What a month and what a towering luxury on my nightstand!
I’ve been reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and am now on The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb. I finished reading Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder. Oh my, it is so different from the most recent televised Miss Marple stories. You have to read it. It was published in 1976 but the story is set in 1944. It explores what can be proven -- facts -- are more trustworthy than what a person says. A young married couple moves into a seaside house that the young wife feels is familiar. It’s quite fun, a bit spooky, and has references to The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster-- a good clue from a Jacobean revenge play.
I also read Lori Roberts Herbst’s latest book, Negative Reaction. It’s not published yet, but soon will be (April 25th). You should put it on your TBR list. It’s a wonderfully written cozy that ends with a tension ridden scene during which the murderer is revealed and the main characters are saved. It’s the fifth in her Callie Cassidy series.
Then, because I can’t stop reading them, I’m reading Laura Childs’s Lemon Curd Killer. It’s one of her latest and she’s reinvigorated her writing chops. It’s like potato chips. I tell myself that I must stop reading tea shop books, but I find myself drawn to them. Likewise, my love of Rhys Bowen books. I have her Peril in Paris on my nightstand and can’t wait to start reading it. I easily fall into her descriptions of country homes, distant royalty, and bedrooms with heavy curtains and huge fireplaces that someone else lights. In this Royal Spyness novel Lady Georgiana is pregnant but it doesn’t deter her from adventure.
A new author for me is Kate P. Adams. She writes The Joyce and Ginger Mysteries which looked like a fun read. The first in the series is Murder en Suite: An English Cozy Mystery. The story takes place in a spa town in England that features a historian who dresses as Mary Queen of Scots to lead tours. Unfortunately Joyce and Ginger find her strangled in the bed Ginger is supposed to use. There’s a wager, local dignitaries, and a bar bill to complicate the investigation. I can’t wait to dip in.
I’m anxious to start my newest find, Murder in the Library: An Utterly Gripping English Cozy Mystery by Katie Gayle. Julie Bird finds a dead body in the library in a town in the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are beginning to sound a lot like Cabot Cove. There seem to be quite a number of deaths in those small villages there! Anyway, Katie Gayle is the writing partnership of best-selling South African writers, Kate Sidley and Gail Schimmel. I’d be interested to find out how they work their writing team and hope that they develop a website.