NinieB Decorates with Orchids in 2024

I'm Ninie (rhymes with shiny) and I'm an avid reader in beautiful upstate New York. I've participated in the Category Challenge since 2019. I love finding books that satisfy the CATs, KITs, and BingoDOG, while trying to read from my groaning shelves (and boxes).

I found a lovely collection of orchid photos for my category toppers. They are all by Ronincmc, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

The categories are almost the same as 2023--I found that this setup works really well for me. I don't spend time fussing over which book goes where, I keep track of the KITs and CATs and Bingo, and I have space for challenges that come up as the year progresses. I've added one category, Viragos and Persephones.

Classics (before 1900)

1. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
2. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
3. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
4. Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
5. The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola
6. Linda Tressel by Anthony Trollope
7. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
8. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
9. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
10. Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle
11. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
12. The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim
13. A Rogue's Life by Wilkie Collins
14. He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope

20th Century

1. The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy
2. The Darling Buds of May by H. E. Bates
3. The Setons by O. Douglas
4. Miss Mole by E. H. Young
5. The Reef by Edith Wharton
6. Mary Colter, Builder upon the Red Earth by Virginia L. Grattan
7. Fidelity by Susan Glaspell
8. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
9. Olivia in India by O. Douglas
10. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
11. Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
12. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
13. Young Anne by Dorothy Whipple
14. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
15. Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison

21st Century

1. Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford
2. In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden by Kathleen Cambor
3. The Secret Guests by Benjamin Black

Keating Mysteries (books on H.R.F. Keating's list of 100 Best Crime & Mystery Books)

1. Nobody's Perfect by Donald E. Westlake
2. The Cellar at No. 5 by Shelley Smith
3. Gideon's Week by J. J. Marric
4. Death of My Aunt by C. H. B. Kitchin
5. The Poison Oracle by Peter Dickinson
6. The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown
7. Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes
8. All on a Summer's Day by John Wainwright
9. Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson
10. Sadie When She Died by Ed McBain
11. The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith
12. The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett
13. Laidlaw by William McIlvanney

20th Century Mysteries

1. Crow Hollow by Dorothy Eden
2. The Merchant's House by Kate Ellis
3. The Armada Boy by Kate Ellis
4. An Unhallowed Grave by Kate Ellis
5. A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
6. One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters
7. Monk's-Hood by Ellis Peters
8. Saint Peter's Fair by Ellis Peters
9. The Virgin in the Ice by Ellis Peters
10. The Sanctuary Sparrow by Ellis Peters
11. The Devil's Novice by Ellis Peters
12. Dead Man's Ransom by Ellis Peters
13. The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters
14. An Excellent Mystery by Ellis Peters
15. The Raven in the Foregate by Ellis Peters
16. The Brooklyn Murders by G. D. H. Cole
17. The Death of a Millionaire by G. D. H. Cole & Margaret Cole
18. The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters
19. The Blatchington Tangle by G. D. H. Cole & Margaret Cole
20. A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell
21. Evil under the Sun by Agatha Christie
22. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
23. N or M? by Agatha Christie
24. The Mirror Crack'd by Agatha Christie
25. The Danger Within by Michael Gilbert
26. Fog of Doubt by Christianna Brand
27. Bertie and the Seven Bodies by Peter Lovesey
28. The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
29. Only a Matter of Time by V. C. Clinton-Baddeley
30. Calendar of Crime by Ellery Queen
31. The Smoking Mirror by Helen McCloy
32. The Lively Dead by Peter Dickinson
33. The Scarlet Letters by Ellery Queen
34. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
35. Q.B.I. by Ellery Queen
36. Inspector Queen's Own Case: November Song by Ellery Queen

21st Century Mysteries
1. The Funeral Boat by Kate Ellis
2. The Bone Garden by Kate Ellis
3. A Painted Doom by Kate Ellis
4. The Skeleton Room by Kate Ellis
5. The Plague Maiden by Kate Ellis
6. A Cursed Inheritance by Kate Ellis
7. The Marriage Hearse by Kate Ellis
8. The Shining Skull by Kate Ellis
9. The Blood Pit by Kate Ellis
10. A Perfect Death by Kate Ellis
11. The Flesh Tailor by Kate Ellis
12. The Jackal Man by Kate Ellis
13. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
14. Death in August by Marco Vichi
15. Fatal Intrusion by Jeffery Deaver & Isabella Maldonado

Virago Modern Classics and Persephones

1. Miss Mole by E. H. Young
2. The Reef by Edith Wharton
3. Fidelity by Susan Glaspell
4. Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
5. Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
6. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
7. Young Anne by Dorothy Whipple
8. The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith
9. The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim
10. Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison

CATs and KITs

CalendarCAT
May: The Darling Buds of May by H. E. Bates
August: Death in August by Marco Vichi
September: Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; Fatal Intrusion by Jeffery Deaver & Isabella Maldonado
October: Sadie When She Died by Ed McBain
November: Inspector Queen's Own Case: November Song by Ellery Queen

HistoryCAT
May (middle ages): The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters
September (WWI/WWII): The Danger Within by Michael Gilbert; The Smoking Mirror by Helen McCloy
October (disaster): In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden by Kathleen Cambor

PrizeCAT
May (doubling up): The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy
June (book lists): Gideon's Week by J. J. Marric; Death of My Aunt by C. H. B. Kitchin
August (genre): The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
September (another CAT/KIT): The Danger Within by Michael Gilbert; The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown; Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes; Bertie and the Seven Bodies by Peter Lovesey
October (shortlist/longlist): The Lively Dead by Peter Dickinson

AlphaKIT
May (P): The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters
May (N, P): Nobody's Perfect by Donald E. Westlake
May (N, P): The Cellar at No. 5 by Shelley Smith
June (J): Gideon's Week by J. J. Marric
June (B): Death of My Aunt by C. H. B. Kitchin
August (M): N or M? by Agatha Christie; The Mirror Crack'd by Agatha Christie; The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman; Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski; Death in August by Marco Vichi
August (G): Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
September (C): The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown; Fog of Doubt by Christianna Brand; Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes; The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie; Calendar of Crime by Ellery Queen; A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
September (V, C): Only a Matter of Time by V. C. Clinton-Baddeley
October (D): Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; The Lively Dead by Peter Dickinson; Sadie When She Died by Ed McBain; Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle
October (T): Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope; The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith; Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison
November (W): The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett
November (L, W): Laidlaw by William McIlvanney

MysteryKIT
April (series): The Marriage Hearse by Kate Ellis
May (Golden Age): The Brooklyn Murders by G. D. H. Cole; The Death of a Millionaire by G. D. H. Cole & Margaret Cole; The Blatchington Tangle by G. D. H. Cole & Margaret Cole
June (author new to you): Gideon's Week by J. J. Marric, Death of My Aunt by C. H. B. Kitchin
August (amateur detective): The Mirror Crack'd by Agatha Christie; The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman; The Poison Oracle by Peter Dickinson
September (upstairs/downstairs): Bertie and the Seven Bodies by Peter Lovesey
October (not too scary): The Lively Dead by Peter Dickinson
November (noir): The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett; Laidlaw by William McIlvanney

RandomKIT
May (art & architecture): Mary Colter, Builder upon the Red Earth by Virginia L. Grattan
June (initials): Death of My Aunt by C. H. B. Kitchin
September (weather): Fog of Doubt by Christianna Brand
October (Halloween memories): The Secret Guests by Benjamin Black

BingoDOG



2. (ugly cover) Only a Matter of Time by V. C. Clinton-Baddeley
3. (only title & author on cover) The Brooklyn Murders by G. D. H. Cole
4. (featuring twins) The Darling Buds of May by H. E. Bates
6. (published in --24) Fatal Intrusion by Jeffery Deaver & Isabella Maldonado
7. (epistolary or diary) Olivia in India by O. Douglas
8. (big or little in title) Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
9. (book from LT "similar library") The Plague Maiden by Kate Ellis
11. (three-word title) The Bone Garden by Kate Ellis
12. (paper based item in plot) The Merchant's House by Kate Ellis
13. (read a CAT) Inspector Queen's Own Case: November Song by Ellery Queen
14. (short story collection) Calendar of Crime by Ellery Queen
15. (person's name in title) Saint Peter's Fair by Ellis Peters
16. (set in a city) The Death of a Millionaire by G. D. H. Cole & Margaret Cole
17. (less than 100 copies on LT) Crow Hollow by Dorothy Eden
18. (POC author) Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes
19. (author 65 or older) One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters
20. (featuring water) The Skeleton Room by Kate Ellis
21. (warriors or mercenaries) The Funeral Boat by Kate Ellis
22. (reread a favorite book) Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
24. (set in multiple countries) A Cursed Inheritance by Kate Ellis
25. (current or recent bestseller) The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Special Projects

Zola Group Read
1. The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola

Victober
1. originally serialized - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
2. literature that plays with form - The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim
3. religion - Linda Tressel by Anthony Trollope
4. a play - The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
5. Wilkie Collins or A. Conan Doyle - Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle; A Rogue's Life by Wilkie Collins
6. Group read

Welcome--the door is open!

Looking forward to following along - especially the H. R. F. Keating list!

What a great setup! I love the beautiful orchids and I'm looking forward to seeing what you read, especially the Viragos and Persephones!

Beautiful orchids! Happy reading in 2024.

Gorgeous photos! Have a great reading year :D

Beautiful theme! Glad you have so many categories with mysteries, I'll be following closely.

Orchids are so beautiful. Good luck with your reading in 2024.

Oh, wonderful flowers! Have a good reading year!

>13 DeltaQueen50: Thank you, Judy. I'm trying to read 2 per month because I'm ready to move on to other lists!

>14 MissBrangwen: Aren't the orchids beautiful, Mirjam? By adding the Virago/Persephone category I'm trying to keep myself reading what I buy.

>15 pamelad: Another orchid admirer! Happy reading to you too, Pam.

>16 rabbitprincess: And so nice of the photographer to share them. I wish you a great reading year as well!

>17 VivienneR: I read about half mysteries in 2023, and I expect similar numbers in 2024! I always follow your mysteries too, Vivienne.

>18 lowelibrary: Glad you like the orchids, April, and good luck with your reading as well.

>19 MissWatson: Thank you, Birgit. Happy to have another flower fan!

Nice photos! My sister-in-law used to grow wonderful orchids - she had a magical touch. Looking forward to the Keating reads and the Virago & Persephone books.

Beautiful orchids. Good luck with your 2024 reading plans!

I'll be here often, to enjoy the flora and the books! Happy reading!

Best wishes for your 2024 reading -- I always get lots of BBs from your thread!

>21 dudes22: My mother-in-law could grow orchids as well. She had a magic gardening thumb, to be sure. Thanks for stopping by, Betty!

>22 Tess_W: Good luck with your reading plans too, Tess!

>23 kac522: Looking forward to your visits, and I'll be on your thread often, too, Kathy!

>24 christina_reads: Thanks, Christina, and best wishes for your reading as well!

Love the photos. Especially, of course, looking forward to the VMC and Persephone category. Hope you find some new green VMCs in 2024. I think my charity shops have no more to offer, but there is always hope!

>26 JayneCM: Thanks! And you never know what might turn up, so keep checking those op shops!

Beautiful orchids! I have a "collection" of my own, but they're just the green bits (have yet to work out how to get them to rebloom.) Looking forward to seeing what you read this year!

