The trouble with anthologies … and Charles Dickens

Great Stories of Crime and DetectionGreat Stories of Crime and Detection
by H.R.F. Keating, Various Authors
Rating: ★★★★½
Publication Date: January 1, 2002
Pages: 1784
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Folio Society

I’ve accumulated a solid collection of thick crime anthologies over the years and I’ve really enjoyed all of them – I get the chance to find new authors, experience a wide variety of writing styles and have access to mysteries and authors I might not otherwise be able to find.

But the one problem I’ve had again and again is that I pick up one of the large anthologies and often can’t remember which stories I’ve read and which I haven’t.  While I appreciate the anthologies as a chance to expand my mystery horizons, I know I also tend to gravitate to the same types of stories – so when I see one that looks good I find myself double guessing myself: did I think that the last time and have I already read this?.  I know I could look up reviews, but that takes way too much time no matter how organised my online ‘bookkeeping’ is.

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that the simplest solution was the best: I had MT pick up a pack of index cards, and I started slipping on in the front of each anthology.  Now when I read a story, I jot in down on the index card, along with the date read and a quick rating.

This has been very handy, and I figure, if someday  my books travel beyond my library, maybe someone will get a kick out of finding my ‘ephemera’ and comparing notes with me.

All of which brings me to my mini-review of the first story I’ve read in Great Stories of Crime and Detection, V. I.  Volume I covers “The Beginning” up until 1920, and starts with the obvious, Murders in the Rue Morgue, which I’ve already read, so I chose the second story To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt by Charles Dickens.  Don’t ask me why, because, with the exception of A Christmas Carol I can’t tolerate Dickens’ paid-by-the-word writing style.  Maybe I felt the need to torture myself with mind-numbing prose?

If I did, I failed, because this story was delightful!  Written with an economy of style I can hardly credit to Dickens, but fully fleshed out and wonderfully creepy.  At 10 pages long it’s a compact ghost story about a man who sits on the jury of a murder trial, and how the victim sees to it that justice is done.  It’s an unconventional follow-up to the conventional starter, and it makes me eager to find out what’s to follow.  I doubt I’ll follow them in strict order, but I have high hopes that they’ll all be wroth reading, and I look forward to filling up my index card.

It has left me feeling completely flummoxed by Charles Dickens though.

No Time to Spare: Thinking about what matters

No Time to Spare: Thinking about what mattersNo Time to Spare: Thinking about what matters
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781328661593
Publication Date: January 1, 2017
Pages: 215
Genre: Essays
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

From acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin, a collection of thoughts — always adroit, often acerbic — on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation.

Ursula K. Le Guin on the absurdity of denying your age: “If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub.”

On cultural perceptions of fantasy: “The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusation of?”

On breakfast: “Eating an egg from the shell takes not only practice, but resolution, even courage, possibly willingness to commit crime.”

Ursula K. Le Guin took readers to imaginary worlds for decades. In the last great frontier of life, old age, she explored a new literary territory: the blog, a forum where she shined. The collected best of Ursula’s blog, No Time to Spare presents perfectly crystallized dispatches on what mattered to her late in life, her concerns with the world, and her wonder at it: “How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us.”


Previous to this book I knew of Ursula K. Le Guin, but had never read her work; she’s primarily known for her science fiction writing and I’m known for not liking science fiction.  But I’d read something about her somewhere that left me with the impression that she had an interesting voice outside her known genre, and I’d heard great things about this collection of essays, so I bought it a couple of years ago, and it’s sat on my TBR ever since.

Recent events however, have left me ping-ponging back and forth between light reads and chewier reads in an effort not to dwell on all the things that are outside my control at the moment.  One of those things outside my control at the moment is my attention span, or the lack thereof, so I thought this a perfect time to pull this one off the shelf (which was within reach, thankfully).

I enjoyed this book, with a few blips along the way, from start to finish.  Le Guin was a very talented writer with a timeless voice, and even when I didn’t agree with her, I enjoyed reading what she had to say.  Of course, the essays about her cat Pard were my favourites, but those about ageing put things into a perspective I’d never seen better articulated, and I wanted to go back in time and hug her for her essay on belief vs. thought.

I’m still unlikely to ever read her fiction, but there’s at least one more collection of essays I’d love to get my hands on, if only to visit with this wonderful author and her mind one more time.

