The Man in the Queue / Josephine Tey

 

4 out of 5 stars

I enjoyed this mystery a great deal, despite the fact that I would never have guessed the murderer in a hundred years! Tey managed to lead me astray remarkably easily and I don't think she gave me enough clues to triangulate properly. But it was still an amusing story and it aroused my desire to read more of her mysteries.

I couldn't help comparing Inspector Alan Grant with my beloved Constable Peter Grant, having just finished The Hanging Tree. Alan Grant is a gentleman, he has an income and doesn't really need to work. He's looked up to and regarded as having “flair.” Unlike my Peter who is mixed race, gets called upon to help with his dad's dental bills, and has a reputation for destruction. Both of them do have a nose for the story of the crime, however, and a love of policing in London.

I was highly amused by the Scottish nurse, Miss Dinmont, called Dandie Dinmont. I imagine Tey named her after the breed of small Scottish terrier on purpose. They are known as being tough but friendly, as was our nurse.

Josephine Tey, it was lovely to meet you! I hope we will meet again soon.

The Glass Hotel / Emily St. John Mandel

 

4 out of 5 stars

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I absolutely adored Mandel's Station Eleven so I expected to love this one too. However this was my second kick at The Glass Hotel. The first time I had it out of the library I only made it a few pages in, then decided that I hated all the characters and returned it. But several people whose opinions I respect liked it a lot, so I decided to give it one more try. I made a deal with myself: to read 50 pages, then see how I felt.

At the 50 page mark, I wasn't captivated but I was getting there. I finally understood what Mandel was doing—trying to understand the people who would work for someone who is the head of a Ponzi scheme. They want to keep their jobs and income. They've become a tribe of sorts with their coworkers and no one wants to rat out their tribe. If they can avoid thinking about their “investors," they can pretend that they aren't criminals.

The side stories of Paul and Vincent (who seems to be at the centre, but has truly held herself aloof and detached) provide a contrast to Jonathan's world of money. Although we know that Jonathan's brother was an addict just as Paul is. Perhaps Mandel is telling us that the world of money is a complete illusion, we are all coming from the shadowlands and will return to them.

Christianity tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil and this novel seems to illustrate that concept. Saving money, investing, planning for retirement—none of these things are wrong, but wanting money which you tell lies to get, which you spend like it's your own, and then leaving people hopeless and penniless, there's true evil for you.

The Way of the Gardener / Lyndon Penner

4 out of 5 stars

 Lyndon Penner is well known to people who listen to CBC radio. He always provided fun and humorous information about gardening. I don't have a yard or garden, but I still enjoyed his radio segments because he was just so charming and amusing. Since he's moved back to Saskatchewan we've missed his words of wisdom.

 When one of my BFFs informed me that he'd written a memoir about walking the Camino de Santiago, I went directly to our library website and placed a hold. It is a measure of his enduring popularity that I had to wait several months to get my hands on it. I was surprised by its size (quite small) but pleased by the attractive cover and illustrations.

If you are a naturalist, a gardener, or a botanist, this is the Camino memoir for you. Penner regales the reader with all kinds of fascinating botanical information (olive trees can't withstand temperatures below -10C, zinnias are named after a Mr. Zinn, figs are pollinated by tiny wasps). His genuine love of plants of all shapes and sizes is infectious. I have zero desire to hike this trail, but if I had to do it, I would want someone like him along with me. (He states flatly that once was enough for him, so that's my excuse to stay home.)

Not a book that will appeal to everyone, but certainly I can recommend it to gardeners and fans of Mr. Penner.

Oryx & Crake / Margaret Atwood

 

4 out of 5 stars

Margaret Atwood is one of my favourite Canadian authors and I find her work consistently thought provoking, entertaining, and humorous. I get her dry sense of humour. (When my mother was alive, we used to have spirited debates about the relevant merits of Margaret Laurence (her choice) vs. Margaret Atwood (mine). No resolution was ever reached.)

This book was published a few years before The World Without Us and the tv show Life After People and shows Atwood's usual skill at having her finger on the pulse of our current worries. She tells interviewers regularly that she uses the news and current research directions to inform her fiction, that she doesn't invent details that don't have some basis in fact. This attention to reality makes her look like a prophetess from time to time.

