Review of Aunt Dimity’s Christmas, by Nancy Atherton

Christmas, Fiction Review, Mystery 0

Aunt Dimity’s Christmas

by Nancy Atherton

Viking, 1999, 214 pages.

I read one more Christmas mystery for the holidays, and found it charming and uplifting.

Lori Willis is getting ready to celebrate a lavish Christmas now that she has inherited a cottage in England. Aunt Dimity, who left her the cottage, never actually left, and still communicates with Lori by writing in a journal, and helps her solve mysteries.

Their Christmas mystery hits when a tramp collapses in the snowy lane outside their house. He’s alive, but in a coma in the hospital. Who is he, and why was he going to their house? Perhaps he knew Aunt Dimity?

When Lori visits the stranger in the hospital, she’s haunted by his face. Then she hears more and more stories of good things he has done. But some other things were very eccentric? Is he perhaps a mental patient? Or an angel in disguise?

Between these investigations, her husband going to a funeral in Boston, and her father-in-law playing Joseph in the Christmas pageant, Lori’s Christmas turns out nothing like she planned, but truly memorable still.

A pleasant story with interesting characters that will put you in the mood for Christmas.

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Review of A Christmas Promise, by Anne Perry

Christmas, Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery 0

christmas_promiseA Christmas Promise

by Anne Perry

Ballantine Books, New York, 2009. 193 pages.

There’s nothing like a cozy Christmas murder mystery to put me in the mood for the holiday!

Seriously, I’ve come to enjoy Anne Perry’s Christmas offerings. They are short and quick to read. They have just a hint of sweetness, but no overt sentimentality, and enough tension and mystery to provide a puzzle and a sense of relief when the danger is past.

Two poor girls in Victorian England are the focus of A Christmas Promise. Thirteen-year-old Gracie Phipps comes across little eight-year-old Minnie Maude, looking for Charlie, her Uncle Alf’s donkey. Minnie Maude insists that her uncle was murdered, and that Charlie must be lost and frightened because he didn’t come home.

Gracie’s compassion for the little girl quickly gets her involved. But what can two girls do if Uncle Alf was murdered?

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Review of The Case of the Missing Marquess, by Nancy Springer

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

missing_marquessThe Case of the Missing Marquess

An Enola Holmes Mystery

by Nancy Springer

Philomel Books, 2006. 216 pages.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #5 Other Children’s Fiction

I’ve long heard about the Enola Holmes Mysteries. I’m so glad I finally got around to reading one!

This is the first story of Sherlock Holmes’ little sister, Enola. She’s something of an embarrassment to the family. She’s much younger than Sherlock and Mycroft and doesn’t act like a proper young lady at all.

When Enola’s mother disappears on her fourteenth birthday, Sherlock and Mycroft arrive to take the estate in hand, and of course get Enola settled in a nice boarding school to become a proper young lady. Enola has other ideas.

Enola is resourceful, and her mother has even left clues to help her. Setting out on her own, in disguise, can Enola elude her brother, the world’s greatest detective? Along the way, Enola encounters a case of her own to solve, and she has insights that even great detectives don’t have access to.

I’ll definitely be reading more Enola Holmes stories. She’s feisty, smart, and resourceful. Her perspective on the mysteries around her is refreshingly clear-sighted. And she can outwit Sherlock Holmes!

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Review of The London Eye Mystery, by Siobhan Dowd

Contemporary, Mystery, Stand-outs, Teen Fiction Review 0

london_eye_mysteryThe London Eye Mystery

by Siobhan Dowd

David Fickling Books, New York, 2007. Originally published in Great Britain, 2007. 323 pages.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #5 Other Teen Fiction

“We took Salim to the Eye because he’d never been up before. A stranger came up to us in the queue, offering us a free ticket. We took it and gave it to Salim. We shouldn’t have done this, but we did. He went up on his own at 11.32, 24 May, and was due to come down at 12.02 the same day. He turned and waved to Kat and me as he boarded, but you couldn’t see his face, just his shadow. They sealed him in with twenty other people whom we didn’t know.

