Bewitched (Betwixt & Between, #2)

Bewitched
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781734385229
Series: Betwixt & Between #2
Publication Date: September 15, 2020
Pages: 254
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Self-published

Forty-something Defiance Dayne only recently discovered she comes from a long line of powerful witches. Added to that was the teensy, infinitesimal fact that she is what’s called a charmling. One of three on the entire planet. And there are other witches who will stop at nothing to steal her immense power, which would basically involve her unfortunate and untimely death.

No one told her life after forty would mean having to learn new lifeskills—such as how to dodge supernatural assassins while casting from a moving vehicle—or that the sexiest man alive would be living in her basement.

Whoever said life begins at forty was clearly a master of the underappreciated and oft maligned understatement.

A pretty good follow up to book one after a rough start involving a heavy and silly dose of self denial on the part of the mc that fooled exactly no one.

Lots of heavy hints about upcoming darkness and drama, and a lot of unrelieved sexual tension for the mc and her romantic interest – which they deserve if they expected any privacy in the kitchen of a house with 4 other people wandering around in it.

In true Jones fashion, there’s no one story line, but rather multiple small things that happen and several resolutions brought about, some more exciting than others. Defiances’ climbing of her personal learning curve might be a little conveniently easy, if for the author, if not herself, but given the publication time frame of these stories, it’s understandable, and the story works in spite of it as long as you aren’t looking for anything too meaty or involved.

I’m looking forward to book three and the chance to revisit the characters.

Betwixt (Betwixt & Between, #1)

Betwixt
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781734385243
Series: Betwixt & Between #1
Publication Date: February 15, 2020
Pages: 254
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Self-published

Forty-something Defiance Dayne only recently discovered she comes from a long line of powerful witches. Added to that was the teensy, infinitesimal fact that she is what’s called a charmling. One of three on the entire planet. And there are other witches who will stop at nothing to steal her immense power, which would basically involve her unfortunate and untimely death.

No one told her life after forty would mean having to learn new lifeskills—such as how to dodge supernatural assassins while casting from a moving vehicle—or that the sexiest man alive would be living in her basement.

Whoever said life begins at forty was clearly a master of the underappreciated and oft maligned understatement.

I heard about this one from a fellow reviewer, and being a big fan of Darynda Jones’ other work in paranormal stories, I bent so far as to buy the ebook, I was so eager to read it.

This is an easy to read, fun, well-written story of no immense depth, full of the wonderful narrative snark that Jones is brilliant at. If you’ve read her before and didn’t care for the snark, this one won’t endear her to you, but it’s a lot of fun to read.

At its heart is the friendship between the main character Defiance and her BFF, Annette. And, of course, the romantic interest that is Roane. Jones tries really hard to make Roane not be Reyes from glorious Grim Reaper series, but while she succeeds at making him look different, a rose by any other name would still be Reyes. The author definitely has a type. Fortunately it works.

While book one is light on plot, focusing mostly on world and character building, I didn’t feel the lack. These are characters I genuinely enjoyed reading about and their new life was interesting in itself. The only complaint I had was the dangling storyline of the Ex. His brief re-appearance was unnecessary, made more so by the complete lack of follow up. It feels like something an editor forgot to take out.

The book ends on a definitely lead in to the next book; not a cliffhanger, but definitely a dangling carrot of sorts. If you find yourself enjoying this book, you’ll likely want to jump right into the next one.

The Library of the Unwritten

The Library of the Unwritten
by A.J. Hackwith
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781984806376
Series: Hell's Library #1
Publication Date: October 1, 2019
Pages: 374
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

A great tale for anyone who loves books, but especially for those who fancy themselves future authors, struggling authors, or really, anyone who’d embrace the title of author in any form.

Myself, I’ve never found the title of author appealing. My love of books is strictly that of the receiver of stories, and as such, some of the rhapsodic odes to unwritten stories was lost on me, though I connected with the idea of potentiality.

