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.

Short Story Wednesday: Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout 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. I would quibble about considering this a novel, since 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. I am going to briefly summarize some of the stories, but there are several of them I don't want to discuss because it could impact the reading experience.

The first story, "Arrested," focuses on Jack Kennison, a man near Olive's age that she met near the end of the previous book. He is a widower and has been estranged from his daughter for many years because she is a lesbian. He drives to Portland, and on the way back to Crosby, he is stopped by the police for speeding.

In "Labor," Olive attends a baby shower and ends up delivering a baby when one of the pregnant guests goes into labor. Two days later, she calls Jack Kennison and they meet again after she had been avoiding him for a while.

"Cleaning," the third story, focuses on a 14-year-old girl who makes money cleaning houses. This is a complicated story. Kayley regularly visits an older woman at a nursing home. The only connection to Olive in this story is that Olive also visits a friend at the nursing home and she has a supportive conversation with Kayley, who is the younger sister of some of Olive's students when she was teaching. 

Next is "Motherless Child," and it is an important story. Olive is the focus; she has invited her son Christopher and his wife and four children to visit her in Crosby. She has not seen them in several years, and she is not prepared to host four young children, but they all muddle through. In this story and others in the book, Olive realizes that over the years, she failed both her son, Christopher, and her first husband, Henry, in many ways. Patricia Abbott reviewed this story at her blog.

In "Helped," the main character is Suzanne Larkin, who returns to Crosby to handle business details when her father dies in a fire in his home. An excellent and moving story. Olive shows up in this story only peripherally.

Cindy Coombs, a former student of Olive's, is the center of the sixth story, "Light." She has cancer and Olive takes the time to help her out at the grocery store when she has problems, and later visits her at home.

"Exiles" is a story about Jim and Bob Burgess; Jim lives in New York and he and his wife visit Bob and Margaret, who live in Crosby, Maine. I enjoyed this one a lot, but it does have what I consider a major spoiler for Strout's book The Burgess Boys.

Although I have liked all of the books I have read by Elizabeth Strout, I found Olive Kitteridge to be the most challenging. All of the stories in that book were depressing, and I could not read more than one story a day. Olive, Again was different. I was prepared for the tone of the stories and the issues addressed showed the changes in Olive. Although many of the stories were very serious and sometime sad, I enjoyed the read much more. 

Books Read in June 2025

 

I read six books in June, and all of them were from my 20 Books of Summer list. I liked all the books; four of them were upbeat and fun; two of them were more serious and somewhat depressing.

Fiction 

Table for Two (2024) by Amor Towles

This is a short story collection. There are six stories plus one 220 page novella. The short stories are all set in New York City. See my post on some of the short stories here.

In the novella, "Eve in Hollywood," Towles returns to a character in his first novel, Rules of Civility. I did read that book, but I don't think you need to have read it to enjoy the story. "Eve in Hollywood" is set in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and it features Olivia de Havilland as a character. I enjoyed the novella very much.

The Burgess Boys (2013) by Elizabeth Strout

I have read four books by Elizabeth Strout, and I have rated all very highly, but they are always difficult reads, with hard to like characters and family difficulties. This one is my favorite so far. My review here.

Fantasy / Time Travel

Oona Out of Order (2020) by Margarita Montidore

I read this book because I like time travel books and this one was on a list of "time loop" novels (the film Groundhog Day is a good example of a time loop). In this book, Oona jumps from one year to another year in her life, randomly. I liked it. I have been thinking about it off and on since I read it. But it can be frustrating. My review here.

Crime Fiction

Death by Accident (1998) by Bill Crider

This book was my first read for 20 Books of Summer. The Sheriff Dan Rhodes series by Bill Crider is set in a small town in Blacklin County, a fictional county in Texas. It is a cozy series; Sheriff Rhodes solves crime mostly with his intuition and avoids computers where possible. Death by Accident is the 9th book in the series. See my review.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

This story takes place at a remote ski resort in Australia, where Ern Cunningham's family is having a family reunion. They are coming together because Ern's brother is getting out of prison, after having killed a man. Family relationships are strained. Shortly after the majority of the family arrives, a man's frozen body is found near the resort,  and the weather begins to get very bad, threatening to snow in all the guests.

This is a very unusual mystery. Ern Cunningham, who is narrating the story, writes books about how to write mysteries. The books starts with a list of classic rules for mysteries as published by Ronald Knox in 1929. So it is a traditional fair play mystery, but of course there is lots of misdirection in the clues, and for the most part the author kept me fooled for most of the book. I enjoyed the book, although I sometimes got frustrated with the repetition of the "rules." I liked it enough so that I will read the next one to see how it goes.

