My Year in Reading 2022

Well.

On the one hand, this was a fabulous year for reading.  I read 161 books.  I'm not sure I've ever read that many books in one year - at least not since I was a child.  

On the other hand, I read that many books because my mood this year was so low that I didn't want to do anything, including watch TV or even visit with people, for many, many months.  That is not good.  I don't think that even the few people who knew my mood was so low knew how much I was filling my time with reading.  It was a way to keep my brain focused on something other than myself.

So, I'm not really that excited about reading so many books (even though I enjoyed a great many of them) and, hopefully, this year was an aberration and I will not read as many books in 2023.

One of my resolutions last year was to read fewer mysteries and get back to reading more literary fiction.  I tried.  I really tried. I did read more non-mysteries than I did last hear. I hesitate to call it literary fiction because a lot of it didn't seem very literary to me.  But maybe that was just my mood.  But despite my efforts to branch out,  I found I would get into a rut where I would find a mystery series I liked and I would just keep reading it until I ran out of books.  Then I would start a new series.  Sometimes I had two going at once because I often had to wait for books to become available at the library.  The point is that it kept me from having to think too hard about what to read next. 

This year I kept track of where I obtained my books.  116 were books I got from the library - mostly through Libby, the digital reading app.  But some were tangible books I got from the physical library.  I purchased 32 books, mostly digital versions.  The others were books that I 'inherited' - either because people gave them to me after they read them or because they came through a book-of-the-month subscription that my sister had given my mother before she passed away.  Some were books mom had ordered before she died and passed along to me and other were books we ordered to finish out the subscription.  The Book-of-the-Month pile was mostly non-mysteries.   

I'm not going to list every book I read - there are too many.  So if they were in a series, I'll name and describe the series.  But, let's start with some highlights from the "non-mystery " books I read in 2022.  

Fiction

I read a few novels that I enjoyed that featured unique main characters.  Florence Gordon, by Brian Morton, featured a blunt, cantankerous older woman, called by the world a "national treasure" for her work in the feminist movement. She claims that she just wants to be left alone to write but her family is constantly intruding.  Then life throws her a curveball.  Published in 2014, I wondered how I had not heard more about this novel.  Some may find this novel somewhat depressing but I didn't. I really enjoyed it. 

Miss Benson’s Beetle, by Rachel Joyce, was, in many ways, a strange book.  Set in post WWII England, Miss Benson lives alone and has a job she doesn’t particularly like.   So, she sets out on a journey, with an unlikely companion, to New Caledonia in search of a Golden Beetle. Of course, this is really a journey of self-discovery.  Rachel Joyce previously wrote a book called The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which I also remember liking.  She must like writing about journeys.  Despite it's strangeness I liked this book. 

I might be cheating on this next one, because there is a bit of a mystery involved.  But the main story of Once There Were Wolves, by Charlotte McConaghy, is about a woman who is heading up a project to re-introduce wolves into the Scottish Highlands.  The sheep farmers are not happy about this, to say the least.  The woman is fascinating because she has a neurological condition that makes her feel the sensory experiences of living beings she is near – including wolves and people.  The main thing I liked about this novel were the wolves and learning how they think and act.

I wasn’t sure I was up to reading a book about COVID lockdown, but I ended up enjoying The Fell by Sarah Moss.  This is a very short novel.   There are four main characters who live in a small English town in the Peak District:  Kate and her teenage son Matt; Alice their elderly neighbor who is recovering from breast cancer; and Rob, who is a volunteer with the local rescue service.    All of them are stuck during COVID but Kate, who has been exposed to someone with COVID (although she doesn’t seem to have contracted it herself) and Matt are required to quarantine for 14 days.  They can go nowhere except their own garden.  Kate, especially, finds the quarantining difficult and she decides to break quarantine and go for a walk. That, and the aftermath, is the story.   

I finally read all four of the Lucy Barton books by Elizabeth Strout.  I had put these off for years because, although I had liked her novel Olive Kittridge, that one was written in the style of sequential short stories and I don't really like short stories.  I was afraid the Lucy Barton books would be the same. But after enjoying The Fell, I read a review of the latest in the Lucy Barton series:  Lucy by the Sea, which also takes place during COVID lockdown.  So I decided to try the series.  I was blown away.  Her writing is so spare but still descriptive and Lucy is a deceptively simple, but deeply complex, character.  The books are short but thought provoking. I can't recommend this four-book series enough.  The first book is My Name is Lucy Barton. 

In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alverez,  is an older novel, first published in 1994, that I had never read before.   Set in the Dominican Republic in the 1950's and 1960’s, it is the story of the murder of three sisters (called Las Mariposas – the Butterflies) who are involved in a movement to overthrow the Trujillo regime.  This was inspired by a true story of the Mirabal sisters.  Again, this may sound somewhat depressing but I didn't find it so. 

Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead, is the story of Ray Carney, a furniture salesman in 1960’s Harlem, who gets pulled into being a fence for a group of criminals.  This is a surprisingly funny novel involving a cast of kooky and/or incompetent characters.  The character of Ray is a delight. This is the second Whitehead novel I’ve read and I’ve loved his writing style in both.

Optic Nerve, by Maria Gainza tr by Thomas Bunstead, is a novel that by all rights I should not have liked - but I loved it.  The main character, Maria, is an art critic living in Buenos Aires who is telling us a series of stories about her life in which she also discusses her favorite works of art and/or artists.  I don’t usually like to read books in translation because I don’t know if the language is the author’s or the translator’s.  But phrases like this - “Carelessly administered, the history of art can be lethal as strychnine”  - tossed off by the main character as she watches a field trip of youngsters at a museum  - left me in no doubt the language was the author’s.   I also don’t usually like novels that are really collections of short stories about a group of characters. (There are exceptions such as Olive Kittredge.) At first this novel seemed like it was structured that way, but it really wasn’t.  It was more like a collection of New Yorker articles about art in which the author also talks about herself. (You know how New Yorker writers always talk about themselves as much as their subject?  It seems to be an editorial “thing” there.)  If you like learning about art you will like this.  If you don’t, it won’t be for you.

