How would a sword-and-sorcery author who basically wanted to have a hell of a lot of fun write in the twenty-first century? They’d write like Tamsyn Muir does in Gideon the Ninth, I think. “In the myriadic year of our Lord—the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!—Gideon Nav packed …
Tag: Mystery
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/31/gideon-the-ninth-by-tamsyn-muir/
Nov 10 2020
She Lies Close by Sharon Doering
Y’aaaaall. I’ve read plenty of books with unsympathetic narrators but this is one of the perishing few where I could sympathize with our protagonist even as I lacked any empathy for her. Grace Wright is, in temperament, my exact opposite. She has a fixed idea of how things should be, and reacts poorly when things …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/11/10/she-lies-close-by-sharon-doering/
Oct 08 2020
An Interview with Sharon Doering, author of She Lies Close
Q. Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did She Lies Close evolve? The inspiration for She Lies Close came from my family’s move to a new neighborhood years ago and finding out that a guy down the street was being prosecuted for …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/10/08/an-interview-with-sharon-doering-author-of-she-lies-close/
Sep 29 2020
The Case of the Left-Handed Lady (Enola Holmes #2) by Nancy Springer
I absolutely panicked when I read somewhere that the Netflix movie Enola Holmes is based on more than the first novel in the book series, The Case Of The Missing Marquess, so borrowed this to squeeze in between the eleventy billion deadlines I’m facing (I was wrong, btw: the movie is based on only that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/09/29/the-case-of-the-left-handed-lady-enola-holmes-2-by-nancy-springer/
Sep 08 2020
Robert B. Parker’s Fool’s Paradise (Jesse Stone #19) by Mike Lupica
Embarrassingly, I totally had Robert B Parker mixed up with Richard Stark because of the latter’s Parker novels. I’m starting to wonder whether I do, in fact, read too many books. And, given this title, whether I watch too little TV, as I’ve definitely watched a wee bit of the Stone Cold adaptation but never …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/09/08/robert-b-parkers-fools-paradise-jesse-stone-19-by-mike-lupica/
Aug 26 2020
The Monogram Murders (New Hercule Poirot Mysteries #1) by Sophie Hannah
I’ve probably already nattered on obnoxiously about the fact that I inhaled every published book in Dame Agatha Christie’s oeuvre the year I was thirteen, but that was a seminal event in my life, solidifying my reading habits and eventual, oddly specialized, career path. Two years ago, I was given the opportunity to review the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/26/the-monogram-murders-new-hercule-poirot-mysteries-1-by-sophie-hannah/
Aug 20 2020
The Nidderdale Murders (Yorkshire Murder Mysteries #5) by J.R. Ellis
It’s been so long since I’ve read a traditional British police procedural that starting this book was just like slipping into a nice hot bath. I mean, I’ve read my fair share of British crime novels with DCI protagonists in the years since I first picked up my dad’s copy of Martha Grimes’ Jerusalem Inn, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/20/the-nidderdale-murders-yorkshire-murder-mysteries-5-by-j-r-ellis/
Jul 20 2020
Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #1) by Tamsyn Muir
Several of my reactions upon completing this book, in no particular order: “Do I really need to read the other Hugo finalists when this may be the best book I’ve ever read ever?” “Oh gosh, I’d love to play in an RPG of this. I wonder what dice and stats system this would run best …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/07/20/gideon-the-ninth-the-locked-tomb-1-by-tamsyn-muir/
Jun 14 2020
München Blues by Max Bronski
Oktoberfest brings a lot of customers to Wilhelm Gossec’s this-and-that shop. The hideously overpriced merry-go-round horse in the window captures their attention, and they wind up leaving with a souvenir, an old piece of Bavarica that Gossec has snagged at an estate sale, or maybe even an oil painting artfully half hidden so that the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/14/munchen-blues-by-max-bronski/
Apr 29 2020
The Colours of All the Cattle by Alexander McCall Smith
The back cover of The Colours of All the Cattle calls this book, the nineteenth in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, “the one with the election.” Indeed, a special election for a seat on the Gabarone city council dominates the stories told in The Colours of All the Cattle. The council is closely …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/29/the-colours-of-all-the-cattle-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire