Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times No. 11

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme, hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.

This week I am looking at a section of (mostly) unread books from the built-in bookshelf. I will focus on a few of them that are first in series for authors that I have never read. If you click on the image of the shelf, you will be able to read more of the titles.

Case for Three Detectives (1936) by Leo Bruce is the first book in the Sergeant Beef series. On my shelf since 2012. 

Of the four books I am featuring, this is the one I know the most about. The book is a parody of the Golden Age mystery, and the three detectives in the title are versions of Hercule Poirot, Peter Wimsey, and Father Brown. I have probably avoided reading this because in the past I haven't enjoyed mystery mixed with comedy, but my tastes are changing and I should give it a try.

Check out the review at crossexamingcrime.


Death Angels is the first of a series of police procedurals by Åke Edwardson, featuring Chief Inspector Erik Winter. On my shelf since 2013.

Published in 1997, the setting is Sweden. I bought this book when I was acquiring a lot of Scandinavian mysteries, and I don't know why I let it sit so long.

See the review at Internation Noir Fiction.


A Carrion Death (2008) by Michael Stanley introduces Assistant Superintendent David Bengu of the Botswana Police Department. On my shelf since 2009.

He is known as Kubu due to his size, comparing him to a hippopotamus. Michael Stanley is a pseudonym used by South Africans Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. I haven't read many mysteries set in Africa. 

This has been reviewed at MURDER by TYPE.



Wife of the Gods (2009) by Kwei Quartey is the first book in a series set in Ghana. On my shelf since 2011. 

As with A Carrion Death, I think I would enjoy reading this book to get more familiar with different parts of Africa. This series currently has five books and the author has started a new series starring a female private detective, Emma Djan. The first book in that series is The Missing American.

From the Publisher's Weekly review:

The murder of a young med student brings Det. Insp. Darko Dawson from his police department in Ghana’s capital, Accra, to the small town of Ketanu, where some dark secrets of his own lie buried.

Fearless Jones: Walter Mosley

The star of this book (and the narrator) is Paris Minton, but there would not be much of a story without his friend Fearless Jones. They are a case of opposites attracting; Paris is the brains and Fearless is the brawn (and in some cases, the conscience). The story takes place in Watts in 1954.

Description from the back of my book:

Bookshop owner Paris Minton is minding his own business when a brief encounter with a beautiful stranger gets him beaten, shot at, robbed, and then burned out of the store and home. Paris needs help but his secret weapon–brave, reckless WWII hero Fearless Jones–is in jail. Vowing to dish out some heavy justice, Paris plots to get Jones back on the street. But when these two men come together, they'll find themselves trapped in a bewildering vortex of sex, money, and murder–and a dicey endgame that's littered with dangerous players...

I love Paris Minton. I admire him because he has worked hard (and creatively) to own a bookstore and support himself, but I love him because he loves books.

Business [in the bookstore] wasn't brisk, but it paid the rent and utilities. And all day long I could do the thing I loved best–reading. I read Up from Slavery, Tom Sawyer Abroad, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Mein Kampf, and dozens of other titles in the first few months. Whole days I spent in my reclining swivel chair, turning pages and drinking Royal Crown colas.

Fearless Jones, his friend, is very big, a brawny guy, with anger management problems.

Fearless Jones. Tall and slender, darker than most Negroes in the American melting pot, he was stronger than tempered steel and an army-trained killing machine.

... and ...

Fearless was the kind of person who attracted trouble. He didn't know how to look away or back down. He couldn't even spell the word compromise. Whenever he called me, I didn't know if we were going to get drunk at a party or get jumped down some dark alley. 

In Fearless Jones, Paris Minton's life is disrupted by a beautiful woman in trouble. As a result of getting involved with her, his book store is burned down. Paris doesn't want to go looking for trouble, but he does want his store back. He needs Fearless Jones, so he gets him out of jail. There are a lot of characters, mostly bad guys. There is a crooked cop and there are good cops, but mostly it is up to Paris and Fearless to take care of themselves.

