What Fiction are you reading this week, September 18, 2022?

[hermetic]

National Library of Scotland

Reading An Unhallowed Grave by Kate Ellis, the third Wesley Peterson crime novel. A woman's body is found hanging from a yew tree in a local graveyard and then an archaeological dig uncovers another corpse from long ago who was supposedly hung from that same tree. Is there some connection? Wesley must discover as much as he can about the latest victim, but she appears to have been a woman with few friends, no relatives, and a past she has carefully tried to hide.

I'm also reading A Good Hanging by Ian Rankin. This is a collection of short stories about Inspector John Rebus. If you are a Rebus fan, you will enjoy these. I really liked one story wherein Rebus goes to the National Library of Scotland, one of the largest libraries in the United Kingdom, to do some research. (Yay, libraries!!) It is a real place, pictured above.

Listening to The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill. "An unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all."

What literary adventures will you be perusing this week?

[Srkdqltr]

1. I just finished A Gentleman in Moscow

Very interesting story about a "non person" in the Soviet Union.

[hermetic]

9. Amazing book

Stays with you for a long time.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

2. Currently reading "Hide and Seek" by Wilkie Collins

[hermetic]

11. Gosh

At the center of Hide and Seek (1854) a secret waits to be revealed.

I've never heard of that one.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

12. He wrote a lot of novels!

I read most of them years ago, but I have no recollection of this one. It was free (as are many Victorian novels, both well know and totally obscure, for those interested!) on Amazon Prime.

[SheltieLover]

3. Working through Ellery Adams' works

Fatal fabrege by Ellery Adams & Parker Riggs

Now reading a Killer Keepsake by same authors.

Up next: A Bidder end by same authors.

Great reads!

Molly is a writer for an antique publication & gets into all sorts of mischief.

Easy, enjoyable cozies. Enjoy!

[SheltieLover]

4. Catherine Coulter has new FBI thriller out! "Reckoning"

Her works are exemplary & have earned is not related to the rwnj by the same last name, at lwast not that I could find.

I have a hold on e version at library so I've not yet read it.

Enjoy!

[hermetic]

13. This Ms. Coulter

Has written 90 books. Categories include: Romance, Cozy Mystery, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller, etc. The list goes on...

[SheltieLover]

16. Yes. Her FBI series is outstanding!

I'd read somewhere that she'd received an award from FBI for accuracy, but couldn't find source.

Maybe it was in one of her books. Most likely.

I find reading about Quantico fascinating as it's so far outside my own experiences.

[cbabe]

5. Alternating series:

Dana Stabenow/Kate Sugak and William Kent Kruger/Cork O’Connor.

Titles depending on library holds.

Enjoying potato chips for the mind.

[Srkdqltr]

10. Love Stabenow.

Really don't like Kruger, but that's just me.

[bif]

6. At the tail (tale?) end of "The Lincoln Highway"

Very enjoyable. But pretty long.

[hermetic]

14. That it is

Approx. 600 pages.

[Backseat Driver]

7. Salmon Rushdie's "Quichotte" n/t

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/07/755162016/if-salman-rushdies-quichotte-drives-you-nuts-thats-fine-its-meant-to

So...a bit of a nutty story, but I love good storytellers!

[hermetic]

15. Rushdie's books are amazing

"Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of Rushdie's work, the fully realized lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction."

I definitely want to read this one.

[TexLaProgressive]

8. "What Happened To The Corbbetts" by Nevil Shute

First published in 1939

Marazan (1926) was the first of 25 books Shute wrote in a career that spanned 30 years. His major works include So Disdained (1928) and What Happened to the Corbetts (1939), a foretaste of World War II’s bombing of civilians. His later novels—all set in Australia—reflected a growing feeling of despair about the future of humanity. A Town Like Alice (1950) dealt with the Far Eastern theatre of World War II. In On The Beach Shute describes the effect of an atomic war and vividly pictures the complete destruction of the human race.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nevil-Shute#ref165813

[hermetic]

18. There's some good oldies

I read A Town Like Alice ages ago and remember the movie On The Beach. Shute was quite an amazing fellow. Thanks for sharing that bit.

