Short Story Wednesday: Three Witnesses by Rex Stout

 

In January I read "Die Like a Dog," a novella featuring Nero Wolfe. It was published in Three Witnesses in 1956. This month I read the other two novellas in that book.

It has been awhile since I read these two stories. I was pleased to find that they were both entertaining, with interesting premises. 

For a brief introduction to the series of books and novellas:

Nero Wolfe is an armchair detective, preferring to do all his detecting from home. He is a genius, a lover of orchids and fine food, who supports himself (and his household) as a private detective. Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, is both his assistant and a private investigator, and he does most of the legwork. They live in a New York brownstone, where Nero Wolfe has his office.

"The Next Witness"

Nero Wolfe has been called by the prosecution as a witness in a murder trial. A man has been accused of murdering a switchboard operator who worked at a telephone answering service. While sitting in the courtroom waiting to be called and listening to the questioning of other witnesses, Wolfe decides that it is possible that the man is not guilty. He abruptly leaves the courtroom with Archie Goodwin, his secretary/assistant/investigator. This puts them both in contempt of court, so they have to avoid the police while pursuing an independent investigation. The steps they take in order to prove Wolfe's hypothesis are engaging and fruitful.

Nero Wolfe is well known for his extreme distaste for leaving his home. He is also afraid of riding in cars (or any other mode of transportation, actually). In this case, he spends all of his time away from home hiding from the police, either in the courtroom, interviewing witnesses, or staying in the apartment of one of his freelance operatives.

"When a Man Murders"

Carolyn Karnow's first husband, Sidney, was declared MIA a few months after the Army sent him to Korea.  After a few years she married Paul Aubry. Six months later, Sidney Karnow shows up in New York, which means that Carolyn and Paul are no longer legally married. They go to Nero Wolfe to ask him to intercede with Karnow to give Carolyn a divorce. Carolyn inherited a substantial amount of money from Sidney when he was declared dead; she plans to return as much of the money as she can if he will agree to a divorce.

Archie goes to Sidney Karnow's hotel to talk to him, but when Archie arrives at his room, he finds Karnow's dead body instead. Shortly after that, the police arrest Paul Aubry for the crime, and Wolfe and Archie are looking  around for the real culprit.

Diving into the Wreck: Kristine Kathryn Rusch

This book is in the science fiction genre, and the diving referred to in the title is diving into wrecked space ships, not ships at the bottom of an ocean. Which might be obvious if you can get a close enough look at the cover. My son loaned me this book and encouraged me to read it, and I am so glad that he did.

The protagonist in this story is a woman who makes her living diving into derelict ships out in space. She is always referred to as Boss. No other name is ever given. She is a loner; she knows a lots of people who work in the same business as she does, and she works with crew members who have skills in diving or technology. But she seems to have no real friends. Boss has had a hard life and has developed a hard shell over her emotions because of it.

Sometimes she goes on salvage operations to bring in some money, but her real love is history and she likes to study the ships. She also takes out groups of tourists to give them the experience of wreck diving in space. One day, when Boss is returning from a salvage mission, she sees a blip on her ship's sensors that leads to a strange ship – a ship that is obviously ancient and possibly very, very dangerous. 

The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Boss hires a crew to dive into the ancient ship and find out what is there. She has suspicions that this is a ship that came from earth and could be dangerous, but she does not tell her crew this. She wanted to get verification from them without prejudicing them beforehand. However, once they arrive at the abandoned ship, some of the crew are angry that they were not warned, and one woman, Squishy, is scared so badly that she wants them to abandon the dive and return home. During one of the dives, a crew member has to be abandoned in the ship. That incident is the beginning of more adventures related to the ancient ship. 

My thoughts:

I liked the writing style. It was spare, and there was a lot of dialog at times. But the pace was good and it kept me interested. The first two parts of the book were first published as novellas previously but changes were made for this publication. Each of the three parts is about a separate expedition (although they all tie in to the discovery of the ancient ship); for me the transitions between the three parts worked well. And I liked that I could stop easily between each one. 

The characterization is good, but since the story is first person narration from Boss's point of view, we only know what she thinks and feels. Several of the secondary characters that work on Boss's crews are portrayed in depth; there is a good depiction of an old cynical military man later in the story. 

The world building is done well. The story is set far into the future, in the Enterran Empire. The planet Boss lives on is Hector Prime, which is on the edge of the empire, near the Nine Planets Alliance. Boss is a citizen of the Enterran Empire, but her sympathies lie with the Nine Planets Alliance. Beyond that there is not a lot of dwelling on the science involved. Other reviewers who are more in the know than I am about science fiction say that this is a novel that people who are new to science fiction can enjoy. 

There are 18 books in this series at this point and I plan to look for more of them to read.

Please see another review at Carl's blog, Stainless Steel Droppings. Carl was the original host for the Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge (and also the Science Fiction Experience Challenge and the Once Upon a Time Challenge).

