Miss Silver Intervenes

 

by Patricia Wentworth ( read by Diana Bishop) c. 1943

Miss Silver, Book 6

 

Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 05-06-14

Language: English

Publisher: Audible Studios

ASIN: B00J7XR02W

Publisher's Summary

When her fiancé, Giles Armitage, is lost at sea in the middle of the Second World War, Meade Underwood is left in the company of a middle-aged aunt with nothing but a monotonous round of bridge parties and war work to fill her days. A chance encounter restores Giles to Meade but he has lost his memory, and their rediscovered happiness is threatened by the machinations of the scheming Carola Roland, a figure from Giles' forgotten past. So when Carola is viciously murdered, Giles becomes the chief suspect and it takes all Miss Silver's ingenuity to unravel the real significance of the crime and its electrifying consequences.

Except for those damned clacking knitting needles, she is growing on me

I have to thank the Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration read (aka Appointment with Agatha) for introducing me to Patricia Wentworth. I read The Key back in April and enjoyed it (in spite of the knitting needles), so when I needed another title in a recent 2 for 1 sale and Miss Silver was on the list, I grabbed it.

I enjoyed this story. I like the way Wentworth unwinds the story -- no melodrama, no stupid characters doing stupid things when we already know what is going to happen when she meets the killer at midnight.  I like Miss Silver's  working relationship with the Inspector Abbott and the way he respects her and treat her as an almost equal -- not equal only because she is a civilian, not because she is a woman. Abbot actually looks forward to the collaboration. He respects her intellect and her ability to get information he hasn't, because she brings another point of view to the table. I like it very much.

Not quite four stars.

Last Ditch

 

by Ngaio Marsh (read by Nadia May) c. 1976

Roderick Alleyn, Book 29

 

 

 

 

 

 

Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 06-06-05

Language: English

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

ASIN:  B0009W0496

Publisher's Summary 

Young Ricky Alleyn has come to the picturesque  fishing village of Deep Cove to write. Though the sleepy little town  offers few diversions, Ricky manages to find the most distracting one of  all: murder. For in a muddy ditch, he sees a dead equestrienne whose last leap was anything but an accident. And when Ricky himself  disappears, the case becomes a horse of a different color for his  father, Inspector Roderick Alleyn.          

And not a baby any more makes three

 

Father and son share the scene.  This one was a lot fun in a leisure suit and drug squad kind of way. I like the way that Ngaio Marsh has kept up with the times and used it to her advantage. Alleyn is at once timeless and dated.  Timeless because he is accepting of the world around him but dated because he seems just a bit out of step with the times and very much an elder statesman. All in all, Marsh balances the yin and the yang of Alleyn and of the story.

Four stars to an author who  has kept up with times and kept her writing fresh.

The Old Fox Deceiv'd

 

by Martha Grimes (read by Steve West) c. 1984

Richard Jury Novel, Book 2

Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 04-30-13

Language: English

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

ASIN: B00CISWPVE

Publisher's Summary

It is a chill and foggy 12th Night, wild with  North Sea wind, when a bizarre murder disturbs the outward peace of  Rackmoor, a tiny Yorkshire fishing village with a past that proves a  tangled maze of unrequited loves, unrevenged wrongs, and even  undiscovered murders.

Inspector Jury finds no easy answers in  his investigation - not even the identity of the victim, a beautiful  young woman. Was she Gemma Temple, an impostor? Or was she really Dillys  March, Colonel Titus Crael’s long-lost ward, returning after eight  years to the Colonel’s country seat and to a share of his fortune? And  who was her murderer?

 

 

If first you don't succeed...

After DNFing my first attempt at this series, I thank my bookish buddies for urging me to try again. It was definitely a mistake to start so late in this series and I said so.  I started other series in the middle but it was just too hard to get into without the background of the earlier installments. The Old Fox Deceiv'd was delightful and I look forward to further adventures with Jury and Plant.

Seven Years

by Peter Robinson (read by Greg Patmore)

Bibliomysteries Series, Book 6

 

 

 

 

 

Length: 1 hr and 46 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 03-05-19

Language: English

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

ASIN: B07NZ21T3L

Publisher's Summary

A gripping novella from the New York Times best-selling author of the Inspector Banks Mysteries and a "master of the art" (Boston Globe)

Retired Cambridge professor Donald Aitcheson loves scouring antiquarian bookshops for secondhand treasures - as much as he loathes the scribbled marginalia from their previous owners. But when he comes upon an inscription in a volume of Robert Browning's poetry, he's less irritated than disturbed. This wasn't a gift to an unwitting woman. It was a threat - insidious, suggestively sick, and terribly intriguing.

