The Vanishing Museum on the Rue Mistral (Provençal Mystery, #9)

The Vanishing Museum On The Rue Mistral
by M.L. Longworth
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780143135296
Series: Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery #9
Publication Date: April 13, 2021
Pages: 323
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Penguin Books

I never know how to describe these mysteries; they’re written just a little bit differently than the standard traditional or cozy fare, and they’re one of the few written in third person. They’re much closer to golden age in writing style than anything contemporary; no internal dialogs, no tedious descriptions of … well, almost no tedious descriptions of random things. The Bonnets are gourmands, so there’s rather a lot of eating going on, and they’re in Aix-en-Provence, so it all sounds rather amazing. But otherwise, sparse and efficient writing.

Someone has stolen an entire museum. True, it’s a small museum, but nonetheless no small feat, with no witnesses and no clues. Then a main suspect is murdered and another grievously injured and still the police are left frustrated. It comes down, in true mystery style, to pieces put together not by the police themselves, but by their family members and friends, and the while the ending isn’t shocking, it’s clever and satisfying. Enough clues are there for the reader to see the general direction things are going, but details are left for the big reveal.

These books are comfortable, relaxing and enjoyable reads.

Death in the Vines (Verlaque and Bonnet Mystery, #3)

Death in the Vines
by M.L. Longworth
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780143122449
Series: Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery #3
Publication Date: May 28, 2013
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Penguin Crime

Better than the last book; the multiple POVs here work better and Death in the Vines didn’t feel as slow to start as book 2.

Three brutal murders just 1 week apart, all women. Two of them identical attacks of young women, but the third is an old woman showing signs of dementia. Proximity and timing make all three related but no one can find the connection. This series is, at its heart, a police procedural so the story moves along in stops and starts as new evidence is collected and more information is run-down. The unmasking was a little bit abrupt, but perhaps that’s how some cases end up, who knows?

In the midst of this we have little vignettes of the supporting characters that are mostly charming; an odd twist with Marine Bonnet didn’t quite work for me, but I suppose it worked to move their relationship a bit. But the biggest non-plot news is Verleque’s mysterious secret in his past is revealed – and it’s a doozy; in a completely unexpected way. Very interesting ground the author is treading here; the big reveal doesn’t really happen until almost the end, and it’s not followed up on, so I don’t know where she’s going to go from here, if anywhere.

But I have book 4 ready to go, so I won’t have to wait long to find out.

The Gazebo (Miss Silver Mystery #27)

The Gazebo
by Patricia Wentworth
Rating: ★★★★½
Series: Miss Silver Mystery #27
Publication Date: January 1, 1958
Pages: 255
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Hodder And Stoughton

For Althea Graham, suffering the whims of her malevolent invalid of a mother, the old family home is a prison. So when two strangely competitive offers for the Graham's house are made to her it suggests that house may hold some dark rewarding secret.

Then old Mrs Graham is found murdered in the gazebo . . .

Best Miss Silver I’ve read yet! Though, to be fair, I’ve only read 2-3 others, so I’m not in a position to judge too objectively thus far. Still, a great mystery with rational characters (unlike her earliest books) and while there’s still a romance at the hinge of the story, it’s not a soppy one. Mostly.

There were obvious references to previous books, but no spoilers; tangential characters in earlier mysteries are now the focus of this one. The murder could not have happened to a more deserving victim, and generally, the plotting was rather weak, not that I think about it. The murderer becomes rather obvious so that there’s no real reveal, just a crises averted and justice served. There’s also a connection to the Gordon Riots which lends an air of fun to the story, though when I write it like that it doesn’t make sense. Nothing fun about the Gordon Riots, except the link to the present day story is, but I can’t be more specific than that without spoiling.

A fun, traditional mystery.

Shake Down (Elliott Lisbon Mystery, #5)

Shake Down
by Kendel Lynn
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781635115871
Series: Elliott Lisbon Mystery #5
Publication Date: March 17, 2020
Pages: 224
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Henery Press

Ballantyne Foundation Director and PI-in-training, Elliott Lisbon, is enjoying her idyllically slow life on Sea Pine Island, South Carolina. It’s the week before the annual Beach Ball and she’s sipping Bellinis on the sidelines. Her committee involvement is limited to securing the centerpieces: scrumptious masterpieces from the Cake & Shake. But when the head baker goes missing, Elli’s calm life gets a major shakeup. She takes the case and soon learns that missing is a relative term.

As Elli walks the delicate line between a woman finding herself and a woman needing to be found, the days speed up and she knows something’s about to go down. From drug runners to whistleblowers to sea turtle sabotage, Elli stirs up secrets and inadvertently whips a desperate killer into a frenzy. If she doesn’t find a way out of the heat, she’s going to get burned.

I’m always excited about a new Elliott Lisbon mystery being released; Kendel Lynn doesn’t publish on the typical once-a-year schedule, so you just never know when or if the next one is coming.

