Author: whatmeread

Review 2662: The Killing Stones

~ whatmeread ~ 1 Comment

Ann Cleeves retired the Jimmy Perez series a while back, so I was delighted to hear she had brought him back. He has moved from the Shetland Islands to the Orkneys—with a milder climate and more pastoral scenery—and lives with his partner and boss, Willow, and their three-year-old son, James. Oh, and it’s the Christmas season. What better time for a mystery than Christmas?

Willow is away from their home on the mainland island when Jimmy gets an urgent call to Westray Island. His good friend Archie Stout, whom he was raised with, is missing. Archie’s wife Vaila says he was on his way to meet pals at the pub but never got there, a concern with Jimmy as there was a big storm that night. Jimmy finds Archie at an old archaeological dig, where his head has been mashed by one of the Westray story stones—two Neolithic stones with Viking inscriptions that Archie’s father helped discover and interpret. Unfortunately, because of the storm, evidence is thin.

Willow takes Jimmy off the lead because he’s too close to the victim and leads the case herself, even though she is on maternity leave and a few weeks out from having their baby. Jimmy returns home to follow up leads on the mainland. They find that Archie was upset because, since his father Magnus’s death, he has found his notebooks showing that Magnus, a self-educated farmer, did most of the work on the Westray stones even though Tony Johnson, a professor who visited occasionally, had taken all the credit, a discovery which launched Tony’s career. Tony and his wife were on the island the day of the murder. But there are other leads, including Archie’s possible affair with his wife’s ex-friend Rosalie Gruman.

Jimmy, following up on the mainland with anyone who had been on Westray the night Archie was killed, has been trying to talk to George Riley, a schoolteacher. But before he can meet him, George is also found dead, killed with the second stone. Jimmy finds out that George was writing a children’s book about the discovery of the stones that alleges Johnson stole Magnus Stout’s work.

If I have any criticism of this book, which moves right along and is certainly perplexing, it’s that Cleeves provides almost no information that could lead readers to the killer until the very end. However, she does a great job at misdirection. I’m not really sure what I think of Willow, who does a lot of the investigating in this one. She appeared in several previous books, but I still don’t have much sense of her.

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Get Set for the Pontoppidan Review-Along!

~ whatmeread ~ 3 Comments

In November, maybe you saw FictionFan’s announcement of the Henrik Pontoppidan Review-Along, and maybe you didn’t, but it’s not too late to plunge in! Although the impetus has mostly been hers, we are co-hosting the review-along to take place beginning in January and ending March 16, 2026.

The novel we picked is A Fortunate Man, which is also published as Lucky Per. It’s a real doorstopper, though, and also may not be easily available, so if you want to participate, any work of Pontopiddan’s will do. FictionFan has listed in her announcement the works that are available. You can see my review of The White Bear here, and it is novella length for those who don’t want to read as much.

We hope you’ll pop in and read with us! Pontoppidan was an important Danish writer, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and before I found The White Bear I had never heard of him. Maybe our review-along will acquaint a few more people with him.

Slip either of us a comment to get going!

Review 2661: Dean Street December! Charlotte Fairlie

~ whatmeread ~ 9 Comments

When Charlotte Fairlie was a girl her relationship with her widowed father was close. Then he met someone, and she seemed to be nice, but as soon as they were married, she became jealous of Charlotte. In the end, he sent Charlotte to his brother, and she never saw him again. (Oddly, she reflects later that it was the only thing he could do, but I think not.)

Now Charlotte has achieved her goal since she was in school. She has been appointed head of St. Elizabeth’s, her old school. She is young for such a position but has been wearing a stodgy hat to board meetings to disguise that fact. The only thorn in her side is Miss Pinkerton, who thinks she should have had the position and is a real troublemaker.

A new girl starts at the school, Tessa MacRyne. She is an unusual child, self-possessed but homesick for her island home in Western Scotland. Charlotte catches her running away one day and learns that a letter from her mother has informed her that her parents are divorcing and her mother has returned to her parents in the U. S. Tessa feels she must return home to comfort her father. Charlotte’s handling of the situation earns her Tessa’s affection and an invitation to the island of Targ during summer break.

A friendship begins between Charlotte and Lawrence Swayne, the headmaster of the boys’ school. Unexpectedly, her proposes marriage to her, thinking they would make a great partnership.

I found this novel to be deeply touching and involving. I generally think of Stevenson’s books as very light romance, but I felt this book was a little deeper.

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Review 2660: Little Boy Lost

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

When World War II broke out in France, Hilary Wainwright left his pregnant wife Lisa in Paris to rejoin his regiment, thinking that the British would be fighting in France. He only saw his son, John, once, shortly after he was born. Later, he heard that Lisa, who was working with the resistance, was dead. He had no idea what happened to the baby, but he once received a visit from Pierre Verdier, the fiancé of Lisa’s best friend, Jeanne. He reported that Lisa had given the baby to Jeanne shortly before she was arrested, but that now Jeanne was dead, and he did not know what happened to the baby.