Scene of the Crime: Margot Kinberg

 

Scene of the Crime is the fifth novel in Margot Kinberg's Joel Williams series. The setting is academia; the protagonist is a college professor in Tilton University’s Department of Criminal Justice. Joel is not a policeman but he was in the past, and he has ties to the police department. Thus, the books are part academic mystery and part police procedural. I have read the four previous books in the series and this was another good one.

As this book opens, a waitress finds a body behind Maggie's Diner, a popular eatery near the campus. Coincidentally, Joel and his wife are going into the diner for brunch at the same time, and a group of students have been holding a protest in front of the diner.

In addition to Joel Williams, there are three distinct sets of characters: students at the university, people connected with the campaign to reelect State Representative Doug Kauffman, and the investigating team from the Tilton police.

Joel Williams is working on a study regarding alternative schools, specifically high schools for students who have had problems in standard high schools. Part of the study involves interviewing students who attended alternative high schools and then went on to college; several of the students involved in the death at the diner were part of his study.

Since Joel is a former policeman, he cannot help but be interested in a crime that occurs in the town of Tilton. The victim was in the study, and other students involved in the study are involved. Joel becomes more directly involved when one student approaches him because he fears that he is a suspect.

The solution was a surprise for me, but it made sense.

 

My thoughts:

The pacing is good and there are no dull spots. The plot is well thought out with plenty of possible suspects, but not so many characters that things get confusing.

The characters are fleshed out well. The two main detectives investigating the crime are professional and each has their own view of the situation; they work well together. I liked the mix of students that were described. Some of them were students from Joel’s study and had come to college from alternative high schools. Some were protesters who were unhappy about State Representative Kauffman and his stance on giving less funding to education and more to law and order. Most were working or dependent on scholarships or both.

The story does have a focus on politics and funding for education vs funding for police departments. Of course, Joel Williams has sympathy with both sides because he has worked in both areas. The issues are explored as they affect the various groups, but the book does not get preachy at any time. 

This story was a pleasure to read. It was never boring, and I was glad to hear more about Joel Williams. The books are not formulaic; each of the books has a different focus within an educational setting.

 

Also see the excellent review at FictionFan's Book Reviews.

Margot Kinberg has an interesting and informative blog where she shares information about mysteries, both vintage and contemporary. Please check out Margot’s blog.

-----------------------------

Publisher:  Grey Cells Press, 2024.
Length:      266 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Series:       Joel Williams #5
Setting:      Pennsylvania, USA
Genre:       Mystery
Source:      I purchased this book.

Fall from Grace: L.R. Wright

 

The Prologue opens in Spring 1980. Several friends are attending the high school graduation of Bobby Ransome, a young man who was graduating several years late due to problems in his earlier years. The second part of the prologue takes place ten years later, in the summer of 1990, when Bobby has returned from several years in prison for dealing drugs. Bobby joins his ex-wife, Wanda, and her family for dinner, much to the dismay of her current husband, Warren. Bobby's return has caused some excitement and some dismay around the small town of Sechelt. 

A few weeks later, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Karl Alberg is out sailing with his lover Cassandra when they see the body of a man on the beach. It turns out that he had fallen from a cliff above. The dead man was Steven Grayson, who grew up in Sechelt but has been living in Vancouver for the last ten years. 

The story is told from multiple perspectives (Karl Alberg's, Cassandra's, the various members of the community that are affected by the death and by Bobby's return). At the same time that Cassandra and Karl are continuing to figure out their relationship, one of Karl's daughters is visiting for the summer and working part-time for the local newspaper. And Karl is dealing with the fact that his ex-wife is getting married again.

My thoughts:

As usual, the characters in this story are very well-drawn. This is the fourth book in the Karl Alberg series and I have found most of the books to be more of a character study than a mystery. And I like them that way.

The setting and the atmosphere are lovely. Sechelt is a real-life seaside community on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, northwest of Vancouver. As described below...

   On the Sunshine Coast that year, summertime was long and hot and dusty, and the world smelled of raspberries and roses.

   For weeks the sky remained utterly clear, and the air was hot and still.

   The waters that lapped at the western shoreline were such a deep blue they looked as if they might stain the skin. The nearer islands near the Strait of Georgia were etched fine and clear, every tree and every rock sharp-edged; the islands somewhat farther away were soft dark shapes against the sky; the most distant islands were purple shadows in the far-reaching sea.

I continue to enjoy this series and I am surprised each time at the themes the author covers and the different approaches she takes to each novel.

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Felony & Mayhem, 2010. Orig. pub. 1991.
Length:  275 pages
Format:  Trade paperback
Series:   Karl Alberg #4 
Setting:  Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Canada
Genre:   Mystery, Police Procedural

Six Degrees of Separation: From Prophet Song to Rachel's Holiday

  

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is the 2023 Booker Prize winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. I have not read that book, but from what I gather it is a dystopian novel set in Ireland and written by an Irish author. That novel follows one woman trying to keep her family together as the country moves towards totalitarianism. This sounds like a very good book and I may want to read it some day. 

