Curtain / Agatha Christie

 

4.25 out of 5 stars 

I started my journey through all of Agatha Christie's novels in October 2020 with The Mysterious Affair at Styles. This novel brings Poirot full circle, from brand new Belgian refugee to a elderly Belgian in a wheelchair. It was written in the 1940s and stored away until its publication in 1975, so the writing is strong.

Also returning to Styles is a newly widowed Arthur Hastings. He has returned from the Argentine and has been invited by Poirot to Styles. His adult daughter, Judith, is also present, as is her employer, a medical researcher. Hastings admits that his late wife dealt with their children skillfully and that he is woefully unprepared for that role. He really muffs it on several occasions, mostly because he jumps to conclusions rather than asking respectful questions.

Hastings being who he is, Poirot must explain why he has been invited to this gathering, and do so without revealing too much. As he says, Hastings' face is an open book for anyone who pays attention. The criminal is a subtle one, influencing others to do the work for him. Poirot knows exactly how prone to being influenced Hastings is and withholds the identity of this villain to ensure that expressive face doesn't give him away.

Hastings does his best to be an able assistant to Poirot and a dutiful father to Judith. As usual, it's debatable how much success he has at either role. Despite his association for many years with Poirot, he has been unable to see past his social conditioning and prejudices. Poirot's death doesn't prevent the little Belgian from doing the final big reveal via a letter delivered to his friend four months after his death.

I couldn't help feeling sad for Hastings, who has lost both his wife and his friend. I was amazed at the manipulations employed by Poirot in this final case and the disregard of his own personal guidelines in order to achieve a conclusion to the investigation. I am ever so glad that Christie wrote this final Poirot novel when she was at the height of her powers, allowing him depart with a bang, not a whimper.

Jane and Prudence / Barbara Pym

 

4 out of 5 stars 

Book 5 of the 2026 Read Your Hoard Challenge

It took me a chapter or two to find my footing with this novel. At first, Jane seemed annoyingly vague and scatterbrained, but she grew on me. It seemed that she spent a lot of time thinking her own thoughts and letting other people think whatever they wanted. She is definitely impulsive. The combination isn't ideal for a clergyman's wife, especially as she seems to be hopeless at domestic skills too. Her shining advantage is her lack of desire to run things, letting the bossy women of the parish run things and feel superior.

In the beginning I preferred Prudence, the working woman who is pining after her married boss, Mr. Grampion. When Jane meets him, she wonders what Prudence sees in him. But as Jane muses at several points, men of all sorts seem to be admired by various women. No matter how boring or selfish the man, there seems to be a woman who will desire him.

”Oh, but it was splendid the things women were doing for men all the time, thought Jane. Making them feel, perhaps sometimes by no more than a casual glance, that they were loved and admired and desired when they were worthy of none of these things--enabling them to preen themselves and puff out their plumage like birds and bask in the sunshine of love, real or imagined, it didn't matter which.”

Of course Jane decides to meddle by doing some matchmaking. Prudence is introduced to an eligible widower in Jane's village. This certainly has the desirable effect of distracting her from her married employer. As I expected, there were unexpected consequences which were quite entertaining. Pym does us the favour of leaving out the ultimate outcome. We are free to imagine where Prudence may end up without it being prescribed.

The Witching Hour / Anne Rice

 

3 out of 5 stars 

It has been about 30 years since I first read this paranormal family saga. I remember that it scared me silly on my first reading, but then I reread it many times. I can still see why I was fascinated by it, but my focus has changed over the years. Originally, I was captivated by the gothic nature of the tale. I loved the details of the family's women, the life of Rowan Mayfair, and that of Michael Curry. I was very caught up in the soap opera-like plot.

Now, as a much older reader, it is the mysterious Talamasca that sparks my imagination. Don't you wish such an organization existed? A worldwide scholarly body that investigated the paranormal, aided its victims, and kept detailed records of their observations? I'm a sucker for studying—I have always enjoyed it. And what a fascinating subject to focus on: ghosts, telepathy, vampires, and witches. All the things that I secretly wish existed.

I can see so clearly how Rowan got drawn in by the family ghost or daemon. She is a scientist at heart, with a strong tendency to observe, to quantify, to understand. I would be similarly tempted and have no doubt would be overcome in the same way. However, I think she is mistaken when she calls Michael and Aaron Lightner, the Talamasca representative, innocent and naïve. In actual fact, they both have far more life experience than she does and therefore are more leery of the purposes of Lasher, the family phantom. Rowan is young and a neurosurgeon and she stereotypically believes that she knows more than either of them and is strong enough to deal with the entity. She is so easily manipulated that it makes me rather embarrassed for her.

The next couple of books get weirder if I recall correctly. I will end my rereading at this point, at least for now.

Beast Business / Ilona Andrews

 

4 out of 5 stars 

I was delighted when this book was delivered today and I dropped everything in order to read it. I'll probably read it again before I go back to business as usual.

The Book Devouring Horde loves Augustine Montgomery and has been waiting p*tiently for this novella. It was great fun to learn more about illusion mages like Augustine and animal mages like Diana Harrison. Both magic branches are secretive about their abilities, so Augustine and Diana try to give answers that don't reveal too much. Readers, however, are privy to their thoughts.

We also get a glimpse of the relationship between Augustine and Arabella Baylor. Augustine and Nevada Baylor have swapped siblings to provide internship experience. At the end of the book, House Andrews has included the short fiction about Arabella previously published on their blog. Which is nice, but more importantly, they have also written a short piece that intersects with the primary novella. They know what we like.