>28 beccac220: Thanks, Becky! Stop by anytime!

Hi there! Lovely photos, reminding me of when we were on a cruise and at a few of the stops we visited flower gardens, some of which contained orchids of many varieties.

I love your pictures! I've never been good with orchids, though I've had one or two. Maybe next time someone gives me one I'll figure it out :) Wishing you the best of reading (and flowers) in 2024!

>31 antqueen: The great thing about gardening is we always get another chance! Thank you for the good wishes!

>33 NinieB: Beautiful graphic! And all the best reading in 2024 to you!

>34 kac522: Thank you, Kathy! All the best reading for you, as well!

Love your orchid pictures. I have one that I try and keep alive. Not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with it, but it;s not dead yet!
Hoping you have equally as blooming a reading year.

Getting orchids to flower seems to be where the magic happens and where the green thumb is needed!

Thank you and have a wonderful reading year.

Those are beautiful orchid photos!

>38 mathgirl40: Thanks for visiting, Paulina, and sorry to be so long.

Crow Hollow by Dorothy Eden is a 20th-century Gothic romantic suspense. My paperback's cover depicts a girl in a nightgown with a house in the background. Lois and Rodney meet in London and promptly marry. They then go to live in Rodney's family home, Crow Hollow, with his three eccentric aunts and his autocratic grandfather. Rodney is quickly swept up in his busy job as a doctor, leaving Lois to contend with not just the family but increasingly frightening events.

I read a lot of this kind of thing when I was in high school, but I never read Dorothy Eden. Based on this book, I'd say she's pretty good, not as good as early Victoria Holt, but worth exploring further.

The Wesley Peterson series by Kate Ellis is really good, so good that I binge-read the first 14. It helped that they are all available for reading on Internet Archive. Wesley Peterson is a CID officer (initially Detective Sergeant, then Detective Inspector) in a smallish Devon town (fictional of course). At university he studied archaeology before becoming a police officer. His classmate Neil Watson is on the county archaeological team. Each book features a modern-day murder and an archaeological dig that in some way ties into the modern-day case. These police procedurals are not too gritty, although some of the later ones have a darker tone. If you enjoy a good British mystery as well as historical-archaeological stuff, you will probably enjoy this series.

The Merchant's House
The Armada Boy
An Unhallowed Grave
The Funeral Boat
The Bone Garden
A Painted Doom
The Skeleton Room
The Plague Maiden
A Cursed Inheritance
The Marriage Hearse
The Shining Skull
The Blood Pit
A Perfect Death
The Flesh Tailor

I had read one or two Brother Cadfael mysteries in the past but hadn't really cared for them. This time around something clicked and I've been happily reading through the series, again on Internet Archive. A Benedictine monk who discovered his vocation later in life, Cadfael is the gardener at St. Peter & St. Paul Abbey in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. He has a deep knowledge of medicinal plants and regularly doctors not only the monks at the Abbey but also the townspeople of Shrewsbury. His familiarity with the human body leads him to discover murder where it is otherwise not suspected, and his friendship with Under-Sheriff Hugh Beringar allows him to collaborate on investigating murder in Shropshire. Characters at the Abbey and in the town frequently recur in the stories. Ellis Peters does a great job of world-building in 12th-century England.

A Morbid Taste for Bones
One Corpse Too Many
Monk's-Hood
Saint Peter's Fair
The Leper of Saint Giles
The Virgin in the Ice
The Sanctuary Sparrow
The Devil's Novice
Dead Man's Ransom
The Pilgrim of Hate
An Excellent Mystery
The Raven in the Foregate
The Rose Rent

The Brooklyn Murders by G. D. H. Cole is the first of the Superintendent Wilson mysteries written by Cole and his wife Margaret in the 1920s-1940s. Wilson is a high-ranking officer at Scotland Yard. In this one, Wilson and Inspector Blaikie investigate the mysterious deaths of Sir Vernon Brooklyn's two nephews and primary heirs, George Brooklyn and John Princeps, on the same night at Sir Vernon's London residence. The initial mystification is that the clues found at the two scenes implicate George in the murder of John and John in the murder of George. As this is apparently impossible, Wilson and Blaikie must dig deeper. Amateur detectives Joan Cowper and Robert Ellery lend a hand as well.

This mystery is in the classic Golden Age style, with the focus being on tracking clues and alibis. I find these mysteries great fun but am well aware not everyone enjoys the style!

The Death of a Millionaire was the Coles' second mystery. Also set in London with side jaunts to Warsaw, Siberia, and Brittany, it is about the murder at a high-class hotel in London of the American millionaire Hugh Radlett. Particularly mystifying is that the apparent murderer, Radlett's secretary Ivan Rosenbaum, took the body away with him in a trunk! Wilson and Blaikie have their work cut out for them, with the first order of business being to find Rosenbaum and the trunk.

The Coles are very clever here in how they untangle the mystery. At 350 pages, however, The Death of a Millionaire is about 100 pages too long.

>40 NinieB: I’m enjoying a Dorothy Eden binge courtesy of KoboPlus. Reading Winterwood now. She’s a good find.

>45 pamelad: I have Darkwater on the shelf so I'll read that one next.

ETA: Actually I read Darkwater in 2021. Don't remember it at all!

>42 NinieB: I'm glad the Cadfael books finally clicked for you! I love the series and recently reread my favorite, One Corpse Too Many.

>47 christina_reads: The series is now in my mental category of "books where I want to hang out with the characters"!

>41 NinieB: I have The Merchant's House by Kate Ellis and I'm happy to read your opinion. Looking forward to it.

>49 VivienneR: The archaeological/historical story lines are tailormade for me, and I really like police procedurals as well. I hope The Merchant's House works for you!

>40 NinieB: My girlfriends and I also read a lot of those romantic suspense/gothic novels when I was in high school. I think I own (and read) all of Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney, and they are the copies I bought when I was in high school, college, and beyond.

>51 LadyoftheLodge: I had a lot of Victoria Holts when I was in high school (and read them too). At some point, though, I had to slim down my book collection, and I got rid of most of them. I kept my favorite, Bride of Pendorric.

I'd wanted to read The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy for a while, so when the May PrizeCAT prompt was to read a book that won two awards, I went for it.

It's February 1940 in Montréal. Florentine LaCasse, 19, works in a five and dime as a lunch counter waitress. She gives most of her paycheck to her mother Rose-Anna, who is pregnant with her 12th child. The depression has taken its toll on the LaCasse family, with father Azarius losing each job he gets. Young Daniel is continually sick. Oldest son Eugène has just enlisted; he promises Rose-Anna that she'll get $20 per month. When Florentine meets handsome Jean Lévesque, and later his friend Emmanuel Létourneau at the lunch counter, her life is about to change.

The Tin Flute is one of the great Canadian novels. I didn't quite get all of it (it's definitely on the literary side), but I loved it nonetheless. A sense of tragedy pervades the story. It's night and day from Roy's second novel, Where Nests the Water Hen, but Rose-Anna reminded me of Luzina (the mother in Water Hen), probably because each is the mother of so many children.

The Tin Flute won the Prix Femina in 1945 and the Governor General's Literary Award in 1947 in English translation.

The Darling Buds of May (1958) by H. E. Bates is a British comedy about the Larkin family and their happy-go-lucky life on their farm. When the tax inspector shows up--Pop Larkin has apparently not filed taxes in some time--they seduce him into their lifestyle. Not what I was expecting. It's a very quick read of 2 or 3 hours and great fun.

>54 NinieB: The TV series featuring was wonderful. Catherine Zeta Jones had the part of the Larkin's eldest daughter, that provided a screen breakthrough for her. H.E. Bates wanted to portray an idyllic life in the English countryside - the kind that only happens in our imagination.

>55 VivienneR: I'll have to look for the TV series! I did find myself thinking that the scale on which the Larkins ate had to have been something many or most Britons could only dream of at that time.

>56 NinieB: Yes, free love, lots of food, no illness, always sunny, bargains of all sorts easy to find… The series was televised back in the 90s, might be hard to find.

>57 VivienneR: Turns out it's on Britbox, which I don't have but keep thinking about!

My first book this year from the H. R. F. Keating list of 100 best crime and mystery novels was Nobody's Perfect by Donald E. Westlake. I've enjoyed everything I've read by Westlake and Nobody's Perfect was no exception.

John Dortmunder is your everyday thief. He's hired by Arnold Chauncey to steal a painting from Chauncey so Chauncey can claim the insurance money. Dortmunder assembles his team, and on the appointed evening they break into the house. From there things go wildly out of control in a very funny story.

Westlake, in addition to the humorous Dortmunder series, wrote as Tucker Coe a series of hardboiled private detective books that are definitely worth reading as well.

>59 NinieB: Reading Nobody's Perfect from Keating's list introduced me to Donald E. Westlake and now I can't get enough of both his Dortmunder and his stand-alone stories!

>60 DeltaQueen50: We don't hear enough about Donald Westlake, do we? The standalone I've read is Help I Am Being Held Prisoner; it was very funny too.

Another Keating book, and a real gem: The Cellar at No. 5 (originally The Party at No. 5) by Shelley Smith. Mrs Rampage is living alone in a large house full of trinkets and treasures. Her niece Cissie comes across a woman who needs a place to live--Mrs. Roach--and convinces Mrs. Rampage to let Mrs. Roach live with her as a companion. To say that it doesn't work out is putting it mildly. The cat and cat game that they play (not cat and mouse--they are both the cat) is utterly absorbing.

Judy wrote a great review of this book a couple of years ago: https://www.librarything.com/work/3520137/reviews/192498270

>62 NinieB: Not only has the Keating list given me some excellent reads, it has also introduced me to a slew of authors that I didn't know about previously. So it's a win-win for me!

>63 DeltaQueen50: Yes, many good books and authors I hadn't previously known about. I'm trying to push through again--I'd love to finish by the end of 2025.

The Setons by O. Douglas (pseudonym of Anna Buchan, sister of John Buchan) was supposed to be my bus book since I was reading the free Kindle version. I was quickly sucked into the story, though, and I read most of it this weekend--it's not super long.

Elizabeth Seton is the daughter of a minister in Glasgow, with the story starting in 1913. She keeps house for her father and raises her youngest brother, Buff, her mother being dead. Two other brothers are living in India. Elizabeth spends much of her time visiting members of her father's church. Perhaps not surprisingly, given it's about a minister's family, this 1917 novel has quite a bit of religion in it. There's also some Scots dialect--occasionally I wasn't sure what the characters were saying but mostly it was easy to read.

This story is on the sentimental side. Moreover, not much happens for the first two-thirds of the story. But the characters were interesting and the story well written. And it provides an interesting perspective on World War I, as it was written while the war was ongoing.

Miss Mole by E. H. Young is a character study of the title character, a thin, shabby, almost-40 spinster with a humorous, ironic view of the world and an unquenchable fascination with other people. Making her living by serving as a companion to elderly ladies, Hannah Mole inevitably loses each job through her irrepressible tongue. This time her cousin Lilla finds her a position as housekeeper to the widowed Robert Corder, a Nonconformist minister. There, she develops a close relationship with his daughters Ruth, a nervous child, and Ethel, a coltish young woman obsessed with finding a man. But Hannah is distressed when a newcomer to the neighborhood recognizes her from her past life.

It's delightful to see Miss Mole slowly blossom in a household where she's able to sometimes speak her mind--not to the pleasure of Mr. Corder--and with friendships that develop. The writing style is a bit dense (I thought it was just me, but the introduction mentions it as well) but it is well worth your reading time to get to know Hannah.

>66 NinieB: I enjoyed that one too!

>66 NinieB: I loved that one--so far it's my favorite of hers. I've read quite a few of her books published by Virago, and enjoyed them all except The Vicar's Daughter. I still have Celia and Chatterton Square left to read.

>67 VivienneR: It seems like a popular one! I was definitely hooked by the time I was halfway through.

>68 kac522: It's my third Young, and I think it's my favorite too.

Kate Ellis writes a serial killer plot in The Jackal Man. It's a bit grittier than her previous Wesley Peterson plots. I was OK with that, as she isn't one to dwell on unpleasant details. I did find it long, though; most mysteries and thrillers don't need to be 400 pages. But as always she hides her killer well.

>66 NinieB: I downloaded this book for 99 cents! Thanks!

>71 LadyoftheLodge: I hope you enjoy it, Cheryl!

>66 NinieB: I liked Miss Mole and The Misses Mallett, and must read some more of E. M. Young's books.

>73 pamelad: I'm not sure whether I'll read Jenny Wren or William next--maybe Jenny Wren.

>74 NinieB: Jenny Wren is the first of a 2-book series; the second book, The Curate's Wife, features Jenny's sister Dahlia, although both sisters are in both books. William is a stand-alone.

>75 kac522: I have The Curate's Wife as well so it would be nice to get Jenny Wren read. But it's hard because there are so many books on my TBR!

>76 NinieB: Yeah. I read them both in 2022 and I was immediately going to read her last two (Celia and Chatterton Square)........Of course, they're STILL staring at me on the shelf......

>77 kac522: Late last year, I made an elaborate plan for reading more Viragos this year. Of course it all went to nothing the first few months this year when I was not in the Category Challenge mindset, but if I stay the course Jenny Wren is a possibility in October.

>78 NinieB: I know the feeling...I even made one of my Challenges this year to read 24 Virago/Persephone books as I have about 70 unread. So far I've read 5, and I'm in the middle of one I hope I can finish by the end of the month. Still that's way behind what I wanted to accomplish.

The Reef by Edith Wharton is a great book, mostly. Wharton took a plot that would work well in a soap opera and made it into art. My only complaint is that IMO the last 50 pages or so kind of fizzle.

George Darrow, an American diplomat posted in London, is on his way to France to propose to Anna Leath. Anna is the widow of a wealthy American; she has a 9-year-old daughter, Effie, and a grown stepson, Owen. But George's plans are disrupted when Anna telegraphs him not to come because of temporary "obstacles". Disappointed and doubting whether she cares for him, George coincidentally meets young, pretty Sophy Viner, whom he knew slightly in London, and decides to travel on to Paris with her. Sophy is also an American, who, having argued with her employer, is penniless and has a vague plan of taking up acting in Paris. George and Sophy end up spending a full week together.

Several months later, George and Anna are back in touch and George once more makes his way to Anna's chateau, where Anna promptly accepts his proposal of marriage. Then things take a wrong turn.

I'll stop there with the plot because I definitely enjoyed watching it unfold. (Note--the LT reviews are chock full of spoilers.) I also loved Wharton's beautiful writing and her handling of the very complex emotions that the characters experience. I will say that I had to consciously think about the mores of 1912 to fully appreciate the story and the reactions of the characters, because certainly things are different now.

I read another Golden Age detective story by the Coles, The Blatchington Tangle. It's not as good as the first two. The "tangle" is mostly caused by the characters (hosts and guests at a country house weekend) lying about where they were and what they were doing on the night of the murder. I think it was intended to be a lighter, more humorous mystery--for example, Lord Blatchington walks around naked after taking a dip in the pool.

I hardly ever read nonfiction these days, but for something different I picked up Mary Colter: Builder upon the Red Earth by Virginia L. Grattan. In the first half of the 20th century, Mary Colter was an architect and interior decorator for the Fred Harvey Company, which operated the restaurants and hotels owned by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. In this role, the Harvey Company played a major role in developing tourism in the Southwest of the United States. Mary Colter designed buildings and interiors that drew upon what we now think of as a Southwestern aesthetic. Several of her buildings can still be seen on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. This short biography included many pictures, which I appreciated.

Here's Judy Garland singing The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe from The Harvey Girls.

>83 pamelad: You know, I don't think I've ever seen that movie. Something to look for, definitely.

>51 LadyoftheLodge: I also have many of these books. I should re-read.

>50 NinieB: You might like the Elizabeth Peters' books about Egypt and archaeology. They are mysteries and a series.

>86 mnleona: Thanks, Leona. I read The Crocodile in the Sandbank about 30 years ago, and at that time it didn't work for me at all. But over and over I've seen my taste in books change, so maybe I should try the series again!

Fidelity by Susan Glaspell was published in 1915. It's a novel in the realism style, about Ruth Holland, a young woman raised in a small midwestern town. She and Stuart Williams, an older married man, fall in love with each other and eventually leave town together and go west. Now, 11 years later, Ruth's father is dying and she returns to Freeport to see him. Ruth's behavior has caused most people in town, including members of her own family, to shun her; exceptions are her friend Dr. Deane Franklin and her younger brother Ted. The novel explores how Ruth's return affects her old friends and family and Ruth herself.

If you like, say, Edith Wharton, you might give Susan Glaspell a try. Ruth seems like a very real person to me (even if I keep wanting to call her Emma, for no good reason).

As a companion piece, I read Glaspell's well-known short story A Jury of Her Peers. It's a gem of a story and readily available online; I read it on Internet Archive.

Gideon's Week by J. J. Marric is one of Keating's 100 best crime and mystery novels. Published in 1956, it was the second in a long series of police procedurals focusing on George Gideon, a very high-ranking Scotland Yard officer. In this one, Gideon is concerned about the whereabouts of Syd Benson, a murderer who has escaped from a Midlands prison. Scotland Yard is protecting Benson's wife (she gave the crucial testimony that caused him to be convicted). Another case on Gideon's plate is the murder of a young woman, apparently by her boyfriend. The boyfriend's sister, however, insists that he was at the movies with her at the time of the murder. In addition to seeing Scotland Yard and Gideon in particular in action, we're introduced to Gideon's home life with his wife and six children.

J. J. Marric was one of John Creasey's many pseudonyms. I was pleasantly surprised by Gideon's Week--I liked it more than I thought I would--and I can definitely see myself reading more in the series.

Death of My Aunt by C. H. B. Kitchin is a short Golden Age detective story in which the narrator, Malcolm Warren, tells about the murder of his rich aunt. Malcolm, an unsuccessful stockbroker, is invited down to Aunt Catherine's for the weekend. He's delighted to learn that she wants to give him a chance to work with some of her money. And then . . . she drinks a concoction called "Le Secret de Venus."

Malcolm's descriptions of his various family members and his interactions with them are delightful. It's a good mystery too, with its Golden Age focus on clues and opportunity. I have another Kitchin mystery, Death of His Uncle, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

>89 NinieB: I've enjoyed dipping into and out of the Gideon series. Some are better than others, but they are all nice short reads.

>90 NinieB: I've also enjoyed C. H. B. Kitchin's books and have read Death of My Aunt, Death of His Uncle and Crime at Christmas - the inexpensive ones. I like the humour. A couple of others are on my wish list: Ten Pollitt Place and Birthday Party.

>91 rabbitprincess: Good to know that they are good for dipping in and out. I don't see them that often, but now when I do I'll be willing to pick them up.

>92 pamelad: You don't mention having read it, so you should be aware that The Cornish Fox is on Internet Archive. I took a peek and indeed it is a Malcolm Warren detective story.

I was traveling for a few days and finished two pending books on a cross-country flight.

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers is really good. The setting is small-town Georgia during World War II. Frankie Addams is 12 and her summer is not going the way she would like. Her best friend moved away and the older girls don't want her in their club. So she's left with John Henry, her 6-year-old cousin, and Berenice, the cook. Now her brother's about to get married, and all Frankie can think about is having the bride and groom take her away with them. I will definitely read more by Carson McCullers.

Olivia in India by O. Douglas is an epistolary novel about Olivia's trip to India to visit her brother. Olivia is a Scottish woman, and sometimes in her letters she reminisces about her Scottish childhood, but really this is mostly about the trip to and around India. I read this because it was free on Amazon and I had liked The Setons. It was mostly harmless fun, although I did find myself hyper-aware of Olivia's interactions with the native Indians. She really only sees them as servants, never as people who live in India.

>94 NinieB: - My book club book for August is The Heart if a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers so I'll be reading it in July.

>90 NinieB: Thank you!

>95 dudes22: Ooh, I will look forward to your review, Betty!

>96 pamelad: Enjoy!

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell is Durrell's memoir of growing up on Corfu in the 1930s. He paints his family as somewhat eccentric, which makes for a very funny account. His lifelong fascination with animals of all kinds began here, and his stories about exploring nature on Corfu makes a nice counterpoint to his family stories. I did wish he didn't feel such a need to collect, but different times.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens was a re-read for me. I spent a bunch of time trying to re-read back in December and January and failed miserably. This time I read it in a different edition with annotations, and I prioritized it for four days. Somehow I finished it in that time. I consider this one of my favorites of Dickens and I haven't changed my mind, though I had my doubts in January.

Evil under the Sun by Agatha Christie was of course also a re-read. We watched the movie and I had to go back to the book to see what had been changed. This excellent mystery gets lost because Christie wrote *so many* excellent mysteries in the 1930s. Totally worth the read.

Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie--saw the movie (the old one with Peter Ustinov), had to re-read the book. I don't know how many times I've read this but I love it every time. In my view Christie's 4th best (after And Then There Were None, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and Murder on the Orient Express, which I've listed in alpha order because I can't figure out which is *the* best).

So as you can see I didn't have a great reading summer. I had too many other things going on that occupied all kinds of mental space. And the worst of it is--my summer is already over, as I had to teach an incoming class on Friday!

>99 NinieB: Seems like a good reading summer to me--lots of great things read! Your top Agathas are close to mine. I also like the Tommy & Tuppence books, just for the fun of them.

My top Dickens rotate between David Copperfield, Little Dorrit and Bleak House, depending on which I read last. There is something about John Jarndyce that I love so much--I think he is my favorite male character in all of Dickens. Right now I'm listening to Our Mutual Friend, which is very good and very complex, but for me doesn't come up there with the others.

>100 kac522: The quality's been high, certainly! I just wish I could have read more in June and July.

I enjoy Tommy and Tuppence. I have not read N or M? in a very long time and really should return to it.

Our taste in Dickens is very similar, as those are the top 3 I would pick. I do still need to read A Tale of Two Cities and Our Mutual Friend, but everything I know about them tells me they will not make the top 3.

>101 NinieB: I will say that A Tale of Two Cities certainly has the best ending in all of Dickens, even if it is not one of my favorites overall.

Even though summer is over for you, I hope you get some good reading in Fall. I am piling up a bunch of "short" books--200 pages or less--to read in September, hoping to clean out a little space on my shelves and make a tiny dent in my TBR.