Now Aitcheson's imagination is running wild. Was it a sordid teacher-pupil affair that ended in betrayal? A scorned lover's first salvo in a campaign of terror? The taunt of an obsessive psychopath? Then again, it could be nothing more than a tasteless joke between friends.

As his curiosity gets the better of him, Aitcheson can't resist playing detective. But when his investigation leads to a remote girls' boarding school in the Lincolnshire flatlands, and into the confidence of its headmistress, he soon discovers the consequences of reading between the lines.

Bibliomysteries=Serendipity

I stumbled across this series while browsing the Audible website. The first one I found was The Pretty Little Box by Charles Todd, an author I have been devouring of late. It was free and it was short, so I grabbed it. When I saw it was part of a series and that a couple were available on Audible, I got the only other one available through the Audible Plus Catalog. The series of short mysteries is published by MysteriousBooks.com and is available on through their website. Some are available through Amazon and Audible.

Seven Years is a delightful little story but a bit predictable at the end even though there are two possible endings; I wish the author had gone with the other ending.

It gets 3.5 stars.  

Quick Service

 

by P. G. Wodehouse (read by Simon Vance) c. 1940

Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 03-03-15

Language: English

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

ASIN: B00U7U1HH8

Publisher's Summary

This standalone novel is another fine example of the wonderful, zany humor of P. G. Wodehouse.

Imperious  American widow Beatrice Chavender is visiting her sister's country home  near London when a most unfortunate thing happens: She takes a bite of  inferior ham while having her breakfast. Soon everyone around her is  suffering the consequences - her sister, her brother-in-law, the butler,  poor Sally, Sally's fiancé, and even Mrs. Chavender's ex-fiancé, "Ham  King" J. B. Duff.

Don't miss this wild romp from the acknowledged master of British humor.

 

 

Rolling on the floor laughing my @$$ off!

P.G Wodehouse has a way with words! I wish I had a print copy because I would be happy to share some of the more droll lines and observations. This is timeless humor. The perfect antidote for a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day." Simon Vance is the perfect narrator for this book because he has mastered both English and American accents. Good thing the library has plenty of Wodehouse on tap.

Four and a half stars for a quick wit, a keen observer of people and their foibles and a most prodigious use of language.

Owls Well That Ends Well

 

by Donna Andrews (read by Bernadette Dunne) c. 2005

Meg Langslow, Book 6

24 Festive Tasks 2021: Door 5

Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 10-24-16

Language: English

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

ASIN: B01M675VLK

Publisher's Summary

Meg Langslow was actually looking forward to  renovating the old Victorian mansion she and her boyfriend Michael  bought. But she wasn't thrilled by the lifetime of junk accumulated by  the house's eccentric previous owner, Edwina Sprocket. The easiest  solution: hold the end-all and be-all of gigantic yard sales. But when  the event attracts the late Miss Sprocket's money-hungry heirs, the  over-enthusiastic supporters of some endangered barn owls, and customers  willing to go to any lengths to uncover a hidden treasure, Meg suspects  things have gotten a little out of hand. Then, an antiques dealer is  found stuffed in a trunk with his head bashed in - and the yard sale  turns into a days-long media circus.

Another series to keep me happy!

This is my first "Meg Langslow" and I've jumped in to the middle of things but I have wanted to try something from this series for a long time -- and for half a credit, I could be a sport.  Author has a light-hearted touch and populates her world with zany, larger than life characters (kind of like the zoo I have lived with all my life). Right now, she is getting 9 hours of mileage out of a yard-sale and the weirdos who frequent them. Any book that starts with the MC dumping a jug of water on a yard-sale early bird ringing her door bell before dawn can't be all bad. This is cozy done well and you bet I will be visiting again.