“Kat and I tracked Salim’s capsule as it made its orbit. When it reached its highest point, we both said, ‘NOW!’ at the same time and Kat laughed and I joined in. That’s how we knew we’d been tracking the right one. We saw the people bunch up as the capsule came back down, facing northeast towards the automatic camera for the souvenir photograph. They were just dark bits of jackets, legs, dresses and sleeves.

“Then the capsule landed. The doors opened and the passengers came out in twos and threes. They walked off in different directions. Their faces were smiling. Their paths probably never crossed again.

“But Salim wasn’t among them.

“We waited for the next capsule and the next and the one after that. He still didn’t appear. Somewhere, somehow, in the thirty minutes of riding the Eye, in his sealed capsule, he had vanished off the face of the earth. This is how having a funny brain that runs on a different operating system from other people’s helped me to figure out what had happened.”

This mystery reminds me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, narrated as it is by someone whose “brain runs on a different operating system from other people’s.” This one is much less grim and offers an intriguing mystery with a believable solution.

This book is, fittingly, more cerebral than emotional, since Ted isn’t very good at reading emotions. Though we can see the emotions of everyone in his family are on edge when Salim disappears, and the author handles it well.

I’m not sure when I’ve last read such an enjoyable mystery appropriate for middle school students through teens. Ted is a young teen himself, but the reader can believe that he had the insight and noticed the details to solve the mystery. It isn’t a case, as in some mysteries for young people, of just happening to deal with stupid adults.

My biggest regret, after reading this book, is that I never went up in the London Eye when I was in London.

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Review of Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, by Alexander McCall Smith

Fiction Review, Light Reading, Mystery, Starred Review 0

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Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
by Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon Books, New York, 2009. 212 pages.
Starred Review

This is now the tenth book in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. I love Alexander McCall Smith’s titles. Reading these books make me feel that I’ve been, as another title suggests, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies.

You can probably read these books happily without having read the books before, but why would you want to? In the latest installment, we finally learn the name of the younger apprentice, and Mma Ramotswe must come to terms (or not) with the demise of the tiny white van. The nefarious Violet Sephotho has designs on Mma Makutsi’s oblivious fiance. And the main case they deal with has them figuring out why a popular soccer team is losing. You would think that would be out of Mma Ramotswe’s element, but as usual she is good at getting to the heart of the matter.

As with the others, I love these books for their pleasant and wise observations on life, and the feeling that the characters are becoming my kind and insightful friends. Truly a delightful book.

“It was the same with life in general, thought Mma Ramotswe. If we worried away at troublesome issues, we often only ended up making things worse. It was far better to let things sort themselves out.”

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Review of Santa Cruise, by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark

Christmas, Fiction Review, Mystery 0

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Santa Cruise

A Holiday Mystery at Sea

by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark

Simon & Schuster/ Scribner, 2006.  261 pages.

I have enjoyed some of Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark’s earlier Christmas mysteries.  So I picked up this Holiday Mystery for some fun Christmas reading.

To start up his new cruise ship, Commodore Randolph Weed launches the “Santa Cruise” — a free trip for people who have done good in the world.  He even includes ten department-store Santas to cheer the crowd while enjoying the cruise.  Alvirah Meehan and her husband Willy are among the honorees, and Alvirah invites her friend, private detective Regan Reilly and her husband Jack, as well as Regan’s parents, Nora and Luke.

What the Commodore doesn’t know is that his nephew Eric is using the cruise to make some money on the side.  Eric has agreed to take two convicted felons on board and drop them off on an island in the Caribbean without an extradition treaty.

Right from the start, Eric’s plans get thrown off.  He has to give his large room to Alvirah and her husband, so the felons don’t have a convenient place to hide.  Good thing there are lots of Santa suits available.

Santa Cruise has lots of coincidences and never really works up to much feeling of suspense, but it does provide some light-hearted fun in a holiday setting.

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Review of A Christmas Grace, by Anne Perry

Christmas, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 0

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A Christmas Grace

by Anne Perry

Ballantine Books, New York, 2008.  210 pages.

Starred review.

Ah, there’s nothing like a nice cozy Christmas murder mystery by Anne Perry!  It’s getting to be a tradition for me that I especially enjoy.

Emily Radley gets a message that her estranged Aunt Susannah is dying.  Aunt Susannah was cut off from the family years ago for marrying a Catholic.  She lives in a remote part of Ireland, and now she wants to have family near her at Christmas, so she does not die alone.

