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. 

Short Story Wednesday: "Immune to Murder" by Rex Stout

 

Today I am continuing my reread of Rex Stout's novellas. The Nero Wolfe / Archie Goodwin series was published between 1934 and 1975. First I will give a brief overview of the series...

Nero Wolfe is an armchair detective, preferring to do all his detecting from home. He is a genius, a lover of orchids and fine food, 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. They live in a New York brownstone and share the house with Theodore, a plant expert who cares for Wolfe's orchids, and Fritz, Wolfe's cook.

 

"Immune to Murder" is a 66-page novella, one of three stories in Three for the Chair, published in 1957.

When I reread one of these novella collections, I always read my favorite story first. "Immune to Murder" is a favorite because it takes Wolfe and Archie out of the brownstone to a remote rural setting, and it involves food, which is a common theme of the series.

Wolfe has been invited to cook for a visiting ambassador at a retreat set in the Adirondack Mountains. The visiting dignitary wanted to fish for American brook trout and he wanted it cooked straight from the brook by Nero Wolfe. 

On the morning following Wolfe and Archie's arrival at the lodge, the other guests go out to fish for bass for three hours. Archie has been given permission to go fishing along the same route they used, after they return, and he does this. (There is a lot of fishing lingo in this story.) Unfortunately, along the way he discovers the dead body of one of the guests. He goes back to report this to Wolfe first, then lets the rest of the group know. And of course, Wolfe ends up solving the crime, reluctantly.

"Immune to Murder" was first published in the November 1955 issue of The American Magazine.

It was also adapted for A&E’s Nero Wolfe Mystery TV series starring Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton.

Death by Accident: Bill Crider

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. He and his second wife are in their fifties. He loves Dr. Pepper in glass bottles and junk food for lunch, which his wife disapproves of. Death by Accident was published in 1998.

Two men die mysteriously in or near Clearview, Texas – one explodes, and the other is found drowned in a swimming pool. Sheriff Dan Rhodes cannot prove that those occurrences are not accidents, but he can feel it in his bones. He quietly investigates this theory, talking to people who knew those who died. Not long after these deaths, a third man is killed in a hit and run. A hit and run is a crime, but the death could have been an accident. Nevertheless, three unexplained deaths in such a short time convinces Rhodes that he is on the right track.

Often these books have a subplot going on. In Death by Accident, there are issues related to the competition between two historical societies in Clearview – the Clearview Sons and Daughters of Texas and the Clearview Historical Society. The Sons and Daughters group maintains the site where the swimming pool-related death took place. The other group wants to physically remove a historic building from that site. Sheriff Rhodes doesn't really think that anyone in those two groups is plotting murder, but there is a lot of mayhem and subterfuge going on. Because Rhodes has only a small staff, all of this keeps him busy. Along the way in this story Rhodes adds a new dog to the family and acquires an Edsel that needs to be refurbished.

I only have 16 books to go to finish this series. The last book in the series was published in 2019, so I imagine that Rhodes has to start using computers sometime along the way. We'll see. But I continue to enjoy police procedurals and other mysteries that were written at a time when technology was not so prevalent. And Dan Rhodes is one of my favorite fictional sheriffs.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   St. Martin's Press, 1998
Length:      277 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Sheriff Dan Rhodes, #9
Setting:      Texas
Genre:        Police Procedural
Source:      I purchased my copy.

Dust jacket painting by Alan Dingman.

Books Read in May 2025

 

I read seven very good books in May. Six crime fiction books, including one spy fiction thriller, plus one science fiction novella. Looking back, I was surprised to see that five of the authors were new to me. 

Science Fiction

Exit Strategy (2018) by Martha Wells

This is the fourth entry in the Murderbot Diaries series. The main character, Murderbot, is partly robotic and partly human. This novella concludes a story arc concerning Murderbot and Dr. Mensah and her scientific research team. It would spoil too much to tell much about this story, so I will just say that I have enjoyed the first four books and intend to continue reading the series. I found each book a fun read because Murderbot is such a good narrator. This was the perfect time to read this book because the new Murderbot TV series premiered in May. See my review of the first book in the series, All Systems Red.

Crime Fiction

The Charm School (1988) by Nelson DeMille

This is the first book I have read by Nelson DeMille. It is a spy fiction novel set in the USSR, first published in 1988, not long before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. The copy I read, a trade paper reissue published in 2017, includes a very good introduction by the author. The most interesting thing about this novel for me was seeing a portrayal of political and diplomatic relations between Russia and the US at that time. The setting is primarily in Moscow. The Charm School is a secret facility that was training Russian operatives to infiltrate the US and live there as US citizens. If you like spy fiction, I would recommend trying this, even though it is 750 pages long. I enjoyed reading it very much.

