Reading Summary for May 2021

 

I had a very good reading month in May. My big project was reading The Mirror & the Light. Although it was 750 plus pages, it was not the length that bothered me. I just found it to be a depressing read, knowing how the story would end, and I could only read short bits at a time. So I interspersed several lighter books throughout, which is not the way I usually read books. 

General Fiction

A Month in the Country (1980) by J.L. Carr

From the cover of the book: "In J. L. Carr's deeply charged poetic novel, Tom Birkin, a veteran of the Great War and a broken marriage, arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby where he is to restore a recently discovered medieval mural in the local church." I enjoyed reading this book immensely; I loved the way it was written and reading about the 1920s in that setting.

Historical Fiction

The Mirror & the Light (2020) by Hilary Mantel

This is the closing book in a trilogy about Henry the VIII and Thomas Cromwell, a subject I knew little about when I first started reading Wolf Hall. It covers Cromwell's later years, following the beheading of Anne Boleyn. As noted above, this is a long book and overall about a depressing subject, so I found it demanding. But definitely worth the effort.

Crime Fiction

Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (1975) by Agatha Christie

This was a darker book than I expected. Both Hastings and Poirot are older, and Poirot has crippling arthritis which limits his ability to get around. Hastings meets Poirot at Styles, the setting of the first mystery in the Poirot series, which is now a guest house. There are several interesting guests: Dr. Franklin, a scientist, and his wife; Hasting's daughter Julia;  Stephen Norton, a bird-watcher; and Sir Carrington, whose home nearby is being renovated.  I liked it, of course, but it was not as much fun as many of the Poirot books. It was much more serious, more like Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile.

Checkmate to Murder (1944) by E.C.R. Lorac

This was an excellent vintage police procedural, set during World War II. Great characters and an interesting plot, and even better, there are several more by this author, easily available. See my review here.

The Man in the Queue (1929) by Josephine Tey

This was a reread, the first mystery novel by Josephine Tey, and the first in the Inspector Alan Grant series. I would like to get back to rereading more of Josephine Tey's mysteries. See my review here.

The Red Box (1937) by Rex Stout

This was another reread. It is an early book in the Nero Wolfe series, #4 following The Rubber Band, which I read in March. A complex story and interesting characters, and I am sure I would not have guessed the culprit except that I had read the books several times before.

So Pretty a Problem (1950) by Francis Duncan

This book is part of the Mordecai Tremaine series. Tremaine is an amateur sleuth, retired from his job as a tobacconist. As this book begins, we find that a controversial artist has been killed by his wife. She says it was an accident, but they were alone so no one can back her up. I enjoyed this  book, I liked the way it was structured. Last year I read Murder for Christmas by the same author and enjoyed it also. I first learned about this series of books from Rick Robinson at Tip the Wink.

READING NEXT?

Currently I am reading The Birdwatcher by William Shaw. I am enjoying it, as I expected, and I hope to finish it tonight. I have no idea how it is going to end.

Next I might read She Came Back by Patricia Wentworth or All Systems Red by Martha Wells or The Small Boat of Great Sorrows by Dan Fesperman. All of these books are on my 20 Books of Summer list.

Murder for Christmas: Francis Duncan

My husband has been the source of several of my mystery reads set during the holidays, this year and in the past, and here is another one he discovered. Murder for Christmas is part of a series written by Francis Duncan and published between 1944 and 1954. This book falls in the middle of the series.

Mordecai Tremaine receives an invitation to spend Christmas at the country estate of Benedict Grame. Included in the invitation is a brief note from Grame's secretary, Nicholas Blaise, asking Tremaine to join the Christmas gathering because he has a sense that trouble is brewing. Tremaine does not know Benedict Grame well at all, having only met him once at a party in Kensington, but the lure of a mystery is appealing.

Tremaine is an unusual character. He is a retired tobacconist, and has a definite interest in criminology. He has helped in solving a crime or two in an amateur capacity in the past, working with local policemen. He also likes reading romances and he is addicted to stories in the magazine Romantic Times. 