The books that I have linked to for my Six Degrees chain are all set primarily in Ireland, and are written by Irish authors. 

1st degree:

My first link is to an Irish crime fiction book on my TBR pile – Winterland by Alan Glynn. From the book dust jacket: "The worlds of business, politics and crime collide in contemporary Dublin when two men with the same name, from the same family, die on the same night - one death is a gangland murder, the other, apparently, a road accident. Was it a coincidence? That's the official version of events. But when a family member, Gina Rafferty, starts asking questions, this notion quickly unravels."

2nd degree:

Winterland can be described as dark and gritty, and that leads me to The Guards, the first of the Jack Taylor novels written by Ken Bruen. The series is set in Galway, Ireland. Jack Taylor was in the Garda Síochána (the police force of the Republic of Ireland), and thrown out because of serious problems with alcohol. He becomes, almost accidentally, a finder, a sort of private detective. One element of the writing is frequent mentions of books, especially mystery novels, and quotes interspersed here and there, often with no apparent connection to the story.  The mystery portion of the plot is slight. The emphasis is more on Jack, his relationships, his life, his battle with alcohol. It isn't a happy book, but it isn't depressing either.

3rd degree:

Like The Guards, the The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black is more of a character study than a mystery. And beautifully written. Set in Ireland in the 1950s, it is the 2nd book about Quirke, a pathologist working in a hospital in Dublin. Deirdre Hunt died and the assumption is that it was suicide; Quirke suspects that this is not correct, so he spends some time looking into her death. Dierdre also went by the name Laura Swan and ran a beauty salon, The Silver Swan. In looking into Deirdre's death, Quirke discovers that his daughter Phoebe has some connections to that salon also, and he becomes more interested. After reading this book, I was hooked on the series.

4th degree:

Benjamin Black is a pseudonym used by John Banville for some of his crime fiction books. In 2020, John Banville published Snow, set in Ireland in 1957. The Catholic Church is powerful in Ireland at that time. Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been sent to County Wexford to investigate the death of a priest, found dead in the home of a well-known Protestant family. DI Strafford is also Protestant, an unusual occurrence in the Garda. He finds himself in an uncomfortable position, isolated in the small community by the accumulating snow and getting little cooperation from the family or the townspeople. 

 

5th degree:

My next link also involves Garda detectives. The Secret Place is the 5th book in the Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French. It is set in a girl's boarding school and the investigation takes place in one day. Holly Mackey, daughter of a policeman and student at St. Kilda's, brings a new piece of evidence related to the death of a teenage boy to Stephen Moran, a detective in the Cold Cases division who would really rather be in the Murder Squad. Stephen takes the information to Detective Antoinette Conway in the Murder Squad. They pursue the investigation. Tana French's mysteries are very good, but none end happily, and they usually leave me a bit down.

6th degree:

To be honest, most of the books in my chain are dark and bleak. For my last link, I am switching to the opposite. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes is from my TBR pile. One Goodreads review described it as "dark, depressive, and sad" which is strange for a book categorized mainly as chick lit. Although the story is about a woman who returns to her home town of Dublin and goes into rehab for drug addiction, I believe this is handled with humor and wit. It is the 2nd book in the Walsh Family series; I read Watermelon and liked it, so I am expecting to like this one too, although it is close to 600 pages long.

In my Six Degrees I stayed in Ireland, although two of the books do go back to the 1950s.  If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?

Have you read any of these books or authors?

The next Six Degrees will be on April 5, 2025, and the starting book will be Salman Rushdie’s memoir, Knife.

Short Story Wednesday: The Goodbye Cat by Hiro Arikawa

 

The Goodbye Cat is a Japanese book, written by Hiro Arikawa, and translated by Philip Gabriel. It  consists of seven short stories, and each story is set in Japan. All of the stories are about cats. Most of them focus on one cat and the family that it lives with. Another common theme is rescued cats, cats that are brought home after being abandoned. At least two of the stories are about kittens that are too young to survive unless a human intervenes and provides warmth and the necessary nutrition. I learned a lot about that process from this book. Some of the stories are told at least partially from the cat's point of view. 

One of my favorite stories is "The Goodbye Cat." The family in that story have two cats; Diana is the oldest cat, Kota is the youngest. Kota was adopted about the same time the second son in the family is born. The parents discuss and decide on the names for the new cat and the new baby at the same time. (There is much emphasis on names and how they are chosen in these stories.) The story follows the family from the time Kota joins the family until his death of old age, when the youngest son has graduated from college. 

