What’s on Your Nightstand?

March’s What’s on Your Nightstand?

                  I finished reading The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman and had originally thought that I would put it on our list for the year. I recommend it, but only if you skip chapter 60 unless, of course, you’re made of stronger stuff than me. I cried and cried – not because it was poorly written. It was quite the reverse. It was the most elegantly written description of the Alzheimer mind and dying that I’ve read. Many, many years ago I wrote an overly zealous paper about the existentialist view of time and eternity. I was so very young and had no idea of how to articulate what I could feel the various philosophers were saying. Mr. Osman’s chapter 60 had it in a nutshell. He talks about the “lie of time” and it touched me.

                  The rest of Osman’s novel is the Thursday Murder Club’s mystery involving the usual suspects. They’re beginning to call each other by nicknames so the reader has a sense of familiarity with each of the characters. Among my favorite scenes is when Connie reprimands Ibrahim for not acting sufficiently analytical as her psychiatrist. Connie is in jail and running a murder for hire business from her cell. It’s quite amusing. Read the novel!

To put me back in a fun state of mind I reread The Corsican Caper by Peter Mayle. It was published in 2014 and is light and silly. It’s by the same author as A Year in Provence which was made into a PBS series a bit ago. It starred John Thaw from Morse fame. You can find it on YouTube and Netflix. The Corsican Caper revolves around billionaire Francis Reboul, a character who has appeared in other Caper books by Mayle. Reboul is a rather unsavory Russian tycoon who happens to be friends with Sam Levitt and Elena Morales – the good guys and problem solvers. In this novel Sam and Elena have to negotiate with underworld mercenaries, mafioso, and a variety of would be hitmen. During all of the hullabaloo Sam and Elena manage to see quite a bit of Corsica, eat in fabulous restaurants, and generally make me jealous. You’ll have a fun time reading this one.

For those of us who are classicists – there’s The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne published in 1922. It’s not the Pooh and Tigger stories of our childhood (although there was something quite comforting in those stories; the world seemed settled in them), instead this is Milne’s only mystery novel and one that is excellently plotted with all of the twists and turns one could hope for. It has a sinister valet, baffled local police, and a self-appointed investigator. The whodunnit is witty and carries you along for a very British afternoon. Have a cuppa along with a few biscuits while you sit  in a big easy chair!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        What’s on my Kindle To Be Read?

                                                                                                                                                                Don”t make fun! I’m looking forward to reading Murder, She Wrote: Killing in a Koi Pond by Terrie Farley Moran. I’ve never read one and I watch the television program over and over. My daughter teases me that they’re soporifics so I never see the ending and therefore can watch them repeatedly because I’ll never get to whodunnit! That’s Diana for you!

                  Then, there’s Maddie Day’s Murder in a Cape Cottage, Betty Hechtman’s Yarn to Go, and Dorothy Cannell’s Murder at Mullings: The Florence Norris Mysteries. The latter is a classic and should be a warm, lovely book to read. The first two are supposed to be easy reads. All of them will take me away on a mini vacation in my head.