Short Story Wednesday: Stories from Fire Watch by Connie Willis

 

Back in August 2022, I read the novelette, "Fire Watch," by Connie Willis. It was published in a collection with the same title, and was part of the same universe as Willis's Oxford Time Travel series: Doomsday Book (1992), To Say Nothing of the Dog (1995), Blackout (2010), and All Clear (2010). I liked "Fire Watch" a lot but I did think that it might not be too clear if the reader had not read at least one of the books in her time travel series.

After reading an additional three stories from Fire Watch last week, I hesitated to write a post about them. Mainly because I found the stories confusing, and two of them I did not really understand at all. 

"Service for the Burial of the Dead"

This one was pretty good. It is a ghost story, set in the 1800s (I am guessing). A young woman is shunned by her neighbors because she has had an affair with a young man. He dies and she dares to attend the funeral. Embarrassed, she leaves the chapel and goes into a room nearby. To her surprise her lover is there, and says he won't reveal himself to any one else until the father of his fiancee settles his debts. The story is somewhat open ended.

"Lost and Found"

An apocalyptic story about cults and the state stealing treasures from the churches. It isn't that this story is totally unclear, it is more that I wanted some more concrete information on what is going on.

"All My Darling Daughters"

This story was long and very icky, but I could not stop reading it. I was hoping there would be some resolution that would make it worth reading. It is science fiction and it concerns a school (on a large space craft). It was about sex and fathers and implied rape and incest. Some reviewers loved this story and others hated it, so don't take my reaction too seriously.

"Blued Moon"

I did not want to give up on the stories in this book and only report on ones that I had mixed reactions to. The fourth story I read was "Blued Moon." It was a highly recommended story by Willis. It was undoubtedly the best story of these four. It is a romantic comedy and a fun and humorous read. It involves a project to restore the ozone layer, which may or may not have disastrous results.

There are seven more stories left in this book and I will persevere,  plus I have two more books of Willis's short stories to read.

Short Story Wednesday: "Fire Watch" by Connie Willis

My short story for this week is the title story from Fire Watch by Connie Willis. 

I have read (and reviewed) all of the four novels in the Oxford Time Travel series: Doomsday Book (1992), To Say Nothing of the Dog (1995), Blackout (2010), and All Clear (2010). Those books are set sometime around 2050, when time travel is possible and used by academics to study the past. "Fire Watch" is a novelette that preceded those books; it is set in the same time and its main character, Bartholomew, is a historian sent back to London in 1940, during the Blitz.   

Bartholomew has been training for years to go back to the time of St. Paul, the apostle, and due to some confusion, is assigned instead to go to St. Paul's Cathedral during the Blitz. He will volunteer for fire watching on the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. The trip will be considered his practicum, and he has two days to learn about London during the Blitz before he leaves. That is not enough time to prepare so he supplements his research by using memory-assistance drugs to put information into his long-term memory, for access when needed. He is extremely unhappy about the change in plans and doesn't even get a clear understanding of his goal for this "mission."

The story is written in diary format with an entry for many of the days in the three month period that he is in London in 1940. This works well because the reader is as much in the dark as Bartholomew. A minor drawback is that the time travel mechanism is not described at all, although the story makes it clear that Bartholomew travels back in time and that he is a part of a group that does this regularly. That did not bother me but might be a problem for readers not familiar with the series.

I enjoyed reading this story tremendously. I like reading about the Blitz and I think the depiction of that time and how it affected people was very well done. This story made me want to go back and reread all the books in the series, even though each book is at least 500 pages long.

"Fire Watch" was first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction (Feb 1982), and was later reprinted in this collection in 1985 and in many anthologies. It won the 1982 Nebula and the 1983 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. It is available to read online here. 

Short Story Wednesday: American Christmas Stories from the Library of America

 

Today I am featuring an anthology of Christmas short stories from The Library of America Collection. American Christmas Stories was edited by Connie Willis, and she has provided the introduction. There are 59 stories included.

From the dust jacket of this book:

Library of America and acclaimed author Connie Willis invite you to unwrap this diverse collection of fifty-nine enchanting and uniquely American stories about Christmas, literary gems that will delight and surprise.

Ranging from the advent of the American tradition of holiday storytelling in the wake of the Civil War to today, this is the best and widest-ranging anthology of American Christmas stories ever assembled. Ghost stories and crime stories, science fiction, fantasy, westerns, humor, and horror; tales of Christmas morning, trees, gifts, wise men, and family dinners everywhere from New York to Texas to outer space: this anthology is an epiphany, revealing the ways Christmas has evolved over time—and how the spirit of the holiday has remained the same.