The second story is also very good. In "Bringing Up Baby," a married couple who have recently had a baby also acquire a cat about the same time. The father, Keisuke, is a manga artist, and most of his effort goes into his artistic work. He has always been somewhat flaky and incompetent in other areas of life. When his wife goes to stay with her parents to have the baby, Keisuke finds a tiny kitten and rescues it, and with the help of the vet and online research, learns to help it survive. So when his wife gets home with the baby, she finds a new helpless kitten in the house. But along the way she discovers that his efforts to care for the kitten have given him skills to become a competent parent too. Sounds mawkish, but really it isn't. 

"Cat Island" is about a man, his second wife, and his young son adjusting to their new life as a family together. The family takes a trip to Taketomi Island in Okinawa, referred to as Cat Island. The father is a freelance photographer who is taking photos of the cats on the island for an assignment. That story had some supernatural aspects. After reading that story I found that there are several islands in Japan called Cat Island, with unusually large populations of cats.

The last two stories in the book are about characters in a previous book by Hiro Arikawa, The Travelling Cat Chronicles, which I read in January. In that book, a cat is adopted by a man, Satoru, after he takes the cat in when it is hit by a car. He names the cat Nana, and they live together for five years. At that point, Satoru has to find a home for Nana. They travel to various parts of Japan to visit with several of Satoru's old friends to see if they can take the cat in. "Finding Hachi" is sort of a prequel to The Travelling Cat Chronicles, telling more about Satoru's first cat, Hachi, that he had for several years as a child. "Life Is Not Always Kind" tells about one more person in Satoru's earlier life that he and Nana visit on the trip. 

I liked this book a lot. I did not like all the stories equally, and there was one I did not care for, but it was very short. Most of the stories were between 40 to 50 pages in length. I am a cat lover; I don't think that is required to enjoy the book, but it certainly helps.

Silent Parade: Keigo Higashino

 

This is my third book read for the Japanese Literature Challenge 18, hosted at Dolce Bellezza. Silent Parade is about two crimes, separated by about 20 years, which have connections. In both cases, young girls have been killed. The suspect is the same for both. This summary is from the Macmillan site:

A popular young girl disappears without a trace, her skeletal remains discovered three years later in the ashes of a burned out house. There’s a suspect and compelling circumstantial evidence of his guilt, but no concrete proof. When he isn’t indicted, he returns to mock the girl’s family. And this isn’t the first time he’s been suspected of the murder of a young girl, nearly twenty years ago he was tried and released due to lack of evidence. Detective Chief Inspector Kusanagi of the Homicide Division of the Tokyo Police worked both cases.

The neighborhood in which the murdered girl lived is famous for an annual street festival, featuring a parade with entries from around Tokyo and Japan. During the parade, the suspected killer dies unexpectedly. His death is suspiciously convenient but the people with all the best motives have rock solid alibis. DCI Kusanagi turns once again to his college friend, Physics professor and occasional police consultant Manabu Yukawa, known as Detective Galileo, to help solve the string of impossible-to-prove murders.

My Thoughts:

• My copy of the book was only 344 pages long but it seemed longer. I think that is because the plot is so complex; the story has several twists and turns, but the plot dragged at times. It was worth it in the end; the final solution was satisfying. 
• The book is full of very interesting characters, and many of them get fleshed out throughout the book. I felt like we got to know several of the police detectives, plus Manabu Yukawa (also playfully referred to as Detective Galileo, which he dislikes), better than in any of the previous books in the series. Plus many of the secondary characters related to the crimes (family members of the victim, friends of the family, etc.) are well defined also.
• I don't see these books as traditional mysteries like those written by Agatha Christie, but the author sprinkles references to Christie's books throughout the story. Also another vintage mystery author, John Dickson Carr.
• For once I saw how Manabu Yukawa puts his physics background to work. That also may have happened in the previous book in the series, A Midsummer's Equation, which is my favorite in the series so far. He did a few experiments in that book too.
• This book gives the reader a good look at the police procedures and legal limitations in Japan, versus in the US. 

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Minotaur Books, 2021 (orig. pub. 2018)
Translator:  Giles Murray 
Length:       344 pages
Format:       Hardcover
Series:        Detective Galileo
Setting:       Tokyo, Japan
Genre:        Police Procedural
Source:       Borrowed from my husband.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Listerdale Mystery" by Agatha Christie

 

I have discovered the Agatha Christie Short Stories Read Along hosted by Fanda at Fanda Classiclit. It originally started in 2024, but I just saw it recently, and I plan to join in this year when I can. 

Fanda has a post each month to note the stories for that month. The post for February is here. The full list of stories for the year is here. The stories for February are "The Listerdale Mystery" and "The Tuesday Night Club," a Miss Marple story.

