Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

I am learning a lot, and I always love that.

A strange but entertaining Mystery cruise…

A unique Mystery experience - even after all the ones I've read. Watching four expert psychologists, behaviourists, etc., apply their specialties to exposing a murderer, certainly seems like satire of a sort. But the book reads, for the most part, as if it were all serious. Which I guess is the point of the satire - to make it seem like this is all worth doing. Meanwhile, the revelations continue to be intriguing.

This will be a re-read. Some BookTubers are checking out some of Brown's short stories this month - especially 'Arena' - with interesting results. This has inspired me to dip into Fredric Brown once again - though I much prefer the Crime & Mystery stuff overall. It's tough to persuade BookTubers with mainly an SF bent to go to the Mystery offerings from Brown, but that's okay. At least they got to 'Arena'.

Well I don’t know what to expect. Hopefully I won’t be all at sea, while at sea learning what the heck an obelist is.

So, I’m taking at least one break from making April all Crime & Mystery. The novella ‘The Switch House’ (plus Afterword) takes me to page 141, and then I get some short stories. So far, I like what I’m getting, even though it’s getting grosser.

I like it a lot. My dim memories of All on a Summer’s Day suggested that I was in for an “87th Precinct” feel, with British twist, if I ever returned to Wainwright. Indeed, this 80s Wainwright seems like a mix of McBain’s 70s entries - maybe Bread meets Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here - in part because McBain’s books had gotten a lot longer by the 80s, whereas this is still under 200 pages.

I’m thinking of reading a lot of this author’s books in a fairly short amount of time. The idea is to really go deep into the oeuvre of a fairly well-respected Crime & Mystery scribe, where I read one something by them ages ago and remained curious…but put off habitually going to their works. Wainwright seemed like a decent choice for this kind of author-focus: unique niche; and my one experience was good.

This continues to impress me. I love the time and place, the palace, all the characters. I have no idea who the killer is…but I have a theory about who Howard should have a look at, when it comes to incriminating orange hands.

Thoroughly enjoyable, so far. That’s odd…the Maharajah’s dinner with his guests wasn’t anything like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; I wonder which scene was more accurate. Hmm. Well, anyway, this is a treat.

It does seem that April will primarily by Crime & Mystery month for me, and I’ll go that route until it doesn’t feel right anymore. Espionage will continue to qualify.

Right…I didn’t really see this ‘problem’ coming, but I should’ve. Some of these bibliomysteries qualify as such, not because they feature a bookstore murder, or murdered writer or bookseller; instead, a clue will relate to a certain literary work, and it may be one I haven’t read. Or something I’ve forgotten. Just encountered this, and I do hope most of the tales aren’t like this.