I have only read one of the stories in this book so far. It is a story by Pete Hamill, titled "The Christmas Kid." Written in 1979, it is about a Jewish boy from Poland who has come to New York City to live with his uncle, following the end of World War II. He is an orphan and lost his parents to the holocaust. The story is told from the point of view of another boy in the neighborhood. It was a very moving story. I seem to be reading more sentimental stories this December.

This was the first thing I have read by Pete Hamill. If anyone has read books or stories by Hamill, I would love to hear what you think. 

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis

There are four novels in Connie Willis's Oxford Time Travel series and all of them are very long books. After reading Doomsday Book in November 2017 and To Say Nothing of the Dog in December 2017, I put off the last two, Blackout and All Clear, until later in March. The two books are really one book in two parts so I did end up reading both of them together, between March 24th and April 6th. It was a wonderful read, very emotional at the end.

The story is centered on three time travelers. They are historians who have assignments to go back to specific events in World War II in the year 1940. The time and place they come from is Oxford, England in 2060.


Rather than focus on the story. I am going spend more time on the characters.

• Eileen O’Reilly (real name Merope Ward) works as a maid in a manor house in Backbury, Warwickshire. Her assignment is to observe children evacuated from London.
• Mike Davis (real name Michael Davies) is sent to Dover, to observe the evacuation of servicemen from Dunkirk. He has been implanted with an American accent for a trip he planned to Pearl Harbor but his assignment is switched, so he poses as an American reporter.
• Polly Sebastien (real name Polly Churchill) works as a shopgirl in London during the Blitz. She has been supplied with lists of places that were bombed during the Blitz over a specific period of time so that she can avoid those locations.

The story revolves around these three people and they eventually meet up in London. There are three other characters with smaller but important roles that I enjoyed:

• Colin Templer previously appeared as a young teenager in Oxford in Doomsday Book. At the time the book begins he is a bit older, 17, and has a crush on Polly. 
• Mr James Dunworthy, who is on the teaching staff of Balliol College, Oxford University, provides tutoring to the historians prior to their assignments, and appears in all of the books in the series. He is in charge of making the time travel assignments and has been moving them around for a reason that has not been shared with the historians or the reader. When things start going wrong, Mr Dunworthy decides to go to 1940 himself.
• Sir Godfrey Kingsman was not a time traveler but one of the "contemps," a person who belongs in the time that the historians are visiting. Sir Godfrey is a classically-trained Shakespearean actor who befriends Polly in an air raid shelter. They develop an attraction and affection for each other even though there is a very large age difference.

There are confusing elements: The historians have multiple assignments in the past, and in each trip to the past they have different names to fit in with the time period. Throughout the book we read about various time travelers and in some cases the real identity of the time traveler is not clear. This did not bother me, but it could be confusing and frustrating. I also think it was intentional, so I just went with the flow.

I liked All Clear better than Blackout, and it wasn't just because Blackout ends with a cliffhanger and there is a real ending to All Clear. In the first book there was too much repetition of and emphasis on the thought process of the historians, a quibble I also noted in my review of Doomsday Book. They worry all the time about the predicament that they are in AND they don't tell their fellow historians their concerns. It is like a soap opera. And both parts were too long. But I have no regrets about the two weeks I spent reading these books.

Those are my only criticisms of Blackout / All Clear and overall I loved the books. I think that the author does a great job with the characterizations. I was especially fond of the main characters but there are many, many small parts in these books and several of those minor characters still stick with me. I see Connie Willis's time travel series as re-readable and I am sure I will be doing that someday with these two books because of the picture of the UK during the Blitz. I will be able to slow down and savor them because I won't be worried about the fate of the characters.

The most important thing that I took away from this reading experience was its focus on the ordinary people in the UK during the war and the effect the war had on their country and their lives. I have always been interested in this time period, but I had no idea of the extent of the suffering and upheaval in the UK until I read two books by Juliet Gardiner, Wartime: Britain 1939-1945 and The Blitz. I was not a student of history and any history I learned came from the perspective of how the US fit into events. Whether the facts and the terminology are absolutely correct or not, you cannot miss the impact of World War II on the everyday life of people in the UK when reading Blackout and All Clear.

If you are interested in an overview of the mechanics of time travel in this novel, check out Alan J Chick's article on Connie Willis's “OXFORD TIME TRAVEL” SERIES.

