Murder on the Yellow Brick Road: Stuart M. Kaminsky

The Toby Peters mystery series is set primarily in Hollywood, California. Each book in the series is centered around a celebrity. Toby is a perpetually down-on-his-luck private eye; the books are humorous and clever. There are 24 books in the series.

Murder on the Yellow Brick Road is set in 1940, and Judy Garland is one of the primary characters. Toby gets a call from Warren Hoff at M.G.M., who requests that he look into the death of a little person dressed up as a Munchkin. The body was found on an old set of The Wizard of Oz, which had come out the previous year. Toby soon meets Judy Garland, who had heard his name at a party recently and wants him to work on the case. In addition to the humor and the intricate mystery plot, this book also features cameos of Clark Gable and Raymond Chandler.

About the author:

Stuart M. Kaminsky (September 29, 1934 – October 9, 2009) was an American mystery writer and film professor. He is best known for the Toby Peters mysteries and the Inspector Rostnikov series set in Russia, consisting of 16 books. He received the 1989 Edgar Award for Best Novel for A Cold Red Sunrise, a novel in the Inspector Rostnikov series. He was a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and in 2006 received the Grand Master Award from that organization. 

Kaminsky also published two shorter series. The Abe Lieberman series of ten books is set in Chicago; Lieberman is a sixty-year-old Chicago police detective. The Lew Fonesca series is set in Sarasota, Florida. Fonesca is a process server who ends up investigating crimes. There are 6 books in the series.

I am a big fan of Kaminsky's mysteries. I have read all but the last book in the Inspector Rostnikov series. I would like to read all of the Toby Peters books, but I have to find out how many books I already own. I have read the first book in both of the other two series and I thought they were excellent. The series are all different. 

Short Story Wednesday: "Kill Now—Pay Later" by Rex Stout

 

I read "Kill Now—Pay Later" in June, I think. Or it may have been early July. I have been having trouble reading short stories lately. This is one of the mystery novellas starring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. The length was 70 pages. It is one of three stories in Trio for Blunt Instruments by Rex Stout, published in 1964.

This is how the  story begins:

That Monday morning Pete didn’t give me his usual polite grin, contrasting the white gleam of his teeth with the maple-syrup shade of the skin of his square leathery face. He did give me his usual greeting, “Hi-ho, Mr. Goodwin,” but with no grin in his voice either, and he ignored the established fact that I expected to take his cap and jacket and put them on the rack. By the time I turned from shutting the door he had dropped his jacket on the hall bench and was picking up his box, which he had put on the floor to free his hands for the jacket.

“You’re an hour early,” I said. “They going barefoot?”

 “Naw, they’re busy,” he said, and headed down the hall to the office. I followed, snubbed; after all, we had been friends for more than three years.

Pete came three days a week—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—around noon, after he had finished his rounds in an office building on Eighth Avenue. Wolfe always gave him a dollar, since it was a five-minute walk for him to the old brownstone on West 35th Street, and I only gave him a quarter, but he gave my shoes as good a shine as he did Wolfe’s. None better. I never pretended to keep busy while he was working on Wolfe because I liked to listen. It was instructive. Wolfe’s line was that a man who had been born in Greece, even though he had left at the age of six, should be familiar with the ancient glories of his native land, and he had been hammering away at Pete for forty months. That morning, as Wolfe swiveled his oversized chair, in which he was seated behind his desk, and Pete knelt and got his box in place, and I crossed to my desk, Wolfe demanded, “Who was Eratosthenes and who accused him of murder in a great and famous speech in four-oh-three B.C.?”

 

Pete Vassos is a bootblack. He had walked into the office of Dennis Ashby, vice-president of Mercer's Bobbin's, for his first scheduled appointment of the day, and the room was empty. He looked out the office window to the street below and saw a man's body on the sidewalk, with police around the body. It was his client, and Pete left the building and came directly to Nero Wolfe's office. When he described the situation, Wolfe tells him to go the police immediately. Pete is clearly perturbed and leaves.

A day later, Pete's daughter, Elma, comes to see Wolfe to tell him that Pete is dead. He was found at the base of a cliff, dead. And from there the story gets very complicated.

My thoughts on the story

This is one of those stories where the mystery is so-so but the content of the story is interesting and entertaining. In the Nero Wolfe mysteries, I like the setting in New York City (in this case, in the late 1950s). I spent some time looking into the history of bootblacks and whether there are bootblacks today (the answer is yes). It was all very interesting.

In this story, Wolfe works for nothing. That is not unheard of, but it is unusual. Pete Vasso's daughter insists that Wolfe clear her father's name and find out who killed him because Pete worshiped Nero Wolfe. 

Regular characters featured: Inspector Cramer, at his crankiest. Two of the freelance investigators, Saul and Fred. Saul is a genius but prefers to freelance.

Archie has a lot to do in this one; he does get quite irritated with Wolfe for not keeping him in the loop, but that is is a normal occurrence in this series.

 

Books Read in April 2026

Basically in April I read four mystery novels and one graphic novel. So, not a lot of variety. But I enjoyed all the books, and that is what matters. Two of the mysteries were in the spy fiction genre, plus Death in a Darkening Mist, a historical novel set in Canada immediately after World War II ended, bordered on spy fiction. 

