreads:

Miss Jane Marple has checked into Bertram's Hotel in London for a much-needed vacation. The last thing she expects is that this elegant establishment, known for its service and old-world charm, could be embroiled in scandal. But after a series of strange events—including the disappearance of a fellow guest, the arrival of a notorious celebrity bad boy, and finally, a shocking murder—she finds herself drawn into a multifaceted mystery.

This portion of the description at Goodreads is an accurate description, but later there is an implication that Miss Marple gets involved in the investigation, which is not accurate. Miss Marple observes useful pieces of information, and along the way she does reveal her thoughts to the reader on many of the events. The real investigator in this mystery is Chief Inspector Fred Davy, who has noted the connection of many of the guests at the hotel to various crimes in the area, and the story works more as a police procedural than is usual in a Miss Marple novel. All of that worked very well for me and I had no complaint. Fred Davy was a great character.

There are a lot of coincidences in this story; for example, Miss Marple runs into various guests at the hotel in the city of London who seem to be in questionable relationships. 

At Bertram's Hotel is a later book in the Miss Marple series and it didn't measure up to other books in that series for me. However, it was a fun read, with some humor.  I like books set in hotels and Bertram's Hotel was lovely. There were several interesting characters, so overall I liked it and I plan to finish the series. 

Short Story Wednesday: "Philomel Cottage" by Agatha Christie

For my Short Story Wednesday post this week, I have reviewed a story for the Agatha Christie Short Stories Read Along hosted by Fanda at Fanda Classiclit. Fanda's post for April is here. 

"Philomel Cottage"

To be honest, I enjoyed this story of psychological suspense, but when I got to the end I could not figure what had happened.

Alix Martin is the main character. She is in her thirties and for fifteen years supported herself in a clerical job. Then she received an unexpected inheritance which allowed her some independence. Shortly after that, she married a man she met at a friend's house, after a whirlwind romance. When they married they moved into a remote cottage that she paid for with part of her small inheritance.

This all sounds very idyllic but Alix begins to have doubts about her marriage. She has several dreams about her husband dying and she hears of questionable things that her husband has said or done but not shared with her. 

Then she hears from an old boyfriend who wants to drop by and visit her and her husband. This confuses her even more because the boyfriend had been in her dreams about her husband. 

The ending was abrupt, and I thought that it was ambiguous, although not all reviewers agreed with that. Regardless the story is filled with tension and was very entertaining. 

This story first appeared in The Grand Magazine in November 1924. It later appeared in a collection titled The Listerdale Mystery in the UK in 1934 and in The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories in the US in 1948.

Short Story Wednesday is hosted by Patricia Abbott at Pattinase. 

Six Degrees of Separation: From Knife to Valley of the Kings

  

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 Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie. I haven't read this book; I don't read many memoirs. And when I first read about Knife, I did not think I wanted to read it. But having since read many reviews that have praised the book, I do plan to read it. 

My first link is to another memoir. In 1946, Agatha Christie published Come, Tell Me How You Live, a memoir of the time she spent with her second husband, Max Mallowan, at archaeological digs in Syria. I have not read that memoir yet either, but it is on my shelves to read.

Next is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie, Murder In Mesopotamia (1936), set at an archaeological dig in Iraq. This novel is part of the Hercule Poirot series. One of the members of the expedition is murdered. Poirot happens to be passing through the area and is called on to look into the death. The story is narrated by Nurse Leatheran, and that is what I liked best about the book. 

The books in the Gideon Oliver series by Aaron Elkins series feature a forensic anthropologist who often works at archaeological digs. In Curses, Oliver is invited to an archaeological dig on the Yucatan Peninsula. Both my son and I have read a few books in this series. The first book in this series was published in 1982. 

My next link is to a novel in a historical mystery series that I read years ago, the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. Amelia begins her adventures in archaeology in Crocodile on the Sandbank, which is set in 1884 in Egypt.  

The fifth link of my chain, also set in Egypt, is a nonfiction book, The Tomb of Tutankhamen. The author, Howard Carter, was the leader of the excavation and this is his firsthand account of the discovery of the tomb and the artifacts discovered. This book is from my husband's bookshelves and he has several other books on this subject. We visited the Tutankhamen exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1978. 

Staying with Egypt and archaeology sites, the last book in my chain is another of my husbands books, also nonfiction, Valley of the Kings by John Romer. The Valley of the Kings is an area in Egypt where tombs were constructed for pharaohs and nobles for nearly 500 years. Per the Preface of this book, it is a nonfiction account of "two interlinked stories: the first is the history of the travellers and scholars who studied and excavated the royal tombs of the valley; the second is that of the tombs themselves and the motives and methods of the people who made them."

My Six Degrees focused on archaeological sites in fiction and nonfiction. If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?

