"Farewell, My Lovely" by Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler's crisp, laconic, sharp, caustic, dazzlingly evocative writing is always good for what ails me.  Especially when what ails me is a mild case of summertime SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and its accompanying discomfort in my own skin.

I try to limit myself to one Raymond Chandler book a year so that there is always enough time between my reading of any single book to make it feel fresh again with each reread.  So far, that's been working pretty well.

In Farewell, My Lovely, private investigator Philip Marlowe accidentally encounters an ex-con named Moose Malloy.  Moose is fresh out of prison and single-mindedly hunting for the love of his life, a singer named Velma.  He corrals Marlowe into helping him look for her, then accidentally commits a murder while trying to get information out of a black saloonkeeper.  Marlowe has to report the murder to the cops, but this is early 1940s California, and nobody really cares about an accidental murder of a black man who wasn't rich or famous or important in anyway.  Marlowe is told to forget about it, and the cops will track down Moose in their own good time.  The injustice bothers him, and he makes a lot of snide remarks about it to various authorities, to no real avail.

But Marlowe keeps getting sucked back into Moose's quest to find Velma.  Sometimes things happen to him that seem unconnected to Moose, like getting hit on the head and waking up to discover a murder, or getting hit on the head and waking up in a private hospital for recovering drug addicts.  But he starts to realize everything is all connected, eventually.  It feels for quite a while like a meandering spiral of a story, but that spiral is getting pulled tighter and tighter and tighter like a watch spring the whole time.

Particularly Good Bits:

I didn't say anything.  I lit my pipe again.  It makes you look thoughtful when you are not thinking (p. 91).

Aster Drive had a long smooth curve there and the houses on the inland side were just nice houses, but on the canyon side they were great silent estates, with twelve foot walls and wrought-iron gates and ornamental hedges; and inside, if you could get inside, a special brand of sunshine, very quiet, put up in noise-proof containers just for the upper classes (p. 119-120).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for violence, including not-overly-detailed descriptions of some gory murders, as well as innuendo (mainly in dialog) here and there, some bad language, and the aforementioned casual racism and some racial slurs common in the era.  This is hardboiled detective fiction from the 1940s, so it's not actually smutty, but most of the characters Marlowe encounters are not nice people.

This has been my 6th book read and reviewed for my fifth Classics Club list.

"Of Pastries and Vengeance" by Amber Lambda and Lydia Mae

Another great addition to the Games of Greed and Ruin series!  Of Pastries and Vengeance focuses on one character from the first book, One Must Die, plus adds a new character, while also expanding the world in which the series is set.

If you read One Must Die, you probably remember Maple, the sweet baker whose peach scones gained her several friends, though they didn't convince quite everyone in the deadly Sky Manor game that she was a good person. As I recall, several people were sure she was not as pure and uncomplicated as she wanted to appear.

And they were right.  Maple has a big secret: she may bake delicious cinnamon rolls and peach scones and other bakery delights now, but she was once a notorious and feared member of the city's underground no-holds-barred prize fighting circles.  Not only that, but she believes her father was murdered during one of those illegal fights.

Maple meets Rory Evander, a brand-new law enforcement officer who is intent on capturing a killer.  No matter who that killer may be.  Rory and Maple team up, albeit with reluctance on both their parts, and begin hunting for clues.  And start to develop feelings for each other in the process, as you might expect.

Since I love a good murder mystery, I really enjoyed this.  There were enough surprises to keep me guessing and enough clues to keep me satisfied.  I look forward to seeing where these two characters end up in the next book.

Like the other books in this series, this is Christian fiction, though the Christian themes are maybe a bit less overt in this than in some of the books.

This book WILL make you hungry...

Particularly Good Bits:

I cringed.  This guy was going to stick out like a burnt tea biscuit (p. 31).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for scenes of hand-to-hand violence and non-gory descriptions of murder.  No smut and no cussing.

"The Gatsby Gambit" by Claire Anderson Wheeler

I picked this up at the library on an absolute whim, and it ended up being exactly the book I needed to read last week.

The Gatsby Gambit is kind of an alternate universe retelling of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  In this world, Jay Gatsby has a kid sister and is friends with Tom and Daisy Buchanan.  The kind of friends that are randomly staying at his mansion for a few weeks in the summer while their own mansion across the water is having some renovations done.  

