Mysteries in June and Pick of the Month

My total number of mysteries read this month was down drastically from the previous month.  I  finished only four mysteries, although I  also read two mystery reference books. Not sure why my reading was down, I enjoyed all the books. Work was intensive and demanding; maybe I came home with less energy and little desire to use my brain.

The mystery reference books were: Whodunit? A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing by Rosemary Herbert and Hatchards Crime Companion, edited by Susan Moody.

The mysteries I read this month were:

1. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 
2. An Empty Death by Laura Wilson 
3. Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout 
4. The Information Officer by Mark Mills 

The Crime Fiction Pick of the Month meme is hosted at Mysteries in Paradise. Kerrie encourages bloggers to link summary posts for the month, and identify a crime fiction best read of the month. My problem this month is that I liked all of the crime fiction reads. It is difficult to pick one to recommend as the most outstanding book. 

An Empty Death and The Information Officer are both historical novels set in World War II. Murder on the Orient Express was published in the same year as Fer-de-Lance. So all of my mystery reading for the month was set during or prior to World War II. Refer to my reviews to see why I like them so much.


I have not reviewed The Information Officer by Mark Mills yet so I will give a brief overview. The story is set on the island of Malta during World War II. The island is under siege and all its inhabitants are threatened day and night with bombing raids. The protagonist is in charge of reporting on the events of the war on Malta and controlling and influencing the morale of the islanders. I liked how the book blends history and a whodunit.

 

Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout is my favorite mystery book ever, so by rights it should be my pick. This is the first book in the Nero Wolfe series, narrated by my favorite mystery character, Archie Goodwin. The story is complex and entertaining.

June Quarterly Checkpoint for Mt. TBR Challenge

This quarter I have read sixteen books that count toward the 2012 Mt. TBR Reading Challenge. Combining that with the six books read for this challenge in March (I started late), I have completed a total of twenty two books.

Since my goal is 25 books from my TBR stacks, I am feeling confident that I will reach my goal. This year I had already set a personal goal to read more books from my stacks and buy less, before I saw this challenge and decided to join. But I say that every year. I firmly believe participating in the challenge has made a difference. I could increase my goal to 40 or 50 books. We will see.

Books I have read (with links to reviews):

1. Second Violin by John Lawton
2. The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo 
3. Dying Light by Stuart MacBride
4. A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd
5. The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep by Lawrence Block
6. Cop Hater by Ed McBain
7. In the Woods by Tana French
8. A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
9. Political Suicide by Robert Barnard
10. The Guards by Ken Bruen 
11. The Light of Day by Eric Ambler 
12. A Fall from Grace by Robert Barnard 
13. Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street by William S. Baring-Gould 
14. Spy Hook by Len Deighton 
15. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 
16. An Empty Death by Laura Wilson 

Of these book, the one that featured my favorite character is Spy Hook, part of a nine book series by Len Deighton. The character is Bernard Samson, an intelligence officer in the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He is the narrator of the story. I enjoy Bernard Samson's company almost as much as Archie Goodwin, the first person narrator of the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout. And that is high praise.

I am doing pretty well with this challenge. One challenge I am not so successful with is the New Authors challenge. The goal is to read authors that are new to me. Four of these authors are new to me: Jo Nesbo, Ed McBain, Tana French, Ken Bruen. I am reading another new author now: Mark Mills.  And I need to read 15 new authors before the end of the year. I guess I am on track if I can read five new authors in each quarter.

F is for Fer-de-Lance

Rex Stout wrote 33 novels and 41 novellas about the private detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin. The novellas are published in 14 books; each book has two, three or four novellas.  The books are narrated by Archie. The series began in 1934 and the last book in the series, A Family Affair, was published in 1975, shortly before Stout's death. Over the forty plus years this series was published, the protagonists did not age at all, but they were always placed within the context of the time that the book was written. 

I am featuring Fer-de-Lance, the first book in the series, in the Crime Fiction Alphabet for 2012.  Please visit the post at Mysteries in Paradise to check out other entries for the letter F.

I have read all of the mysteries that Rex Stout wrote, and I have read all of the books in the Nero Wolfe series multiple times. Obviously, I am a confirmed fan. Recently I read Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street: The Life and Times of America's Largest Private Detective, a fictional biography of Rex Stout's detective character Nero Wolfe.

So much has been written about Rex Stout and the Nero Wolfe series. I will concentrate on what I like about this book in particular and his writing in general.

Archie is my all-time favorite fictional character. Jacques Barzun, in A Birthday Tribute to Rex Stout, says:

If he had done nothing more than to create Archie Goodwin, Rex Stout would deserve the gratitude of whatever assessors watch over the prosperity of American literature. For surely Archie is one of the folk heroes in which the modern American temper can see itself transfigured.

I consider Fer-de-Lance to be an example of the best of Rex Stout's plotting. His books have been criticized for poor plotting. I have never noticed that, but then I am usually paying more attention to the relationship between Wolfe and Archie and the clients are always interesting. I read the books more to join into the Wolfe household for a few hours than for the mystery.

Fer-de-Lance was not Wolfe's first book, but it was his first mystery. It amazes me that it was so well done. The story is complex and entertaining. From the beginning, he had the relationships of Wolfe and Archie developed. The other characters (the client, the acquaintances and relatives of the victim) are all well developed.