The war is over, and Pierre returns. He tells Hilary he wants to look for John for him. Hilary is now ambivalent about finding his son. When Lisa was killed, he envisioned getting comfort from raising his son, but it has been five years. Now he’s more worried about how to tell whether any boy they find is really his.

Pierre eventually traces a boy who might be John to a Catholic orphanage in Northern France. Hilary goes to Paris to meet the people Pierre traced. He has always loved France, but post-war, the country is in dire straits. Hilary travels to the northern town to try to determine whether the boy, called Jean, is his.

Frankly, I disliked Hilary pretty much all the way through this novel. The Afterword says that it takes Hilary until the last few pages to know his own mind, but in fact, he uses every excuse to try to disassociate himself from responsibility. When he thinks he would be betraying Lisa if he accidentally took home the wrong boy, for example, it seems clear from what is said about her that she would have taken Jean as soon as she saw his plight.

Small spoiler—when it seemed Hilary was going to use his lust for an obvious slut to break his promises, I was really disgusted.

That being said, I still enjoyed reading this novel, which is touching and insightful into human weakness. It also provides a post-war view of France that is bleak and that I hadn’t read of before.

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Review 2659: Study for Obedience

~ whatmeread ~ 12 Comments

The unnamed narrator moves to another country, one she describes as a northern country of her family’s ancestors, to live with and be housekeeper to her recently divorced brother. She has been raised, she says, to curb her natural inclinations and be obedient. Certainly, her relationship with her brother looks more and more disturbing as the book progresses. For example, a point that comes out early on, she bathes and dresses her brother, who is not an invalid. Later, we learn that he insists she watch TV with both the sound and the subtitles off.

But how trustworthy a narrator is she? Her whole existence seems colored by a twisted view of life. For example, early on, she says that when she quit her job, her coworkers were so pleased to get rid of her that they gave her a big party. Well, isn’t that a tradition for a long-serving employee?

Her attitude is entirely negative—taking everything on herself. Despite being fluent in several languages, she is unable to learn the language of her new home. Almost immediately after her arrival, her brother departs for an unexplained reason, so she finds herself cut off, unable to make herself understood, with only a three-legged dog for company. She begins to sense that she’s being blamed for a series of agricultural disasters, as if she’s a witch. Since her Jewish ancestors were forced to leave this area during the war, she reads a lot into this.

Actually, she reads a lot into everything, tortuously examining every glance, every event. The book doesn’t really have a plot; it’s more about her exhaustive examinations of everything. If it hadn’t been so short, I would have quit reading it, because as another StoryGraph reader said, I felt like I was being psychologically tortured.

There is a turn to the book, but it just becomes more perverse. I read it for my Booker Project.

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WWW Wednesday!

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

  • What I am reading now
  • What I just finished reading
  • What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

I am reading The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, which I’ve had sitting on my nightstand for a few weeks but was avoiding during Nonfiction November and Novellas in November because it is 600+ pages long. However, it is perfect for Doorstoppers in December, so I signed it up for that. I originally chose it because it’s on my Classics Club list, so reading it serves two purposes. So far, the novel may be autobiographical, and it is covering the main character’s childhood. It was published in 1930.

What I just finished reading

I just finished a really entertaining early mystery, Enter Sir John, by two authors I have never heard of, Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. Well, actually, I think I have heard of Clemence Dane, but not in terms of mystery novels. It turns out both were successful writers, Dane mostly as a screenwriter and Simpson as a novelist. This mystery is from 1928.

What I will probably read next

The next book in my stack is Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, which has shown up here and there a lot this year. I have forgotten what it’s about since I ordered it, but that just makes it more fun to dig in!

What about you? What are you reading?

Review 2658: Rum Affair

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

The famous coloratura opera singer Tina Rossi has made a rendezvous with her lover, Kenneth Holmes, at the flat of one of his friends. When she arrives, though, Kenneth is not there, but a body is in the wardrobe. She has just discovered it when Johnson Johnson, the famous portrait painter, arrives with two policemen, saying there’d been a complaint. Reader of this series know that Johnson is a lot more than an artist. (Although I guess they don’t know at this point.)

Tina puts them off, but after they go outside, a man with a gold tooth bursts out of the wardrobe. Tina screams, but they miss him and he escapes.

Tina is now afraid for Kenneth, but acknowledging the affair could destroy her career. She decides to go to the island of Rum, where his laboratory is located. But she must do it without anyone suspecting, especially her agent, Michael Twiss, who has been trying to keep them apart. Later, she hears that Kenneth is suspected in the explosion aboard a nuclear submarine that was developed under his management. That makes her more eager to get to Rum.

Luckily, Johnson offers to paint her portrait if she will join him for a yacht race in Western Scotland that ends near Rum. Shortly after they leave, it becomes clear that someone is trying to kill Tina.

Dunnett’s Dolly series (Dolly is the name of the yacht) poses as mysteries but the books are really adventure novels with espionage at their core. They are fast moving with entertaining dialogue. All of them are narrated by a different woman, vividly drawn. The 60s yachting life seems to be pretty wild. These books make entertaining reads, even though it is generally impossible to guess what’s going on.