I’m a big Kate Atkinson fan and, while Shrines of Gaiety: A Novel wasn’t my favorite novel of hers, I did enjoy it mostly for the time period and the setting.  The novel is set in London after World War I, when the world just wants to drink and dance the night away in nightclubs and forget the carnage and death of the war and the Spanish Flu.  The “infamous” Nellie Coker runs three or four successful nightclubs but Scotland Yard inspector John Frobisher is sure she is responsible for a series of mysterious deaths of women.  He enlists the aid of Gwendolen Kelling, a former army nurse who has travelled to London from York in search of two girls who have run away.  I did not think the characters were as well drawn as in other Atkinson novels, which was a disappointment, but it did keep my interest until right before the very end.  I thought it fell a little flat at the end. 

The main character in Good Riddance, by Elinor Lippman, is a woman who inherits from her mother, a high school teacher, a 1968 yearbook from that high school.   When she de-clutters it into the garbage it is found by a neighbor who claims to be a filmmaker and wants to make a documentary about the Class of 1968.  This was a comic novel and I’m not big on those.  But it was an enjoyable light read if you are looking for a light read. 

A much better light read is Flying Solo by Linda Holmes.  A woman returns to her hometown to clean out a dead aunt’s house.  Will she rekindle a romance with an old love?  I really enjoyed this even though I found the parts about cleaning out the house after a death somewhat triggering. While it is not a sequel to Linda Holmes' first novel, it is set in the same fictional universe. 

Spoonbenders, by Darryl Gregory, is about a  family, the members of which have special powers.   Or do they?  Maybe they are just con artists.  And what does the government want with them?   Weirdly, this is the second book I’ve read about the CIA wanting to recruit people for their special abilities.  Apparently it really was a "thing" a while back. 

Loveless by Alice Osman, is about Georgia, who is off to university where she tries to figure out her sexuality.  I think this probably falls under YA, but it was well written and thought provoking. 

I had to think long and hard whether to include Ariadne by Jennifer Sant in my "liked" list  but, in the end, I decided to because I really thought it was well written.  I'm just getting tired of the Greek Myth books, having read a number of them in previous years.  This one involved the Minotaur, Theseus and the Gorgon, as well as Ariadne. 

I also read a whole lot of other books in the "non-mystery" category that I thought were just "meh".   I number of them were from the Book-of-the-Month pile, some were given to my by other people or picked by my book club.  I may write a whole post on why I thought they were "meh" for me but might not be for you - if I get enough energy.  Most of them either had structural problems, from my point of view, or were written in the first person point of view by a character I thought was kind of dumb.   I hate being in the head of a dumb person.  Many of the structural problems fell into the "two time period" category.  I love me a two-time period book but the author has to be careful with pacing.  Some of these also were "multiple-points-of-view books" and, again the author has to be careful with pacing.  Too much shifting between time periods and/or characters can mean the flow is interrupted and I put the book down rather than raptly turning the pages. 

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen, and  The Masterpiece and The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis, are all historical fiction that fall into the two-time-period category.  In all three I had trouble keeping momentum going as each chapter shifted to the alternating story lines.  The same was true for Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid,  a two-time-period novel involving surfers in Malibu.  Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho,  had alternating chapters between two good friends, Chinese Americans Fiona and Jane.  It also jumped around in time periods.  The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova - I'm not really sure how to describe this.  It jumped around in time, involved a circus and had magical realism. It just wasn't my cup of tea.  What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster was another novel that jumped around in time periods and points of view.  It involved school integration and racism.  It had what was, I guess, supposed to be a twist at the end but I didn't think it was much of one.  Most of these were in the Book-of-the-month pile but a couple were chosen by my book club. Maybe part of the problem  with all of these books was that I didn't choose them myself so they were never going to be for my anyway. 

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles was well reviewed but I just couldn't get into it. Brothers Emmett and Billy are supposed to be taking the Lincoln Highway west to California, but they end up going east to New York.  I think Mr. Towles and I are just not meant to be. I didn’t like his first novel and didn’t like this one either. I just didn’t care what happened to any of the characters and I found myself irritated, rather than interested, by all of the digressions.  

Matrix by Lauren Groff, sounded promising - a royal orphan in the twelfth century becomes a nun and eventually the head of the abbey which she wants to protect from intruders.  But there was far too much telling and not showing for me. I remember I felt this way about the last Lauren Groff novel I read. 

I thought I would like My Darling Detective by Howard Norman because I thought it would be a straight mystery but it wasn't. It was billed as an "homage" to noir.  But it seemed more like it was making fun of noir.  And I hate being in the minds of stupid people. The only way I got through this was by pretending it was an episode of Fargo. 

Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees was another book with a dumb heroine.  I couldn't feel at all sorry for her when bad things happened.  The concept of the book was promising - a woman sent to uncover a network of spies and war criminals in Germany after WWII.  Secret information is coded in recipes sent in letters.  But it just didn't pan out for me. 

Then there were the books that I flat out disliked, starting with  The Cactus League by Emily Nemens. How on earth did this book get good reviews?  This is a baseball book with next to no baseball. The characters are all stereotypes, and all dislikeable.  The author didn’t seem to like baseball at all.  (It didn’t help that it was like a series of interlinked short stories, which I generally don’t like.)   One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle is a lightweight novel about a woman who takes a trip to Italy after her mother dies, with a “magical” element.  I just never believed the "magical" element.  The Body in Question, by Jill Ciment, is about two people on jury duty who have an affair.  The best thing I can say about it was that it was short.   Finally, there is Avalon by Nell Zink.  Brandy, the main character, looks like Audrey Hepburn with poor grooming.  She lives with a common-law stepfather who runs a nursery and his strange family (hence, all the dirt she's exposed to).  This novel is supposed to be funny but I thought it was just dumb. 

I'm going to end with Trust by Hernan Diaz, which ended up on a whole lot of "best books of 2022" lists.  I have no idea why.  The writing struck me as, at best, pedestrian.  The big "reveal" at the end of the book wasn't much of a reveal and the characters were all poorly developed. It was the last book I finished in 2022 and it might be my least favorite book of 2022 if only because it was so hyped and ended up being such a disappointment. 

Non-Fiction

I'm not a big reader of non-fiction, probably because my work days are spent reading non-fiction.  Some years I read almost no non-fiction.  This year I read a little more than usual.