Jay, the Buchanans, Nick Carraway, and Jordan Baker all come across is slightly nicer versions of themselves from Fitzgerald's book.  Daisy and Jordan have the ability to be kind if they want to.  Jay is a little less aloof and a little less unbelievable... and it feels comfortable to call him 'Jay' and not 'Gatsby.'  I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I can't figure out another way to say it.  I think of this Jay Gatsby as Jay, and I think of the original Jay Gatsby as Gatsby. Nick Carraway is very similar to his original self, though maybe a bit more patient.  And Tom Buchanan is... still a lout.  Still a womanizer.  Still a self-satisfied snob.  

As for Jay's little sister Greta Gatsby, she is a delight from beginning to end.  She's all finished with finishing schools at last and ready to step out into the adult world, only she discovers that having been screened and sheltered from the adult world maybe wasn't so entirely bad after all.  Because the adults in her world are not always up to good things.  Sometimes, the ones she loves most are behaving very badly indeed, and she had just been unaware.  And others might have the kinds of dark secrets in their past that come to light violently and permanently.

All in all, this is a stylish and smart murder mystery tangled up in a coming-of-age story, Roaring Twenties-style.  The historical details were fabulous, the characters were sharply believable, and the book never felt like it was capitalizing on the fame of a classic so much as exploring a "what if?" in a natural and fun way.  It explores issues of the day such as classism, ableism, and sexism without pouring too much of our modern mores into the mix, and also deftly scrutinizes cruelty, infidelity, family, and romance.

Particularly Good Bits:

Sometimes she felt--oh, it was such a tricky thing to put into words!--this suspicion that the world was not quite the world she read about.  That she was still being... protected from things.  Not by Jay exactly, not by anyone in particular, but by some invisible, insidious buffer (p. 30).

Ladies, certainly, were not supposed to question things.  Ladylike meant gracious, and gracious meant accepting (p. 85).

"She wanted everyone to think she was happy; she wanted to look happy.  That was something she knew how to do much better than actually being happy.  Poor old Daise has been told how to look and what to feel for so long, I think sometimes she hardly knows how to locate a feeling of her own" (p. 96).

"I never wanted to marry a romantic.  They're dangerous.  They fall out of love with you the minute you turn out to be human, and then they blame you for being a disappointment" (p. 15).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for a lot of veiled discussion of adultery and sexual activity, some period-appropriate bad language here and there, murder, and one person's memory of something violent happening in the past.

"A Name to Remember" by Hannah Hood Lucero

This is my first Hannah Hood Lucero book, but it definitely will not be my last!  Wow.  I get the hype now, fam.

Compelling and befriend-able characters?

Check.

Alluring North Carolina small town setting?

Check.

Horses?

Check.

High, yet believable, stakes?

Check.

Suspenseful climax?

Check.

Made me cry multiple times for happy and poignant reasons both?

Check.

Made me laugh aloud?

Check.

Yup, I'm a fan :-D

(I've actually met Hannah, and she is a whimsically maniacal delight to hang out with, so I was already a fan of her as a person before this, but now I am a fan of her writing as well...)

High school senior Isobel Lee gets recognized everywhere she goes, but not for a happy or fun reason: her Army medic dad recently died in combat overseas, and strangers and acquaintances alike all want to either thank her for her family's sacrifice or tell her all the reasons they disagree with American military operations like the one that killed her dad.

Isobel and her mom move in with her grandmother in a small North Carolina town.  Gran owns horses and is a sass-master extraordinaire, but also sweet and kind and warm and everything a grandma should be.  

Her first day at her new high school, Isobel makes friends with Hank Olsen, though she doesn't realize who he is when she befriends him.

Hank Olsen is also famous in their small town, but not for good reasons either.  His dad went to prison for murder and his mom is a druggie, and Hank is considered to be trailer trash just like his parents.  But that's not what Isobel doesn't realize about him -- she doesn't realize at first that he is the sweet boy she got an instant crush on five years earlier, when she and her parents were visiting Gran one summer.

Isobel and Hank both feel sparkage toward each other, but they first build a solid friendship before moving on to holding hands and kissing and inviting all the warm fuzzies of young love into their lives.  They both have some emotional issues to grapple with, and some real-world problems as well.

This small NC town is plagued with fires every winter, and the fires all seem linked to Hank somehow.  Most of the town suspects he's a firebug, and when new fires break out, soon there are people calling for his arrest or banishment or both.