In my review of A Red Death, the second book in the Easy Rawlins series, I noted that I found the book dark, gritty, and violent, to an extent that it lessened my enjoyment of the book. This book also has those elements. But with all the crime and violence, I still enjoyed reading about Paris and Fearless. I think it is their friendship and loyalty to each other that I like.

As in A Red Death, there is an emphasis on the sympathy of blacks with Jewish people and vice versa, since both have suffered from prejudice and suppression. This book is set in 1954, so the effects and events of World War II are still on people's minds.

When I was about halfway through this book, I was thinking that I preferred the Easy Rawlings series more (I have only read two of those).  Then when I finished Fearless Jones, I decided I liked this one better. I guess that both series have their strong points and it is good that they are different.

I don't want to go too overboard in praising this book, because I think the plot is too fragmented. Like real life. The type of plot that has no happy ending. But I was focused on characters, not plot, and all I wanted was for Paris to get his book store back so it all worked for me.


 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Vision, 2002 (orig. pub. 2001)
Length:       337 pages
Format:      Paperback
Series:       Fearless Jones #1
Setting:      Los Angeles, CA
Genre:       Historical fiction / Mystery
Source:      On my TBR pile since 2013.

Venture Forth: 2020 Summer Reading Program

I am joining in on the Venture Forth 2020 Summer Reading Program described by Carl Anderson at Stainless Steel Droppings.

From Carl's post:

Do you recall Summer Reading programs that were assigned by your school for the Summer break, or were hosted by your local public library? Are these something in which you participated?

Memories of my past, related largely to books and reading, have been triggered during this time of physical distancing as I have communicated via technology with friends. Those memories are influencing my reading of late and even the music I have been listening to.

--- --- ---

So I created my own Summer Reading program: Venture Forth. The name is a play on the idea that we are being allowed to venture forth into certain businesses and venues once again, and that reading always allows everyone to Venture Forth on an adventure.

This isn’t a challenge or event like I’ve hosted in the past. It is simply something that I want to do and want to share with you. If you desire to recapture a bit of that childhood summer experience, please feel free to be a part of this, and feel free to use the gif.

There are no rules. No number of books to read. No prizes outside of the great pleasure of reading.

Carl listed about 20 prompts that fit his situation. I have borrowed some of his and created my own.

My prompts:

book with a Michael Whelan cover 
       [Dragonsdawn (1988) by Anne McCaffrey]
       [Dragonflight (1968) by Anne McCaffrey]

spy fiction written by a woman  [At Risk (2004) by Stella Rimington]

spy fiction written by a man  [The Last Tourist (2020) by Olen Steinhauer]

2020 book purchase

nonfiction book

novel that is part of a series

novel that I have read before

book recommended by another blogger

graphic novel

recommendation from my husband

historical fiction novel

science fiction novel  [The Consuming Fire (2018) by John Scalzi]

book set in Canada   [A Trick of the Light (2011) by Louise Penny]

book written by a Canadian author

book published in the 1940s

book published in the 1950s

NEW prompt added June 5th:
     Clarkesworld Anthology


The prompt for a "book with a Michael Whelan cover" was on Carl's list and I assumed I would switch that to an illustrator that I am more familiar with. But I was curious about Whelan so I looked him up. Amazingly I actually found a book I had with a cover by Michael Whelan. It is Foundation (Book One) by Isaac Asimov and it is on my Classics List. So I will be reading that for sure.

Bookshelf Traveling for Insane Times No. 10

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme, hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness. 

Today for my bookshelf traveling I am repurposing material from an earlier blog post. The post focused on one of my favorite publishers of mystery fiction, Soho. And specifically the books published by Soho that are on my shelves (and mostly unread). This photo of books on my shelves was taken four years ago, and at that time I had read none of the novels. Since then I have read only two of the books, Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong and Frozen Assets by Quentin Bates.

If you click on the image of the shelf, you will be able to read more of the titles.

The picture above features several authors I am looking forward to reading, either for the first time or to continue a series. Soho Crime specializes in crime fiction with an international setting. 

