Dead Water by Ngaio Marsh

Dead Water by Ngaio Marsh

by Carol4 Comments
Emily Pride is an old friend/French teacher of Inspector Alleyn and she has been receiving death threats, mostly because she want to shut down a small island's tourist trade. She recently inherited the island and finds all the hoopla around the falls distasteful. She heads off to the island to take care of the situation, but once she is hurt, Alleyn shortens his own vacation and goes to the island to watch out for her. And then, of course, there's the murder, even if it's not the murder you expect. Happily Alleyn's on the scene to take over the investigation. The characters are a mixed lot. Some are bad stereotypes that tend to pop up in vintage mysteries, like the hysterical spinster and the drunk parents of the boy whose warts were "miraculously" healed. Some are more interesting, like the innkeeper's beautiful wife. We also have assorted other locals, including the doctor, the preacher and his wife, a young couple falling in love....
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The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

by Carol6 Comments
I read a lot of crime fiction and mystery stories, both modern and classic, but somehow I've skipped over Philip Marlowe. In this introduction to Marlowe, a dying millionaire hires him to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in. As the annotations show, even though this is the first in the series, it's not really the first time we may have met Marlowe, although under other names. Chandler apparently often took earlier short stories he had written for pulp magazines like Black Mask, and combined and expanded them into the Marlowe novels. The Big Sleep is a complicated story, set in 1930s Los Angeles, involving blackmail and a bookstore that is a rental library for pornography. The annotations provide lots of information about the time period, about Chandler's writing, and about some of...
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

by Carol4 Comments
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is definitely one of Agatha Christie's best, but it was a reread for me, so I knew who the killer was. And the whodunnit is what makes this such a great mystery. Hercule Poirot has "retired" to the peaceful village of  King’s Abbot, keeping his former career as a detective a secret, but of course someone - Roger Ackroyd - is killed. Ackroyd was actually a friend of Poirot, one of the few who knew his work, and the niece, Flora, asks Poirot to investigate. Poirot doesn't have his Hastings here, so the part of narrator/sidekick is covered by Dr. Sheppard, Poirot's neighbor and the one who discovered the body. Poirot is his usual silly, brilliant self. I like that we meet him before he takes the case and I love that they assume he used to be a hairdresser. "Look at that moustache of his." The mystery is well-plotted with plenty of suspects and red herrings. I enjoyed...
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Head On by John Scalzi

Head On by John Scalzi

by Carol4 Comments
Head On could work as a stand alone, but I think it's best to read Lock In first, to get a full feeling for the world and the main characters Chris and Vann. In the near future, a portion of the population has been affected by Haden’s syndrome, leaving some “locked in,” awake and aware, but unable to move or respond without computer/mechanical help. Our mystery this time around centers on the death of a Hilketa player. The player, like almost all Hilketa players, is a Haden, piloting his specialty threep remotely. Since the crime involves a Haden, it's FBI territory and this case falls to Chris and Vann. It doesn't hurt that Chris was at the game when the player died - Chris's father is  potential investor in the Washington franchise. The world Scalzi has created is well-done - believable and possible, but t heart, this is a police procedural with a cool sci-fi backdrop. Chris and Vann make great partners...
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All Systems Red by Martha Wells

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

by Carol4 Comments
There were three reasons I picked up All Systems Red. #1 - It was sci-fi and I was participating in #SciFiJune when I read it. #2 - It's short and I'm behind on my Goodreads challenge by 4 books. #3 - It had good reviews. In the end, I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It's a good story with a truly relatable main character. That relatable character calls itself Murderbot. It is a sentient security robot who has hacked its governor's module. It's essentially rogue, but still pretends to be the security robot it is expected to be. The scientists it's working for run into a dangerous situation and Murderbot does the best it can to protect them. They, in turn, begin to see Muderbot as more of a person and less of a robot. Murderbot though is extremely shy and introverted, interacting with humans in any meaningful way fills it with anxiety. It would much rather...
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The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

by Carol6 Comments
Apparently I had no idea what The Time Machine was about, aside from the obvious of course. The Time Traveler has invented a machine that can go into the past or travel into the future, but of course his friends, who he has dinner with weekly, don't believe him. However, the next week, he shows up late to his own dinner party looking ragged and disheveled and tells his friends an incredible story of traveling into the distant future. There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a terrifying portrait of the men of tomorrow as well.  He also tells of going even farther and seeing the dying planet. On the one hand, it's an interesting exploration of class and societal evolution. It's the first story to popularize time travel and the image of the dying earth, not the one of the Eloi and Morlocks, but of the...
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