Books Read in December 2023

 

 

December was a very good reading month. I had planned to read Winter Solstice to coincide with the solstice, and I finished two days before Winter solstice, on December 19th. The remainder of my books were mysteries: two with espionage elements, one Christmas mystery, the most recent Thursday Murder Club mystery, and a book of Miss Marple short stories by Agatha Christie.

Fiction

Winter Solstice (2000) by Rosamunde Pilcher

Elfrida Phipps, once an actress on the London stage, 62 years old, has been living in Dipton in Hampshire, England. She has become friends with Gloria and Oscar Blundell and their 12-year-old daughter. Oscar's wife and child are killed in an automobile accident. Oscar asks Elfrida to help him move to Creagan, Scotland where he owns half of an Estate House which used to belong to his grandmother. Mainly set in Scotland in the two months leading up to Christmas, this is a lovely story of friends and family.  See my review.

Crime Fiction

The Last Devil to Die (2023) by Richard Osman

Book 4 in the Thursday Murder Club series. Two men and two women in their seventies or eighties have formed a club called the Thursday Murder Club. They started out investigating cold cases, but now they investigate current crimes whenever they get the chance. In this case, an antique dealer has been killed. He was a friend of Elizabeth's husband Stephen, and the foursome feel they have to solve the crime. Their friends in the police discourage them, but they persist. Joyce takes on a bigger role in this case. This is a wonderful series; I will continue to read these books as long as the author writes them.

Missionary Stew (1983) by Ross Thomas

I loved this book; it is only the third book I have read by this author. I would call it a political thriller but it has a bit of espionage too. All the characters in this book are very strange; that is often true in fiction about politics or espionage. The two protagonists had unusual childhoods, one with a father who was jailed for being a Communist, the other having been basically ignored by his mother, an intelligence operative in France during World War II. The mother is a real piece of work. And one of the prominent secondary characters is named Velveeta Keats. I want to read all the rest of his books, and fortunately I have ten of them on my shelves. 

The Paris Diversion (2018) by Chris Pavone

I have read Pavone's first three books and enjoyed them. The Paris Diversion is an espionage thriller which begins with a terror attack on Paris. It is the second book featuring Kate Moore and her husband Dexter. The first book was The Expats. If you enjoy fast-paced thrillers you might like this.

Who Killed the Curate? (1944) by Joan Coggin

This is a vintage Christmas mystery, a humorous mystery, of the screwball comedy type, I guess. It was first reprinted by Rue Morgue Press in 2001, and more recently reissued by Galileo Publishers in the UK. The main character is Lady Lupin, who is now married to a vicar and living in a small village. She doesn't fit in at all; she is too scatterbrained and doesn't have any idea of how to be a vicar's wife, but she is so well-meaning that no one minds too much. And she and her husband are madly in love, which is very refreshing. It is set at Christmas which is why I had saved it to read in December. I enjoyed it, but I only recommend it to readers who like a lot of humor in their mysteries.

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories (1985) by Agatha Christie

This collection is comprised of 20 short stories by Christie, all starring Miss Marple, the amateur sleuth who lives in a small village in the UK and uses her observations of the people she knows in St Mary Mead to solve crimes. The first thirteen short stories were published in book form in The Thirteen Problems in 1932 (aka The Tuesday Club Murders). The others were published in three other collections of Christie's stories, mixed in with stories about other sleuths. I reviewed some stories from this collection in June, in September, and this month.

End of Year notes

I read 90 books in 2023. The longest book I read was 823 pages:  Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. The average number of pages for the books I read was 295. 

Of the 90 books I read, 60 books were from my TBR pile (purchased prior to 2023), which surpassed my goal of 48 books. I will continue to aim at 48 books from my TBR in 2024. 

I read more espionage books in 2023. Of the 65 mysteries I read, ten were espionage novels. One of my nonfiction books was about espionage in World War II, Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre. Espionage fiction is my go to comfort reading. That may sound strange because so often those books are fast-paced thrillers. I do love those too, but several espionage books I read this year were slow-paced thoughtful books.

