Recently read

Over the past couple of weeks I've raided the library and read Ken Bruen's The Guards, Jacqueline Winspear's The Mapping of Love, Nicola Upson's Angel with Two Faces, Charles Finch's A Stranger in Mayfair, and David Stuart Davies The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective.

That's one drunken former Irish cop, two British female detectives in the 1930s, one fancy Victorian detective and new member of Parliament and a sinister twist on the Holmes and Watson relationship.

On my TBR list for this week and next is Jo Nesbo's The Snowman, Ruth Downie's Medicus, and likely another in Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor series.

Currently listening to:
Glen Gould's The Goldberg Variations

Nearly another year has come and gone

Nearly a full year has past since I last posted on this blog. And although I've still been reading many of your blogs, I haven't been too active in the blogging community. With a one year old running around, my time management has been a bit one-sided. I've been reading, and reading a lot, over the past year. Mostly mysteries still, but littered with some history, travel and a couple bios. I'm still on a Sherlock Holmes kick (just finished A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullum,) but have also tasted my first Jo Nesbo, the entire Stieg Larsson trilogy and today I began Nicola Upson's An Expert in Murder. I can't wait to begin sharing my thoughts on my daily reads and hope that you'll attempt to tune in again.

A Letter of Mary

What would you do if you received a letter, written by Mary Magdalene. What if the woman that gave you the letter was a noted expert on Jerusalem and later was mysteriously killed? Those are only a couple of the questions Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes have to try and answer in Laurie R. King's A Letter of Mary. The third book in King's Russell series begins when Dorothy Ruskin, an archaeologist that Russell and Holmes had met in the Middle East a few years prior, visits them at their home and presents a letter supposedly written by Mary Magdalene. In the letter, Mary writes of being an apostle, news that would shock modern (1923) Anglican England and the world. Ruskin asks Russell and Holmes to investigate the letter and try to determine if it is authentic. Unfortunately, they do not even have time to begin their inquiry, when Ruskin is killed in an automobile accident. With her untimely death, Russell and Holmes set to uncover the truth about her death, enlisting the aid of Detective Lestrade and Sherlock's brother, Mycroft.

The investigation takes them to four different groups of potential murderers with four valid motives. Under disguise and careful observation, Russell and Holmes infiltrate and begin to build their case. And though Russell and Holmes are under no real threat of imminent danger, the mystery unravels at a great pace, never leaving the reader too relaxed. Russell as narrator is quick witted, self-depracating and funny. Her personality resonates throughout the book and her smarts are on par with Holmes's. Being married to Holmes, Russell allows the reader to see Holmes during his downtime and during those moments of self-doubt. All of King's novels are full of insight and maintain an authenticity to them that you don't get in a lot of pastiche.

Did the killers kill for money (greed) or were they out to stop the publication of the potentially shattering letter? This is a story about family, ambition and relationships. Especially relationships between between sisters and husband and wife.

Cool site, but even cooler books. I'm definitely going to have to get these as they come out.

Historical fiction

I don't know what it is with me, but nearly everything I read, buy or browse, is historical fiction. It may be a historical mystery, but, it is historical fiction nonetheless. My question is why do I enjoy reading historical fiction more than fiction that was written years ago. Case in point...I like reading Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. One of my favorite authors and certainly one of, if not my favorite, literary characters. However, I don't have a need to read all the stories. But then I read one of the books in Laurie King's Mary Russell series, or one of Nicholas Meyer's books and I can't wait to read the next. The styles are akin to Doyle's. The characters are either about Holmes or his fictitious wife Mary Russell or even Doyle himself. To my amateur understanding, there is no real discernible difference between the "real Holmes" and the historical fiction Holmes. Maybe it's best to read them at the same time.

With that being said, I'm reading Laurie King's A Letter of Mary and Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet. The King book is book 3 in the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series and of course, A Study in Scarlet is the first Doyle story to feature Holmes.

You've been in Afghanistan I presume?