So, for Short Story Wednesday today, I read the "The Listerdale Mystery." Here are my thoughts:

A widow, Mrs. St. Vincent, lives with her grown daughter and son in a boarding house. She checks her finances every month, and now she realizes that they may have to move to someplace even cheaper. Originally they lived in much better circumstances, in a home that had been in the family for generations, but her husband didn't handle business affairs very well and left them with little to live on. One day she notices an advertisement in the paper for a rental house that requires only nominal rent. She goes to check out the house, and the butler shows her around, but it seems too good to be true, so she leaves without any hope. Soon she gets a letter offering her the house for a small amount of rent. 

She moves into the house and everything goes well. But Mrs. St. Vincent's son, Rupert, is suspicious. It turns out that the house they are living in is owned by Lord Listerdale, who disappeared from the house and then later turned up in East Africa. Rupert thinks that there may have been foul play, and comes up with all kinds of theories. He even begins to do some sleuthing.

This story was different from other mystery short stories by Christie that I have read. It is a mystery but it does not involve a crime, and is actually closer to a romance. I enjoyed the story; it was a fun read and had a nice ending.

“The Listerdale Mystery” was first published as “The Benevolent Butler” in Grand Magazine, December 1925. I read this story in The Golden Ball And Other Stories, a collection of 15 short stories by Agatha Christie.

Classics Club Spin #40, February 2025

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list that are still unread. On Sunday, February 16th, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by April 11th, 2025.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Edna Ferber – Show Boat (1926)
2. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
3. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
4. William Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
5. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818) 
6. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
7. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
8. William Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)
9. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
10. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)   
11. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
12. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (1847) 
13. Muriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
14. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)
15. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)  
16. Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest (1929)
17. Christopher Isherwood – Goodbye to Berlin (1939)
18. Dorothy L. Sayers – The Nine Tailors (1934)
19. Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
20. James Thurber – The 13 Clocks (1950)

The first 15 books on this list were on my last Spin list. But I have swapped out some books on the last list for others from my Classics list, so the last 5 books are new ones.

The two books I would most like to be selected from my list are A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle or Cannery Row by Steinbeck. Although I am sure that The Talented Mr. Ripley by Highsmith will be too tense for me, I would like to finally read that one. However, any books on my list would be fine.  

Short Story Wednesday: Fishy Business, ed. by Linda Rodriguez

The short stories I read this week are from Fishy Business: The Fifth Guppy Anthology, edited by Linda Rodriguez. 

A short description from the back of the book:

Killer hooks and fishy characters will lure you into this fifth anthology from the Guppies Chapter of Sisters in Crime. This volume nets you twenty-two crafty capers featuring slippery eels, wily sharks, and hard-boiled crabs. From ultra-modern computer crimes to old-fashioned confidence tricks, these tales are sure to satisfy your appetite for great short mystery fiction.

These are the stories I read...

"The Wannabe" by Lida Bushloper

A young woman determined to be an actress attends an audition which turns out to be a scam. Then she meets an agent who tries to take advantage of her disappointment and her lack of experience. 

"Nova, Capers, and a Schmear of Cream Cheese" by Debra H. Goldstein

This one was a lot of fun and the ending was a complete surprise to me. The former manager of a delicatessen is concerned that the quality of food being sold in the delicatessen is going downhill under its new management, and that it will reflect badly on him.

"Windfall" by Rita A. Popp

In this story, two young women who spent some years at Miss Harmon's foster home as children return to her home after her death to pick up bequests that she left them in her will. Jillian's bequest was a string of pearls, which were not in the house; Trina was given all of Miss Harmon's books. Jillian forces Trina to return later in the evening and break into the house to try to find the pearls. 

"Who Stole My Lunch?" by Kate Fellowes

The familiar story of the office worker whose lunch is stolen from the shared refrigerator in the staff lunch room. I did guess how the story would end and it was still fun.

"My Night with the Duke of Edinburgh" by Susan Daly

I liked this story especially because it is historical fiction, set in 1951 in Ontario, Canada, when Princess Elizabeth and her husband Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, toured Canada. This was a complex little caper, with a nice ending. Susan Daly is an author of short crime fiction who lives in Toronto.

Of the five stories I read, my favorites were "The Wannabe" by Lida Bushloper and "My Night with the Duke of Edinburgh" by Susan Daly. All of the stories were entertaining, and most were humorous.

Books Read in January 2025

 

With the exception of one book, I was very happy with the books I read in January. I read two books for the Japanese Literary Challenge. I read several new-to-me authors and continued some series I had started earlier. 

Fiction

The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2012) by Hiro Arikawa
Translated by Philip Gabriel

This was the first book I read for the Japanese Literary Challenge. It is the story of a man and his cat, which he adopted after the cat was hit by a car. After they have lived together for five years, the man has to find a new home for the cat. They travel to various parts of Japan to visit with several of the man's old friends to see it they can take the cat in. See my review.

