Collection of Cozies #3

A Room With a Brew by Joyce Tremel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The 3rd installment of this series about a brewer in Pittsburg who keeps getting mixed up in murders. This one was pretty far-fetched and the G-rated romance with the hunky hockey-player chef is also hard to believe.

Death of a Fool by Ngaio Marsh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ritual dancing at the winter solstice provides the backdrop for this tale of murder from one of the queens of crime.



The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
by Dorothy Gilman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This might stretch the definition of mystery a bit, but it is definitely a cozy spy novel.


Kansas Troubles by Earlene Fowler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Would have liked more quilting info in this one.




Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reread of a classic. Lots of interesting info about spiritualism. I love the ending of this novel. The actual last lines are great (total spoiler though so I won't quote them).


A Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The tone of this novel reminded me of Josephine Tey's work. This one is comic though (think Keystone cops). Now and then the grammarian in Lynne Truss pops up in a charming way and the language was delightful:

"It's an aspect of old-school Variety that is often overlooked in respectful academic accounts of the genre's sad and lonely death-by-television in the 1950s--that what made the weak comedy routines sound so funny in the halls (and the tawdry 'glamour' even passable), was the audience's prior consumption of alcohol in quantities that would nowadays be considered catastrophically injurious to health." (p. 77)

This novel has been on my shelf for ages and so counts toward the Mount TBR challenge.

All of these books count toward the Cruisin Through the Cozies Challenge.

Review: Murder Must Advertise

Murder Must Advertise
by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My only quibble with this novel is that it includes an unnecessarily long section describing a cricket match. Bits of it are beautifully written (Sayers is like that) but there is no reason for it to take an entire chapter.

"With five minutes to go, ... watched the first ball of the over come skimming down towards him. It was a beauty. It was jam. He smote it as Saul smote the Philistines. It soared away in a splendid parabola, struck the pavilion roof with a noise like the crack of doom, rattled down the galvanized iron roofing, bounced into the enclosure where the scorers were sitting and broke a bottle of lemonade. The match was won." (p.260)

In this novel Lord Peter takes a job at Pym's Advertising where a man has recently died in a tumble down a circular stair. Oddly I spent the last several days working in a room (not my usual office) with a funny little circular stairway, but it didn't have knobs on the rails so I wasn't too worried. The investigation includes many twists and turns and lots of asides about the nature of advertising and commerce. It also has an appearance by Peter's sister Lady Mary who is a good character as she supports her brother's antics while taking a bit of the wind out of his sails when needed.

Best Books of the Year So Far

This week The Broke and the Bookish asked for the top 10 books read so far this year.

Looking back through my list I decided these were my favorites so far:

1. Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers (a 5 star re-read)
2. Alena by Rachel Pastan
3. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
4. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
5. Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay 
6. Transatlantic by Colum McCann
7. Dodger by Terry Pratchett
8. Cartwheel by Jennifer Dubois
9. Night Film by Marisha Pessl
10. Truth in Advertising by John Kenney

Retitle Your Read

Today's Bout of Books challenge comes fromOhMagicHour and asks us to come up with a new title for a book we are reading for the readathon. 

For Gaudy Night I suggest the title Mixed Doubles which I think captures the screwball dashing-around-the-campus elements of the novel as well as the many views of marriage and partnerships that come up throughout the story.

BoB Update: Friday

http://boutofbooks.blogspot.com

Progress today:

• I didn't listen to my audio book today (I keep having days where I don't drive anywhere)
• I finished reading Gaudy Night (293 pages) 
• I finished reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (45 pages) 
• I checked out the challenges, but didn't complete them.

Review: Gaudy Night

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my favorite Dorothy Sayers. The mystery is a perfectly serviceable one, but what makes this book wonderful is the observations of the way people behave. The relationship between Harriet and Lord Peter gets a lot of attention in this book and Harriet spends a lot of time figuring out who she is and what she wants. It is also full of wonderful lines.

“Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.” “We shall know what things are of overmastering importance when they have overmastered us.” “A marriage of two independent and equally irritable intelligences seems to me reckless to the point of insanity.” “How fleeting are all human passions compared to the massive continuity of ducks.""She admired the strange nexus of interests thar unites the male half of mankind into a close honeycomb of cells, each touching the other on one side only, and yet constituting a tough and closely adhering fabric." 

If you want to know what the last two lines of the book mean there is a good (but spoiler filled!) explanation here.

BoB Update: Wednesday

http://boutofbooks.blogspot.com

Progress today:

• I didn't read at lunchtime.
• I listened to my audio book for about an hour today.
• I read 150 pages today: 84 pages of Gaudy Night by Dorthy L. Sayers and 66 pages of An Omlette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David.
• I checked out the challenge, but didn't have an answer to contribute.

Review: Lord Peter

Lord Peter by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My major issue with this book, which is a collection of short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, has more to do with me than with the book. I don't really find short stories very satisfactory, especially when they are about a character I already know. Sayers is a wonderful writer and these tales are tidy little puzzles (for the most part) that Lord Peter ties up neatly by the end, but the usual extra stuff about Freddy and Bunter and the Dowager Duchess of Denver's goings-on are omitted from this shorter form and I missed them. I had read some of these stories before (this is the complete collection of Lord Peter Wimsey stories which is why I wanted it for my Sayers shelf), but some were new to me. The final story, "Talboys" was first published here and isn't really a mystery at all but it a fun story about domestic life later in Lord Peter's relationship with Harriett Vane.

I got this book as a completion prize for the Vintage Mystery Challenge last year and am counting it toward the What's in a Name 7 Challenge to cover the category "a forename or names." This completes one goal for the Spring into a Good Book Challenge.

Hello Fall!

Today is the first day of Fall (it begins at 4:44pm EDT to be precise). So, it seems like a good day to report on how I did on my summer reading. I don't usually commit myself to lists of specific books to read in a given timeframe, but the Top Ten Tuesday meme inspired me.
Here is what happened with my summer reading list:

1. A Farewell to Arms by E. Hemingway
   It was my Classics Club spin book and I finished it on time. I gave it one star. I think I was generous.
2. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
   I committed to reading this for the 18th Century English Literature event but I couldn't get through it. It was officially abandoned.
3. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
   Read this for Austen in August with Classics Club.
4. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
   Another Austen in August book -- I didn't get to this one. I did read some other Austen stuff though.
5. A Few Green Leaves by Barabara Pym
   I read it, I liked it (3 stars), but didn't have much to say about it so didn't write a review. Same deal with Excellent Women (4 stars).
6. Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger
   Excellent start to a new series from the creator of the Parasol Protectorate.
7. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
   This remains on my to-be-read (TBR) list.
8. Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World by Janet E. Cameron
   This remains on my TBR list and I'm looking forward to it based on Lisa's review. 
9. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorthy Sayers
   I finished this one and am still working on my Sayers re-read project.
10. Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore
    This one belongs to my husband, and is still in his to read pile so I am still waiting for my turn.

I did read a bunch of other books over the summer, but they weren't the ones that I thought I would read when I made the list. Planned reading lists are not my thing. My quilting friends tease me for being unable to follow a pattern without totally changing the design/technique/etc. This may be a related issue.

Review: Have His Carcase

Have his carcase
by Dorothy L. Sayers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The mystery was super complex, and of course it couldn't have been solved without Bunter. I thought the business of the cipher went on a bit too long, but otherwise I really enjoyed this story. The Harriet Vane/Lord Peter relationship (they team up to solve this case) is developing nicely through this book and the possibilities (including whether there even was a murder) are thick on the ground which kept me guessing until the very end.
This book counts toward the Vintage Mystery Challenge in the category of Dynamic Duos.