The next Six Degrees will be on May 3, 2025 and the starting book will be a book longlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize, Rapture by Emily Maguire.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Listerdale Mystery" by Agatha Christie

 

I have discovered the Agatha Christie Short Stories Read Along hosted by Fanda at Fanda Classiclit. It originally started in 2024, but I just saw it recently, and I plan to join in this year when I can. 

Fanda has a post each month to note the stories for that month. The post for February is here. The full list of stories for the year is here. The stories for February are "The Listerdale Mystery" and "The Tuesday Night Club," a Miss Marple story.

So, for Short Story Wednesday today, I read the "The Listerdale Mystery." Here are my thoughts:

A widow, Mrs. St. Vincent, lives with her grown daughter and son in a boarding house. She checks her finances every month, and now she realizes that they may have to move to someplace even cheaper. Originally they lived in much better circumstances, in a home that had been in the family for generations, but her husband didn't handle business affairs very well and left them with little to live on. One day she notices an advertisement in the paper for a rental house that requires only nominal rent. She goes to check out the house, and the butler shows her around, but it seems too good to be true, so she leaves without any hope. Soon she gets a letter offering her the house for a small amount of rent. 

She moves into the house and everything goes well. But Mrs. St. Vincent's son, Rupert, is suspicious. It turns out that the house they are living in is owned by Lord Listerdale, who disappeared from the house and then later turned up in East Africa. Rupert thinks that there may have been foul play, and comes up with all kinds of theories. He even begins to do some sleuthing.

This story was different from other mystery short stories by Christie that I have read. It is a mystery but it does not involve a crime, and is actually closer to a romance. I enjoyed the story; it was a fun read and had a nice ending.

“The Listerdale Mystery” was first published as “The Benevolent Butler” in Grand Magazine, December 1925. I read this story in The Golden Ball And Other Stories, a collection of 15 short stories by Agatha Christie.

Books Read in June 2024

 

I read eleven books in June and that was many more books than I expected to read, considering that I had cataract surgery in the middle of the month. I ended up having more time to read and not much energy or motivation for anything else, including blogging. Nine of the books read in June were from my 20 Books of Summer list. Unfortunately I am very late in posting about my reading for June but I hope to catch up more in the next few weeks.

Graphic memoir

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003) by Marjane Satrapi; Mattias Ripa (Translator)

This graphic memoir tells the story of the author's life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, from the point when the Shah is overthrown through the war with Iraq. Reading about those times from the viewpoint of a child is interesting and entertaining. The story is continued in a second volume, and I will be reading that too.

Fiction

The Lonely Hearts Book Club (2023) by Lucy Gilmore

This story has a book club theme, and it also has romance, dysfunctional families, and lonely people making friends. See my thoughts here.

Redhead by the Side of the Road (2020) by Anne Tyler

Micah Mortimer is a creature of habit; he wants everyday to be the same. He has been with his girlfriend for three years. Two new events happen in his life that shake up his normal life. I liked the story a lot, the length was perfect at under 200 pages, and I want to read more of Anne Tyler's books.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (2014) by Gabrielle Zevin

This book is centered around a bookstore and of course books are discussed throughout. This was a lovely story with a little bit of romance and a lot about relationships, friends, and community. See my review.

Fantasy, Time Travel

Tales from the Café (2017) by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

This is the second in a series of five books about time travel that takes place in a café in Tokyo which has been serving a special coffee for more than one hundred years.  There are four connected stories in this book. The stories of the people who run the café are just as interesting as the time travel stories. The first book in the series is Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

Crime Fiction

Skeleton-in-Waiting (1989) by Peter Dickinson

Peter Dickinson is one of my favorite authors. I prefer his mysteries, but he also wrote children's books and fantasies. This is the second book in a duology, set in an alternate Britain with a very alternate royal family. The first book is King and Joker, and in that book the two main characters (Prince Albert and Princess Louise) are teenagers. This book takes place over ten years later and both Albert and Louise have married and have children. This was a reread, and this time around I was more impressed with the story and enjoyed it very much. 

Nearly Nero (2017) by Loren D. Estleman

Between 2008 and 2016, Estleman wrote nine humorous short stories about Claudius Lyon, a man who is obsessed with emulating Nero Wolfe in all ways, and his assistant, Arnie Woodbine. Most of these stories were published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. This book includes all of the stories. I reviewed the stories here and here.

Family Business (2021) by S.J. Rozan

S.J. Rozan won the 2022 Shamus Award for this novel, her 14th book starring New York City private eyes Lydia Chin and Bill Smith. When the powerful Chinatown crime boss Big Brother Choi dies, he leaves the Tong headquarters building to his niece, Mel, who hires Lydia and Bill to accompany her to inspect it. They discover the body of another Tong member in Choi's living quarters. I will be reading the latest book in the series, The Mayors of New York, very soon.