But they’re worth the suspense – these are well-written mysteries with solid plots and while definitely cozy, there’s nothing cutesy or twee about the characters or the plots. Shake Down starts off slow and builds slowly, with the search for a missing woman. Is she missing? Did she just take off? Was there foul play involved? Elliott Lisbon is a PI in training, putting in her required hours before receiving her license and she’s hired to find the woman, or find out what happened to her.

For spice, and possibly levity, there’s a reality tv show involved in the plot, but the ending is unexpected and, well, unexpected. This one isn’t going to keep you on the edge of your seat, but it will offer you a satisfying mystery.

A Noël Killing (A Provençal Mystery, #8)

A Noël Killing
by M.L. Longworth
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780143134060
Series: Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery #8
Publication Date: November 12, 2019
Pages: 286
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Penguin Books

Just as the holiday cheer is in full swing, a man is poisoned, sending the community into a tailspin. The list of suspects, Verlaque and Bonnet quickly discover, almost fills the church itself, from the visiting vendors at the Christmas fair to the victim’s unhappy wife and his disgruntled business partner. In A Noël Killing, with the help of an ever-watchful young woman named France, the pair must solve the murder while the spirit of the season attempts to warm Verlaque’s stubborn heart.

In general, this series has been excellent in every way, but this one wasn’t its strongest entry.

The narrative meandered. A lot. It took several chapters to get a grip on what was going on, and who was doing what to whom. There’s a slow build up to the crime, which I don’t mind, but because everything else was slow too, it was a battle to keep my attention on the book.

Once things did start moving, they felt scattered and disorganised, though this improved quite a bit as the story progressed. Still, of the books I’ve read this month, this is the one I’m struggling most to remember anything about. It wasn’t unpleasant or badly written, it just wasn’t a strong plot and it lacked the usual strong writing, or perhaps strong editing.

I’m happy to blame it on Covid and hope that the next one measures up to the first 7.

The Red Lamp

The Red Lamp
by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Rating: ★★★★½
Publication Date: June 18, 2019
Pages: 289
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Penzler Publishing

William Porter has just inherited Twin Hollows, an isolated lakeside estate shrouded in mystery and doom. But William and his wife aren't easily swayed by ghost stories and whispered rumors. Until a shadowy apparition beckons to them from the undying glow of a red lamp. Is a stranger with a deadly purpose trying to frighten them away? Or are they being haunted by a chilling warning from the grave?

I knew this was a ghost story, of sorts, so I started it bright and early yesterday morning, and became so engrossed in the story that I almost, almost, finished it last night. leaving nothing but 3 of the last 4 conclusion chapters for me to read today.

Mary Roberts Rinehart was an excellent writer; that her genius has been so far forgotten today is a tragedy. The Red Lamp was originally written in 1925, and putting aside the lack of technology and the beautifully elegant writing that today might be considered a tad verbose, the story holds up perfectly; it would take very little to make this story ‘modern’.

The Red Lamp is complex to the point of labyrinthine though. Like the main character, I stumbled through the story in ignorance. Some of this was by design, as the mc is meant to be a spectator not an active participant in solving the crimes, but some of it was because there was just so much going on and that beautifully elegant writing of Rinehart’s made for easy camouflage of any clues.

The book is, with the exception of the introductory and final 4 chapters, purely epistemological, with no chapters, just journal entries. This style doesn’t always lend itself to a submersive experience for the reader, but these journal entries are detailed enough that it makes almost no difference from a first person narrative.

The ghostly part of the story, in spite of the enormous potential for scarring the spit out of me, were subdued enough that they never raised so much as a hair. This was a wee bit disappointing, I admit, but it didn’t adversely affect the story; they were never the point of the book, it was always about the mysterious killings and there was never doubt that those killings were done by a very corporeal being.

All in all, this was an excellent mystery. I’d recommend this to anyone curious about Golden Age Mysteries who might be hesitant fearing dry or dated story-telling. While not perfect, The Red Lamp is most assuredly neither dry nor dated.

I read this for the Gothic square on my Halloween Bingo 2020 card.

Murder at the Manor: Country House Mysteries

Murder at the Manor
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9780712309936
Publication Date: February 1, 2016
Pages: 384
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: The British Library

I read two stories from this anthology: Gentleman and Players and The White Pillars Murder. Both, it seems, stories I’ve already read elsewhere. Luckily I only remembered enough to recognise I’d read them before, not enough to remember how they end.

Gentleman and Players is a Raffles short story deeply embedded in a country house cricket competition and is less a mystery than an adventure sort of story. Mildly entertaining.

The White Pillars Murder is a G.K. Chesterton short mystery and it’s definitely a mystery, but the ending is beyond bizarre, and feels a bit like Chesterton is burning a bridge of sorts. A bit preachy too. Not a fan.

I read these for the Country House Mystery square on my Halloween Bingo 2020 card. Hopefully next time I pick up this book, I’ll remember I’ve already read these two stories.