Review: Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club 
by Dorothy L. Sayers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A complicated mystery with several colorful characters as potential suspects, Bunter testing and photographing, and a few odd pals of Lord Peter mixed in to give him pause as he pursued the truth. This novel is just what I expect from a Lord Peter Whimsey Mystery. If his mother had been involved it would have been perfect.

This counts toward the Vintage Mystery Challenge in the category of Jolly Old England.

Review: Strong Poison

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel explains how Harriet Vane came into Lord Peter's life and is an excellent mystery. The women of the "cattery" play a large part and their are quite a few sly references to other mysteries in it (LP tells Bunter to stop sounding like Jeeves, and at one point he calls for his shag and dressing gown so he can figure out an answer).
The romance between the Inspector and Lady Mary takes shape in this novel as well. Altogether quite a satisfactory book.

This book counts toward the Vintage Mystery Challenge in the category of Murderous Methods (a book with a means of death in the title).

Review: The Five Red Herrings

Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I always enjoy Sayers novels, but this one was not one of my favorites. The story centers around 6 artists, one of whom may be a murderer (the other 5 are the herrings), but they weren't distict enough characters to keep them sorted out amongst all the train schedules, bicycles, and painting tools. The solution to the mystery is handed to the reader when Lord Peter finds the body, but is buried among lots of distractions (herring anyone?) and is easily missed. When it was explained at the end I couldn't belive I missed something so obvious, but I did. 

The writing is very sharp and full of references and inside jokes for the observant reader. There is an entire section where everything Lord Peter says is dialog from MacBeth. I also love how Sayers pops in now and again with commentary on the detective novel form. 

"See here, Whimsey, you're not going to turn round now and say that the crime was committed by Mrs. Green or the milkmam, or somebody we've never heard of? That would be in the very worst tradition of the lowest style of detective fiction." (p.273)

This book, c1931, counts toward the Vintage Mystery Challenge in the category of Murder by the Numbers.

2012 Reading by the Numbers

During 2012 I read 113 books, this was fewer volumes than in 2011, but more pages (34090 in 2012 and 33320 in 2011, according to my Goodreads statistics). I borrowed 65 of these from my public library.

I gave 5 stars to these 5 books:

• The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies
• A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
• Evidence That We Are Descended from Chairs by Andrew Merton
• Clouds of Witness by Dorthy L. Sayers
• Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

I gave 4 stars to 46 books.
Overall it was a good year for reading and 2013 looks like it may be even better as I have a lot of books about which I am excited piled up and ready to read.

Challenge: Vintage Mysteries 2013

My Reader's Block is hosting the Vintage Mystery 2013 Challenge which I have decided to take on. Basically the challenge is to read 8 vintage mysteries (defined as written before 1960) during 2013 which fit into a set of categories (one book per category) defined on the challenge page.

I am little concerned about being able to actually get my hands on copies of the books to meet this challenge, but I am excited about reading more vintage mysteries. Some of the titles I am considering at this point are Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer, The Black Dudley Murder by Margery Allingham (a locked room mystery from 1929), and Nine Wrong Answers by John Dickson Carr. There were a lot of vintage mystery authors discussed in the Alfred Hitchcock bio I just finished which I may want to read as well: British author Edgar Wallace known as "king of the thriller" (p. 124); Edwin Greenwood, author of various mysteries including The Deadly Dowager and Miracle in the Drawing Room (p.160); The Wheel Spins (1936) by Ethel Lina White upon which The Lady Vanishes was based (p. 206); Francis Iles' Before the Fact (1932, p. 267) or Malice Aforethought (1931, p. 278). Books by Dorthy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Agatha Christie are also strong possibilities.

S: Dorthy Sayers

Dorthy L. Sayers was one of the Queens of Crime whose work reflects the golden age of mystery novels. Her first novel, Whose Body, was published in 1923 and introduced Lord Peter Wimsey. Lord Peter is the hero of fourteen books.

I read all the Sayers novels when I was in college (not for college, just at that time) and recently decided that a re-reading was called for. Lord Peter, and the novels that feature him, are clever and dry and just when you know where you are headed they shift a bit and take you somewhere else.