Here are the five books I read in April.

Graphic novel

Over Easy (2014) by Mimi Pond (Writer and Artist)

This graphic novel is about a young woman working in a diner in Oakland, CA, after having to leave art school due to losing her financial aid. It is based on events in the author's life. I liked the art and the story. It is 272 pages long.

Crime Fiction

Soviet Sources (1990) by Robert Cullen

I may have mentioned that one of my favorite genres is spy fiction. I only recently discovered this first book by Robert Cullen, published in 1990 and later reprinted by Felony and Mayhem in 2006. The main characters are an American journalist for the Washington Tribune, stationed in Moscow, and a Russian journalist who is being manipulated by the KGB. It took awhile to get started, a lot of setting up the individual characters, but it got very interesting at about 100 pages (out of 424). This is part of a three book series and I have all the books.

Death in a Darkening Mist (2017) by Iona Whishaw

This is historical fiction, set in Canada in 1946, immediately after World War II.  Lane Winslow moved to Canada to get away from the UK after her traumatic experiences as a British intelligence agent during the war. She gets involved with an investigation into the death of a Russian man at a local hot spring near King's Cove; is it suicide or was it murder? This is the 2nd book in the series; the first book was very good; this one was even better.

The Romeo Flag (1989) by Carolyn Hougan

I also discovered this book as a reprint published by Felony and Mayhem. I had read another book by this author, Shooting in the Dark, and was very impressed by that book. The Romeo Flag was even better than that book. I would rank it as one of the top espionage novels I have ever read. The plot was amazing; very complex and very convincing. Another very interesting thing in this book (for me) was the connection to Shanghai. I have read two books recently about Shanghai in 1938 and I find that time and place especially intriguing. A significant sub-plot concerns a group of people living in Shanghai in 1941. For anyone who is interested in spy fiction, this book is worth seeking out.

Tatiana (2013) by Martin Cruz Smith

This is the eighth book in the Arkady Renko series; the first book was Gorky Park, published in 1981. This is sort of a police procedural set in Russia; I say this because Arkady is a police investigator, still working for the Procurator in Moscow, but really going his own way in an unsupervised investigation. So there is not much procedure involved. I enjoyed this book tremendously; the story still sticks with me. See my review.

For the past 2-3 months we have been working on cleaning up and redoing the two garden beds we have at the front of our condominium. We still are working on potting new plants in that area; today we potted 6 geraniums. Usually when we go to the nearby plant nursery, my husband takes photos while we are there. The photos at the top and bottom of this post are from recent visits. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Short Story Wednesday: More Stories from Three for the Chair

 

A brief overview of the Nero Wolfes series by Rex Stout:

Nero Wolfe is a genius 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. Nero Wolfe's main interests are good food, raising orchids, and reading books. Usually, he will avoid working on a case unless he needs the money to pay the bills. 

Recently I completed reading the three novellas in Three for the Chair by Rex Stout. Back in 2025, I reviewed the second story in that book, "Immune to Murder."  Now that I have read the two other stories, I think they are also excellent stories. 

The first story in the book was "A Window for Death."

Bert Fyfe's father died when he had pneumonia and Bert was accused of his murder. Members of his family testified at the trial. He was acquitted but he was very bitter and left town. His family had not  seen him for 20 years when he returned, wealthy after striking it rich in uranium mining.  Now Bert has died in similar circumstances as his father, and some members of his family want to know if it was murder. Wolfe proceeds to interview the people involved with the incident.

Rex Stout occasionally included romance in his Nero Wolfe novels and stories, and this one includes a romance, as much of one as you can have in 50 pages. It is a minor part of the story, but it makes for a nice ending.

The last story in the book is "Too Many Detectives."

Archie Goodwin is the narrator of all of the Nero Wolfe novels and short stories. He begins this story with these sentences:

"I am against female detectives on principle. It's not always and everywhere a tough game, but most of the time it is, with no room for the friendly feelings and the nice little impulses...

However, there are times when a principle should take a nap, and that was one of them. Of the seven private detectives present in the room, including Nero Wolfe and me, two were women, seated in a corner, side by side."

He then continues to describe Theodolinda (Dol) Connor, who runs her own detective agency, and Sally Colt, her employee. 

In this story, the seven private detectives have been summoned to Albany for an inquiry into their use of wiretapping by the state of New York. Nero Wolfe is disgruntled because he and Archie have been forced to go to Albany rather than be interviewed in New York City, where they live. He is further incensed when a man that he once did a wiretapping job for is found dead in a nearby office, and he and Archie are arrested. Within a few hours they get out on bail ($20,000 apiece), and in their hotel room they proceed to work with the other five detectives to figure out who killed the dead man.

Along the way, Archie and Wolfe both change their prejudices against women detectives.

Tatiana: Martin Cruz Smith

In late April, I read Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith, the eighth book in the Arkady Renko series. This is sort of a police procedural set in Russia; I say this because Arkady is a police investigator, still working for the Procurator in Moscow, but really going his own way in an unsupervised investigation. So there is not much procedure involved. 

