October MysteryKit: Not-too-scary Mysteries

October seems to be full of mysterious happenings, with Halloween just around the corner. Scary movies, stories, costumes, and other events abound! Those of us who might be "scaredycats" prefer some not-too-scary times, so this month's challenge invites readers to select a mystery that is not-too-scary. Ideas about scariness or lack there of seem to be a matter of individual choice, so the possibilities for this challenge are wide open. Here are some "not-too-scary" ideas to get you started:

Classic or golden age mysteries by authors such as Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, Wilkie Collins, Daphne duMaurier, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, or Rex Stout.

Children's mystery series such as Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Enola Holmes, Aggie Morton, or Murder Most Unladylike.

Cozy mysteries by Ellie Alexander, M.C. Beaton, Vivien Chien, Diane Mott Davidson, Amanda Flowers, Joann Fluke, H.Y. Hanna, Sofie Kelly, Vaseem Khan, or Alexander McCall Smith.

Paranormal mysteries by Addison Moore or Nancy Warren.

Romantic suspense classics by Victoria Holt or Phyllis Whitney.

Post other suggestions as you will, and do not forget to update the wiki!

I will probably go with an Agatha Christie, Hickory Dickory Dock

My head went to cozy mysteries, so that's probably what I'll do.

One possibility:
Arsenic and Adobo / Mia P. Manansala

My first pick for this prompt is Peril at End House (Hercule Poirot #8; by Agatha Christie).

My plan is to read something by Diana Xarissa.

I am going to read A Late Phoenix by Catherine Aird. Originally published in 1970 this mystery writer's murders are practically bloodless with more attention being spent on "who did it" rather than "how it was done".

Planning to read Fast Company, a 1937 mystery by Marco Page (pseudonym for the screenwriter Harry Kunitz), about shady goings-on in the rare book business.

I'll probably read a multi-story volume by R.L. Stine.

I finished reading The Peril at End House (Hercule Poirot #8; by Agatha Christie) last night! I always forget how relatively short many of Christie's novels are even as I'm reading them and recognizing that the chapters are flying by. Anyway, in this cozy adventure, Poirot is at a seaside retreat, basically pretending to be retired but he really isn't fooling anyone. It isn't long before a woman crosses his path who is the target of multiple attempts on her life. She lives at a decrepit family house (End House) nearby and has a very small circle of friends. Poirot searches for motive, certain that when he finds that, he will have found his would-be killer. I didn't try too hard to solve the mystery, allowing myself to just be entertained by the story-- so I don't know if Christie played fair or not; but I was surprised by the ending. It lands but with a little bit of a wobble. Still, it is amusing to watch Monsieur Poirot engage with the world as he puts his Little Grey Cells to work.

When rating a Christie novel, I can only really judge it by other Christie novels that I have read so far:

STRONG FOUR STARS:
1. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
2. The Mysterious Affair at Styles

THREE/THREE-POINT-FIVE STARS
3. The Murder on the Links
4. The Mystery of the Blue Train
5. Peril at End House
6. The Big Four

A.C.'S SHORTS ARE NOT MY CUP OF TEA
7. Poirot Investigates
8. The Under Dog and Other Stories

>9 Tanya-dogearedcopy: I rated this four stars, but still it's not one of my favorites and I hardly remember anything from it apart from the setting.

I read A Hole in One by Catherine Aird.
A cozy mystery that is surprisingly chauvinist for a publication of 2005. But then, it was set on an old-fashioned golf course, with a lot of pompous old guys. I enjoyed how the golf-ignorant Inspector Sloan compared all the rules and traditions with his preferred hobby of growing roses.

Wow, I didn't realize that Catherine Aird is still writing books. She has been writing the Inspector Sloan series since 1966. I am planning on reading one of her books in October, A Late Phoenix, published in 1970

I have now completed my read of A Late Phoenix by Catherine Aird finding it rather a bland mystery.

