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.

Short Story Wednesday: More Short Stories by the Lockridges

 

I read the first few stories in Flair for Murder by Francis & Richard Lockridge in January 2025. Now, over a year later, I have finished the remaining 10 stories in the book. My earlier post from January 2025 provides more information about the short story collection and all the series that the two authors wrote together.

All of the stories in the book are relatively short. Of the stories I recently read, the lengths of the stories were between 6 - 10 pages, and they feature Captain M.L. Heimrich of the New York State Police. The stories take place in Westchester County, usually in rural areas. I have fond memories of reading some of the Captain Heimrich novels years ago, so it was fun to revisit that character.  This was the perfect set of stories for me, since they are in a subgenre I like, police procedurals.

With the briefness of these stories, the solution had to be quickly resolved and not dependent on long investigations or interviews with many suspects. In many cases, the culprit seems to be obvious, but soon new evidence comes to light and / or Heimrich has an "aha" moment when some event he sees or experiences how the death could really have happened. Several of the stories revolved around deaths caused by automobile accidents. The last two stories were related to gardening which I especially enjoyed. 

I actually liked every story in this book, which is unusual. Probably because I like how the Lockridges tell a story, very conversational and matter of fact, and I think it suits short stories especially. Also, I think Captain Heimrich is a great character. Now I want to go read some of the books featuring that character. I have several in eBook format that I can try.

Short Story Wednesday: Flair for Murder by Frances and Richard Lockridge

 

I bought this book, published in March 2024 by Crippen & Landru, on a whim, on the last day of 2024. It has such a lovely cover. The introduction to the book by Jeffrey Marks is very interesting and gives a good overview of the various series that Frances and Richard Lockridge wrote. 

In years past, I have read some mystery novels in the three series written by the Lockridges: the Mr. and Mrs. North series, the Captain M.L. Heimrich series, and the Nathan Shapiro series. The books in those series were published between 1940 and 1980.

Only one of the stories in the book features Mr. and Mrs. North. The others are Captain Heimrich stories, set in Westchester County, New York. 

I read the first three stories in the book. They were all good reads but I liked the two Captain Heimrich stories that I read best. Per the back of the book, this book contains all of the mystery short stories that the Lockridges wrote.  

Only one of the stories is a Pam and Jerry North story, "Pattern for Murder." 

In this story, a woman attends a dinner party which brings together a group of old schoolmates. The woman dies at the foot of a steep flight of stairs. Of course, Pam and Jerry North attend the party. And the policeman who is called in to investigate the death is their friend, Lt. Bill Weigand of the NYPD.

The remaining eleven stories are Captain M.L. Heimrich stories. The first of those is "Nobody Can Ask That."

Heimrich is interviewing a man who has confessed to a murder that took place five hours ago. They talk about how the man was caught in such a short time and the murderer explains how and why he killed the victim. There were a couple of surprises at the end. The story was pretty short, just 6 pages long.

The next story, "The Searching Cats," was more detailed but still only about 8 pages long. Heimrich thinks he has the culprit for a murder, a young man who had previously committed a similar crime. That young man has money that was missing from the dead man's home, but he claims that the dead man loaned him the money that very day. Somehow two cats lead Captain Heimrich to a different solution. 

#1956Club: Voyage into Violence

I read this book for the 1956 Club hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings.

Voyage into Violence is the 21st of 26 mysteries featuring Mr. and Mrs. North. Amateur sleuths are not my favorites, but Pam and Jerry North usually work with a New York City homicide detective, Bill Weigand. So the cases are really solved by the police, with their help. It seems that in the ones I have read recently, Pam is the sleuth in the family, but her contribution is often more intuitive than actual sleuthing.

The main characters in this series are very likable. If I remember correctly, Pam and Jerry are directly involved in a murder in the first one, and that is how they meet Bill Weigand. In the early books, Dorian is Bill's girlfriend and the two couples become friends. By the time of this mystery, Bill and Dorian are married and the two couples have gone on a Caribbean cruise together. 

Very shortly, a murder occurs and the Captain of the ship calls in Bill to help out. Dorian is not happy about this at all, but resigned to the inevitability of it all. Pam and Jerry are of course glad to help out.

