Silent Night, Deadly Night / Vicki Delany

 

4 out of 5 stars 

This is the only volume of this series that isn't available at our library, but I was fortunate to find it at a big used book sale back in May. I do like to read these things in order! Merry Wilkinson is once again involved in a murder investigation in the town of Rudolph. Her mother Aline has invited her university friends to come to town for a reunion, but things quickly go off the rails when Karla collapses and dies from a peanut allergy. Merry suspects it was no accident. The police are involved and the women are stuck in town, much to their displeasure.

Merry's father Noel is the town Santa, but there's a new guy in town who wants to take over. Merry is outraged, but her dad isn't going to fuss about it. Can Merry leave it alone? (Spoiler alert: No.) Thank goodness she has her dog Mattie and her boyfriend Alan to help her stay on track.

I was glad that Delany has continued to write Detective Diane Simmons as tolerant of Merry's involvement. The detective is still not going to share information (quite rightly) but she isn't hostile like the police in other cozy mystery series. Merry also is less gung-ho than some other cozy heroines (like Gemma Doyle in Delany's Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mysteries). She even takes better care of her dog than other Delany characters. In this book, Merry spends far less time with her bestie, another pleasant change. All of Delany's series are pretty samey, but I favour this one for these reasons.

I think this volume can go to the used bookstore when I next take in an offering, but I did enjoy reading it. The library can take it from here.

Graveyard Shift / M.L. Rio

 

3 out of 5 stars 

I absolutely adored If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio, so when I saw that she was publishing this novella, I knew that I had to read it. It's been a number of years since IWWV, and I imagine this is a good way to remind her readers that she is still writing. Comparatively speaking, this slim volume is merely snack size. It is very different from the previous book while still exploring the Dark Academic space which seems to be Rio's forte.

Although billed as horror, I would classify it more as human drama with a dark slant. She explores that fertile question of how much we should trust in scientists and researchers. The same question that we've been exploring since Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein. This is why universities have ethics guidelines and enforce them. There are good reasons for the “red tape" that so many sneer at.

I could have wished for more of a lot of things: more time to develop this odd assemblage of characters, slower development of the mystery, or more nuance in the researchers’ behaviour. Hell,more nuance in everyone's behaviour. Messy endings usually appeal to me, but this ending just seemed unnecessarily abrupt. I want to know what happened to the unfortunate grad student. Unusually, I want to know what happens to the two male characters more than the women. Ordinarily it's the other way around.

So, I am reminded, Ms. Rio, I know you're still out there. Since I dig your Dark Academia playground, I hope you plan to produce more. However, this felt rushed and unfinished so I hope your life is more conducive to concentrated writing in future. You write it and I promise to read it.

The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love / India Holton

 

4+ out of 5 stars 

A cheeky ornithological rom-com. I think either Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series or Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate are similar in their arch tone, obviously having fun playing in their versions of Victorian society. This is very much a farce, poking fun at: ridiculous bird names, our perception of Victorian society, tea drinking, competitiveness among birders, academic rivalry, and romance tropes. There is much running about, with the main characters both pursuing and pursued.

Birders may also be reminded of The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession, a book which made me giggle and/or snort at various times as I recognized my own birder behaviour. Combine birder competitiveness with academic rivalry and you can imagine the overblown pursuit of the Birder of the Year title. And anyone who has snickered at Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers or Great Tits will love all the wonderfully extravagant species that Holton has concocted. The cat-eating arctic warbler and the rabid carnivorous lapwing particularly caught my attention.

Very fun and extremely cute. I can hardly wait to read the second book in the series.

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year / Ally Carter

 

4 out of 5 stars 

Another irresistible title! Especially since I am distinctly lacking in Christmas spirit this year and am trying to drum up some enthusiasm for the season. I'm unsure that this novel made me feel more festive, but it was undoubtedly entertaining. 

I don't always appreciate humour in fiction—it sometimes baffles me. However, I understood and enjoyed the snickers that were provided by rival authors Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt. Maggie's persistent misunderstanding of many things made me smile because I realize that I have a tendency to do the same thing. Ethan starts out unbearable but morphs into a good guy who's been misjudged. Their eventual team work feels right.

Of course, if a mystery author (and the grand dame of mystery, no less) sets up a locked room puzzle for her spiritual and genetic heirs, you know that it's going to be a tricky one. Carter creates a collection of suspects worthy of an Agatha Christie novel. The entitled relatives, the newly discovered niece, the old friend (who is a detective), the young lawyer, and the two American authors recruited to be part of this Christmas pageant.