Three and half stars

The Port of London Murders

by Josephine Bell (read by john Telfer) c. 1938

Agatha Christie Centenary Read November side read

 

 

 

Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 05-06-21

Language: English

Publisher: Soundings

ASIN:  B0946ZXRRW

Publisher's Summary

When the San Angelo drifts into port  in the Thames Estuary, telephones begin to ring across the capital and  an intricate series of events is set in motion. Beset by dreadful storms  in the Bay of Biscay, the ship, along with the 'mixed cargo' it  carries, is late. Unaware of the machinations of avaricious importers,  wayward captains and unscrupulous traders, Harry Reed and June Harvey  are thrust together by a riverside accident, before being swept into the  current of a dark plot developing on the dockside. 

A moody  classic set around London's historic docks published in 1938, Josephine  Bell's unique and atmospheric writing shines in a mystery weaving  together blackmail, bootleg lingerie and, of course, murder.

Give me more Josephine Bell

Did she write anything else? I don't know, let alone if it is available on audio. I very much enjoyed this one, mostly, I think because of its setting on the docks of London and the complete lack of lords, ladies and the idle rich.

Not quite 4 stars.

 

Why Didn't They Ask Evans

 

by Agatha Christie ( read by Emilia Fox ) c. 1934

Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration read

Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 07-03-12

Language: English

Publisher: HarperAudio

ASIN:  B008GZWMY8

Publisher's Summary

While playing an erratic round of golf, Bobby  Jones slices his ball over the edge of a cliff. His ball is lost, but  on the rocks below he finds the crumpled body of a dying man. The man  opens his eyes and with his last breath says, "Why didn't they ask  Evans?"

Haunted by those words, Bobby and his vivacious  companion, Frankie, set out to solve a mystery that will bring them into  mortal danger...

This title was previously published as The Boomerang Clue.

We are in a groove now

I have absolutely nothing insightful to say here.   It isn't that I am not enjoying the stories or don't like Christie's writing; I enjoy the stories very much. It is more like I don't have the patience for an in-depth analysis of every book I read, especially when I am reading for the sheer pleasure of escaping into another world. The truth is that sometimes I have nothing to say about a book that hasn't already been said. I'm happy to accept that truth and move on, unperturbed.

But, before I go, I just want to say, "Way to go, Aggie!" for naming the inept golfer after the most successful amateur golfer ever to compete at national and international levels, Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., aka Bobby Jones (competitive years 1923-1930). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Jones_(golfer)

 

Three and a half stars. Keeps you guessing.

Wild Fire

by Ann Cleeves (read by Kenny Blyth) c. 2018

Shetland Island Mysteries, Book 8 (and last)

Library Loan

 

 

Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 09-04-18

Language: English

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

ASIN: B07GVNV1FM

Publisher's Summary

The betrayal of those closest burns most of all...

 

Hoping  for a fresh start, an English family moves to the remote Shetland  islands, eager to give their autistic son a better life. 

 

But  when a young nanny's body is found hanging in the barn beside their  home, rumors of her affair with the husband spread like wildfire. As  suspicion and resentment of the family blazes in the community,  Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate. He knows it  will mean his boss, Willow Reeves, returning to run the investigation,  and confronting their complex relationship. 

 

With families fracturing and long-hidden lies emerging, Jimmy faces the most disturbing case of his career.

I never saw it coming

Oh! My! Goodness!  What an ending! The clues were there; I just never picked up on them. 

 

Four stars.

A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth: Stories

 

by Daniel Mason (read by Michael Crouch, Susannah Jones, Jay Ben Markson, Lucy Rayner, Joel Richards, Gary Tiedemann) c. 2020

Audible Daily Deal

24 Festive Tasks: Door 6

 

 

 

 

 

Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 05-05-20

Language: English

Publisher: Hachette Audio

B087LB2H1V

Publisher's Summary

On a fateful flight, a balloonist makes a  discovery that changes her life forever. A telegraph operator finds an  unexpected companion in the middle of the Amazon. A doctor is beset by  seizures, in which he is possessed by a second, perhaps better, version  of himself. And in Regency London, a bare-knuckle fighter prepares to  face his most fearsome opponent, while a young mother seeks a miraculous  cure for her ailing son.

At times funny and irreverent, always  moving and deeply urgent, these stories - among them a National Magazine  Award and a Pushcart Prize winner - cap a 15-year project. From the  Nile's depths to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, from  volcano-racked islands to an asylum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro,  these are tales of ecstasy, epiphany, and what the New York Times Magazine called the "[S]truggle for survival...hand to hand, word to word", by "[O]ne of the finest prose stylists in American fiction".

