What mysteries are you reading at the moment? (2023)

[Jan C]

Susan in NC wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Thanks very much for the link. I haven't been able to access Goodreads until today, with the message "system is undergoing repair," or something like that. Maybe just in US, or in my ..."

Wonder if it had anything to do with an article in the NYT yesterday about trolls getting people to keep from publishing books.

[Susan in NC]

Jan C wrote: "Susan in NC wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Thanks very much for the link. I haven't been able to access Goodreads until today, with the message "system is undergoing repair," or something like that. Maybe j..."

I checked Twitter, and someone tweeted something about a NYT article, but I didn’t know what it was about.

[Doris]

Jan C wrote: "Susan in NC wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Thanks very much for the link. I haven't been able to access Goodreads until today, with the message "system is undergoing repair," or something like that. Maybe j..."

I checked Twitter, and someone tweeted something about a NYT article, but I didn’t know what it was about."

That was my thought, too. I was having intermittent problems with Goodreads all day, and I'm in Turkey!

[Jan C]

I'll try to link the article - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/bo...

[Carissa]

I'm reading Evidence of Things Seen by Elizabeth Daly. It's an installment in her Henry Gamadge mysteries. It's set in rural Connecticut during WWII, so also interesting because of the historical aspects (rationing of gas, tires, etc.).

[Susan in NC]

Carissa wrote: "I'm reading Evidence of Things Seen by Elizabeth Daly. It's an installment in her Henry Gamadge mysteries. It's set in rural Connecticut during WWII, so also interesting because of the historical a..."

I’ve read the first Henry Gamadge, Unexpected Night, definitely want to read more. Interesting time and place!

[Jan C]

Carissa wrote: "I'm reading Evidence of Things Seen by Elizabeth Daly. It's an installment in her Henry Gamadge mysteries. It's set in rural Connecticut during WWII, so also interesting because of the historical a..."

I'm on Murders in Volume 2. I think it is #3.

[Patrick]

I’m reading Josephine Bell’s The Port of London Murders in a Pandora Women Crime Writers paperback edition from the Eighties. The title itself was a come-on, because I am always drawn to anything nautical or waterfront-related. It indeed has great atmosphere and is really quite gritty for the period, more in keeping with the down-and-out novels of a writer like Patrick Hamilton than with other Golden Age mysteries.

Also reading Arthur Rees’ The Shrieking Pit, published at the end of World War I, set in seaside Norfolk, partly at a creepy inn. Ambience to burn, and well-written too. It also fits very well into my project of reading both non-fiction and fiction about all the English counties.

Although I very much enjoy reading Golden Age mysteries, I am hopeless at spotting clues and honestly don’t even really care about solving the mystery, or about the rules of “fair play” (shocking, I know 😏 ). I am there for the characterization, the social milieu, the atmosphere, the prose.

[Susan in NC]

Patrick wrote: "I’m reading Josephine Bell’s The Port of London Murders in a Pandora Women Crime Writers paperback edition from the Eighties. The title itself was a come-on, because I am always drawn to anything n..."

You’re not alone there, I am the same - there are mystery series I enjoy to keep up with the recurring characters, like the late, great Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May PCU series. The mystery itself is incidental!

Speaking of Bryant & May, it’s not really a mystery, more of a bizarre travelogue, but I’m reading Bryant & May: Peculiar London from my library. It’s funny and interesting, I’m reading a chapter or two a day between other books. I’m also currently reading our challenge read for August, Death on the Riviera by John Bude.

[Patrick]

Friday is the day that a lot of crime book bloggers put up a review of a “forgotten book”. This morning, I noticed a post on Roger Ormerod’s The Hanging Doll Murder at In Reference to Murder. It sounded interesting, so I went poking around online and found some copies, not priced astronomically but a little more than I want to spend this minute (fixed retirement income, you know).

But then I spotted a copy at a much lower price, and it turned out to be an uncorrected proof. Snapped it right up. I used to see these proofs all the time at the Strand in NYC, and never went in for them much, but I am so much less persnickety than I used to be about condition, ex-libs, etc. I can have books beautifully re-bound here in Tlaxcala for $6.00 / volume, and anyway it’s the text that matters. I think I have overcome my bibliophilic OCD!

[Sarah]

Every town has THE bookstore which the true bibliophile must visit, usually spending hours browsing the shelves, if not buying a huge stack. The Strand is the one for me in NYC, as is Powell's in Portland, Green Apple in SF, Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, Politics and Prose in D.C. In my hometown of Berkeley, which has lost so many independent bookstores, Moe's manages to stay afloat, with a high turnover of old paperback mysteries in English and French (mostly Maigret). I also take advantage of the many Little Free Libraries, with some marvelous finds, including the latest Miss Silver. This afternoon I'm off to the City library, to pick up Ngaio Marsh's "Photo Finish," Nap Lombard's "Murder's a Swine," and Lorac's "Checkmate to Murder," all of which have been read by the club before, for me to do a little catching up. Not forgotten, just overlooked by me!

