A bit of good trash now and then is good for the severest reader. It provides the necessary roughage in the literary diet.
Phyllis McGinley, author
I have been on a light-reading binge lately with little to say about the various books other than I enjoyed them for one reason or another but don't have much else to say about them. These are books that aren't part of series that I am working my way through (Louise Penny, Ann Cleeves, Ngaio Marsh, Charles Todd et. al). On The West Wing, they called it "taking out the trash day," getting rid of the unresolved minutiae so they could move on to the big stuff.
The Van Gogh Deception
By: Deron Hicks
Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
Series: Lost Art Mysteries Series, Book 1
Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
Publisher's Summary
A Sunshine State Young Readers Award nominee
Dan Brown meets Jason Bourne in this riveting middle-grade mystery thriller. When a young boy is discovered in Washington DC's National Gallery without any recollection of who he is, so begins a high-stakes race to unravel the greatest mystery of all: his identity.
As the stakes continue to rise, the boy must piece together the disjointed clues of his origins while using his limited knowledge to stop one of the greatest art frauds ever attempted.
©2017 Deron Hicks (P)2020 Tantor
DD recommends. I might even read more in the series, if I can borrow them from the library. This is thriller at my speed.
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Dramatized)
By: Dorothy L. Sayers
Narrated by: Ian Carmichael, Peter Jones, Martin Jarvis
Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
Performance
Publisher's Summary
The elegant, intelligent amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey is one of detective literature's most popular creations. Ian Carmichael is the personification of Dorothy L. Sayers' charming investigator in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation. The dignified calm of the Bellona Club is shattered when Lord Wimsey finds General Fentiman dead in his favourite chair. A straighforward death by natural causes? Perhaps... but why can no one remember seeing the general the day he died? And who is the mysterious Mr Oliver? Lord Peter moves between London and Paris, salon and suburbs, to unfold the intriguing case.
©1991, 2002, 2006 BBC Audiobooks Ltd (P)2006 BBC Audiobooks Ltd
I don't like dramatizations. But it was free and it has been sitting in my Library for a while... and it is a Dorothy Sayers. So I sat through it but I was right, I don't like dramatizations. It is even worse than reading an abridged edition. But there isn't a lot of Sayers available on audio and I have read all that I can get my hands on. Time for some re-reads.
Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos
By: Donna Andrews
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
Series: Meg Langslow, Book 3
Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher's Summary
Yorktown, Virginia, is reliving its role in the Revolutionary War by celebrating the anniversary of the British surrender in 1781. This year, plans include a reenactment of the battle and a craft fair. Meg Langslow has returned to her home town for the festivities - and to sell her wrought-iron flamingos.
Meg's also trying to keep her father from scaring too many tourists with his impersonation of an 18th-century physician - not to mention saving her brother from the clutches of a con man who might steal the computer game he's invented. It's a tough job - until the swindler is found dead, slain in Meg's booth with one of her wrought-iron creations. Now Meg must add another item to her to-do list: Don't forget to solve the murder!
©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Pure mind candy
This is a series that I am not rushing through. It is just sitting on the back burner waiting for those days when I want to read something that is entirely mindless and entirely preposterous. Something I can laugh with and at.
The Luck of the Bodkins
By: P. G. Wodehouse
Narrated by: Jonathan Cecil
Series: Drones Club, Monty Bodkin, Book 1
Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher's Summary
Things on board the RMS Atlantic are terribly, terribly complicated.... Monty Bodkin loves Gertrude, who thinks he likes Lotus Blossom, a starlet who definitely adores Ambrose, who thinks that she has a thing for his brother, Reggie, who is struck by Mabel Spence, sister-in-law of Ikey Llewellyn (movie mogul, Ambrose’s prospective employer and reluctant smuggler), but hasn’t the means to marry her. With well-meaning but unhelpful ship’s steward Albert Peasemarch and a toy mouse with a screw-top head thrown in for good measure, it will, indeed, take the luck of the Bodkins to sort it all out.