In the Midst of Death (1976) by Lawrence Block

This is an early book in the Matthew Scudder series.  Scudder is an ex-cop who works as an unlicensed private detective. In this case he is helping out an old friend on the police force who is accused of murdering a prostitute.  I liked the book but it was very dark, especially the ending. 

The Cipher Garden (2005) by Martin Edwards

The books in this series are set in Cumbria, England's Lake District, and feature Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett and historian Daniel Kind. DCI Scarlett heads the cold case division. Here, an old cold case involving the death of a gardener is reopened because of poison pen letters sent to the police and to people involved in the crime. I like the mystery plot but could do without the romantic subplot.

A Caribbean Mystery (1964) by Agatha Christie

This is the 9th book in Christie's Jane Marple series. It is not set in Miss Marple's village of St. Mary Mead and I missed that setting. On the other hand it has a nice depiction of a Caribbean island vacation spot and any Miss Marple story is going to be entertaining. Another elderly visitor to St. Honoré, Major Palgrave, has been monopolizing Miss Marple's time, telling stories of his adventures during his travels. At one point he tells her about a murderer he met, starts to show her a picture, then gets interrupted. Shortly after that Major Palgrave dies, seemingly of natural causes. We just watched the film adaptation starring Helen Hayes tonight, and saw another adaptation with Joan Hickson a couple of weeks ago. Both were good.

Currently reading

I have just started reading A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny, the 12th book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels. The story begins with Gamache taking on a new job and the discovery of an old intricate map. 

The subject of the photos at the top and bottom of this post is our cat, Rosie. At the top, Rosie is helping me read. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Optimist's Daughter to Wave Me Goodbye

 

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. Last month she did not supply a title and asked us to start with the last book on our previous Six Degrees post. So for me, the starting book will be The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty.

The Optimist's Daughter was published in 1972 and won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Laurel McKelva Hand is a widow, living and working in Chicago. Laurel returns to her hometown in Mississippi for her father's funeral. The story explores her relationship with her father, her mother who died when she was younger, and her new stepmother who is much younger than her father and has inherited the house that Laurel grew up in. It also focuses on her memories of losing her husband during World War II, not very long after they were married. There is a lot of depth to the novel, which is only 180 pages long.

1st degree:

I chose the first book in my chain, Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, because of the title, the mention of a daughter. It is a perfect link, because there are two daughters that figure in the story. This is the 15th book in the Ruth Rendell Inspector Wexford series. A family is attacked at dinner time and a famous author and her daughter and son-in-law are killed. Only the teenage granddaughter lives through the attack. And while Wexford is investigating this horrible crime, he is worried about his daughter Sheila, who is in a relationship he disapproves of. Kissing the Gunner's Daughter is a dark story of psychological suspense.

2nd degree:

My next book, Henrietta Who?, is also a police procedural mystery which features a daughter. Grace Jenkins has been killed in a hit and run accident. When her daughter is called home from college, Henrietta learns that she cannot be Grace's daughter because the woman has never had a child. This is not only the search for a murderer but also the story of a very young woman coming to terms with questions about her parents and her origins.

3rd degree:

My next book in the chain takes me to The Hollow by Agatha Christie, which features another character named Henrietta. This is the 25th book in the Hercule Poirot series although as I remember it, there is not much of Poirot in the book. The story is built around a country house weekend; the characters are interesting, somewhat quirky, and all seem to be hiding something. Henrietta Savernake is a successful sculptor who is in love with Dr. John Christow, who has a wife and children.

4th degree:

Gallows Court is the first book in a relatively new series by Martin Edwards featuring Rachel Savernake, the daughter of a hanging judge, and an amateur sleuth. The setting is London in the 1930s. I have not read this book but the series is doing well and I am eager to try it soon.

5th degree:

My next link is to Perfect Gallows by Peter Dickinson. This book is about a murder that occurs in 1944 in the UK, on an estate occupied by US forces preparing for the invasion of France. It is primarily set during World War II, with a framing story set in 1988. Peter Dickinson was a wonderful writer who has written many books in the mystery and fantasy genres.

6th degree:

Using World War II as a link, my next book is Wave Me Goodbye: Stories of the Second World War. The book is comprised of short stories that take place during the war or the years immediately afterward; the authors are all women and all but one story was written during that time. The stories are mostly home front stories. I have read only a few stories in that book so far.

My chain starts out in Mississippi in the US but moves to the UK after that. Was there any connection between the first book and the last? Only the tenuous connection to World War II because the death of Laurel's husband was connected to that conflict.

Have you read any of these books? And where did your list take you, if you participated in this month's Six Degrees meme?

The next Six Degrees will be on March 2, 2024, and the starting book will be Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.