2020 Overview and Reading in December

I don't keep statistics as I go along during the year (although I may do that in 2021) but I was curious about my reading this year, so I looked at my counts for various genres. This year I read 113 books. I usually aim at 84 books in a year, which would be seven books a month. In 2019 I read 120 books, but that was an unusually high number for me.

My reading has always been focused on mystery novels, at least in my adult life. This year I read 75 mystery novels. That group includes any historical mysteries and spy fiction I read. Of that total, 25 were published before 1960, 24 were published between 1960 and 1999, and 26 were published after 1999. That seems like a good mix.

Other fiction reading was divided thus:

• Science fiction: 5
• Classics: 4
• General fiction: 4
• Historical fiction: 7

I read more short stories than usual this year, and ended up completing 6 books of short stories. I joined in on Short Story Wednesday at Patricia Abbott (pattinase) and sampled short stories from several anthologies. 

That leaves 18 non-fiction books, which includes 7 mystery reference books. 

And now, on to books read in December 2020... 

General Fiction

Little Women (1868) Louisa May Alcott

I think I read this book when I was younger but maybe I just remember what I saw in film adaptations. The story was somewhat familiar to me but my memories were garbled so that there were enough surprises to entertain me. See my review here.

The Queen's Gambit (1983) by Walter Tevis

I was motivated to read this book because of the new mini-series on Netflix. I still haven't watched the TV series, but I am very glad I read the book. Beth Harmon is an orphan who discovers she has a gift for playing chess, and becomes obsessed with it. The relationships in this book are fascinating.

Crime Fiction

The Absent One (2008) by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Translated by K. E. Semmel

#2 in the Department Q series. Set in Copenhagen, Denmark. See my review here.

Murder in Retrospect (1942) by Agatha Christie

Poirot is hired to investigate a murder that took place in the past. Carla Lemarchant's mother Caroline Crale was hanged for the murder of her husband. Sixteen years later, Carla wants Poirot to prove that Caroline did not commit the murder. This is one of my favorite Agatha Christie books of the ones I have read so far. This title was published as Five Little Pigs in the UK. 

Hickory Dickory Dock (1955) by Agatha Christie

Miss Lemon, Hercule Poirot's secretary, is obviously worried and he insists she tell him what it is. Her sister is the warden at a youth hostel. There has been a series of thefts and vandalism there. Poirot volunteers to investigate this issue. And then there is a death.

Sad Cypress (1940) by Agatha Christie

At the beginning of this novel, Elinor Carlisle is on trial, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard by poison. The prosecutor alleges that she is the only person with a motive for this murder. Her engagement to Roddy Wellman had ended because he had fallen for Mary Gerard, the daughter of the lodge keeper at the aunt's estate. Poirot is hired by the aunt's doctor to look for evidence that Elinor did not commit the crime.

This month, I read three books in the Hercule Poirot series, and in October and November I read two each month. It is an interesting experience to read so many of the Poirot books so close together.

The Word is Murder (2018) by Anthony Horowitz

As soon as I started reading this book, I knew that I was going to love it. The premise is that the narrator is a writer who plans to write a true crime novel about a consulting detective who is investigating a murder. The narrator's name is Anthony Horowitz. It is very well done, and I am looking forward to reading the next one, The Sentence is Death.

Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries (2016) edited by Martin Edwards 

This is an anthology of vintage crime stories set around Christmas time. I wrote two posts about stories in this anthology, here and here.

The Beautiful Mystery (2012) by Louise Penny

#8 in the Chief Inspector Gamache series. This one is set in a monastery and eventually addresses some difficulties that Gamache has been having with his superiors in the Surete. 

What I will be doing in January:

I have signed up for one challenge already and I have about nine more I plan to sign up for. I don't think any of them will be a big strain and I will be using them as guidelines for my reading over the year, not something to stress about. 

In January I plan to read a book for the Japanese Literature Challenge at Dolce Bellezza.  Also Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian, Black Robe by Brian Moore, and at least a couple of books in the Hercule Poirot series. The Master and Commander read is intended to be a slow read (one chapter a week for about three months) for Nick Senger's Aubrey/Maturin Chapter-a-Week Read-along, but I may decide I want to read it faster than that. 

Reading Summary for November 2020

We are getting close to the end of 2020, a year that has been challenging for all of us in many different ways. This month I read my third book about the 1918 pandemic, a new interest for me. I also participated in Nonfiction November and picked up lots of suggestions for nonfiction reading in 2021. I read a couple of Christmas mysteries and more short stories than usual.

