Dec 04 2025

Murder Runs In The Family by Tamara Berry

Honestly, every new Tamara Berry book is a treat, and I’m so glad I could finally get to this one! I’ve read all of her other mystery novels save one, and it was so disappointing to learn that her publishers aren’t picking up more of either of her prior series, both of which are excellently written and tremendous fun.

Which makes it feel churlish for me to say that Murder Runs In The Family was definitely not my favorite of her books so far. It starts off really well but the ending is surprisingly muddled, both in terms of what actually happened and in the heroine’s emotions. While that’s understandable in the latter instance — she goes through A Lot over the course of this novel — the many warring emotions and especially the neat resolution of same feel a little shoehorned in. It’s stuff I would expect to deal with in the next novel of what’s hopefully a series — tho given how Ms Barry’s publishers have been doing her dirty, maybe she thought it best to resolve everything while she still could!

Anyway, the story revolves around Amber Winslow, who breaks up with her private investigator boyfriend up in Seattle and heads to Arizona, in hopes that the grandmother whom she’s never met will give her a place to stay. Amber has always felt like a misfit in her straitlaced immediate family, and is relieved when Jade McCallan turns out to be as much of a shrewd nonconformist as she herself is. In fact, Jade and Amber hit it off so well that Jade insists that Amber stay with her at Seven Ponds, the luxury retirement community where Jade is pretty much Queen Bee.

For Amber, it’s like walking into a modern day fairytale with a loving grandmother who, with the help of her friends, anticipates her every need. But then one of those friends is found dead, and Jade becomes the main suspect. Good thing she has a PI-in-training for a granddaughter!

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Dec 03 2025

The Glass Pyramid by Jeanne Walker Harvey & Khoa Le

subtitled A Story of the Louvre Museum and Architect I.M. Pei.

I had no idea that the glass pyramid of the Louvre was only built in 1989! For some reason, I thought it was far more modern, tho perhaps I just wasn’t paying much attention at the time. After all, I’d visited the Louvre a mere handful of years prior and had been, to my own surprise, thoroughly bored by it all. Paris was nasty back then, and while the crowds weren’t too overwhelming, I was singularly unimpressed by the Mona Lisa. Forgive me, I was only eight years old: my tastes in art hadn’t yet developed, tho my appreciation for useable urban spaces was clearly already well defined (plus also I was in love with the Nike of Samothrace and Gericault’s The Raft Of The Medusa, both significantly louder pieces that stood up to the crowds better than da Vinci’s smaller, more subtle portrait of the Gioconda.)

And in keeping with my still-developing tastes, I wasn’t much impressed with I M Pei’s glass pyramid when I first heard of it. Like many others, I found it incongruous that such a modern interpretation of an ancient monument should be plonked front and center of such an iconic building. Certainly tho, I was never as stridently opposed to the project as some, so found this children’s picture book on the subject extremely enlightening on the entire concept and controversy.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/03/the-glass-pyramid-by-jeanne-walker-harvey-khoa-le/

Dec 02 2025

House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk

the cover of House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk has a wobbly bird-like shape in black against a light background A new edition of Olga Tokarczuk’s 1998 novel, House of Day, House of Night is out today from Riverhead Books! Translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, House of Day, House of Night offers a series of vignettes that slowly grow the reader’s sense of a town with traumatic history.

Olga Tokarczuk is squarely in the category of literary fiction, especially after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018, but her work also fits in the category of weird fiction with other luminaries like Carmen Maria Machado and Kelly Link, as her writing slips between the banal details of everyday life and possibly supernatural or otherworldly occurrences.

In House of Day, House of Night, some of the stories are in the first person. Those ones are about interacting with a neighbor and a significant other in this small town, and they are interwoven with stories from the town’s history, including a local saint and the monk who chronicled her. The novel presents various perspectives on the town’s liminal status as the borders of Poland were shifted and people were displaced after the end of the second world war. As she often does, Tokarczuk interrogates the idea of borders and how arbitrary they are.

House of Day, House of Night is what Tokarczuk calls a “constellation novel” with seemingly disparate stories and anecdotes coming together as chapters to form an overall nuanced picture. It looks to me as though House of Day, House of Night was actually Torkarczuk’s first work translated into English back in 2002.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/02/house-of-day-house-of-night-by-olga-tokarczuk/

Dec 01 2025

Heartcore by Štěpánka Jislová

translated from the original Czech by Martha Kuhlman.

Part of the problem with preferring to go in blind to books after I initially say yes to them (usually months and months ago) as a professional book critic is that I’m sometimes blindsided by topics that I didn’t think a book would cover to the extent that it does. Heartcore is a great example even tho, in fairness, the blurb makes it sound as if sexual violence is only tangential to Štěpánka Jislová’s story. It’s not. While a large part of the book talks about the author’s pursuit of love, the chapter of her life where she survived an unthinkable betrayal of trust is central to understanding her relationship with seeking a partner.