Man, this book was so good!  I inhaled it in just a few days, and now I want to read Lucero's book Cathey's Creek Road, which is also YA and also set in the same basic area.  In fact, I ordered a copy as soon as I finished A Name to Remember, so it should be hitting my doorstep pretty soon!

One quick theological note: there's definitely some decision-based theology in this book, which some of my readers will want to be aware of.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, portrayal of mental illness in teens (including self-harm and violence toward others), mentions of military violence and PTSD, and romantic yearning between teens that acknowledges temptation/desire to do more than kiss.  No cussing; no smut; no gory violence.

"The Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Thief" by Maurice LeBlanc

What fun!  I had honestly never heard of Arsène Lupin before I bought this book.  I bought it because I really love the MacMillan Collector's Edition books, which are elegant pocket-sized hardcovers with delightful dust jackets.  I check every now and then to see what books they have released lately in case any are of interest to me, and this one looked like fun.  Sort of a precursor to The Saint books by Leslie Charteris, in a way. 

Arsène Lupin steals expensive things from rich people. Along the way, he often solves a crime or clears up a mystery.  Sometimes, though, the story is really just all about a clever heist he pulls of.  He's a gentleman thief, after all, not a detective.

Of the nine short stories in this collection, my top favorites were:

"The Seven of Hearts," in which Lupin not only executes a daring burglary, but solves an old crime.

"The Escape of Arsène Lupin" because I always enjoy prison-escape stories.

"Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late" because it was really funny, and didn't so much poke fun at Sherlock Holmes as play with his character like this was a fanfic story (which it basically is).

I liked this book so much, I have asked my mom for a boxed set of the complete collection (there are like 8 or 9 more books, though not all in these editions, alas) for my birthday.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a little violence here and there, plus obviously themes of theft and robbery.  No cussing; no smut.

This has been my third classic book read and reviewed for my fifth Classic Club list.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" by Agatha Christie

My sister-in-law sent me a copy of The Mysterious Affair at Styles as part of a little book box last year.  She sent it to me to cheer me up when I was having a really stressful time, and it definitely worked!  Even though it took me a few months to read the book itself, having it to look forward to was a definite morale booster, as were the neat goodies that came with it.

This is not only the first book featuring the great detective Hercule Poirot, it's Agatha Christie's debut novel.  It's full of all the elements you would expect from a Poirot mystery:  a seemingly unsolvable crime, lots of suspects, some red herrings, and a solution that eventually makes sense.  Plus, we get to see Poirot and Hastings become friends, which is so fun!  

Is this my favorite Poirot mystery?  Don't think so, but it doesn't have to be.  I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm glad I've finally read it!

Particularly Good Bits:

"You gave too much rein to your imagination.  Imagination is a good servant, and a bad mater.  The simplest explanation is always the most likely" (p. 84).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for murder and the tiniest bit of strong language.

This is my second book read and reviewed for my fifth Classics Club list.

"Hours We Regret" by Chelsea Michelle

This was a fun mystery novella :-)  It's kind of a prequel to the Watson Twins mystery series, and I haven't read any other books in this Christian fiction series yet, so I can tell you it works great as an introduction, too.  You don't need to know the characters already.

Twins Chelsea and Michelle Watson live together in a small town.  Michelle is obsessed with trying to find a pattern in a string of recent serial killings not too far from where they live.  Chelsea thinks this is unhealthy.  

When Michelle breaks up with her boyfriend, she takes off into the Appalachians to find some peace and quiet.  When Chelsea can't reach Michelle by phone, she panics.  Has Michelle fallen victim to the serial killer?  Or, has she gone searching for the serial killer?

This is never super-suspenseful, but it does get pretty tense for a few chapters.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for scary situations involving memory loss, disorientation, and possible abduction.  No cuss words, no smut, no gory violence.

"The Murder on the Links" by Agatha Christie

My mom gave me the gorgeous Chiltern Classics edition of The Murder on the Links for Christmas, and I promptly started reading it on Christmas Day.  And finished it a few days after New Year's.  And took almost a month to get around to reviewing it.

I swear this isn't because I didn't enjoy this mystery!  I definitely did -- it had some lovely twists I didn't see coming, plus a couple that I thought I saw coming but was not quite correct about.  Hanging out with Poirot and Hastings was delightful.  Watching Hastings fall in love without noticing was adorable.  