The people involved in the crimes in these books are usually upper middle class. Jerry North is a book publisher and comparatively well off. Weigand is a police officer, but has money from other sources. And in this case, they are on a cruise, among other people with enough money to take a cruise. Definitely not something my parents were thinking about doing in 1956.

I enjoyed the depiction of a cruise in 1956, and the investigation that ensues when a dead body, clearly murdered, is discovered onboard. The limitations that Weigand has to deal with in his investigation are interesting. Communications between the ship and the mainland was more difficult at that time. 

I noted lots of smoking, in fact the cruise ship has a smoking lounge. And a lot of imbibing of alcohol. In my review of an earlier book in the series, Murder within Murder, I compared Pam and Jerry to Nick and Nora Charles, although that is only in relation to their drinking and the light tone of the stories. Nick Charles is clearly a sleuth where Jerry North is more in a supporting role, especially in this novel. The novels about the Norths are light, with humor, but not laugh out loud funny.

There are lots of interesting passengers on the cruise: a group called the Ancient and Respectable Riflemen, led by Captain Folsom; a well-known private investigator, now retired, J. Orville Marsh; Olivia Macklin, traveling with her daughter. And all of these people seem slightly shady to me.

I read a good number of the Mr. and Mrs North books decades ago and enjoyed them. Of course, at the time I was reading them, they were not set so far in the past; these books may not appeal to younger mystery readers.

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Publisher:   J. B. Lippincott, 1956
Length:       191 pages
Format:       Hardcover 

                  (book club edition)
Series:        Mr. & Mrs. North, #21
Setting:       On a Caribbean cruise.
Genre:        Mystery
Source:       I purchased my copies.

Reading Summary for September 2020

I am having a hard time believing that we are already into October and I am summarizing my reads for September. My reading changed a lot this year. It was partially due to Covid-19, I am sure but not only because of that. I think some of my challenges that I started the year with are not going to be completed and I doubt if I will push myself in the last three months to catch up. 

This month I read seven books. Four of the books were vintage mysteries, published in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Two of them were spy fiction, although they were very different books. And one of the books was science fiction. All of them were very good reads.

Science Fiction

The Last Emperox (2020) by John Scalzi

This is the last book in the Interdependency trilogy. The first book was The Collapsing Empire, which I reviewed here. I liked the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy even more than the first one.

Crime Fiction

The Way Some People Die (1951) by Ross Macdonald

This is the third Lew Archer book, and Lew is trying to find a missing woman for her mother. He tells the mother that this type of case is for the police; she doesn't want the police involved. The plot is very convoluted and the characters are great. My review here.

The Arms Maker of Berlin (2009) by Dan Fesperman

I could not decide whether this was spy fiction or just a thriller. Certainly intelligence agents are involved, and the thrills are low key. A history professor who specializes in German resistance during World War II gets mixed up with the FBI when his former mentor is arrested for stealing important documents. His work leads to exposure of wartime secrets and deceit, and includes visits to Bern, Switzerland and Berlin, Germany. I loved this book; it did have a slow start, but there is lots of action towards the end.

The Beast Must Die (1938) by Nicholas Blake

This is the 4th book in the Nigel Strangeways series. Frank Cairnes is a writer of detective fiction, a widower, and cannot accept that his only son is dead and the hit-and-run driver has never been found. The book starts with a journal where Cairnes describes his plans to find and kill the person who killed his son. Strangeways doesn't show up until about halfway through the book. My review here.

Laurels Are Poison (1942) by Gladys Mitchell

This is the 14th book in the Mrs. Bradley series, a series which totals 66 books. In this one, Mrs. Bradley is serving as Warden of Athelstan Hall at Cartaret Training College. She is there to investigate the disappearance of Miss Murchan, the previous Warden. I read this as part of a group read, hosted at Jason Half's blog. I enjoyed the book and will be reading more in this series.

American Spy (2019) by Lauren Wilkinson

This is a debut novel. It can be classified as spy fiction, but it is not only focused on espionage. The protagonist, Marie Mitchell, is black and female, and has been working for the FBI in the New York office. The story is set partially in New York, and partially in Burkina Faso, and it has an unusual structure, told in the style of a journal written for her young sons. It is an exploration of family dynamics and influences, and how the past shapes us. There are many flashbacks to Marie's childhood, her motivation for being a spy, and why she fits in that job so well. 