>102 kac522: Thank you for the good reading wishes! I should have more mental space to take on books.

Short books sound very appropriate for September. Here's to making space on the shelves!

N or M? by Agatha Christie is a Tommy and Tuppence story. It's wartime and Tommy has been approached to go undercover to find a suspected fifth columnist (someone who is secretly working for Germany) at a guesthouse on the south coast of England. When he gets there who does he find but Tuppence masquerading as "Mrs. Blenkinsop". This one is basically a thriller, but Tommy and Tuppence also do some detecting. I always like it when I read a Christie and I've forgotten who the bad guys are!

Hard Times is that rarity, a relatively short novel by Charles Dickens. My copy was less than 300 pages. It's set in northern industrial England, where Mr. Gradgrind is committed to raising his children on facts and nothing but facts. As a patron of the local school, he has the influence to have the children taught that way as well. He's horrified when he discovers his eldest two, Tom and Louisa, peeping at the circus that's come to town. He learns that a new girl at the school is the daughter of one of the circus folks. But when he goes to warn her father to keep her away from the school, he discovers that the father has run away leaving the girl, Sissy, behind. Seeing a challenge, he agrees to take Sissy.

Lots more happens of course--it wouldn't be a Dickens novel without a complicated plot. While the middle of the novel seemed to sag a bit, the last third is really topnotch.

I thought I had read this one in the past, but I must have DNFed it after reading maybe the first quarter. I"m glad I got through it this time.

The Mirror Crack'd is a Miss Marple mystery by Agatha Christie. Miss Marple is now old enough that the doctor insists she have a companion living with her, to her distress. St. Mary Mead is changing too, what with the large housing estate built where there used to be meadows, and Gossington Hall sold to an American movie star, Marina Gregg. When Marina hosts a number of local people at a reception after a village fete, one of the guests dies after drinking a cocktail originally intended for Marina. Chief Inspector Craddock from Scotland Yard is on the case, and having worked previously with Miss Marple, he frequently consults with her.

When I read this many years ago, I was disappointed because the solution seemed obvious to me. I've never forgotten the solution either, but this time around I really enjoyed the setting and characters.

I know I'm one of the last people to read The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, but I finally read this story about 4 residents of a luxury retirement community in Kent, who study cold cases until one day they have a fresh murder to solve. I had tried to read this a while back and it didn't work for me at all, but this time everything seemed much better. I still wish authors wouldn't use present tense; I managed to let this slide by me, though, and it was a good story nonetheless.

>107 NinieB: I read it last year, and although a good story with interesting characters, it felt more like a movie or TV script than a book. The chapters are all very short, like film scenes. I got confused with the characters, but I would imagine on film that wouldn't be as much a problem, as physical characteristics and dress would be made distinctive to the viewer.

I'm not sure I noticed the present tense at the time I read it, but that probably added to the "script" feeling for the narrative, too, which was only a very small % of the text. The book felt like 95% dialogue--another thing that made it feel like TV to me.

>104 NinieB: I've always felt Tommy and Tuppence were underrated in the Christie canon. Glad you enjoyed your reread of this one!

>107 NinieB: I had to try The Thursday Murder Club three times before I counted it as read. And still I don't remember a thing about it. My experience with the second in the series The Man Who Died Twice was the same. I've decided Osman is not for me.

>108 kac522: Maybe I had trouble reading it the first time because of all the dialogue. Have you ever read any Ivy Compton-Burnett? Her books are truly 99% dialogue and it requires a lot of focus to know who is speaking when.

>109 christina_reads: I think Tommy and Tuppence suffer from being early and late in Christie's writing career. If Christie had written about them more in the middle period, they would have received the really good books they deserved. I do think that their repartee and relationship show Christie's versatility.

>110 VivienneR: If it comes my way, I will read The Man Who Died Twice, but I have no plans to actively seek it out!

>111 NinieB: I tried to read a Compton-Burnett, and I didn't get very far, just for that reason.

Agree--I do love the T&T books, too, even though they're not her best. You are right that they show Christie's versatility.

I decided Osman wasn't for me after just the Thursday Murder club. It was OK, but that was al I would rate it as. Some interesting elements, but it didn't hang together into a convincing whole for me.

Tommy & Tuppence do get overlooked. I find the married couple dynamic fun as well as playing off their different strengths.

>112 kac522: Someday I'll try Compton-Burnett again, when I'm feeling brave.

>113 Helenliz: Good to know there are many T&T lovers out there!

Hello Ninie! Yours is another thread I have to read with the library catalogue open in another tab :-) I'm slowly reading through the Brother Cadfael series as my elibrary has them all. The Kate Ellis series sounds good too.

>115 susanj67: I'm glad you found some interesting books, Susan! I do recommend Kate Ellis's Wesley Peterson series, especially if you enjoy local history and archaeology. And it's not gory, either.

Little Dorrit is another one of Charles Dickens's massive novels, featuring dozens of characters and a multitude of plot lines. (The introduction says 55 characters; maybe the editor was only counting the major ones.)

The basic set up is that Mr. Dorrit has been imprisoned for debt for many years, so many that his 22-year-old daughter Amy, the titular Little Dorrit, was born there. Mr. Dorrit was a source of great frustration to me, with (for example) his willful blindness to his children all working to support themselves and him.

But this is definitely one of Dickens's great novels. No doubt in another few years I'll be re-reading it.

>117 NinieB: I love Little Dorrit! So many wonderful characters...Young John always tugs at my heart, especially the scene near the end where he gives Arthur the room that used to be Mr Dorrit's. I think Dickens does a great job with Mrs Clennam, too, especially her last long (and revealing) monologue. And Mr Pancks--I'd hire him to do my genealogy research any day! And poor Flora--who is so annoying at first and yet so generous at the end. And of course, Frederick Dorrit.

I've read it in print twice, listened to it on audio twice, watched the mini-series multiple times, and each time I'm more convinced that Dickens' portrayal of Mr Dorrit is of a man very slowly, from the very beginning, descending into dementia. So it tempers my tendency to find fault with his arrogance and willful ignorance from that perspective.

If you haven't seen it, the 2008 mini-series with Claire Foy (her first major screen role) and Matthew McFadyen is so, so good. Judy Parfitt, age 73 at the time, is amazing as Mrs Clennam. A few of the plot lines are missing, but on the whole it is quite faithful to the book.

>118 kac522: Mmm, yes, those are some good characters. Do you think Dickens invented stream of consciousness for Flora?!

Your comments exemplify the thought I tried to express but ended up deleting--that Little Dorrit is worth re-reading, because there's so much to see and appreciate. You have very insightful thoughts on Mr. Dorrit, for example.

I am pretty sure I've watched the 2008 mini-series, maybe 10 years ago. I would enjoy seeing it again.

>119 NinieB: Mrs Nickleby in Nicholas Nickleby talks on and on at length when she's given a chance to talk. But certainly Jane Austen used it earlier with Miss Bates in Emma, so it wasn't new. Flora's chattering is distinctive because it tells so much about Flora, in a round-about way.

I just finished a re-read of Our Mutual Friend on audiobook. I'd read it in print once and on audiobook once, but there was so much I had forgotten that in some ways it felt like a new book. Dickens also foreshadows along the way, so on a re-reading many seemingly innocuous events or comments have more meaning.

Right now I've started watching the Our Mutual Friend mini-series with Keeley Hawes and David Morrissey as the creepy Bradley Headstone. Very dark.

>120 kac522: I only understood about 3/4 of what Flora said (another reason for re-reading). I was helped some, though, by the Oxford World's Classics edition I was reading.

I initially thought that there as a headstone named Bradley. Love those Dickensian names!

In Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski, an Englishman searches in post-WW2 France for his son. Through a series of events, Hilary's wife and newborn son were in Paris when the Germans invaded; two and a half years later, Lisa died and John disappeared.

One striking aspect to the story is the stark portrayal of immediate postwar France, with bombed-out buildings and slagheaps, poor food outside but good food from the Black Market, and animosities among townspeople arising out of the German occupation.

This book from 1949 was republished by Persephone in one of its lovely gray-bound editions.

>122 NinieB: I loved that book. I found the internal struggles the soldier goes through in searching for his son so moving and meaningful. Much to think about in a comparatively short book.

>123 kac522: I liked it quite a bit. I initially struggled with Hilary's struggles because I wasn't sure what kind of book I was reading. I previously read Laski's book Tory Heaven (aka Toasted English) which as a satire had a completely different tone.

>122 NinieB: I was impressed Little Boy Lost and also read The Victorian Chaise Longue which I did not like for scientific reasons to do with TB and antibiotic therapy. The Village is on my wish list and Tory Heaven looks as though it would be worth a try.

>125 pamelad: I would like to read The Village as well. As you probably saw, I liked Tory Heaven when I read it in 2019, but it really is very different from Little Boy Lost.

On a whim, I read Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim. This 1898 classic has in fact a lot about Elizabeth's garden (it's Elizabeth's periodic journal) but there is much else also going on. We get Elizabeth's views on marriage, her daughters, English governesses, winter picnics, women authors, Russian laborers, local peasants, servants, trees, gardeners, parsons . . . . We see female characters interacting rather cattily together, and Elizabeth's husband The Man of Wrath topping them all.

There's no plot to speak of, just the rhythm of the year as represented by the gardening. It's short, barely 200 pages with wide margins. Definitely different from something like The Enchanted April or The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight.

>127 NinieB: You are reading my favorites, one by one! The other two "Elizabeth" books--The Solitary Summer and The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen are both delightful.

>128 kac522: We both know these are worth reading! My plan is to read The Solitary Summer next month and The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen in October, when Arnim is the Virago author of the month. I actually have two copies of Rügen, one the Virago and one a very old hardback, so I"ll have to decide which to read.

>129 NinieB: What a great dilemma to have! I thought that one was particularly funny. Another one of my favorites of hers is Father. I have a couple of hers left to read, including Vera, Expiation and Love. The only one I've truly disliked so far was The Caravaners.

>130 kac522: I own a number I have yet to read: The Caravaners (bottom of the pack, now), Father, Introduction to Sally, Love, and Mr. Skeffington.

>131 NinieB: I need to find a copy of Introduction to Sally.

I really enjoyed Mr Skeffington, but I think I'm an outlier there. I took the novel as a sort of parable about the current (1940) situation in Europe. None of the characters are really likable, but if you map it out in a larger context on the European stage, I think von Arnim was sending a message. I will be interested to hear your thoughts when you get to it.

>132 kac522: Interesting about Mr. Skeffington. There's a Bette Davis film as well from 1944.

The Poison Oracle by Peter Dickinson is on the Keating list of 100 best crime and mystery stories. That said, I'm conflicted about this book. I can't help admiring a mystery author who makes his main character a psycholinguist working as a zookeeper for a Middle Eastern sultan while studying the language of the marsh people in the sultanate and his own chimpanzee Dinah, with whom he successfully communicates using colored tiles. But on the other hand the murder doesn't take place for nearly half the book, and so much is going on in this story that i never really grasped the murder setup or its solution when the psycholinguist explained it (with Dinah's help). Finally some readers find the whole setup racist; I didn't really, but YMMV.