A Death in Summer (2011) by Benjamin Black

This is the fourth book in the Quirke series written by John Banville, under the name Benjamin Black. Quirke is a pathologist in Dublin, Ireland in the 1950s. He often is called in to examine dead bodies before they are moved, and to perform autopsies. Inspector Hackett will sometimes seek his advice on crimes, when he thinks the case is tricky. I like the slow pace of the writing and the emphasis on the characters as much or more than the crime investigation. I like the continuing characters. This one was about a sordid subject, and depressing. Yet I will persist and read more of them. 

The photos at the top and bottom of this post are recent pictures of plants in our back yard patio area. The top photo is of a cuphea plant (on the left) and a blue sage plant that are hummingbird attractors. They have been doing a good job of attracting hummingbirds and bees.

The two photos below are closer shots of blue sage plants. We have two other pots of those plants in the back. I love the little buds on the blue sage. Click on the images for best viewing quality.

The Burgess Boys: Elizabeth Strout

In a short prologue, the Burgess family is introduced, focusing mainly on the two boys, Jim and Bob. They both have legal careers and left their home town of Shirley Falls, Maine, to pursue their careers. Bob has always been the lesser brother, the one who plods along but did not succeed spectacularly like his older brother. But he also is the one who every one likes, who is nice and kind and thinks well of people.

Then an incident happens in Shirley Falls, Maine, where Susan, their sister, still lives. Susan's nineteen-year-old son, Zach, commits a crime and the Burgess boys feel like they have to go back to their home town to help her. Jim is going on a vacation with his wife and another couple and he drafts Bob to go and help. But Bob doesn't handle the situation very well and Jim is bent out of shape.

I like books about families and this is a very unusual family. There is a tragedy in their past which has affected all of the relationships in the family. The children's father was killed when they were all under ten years of age; although he was only four years old at the time, Bob was blamed for his father's death and it has affected his self-image, to put it mildly. The dynamics within the family are strange. Jim, the older brother, is needlessly cruel to his brother, taunting him mercilessly. Most of the time this just rolls off of Bob. Susan is Bob's twin, but she is also often disparaging of Bob and his abilities. 

The rest of the story is about how Zack's problems are handled, and the effects these events have on all of their lives.

My thoughts:

• I liked how parts of the story are told from the point of view of characters outside the main family:  Abdikarim Ahmed, a member of the Somali community in Shirley Falls, who testifies against Zack at his hearing; Bob's ex-wife, Pam, who left him because they could not have children;  and Helen Burgess, Jim's wife, who is having problems with an empty nest after her children leave home.
• The majority of the characters in this book are unlikable, but I continued to be interested in reading about all of them. This was partly due to the author's writing style, but also because I was sure that I was going to learn more about them and be able to figure out why they were so disagreeable or unappealing. 
• Coincidentally, the two fiction books I read prior to this one were kind of downers, and this one continued that trend. Unexpectedly, this book probably had a more optimistic outcome towards the end than those books. And certainly this one was more upbeat than the other books by Strout I have read (Olive Kitteridge, My Name is Lucy Barton, and Anything is Possible). 
• This was a compelling read but not an easy read. My description above leaves so much out. That is intentional, so as not to spoil the reading experience. The novel is very rich with important themes and topics.

John Grant wrote a very detailed review of this book in 2019, which can be read either at his blog, Noirish, or on Goodreads.

A Summer Challenge: 20 Books of Summer 2025

It's almost time for 20 Books of Summer. This is my tenth year of participating in this reading challenge. The event was previously hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. When she decided to stop hosting last year, Annabel from AnnaBookbel and Emma from Words and Peace took up the mantle.

The challenge is very flexible. You don't have to aim for 20 book but can also opt for 15 or 10. Here are some of the rules...

• The #20BooksofSummer2025 challenge runs from Sunday June 1st to Sunday August 31st
• The first rule of 20 Books is that there are no real rules, other than signing up for 10, 15 or 20 books and trying to read from your TBR.
• Pick your list in advance, or nominate a bookcase to read from, or pick at whim from your TBR.

For more information and the place to sign up, check out this post at AnnaBookBel. There is also a book bingo card, which is new.

I love to make lists of books to read, so I would start with a list whether I plan to stick with it or not. However, I do plan to stick with my list, and here it is...