Game On: Tempting Twenty-eight

Game On: Tempting Twenty-EightGame On: Tempting Twenty-Eight
by Janet Evanovich
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781398510128
Series: Stephanie Plum #28
Publication Date: November 17, 2021
Pages: 286
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

When Stephanie Plum is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of footsteps in her apartment, she wishes she didn’t keep her gun in the cookie jar in her kitchen. And when she finds out the intruder is fellow apprehension agent Diesel, six feet of hard muscle and bad attitude whom she hasn’t seen in more than two years, she still thinks the gun might come in handy.

Turns out Diesel and Stephanie are on the trail of the same fugitive: Oswald Wednesday, an international computer hacker as brilliant as he is ruthless. Stephanie may not be the most technologically savvy sleuth, but she more than makes up for that with her dogged determination, her understanding of human nature, and her willingness to do just about anything to bring a fugitive to justice. Unsure if Diesel is her partner or her competition in this case, she’ll need to watch her back every step of the way as she sets the stage to draw Wednesday out from behind his computer and into the real world.


It’s another Stephanie Plum, and I wanted something easy that had a chance of making me laugh out loud.  I got it.

Evanovich appears to have needed a break from the Morelli vs. Ranger writing, and instead brought Diesel back for the pursuit of an internationally infamous computer hacker, lurking in the Berg, killing off rival hackers that managed to hack his system.  A nice change from the mobsters Stephanie is usually running from.  Also a nice change was the flip of luck between Stephanie and Lulu; it’s Lulu who now finds herself target of every embarrassing, messy happenstance that the two run into.

Mostly though, it’s just an enjoyable you-know-what-you’re-getting read.  It wasn’t spectacular, but it wasn’t bad either.

Sunrise by the Sea

Sunrise by the SeaSunrise by the Sea
by Jenny Colgan
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780751580341
Publication Date: June 8, 2021
Pages: 356
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Sphere

When she is given the opportunity to move to a remote tidal island off the Cornish Coast, Marisa Rossi decides some peace and quiet might be just what she needs.

Since the death of her beloved grandfather back in Italy, she's been struggling to find a way out of her grief. Perhaps this will be the perfect place for her to recuperate.

But Mount Polbearne is a far cry from the sleepy little place she was imagining. Between her noisy piano-teaching Russian neighbour and the hustle and bustle of a busy community, Marisa finds solitude is not so easy to come by. Especially when she finds herself somehow involved with a tiny local bakery desperately in need of some new zest to save it . . .


Not at all the book I was expecting, but an interesting one.  There’s an “outro” at the end of the book by the author, explaining how it wasn’t quite the book she expected it to be either, and explains why.

Without spoiling the author’s attempt to avoid spoilers, I’ll just say this is a book about long-term grief and how it can turn into something altogether different and how Marisa finds her way out of it with the help of a small Cornish island.  Colgan addresses agoraphobia and how it tears Marisa away from her family and friends as she becomes ever increasingly isolated.  How her roommate kicks her out for being such a drag and she finds a home on a tidal island off the Cornish Coast that’s a perfect hideaway for Marisa, except for the Russian piano instructor living next door who teaches and practices all hours of the day and night.  Between the Russian, her therapist and her Nonna back in italy (the latter two converse with her via Skype/Zoom), she slowly finds ways to break the cycle of isolation and reconnect with people.

This is a book that manages to be neither perky nor heavy; respect is given to Marisa’s struggles without drowning the reader in it.  It’s light without being fluffy.  There’s obviously a back story with the secondary characters; I’m assuming this is part of a series that takes place on this island, but it never interfered, or left me feeling as though I missed something.  I’m guessing Sunrise by the Sea is marketed as a romance, but I’d argue against it.  There’s a romantic connection at then end but the rest of the book is about Marisa’s recovery with occasional side-forays into the financial struggles of Polly and Huckle (whom I’m assuming starred in a previous book).

An enjoyable read – not quite what I was looking for, but it held my attention nonetheless.

The Sentence

The SentenceThe Sentence
by Louise Erdrich
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781472157003
Publication Date: November 9, 2021
Pages: 387
Genre: Fiction, Literature
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading 'with murderous attention,' must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.


What an extraordinary read.  From first page to last I was awed and riveted.  There was a lot of pain in this book, but Erdrich never overwhelmed the story or the reader with it; there was humor subtly woven through the words like sweetgrass, but it never took over.  The angst – something I’m not normally keen to read about – was authentic, and both was and wasn’t a focus of the story.

