Book of the Week, Forgotten books

Book of the Week: Still Waters

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I’ve got a British library crime classic for you today – and another written by ECR Lorac.

If you’ve read the Theft of the Iron Dogs there are some familiar characters in this and not just Lorac’s series detective, Inspector MacDonald. In Lunedale there is more trouble brewing. Giles and Kate are helping Kate’s cousin Caroline buy a farm not far from them. Caroline is an artist not a farmer and she’s been taken with the property and a neighbouring copse and ex-quarry turned pond which she also buys. But there’s something strange at the auction, and soon after Caroline receives an offer for the land. Then her architect is attacked when spending the night at the property to survey it. Inspector MacDonald is in the area on a customs case and starts to help his friends out after the local police prove somewhat sceptical.

This is atmospheric and clever. I love the way that Lorac writes about the Lake District and the way of life there in the first half of the twentieth century. This on we published in 1949 and has the immediate post-war atmosphere with incomers, shortages and people trying to take advantage of changing times. I was struggling with my concentration last week and it was just what I needed to start getting me back on the straight and narrow again. I’m so glad that the BLCC is republishing Lorac (and her Carnac books too) because although they have their dated moments, they are always clever mysteries in a specific setting – whereas some mysteries can feel like they could take place in any old place. More please!

This one is in the newly renamed Kindle+ at the moment – which means you can’t get it in Kobo right now, but as always you can buy the paperback direct from the British Library shop and their delightful three for two offer.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: November 2 – November 8

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Well. Yes. I had a cold last week and it really, really messed with my concentration and my brain. Even with the train journey four days to help me, the list is short. But on the bright side, the cold is nearly gone and I’m nearly back to normal. I do have a theatre trip and a concert this week so this week may not be hugely better but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it!

Read:

Strong Poison by Dorothy L Sayers

Beware the Trains by Edmund Crispin

Lessons in Harmony by Jonathan Coe*

Still Waters by E C R Lorac

Death Before Wicket by Kerry Greenwood

Started:

Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter

Bells of Fortune by Leonora Nattrass*

Still reading:

N/a

A bunch of e books because I was writing the offers post and one preordered hardback arrived.

Bonus picture: my local museum where I went for the first time in ages at the weekend because they had a book sale on.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats

Reading Stats: October 2026

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Books read this month: 35*

New books: 28

Re-reads: 7 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 5

NetGalley books read: 10

Kindle Unlimited read: 9

Ebooks: 4

Audiobooks: 7

Non-fiction books: 2

Favourite book: Murder on the Royal Crescent by Harriet F Townson

Books bought: Oh I don’t think I’m counting. It was a lot of ebooks and about 7 book-books

Most read author: Kerry Greenwood or Dorothy L Sayers because I’ve been at the audiobooks again!

Books read in 2026: 329

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 588

The month started strongly while I was on holiday but without that the list would have been much shorter as the end of the month got very, very busy. There were five theatre trips, a overnight trip to Essex for an event and a weekend day out in London as well as the holiday – but November is looking much quieter (apart from the start of Christmas preparations!) so hopefully I’ll get back on track now the ticket box is emptier!

Bonus picture: I spend a lot of time taking photos of things I think my (nearly 2 year old) niece will like. This is one of them – her response was “Eat it! Eat it!” so that’s pretty much mission accomplished.

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – this month!

bookshops

Books in the Wild: The Broken Binding

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Happy Saturday everyone, and it’s the last day of As You Like It in Stratford today, so I’m back there too – with my bookshop visit from before our theatre trip.

The Broken Binding is a new sci-fi, fantasy and horror specialist bookshop and today is actually the one month anniversary of the opening of their opening – that’s how new it is – and we were in there on Halloweeen which feels like a prime time for a for a fantasy and horror bookshop. And indeed, while we were in there, a huge crowd of people appeared, seemingly all in one group – as you can see from the background of this picture of one of the window displays!

As you all know at this point, I’m not a big reader of sci fi, I don’t read horror at all and my excursions into fantasy are some what limited, but I can appreciate a lovely forward facing display of lovely hardbacks, although there is some T Kingfisher here for people like me!