Journalist Tatiana Petrovna has fallen from a six story building in Moscow and the death has been ruled suicide. Arkady is concerned because her body has disappeared, and then later the body reappears and is immediately cremated. The authorities are trying to conceal the truth of her death.

Tatiana was investigating a plot involving the Mafia and Russian officials. One of her sources was the interpreter who wrote up the notes of a meeting of mafia bosses in a code that is supposedly unbreakable. The interpreter gave the coded notebook to Tatiana. After her death, the notebook gets into the hands of Zhenya, a gifted teenager who is Arkady's ward. Zhenya and his new girlfriend are trying to solve the code with their expertise in chess and puzzles.

And that is just a small part of the plot. It is very complex and at times it is hard to tell who can be trusted and who is a foe. As often happens in mysteries, there are just too many characters to keep track of. However, that was a minor problem in this story. 

My thoughts:

I like the setting in Russia. This book was published in 2013 and I think it represents what Russia was like at the time. There is corruption and violence everywhere. 

I also enjoyed learning about Kaliningrad, an exclave of Russia bordered by Lithuania and Poland. It was formerly Konigsberg, part of Germany and was annexed to Russia by the Potsdam Agreement in 1945. A good portion of the book, maybe half, was set in that area. It is a coastal city, the only ice-free Russian port on the Baltic Sea.

It took me about half the way into the book to get invested in the story, which, as I remember it, was true of earlier books in the series. But it was so good; it got better and better as I was reading it.

It took a while to get to know the characters. There are a lot of them. Even with as many books as I had read in the series, I still find Arkady Renko a mystery, not sure what he is seeking in life. I don't think he knows either. I like Sergeant Victor Orlov, the detective he works with, who is in a difficult position, trying to support and help Arkady, yet not get in trouble with his superiors. However, once the story got moving and I understood more about the diverse characters, the book had me hooked. 

I read the previous 7 books in the series, but I read them between 2005 and 2021, so I have forgotten a lot. Therefore, I am pretty sure that you can read most of the books as standalones. Maybe the first three books (Gorky Park, Polar Star, and Red Square) should be read in order, because they lead up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Another similar series that I have read is Stuart Kaminsky's Porfiry Rostnikov series, also about a policeman in Moscow. 

Books Read in March 2026

 

March was a very good reading month for me. I enjoyed every book I read. There was enough variety to make me happy. A nonfiction graphic novel, an epistolary novel, science fantasy, a book of short stories in the historical fiction genre, a vintage mystery and two contemporary mysteries.

Here are the books I read:

Graphic novel / Nonfiction

Do Admit! (2025) by Mimi Pond (Writer and Artist)

My husband and I both read this graphic nonfiction book in March. It was perfect book for me. I am very interested in reading about the Mitford sisters. Mimi Pond writes about her own obsession with the Mitfords in this book. The full title is Do Admit!: The Mitford Sisters and Me. The art is gorgeous and the information is presented well. The only problem with this book is that it is so full of information that I am sure I missed a lot the first time I read it. I will definitely have to read it again.

Epistolary Fiction

The Correspondent (2025) by Virginia Evans

This is an epistolary novel, made up of the correspondence in letters and emails, etc. of an older retired woman. I have always enjoyed this type of novel, and this one was especially good. The main character is Sybil Van Antwerp and she spends most of her time writing letters to people. Some of her friends and relatives respond and some of the famous people, often authors, respond. Others just email her and she does not like that kind of correspondence very much. She is cranky at times and very outspoken about her views and feelings. 

I loved that Sybil included what she was reading in almost every letter she wrote, and also asked the recipient what they were reading. Occasionally Sybil would give her opinion or thoughts on the books. Over time, the reader discovers more about Sybil and events in her life. Family relationships are a big part of the story, and I always like reading about families. The end of the book was extremely moving, and I was very emotional at times.

Science Fantasy

A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle

This is a classic young adult science fantasy novel about three children who have an adventure in space and time. The main characters are Margaret Murry (called Meg), her younger brother Charles Wallace Murry, and their friend, Calvin. Calvin is two years older than Meg, and Charles Wallace is much younger than either of them, but they make a great team working together. A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in the Time Quintet. I did not know this until after I had read the book and reviewed it, but each book in the Time Quintet is very different and has a different focus. See my review.

Crime Fiction

Contemplation of a Crime (2025) by Susan Juby

Juby is a Canadian author, and the setting is a small island off Vancouver Island. This is the third book in a mystery series about a butler with a Buddhist / contemplative background. Helen Thorpe works for a very rich couple and she ends up having to rescue her boss after he and his son are kidnapped. All of the characters are eccentric. This is the third in a series and I liked the first two also. I like the way that the main character handles unexpected and stressful events. My favorite part of the book is the mindfulness theme. Helen is a very appealing character, who is (almost) never ruffled by anything.

A Brush with Death (1950) by Sheila Pim

Between 1945 and 1952, Sheila Pim, an Irish crime novelist and horticulturist, published four mysteries set in Ireland and with a focus on gardening. A Brush with Death was the third of those mystery novels, published in 1950. The story involves two families. Paul and Hester Fennelly and their daughter Barbara live in Dublin. Hester's brother, Fergus Gandon, is a well-known artist who lives in an isolated rural area with his wife, Nell, and their three young children. They live in the Dower House of Castle Kiskour, and act as caretakers for Lord Kiskour when he is away, which is much of the time. See my review.

Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (2013) by James Runcie

The Grantchester Mysteries is a series of short story collections by James Runcie. The short stories are all connected and follow the criminal investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. This is the second book in the series.  I enjoyed the first book, and this one was even better. See my review.

First Do No Harm (2026) by S.J. Rozan

This is the 16th book in the Lydia Chin / Bill Smith series. They are private investigators. Bill Smith lives in Manhattan; Lydia Chin is an American-born Chinese who lives in New York’s Chinatown with her mother. They are not officially partners but they often work together. The unique element in this series is that the narrator of the books alternates. Usually books centered on Bill's cases are grittier; Lydia's cases are more fun. In this book, Lydia's brother, a doctor who is in charge of the ER department, has asked her to suggest a lawyer for a man who works in the hospital morgue, who has been accused of the murder of a nurse. The lawyer then calls in Lydia and Bill to investigate when the morgue assistant is arrested. This is an eye-opening view of hospital politics and corruption. S.J. Rozan is one of my favorite authors and I have read all of the books in this series. I loved this book.

For the past month and a half we have been working on cleaning up and redoing the two garden beds we have at the front of our condominium. We still are working on potting a lot of new plants, mostly geraniums and succulents. We have been to the nearby plant nursery multiple times to get plants, bark, and potting soil. The photos at the top and bottom of the post were taken by my husband at the nursery. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Short Story Wednesday: More Hercule Poirot Short Stories

 

These stories came from Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories; the collection has 867 pages and was published in 1999. It consists of 51 short stories; the short stories are in chronological order.

"Four and Twenty Blackbirds"

This story was first published in the USA in Collier's Magazine, November 9, 1940. Later published as "Poirot and the Regular Customer" in The Strand, March 1941.

First few paragraphs of the story:

Hercule Poirot was dining with his friend, Henry Bonnington at the Gallant Endeavour in the King’s Road, Chelsea.

Mr. Bonnington was fond of the Gallant Endeavour. He liked the leisurely atmosphere, he liked the food which was “plain” and “English” and “not a lot of made up messes.” He liked to tell people who dined with him there just exactly where Augustus John had been wont to sit and draw their attention to the famous artists’ names in the visitors’ book. Mr. Bonnington was himself the least artistic of men—but he took a certain pride in the artistic activities of others.

Molly, the sympathetic waitress, greeted Mr. Bonnington as an old friend. She prided herself on remembering her customers’ likes and dislikes in the way of food.

Poirot goes to dinner with a friend, Mr. Bonnington. The friend and the waitress tell Poirot about a man who always eats at the restaurant every Tuesday and Thursday. But one day this man comes on a Monday and orders foods that he has never eaten before. Poirot is very puzzled by this. Then later he finds out that the man had not come there to eat for a few weeks. The last time he came, he again ate different foods, not the man's normal fare at this restaurant. Neither Mr. Bonnington or the waitress knows the diner's name. But Poirot wants to know why the man hasn't visited recently, so he takes it upon himself to find the man. It turns out that the man died unexpectedly following these events.

I liked this story. As far as I can tell this was the last short story written which featured Poirot. It was complex although the story was not very long. I missed the presence of Hastings in the story.

"The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly"  

This story was first published as "The Kidnapping of Johnnie Waverly" in The Sketch, Ocober 10, 1923.

This story seemed very short and not complex at all. Here Poirot discovers who kidnapped a rich couple's son, Johnny Waverly. The child's parents go to visit Poirot to ask advice about whether they should pay the ransom. They have lost faith in the police. When Poirot visits their home, Waverly Court, he soon sees how the plot to take the boy took place, and why the police were not successful.

The ending was interesting in multiple ways: (1) the culprit was surprising, at least to me and (2) Poirot dealt with the culprit in a very unusual way. 

A plus in this case is that Hastings narrates the story. Having Hastings involved usually gives a Poirot short story more humor. Yet for some reason, I did not like this story as well as "Four and Twenty Blackbirds."

While reading these stories I discovered the answer to a question I had wondered about for a while. Was Hasting's the narrator for all of Agatha Christie's short stories. The answer is no, but I don't have any numbers on how many of the stories included Hastings.

Spell the Month in Books — March 2026

Spell the Month in Books is a monthly meme hosted by Jana at Reviews from the Stacks. Each month one or two themes are suggested for the books that are chosen. One of the themes for March 2026 is "March Madness," and I am focusing on books related to madness.

You will notice, of course, that I am just barely finishing this one on time, with only a little over one day left in the month of March.

M is for The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny

I have read twelve books in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny. This is the seventeenth book in the series, so I have a few more to read to get there. The book was published in August 2021, at a time there was some relief from Covid but it still felt very present and threatening. I haven't read much about the book (on purpose) but I think that the pandemic, and its effects on society, is one of the themes.