[Patrick]

^ It is sad what has happened to the bookstore districts in many cities. New York used to have a 4th Avenue used book district centered around the Strand, but mostly all the other shops are gone now. All the new bookstores on 5th Avenue - I used to work at the 53rd Street Doubleday - gone. I think the Charing Cross bookshops in London have largely disappeared too, yes? The Paris bookshops are also under threat. The rents in all these cities are just too high. They are for non-resident billionaires and trust fund kids now.

Thankfully, the Calle Donceles neighborhood in Mexico City, with more than two dozen bookshops, is still going strong the last I visited.

[Jill]

Just starting The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan.
Loved the elephant in the first book, so hoping it plays a prominent role in this book.

[Patrick]

Susan in NC wrote: I’ve read the first Henry Gamadge, Unexpected Night, definitely want to read more. Interesting time and place!

I really enjoyed the one Gamadge I’ve read, Arrow Pointing Nowhere: Henry Gamadge #7 (aka Murder Listens In). Bibliophile detective, what’s not to love?

[Patrick]

Just finished Hugh Munro’s Who Told Clutha (1958), the first in his series about a Glasgow shipyard detective. From “Glasgow” and “shipyard”, you know it will be flavorful, and it is! I look forward to spending more time with Clutha, who is tough-savvy.

Hugh Munro is not to be confused with Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) or Neil Munro (author of the Para Handy tales). More info here: https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2010/1...

[Sarah]

Thanks to Keith's suggestion, I'm reading one of only four Ngaio Marsh mysteries set in NZ: Photo Finish. Inspector Alleyn #31 (!), first published in 1980– does this still count as "Golden Age," given the author? Her writing style certainly hasn't changed, with a discrete circle of suspects, set on an island in a lake, cut off from the mainland by the "Rosser" (windstorm), red herrings and murky backgrounds. Only Br'er Fox is missing, with Troy serving as Alleyn's sometime sidekick.

[Jackie]

Currently enjoying Mrs Pargeter's Package which is making me wish was in Corfu.

Third in an easy cozy mystery series and I really like that our sleuth is both "in her late 60s" and of a generous size. Besides smart and not willing to be intimidated, I like those things, too.

[Susan in NC]

Patrick wrote: "Susan in NC wrote: I’ve read the first Henry Gamadge, Unexpected Night, definitely want to read more. Interesting time and place!

I really enjoyed the one Gamadge I’ve read, [book:Arrow Pointing ..."

Yes!

[Gary]

Just finished The Egyptian Cross Mystery by Ellery Queen. Book 5 in the series.

Currently reading/listening to The Anodyne Necklace by Martha Grimes Book 3 in the Richard Jury series. Also have cued up Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter Book 2 in the Inspector Morse series.

[Judy]

The vote for our September group read is now open, so, if you haven't voted yet, please take a look and choose the book you most want to read:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

[Jill]

I am now starting The Shadow Puppet by Georges Simenon Our July Maigret read.

[Jill]

Am now starting Death on the Riviera ready for August

[Kirsten]

Jan C wrote: "I finished The Five Red Herrings the other day.

Have gone back to Treacherous Strand by Andrea Carter. 2nd in the series."

Love Lord Peter!!

[Jackie]

I've started The Body on the Beach and finding it OK so far. Simon Brett is a competent writer, so I assume there is a lot more to be revealed about our two main characters.

I looked on a map and I'm guessing Fethering is a fictionalized version of Ferring.

[Susan in NC]

I’ve started The Cargo From Neira by Alys Clare

[Sandy]

Susan in NC wrote: "I’ve started The Cargo From Neira by Alys Clare"

I'll be interested to hear how you feel about the ending.

[Susan in NC]

Ok, you’ve got me intrigued…you’re the second GR friend to say something like that!

[Fred]

Jackie wrote: "I've started The Body on the Beach and finding it OK so far. Simon Brett is a competent writer, so I assume there is a lot more to be revealed about our two main characters.

I looked..."

I read the first two books in the series because I got them at a library book sale. Turns out there were some typos in them, but they were still good. I've read three or four more--jumping around in the series. The only reason I read them because I had read several of Brett's Charles Paris mysteries, which I also enjoyed

[Jackie]

I haven't tried the Charles Paris series yet; enjoyed the Clutter Counselor one as well as Mrs. Pargeter.

[Sandy]

I just started Red Queen. I read a review and then saw the book on display at the library. The review said not to take it too seriously. Only thirty pages in so have little opinion yet.

[Keith]

I have just finished the 'Constable Evans' series which I thoroughly enjoyed. In the '50s when I lived in the UK, I knew North Wales and Snowdonia very well as I spent many weekends there. I have a fair idea of the location on the actual ground of the fictional village of Llanfair and have climbed and hiked the whole area many times. It was like 'going home'.

[Jan C]

I've started The Figure of Eight: A 'Perrins, Private Investigators' Mystery by Cecil Waye, one of many names Cecil John Charles Street wrote under, including John Rhode and Miles Burton. It is the second in the series. I think we read the first one in the group (or possibly a buddy read) several months ago. Also includes a nice little biography of Street.

So far, we have an unconscious woman on the bus. And they can't wake her up.