The books are full of great quotes, I will select just one from this book, a comment from Wolfe to Archie:

I understand the technique of eccentricity; it would be futile for a man to labor at establishing a reputation for oddity if he were ready at the slightest provocation to revert to normal action.

I like that the Nero Wolfe series is really about a family. Archie is Wolfe's employee, and he is definitely his own man. Wolfe is in his fifties; Archie is in his early thirties. They disagree on a lot. But both of them look out for each other and will go to great lengths to help when the other is in trouble.  Throughout the series, the same group of characters inhabit the brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street: Wolfe and Archie; Fritz, the cook; Theodore Horstmann, the orchid expert (Wolfe has plant rooms on the top floor of the brownstone). All of them depend on Wolfe's talents as a detective to support the household. Archie is often the one who has to goad Wolfe into taking on a case.

There is also an established group of operatives that work with Archie and Wolfe when cases demand more manpower: Fred Durkin, Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather.  They each have their strengths and idiosyncrasies.  This is not true so much in Fer-de-Lance. But even at this point, Fred Durkin has been working with Wolfe long enough to ask him for a favor, and Fritz and Theodore's quirks are evident.

These are my favorite Nero Wolfe novels (other than Fer-de-Lance):

1938: Too Many Cooks
1939: Some Buried Caesar
1940: Over My Dead Body
1946: The Silent Speaker
1958: Champagne for One
1962: Gambit
1963: The Mother Hunt
1968: The Father Hunt

I also like the trilogy in the omnibus Triple Zeck, which includes And Be a Villain (1948), The Second Confession (1949) and In the Best Families (1950). These all feature Wolfe's dealings with the crime boss, Arnold Zeck.

Book Beginnings: The Coming of the Third Reich

Today, I have a submission for Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader.

The guidelines of the meme are: Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Don't forget to include the title and author of the book.

The first sentences in my book are

Is it wrong to begin with Bismarck? On several levels, he was a key figure in the coming of the Third Reich.

An interesting beginning. The reason that I am reading this book is because I know so little about the history of Germany and I am very interested in  Germany during World War II and how Hitler came to power. Thus, I don't know the answer to the question asked at the beginning of the book, but it works fine for me.

The book I am reading is The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans.

This is a very long book, and I am a slow reader, especially non-fiction that is dense with information and ideas. It is going to take me a while to get through this one.

Check out the other posts for book beginnings at Rose City Reader.

E is for An Empty Death

An Empty Death by Laura Wilson is the second novel in a mystery series set in World War II London, and in the years following the war.

I enjoyed the first book in the series, The Innocent Spy (published as Stratton's War in the UK), but An Empty Death went beyond that one in characterization, plotting, and pacing. Both novels give a vivid picture of the wartime years in Great Britain, and how the war affected family life in particular. This one, set in 1944 after several years at war, focuses on the deprivation that was experienced during those years. There was very low availability of food and basic goods like cloth for clothing, razor blades for shaving, etc.

I don't want to imply that this is a book to read mainly for the World War II setting (which I have been known to do). This novel also provides a very good mystery. You think you know what is going on, and then it surprises you. The pacing in this novel really picks up at the half way point. And it leads to several unexpected events and twists in the plot. The characters are interesting and believable.

I have read reviews that quibble with the believability (or accuracy) of some of the major plot points, and they may be right. For me, I was so focused on the characters and the mystery that it never occurred to me to worry about whether these things could really happen. One character takes on various occupations and fools others into believing he has the background and credentials. I had no problem believing that he could be successful at this. Maybe I watch too many TV mysteries.

There are two later books in the Ted Stratton series, and those are both set in the postwar years. To my knowledge, they have not yet been published in the US. At Petrona, there is an overview of the series, and mention of three other authors of similar works (two very new to me).

Laura Wilson has written eleven novels, many of them being historical mysteries. The Lover, published in 2004, is based on an actual serial killer in London during World War II, called the "Blackout Ripper." I plan to seek out several of her earlier novels also. There are summaries of all of Laura Wilson's novels and excerpts at her website.

The author and her dog, Freeway

This post is my contribution to the Crime Fiction Alphabet community meme for this week. Please visit the post at Mysteries in Paradise to check out other entries for the letter E.

Book Beginnings: An Empty Death

Today, I have a submission for  Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader.

I enjoy participating because it forces me to stop and think about the book, why I like it (or not). And then I check out other posts and get some ideas for other types of books I may want to read. I tend to stay in the mystery genre, and it is good to consider other options.

The guidelines of the meme are: Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Don't forget to include the title and author of the book.

Visit the post at Rose City Reader and view the other links and get a glimpse of books you may not be familiar with.

The first lines of my book:

June 1944, Fitzrovia: The night was bright – a bombers’ moon – but the planes were far away. The other side of London, the man thought. He glanced round the rubble-strewn site.

Right away I am drawn into the story. Mainly because I am hooked on historical mysteries with this setting: World War II and London. This is one of my favorite time periods and places to explore in my reading. I will always give this type of novel a shot.

The book I am reading is An Empty Death by Laura Wilson.

I have read the previous book in this series, The Innocent Spy (published as Stratton's War in the U.K.),  and I found it a very good read.