These books have not been republished in order, and I have not been reading them in order. This one, original name Dolly and the Singing Bird, was actually the first one in the series.

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Review 2657: Literary Wives! The Soul of Kindness

~ whatmeread ~ 10 Comments

Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!

My Review

Although this novel has a main character, Flora, it is more of a community novel, about a group of people whose lives are affected by Flora. I was going to say by her actions, but Flora doesn’t really act.

Flora’s best friend Meg has never approved of how much Flora’s mother, Mrs. Secetan, cossets her, but in school Meg picks up the cossetting herself. Flora is a beautiful young woman, getting married to Richard in the first chapter, and people tend to worship her and try to protect her. Her influence is well-intentioned, but she doesn’t seem to understand that what she believes is good for other people may not be.

There’s her father-in-law, Percy, for one. He is a widower who drinks a bit too much and whom Mrs. Secetan thinks is uncouth. He has been happy with his mistress Ba for years, living apart, having his days to himself and his nights with Ba. And Ba, who owns a dress shop, likes the independence this gives her. But Flora thinks they will be happier married.

And Kit, Meg’s younger brother, adores Flora. She encourages him in his career as an actor even though he can’t act and is a financial burden on Meg.

And Meg loves her friend Patrick, whom everyone but Flora realizes is gay. Even when Richard tells her that, she can’t believe it and persists in wondering why they don’t get married.

If you ask Richard, he’s happily married, although he works a lot. Yet he occasionally seeks out the company of a neighbor, Elinor Pringle, whose playwright/activist husband leaves her alone almost all the time, even when he is home. Their friendship is entirely innocent, but when Flora learns about it, she can’t grasp that.

In fact, Flora, meaning well, is often cruel because she utterly fails to see anything from anyone else’s point of view. And only Kit’s friend Liz sees her for what she is. Everyone else thinks she’s wonderful.

I feel that Taylor is very observant of people’s foibles. As a realist writer, she doesn’t really deal in unmixed joy. She has a fine eye for complex personalities, though.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

There are three marriages on view here—Richard and Flora’s, Percy and Ba’s, and the Pringles’, although we don’t get much perspective on the feminine half of the marriages except Elinor’s. From the beginning I didn’t forecast success for Flora’s marriage because she wasn’t paying attention during the groom’s speech and seemed more concerned about her doves. But it seems to be surprisingly successful. Yet, Richard is clearly getting something out of his friendship with Elinor that he doesn’t get from Flora. He is innocent of any intent to deceive, but Flora is beginning to doubt him by the end of the book, and I foresee trouble from that.

Percy was happier with Ba as his mistress, because he had time for himself. And perhaps Ba, although we don’t see much from her point of view, was happier, too.

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In the introduction to my edition, Philip Henshir states that Taylor felt it was better to be lonely than bored. Certainly, there are some lonely people in this book. Elinor Pringle is one of them. Between his activist meetings and his time spent writing bad plays, her husband Geoffrey leaves her almost entirely alone. She has little to do, so she is both lonely and bored. In this marrriage, we see only her dissatisfaction.

As for Flora, she seems perfectly happy as wife, mother, and interferer in other people’s business until her interference nearly causes a tragedy and she gets a letter from Liz. And then, at least to her, her husband seems to be meeting another woman.

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Review 2656: The Edinburgh Murders

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

I still prefer McPherson’s stand-alone thrillers to any of her mystery series, but Helen Crowther is starting to grow on me. This is the second book in the series.

Helen is an almoner serving the poorest neighborhoods in Edinburgh post-World War II. Her title has just been changed to welfare officer, but her job is a lot more hands on than we would expect. So, she is bathing a woman at the public baths when two things happen—first, she spots her father in a booth but it is not the family’s usual night. Then, in the next booth an attendant finds a man who has been boiled to death. Helen, trying to help, notices that although his clothes are those of an abattoir worker, his hands are not those of a working man, and someone has removed his signet ring.

No one comes to identify the body, but Helen thinks her father knows something about it.

Helen’s personal life is complicated. In the first book, she was newly married and wondering why her marriage was not consummated. (Spoiler for the first book.) She has discovered her husband Sandy is in love with a man, Gavin. Now she lives alone in an upstairs apartment with Sandy and Gavin below. Things are going to get more complicated, because Helen is attracted to Billy, a technician in the morgue. Her friend Caroline wants to visit the morgue, so they arrive there to find out that another corpse has arrived, this one forced to eat himself to death and dressed like a tanner with a signet ring missing.

Helen agrees to go ice skating with Billy, Caroline, and Billy’s coworker Tom, and another body is found frozen under the ice. Then there is a fourth.

Helen and Billy begin investigating the murders, which are being blamed on an escapee from a mental hospital. But they don’t think he did it.

In the meantime, Helen and Caroline are arranging a Halloween party for the local kids at an Adventist church. It turns out spookier than they planned.

I like the flavor of Edinburgh in these mysteries, although like her Dandy Gilver series, they are super complicated, without much of a hint about the perpetrators until the end.

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