Voyage into Violence (1956) by Frances and Richard Lockridge

This is the 21st of 26 mysteries featuring Mr. and Mrs. North. I consider these mysteries to be light, fun reads. I don't want a steady diet of them, but they are great for mixing in with more gritty or serious reading. Over the course of the series, Pam and Jerry North have become good friends with Bill Weigand, New York City homicide detective, and his wife Dorian. In this book the two couples are taking a Caribbean cruise to Havana. A man is murdered and Bill is called on to investigate.

Skulls and Skeletons (Book Sale Part 4)

In the spirit of Halloween, which is fast approaching, here are the skull and skeleton covers I acquired at the book sale.

The Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries in the Pocket Books editions often have nice skeletons adorning the covers.

Having very little experience with the mysteries of Arthur Conan Doyle (at least in written form), I was not even aware of the existence of this volume of non-Sherlock Holmes stories, Tales of Terror and Mystery. Lovely cover, and I will certainly give them a try.






















The skull cover for The Hound of the Baskervilles is a little less impressive (as skull covers go), but very atmospheric. And I have added to my available Sherlock mysteries to try.




In 1991, Julie Smith was the first American woman to be awarded the Edgar for Best Mystery Novel since 1956. The winning book was New Orleans Mourning, and was the first in a series starring Skip Langdon, a female police officer.

The Axeman's Jazz is the 2nd book in the Skip Langdon series. I have a copy of the hardcover edition which is much better because the skeleton is not obscured as much.

















And now we get to my favorite cover of the lot... at least as far as cover art goes. The Straight Man by Roger L. Simon. I don't know how well the cover fits the story. Moses Wine takes on a case for his psychiatrist, in the fifth book in the series. Set in West L.A.

Books of 1946: Murder Within Murder by Richard and Frances Lockridge

The Mr. & Mrs. North series features a married couple, Jerry and Pam, who often solve crimes with Lieutenant Bill Weigand. Thus the series is half amateur sleuth / half police procedural, and I think that is why I like them. They are often described as light and breezy mysteries. Usually I prefer a more serious tone, but for some reason I like the Mr. and Mrs North series.

Murder Within Murder is the 10th book in the series and was published in 1946. As it is set following World War II, there are indications of how life has changed due to that event. In this story, an employee of Jerry's is murdered in the public library. Miss Amelia Gipson was a retired teacher who had doing research on a book for Jerry's firm. Lieutenant Weigand asked Jerry to formally identify her.

I did read some books from this series when I was younger and I remember liking them. Some of my enjoyment when I read them now is probably nostalgia. I lucked out choosing this as the first one to read in many, many years. Even with some annoying elements, it has a lot going for it. The story is complex. The secondary characters are interesting.

The couple reminded me of Nick and Nora Charles (of The Thin Man) in that they drink an awful lot of alcohol. Unlike Nick and Nora, they are not rich, but they do have a surprising amount of free time to follow their policeman friend around. Pam smokes a lot too. This surprised me only because where I grew up (the South) in the 1940 and 50's, it was unusual for women to smoke.

I mentioned earlier some things I found annoying. Pam is kind of ditzy, and that doesn't appeal to me. I don't mean she is dumb, but she senses things or has an intuition.

I was surprised that there were no racial slurs in this book, given its age, but Sergio at Tipping My Fedora did note the presence of such in an earlier book, Death on the Aisle.

A quote from an article at the Golden Age of Detection Wiki:

The biggest strength of the North novels are the people in them. Pam and Jerry North are appealing human beings, and so are most of the suspects in the story. Unlike some detective authors, who mainly write about nasty characters, the denizens of a North tale tend to be civilized, intelligent, decent people. They are people whom one would love to know in real life.

Not everyone would agree with that assessment, but I do think it explains a lot of the popularity of this series.

This is a mystery novel from 1946 – my contribution to Rich Westwood’s regular monthly meme at the Past Offences blog. I received my copy as a prize from Bev at My Reader's Block. I was thrilled to get this post-war mystery in an edition with a skull on the cover. Bev's review is here. She goes into more detail on the plot.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Pocket Books, 1982 (orig. pub. 1946)
Length:       207 pages
Format:       Paperback
Series:        Mr. & Mrs. North, #10
Setting:       New York City
Genre:        Mystery
Source:       Received as a prize.