I was surprised that I read 12 nonfiction books. Several were books about books, one was graphic nonfiction, and two were biographies of the Mitford sisters. 

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken at the Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden, a small park in Santa Barbara. One of our favorite places to visit, it is near downtown and covers only one city block, but has lots of paths to walk around on. The large aloe plant with orange flowers at the top was blooming in January 2023, and I have seen many such plants all over the Santa Barbara / Goleta area in December and January.

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

My Mystery Books from the 2023 Book Sale

 

From September 15th through September 24th this year, we visited the Planned Parenthood Book Sale five times. Here I have listed ten of the crime fiction books that I purchased at the sale. There were some older books, some newish books.

The House on the Strand (1969) by Daphne de Maurier

I had been looking for books by Daphne de Maurier at the book sale, and my son volunteered to help. He did not have any luck either until he found one in the Science Fiction and Fantasy area. We were both surprised. It turns out this is a time travel book of sorts, so of course I had to try it. Almost 300 pages; I think it will be a good read.

The English Teacher (2013) by Yiftach Reicher Atir

I bought this book because it is spy fiction and the protagonist is a female Mossad agent. Otherwise, I know nothing more about it. The author drew on his own experiences to write the book. It was translated from the Hebrew by Philip Simpson.

Tangerine (2018) by Christine Mangan

I bought this because it is set in Morocco and it is a mystery / thriller. I don't know much about Morocco at all. BookerTalk has reviewed this book. Based on her thoughts on the book I may be disappointed, but it won't hurt to give it a try.

A World of Curiosities (2022) by Louise Penny

I bought this book because I plan to read all the books in this series. And because it was a very good price for a newer hardback, although I usually don't pay $6.00 for books at the book sale. I have read 11 of the books, and this is the 18th. It will take me a while to get to this one.

The Outcast Dead (2014) by Elly Griffiths

This is another series I am working my way through. This is the 6th book of a 15 book series, so it is up in the air whether I will read all of the books in the series or not.

Bitter Wash Road (2013) by Garry Disher

Garry Disher is a prolific Australian author; I think most of his novels are mysteries. I have read one book from his Peninsula Crimes police procedural series, The Dragon Man. His first series stars a thief, Wyatt; two years ago I was lucky to find the first four in that series at the 2021 book sale. I still haven't tried any of those. And this year I found the first book in his most recent series starring Paul Hirschhausen, Bitter Wash Road. 

Brighton Rock (1938) by Graham Greene

I haven't read much by Graham Greene so I was happy to find this old hardback edition of Brighton Rock with the dust jacket mostly intact. The protagonist is Pinkie, a gang leader who has murdered a journalist and thinks he can get away with it. The book goes beyond a thriller to explore moral issues. 

Anatomy of a Murder (1958) by Robert Traver

I have a paperback copy of this book and had wanted to read it for years, but it has the tiniest print I have ever seen. So I was thrilled to find this copy at the book sale. 

This is from the prologue:

"This is the story of a murder, of a murder trial, and of some of the people who engaged or became enmeshed in the proceedings. Enmeshed is a good word, for murder, of all crimes, seems to posses to a greater degree than any other that compelling magnetic quality that draws people helplessly into its outspreading net, frequently to their surprise, and occasionally to their horror."

Missionary Stew (1983) by Ross Thomas

I have enjoyed the Ross Thomas books I have read, which were espionage books. Not all of his books are in that genre, but I think this one has at least a tinge of it.

This is part of a review in the October 16, 1983 Washington Post by Stephen King:

"In a country that chooses to canonize a few of its many fine comic novelists and ignore the rest, Ross Thomas is something of a secret. Missionary Stew is Thomas's 19th novel (five of them were issued under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck), but the people who know and relish the work of Ishmael Reed, Don DeLillo, and Peter DeVries do not know the work of Ross Thomas, and that seems a great shame. Perhaps Missionary Stew, certainly the best of the Thomas novels I've read, will help to rectify that situation. It is funny, cynical, and altogether delicious. If buying a novel is, as a friend of mine once said, always a speculative investment for the reader, then take it from me--this one is a blue-chip stock. Baby, you can't go wrong."

