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.

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.

Bookshelf Traveling for Insane Times #21

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme. It was originated by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness, but Katrina at Pining for the West is now gathering the blogposts.

So here I am looking at a small portion of a shelf in the glass front bookcase. The vintage mysteries on their side are usually hidden by the wooden frames of the two doors. 

If you have problems reading any of the titles, you can try right clicking on the image of the shelf, and open the link in a new tab.

The book on the right side, King & Joker, I have read and reviewed on the blog. It is one of my most favorite books, and also has a great skull on the cover.

The book on the left side, Icy Clutches by Aaron Elkins, is the 6th book in the Gideon Oliver series. Elkins has written several series and some standalone novels, but he is best known for this series. Gideon Oliver is a forensic anthropologist, known as the 'skeleton detective'. The fourth Oliver book, Old Bones, received the 1988 Edgar Award for Best Novel. I have only read two books in this series but I have many more of them because I collect books with skeletons or skulls on the cover. So I will continue with the series, sooner or later. Each book is set in a different and often exotic locale (Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, France; Egypt; Tahiti). 

In case the titles on the stack in the middle are not clear, here is a close up photo. I have not read any of the vintage mysteries in that stack. I have read one book by Richard Hull, The Murder of My Aunt. I really liked that one.

All of the cover illustrations for the British Library Classic Crime series are lovely, but below are two of my favorites.

See reviews of Murder in Piccadilly by Anthony Wynne at Pining for the West and Mysteries Ahoy! Per Aidan at Mysteries Ahoy! this is an inverted mystery, and that appeals to me.

The pluses for Murder of a Lady by Charles Kingston are (1) set in a castle and (2) set in Scotland. However, it is a locked room mystery and I am not very fond of those. See this review at The Invisible Event, which has links to several other reviews.