I squeezed in Death in August by Marco Vichi on the last day of August. This Italian police procedural with Inspector Bordelli in the starring role is long on characters and a little short, not much, on plot. Vichi takes great care to develop Bordelli's character--he's middle-aged, doesn't like to use his policing power against the poor who are simply trying to get by, etc.--but as a result big sections of the novel don't advance the plot. However, the mechanism for murder is extremely clever, which I liked. I haven't read any of Andrea Camilleri's books, so can't offer a comparison, but I can say that the translation is excellent, and apparently the translator (Stephen Sartarelli) has done at least some of the Camilleri series.

>134 NinieB: I couldn't find The Poison Oracle, which sounds bizarre, but I did find The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest and The Old English Peep Show aka Skin Deep and A Pride of Heroes, which both won Gold Dagger Awards. They're available in KoboPlus so I've just borrowed them.

What's YMMV?

>136 pamelad: Yeah, it is a bit bizarre. It's been a while, but I recall liking The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest (which is also unusual) and A Pride of Heroes. Not sure I've read The Old English Peep Show. King and Joker is also interesting, with an alternate history plot.

Your mileage may vary.

Back on August 11 I commented that I hadn't had a great reading summer (I hardly read anything). I think I made up for it in August with 13 books read, including two lengthy Charles Dickens novels, and I have all kinds of reading plans for the rest of the year. Here's hoping my anti-slump continues!

>138 NinieB: Excellent! Such a good feeling to be back in the swing of reading!

>139 kac522: Yes, it's a great feeling! I've been doing a fair amount of mood reading, which helps. This means I need to let myself deviate from plans, no matter how great they seemed when I made them.

The Danger Within by Michael Gilbert, originally published in England as Death in Captivity, is another mystery with an unusual setting: a World War II Italian prisoner of war camp. The prisoners are mostly British officers, and they are doing their best to escape. When a suspected informant is found dead in the tunnel with the most promise, the prisoners are in a quandary. Should they dispose of the body secretly, or should they reveal it to the camp commanders? and does the body's appearance in the tunnel suggest that there's another informant among them?

This was an excellent mystery, and a real page turner too. A good reminder that Michael Gilbert is always worth reading.

>141 NinieB: Ooh yay, that one is on my shelves!

>142 christina_reads: Ooh, I hope you enjoy it too!

Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault is an outstanding work of historical fiction. It's the story of Alexander the Great during boyhood and youth, until he's about 20 or 21. She successfully brings to three-dimensional life Alexander, his father King Philip of Macedonia, and his mother Olympias. Philip and Olympias hate each other with a passion, and Alexander is torn between the two throughout the novel. The psychological realism is palpable. Moreover, Renault's writing is lovely, including her descriptions of the natural world in which Alexander lived.

Something that I struggled with--this is a long, dense novel. Also, I read it mainly because it was published in the Virago Modern Classics series. But I would not describe its style as Virago (although admittedly Olympias is something of a virago).

The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown is a noirish sort of detective story from 1947. Brown's first crime story, it won the Edgar for best first novel the following year. (At that time, it was the only prize awarded by the Mystery Writers of America.) Ed Hunter is 18 and an apprentice printer in Chicago. One night his father Wally goes out to drink but this time doesn't come home; he's died in an alleyway mugging. Ed gets in touch with his Uncle Am (short for Ambrose), who's a carney, and together they investigate Wally's murder.

I enjoyed this entry in the Keating 100 Best Crime and Mystery Stories. Fredric Brown writes a speedy thriller with good detective work.

Fog of Doubt by Christianna Brand is the US title of the the UK original, London Particular. Both titles refer to the thick, pea-soup fog that blankets London when the visiting Raoul Vernet is murdered in the home of the Evans family in Maida Vale. Only six people could have murdered Vernet--but which one did? This 1952 mystery is mindbogglingly complex; the reader joins the detectives in a "fog of doubt". I probably should have tried to slow down a bit to take in all the clues and misdirection, but Brand lures the reader ever onward.

Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes is a crime novel set in Harlem during the sixties. You could call it a police procedural, since the main characters, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, are police detectives investigating the crimes that populate the novel. But that would lead to the expectation that those crimes would be solved, when really the book is about the mindless and continual violence that is everywhere in Harlem (and elsewhere in New York City). I'm not going to rush out to find another Chester Himes novel, but I was impressed with Himes's writing talent and his skill in developing Harlem as a character in its own right.

After reading Himes, I needed something a bit lighter, so I turned to Bertie and the Seven Bodies by Peter Lovesey. It's 1890 and Prince Albert Edward of Wales--"Bertie"--is attending a shooting party at an estate in Buckinghamshire. The party starts off cheerfully enough, until Queenie Chimes collapses face first into the elaborate dessert. She dies on the way to the doctor. After that it's a body a day, quickly leading to the possibility of those seven bodies in the title.

I liked this mystery. Bertie's first-person narration is a delight, with Lovesey writing Bertie as oblivious to everyone's unwillingness to contradict him and all around just a bit dumb. I did not figure out who did it until right before the reveal at the end; I'm willing to call that a successful mystery.

>148 NinieB: That series has been on my radar for a while -- sounds like I should take the plunge!

>149 christina_reads: I hope you enjoy the series! I think this one stands alone. I had read the first one many years ago and have forgotten it entirely and it didn't matter. I think my short review made this clear, but just in case, this is very light (despite the number of bodies).

I was in need of more light reading so I went back to Tommy and Tuppence in The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. The plot really is preposterous but much fun is had by the reader as Tommy and Tuppence, childhood friends, meet up in post World War I London. Both are on their last legs financially speaking so they decide to hire themselves out as the Young Adventurers (no unreasonable assignment refused). This leads to their becoming involved in the mystery of what happened to Jane Finn, who carried a top-secret draft treaty off the Lusitania, and then disappeared.

When Tess_W started the Émile Zola Group Read, I decided to join in because Zola has been on my radar for awhile, and the opportunity to read along with a group intrigued me. I'm so glad I did. I've just finished the first book, The Fortune of the Rougons, and I am now officially a fan of Zola's writing. It's powerful; I wish I could describe better what makes it so effective, but hopefully as I continue to read Zola this will become clearer to me.

The Fortune of the Rougons serves two purposes: first, to tell indirectly about the coup d'état that founded France's Second Empire, and second, to serve as the origins story for Zola's novel cycle Les Rougon-Macquart. The two families (really three, with the Mouret family) are all descended from Adélaïde, the Rougons from her husband and the Macquarts and Mourets from her lover.

In telling the story of the republican fervor in the Midi where the novel takes place, Zola does not hesitate to inject and describe brutal violence. He also writes lovely passages about the countryside and its role in the romance of Silvère and Miette.

Next up is His Excellency Eugène Rougon in November--can't wait!

Only a Matter of Time by V. C. Clinton-Baddeley is a 1969 amateur detective story featuring Dr. R. V. Davie, an older man visiting a music festival in the fictional town of King's Lacy. The corporate secretary of Bexminster Electronics disappears--he was supposed to attend the first evening of the festival--and then is found murdered. Then in quick succession another murder is discovered. Dr. Davie is a witness with information about both murders, and he ends up investigating.

A pleasant mystery with humorous descriptions of the music festival to keep things light. I've read other Dr. Davie mysteries and this one is a good one.

Calendar of Crime by Ellery Queen is a collection of 12 short stories published in periodicals in the late 40s and early 50s, then compiled in a 1952 book. Each story takes place in one month of the year, and they're arranged January to December. I found this a strong collection; it was tough to pick out 2 or 3 I liked more than the others. ("The Ides of Michael Magoon", "The Emperor's Dice", and "The Dauphin's Doll", in case you were wondering.)

Linda Tressel is a very minor Anthony Trollope novel. Trollope decided to publish some short novels anonymously to see what would happen--apparently this one and Nina Balatka did not do very well. Linda Tressel suffers, I think, from being set among German people in Nürnberg, Bavaria, because Trollope always wrote a little stiffly when writing about non-English-speaking people.

But I still found it interesting, and as it is a short novel, only 178 pages in my edition, I was able to read it in one day. Linda Tressel, age 20, lives in the house she inherited, along with her aunt, Madame Staubach. They have a lodger, Peter Steinmarc, age 52. After he has proposed to Madame Staubach several times, unsuccessfully, she suggests that he should marry Linda. As Linda is a pretty girl and comes with a house, Peter is eager to fall in with Madame Staubach's suggestion. Linda, however, is appalled and flatly refuses. Her refusal seems to stoke Madame Staubach's determination to bring off the marriage. An important element here is Madame Staubach's deep Calvinistic faith; she takes to telling Linda that God has willed that Linda is to marry Peter. What these events lead to forms the story.

Probably just for the completist, but it's more interesting (or at least interesting in a different way) than Nina Balatka.

>155 NinieB: For me, Nina Balatka was the more interesting book--I particularly loved Trollope's descriptions of Prague--the city, the bridge, the Jewish quarter, the Great Synagogue (at the time, one of the largest in Europe). And at least the couple in the end have a chance, even if they do have to leave Prague to make their marriage work.

I found Linda Tressel so very sad, although it's probably a realistic ending. And after the descriptions of Prague, I was expecting more about Nuremberg. The Golden Lion of Granpere (set in Alsace/Lorraine) and Harry Heathcote of Gangoil (set in Australia) are both good, particularly for the settings.

I am working my way through Trollope in publication order, and The American Senator is next up. I hope to get to it as part of my Victober reading, along with a re-read of Phineas Finn.

>156 kac522: Yeah, I was thinking about those aspects of Nina Balatka when I said interesting in a different way. Definitely Linda Tressel is very sad, and it was interesting to see how Trollope handled this, since usually he leavens sadness with some wit and humor. And I thought that Linda and Ludovic would get together at the end because that's how Trollope novels always end, so it was a bit of a shock that it didn't go in that direction. As I say, "interesting".

You are a few years ahead of me in reading Trollope. I had been doing this for awhile but had taken a long pause. I decided to start up this month again, but I wish I had waited until October since there's such a heavy religious component in Linda Tressel.

>157 NinieB: Yes, not a typical Trollope ending. Both The Golden Lion of Granpere and Harry Heathcote are shorter works and place is the most important aspect of the books. And no religion, that I remember.

Have you read Rachel Ray? I loved that book, but there are some religious elements in that one, too, although not nearly so hard as the ones you've just read. The Vicar of Bullhampton has some hints of religion, but it's more like the clerical aspects of the Barsetshire books.

>158 kac522: I have both The Golden Lion of Granpere and Harry Heathcote to look forward to. Since I've been to Australia a couple of times, I'm particularly looking forward to Harry Heathcote.

I've read Rachel Ray a couple of times. Isn't the sister some kind of dissenter? And maybe there's a vicar or curate involved in the story?

I may just count Linda Tressel as early Victober reading since I have too much planned for next month.

>159 NinieB: I may just count Linda Tressel as early Victober reading since I have too much planned for next month.

OMG, me too! I'm working on mine now....the stack's so tall, it's falling over...

>160 kac522: LOL. Looking forward to seeing what you read.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens was his second historical novel, Barnaby Rudge being the first. Somehow I managed to make it this far in life without knowing the plot--and I'm glad, because I was able to get the full impact. Sure, I knew it was about the French Revolution, but I had no idea the last 50 pages or so would be so suspenseful. I will say, though, that some of this book is tough sledding because of the described ill treatment of people by people.

>162 NinieB: Absolutely the best ending in all of Dickens.