Science Fiction / Fantasy

I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (1963) by Jack Finney

A short story collection. All of the twelve stories in the book are magical, with unexpected, lovely endings. A few included some variation of time travel, and all had some fantastical element, although the setting is our everyday world. See my full review here.

Nonfiction

Pandemic 1918 (2018) by Catharine Arnold

The subtitle of this book is "Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History." This was the type of book I was looking for originally when I read the other two books on the 1918 flu pandemic. So this book expanded what I had learned before and for the most part was not a repeat of information from the other books.

Crime Fiction

Escape Velocity (2017) by Susan Wolfe

Georgia Griffin has just arrived in Silicon Valley from Piney, Arkansas, with very little money and some training as a paralegal. Her father is a con artist and she also has talents in that area. However, Georgia's father is in jail, she is trying to leave that part of her life behind, and she wants to bring her teenage sister to Silicon Valley to live with her and have a normal life. She gets a job at a software firm, and works towards trying to fit in and helping the company by weeding out inept or harmful employees. This is an excellent legal thriller about the workings of a software company and the challenges in that field.

Murder In Mesopotamia (1936) by Agatha Christie

This is a Hercule Poirot mystery set in Iraq, at an archaelogical dig. One of the members of the expedition is murdered. Poirot happens to be passing through the area and is called upon to look int the death. The story is narrated by Nurse Leatheran, and that is what I liked best about the book. 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) by Agatha Christie

I read two books in the Hercule Poirot series this month, because we are watching the Poirot TV series and I want to read each novel before watching the adaptation. I had read this one before but it was long long ago. This was written early in Christie's career and was successful at the time. It is still considered one of her best mysteries.

Murder for Christmas (1949) by Francis Duncan

Mordecai Tremaine receives an invitation to spend Christmas at the country estate of Benedict Grame. Enclosed in the invitation is a brief note from Grame's secretary, Nicholas Blaise, asking Tremaine to join the Christmas gathering because he has a sense that trouble is brewing. There are lots of characters: relatives, business acquaintances, villagers. And a romance or two. This is a twisty, fun Christmas mystery.

Do Not Murder Before Christmas (1949) by Jack Iams

Another fun vintage Christmas mystery. This one is kind of hard to describe. In some ways it is light and romantic, in other ways it is a hard-boiled tale of crime in the city. 

Moonflower Murders (2020) Anthony Horowitz

This book is the sequel to an earlier book by Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders. See my review here.

Moonflower Murders: Anthony Horowitz

Moonflower Murders is the sequel to an earlier book by Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders. In both books the main character is Susan Ryeland, and both feature the "book within a book" format. I did not review Magpie Murders and looking back, I can understand why. It was one of those books that is very difficult to review without revealing too much. 

As Moonflower Murders begins, retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living with her boyfriend Andreas, running a small hotel that they own on the Greek island of Crete. She thought this would be an idyllic existence, but she is exhausted with the responsibilities and is having doubts about her relationship with Andreas. 

Then Lawrence and Pauline Treherne visit their hotel, and tell Susan about a murder that happened eight years earlier in their hotel in Sussex.  One of her authors, Alan Conway, visited the Treherne's hotel after the murder and used characters from the actual murder in his next book. Now, their daughter Cecily is missing, and this happened immediately after she read Conway's book and told them that she had discovered who was really responsible for the murder. They approach Susan because she edited the book and was responsible for it being published. 

The Trehernes ask Susan to return to the UK, read the book, and see if she can figure out what has happened to Cecily and what clue she found related to the murder. This seems a bit extreme but they offer to pay her $10,000, which Susan could use to keep her small hotel afloat. 

That summary of the premise for the book sounds complicated – and leaves a lot out – but it does make more sense when you read the book. 

I liked everything about this book. I will confess to getting impatient with some parts of the story, and wondering why Susan takes so long to get to reading the book by Alan Conway (although she is of course already familiar with the story). But I was very happy about how Susan's story comes together in the end. And in Susan Ryeland, the author created a character that I cared about.

The book by Conway is placed almost at the middle of the book and is a complete mystery, complete with cover, copyright page, title page, and dedication page. It is a historical mystery, set in the 1950s, featuring a famous private detective somewhat like Hercule Poirot. 