Even before Mordecai Tremaine arrives at the country house of Benedict Grame, he gets a hint that strange things may be going on. He stops at a tea shop in the nearby town of Calnford on his way to Grame's estate and sees a couple talking furtively at another table. Then at dinner that night at Sherbroome House he sees the female half of that couple and she pointedly ignores him. Strange behavior like that seems the norm in the group of guests visiting Grame, but Tremaine cannot put his finger on what is going on. And there are lots of characters to keep track of: Grame's relatives, friends, business acquaintances, and the villagers. 

I like the way that the author reveals that there are strange and sinister things going on, and gives us hints, but I never guessed at the secret that is being hidden. And when it is, then all of a sudden a lot of things make sense. The characters are mostly unsympathetic but there are enough likable characters to make up for them.  

There is a romance but it does not take over the plot. This is a twisty, fun Christmas mystery. It would be interesting to see how some of the other books in the series fare, since they don't have the added benefit of Christmas traditions.

This is the fourth in a series of seven mysteries, so if you want to start with another in the series, I would suggest reading John Norris's post on three other books by this author. On the other hand, based on John's post, it doesn't seem like order matters.

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Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2017 (orig. publ. 1949)
Length:    345 pages
Format:    Trade paperback
Series:     Mordecai Tremaine #4
Setting:    England
Genre:     Mystery
Source:    Borrowed from my husband.

Reading Summary for November 2020

We are getting close to the end of 2020, a year that has been challenging for all of us in many different ways. This month I read my third book about the 1918 pandemic, a new interest for me. I also participated in Nonfiction November and picked up lots of suggestions for nonfiction reading in 2021. I read a couple of Christmas mysteries and more short stories than usual.

Science Fiction / Fantasy

I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (1963) by Jack Finney

A short story collection. All of the twelve stories in the book are magical, with unexpected, lovely endings. A few included some variation of time travel, and all had some fantastical element, although the setting is our everyday world. See my full review here.

Nonfiction

Pandemic 1918 (2018) by Catharine Arnold

The subtitle of this book is "Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History." This was the type of book I was looking for originally when I read the other two books on the 1918 flu pandemic. So this book expanded what I had learned before and for the most part was not a repeat of information from the other books.

Crime Fiction

Escape Velocity (2017) by Susan Wolfe

Georgia Griffin has just arrived in Silicon Valley from Piney, Arkansas, with very little money and some training as a paralegal. Her father is a con artist and she also has talents in that area. However, Georgia's father is in jail, she is trying to leave that part of her life behind, and she wants to bring her teenage sister to Silicon Valley to live with her and have a normal life. She gets a job at a software firm, and works towards trying to fit in and helping the company by weeding out inept or harmful employees. This is an excellent legal thriller about the workings of a software company and the challenges in that field.

Murder In Mesopotamia (1936) by Agatha Christie

This is a Hercule Poirot mystery set in Iraq, at an archaelogical dig. One of the members of the expedition is murdered. Poirot happens to be passing through the area and is called upon to look int the death. The story is narrated by Nurse Leatheran, and that is what I liked best about the book. 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) by Agatha Christie

I read two books in the Hercule Poirot series this month, because we are watching the Poirot TV series and I want to read each novel before watching the adaptation. I had read this one before but it was long long ago. This was written early in Christie's career and was successful at the time. It is still considered one of her best mysteries.

Murder for Christmas (1949) by Francis Duncan

Mordecai Tremaine receives an invitation to spend Christmas at the country estate of Benedict Grame. Enclosed in the invitation is a brief note from Grame's secretary, Nicholas Blaise, asking Tremaine to join the Christmas gathering because he has a sense that trouble is brewing. There are lots of characters: relatives, business acquaintances, villagers. And a romance or two. This is a twisty, fun Christmas mystery.

Do Not Murder Before Christmas (1949) by Jack Iams

Another fun vintage Christmas mystery. This one is kind of hard to describe. In some ways it is light and romantic, in other ways it is a hard-boiled tale of crime in the city. 

Moonflower Murders (2020) Anthony Horowitz

This book is the sequel to an earlier book by Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders. See my review here.