Strangers in Town: Three Newly Discovered Mysteries by Ross Macdonald, edited by Tom Nolan

From the dust jacket of the book: 

"In an important literary discovery, Macdonald biographer, Tom Nolan, unearthed three previously unpublished private-eye stories by Ross Macdonald. 'Death by Water,' written in 1945, features Macdonald's first detective Joe Rogers, and two novelettes from 1950 and 1955, 'Strangers in Town' and 'The Angry Man,' are detailed cases of Lew Archer."

This was my most expensive purchase at the book sale. The book was published by Crippen & Landru in 2001. It is in excellent condition and includes an additional small booklet with a piece written by Macdonald titled 'Winnipeg, 1929.' Ross Macdonald is a pseudonym of Kenneth Millar; he was brought up in Canada and met his wife Margaret Millar there.

Books of 1967: Cast a Yellow Shadow by Ross Thomas

I love spy fiction and have been planning on reading more books by Ross Thomas, so I jumped at the chance to read this for the Past Offences Crime Fiction of the Year Challenge for 1967. Here is the #1967book sign-up page.

In Cast a Yellow Shadow, Mac McCorkle has settled in Washington, D.C. with his new wife, Fredl. They met in Germany where he and his friend Mike Padillo owned a bar. Before McCorkle left Germany, Padillo disappeared and was presumed dead; now he has re-appeared and brought trouble with him.

McCorkle learns about his friend Padillo's reappearance from Hardman, described here:

He was far up in the Negro numbers hierarchy, ran a thriving bookie operation, and had a crew of boosters out lifting whatever they fancied from the city's better department stores and specialty shops. He wore three- or four-hundred dollar suits and eighty-five dollar shoes and drove around town in a bronze Cadillac convertible talking to friends and acquaintances over his radio-telephone. He was a folk hero to the Negro youth in Washington and the police let him alone most of the time because he wasn't too greedy and paid his dues where it counted.

Hardman starts to tell him about Padillo. This is by far my favorite quote from the book, because it is so true:

"Well, I got me a little business over in Baltimore." He paused. I waited. I prepared for a long wait. Hardman was from Alabama or Mississippi or Georgia or one of those states where they all talk alike and where it takes a long weekend to get to the point.

I don't know if everyone in the South has that problem, but everyone in my family does.

This book is the 2nd in a short series of four books featuring this pair. Padillo at one time was a spy working for the US. A group of politicians from a South African nation want Padillo to carry out an assassination for them. When he refuses, they use the kidnapping of McCorkle's wife as leverage.

McCorkle narrates the novel. Here we have a man who may never see his wife again, and we can feel his despair while he tries to plan for a way to save her life. Yet still the novel remains light, not depressing. Padillo brings in a motley group of agents to help in the rescue effort and of course there are the usual twists and turns and double crosses.

We sat there in our stocking feet in the fancy apartment in the northwest section of Washington, D.C., the Negro, the Spanish-Estonian, the Pole, the Englishman, and the Scotch-Irish saloon-keeper, waiting for the Syrian-Hungarian woman to arrive. We sat there and drank the coffee in silence for fifteen minutes before the door chimes rang again.

McCorkle and Padillo are likable characters. McCorkle just wants to settle down. Padillo seems to want to leave the spying business but others keep pulling him back in. The pacing is good, which helps to make the implausible story seem possible.

The Cold War Swap (1966), the first in the series, won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. That book and this one are the only Ross Thomas books I have read, so cannot testify to his skills throughout all of his books, but I have quite a few more to try. He wrote espionage fiction and political thrillers and  was the inaugural winner of the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002 (posthumously). He won a second Edgar for Best Novel in 1985 for Briarpatch.

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Publisher:   Mysterious Press, 1987 (orig. pub. 1967)
Length:       266 pages
Format:       Paperback
Series:        Mac McCorkle, #2
Setting:       Washington, D.C.
Genre:        Spy fiction
Source:       Purchased at Planned Parenthood book sale, 2007.