I will preface this month’s book reviews with a little “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” story.
Our daughter got married in the middle of the month. Prior to that we had a some prep work for the wedding itself as well as preparing for several out-of-town guests. I also took a solo trip to Michigan (several states from where I live) to pick up my mom and bring her to the wedding. After the wedding, I brought her back to her home and along the way we visited some extended family for a few days.
You will see that I read mostly mysteries this month. I was either traveling or in hotels, or busy with company, so my choices of what to read stayed on the basic side. I was in the airport in Chicago when I finished the book that I had with me with a couple of hours yet till my next flight! I went to one of the airport newsstands and actually bought a brand-new book!
“Clouds of Witness” ©1927 by Dorothy L. Sayers
Lord Peter’s brother, the Duke of Denver, hosts a hunting party at a lodge. Their sister and her fiancé are also included as guests.
One night the fiancé is found murdered and the Duke of Denver is arrested and held in jail.
Can Lord Peter figure it out? Why won’t his brother explain himself? What is his sister hiding?
The quest for answers leads to France and to a beautiful woman’s cottage on the heather.
With the help of the faithful Bunter and Inspector Parker, the mystery is untangled.
“Unnatural Death” ©1927 by Dorothy L. Sayers
Lord Peter meets a young doctor at a restaurant where the Doctor tells Lord Peter a story about an elderly lady that he suspects may have been murdered even though it didn’t ‘look’ like murder.
Lord Peter sets out to investigate. He hires his oldish lady typist to visit/infiltrate the small village where the murdered lady lived. She is in the perfect position to gossip around the village in the innocent way of older ladies.
Meanwhile several other mysterious things happen, including two more deaths.
Are all these things connected? They seem to all lead to one woman who is a master at disguises.
Very satisfying.
“A Man lay Dead” ©1934 by Ngaio Marsh
A party is given at Sir Hubert Handesley’s country house. The featured event is a game called “Murder”.
During the acting out of this game, it is discovered that there was a real murder of Charles Rankin, who is the cousin of another guest, Nigel Bathgate, the journalist.
Inspector Alleyn arrives and carefully collects evidence and interviews everyone. A Russian butler who sneaks away is the obvious suspect, but inspector Alleyn is not convinced.
A good story with plenty of twists!
“The Book Eaters” ©2022 by Sunyi Dean
(This is the book I bought at the Chicago O’Hara airport.)
Book eaters are not human and their myth is that they were left on Earth to gather information and then their God will be back for them.
Book eaters look human and literally eat books for information and food. There are some who are born who need to eat brains and they absorb the person’s knowledge and personality.
There are very few women book eaters, which makes them special, but also very restricted by their society. There are several sects/families who have different territories and specialties.
Very interesting culture/world building by the author.
When Devon’s son is born a mind eater, she does everything to keep him safe. Unfortunately, the sect/family that holds the knowledge and ability to produce the drug that allows mind eaters to eat books has undergone a coup and the supply dries up.
Good story!
“The Graveyard Book” ©2008 by Neil Gaiman
This is a junior fiction novel that won the Newbery Medal in 2009.
A family is killed by a “Jack” (of all trades), but the infant son, who has crawled out of his crib, escaped to a nearby graveyard where the ghosts vow to protect and raise him. Mr. and Mrs. Owens become his ghostly parents and they named the little guy Nobody (Bod for short) Owens. Bod also has a guardian, Silas, who is neither alive or a ghost and can go out into the world. Silas is part of the force defending the world and trying to eliminate the Jacks.
Bod has a happy childhood learning from the ghosts, mostly normal stuff like how to read, but also ghostly stuff like how to “fade”. Bod tries to go to public school, but the danger from Jack forces him back to the graveyard.
Really good!
“The Free Man” ©1943 by Conrad Richter
Set in the mid 1700’s, this is the story of Henry Free (Frey) who immigrated from Holland with his parents on a ship. His parents died in passage and Henry finds himself an indentured servant in the colony of Pennsylvania.
It does not suit Henry and he runs away and makes a life for himself in a small frontier town. He is an honorable man though, and when the American Revolution is brewing, he sets out to first pay off his servitude and second to join the revolution.
This story is full of adventure and early American attitudes and life.
P.S. Conrad Richter is one of my favorite authors. You may recognize his young adult novel “The Light in the Forest”. He won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for the third book in his “The Awakening Land” trilogy “The Town”.
Again another author I need to reed, Conrad Richter. The boy raised by ghost- it intrigues me that he can’t return to alive people because of this Jack fellow.
Thanks for reading and sharing and motivating.
Nancy
I think you would enjoy Conrad Richter. Lots of history! I read “The Graveyard Book” because it was a Newberry Medal winner and because I didn’t know Neil Gaiman wrote junior fiction, so I thought I’d see how he did. It was good!
Thanks for the reviews Cheri! I definitely will try out some Dorothy L. Sayers as well as Conrad Richter! Like Nancy says, your reviews and interest in reading are MOTIVATING!!! This summer I’ve been doing a lot of re-reading–it’s like visiting with old friends! I started with Dorothy Eden and truly enjoyed her English mysteries– One of my favorite books of all time is An Afternoon Walk–it’s a small book, but FUN! I’m not sure why I stopped short of Eden’s mysteries from “down under.” Then I revisited all the books I could find by Mary Stewart–although I haven’t gotten into re-reading her historical, Merlin series yet. I had forgotten Mary Stewart’s command of the English language and her mastery of plot! Thank you again dear Cheri! Yours in reading my bibliophile friend~!
Hi Lori! I know you have recommended Dorothy Eden to me before. I need to find a book of hers and read it! You will see in the next batch of reviews, that I too read a Mary Stewart mystery. 🙂