Starting What The Cat Dragged In, a cozy from Miranda James's Cat In The Stacks series

Starting a re-read of A Morbid for Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #1; by Ellis Peters). I originally listened to this in the early days of Audible and the transfer from the original tape recordings to digital were poor. I think a couple years later I read it in print but I never went beyond the first-in-series. So, it’s been a couple decades and I don’t remember anything about it but I’m pretty sure it’s in the cozy sub-genre!

Just finished The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller.
Freya, an antique hunter, investigates the death of her mentor. She is aided by her glamorous, eccentric aunt. The story got a bit bogged down in details and characters and became a challenge to follow. I was looking forward to reading this, because it sounded like fun. The premise is good but Miller couldn’t quite pull it off.

>12 DeltaQueen50: Yes, I was surprised too!

I just finished Tangles and Treason by Nancy Warren which is a prequel to the Vampire Knitting Club series.

I read in only a few days Killers of a Certain Age for this challenge. So yay! One book read for October.

I finished reading A Morbid Taste of Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #1; by Ellis Peters) last night. It turns out that I remembered absolutely nothing from my previous listening/reading all those years ago-- so it was all new to me! The year is 1137, and Shrewsbury Abbey is on the lookout for relics to add prestige to their name. In neighboring Wales, there is the long-neglected grave of Saint Winifred which seems like a perfect match for their needs. The secular authorities agree; the Bishop agrees... but the local village where the remains are buried aren't too happy about it. The voice of opposition is soon found dead and, despite it being a small village, there are quite a few suspects! Brother Cadfael, who came to the church after a life of military service and several affairs of the heart, is content to tend to his gardens; But his secular experience and cleverness come to the fore as he becomes the catalyst to solving this cozy whodunit. I thought it was fun, evocative of time and place, and the plot played fair, i.e., the reader had a chance at figuring it out though admittedly I did not! I gave it a solid four-star rating (up from a unmemorable three star from years past) and have downloaded the next title in the series, One Corpse Too Many.

I spent a few days with my sister and we listened to Steckerlfischfiasko, 12th in a series of cozy Bavarian Mysteries.
And on my train ride home I read Mord in der Wiener Werkstätte, a historical mystery where Viennese art nouveau is the main ingredient.

A bit more violence than I expected appeared in The Lively Dead by Peter Dickinson, but overall it was not too scary.

I finished One Corpse Too Many (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #2; by Ellis Peters) a couple days ago and lied even more than the first-in-series! Empress Matilda and Stephen are ravaging the English countryside in their bids to marshal forces & resources in their bids for power. Shrewsbury is besieged and some villagers from both sides flock to the Abbey for sanctuary. In the town itself, Stephen has ordered the execution of 94 people who have refused fealty to himself but 95 bodies show up in the ditch. It's the 95th corpse that draws Brother Cadfael's attention and so begins the mystery wherein neither friends nor enemies are who you think they might be. There is an interesting focus on the roles of two young women (one for Stephen and the other Matilda) without passing judgement on either; but overall the theme seems to be primarily on honor, fealty and how war challenges are sense of what is right or just. Though the civil war is the landscape against which this story plays out and even a hand-to-hand combat scene, nothing terribly graphic or scary. Looking forward to the next book in the series, Monk's Hood.

As a side note, I'm trying to remember why I was so unimpressed all those years ago when I first tried this series.Was a really that much of a book snob? Not really paying attention? Either way, glad to have re-discovered them now!

I read the next in the Deep Dish Mysteries series, Public Anchovy #1 by Mindy Quigley. A comforting cat cozy.

COMPLETED What the Cat Dragged In, Hiss Me Deadly, and Requiem for a Mouse, all by Miranda James, three cozy mysteries from the Cat in the Stacks series

>23 Tanya-dogearedcopy: I love Cadfael and particularly One Corpse Too Many! Glad you are enjoying the series thus far!

