Monday Mash-Up

 Monday, January 15, 2024

ANNOUNCEMENT

Just to stir things up, starting next week Monday Mash-up is becoming MIDWEEK MASH UP and will be published on Wednesdays. Everything will be the same, just published on a different day.

 

THOUGHTS

Wanda, I just want to say that he is the nuts!

 

BOOKISH FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Ideas are not the thing in books, characters are the thing. If you think about your favourite books ever, and you want to tell me the plot, you sort of can't a lot of the time. You can't really remember, but characters stay with you forever and ever and ever.  And if you love a character, you'll stay with their story. So it's not what happens in the book, it's "Why do I care what happens in the book?"

Richard Osman

 

Now he has me thinking (yes, we are in trouble now), "Who have been my favorite characters over the years?" I can't answer right off the bat, so I will have to revisit this in a free standing post. I've been reading novels for over 60 years now and I can't answer the question.

I can tell you some of my favorites right now, but for a lifetime of characters, I really have to think about it. I have to go stand in front of bookshelf and look at my books (because what I've kept are my favorites) and think about the characters. Then I start thinking, well is it one character in a novel or is it the ensemble of characters playing off one another? And so on down the rabb-i-t h-o--l--e...............

 

READING MY HORDE

My electronic horde is full of light reading -- and that is really what I needed this week. I managed to get through 5 books from the list. I seem to be reading the short books first, because watching the numbers drop makes me feel like I am accomplishing something.

RMH running total is 11 books so far this year and the counter on the pile is down to 74 (including one title that I had already read but hadn't deleted and not including the handful of Ellery Queen freebies that I just threw on the pile as I was writing). It is an electronic pile and it has a built in counter. I just have to remember to remove the books from the collection as I read them.

 

THE BOOKS

Finally, we get down to business.  All RMH books are marked with a webding ¨ that is supposed to be a stack of books. But it is so small that it doesn't matter what it is.

¨ The Case of the Drowning Duck by Erle Stanley Gardner
¨ The Case of the Baited Hook by Erle Stanley Gardner

Necessary roughage. Harlequins for mystery readers -- and I've read a lot of Harlequins. Perry always get his perp while the stories are complicated enough that you don't always see what is coming. And that is all I need to say about the whole series. Besides I have one left in the pile and that I will save for another month
3 stars and 3.25 stars respectively

¨ Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley

Oh my goodness, did I enjoy this one. A slang term for a man who is hanged is 'Jumping Jack'. For a woman it is 'Jumping Jenny'. Maybe you can guess where this book is headed. Yes, someone is killed by hanging, in the home of the Sherlock during a fancy dress party -- they were all dressed as murderers or their victims. The Sherlock was a bit out of character in this one because he was coaching everyone in what to say at the coroner's inquest, even asking a few to outright lie. They all wanted the verdict to come back as suicide even though the reader "saw" the murder. That was strange. The whole story was dark, dark, dark.
4 stars

¨ The Secret Hangman by Peter Lovesey

Kind of strange to read two books in a row whose COD was hanging but I did. It wasn't intentional I chose my next read by scrolling up and down the list until the little voice says, "Yes, that the next one." This time the voice said I should read a Lovesey. This is next in the series. I could have overridden the little voice.

I loved this one. It was full of twist and turns, red-herrings, blind alleys, dead ends and everything else to make a simple story ever so complicated. It is three years or so after Steph's murder and this is our first encounter with Peter Diamond. He is just starting to leave the dense fog of mourning and grief. Thank you, Peter Lovesey for not dragging us through PD's darkest days. He was a private man and readers don't need those details. PD is finally opening up the doors and windows and letting the light in.
4 stars

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman

It's been on hold since September! Like Moonlight Reader, this one really touched me -- as in, had me in tears at one point.

I have enjoyed this series and this is the best one yet. I may have to read it again, soon. The mystery was good (and of course I got lost in it with all the twists and turns) but the ongoing story of the members of the Thursday Murder Club (the soap opera) was even better; Osman continues to peel away the layers as we learn more and more about the cast of characters.

Bonus material: My audio version included a conversation with the author and the narrator (Fiona Shaw). Sometimes these things are so insipid (lots of words but no insight) that I turn them off but Shaw and Osman are very good at the give and take and the conversation was enlightening'
4.25 stars

¨ The Spanish Cape Mystery by Ellery Queen

Brits, you might enjoy the fact that one of the characters in this book is Earl Court. For all those who don't get it, Earls Court is a London neighborhood and a stop on the London Underground.

This is one the earlier books in the series and it is a good one. It is a riff on a locked room mystery. I think I toyed with the perp as a possibility at one point but mostly I just waited for everything to be explained to me.

3.75 stars

 

And that's it for this Monday. Wishing you all a good week.