Common or Garden Crime (1945) by Sheila Pim

This is a cozy mystery published in 1945 and set in 1943 in Ireland. Gardening is a central theme in the story.  I like the characters and the village setting, and the story was told with subtle humor. See my review.

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (2011) by Sara Gran

This was another very different mystery novel with a strange private detective. I read this book because it was compared to The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz, and there are similarities; for example, a detective who is driven and doesn't fit in with others. Claire DeWitt describes herself as the best detective in the world, and she is very expensive. She returns to New Orleans, where she was mentored by a rich female detective for several years, to attempt to find a man who disappeared at the same time as Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Everyone assumes he is dead, but his nephew wants to find out for sure. There are flashbacks to Claire's earlier years in New Orleans; a multitude of quotes from a French detective, Jacques Silette; and several strange dream sequences. I liked the setting of New Orleans, a couple of years after Katrina, showing how much the area was affected. I borrowed the book from my husband and he has the other two in the series, so I will read more of them.

Thursday Night Widows (2005) by Claudia Piñeiro

I was introduced to this book by author and blogger Margot Kinberg. This book by Argentinean novelist Claudia Piñeiro is set in a secluded elite community thirty miles outside of Buenos Aires, where only the wealthy are able to live. The crime that occurs is revealed in a limited way at the beginning of the book, then the story starts again from when the main characters buy into the neighborhood. The story is told from multiple viewpoints. One notable feature is that several chapters are told in 1st person plural, which combines the voices of multiple women who live in the community. That works well to convey certain information, but can be confusing, especially the first few times it is encountered. The relationships within the community begin to fall apart when the changing economy in the early 2000s affects people's jobs and income. This novel is focused on what leads up to the crime and not on who did it. Thursday Night Widows is an excellent book and I will be looking for more books by this author.

A Meditation on Murder (2024) by Susan Juby

This is the second book in the Helen Thorpe mystery series, following Mindful of Murder. The author is Canadian and the setting is British Columbia. The main character is a former Buddhist nun, currently working as a butler. Helen isn't really a sleuth, but more or less solves the crimes accidentally, and helps people out along the way. In this book she is working for a very rich couple who loan her out to an impossibly cranky rich man who needs help with his daughter, who has used her money to get involved with a group of social media influencers. Helen starts out knowing about as little about influencers and social media as I do. This is not a thriller by any stretch of the imagination, but tension is provided by the cutthroat behavior of the influencers and two murders of people associated with the influencers.

My favorite part of the book is the mindfulness theme. Helen is a very appealing character, who is (almost) never ruffled by anything. I was introduced to the series by Bill Selnes at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan.

Star of the North (2018) by D.B. John

This is a thriller that mostly takes place in North Korea. The story revolves around three characters: a Korean American woman whose sister went missing when she was spending her gap year in South Korea; a highly placed official in North Korea who goes to the US for a diplomatic mission; and an older peasant woman who is living and barely surviving in a North Korean penal colony. See my review.

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken at the Santa Barbara I Madonnari Street Painting Festival, which takes place every Memorial Day weekend. I plan to share more photos from the event in a future post. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

 

Common or Garden Crime: Sheila Pim

 

This is the perfect book for me. A beautiful skull on the cover, the theme related to gardening, published in 1945 and set in 1943 in Ireland. It is a very cozy mystery and I enjoyed it very much. I like the characters and the village setting, and the story was told with subtle humor.

On the cover of Rue Morgue Press edition that I have, the book is described as "An Irish village gardening mystery set during World War II."  A lot of the action in the book centers around a flower show that all the characters are involved with in some way. The setting is a village called Clonmeen, situated on the outskirts of Dublin. 

There is, of course, a murder... and the protagonist, Lucy Bex, is instrumental in finding the solution to the crime, but the mystery plot does not have as much prominence as in most mysteries. That did not bother me but it could be considered a negative for some.

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 this book the war is referred to as the Emergency and many items were restricted. Lucy's nephew was an officer in the British military and comes home to stay with Lucy when he is on leave. 

I mention that this is the first book in a series. Sheila Pim's four mystery novels are referred to as of the Irish Gardening Mystery series both on Fantastic Fiction and Goodreads, but it appears that each book really works as a standalone and the cast of characters is different in each. They mainly share the Irish setting and the theme of gardening.