And among the paperbacks there were authors that I do read – there’s paperback T Kingfisher in this shelf right next to T J Klune in this set of shelves. From my limited knowledge there are loads of authors here that are very popular and that people will enjoy as well as some that I haven’t come across as well. There were Pratchetts (although not the hardback ones) and Philip Pullman and if I hadn’t been in a hurry to get to my dinner (!) and it didn’t suddenly get so busy, I would have a longer look to see what I could find that was new to me. But as it was, I picked up the next in a series that never discounts and when off to my dinner…

Have a great weekend everyone

new releases, series

Series Update: Nicola Upson’s Josephine Tey mysteries

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It’s been three years since I last wrote about this series and even longer since I did a proper post about them, although I have mentioned a couple in Recommendsday posts. Since that last series redux we’ve had an eleventh and now this week a twelfth book in the series. And I’ve also now read all of them – this is a series that I’ve read severely out of order and have picked up the ones that I’ve missed when they’ve been on offer on Kindle. So now I can give you a proper opinion on the whole series – including the latest book. And I’m going to start with the new one The Voices of the Dead.

In the latest book we’ve reached 1941 and the height of The Blitz as Josephine and her friends gather for Archie Penrose’s wedding. But as soon as the wedding is over Archie is off to Wales to help supervise the operation to move the National Gallery’s paintings to the safety of a slate mine. Josephine is also in the area on holiday in the hopes of spending some more time with Marta who is part of a film crew documenting the operation for newsreels. Also in Wales is Noel Coward who is working on his new play, which will star Margaret Rutherford as a clairvoyant. They’re all hoping for a peaceful time away from the terror of the bombings in London. But as the paintings are being moved in a roof collapses in part of the mine and reveals a body. It’s been there for decades and Archie’s superiors don’t want him to investigate just to move the paintings but that doesn’t sit right with Archie so he and Josephine start to investigate as best they can.

It’s a really good mystery – and if you haven’t read any of the series before it’s actually an OK entry point because all the characters are reintroduced at the start for the wedding and because the plot and secondary characters are fairly typical of the series. And that’s why I’ve started this post with that review of the new book. Because for me the thing that carries through the whole series is that it’s not just Josephine who is a real person being fictionalised – yes most of the people in her immediate circle are fictional (although based on real characters) the secondary characters are real people and the events that are going on are real – in this case it’s Noel Coward and Margaret Rutherford and the real life operation to move paintings to safety. In other books it’s been people like Alfred and Alma Hitchcock who adapted one of Tey’s plays. I particularly enjoyed the paintings plot because we went to Penrhyn Castle on our recent trip to Anglesey so I really appreciated the descriptions of the house which was one of the more boggling National Trust properties we have recently been to.

As I said back in that very first post about the series, they are often darker than you would expect – and this one is no different to that. But then mystery novels written in this era are often darker than you remember – or at least darker than you noticed when you read them as a child and don’t spot the subtext because you don’t understand it. Since I wrote that first series post I’ve read five more in the series – including the latest one – and they’ve all got four stars from me on Goodreads (and I finished this latest one just before the ability to do more than a full star came in) which is a sign of how much I like them.

These are very easy to get hold of – in my experience there’ll be at least one in any crime selection of even a reasonable size in a bookshop and I’m expecting this one to be in the new hardbacks section in shops too. And they’re in Kindle and Kobo too obviously. And it’s worth mentioning that Upson’s standalone Christmas mystery, The Christmas Clue, came out in paperback a couple of weeks ago too and so that should be fairly easy to get hold of as well.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Book previews

Out This Week: Final Corinna Chapman book

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Back in March when I was writing about Murder in the Cathedral I said that I was sad because it was going to be the last new Kerry Greenwood book we were going to have. Well I was wrong – there is just one more and it came out this week. I found out about this a couple of months ago from Kerry’s facebook page, where The Duty Wombat said “We’ve had a lot of edits, and I have helped. This will be noted in the actual books, for reasons of transparency.” But I wasn’t expecting this to be published anywhere near this fast – but I think they’ve gone double speed on it to get it out for the Australian Summer holidays (Christmas!).

Anyway, this is the eighth in the Corinna Chapman series which is set in the modern day. The blurb says that it’s autumn in Melbourne and Insula, the building where Corinna lives and works comes to the attention of some real estate developers and they will need to fight to survive. Elsewhere Daniel, Corinna’s private detective lover is investigating some missing boys. I really like the Corinna books – and I’ll be interested to see the notes about which of the edits are post-Kerry (so to speak). Hopefully I’ll get my hands on a copy relatively soon – and I’m pretty sure I’ll read it as soon as I do!