Regardless, once I got into the story, which admittedly took awhile, I was invested. I thoroughly appreciated the author’s take on Christian theology and judgement, but had a hard time buying into the creative license she took with heaven on several different levels. There’s a serious feminist vibe running throughout the narrative, which is fine, but for the record: God is no more a ‘she’ than God is a ‘he’; God is Omni; God is all, and while it makes no material difference which gender pronoun one uses, the overt use of “she’ has always felt petty to me. It was a small blip, but whenever it happened it yanked me out of the story, even if just for a second.

The author’s grasp of the mythology of the underworld felt less formed, but only if you really stop to consider; the logic of the plotting cracks a bit around the edges if you stop to consider how she’s got the bureaucracy of Hell set up. Don’t think about it too much though and it works well enough.

The characters are well written, though Leto’s story is obviously the one that is the most fully developed. This is the character the author thought most deeply about, or had enough life experience that bled through into his creation. Which is both unfortunate and haunting, though the result is a character the reader can care about and cheer for. To use Hackworth’s logic, Leto is the character most likely to leave his book.

Overall, an engaging story, an adventure. There’s a second book out next month that I’ll happily read, and I hope this time around we’ll spend more time in the library itself.

The Red Lamp

The Red Lamp
by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Rating: ★★★★½
Publication Date: June 18, 2019
Pages: 289
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Penzler Publishing

William Porter has just inherited Twin Hollows, an isolated lakeside estate shrouded in mystery and doom. But William and his wife aren't easily swayed by ghost stories and whispered rumors. Until a shadowy apparition beckons to them from the undying glow of a red lamp. Is a stranger with a deadly purpose trying to frighten them away? Or are they being haunted by a chilling warning from the grave?

I knew this was a ghost story, of sorts, so I started it bright and early yesterday morning, and became so engrossed in the story that I almost, almost, finished it last night. leaving nothing but 3 of the last 4 conclusion chapters for me to read today.

Mary Roberts Rinehart was an excellent writer; that her genius has been so far forgotten today is a tragedy. The Red Lamp was originally written in 1925, and putting aside the lack of technology and the beautifully elegant writing that today might be considered a tad verbose, the story holds up perfectly; it would take very little to make this story ‘modern’.

The Red Lamp is complex to the point of labyrinthine though. Like the main character, I stumbled through the story in ignorance. Some of this was by design, as the mc is meant to be a spectator not an active participant in solving the crimes, but some of it was because there was just so much going on and that beautifully elegant writing of Rinehart’s made for easy camouflage of any clues.

The book is, with the exception of the introductory and final 4 chapters, purely epistemological, with no chapters, just journal entries. This style doesn’t always lend itself to a submersive experience for the reader, but these journal entries are detailed enough that it makes almost no difference from a first person narrative.

The ghostly part of the story, in spite of the enormous potential for scarring the spit out of me, were subdued enough that they never raised so much as a hair. This was a wee bit disappointing, I admit, but it didn’t adversely affect the story; they were never the point of the book, it was always about the mysterious killings and there was never doubt that those killings were done by a very corporeal being.

All in all, this was an excellent mystery. I’d recommend this to anyone curious about Golden Age Mysteries who might be hesitant fearing dry or dated story-telling. While not perfect, The Red Lamp is most assuredly neither dry nor dated.

I read this for the Gothic square on my Halloween Bingo 2020 card.

The Leper of St. Giles (Brother Cadfael Mystery, #5)

The Leper of St. Giles
by Ellis Peters
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780333319857
Series: Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #5
Publication Date: August 27, 1981
Pages: 224
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Macmillan

Brother Cadfael has had no time to think about the grand wedding which is to take place in the church at Shrewsbury Abbey and is causing such excitement in the city. The groom is an aging nobleman; the bride a very young woman coerced into the marriage by her greedy guardians. But it soon becomes apparent that the groom, Huon de Domville, is a cold, harsh man -- in stark contrast to his beautiful bride-to-be. Before the wedding can take place, a savage killing occurs, setting Brother Cadfael the task of determining the truth, which turns out to be strange indeed.

For slower paced, traditional mysteries that are very skilfully written, you can’t go wrong with Brother Cadfael. When Peters created a crusader turned monk, she gave herself a large canvas on which to paint a variety of clever, interesting crimes.