So far I have re-read Whose Body, Clouds of Witness, and Unnatural Death. I didn't review the last one because all I really had to say about it was Wow! Dorthy Sayers!

This post is part of the Crime Fiction Alphabet 2012 at Mysteries in Paradise. 

Crime Read Along: The Queens of Crime

Here is the Introductory discussion for reading Josephine Tey's The Man in the Queue.I have read Tey before, including this novel, and like her work. I am currently re-reading this novel for the Read Along.
Tey is one of the writers from the Golden Age of Mystery which includes the Queens of Crime: Agatha Christie, Dorthy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham. Marsh and Allingham are both new to me.
I was in NYC this past week and picked up a copy of Allingham's 2nd book at Partners & Crime. I got the 2nd one at the recommendation of the shopkeeper who said that is where the series really gets going. I'm looking forward to discovering these new (to me) writers.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.
Strictly speaking, these aren't from my reading this week, but there were quite a few good words I looked up from this novel, so I am still working on sharing them.

vademecum (n) 1 : a book for ready reference : manual. 2: something regularly carried about by a person. "He peered dubiously at the depression in the bedclothes, and measured it a second time with the gentleman-scout's vademecum."  (p. 41)

emollient (adj) 1. making soft or supple; also soothing esp. to the skin or mucous membrane. 2: making less intense or harsh; mollifying. "When this is over I shall turn pussyfoot, forswear the police news, and take to an emollient diet of the works of the late Charles Garvice." (p. 68) I knew this word in the context of hand lotion, but thought there might be more meanings. Charles Garvice was a popular author of the time who wrote romances.

Words are from Whose Body? by Dorthy L. Sayers. Definitions are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

Review: Clouds of Witness

Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love the way Sayers writes. She uses a lot of interesting words to say exactly what she means--21st century novels don't usually have the richness of vocabulary that older novels do, which is a shame--and she structures her information like good architecture. When you need to come right upon something, when it needs to have strong impact, she brings you right to it, often with a coronors report or a newspaper headline. But often she brings you along a more winding path that lets you see more details of the thing as you go from point A to point B.

"Her first appearance that morning had been made in Lord Peter's dressing-gown, but she now wore a serge skirt and jade-green jumper, which had been brought to town for her by the fourth member of the party, now composedly eating a mixed grill and sharing the decanter with Parker. This was a rather short, rather plump, very brisk elderly lady, with bright black eyes like a bird's, and very handsome white hair exquisitely dressed. Far from looking as though she had just taken a long night journey, she was easily the most composed and trim of the four. She was, however, annoyed, and said so at considerable length. This was the Dowager Duchess of Denver." (p.127)

This is an amazing passage, there is a ton of information packed in there about a character we hadn't seen yet in this novel, but had heard about (she is mother to Lord Peter and the girl in the jade jumper). We learn what had happened and get a chance to form an image of the woman before we are told who she is, so her position doesn't overwhelm her person. The whole novel is written like this, with lots of detail in a few sentences and often a bit of a zinger folded in.

The mystery in this book was more complex than in Whose Body? , with more people and their various personal intrigues all coming into the investigation.

Review: Whose Body?

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My only quibble with this book is that Lord Peter says "what" way too often. It was distracting.
This was a wonderful mystery, with a complicated, but solvable problem and good characters who behaved in reasonable ways. The Dowager Duchess of Denver (Lord Peter's mom) is a good foil to Peter, helpful but wacky in her own way. This book was what I expect you would get if you crossed Wodehouse P. G. (Pelham Grenville) with Agatha Christie. Lord Peter has the same witty insouciance as Bertie Wooster, and an exemplary butler who helps detect on the side, but is much smarter and ultimately more serious. His war experiences, which are brought out toward the end of this novel, add a gravity to the character that is a contrast to his more flippant side. He is also a collector of rare books and the details about his book collection were interesting.