Back to the old standby, Agatha Christie. When in doubt, I read Christie or Austen. Depends on my mood, really. So, in Chipping Cleghorn, there are only a few options for receiving the news of the day. One option is the Chipping Cleghorn Gazette – and in one morning’s Gazette, there is a notice: “A murder is announced and will take place at Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks, at 6:30 p.m.” Ms. Blacklock, who lives at Little Paddocks, is a bit surprised by this, […]
Kids in Jeopardy – Part 2
This is the first fiction I’ve read by Jeannette Walls, whose bestselling book, The Glass Castle, prompted my book club to issue the edict—no books about kids in jeopardy for hundreds of pages. They read The Glass Castle a few months before I joined and I haven’t yet read it; however, I did read Half Broke Horses, which tells the true but somewhat fictionalized story of Walls’ maternal grandmother—setting up the crazy that is Wall’s first memoir. Though this is a novel, The Silver Star […]
King’s Hounds Series #2
This is the second in the King’s Hounds series, named after the main characters Halfdan and Winston, who have been taken into the confidence of King Cnut, the Danish conqueror of England. They solved a murder and saved his bacon in the first book, and now they’re back for another interesting medieval murder mystery. Halfdan and Winston are traveling north to see how everything is going up there, to be the King’s eyes and ears. On the way, they stay at a monastery. A monk […]
The beginning of an excellent series
I stumbled on this one, as I often do, through a Kindle deal. It’s a great way to discovery a new author or a new genre without spending a bunch of money, or at least without a trip to the library. Martin Jensen is a Danish novelist (there are a lot of really good Scandinavian writers, aren’t there?) who has written a bunch of books. From what I can tell, these books are the first to be translated into English. There are two right now […]
Drama and lessons from the school of life.
Forty-fourth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. Yet again I turn to a play by Oscar Wilde and yet again I come away entirely delighted by the experience! Every one of his works has his distinct imprint of acerbic satire and astute observations. While his characters are from the late 20th Century, his observations of the human condition are timeless. And while he is wickedly sarcastic, he almost always manages to convince you that in the end, people are essentially good at heart. […]
The anarchist’s wet dream!
Forty-third book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. How would you like a ball busting, head chopping, tank driving bitchy diva who has serious fun while doing it all? Bring it on, I hear you say? Well, that and a lot, lot more than that is what Tank girl is all about. Tank Girl is an outlaw living in the Australian Outback who hangs out with her boyfriend, a mutant Kangaroo; her best friend, a junkie Aborigine; a stuffed toy Koala bear who hasn’t come […]