Book Round-Up

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson: A sharp, genre-savvy mystery about a killer who seems to be replicating the "perfect" crimes from eight classic novels. I could see trouble coming from different directions for the bookseller at the center of the story, but it never turned out quite like I expected.  There are some similarities to The Forgers, but this unreliable narrator is more authentic and (ha) honest.

Fanning the Flames by Victoria Dahl: A short story that's part of a series of novels (you know how romance writers love their trilogies/tetralogies). It's basically just the two characters -- widowed and divorced -- coming together, but they were likeable enough that I would have enjoyed a whole novel about them.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: a charming young adult contemporary fantasy about, well, peculiar children -- people with unusual abilities, like levitation and super strength -- who are hiding from the world at large. (So like a fantasy version of the X-Men.) What makes this novel different is that Riggs developed the concept and story from his collection of weird, vintage photographs, which are in the book as illustrations. The photos are so weird! But, I suppose, no weirder than some of the memes and gifs we circulate today.

The Ten Second Staircase by Christopher Fowler: the fourth in the Bureau of Peculiar Crimes. The crimes are still unusual and disturbing, Bryant and May are still unorthodox, pencil-pushing types are still trying to get the Bureau disbanded, and the whole was still enjoyable. This novel, written in 2006, is remarkably cynical about young people -- unfairly so, in my opinion, given how young people are currently leading the BLM protests and fighting for a better, more just future.

The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa: A light contemporary romance that I wanted to like more than I did. I certainly enjoyed it, and I loved the diversity of the characters presented as no big deal, but the pseudo-hostility between the two protagonists was a little tedious and the setting (the wedding planning world) was not my thing. I'll probably check out some of Sosa's other novels.

Book Round-Up: Bibliomysteries Edition

The Mysterious Bookshop in downtown Manhattan is publishing a Bibliomystery series, short stories or novellas by various mystery writers that center around a book, bookstore, or library. When I went for my birthday, I picked up a few.

The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository by John Connolly: this was a fun little story about a bookish accountant who stumbles upon a special library housing not only first editions, but a number of characters from those books that have come to life -- shades of Eileen Favorite's The Heroines and Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.

The Book of the Lion by Thomas Perry: A lost Chaucerian manuscript is being held hostage by a nefarious character, and a professor and his billionaire friend try to claim the manuscript before it is destroyed forever. It was entertaining, but I think I would have preferred a longer work, and more time spent on the lost manuscript (it apparently did exist at one point).

The Little Men by Megan Abbott: This story mostly takes place in the former apartment of a bookseller, but it ultimately was a psychological thriller that had little to do with books.

Reconciliation Day by Christopher Fowler: I liked this one a lot (no surprise, I like Fowler's Peculiar Crimes series, too).  It involves the original manuscript to Stoker's Dracula, and is appropriately creepy and weird.

Seven Years by Peter Robinson: of all the ones I read, this one was probably closest to a traditional mystery -- a cryptic inscription in an old book leads to an unsolved death and a missing person. It had a distinctly Christie-ish vibe.

Bibliotheca Classica by Simon Brett: The choice of a deeply unreliable narrator made this a lot of fun to read. Professor Rounsevell is curious to discover the origins of his bowdlerized copy of the Bibliotheca Classica, but being both a snob and a technophobe he leaves most of the work to his long-suffering wife. I was tickled to learn that the more common name for the text is Lempriere's Dictionary, which is the title of a (disappointing) Lawrence Norfolk book I read ages ago.

Bureau of Peculiar Crimes

Christopher Fowler's mystery series centers around London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, a department of oddballs who investigate odd crimes. They are led by the septuagenarian detectives Arthur Bryant and John May.  I read the first three novels: Full Dark House, The Water Room, and Seventy-seven Clocks.

There's a lot to like here -- quirky characters; abundant references to mythology, folklore, and London history; spooky crimes; and clever solutions. But for all the lighthearted elements, there is an undercurrent of darkness. Full Dark House had a terribly sad solution, and some of the deaths in Seventy-seven Clocks were quite upsetting. Fowler doesn't shy away from showing the evil in human nature.

Fowler also sets the books in different time periods; the first is set during World War II and details the Unit's first case, the second is set in early twenty-first century, and the third in the 1970s. This allows Fowler to comment on London society at different stages and to make use of different levels of crime detection technology. And yet certain commonalities become apparent. Bryant (an old-fashioned type) laments the changes happening all around him. But apparently he's been complaining for decades, which suggests the problem is his -- change is inevitable, but that doesn't necessarily mean things get worse. Reading all three together highlight that fashions may change but human nature doesn't.

Book Round-Up

Panic Button by Kylie Logan:The third installation in the series, and I don't have much to say except it was as enjoyable as expected.  Also, now I want a button charm string.

Threadbare by Monica Ferris:Also enjoyable, with a good mystery that was neither too predictable nor too implausible.  The education in homelessness was laudable, if heavy-handed.  What wasn't laudable was an extended advertisement for a sizeable needlecraft store in North Dakota.

State Fair by Earlene Fowler:A recent addition to another cozy, quilty mystery series, set in a farming and ranching community in California.  What sets this series apart is the very real kindness Fowler has towards all her characters; in her world, people are bundles of positive traits, serious and not so serious flaws, and contradictory behaviors.   She is not afraid to depict complicated characters capable of both good and evil in serious and petty matters, making her stories that much more satisfying.

A Case of Curiosities by Allen Kurzweil:Mostly set in France just before the revolution, about a young artist and inventor fascinated by mechanical works, the book tells his life from the start of his education to the creation of his masterpiece.  The structure mirrors both the case of curiosities that is the title -- a box of nine ordinary objects representing key periods of his life -- and the watch which indirectly starts him on his journey.  The idea of summing up a life in a collection of objects whose symbolism is only apparent to the collector is neat, and I enjoyed seeing what the significance was of the different objects (the watch structure, on the other hand, I didn't even notice until it was spelled out at the end).