I rediscovered this book (and others in the series) when I saw a post at Moira's Clothes in Books blog. I had seen reviews years before but it had slipped my mind. Moira's post sent me immediately to investigate how to get copies of the books. I bought the first three books in the Irish Gardening Mystery series before I even read the first one. (That might have been because of the skulls on the covers.) 

Other reviews for this book: 

• At Furrowed Middlebrow
• At Clothes in Books
• At Dead Yesterday
• At Happiness is a Book

Below is the cover of the first hardcover edition of Common or Garden Crime. It is lovely, and also features a skull.

The Spellman Files: Lisa Lutz

This book has been on my shelves for 13 years. Initially I avoided it because I thought it might be too humorous, but my tastes must have changed over time, because I was very happy with it.

It did not really feel like crime fiction though. It seemed like the first 2/3 of the book was about the background of the family. Isabel (also known as Izzy) Spellman tells the story, and she starts at the point when she was 12 years old. Her parents run a private investigation company out of their home, and the two kids began helping out with surveillance when David was 14 and Isabel was 12. Then when Isabel was 14, her mother has another child, a daughter named Rae, who also ends up working for the family business. Eventually the story catches up to the cases that they are working on currently, although there is a good bit of jumping back and forth in the timeline. It was a very strange mystery novel, but I enjoyed it very much.

Comparisons have been made to other series: the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich and the Claire DeWitt series by Sarah Gran. I read 9 or 10 of the Stephanie Plum series before I gave up on it. My husband has read 3 books in the Claire DeWitt series and I want to read those books too.

My thoughts:

• I like books about families, and the Spellman family is the ultimate dysfunctional family. As far as the crime goes, this book is lighter than most mysteries, but there is plenty of depth in the family relationships and issues.
• The characters were the best part of this book. But they also were infuriating, particularly Isobel.
• I liked the writing style and I found the book hard to put down. Later in the book, things get very suspenseful. Throughout, a lot of information is held back from the reader.
• I am committed to reading more in this series.

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Publisher:   Simon & Schuster, 2007
Length:       353 pages
Format:       Hardcover
Series:        Spellman Files, #1
Setting:       San Francisco, California
Genre:        Mystery
Source:       I purchased this book in 2012.

Short Story Wednesday: Three Witnesses by Rex Stout

 

In January I read "Die Like a Dog," a novella featuring Nero Wolfe. It was published in Three Witnesses in 1956. This month I read the other two novellas in that book.

It has been awhile since I read these two stories. I was pleased to find that they were both entertaining, with interesting premises. 

For a brief introduction to the series of books and novellas:

Nero Wolfe is an armchair detective, preferring to do all his detecting from home. He is a genius, a lover of orchids and fine food, 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. They live in a New York brownstone, where Nero Wolfe has his office.

"The Next Witness"

Nero Wolfe has been called by the prosecution as a witness in a murder trial. A man has been accused of murdering a switchboard operator who worked at a telephone answering service. While sitting in the courtroom waiting to be called and listening to the questioning of other witnesses, Wolfe decides that it is possible that the man is not guilty. He abruptly leaves the courtroom with Archie Goodwin, his secretary/assistant/investigator. This puts them both in contempt of court, so they have to avoid the police while pursuing an independent investigation. The steps they take in order to prove Wolfe's hypothesis are engaging and fruitful.

Nero Wolfe is well known for his extreme distaste for leaving his home. He is also afraid of riding in cars (or any other mode of transportation, actually). In this case, he spends all of his time away from home hiding from the police, either in the courtroom, interviewing witnesses, or staying in the apartment of one of his freelance operatives.

"When a Man Murders"

Carolyn Karnow's first husband, Sidney, was declared MIA a few months after the Army sent him to Korea.  After a few years she married Paul Aubry. Six months later, Sidney Karnow shows up in New York, which means that Carolyn and Paul are no longer legally married. They go to Nero Wolfe to ask him to intercede with Karnow to give Carolyn a divorce. Carolyn inherited a substantial amount of money from Sidney when he was declared dead; she plans to return as much of the money as she can if he will agree to a divorce.

Archie goes to Sidney Karnow's hotel to talk to him, but when Archie arrives at his room, he finds Karnow's dead body instead. Shortly after that, the police arrest Paul Aubry for the crime, and Wolfe and Archie are looking  around for the real culprit.