Having been living through the Covid-19 pandemic, her description of the spread of virus through this fictional world seemed spot on. The attempts to quarantine people, the hysteria, and the desire to flee the sites of contagion have all been evident over the last couple of years. If her predictions of the changes to climate illustrated here also come true, we will be living in a most uncomfortable world.

I'm glad to have finally met Snowman, Oryx, and Crake. The novel ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I'll definitely want to read The Year of the Flood when I reach it in my reading list.

Book number 422 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.

The Thursday Murder Club / Richard Osman

4+ stars Delightful. The Thursday Murder Club is the brainchild of two women of a certain age, Penny and Elizabeth. Penny is a retired detective and Elizabeth seems to have been in espionage. After retirement Penny hung on to her cold case files, which they have used as fodder for the club. Penny now lays comatose and Joyce has been recruited to take her place. Elizabeth and Joyce are joined by Ron, an old union organizer, and Ibrahim, a psychiatrist. They are exactly what we all want to be in our golden years—active, interested, social, and intellectually sharp. But one day, there is a murder right under the Club's nose. As Elizabeth says, “This is wonderful.” They throw themselves into the investigation, alternately annoying and assisting the local police. Things get complicated. Elizabeth calls in some old mysterious favours and takes some daring risks, making sure she has Joyce as backup. These folks are everything that we older folk want to be when we grow up. Connected with the modern world (although Tinder makes Joyce sad because it looks like lost cat posters) and connected to their children. Even though they are annoying and willing to break the law, the two police officers are reluctantly becoming friends with them. I have no idea whether Osman plans to write more adventures for these intrepid investigators but if he does, I want to read them. Although he blew through a lot of personal secrets in this volume, as Elizabeth and Joyce note life keeps moving on. And if anyone can find them more cases to solve, it will be Elizabeth.

The Angel's Game / Carl Ruiz Zafon

 

3.5 stars

Very Faustian and very Gothic. I'd decided to read some of the books that have been hanging around on my TBR for the longest time, this one being among them. I loved The Shadow of the Wind and had always meant to read the following novels. One down, one to go!

The Shadow of the Wind is a hard act to follow and I didn't like this book quite as much. For one thing, I felt like a number of the plot points were recycled from Shadow, the doomed love, the events happening at a building which is later revealed to be a burnt out wreck, things like that. Plus it's awfully obvious who David’s Boss is. I did find myself wondering if Kirsten White had read the Cristina-on-the-frozen-lake scene before she wrote The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein.

Zafon was a talented writer and I couldn't help but wonder how much (or how little) his writing process was like David's. All night writing fueled by coffee. They certainly wrote similar subject matter, Gothic intrigue in the streets of Barcelona. I have to say that I felt let down by the ending, despite it's nice circular arrangement with the photo of the young Cristina.

My aim is to read The Prisoner of Heaven before year's end. It remains to be seen if I can squeeze it into my reading queue, probably after October and Halloween Bingo.

Death With a Dark Red Rose / Julia Buckley

 

***2021 Dog Days of Summer***

It's time for my summer theme and this year I have chosen to read books that include canine companions. This was the latest volume of the Writers Apprentice Mystery series, which includes two German Shepherds, Heathcliff and Rochester. They get to do their usual guard duty and Rochester gets to go on a clandestine vet visit in the name of surveillance.

I have no idea if Julia Buckley plans to write more of these small town mysteries, but I do hope she will. I've enjoyed four of them this summer and even when read in fairly quick succession I didn't find them to be repetitive. Buckley has more than one or two plot lines, unlike some cozy writers who seem to recycle their plot details through every book. I was pleasantly surprised by the links that she wrote here between Camilla Graham, her senior novelist character, and Miss Marple.

Having said that I'll gladly read more installments of the series, I would also understand if the author ended right here. She's got everybody in the Scooby gang matched up successfully and in relatively happy places. This could be a natural stopping point.

If you enjoyed this book, might I suggest The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco by Laura Disilverio and the Murder-by-Month series by Jess Lourey. 

4 out of 5 stars