Emily comes and gets a feel for the coastal village.  Then an enormous storm hits, with a shipwreck offshore and a stranger stranded on their beach.  Emily learns that the town is haunted by the memory of a similar event.  Only that earlier stranger was murdered.  Did he ask questions too uncomfortable to answer?  What did he know that he was killed for?

I’m not quite sure how Anne Perry manages to make murder mysteries so beautifully communicate a cozy and warm spirit of Christmas.  But her Christmas stories leave me feeling uplifted and remind me of what Christmas is all about.  Lovely.

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Review of A Death in Vienna, by Frank Tallis

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery 0

death_in_vienna.jpg

A Death in Vienna

by Frank Tallis

Grove Press, New York, 2005.  458 pages. 

Here’s a murder mystery with a fascinating historical setting.  The hero of the book is Max Liebermann, a doctor proficient in the new science of psychoanalysis at the turn of the twentieth century, a friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud.

Liebermann’s friend Oskar Rheinhardt, a police detective, is presented with an especially perplexing case.  A woman is found dead in a locked room, clearly dead by a bullet wound, yet there is no bullet found in her body.  The woman was a practitioner of the occult and a regular leader of seances.  Could she have offended the spirits?

Max Liebermann reads people well, understanding Freudian slips at a time before the general populace knew about them.  His perceptive analysis of people makes him an ideal assistant to his friend the detective.

This book was a perfect break for me in between volumes of the much more emotional Twilight series.  A Death in Vienna appeals on a more cerebral level, with a challenging puzzle and an intriguing historical background, when the practice of treating psychological ailments was far different than it is today.

A big thank you to the library customer who told me about this book!

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Review of The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith

Contemporary, Fiction Review, General, Humorous, Mystery, Romance, Stand-outs 0

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The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon Books, New York, 2007.  213 pages.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2008.  #5 Fiction: Romance

This book, the eighth in the series about The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, is extra special, because my copy is signed by the author.  I got to hear Alexander McCall Smith speak at George Mason University.  His talk was every bit as funny and delightful as his books.  I was completely enchanted.  Of course, that didn’t surprise me at all, since his books never fail to delight me.

I continue to strongly recommend this series to library patrons.  I do urge you to begin at the beginning, with The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.  I think you will probably want to read the rest, and eagerly read each next installment.

In The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, will Mma Makutsi really leave the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency?  The pleasant ups and downs of day to day life, as usual, are peppered with interesting cases.  Another delightful book.

I will give a taste of the pleasant wisdom found in these books by listing some quotations I highlighted:

“If there’s bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love.  That always works, you know.  People say that we must punish when there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you’re only punishing yourself.  And what’s the point of that?”

“And that stopped the stealing.  Trust did it.  We trusted him, and he knew it.  So he stopped stealing.”

” ‘What we are trying to do with these children,’ said Mma Potokwane suddenly, ‘is to give them good things to remember.  We want to make so many good memories for them that the bad ones are pushed into a corner and forgotten.'”

“There was no point in telling somebody not to cry, she had always thought; indeed there were times when you should do exactly the opposite, when you should urge people to cry, to start the healing that sometimes only tears can bring.”

” ‘That engine I’ve been working on will run so sweetly,’ he remarked as he poured his tea.

‘Like life,’ she said.”

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Review of The Miracle at Speedy Motors, by Alexander McCall Smith

Fiction Review, Light Reading, Mystery 0

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Books, New York, 2008.  214 pages.

Starred Review

I love the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency!  This is now the ninth book in the series.  I do recommend starting at the beginning.  You will grow to know and love these characters, adding to the charm of the books.  You will understand exactly why Mma Makutsi’s uncle asks a bride price of precisely 97 cows.

I dearly wish I could sit down to a cup of red bush tea with Precious Ramotswe.  (I would never admit that I like black tea better!)  She is a woman of wisdom, peace, and compassion.

Reading this book is the next best thing.

“Mma Ramotswe was right: evil repaid with retribution, with punishment, had achieved half its goal; evil repaid with kindness was shown to be what it really was, a small, petty thing, not something frightening at all, but something pitiable, a paltry affair.”

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