I don't have anything particularly long-winded to say about this book.  That's partly because it simply is a good mystery, and I have no bones to pick with it.  And it's partly because I did read this almost a month ago and then fell prey to the busyness of January and failed to review it until now.

I would like to mention that I do rather like Hastings, and I know a lot of Poirot fans don't.  My affection for him stems pretty much entirely from his portrayal by Jonathan Cecil in several of the 1980s Hercule Poirot films starring Peter Ustinov.  Cecil plays Hastings as so sweet and likeable, albeit definitely not bright, and I shall probably always be fond of him as a result.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for murder, insinuations about people having extramarital affairs, and a sprinkling of old-fashioned cuss words.

This is my 49th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list!  One more to go, and I'll have read and reviewed 200 classics since 2014!

"Knave of Diamonds" by Laurie R. King

I really enjoy stories about con artists.  Which means it's a little weird to me that I didn't connect more with this book.  It was fun, but I sometimes felt like I was being subtly told how fun it was, not that I actually was finding it fun?  Maybe I just read it at the wrong time -- I got two holds in from the library and had to quickly read this one before it was due again because someone else had placed a hold on it.  I probably would have enjoyed it more in January or something.  I also think that I probably will enjoy in more if/when I reread it at some point, because I will stop worrying about Holmes and Russell's safety every minute of the story.

I did like it!  I just didn't love it.  Which is okay.  I only love about half of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie R. King.  But I like basically all of them :-)

In this one, Mary Russell's uncle resurfaces after being presumed dead for years.  He's a con artist and thief.  He wants Russell to help him find something.  That he stole years ago, and was subsequently stolen from him.  It's complicated.  And it all turns out just fine, whew.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for some discussions of British societal uproars over the uncovering (years previous) of a "homosexual ring" within the upper echelons of society, and some remarkably (for LRK) veiled implications that a side character may have feelings of some kind for someone of the same sex.  Also, some violence and a smattering of light cusswords.

"Woman in Shadow" by Carrie Stuart Parks

It's been a few years since I read any books by Carrie Stuart Parks, and that feels foolish of me, because I enjoy her writing a lot!  Time to do some catching up in 2026, I think!

Woman in Shadow is a stand-alone Christian suspense mystery about a woman who has PTSD and lost a limb due to a violent crime incident in her past.  Part of her therapy for working through her trauma involves going back out into the world and learning how to use her forensic linguist training and skills to help others again.  She is sent to help a ranch resort near Yellowstone National Park figure out if someone is sabotaging their work, and why.

She uncovers some dark truths, both about the dangers at the ranch and about her own past.  By shedding light on them, she's able to stop something really sinister from happening, and also able to heal emotionally and mentally from burdens she was forcing herself to carry.  She also gets a friends-to-maybe-more-in-the-future side story with a local law enforcement officer who has his own troubles to get through.

I really loved how the main character's training as a forensic linguist helped her navigate the new surroundings she gets dropped into, and also helped her figure out who to trust, who was hiding things, and so on.  I also really liked her character development -- there was no "instant healing," but rather a steady progression toward doing better with things, with stumbles and natural pauses.

My book club read this for our autumn book, and we all loved it!

Particularly Good Bits:

"The mountains marched into the distance like a stack of torn paper, each layer lighter than the previous one, ranging from deep viridian to soft lavender (p. 24). 

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for memories of violence, non-detailed descriptions of some pretty horrible deaths and injuries, and a lot of suspense and peril at the end.  No cussing, no smut, no detailed gore.

"Murder at King's Crossing" by Andrea Penrose

It's been a little while since I read a Wrexford and Sloane Mystery -- in fact, two new books in the series have been released since I read Murder at the Merton Library in the summer of 2024.  Happily, I was able to slip right back into their world and revel in being with this quirky and eclectic cast of characters who have become my imaginary friends.  And I have another to look forward to!

I love how Penrose brings Regency England to life.  These books almost feel like Georgette Heyer could have written them sometimes -- lots of witticisms, wonderfully atmospheric details, and unconventional romances, but with clever murder mysteries mixed in too.  And I also love how she weaves real scientific discoveries and inventions into all the books -- I feel like I'm learning a bit of the history of science along the way.