[Sarah]

Keith: I loved the "Constable Evans" series. The closest I've been to Wales is Bristol, and I wish I could visit the locations described in the books.
Jan: I just check out "The Secret of High Eldersham" from the library, written under the name Miles Burton. On the back cover it says the author wrote approximately 140 detective novels (!), and this one introduces Desmond Merrion, a "brilliant amateur and living encyclopedia."

[Keith]

I spent plenty of time out in the hills of the Peak District (Kinder Scout, Bleaklow etc), Yorkshire moors (the Three Peaks - Ingleborough, Whernside, Pen-y-Ghent etc. as well as Snowdonia) I have crossed Crib Goch quite a few times, it's a good scramble, can be tricky in the winter and you need a pretty good head for heights as in places it's quite a narrow track along a knife edge ridge, quite exposed on both sides with a very steep drop.
However NZ mountains are very 'different'. Much higher and steeper and can be quite a long way from 'civilisation' . Here we are about the same area as the British Isles, much more mountainous with very wild country and only 5 million of us.

[Patrick]

^ Very much like this kind of geographic detail.

[Jill]

I am now reading The House Without a Key by Biggers Earl Derr The first Charlie Chan Thanks to Susan in NC

[Pamela]

I’ve just finished The Death of a Mafia Don by Michele Giuttari. It had a clever plot but too many similar characters and Ferrara himself never comes alive like Brunetti, Montalbano or Zen do. Solid but not outstanding.

[Keith]

I am reading Marsh's 'Vintage Murder' and coincidentally, like the Constable evans' series, I have intimate knowledge of its location, the North Island of New Zealand where I live in Taupo on the shore of the great lake in the centre of the island,
The story starts on the overnight express train from Auckland to Wellington., about a 12 hour ride. The train stops at Ohakune for a refreshment break. - a real place, a pleasant small town and a ski resort. about 80 miles from Taupo, not far really in NZ. In reality the train would stop at Taumaranui, another town some 50 miles or so further north. The characters alight at Middleton, a fictitious name but I think is really Palmerston North, a provincial city further south in the Manawatu. The Manawatu River rises in the east, cuts through the spine of mountains running north to south, and drains into the Tasman Sea in the west. It is one of only 2 rivers in the world which do that, the other is the Brahmaputra-Ganges in the Himalayas.
I won't do any 'spoilers' in case you haven't read it but it does have the atmosphere of rural New Zealand from the 1930s, I came here in the eary 1960s and that atmosphere still existed. The population in the '30's would have been (I guess) around 1.5 million.There were 2.5 million when I arrived.
I'm only a third of the way into the book and am really enjoying it.

[Jill]

I have now started The Light of Day by Eric Ambler. About a 5th of the way in and finding it nothing like I expected.

[Sandy]

I am slowly working my through Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector, a collection of short stories written in the style of Boswell. Interesting concept and the stories are fine though a bit predictable.

[Patrick]

^ This got me thinking about Lillian de la Torre (1902-1993). These Dr. Johnson stories of hers were widely admired, and she served as President of the Mystery Writers of America. Her non-fiction true crime books are wrongly listed as novels in her Wikipedia entry, no doubt because they are presented novelistically. The Heir of Douglas: The Scandal That Rocked Eighteenth-Century England: A True Story is available in my Scribd subscription, so I started in on it this morning. A handful of Goodreads reviews that made the book sound arcane were naturally enticing for me. 😏

Actually, the story is not that arcane at all. The “Douglas Cause” was a major scandal and media sensation in 18th Century Britain, about which everyone had an opinion; comparable to the case of the Tichborne Claimant in the next century.

[Jill]

Having finished my time in Athens with Eric Ambler, I have now joined George and Genevieve on Murder on the Marmora

[Susan in NC]

Yes, I’m reading “Marmora” as well. Interesting, they have switched from Cunard to a P&O ship.

[Sandy]

I just read The Alarm of the Black Cat, an American GA mystery reprint. I think this is the second in the series and I plan to read (eventually) the ones I can find easily. A 70-year-old 'spinster' detective with more pluck, and luck, than reasonable. She has rented a house that seems to be open to anyone who wants to wander in and leave bodies in her cellar.

[Sandy]

Sandy wrote: "I just read The Alarm of the Black Cat, an American GA mystery reprint. I think this is the second in the series and I plan to read (eventually) the ones I can find easily. A 70-yea..."

P.S. While the title mentions a black cat her cat is described, repeatedly, as marmalade colored. I wonder if the publisher insisted on a traditionally scary cat.

[Jackie]

I just finished Murder on the Marmora and enjoyed it.

[Jill]

I am now reading The Golden Tresses of the Dead our buddy read.

[Susan in NC]

I’m starting one of the ECR Lorac’s I treated myself to a couple years ago, Case in the Clinic .

[Sandy]

I am reading A Deadly Covenant, the latest prequel to the authors' series set in Botswana. It is a writing team of two men and the style is a bit stilted. The stories are interesting and the description of "a darker #1 Ladies" is accurate (but not too dark for me).

[Franky]

I'm reading a modern mystery at present and about a third of the way finished for another reading group, Silence for the Dead.