See these links for more. Note that most of these reviews have quibbles but still like the book:

• Jo Walton at Tor.com
• Annalee Newitz at GIZMODO / io9
• Alex Baugh at The Children's War

 -----------------------------

Blackout
Publisher:   Bantam Books / Spectra, February 2010
Length:      512 pages 
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Oxford Time Travel, #3
Setting:      England 
Genre:       Time Travel
Source:      Borrowed from my husband

All Clear

Publisher:   Bantam Books / Spectra, October 2010
Length:      656 pages 
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Oxford Time Travel, #4
Setting:      England 
Genre:       Time Travel
Source:      Borrowed from my husband

Reading Summary for April 2018

Once again I have read more books this month than I expected. One book was very very long and took most of a week to finish (All Clear), and several were vintage mysteries which usually don't have lots of pages, so I guess it all balances out. Mostly crime fiction, as usual. I also read a good mix of older and newer fiction, which I am happy about.

I read two books outside of the crime fiction genre. One was Connie Willis's time travel book All Clear. The other was a book of short stories, I Bring Sorrow by Patricia Abbott, which had 25 stories, all dark, some crime fiction, some from other genres.


All Clear (2010) by Connie Willis

When I started reading Blackout and All Clear, all I knew about the books was that they took place in 1940, during the London Blitz, and they were about a group of time travelers who were from Oxford in 2060. And I did not want to know more than that so I hesitate to go into more depth here. A more detailed summary that doesn't give away much is available at Goodreads. The two books are really one book in two parts so I did end up reading both of them together, between March 24th and April 6th. It was a wonderful read, very emotional at the end, and I loved it.

I Bring Sorrow: and Other Stories of Transgression by Patricia Abbott

This book contains 25 short stories; some are very short (3-6 pages), most fall between 10-15 pages in length. There  are definitely some that fit the crime fiction label, with violence and murders, but there are others that are more atmospheric and thought-provoking. Actually all of them made me stop and think and that is what I loved about them. See my full review.

The remainder of my reads were crime fiction novels. Four were written before 1960, one in the 1970's, one in the 1990's, and two were after 2000.  I got in two more vintage mysteries than last month so I am happy about that.

The Silent Speaker (1946) by Rex Stout

This was a reread; I have read all of the books in the Nero Wolfe series multiple times. The Silent Speaker is one of my favorites in the series. Nero Wolfe is investigating the murder of the Director of the Bureau of Price Regulation (BPR) and the group footing his bill is the National Industrial Association (NIA). The two organizations are rivals. This was the first novel that Rex Stout published after World War II and it depicts an interesting time. See this post for more on the book.

Hidden Depths (2007) by Ann Cleeves

This is the third book in Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope series, which is also now a TV series. This one takes place in the summer on the Northumberland coast. A woman returns home after a night out to find her son dead in the bathtub; she assumes it is suicide. But it was murder and Vera and her team are investigating. I liked this one for the same reason I liked the first two in the series: wonderful characterizations and a great sense of place.

The Case of the One-Penny Orange (1977) by E.V. Cunningham

This is the second of seven mystery novels starring Masao Masuto, a detective on the Beverly Hills police force. The mysteries were  written by Howard Fast, using the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. Matsuo is Nisei, a native-born American who parents were Japanese immigrants. Matsuo is a Zen Buddhist and his religion shapes his way of looking at things and his behavior in his work. I enjoy these books, at least the ones I have read so far. See this post for more on the book.

Goldfinger (1959) by Ian Fleming

Back in April 2016 I started a project to read all the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. I was inspired by Moira at Clothes in Books, who has read and posted on all the books now. I am far behind. Goldfinger is only book #7 of 14 books (although two of them are short story books, not novels). This was a fun read because I have watched the movie so many times, but it is not one of my favorite Bond books so  far.

Malice Aforethought (1931) by Francis Iles

This is a classic mystery novel, mentioned frequently as one of the first examples of the inverted mystery novel. I have read and enjoyed many inverted mysteries but I did not like this one as much, although it is usually very well reviewed. I will be posting on this book soon.

Eva's Eye (1995) by Karin Fossum

The story begins with a woman discovering a body while walking on a river bank with her young daughter. The woman is Eva Magnus, and soon we learn that she is also linked to another unsolved case, the murder of a prostitute.  The police get to work on figuring out how the two cases are related. I enjoyed this first book in the Inspector Konrad Sejer series very much, although I found the ending quite sad. The setting is Norway; I read this book for the European Reading Challenge.

The Private Practice of Michael Shayne (1940) by Brett Halliday

This is the 2nd in a long-running series featuring Michael Shayne, private detective. I read the book at this time primarily because I have a few Mike Shayne movies starring Lloyd Nolan and the first of those is based on this book. This is only the second book by this author that I have read, and I enjoyed this one even more than the first one. And a bonus is the cover illustration by Robert McGinnis.

Death of a Nationalist (2003) by Rebecca Pawel

Carlos Tejada Alonso y León is a Sergeant in the Guardia Civil, and stationed in Madrid in 1939. The bitter civil war between the Nationalists and the Republicans has ended and Tejada is part of the Guaria Civil that is attempting to impose order in Madrid. Reading about the Spanish Civil War was new for me, and the book was  extremely well-written, I read this book for the European Reading Challenge.