It seems that I can only be swayed to read literary fiction when there’s a ghost involved.  First Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, and now The Sentence.  Neither has let me down or made me regret my choice, but I think I might like The Sentence more, even though I rated it half a star lower.  Lincoln in the Bardo was often difficult to read as the human condition was a little too magnified, human and on display to really enjoy it.  But the structure just blew me away.  The Sentence has a traditional narrative structure, and I became invested in the characters’ lives and cared what happened to them, although Tookie’s journey to prison is, while shortly told, both painful and painfully funny.

There are really two, maybe three, stories in this book.  The Sentence begins with the aftermath of Flora’s death and her initial haunting of the bookshop, all of which happens in November 2019.  As the season and the months progress so, too, does Flora’s haunting, seeming to focus on Tookie more than anyone else, and escalating in alarming ways.

Then as 2020 progresses into that fateful March, another story takes over – the story of the pandemic; how it crept up on people and suddenly exploded on the scene in a flurry of hand-washing, sanitisers, and food hoarding.  Stay-at-home orders.  Keeping the bookstore, Birchbark books open.  At this point, I think, this story becomes more fictography, and Flora’s ghost fades to almost nothingness as the narrative is about surviving, staying open, staying safe.

And then George Floyd is murdered by a policeman in broad daylight.  Now the story becomes a fictitious memoir, but only in the sense that the names have changed.  This is the Native American perspective of the riots and it’s about as an effective narrative of the pain, anguish, anger, frustration, bitterness, hope, and need to heal as any I’ve read.  It is the hardest part of the book to read.

As Minneapolis puts things back together, Flora comes back to the forefront of the plot again.  These last few chapters were still beautifully written but it’s this part of the story that kept me from going to the full 5 stars.  The ‘solution’ to Flora’s haunting seems suddenly abrupt; their idea for her release seems to come out of nowhere, although it’s totally in keeping with the theme of the book.  The characters don’t know there’s a theme, so how did they suddenly get from what are were going to do? to wait! I know what she wants! ?  There’s no progression here, so it feels bolt-of-lightning-from-the-blue-ish.  And then the revelation Tookie has that does banish Flora.  I know exactly what Erdrich was trying to do, and I know exactly to what earlier part of the story she was trying to tie it to, but it was clumsily done.  I was left floundering for several paragraphs, and even when the ‘denouement’ came, it failed to have the emotional impact it should have had – I feel Erdrich missed a step that kept the reader from feeling the full power of the gut punch we’re meant to feel.

It doesn’t really matter though – this is a read that will remain with me, and one I want to talk about with everybody I come into contact with.  A damn good story.

The Christmas Bookshop

The Christmas BookshopThe Christmas Bookshop
by Jenny Colgan
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780751584240
Publication Date: October 6, 2021
Pages: 355
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Sphere

Carmen has always worked in her local department store. So, when the gorgeous old building closes its doors for good, she is more than a little lost.
When her sister, Sofia, mentions an opportunity in Edinburgh - a cute little bookshop, the spare room in her house - Carmen is reluctant, she was never very good at accepting help. But, short on options, she soon finds herself pulling into the snowy city just a month before Christmas.
What Sofia didn't say is that the shop is on its last legs and that if Carmen can't help turn things around before Christmas, the owner will be forced to sell. Privately, Sofia is sure it will take more than a miracle to save the store, but maybe this Christmas, Carmen might surprise them all...


I know – I’m a little over a month late to be reading this book, but I’ve found myself in dire need of comfort reads.  We’re in the middle of a very unusual, almost 10 day long, heatwave that’s making my smashed leg and foot swell up worse than is to be expected.  I’m living on ice packs and in a state of constant … not pain, but discomfort.  So I need to be entertained by something well-written enough to hold my attention while I constantly shift about in search of a new comfortable-for-five-minutes position.