A is for Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

I have read four books in the Maisie Dobbs series. This is the sixth book and I do have a copy on my TBR. Among the Mad begins on December 31, 1931; Maisie Dobbs gets involved in tracking down a madman who has threatened that many lives will be lost if his demands are not met.

R is for Road Rage by Ruth Rendell

I chose this title because I see road rage as a type of madness. However, the plot seems to be more about five kidnapped hostages. The kidnapping is related to the planned construction of a new highway; the construction will destroy a beloved woodland area. I thought I had read all of the Inspector Wexford series by Rendell, but I since discovered that I may have missed some titles published in the 1990s, and this could be one of them. 

C is for Crazy Rich Asians by Keven Kwan

I read this book in December 2019. It is about extremely rich Chinese families in Singapore, and a young American-born Chinese woman who is dating the son of one of the families. There were many things about the story I found impossible to believe (even though I am sure many of them are very true) but even so, I just settled in and enjoyed the ride. It seemed like a fairy tale to me, but it could also be described as a soap opera, and both of those can be very entertaining.

H is for The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 

This is a quote from the first paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House: "Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more." I haven't read this book; I have always avoided the horror genre. But I have a beautiful edition of The Haunting of Hill House, and now and I think I will try it. I have read that it falls somewhere between supernatural and psychological horror.

Short Story Wednesday: Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night

 

The Grantchester Mysteries is a series of short story collections by James Runcie. The short stories are all connected and follow the criminal investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. 

Sidney Chambers and the Peril of the Night is the second book in the series. I read the first book (Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death) in 2025 and I liked the stories so much that I started reading the next set of stories in late February. 

There were only six stories in this collection, and they are all longish stories, between 50-75 pages each, so I consider them novellas. The crimes are not all murders, but they are all treated seriously. 

"The Perils of the Night" is the first story in the book and takes place in January 1955. Valentine Lyall is a research fellow at Corpus Christi college, the same college Sidney attended. One evening, he and three other men at the college decide to scale one of four octagonal turrets of the King's College chapel as a prank. This results in a fall that kills Valentine Lyall. Sidney is drawn into an investigation into whether the death was accidental or not. There is suspicion that espionage is involved, and the story takes an unusual turn. I found the ending of this story to be interesting but also unsettling.

In the third story, "Unholy Week," Sidney is in the midst of Easter activities, plus he is expecting a visit from his German friend, Hildegarde. He has visited Hildegarde several times in Germany but this is her first trip back to Grantchester since they met several years earlier. While she is visiting, a mathematics teacher dies in his bath and the death is blamed on a heart attack. Both Hildegarde and Sidney suspect foul play and they investigate together. One of my favorite stories, and the longest one at 75 pages.

The last two stories are exceptional good. Both take place in 1961. In "The Uncertainty Principle," Sidney suspects that Amanda's newest beau is not all he claims to be. Amanda is a friend from childhood, and Sidney and Amanda have always been attracted to each other. This one has some very funny moments, but it is also very sad.

In "Appointment in Berlin," Sidney visits Hildegarde. When he gets there, he finds that Hildegarde has gone to East Germany to see her mother in the hospital, after she had a serious fall. He goes to meet her there, but is detained by officials on the way. This story has ties back to the first story in the book. Their return to Berlin is exciting. 

I am enjoying these stories very much and I can't wait until I can get a copy of the third book of stories. We have started watching the Grantchester TV series. There are differences, but I like both versions. 

A Brush with Death: Sheila Pim

 

Between 1945 and 1952, Sheila Pim, an Irish crime novelist and horticulturist, published four mysteries set in Ireland and with a focus on gardening. A Brush with Death was the third of those mystery novels, published in 1950.

The story involves two families. Paul and Hester Fennelly and their daughter Barbara live in Dublin. Hester's brother, Fergus Gandon, is a well-known artist who lives in an isolated rural area with his wife, Nell, and their three young children. They live in the Dower House of Castle Kiskour, and act as caretakers for Lord Kiskour when he is away, which is much of the time.

The first thing that happens in A Brush with Death is that Hester Fennelly gets a letter from Fergus, with whom she has had very little contact for the last 10 years. He asks her if he can come and stay with her and her family while he recovers from the aftereffects of arsenic poisoning. He suspects that someone may be trying to poison him deliberately, and wants to isolate himself for a while. Hester agrees to his visit, after discussions with her husband and their doctor, who is a family friend. 

Per the summary on the back of my copy of this book, Fergus "quickly installs himself  as the Irish version of The Man Who Came to Dinner, much to the dismay of Hester's husband, Paul." That is a perfect description of events that follow. With his "irascible" behavior and argumentativeness, he alienates some of the servants and disrupts the family.

The possibility of deliberate poisoning has not been raised with the police because the doctor who is treating Fergus thinks it is possible that the poisoning is accidental. Both Fergus and his wife are very reluctant to get the police involved. Why?

My thoughts on Sheila Pim's mysteries in general

• The  four mysteries written by Sheila Pim are grouped on Goodreads as The Irish Gardening Mystery Series. So they may be considered a series, but I don't think that they share any characters. At first I was disappointed, since I liked the characters in the first book a lot. 
• When I first heard about this series, I was interested more in the focus on gardening than the Irish setting. However, I have to say that this book describes Ireland in the post-war years very well. The primary setting is in Dublin, but some of the characters live in a small isolated village, on the grounds of a castle, so the reader gets a broad picture of Ireland. In Common or Garden Crime, the first book in the series, the setting in Ireland during the war was very interesting, since Ireland was neutral during World War II. I liked especially that the author was writing the story based on her own experiences at the time. In that book the war is referred to as the Emergency and many items were restricted.

