All the Vintage Ladies

The Shiver in the Arctic by Christoffer Peterson Rating: ★★★★ Series: Greenland Missing Persons #3 Publication Date: August 18, 2020 Genre: mystery: modern (1980-present) Pages: 137 ReRead?: No Project: Project 365 As the temperature plummets and the residents of a remote village shelter during a particularly vicious winter storm, Constable Petra Jensen picks up the pieces of an old case to pass the time until the temperature rises. The Shiver in the Arctic is the third in a new series of Greenland Missing Persons novellas set in the harsh, unpredictable Arctic, rich in tradition, myth and culture.

This is the third in a continuing series of novellas set in Greenland featuring Constable Petra Jensen, the only constable assigned to the “missing persons desk.” When she is sent to one of the far-flung parts of Greenland right when a winter storm is hitting the island, she ends up stranded in a hotel with a group of American tourists.

The Americans have returned to Greenland two years after the disappearance of one of their friends, on their last trip to Greenland. One of the men proposes that Petra solve the disappearance. She spends the night interviewing them one at a time, until she takes a break between interviews and someone tries to murder her.

Petra’s investigative technique here is basically the one used by Hercule Poirot: ask questions of witnesses, listen to the answers, and think until she figures it out. And she does figure it out.

There are a total of 31 of the Petra Jensen novellas, and the first four are available for free through the KU library. The remainder cost between $2.99 and $4.99. So far I’ve really enjoyed the three that I’ve read.

The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
Rating: ★★★★★
Publication Date: October 16, 1959
Genre: classic, horror
Pages: 182
ReRead?: Yes
Project: classics club round 1, Project 365

It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

This was an autumnal reread for me. I’ve actually previously reviewed this one, in a pretty lengthy review, which you can find here.

However, if you aren’t inclined to go back to 2012’ish, here are some current thoughts. First, Shirley Jackson is a brilliant writer. I’ve read three books by her – this one, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and Hangsaman. They are all terrific in their own ways, but I think that Hill House is the scariest of the three, although I think that We Have Always Lived in the Castle has the best plot.

I noticed again how ambiguous the ending is here. Jackson definitely leaves open several possibilities. Is Hill House actually haunted, or was it all inside the character’s minds? And what did happen to Eleanor there at the end?

“Hill House itself, not sane, stood against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, its walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

I know that I have at least one more Jackson in my library, The Bird’s Nest, which I think I will have to push towards the top of my TBR.

Print books:

1. We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Ishida Syou: the other Japanese cat book that also looks adorable;
2. My Death by Lisa Tuttle: from the NYRB classics series; not sure when I will get to this one, but it was intriguing. And short;
3. The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith: I’ve read a number of his Number One Ladies Detective Agency books and love them, but I’ve never read anything from this series;
4. Kindred by Octavia Butler: I cannot count the number of years that this has been on my TBR. I plan to get to it soon;
5. The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright: another book by an Irish writer;
6. Skeletons in the Closet by Jean-Patrick Manchette: another NYRB classic;
7. Local Girls by Alice Hoffman: I am a big fan of Alice Hoffman, reaching all the way back to Practical Magic and Turtle Moon;
8. Tropic Moon by Georges Simenon: another NYRB classic & one of Simenon’s non-Maigret books;
9. When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Kelley: I was intrigued by the cover and the plot summary.
10. The Poisoner’s Ring by Kelley Armstrong: second in A Rip in Time series;
11. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker: this is another high hype thriller that I decided to check out in print rather than wait for the digital hold;
12. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire: I might go back and reread this before I read Beneath a Sugar Sky;
13. In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
14. The Spellshop by Sarah Durst: Cozy fantasy;
15. The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada: translated from Japanese, this one has been on my TBR for a long time;
16. Murder at Gull’s Nest by Jess Kidd: this one also looks cozy and fun.
17. Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico: requested on a whim.
18. The Curse of Penryth Hall by Jess Armstrong: I love a Gothic romance in the autumn.
19. Into the Night by Cornell Woolrich: I’ve had good luck with Woolrich in the past.
20. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson: recommended by a friend.
21. We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough
22. High Season by Katie Bishop
23. Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall
24. Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher

My digital check outs:

1. A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas: I’ve read the first in this series and liked it; not sure if I will actually get to this one;
2. Lost Empire by Clive Cussler: I need a swashbuckling adventure book for a reading game, so I decided to try a Clive Cussler;
3. Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw: book 3 in the Dr. Greta Helsing series;
4. The Katharina Code by Jorn Lier Horst: Nordic Noir

Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith Rating: ★★★ Series: Ripliad #3 Publication Date: January 1, 1974 Genre: suspense, thriller Pages: 274 ReRead?: No Project: Project 365 With its sinister humor and genius plotting, Ripley's Game is an enduring portrait of a compulsive, sociopathic American antihero. Living on his posh French estate with his elegant heiress wife, Tom Ripley, on the cusp of middle age, is no longer the striving comer of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Having accrued considerable wealth through a long career of crime—forgery, extortion, serial murder—Ripley still finds his appetite unquenched and longs to get back in the game. In Ripley's Game, first published in 1974, Patricia Highsmith's classic chameleon relishes the opportunity to simultaneously repay an insult and help a friend commit a crime—and escape the doldrums of his idyllic retirement. This third novel in Highsmith's series is one of her most psychologically nuanced—particularly memorable for its dark, absurd humor—and was hailed by critics for its ability to manipulate the tropes of the genre. With the creation of Ripley, one of literature's most seductive sociopaths, Highsmith anticipated the likes of Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter years before their appearance.

Tom detested murder unless it was absolutely necessary.

First of all, this quote is not true. Tom does not detest murder, and, in fact, at times he seems to positively relish it. Second of all, is Tom Ripley the luckiest sociopath ever conceived of and set to paper? He has dodged, at this point, an untold number of bullets, both literal and metaphorical.

Somewhere there must be a police force that is up to dealing with the talented Mr. Ripley.

Anyway, this is the third book in Highsmith’s Ripliad, a series of 5 books featuring Tom Ripley, who is a thief, a sociopath, a chameleon, and an all around moral monster. In this one, Tom plays cat-and-mouse with Jonathan Trevanny, an American who has offended Ripley at a birthday party by being decidedly lukewarm about meeting him. This leads to Ripley engaging in a lengthy plot to involve Trevanny in a spot of light murder in retaliation for the perceived social slight.

As is usually the case, anyone who becomes embroiled in Ripley’s shenanigans ends up paying a much higher price than Ripley himself.

Highsmith’s books are noteworthy for the visceral intensity of her descriptions of violence. No one that I can think of is able to, without using graphic descriptions of blood and gore, bring the reader into the physical reality of murder. It’s both sickening and remarkable.

I’m just not sure how believable the central theory of the book is: that Ripley has managed to drag a heretofore upright citizen into very nefarious – and even murderous – doings. Not everyone is utterly amoral, after all.

I have the fourth book in the Ripliad,  The Boy Who Followed Ripley, but not the fifth, Ripley Under Water.

Murder at Gulls Nest
by Jess Kidd
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Nora Breen Investigates #1
Publication Date: March 11, 2025
Genre: mystery: modern (1980-present)
Pages: 336
ReRead?: No
Project: Project 365

A cozy mystery series about a former nun who searches for answers in a small seaside town after her pen pal mysteriously disappears

1954: When her former novice’s dependable letters stop, Nora Breen asks to be released from her vows. Haunted by a line in Frieda’s letter, Nora arrives at Gulls Nest, a charming hotel in Gore-on-Sea in Kent. A seaside town, a place of fresh air and relaxed constraints, is the perfect place for a new start. Nora hides her identity and pries into the lives of her fellow guests—but when a series of bizarre murders rattles the occupants of Gulls Nest it’s time to ask if a dark past can ever really be left behind.

This seems like it is likely to be the first in a new series of mysteries featuring Nora Breen, former nun and current amateur detective.

There was a lot for me to like in this book featuring a cast of very quirky characters in a mid-century boarding house on the English coast. I love a hotel/boarding house book, with the myriad of characters and the different ways that they can bounce off of one another. They are sort of like one of those kaleidoscopes from when I was a kid – turn the part that moves the different pieces and the colors overlap in an entirely new way, making a completely different pictures. This has a lot of the traditions of the classic golden age British mystery: a closed circle, the recognizable characters, the spunky amateur sleuth, the staid police detective, the inquisitive child who knows too much, and the bodies that keep piling up at every turn.