Scene of the Crime: Margot Kinberg

 

Scene of the Crime is the fifth novel in Margot Kinberg's Joel Williams series. The setting is academia; the protagonist is a college professor in Tilton University’s Department of Criminal Justice. Joel is not a policeman but he was in the past, and he has ties to the police department. Thus, the books are part academic mystery and part police procedural. I have read the four previous books in the series and this was another good one.

As this book opens, a waitress finds a body behind Maggie's Diner, a popular eatery near the campus. Coincidentally, Joel and his wife are going into the diner for brunch at the same time, and a group of students have been holding a protest in front of the diner.

In addition to Joel Williams, there are three distinct sets of characters: students at the university, people connected with the campaign to reelect State Representative Doug Kauffman, and the investigating team from the Tilton police.

Joel Williams is working on a study regarding alternative schools, specifically high schools for students who have had problems in standard high schools. Part of the study involves interviewing students who attended alternative high schools and then went on to college; several of the students involved in the death at the diner were part of his study.

Since Joel is a former policeman, he cannot help but be interested in a crime that occurs in the town of Tilton. The victim was in the study, and other students involved in the study are involved. Joel becomes more directly involved when one student approaches him because he fears that he is a suspect.

The solution was a surprise for me, but it made sense.

 

My thoughts:

The pacing is good and there are no dull spots. The plot is well thought out with plenty of possible suspects, but not so many characters that things get confusing.

The characters are fleshed out well. The two main detectives investigating the crime are professional and each has their own view of the situation; they work well together. I liked the mix of students that were described. Some of them were students from Joel’s study and had come to college from alternative high schools. Some were protesters who were unhappy about State Representative Kauffman and his stance on giving less funding to education and more to law and order. Most were working or dependent on scholarships or both.

The story does have a focus on politics and funding for education vs funding for police departments. Of course, Joel Williams has sympathy with both sides because he has worked in both areas. The issues are explored as they affect the various groups, but the book does not get preachy at any time. 

This story was a pleasure to read. It was never boring, and I was glad to hear more about Joel Williams. The books are not formulaic; each of the books has a different focus within an educational setting.

 

Also see the excellent review at FictionFan's Book Reviews.

Margot Kinberg has an interesting and informative blog where she shares information about mysteries, both vintage and contemporary. Please check out Margot’s blog.

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Publisher:  Grey Cells Press, 2024.
Length:      266 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Series:       Joel Williams #5
Setting:      Pennsylvania, USA
Genre:       Mystery
Source:      I purchased this book.

Fall from Grace: L.R. Wright

 

The Prologue opens in Spring 1980. Several friends are attending the high school graduation of Bobby Ransome, a young man who was graduating several years late due to problems in his earlier years. The second part of the prologue takes place ten years later, in the summer of 1990, when Bobby has returned from several years in prison for dealing drugs. Bobby joins his ex-wife, Wanda, and her family for dinner, much to the dismay of her current husband, Warren. Bobby's return has caused some excitement and some dismay around the small town of Sechelt. 

A few weeks later, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Karl Alberg is out sailing with his lover Cassandra when they see the body of a man on the beach. It turns out that he had fallen from a cliff above. The dead man was Steven Grayson, who grew up in Sechelt but has been living in Vancouver for the last ten years. 

The story is told from multiple perspectives (Karl Alberg's, Cassandra's, the various members of the community that are affected by the death and by Bobby's return). At the same time that Cassandra and Karl are continuing to figure out their relationship, one of Karl's daughters is visiting for the summer and working part-time for the local newspaper. And Karl is dealing with the fact that his ex-wife is getting married again.

My thoughts:

As usual, the characters in this story are very well-drawn. This is the fourth book in the Karl Alberg series and I have found most of the books to be more of a character study than a mystery. And I like them that way.

The setting and the atmosphere are lovely. Sechelt is a real-life seaside community on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, northwest of Vancouver. As described below...

   On the Sunshine Coast that year, summertime was long and hot and dusty, and the world smelled of raspberries and roses.

   For weeks the sky remained utterly clear, and the air was hot and still.

   The waters that lapped at the western shoreline were such a deep blue they looked as if they might stain the skin. The nearer islands near the Strait of Georgia were etched fine and clear, every tree and every rock sharp-edged; the islands somewhat farther away were soft dark shapes against the sky; the most distant islands were purple shadows in the far-reaching sea.

I continue to enjoy this series and I am surprised each time at the themes the author covers and the different approaches she takes to each novel.

