Book Notes: "A Share in Death," by Deborah Crombie

I picked this up as vacation reading and it was such a pleasant surprise! The best mystery novels are, at their hearts, sympathetic paintings of a variety of human characters, and "A Share in Death" nailed both the accurate, pleasing brush-strokes and the kind-but-clear-eyed view of human foibles.

I can't remember where I heard about Crombie, but when I checked out the first page of the book, I found this lovely little bit of prose:

Duncan Kincaid's holiday began well. As he turned the car into the lane, a shaft of sun broke through the clouds and lit a patch of rolling Yorkshire moor as if someone had thrown the switch on a celestial spotlight. 

Drystone walls ran like pale runes across the brilliant green of pasture, where luminous sheep nibbled, unconcerned with their importance in the composition. The scene seemed set off in time as well as space, and gave him the sensation of viewing a living tapestry, a world remote and utterly unattainable. The clouds shifted again, the vision fading as swiftly as it had come, and he felt an odd shiver of loss at its passing. 

That was enough to convince me that the author was going to take me on a journey that I would enjoy, and I was happy to be proved right.

Our hero, Duncan Kincaid, is an inspector for Scotland Yard, off on holiday to a borrowed timeshare in an old and sprawling mansion. Of course, it turns into a working holiday when someone is murdered. All of the suspects are Kincaid's fellow vacationers there in the mansion, closing off the murderer and his potential victims in a neatly contained setting, the better for us to get to know them and try to figure out whodunnit.

It's odd, I suppose, that murder mysteries should be such delightful reads, full of sympathetic characters and interesting conversations and beautifully-rendered visions of pretty countryside locations, when they always have such  horrible crimes at their hearts.

But, the best of them are that way, and this was, if not one of the best, one of the very, very good.




Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Mini Reviews: The Books I Read in March 2017

--I'm catching up on my book notes, taking them a month at a time. Since I'm behind, I'm only allowing myself a line or two on each book. I hope they still give you an idea of whether or not these would be books you'd enjoy picking up yourself!--



-"What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home," by Laura Vanderkam. This is a compilation of three short e-books. I don't share Vanderkam's optimism about how many things can be accomplished in one short weekend or morning, but I still appreciate her novel and hopeful way of looking at the number of hours we are all given in our days and weeks.



-"Eleanor and Park," by Rainbow Rowell. I listened to this one on audiobook. Beautifully and compellingly written, as Rowell's work always is. But I didn't enjoy it, mostly because the heroine's home life is so (legitimately, realistically) bleak and depressing. I also wouldn't pass it on to a teenager, b/c of the level of (probably also legitimate and realistic) sensuality. But beautifully done, all the same.



-"The Masqueraders," by Georgette Heyer. This was my favorite Heyer for a long, long time. ("Sylvester, Or, The Wicked Uncle" has since supplanted it from the top spot, but just barely.)

This romance, full of adventure and derring-do, disguise and weariness of disguise, a slow-burning friendship turned into passion, and one of the happiest and most harmonious sibling relationships I've ever seen in fiction, remains one of my very favorite stories. Prudence and her "mountain" win me over every time.



-"How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind: Dealing with Your House's Dirty Little Secrets," by Dana K. White. Lots of housekeeping books say they're for people who aren't naturally good at housekeeping.

This one actually is.




-"The Hobbit," by J. R. R. Tolkien. Just finished listening through this with Adam and the kids. Delightful, as always.



-"Busman's Honeymoon," by Dorothy L. Sayers. It was my first time making it through this--which is shocking, given my love for "Gaudy Night"!  But l always stalled after the delightful exchange of letters at the beginning of the book. Still, I'm glad I've read it now, and next time I can revisit it with pleasure, knowing that while it might be a bit uneven, it has all the charm and interest and deep feeling I've come to expect from Sayers' accounts of Lord Peter and Harriet.

(Also





--SPOILER ALERT--




the ghosts! Why did I never know about the ghosts???)




Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell





This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Mini Reviews: The Books I Read in January 2017

--I'm catching up on my book notes, taking them a month at a time. Since I'm behind, I'm only allowing myself a line or two on each book. I hope they still give you an idea of whether or not these would be books you'd enjoy picking up yourself!--



-"Have His Carcase," by Dorothy L. Sayers. In which our hero and heroine alternately romance each other and get cranky at each other. Featuring a lovely coastline walk I'd love to take, minus the murder. Delightful, as always. (Lord Peter and Harriet Vane 4Ever.)



-"Murder Must Advertise," by Dorothy L. Sayers. Of the Lord Peter Wimsey books which do NOT feature Harriet Vane, I'd put this or "The Nine Tailors" at the top of the heap. Seeing Lord Peter go undercover in not just one, but two! roles...it's a thing of beauty. Please read this. It's marvelous.




-"The Con Job (Leverage #1)," by Matt Forbeck. Great fun if you're a fan of the show. The "Con" of the title is Comic Con in San Diego, making this a con pulled at a con--a happy thought that justifies the book's entire existence. The author has so much fun with the combination of these characters in that setting, and I had a great time reading it. Cautions for the sort of language and situations you'd expect to find on a network television drama.



-"Gaudy Night," by Dorothy L. Sayers. The best of novels. What else can I say?  Well, this, I guess: after reading it through this time around, I found myself telling my sister-in-law, "Every time I read this, I copy out more quotations from it. Eventually I'm going to have retyped this book word-for-word onto a document on my computer."



-"Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories," by Anthony Trollope. Not my favorite of Trollope's work, but I enjoyed dipping into this bit of Victorian fiction over the holidays. The story set in the United States during the Civil War was especially interesting. (It's always interesting to read treatments of America by foreign visitors.)


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)