Recommendsday

Recommendsday: October Quick Reviews

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It was a pretty bumper list of books last month thanks to the holiday,

An Inkling of Death by Anna Beer*

This is the second mystery featuring academic Eve Brook – I read the first one this month as well, but this came out last week. This time Eve is hunting for Tolkien references in the papers of a minor member of the Inklings. Spending New Year at a house in the country should be a break from the heavy material that she’s found in the documents, but the atmosphere at the party is not good and that’s before a body is found. Soon she’s trying to figure out what happened and whether it’s related to her work. The premise of this is good, but I found the start where you’re thrown in to the house party without the context of the case a bit confusing, and sort of wished that it had started at the beginning of the story rather than jumping back two months later after the murder, but I understood why it had been done that way to get to the murder quicker. I find Eve quite a tricky character to get on board with – she’s clearly intelligent when it comes to her work but her emotional intelligence and the way she deals with relationships feels much more like a teenager than a woman with a grown up child of her own. But I thought the mystery plot was clever – the 1930s Oxford politics and the backdrop of the attitudes towards fascism among academics at the time made for a clever set up.

Puzzles of the Parish ed. Martin Edwards

This is another of the BLCC’s collections of mystery short stories built around a theme. This time the linking thread is ecclesiastical – they feature vicars, churches and even a cardinal scheming for the papacy. There are some authors you will recognise in here – like G K Chesterton, Ellis Peters and Edmund Crispin as well as others you may not. And as ever with these collections it is a little patchy – I really liked some of the stories but others left me cold. But if you’re looking for some mystery short stories – or to try and add some more Golden Age authors into your reading diet this isn’t a bad way of spending a few hours if you are in Kindle Unlimited – or Kindle+ as they appear to be in the process of rechristening it.

The Gentleman’s Book of Vices by Jess Everlee*

It’s London in the 1880s, and Charlie is about to marry a woman he can’t love. But before he does, he’s determined to meet his favourite author from his erotica collection. As far as everyone knows, Miles is a shopkeeper – but the shop is actually being kept afloat by his (much more successful) career as an erotica writer. When Charlie turns up in his shop, Miles suspects blackmail – not that Charlie is a fan. Soon they’re having an affair – but there are things in their lives which will need to be overcome. I struggled with this one on a number of fronts. The plot is muddled and the pacing is a bit all over the place. But I think the thing that’s going to bamboozle readers the most is a mismatch of expectations and reality: One of the main characters is a writer of erotica, but most of the sex scenes are off page/closed door and I don’t think that’s what people are going to be expecting, especially with pacing and plot as patchy as they are. Never mind.

And that’s your lot for this month, something of a mixed bag I will admit, but you can’t always like everything, and a lot of the stuff that I did like a lot I’ve either already written about – or have plans for in the weeks ahead! In case you need a reminder, the Books of the Week in October were: Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die, The Seventh Sinner, The Shadows of Kensington Gore and The Final Problem and the other Recommendsdays were Halloween and South Korea novels.

Happy Humpday!

Book of the Week, Christmas books, detective, historical, mystery, new releases

Book of the Week: Murder on the Royal Crescent

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As I said yesterday I started my new Christmas book reading last week and it’s only fair that this should be today’s BotW because a) it came out last week, b) it’s really good and c) it’s the follow up to D is for Death which was also a BotW. Yes that was only a pick in April and it’s a sequel so I’m breaking two of my own rules (about repeats and sequels) to post this but it was my favourite thing I read last week so I don’t care!

Cover of Murder on the Royal Crescent

It’s December 1936 and while the rest of the country is consumed with the abdication of Edward VIII, Dora Wildwood is in Bath where a death has happened on the twentieth anniversary of an earlier murder. In 1916 Daisy Palmer was found dead on Royal Crescent and now someone else is dead in front of the house where Daisy’s increasingly eccentric fiancé still lives on the Crescent. Dora discovers that the Georgian houses are a broiling mass of family rivalries and dodgy antiques dealings as well as a wall of silence about what actually happens to Daisy. Oh and there’s a massive schism between people who like the Brontes and the ones who like Austen. Can Dora work out what on earth is going on?

