D is for Death / Harriet F. Townson

 

4 out of 5 stars 

Halloween Bingo 2026

I read this for the Cozy Mystery square of my 2026 Halloween Bingo card.

Dora Wildwood is delightful. She sees what's happening around her and often comments on it, often startling those listening to her. [This makes her very like Gemma Doyle of Vicki Delany's Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries. Townson manages to make Dora charming, while Delany's Gemma often grates on my nerves.] Dora is also a runaway bride. She has fled her small village for the big smoke of London to get away from Charles Silk-Butters and his boorish controlling ways.

Of course Charles pursues Dora and makes himself a nuisance because a woman must not be allowed to make up her own mind. As she flees from his clutches, Dora finds herself invited into a glorious library. But they are all glorious, aren't they? As she spends time in the stacks, Dora literally trips over a body. She has recently witnessed the Chief Librarian in a rage and now he is dead.

Dora's ability to see what's going on brings her to the attention of Detective Inspector Fox. The plot progresses at a fast clip from there. I found it a satisfying read and was pleased to see that there is now a sequel, Murder on the Royal Crescent. I’m ever so glad, as there are unresolved issues that need to be addressed. Now I just have to convince my own glorious local library to purchase it.

The Queen's Weapons / Anne Bishop

 

3 out of 5 stars 

Halloween Bingo 2026

I read this for the Dark, Darker, Grimdark square of my 2026 Halloween Bingo card.

Back to the Future. Or Mean Girls II. In many ways, this book is a repeat of the first couple of volumes of the series. Cruel and devious witches are running social circles that are deliberately nasty to decent folk. Innocent and deserving young women and men are being broken to prevent them from being rivals for power. The court of Dorothea SaDiablo (the evil meanie from the first books) is now being remembered nostalgically. Malice and narcissism are running the school that Janelle Satien tells her father, Daemon, that she simply must attend. Her cousin, Titian, is already there, but for completely different reasons (the art program). JS desperately wants to be a cool girl and fit in with the ruling clique. Her family tries to question her and gets only a ton of attitude. Is this normal adolescent girl behaviour, her father wonders, or is something darker going on? Titian and her friends find themselves targeted by the mean girls.

In some ways this is realistic. Once you've lived through enough decades, you will witness historical cycles like these. A present day example is the re-emergence of Nazism, something that our grandparents thought they had dealt with and eliminated.

I find myself magnetically drawn back to this darkish fantasy series, despite its inherent silly soap opera nature. I sometimes have difficulty keeping the multiple names of kingdoms and rulers straight, but when I'm in the mood for undemanding drama, this has been my go-to series. I only have one book left in the run. Once it's done, whatever will I do when this mood hits?

This is also Book 545 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project.

A Trade of Blood / Robert Jackson Bennett

 

4.4 out of 5 stars 

I think I am familiar enough with this strange world now that it no longer distracts me from the actual mystery. That's a good thing, as this is a particularly intricate plot, with lots of complications and red herrings. Initially, Ana is unhappy to be sent on this assignment, as it is so boring. One member of the gentry has killed another. Yawn! Who cares? But when the duo arrive in cattle country, they find the population up in arms and Ana is delighted when weird shit is immediately obvious. Perhaps her skills are truly required. Happy squee! Yay, strangely dead bodies!

I think the author has been reading about zombie-ant fungus, which infects and reprograms the ant, sending it up to a good spore-spreading spot. The hapless ant grips a leaf with its mandibles and eventually the fungus fruits from its head, completing its lifecycle. [If this sounds overly squicky to you, this may not be your book.]

Ana is somewhat less obnoxious in this installment, though she is still retains her blindfold, her disgusting eating habits, her enormous amount of baggage, and her severe lack of empathy for those around her. If she is the Sherlock Holmes of this duo (and she is), then she is even more extreme than that Victorian detective. Meanwhile, Din is coming to realize that his abilities are changing in disturbing ways and he is worried that he has passed his best-before date much earlier than he anticipated. It's one thing to allow the Empire to modify your brain, it's quite another to run up against the weirdness of that modification so obviously.

However, it's their unusual brains that save Ana and Din physically as well as identifying the perpetrator of the crimes. Keep them coming, Mr. Bennett!

