Books Read in December 2022

The first three books I read in December were Christmas mysteries, and I enjoyed that very much. I wish I could have reviewed them all. In addition I finished up an anthology of Christmas stories that I have been reading off and on for several years. Three other books I read had connections to Christmas but that was unintentional—a pleasant surprise.

Fiction

O Caledonia (1991) by Elspeth Barker

This book is short, about 190 pages long, and the only novel that Barker published. It is set in Scotland in the 1950s.  The story is about a young girl, part of a large family, who is willful and stubborn, and won't be molded into what others want her to be, even from a very early age. It is a sad story but a wonderful read, written so beautifully that it makes me sad that the author did not write any other novels. 

Crime Fiction

Not a Creature Was Stirring (1990) by Jane Haddam

This is the first book in the Gregor Demarkian series by Jane Haddam. The story in this book is set at Christmas, and has a Christmas theme throughout. My review here.

Smoke Without Fire (1990) by E.X. Ferrars

This book is #6 in the Andrew Basnett series and I read it out of order, usually a no-no for me. Andrew Basnett is a retired botanist, widowed, in his mid-seventies. He is visiting friends for the Christmas holidays, but I would not really call it a Christmas mystery. I have enjoyed every book I read by this author, whose books are published under Elizabeth Ferrars in the UK. My review here.

Murder After Christmas (1944) by Rupert Latimer

This is a book from the British Library Crime Classics series, and only became available in the US in October 2022. It is most definitely a Christmas mystery and it is about the strangest family I have ever met in fiction (or otherwise).  It was a bit too long, too humorous in a screwball comedy way for me. But overall I enjoyed it a lot. I liked the policemen involved especially. And it was written and set during World War II, an extra bonus.

A Death of No Importance (2018) by Mariah Fredericks

There were a lot of things I liked about this historical mystery set in 1910 New York. This is the story of a young woman who works as a lady's maid for the two daughters of a rich family. There is an unfortunate romance, a death, and the maid is the one who finds the body. The police want to pin the murder on anarchists who have been sending threatening notes. The maid narrates the story and I liked that part of it especially. It is a good picture of New York at that time and I liked the way it ended. 

Mistletoe Mysteries (1989) edited by Charlotte MacLeod

This is an anthology of Christmas stories published in 1989. All of the stories have a copyright date of 1989 and were first published in this anthology. I liked all the stories in this book. In 2020, I posted a review of three stories from the book.

The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1930) by Agatha Christie

The short stories in this book feature Mr. Quin and Mr. Satterthwaite. Mr. Satterthwaite is an elderly man, quite well off financially, a bit of a snob, and loves good food and comfort. Mr. Quin is more mysterious, often showing up unannounced to help with a puzzle. How and where this happens is what provides the variety in the stories. I read the first eight stories in the book in January and reviewed them HERE. I read the remainder of the stories in December.

Death in the Off-Season (1994) by Francine Mathews

This is the first novel in the Merry Folger Nantucket Mystery series, and the first novel she wrote. Merry is a new detective in the Nantucket police, working under her father. The death of Rusty Mason, whose family was prominent in Nantucket years before, is her first murder case. This book was on my list of top ten novels in 2022. See my review here.

Snow (2020) by John Banville

I liked this much more than I expected, especially the setting, Ireland in 1957. See my review here.

Currently reading?

I am happy to say that I finished reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy in early January. It only took me four months. I ended up enjoying most of the second half much more than I liked the first half. Now I am reading The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson. I have only read bits and pieces about the Mitford sisters and I want to know more.

End of Year notes

I read 88 books in 2022. The shortest book was a mystery, Dead in the Water by Ted Wood, at 136 pages. My longest book was 752 pages, although I suspect at least 50 of those pages were end notes, etc. The book was Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, a nonfiction book about civil rights struggles in Birmingham in 1963. I lived in B'ham at the time, but I was a teenager and don't remember much. I am about the same age as the author, Diane McWhorter, who lived in a much more affluent part of the Birmingham metropolitan area at the time. Later she realized the extent to which her family and family friends had been involved, and wanted to learn more about it. A very good book, well researched, but depressing to read.