And I get it, it’s hard to talk about sexual assault. And no one wants to make that the centerpiece of a memoir, especially one that’s supposed to revolve around love. Ms Jislová admits in the first few pages that the structure of this story is non-linear: it isn’t hard to see that that’s a necessary defense mechanism common to non-fiction books like this one. I think it works well, honestly, particularly in the graphic novel format, with one significant exception which I’ll get to momentarily.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/12/01/heartcore-by-stepanka-jislova/

Nov 30 2025

The Great Hippopotamus Hotel by Alexander McCall Smith

Three cases present themselves to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in The Great Hippopotamus Hotel, the twenty-fifth book in Alexander McCall Smith’s long-running series. Well, if not necessarily cases then situations that Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi feel obliged to untangle. Maybe not three, either, more accurately two and a half, given that one person, Mr XYZ turns out to play a crucial role in two of the situations. One of them, at least, is a proper case with a paying client. The other two come to them in ways that things do in Botswana, through the web of obligations and relationships that make up the community. Even though one of those is more an obligation that Mma Makutsi takes upon herself, and not for the noblest of reasons either, no matter what she tells herself.

The Great Hippopotamus Hotel by Alexander McCall Smith

In the first case — the one that is properly a case — the manager of the Great Hippopotamus Hotel speaks to Mma Ramotswe about troubles he is having with the hotel. Mma has seen signs for it on the outskirts of Gabarone and has been curious about the place, but has never had cause to visit. The manager, a man named Babusi, says the hotel has recently had a run of bad luck. Some guests have come down with food poisoning, and the timing there could not have been worse. It was a visit arranged for travel writers and other people who could, he hoped, share good news and improve the hotel’s reputation. Instead the exact opposite happened. Another time recently, a guest had found a scorpion in their shoe in the room. There were other unfortunate happenings, nothing that was inexplicable, but Babusi says it is looking like a pattern. He was also suspicious because the bad luck began shortly after the hotel’s long-time owner retired and passed ownership on to two nephews and a niece. Mma promises to investigate.

Separately, Mma Ramotswe’s husband Mr J.L.B. Matekoni is in a bit of a bind. A long-time customer whose brother owns a car rental company that provides Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s garage with about a quarter of its income has asked him to buy a flashy sports car. That in itself is no problem; Mr J.L.B. Matekoni has automotive connections that reach beyond Botswana, and he will be able to find something suitable in South Africa. He even has experience managing the annoying bureaucracy of importing such a car. The problem is that his customer, Mr Mo Mo Malala, does not want his wife to know about the car. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni promised his help before he know about the condition of hiding it from Mr Malala’s wife. He cannot go back on his word, and if he did, his business could suffer. He explains the situation to Mma Ramotswe, but she does not see any immediate way out either.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/30/the-great-hippopotamus-hotel-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

Nov 28 2025

Black Friday: Short Stories From Africa by Cheryl S Ntumy

And now for a little counter-programming… (she says, having already bought a huge stack of gifts online.)

Subtitled Fantasy and Science Fiction from a Powerful African Voice (and with a foreword by Eugen Bacon,) this collection definitely functions as both a critique of capitalism and other exploitative systems, as well as a celebration of Ghana and of African speculative fiction. Exactly half of the eighteen stories here were published elsewhere first: the rest get their debut in this volume. Several of the stories are only vaguely speculative flavored. Unsurprisingly, those prove the weakest in an ultimately very strong collection (and are kept towards the back, so if you tire or need to go read something else, you won’t really be missing anything if you save the last handful of stories for a later date, IMO.)

The best thing about these short stories is the way they exemplify the strengths of the form. There isn’t a lot of fluff here as readers are plunged straight into worlds at once familiar and strange. From the folk horror of Lady Abra’s Butterflies to the solarpunk setting of The Feeding Ground, the vast majority of Cheryl S Ntumy’s worlds need little clarification, seeming to exist as naturally as thought. The only exceptions to this are The Way Of Baa’gh, set in a shared universe I was entirely unfamiliar with before reading this collection, and Dream State, which raises more questions than it answers in the persons of the Parfaits. Everything else is satisfyingly self-contained.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/28/black-friday-short-stories-from-africa-by-cheryl-s-ntumy/

Nov 26 2025

Murder Among The Stacks by Rosie A Point & Charles Timmerman

It is the day before Thanksgiving and I’m so tired. Are you tired? This year has been endless, and even reading has become something of a chore. My brain keeps yearning for something that’s charming and mildly stimulating that doesn’t feel like work. So you can imagine my relief at cracking open this book and finding exactly the fun diversion I was looking for.

Murder Among The Stacks is essentially a word search book with a light cozy mystery attached. There are 50 themed word search puzzles inside, and a short one-page chapter of the overarching mystery attached to each. The story itself starts, as almost all cozy series do, with an attractive and single young entrepreneur launching her small business in a quaint town, accompanied by a beloved pet. In this instance, our heroine is Abby Jones, who has recently moved to Cranberry Cove from the city where her lying ex broke her heart. She’s opening a brand new bookstore and is excited to host a signing event for one of the town’s notables, bestselling author Brooke Pines. It’ll be exactly the launch boost that Abby and her store need.