>163 kac522: How right you are!

I've finished two more books. This is turning into a really good reading month for me!

All on a Summer's Day by John Wainwright is a 1980s British police procedural. It memorializes 24 hours in the life of a police station (that's not the right term, but I can't think of the proper British term) in northern England. I thought it was a bit long, almost 300 pages, but certainly gripping. As is said towards the end, it's not exactly a usual day, but it's not unusual either.

Fatal Intrusion by Jeffery Deaver & Isabella Maldonado is a brand new thriller about an apparent serial killer on the loose in Southern California. There are some good twists, and the pair of detectives have good chemistry as well as complementary skills.

Young Anne (1927) by Dorothy Whipple is the story of Anne Pritchard, an upper middle class Lancashire girl in the early 20th century. Through childhood and girlhood, World War I, and marriage, until she is around 24, Anne tries to discover who she is and what matters to her.

This is a lovely book. I was so invested in the characters' happiness, which seemed elusive at times. There's a reason Dorothy Whipple was a popular author and has been such a success for Persephone Books in recent years.

>166 NinieB: I've loved everything I've read by Whipple so far (her first 3 novels). So glad you enjoyed this one.

The Smoking Mirror (1979) by Helen McCloy is a suspense story set in France in May and June 1940, when the Germans attacked France and, ultimately, successfully took Paris. Celia McNeill arrives in Normandy on the boat from England only to discover that since she did not obtain a visa, she's not able to enter the country. But she's not able to return to England, either, so she is placed on town arrest in Dieppe. Sergei Radetzkoy, who came on the same boat, is in a similar situation because his passport has been stolen. Sergei and Celia agree to illicitly go to Trouville to try to double or triple Celia's limited money through gambling. That part of the plan works--Sergei more than triples the money--but they never make it to the illegal return across the Channel . . .

For the most part this short thriller worked pretty well for me. While I didn't care for a clairvoyance slant that McCloy adds, the plot holds together and McCloy successfully ratchets up suspense.

>167 kac522: I went back and re-read your comments on Young Anne. My experience was similar to yours--I wasn't quite able to read it in two sittings but it was pretty close.

Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson is a short noir thriller, told in the 1st person by Southern U.S. sheriff Nick Corey. Nick doesn't tell us what he's planning to do. Instead he tells us what he does, and our mouths are left hanging open because this is a violent book about a sociopath, and frequently the violence comes out of nowhere. It's a real tour de force. My only small complaint is that the ending is so abrupt it's like Thompson wasn't sure how to end it so he just stopped writing.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson is a collection of vignettes about Grandmother and Sophia, her young granddaughter, who live with Sophia's Papa on an island in the Gulf of Finland during the summer months. (We learn on the book's first page that Sophia's Mama is dead.) I had heard wonderful things about this book and while I liked it very much, I didn't love it the way I was hoping I would. Nonetheless I found a lot to like, particularly the nature writing. And the illustrations by the author . . . ! Perhaps my single favorite thing in the book. I'd really like to spend some time with Jansson's Moomintrolls picture books for children, just to enjoy the illustrations.

I have flirted with Victober* reading in past years but have not really sat down, worked out a TBR, compared to others' TBRs, etc. Until this year. I'm going all in this year.

Take, for example, the challenges. I have a book to be read for each challenge, in some instances more than one book. I'm even reading the group read, although I read it a few years ago (now I have a nice Oxford World's Classic to read).

Without further ado, here's my TBR paired with the prompts:

Serialized: Read a Victorian book that was serially published: Great Expectations, Phineas Finn
Format: Read a Victorian book with an unusual format structure: The Solitary Summer
Religion: Read a Victorian book that has religious themes or characters: Linda Tressel**
Play: Read a Victorian play: The Importance of Being Earnest
Honor two booktubers who passed away this year (Jennifer & Alice) by reading something by their favorite Victorian authors:
--Wilkie Collins: Jennifer's favorite: A Rogue's Life
--Arthur Conan Doyle: Alice's favorite: Round the Red Lamp
Group Read: The Doctor's Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

*Victober is a BookTube event during the month of October in which participants read Victorian literature.

**I already read Linda Tressel in September. It's right on target for the religion prompt.

>172 NinieB: An enjoyable line-up! I've started my re-read of Phineas, so we can compare notes. I loved the von Arnim, but then I like a diary-type format. Both the Wilde and the Collins are fun treats. Don't know anything about the Conan Doyle story (I'll be listening to A Study in Scarlet), but I read The Doctor's Wife last year and I enjoyed it, although I think I liked Lady Audley's Secret better. I won't be re-reading it now, though.

I've also started The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Mary Yonge and a little biography of Elizabeth Gaskell by a former President of the Gaskell Society. I've dipped in and out of the longer Gaskell biography by Jenny Uglow, but sometimes it's overwhelming in information. I like this shorter overview; then I'll go back and tackle the longer one later.

Happy reading!

>172 NinieB: One of these years I will do Victober, but in the meantime I'll live vicariously through you! I adore The Importance of Being Earnest, so I hope you enjoy that one!

>173 kac522: I'm looking forward to comparing notes on Phineas Finn! I do expect to enjoy Arnim, Wilde, and Collins, although I never hear anyone talk about this Collins so I'm glad you liked it! The Doyle is a collection of medical stories. It's been hanging out in my kindle account for something like 10 years so I thought this would be a good time to read it. And while I read The Doctor's Wife a number of years ago, I now have an Oxford World's Classics edition with notes that I'm looking forward to.

I really do want to read some Yonge one of these days and if I have some extra time this month I might prioritize her.

>174 christina_reads: Happy to have you enjoying Victober vicariously through me! I'm reading Great Expectations right now; I'm not sure what I'll turn to next.

>175 NinieB: One of my favorite books in the last few years was Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure. It is the facsimile and transcription of a ship's log that Conan Doyle kept while he was the ship's surgeon on an 1880 whaling expedition to the Arctic. He took a break during his 3rd year of medical studies in Edinburgh to be on this expedition. There's an intro to his life by the editors, the actual facsimile of the ship's log in Conan Doyle's hand (the ship's surgeon was responsible for keeping the ship's diary); the printed transcription of the diary; sketches he made of the ship, sea and whales; and additional material, including a few stories in which he used his medical and whaling experiences in the stories. I found it fascinating.

Yes, the Collins is a humorous story, about a rogue (surprise!). Not long either, if I remember correctly.

I may be switching out my Trollope selection: I originally thought about reading The American Senator, but I've decided to read a much shorter one: An Eye for An Eye. The Heir of Redclyffe started out a little slow, but I'm half-way through and it has picked up quite a bit. I've got premonitions, however, that it's going to be heart-wrenching in the end. And I'm about 1/3 of the way through listening to Phineas.

>176 kac522: Dangerous Work sounds interesting, indeed. At one point I was exploring Doyle's non-Sherlockian fiction, which is why I have Round the Red Lamp, but I got a bit discouraged by his historical fiction. I couldn't engage at all with Micah Clarke. On the other hand The Firm of Girdlestone was a rather fun sensation novel.

I have several unread Collins novels. But I picked A Rogue's Life because it is short. So I totally understand switching to An Eye for an Eye; my copy is only 169 pages, practically a novella.

>177 NinieB: The only historical fiction of Doyle that I've read is The White Company, which is well-written, but the adventures and capers and side-stories just went on and on and on. I think it was about 400 or 500 pages, which seemed about 250 pages too long, and I skimmed a lot of the second half. Might have been my mood at the time, as it is one of his most popular adventure tales.

Happy Victober, Ninie! I love your TBR. I'm having so much fun already - I've watched a ton of videos and even managed some reading!

>179 susanj67: I'm heading over to your thread to see what you're reading for Victober.....

>178 kac522: Historical fiction can be very dense with all that information to impart.

I'm thinking I'll turn to Phineas Finn after I finish Great Expectations, which I'll probably finish tomorrow or Tuesday.

>179 susanj67: Thank you, Susan, I'm so glad you're having fun! Need to head over to your thread. I've been traveling so less chance to hang out on LT (greetings from Idaho).

>181 NinieB: Phineas has been going well, except I came across a very dense political chapter where my mind wandered. But the next chapter Trollope got right back to the story, so it was OK. Heavy duty politics and hunting scenes have to be tolerated with Trollope, I guess.

>177 NinieB:, >178 kac522: The only non-Sherlockian Doyle I've read is The Lost World. Despite its being science fiction, I enjoyed it. Entertaining and short.

Happy Victober!

>183 kac522: I've never felt that skimming a bit in the political and hunting chapters has affected my understanding of a Trollope novel.

>184 pamelad: I have never tried his sci-fi, although I do have a book of Professor Challenger stories. I really should read them.

>182 NinieB: I hope Great Expectations is a success for you. Yet another one I haven't read, but I hope to remedy that. The travelling sounds good!

Made it home from Idaho--a quick trip for a family wedding. Five hours of flying gave me the time to finish Great Expectations. The introduction describes it as a "dense and subtle" work. I'm still thinking about the book (and I have to finish reading the introduction).

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens tells the story of Pip, whose life is changed when a man jumps out from behind a tombstone, grabs him, and insists he (Pip) return with food and a file the next day. While Pip is an orphan who expects to be apprenticed to his brother-in-law the blacksmith, it becomes his nagging ambition to be a gentleman after he is introduced to Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella.

So much happens in this novel. It's a frustration to me that I can't sort out to my complete satisfaction how all its parts work together. The introduction in my edition was some help but I'll be on the lookout for more explanation.

>189 NinieB: I've read it several times, and it's not a favorite, although I appreciate the complexity. I just can't like a lot of the characters, especially Pip. But I enjoy Mr Wemmick and the Pocket family, and I feel for Joe Gargery who is treated so badly.

>190 kac522: That's interesting that you dislike Pip. I don't dislike him, although I recognize his flaws and can see his immaturity for much of the story. I dislike both Estella and Mrs. Joe, and especially with Mrs. Joe I struggle to understand why she is the way she is. I feel for Joe as well and like how things turn out for him.

>191 NinieB: I'd forgotten about Joe & Biddy--best thing that happens in that book.

The Lively Dead by Peter Dickinson worked pretty well for me through most of it, then things went kind of sideways. Partly this might be my fault, as I started to read it at the beginning of the month, then stopped for about a week, then finally picked it up again. But really, this was just bizarre--I can't even begin to describe the plot. To my surprise it was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger.

As I'm a longtime Ed McBain fan, it was a treat to read Sadie When She Died from the list of Keating's 100 best crime and mystery novels. I've read the majority of McBain's novels but not this one. It opens with Carella and Kling from the 87th Precinct investigating the murder of Sarah Fletcher, wife of criminal defense attorney Gerald Fletcher. Gerald's story is he came home and found his wife dead, gruesomely, in the bedroom. And to be sure there is plenty of evidence of a burglary gone wrong. Carella, however, is convinced from the get-go that Gerald killed Sarah by taking advantage of the burglary.

This police procedural is a topnotch example of the subgenre. It also shows off McBain's talent for writing great dialogue and for describing a big city in 1972. (Technically, 87th Precinct novels are set in a fictional big city; in reality, it's New York City.) Recommended.

Oh, I haven't picked up McBain in a long time. I've got some of his still unread on the shelf...

>195 MissWatson: Aren't they good? Someday I'd love to read through the 87th Precinct in order, but it would take some planning.