One of my absolute favorite books I read this year was Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers .  Mary Rodgers wrote the music for Once Upon a Mattress.  She also wrote young people books including the Freaky Friday series.  She was the assistant producer of Leonard Bernstein's young people concerts.  She was the chairman of the board of Julliard.  She was married twice and had six children, one of whom died and one of whom is composer Adam Guettel who won a Tony for Light in the Piazza.  She was close friends with Stephen Sondheim.  And she was the daughter of  Richard Rodgers.  She knew everyone.  And she was willing to dish on them in this memoir.  If you like musical theater, you will like this book. 

Congratulations, By the Way by George Saunders, is a short meditation on kindness adapted from a graduation speech he gave. 

At the beginning of the year, after my dad died I read  The Grief Handbook by Bridget McNulty, which was helpful.   But Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, about her father’s sudden death was almost too much for me and I cried through it.  But I'm glad I read it. Beautiful. 

Living With A Dead Language: My Romance With Latin by Ann Patty, made me want to take Latin again. Well, not really. But I liked reading about her Latin journey.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang, I didn't care for.  A memoir about being a Chinese girl brought to this country by her parents illegally as a child.  I thought the prose was uninteresting. It was in the "Book of the Month" pile.  

 Poetry

 I was not very successful with poetry this year.   I'm still working my way through a couple of books of poems I bought but the ones I finished didn't do much for me.   I usually love Billy Collins, but Whale Day and Other Poems was only ok.  There wasn't a single poem in the collection that spoke to me.  I also read Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan and it was not a success with me. The blurb said “exacting clarity”. They must have been reading something else. Then there was  Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong which I heard about on NPR.  I found the topics of the poems were not things I wanted to spend time on this year.   So I can't recommend any of them. 

 Stand Alone Mysteries

The vast majority of the books I read this year fell into the mystery category.  As I said, I would find a series I enjoyed and would just keep reading until there were no more books in the series. Sometimes, a series that I've read in the past would pop out a new book this year that I would read.   

But before we get into series, I did read a few "stand alone" mysteries.  

The Violin Conspiracy, by Brendan Slocumb, was well reviewed (I actually wasn't sure if this went in the Non-Mystery general Fiction category but it IS a mystery).  But I guessed who stole the Stradivarius in the first 20 pages.  It’s also a little bit preachy.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek.  The main character is a Chinese American woman who works for an odd agency that verifies that the people you are matched with on dating apps are who they say they are.   This was a first novel and I thought it was good.  I really liked all the literary allusions she sprinkled through the book.  “That man is harder to read than Finnigan’s Wake “  Again, I wasn't sure whether to classify this as a mystery or just fiction - but it IS a mystery.  I suspect there may be sequels in the future. 

 In The Murder of Mr. Wickham, by Claudia Gray, all the Jane Austen couples are involved in a country house murder. I thought it was delightful but I suspect your enjoyment depends on if you have read all of Jane Austen's books (or at least seen the movies.)  This was a pick by my book club and I think we all liked it. 

 A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham was in the "Book of the Month" pile and I liked it because it was a good mystery even though there was a serial killer (which I usually don't like).  The main character's father was arrested years ago for being a serial killer and now another one is on the loose. 

I’m a big Louise Penny fan but I was doubtful that she and Hillary Clinton could pull off writing a thriller together. I was surprised how much I enjoyed State of Terror . She had me on the edge of my seat at times. Good characters.  Good plot.

 In a Place of Fear by Catriona Mcpherson.  I’ve read other Catriona McPherson books but this was a stand-alone murder mystery set in Edinburgh after WWII that is also an homage to the British National Health Service. I quite enjoyed it. (I started her book Scot Free and it was the only book that I DNFd this year.  Again, satire, farce, comic novels are not for me. )

Mystery Series

Here is where I am not going to list every book I read in a series.  The mysteries I enjoy the most are in the historical category and there isn't a lot of blood and gore in any of them.  So buckle in, there are a lot to go through this year.

For the last few years I have really enjoyed mysteries set on the Asian sub-continent.  This year I found a new series thanks to my friend Izzy who recommended it at the beginning of the year: The Baby Ganesh Agency Investigation Series by Vaseem Khan.   Ashwin Chopra, a recently retired Bombay police inspector, is getting on the nerves of his wife.  On the other hand, he was forced to retire because of a serious heart attack so she doesn’t want him to do anything too strenuous.   This doesn’t stop him from investigating a series of crimes.  With him is Ganesha, a baby elephant who arrives one day as a gift.  Is the elephant the reincarnation of Chopra’s uncle?  He is certainly a smart elephant.  I loved this series.   I’ve read the first four so far.  Can't wait for a new one to come out. 

The Bangalore Detective’s Club, by Harini Nagendra., is set in 1919 Bangalore but the characters seemed a little too modern for 1919.   And the mystery was convoluted. I think there are sequels but I haven't read them.   I would consider reading them ... maybe. 

The Harriet Gordon Mysteries, by A.M. Stuart, are set in Colonial Singapore in the early 20^th century.  Harriet is hoping to make a new life for herself.  Wanting to be somewhat independent of her brother, she advertises her services as a personal secretary.  This seemed like a good idea until her employer is murdered.  But she teams up with Inspector Robert Curran to solve it and that leads to other mysteries to solve.  I’ve read the three that are out so far and each one is better than the last. 

One of my favorite series is the Sebastien St. Cyr series by C.S. Harris.   Her "detective" is an aristocratic nobleman in Regency England.  This year a new book, When Blood Lies,  was released. The switch of venue to Paris was a surprise and  interesting but I really want the story to go back to England.  This one had a  little too much narrative for my liking. But still enjoyable. I highly recommend this series. 

Because I like that series so much I'm constantly trying series set in the same or similar time periods. The Lady Darcy Mysteries by Anna Lee Huber. are set a little bit later (1830's) but are enjoyable.  Lady Darcy is an artist with a scandalous past that involved illustrating a human anatomy book (against her will, I might add).  This anatomy knowledge gives her an advantage at crime solving.  And solve crimes she does.  I like this series but not as much as the St. Cyr series.    This year I worked my way through all 10 (plus a short story included in a book of short stories) that have been released so far.  

Set in a later period (Victorian), the Veronica Speedwell series has been highly recommended to me.  So I read the first book in this series,  A Curious Beginning, and I found Veronica so annoying that I don't think I will continue.  