Upon a White Horse / Peter Ross

 

4 out of 5 stars 

***2026 Summer of Sightseeing from my Sofa***

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse;
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes.

I remember this rhyme from one of my childhood books and it always appealed to me. However, the rhyme is more recent than the places examined in this book. My mother's family came from Britain (among other places), so the prehistory there has been of interest to me. It was enjoyable to follow in Peter Ross's footsteps as he visited various historic sites. He has a way with words, describing these spots well and providing photos for many of them.

Ross begins with the best known of all: Stonehenge, which I have seen only through the fence which surrounded it in 1999. I longingly stuck my camera lens through the metal mesh, but we were on a birding tour and searching for Corn Buntings. No Stonehenge communing for me. From there, the author explores some (perhaps) less well known places, at least no non-English people: Silbury Hill, the chalk figures of the Uffington White Horse and the Cerne Giant. There were also sites that I only learned about a couple of years ago (Vindolanda) and one that came to the world's attention through vandalism (Sycamore Gap) when some idiot(s) chopped down an old, enormous sycamore. My best friend grew up by Hadrian's Wall, so I knew a bit about it, but I wasn't familiar with the Antonine Wall. That's probably because it was primarily constructed of turf and it has faded back into the landscape. The Romans didn't end up sticking around to make it more permanent.

The common denominator between all these places is the lack of written records. What we know about the people who built them has to be inferred from archaeological evidence and involves a certain amount of story telling. There has been a large increase in tourism to sites like these, apparently a response to the pandemic shutdown. People want to get out to touch grass (or in many of these, granite). I felt that Ross hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “Mystery is so important in a world where everything is on your phone."

Scales of Justice / Ngaio Marsh

 

4 out of 5 stars 

What a fish story this was! Inspector Alleyn is called into a murder case in a small village. One of the Old Boys has been beaten over the head and left for dead beside the fishy remains of a much desired trout known as the Old ‘Un.

Marsh teases us with possibilities of the murderer's motives. There is strong competition amongst all the fishermen to be the one to hook the Old 'Un and it has created great animosity. There has also just been a natural death, of Howard Lacklander, who had consigned his memoirs into the hands of the murder victim just before he expired. There is great trepidation and unhappiness among the neighbours about the contents of these memoirs. Marsh dangles hints about what might be causing this consternation, hinting that it might be worth killing for.

This is a very Agatha Christie like novel—set in a small village where everyone knows everyone else's business. It also shows us the class differences that were so blatant at the time. Marsh misdirected this reader quite masterfully and I was completely startled by the solution. A well plotted mystery with a perfect title.

Evil Genius / Claire Oshetsky

 

3.5 stars

I spent most of my time reading this book wondering about the title. Who was the evil genius? Surely not Celia, this nineteen year old woman with a horrible job, an abusive husband, and a controlling mother. If her life is this awful, she's no genius, evil or otherwise. On the other hand, maybe she's not the most reliable of narrators?

If I was believe Celia's account of her life, all kinds of coincidences continually happened to her. She is a runaway train, jumping the tracks of her boring life and gas lighting husband. Her job (dealing with late payments at the phone company) leads to some odd situations, which feel real enough if you've ever worked in the service industry. (I worked a telephone job for a while and was propositioned regularly by the guys who phoned.) There's the Sock Man who repeatedly phones to ask her to put a sock on his willy. The evening out with the girls that results in being propositioned by a well tailored man (her mother was a seamstress, she recognizes a well fitted suit). Finding dog poo all over his house and finding that he is an inferior fondler. It all just rolls along organically.

By the book's end, I was doubting my interpretation of events. Had Celia actually masterminded everyone's reactions to a tee? Maybe she was an evil genius? I still haven't decided and maybe I'm not meant to.

Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? / Thomas Kohnstamm

 

***2026 Summer of Sightseeing from my Sofa***

DNF @ 36%

At this point, I just disliked the author enough that I had no desire to read another word.

This book has taught me that traveling as a birder is entirely different from the regular travel crowd. I mean I already knew that, but I now realize just how different we are. If anyone on my birding tours was trolling for drugs, I don't remember it. Our tour leader in Japan regularly got soused drinking sake, but hangovers don't mix well with early mornings and bright sunshine.

I just couldn't relate. And couldn't dig up enough enthusiasm to finish the book. He's a good writer, but I'd never want to have a coffee with him.