Reading Summary for March 2018

My reading summary for March follows. It was a very good reading month.


Non-crime fiction books read:


Blackout (2010) by Connie Willis

The longest book I read in March was Blackout by Connie Willis, and it was nearly 500 pages and only half of a book. I had read that Blackout and All Clear formed one book together, but I did not realize that Blackout would end with such a cliffhanger. Given that, I won't say much more about this book but will wait until I have completed All Clear in April. The basic and brief summary for this book is that time travelers are visiting various sites during World War II, and a good portion of this book is set in London during the Blitz. I enjoyed the book immensely, had a hard time putting it down every night, but I did have some quibbles with it.

And the list of crime fiction read in March:

A Murder Is Announced (1950) by Agatha Christie

This is the fourth Jane Marple mystery novel and my fourth read in that series in the last few years. I loved it and now it is tied with The Moving Finger for my favorite Miss Marple story. The story is set in the small English village of Chipping Cleghorn. A murder announcement is placed into the Personals section of local newspaper and everyone assumes it is a clever invitation to a murder party. However, the group that gathers witnesses a real murder. Miss Marple is called in to help with the investigation. 

The Black Seraphim (1983) by Michael Gilbert

This is the fourth novel by Michael Gilbert that I have read, and it is my favorite so far. The Black Seraphim and Close Quarters, Gilbert's first novel, have the same setting, the Melchester Cathedral close. Otherwise, there is no connection between the two, and this one was published 36 years after Close Quarters. My review here.

A Small Death in Lisbon (1999) by Robert Wilson

This book has two story lines, one set in the 1940's in Germany and Portugal, the other set in the late 1990's in Lisbon. The later time line features a police detective whose investigation of a teenage girl's murder links back to the experiences of a Berlin factory owner forced into Hitler's SS in 1941. The story is suspenseful and compelling, the characters have depth, but there was too much violence and sex for me. This book won the CWA Gold Dagger in 1999. 

Murder Must Advertise (1933) by Dorothy L. Sayers

The eighth novel in the Peter Wimsey series. I have always considered this my favorite mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers, so I was glad to find that the story lived up to my memories of it. My review here.

The Lisbon Crossing (2006) by Tom Gabbay

I deliberately chose to read this book shortly after reading A Small Death in Lisbon because I wanted to see how the two books compared. This story is much lighter and very picturesque. Jack Teller is a US citizen visiting Lisbon with international film star Lili Sterne in 1940, to help her locate a childhood friend, Eva Lange. This is the 2nd in the Jack Teller series and each book is set in a different city and time period. 

Recalled to Life (1992) by Reginald Hill

This is the 13th book in the Dalziel and Pascoe police procedural series. The story takes us back to a crime committed in 1963 at a local manor during a house party including government officials and diplomats. A nanny implicated in the murder is released from prison 30 years later and Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel, who was a junior officer at the time, investigates the crime further, against the orders of his superiors. As usual, this is a compelling novel by a master storyteller.

Free Agent (2009) by Jeremy Duns

During World War II, Paul Dark was a young British agent, recruited by his father. At the end of the war, he took part in a mission to hunt down and execute Nazi war criminals. Twenty five years later a Russian defector turns up in Nigeria and reveals some information that makes him doubt everything he has been working for since the war. Paul goes to Nigeria to track down the truth. A very enjoyable spy story, the first of a trilogy, and along the way I learned a lot about Nigerian politics and history.

To Say Nothing of the Dog: Connie Willis

Ned Henry, a historian working in the Time Travel department at Oxford, has made too many trips to 1940 in search of the Bishop's bird stump, and has been prescribed a week or two in Victorian England to get some rest and relaxation. He thinks he is there to recuperate, but really he has a new mission to pursue, and he has no time to relax.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis is at once an adventure story and a romance, with time travel thrown in. It is the second novel in the Oxford Time Travel series. I am reading that series in the order of publication, but from what I have read, the first two novels can stand alone. I read Doomsday Book first. Where Doomsday Book was sad, To Say Nothing of the Dog is humorous with some elements of a mystery and more than one romance.

This book alternates between 2050, when time travel is possible and used by academics for studies of the past, and Victorian times (1888), with a couple of short trips to the 1940's (all set in England). The focus in this book is finding the Bishop's bird stump, which is an ornamental piece that once existed in the Coventry Cathedral. The Oxford time travelers are more interested in learning  history than finding this piece, but they continue the quest for the Bishop's bird stump because Lady Schrapnell's donation will keep the time travel project funded.