I also discovered in the last few years that I like mysteries where there are dogs involved.  The Mercy Carr mysteries by Paula Munier is a favorite.  Former Army MP, Mercy, and former military bomb sniffing dog Elvis solve crimes with the help of  US Game Warden Troy and his dog Susie Bear.  The latest installment,  The Wedding Plot , was released this year. If you like dogs and you like mysteries, I think you will like this series. 

Since I had so much success with Mercy and Elvis I started looking for other dog mysteries.  I found The Mattie Cobb and Police Dog Robo Mysteries by Margaret Mizushima, which I did enjoy.   Mattie is new at working with a police dog but she was chosen by her police force to be the one to train with him.  The town paid for him because they think they have a drug problem.   I read all of them (7)  so far.  The only thing I dislike about this series is how all of Matties' friends and loved ones are always at the center of the danger.  That's just not realistic. 

Since I was on a dog mystery roll, I also tried The Scent of Murder by Kylie Logan.   It features a main character who is a cadaver dog trainer.  My opinion:  not enough dog.   I don't think I'll read more.

 Then there is the FBI K-9 Series by Sara Driscoll.   This is a decent series featuring FBI agents with trained search dogs.  I read all of them (7) this year and enjoyed them until the last one was released this fall.  Still Waters is supposedly set in the Boundary Waters but you'd never know it from the descriptions.  The main character, who is supposedly from Virginia where she would not often see the Northern Lights, sees them one evening and basically shrugs.  I know I'm being picky because I know that area well.   The other thing that drives me crazy about this series is that the dialog doesn't sound anything the way people actually talk.  People don't talk in narrative.   But the story lines are good and I like the dogs. 

Speaking of the Boundary Waters and Northern Minnesota, I read Leave No Trace by Mindy Mejia.  This was a mystery supposedly set in the Boundary Waters , but the characters almost never leave Duluth.  On the whole, disappointing.

If you want good mysteries set in the Boundary Waters (mostly) you should read William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor mysteries.  I got hooked on them in 2021 and read them all.  Then I discovered that a number of people I vacation with in Minnesota are also hooked on them.    Fox Creek  was released this year and it takes place almost completely in the Boundary Waters.  I really enjoyed it. (But is it reasonable to expect Henry to live forever?  Those who have read know what I'm talking about.)

The outdoor adventures of the William Kent Krueger mysteries and the Paula Munier mysteries led me to the Joe Pickett mysteries by CJ Box which take place in the mountains of Wyoming.  There are a LOT of books in this series (22 so far!) and I worked my way through all of them.  I'm convinced the only reason Joe is still alive is because the author won't kill him - he gets himself in the most dangerous situations where he really ought to be dead.  And there is another character that acts as a sort of deus ex machina to save Joe on a regular basis.  He is completely unrealistic.   But I just shrug and keep on reading because these are real page turners.  I've heard  the series has been made into a TV series on Paramount Plus.  When I subscribe for a few months to watch Star Trek this year, I'll try that out. 

Another one of my favorite series is the Inspector Rutledge series by Charles Todd.  I've been reading these for years.  Rutledge is a Scotland Yard detective who has PTSD from his service in WWI.  A Game of Fear was released this year and I think it is the best one in a while. It involved a country house and an airfield and a woman who claims to have seen a violent murder but there is no body.  And the killer is someone who supposedly died in the war.  It all hung together and was quite suspenseful. Charles Todd was really a mother/son writing team and the mother died this year.  I hope the son keeps writing these.

WWI and the time immediately after is a period I like to read about.  This year I discovered the Verity Kent Mysteries by Anna Lee Huber who also writes the Lady Darcy series .   I think I like this series even better than the Lady Darcy series  The heroine worked for the military secret service during the War but cannot tell anyone.  The first book has a twist I never saw coming.  I read all six that are out so far this year. I don't like them QUITE as much as the Inspector Rutledge mysteries, but they come a close second.  

A series that started in WWI but has now moved to WWII is the Maisie Dobbs series, by Jacqueline Winspear, which I've been reading for years.  This year the 17th mystery,  A Sunlit Weapon, was released.   I hadn't cared much for the last few in the series but I liked this one a lot.  It involved women pilots helping in the war effort, something I hadn't known anything about before. 

Before I get to mysteries set in more modern times, I have to mention Lindsey Davis' Flavia Albia series set in Ancient Rome. I was a big fan of her Marcus Didius Falco series and I liked the first few in the Flavia Albia series.  But  I didn't like the last few in the series because I thought there was too much narrative.  The latest, Desperate Undertaking, released this year, was much better.  

Elly Griffiths writes the  Ruth Galloway mysteries which take place in Norfolk and feature a woman archaeologist.   The Locked Room is the latest in the series.  It takes place during pandemic lockdown and part of it involves a cemetery of plague victims.  I liked it but it was somewhat triggering (unlike The Fell and Lucy by the Sea). I realized this year that she also writes two other mystery series.  One is The Brighton Mysteries. These are set in Brighton in the 1950’s and 1960’s and involve a magician who helps solve the mysteries.  I really liked this series. I read six, which I think are all of them so far.  She also writes The Harbinder Kauer mysteries.  I knew she had a stand alone mystery named  Stranger Diaries  and I finally read it.  It was a modern gothic story and I didn’t guess the end.  But she followed it up with  The Postscript Murders.  Did the woman in the retirement home, who acted as a "murder consultant", die of natural causes or not?  This fall Bleeding Heart Yard was released making clear that she intends to continue with Harbinder Kauer as a detective series. (As an aside, after I discovered all these Elly Griffiths novels I also discovered that she wrote three novels under her own name, Domenica De Rosa.  I read one -  The Eternal City which is a quasi romance set in Rome.  Meh.  I should have put this above under the "meh" novels.) 

An oddly delightful mystery I discovered this year was The Windsor Knot by SJ Bennett.  The premise is that Queen Elizabeth II was good at solving mysteries.  But, of course, one can’t be seen to solve mysteries.  When there is a murder at Windsor Castle the Queen must get to the bottom of it.  This is a QEII in her late 80’s.  Phillip is still alive.   I was somewhat doubtful of the premise, but it was really enjoyable.   I think there are 2 more in this series and I might look them up.