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Felony & Mayhem, 2010. Orig. pub. 1991.
Length:  275 pages
Format:  Trade paperback
Series:   Karl Alberg #4 
Setting:  Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Canada
Genre:   Mystery, Police Procedural

Silent Parade: Keigo Higashino

 

This is my third book read for the Japanese Literature Challenge 18, hosted at Dolce Bellezza. Silent Parade is about two crimes, separated by about 20 years, which have connections. In both cases, young girls have been killed. The suspect is the same for both. This summary is from the Macmillan site:

A popular young girl disappears without a trace, her skeletal remains discovered three years later in the ashes of a burned out house. There’s a suspect and compelling circumstantial evidence of his guilt, but no concrete proof. When he isn’t indicted, he returns to mock the girl’s family. And this isn’t the first time he’s been suspected of the murder of a young girl, nearly twenty years ago he was tried and released due to lack of evidence. Detective Chief Inspector Kusanagi of the Homicide Division of the Tokyo Police worked both cases.

The neighborhood in which the murdered girl lived is famous for an annual street festival, featuring a parade with entries from around Tokyo and Japan. During the parade, the suspected killer dies unexpectedly. His death is suspiciously convenient but the people with all the best motives have rock solid alibis. DCI Kusanagi turns once again to his college friend, Physics professor and occasional police consultant Manabu Yukawa, known as Detective Galileo, to help solve the string of impossible-to-prove murders.

My Thoughts:

• My copy of the book was only 344 pages long but it seemed longer. I think that is because the plot is so complex; the story has several twists and turns, but the plot dragged at times. It was worth it in the end; the final solution was satisfying. 
• The book is full of very interesting characters, and many of them get fleshed out throughout the book. I felt like we got to know several of the police detectives, plus Manabu Yukawa (also playfully referred to as Detective Galileo, which he dislikes), better than in any of the previous books in the series. Plus many of the secondary characters related to the crimes (family members of the victim, friends of the family, etc.) are well defined also.
• I don't see these books as traditional mysteries like those written by Agatha Christie, but the author sprinkles references to Christie's books throughout the story. Also another vintage mystery author, John Dickson Carr.
• For once I saw how Manabu Yukawa puts his physics background to work. That also may have happened in the previous book in the series, A Midsummer's Equation, which is my favorite in the series so far. He did a few experiments in that book too.
• This book gives the reader a good look at the police procedures and legal limitations in Japan, versus in the US. 

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Minotaur Books, 2021 (orig. pub. 2018)
Translator:  Giles Murray 
Length:       344 pages
Format:       Hardcover
Series:        Detective Galileo
Setting:       Tokyo, Japan
Genre:        Police Procedural
Source:       Borrowed from my husband.

Books Read in January 2025

 

With the exception of one book, I was very happy with the books I read in January. I read two books for the Japanese Literary Challenge. I read several new-to-me authors and continued some series I had started earlier. 

Fiction

The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2012) by Hiro Arikawa
Translated by Philip Gabriel

This was the first book I read for the Japanese Literary Challenge. It is the story of a man and his cat, which he adopted after the cat was hit by a car. After they have lived together for five years, the man has to find a new home for the cat. They travel to various parts of Japan to visit with several of the man's old friends to see it they can take the cat in. See my review.

Anything Is Possible (2017) by Elizabeth Strout

This book, the second book in the Amgash series, consists of linked short stories. Some of the stories give more information about Lucy Barton and members of her family who still live in Amgash. Other stories are about other residents of Amgash, who are in some way connected to Lucy Barton. I liked it and am ready to start something else by Strout. See my review. 

Crime Fiction

Parting Breath (1978) by Catherine Aird 

Parting Breath is an academic mystery set in Catherine Aird's fictional county of Calleshire, England; it features Detective Inspector C.D. Sloan of the Berebury CID, and his assistant, Detective Constable Crosby. The first book of the series was published in 1966 and the 28th book in 2023. Catherine Aird is one of my favorite mystery writers, and I hope to read all the books in the series. See my review.

The Woman in Cabin 10 (2016) by Ruth Ware

I had not read any of Ware's books, I was curious, and I thought I would like a book about a woman on a cruise.  For most of the book I was not too impressed. There were no characters I cared about, and especially not the main character. But the end was very well done and kept me turning the pages, so I revised my overall opinion a bit.   