Anything Is Possible (2017) by Elizabeth Strout

This book, the second book in the Amgash series, consists of linked short stories. Some of the stories give more information about Lucy Barton and members of her family who still live in Amgash. Other stories are about other residents of Amgash, who are in some way connected to Lucy Barton. I liked it and am ready to start something else by Strout. See my review. 

Crime Fiction

Parting Breath (1978) by Catherine Aird 

Parting Breath is an academic mystery set in Catherine Aird's fictional county of Calleshire, England; it features Detective Inspector C.D. Sloan of the Berebury CID, and his assistant, Detective Constable Crosby. The first book of the series was published in 1966 and the 28th book in 2023. Catherine Aird is one of my favorite mystery writers, and I hope to read all the books in the series. See my review.

The Woman in Cabin 10 (2016) by Ruth Ware

I had not read any of Ware's books, I was curious, and I thought I would like a book about a woman on a cruise.  For most of the book I was not too impressed. There were no characters I cared about, and especially not the main character. But the end was very well done and kept me turning the pages, so I revised my overall opinion a bit.   

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (2023) by Alison Goodman

My husband and I were both interested in this book when it first came out; the setting in the Regency period was appealing. The story is a good blend of historical fiction, mystery, romance, and adventure, with the emphasis on adventure. Some of the scenes of life in Regency England, depicting the way the poor were treated and the mistreatment of women in general, are excruciating to read. Overall, I enjoyed the book and expect that I will read the sequel.

Thirteen Guests (1936) by J. Jefferson Farjeon

In mid-January, Neeru at A Hot Cup of Pleasure reviewed five books by J. Jefferson Farjeon. Her post motivated me to read one of Farjeon's books. I found that my husband had a copy of Thirteen Guests in his TBR stacks, so I started reading it. It is a country house mystery and I enjoyed it much more than I expected. I liked the characters and how the author developed them, and there was some romance that did not take over the story. And I especially liked the unusual ending.

Three Assassins (2004) by Kōtarō Isaka
Translated by Sam Malissa

This was the second book I read for the Japanese Literature Challenge. The author also wrote Bullet Train, and the two books are similar in many ways. The main character is Suzuki, who was formerly a schoolteacher but is working for a crime gang. Suzuki is seeking revenge for the murder of his wife by working undercover in the gang. See my review.

Currently reading

I am about a third of the way into Fall from Grace by L.R. Wright, published in 1991. It is the fourth book in a series starring Karl Alberg, a staff sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada. I am enjoying it very much.

In early February, my husband and I had jury duty. Although the trial we were called for was not being tried at the main courthouse, we did visit the beautiful Santa Barbara County Courthouse while we were there. My husband took some photos, and I am sharing two of them in this post. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Two Reviews: Japanese Literature Challenge

 

In this post I am reviewing two books for the Japanese Literature Challenge 18, hosted at Dolce Bellezza. It started in January and continues through February. This is a challenge I look forward to every year, to kickstart my reading of books by Japanese authors.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles (2012) by Hiro Arikawa
Translated by Philip Gabriel

This was the first book I read for the challenge because I have a second book by this author that I also want to read: The Goodbye Cat. It consists of short stories about cats and there is a connection between the two books.

A cat is adopted by a man, Satoru, after he takes the cat in when it is hit by a car. He names the cat Nana after a cat he had in his childhood, and they live together for five years. At that point, Satoru has to find a home for Nana, although no reason is given. They travel to various parts of Japan to visit with several of the man's old friends to see it they can take the cat in. 

For the most part, the story is narrated by the cat. I liked the cat's voice. I kept trying to figure out what my cat would sound like if she was telling a story. There are parts of the story that are not narrated by the cat. These are flashbacks to earlier events that help to fill out the story. Satoru's relationship with his aunt, who raised him after his parents died, is also explored. 

I enjoyed the book, I liked the cover and the title. The depiction of the cat is not cutesy. The cat can be snarky and sarcastic. It is a lovely story with an emotional and moving end. 

Three Assassins (2004) by Kōtarō Isaka
Translated by Sam Malissa

The second book I read for the Japanese Literature Challenge is very different. It is a fast paced thriller, the first in a series of four books set in Tokyo’s criminal underworld. The second book is Bullet Train, which I read first, because it was translated to English first, and I had seen the film adaptation of the same name. We enjoyed the film and have watched it several times. 

The first part of Three Assassins is very serious. Suzuki, formerly a schoolteacher, is working for a crime gang. The head man for this crime gang is Terahara, whose son killed Suzuki's wife by running her down in his car. It was deliberate, not an accident. The police will not follow up on the crime because of Terahara's connections, so Suzuki is seeking revenge on his own by working undercover in the gang. 

The other two main characters are assassins, The Whale and The Cicada. They each kill their victims in specific ways; the Whale convinces his victims to commit suicide and the Cicada kills with a knife and specializes in killing entire families. The third assassin enters the story later; he is the Pusher, and he pushes his victims in front of vehicles.