I read a number of other odd mysteries - or maybe they were standard mysteries featuring odd characters.  The Fiona Griffiths Series by Harry Bingham is set in Cardiff Wales and Fiona is … intense.  She has few social skills but good analytical skills and intuition.   I’ve read two of the books.  Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T.A. Willberg  is a decent but weird mystery about an underground (literally) detective agency.  I don't know if this is a series.  The main characters in Murder in Thrall, by Anne Cleeland, are Kathleen Doyle and Michael Sinclair, a/k/a Lord Acton.  They are a VERY strange pair.  He is the main detective and her boss.  This is a series but I don’t know if I’ll read more than the one that I finished.  Wicked Autumn by GM Malliet, was the first in a series about a former MI 5 agent turned priest.   It didn’t make me want to read any more.   The Lacey Flint Mysteries by Sharon J. Bolton (S.J. Bolton)  feature Detective Constable Lacey Flint who solves mysteries but has her own mysteries in her past that she tries to keep hidden.  Not my favorite series but I'll  probably keep at it.  I've read the first four. 

A couple of years ago I watched Shetland when it was available on Netflix and I wondered why I hadn't read any of Ann Cleeves' mysteries.  This year I got around to it.  The Shetland series involves crimes that take place in The Shetland Islands which are part of Scotland but FAR off the coast.  Very isolated.   The library only had two of that series available digitally so, after I read those, I switched to her new series - The Matthew Venn Mysteries.  Matthew is a police detective who lives with his partner in the West Country of England.  He is estranged from his fundamentalist Christian family both because he rejected their church and because he is gay.   It's a good series. I've read both of the novels and the short story she released.   Then I started on The Vera Stanhope Mysteries.  This has been made into a long running TV series (which I just started watching).   Vera is a brilliant detective who has many personal problems, many stemming from her upbringing by her law-breaking deceased father.   I've read all 12  of them at this point including the one that was released this year, The Rising Tide, that had a shocker of an ending.  

The latest in the Thursday Murder Club Mysteries by Richard Osman was released:   The Bullet that Missed .   Our intrepid pensioners who solve cold cases look into the death of a television reporter. Why this hasn't been picked up for a television series is beyond me. 

It seems clear that editors are now looking for Richard Osman type mysteries with old people.   The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood fits that bill. Judith, Susie and Becks help a detective sergeant solve three murders.  This is supposed to be a new series.  It was fine and I’d probably read another but I wasn’t blown away by it.

The Secret, Book and Scone Society by Ellery Adams is the first book in a series.  I considered it a palate cleansing cozy mystery. The main character is a small town North Carolina  book shop owner who is a burn survivor.  The plot involved real estate development, which isn't inherently exciting.  But it worked as a cozy mystery.  I don't know that I'll read any more in the series.

Circle of Influence by Annette Dashofy.   The main character is a Pennsylvania EMT whose friend is killed.  This is the first book in a series and I enjoyed it.   I’ll probably read others.

Elizabeth George came out with a new book in her Lynley/Havers series:  Something to Hide .  I remember enjoying this when I read it but months later I can’t remember what it was about.

Murder at the Porte de Versailles is the latest in Cara Black's Aimee Leduc series. It was good as usual although I guessed the murderer very early. And did I miss it or didn't she tell us what happened to the cute basset hound Sami? 

I ended the year with the new Inspector Gamache book by Louise Penny, A World of Curiosities.  It was a little more "normal" than last year's installment, although I truthfully found the main plot element hard to believe.  I'd like him to go back to solving ordinary mysteries. 

That's it for 2022.    As I said, I hope NOT to read as many books next year.  And, again, I want to read more non-mysteries.   But since I plan to start out the new year with the latest Ian Rankin mystery, we'll see how that goes. 

 

A Year in Reading 2021

It's that time of year again, time to tally up the books I read in 2021.  In 2020 I read 77 books and in 2021 I read a total of 79 books:  53 mysteries,  20 "regular" fiction, 4 non-fiction and 3 re-reads as part of the Lymond Bookclub.

I had good intentions for 2021 to blog quarterly about the books I read.  I only managed to do it for the first quarter.   Click the link if you want to read that post where I write a little bit more than in this post about the books I read.

In the coming year I'd like to get back to reading more "regular" fiction.  I love mysteries but hopefully I won't need as much comfort reading in 2022.

On to the books ... 

Mysteries 

Mysteries continue to be my favorite genre writing.  They provide a good escape for me and are usually a fast read.  I particularly like a good mystery series because it is often like revisiting old friends.  In 2021, there were a number of new books I read that were parts of a continuing series I had started in the past.  That was fun.  I also discovered a number of new series that I plan to keep up with in the future. 

I've broken them down by "Continuing Series" and "New Series" below. 

Mysteries -  Continuing Series

One of my favorite series writers, Charles Todd, provided me with three books this year.  Charles Todd is the name of a mother-son writing duo.  They write two different series set in the same "universe" - England during and after the First World War.  The Inspector Rutledge series starts immediately after the War.  The detective is a Scotland Yard detective who is trying to hide his PTSD.  The Bess Crawford series has, up until now, taken place during the War where Bess has worked as a nurse in a field hospital.  She's an amateur detective in the classic sense - cases just fall into her lap.  That series has now progressed past the end of the War and Bess needs to figure out what to do with her life. I really like both series but, on the whole, prefer the Inspector Rutledge series. Unfortunately, I learned at the end of the year that the mother in the writing duo passed away this year.  I hope the son can continue both series.

• A Hanging at Dawn: A Bess Crawford Short Story .  I'm not much for short stories but I like Charles Todd so I read this.  We finally get to learn why Simon worships Bess’s mother.  The story wasn't enough to support a novel but I would have preferred that it had been included in a novel.
• A Fatal Lie.  This was an Inspector Rutledge mystery involving murder on an aquaduct in the north of England and a missing child.  Unlike other Charles Todd books, I felt like they didn't really know how to end this one.  The mystery was solved but there was a (human) thread hanging at the end.   Maybe it will get wrapped up in a future book.
• An Irish Hostage.  Bess Crawford goes to a wedding in Ireland.  I liked the change of scenery (Bess has mostly been in France on the Western Front as a nurse or at home in England). I also am hopeful that Bess's personal story will move forward now that the war is over. 