Thoughts on this book in particular

• This story starts out a bit slow; most of the first 30 pages (maybe more) is just dialogue and I was not impressed. But once the police get involved (around page 50 of a 150 page novel), events move faster and the story and the characters get more interesting. Along the way, the reader learns more about all of the characters, about their way of life, and why they do the things they do. 
• There is a good deal of humor; gentle, subtle humor for the most part. Some of the characters are quirky and entertaining. Fergus has a general factotum at the Dower House who is an ex-convict, and very proud of his trusted position in the family. Even the meetings of the police in Dublin with the police in the area where Fergus lives have plenty of humor, even though they are very serious about solving the crime, once they decide for sure that if it is a crime.  
• The two books that I have read both have gardening aspects but the first book was focused on garden club members in a small village. This one has more emphasis on art, artists, and the galleries that sell the art. Gardening and producing plants for food definitely comes into this one also, and it was all very interesting. Lord Kilskour, Fergus Gandon's landlord, carries on a lengthy discussion on the importance of organic farming (in 1950!), which is tangentially related to the arsenic poisoning plot.

These other reviews of this book provide more detail:

• At crossexaminingcrime
• At Clothes in Books
• At Peggy's Porch

Six Degrees of Separation: from Wuthering Heights to Dancing in the Dark

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Brontë. I don't remember ever reading that book, but recently when I read some reviews, it was described as being about obsession and revenge.

1st degree:

I searched on my blog for a book that combined obsession and revenge and the only one that came up was The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake. This book, a part of the Nigel Strangeways series, is widely acknowledged to be a crime classic. But I resisted reading it for years.

The story begins with these lines from Frank Cairnes' journal, in which he plans the death of the person who killed his son. 

"I am going to kill a man. I don’t know his name, I don’t know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I am going to find him and kill him…"

2nd degree:

I purchased my copy of The Beast Must Die at the Annual Book Sale in September 2019. The same year, I purchased four old paperback editions of books by Mary Stewart at that same book sale. One of them was The Ivy Tree, published in 1961. It is about a young woman, Mary Grey, who has a strong resemblance to the heiress to a fortune, who disappeared years before. She is persuaded to impersonate the heiress in a scheme to get the inheritance.  

3rd degree:

Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar is another impersonation novel, published in 1949. I read that novel but it has been so long that I want to read it again. From what I have read, Brat Farrar was an inspiration for Mary Stewart's book. I have read all of Josephine Tey's mystery novels. She wrote six Inspector Grant novels and two standalone mysteries.

4th degree:

Josephine Tey is the sleuth in a historical crime fiction series by Nicola Upson. I have read the first book in that series, An Expert in Murder. I don't always enjoy mysteries where the sleuth is a real person, and I had reservations about how much the sleuth in this book resembles the real Josephine Tey (whose real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh), but I did find the story compelling and enjoyed the setting, so I had planned to read more of this series. I have four more books from this series on my shelves so I should follow up on that.

5th degree:

Another mystery novel with a real-life author as the sleuth is Jane and the Man of Cloth. In this case the sleuth is Jane Austen. This 2nd book in the series was published in 1997 (and I read my copy in 2004). The 15th and final book in the series was published in 2023. I have only read the first two books but I have read many good things about the series and the way that Jane Austen is handled as a main character, so I may return.

6th degree:

My final book for this Six Degrees is from a historical mystery series that features real-life people as characters, but not as the sleuth. Toby Peters is a private investigator who is often asked to help movie stars of the 1940s with their problems. The first book in the series, Bullet for a Star, features Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, and Peter Lorre. In Dancing in the Dark, the 19th book in the series, Fred Astaire is being harassed by a gangster and his girlfriend. The series is written by one of my favorite authors, Stuart Kaminsky. 

And that concludes my Six Degrees. All my books were mysteries. All of them were either vintage mysteries or historical mysteries. And all of the books were set in the UK except for the very last one. I prefer more variety in my Six Degrees chains, either in genre or setting or both, but these are all good books, so I am happy with the chain.

If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you? Have you read any of these books? 

The next Six Degrees will be on April 4, 2026 and the starting book will be  Virginia Evan's epistolary novel, The Correspondent.

Murder of a Lady: Anthony Wynne

 

Description from the back of the book:

Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her bedroom -- but the room is locked from within and the windows are barred. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish's scale, left on the floor next to Mary's body. Inspector Dundas is dispatched to Duchlan to investigate the case. The Gregor family and their servants are quick -- perhaps too quick -- to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman.

An amateur sleuth, Dr. Eustace Hailey, is visiting in the area, and because of his reputation with solving crimes, was called in before Inspector Dundas arrived to check out the body and the scene of the crime. Dundas is not happy with that situation and does not wish to work on the crime with anyone else. Yet he doesn't make much progress with his investigation, and irritates the family and the people who live in the surrounding area. Eventually he changes his mind and asks Dr. Hailey for his help. 