This sounds like a very grim book but it turns more into a more humorous story midway, with quirky and introspective characters; the behavior is often wacky and surprising. There are also elements of spirituality and the supernatural, especially in the Whale's experiences. So, all in all, it was a fascinating and unexpected story.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Dangerous Liaisons to Before the Coffee Gets Cold

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is Dangerous Liaisons. This is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, published in 1782, with the original title of Les Liaisons dangereuses. It tells the story of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, two lovers who plot to seduce and manipulate others. I don't know much about this book except that it was adapted to film many times; the one I am most familiar with is Dangerous Liaisons (1988), directed by Stephen Frears and starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich. Two other English language versions are Valmont (1989), directed by Miloš Forman, and Cruel Intentions (1999), which relocates the story to modern-day New York.

1st degree:

My first link is to another French novel adapted to the screen, titled D’entre les morts (1954), written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Hitchcock adapted the story as Vertigo, set in San Francisco instead of France.  The first translation of the  book to English was published in 1956 as The Living and the Dead. Pushkin Vertigo more recently issued a reprint of the novel with the title Vertigo.

2nd degree:

For my next link, I picked another book adapted to film by Hitchcock, The Rainbird Pattern (1972) by Victor Canning. It is the 2nd book in a loose spy fiction series called the Birdcage books. The film version was titled Family Plot, and is very different from the book. The basic elements of the plot remain, but the story is turned into a comedy.

3rd degree:

My husband and I have watched a lot of Hitchcock movies, and another novel that he chose to adapt was Rebecca (1938) by Daphne du Maurier. The adaptation, released in 1940, stars Laurence Olivier as the widower Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine as the unnamed woman who becomes his second wife.

4th degree:

Moving away from Hitchcock and adaptations, my next book is another by Daphne du Maurier, The House on the Strand (1969). I was surprised to find out that this book is a time travel story; my son found it for me in the science fiction and fantasy section of the book sale in 2023. I haven't read it yet so check out reviews at Constance's Staircase Wit blog and Kelly's Thoughts & Ramblings.

5th degree:

And now I move to another classic book of time travel, this time with a scientific basis: The End of Eternity (1955) by Isaac Asimov. This book is about a group of people called the Eternals, who live outside of time and either observe time at different points or make Reality Changes to make positive changes for the future. I read this over ten years ago but I remember I liked it a lot. Even though the book has very few women characters, there is definitely a romance of sorts, and it reads like a thriller.

6th degree:

There are many  different takes on time travel stories. Some are science fiction, using machines of some type to take the person back in time. Others lean more towards fantasy. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, visitors to a tiny café in Tokyo can take advantage of a special service; they can travel back in time if they drink a cup of the special coffee made by this café. This is the first book in a series about the café and its unique brand of time travel.

My Six Degrees took me from France to England and then to the past via time travel. Have you read any of these books? If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your list take you?

The next Six Degrees will be on  March 1, 2025 and the starting book will be the 2023 Booker Prize winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.

Short Story Wednesday: Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

I read My Name is Lucy Barton in March of 2024. That book inspired me to read more about Lucy Barton, so this month I read Anything is Possible, the second book in the Amgash series.

Anything is Possible is a series of linked short stories, similar to Olive Kitteridge, but not quite so depressing. I have seen it described as a novel in short stories, but it did not seem like a novel to me. 

Some of the stories give more information about Lucy Barton and her family in Amgash, Illinois. Other stories are about other residents of Amgash, who are in some way connected to Lucy Barton. 

The first story, "The Sign," is about Tommy Guptill, who had owned a dairy farm, situated about two miles outside of Amgash. When the dairy burned down, he was unable to continue the business, and ended up working as a janitor in a school in Amgash. Now he and his wife are in their eighties and retired. As he drives around town, he reminisces about his life, before and after the fire. Years before, while doing his janitorial work at the school, Tommy would encounter Lucy Barton sleeping in a classroom to avoid going home. Before going home, he visits Pete Barton, Lucy's brother, who still lives in the house the Barton family lived in when they were children. Pete is sort of a recluse and Tommy likes to check on him now and then. This wasn't a favorite story but it has stuck in my mind and provides some background for a later story, "Sister."

The second story, "Windmills," is about Patty Nicely, who was growing up in Amgash about the same time Lucy Barton was. She is a school counselor and counsels Lucy's niece, who is in high school. She sees Lucy Barton's memoir in a bookstore and reads it and is much affected by it. This was an emotional story. The next story, "Cracked," featured Patty's sister, Linda, who had a very unusual relationship with her husband. At this point I was wondering if there was anyone happy, or even just close to "normal," in Amgash.

"Mississippi Mary" and "Sister" were my favorite stories. 