But it's my fondness for the Earl of Wrexford and Charlotte Sloane and their motley found family that keeps me returning to the series over and over.  I have started collecting the paperback editions as they get released because I know I will want to reread the series in the future, and I can no longer trust my local library system to just keep good books on their shelves.

This mystery centers around missing plans for a way to make longer, stronger bridges that may have been stolen by Napoleonic supporters hoping to bring the former French emperor back from exile.  Don't want to say more than that so I don't spoil it!

Particularly Good Bits:

"Indeed, the union of kindred hearts and minds makes each person even stronger" (p. 47).

"It is nice to be reminded that there is beauty in this world that cannot be diminished by the evil that lurks in the human heart" (p. 50).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for murder, attempted murder, some mild cussing, and veiled allusions to wedding nights and newlywed activities.

"Shadows of the Valley" by Britt Howard

I have been looking forward to this book for months and months!  I very much enjoyed the first McCade Family Novel, Song of the Valley, when I read that a couple of years ago, but I liked Shadows of the Valley even more!

This is a suspenseful story with a modern western setting and a slow-burn romance. Kasey Carter is a retired military veteran who has suffered severe wounds, both physical, emotional, and spiritual.  When her younger half-sister begs Kasey to hide and protect her children for a while, Kasey agrees, but reluctantly.  She ends up guarding them in a remote cabin in the Montana mountains near the small town of Cascade Valley.  There, she encounters Dean McCade, a local rancher who senses she's guarding more than a few secrets and tries repeatedly to help her. 

This book is a lot more serious than the first book in Britt Howard's McCade Family series, but it features the same beautiful scenery, courageous and compassionate McCade family members, and a message that real answers and truth can be found only in Christ Jesus.  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for mentions of spousal abuse, memories of military violence and trauma, small children being put in danger, and some violence on-page.  No cussing, no smut, and no gore.

"Midsummer Mysteries" by Agatha Christie

I did it!  I read all four of these season-themed Christie collections in four consecutive seasons!

It's the little things in life, amiright?

The short stories in this volume include stories about Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Mr. Quin, Tommy and Tuppence, and Mr. Parker Pyne.  Plus a story or two with none of them.  I've grown so fond of Pyne and Quin that I have actually picked up collections of stories about only them, because I'd like to read more!

I'd say my favorite stories in this are "Jane in Search of a Job" and "The Rajah's Emerald," which happen to be two of the stories with no famous detectives in them.  I also really liked "The Oracle at Delphi" and "The Incredible Theft."

I most definitely did NOT like "The Idol House of Astarte," which was creepy.

I just learned that Harper Collins is doing two more collections similar to this: Capital Christie and Country Christie, and now I want those too.  So far, it seems like you can only buy the former in the UK, and the latter won't be released until September.  I will probably wait until September and then see if I can't order them both from someplace like Waterstones that ships to the US.  Or maybe they'll have them in the US by then too.

Particularly Good Bits:

The book she took with her to read was not the excellent one on Grecian Art recommended to her by her son but was, on the contrary, entitles The River Launch Mystery.  It had four murders in it, three abductions, and a large and varied gang of dangerous criminals  Mrs. Peters found herself both invigorated and soothed by the perusal of it (p. 165, "The Oracle at Delphi")(I love that last line because that's what good mysteries do for me, too.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for crimes such as murder and abduction and theft, and the sorts of violence you might expect Agatha Christie to write about.  No rubbing gore in the reader's face, in other words.  There are a handful of mild curse words, and some very polite dialog mentions about people having romantic affairs, etc.

This has been my 41st book read and reviewed for my 4th Classics Club list.

"The Case of the Terrified Typist" by Erle Stanley Gardner

Yeah.  Definitely a new comfort-read series.

The plot of this one really kept me guessing.  It had several twists that I greatly enjoyed :-) 

Perry Mason has a lot of work to get done in a short amount of time, so he sends word to a temp agency to send an extra typist because Della Street and Gertie are unable to keep up.  A typist arrives, proves to be brilliant at her job, but disappears.  And then there are all sorts of robberies and treasure discoveries and accusations of murders, culminating in a very surprising trial.

Once again, this mystery was everything I wanted and needed when I read it, and I'm relishing having 78 more Perry Mason books to explore.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for murder and some mild bad language.

"The Case of the Glamorous Ghost" by Erle Stanley Gardner

Friends, I think I have a new comfort author.

