Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

I think this is going to be one of the most memorable, and unsettling, reads of my year. Which is saying something, after I just read Suffer the Children!

pg. 113: “The average human does not like to read, Mr. De Kemp. It requires that they contribute a great deal of mental activity themselves. They have to visualize the actions from the words, imagine the voice tones, the facial expressions, and so forth. They are not up to such creative labor.”. Hunh. In this novel, a hex has robbed humans of most forms of entertainment. Books are left…it be End of Days!!!!!

Let’s see how much trouble this book can get itself into while I’m trying to like it…

This is gonna be an emotional read, at times - synopsis says so. I just did a brutal Horror novel off my Fall (and slightly before) reading list - Horror and Creepy Mysteries - and this looks like it might be the Crime & Mystery equivalent, in terms of having my nerves wracked up. We’ll see. The Investigation, by Uhnak, was pretty good.

The two sections, where Lord and Pons talk at length about Economics, and then Human Psychology, were a slog, no doubt. And I don't know that there was anything in there functioning as a workable clue. This went on in Obelists at Sea, too, as I recall, and so we get this big thick book. But - we're back on track, and speeding towards San Francisco with more mayhem and suspense bursting forth, after the two shut up.

Loving this last whodunit left in my summer reading project, that is not a novel by John Dickson Carr. Is this the ultimate train-happy Mystery? With respect to the Orient Express and its own distinct unpleasantness, this is the fully immersive railway experience. More visual aids than one would kill for…maps of a train, its route, some of its cars, more of its cars, list of characters, footnotes, Appendix, mayhem…

Right okay, I mean I’ve got 43 pages left, but I already know I’m giving this 5 stars. The only way that doesn’t happen at this point is if, say, Superman flies down and turns back time…or…Bob Newhart wakes up beside Suzanne Pleshette and the whole thing was a dream. If the ending sucks…well, I’ll just go on to another book, but there’d be a 10-minute period there where I’d be inconsolable…

I wanted to get to a soul-searing Horror novel early in Sept., because it will set the bar for the time between now and Oct. 31. Let’s dive in and pick one of the devastating ones - and it is! I haven’t read Pet Sematary, but I’m gonna guess this is good for fans of that kind of thing. Also thinking of Ash Wednesday by Chet Williamson, and Neither the Sea Nor the Sand by Gordon Honeycombe. This one is powerful.

Wow. How did I not get onto this series back in the day?! I remember the covers made me curious, but I never explored. Mystery Thrillers set in the late 1930s…I want it all!

I’m gonna go to this, ahead of Obelists En Route. I knew I might be inclined to put something between two whodunits from the TBR lists from two separate reading projects. But I don’t have to rush the last two books for one reading project - I have until Sept, 20. Complicated, I know, but both the Mystery I just read, and this, are from my ‘Horror and Creepy Mysteries’ roster, so I’ll keep that movin’ for now.

I’ll kibosh it shortly. It is funny that part of this one relates to Charles the Second, and I just came from him being an actual character in John Dickson Carr’s novel Most Secret. We’re doing theme-reading here, but I didn’t know it! This has turned out to be a great pick for Halloween season, even though we’re not that close yet. Would have worked for even closer…the fog, the sudden attacks - very suspenseful.

This is the first novel I have ever tackled by this author, though I have read some of his short stories, and thought they were quite good. The first 50 pages have been terrific. This book is part of my ‘Horror and Creepy Mysteries’ reading project and it is fitting well; the cover got it included, and what has happened so far has been creepy, so I was not lead astray by creepy glove and syringe imagery.

A slow start, but now it has gotten quite lively and exciting. Spy thriller set during the Restoration period.

As soon as a professor rather snottily put down all theatre that came out of Britain after Shakespeare, naturally I gravitated to Restoration Comedy, and became quite a fan. It’s funny: I got to William Congreve, and George Etherege, but never did read Wycherly; Etherege, Wycherly, and Dryden - I read one of his Tragedies - have all been mentioned in this book, taking me back to university days! Enjoying 1670, too.

So I have two John Dickson Carr novels left in my summer reading project that centred on him - and I have left myself two novels that are not the sort of book he is most famous for. I told myself not to do that, but I did it anyway. So, there's this, and The Bride of Newgate - plus a novel by someone else, called Obelists En Route. And that'll be it, for 'John Dickson Carr and Friends'!