• Quentin Bates' Officer Gunnhildur Mystery series is set in Iceland.
• Magdalen Nabb's Marshal Guarnaccia series is set in Italy.
• Leighton Gage's Chief Inspector Mario Silva series is set in Brazil.
• Rebecca Pawel's Tejada series is set in Spain in the years before World War I.
• Peter Lovesey's Peter Diamond series is set in England.
• Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri Paiboun series is set in Laos.
• Grace Brophy's two books about Commissario Cenni are set in Italy.
• Martin Limón's George Sueño and Ernie Bascom series is set in Korea in the 1970's
• T. Frank Muir's DCI Andy Gilchrist series is set in Ireland.
• Graeme Kent's Sister Conchita and Sergeant Kella mystery series is set in the Solomon Islands.
• David Downing's John Russell series is set in Germany in the late 1930s and the 1940s.
• Qiu Xiaolong's Inspector Chen Cao series is set in China.

Of all these series published by Soho, Graeme Kent's Sister Conchita and Sergeant Kella mystery series is set in the most exotic location: the Solomon Islands. I know little about that area. I was motivated to buy this book both for the cover featuring skulls and the unusual location. And it doesn't hurt that it features a nun, Sister Conchita.

From the summary at Goodreads:

It's not easy being Ben Kella. As a sergeant in the Solomon Islands Police Force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, he is viewed with distrust by both the indigenous islanders and the British colonial authorities. In the past few days he has been cursed by a magic man, stumbled across evidence of a cargo cult uprising, and failed to find an American anthropologist who had been scouring the mountains for a priceless pornographic icon. Then, at a mission station, Kella discovers an independent and rebellious young American nun, Sister Conchita, secretly trying to bury a skeleton.

The first book in Downing's John Russell World War II spy thriller series was Zoo Station. Each book in the series has the name of a train station in Berlin as its title. Silesian Station is the second novel in the series.

Summary at Soho Press website:

Summer, 1939. British journalist John Russell has just been granted American citizenship in exchange for agreeing to work for American intelligence when his girlfriend Effi is arrested by the Gestapo. Russell hoped his new nationality would let him safely stay in Berlin with Effi and his son, but now he’s being blackmailed. To free Effi, he must agree to work for the Nazis. They know he has Soviet connections and want him to pass on false intelligencee. Russell consents but secretly offers his services to the Soviets instead.

There is a review of Silesian Station at Eurocrime along with a review of One Man's Flag from Downing's Jack McColl series. 

I read the first two books in Martin Limón's George Sueño and Ernie Bascom series, Jade Lady Burning and Slicky Boys, and I liked them a lot. My review of Slicky Boys is here.

The books in this series can be described as hard-boiled police procedural thrillers. The two heroes, Corporal George Sueño and Sergeant Ernie Bascom of the US Army, are Criminal Investigation Division agents in Seoul, Korea in the 1970s. Limón gives us a look at Korea, its culture, and its people at that time.

From the back of the book:

Retired Army officer Herman Burkowicz has quite a lucrative setup smuggling rare Korean artifacts. But then his nine-year-old foster daughter, Mi-ja, is abducted, and her kidnappers demand a ransom Burkowicz doesn’t have: a priceless jade skull from the age of Genghis Khan. Sueño and Bascom—more accustomed to chasing felons and black marketeers in the back alleys of Itaewon than ancient treasures—go in over their heads as they agree to search for the skull...

I am throwing in an extra here, because this book was on a shelf I featured in an earlier Bookshelf Traveling post...


Kittyhawk Down is the second novel in Garry Disher's Inspector Hal Challis series. I did read the first one, and enjoyed it. Maxine at Petrona said that Kittyhawk Down "is even better than the first, Dragon Man, and that’s saying something."

From the back of the book:

A missing two-year-old girl, and the body of an unidentified drowning victim have brought Homicide Squad Inspector Hal Challis, of the Peninsula Police Force, to Bushrangers Bay at the Australian seaside not far from Melbourne.

The Master and Margarita: Mikhail Bulgakov

Katrina (at Pining for the West) and I read this book at the same time. We both had it on our Classics lists and she asked if I wanted to read it now with her. That was a really good thing because without that motivation I don't know when I would have read it or if I would have persevered to read it all.

