Weekly Reading Round-Up
Happy Friday, all!
You all know how much I love Golden Age mysteries. My Sayers and Tey are falling apart at the seams; Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver kept me company through the first year of the pandemic. But for some reason, I just can’t get into Dame Ngaio Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn mysteries. Periodically, I go back and read the next few in the series to see if they’ll grow on me– because I feel like I should love them.
This week, I read my way in dribs and drabs through Overture to Death, in which an amateur theatrical production in an archetypal English village leads to– you guessed it– murder, and Death at the Bar, in which a barrister is ingeniously poisoned during a game of darts at a pub in a small English seaside town. Overture to Death mostly held my attention, but Death at the Bar was such a slog that I’m now off Alleyn again until the next time I decide to give it a try just in case.
I’ve decided to clear my palette with Alexis Hall’s sequel to Boyfriend Material, Husband Material, which I’ve been saving as a book slump breaker.
What have you been reading this week?
Try Light Thickens-I think Marsh got much better as she got older and stopped trying to write the Inspector as a”silly ass”
I agree wholeheartedly. And it’s one of the best literary analyses of the Scottish play I’ve ever read….and I’ve been in the theater business for years. Though I will say I read Marsh years ago & recently tried to reread, and couldn’t get through the early one either…
I loved Husband Material. Lots of laughs. Have you read Red, White, and Royal Blue? Another keeper! Ausma Zehanat Khan has a new series starting with Blackwater Falls. Great characters, great mystery, and thoughtful.
For some reason I decided to finally read ‘The Westing Game’ and I think if I had read it younger I might have liked it, as it was it was OK. Maybe it was just too obvious and too patriotic for me… Not sure what’s up next. I’ve been working so much lately I’ve really been gravitating towards Graphic Novels because they’re quicker.
I’m still reading Where the Sky Begins (and loving it!) Since I’m meshing it with the latest Alexander McCall Smith on audio… but if you like YA my daughter just read Blade of Secrets in two days and couldn’t put it down, she loves Tricia Levenseller. I was going to save the sequel Master of Iron for Xmas but I don’t think I can, it ended with such a cliffhanger! We are gifting Warrior of the Wild, another of her great books, to my daughter’s best friend for Xmas too.
I just finished reading Tasha Alexander’s mystery Secrets of the Nike! Another excellent book…Tasha never disappoints!
Secrets of the Nile ! Sorry