by Laurie R. King, 2001 Fun mystery! Pat was reading it on her front porch one day this summer. Set in the San Juan Islands, a talented, rich, widowed wood-worker decides to escape her demons on an island her uncle bought in the 1920s. She decides to re-build the house he built that was burned […]
Category: Mystery
Folly
Madam, Will You Talk?
by Mary Stewart, 1955 Fun murder mystery set in the south of France. A young beautiful widow goes with her friend to Avignon. She gets involved with a boy and his dog. She ends up saving the day and marrying his father. It’s suspenseful and the settings are so well-described, you feel as if you […]
Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer
by Dorothy Gilman, 1996 Great characters, interesting setting and story. Mrs. Pollifax accompanies young Kadi back to the African country of Ubangiba, to help the young prince, Kadi’s childhood friend. Someone dressed as a lion is killing people. Rumors are it is the young prince, which is destroying the trust he needs from his people […]
The King of the Rainy Country
by Nicolas Freeling, 1965 This was a Christie book-of-the-day calendar recommendation. I liked it but it mentioned many things, people, ideas, and places I had never heard of, I would have spent too much time looking things up. I didn’t look anything up so I only understood enough to keep up. It was about a […]
Pigeon Pie
by Nancy Mitford, 1940 I hope that anybody who is kind enough to read it will remember that it was written before Christmas 1939. Published on 6th May 1940 it was an early and unimportant casualty of the real war which was then beginning. NANCY MITFORD Paris, 1951 from the dedication page Fun little mystery […]
Mrs. Pollifax on Safari
by Dorothy Gilman, 1976 Fun mystery set in Zambia in the 1960’s. Mrs. Pollifax is sent on safari to take pictures of all the others on safari in hopes of finding the assassin, Aristotle. She does eventually much more than that and saves the beloved Zambian President from being assassinated. Loved the characters, the setting, […]
The Lake House
by Kate Morton, 2015 Loved this book! Suggested by Christie. Set in Cornwall, England, in WWI, WWII, and modern days (2003). Wonderful setting – a beautiful lake house in Cornwall, near the sea. Interesting characters: a spinster mystery writer and her sisters and mother and father, and a precious baby brother who disappears and is […]
Long Bright River
by Liz Moore, 2020 Page-turner! So readable! Enthralling characters: 2 sisters; one a cop with a 4-year old son, the other a heroin addict. Set in Philadelphia. The sisters’ mother was a heroin addict, too, and died of an overdose. The mystery: Who is murdering young heroin addicts? Micky (the cop sister) hasn’t seen Kacey […]
The Night Tiger
by Yangsze Choo, 2019 What a fun romp through British-colonial Malaya (Malaysia) in 1931! Delightful characters (11 year-old houseboy Ren; beautiful Ji Lin, handsome Shin) and mystery (why do these people keep dying and where is that finger) and sumptuous descriptions of Malaysian food and the flora and fauna of the tropics. I loved it!
Transcription
by Kate Atkinson, 2018 Finished 12/26/18 Kept waiting to get into this book all the way through to the end. I was so excited about it because it is by the author of Life After Life and Started Early, Took My Dog. Story is about spies in WWII England. Juliet Armstrong is the main character. […]
The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902 Wonderful mystery! Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are recruited by a Dr. Mortimer and his new friend, Sir Henry Baskerville, to investigate the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, a giant, malicious hound that haunts the moors around the Baskerville estate, and surely caused the death of Sir Henry’s […]
The Moving Toyshop
by Edmund Crispin, 1946 Delightful English mystery set in the town of Oxford in 1938, involving Gervase Fen (pronounced Jer-voz) and his poet friend, Richard Cadogan. Richard is bored and in need of a holiday in order to be inspired to write poetry again. He decides to go to Oxford and arrives late at night […]
Flashback
by Nevada Barr, 2003 Took me too long to finish, but it was interesting. Ranger Anna Pigeon is on temporary assignment on Dry Tortugas National Park, where Fort Jefferson was built during the Civil War to house war prisoners. She intersperses Anna’s mystery – finding out why she’s seeing ghosts and why her assistant was […]
Last Seen Wearing
by Colin Dexter, 1976 I love Inspector Morse mysteries. I miss them when I’ve finished because Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis are so likable, so human, and I just want to be with them. They take me to England and back to a time before much technology, except for color TVs. Morse consults maps, phone […]
The Double Comfort Safari Club
by Alexander McCall Smith, 11th #1 Ladies Detective Series, 2010 Phuti Radiphuti has his leg crushed by one of his delivery men who backed his truck into him. He has to have the lower part amputated. His Aunty won’t let Mma Makutsi visit in the hospital but Mma Ramotswe gets that changed and he heals […]
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
by Alexander McCall Smith, 2009 Great book! LOVED this one!! Mma Ramotswe solves the mystery of why the soccer team, the Kalahari Swoopers, are losing all of their games. Actually, her foster son, Puso, figured it out – it was that the owner, Mr. Molofololo, kept changing things and their shoes were uncomfortable so they […]
The Miracle at Speedy Motors
by Alexander McCall Smith, 2008 Not the best Ladies Detective book. Mma Makutsi & Phuti Radiphuti buy a bed – velvet heart headboard. It doesn’t fit into Mma Makutsi’s house when they delivered it the next day, so she has them leave it outside. The rainy season starts and ruins it. She buys a cheap […]
Death in Kenya
by M.M. Kaye, 1958 Great mystery set in Kenya right after the Mau Mau revolt. Flamingo, the estate owned by Aunt Em, in Kenya. Her niece, Victoria, comes to live there. First, Alice is murdered, the wife of Em’s grandson, Eden. Then, Kamau disappears, then Gilly Markham is murdered. Then an attempt on Victoria. It […]
Track of the Cat
by Nevada Barr, 1993 Good mystery set in Guadalupe Mtn of Texas. Anna Pigeon is a National Park Service ranger. Discovers fellow ranger dead in the wilds supposedly by mountain lion. She is suspicious, though. She gets sabotaged on a hike, falls, very treacherous, but doesn’t die. Then another ranger, Craig Eastern, dies of snakebite […]
Touch Not the Cat
by Mary Stewart, 1976 “bistered” lilies – bistered means brown “yesty” waves – yesty not in my dictionary Bryony Ashley’s father dies after being hit by a car. Bryony returns to England from Funchal, Madeira. She returns to Ashley Court, the mansion with a moat and a maze that has been in her family forever.