FF: High Note

Flowers for the Launch!

This week’s high note was book launch day for my Library of the Sapphire Wind.  Here it is, in all its glory, with celebratory flowers from my friend, award-winning artist, Elizabeth Leggett.  Kindly note how she coordinated her bouquet to the colors of the cover!

Many of the mysteries below are re-reads, but it’s been a long time for many, and in some case this is my first time actually reading, rather than listening, to them.

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.  And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading.  Two of the series I’m trying right now are due to FF reader mentions.

Completed:

The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold, Audiobook.  Set in the World of the Five Gods, but in a completely different area.  Almost done.

Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh.  I felt like classic mystery, and haven’t read this one for a long while.  The second Inspector Alleyne, and her first featuring the theater as a setting.

A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh.  Her first Inspector Alleyne.  A murder game goes awry.

Monk’s Hood by Ellis Peters.  Brother Cadfael on the trail of a murderer who used one of his topical ointments to poison.  A touch of Cadfael’s personal history spices this one nicely.

In Progress:

The Hermit of Eyton Forest by Ellis Peters.  Three plotlines cross in an initially confusion fashion, but seem to be coming together very satisfactorily.

Year of the Griffon by Diana Wynne Jones.  Audiobook.  A semi-sequel (same setting, some overlapping characters) to her highly amusing Dark Lord of Derkholm. 

Also:

I tried Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline.  Despite Will Wheaton’s excellent reading on the audiobook, I just couldn’t get past the shortsighted egocentrism of so many of the characters, especially as the crisis grows grim for a large segment of the planet’s population.