At Bertram's Hotel | Agatha Christie   (mystery)

The '44 Vintage | Anthony Price   (spy fiction)

State of Wonder | Ann Patchett    (fiction)

Before Your Memory Fades | Toshikazu Kawaguchi   (fantasy / time travel)

The Burgess Boys | Elizabeth Strout   (fiction)

Olive Again | Elizabeth Strout   (fiction)

Table for Two | Amor Towles    (short stories)

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

A Death in Tokyo | Keigo Higashino   (mystery)

A Death in Summer | Benjamin Black   (mystery)

Death by Accident | Bill Crider   (mystery) 

The Amateur | Robert Littell   (spy fiction)

The Killing of the Tinkers | Ken Bruen    (mystery)

Mrs. Dalloway | Virginia Woolf    (classic, fiction)

Oona Out of Order | Margarita Montimore   (time-loop fiction)

Pesticide | Kim Hayes   (mystery)

The Day the World Came to Town | Jim DeFede (nonfiction)

Perplexing Plots | David Bordwell   (nonfiction)

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone | Benjamin Stevenson   (mystery)

Ninefox Gambit | Yoon Ha Lee   (science fiction)

Short Story Wednesday: Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

I read My Name is Lucy Barton in March of 2024. That book inspired me to read more about Lucy Barton, so this month I read Anything is Possible, the second book in the Amgash series.

Anything is Possible is a series of linked short stories, similar to Olive Kitteridge, but not quite so depressing. I have seen it described as a novel in short stories, but it did not seem like a novel to me. 

Some of the stories give more information about Lucy Barton and her family in Amgash, Illinois. Other stories are about other residents of Amgash, who are in some way connected to Lucy Barton. 

The first story, "The Sign," is about Tommy Guptill, who had owned a dairy farm, situated about two miles outside of Amgash. When the dairy burned down, he was unable to continue the business, and ended up working as a janitor in a school in Amgash. Now he and his wife are in their eighties and retired. As he drives around town, he reminisces about his life, before and after the fire. Years before, while doing his janitorial work at the school, Tommy would encounter Lucy Barton sleeping in a classroom to avoid going home. Before going home, he visits Pete Barton, Lucy's brother, who still lives in the house the Barton family lived in when they were children. Pete is sort of a recluse and Tommy likes to check on him now and then. This wasn't a favorite story but it has stuck in my mind and provides some background for a later story, "Sister."

The second story, "Windmills," is about Patty Nicely, who was growing up in Amgash about the same time Lucy Barton was. She is a school counselor and counsels Lucy's niece, who is in high school. She sees Lucy Barton's memoir in a bookstore and reads it and is much affected by it. This was an emotional story. The next story, "Cracked," featured Patty's sister, Linda, who had a very unusual relationship with her husband. At this point I was wondering if there was anyone happy, or even just close to "normal," in Amgash.

"Mississippi Mary" and "Sister" were my favorite stories. 

"Mississippi Mary" is about two members of another family in Amgash. In her 70s, after many years of a mostly unhappy marriage, Mary Mumford left her husband and five daughters and moved to Italy to live with her new Italian husband. She has now been in Italy with her second husband for four years; her youngest daughter, Angelina, is visiting her for the first time. Angelina was very hurt when her mother left to marry her lover in Italy and she does not understand how her mother can be happy in a cheap flat on the coast of Italy with not much money to live on.

"Sister" tells about Lucy Barton's brief visit to see her brother, Pete, in Amgash. She is going to be in Chicago for a stop on her paperback book tour and will be close enough to drive to Amgash. They have not seen each other for years. Lucy's sister, Vicky, has declined to come over and see Lucy while she is there, because she is hurt by Lucy's absence for so many years. But Vicky does show up at Pete's house while Lucy is still there, and they all have quite a discussion.

There are a total of nine stories in the book. I enjoyed all the stories, even though some were shocking or sad. I think I got more out of the stories as a whole than each story alone, so in some ways that does make the book like a novel.

I would recommend reading My Name is Lucy Barton before reading this book, but it is not necessary.

Books Read in March 2024

Even though I am getting my summary of reading for March 2024 out very late, I am happy because I have actually written reviews for six of the nine books I read. For me that is very good. And I enjoyed almost all of the books. So March was a good reading month. 

Of the fiction books I read this month, six were published between 2007 and 2020. Only two were published before 1960. That is a big change in the direction of my reading. I read too many exceptional books to pick a favorite for the month but I am glad I reread another book by Rex Stout. And I am in the middle of a book of three novellas in the Nero Wolfe series, Curtains for Three. 

This week I participated in the Classics Club Spin, where 20 books are listed and a random number between 1 and 20 is selected. The book that resulted from the spin for me to read for this spin was The Warden by Anthony Trollope. I am happy with that pick because I haven't read anything by Trollope before.