I loved this book just as much as Doomsday Book. They each have their strengths. In my opinion, the characterization is not as strong in this book as in Doomsday Book, but there were still very many interesting characters: Ned Henry and Verity Kindle are the primary time travelers in this book, but some of the secondary characters in the Victorian timeline are a lot of fun: Tocelyn "Tossie" Mering, an ancestor of Lady Schrapnell, and Baine, the butler in the Mering household; Mrs. Mering who is into spiritualism, and Colonel Mering, who collects exotic goldfish.

This book is more frenetic, and has much better pacing than Doomsday Book. In fact at times it can get confusing. I may have zoned out during sections of the book, but I had confidence at all times that it would be worth the read and that the story would come together to a satisfying ending. Which it did.

Another thing I especially loved about this book were the animals. A bulldog named Cyril and a cat named Princess Arjumand are very special characters. Although this is a humorous book throughout, it was the scenes with Cyril and the cat, especially toward the beginning of the book, that made me laugh out loud. In the near future world of this book, where time travel is possible but not perfected, cats are extinct. A disease has killed them off. So the time travelers are both charmed by the cat and so unused to the behavior of cats that they don't know how to deal with them.

With regards to the title, there are references to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat in this novel, but not having read that book, the references did not mean that much to me. There are also references to Golden Age mysteries and to other authors but, to be truthful, I am sure I missed the majority of those references. Regardless I enjoyed the story immensely. I think that the references add another layer of interest for those who appreciate them.

And what comes next? Blackout and All Clear are two very long books that are connected. From what I have read, we once again meet with Dr. Dunworthy and his time travel team and Colin Templar who was just a boy in Doomsday Book. Members of the team go back to various locations and events in World War II. Reading these books will be an ambitious undertaking -- they are both very long -- but I am looking forward to it.

I did not go into much detail about the story so if you want to read more about that and read other opinions, see these sources:

• Academic Time Travel at Tor.com
• Clothes in Books
• In so many words
• Becky's Book Reviews
• Simon's Book Blog

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Bantam Books / Spectra, 1998 (orig. publ. 1997)
Length:      434 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Oxford Time Travel, #2
Setting:      England 
Genre:       Time Travel
Source:      Borrowed from my husband.

Reading in December 2017

Here I am, nearly into the middle of January, and only now working on a list of books I read in December. December was a big reading month for me; I read a total of 12 books. Three of them were not mystery novels, although two of those did have mystery elements.

In the non-crime related group, we have:

Persuasion (1817) by Jane Austen

Persuasion is the story of Anne Elliot, the middle child in a family of three girls; at the time of the book she is 27 years old and unmarried.  It was the last novel Austen wrote and was published after her death. It is a more mature novel, and certainly Anne is a more mature protagonist than the other books I have read so far. My thoughts on the book are HERE.

Not All Tarts Are Apples (2002) by Pip Granger

This book was nominated for the 2002 Agatha award for Best First Mystery Novel. There is a mystery to the story but I would not categorize it that way. The central character is Rosie, seven years old, who has been taken in by friends of her mother. The couple live over a Soho café that they run during the day. It is 1953, the year of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and that was fun to read about. I enjoyed all of it, the story, the characters, the narration by Rosie.

To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997) by Connie Willis

The second novel in the Oxford Time Travel series. Ned Henry has made too many trips to 1940 in search of the Bishop's bird stump, and has been prescribed a week or two in Victorian England to get some rest and relaxation. He thinks he is there to recuperate, but really he has a new mission to pursue, and he has no time to relax.

Where Doomsday Book was sad, To Say Nothing of the Dog is funny with some elements of a mystery and more than one romance. I loved it just as much as Doomsday Book. 

And now for the nine crime fiction reads.

A Fatal Winter (2012) by G. M. Malliet

The 2nd book in the Max Tudor series, set in the weeks before Christmas. Max is the vicar of the very small village of Nether Monkslip. However, because he was previously an agent for MI5, he also helps the local police out on occasion. My review here.

Evil at the Root (1990) by Bill Crider

This is the 5th book in Bill Crider's long running series about Sheriff Dan Rhodes, set in rural Texas. A wonderful series, and I will be reading them all. My review here.

The Renewable Virgin (1984)  by Barbara Paul

This was one of my favorite reads of 2017. Rudy Benedict is a screenwriter who dies after taking poison in a headache remedy. The story is about three women affected by his death: his mother, Fiona Benedict, a college professor from Ohio; Kelly Ingram, a TV actress; and Marian Larch, a NYPD homicide detective. My review here.

Where There's a Will (1940) by Rex Stout

This is the 8th book in the Nero Wolfe series, published in 1940. I have read every book in the series more than once, and I always I enjoy them. This is not the best of them, but still very entertaining to read. My thoughts are here.