"Mississippi Mary" is about two members of another family in Amgash. In her 70s, after many years of a mostly unhappy marriage, Mary Mumford left her husband and five daughters and moved to Italy to live with her new Italian husband. She has now been in Italy with her second husband for four years; her youngest daughter, Angelina, is visiting her for the first time. Angelina was very hurt when her mother left to marry her lover in Italy and she does not understand how her mother can be happy in a cheap flat on the coast of Italy with not much money to live on.

"Sister" tells about Lucy Barton's brief visit to see her brother, Pete, in Amgash. She is going to be in Chicago for a stop on her paperback book tour and will be close enough to drive to Amgash. They have not seen each other for years. Lucy's sister, Vicky, has declined to come over and see Lucy while she is there, because she is hurt by Lucy's absence for so many years. But Vicky does show up at Pete's house while Lucy is still there, and they all have quite a discussion.

There are a total of nine stories in the book. I enjoyed all the stories, even though some were shocking or sad. I think I got more out of the stories as a whole than each story alone, so in some ways that does make the book like a novel.

I would recommend reading My Name is Lucy Barton before reading this book, but it is not necessary.

Top Ten New-to-Me Authors Discovered in 2024

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2024. Last year, I read books by a total of 29 new-to-me authors, which accounts for about a third of the books I read. I suppose that number should not surprise me, but it does.

And here's my list of my 10 favorite new-to-me authors. The authors are not listed in any order.

Kate Wilhelm

I read The Hamlet Trap, the first book in the Constance Leidl and Charlie Meiklejohn mystery series, first published in 1987. Kate Wilhelm has written two mystery series and many standalone novels in the mystery and science fiction genres. She was married to Damon Knight, a very well-known author of science fiction. Kate Wilhelm's fiction was first recommended to me by Todd Mason at Sweet Freedom.

Willa Cather

My Ántonia is the first book I have read by Willa Cather and I now understand why other readers are so effusive in their praise for this book and its author. There are so many interesting aspects to this book: life on the prairies and in the small towns; the descriptions of backbreaking work on a farm; the difficulties of the immigrants who move to the Nebraska prairies, most of which cannot speak much English.

Gabrielle Zevin

I read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Zevin in early 2024. That book was about two young people who worked together to create video games. The story does focus on video games and the process of creating them, but it is about many other things: relationships, families, judgement and misunderstandings, and ambition. Later in 2024 I read The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and enjoyed it too.

Catherine O'Flynn 

I read What Was Lost, the author's debut novel, which was published in 2007. A ten-year-old girl, Kate, lives with her grandmother; her goal is to be a detective, and run her own detective agency. She has few friends, hates school, and entertains herself with investigating cases that she has made up. One day she disappears and most of the story focuses on how this event affects other people in her neighborhood, over the following years.

Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove was Backman's first novel, published in 2012, but I did not read any of his books until 2024. Ove is an older man, nearing sixty, whose wife has recently died. He has decided that he does not want to go on living without her. This story is alternately humorous and sad, and I loved it. I will be reading more books by this author.

Joseph Kanon

Defectors was the first book I have read by Joseph Kanon, and it definitely won't be my last. The story focuses on a group of American and British spies living in and around Moscow during the Cold War, after defecting. Frank is a US spy who defected to Russia in 1949. Simon, his younger brother, had to leave his job in intelligence to work in publishing after Frank's defection. In 1961, Simon is in publishing and has been allowed to come to Moscow to work with Frank on publishing his memoirs. I loved the exploration of family relationships, but the story has plenty of action also. I have six more of Kanon's books on my shelves.

Young-ha Kim 

I read Your Republic is Calling You. Published in 2006, the setting is South Korea. It was a different kind of spy fiction and I liked it very much. The story takes place over the course of one day in the life of Ki-Yong, a South Korean with a wife and teenage daughter. Except that he is really a North Korean spy who has been in Seoul, working as a film importer for over 20 years, and has now been recalled to North Korea. 

Karen Joy Fowler

The Jane Austen Book Club was not what I expected but I liked it very much. The book was less about the Austen books than I would have liked, but I enjoyed the individual stories about the members of the book club. I liked the different way the story was told and how the back stories were worked into the story gradually. It made me want to go out and find more books by Fowler.

Anthony Trollope 

Until this year I had not read anything by Trollope. I chose The Warden, the first book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series. I had gotten the impression that Trollope's writing was humorous but I failed to see the humor in this story at first. It seemed that all would end very sadly. As the story continued, it lightened up and I became immersed in it and did enjoy the humor of the situation. And I was happy with the ending.

Samantha Harvey

I read Harvey's Booker Prize winning book, Orbital, which depicts one day in the life of six astronauts on the space station, watching the sunrises and sunsets and monitoring a typhoon threatening inhabited islands. It is short, about 200 pages, and very meditative. The difference between Harvey and the other authors on this list is that I don't know if I want to read anything else she has written. I will certainly try other books by her and be interested to see what she writes in the future.