I always prefer to read a book knowing as little as possible about it. Sometimes that is not possible but with this book I only had a basic overview of the book. It was written in the 1930's and finished shortly before the author died in 1940, at the age of 49. The author's writings were often rejected and he wanted to leave Russia so that he could write. He knew he could not publish this book while he was alive; otherwise he would "disappear." The novel was finally published in Russia in 1966.

I did not read the foreword or the introduction, and for the first two hundred pages I skipped the notes at the end, because I usually find that notes impede the flow of reading or tell too much. However, in this case I should have read all of those. I just did not understand enough about the issues that were at the center of the novel or Bulgakov's writing to understand what I was reading or its intent.

At this point, I will share a summary from Penguin Random House.

When the devil arrives in 1930s Moscow, consorting with a retinue of odd associates—including a talking black cat, an assassin, and a beautiful naked witch—his antics wreak havoc among the literary elite of the world capital of atheism. Meanwhile, the Master, author of an unpublished novel about Jesus and Pontius Pilate, languishes in despair in a psychiatric hospital, while his devoted lover, Margarita, decides to sell her soul to save him. As Bulgakov’s dazzlingly exuberant narrative weaves back and forth between Moscow and ancient Jerusalem, studded with scenes ranging from a giddy Satanic ball to the murder of Judas in Gethsemane, Margarita’s enduring love for the Master joins the strands of plot across space and time.

This is a very weird book. It made little sense to me. At times it is very funny, but in a sad way. Things happen to people and they make no sense. People lose their apartments or jobs for fabricated reasons. And yet life goes on. I realize that this is a satire on conditions in Russia at the time it was written, but I did not have enough context to understand it.

Some of my confusion was due to the names being hard to follow. Some names were similar. Sometimes a person would be identified by his last name, other times by the first and second. Some important characters were identified by different names in different parts of the book. And I did not realize it would read like a fantasy, thus I was not prepared for the tone. For instance, the cat does not only talk, it walks upright its back feet and is the size of a human being.

Some of the writing was very entertaining and most of the time I did not care whether the book made sense or not but there was a large portion, from about page 50 - 200, where I was so confused it was hopeless. It seemed incoherent to me.

The book is in two parts. Book Two begins with Margarita trying to find the Master. Although that half is very fantastical, also, I found it more coherent and less confusing.

Margarita loves the Master and wants to leave her rich husband. She is willing to give up her privileged and easy life. But she cannot find him. The devil, often referred to as Woland in the edition I read, offers to grant her a wish ... and weird things happen. She gets two wishes because her first wish is selfless... to save her maid, Natasha.

Four chapters of the Master's book on Jesus and Pontius Pilate is included in The Master and Margarita. Those four chapters were my favorite part. The writing style in those chapters was entirely different. The chapters are interspersed throughout the book, two in Book One, two in Book Two.

I fear that my review is incoherent and doesn't tell you much about how I liked the book. I liked parts of it, I will reread it again, and maybe one day I will understand it more.

The translation I read was by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The very enthusiastic Foreword was by Boris Fishman and the Introduction was by Richard Pevear.

My husband took the photo of the cover above and it shows the many, many sticky tabs I used trying to keep track of the story.

I highly recommend Katrina's review of The Master and Margarita. Her summary and thoughts on the book are excellent.

-----------------------------

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2016 (orig. pub. 1966)
Length:  396 pages
Format:  Trade paperback
Setting:  Moscow, Russia
Genre:   Classic Fiction (Fantasy, Magical Realism)
Source:  On my TBR since 2017.
Translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Top Ten Reasons Why I Love Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Series

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

The topic this week is: Reasons Why I Love [insert your favorite book title, genre, author, etc. here]. I have never done a Top Ten Tuesday post. Until now.

So here are my reasons why I love the Nero Wolfe series. First a brief overview of the series.

Rex Stout wrote 33 novels and 41 novellas about the private detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin. The series began in 1934, with Fer-de-lance, and the last book in the series, A Family Affair, was published in 1975, shortly before Stout's death.

