Library – Carol's Notebook

The Right Murder by Craig Rice

January 8, 2026January 8, 2026 by Carol1 Comment

The Right Murder was my last read of 2025, which worked well, since the book starts on New Years Eve. Defense lawyer John J. Malone is getting drunk in a bar - no surprise - and missing Jake Justus and Helene Brand, who are on their honeymoon. This is a direct follow-up to The Wrong Murder, in which Mona McClane bets Jake her Casino that she can murder someone in a public places and get away with it. In that book a murder is solved, but Mona was not the killer and she states that they had ‘followed the wrong corpse," so the question of who she killed is still hanging out there. Then a man staggers into the bar, calls for Malone, and falls down dead, stabbed - and we're off. I don't think I'm giving away anything the title doesn't by saying this time the murder is connected to Mona. Before Malone and Chicago Police Captain von Flanagan have...

The Wrong Murder by Craig Rice

January 7, 2026January 7, 2026 by Carol2 Comments

The Wrong Murder is another one that I finished at the end of December. I actually wanted to read #4 in the series, The Right Murder, which opens on New Year's Eve, but all the reviews said to read #3 first, which was the right choice. The Wrong Murder has a self-contained mystery, but it is also the set-up for The Right Murder - and I love those titles. This is also the first of Rice's book I've read. I don't know how I missed her. Jake Justus and Helene Brand have just gotten married and they are at a reception hosted by her father. Everyone is drinking - everyone is always drinking in these books. Jake runs into socialite Mona McClane and she ends up making what seems to be an absurd bet, but both she and Jake take it quite seriously. Mona bets that she can commit a murder in broad daylight with lots of witnesses and get...

The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie

January 6, 2026January 6, 2026 by Carol4 Comments

The Sittaford Mystery is a stand alone that doesn't feature and of Christie's usual characters. The book starts off with a party held in a stately manor in the middle of nowhere during a snow storm. The guests are an interesting mix and they decide to try table-turning, a way of contacting the spirits based on the movements of the table they are all sitting around. The table soon announces that the owner of the house, Captain Trevelyan, who is not present, has been murdered. Everyone assumes it is a joke in very bad taste, but Trevelyan's friend, Major Burnaby, decides he need to walk six miles in the snow to the house Trevelyan is renting, to check on him. Trevelyan has, of course, been murdered. We get a nice mix of amateur and official investigation here. Our amateur sleuth is Emily Trefusis, the fiancée of the man being held for the murder. She is determined and clever. She teams...

The Devil in Oxford by Jess Armstrong

December 22, 2025December 22, 2025 by Carol4 Comments

I love the Ruby Vaughan series. The 1920s setting, the characters, the touch of the paranormal, along with well plotted mysteries, keep me engrossed. This time around Ruby and her employer/father-figure, Mr. Owen, are spending the holidays in Oxford at a a meeting of antiquarians. In addition to her duties for Mr. Owen, Ruby is spending time catching up with an old friend, Leona. When local curiosity museum owner Julius Harker doesn’t show up for a planned presentation of Egyptian artifacts and is instead found murdered, Ruby gets pulled into the investigation. Leona, it seems, was close to both Harker and the man arrested for his murder, his business partner Herr Mueller. The mystery was good enough. We have several possible culprits, and since we didn't know a lot of these cast of side characters from the previous books, we don't know who to trust. Ruan is in town too, at Ruby's (written when drunk) invitation, but his support is of course...

The Mistletoe Murder Club by Katie Marsh

December 19, 2025December 19, 2025 by Carol6 Comments

I picked up The Mistletoe Murder Club, knowing it's the fourth book in the series and I haven't read any of the others. I am a sucker for a Christmas mystery and this one looked fun. The author did a good job of giving enough background without over explaining. Clio, Amber, and Jeanie are a fun team, but maybe rely more on luck and guesses than actual investigating. Clio is in a Christmas pantomime directed by the famous actress, Beatrice Butler. Unfortunately, there is tension among the cast members and Beatrice is not a nice person. When she ends up dead it's not surprising, the question is which one of them was angry enough to kill her. Detective Marco Santini is leading the investigation, but of course the women are determined to solve it. We have plenty of suspects and clues and the twist was decent. I'm not sure I'll bother going back and reading others in the series, but this...

Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis

December 12, 2025December 12, 2025 by Carol1 Comment

Full Speed to a Crash Landing is just a fun little book. When we first meet Ada, she is alone on her ship Glory which has a hole in its side and she has less than an hour of oxygen left in her suit. She knows there's a ship in range to rescue her but they haven't answered her distress call yet. Eventually, the other ship does answer and lets her onboard, but there is plenty of tension. Ada was salvaging a wrecked ship, but the government salvage crew, especially leader Rian, is suspicious and doesn't want her knowing what was onboard the wreck. I listened to the audio. Most of the chapters are from Ada's first person point of view and I felt like the narrator caught her personality well. She's clearly smart and resourceful - she has to be to run a salvage operation on her on. She's also a bit quirky and good at banter. What she isn't is...