Nora was an interesting character. She has left the religious order where she lived for close to 30 years, in quiet communion with her sisters and with God. She is like a person newly born, in the process of figuring out who she is now, and finally free to remember the traumatic events in her past that she has avoided and suppressed during the time she was cloistered. Her life has been extremely ordered, and all of the decisions ordering it were made by others. Now she is disconcertingly free to make her own choices and take responsibility for herself. She knows she can’t return to the order, but she has really no idea what to make of her future.

I also really liked Inspector Rideout, the detective that she persuades to help her figure out what happened to her friend, and who is murdering the inhabitants of Gulls Nest. The solution is believable and quite harrowing. If I have one quibble, I didn’t really like the resolution of what to do with the murderer – it felt a bit convenient.

I love mysteries, but I would read the next book in the series even if it weren’t a mystery, because I really want to know what happens next with Nora.

Tropic Moon by Georges Simenon Translated from: French Rating: ★★★★ Publication Date: January 1, 1933 Genre: crime, translated fiction Pages: 134 ReRead?: No Project: Project 365 A young Frenchman, Joseph Timar, travels to Gabon carrying a letter of introduction from an influential uncle. He wants work experience; he wants to see the world. But in the oppressive heat and glare of the equator, Timar doesn't know what to do with himself, and no one seems inclined to help except Adèle, the hotel owner's wife, who takes him to bed one day and rebuffs him the next, leaving him sick with desire. But then, in the course of a single night, Adèle's husband dies and a black servant is shot, and Timar is sure that Adèle is involved. He'll cover for the crime if she'll do what he wants. The fix is in. But Timar can't even begin to imagine how deep. In Tropic Moon , Simenon, the master of the psychological novel, offers an incomparable picture of degeneracy and corruption in a colonial outpost.

My NYRB Classic of the week!

I’ve read a number of the Maigret mysteries by Georges Simenon, but didn’t realize until recently that he wrote what he considered to be more serious fiction, or romans dur (hard novels), as opposed to the romans policier. I’m reminded a bit of Graham Greene here, who also wrote what he called entertainments as opposed to the more literary works that he called novels.

I can’t say that I enjoyed this book, because it is very dark. But Simenon is such a compelling writer that it was extremely effective and immersive. When the main character, Timar, arrives in Gabon in the early 1930’s, I could very nearly feel the oppressive heat. The descriptions of the hotel in Libreville are extremely vivid. The smells, the sensations, the insects biting in spite of the mosquito netting, the scorching sun are all evoked.

Simenon is no apologist for colonialism. He does not pull his punches about the exploitation of the native African population. With a few very limited exceptions, all of the characters in this novel are white: Timar, the young Frenchman, Adele, the young wife, and later widow, of the hotel owner, all of the local government officials. None of them, including Timar, are particularly likeable, and they all dehumanize and exploit the natives.

Apparently Simenon so riled up the French colonial authorities with this novel that when he sought to return to French colonial Africa in 1936 he was refused a visa.

The ending of this book is opaque and, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t entirely understand it. There is no justice here, though – in order to find justice, the Maigret novels are the ones to read.

The Sunday Philosophy Club
by Alexander McCall Smith
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Isabel Dalhousie #1
Publication Date: September 28, 2004
Genre: fiction
Pages: 272
ReRead?: No
Project: Project 365

With The Sunday Philosophy Club, Alexander McCall Smith, the author of the best-selling and beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels, begins a wonderful new series starring the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie.

Isabel is fond of problems, and sometimes she becomes interested in problems that are, quite frankly, none of her business. This may be the case when Isabel sees a young man plunge to his death from the upper circle of a concert hall in Edinburgh. Despite the advice of her housekeeper, Grace, who has been raised in the values of traditional Edinburgh, and her niece, Cat, who, if you ask Isabel, is dating the wrong man, Isabel is determined to find the truth—if indeed there is one—behind the man's death. The resulting moral labyrinth might have stymied even Kant. And then there is the unsatisfactory turn of events in Cat's love life that must be attended to.

Filled with thorny characters and a Scottish atmosphere as thick as a highland mist, The Sunday Philosophy Club is irresistible, and Isabel Dalhousie is the most delightful literary sleuth since Precious Ramotswe.

Years ago, I read The Number One Ladies Detective Agency, sometime close to 1998, when it was published. I thought it was delightful and went on to read the next three or four books. I petered out at that point. More recently, I reread books 1 and 2, and planned to continue, but again, just got distracted, in spite of the fact that I really enjoyed both of them.

I never branched out beyond the series set in Botswana, but was always interested in the Isabel Dalhousie series set in Edinburgh. McCall Smith has several other series, and he is crazy prolific. The 44 Scotland Street series is also set in Edinburgh and it has 20 installments. The Portugese Irregular Verbs series, has 6 installments. The Isabel Dalhousie series is up to a total of 15 installments, and the original Number One Ladies Detective Agency series has a total of 26 full length mysteries. He also has one set in Scandinavia, Detective Varg (4 books), and one set in London, Corduroy Mansions (3 books).

I think I still liked the original series set in Botswana better, but I did enjoy this book. I wouldn’t call McCall Smith’s mysteries exactly cozy, but they definitely aren’t hard-boiled. This one had an ironic edge that definitely precludes the cozy label, which is all for the better as far as I am concerned, as I generally find cozy mysteries overly saccharine. I prefer my crime fiction with a little bit more meat on its bones.

However, a book by Alexander McCall Smith would definitely be something that I would pick up when I am in the mood for light reading.

The Cracked Looking Glass by Katherine Anne Porter Rating: ★★★★ Series: Penguin Modern #37 Publication Date: January 1, 1932 Genre: fiction Pages: 55 ReRead?: No Project: 2025 read my hoard, Project 365 'She only wished to prove to herself she was once more on a train going somewhere' A passionate, unfulfilled woman considers her life and her marriage in this moving novella by one of America's finest short story writers.

This piece of short fiction was originally published in 1939 and originally appears in the collection Pale Horse, Pale Rider, which I have not read. I’ve been interested in Katherine Anne Porter for a while, though, and this was a nice, bite sized entry into her work. She published one novel, Ship of Fools, which was so successful that it lifted her out of poverty and provided resources for the remainder of her life. It was also adapted for a film starring Vivian Leigh. In 1966, she won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter.

This was an excellent short story, with great characterization. The main character, Rosaleen, is an Irish immigrant from County Sligo (this is a point of pride with Rosaleen, and may make sense to someone more familiar to Ireland) living in Connecticut with her ailing, much older, husband, Dennis. Rosaleen is a spark of a woman, with red hair and an attitude to match. She is struggling with a lack of fulfillment in her marriage.

Probably my favorite work from either of the Penguin box sets so far.

House of Deadly Calm
by Mona Farnsworth
Rating: ★½
Publication Date: January 1, 1971
Genre: gothic romance
Pages: 219
ReRead?: No
Project: 2024 read my hoard, Project 365

Nice old Mrs. Roderick…She wouldn't hurt a soul. That's what Checkers Paget thought the day she arrived in Stillson. Poor Checkers…how was she to know.

So bad it’s good, or just bad? Just bad.

When I was a teen in the mid 1970’s, my mom read a lot of gothic romance – Victoria Holt, Phyllis Whitney, Mary Stewart and others – so I would grab them off of her shelves and read them, too. I remember going to my local used book store and buying mass market paperback gothics by the dozen, along with traditional Harlequins, for about a quarter a piece. I would leave with a whole stack of books for the weekend. There is a lot of nostalgia for me wrapped up in sitting down with a paperback gothic romance.

So, about 5 years ago, I was at my UBS and someone had dropped off a whole box of old gothic romances, and I grabbed them. They cost me a bit more than a quarter each, but it was worth it. I’ve been making my way through them ever since.

The quality varies from pretty good to really terrible. This one was closer to the really terrible end of the spectrum. It was deeply silly, with a main character named Charlotte, who went by Checkers, which is just an indefensible literary choice. The plot is not great, and the romance has nothing to do with the gothic elements of the story.

Not one that I will reread.