I recently read two mysteries that would qualify here. Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon is a Golden Age mystery, and while there's a faintly foreboding atmosphere (and, yes, multiple deaths), the book isn't spooky at all. And Ally Carter's The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year combines a mystery with a rom-com, so it's definitely on the cozier end of things!

I finished What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley, the most recent installment in the Flavia de Luce series.

I've read R.L. Stine's Monster Blood from the Goosebumps series.
Evan has been dumped on a very elderly, deaf great-aunt whom he doesn't know while his parents house hunt in a new city. That she's mean, doesn't have a tv and doesn't like Evan's dog sends him outdoors looking for something to do, where he meets a new friend and the neighborhood bullies. He also buys a can of something labeled "monster blood", which is a bad decision.

The Collector / Nora Roberts
3.5 stars

Lila works as a house-sitter in New York City and she enjoys watching people across from the windows where she is staying (“Rear Window” style). There is a couple she can see who often fight. When she sees someone hit the woman during a fight, then the woman is pushed out the window, she immediately dials for emergency help. Later at the police station, the brother of the man (who was also found dead – a suspected suicide), Ashton, wants to talk to Lila to find out exactly what she saw. Between the two of then, they figure out there is much more going on here than meets the eye. And it’s dangerous.

This was good. I enjoyed it. It’s Nora Roberts, so of course, there is a romance. The romance didn’t do anything for me, but that’s not unusual. I liked Lila – she is independent and tough. Have to admit I did love the pets who belonged to the people Lila was sitting for.

I read Meddling and Murder by Ovidia Yu, another book in the Auntie Lee series.

I read the paranormal mystery short Ushers: A Short Story by Joe Hill. It's a Prime exclusive. The police have a series of interviews with a young man who seems to have insider knowledge when something dangerous is going to happen.

>31 mstrust: I read that this month for ScaredyKIT. It was a great book.

The early Maigret mysteries are not very scary, and Maigret et le corps sans tête was no exception.

>32 lowelibrary: Very interesting, and creepy!

I have set up the 2025 group here: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/24518/2025-Category-Challenge. Feel free to stop by anytime, start suggesting CATs and KITs, and post your threads for the 2025 challenge!

(I'm posting this notification to a bunch of threads, so sorry if you see it multiple times!)

I read The Body in the Annex, the first book of the Sunset Lodge Mysteries, another cosy mystery series by Diana Xarissa who wrote the Aunt Bessie books.

This book was not that good and I only rated it two and a half stars, but I liked a few aspects, including the main character and the setting, so I am willing to try the next book at some point to see how the series develops.

I finished Fast Company by Marco Page, a 1938 mystery about shady dealings in the New York rare-book community. (The touchstone as displayed on my screen gives the author's name as Harry Kunitz; Marco Page was a pseudonym.)

Old Bones / Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
3.75 stars

Special Agent Corrie Swanson is a rookie FBI agent. After a few months of looking into cold cases, she finally gets a chance to investigate a current case. Someone dug up a grave, then was shot and left on top of that uncovered grave; the grave, itself, was robbed, but only the top half of the remains was taken.

Archaeologist Nora Kelly is given the chance to head out on a search for a “lost camp”. In the mid-1800s, a group called the Donner Party went missing in the mountains in California and most of them died after having cannibalized many of the others. The person who brought a diary to Nora (and her institution) with a good description of how they might find this camp is a historian and a descendant of one of the Donner Party.

Initially, these “stories” don’t seem connected, but of course, they are. Corrie has an inkling (though her superior thinks it’s a stretch) as to how they might be connected (but nothing concrete). Anyway, I liked both storylines. Both women are tough, though not always likable. I thought it was a good story, and I will continue the series. Nora Kelly has been in at least one of the Agent Pendergast books, as well, and he made an appearance in this book. I didn’t know the Donner Party was a real group, though the author’s note at the end tells us that some of the main “characters” that are part of the Donner Party in this book are fictional. I like these mysteries involving archaeology; I think it’s a nice mix.