©2012 The Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate (P)2012 AudioGO
Wodehouse delights in absurdities and I delight in Wodehouse. 'Nuff said.
The Raphael Affair
By: Iain Pears
Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
Series: Jonathan Argyll Art History Mysteries, Book 1
Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
Publisher's Summary
Set in Rome, The Raphael Affair features the perpetually beset General Bottando of the Italian National Art Theft Squad; his glamorous assistant, Flavia di Stefano; and Jonathan Argyll, a British art historian. When Jonathan is arrested for breaking into an obscure church in Rome, he claims that it contains a long-lost Raphael hidden under a painting by Mantini. The painting disappears - then reappears in the hands of the top British art dealer, Edward Byrnes. How has Byrnes found out about the hidden masterpiece, and whom is he acting for?
There is also the curious matter of the safe deposit box full of sketches closely resembling features of the newly discovered painting. A hideous act of vandalism occurs, then murder. Bottando faces the most critical challenge of his career, and Jonathan and Flavia find themselves in unexpected danger.
©1990 Iain Pears (P)1996 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Found this in the Audible Plus catalog of free books. I grabbed it because I like art history. No idea who the author is but the premise looked interesting. The book wasn't bad and I thought I would try other books in the series.
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman
By: Julietta Henderson
Narrated by: Katherine Parkinson
Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher's Summary
"Charming, warm and uplifting...there is so much to love about this book." (Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This is How It Always Is)
A triumphant and touching debut about the unlikeliest superstar you’ll ever meet.
Twelve-year-old Norman Foreman and his best friend, Jax, are a legendary comedic duo in waiting, with a plan to take their act all the way to the Edinburgh Fringe. But when Jax dies, Norman decides the only fitting tribute is to perform at the festival himself. The problem is, Norman’s not the funny one. Jax was.
There’s also another, far more colossal objective on Norman’s new plan that his single mom, Sadie, wasn’t ready for: he wants to find the father he’s never known. Determined to put a smile back on her boy’s face, Sadie resolves to face up to her own messy past, get Norman to the Fringe and help track down a man whose identity is a mystery, even to her.
Julietta Henderson’s delightfully funny and tender debut takes us on a road trip with a mother and son who will live in the reader’s heart for a long time to come, and teaches us that - no matter the odds - we must always reach for the stars.
©2021 Juliette Henderson (P)2021 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
DD recommends. I liked it. It was bittersweet but with the emphasis on the sweet. Surprised that it was published by Harlequin; it is much better than what I've come to expect from that imprint.
The Man That Got Away
By: Lynne Truss
Narrated by: Matt Green
Series: A Constable Twitten Mystery, Book 2
Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Publisher's Summary
1957: In the beach town of Brighton, music is playing and guests are sunning themselves when a young man is found dead, dripping blood, in a deck chair. Constable Twitten of the Brighton Police Force has a hunch that the fiendish murder may be connected to a notorious nightspot, but his captain and his colleagues are - as ever - busy with other more important issues. Inspector Steine is being conned into paying for the honor of being featured at the Museum of Wax, and Sergeant Brunswick is trying (and failing) to get the attention of the distraught Brighton Belles who found the body. As the case twists and turns, Constable Twitten must find the murderer and convince his colleagues that there's an evil mastermind behind Brighton's climbing crime rate.
Our incomparable team of detectives are back for another outing in the second installment of Lynne Truss' joyfully quirky crime series.
©2019 Lynne Truss (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd
I read the first book in the series. A Shot in the Dark and I still agree with what I said:
"It's the characters, not the mystery
... Suspend disbelieve all ye who enter here. While it isn't the best mystery story I have read, how can you not laugh at a Police Chief who has no interest in catching criminals and his rookie constable who is smarter than he is and does have an interest in catching them. I like her wry humor; it is the saving grace."
Book 2 is better than the first. If I can find them at the Library, I'll be back for 3 and 4. And I love the cover art.
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