So, a few months ago, my 17-yr-old mentioned he would like to see some episodes of Perry Mason (1957-66), as I've mentioned now and then how much I liked that show when I was a kid watching reruns in the summer on cable at my grandparents' house.  Not long after, I found a couple seasons on DVD and bought them.  He tried some eps and liked them, so it was a win :-)

Not long after, my mom and I were looking for something to watch together in the evenings when she is staying with me.  I mentioned I had just gotten some Perry Mason DVDs, and she thought that sounded great.  So, we have been watching them 3 or 4 evenings a week when she stays with us.  And that has been an absolute blast!  I had forgotten how much I adore Paul Drake (William Hopper), Perry's on-call detective pal.  And I love Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) and Della Street (Barbara Hale) too.

Well, then I was at a used bookstore with my mom and some of her friends this spring, and I stumbled on a big hardcover collection of seven complete Perry Mason novels by Erle Stanley Gardner, some of the books that inspired the TV show.  And I bought it, remembering that my grandpa used to read Perry Mason books once in a while and figuring maybe they would be enough like the show I would enjoy them.

Y'all.  Oh, y'all.  They are so much like the show.  I mean, I can hear and see the actors and actresses from the show on every page.  Perry Mason might be a little more impulsive than his TV counterpart in the two I've read so far, and Della might be a bit more sarcastic than her TV self.  Paul Drake is also somewhat more lackadaisical, though they clearly took a lot of details from the books for his portrayal on the show.  Right down to having a special, secret knock he uses to let Perry Mason know it's him before he enters, just in case there's a client or a policeman he maybe shouldn't encounter just yet.  A very specific knocking pattern that I glommed onto while watching the show before the age of 11, as I vividly remember mimicking it when on an overnight outing with my mom.  I've used that knock many times ever since.  I may have forgotten for a while how much I love Paul Drake, but not how much I love the way he knocks on doors!

The main difference between the books and the show thus far are that there's some mild cussing in them, and a bit more innuendo.  (Actually, the show gets pretty suggestive for something that aired on network TV in the 1950s and '60s -- but like all good '50s and '60s shows, it's all in the suggesting and implying, no overt hanky panky shown or explicitly talked about.)  (Though I watched a season 5 episode the other day where they did talk about a guy dealing with a lot of lawsuits that involved paternity tests, which I betcha raised some eyebrows pretty high even in the early 1960s when that one would have aired.)

Anyway, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost is about a girl who is picked up by the police because she's running around a public park at night, wearing a thin negligee and a clear raincoat.  She appears to have amnesia.  Perry Mason gets hired to defend her, just in case it turns out she's in any kind of serious trouble.  Which, of course, she is.  Jewel smuggling and clandestine trips to Las Vegas and elopement and murder all come out in the open by the end of it.  

And it's all so... cozy, somehow.  Like a mug of hot chocolate with a little kick of chili powder in it that just warms you up all the way through.  Or like hanging out with friends you have known three-quarters of your life.  Comfortable.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for discussion of unmarried couples going away for weekends and sharing hotel rooms, some mild cussing, and violent murder.

"The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective" by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

I'm so glad that some reader friends of mine picked one of the short stories in this collection to include in the #DickensDecember buddy read event on Bookstagram last winter.  These stories are so delightful!  I can see why Brooke was a big hit back in the 1890s, even considered a female Sherlock Holmes.  She's bright, knowledgeable, clever, and not sniffing around for a husband.  That probably made her seem kind of unusual (and maybe unladylike) in her day, though now we're pretty used to confident female characters who aren't trying to catch the eye of every eligible man who crosses their path.  

There are seven short stories here, all of them enjoyable mysteries.  Loveday Brooke is a professional detective -- she earns her living working as an operative for a detective agency.  She's unmarried, in her thirties, proper and ladylike, and ready for whatever assignment comes her way.  She solves crimes using observation and deduction, like so many classic detectives.  Although these mysteries don't quite "play fair" (they don't give the readers every single clue), they're still very fun to read.  I only wish there were more!

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some violence, including murders.

This has been my 40th book read and reviewed for my 4th Classics Club list.