Expanding My Horizons: Audible Daily Deal Lucky Find

Usually the Daily Deal offerings are variations of the same crap that I have no interest in reading -- too violent, too depressing, too dysfunctional, too maudlin, too much the same as every other book they offer. But, every now and again, they find a title that sparks my interest.  Please don't ask what grabbed my attention the other day when I decided to buy this title. I have no idea who the authors is, what his background is, what kind of books he writes.  There was something in the title, the cover, the description, the price; before I knew it, I was buying it.

I lucked out on this buy. Much to my surprise, especially as I listened to the first story and wondered what I was getting myself into, not only did I like the stories but I liked the writing. The stories are challenging. They are layered. They make you think. Where the heck did the author come up with these ideas? This is definitely not the light storytelling of Christie or Jeffrey Archer; this is 'literary fiction,' storytelling on a whole different plane. In fact, Mason's stories make me think of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar, two wizards of short fiction.

Four and a half stars -- for the writing and for the imagination of the author.

 

2021 Reading List: October

 

       

YTD:  161 Books Read, 1471 Hours Spent

Goal: 100 books and 1500 hours

It was a busy month! I think that this is the first year since I started on audiobooks that I have ever read more that 100 NEW books in a year. For that, I have to the thank the Audible PLUS Catalog and the Boston Public Library for the access to free books. 

1. Lord Edgware Dies -- Agatha Christie --  NEW86
2. Trustee From the Toolroom -- Nevil Shute  --  Re-read
3. Twice Shy -- Dick Francis  --  Re-read
4. The Unknown Ajax --  Georgette Heyer  --  Re-read
5. Death at the Dolphin  -- Ngaio Marsh  --  NEW87
6. The Myth of the Self-Made Man  --  Ruben Reyes  --  NEW88
7. John Woman  --  Walter Mosley  --  NEW89
8. How We Got to Now  --  Steven Johnson  --  NEW90
9. The Final Solution  --  Michael Chabon  --  NEW91
10. The Final Curtain  --  Ngaio Marsh  --  NEW92
11. Overture to Death  --  Ngaio Marsh  --  Re-read
12. No Shred of Evidence  -- Charles Todd  --  NEW93
13. The Horse You Came in On  --  Martha Grimes  --  NEW94  --  DNF
14. The Seagull  --  Ann Cleeves  --  NEW95
15. Nine Nasty Words  --  John McWhorter  --  NEW96
16. The Pretty Little Book  --  Charles Todd  --  NEW97
17. Revolutionary Summer --  Joseph Ellis  --  NEW98
18. Where There's a Will  --  Mary Roberts Rinehart  --  NEW99
19. The Long Way Home  --  Louise Penny  --  NEW100

MTD: 19 Books Read.   142 Hours Spent

Where There's a Will...

 

by Mary Roberts Rinehart (read by Paula Faye Leinweber) c. 1912

Library Loan

 

 

 

 

Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 07-16-19

Language: English

Publisher: Spoken Realms

Publisher's Summary

Where There’s a Will is Mary Roberts  Rinehart’s hilarious comedy involving a health spa, an heir, a would-be  princess, and an impostor. The story is told by Minnie, who has  essentially run the spa for years and inherited the care of its famous  spring from her father. When the old doctor dies and leaves the Hope  Springs Spa to his near-do-well grandson with the stipulation that he  live on premises for two months in order to inherit, the grandson is  nowhere to be found. So Minnie tries to save the spa by enlisting the  help of family and friends to trick the lawyer and keep the spa running.

Hope Springs Eternal!

Still fresh over a hundred years later! Loved it! What a hoot!  Pure farce. Post and Kellogg, eat your hearts out. The sanitarium business skewered and debunked. Adorable, light-hearted romp in the back-woods of middle America of the early 20th century. The reader has the perfect voice for the story and I love the slang in this one. One of these days I will really have to start writing down all the little turns of phrase that I always thought were new in my youth that are in truth much older than that.

Three and a half stars

The Long Way Home

by Louise Penny (read by Ralph Cosham) c. 2014

Chief Inspector Gamache, Book 10

Library Loan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 08-26-14

Language: English

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Publisher's Summary

Happily retired in the village of Three  Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the  Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he'd only imagined possible. On warm  summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in  Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor  Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole."

