mystery

The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison

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Started: 7/10/21
Finished: 7/22/21

Katherine Addison’s first book*, The Goblin Emperor, is one of my new favorites. I loved it. Picking this one up was a no-brainer, and now that I have put it down, I want more. It’s a strange book – it’s Holmes and Watson, but with different names. It’s familiar mysteries, but with unfamiliar resolutions. There are familiar characters, but with supernatural twists. I wasn’t sure if I really liked it, although I enjoyed it, but I love the main friendship and I want to read more of it. So yeah, I really liked it.

*Not really her first book. Katherine Addison is a pen name for Sarah Monette, who has written other stuff. I just learned that. I have not read Sarah Monette. I will.

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

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Started: 6/21/21
Finished: 7/3/21

This series comes up whenever anyone is talking about supernatural detectives, and people seem to like it, so I figured I’d give it a try. I liked it, and I’ll probably give it another book or two, but the main character doesn’t have much of an internal life. He gets thrown into this supernatural world, out of nowhere, and he doesn’t seem to have much reaction to it. So maybe that will improve…? Also, he (or the series) has some sexist tendencies, so if that doesn’t get better, I’m out. The mystery and story were interesting, though.

Battleground by Jim Butcher

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Started: 4/3/21
Finished: 4/9/21

Book 17 in The Dresden Files, which I have been re-reading via audiobook for the last year or so. I probably should have been listing the last several as new books for me, but I’ve been lazy about it. Anyway, I’m enjoying these books more than ever, particularly the later ones, at least partly because he really dialed back the low-key sexist descriptions of women THANK GOD.

Also, something in this latest book made me cry, and there was a bonus short story at the end that made me SOB. Jim Butcher has made me yell in annoyance, shout at unexpected events, laugh many times, but he’s never made me cry before.

Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear

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Started: 3/30/21
Finished: 4/3/21

Book 4, I think, in the Maisie Dobbs series. I like the stories, but I’m over my love for them. Maisie needs friends, please! Someone she actually talks to or has fun with, not just clients and employees and sponsors/mentors. She might become more human.

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

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Started: 3/6/21
Finished: 3/13/21

Book 3 in the Maisie Dobbs series. Any pretense that she isn’t somewhat mystical is gone, and since the pretense is gone, I feel like I can relax about it. It does remove a little of my enjoyment of the mystery aspect, though. Still great characters and good stories, so I’m in the for long haul with the series.

Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear

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Started: 1/22/21
Finished: 1/30/21

Book 2 of the Maisie Dobbs series. She’s still mostly perfect, but her detective work has a woo-woo element that I’m not sure I’ll like long-term. I was expecting pure investigation and deductive reasoning, with maybe some insight, but she practically has visions and gets feelings about things. I’m interested, but I’ll have to see where this goes.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

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Started: 1/19/21
Finished: 1/22/21

I’d heard of this series, but I didn’t start it until Jess recommended it. I LOVED this book by the time I was only 30 pages in, and I raced through it (as much as I can during the work week these days). I’m thrilled there are 15 more books so far. She’s a private investigator of sorts in England in the period between the world wars.

The only thing I’m hoping gets addressed later on is that she’s kind of perfect. Like, she has no flaws, she has lots of useful skills, and everyone loves her. I mean, I love her, but she needs to have SOMEthing to improve on, right? She did one not great thing, but a) we only find out about it at the end of the book, and b) we find out about it as she’s doing something to correct it.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

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Started: 8/6/20
Finished: 8/9/20

Molly recommended this book to me.  She likes thrillers, I like thrillers, but I think she only recommends to me the ones she’s not sure she likes because she needs to talk about them.  This is the second time I’ve read one from her that I felt I had to push through.  It was interesting, and I don’t NOT recommend it, but it’s one of those where the narrator starts to make decisions that YOU know are wrong, that even HE knows are wrong, and it’s hard not to get frustrated.

The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye by Sarah Pinsker

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Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20

Sarah Pinsker can do no wrong.  This story was a roller coaster, speeding downhill, all fun and great, and then BAM we ran into a wall and fell into pieces and then what?  And no.  No!  Oh god no!  It’s fantastic and you should read it.  Except not you, Mom.  Or Margaret.

The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

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Started: 4/27/20
Finished: 5/2/20

Having just finished a couple of very pleasant adventure stories with likeable protagonists, I almost physically recoiled at the main character’s attitude in the first few pages.  It’s an adjustment.  It’s also about a murder, so maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.  Pretty much all of the male characters came across as arrogant chauvinists, including (especially) the good guys, so the book was a bit much to take.  I enjoyed it, but I can’t say I liked it.

Caught Dead Handed by Carol J. Perry

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Started: 11/11/19
Gave up: 11/12/19

I found this mystery series in one of those library/book publisher magazines, too, but I couldn’t get into this one at all.  It’s set in Salem, so I assume magic will come into it, but it’s starting with astrology and a dead fake astrologer’s cat named Orion (dead astrologer, live cat), except they change it to O’Ryan because I don’t know why and I quit.

Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay

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Started: 11/10/19
Finished: 11/11/19

I found this mystery series in one of those library/book publisher magazines.  Small town librarian, all the book titles are cute puns, so I figured it was worth trying.  And it was…okay.  I’m not in a hurry to continue the series, but I did enjoy it, and there was a breakup scene in chapter 3 that was so very satisfying.

Lock In by John Scalzi

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Started: 10/2/19
Finished: 10/9/19

I like John Scalzi’s books.  I haven’t read them all, but I’ve read most of them, and I’ve really liked the vast majority.  They’re not perfect – the problem I run into is that all of the characters sound the same way.  The dialogue, while on the one hand can be pretty realistic, is basically the same book to book.  It feels like every character is a stand-in for the author – smart, an essentially good person, heavy on the snark.  HEAVY on the snark.  It’s amusing, and his stories are all good, entertaining, fast-paced.  I like that his characters tend to have healthy and happy family relationships (it’s a nice change from all the death and orphans and drama I get in nearly everything else I read), but they all talk the same.

So I get stuck on that sometimes.

Dressed for Death by Donna Leon

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Started: 5/25/19
Finished: 6/1/19

Commissario Brunetti series book 3.  I think I see what Jo Walton meant when she said this series was about integrity.  Brunetti solves the mystery, but the ultimate bad guy doesn’t get punished (or not for the right thing).  If there’s a larger character arc, I wonder if Brunetti will go through a depression.

Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare

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Started: 4/30/19
Finished: 5/4/19

I went back and read the first of the Francis Pettigrew mysteries.  If I had read this one first, I wouldn’t be interested in reading any more.  First of all, Pettigrew is barely in it.  Certainly not a main character.  Second, the murder happens in the last 10% of the book.  No exaggeration.  And one of the suspects only got introduced a chapter ahead of it.  I MIGHT try the third one before I decide about the series, but I’m not in a hurry.