Now, I must confess, I thought this novella would be a one and done affair. After all, the Andrews have so many series underway and their Horde is always ready to Devour more. At the end there is enough unfinished business to justify another volume. Of course I will be delighted to read it if or when they care to write it. I am nothing if not chalant.

This Side of Murder / Anna Lee Huber

 

4 out of 5 stars 

Once again, I approached a book club selection with misgivings. Somehow the members have a talent for choosing books that just don't appeal to me. I've missed two monthly meetings, so I was giddy with relief when this novel grabbed me during the first chapter and didn't let me go!

Verity Kent is a war widow. She has been grieving for her husband for over a year when she receives an invitation to an engagement party for the man who stood up with her husband at their wedding. She suspects that the couple are just being polite and would have declined had she not received an anonymous letter. The letter writer insinuates that her husband was a traitor and suggests that more information will be shared at the party.

The festivities are to take place at the groom's castle on an island (of course). There are obvious tensions among the guests, culminating in a murder. The weather turns filthy, keeping everyone indoors. Soon, they realize that the phone lines have been cut and the motor of the yacht that brought the guests is no longer working. The mechanic who might have helped resigned the previous week. Verity's anonymous pen pal needn't have warned her not to trust anyone. She is worried but unwilling to believe the worst of the man she married.

The pace is fast and the clues are not conclusive. Each revelation makes Verity reassess everything that she thinks she knows. The tension is high and it pulled me rapidly along from chapter to chapter. I like Verity as a character as she is very intelligent and brave. Her Secret Service work during the war serves her well as she attempts to learn the truth. She is willing to accept assistance but never shows all her cards. Despite her fondness for Max Westfield, she forces herself to consider him dispassionately as a potential suspect.

I very much enjoyed this mystery and wouldn't mind continuing the series. Several of my reading buddies have told me that the author's Lady Darby series is even better. I intend to check it out too. It is always a pleasure to discover a new author to admire.

Food Intelligence / Julia Belluz, Kevin Hall

 

3 out of 5 stars 

If losing weight was easy there would be no overweight people. These two authors explore the reasons for this. There are multiple brain areas and intertwining hormones involved in appetite and weight. We have less control over what we eat than we would like to believe—our bodies have secret override codes that can frustrate the most devoted dieter. Combined with our food environment (what foods are easily available, their cost, their palatability, etc.), our personal tastes, and our social cues, what we eat becomes very complicated very quickly.

”With something as fundamentally important to life as eating, biology wasn't messing around.”

I was surprised at how little the microbiome was discussed. Instead, the authors wrote about the companies offering personal nutrition guidance, sometimes using glucose monitors as a guide. The evidence for this is anemic at best, but it is a measure of people's worries about their health that many are willing to spend significant amounts of money for this advice. I tend to believe that if a particular program, supplement, or food provided a true dietary advantage, it would be featured in news headlines and on the cover of Time magazine. I occasionally get suckered into buying a bottle of vitamins—just recently it was Vitamin B complex. I'll finish them, mostly because I paid for them, but I know I'm better off eating foods with B vitamins in them.

Many of the issues discussed are what I think of as first world problems. Hunger is still a reality in many parts of the world (and among the poor in our own societies). The future of food production will have to deal with more equitable distribution of food. We are also going to have to face climate change and depleting water supplies.

In the end, Michael Pollan gave some of the best advice: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

Air-Borne / Carl Zimmer

 

3.75 out of 5 stars 

Today, we do not doubt the existence of bacteria and viruses (at least the vast majority of us don't). Zimmer traces the development of disease theory from the belief in spontaneous generation to modern microbiology. In the days before microscopes and clinical trials, there were plenty of theories which were debated by the scientific community. There was a lot of animosity between various factions, proving that scientists are human too and have their prejudices. To some extent, the old saying “Seeing is believing” was one of the problems that they dealt with. The advent of the microscope helped a lot.

Every new disease, it seems, starts an argument about how it is spread. Is it by contact or is the vector airborne? No one apparently wants to believe in airborne bacteria or viruses. Zimmer describes the men and women who struggled in the early 20th century to study the droplets that we humans emit as we cough, sneeze, sing, or even just talk. Some were obsessed with the movement of air in buildings such as hospitals or other congregate settings. All were sidelined and their research largely ignored. Some of it was their own fault—they were often contentious people, obsessed with their subject, but hopeless at explaining it or convincing others of its importance. They were their own worst enemies.

Zimmer hits many of the high spots in air borne illness over recent decades. Remember the envelopes of anthrax spores that closed down the U.S. senate shortly after the 9/11 attacks? The SARS outbreak of 2002-2004, our first nasty encounter with a coronavirus? The H1N1 flu outbreak of 2009? (I traveled to India that year shortly after suffering through a bout of H1N1 and was worried about their checks for passengers with fevers on arrival. Thankfully I passed that test.)

Enter, stage left, Covid-19 in 2020. Old prejudices stubbornly prevented recognition of air transmission of the virus. Trump's White House dismissed the disease as inconsequential. They hadn't laid in stocks of either N95 masks or antiviral drugs (which the departing Obama administration recommended), leaving the country drastically short. The Biden administration didn't excel either. We didn't fare much better here in Canada—some of our guidelines were nonsense, which reduced confidence in the useful ones.

I found it fascinating that UV lights can kill airborne viruses. This has been known since the early 20th century, yet hasn't been incorporated into hospitals, homeless shelters, or other public gathering spaces. Zimmer tries to strike an optimistic mood about what we have learned over the pandemic, but I found my faith in that wavering as I finished. Governments change course with reluctance and recent events have shaken our confidence in governmental pronouncements. Here's hoping we don't have to test our readiness again too soon.