Did the first full month of the stay at home orders affect my reading? I think my reading was about the same but reviewing has been much harder. The concentration it requires is often just not there.
Although my main goal this month was to read what I wanted to, I did manage to read some books for challenges: two historical fiction books, a book for the European Challenge, a book for a USA state that I had not covered previously, and seven books from my TBR piles.
Mystery reference
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2017) by Mike Ripley
The author describes his book as "a reader's history of one specific category, or genre, of popular fiction—the thriller—over a particular period when British writers dominated the best seller lists at home and abroad." The book covers only British thrillers published between 1953 and 1975. This includes both adventure thrillers and spy thrillers. Of course, I am most interested in the spy thrillers but I enjoyed learning more about the authors of adventure novels also. With a very nice foreword by Lee Child.
Cross-genre Fiction (Mystery & Fantasy)
Westside (2019) by W. M. Akers
This book is a mashup of several genres: historical fiction, mystery, alternate history, private detective novel, and urban fantasy. Set in an alternative version of New York in the 1920's. My review here.
Historical Fiction
The Light Years (1990) by Elizabeth Jane Howard
The Cazalet Chronicles is a series of five books that follow the members of one family from 1937 just prior to World War II through 1957. The first book, The Light Years, covers 1937 - 1938. There is large cast; the parents plus four children (three brothers, one unmarried sister) and the grandchildren, who range from 5 or 6 to teenage. Plus other relations, and servants. This is a lovely book, although not upbeat, with the threat of war coming on.
General Fiction
The Provincial Lady in London (1932) by E.M. Delafield
This continues the story, written in diary form, of a married woman with two children (and a cook, a French governess/nanny, and a maid or two), living in an English village in the early 1930s. The Provincial Lady is now a published author and has received enough money for this effort to improve the family's financial status. She endeavors to find a flat in London to take more time to write. The tone is light and humorous and fun.
Crime Fiction
Boundary Waters (1999) by William Kent Krueger
This is the 2nd book in the Cork O'Connor series. Set in the Quetico-Superior Wilderness on the Canadian/American border. My review here.The Brutal Telling (2009) and
Bury Your Dead (2010) by Louise Penny
I read these two books as a pair, based on Bill's recommendation at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan. My review here.
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1992)
by Sharyn McCrumb
This is the 2nd book in Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian Ballad series. I enjoyed it but I found it to be different from most mysteries I have read. It is a dark story and has been described as gothic. Both this story and the first one in the series featured Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, but he doesn't do a lot of investigating, and the story centers around the wife of the church pastor, Laura Bruce, whose husband is serving as a chaplain in the Gulf War. She volunteers to be the guardian for two teenagers whose entire family was murdered. Set in Tennessee.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie's first mystery novel and the first in the Hercule Poirot series. My review here.
A Colder War (2014) by Charles Cumming
Cumming is a Scottish author, and his character in this series, Thomas Kell, is an MI6 agent who is on extended leave with pay until an incident still under investigation is resolved. In this 2nd book in the series, he is given a special assignment by the MI6 Chief, to investigate the death, probably accidental, of a high-ranked agent in Turkey.
Instruments of Darkness (2009) by Imogen Robertson
This was a very enjoyable historical mystery. It was set in Sussex, England in 1780, a period I haven't read about before. The main characters are the mistress of a country manor in Sussex and an anatomist, Gabriel Crowther, an introvert who just wants to study dead bodies. Harriet Westerman discovers a dead man on the grounds of her estate, and pulls Crowther into an investigation of the crime. It is the first in the series and I will be moving on to the second book in the series.