I also was fortunate that I was able to read two (!) further installments in Amy Stewart's Miss Kopp series.  This series is also set in the general World War I era, but this time in the United States.  Stewart has based the series on some real sisters who lived during that time and at the end of each book she tells you what was based on fact and what she had to make up.

• Dear Miss Kopp.  WWI is ongoing and Norma is in France with her pigeons, making a friend called Aggie and solving a mystery. Constance is working for "the Bureau" and Fleurette is entertaining the troops stateside and acquiring a parrot.  A lot of this book is epistolary - and I always enjoy epistolary novels. 
• Miss Kopp Investigates.  The War is over and Norma is now home.  But in this book Fleurette takes front and center stage as the investigator - which was a surprise.  At first I didn't know if I liked that idea, but I did warm to it. 

Tana French released a new book this year:  The Searcher.   This time she moved away from Dublin and the murder squad and set the story in western Ireland.  The main character was an American ex cop. It wasn't much of a mystery - I guessed who did it immediately.  But the real mystery to me is:  Why would anyone want to live in western Ireland?  Even though I didn't think much of the mystery she is such an excellent writer that I do recommend it. 

I had previously read two mysteries in a series by Abir Mukharjee, set in India and I enjoyed them.  This year I searched out other books in the series.  The series is known as the Wyndham/Banerjee series and is set during the 1920's in India during the British Raj.  Wyndham is a hard bitten English policeman (although I always hear Humphrey Bogart's voice in my head) and Banerjee is his Indian associate.  I enjoy this series although each book takes a while to get going.  The three that I read this year are: 

• Smoke and Ashes.
• Death in the East.
• The Shadows of Men. 

Last year my find of the year was CS Harris and her Sebastien St. Cyr mysteries.  (I highly recommend that series.)  She had a new one out this year:  What the Devil Knows.  It was just as good as the rest of the series and had an ending that has left me wondering how it will be explained in the next book.  I can't recommend this series enough.

I've been reading a series by Andrew Taylor set during the Restoration in England (a period I don't know much about) called the Marwood and Lovett Series.  Marwood is the man and he works for the government.  Lovett is a woman and she is (surprisingly) an architect.  The great fire of London has recently destroyed the city but of course the male architects get most of that work.  A new installment was released this year:  The Royal Secret. I continue to enjoy learning about the period, but also continue to think this author doesn’t understand women very well.  But I recommend the series anyway. 

One of my favorite series is Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series.  This year's installment was The Consequences of Fear.   I’m not much into WWII, but I liked the behind-the-scenes look at war intelligence. And the murder mystery was good.  I just wish she had kept Maisie in the 1920s. 

What a delight it was was when I discovered there was another Phryne Fisher mystery.  I thought Kerry Greenwood had given up writing them.  Death in Daylesford is the latest and she hasn't lost her touch.  The books are slightly different than the television series but just as enjoyable. 

Elly Griffiths published another installment in the Ruth Galloway series:  The Night Hawks.  I was a little worried because I was starting to get tired of Ruth always having to be "saved" (most of the time against her will, but still .... ) But Elly Griffiths went in another direction this time.  Thankfully. 

Catriona McPherson released another in the Dandy Gilver series: The Mirror Dance.  This one had a death involving a Punch and Judy show.  These are very light, cozy mysteries set in Scotland.   I like the location so I keep reading them. 

I read the latest Lindsey Davis Flavia Albia book A Comedy of Terrors.  I'm a long term fan of Lindsey Davis and her Roman mysteries but the last few have mostly fallen flat for me.  This one was slightly better but the plot was confusing.   I continue to like Flavia Albia, and love the setting, but wish she moved the plot a little more slowly.  She's also developed a habit of telling and not showing that I find off putting.  

I felt a bit of the same ambivalence about Louise Penny's latest Gamache novel:  The Madness of Crowds.  Part of the problem is that she acknowledges the pandemic and the year of lockdown in the novel but the book assumes that now everything is back to normal.  And it isn't.  And the premise was a little far fetched (although in this day and age, nothing is really far fetched I guess.)  But I did love that she mentioned Olive and Mabel (see below).  And it was nice to visit Three Pines again. 

One of my favorite series last year was by Alis Hawkins.  It is set in Wales and involving a partially blind coroner named Harry Probert-Lloyd.   I read the latest this year:  Not One of Us.   I enjoyed it as much as the others in the series. 

Finally, I had previously tried a couple of books by Alex Grecian in his murder squad series.  I couldn't remember why I hadn't continued reading this series.  But after reading two more,  I found that I just don't enjoy his style and I don't plan to read any more: 

• The Black Country
• The Devil’s Workshop

Mysteries - New Series. 

Some of the most enjoyable books I read this year were by Richard Osman.  They are set in a British retirement community where senior citizens entertain themselves by trying to solve cold cases.  When a real mystery presents itself, they are in heaven.  And the local constabulary has to admit they are pretty good at it.  If these books haven't already been optioned to provide a television series for Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nye and the rest of the elderly British acting community, I don't know why.  So far two have been written and I recommend them both (but read them in order): 

• The Thursday Murder Club.
• The Man Who Died Twice.

I so enjoyed the Abir Mukharjee series (see above) that I was delighted to find another series set in India in the 1920's, this time by Sujata Massey.    The lead detective is a woman solicitor - the first woman solicitor in India.  This gives her access to some of the secluded Indian women who won't meet with men but need an investigator.  There are currently three in the series and I read them all:

• The Widows of Malabar Hill.
• The Satapur Moonstone.
• The Bombay Prince  

The "biggest" author I discovered this year in terms of the number of his books that I read is William Kent Krueger.  I am somewhat ambivalent about the books.  I LOVE that they are set up near the boundary waters in Minnesota, an area I am very familiar with.  I generally like the characters and the plots are pretty good.  But he does rely a bit too much on the "magic Indian' meme and that bothers me. Also, I sometimes feel the characters are in service of the plot rather than the plot revealing character.  But that didn't stop me from reading all the books in his Cork O'Connor mystery series through the summer and really enjoying the setting:

• Iron Lake 
• Boundary Waters 
• Purgatory Ridge
• Blood Hollow
• Mercy Falls
• Copper River
• Thunder Bay
• Red Knife
• Heaven’s Keep
• Vermillion Drift
• Northwest Angle 
• Trickster’s Point 
• Tamarack County
• Windigo Island
• Manitou Canyon
• Sulfur Springs
• Desolation Mountain
• Lightning Strike

In addition, to the Cork O'Conner series, he wrote a stand alone book that I also read:  This Tender Land.  This involved an Indian School and  Huck Finn-like trip down the Mississippi from Minnesota to St. Louis.  

