Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I’ve discovered Anthony Horowitz, and I couldn’t be happier

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

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That’s right, I’ve discovered this wonderful mystery writer. Granted, it’s in much the same way that Columbus discovered the New World, and I imagine my fellow Cannonballers looking at me with bemused expressions and saying, “Blimey, mate, he’s been here for ages if you’d bothered to look.” My fellow Cannonballers are all British in this scenario, and they are also correct. Name recognition, which came from reading several reviews on this site, was responsible for my interest in these novels as much as the intriguing […]

The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place – A Fine Mystery in a fine series

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place by Alan Bradley

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Whenever someone posts a generic “what should I read” status on social media, and if mystery is a genre they enjoy, I often to go this Alan Bradley series. Flavia de Luce, the youthful Angela Fletcher of 1950s England, is fun to follow on her exploits. It is just refreshing to have a fun female character to follow! Bradley has done a good job of keeping it fresh – though the murder mystery portion is formulaic, we have watched Flavia grow as she has faced […]

Are there really people willing to read twelve of these?

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith

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I seem to be on a losing streak with mysteries. I bought this one from my local Friends of the Library bookshop for $1, and  you can bet I’m claiming that buck on my tax return next year because I sure didn’t get my money’s worth. Some years ago I read a handful of books in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, and I remember them being fun diversions, so when I saw this other series by Alexander McCall Smith, I was curious. After […]

A boy and his parrot.

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I’m a fan of a Michael Chabon. “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” is an amazing book. “Telegraph Avenue” is one of my favorites as well. Those are serious tomes, so I was interested in reading this little book to see how he manages to encapsulate his general style of verbose prose into a novella. In 1944, a retired British detective in his twilight years is raising bees at his small cottage in the English countryside. He becomes involved in the investigation of a […]

Clouds of Witness

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“But to Lord Peter the world presented itself as an entertaining labyrinth of side-issues” – Dorothy Sayers Lord Peter Whimsey has abandoned dismal London for the sights and sounds of Corsica.  He is relaxed and feeling good when he spots a disturbing headline.  His brother, the Duke of Denver, has been arrested for muuurdeeerrrr. He has to hop a biplane home (which is just such fabulous imagery) to rescue the family.  Once home he is confronted with the icy reserve of upper crust houseguests, his […]

Jones, Victoria Jones

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They Came to Baghdad Starting off the 2017 Cannonball with a book I have never read by one of my favorite authors. They Came to Baghdad is an Agatha Christie book but there are no delightful British spinsters or fussy Belgians on the case.  Instead this is the story of a young British woman who is failing spectacularly at being a career gal in London shortly after World War II.  She’s indifferent to typing and a confident spinner of half-truths and white lies. I don’t […]



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