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (2023) by Alison Goodman

My husband and I were both interested in this book when it first came out; the setting in the Regency period was appealing. The story is a good blend of historical fiction, mystery, romance, and adventure, with the emphasis on adventure. Some of the scenes of life in Regency England, depicting the way the poor were treated and the mistreatment of women in general, are excruciating to read. Overall, I enjoyed the book and expect that I will read the sequel.

Thirteen Guests (1936) by J. Jefferson Farjeon

In mid-January, Neeru at A Hot Cup of Pleasure reviewed five books by J. Jefferson Farjeon. Her post motivated me to read one of Farjeon's books. I found that my husband had a copy of Thirteen Guests in his TBR stacks, so I started reading it. It is a country house mystery and I enjoyed it much more than I expected. I liked the characters and how the author developed them, and there was some romance that did not take over the story. And I especially liked the unusual ending.

Three Assassins (2004) by Kōtarō Isaka
Translated by Sam Malissa

This was the second book I read for the Japanese Literature Challenge. The author also wrote Bullet Train, and the two books are similar in many ways. The main character is Suzuki, who was formerly a schoolteacher but is working for a crime gang. Suzuki is seeking revenge for the murder of his wife by working undercover in the gang. See my review.

Currently reading

I am about a third of the way into Fall from Grace by L.R. Wright, published in 1991. It is the fourth book in a series starring Karl Alberg, a staff sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada. I am enjoying it very much.

In early February, my husband and I had jury duty. Although the trial we were called for was not being tried at the main courthouse, we did visit the beautiful Santa Barbara County Courthouse while we were there. My husband took some photos, and I am sharing two of them in this post. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Two Reviews: Japanese Literature Challenge

 

In this post I am reviewing two books for the Japanese Literature Challenge 18, hosted at Dolce Bellezza. It started in January and continues through February. This is a challenge I look forward to every year, to kickstart my reading of books by Japanese authors.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2012) by Hiro Arikawa
Translated by Philip Gabriel

This was the first book I read for the challenge because I have a second book by this author that I also want to read: The Goodbye Cat. It consists of short stories about cats and there is a connection between the two books.

A cat is adopted by a man, Satoru, after he takes the cat in when it is hit by a car. He names the cat Nana after a cat he had in his childhood, and they live together for five years. At that point, Satoru has to find a home for Nana, although no reason is given. They travel to various parts of Japan to visit with several of the man's old friends to see it they can take the cat in. 

For the most part, the story is narrated by the cat. I liked the cat's voice. I kept trying to figure out what my cat would sound like if she was telling a story. There are parts of the story that are not narrated by the cat. These are flashbacks to earlier events that help to fill out the story. Satoru's relationship with his aunt, who raised him after his parents died, is also explored. 

I enjoyed the book, I liked the cover and the title. The depiction of the cat is not cutesy. The cat can be snarky and sarcastic. It is a lovely story with an emotional and moving end. 

Three Assassins (2004) by Kōtarō Isaka
Translated by Sam Malissa

The second book I read for the Japanese Literature Challenge is very different. It is a fast paced thriller, the first in a series of four books set in Tokyo’s criminal underworld. The second book is Bullet Train, which I read first, because it was translated to English first, and I had seen the film adaptation of the same name. We enjoyed the film and have watched it several times. 

The first part of Three Assassins is very serious. Suzuki, formerly a schoolteacher, is working for a crime gang. The head man for this crime gang is Terahara, whose son killed Suzuki's wife by running her down in his car. It was deliberate, not an accident. The police will not follow up on the crime because of Terahara's connections, so Suzuki is seeking revenge on his own by working undercover in the gang. 

The other two main characters are assassins, The Whale and The Cicada. They each kill their victims in specific ways; the Whale convinces his victims to commit suicide and the Cicada kills with a knife and specializes in killing entire families. The third assassin enters the story later; he is the Pusher, and he pushes his victims in front of vehicles.

This sounds like a very grim book but it turns more into a more humorous story midway, with quirky and introspective characters; the behavior is often wacky and surprising. There are also elements of spirituality and the supernatural, especially in the Whale's experiences. So, all in all, it was a fascinating and unexpected story.

Parting Breath: Catherine Aird

Parting Breath is an academic mystery set in Catherine Aird's fictional county of Calleshire, England; it features Detective Inspector C.D. Sloan of the Berebury CID, and his assistant, Detective Constable Crosby.

The first sentence of the book is:

“The trouble with universities,” pronounced Professor Tomlin, “is the undergraduates.”