"The Souls of Lost Lake" by Jaime Jo Wright

Oh my.  This was very creepy.  So creepy, I almost quit reading it about halfway through because I was afraid it was going to give me nightmares.  But I decided to read a couple more chapters, and then eerie and creepy things started getting real-life explanations, and I went ahead and finished the book.  It turns out that all the ghostly and creepy things were totally explainable and due to secret human activity, and there were no hauntings.  There definitely were horrible murders in the past, and those were hard to read about, but they weren't what was creeping me out anyway.

This is one of those split-timeline books where you have one storyline going on in the present day, and another in the past.  The present-day story is about a young woman named Arwen who lives at and works for a Christian camp in the north woods of Wisconsin.  She is helping with a search for a missing little girl who disappeared near the camp.  In the process, she digs up a lot of information about her own past.

In the past story, it's the 1930s, and there's a young woman named Ava Coons whose whole family was killed in a bloody and terrifying way when she was a child.  Their bodies disappeared, and her family home burned to the ground -- only Ava escaped, and she was covered in blood and dragging a massive, bloody axe when she was found by people of the small Wisconsin town nearby.  Even though Ava had no memory of what happened to her family, and clearly was too small and weak to even heft the axe she was dragging, many people still thought she killed her family.  A decade later, a person from that town is killed with an axe, and many people want Ava arrested for the crime.  About the only person who believes she is innocent is a new minister who isn't very well known in the area yet.  Ava starts to fall for him, even while trying to figure out how to prove she isn't now and never has been a killer.

The burned-down Coons cabin also plays into Arwen's story, and she lives near the small town where Ava grew up after her family died.  

I devoured this book in three days because I absolutely had to know how everything turned out.  I've been assured by some friends that the rest of Wright's books are not this creepy, so I think I will try another, one of these days.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for creepiness, discussions of murder victims, lots of innuendo, and scenes of a child being in peril.  I would not hand this to any of my teens to read, to be honest.  But it's also not really R-rated.

"Curtain: Poirot's Last Case" by Agatha Christie

This is sad and melancholy and was hard to read.  I'm glad I randomly read it because I wanted to finish off a hardcover anthology and not because I was reading all the Poirot stories in order, because if I was reading them in order and got to this as the very last one, I would now be very depressed.  Instead, I have plenty of jolly Poirot mysteries to enjoy in the future still.

Poirot and faithful Hastings end up at Styles, the same house where the very first Hercule Poirot mystery takes place.  They have to catch a diabolical fiend who is responsible for a strong of deaths, and also protect Hastings's daughter from said fiend.  Poirot is in failing health, and seeing him through the kind eyes of Hastings was sometimes almost enough to bring me to tears.  So I wouldn't say I enjoyed this book, really.  I doubt I will reread it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for descriptions of some poisonings, discussions of marital infidelity, and a smattering of bad language.

This is my 39th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.  Although Curtain was published in 1975, which is after my usual cut-off for when I will consider a book a classic, it was written during WWII.  So I think it suits.

"Sinister Spring" by Agatha Christie

Like Autumn Chills and Midwinter Murder, this is a collection of short mysteries by Agatha Christie that all take place in a particular season.

Hands down, my favorite short story in here was "The Girl in the Train," which was funny, quirky, and exciting all at the same time.  It made me think alternately of P. G. Wodehouse and F. Scott Fitzgerald, which is no mean feat!

I also very much enjoyed "Have You Got Everything You Want?" (I'm becoming a Parker Pyne fan) and "The Soul of the Croupier" (I'm also becoming a Mr. Quin fan).  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for various crimes such as murder and theft, and attendant mild violence.

This is my 37th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring Sprang Sprung

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Books on My Spring 2025 To-Read List."  

I will freely confess that I am actively reading four of these books right now, which are marked with an asterisk.  I know I will definitely also read Before the King because it's my book club's next pick.  Also, I'm determined to read the Agatha Christie collection during the correct season.  The rest are things I'd like to read in the near future, but I'm a total mood reader, so some of them may simply get pushed off for another time.

Before the King by Heather Kaufman

The Number of Love by Roseanna M. White

A Rose in West Egg* by Storm Shultz

The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler

Sinister Spring by Agatha Christie

Eldest* by Christopher Paolini

Rowan Farm* by Margot Benary-Isbert

Holy Hygge: Creating a Place for People to Gather and the Gospel to Grow* by Jamie Erickson

Rembrandt in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey

Did you share a Top Ten Tuesday list this week?  Have you read any of these?  Leave a comment and let me know!