We are a year or more on from the events of D is for Death and this is largely set away from the London Library where that book is set and where Dora still works (when she’s not trying to set up her detective agency) so I don’t think you need to have read that book to enjoy this one, and although reading this first will spoil some of the events of the first book you definitely don’t need to have read that one to enjoy this. In my review of that first book I described it as a historical mystery romp and Dora as a delightfully quirky heroine and all of that is still true but she’s also gained a bit of maturity and experience. The mystery is good – but the portrayal of Bath is brilliant. Townson lives there and she’s made it a real character in the book which is lovely. Sometimes you read a book and the setting feels a bit generic – like it could be anywhere – but this is not one of those books. It’s not as Christmas-Christmas as some of the other festive releases, but it is Christmassy – so if you’re looking to get your festive reading underway it would be a good choice.

My copy came from NetGalley, but this one is out now in hardback and should be fairly easy to get hold of in physical copy. And of course it’s in Kindle and Kobo too.

Happy Reading!

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: October 26 – November 1

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A three theatre-trip week as I mentioned yesterday and the list reflects that somewhat. I’ve also read my first of this year’s new Christmas books – I’m not averse to reading Christmas-set books at any time of year, but I’m not normally so early with the new festive releases. So I’ll take that as a win for the week. All the usual start of the month stuff is coming up this week, and it is a quieter week so hopefully next week’s list will be a bit better.

Read:

Murder on Royal Crescent by Harriet F Townson*

Death at Victoria Dock by Kerry Greenwood

As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters

A Carol and a Killing by Rev Richard Coles

The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters

Started:

Beware the Trains by Edmund Crispin

Still reading:

N/a

Four books bought – two at Main Character and two while we were in Stratford on Saturday. One ebook as well.

Bonus social post: since I posted my review yesterday the RSC has posted a snippet of As You Like it in the forest of Arden so now you too can marvel at the set (and at the performances)

Bonus picture: The first show I saw last week was at a new to me venue – the Emerald which is under a bridge on the Embankment. I liked the retro vibes of the theatre, but that was about it.

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: As You Like It

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I had three theatre trips this week – one of which I disliked (and which ended last night) and two of which I loved. This is one of the loved but I only saw this last night, so I’m not sure my thoughts on it are at their most coherant yet. However as it only has a week left of its run I thought I ought to write about it straightaway – although tickets are at a something of a premium and next weekend is already completely sold out – so if you want to go you’ll have to get your ducks in a row RightNowThisInstant.

This is the RSC’s new production of As You Like It, with an all-male cast led by Jonathan Groff making his RSC debut as Rosalind. In case you’re not across the plot – this is one of Shakepeare’s comedies and I’m going to use the RSC’s own summary because it’s so neat and concise:

Rosalind is banished from the court of Duke Frederick – but not before she and young Orlando fall for each other. Seeking out her exiled father in the Forest of Arden with her devoted cousin, Celia, Rosalind disguises herself as a young man, Ganymede.

In fear of his own life, Orlando also escapes to the forest and soon runs into Ganymede, who pledges to cure his lovesickness. But in order to do so, Orlando has to woo her… or rather, he has to woo ‘him’. Then the games commence.

I am always a comedy over tragedy person – and like my all-time favourite Twelfth Night, this has characters in disguise. And in fact it goes even further than that does, especially when you have an all male cast because by late in the second act you have a man playing a woman, dressed as a man pretending to be a woman. If that sounds confusing, it’s not, because when you’re watching it onstage it’s wonderfully, gloriously clear.

In fact, I don’t really have any complaints to make about this at all, it was quite simply one of the best nights of theatre I have had in a very long time. It was very funny, the performances were brilliant and I cannot explain how brilliant the design and costume of it was. My photo of the top is of the opening set that is used for the Court of Duke Frederick – and the contrast from that to the Forest of Arden is truly astonishing. I did take a photo, but I’m not posting it because it’s a spoiler and it really doesn’t do the thing justice.

I always worry that I’m not going to be able to follow Shakespeare if I haven’t read up first* and I read the play text this week to make sure I was across what was happening, but honestly I didn’t need to – it was so easy to understand and so clear what was happening. This is Daniel Evans’ first Shakespeare productions since he started as RSC co-artistic director and he has made the Forest of Arden’s residents Welsh, with beautiful close harmony singing on top of everything else that is so clever.

I booked this because my sister and I wanted to see Jonathan Groff, and he was brilliant – but truly the whole production was. Gary Wilmot – who I have only ever see in panto or musicals – is making his RSC debut as Dukes Frederick and Senior but truly I don’t think there was a weak link anywhere in the cast – or indeed the whole production. Truly a magical, magical night in the theatre.

Have a great Sunday.

*I think this is a legacy of seeing a couple of Shakespeares as a teenager where I struggled