The Becket Factor (1990) by Michael David Anthony

There are three books in the Canterbury Cathedral mystery series, and this is the first. They feature a retired intelligence officer, Colonel Richard Harrison, who has given up his job in intelligence to have more time to care for his wife who is disabled. There is a death at the Cathedral, and Harrison's former boss asks him to investigate surreptitiously. With the ecclesiastical background, and a hint of spy fiction, I enjoyed this book. Coincidentally, this was set around Christmas so it was a good choice for December. 

The Cuckoo's Calling (2013) by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)

Cormoran Strike, formerly a military policeman, is now working as a private investigator because he lost his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan. As this book begins, his PI business is not doing so well. Things start looking up when Robin Ellacott takes a job as his temporary secretary and he gets a high-profile job to investigate a suicide that occurred three months earlier. Based on reviews, I thought I would like this and I did. The main characters are convincing, the story held my interest, but the book could have been shorter.

Hit Man (1998) by Lawrence Block

Hit Man is not a novel but a series of connected stories about an assassin named Keller. He lives in an apartment in New York City and leads a normal life, except that the way he supports himself is by killing people. It was a very enjoyable read but it is an adjustment to get used to a killer being the main focus, without any retribution in the end. 

The Last Voice You Hear (2004) by Mick Herron

The second book in Mick Herron's series starring Private Investigator Zoë Boehm, set in Oxford, England. I loved the first book, and this one was just as good. Zoë is a strong female character, intelligent and resourceful. 

Skull Mantra (1999) by Eliot Pattison

Shan Tao Yun  is a Chinese investigator from Beijing who was denounced and sentenced to hard labor because he criticized the regime. Assigned to a prison work gang in the mountains of Tibet, he is called upon to investigate when a headless corpse is found on a mountainside. I enjoyed this book as much for the view of Tibet under Chinese occupation as for the mystery. 

Reading Bingo 2017

This is the first year that I have participated in the Reading Bingo meme. I saw posts at Bernadette's Reactions to Reading and Marina Sofia's findingtimetowrite and was motivated to give it a try.

The value of looking at the year's reading this way is that I notice changes in my reading more. I read less spy fiction this year, and less science fiction and fantasy. I did read more classics from my classics list. All in all, it was a great reading year.

A book with more than 500 pages

Doomsday Book (1992) is the first novel in the Oxford Time Travel Series by Connie Willis. The story begins in the 2050s when time travel has been successful in some cases, but is in the hands of historians at Oxford University. Kivrin Engel, a student of Mediaeval History, is preparing to go back to the Middle Ages, 1320 to be exact, and Professor James Dunworthy is helping her prepare. After Kivrin has been transferred back in time, the story is told in alternating sections, following Kivrin's experiences in the earlier time, and Dunworthy's efforts to recover her from the past. One of my top reads this year.

A forgotten classic

Laura (1943) by Vera Caspary. I don't know how one defines a forgotten classic, but in my book, this is one. In this novel, Laura Hunt, a successful career woman working for an advertising firm, has been murdered in her apartment. She was shot at close range with BB shot as she opened the door of her apartment to a visitor. Mark McPherson starts his investigation of the case by interviewing the two men who cared for her most, Waldo Lydecker, her friend and mentor, and Shelby J. Carpenter, her fiance. The movie based on this  book is much better known, and both are very good. 

A book that became a movie

The Rainbird Pattern (1972) by Victor Canning is the 2nd book in a loose series called the Birdcage books. They all revolve around a covert security group in the UK, a branch of the Ministry of Defense. There are two distinct plot lines. One deals with a kidnapping plot; the reader follows the agents of the Department as they investigate two previous kidnappings. The second plot involves an elderly woman's search for her sister's child, put up for adoption decades earlier. The book was made into a film, titled Family Plot, by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was changed and the film has a humorous tone. I enjoyed both versions but the book was fantastic.

A book published this year

A Patient Fury (2017) is the third DC Childs mystery, written by Sarah Ward.  The series is set in the Derbyshire Peak District where the author lives. Sarah Ward's books all concentrate to some extent on families and their bonds and relationships. The characterizations are superb and the story is riveting. I have been a fan of the series since it started and this book did not disappoint. One of my favorite reads this year.

A book with a number in the title

The Clock Strikes Twelve (1944) is the 7th book in the Miss Maud Silver series by Patricia Wentworth. James Paradine, the patriarch of the Paradine family, announces at a family dinner on New Year's Eve that one of his guests has betrayed the interests of the family. By midnight he is dead. Just about everyone in the family is considered a suspect, some more than others, and one of the heirs brings in Miss Silver to clear things up. i had not read any books from this series for a while, and I enjoyed this one a lot.