[The King of Prussia]

17. Agatha Raisin & The Fairies of Fryfam

Because light relief is needed. My previous read was an Agatha Raisin, and the next one might be too.

Looking on the bright side, tomorrow we have an extra Bank Holiday. Probably going to walk round a lake, and have a pint in the "All Creatures Great & Small" Drovers Arms.

[hermetic]

19. Good old Agatha

Her tales offer abundant light relief.

I would so love to have a pint at Drovers Arms. I've been watching all the original "Creatures" series and am up to 7 now.

Cheers!

[The King of Prussia]

20. The original series

We stayed in "Skeldale House" a few years back.

[hermetic]

21. I found some photos online

of the inside of the house now. It's quite lovely. What fun!

[quaint]

22. Blacklight Blue, The Enzo Files Book 3

Another enjoyable series by Peter May.

The Enzo Files are a mix of whodunit, investigation, thrills, suspense and humour.

Enzo is in his early fifties, half-Scottish, half-Italian. Formerly one of Scotland’s top forensic scientists, he now lives in France and works as a university professor in Toulouse.

Divorced in Scotland, and widowed in France, he has an estranged Scottish daughter, and another in France whom he has had to raise on his own. Enzo is a complex character who deals with tragic loss and a broken heart by covering it up with bluff and bluster, and his bravado often gets him into difficult situations.

As the result of a reckless wager, he becomes involved in solving old French ‘cold cases’ using the latest technology. But where there are unsolved murders, there are killers desperate to protect their freedom and keep their identities undiscovered; and Enzo soon finds that a lifetime in laboratories hardly equips him for the life-threatening situations he encounters.

Enzo’s investigations benefit from his formidable intellect but are often hampered by his lack of patience and tact, his zero tolerance of French bureaucrats, and his very complicated emotional life.

[hermetic]

23. Love Peter May

I'd kind of forgotten about him. These sound great; Scotland and France are both dear to me. Must read. Thanks!

[Jeebo]

24. "An Alien Light" by Nancy Kress

It's a science-fiction novel that came out in 1988. Somehow I came into possession of a review copy, and that's the copy I'm reading now. Nancy Kress has won Hugo and Nebula awards, and I have read several of her novels, but "An Alien Light" is, in my humble opinion, her best one. I enjoyed it so much when I first read it thirty-plus years ago that I decided to re-read it. It reads a lot like an Ursula K. Le Guin novel; I am sure that any fan of Le Guin's novels would really enjoy Nancy Kress's "An Alien Light".

-- Ron

[hermetic]

25. I certainly a fan of Ms Le Guin

Guess I will have to look for this one. Thanks.

[japple]

26. Finished Dennis McFarland's book, Prince Edward and highly recommend it to those interested

in the history of the civil rights movement in the US. Last night, I started on Tara M. Stringfellow's Memphis. I haven't gotten far, but cats are strongly featured in the first pages, so I hope that is a good sign.

Here is a synopsis:

Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.

Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.

[hermetic]

27. That sounds great

The Wesley Peterson novels I'm reading are about a Black detective in modern day England. Well, the 90s anyway. He has to deal with a lot of prejudice and idiocy, but does so with grace and charm. I'm looking forward to seeing where these books go. There are 26 of them going right up to now.

Some things will never change, I fear.

Hope all is well with you. I have a house full of tiny kittens learning to explore everywhere. Keeps me on my toes. But I am loving every minute of it.

[yellowdogintexas]

28. needed something light this week, so I dived back into Dead End Job Mysteries

A fun little series with quirky and likable characters. Set in South Florida which is always fun.
I am a sucker for stories set in New Orleans or South Florida.

First novel in the series.....

SHOP TILL YOU DROP
Helen Hawthorne had a high-finance job, a beautiful home, and a caring husband—or so she thought until she caught him sleeping with their neighbor. But after their divorce, the judge decided that Helen had to pay alimony—and Helen figured the only way to keep her dignity would be to refuse to pay and run for it. Now hiding out in Fort Lauderdale, Helen is working as a sales clerk at a high-fashion boutique. But keeping out of trouble proves difficult when the boutique’s manager turns up dead. In desperate need of cash, Helen decides to try and find out who killed the woman for an offered reward.