Here are the nine books I finished reading in March:

Nonfiction

The Book of Books (2007) by Les Krantz and Tim Knight

The subtitle of this book is "An Eclectic Collection of Reading Recommendations, Quirky Lists, and Fun Facts about Books." It has a more formal approach than the Book Lust series by Nancy Pearl, although it was published around the same time. This book is made up of lists of books about specific subjects, or genres and subgenres. Each book on the lists is summarized briefly. Some of the lists came from outside sources and some were put together by the authors.

Fiction

My Name is Lucy Barton (2016) by Elizabeth Strout

While Lucy Barton is in a hospital in New York City for many weeks due to complications following an appendectomy, her mother visits her and they have some strained conversations about the past. The story is set in the 1980s, and Lucy narrates it, years after it happened. See my review. 

The Glass Hotel (2020) Emily St. John Mandel 

This story revolves around Paul Smith and his half-sister Vincent Smith, and starts when they are teens. Many other characters that they interact with then and later in their lives are important to the plot. Set in Canada. See my review. 

Crime Fiction

The Silver Swan (2007) by Benjamin Black

Set in Ireland in the 1950s, this is the 2nd book about Quirke, a pathologist working in a hospital in Dublin.  Benjamin Black is a pseudonym of John Banville. See my review.

Defectors (2017) by Joseph Kanon

This is the first book I have read by Joseph Kanon, and it definitely won't be my last. I have six more of his books on my shelves. The Defectors focuses on a group of American and British spies living in and around Moscow during the Cold War, after defecting. My focus was on the relationship of the two brothers in the story, Frank, the US spy who defected to Russia in 1949, and Simon, his younger brother, who had to leave his job in intelligence to work in publishing after Frank's defection. In 1961, Simon has been allowed to come to Moscow to work with Frank on publishing his memoirs. He has not seen or heard from Frank in the years since his defection. I loved the exploration of family relationships, but the story has plenty of action also.

Your Republic is Calling You (2006) by Young-ha Kim

The story takes place over the course of one day in the life of Ki-Yong, a South Korean with a wife and teenage daughter. Except that he is really a North Korean spy who has been living in Seoul, working as a film importer, over 20 years, and has now been recalled to North Korea. See my review.

A Beautiful Place to Die (2008) Malla Nunn

This is a historical mystery, set in a very small town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique in 1952. New apartheid laws have recently gone into effect. The protagonist is an English police detective who is investigating the death of an Afrikaner police captain. See my review.

A Scream in Soho (1940) by John G. Brandon

This was one of the earlier books in the British Library Crime Classics series, and it was the only book this month that I was disappointed with. It is not a bad book, it is just that it is more a thriller than a mystery, along the lines of Edgar Wallace's novels, per the introduction by Martin Edwards. Published during the war, the plot centers around a spy hiding in Soho. It also had a good bit of overt racism and sexism which was distasteful, although not that unusual for book of this period. 

Plot It Yourself (1959) by Rex Stout

This book is part of the Nero Wolfe series; Wolfe is a private detective and his assistant is Archie Goodwin. In this case, the story revolves around authors, publishers, and accusations of plagiarism. The first novel, Fer-de-Lance, was published in 1934. See my review.

Currently reading

I started The Mistress of Alderley by Robert Barnard last night, and surprised myself by reading 100 pages. Caroline Fawley has given up her acting career quite willingly to live in an elegant home in the country. Her wealthy lover Marius purchased a country house for her to live in, but her children worry that she is depending too much on his generosity, with no promise of marriage. This book has a surprise appearance by Inspector Oddie and Detective Charlie Peace from Barnard's Charlie Peace series; I have read all except the last two books in that series.

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken in late March in our back yard after we had a good bit of rain. The lighting was perfect. We had a lot of weeds in the back at the time, and we still do. Lots of work to be done. 

The photos were taken and processed by my husband. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

 

Two Brief Reviews

I read these books in March. Both were good books and very different stories. Each was challenging to read at times, and both were well worth the effort.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

The story is about a woman, Lucy Barton, who was in a hospital in New York City in the 1980s for many weeks due to complications following an appendectomy. Her husband doesn't visit her very often because they have two young daughters at home and he has a job. Her mother comes to sit with her for a few days when she is in the hospital and they have some strained conversations about the past. This leads Lucy to remember her strange and unfortunate upbringing and her relationship with her parents and siblings. 

Lucy tells the story; thus it feels very personal. She is telling it years after it happened. That approach worked very well.