Capital Crimes: London Mysteries

Capital Crimes: London Mysteries
by Martin Edwards
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780712357494
Publication Date: March 12, 2015
Pages: 319
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: The British Library

Capital Crimes is an eclectic collection of London-based crime stories, blending the familiar with the unexpected in a way that reflects the personality of the city. Alongside classics by Margery Allingham, Anthony Berkeley and Thomas Burke are excellent and unusual stories by authors who are far less well known.

The stories give a flavour of how writers have tackled crime in London over the span of more than half a century. Their contributions range from an early serial-killer thriller set on the London Underground and horrific vignettes to cerebral whodunits. What they have in common is an atmospheric London setting, and enduring value as entertainment. Each story is introduced by the editor, Martin Edwards, who sheds light on the authors' lives and the background to their writing.

I’ve had this anthology on my shelves for a few years, always waiting. Well, this year I needed to read a mystery set in London for 2020 Halloween Bingo and I finally remembered I had this wonderful stash of stories all in one spot.

For this year’s bingo, I chose – of course – Conan Doyle’s The Case of Lady Sannox. This is not a Sherlock Holmes story, in spite of the title, and it’s closer to horror than mystery. It’s also classic Conan Doyle style. As such, I guessed the twist at one point, when I read a specific sentence that reminded me of Holmes:

View Spoiler »

Don’t ask me why, but with that sentence I knew how the story would end. And I was right, and it was horrifying. Darkest London, indeed.

The Thirteen Problems

The Thirteen Problems
by Agatha Christie
Rating: ★★★★½
Series: The Agatha Christie Collection #
Publication Date: September 2, 2002
Pages: 201
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Agatha Christie Ltd/Planet Three Publishing

Thirteen short stories of unsolved crimes, solved by Miss Marple.

I (re)read this book for two reasons: I belong to a group reading Agatha Christie’s oeuvre in order of publication, and it fit a Halloween Bingo prompt – 13. Either one of those reasons would have been a good enough excuse to read this charming little collection of Miss Marple showing everyone up.

13 short stories: the first 6 of which share a common tie of being stories told at the Tuesday Night Club, an impromptu gathering where each person tells the tale of a mystery that went unsolved at the time. The next 6 stories are tied together in a similar way, as stories all told around the dining table one evening. The last story is a ‘stand-alone’ although it relies on the friendship established in the previous stories between Miss Marple and Sir Henry Clithering.

Without exception, each story is excellent. Some are more excellent than others; in my opinion, The Blue Geranium is the absolute stand-out, though Motive vs Opportunity comes close. The weakest was probably the last, for me, Death by Drowning. It’s solid, but in comparison, duller than the previous 12 stories.

I have a confession to make about Agatha Christie’s books: I dislike both Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. I find that in the longer books Miss Marple tends to natter on a bit too much and plays the “old spinster” and “aww shucks” hands a little too strongly. Hercule Poirot is just … an amalgamation of the worst traits of Holmes and Dupin is as close I can come to a description. I don’t find him as comical as most.

However, these short stories offer the perfect dose of Miss Marple: for almost all the stories, her participation is relegated to the end, so the simpering is contained. I also really tried, while reading these, to re-imagine Miss Marple in my mind by remembering the subjectivity of the descriptor ‘old’ and the stereotype of ‘spinster’. Yes, Miss Marple has white hair and knits, but I know many a 50-60 year old that has white hair and knits. I don’t recall her age ever being mentioned in the books I’ve read so far, so perhaps I dislike Miss Marple because of popular portrayals, combined with current attitudes about the adjectives that Christie used 100 years ago, when they covered broader spectrums.

I was partially successful; it was a struggle. Ingrained conceptions die hard. Fortunately I have a lot of books ahead of me to use for mental re-programming. Now if only I could figure out a way to like Poirot…

As I mentioned, I read this for Halloween Bingo 2020 to fit the 13 square.

The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow

The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow
by Anna Katherine Green
Rating: ★★★½
Publication Date: January 1, 1917
Pages: 432
Publisher: Dodd, Mead & Company

Anna Katharine Green was noted for her scientific approach to the murder mystery. First published in 1917 The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow breaks more ground with her in-depth study in the psychological interplay between the murderer, the victim and the witnesses. Although more quietly paced, this mystery presents many elements of a current psychological thriller: blind ambition, narcissism, obsession and betrayal.

It’s a long-term goal of mine to read all of Anna Katherine Green’s mysteries and this one has been sitting on my shelves for awhile now.

AKG was, and is, considered a strong mystery writer, but as is true of most every writer, her work is sometimes better than others. This was one of the ones that wasn’t quite so great, though still an enjoyable read. I imagine Green was going for what we’d call today a police procedural, as the murderer isn’t kept a mystery; the reader is made privy to the information the same time Inspector Gryce first voices his suspicions. I’m not a procedural fan, as it contains less puzzle than I prefer. There was also a plot twist that was either poorly hidden, or I’m too jaded, but I called it from the first. Her reveal of it, though, would have knocked my socks off if I hadn’t guessed early on.

Overall, I enjoyed it and look forward to acquiring more of her work.

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