Things go awry when Brooke proceeds to drop dead at the event. Brooke’s overbearing momager publicly accuses Abby of killing her daughter, causing the whole town to turn against their newest resident. Of most immediate concern to Abby tho is the fact that local Sheriff Swift considers her his number one suspect. It’s only a small relief that his handsome deputy Nathan Harrow seems less inclined to leap to conclusions. With her reputation, livelihood and very freedom on the line, Abby is going to have to do a little sleuthing of her own in order to figure out whodunnit, and maybe even save a life in the process.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/26/murder-among-the-stacks-by-rosie-a-point-charles-timmerman/

Nov 25 2025

Sunder, Tome One: Small Beginnings by Pierre-Alexandre Comtois, Mark Englert & Buddy Beaudoin

Small beginnings is right, as a humble young monk finds himself plunged into an epic quest over the course of this science fantasy adventure!

Zeek has only ever known life at the monastery. For the most part, he enjoys his work of transcribing books, even if he’d much rather be having adventures than copying them down. While kind and generous, he can also default to acting first and thinking things through later.

When he finds a weird book in the library, he’s literally stunned when it unexpectedly bonds with him. The Abbot is concerned, mostly because he knows this is probably the sign that he needs to let Zeek out into the wider world finally. Despite his misgivings, he tasks Zeek with finding out more about the book. There’s an apothecary in a nearby town who might know someone who knows more. Zeek is nervous but excited to think that he’ll finally be able to go forth on the adventure he’s always wanted.

At first, things some easy enough, as any conflicts are easily resolved with conversation and a little ingenuity. But when actual criminals enter the picture, Zeek quickly finds himself out of his depth. Luckily, he has allies in his quest… or does he?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/25/sunder-tome-one-small-beginnings-by-pierre-alexandre-comtois-mark-englert-buddy-beaudoin/

Nov 24 2025

The Secrets Of The Old Post Cemetery by Patricia Crisafulli (EXCERPT)

Patricia Crisafulli is back with the third book in her Ohnita Harbor Mystery Series, starring small town librarian, authenticator and educator Gabriela Domenici!

Our heroine is excited about the latest assignment she’s devised for her students. The Traitor’s Map that was recently donated to an Ohnita museum might not be the most accurate map of the area — leading some to believe that it was deliberately drawn that way in order to throw off the British during the Revolutionary War — but it is a fascinating glimpse into an important chapter of the region’s past. She wants her students to consider how to authenticate the map: a challenging but worthwhile puzzle for others seeking to follow in her professional footsteps.

But when one of those students is found dead on the lakeshore, Gabriela is stricken with the thought that he might have gone too far in his zeal to complete the assignment. When she learns that the cause of death was actually murder, she finds herself caught up in a tangled web of death and deceit that may claim yet more lives if she doesn’t figure out whodunnit and why.

Read on for an excerpt that highlights the very human side of our heroine and her interactions with the people of Ohnita!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/24/the-secrets-of-the-old-post-cemetery-by-patricia-crisafulli-excerpt/

Nov 22 2025

A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by László Krasznahorkai belongs to the branch of literature that’s more “do unusual things with words” than “tell a story.” I picked it up on a recent trip to Frankfurt because Krasznahorkai won the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature, and the book itself is short at 130 pages. If nothing else, I figured it might be a good introduction to his work.

Mountain to the North Etc by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

The lengthy title comes from the proper orientation of a Buddhist monastery, where most of the book takes place. It is not far from Kyoto, but getting there is not easy, and the book’s unattributed epigraph might also serve as a warning to the characters, if they could but read it: “None saw it twice.” Krasznahorkai relates his observations in 49 chapters numbered in Roman numerals beginning with II and ending with L. Presumably, beginning with the chapter two is meant to imply that readers are joining an ongoing tale, the beginning of which will remain unknown to readers and characters alike.

The chapters are short, but the sentences are long. Numerous chapters are one extended sentence Chapter XXVII, to pick one more or less at random, stretches its sentence across three full pages. They’re run-ons, of course. Where Mann and Proust delighted in clauses and conjunctions; sometimes when reading them I had the impression that finding out how many grammatical balls they could juggle was at least half the fun of writing that particular bit. Krasznahorkai does a fair amount of that, but he also charges straight through where even an extended sentence would normally end and just keeps going. (Although I lived in Budapest for a year and a bit, I never studied Hungarian systematically, so I certainly couldn’t say whether Krasznahorkai’s style in this book is as much of a stumbling block in the original as I found it in English. I suspect that it is; certainly Miklos Bánffy, the only other Hungarian writer I’ve read much of this century, does not take a similar approach.)

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/22/a-mountain-to-the-north-a-lake-to-the-south-paths-to-the-west-a-river-to-the-east-by-laszlo-krasznahorkai/