>196 NinieB: Yes, they are. I learned so much US slang from them, and it changed a lot over time. I discovered them as a teenager and managed to read them pretty much in chronological order, and it's almost like a social study of urban life.

>197 MissWatson: That chronological read sounds great. Sadie When She Died has a tour of some bars on a Saturday night, very much a social study.

I finished Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope last night, somewhat to my surprise--I thought it would take me another night. Phineas is an young, upper middle-class Irishman who has studied law in London but when it comes time to go into practice, he decides instead to become a member of Parliament. Fortunately, his father agrees to provide him with an allowance, since he has no money, and M.P.s were uncompensated in the 1860s. His friends in London include Lady Laura Standish, who is his age and fascinated with politics. At the same time Phineas is learning the ropes of Parliament he is building good relationships with other M.P.s.

That little description only scratches the surface of the several plot strands that make up this 720-page book, and the characters' stories are continued in another, Phineas Redux. This is one of Trollope's most political novels, with a number of chapters devoted to political issues. Trollope never loses track of the stories of the characters, and indeed social politics play a big role as well. In addition to Phineas, Lady Laura is a wonderful character who represents how well Trollope could sympathetically portray the bonds that confined women in the Victorian era. I'm already looking forward to Phineas Redux but will hold off for a bit to take in some previously unread Trollope.

>199 NinieB: That's a great review and summary, Ninie; I don't think I could pull it off so well! I've still got a couple of hours of listening left. I'm starting to get a little fed up with Phineas and his fickle heart, which I don't remember feeling from the first time I read it. I plan to continue re-reading (on audio) the Pallisers in November with The Eustace Diamonds. I do remember Phineas Redux being darker in tone, but not much else.

>200 kac522: Thank you, Kathy! Phineas is fickle, it's true. I wasn't so much bothered by it as a little puzzled since they are all such different women. I'm going to read He Knew He Was Right next month. It will take me a while as it's another chunky book!

I promised a book haul and here it is, at least part 1 (the sale continues for another weekend):

The Bloody Moonlight by Fredric Brown
Death Takes a Flat by Miles Burton (and a number of others by this author)
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Bodies from the Library 1 edited by Tony Medawar
also 2, 4, 5, 6
The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal
The Shroud Maker by Kate Ellis
Dead of the Night by John Rhode (plus some others by author)
Trial and Error by Anthony Berkeley
All Done by Kindness by Doris Langley Moore
The Viaduct Murder by Ronald A. Knox
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith is a curious book. I'm still turning it over in my mind, but here's the setup: American Howard Ingham is in Tunisia to write a screenplay for an independent film that will be shot in Tunisia with amateur actors. He's supposed to meet the filmmaker, John, there, and he's also expecting to get a letter from his girlfriend Ina. Neither of these things happen, though. John doesn't show up and Ina doesn't write. Meanwhile, Howard is becoming accustomed to seaside life in Tunisia, and has met Francis, another American who has been in Tunisia for over a year, and Anders, a Dane. He's also started work on his next novel, "The Tremor of Forgery." But Howard grows increasingly agitated as John fails to show and no one sends him word what has happened.

This is a hard novel to give a sense of because it moves pretty slowly, and because so much that happens comes later in the book. It's sometimes called a thriller, which I think is a stretch--more a novel where some criminal things occur. Probably best for those who like character studies with some plot interest.

>262 VivienneR: I love Mrs Palfrey. Some years ago I tried to read The Count, but failed--too many French names that confused me. I'm going to try again this January with Mark (msf59), who is hosting a group read. Maybe that will do the trick.

>204 kac522: I'm looking forward to trying Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont to see what Elizabeth Taylor is about. For The Count of Monte Cristo, I couldn't resist the opportunity to get the Penguin, since it is a modern translation. It is approximately the shape and size of a brick, maybe a bit larger.

>205 NinieB: Ha! Mine is a Modern Library Classics paperback edition from 2002, which doesn't give the translator's name. I think it's one of those "legacy" translations from the early 20th century, where they didn't feel the need to recognize the translator. At least the print is not small and the lines are generously spaced. It comes in at a whopping 1,462 pages with NO notes.....and my bookmark (from when I attempted to read it) is at page 120. Although it's an easy reading edition, I may try to find a used copy with at least some notes.

>206 kac522: So actually mine has a couple hundred fewer pages, including 30 pages of notes! I'm hoping those notes will help with the reading experience. Since Bleak House I've been reading Oxford World's Classics editions of Dickens with notes and it has really helped a lot.

>205 NinieB: I have the same edition of The Count of Monte Cristo! It's a great read - I thought it would be more of a slog and something I "should" read, but I soon got into it and really enjoyed it.

Well done with Phineas! I am tempted to do a Palliser reread, but all these books keep arriving from the library and the internet.

>208 susanj67: Its popularity as a classic encouraged me to snap it up at the booksale! Good to know you enjoyed it.

I'm placing a priority on Trollope for next year. I have a shelf full of Folio editions that I got at a booksale and I dearly want to read them.

In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden by Kathleen Cambor is a historical novel about the Johnstown Flood of 1889. A mountain reservoir in western Pennsylvania served as the lake to a club for wealthy Pittsburgh families. Although the poor construction of the dam was brought to the founders' notice, no attention was paid to making sure it was structurally sound. Heavy rains on May 31, 1889, caused it to burst and wipe much of downstream Johnstown off the map, causing the deaths of over 2200 people.

I thought this was a great historical novel. The story and characters are interesting, the writing is mesmerizing, it doesn't have that dense feeling that some historical fiction has. I really felt like I was in 19th century Pennsylvania. However, it doesn't get very good reviews. This may be because the story traces the pre-flood lives of both fictional and nonfictional people who in the end were affected by the flood, so it starts before the Civil War. The flood takes place at the very end, so if you're there just for the flood you may be disappointed. And it's billed by the publishers as a "romance" or "love story", but no, not really. But it is definitely worth the read.

I was originally attracted to the book by its title, which I think has such an evocative sound. It turns out it's a quote from Maurice Maeterlinck.

The Scarlet Letters by Ellery Queen finds Ellery the detective being asked to help Dirk and Martha Lawrence, whose marriage is falling apart because of Dirk's uncontrollable jealousy. Perpetually convinced that Martha is having an affair, Dirk's unable to get on with writing his new novel until Ellery has his secretary Nikki help Dirk out. Living in the Lawrence household, Nikki soon discovers a new problem: what if Martha actually is having an affair?

When I originally read this mystery maybe 30 years ago, I was so disappointed that it wasn't as good as Cat of Many Tails, and was in fact quite different. Well, this time around I was disappointed by Cat of Many Tails as it goes overboard on Freudian themes, and instead I liked this one a lot (no Freud!). It has one of those plots that you know would never work in real life, and it takes way too long for a murder to happen, but it's very clever and uses a plot device I haven't seen elsewhere.

Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle is a collection of stories featuring doctors. Doyle's original profession as a doctor gives these stories a patina of realism when medical matters are discussed. Nonetheless this is a broad-ranging collection, from light fiction about a doctor's first case, to a story where a male doctor is won over to the notion of a female doctor, to a horror story involving an Egyptian mummy and a medical student. While the collection is certainly not up to the level of the Holmes stories of the 1880s and 1890s, I was mostly entertained for an evening.

>212 NinieB: When I read the book about Doyle's surgeon experience on a whaling ship, it had a few of the medical stories at the end, although I don't remember them now, except as you say, they were entertaining.

Now that I'm done with Phineas, I've started listening to an audiobook that contains A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I've previously only read The Hound of the Baskervilles and a few of the stories as a teenager, so this will be something different for me. So far, so good--I like The Study in Scarlet, since it gives the background to the first meeting of Watson & Holmes.

>213 kac522: How fun to have Sherlock Holmes stories you haven't read! I read them all as a teenager, have done some rereading as an adult, and I have the complete New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, which I have dipped into, but deserves a complete read-through. I just wasn't ready to embark on that project this month.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is a very funny play. I zipped through it but probably should have tried to savor the lines. I read it in an anthology of The Best Known Works of Oscar Wilde, and I'll need to try to read more from this volume.

>215 NinieB: Yep, so much fun! Have you seen the film with Colin Firth & Judi Dench?

>216 kac522: No, I hadn't seen the movie. I went into it cold, not knowing anything about it. I've read other works by Wilde including Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories in 2022. I do want to watch a performance soon. Do you recommend the movie?

>217 NinieB: The movie changes & adds some bits, but it's still a lot of fun. There's a 1988 BBC TV production with Gemma Jones & Joan Plowright (as Lady Bracknell) that is true to the play, although they talk a bit fast in that one, so some of the great lines flew right past me.

The only other Wilde I have read is The Picture of Dorian Gray back in high school & didn't like it much then, but I've been meaning to re-read it for awhile now.

>218 kac522: Yeah, I read The Picture of Dorian Gray in high school as well, and don't remember much other than the reveal of the picture.

Seconding the recommendation for the Colin Firth and Judi Dench film -- it's a lot of fun! Also stars Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon.

>220 christina_reads: Thanks, Christina! I'm looking forward to watching it!

The Secret Guests by Benjamin Black (pseudonym of John Banville) is a cross between historical fiction and thriller. It's 1940 in London and the King and Queen decide it is best for their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, to be evacuated. But where? Ireland is settled upon and they go to live in Clonmillis House, home of the Duke of Edenmore. Accompanying them are Celia Nashe of MI5 and St. John Strafford, a detective in the Irish police (Garda). While only the Duke and his housekeeper are supposed to know who the girls really are, in rural Ireland more than one person is observant.

I liked this novel. I'd never read anything by the author before and I enjoyed the accessible, flowing prose paired with an interesting plot. Princess Margaret at age 10 is a complete kick.

The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim is the second book in her Elizabeth trilogy. It's very similar to Elizabeth and Her German Garden, except that it is about one summer in the garden instead of a year. I spent most of the month reading it in 10 minute chunks while I rode the bus home from work.

A Rogue's Life by Wilkie Collins is a short novel told in first person by Frank Softly. Frank is born into a well-connected family (his grandfather was a baronet) but his father has no money to start him in life. Frank drifts into dubious jobs until he meets the glorious Alicia. This only took me a couple of hours to read, and it's great fun.

>218 kac522:, >220 christina_reads: Putting in a plug for the 1952 film of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Margaret Rutherford, Edith Evans and Michael Redgrave.

>224 NinieB: Yep, I enjoyed that one, too.
>225 pamelad: Thanks for the plug--hadn't heard of that one, will need to check it out.

>225 pamelad: I can stream that one with commercials. That's quite a cast, as well.
>226 kac522: I really should find time to read more Wilkie Collins.

Book sale haul part 2

Good Evening, Mrs. Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes
Golden Age Bibliomysteries edited by Otto Penzler
The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson
Death Lifts the Latch by Anthony Gilbert
The Cape Cod Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor
Yonnondio by Tillie Olsen
Spinster by Sylvia Ashton-Warner
The Georgette Heyer Omnibus: Faro's Daughter; The Corinthian; The Nonesuch
The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer
The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer
Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Ormond; or, The Secret Witness by Charles Brockden Brown
Red Strangers by Elspeth Huxley
Mayhem in B-flat by Elliot Paul
The Heretic's Apprentice by Ellis Peters
The Scent of Almonds and Other Stories by Camilla Lackberg
The Pocket Book of Great Detectives
The Kentish Manor Murders by Julian Symons
The Color of Murder by Julian Symons
Murder Unrenovated by P. M. Carlson
The Forbidden Garden by Ursula Curtiss
Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre by Elliot Paul

Great haul

>228 NinieB: Well done!