A book written by someone under 30

I have no books to fit this square.

A book with non human characters

I had a hard time categorizing The 13 Clocks (1950) by James Thurber and I haven't reviewed it yet. It is sort of a fairy tale, but not really. I don't think it was written for children specifically but I am sure that it has been read to many children. It is whimsical and fun.

A funny book

The author of Brothers Keepers (1975), Donald E. Westlake, is primarily known for his crime fiction, but this is not a crime story. It is a caper, and very humorous. Brother Benedict is a member of the Crispinite order, numbering only 16 monks, which has occupied a building in midtown Manhattan, built by the original monks on leased land. Brother Benedict discovers in the newspaper that the building that they are housed in will be demolished along with the rest of the block they live on. The rest of the book is about Brother Benedict and the rest of his order, trying to save their building. Along the way, he falls in love with the landlord's daughter.

A book by a female author

The Renewable Virgin (1984)by Barbara Paul, set in New York City, is the first of seven books in the Marian Larch series. Rudy Benedict, a screenwriter, dies after taking poison in a headache remedy. Kelly Ingram is his friend (and almost lover) who plays a continuing role as a beautiful, dumb blonde in the TV show (described as "Harry O in the Big Apple") that Rudy sometimes wrote for. The three women affected by Rudy’s death tell the story in alternating chapters -- Kelly; Rudy's mother, Fiona; and Marian Larch, a homicide detective. The story was written and set in the early 1980's and thus reflects the experiences of women in the workplace at the time.

A book with a mystery

The Likeness (2008) was the sequel to Tana French’s debut, In the Woods. That book featured two detectives in the Murder Squad in Dublin, Ireland, Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox. In The Likeness, Cassie is now working in Domestic Violence at police headquarters, but a unique opportunity arises for her to go undercover, taking up an identity she used previously when she worked in the Undercover division. This is not a perfect book but very close. Also a Chunkster (466 pages).

A book with a one word title

Persuasion (1818) by Jane Austen is the story of Anne Elliot, the middle child in a family of three girls; at the time of the book she is 27 years old. She lives with her father and her older sister; her mother died with she was young. Her younger sister is married with several children. The members of her family are pretty ghastly, self-centered to the extreme. Anne on the other hand is sensible, intelligent, considerate, and willing to help out where needed. She also has a long lost love that comes back into her life. This was the fifth book by Jane Austen that I read this year, and it is tied with Pride and Prejudice as my favorite novel by that author.

A book of short stories

Game Without Rules by Michael Gilbert is a book of short stories about two middle-aged spies. I loved every story. The book was published in 1967; the stories had been published in Argosy between 1962 and 1967. The protagonists only show up in two books of short stories and I am in the middle of reading the second set of stories, titled Mr Calder & Mr Behrens.

Free Square

I saved this spot for a book by my favorite author: Over My Dead Body by Rex Stout. It is the 7th book in the Nero Wolfe series, published in 1940. Nero Wolfe is a genius, a lover of orchids and fine food, who supports himself (and his household) as a private detective. Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, is both his assistant and a private investigator, and he does most of the legwork. They live in a New York brownstone and share the house with Theodore, the plant expert, and Felix, Wolfe's cook. The story centers on a woman who claims to be Nero Wolfe's long-lost adopted daughter. The story was published after the war in Europe had started but the U.S. was not yet involved and it involves international intrigue. And in this book we get a peek at some of Wolfe's background and his activities in Montenegro when he was a young man.

A book set on a different continent

Cocaine Blues (1989) is the first book in Kerry Greenwood's long running series about Phryne Fisher, a rich young woman who leaves a life of leisure in London to become a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia. This book exceeded my expectations. I knew the heroine was an adventuress, and the setting was in the late 1920s, so my assumptions were that it would be cozyish and very unrealistic. The unrealistic part may be true but this book was such fun to read that I did not care. It was a very refreshing read.

A book of non-fiction

The Getaway Car (2014) is another book by Donald E. Westlake, but this time it is a collection of non-fiction pieces by him. They include appreciations of other crime fiction authors, interviews (of Westlake, by others), and letters. There is a wonderful essay by his wife, Abby Adams Westlake, about "Living with a Mystery Writer." I enjoyed reading about his experiences with having his books translated into film, and his experiences as a screenwriter. No matter what he is writing about, Westlake is entertaining. 

The first book by a favourite author

The John Putnam Thatcher series by Emma Lathen is one of my favorite series of mystery novels. Banking on Death (1961) is the first in the series, and I reread it recently because the story is set around Christmas. Thatcher, senior vice president and director of the trust department of Sloan Guaranty Trust on Wall Street, is the protagonist of this series totaling 24 books. Most of the books are focused on one type of business that is using the services of the Sloan, and the story shares many facts about the running of the specific types of businesses. But in this first book, the focus is on the business of the Sloan, the third largest bank in the world. And the issue that starts the story is a query into the status of a small trust that the Sloan has been managing for close to thirty years. I have read this book at least three times and I enjoy it every time.

