Review: Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh

by Carol12 Comments
Ngaio Marsh is another new discovery for me, thanks again to the Vintage Mystery Challenge. She is one of the four original "Queens of Crime" along with Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Agatha Christie, British authors who dominated the crime fiction genre in the 1920s and 30s. Overture to Death was first published 1939, and is therefore dated, but in a charming way that doesn't detract from the basic mystery, which is as good a cozy as any I've read lately. It's an English Village mystery, where the inspector from Scotland yard is called in to investigate a murder in a small town. There are a limited number of suspects, and everyone in town has their own secrets and motives. In this case, Inspector Alleyn, Marsh's series character, is called to Chipping after a spinster is murdered. The lead-up to the murder is very well-done. A charity play is being planned and all the character, eventually suspects, are involved in it....
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Review: The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Carol12 Comments
First published in 1906, The Man in Lower Ten was apparently the first detective novel to appear on American best seller lists. I have to admit that I had never heard of Mary Roberts Rinehart, the "American Agatha Christise," before this year's Vintage Mystery Challenge, which is a shame. This book is a fun who-dunnit, with some clever, amusing characters. What starts out at as a simple train ride for Lawrence Blakely soon turns disastrous. The attorney-at-law is hand delivering decisive documents in a criminal case, and finds himself on the other side of the law when he is mixed up in a murder. Someone is after Blakely and his papers, and he has to figure out who it is before he's arrested for the killing. There are just so many great pieces in the puzzle. We have a mix up in sleeping compartments, several mysterious women and a missing man, a train wreck, an amusing amateur detective. And of course the...
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Review: The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

by Carol8 Comments
I need to say straight off that I have adored Agatha Christie books since probably junior high. I like all of her series characters for different reasons, but Tommy and Tuppence are pure fun. This is the first book to feature the pair. It takes place just after WW1 and both Tommy and Tuppence are facing rough times. Unemployed, running out of money, they decide to advertise themselves as "Young Adventures," looking for cash and an enjoyable exploit. Their first client works for the British Government and hires them to find a young woman who carries a document that could drastically effect England's future. Of course, the job is fraught with danger, murder, kidnappings and international intrigue. Like most of Christie's books, the plot is good with a convincing red herring. The pair find themselves in quite a few sticky situations, but there's really no doubt that they'll manage to come out on top. This was a reread for me, but it's...
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Review: The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg

by Carol12 Comments
Amber saw me reading this one and said that it must be boring, since it had "princess" in the title. I explained no, it's actually a murder mystery; the Ice Princess is a woman who is found dead in a bathtub filled with frozen water. I guess that made more sense to her, seemed more like something worth reading, since she moved on to telling me about her day. In the story, we quickly learn that the woman, Alex, was actually murdered. Erica, the woman's childhood friend, discovers the body and along with a local police detective, Patrick Hedström, uncover secrets that stretch back over twenty years, secrets someone would do anything to protect, including commit murder. First of all, I have to say the cover is gorgeous. The ice, the shades of blue, the mysterious woman fit the novel perfectly. I have to admit that part of the reason I wanted to read this was the Sweden setting, and I wasn't...
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Review: The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

by Carol17 Comments
Michael Connelly's name has been around a lot lately, with The Lincoln Lawyer movie in theaters and The Fifth Witness coming out soon. I had never read anything by him though, so when I saw that our library had the audio version of The Black Echo available, I decided it was as good a place to start as any. My audio choices tend to be based on what's available rather than what's on my wishlist. It was a great choice. The mystery is solid. Harry Bosch is a detective who has been more or less demoted to the Hollywood Homicide division. He and his partner are on-call when a dead man is found in a drainpipe. Harry doesn't dismiss the death as just another junkie overdose. He knows this man, served with him in the tunnels of Vietnam. Bosch is determined to get to the reason behind his death, but the investigation leads to a more elaborate scheme than he could...
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Short Story Monday: Dolly’s Trash and Treasures by Lawrence Block

by Carol7 Comments
I've read at least one full-length book by Lawrence Block before, one of his Bernie Rhodenbarr series, but I don't remember which one. I also enjoyed his story in the Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop collection, so I expected to like this one too and I wasn't disappointed. The subject of hoarding is popular lately, from tv shows to books. It seems to both fascinate and repel people, and this story is Block's contribution to the phenomena. The story is told in a unique format. It's all dialogue and short passages giving us the inner thoughts of the main character, Dorothy, or Dolly to her friends. In the beginning of the story, two representatives of Child Protective Services show up at Dorothy's door, telling her that the neighbor's are worried about her children. Dorothy explains that her children left, they couldn't stand living with her stuff anymore so they took off, maybe went to live with their father. After seeing the state...
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