The "outer" story (set in the present) is a very good puzzle mystery and when it was solved, I felt like the clues and the plot supported the resolution. Sometimes in a puzzle mystery I end up feeling like the author has just thrown in a resolution almost out of the blue. I enjoyed the inner book, set in the 1950s, but I did not feel like it was as challenging as the main story. Together they worked very well, though, at least for me.

Although both Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders share a main character and have a similar format, Horowitz labels them as standalone books on his website. I agree that this book can stand alone, but it does reveal some parts of Magpie Murders, if the reader wants to go back to read that one.

I first knew of Anthony Horowitz as one of the creators of the Midsomer Murders TV show and then later, Foyle's War. However he has done many other things. He is the author of a young adult spy fiction series which has recently been adapted as a television series. And he has written two Sherlock Holmes novels, a James Bond novel, and two other adult mysteries.

I am including this book in my submissions for the European Reading Challenge for Greece, since the book begins and ends in Greece, and that setting is lovingly described.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:  Harper, 2020
Length:      580 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Setting:      UK, Greece
Genre:       Mystery
Source:      I purchased this book.

November 2019 Reading Summary

In November, I read only crime fiction novels. And a good number of the books I read were related to Christmas (three books set at Christmas, and one following Christmas into the New Year). Two books were published before 1960, four were published between 1961 and 1999, and two were published after 2000.

These are the books I read:

Death After Breakfast (1978) by Hugh Pentecost

I read the Pierre Chambrun novels by Hugh Pentecost years ago, and remember them fondly. Chambrun is the manager of a luxury hotel in New York and the stories are narrated by Mark Haskell, the hotel’s public relations director. Per Goodreads, this is the 13th in the series of 22 books. My thoughts here. 

Motherless Brooklyn (1999) by Jonathan Lethem

This was my first experience reading anything by Jonathon Lethem and this book is certainly different. It is described as a "riff on the classic detective novel." Leonard Essrog works for Frank Minna at a limo service / detective agency. When his boss is killed, he decides he will find out who did it. The catch is that he has Tourette's Syndrome and communication with others is challenging. I liked the book and want to try other books by this author.

The Hunting Party (2019) by Lucy Foley

A group of friends from Oxford vacation together at an isolated luxury hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands, continuing a New Year's tradition that started ten years ago. The estate is beautiful but during inclement weather it can be cut off from the world. The friends all have secrets, as do the manager, the gamekeeper, and the caretaker. As we expect, this is a recipe for disaster. The dilemma of being snowed in is a standard Christmas mystery trope. This book was an engrossing read although sometimes I was confused by the multiple narrators.

Nothing Lasts Forever (1979) by Roderick Thorp

The film Die Hard (1988) was based on this novel. If anything, the book has more violence than the film, and the book is definitely darker. The story is set at Christmas, and much of the action is very similar, but characters and relationships are different. Regardless, I liked the story very much. As usual, the novel reveals more about the characters and their background than the film.

The Christmas Egg (1958) by Mary Kelly

This is a "seasonal mystery" published by the British Library in its Crime Classics series. The author was new to me and she did not publish very many mystery novels. It was different, and concentrated on interesting characters, which I liked. I do hope to find more books by this author.

Off Minor (1991) by John Harvey

This month I returned to the police procedural series starring Charlie Resnick, written by John Harvey. This is the 4th book in the series; I read the first three books in 2008 and 2009. This one is about child abductions, not a pleasant subject, but a good entry in the series. 

The Black-Headed Pin (1938)
by Constance and Gwenyth Little

Leigh Smith's father died and she was left with no money at all. After moving to a big house in the country, miserly Mrs. Ballinger offers her a job as companion and housekeeper, or as "Smithy" puts it, "general slave." The fun begins when Mrs. Ballinger invites her young relatives to a house party for Christmas. The authors were sisters, born in Australia; their family later moved to East Orange, New Jersey. Their books were all standalone mysteries. This is a very funny mystery and I will be looking for more books by these authors.

Magpie Murders (2016) by Anthony Horowitz

This is a book within a book, and in this case we get two mysteries for the price of one. The first book starts with Susan Ryeland, an editor, reading a mystery by one of her clients for the first time. That story is set in the late 1950s in a small town in England, and features a private detective somewhat like Hercule Poirot. I liked this book, it was a page turner, and both parts of the story were entertaining on many levels.