A protest by students is threatened because a student has been sent down (suspended or expelled?). The protesters plan to take over the Almstone Administration building for their sit-in.  After the sit-in begins, a dead body on the Quad of Tarsus College is reported. Inspector Sloan is assigned the case and DC Crosby accompanies him to the scene. The dead man is a student and his last words before dying were cryptic: "twenty six minutes". 

Soon after that, the porter locks down the administration building, so that the college and the police know where the students taking part in the sit-in are. This limits the suspects to students who ignored the strike or faculty or staff who were not locked into the building. But there are still a lot of suspects to sift through, and the investigation is very complex.

My thoughts:

• I enjoy the subtle humor in Catherine Aird's writing. There are jokes and sly comments about education and teaching undergraduates and getting along with the professors. 
• There is not a lot abut the personal lives of the policemen in the Sloan and Crosby series. But in this case, Inspector Sloan's wife is pregnant with their first child. Sloan assumes the child will be a boy, and mulls about which rugby position the child will play while he investigates. He also worries how it will be for a child to grow up as the child of a policeman. This shows the reader another side of Sloan. 
• The only negative element of this one is the complexity with so many characters it is hard to keep track. Other reviewers pointed out that the reader does not have enough information to solve the mystery; too many important clues show up too late. That did not matter to me. I enjoyed the academic setting and the characters very much.
• I have now read eight of the Sloan and Crosby series by Catherine Aird, and I can say that she is one of my favorite mystery writers. The first book of the series was published in 1966 and the 28th book in 2023. Some of the books in this series are more serious, although they all have elements of humor. I would put Henrietta Who? and A Late Phoenix in that category. The Stately Home Murder, on the other hand, is lighter and has some very funny moments.

I finished reading this book on January 1st. After I finished the book, I was doing some research and saw at Martin Edward's blog, Do You Write Under Your Own Name?, that Catherine Aird died on December 21, 2024 at age 94. See his remembrance post about her and his review of Parting Breath.

Curtis Evans of The Passing Tramp blog has also written a RIP post for Catherine Aird, with much information about her life and her writing.

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Publisher:   Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978 (orig. pub. 1977)
Length:      186 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Inspector Sloan #7
Setting:      UK
Genre:       Police procedural
Source:      On my TBR shelves since 2010.

Short Story Wednesday: "Die Like a Dog" by Rex Stout

I am continuing my reread of Rex Stout's novellas. "Die Like a Dog" is a 66-page novella in the Nero Wolfe series. It is one of three stories in Three Witnesses, published in 1957. 

I have featured some of my favorite novellas by Stout in previous posts in the last year. However, this story might be my absolute favorite of Nero Wolfe stories in shorter format.

It is unusual because it has a dog as a prominent character. Archie walks in the rain to a man's apartment to return a raincoat that the man had left at Wolfe's brownstone. What had happened is that the man had an argument with Wolfe, stormed out of Wolfe's office, and grabbed Archie's raincoat instead of his own. Archie wants his raincoat back.

When Archie gets to the apartment building, he sees a crowd around the building and some police cars in front of the building. He also sees Sgt. Purley Stebbins walking into the building. Stebbins is in the homicide department, working under Captain Cramer. Both Stebbins and Cramer are suspicious whenever Archie shows up near a murder. Archie knows that if Stebbins sees him, he will assume that Nero Wolfe is somehow mixed up in whatever crime has taken place, so he turns around and leaves. There is a dog outside the building, wandering around, looking lost. The dog follows Archie back to Nero Wolfe's brownstone, where Archie lives with Wolfe, Fritz the cook, and Theodore the horticulture expert. Archie takes the dog into the house, planning to call the ASPCA to come and get him. However, it turns out that there was dead body in the building and the police want to use the dog as a sort of witness.

In the rest of the story, Captain Cramer and Nero Wolfe spar about how involved Wolfe is in the case, and whether Wolfe has to turn the dog over to the police. Wolfe and Fritz have developed a definite affection for the dog.

Archie does some legwork investigating leads for Wolfe, even though the dog and Archie's missing raincoat is truly their only connection to the murder. It is a fun story, especially for a fan of the Nero Wolfe series. 

As usual, Archie Goodwin narrates the story. This story has a very good depiction of Archie's relationship with Wolfe.

The other two novellas in Three Witnesses are "When a Man Murders..." and "The Next Witness."  