This fit the bill very well – almost too well, as I saw midnight last night for the first time in months, engrossed in the story.  I’ve read two other Colgan books before, The Bookshop on the Corner, and The Bookshop on the Shore, and, story for story, I think I might have enjoyed them a little bit more, but that could just be the leg talking.  Edinburgh at Christmas sounds lovely, enchanting, chaotic, and with all the steps, my current nerve-exploding nightmare.  I’d have liked more page time devoted to the bookshop and it’s rebirth, rather than sister angst, or the silliness with the man-child author.  But I did appreciate that the sister angst had a solution that didn’t involve perfect-Sophia being anything less than perfect; I like that they both got to be happy being themselves with each other, without involving earth shattering life changes for either of them.  I enjoyed seeing Mr. McCredie come out of his shell, though I’d have loved to spend more time in that attic of his.

There’s a tiny hint of magical realism that’s too small to matter, but could have been explored a bit more.  The genre is listed as ‘romance’, and while, yes, there is a romance, it’s very, very light.  The focus is on the shop, and the sisters’ relationship, and the kids, and the MC’s pulling on her big girl knickers and growing up.  The development of the romance is saved for the very end, where it’s all massive epiphanies and mad dashes in snow storms, but that bit is over as quickly as it starts (the story part, not the romance part) and we end with everybody’s HEA.

All in all, a book that served its purpose.  So well, in fact, that I’m off explore her backlist a bit more in depth, to see if further relief can be found between the pages of her books.

Murder on Brittany Shores (Inspector Dupin, #2)

Murder on Brittany ShoresMurder on Brittany Shores
by Jean-Luc Bannalec
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250112439
Series: Brittany Mystery #2
Publication Date: November 28, 2017
Pages: 380
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Minotaur Books

Ten miles off the coast of Brittany lie the fabled Glénan Islands. Boasting sparkling white sands and crystal-clear waters, they seem perfectly idyllic, until one day in May, three bodies wash up on shore. At first glance the deaths appear accidental, but as the identities of the victims come to light, Commissaire Dupin is pulled back into action for a case of what seems to be cold-blooded murder.

Ever viewed as an outsider in a region full of myths and traditions, Dupin finds himself drawn deep into the history of the land. To get to the bottom of the case, he must tangle with treasure hunters, militant marine biologists, and dangerous divers. The investigation leads him further into the perilous, beautiful world of Glénan, as he discovers that there's more to the picturesque islands than meets the eye.


Another solidly told story and an excellently plotted mystery.  I’m especially loving the plots, and where the first book’s mystery shined in clever suspense, this one shines in sheer complexity and tragedy.

Murder on Brittany Shores takes place on an archipelago off the coast, on the Glénan Islands.  Very remote, and at one point, very And Then There Were None vibes.  Bannalec either has his tongue firmly in cheek, or he is a born-again convert to all things Breton, as he uses every opportunity to gush about the superiority of all things Breton, repeatedly using phrases like the best in the world, and comparing the Glénan Islands to the Caribbean, having them come out at least as equals in some respects and, of course, Glénan superior in the most important bits.  This is sometimes too obvious and over-bearing, but it’s probably only wasting about 5% of the story overall, so can be forgiven, mostly.  There was one spot I rolled my eyes and skimmed.

I like Dupin – he’s the opposite of his namesake; abrupt, concise and not prone to long speeches, or even medium sized sentences.  Terse.  Sometimes crabby, and I particularly enjoy the way he’s constantly avoiding phone calls with his superiors, like a sneaky kid trying to avoid hearing the call to come inside and bathe.

I thoroughly enjoyed both the books I’ve read so far, but I don’t feel like I need to rush out to read the next one – it will likely be on the a future library list sooner rather than later, when I feel the need to be reminded about how great Brittany is.  😉

The Masked City (Invisible Library, #2)

The Masked CityThe Masked City
by Genevieve Cogman
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781447256250
Series: Invisible Library Novel #2
Publication Date: December 3, 2015
Pages: 368
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Pan Books

Librarian-spy Irene is working undercover in an alternative London when her assistant Kai goes missing. She discovers he's been kidnapped by the fae faction and the repercussions could be fatal. Not just for Kai, but for whole worlds.

Kai's dragon heritage means he has powerful allies, but also powerful enemies in the form of the fae. With this act of aggression, the fae are determined to trigger a war between their people – and the forces of order and chaos themselves.

Irene's mission to save Kai and avert Armageddon will take her to a dark, alternate Venice where it's always Carnival. Here Irene will be forced to blackmail, fast talk, and fight. Or face death.


 

I finally remembered MT had checked out a few library books for me before we went north, and that they’d be due back soon.  I’d re-read The Invisible Library while we were away so I’d be freshly caught up for The Masked City.