1. The main characters:
Nero Wolfe is a lover of orchids and fine food, who supports himself as a private detective, charging exorbitant fees. Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, is both his assistant and a private investigator, and he does most of the legwork. The series combines a genius armchair detective with a hard-boiled detective, and you get the best of both worlds. They complement each other. 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.

2. The "family" that lives at the brownstone:
I always enjoy the mysteries, but I read the books more to enter into the Wolfe household for a day or two. Wolfe is in his fifties; Archie is in his early thirties. Archie is Wolfe's employee, but he is also his own man. Throughout the series, the same group of characters inhabit the brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street: Wolfe and Archie; Fritz, the cook; and 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.

3. Fred Durkin, Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather:
The team of freelance operatives that Wolfe uses when needed can be considered part of Wolfe's extended family. They each have their strengths and idiosyncrasies.

Archie describes them in Might as Well Be Dead:

Fred Durkin, big and burly and bald, knows exactly what he can expect of his brains and what he can’t, which is more than you can say for a lot of people with a bigger supply. Orrie Cather is smart, both in action and in appearance. As for Saul Panzer, I thoroughly approve of his preference for free-lancing, since if he decided he wanted my job he would get it–or anybody else’s.

4. Recurring characters I love:
Lily Rowan, Archie's friend and lover. They share a love of dancing. Lily is first introduced in Some Buried Caesar.

Inspector Cramer, in charge of the New York City homicide department, who alternately despises and admires and respects Wolfe.

Sergeant Purley Stebbins, Cramer's assistant. He is a good cop, tough and dedicated, and although they give each other a hard time, he and Archie also have a mutual respect.

Except for Wolfe and Archie, none of the characters mentioned in this post are in every book. Lily Rowan shows up much less than I remembered, but she is a special character for me. She has a long-term relationship with Archie with no strings attached, as Lily is a very independent and wealthy woman.

5. Archie's narration of each case:
Archie's first-person narration is what makes the series, in my opinion. He is a fantastic character. He gives his opinions, of Wolfe, of the victims and suspects and miscellaneous characters and he is very entertaining.

6. Wolfe's quirks and obsessions:
Wolfe is very interested in food and cooking. The tidbits about cooking in these stories are fascinating. He is attached to his orchids and will not miss his morning and afternoon sessions tending to them. He is a stickler for correct word usage, and often uses words the reader is not familiar with. He is very literate and frequently cites authors and books.

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). He doesn't trust any driver other than Archie, and he sits in the back seat and hangs on for dear life even when Archie is driving.

7. The main and recurring characters stay the same age throughout the series.
Over the forty plus years this series was published, the protagonists and other characters did not age at all, but they were always placed within the context of the time that the book was written.

8. Fer-de-lance does not read like the first book in a series.
From the beginning, Rex Stout had the relationships of Wolfe and Archie developed and recurring characters established. That is one reason that the series does not need to be read in order. The first time I read the books, I read them as I found them (at the library or loaned from my grandmother). Years later I took the time to read them in order, finding a few I had missed or did not own.

9. I love to reread the books. 
Like many fans of this series, I have reread all the books multiple times, and in most cases when I read them now, I know who the perpetrator is.  Thus I am not reading the books for the resolution of a crime but to enjoy the time with my favorite characters.

10. The TV Adaptations:
I enjoy the TV adaptations. Nero Wolfe and Archie have been portrayed in  films, but I have not seen any of those.  (See Wikipedia for a list of other adaptations.)

I have three favorite TV adaptations.

The most recent adaptation (2000-2001) starring Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin is fantastic. The episodes were set primarily in the 1940s–1950s and had wonderful production values.

In 1981, there was a TV series with William Conrad and Lee Horsley. It only lasted 14 episodes. I especially liked Lee Horsley as Archie.

The Italian Nero Wolfe series (2012), starring Francesco Pannofino as Nero Wolfe and Pietro Sermonti as Archie Goodwin, has eight feature-length episodes and each is based on a book in the series. I have only watched two episodes (one was Fer-de-lance), but I enjoyed both of them and look forward to watching the others. The episodes I have watched took more liberties with the story, and had a lighter tone.