The Leper of St. Giles takes place largely in and around St. Giles, the hospice for lepers that lies just outside Shrewsbury, but it’s largely about the wedding of an 18 year old girl, sold off by her guardians for a large portion of her own inheritance, to a cold, unfeeling 60-something land baron who only bought her lands and is taking her on sufferance. Of course she’s fragile and innocent and lovely and of course his squire is around the bend in love with her and incandescent over the injustice of her treatment. And of course the baron ends up murdered.

There’s a plot twist in this book; a rather major one, but it’s telegraphed early on, so that I knew long before it was revealed. It’s a good one, but if Peters hadn’t split the difference, the early guess would have ruined the story. As it is, Peters seems to have covered her bets and kept that reveal from being absolutely pivotal to the plot, making the ultimate solution a surprise, and a tragic one at that.

A few of the series characters readers enjoy aren’t here in this book, but there are other characters that endear themselves to the reader. There’s a bit of humor here and there too, making this a much more enjoyable read than the last, St. Peters’ Fair, which was a good story but dragged. I’d be best pleased if we saw Bran and Joscelin again, though I’m not counting on it.

This is one of the better of the 5 I’ve read so far, and I read it for the center square – Poe’s Raven – on my Halloween Bingo Card for 2020

Murders and Metaphors

This is one of those series where the premise and the characters are strong, but the writing and editing could be better. A bookshop with a magically sustained tree growing through the center that communicates through books with its owners; a raven that talks and a cat that understands more than he should; a native American sheriff that plays a strong role in the plots.

The mystery was ok; a little too frantic, but well done and I didn’t guess the murderer. The motive was weak; plenty of other suspects had much more compelling reasons to kill the victim, which leaves the murderer’s reasons feeling way too shallow.

There’s a lot to like, and it’s not an unenjoyable read, if you’ll excuse the double negatives, it’s just not a great read. I enjoyed the time I spent reading it enough to keep reading it, but not enough to feel anxious about reading the next one.

I read this for the Black Cat square on my Halloween Bingo 2020 card.

Murder at the Manor: Country House Mysteries

Murder at the Manor
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9780712309936
Publication Date: February 1, 2016
Pages: 384
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: The British Library

I read two stories from this anthology: Gentleman and Players and The White Pillars Murder. Both, it seems, stories I’ve already read elsewhere. Luckily I only remembered enough to recognise I’d read them before, not enough to remember how they end.

Gentleman and Players is a Raffles short story deeply embedded in a country house cricket competition and is less a mystery than an adventure sort of story. Mildly entertaining.

The White Pillars Murder is a G.K. Chesterton short mystery and it’s definitely a mystery, but the ending is beyond bizarre, and feels a bit like Chesterton is burning a bridge of sorts. A bit preachy too. Not a fan.

I read these for the Country House Mystery square on my Halloween Bingo 2020 card. Hopefully next time I pick up this book, I’ll remember I’ve already read these two stories.

Murder by Death: The book that was based on the movie that inspired the blog name

Murder by Death
by H.R.F. Keating, Neil Simon
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 0352397276
Publication Date: January 1, 1976
Pages: 176
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Star Books

Novelization of the screen play by Neil Simon. Various "famous sleuths" (or their somewhat thinly disguised copies) are invited by a mysterious millionaire to stay at his house and solve a who-dun-it, with the winner getting millions.

I re-read this almost perfectly brilliant book, based on the absolutely brilliant movie, for Halloween bingo’s Dark and Stormy Night square.

If you haven’t seen the movie, written by Neil Simon and released in the 1970’s, and you’re a fan of classic mysteries and oddball humor, you’re missing out on a classic. It’s brilliantly written and brilliantly casted. It’s an homage and a spoof, so if spoof’s aren’t your thing, skip it, you’ll be disappointed. It’s the original Clue! only the characters are based on Nick and Nora, Miss Marple, Sam Spade, Hercule Poirot, and Charlie Chan.

The book was written to be a faithful reproduction of the movie, though H.R.F. Keating uses the opportunity of the written word to name drop additional authors like Conan Doyle and Sayers. And it is an exact, faithful reproduction of the movie – until the last 5 short paragraphs where Keating, apparently, couldn’t help himself and changed the ending. It’s a small thing, but it sets my teeth on edge because it’s a sop.