The list of reasons I should love, love, love this series is long: the out-of-time library itself, the librarians tasked with collecting books for its collections, the magic of it all.  But I don’t love it, never mind love, love, love it.  I do like it, though, enough to keep reading them to see if anything grows between the series and I.

I can’t quite put my finger on what isn’t clicking with me – I’m just not connecting with the characters on a love level, I suppose, but the writing is good, the pacing is quick and there’s a lot of action.  The Masked City”s plot was a disappointment to me though; other than a quick auction at the beginning, books play no part in the story – it’s all about rescuing the MC’s intern and fae/dragon politics.  The former is a trope I actively dislike and the latter. fae politics, leaves me cold.

These hinderances were made up for with the setting: an alternate Venice, where the canals are clean and its always Carnivale.  Cogman created a vividly drawn world that I could see play out in my head as though it were a movie.  I was also captured by the author’s interpretation of the Horse and Rider, and Irene’s interactions with it at the end.

I have the third book in my library pile, and I hope it’s more book oriented than this one, but even if it isn’t, I know I can at least expect a fast paced, well written story set in a fabulous backdrop.

The Singing Sands (Inspector Grant, #6)

The Singing SandsThe Singing Sands
by Josephine Tey
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780749310639
Publication Date: January 1, 1992
Pages: 246
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Mandarin

En route to a holiday in Scotland, Inspector Alan Grant is drawn into a local police investigation when a fellow passenger is found dead on his train. Although it looks like a simple accident, Grant is unconvinced, and, at the expense of his vacation, he undertakes to determine what, exactly, happened to Charles Martin.

Unpublished at the time of author Josephine Tey’s death, The Singing Sands was recovered from her papers and released posthumously. It is today recognized as one of the author’s finest works.


My second Inspector Grant mystery, and the last one Tey wrote, discovered amongst her papers after her death and published posthumously.  My first Grant novel was Daughter of Time and given the uniqueness of that story, I had no idea what to expect of this one.

What I got was one of the most enjoyable mysteries I’ve read in awhile, even though there’s really no mystery to it in the sense of ‘whodunnit’.  Instead I’d call this a soul searching police procedural; ‘soul searching’ because, at a guesstimate, fully half the book is about Grant’s struggle to recover from exhaustion and anxiety in the highlands of Scotland.  What might have felt like a stagnant meandering book in the hands of others, just worked here, although I have to admit to not really understanding Wee Archie’s role in the plot beyond an un-needed reference point for vanity.

The police procedural part, oddly enough, is the part that lagged a bit for me.  This surprised me, but I suppose on reflection it makes sense; there’s only ever one suspect and I grew impatient with wanting the evidence to present itself.  It did, of course, eventually, and in an unexpected manner, providing a tidy ending that still worked and managed to be satisfying, even if it wasn’t perfect justice.

Knowing this was Tey’s final work made the ending a bit bittersweet, as Grant seems ready and raring to go on further adventures that were sadly not destined to happen, but at least there are still 4 others waiting out there for me to enjoy.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the LawFuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
by Mary Roach
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781324001935
Publication Date: September 1, 2021
Pages: 308
Genre: Natural Science, Science
Publisher: W.W. Norton

What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.

Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.

Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.


 

This has not been a great week for me overall, and this arrived Tuesday afternoon (book lover’s torture #12: when you hear the delivery man leave your new books at the doorstep and you can’t get up to retrieve them), and  by Wednesday I was in desperate need of a distraction.  Mary Roach had me laughing out loud on page 1, and I can’t tell you how much I needed those laughs.

In her introduction she states that she’s starting with the felonious crimes first: those incidents, usually bear/cougar/mountain lion, where people are mortally wounded, and ends the book with the crimes more akin to nuisances; crop theft, stealing food, etc.

It probably says something about me that I found the first half much easier to read than the second half – or maybe not.  The crimes may be ‘lesser’ but the punishments meted out by people most definitely are not.  Humanity’s ability to embrace wholesale slaughter is depressing.

The author manages to end the book on a hopeful note, and while the writing isn’t always even (sometimes the humour is a tad over-done), I learned a lot and sometimes I was entertained (usually by the way the author can laugh at herself).  Her writing isn’t for everyone, but for those that enjoy bit of entertaining and informative science journalism, her books usually deliver.