I enjoy the CS Harris Sebastien St. Cyr series so much (see above) that I was thrilled to discover another series set in the same general time period.  This one is known as the Wrexford and Quill series and is by Andrea Penrose.  They aren't quite as good as the Sebastian St. Cyr series but they are still very enjoyable.

•  Murder on Black Swan Lane
• Murder at Half-Moon Gate
• Murder at Kensington Palace
• Murder at Queen’s Landing
• Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens

Another great find for me this year was Paula Munier's Mercy Carr series.  Mercy is a former soldier home with PTSD.  Her dog Elvis,  a former bomb sniffing dog, also has PTSD.  But they team up with Troy Warner, a US fish and game warden, and his dog Suzie Bear to solve some crimes.  The location is the Vermont woods.  So many parts of these books made me smile - especially the dogs. 

• A Borrowing of Bones
• Blind Search
• The Hiding Place

The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor was a book I read for my book club.  We had a good discussion about it.  I see that it is a series (?) which somewhat surprises me.  I liked the writer's style. So I would definitely read something else by her. 

Nonfiction

In recent years I have not read much non-fiction.  This year I read only four:

• Olive, Mabel & Me by Andrew Cotter.  The dogs that got us through lockdown.
• I Want to be Where the Normal People Are by Rachel Bloom.  I'm a Rachel Bloom fan and I could hear her voice as I read (although this is one of the few books I've ever read where I thought maybe I would have enjoyed the audio book.) 
• Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.    Good anecdotes. Good metaphors. Non-rigorous in its arguments. Same annoying style as her last book.  Not sorry I read it. 
• Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown.  I always think there is going to be more to the Brene Brown books than there ends up being.  But a lot of food for thought in it. 

General Fiction

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin.  This was a book club pick and a re-read for me. Good as usual.

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder.   This was also a re-read.  This is a YA book (although I don't think the term "YA" existed back when it was written.)  I enjoyed this book very much when I was middle school age.   I enjoyed it just as much as an adult.  If you have middle school aged kids you should pick it up. 

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. By Charles Mackesy.   This was a Christmas gift last year.  A lovely little book that was just what I needed at the beginning of the year. 

The Blue by Nancy Bilyeau.  Set in the 1700's and involving the making of porcelain with blue designs (apparently something very difficult at the time).  Lots of exposition about porcelain and blue. The first person narration required that the heroine be somewhat dumb - which I found annoying.  I was really looking forward to reading this book and was disappointed I did not like it more. 

Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. A weird book involving a strange family, a strange  house, and ... fungus.  I thought it didn't really hang together. 

Outlawed by Anna North.  An alternate history of the Hole in the Wall Gang. Not really the type of story I'm usually interested in, but I enjoyed it. 

The Narrowboat Summer by Anne Youngson. Delightful little story about two strangers who help an older woman by taking her narrowboat from London to Chester in Wales for repair while she undergoes cancer treatment. 

Before we Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.  I had a hard time getting into this book mostly because it takes place in two different time periods. The story was interesting but I kept getting pulled out of it when the time period would switch. 

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel.  Because it was about Colombia which I have visited I was interested in reading it.  But I didn’t like the writing  style:  There was a lot of telling, not showing. But much food for thought about immigrants. 

Dream Girl by Laura Lipmann.   Kind of a new take on Stephen King's Misery. Laura Lippman and I must be about the same age because I always recognize cultural things from my past in her books.   I always enjoy her books and this one was no different. 

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner.  Another time switching story.   I thought the premise that a shop from hundreds of years ago could be found intact in modern London was absurd.  

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.   I found this book to be soooo boring. Unions strikes; unpleasant people. Is there a different Elizabeth Gaskell book I should read? 

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. One of my favorite books of the year.  Shakespeare really did have a son named Hamnet who died.  Did that affect his writing of Hamlet - a play about fathers and sons?  And who was Anne Hathaway, really?  This novel tries to answer those questions.  I thought the writing was beautiful and the characterizations were also beautiful.  The plot moves slowly so if you need a lot of plot you may not like it.  

The Appraisal by Anna Porter.  This was a thriller involving the appraisal of art.  The fact that I don't remember much about it should tell you something. 

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P Manansala.  I should probably have put this with mysteries.  It was light reading.  A good "pool" read - if I went to the pool.  Kind of a mix of a rom-com and a mystery.  Involves lots of food.   Don't read it when you are hungry. 

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant.  This was a coming of age story about a Jewish girl in Boston in the early 20th century. The elderly woman is telling her story to her granddaughter.  I enjoyed this. 

 The Horseman by Tim Pears.  This book has been in my NOOK for a number of years so I finally read it.  It is a first book in a trilogy.   The story of a young boy living on an estate with his family and how he is responsible for them being banished. The prose is spare but the imagery is dense.  Despite that,  I don't think I'll read the other books.  

Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer.  This was a big surprise to me.  I didn't expect to enjoy it so much.  The main character has Aspergers and wants to learn anatomy to understand why his dad died but in the end solves the mystery of the death of the cadaver his group is working on.  Again, maybe I should have listed this as a mystery.  I recommend this.  

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.  The very best book I read this year  - so good I want to re-read it.   It is a ghost story, a story of the pandemic, a story about how hard it is to run a book shop, a story about the George Floyd protests and much more.  Louise Erdrich is one of my favorite authors and she did not disappoint this time. 

The Lymond Book Club

One of the best things that happened during the pandemic was a YouTube series called The Lymond Book Club - a group of three friends who were slowly reading and discussing The Lymond Chronicles.  I read along with them:

• The Disorderly Knights 
• Pawn in Frankincense
• The Ringed Castle

Although I listened to the discussion of Checkmate, I was too busy to read along (to my chagrin).  I hope they come back and discuss King Hereafter. 

First Quarter Reading

 Last year my resolution was to blog monthly about my reading but in the end I just did an end-of-year summary.  This year I made no resolutions.  But since I have time I thought I would do a first quarter summary of my reading.  