From the first, the victim is presented as a saintly woman who was always trying to help people and was loved by all. Eventually this is debunked as the depth of the toxic family relationship between the laird of Duchlan and his sister Mary, and the younger members of the family, the Laird's son, his wife, and their young son, is revealed bit by bit.

Most of the book focuses on the locked-room aspect,  which is one of the problems I have with some locked-room stories. The search for the answer to who could have done the crime and who had the motivation, plus how the murderer could get into and out of the locked room, seemed very repetitive.

Although I had a negative attitude about reading this book when I found out that it was a locked-room mystery, I did not regret reading it. I would even read another in the Aubrey Heiling series if I could find one. There were some good points. I enjoyed the setting in a castle in Scotland in the early 1930s. The solution at the end was a big surprise to me and there was more variety than I realized because of the contrasting of the varied approaches and the skills used by the sleuths, both from the police and the amateur sleuth. Also, it has a gorgeous cover.

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: Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie

 

The Grantchester Mysteries is a series of short story collections by James Runcie. The short stories are all connected and follow the criminal investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. The crimes are not all murders, but they are all treated seriously. There were only six short stories in this collection, and they are not very short. The shortest one was 50 pages, the longest was 80 pages, so some of them count as novellas?  Anyway, I liked all of the stories, not sure which is my favorite, and I now have a copy of the 2nd book in the series. I have not seen the TV series based on this series, but we will try it sometime.

The first story is set in 1953, the coronation year of Queen Elizabeth II. I read that story back in October 2025 and discussed it in this post.

I finished reading all of the stories in Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death in early December and I enjoyed them very much. I like that Sidney is a vicar in the Church of England; I enjoy mysteries with a clerical setting. I admit that the various titles used in the Church of England are confusing to me, but the more I read these stories the closer I come to a rough understanding of the different roles.

"A Question of Trust"

This is the second story in the book and it begins on December 31st, 1953. Sidney is taking the train to London to visit with some family and friends. He then takes a bus to St. John's Wood, where he will attend a New Year's Eve dinner party at the home of his friend Nigel, one of the most promising MPs in the country. His sister Jenny, her new boyfriend, and Jenny's friend and flatmate Amanda Kendall will also be at the dinner. Sidney has known Amanda for years, and has always been attracted to her, but once he decided to become a clergyman, he was no longer considered a viable marriage partner for her.

At the dinner party, Amanda's engagement ring is stolen. The ring was very valuable and her fiance is understandably upset. It is suggested that Sidney help look into how the ring could have disappeared.

Several of the characters in this story show up in later stories, and I like the continuity from story to story. Sidney questions whether he should be involving himself in investigating crimes, in view of his profession. He often questions his beliefs but he is dedicated to his work; I like his philosophizing (to himself, usually) on various issues.

Other stories in the book deal with (1) the investigation of forgeries and thefts of valuable art works;  (2) a man murdered on stage, in a play that Sidney has a small part in; (3) a death at a jazz club; and (4) a doctor who may be helping older persons in the village towards death after long illnesses.

The Satan Sampler: Victor Canning

This is the 6th book in a loose series called the Birdcage books. They were published between 1971 and 1985. They all revolve around a covert security group in the UK, a branch of the Ministry of Defense. The officials and the agents attached to the Birdcage group are generally amoral, although they believe that their mission is important to the welfare of the country.

Since this is a very difficult book to summarize, I am using the description on the dust jacket: 

On the death of his elder brother, Richard Seyton inherits the Seyton estate, which had been in the family since the fourteenth century. But the great Seyton Hall–showpiece of the estate–has been leased to an international charitable organization, the Felbeck Foundation for the Preservation of the Christian Heritage, which is not all that it seems to be. Determined to find a way to break the lease, Seyton is slowly enmeshed in a dangerous web of intrigue and underground politics, especially when the sinister intelligence organization know as Birdcage intrudes upon his affairs.

 

This story isn't quite as good as the earlier books. Some of the characterizations have less depth, and the spy story is very similar to the previous book. The evil practices and deceptions of the group are just as nefarious as ever, though. The story does feature several of the Birdcage characters from the previous two books, and I liked that. And the emphasis on the beauty of the countryside, the descriptions of the birds and animals, is still there. I loved the setting, the atmosphere, the use of nature. 

The Birdcage novels are usually somewhat of a downer in the end, which is realistic for spy fiction, but this one had a more upbeat ending than usual.

This quote is from the back flyleaf of the dust jacket of the first US hardback edition:

"For years now, Victor Canning has been moving into new directions with the suspense story. The spy thriller has become a novel of character with him. The doomsday book of fate intertwined with old family histories has moved into fresh insights of human foibles. The chase genre has been brought to three-dimensional life by the astute use of settings, where every bird and leaf become a part of the narrative." (Ed Hutshing, Book Editor, San Diego Union)

There are only two more books in the series, and I am looking forward to both of them.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   William Morrow and Co., 1980 (orig. pub. 1979)
Length:       233 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Birdcage books #6
Setting:      UK
Genre:       Espionage fiction
Source:      Purchased in December, 2024.