A book you heard about online

Back in 2015 Moira at Clothes in Books alerted me to this book -- Their Finest (2009) by Lissa Evans, set in the the UK in 1940 and 1941. The story is about a young female copywriter who gets an assignment to the Ministry of Information, writing parts of scripts for a WWII propaganda film. That alone would be an interesting subject, but the story follows several other people associated with the filming. Each one provides a different view of the UK during the war. It is a lovely story, very humorous and moving. A film adaptation of the book came out in 2016, starring Bill Nighy, Gemma Arterton, and Sam Ciaflin. The original title of the book was Their Finest Hour and a Half.

A best selling book

I usually don't read books that are best sellers but I ended up reading The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym of J.K. Rowling) based on good reviews by trusted bloggers. Unfortunately this book did not become a best seller until people realized that the author was Rowling. That seems very sad to me. I did enjoy this book quite a bit; I liked the characters and the story was told very well. It could have been shorter though.

A book based on a true story 

I have read no books in this category.

A book from the bottom of your TBR pile

The Bourne Identity (1980) by Robert Ludlum. As this book starts, a man has been fished out of the Mediterranean Sea, barely alive. He has amnesia from head trauma. The story is about his search for who he is. I had owned this book for at least 15 years. Espionage fiction is one of my favorite sub-genres and I don't know why I put off reading such a well-known book in the genre. (Maybe because it is so long: 535 pages.) It falls more in the action thriller area than most spy fiction I enjoy, and it did require me to suspend disbelief quite a bit. Yet, for the most part, the journey Bourne takes to learn his real identity makes sense.

A book your friend loves

This category gives me a chance to highlight two related books: Red Bones (2009) and Blue Lightning (2010), two books in the Shetland series by Ann Cleeves. In 2017 I loaned Red Bones to a friend at work and she loved it so much she convinced me to read it too. It had been sitting on the TBR pile too long. What do I like about this series? Although I find this to be a slowly paced series, with the main detective, Jimmy Perez, indulging in a lot of musing about his relationships and his future, it does have a combination of good storytelling, good characters, and the wonderful setting of the Shetland Islands. And another big plus is that there is variety in each book.

A book that scares you

Patricia Highsmith is known for her dark, suspense-filled novels. This year I read my first book by her: Strangers on a Train (1950). The basic story is that two men meet on a train, and one of them suggests a murder pact. If they each murder a person that the other wants to get rid of, then they can get away with the perfect crime. A very good novel, but a disturbing read. I read the first 100 pages enjoying Highsmith's wonderful way with telling a story, but beyond that point I had to slow down and only read a bit of it a day. It was too intense. There is also a well-known movie adaptation, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Also very good, but the book has more depth.

A book that is more than 10 years old

Most of the books I read were written before 2000, and probably half of those were written before 1960. So it is not hard to pick a book for this category. Farewell, my Lovely (1940) is the 2nd book by Raymond Chandler featuring Philip Marlowe. The plot was convoluted and circuitous and I was lost at times, but I did not care. The style of writing was so well done, so beautiful that I was mesmerized. The picture of Los Angeles in 1940 was interesting, the characters were well defined, and the descriptions of the area and the characters were breath-taking.

The second book in a series

A Fountain Filled with Blood (2003) is the second mystery in the Reverend Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series by Julia Spencer-Fleming. Clare Fergusson has left her job in the military as a helicopter pilot to become an Episcopal priest in the small town of Miller's Kill, New York. Russ Van Alstyne is the police chief and they seem to run into each other a lot. As the citizens of Miller's Kill, New York head into the July 4th weekend, two gay men are severely beaten in separate incidents. When another man, also homosexual, is killed, Russ must figure out if the crimes are connected. Mixed in with this are conflicts within the town over development of a luxury spa and environmental issues. I don't know why I like this series so much but I do. 

A book with a blue cover

The Butcher's Boy was Thomas Perry's debut novel; it won the Edgar for Best First Novel of 1982. The two main characters are a professional killer with no name and Elizabeth Waring, an analyst for the Department of Justice. They are both very good at what they do. I liked the way the story develops, with two main story lines, one following the killer and one following Elizabeth Waring. Although the killer is not likable, and has little personality, it is interesting to watch him work and follow his thought processes when he runs into problems. Elizabeth is highly intelligent and a talented analyst, but she has to watch how she behaves with her superiors, because she is a woman.