Of the 88 books I read, 48 books were from my TBR pile, which was my goal. I am only aiming at 60 books this year in my Goodreads Challenge, and still aiming at 48 books from my TBR pile, so we will see how that goes. 

The images at the top and bottom of the post were taken on a recent visit to Rocky Nook Park, in the Mission Canyon area. Mission Creek runs through the park and has been dry for a long time; I wanted to see how much water was in the creek. Water was rushing through the creek and it sounded wonderful. We had a lovely walk.

My husband took the photos. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Death in the Off Season: Francine Mathews

In Death in the Off-Season, Merry Folger is a new detective in the Nantucket police, working under her father. The death of Rusty Mason, whose family was prominent in Nantucket years before, is her first murder case. 

Rusty Mason's body is found in a cranberry bog on land that belongs to his younger brother Peter. The two brothers have been estranged for years, and Rusty has not even been living in the US during that time. Peter is the only family member who still has a presence on Nantucket. 

Merry is very much aware that everyone is watching her as she works the case because she is the chief's daughter and it is her first murder case. Some want her to fail; some don't think women can handle the job. Merry cannot decide if Peter Mason is a suspect for the murder of his brother, or if he was the intended victim, which complicates things. 

My thoughts:

This was the first novel that Mathews wrote, part of the Merry Folger Nantucket Mystery series. Four of the novels were published between 1994 and 1998. Later Soho Press asked her to write a fifth book in the series; Mathews returned to the first four books and edited them so that the fifth book could pick up where the last one ended (without a twenty year gap). The fifth book, Death on Nantucket, was published in 2016 and there are now seven books in the series. That an author would want to edit earlier books like that seemed strange to me but I certainly enjoyed this book; it was one of my favorite books of 2022. 

Police procedural novels are a favorite mystery sub-genre of mine. This one had additional elements that I enjoyed:

• A determined young female detective working for her father in a small town where everyone knows you.
• A family with a lot of secrets. 
• Many interesting characters and relationships. 

The writing kept me interested and involved throughout, and the ending was very satisfying. I loved the Nantucket setting.

I have had this book on my shelf since 2016, part of a stack of books published by Soho Press. It wasn't until Judith at Reader in the Wilderness brought it to my attention HERE and HERE that I finally read it.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Soho Crime, 2016
Length:       356 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Series:        Merry Folger Nantucket Mystery #1
Setting:       Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA
Genre:        Police procedural
Source:      On my TBR since 2016.

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Naked Chef to Sense and Sensibility

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 a cookbook – The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver. This was the first cookbook by Jamie Oliver and I honestly don't remember why he (or his TV show) was called The Naked Chef. 

First Degree of Separation: 

My first link takes me from the Naked Chef to a White House Chef, in State of the Onion, a cozy mystery by Julie Hyzy. The main character is White House Assistant Chef Olivia Paras. She gets involved with some intrigue related to a possible threat on the President's life. When she isn't busy sleuthing, she is vying for the Executive Chef position, which will be available when her boss retires. Some recipes are included. After being on my TBR shelf for years, I finally read this book in October.

Second Degree of Separation: 

My second link is to The President Vanishes by Rex Stout, published in 1934. This is a mystery novel about the mysterious disappearance of the President of the United States, who was in the middle of a political crisis over his handling of the foreign situation in Europe. The disappearance seems to be a kidnapping, but no ransom is demanded. I read this years ago, and I did like it at that time. I am biased; I haven't read any of Rex Stout's mysteries that I did not like.