While  Gamache doesn't talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him  about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed  to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She  wants Gamache's help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary,  Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines.  "There’s power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he  contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he  gets up. And joins her.

Together with his former  second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey  deeper and deeper into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of  Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he  would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and  further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence  river. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it  "The land God gave to Cain." And there they discover the terrible damage  done by a sin-sick soul.

The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.

Margaret Thatcher

I like the Three Pines/Inspector Gamache series. I'm not reading it in order and I'm not rushing my way through. Three Pines is the ideal hometown populated with the most diverse group of kind-hearted over-achievers you have ever met. It is a town of contradictions -- small enough that it isn't even on the map (Brigadoon) but large enough to support a bistro, a bakery and a used book store (I can't figure out how). Mostly, it is such an ironic backdrop for stories that are themselves so dark.

In general, I like her writing. I like the way, in a novel where her characters are actually speaking French, she spends a couple of pages describing a stone circle of hares and ends, very convincingly, having it confused with hair, which could only happen in English because in French they are very different words. I like her stories -- dark and deep but not graphically gory. I like the complicated plots and I like the way she slowly peels back the layers on the characters, even the recurring characters. I love the depth of Armande Gamache, his complicated life on the police force and now in retirement. I like the bold steps she has taken in the arc of this series, pushing readers out of their comfort zone as she chooses the road less taken.

However, this is not the best book in the series. The premise stretches the bounds of credulity and while I enjoyed the journey, the destination was disappointing.

Three stars

 

The Pretty Little Box

by Charles Todd (read by Greg Patmore) c.2019

Audible Plus Catalog

Series: The Bibliomysteries Series, Book 32

 

 

 

Length: 58 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 06-04-19

Language: English

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

 

Publisher's Summary

In  a quaint, antiquarian bookshop in the Midlands of England, a woman is  captivated by a rare gilt-edged devotional nestled within an exquisite  and equally tempting box. Her desire to pilfer it overcomes her  scruples, and her guilt and terror at doing something so audacious, so  unlike her. With a simple sleight of hand, it's hers.

 

But this  irresistible book of hours isn't in her possession for long. By chance,  desire, and cruel twists of fate, it soon falls into the covetous grip  of others - from a pickpocket to a schoolboy to a priest - as one  woman's transgression sets in motion a dreadful chain of events.

Short but maybe not so sweet

What an interesting little tale! An amuse bouche. Something to clear the palate between longer reads. Well written. Simple, nothing fussy but deep if you want to take the time to look for it. 

Three and a half stars.

 

Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence

 

by Joseph J. Ellis (read by Stefan Rudnicki) c. 2013

 

 

 

Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins

Unabridged Audiobook

Release date: 06-04-13

Language: English

Publisher: Random House Audio

Publisher's Summary

A distinctive portrait of the crescendo moment in American history from the Pulitzer-winning American historian, Joseph Ellis.

 The summer months of 1776 witnessed the most consequential events in  the story of our country’s founding. While the thirteen colonies came  together and agreed to secede from the British Empire, the British were  dispatching the largest armada ever to cross the Atlantic to crush the  rebellion in the cradle. The Continental Congress and the Continental  Army were forced to make decisions on the run, improvising as history  congealed around them. In a brilliant and seamless narrative, Ellis  meticulously examines the most influential figures in this propitious  moment, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson,  Benjamin Franklin, and Britain’s Admiral Lord Richard and General  William Howe. He weaves together the political and military experiences  as two sides of a single story, and shows how events on one front  influenced outcomes on the other.

The Summer of 1776

How strange that I have read two different different books recently that cover the run up to the Revolutionary War.  But that is okay because it is a topic I like to read about. I grew up in Philadelphia and visited Independence Hall many times. In 1976, I worked for Philadelphia's Bicentennial Commission -- and I'm sorry that we aren't still living in Philly because I think I would like to part of the celebration again.

I am a fan of Ellis and have already read 4 other of his books -- and now have only 4 to go. I like his take on the founding of our nation (an experiment in government that even the founders ever expected to last as long as it has).  I like the way he picks his focus and sticks with it, not going off on tangents, not feeling that just because he knows something he has to include it in the current story he is telling.

Four stars.