I’ve just started A Dying Light in Corduba (Marcus Didius Falco #8; by Lindsey Davies). In the past, I’ve felt that these live on the edge of being cozies (versus something a little harder) but the humor written in them saves them from being too scary. In this historical novel set in 73 CE under Vespasian’s reign, Falco and Helen are headed to present-day Spain to investigate the olive oil industry— prompted by the severe beatings of two spies who seemed to have had their own suspicions of price-fixing, cartels… Yeah, sounds serious, but the dynamics between Falco and Helen, and each/both with their friends and families keep it from getting too dark.

I read a psychological thriller: The Dream Job by Kiersten Modglin. Meh!

Arsenic and Adobo / Mia P. Manansala
3.5 stars

Lila is a Filipino-American who was away for university, but returned to her hometown in Illinois to help her family with their restaurant. Her high school boyfriend is still in town, as is her best friend. She has a crush on her best friend’s brother, but has never acted on it; he is now a lawyer in town. Unfortunately, Lila’s high school boyfriend, Derek, has really changed. He writes restaurant reviews in the local newspaper and tends to come down really hard on them, Lila’s family’s restaurant included. But when he and his step-father are eating in the restaurant one evening, Derek falls face-first into his plate. He has been poisoned and it looks like Lila or someone in her family or at the restaurant has done it. Lila and her best friend, Adeena, try to figure out who might really be the culprit.

I liked this. There was more food descriptions in the book than I like, but it’s a cozy mystery and a lot of people like that in their cozies. For those who like that, there are recipes at the back, as well. There is also a Filipino glossary at the start, so that was handy. I did like the story, though. I also liked most of the characters and the little love triangle happening. This is the first in a series, and I liked it enough to continue.

I just finished listening to A Dying Light in Corduba (Marcus Didius Falco #8; by Lindsey Davies; narrated by Simon Prebble). Falco and his pregnant wife, Helena head to Baetica and Corduba (present day Spain) to investigate a price fixing scheme and cartel formation amongst the olive growers there. Olive oil is a common and necessary commodity in the Roman Empire— having a number of culinary, medical, and practical uses (e.g. being used as lamp oil)— so having the market cornered would profit the heads of a cartel immensely but at the expense of the people at large. There is political intrigue, a generation of privileged/spoiled youth, murderous dancers, and admittedly a somewhat unwieldy number of characters to keep track of. I found a character list online and was able to sort out who’s who relatively quickly when I got a little lost, so not really a big deal but worth mentioning if you listen to the audio edition. The story itself was interesting in a travelogue kind of way (showcasing the author’s research) and the bones of intrigue were there, but the resolution was not one supported by anything in the text— meaning that while it made sense, it was not one that the reader could figure out on their own. Still, I enjoyed it and plan on continuing with the series.

I read The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill. Four strangers, two men and two women, are sharing a table in the reading room of the Boston Public Library when a scream rings out. The body of a murdered woman is found in an adjacent room, and this experience, and the ensuing theories each shares, bonds the four. They become joined at the hips as they think about the murder, but the more they learn about each other, the more they question each other's motives for being in the library.
The reader is actually reading chapters written by a famous Australian mystery writer who has enlisted a fan from Boston to help with getting the details of the city correct, a fan who feels that he and the author have a deep connection.

Hunting a Cat in Dogtown / Michael Geczi
2.5 stars

A continuation of the authors “Killer Dead, Victim Alive”, the victim from that book, Chrissy Weeks, is back and now in jail. But the people who worked on that previous case are receiving weird things delivered to them, things that they surmise Chrissy must have sent, but how? Meanwhile, there are new murders that appear to be mimicking the series of murders that were just solved.

This started well, but I think the books (at least for me) really hinge on the unstable character, Chrissy. Once Chrissy was gone, I just kind of lost interest. There were a lot of characters and I had trouble figuring out who was who, and I just didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the book. It’s too bad because I really liked “Killer Dead…” and I thought I might continue this series, but I think I’ll pass on the rest.