JANUARY

January started out slow.  I only read 3 1/2 books and two of them were really short:  2 mysteries, 1 memoir (?) and the half book was historical fiction.   I spent most of January in a fog, mostly watching TV in my free time.  (See my blog post about January TV watching.)

The January books I read were:

        A Hanging at Dawn: A Bess Crawford Short Story by Charles Todd. In this short story (which is actually kind of long) we finally get to learn why Simon worships Bess’s mother. I don’t really like short stories and this had all the shortcomings of one.  Just not enough there for me.  Recommended only if you are reading the series.

        Dear Miss Kopp by Amy Stewart.  A continuation of the wonderful Miss Kopp series.  WWI is ongoing and Norma is in France with her pigeons, making a friend called Aggie and solving a mystery. Constance is working for the Bureau and Fleurette is entertaining the troops stateside and acquiring a parrot.  I love epistolary novels and liked that she tried that with this book.  Recommended but read the whole series. 

        The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett.  I've been re-reading the Lymond Chronicles with The Lymond Book Club on Youtube.  In January they and I finished the reread of this third book in the series.   The entire series is HIGHLY recommended but you have to start from the beginning. 

        Olive, Mabel & Me by Andrew Cotter.  A memoir about Dogs. If you haven't caught their videos on YouTube you are missing something.  Recommended if you like dogs.  ️ 

    

FEBRUARY 

In February I read six books and a couple of them were quite long:  1 Classic, 2 mysteries, 1 memoir, 1 young adult/children's book and 1 non-fiction book. 

        

        Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin.  This was actually the pick by my book group to read for January and I started it in January but only finished half in time for the Zoom meeting.   But I'd read it before.  Multiple times.  I decided to finish it in February just because I always enjoy it.  Always recommended. 

        The Searcher by Tana French. I generally like Tana French's crime novels.  This one was a bit different, it didn't involve the London Murder Squad and was set on the western side of Ireland not the eastern side.  The main character was an  American ex cop. I actually guessed who did it immediately.  But the real question is:  Why would anyone want to move to western Ireland if they weren't at least of Irish heritage?   I've been there.  I'm of Irish heritage and I didn't want to live there.   Recommended because of her writing style. 

        A Fatal Lie by Charles Todd.  This was the new Inspector Rutledge mystery.  The murder involved a famous aquaduct (I googled it) and a missing child. I mostly liked it but felt like they didn’t know how to end the part with the child.   Maybe the child will return in a future novel. But the "Plan B" of farming the kid out to friends was daft.  Melinda is too old to take it and how can he push it off on Scottish friends.  Recommended with reservations. 

        I Want to be Where the Normal People Are by Rachel Bloom.  I got this book for Christmas.  I really enjoy Rachel Bloom and I could hear her voice as I read it.  I did think that maybe I would have enjoyed it even more if I had listened to the audio book.   Recommended only if you like Rachel Bloom. 

        Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.    Where to start?   Not as good as her previous book.  Good anecdotes. Good metaphors. But non-rigorous in its arguments. Very repetitive.  And the same annoying style as her last book.  I listened to the audiobook version of this so I could listen as I did other things.  If I had been reading it in book form I doubt I would have finished it.  Not recommended. 

        The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder.   Ok, ok, it's a kid's book.  But I was cleaning out my book shelves and came across it, started to read it and couldn't put it down.  If you know any girls in middle school it's a great book to give as a gift.  Recommended if you are at least middle school aged. 

MARCH

March was my best month for reading, I read 15 books:  10 mysteries, 2 historical novels, 1 alternate history historical novel, 1 gothic novel, 1 fable (?) 

        The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse   by Charles Mackesy.   Another Christmas gift.  Hard to describe.  A fable (?) with hand drawn illustrations.  It was actually just what I needed.  Very comforting.  Recommended if only for the illustrations. 

        The Blue by Nancy Bilyeau.  A novel set in the 1700s that involves the mania for collecting porcelain and the search for a perfect blue color. Lots of exposition about porcelain and blue. Because it was told in first person narration it required the heroine to be a bit dumb which was annoying.  I learned a lot about porcelain but didn't really enjoy it.  Not recommended. 

        Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukharjee. This is the 3d book in a series set in India in the 1920's involving a drug addicted white Raj police officer and his Indian sidekick.  I enjoy these books a lot.  Recommended and I don't think you have to have read the other two books to enjoy it. 

        Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia.  A Very Weird book that involves a creepy house, and a fungus and requires great suspension of disbelief. Didn’t really hang together in my opinion.  Not recommended. 

        Outlawed by Anna North.  An alternate history of the Hole in the Wall gang is the best way to describe it.  It's an odd book but I did enjoy it.  Recommended if you like odd alternate histories. 

        Death in the East by Abir Mukharjee.  The 4th book in the series.  This involved a convoluted plot set partly in England and partly in India at an Ashram.  Less successful than the other three books in the series mostly because of the flashbacks.  But the growth in the characters almost made up for that.  Recommended with reservations and you really need to have read the other books. 

        The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.  British retirement community crime solvers. If this hasn't been optioned for a TV series with Judy Dench, Maggie Smith and company - what are they waiting for?   Recommended for fun, light mystery reading. 

        The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey.  Since I was enjoying mysteries set in India I tried this one.  Set in the 1920’s it involves a woman solicitor.   The flashbacks to her awful marriage were too long and she should have stuck to the mystery.  Not recommended. 

        Boundary Waters Mysteries.  I also started reading a series of mysteries by William Kent Krueger set in Northern Minnesota in the Aurora area (just south of Vermillion and near the Boundary Waters).   The detective is former sheriff Corc O'Connor who is three quarters Irish and one quarter Ojibwe.  The first book is called Iron Lake.  I've now read the first six (6).   I love the setting because I'm so familiar with it.  I like his incorporation of the Ojibwe people into it.  His women characters leave a lot to be desired but they aren't absolutely horrible.  I'll probably end up reading them all.   Recommended with reservations.  Pretty sure men who like mysteries would like them. 

        Finally, my Lymond Book Club read along that I finished this month was Pawn in Frankencense. They won't finish talking about it until April but I finished it in March.   Always recommended but you have to read the whole series. 

My February and March reading turned out to be pretty good, considering that I also watched a whole lot of TV.