My thoughts...

•  I loved this book. I do have to caution that this is not a happy, feel good book; I found it unsettling and sad at times.  Also sometimes it was very funny. 
• On the other hand, it is only about 200 pages long and it had me longing to read more about Lucy and her life. Fortunately there are three more books about Lucy Barton. 
• I like the themes, childhood experiences and mother-daughter relationships. This was only my second book by Strout; I read Olive Kitteridge a few years ago. 

A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

This is a historical mystery, set in a very small town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique in 1952. New apartheid laws have recently gone into effect. 

The protagonist is an English police detective who is investigating the death of an Afrikaner police captain. The Security Branch takes over the investigation. They would like to blame the death on black communist radicals, and will be happy to beat a confession out of any suspect that fits their bias. Detective Emmanuel Cooper is directed by his superior to stay in the area so that he can ensure that the real murderer is arrested, if possible.

The story gets very complex. Emmanuel, an emotionally traumatized World War II vet, has problems of his own. The dead Afrikaner policeman's sons have it in for him, and he spends a lot of time avoiding them. He is lucky to be working with a native Zulu officer, Shabalala and a Jewish doctor who has no real credentials in South Africa.

My thoughts:

• The setting of South Africa in the 1950s was well done. There was plenty of action and a sense of dread about how the English detective could survive. 
• I could have done without some of the melodrama but I liked the depiction of apartheid at this time, and hope to continue reading the series. 
• Apartheid is not a totally new subject to me, but I don't know much about it. I am still trying to understand the differences between the various racial groups involved.
• It was a good story but a difficult read. The same thing applies to the other book I read that was set in South Africa during apartheid, A Lonely Place to Die by Wessel Ebersohn. That one was published in 1979 and set around that time. 

Top Ten New-to-me Authors in 2022

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is a Freebie (any topic). I missed last week's topic, which was New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2022. So that is what I am doing this week for my Freebie.

I was surprised to find that I read books by 43 new-to-me authors in 2022. I only read 88 books in 2022, and some were by the same authors, thus over half the authors I read were new-to-me. 

Since I had so many to pick from, I decided to focus on authors who I want to read more books by OR I thought their writing was very special.

My list is in order by the date I read them.

Elizabeth Strout

I have only read one book by Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge, a book of linked short stories. Most of the short stories were depressing but I thought that the writing and the characters were excellent, and I want to read more books by her.

Richard Osman

Richard Osman is an English television presenter and novelist. His debut novel, The Thursday Murder Club, was published in 2020. I read all three books in that series in 2022, and loved them all. My favorite was The Man Who Died Twice.

Matt Haig

The Midnight Library was my first book by Matt Haig.  I liked his writing, and I will read Haig's other books on my shelves (and my husband's).

Molly Clavering

Because of Sam by Molly Clavering is a lovely postwar story set in a village in Scotland, written in 1954. See Cath's review at Read-Warbler.  

John Burdett

Bangkok 8 by John Burdett is the first book in a crime fiction series set in Thailand. The main character is a Thai policeman, Sonchai Jitpleecheep. I had had this book on my shelves for 15 years and now I hope to read more of them.

T. E. Kinsey

The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries are historical fiction, set in the early 1900's. Lady Hardcastle (Emily) and her maid Florence Armstrong solve mysteries while living in the English countryside. I was attracted by the idea of a lady and her maid solving mysteries, and I liked the first one so well I read two more. This is another series recommended by Cath at Read-Warbler. 

Ted Wood

Dead in the Water by Ted Wood, published in 1983, is the first book in a ten book crime fiction series starring Reid Bennett. The book has a great Canadian setting, in a small town on the water, and one of the best characters is Bennett's dog Sam.

Stef Penney

I read The Tenderness of Wolves for my Canadian Reading Challenge. The story is set in 1867, primarily in a small settlement in the Northern Territory. This is a historical mystery, but the crime and the investigation are not the primary aspect of the story.

Elspeth Barker

This is the only author on this list that I will not be able to read further books by. Elspeth Barker's only novel was O Caledonia, published in 1991. This book is short, about 190 pages long, set in Scotland in the 1950s.  It is a sad but beautiful story  of a young girl, part of a large family, who doesn't fit in anywhere.

 

Mariah Fredericks

A Death of No Importance by Mariah Fredericks is a historical mystery set in 1910 New York. It is the story of a young woman who works as a lady's maid for the two daughters of a rich family and the first in a series of four books. I want to read more of that series and see where it takes the character.

Let me know if you have read any of these authors and have recommendations for further reading.