If you are looking for something light as tinsel and tasty as chocolate, this might just be the confection for you. 

The Widow's Guide to Dead Bastards / Jessica Waite

 

4 out of 5 stars 

How could I not read a book with this title? I’ve heard Jessica Waite on CBC radio several times this year and I knew immediately that I wanted to read this memoir. Her husband Sean collapsed and died in Houston unexpectedly. That was difficult enough, but she keeps finding more and more aspects of a secret life that she had never guessed Sean was leading: an enormous cache of pornographic material, massive debt from pricey hotels, booze, food, and prostitutes, numerous affairs (some of which were with women that Jessica knew), and drug use. The depth of this betrayal is hard to fathom.

Jessica had to deal with all of this while drowning in grief for the husband she loved while protecting a young son and wondering what or how much to reveal to her husband's family. Grief is an overwhelming thing at the best of times, with stages which repeat themselves until a resolution is reached. I knew from her radio interviews that the author has reached a place of forgiveness on most days. How did she get there? I wanted to know.

Grief is one of the most difficult things that I have ever done, even though I had only tiny regrets and there were no startling revelations. I relate to many of her feelings and experiences despite the fact that I was a young woman who had lost her parents in a motor vehicle accident, not a widow. I felt her shock when she realized that you get compassion until about the six month mark and then you are expected to be back to normal (even though you will never have “normal” ever again). Then you are on your own. I can attest to the truth of that.

Closure is a myth. You must build a new normal. I remember standing by my mother's body and swearing that I would be happy again someday. Thirty years later, I'm pretty content. I admire Ms. Waite's determination to get her life sorted and marvel at the amount of energy that she has devoted to it. It turns out that she lives in my city and I wish I could meet her.

The Marlow Murder Club / Robert Thorogood

 

4 out of 5 stars 

2024 Re-Read

Another mystery revisited in order to be able to discuss it sensibly at book club next week. It's been a couple of years since I first read it and I looked forward to it.

It was fun to get to know Judith, Suzie and Becks all over again. Judith is the brains of the operation, having kept her wits sharp by creating crossword puzzles, doing jigsaw puzzles, and regular swimming. She recognizes the other two women as potential partners, seeing Suzie's bravery and Becks' work ethic. Judith helps them see themselves differently, as intelligent, capable women in a society that tends to discount women, especially older women. Knowing what lies ahead of them in the next two books, I can see how Thorogood is setting the stage here for adventures to come.

We get introduced early in the action to the policewoman Tanika. I took more notice this time around of her situation—a time consuming career, a small child, a husband who is a reluctant partner, a demanding father. No wonder she eventually knuckles under and enlists our three intrepid investigators.

The plot is worthy of Agatha Christie in complexity. Judith lays out her reasoning at the end in a very Poirot-like way. As with Christie, I saw all the clues but didn't click them together like Judith did. I do think that Thorogood played fair though. It was a solvable mystery for the alert reader. I’m a lazy mystery enthusiast, willing to let the author clue me in. (And after two years, I didn't remember the solution, so I'm glad to have refreshed my memory before book club.)

The Paranormal Ranger / Stanley Milford

 

3.5 out of 5 stars 

As a result of the cyber-attack on our public library in late October, when service resumed a lot of us rushed in to return the books that we'd been waiting impatiently to chuck into the book return chutes. And, pow! Holds started to flow in for us. I seem to have been served up quite a selection of memoirs including this intriguing book by a retired member of the Navajo Police Service.

Milford begins each section of the book with part of the Navajo creation story and then relates his account to it. He claims to have had the ideal balance of traditional Navajo background and police/investigative training to be effective at paranormal investigation. He does seem to balance skepticism and belief fairly well. I know a little bit about what he is saying, as my prefrontal cortex is a skeptic but my amygdala is a believer. As a result, I find books like this one (and a lot of horror fiction) to be very unsettling and I quickly realized that this would be one of those “read only during sunny hours" books.

I certainly can't dispute what Mr. Milford says he has seen and experienced. Earlier this year I read The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, from which I gained the impression that Bigfoot belief was a more Caucasian working-class thing, so I was interested to find out how the indigenous community views the phenomena. It amazed me how Navajo lore incorporates these paranormal elements quite easily.

It's a quick, interesting read which I would recommend be read during bright, sun shiny hours with snacks at your elbow and other people near at hand.