September 2021 Wrap-Up

 

Books Read:

The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley (2014)  3/5 stars  (my review here)

The Killer and the Slain: a Strange Story by Hugh Walpole (1942)  5/5 stars  (my review here)

The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King (2016)  5/5 stars

This Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes adventure revolves around their housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, and her past.   As with most of the series, The Murder of Mary Russell is intelligent, compelling, and well-written, but King's greatest strength lies in her ability to weave together canon Holmes with her own inventions, as she does marvelously here. 

Mary Russell's War and Other Stories of Suspense 

by Laurie R. King (2016)  3/5 stars

The talent for writing short stories is quite different from that needed for novels, and sadly, Ms. King does not appear to possess that particular gift.  I feel I'm being generous giving the collection three stars, as many of them were rather poor.  However, the title story giving more of Mary's background was generally good and worth reading, and the story of their wedding was, despite feeling like a novice attempt, mostly amusing -- hence the rating.

Audio Books Completed:

The Stone Wife by Peter Lovesey (2014)  4/5 stars

Another solid mystery featuring Inspector Diamond. It seemed straight-forward at first, but then became nicely complex and twisty.  I fully enjoyed it; Lovesey and his Diamond are firm favorites.

Mistletoe and Murder by Carola Dunn (2004)  3/5 stars

This takes place during a Christmas house party, and has a real Golden Age of Mystery feel to it. In fact, I quite enjoyed it -- until the obvious murderer and weak motive were revealed.  I still continue to read the series, though I only find the books average, because I enjoy Dunn's cheerful, breezy style and her pleasant characters.

Heroes: Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures by Stephen Fry (2018)  4/5 stars

Using his particular clever, intelligent, and witty style, Fry tells some of the Ancient Greek stories of heroes.  I would have preferred more details given to some of them -- I felt the same with Mythos (my review here) -- but otherwise Heroes is a wonderful collection of tales well-told.  

The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill  (2007)  3/5 stars

DS Freya Graffham moves to the cathedral town of Lafferton and becomes deeply interested in a missing person case.  When more women go missing, and she gets closer to the truth, Freya becomes a target herself.  

Hill writes well, and I was impressed by her ability to bring characters and situations to life.  I enjoyed it tremendously, found it engrossing and gripping. In the end, however, I had to give it three stars instead of four, because there were many people and incidents that had no purpose in the long run, except as filler.

Did Not Finish:

Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie

I've never not finished a Christie mystery, but. . .  This is set in Ancient Egypt and is, I think, the only one of her novels that I have not read.  I was instantly interested in the plot; however, I was listening to the book and found I couldn't keep up with the names.  Once I'd processed what the name was, Emilia Fox was two sentences on and I was left trying to catch up.  So, it's not the fault of the author, or even the narrator, but of my difficulty with the names.  I will probably get the book from the library; I think I would be much better served reading it at my own speed.

The Dead Letter by Seely Regester

This is considered the first full-length American detective novel, and, as Victorian era sensationalism is one of my favorite genres, I was excited to read it, and really enjoyed the first 30%.  At that point, though, a clairvoyant was introduced and was responsible for giving vital information; I prefer my crimes to be solved by the skill and intellect of the detective, not through a Deus Ex Machina situation.

The Detective Wore Silk Drawers by Peter Lovesey

I'm such a fan of Lovesey, so I have been trying his first series with the Victorian Sargent Cribb.  This is the second of that series, and is centered around bare-knuckle pugilism and, as such, didn't interest me as much as the first one did.  Having a stack of other library books to read, I decided to give this one a miss, at least for now.

Waltz into Darkness by William Irish (pseudonym of Cornell Woolrich)

I read and thoroughly enjoyed two other noir novels by Woolrich, and this one was good for the first quarter or so.  At around 33%, though, it lost it's momentum and liveliness and, as a result, my attention.

The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley

I read the first of this series (my review here) and since I found this one on audio at the library, decided to continue with it.  I listened for four hours, and then stopped.  My problems were threefold: the main characters all have French accents and the narrator didn't differentiate well with them; the over-melodramatic grieving grated on my nerves; and finally, the sense of unrecognized entitlement which allows these rich sisters to achieve their desires was more pronounced here than in the Seven Sisters.   I put most of the problem on the fact that I was listening to the Storm Sister  and therefore not in a position to skim over things, like I did when I read the first.  I've not called it quits on the series entirely, as the premise intrigues me, but I don't think audio is the way to go.

Her Dark Lies by J.T. Ellison

I really wanted to like this, as the blurb made it sound so interesting, but alas. . . the writing and the characters were unappealing, and I didn't make it longer than an hour of the audiobook.