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Third Degree of Separation:

In the third link I am sticking with presidents of the US, but this one is real. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders is about US President Abraham Lincoln and the death of his young son, Willie. The book is a blend of fantasy and historical fiction, and full of supernatural elements. The story is set in 1862 in the first year of the Civil War in the US. President Lincoln's eleven-year-old son, Willie, has died and Lincoln visits his body at the crypt several times. I liked reading the book, but much of it mystified me.

Fourth Degree of Separation:

My fourth link is to another real United States President. In Jack 1939, a novel by Francine Mathews, John F. Kennedy is a spy. 

From the book's dust jacket: "It’s the spring of 1939, and the prospect of war in Europe looms large. The United States has no intelligence service. In Washington, D.C., President Franklin Roosevelt may run for an unprecedented third term and needs someone he can trust to find out what the Nazis are up to. His choice: John F. Kennedy. "

Fifth Degree of Separation:

Francine Mathews also writes as Stephanie Barron. Jane and The Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor is the first novel in the Jane Austen Mystery series. In that series, Jane Austen was an amateur sleuth. I read it around the time it was first published, 1996. I did read the second in the series and lately have been thinking about reading another in the series. Has anyone else read this series and do I need to read it in order?

Sixth Degree of Separation:

For my last link I move from a mystery series starring Jane Austen to one of Jane Austen's novels, Sense and Sensibility, another book I read in October of this year. This is the story of two sisters, once living in luxury, who now have very little prospects of marrying well. Elinor, the eldest, is sensible and concerned about propriety. Marianne, 16, is the opposite. This is not my favorite book by Jane Austen, but still I found it to be a very worthwhile read. My review is here.

My chain took me from a cook to books about presidents (fictional and nonfictional) and then to Jane Austen. Have you read any of these books, and what did you think of them?

Next month (December 3, 2022), the first book in the chain will be The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.

Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times No. 20

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme. It was originated by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness, but Katrina at Pining for the West is now gathering the blogposts.

So now I have some new photos of bookshelves to share, and I will start with this one...

If you right click on the image of the shelf, and open the link in a new tab, you will be able to read more of the titles.

On the left side are six hardcover books. Except for Field Gray by Philip Kerr, those are all newly acquired books that I want to read soonish. 

Escape Velocity is the second book by Susan Wolfe. Her first book was The Last Billable Hour, published in 1989. Howard Rickover is an inexperienced lawyer who works for a Silicon Valley law firm filled with sleazy and / or very ambitious lawyers, Tweedmore and Slyde. He has only been there for a few months when one of the founders, Leo Slyde, is killed.  I enjoyed that book a lot and wished there were more by the same author. However, it wasn't until 2016 that the author published her second novel, Escape Velocity.

Two reviews for Escape Velocity are at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan and at Clothes in Books.

To the right of those books is a stack of more of my Soho Crime books. The top book on that stack is Murder in the Off Season by Francine Mathews. It is set on the island of Nantucket. That book was originally published in 1994, but substantially revised before republication in 2016. I had not heard of an author taking that approach before. Read about that book at Reader in the Wilderness and at Caroline Bookbinder.

Further on the right are three books by J. Robert Janes, a Canadian author. The books are Mannequin, Sandman, and Stonekiller. The series is set in Occupied France, in 1942 and 1943. It is the story of two men who are on opposite sides but must work together. Gestapo Haupsturmführer Hermann Kohler and  his partner, Sûreté Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr have been thrown together by circumstances to investigate crimes.  They have developed a trusting relationship, but know that due to the realities of war, it will probably not end well. One side or the other will be the victor, and then where will their loyalties lie?

I have read the first four books in the series. See my reviews for Kaleidoscope and Salamander. And at Kirkus, see J. Kingston Pierce's interview with J. Robert Janes from 2012.

On the shelf above those books, you can see Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen and The Dive from Claussen's Pier by Ann Packer. I have had both of those books for years and years. So long that I don't have a record of when I got them or where. And also two books about tap dancing. I love tap dancing in films and have at least a couple of other books related to that subject.

Have you read any of these books? What is your opinion?