Mom Meets Her Maker: James Yaffe

 

I read My Mother, the Detective, a collection of the Dave and Mom stories by James Yaffe in 2019. The stories were first published in the 1950s and 60s in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In each story, Dave, a detective in the New York Homicide Squad, and his wife Shirley visit his mother and they discuss one of his cases over dinner. Mom asks some pertinent questions and solves the case; Dave is afraid that his coworkers are going to find out that his success rate with cases is due to his mother's help. 

Between 1988 and 1992, Yaffe wrote four mystery novels about Dave and his Mom. Mom Meets Her Maker is the 2nd of the four novels. The book is set at Christmas, and it was the perfect read for me at this time of year. 

Dave is now a widower, and he has moved to the small town of Mesa Grande, Colorado. Dave is no longer a police office; he is now an investigator for the Public Defender's office. The current case that he is working on relates to a serious dispute between neighbors. An older Jewish couple, the Meyers, have retired to Mesa Grande. Their son, Roger, has a dispute with the next door neighbor, Reverend Chuck Candy, who has put up a massive display of Christmas decorations, including lights and music which stay on until 2:00 a.m. in the morning. When he and the Reverend are tussling over a gun that the Reverend pulls out, the gun is fired, and Roger ends up charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Of course, as the case is investigated, the situation escalates and there is a death, which is also blamed on Roger.

In this novel, Dave does a lot of the legwork, following up on clues and interviewing witnesses. His mother functions more as an armchair detective, as she asks him to find out the answers to questions she has, and helps solve the crime. 

My thoughts:

• So, how did I like Dave and Mom in a full length novel? I found the novel very entertaining, and the characters a lot of fun. Some of the characters (good and bad and in-between) are over the top, but they worked for me.
• Like the short stories, Dave narrates most of the novel. I enjoy the way he tells the story, with subtle humor.
• Many mystery novels that are set at Christmas are only tangentially involved with Christmas. This one is immersed in Christmas. 
• The mystery puzzle is good and there are surprises at the end. I also enjoyed a chapter at the end, "After Christmas," where Dave tells us what happened after the crime is solved and where various characters ended up.

A post at the blog, Beneath the Stains of Time, reminded me of this book. The post is also worth a read because it recommends other good Christmas mysteries. Also see TomCat's review of the book. He says: "A better Ellery Queen-style Christmas mystery than Ellery Queen's The Finishing Stroke (1958)."  (I haven't read that one yet, but I do have a copy.) And I just ordered copies of the other three Dave and Mom mysteries. 

Alias Emma: Ava Glass

Alias Emma is the first book in a relatively new spy fiction series. Emma Makepeace has always wanted to be a spy. Her father who died before she was born was a spy, and she idolizes him. She gets her wish when she enters the military and catches the attention of the leader of a department in the Secret Service. After some training exercises, Emma is given an important assignment to bring Michael Primalova, the son of Russian dissidents, across London to a safehouse, so that he and his parents can be put in protective custody. 

Michael is a doctor, a pediatric oncologist, and initially he is reluctant to go with her and leave his patients behind. But he soon sees how much danger he is in from assassins who want to kill him. The biggest problem they face is that the Russians have hacked the CCTV cameras in London and any actions that Emma and Michael take will be known to them. 

My thoughts...

The story alternates between the action (getting Michael to the safehouse) and flashbacks to Emma's life before spying, her training, and how she became a spy. This isn't good or bad, but it does mean that — in a book of 269 pages — the actual spying part is thin. The background information is not padding, it is useful and necessary to give us more information about the characters. It will be interesting to see if the next book in the series is structured in a similar way.

Emma is a strong female protagonist, very serious about her job and learning her way as she goes. Some reviews or blurbs compare Emma to James Bond; I don't consider this a compliment. It isn't that I don't like the James Bond books by Ian Fleming; I have read most of the books, some in my youth and several since I started blogging. The original Bond series is really a mixed bag; some of the books are serious, others seem like comedies. 

This is a fine beginning to an espionage series, and two more books have already been published. I was entertained the whole time, and the pacing is very good. My only real quibble was that there was too much of a romantic vibe. The story doesn't go overboard in that direction, but even the hint of it did not add anything to the story in my opinion.

This book was recommended to me by Constance at Staircase Wit. See her review for more details, especially about the author.

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Publisher:   Bantam Books, New York, 2023 (orig. publ. 2022)
Length:      269 pages 
Format:      Trade Paper
Series:       Alias Emma #1
Setting:      UK
Genre:       Espionage Thriller
Source:      Purchased in November 2023.