Still, I cherish this book as I do the movie. I just need to stop at the fifth to last paragraph.

Capital Crimes: London Mysteries

Capital Crimes: London Mysteries
by Martin Edwards
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780712357494
Publication Date: March 12, 2015
Pages: 319
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: The British Library

Capital Crimes is an eclectic collection of London-based crime stories, blending the familiar with the unexpected in a way that reflects the personality of the city. Alongside classics by Margery Allingham, Anthony Berkeley and Thomas Burke are excellent and unusual stories by authors who are far less well known.

The stories give a flavour of how writers have tackled crime in London over the span of more than half a century. Their contributions range from an early serial-killer thriller set on the London Underground and horrific vignettes to cerebral whodunits. What they have in common is an atmospheric London setting, and enduring value as entertainment. Each story is introduced by the editor, Martin Edwards, who sheds light on the authors' lives and the background to their writing.

I’ve had this anthology on my shelves for a few years, always waiting. Well, this year I needed to read a mystery set in London for 2020 Halloween Bingo and I finally remembered I had this wonderful stash of stories all in one spot.

For this year’s bingo, I chose – of course – Conan Doyle’s The Case of Lady Sannox. This is not a Sherlock Holmes story, in spite of the title, and it’s closer to horror than mystery. It’s also classic Conan Doyle style. As such, I guessed the twist at one point, when I read a specific sentence that reminded me of Holmes:

View Spoiler »

Don’t ask me why, but with that sentence I knew how the story would end. And I was right, and it was horrifying. Darkest London, indeed.

2 more short stories from The Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

The Locked-Room Mysteries
by Otto Penzler
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780307743961
Publication Date: October 28, 2014
Pages: 941
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Vintage Crime / Black Lizard

In this definitive collection, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler selects a multifarious mix from across the entire history of the locked room story, which should form the cornerstone of any crime reader's library.

Virtually all of the great writers of detective fiction have produced masterpieces in this genre, including Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, Dorothy L. Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, G.K. Chesterton, John Dickson Carr, Dashiell Hammett, Ngaio Marsh and Stephen King.

The purest kind of detective story involves a crime solved by observation and deduction, rather than luck, coincidence or confession. The supreme form of detection involves the explanation of an impossible crime, whether the sort of vanishing act that would make Houdini proud, a murder that leaves no visible trace, or the most unlikely villain imaginable.

The Black Lizard Big book of Locked-Room Mysteries claims, on its cover, to be “The most complete collection of impossible-crime stories ever assembled.” Whether this is true or not, clocking in at 939 pages of small, two-column print, it’s definitely a monster and one I’ve been chipping away at slowly for years. For this year’s Halloween Bingo, I needed Locked Room mysteries, so I turned to my Big Book and chose two from the same author: The Wrong Problem by John Dickson Carr, and Blind Man’s Hood by the same author writing as Carter Dickson. I’ve read two of this author’s full length novels so far, one as Dickson Carr (The Mad Hatter Mystery) and one as Carter Dickson (The Skeleton in the Clock), both of which I enjoyed. The short stories though, were a mixed bag:

The first, The Wrong Problem, was frankly, weird. I gave it 4 stars for the sheer ingeniousness of the murder method but the rest seemed pointless. To mention anything about the story, I think, would be to spoil it. It honestly doesn’t deserve 4 stars but that murder method was diabolical.

The second, Blind Man’s Hood, made up for the first in spades. This one turned out to be a perfect – absolutely perfect – short story for Halloween. Yes, it takes place at Christmas, but ignore that, it’s irrelevant. So. damn. creepy. I read it before I went to bed last night and when I realised what I was reading, I knew two things: no way I was going to stop, and that I’d have to stay away long enough to read something else before going to sleep. The locked room solution isn’t particularly clever or even surprising, but the rest of the story, for me, was. 5 stars.

As I mentioned at the start, I read these for the Locked Room Mystery square on my 2020 Halloween Bingo card.