Short Story Wednesday: The Grantchester Mysteries

 

The Grantchester Mysteries consists of six short story collections by James Runcie. The short stories are all connected and follow the investigations of Sidney Chambers, a vicar in Grantchester. This first story is set in 1953, the coronation year of Queen Elizabeth II. 

Years ago, I read several reviews of the stories in the Grantchester TV series and some reviewers said that the TV episodes were better than the short stories. So for a while I avoided reading the stories. I still haven't seen the TV series, but now I have read the first story in Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death and I enjoyed it very much. 

"The Shadow of Death"

First paragraph:

Canon Sidney Chambers had never intended to become a detective. Indeed, it came about quite by chance, after a funeral, when a handsome woman of indeterminate age voiced her suspicion that the recent death of a Cambridge solicitor was not suicide, as had been widely reported, but murder.

The death is a suicide and the lover of the dead man, Pamela Morton, is the woman who asks Sidney to look into it. She doesn't believe that he would commit suicide. Sidney is a vicar, and although he doesn't see himself as suited to investigating such an issue, he agrees to talk to various people who knew the dead man. 

It helps that he has a good friend, Inspector Keating, who worked on the investigation of the man's death. However, his friend is somewhat irritated by Sidney's interest, and doesn't see that there is evidence that points to murder.

Other characters are:

• the wife of the dead man;
• the dead man's secretary;
• and his business partner, who is married to the dead man's lover.

I liked this first story very much. I enjoyed meeting the protagonist, Canon Sidney Sheldon. I liked Sidney's musings on his faith, and his misgivings on getting himself involved in investigating a possible crime. I thought the mystery was put together well, and I liked the depictions of the various characters. 

This first story is 80 pages long, so it is basically a novella. The other five stories in the book range from 50 to 70 pages in length. 

Pesticide: Kim Hays

This summary is from Kim Hays' website:

In Pesticide, a street party in Bern morphs into a brutal riot. Hours later, with the medieval downtown a shambles, a young man is found beaten to death with a policeman’s club. That same day, twenty miles away, an organic farmer turns up on his land, dead and drenched in pesticide. Swiss homicide detective Giuliana Linder and her younger colleague Renzo Donatelli start out on two separate cases, but it doesn’t take long before they find links between their victims. Working together on what has become a single, puzzling case, the two can no longer ignore their attraction to each other.

 

Pesticide is the first book in the Linder and Donatelli series. When reading mysteries, I have a preference for police procedurals because they are more believable. Detective Giuliana Linder is an experienced homicide detective; she has worked with Investigator Renzo Donatelli before but this time they start out on different cases in very different locations. It is assumed that the death of the young man in Bern is drug-related, but soon officials realize that the elderly man who owns and works on an organic farm outside of Bern had business dealings with the younger victim and decide to combine the cases.

My thoughts

I like to read police procedurals set in countries other than the US, because I like to learn about how the various legal and law enforcement departments work in each country. The author of this book does a great job of showing all the different types of people working on the case, and in this novel, we get to see two groups of investigators coming together to solve two related cases. Although a lot of the focus was on the procedure of solving a crime, the pacing was good and the story never dragged.

Getting a peak at organic farming in this story is fascinating. I learned a lot about the mechanics of farming and the rules of organic farming. The story divides its time between the police in Bern and the community in the outlying rural area, where one of the crimes occurred.

I liked the characters in this story, both the main characters and secondary characters. The ending was very good; the  mystery was tied up well and realistically. I will definitely be reading the next book in the series.

For more details on the plot, please see Kevin Tipple's excellent review at Kevin's Corner.

Kim Hays has dual Swiss/American citizenship, and has lived in Bern with her husband for 37 years. She has a very nice website with information about Bern and Switzerland, in addition to descriptions of her books.

At Bertram's Hotel: Agatha Christie

 

Description at Goodreads:

Miss Jane Marple has checked into Bertram's Hotel in London for a much-needed vacation. The last thing she expects is that this elegant establishment, known for its service and old-world charm, could be embroiled in scandal. But after a series of strange events—including the disappearance of a fellow guest, the arrival of a notorious celebrity bad boy, and finally, a shocking murder—she finds herself drawn into a multifaceted mystery.

This portion of the description at Goodreads is an accurate description, but later there is an implication that Miss Marple gets involved in the investigation, which is not accurate. Miss Marple observes useful pieces of information, and along the way she does reveal her thoughts to the reader on many of the events. The real investigator in this mystery is Chief Inspector Fred Davy, who has noted the connection of many of the guests at the hotel to various crimes in the area, and the story works more as a police procedural than is usual in a Miss Marple novel. All of that worked very well for me and I had no complaint. Fred Davy was a great character.

There are a lot of coincidences in this story; for example, Miss Marple runs into various guests at the hotel in the city of London who seem to be in questionable relationships. 

At Bertram's Hotel is a later book in the Miss Marple series and it didn't measure up to other books in that series for me. However, it was a fun read, with some humor.  I like books set in hotels and Bertram's Hotel was lovely. There were several interesting characters, so overall I liked it and I plan to finish the series.