>228 NinieB: Wow! You scored! I love the Mollie Panter-Downes stories--is it the Persephone edition?

>231 kac522: Yes, the Persephone. It was my score of the day! The bookmark is missing but otherwise it is in great condition.

>229 lowelibrary: >230 pamelad: Thank you! I had fun shopping.

Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison is a short fantasy novel about Halla, daughter of a king, who ends up being raised by bears initially and then dragons. Both leave their mark on her. Subsequently she goes to Byzantium where she helps men from the Black Sea who are being oppressed by an evil governor.

Since I don't normally read fantasy, it's hard for me to assess this fairy-tale-like story. Overall, I enjoyed it, particularly the first part, in which Halla is raised by dragons (they flameproof her to avoid accidents).

>228 NinieB: Yay you! I am happy that you found a great haul. We skipped the big book sale this year, so I can live it in my imagination by reading your list.

What an amazing haul! Those should keep you going for a while :-)

>235 LadyoftheLodge: Thank you--I'm happy to give you the feeling of the big book sale, Cheryl!

>236 susanj67: Thank you, Susan! Let's be honest, I already have more than enough to keep me going, but at these prices (nothing on the list was over 50 cents) I have trouble saying no.

Victober report:

I managed to read everything I had planned to read except the group read, The Doctor's Wife. I had read it a few, no, maybe ten, years back and I just didn't feel strongly about re-reading. Otherwise:

1. originally serialized - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
2. literature that plays with form - The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim
3. religion - Linda Tressel by Anthony Trollope
4. a play - The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
5. Wilkie Collins or A. Conan Doyle - Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle; A Rogue's Life by Wilkie Collins

Book sale haul part 3:

What? you say, she bought *more*? Well, it was bag day, a dollar a bag, and I am weak.

Cartucho; and, My Mother's Hands by Nellie Campobello
One Night Stands and Lost Weekends by Lawrence Block
Dead Witness: Best Australian Mystery Stories
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts
Young Renny (Jalna 1906) by Mazo de la Roche
Whiteoak Harvest by Mazo de la Roche
The Whiteoak Brothers--Jalna, 1923 by Mazo de la Roche
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph by Frances Sheridan
A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons
Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
North-West by North: Journal of a Voyage by Dora Birtles
Below Suspicion by John Dickson Carr
Hush, It's a Game by Patricia Carlon
The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela
Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles
The Litmore Snatch by Henry Wade
Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell by Howard Engel
Out of the Blackout by Robert Barnard
Take My Breath Away by Martin Edwards
Suspicious Minds by Martin Edwards
Dancing for the Hangman by Martin Edwards
Shadow of the Moon by M. M. Kaye
The Eye of Osiris by R. Austin Freeman
Black Diamond by Martin Walker
The Night Watch by Thomas Walsh
The Julian Symons Omnibus
A Three-Pipe Problem by Julian Symons
Death Casts a Long Shadow by Anthony Gilbert
Riddle of a Lady by Anthony Gilbert
Rachel Calof's Story
The Water of the Hills: Jean de Florette & Manon of the Springs; Two Novels by Marcel Pagnol
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill
Howards End by E. M. Forster
The Innocent Flower by Charlotte Armstrong
No Signposts in the Sea by Vita Sackville-West

Another good haul. Some real classics there.

Have you read any of the Jalna books before? They've been hovering around my wish list.

>238 NinieB: Doesn't it feel good to accomplish what you set out to do? You read all great stuff, too.

>239 NinieB: WOW! Some haul! I see lots of classic mystery writers in that list. Today I picked up 2 books at a new used book store--The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy and Green for Danger by Christianna Brand. Have you read any of her mysteries? This edition is from the British Library Crime Classics series, with an intro by Martin Edwards (on your haul list!)

>240 pamelad: I have read the first one (in publication order) and I liked it. A bit of a soap opera, but I'm OK with that. I see it's been six years since I read it, which is longer than I thought.

>241 kac522: It does feel good, and I shocked myself since I have now stuck with "the plan" for two months straight. I usually am more of a mood reader.

It's the classics that are hanging around on bag day, usually, which works (too) well for me. I love Christianna Brand; she's very witty and has good plots, too. Green for Danger is probably her best book, but all of her 40s novels are pretty solid.

And Martin Edwards writes good mysteries, too!

>239 NinieB: Look at all the lovely books you rescued. Good job giving them a home.

>244 lowelibrary: Aw, thank you. I was thinking along those lines for a few of them, certainly.

>238 NinieB: Congratulations on a successful Victober!

>239 NinieB: Oh my word! What a great haul :-) At first I wondered how you got all the books into one bag, but then I thought about it some more...

>246 susanj67: Thanks! I know you had some success as well!

Yeah, that would have been a pretty big bag :)

>239 NinieB: - What a great haul. I've been avoiding book sales this year. Seems like I always see the same books and always the same popular authors (you know the ones I mean.) Lots of people here get very interesting authors and great hauls.

>239 NinieB: Great haul! And $1 per bag is an excellent deal...I don't get such steep discounts at the libraries near me, sadly!

>248 dudes22: I saw a lot of the bestseller authors on bag day. I felt very lucky to find such good authors and books in among the bestsellers.

>249 christina_reads: I think they really, really want to get rid of the books they have as they start fresh for each sale.

>239 NinieB: Great haul! And a great price too. I still have my ancient copies of the Jalna series.

>251 LadyoftheLodge: The Jalna books I picked up are from the 30s and 40s. They would fit right in with your ancient copies!

I finished He Knew He Was Right last night, and it's quite a novel. I loved this chunkster by Anthony Trollope, even though some of the characters were frustrating and unlikeable. It's evident from the LT reviews that this turns some readers off the book.

Louis and Emily Trevelyan have been married for a few years and have a son, when a disagreement arises between them. In Louis's view, Emily has become too friendly with Colonel Osborne. Ultimately, he orders Emily not to see or correspond with the Colonel, which Emily does anyways. Louis takes offense that Emily has not obeyed him. And then things go completely nuts in their marriage.

Meanwhile, we have some parallel plot lines. Particularly notable is the Stanbury family. They are poor as church mice. When a very difficult rich aunt asks Dorothy, one of the daughters, to live with her, many unexpected things happen to her. Another notable plot line is the story of Nora Rowley, Emily's sister, and her romances.

It's really impossible to do any kind of justice to the novel in this short review, as the mere names of the important characters would take up too much space all by themselves. This isn't a good place to start with Trollope, but if you like Trollope, you might like this novel.

>253 NinieB: I'm so glad you enjoyed He Knew He Was Right - it's one of my favourites, and Jemima Stanbury is my favourite female character :-)

>253 NinieB: I read that book 10 years ago and it still haunts me, even though I've forgotten a lot of the details. It deserves a re-read.

>254 susanj67: I thought Jemima Stanbury was a fascinating character. Her character arc was one of my favorite parts of the book.

>255 kac522: I can see myself doing a re-read in the future, despite its length.

The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett is about a nameless "huge, sprawling Midwestern city", not Chicago or Cleveland. Seven men--Riemenschneider, Dix, Cobby, Louis, Emmerich, Gus, and Brannom--come together to carry out a jewelry heist. Determined to bring them down is Police Commissioner Theo. J. Hardy. He's also on a crusade against corruption in the police force.

The most interesting aspects of the book are the atmosphere and the plot, which covers both the lead-up to and the aftermath of the heist.For the characters, Burnett efficiently sketches a little back story and current situation, but they're not really the focus.

I read the first half one evening, then it took me a few days to pick it up again, which suggests I hadn't really connected to it. But I then finished it the second evening I spent with it.

The story is more famous as a John Huston noir movie (see The Asphalt Jungle (1950 film), which I would like to watch some time--I don't think I've seen it.

>257 NinieB: Maybe I should re-read this, I don't remember the police commissioner. The movie is great, by the way. Sterling Hayden!

>257 NinieB: I remember the book was also a movie but do not remember if I saw it.

>258 MissWatson: Ah, someone else who has read the book! Glad to hear the movie is so good, Birgit.

>259 mnleona: We're both behind on our noir movies, then. Let me know if you watch it!

Laidlaw by William McIlvanney is considered the beginning of tartan noir. Laidlaw, an existentially depressed police detective (he keeps Camus, Unamuno, and Kierkegaard locked in his work desk), investigates the murder of a teenage girl in the seamy underworld of 1970s Glasgow. The reader follows not just Laidlaw, but several of the gangster characters as they plot to kill the murderer. While this isn't really my kind of mystery, the dialogue is razor sharp and McIlvanney, a poet, chooses his words to great effect.

A great haul of books from the book sale. And more on return visits! You chose well.

>262 VivienneR: Thank you, Vivienne! I'm really pleased with what I found.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Agatha Christie's debut as well as Hercule Poirot's. Emily Inglethorp is the matriarch of Styles Court, an Essex country house, and World War I is raging. When Mrs. Inglethorp is murdered with strychnine, questions abound. How was the strychnine administered? Could her much younger second husband have administered the poison, despite being out of the house overnight? What about her two stepsons, who stand to inherit house and money? Fortunately, Hercule Poirot is living as a Belgian refugee in a nearby village, so he's on the case.

I've read this book several times and I always enjoy it. Christie did amazingly well as a new writer. It's certainly fortunate that she found a publisher five years after she wrote it or we may never have known Poirot and his little grey cells.

Q.B.I. by Ellery Queen is a collection of short mystery stories featuring the detective Ellery Queen. For the most part these stories turn on one significant, telling clue that allows Ellery to solve a puzzle. Many of the stories are just a few pages--at 18 stories and 150 pages, they averaged just over 8 pages each. If you can keep yourself from just whipping through each story, they are fun little brain teasers.

>265 NinieB: My mother loved those mysteries.

>266 mnleona: Doesn't it feel great to remember what our family members loved to read? I have some Ivan Doig books I will never get rid of because my grandfather loved them and gave them to me to read.

>267 NinieB: My mother belonged to the Book of the Month Club and I have her books still in her secretary cabinet that my son has. I should look at the again. I have a granddaughter that has "claimed" my books.
I have to look for my note because I have forgotten who said it but they are reading authors their mother read. That is on my list to read some of the authors she liked. That was a great idea.

>268 mnleona: Perfect! I hope you have many yours of reading enjoyment with your mother's favorites!

Inspector Queen's Own Case: November Song by Ellery Queen is just what the title says. Ellery's off in Europe looking for story ideas while his father Inspector Queen has retired because of an age limitation at the NYPD. (He's only 63, but is repeatedly referred to as an old man in the story, not least in his own mind.) He spends the summer with police friends in Connecticut. There he meets Jessie Sherwood, nurse to baby Michael Humffrey. Michael was adopted through an illegal baby broker transaction. When Michael dies, Jessie insists it was murder--and only Inspector Queen believes her.

I had never read this before, probably because I thought it would be severely lacking without Ellery. Actually there's enough going on that I barely missed him, and the romance was fun.