Books read, 2020
Dec. 31st, 2020 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peppermintesseA huge improvement over last year! Yay!
I also still need to finish up Strangers in Paradise XXV (the last two issues). And the new series by Terry Moore, Five Years, that brings all of his universes together.
January (1)
Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse: Second in the series (and now I see there's a third!), taking place in 1872. I didn't do myself any favors by starting it, setting it aside for far too long, then picking it up again; I should have started over from the beginning. Forgetting who some of the characters were and details of what had happened was my own fault and not the authors' or the book's, because when I picked it up again I finished it in just a few nights. I really enjoyed it. The characterizations was as true to canon as could be expected for young Sherlock and Mycroft. The story itself was convoluted enough to be surprising but not be too difficult to follow.
February (2)
American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan (audiobook, read by Amy Landon): This book chronicles the story of Israel Keyes. I have to say, I was a little disappointed in this one. It was well-written and well-researched, but listening to it felt like a bit of a slog. I enjoyed listening to the podcast about Israel Keyes, True Crime Bullshit, a whole lot more.
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley (audiobook, read by Gary Furlong, Elle Newlands, Morag Sims, Imogen Church, and Moira Quirk): A murder mystery set in an almost classic Christie scenario: a group of friends stranded by a snowstorm. One goes missing then is found dead dies, another is responsible. The novelty of the story is really the way in which it's told: Heather's, from the perspective of "now" (the day after New Year's Day), and the others (Miranda, Emma, Katie, and Doug) as almost flashbacks to fill in what's happened to lead to the murder. It kept me guessing, I suppose, but the resolution kind of came out of nowhere to me. I wonder if I re-read it, would I notice clues earlier?
The other novelty is that the identity of the victim isn't even revealed to the reader until most of the way into the story, making it harder to guess the killer… though my guess as to who the victim's identity was correct.
Funnily enough, I could not help comparing the characters to those in Bridget Jones' Diary: Miranda = Rebecca, Beau = Tom, Miranda's husband (whose name I can't even remember right now, and I literally just finished it) = Jeremy, Samira = Magda. There are also a Mark and a Giles in the cast of characters, though they are not anything like BJD's Mark and Giles.
March (3)
Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse (audiobook, read by Damian Lynch): Third in the series is set a year later in 1873. It involves the continuation of the story of characters from the previous book (notably, Ai Lin, the beautiful and brilliant Chinese woman with whom Mycroft is in love but can never act on because of their cultural differences) as well as Sherlock (age 19) taking leave of his studies at university to try to solve the mystery of the Fire Four Eleven serial killer. I think I enjoyed this one more than the last, perhaps because of the ongoing murder mystery, though I can't recall hearing the actual identity of the killer. (The downside of not having a book to easily flip back through.)
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (audiobook, read by Samantha Bond and Allan Corduner): Easily my favorite read so far this year. It's a richly built story about a famous mystery writer (Alan Conway) and the final novel in a series of books featuring a Poirot-like detective called Atticus Pünd. It contains the (Conway) novel within the (Horowitz) novel and the two are intertwined.
The female narrator in the audiobook, for the voice of Susan Ryeland, is Samantha Bond, who provided the voice of Bridget Jones in the novel Mad About The Boy. Initially it was easy to imagine Susan the editor a bit like Bridget, at least through the first chapter. The novel-within-the-novel is read by Allan Corduner.
If you're a fan of Agatha Christie, and particularly of Hercule Poirot, I highly recommend it. And now I have discovered that there's a second Susan Ryeland book coming out later this year. Hell yeah.
The Monogram Murders: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah (audiobook, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt): I learned about this through the previous book by Anthony Horowitz. I approached reading it with some skepticism, because even sequels that have the stamp of approval by the author's estate haven't always been great. (Scarlett, I'm looking at you.) I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. This author has a terrific grasp on not only the Christie structure, but on the character of Poirot himself. The story itself has its twists and turns, and you only know by the fact that the book is not imminently over that there's more to tell. Highly recommend, particularly as an audiobook, with the narrator Julian Rhind-Tutt doing an excellent David-Suchet-esque Poirot.
April (8)
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: Not an audiobook, actually, but I listened to it via the podcast Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Because why not get back to the original master of the crime novel? I know I've read this before but it was enjoyable to hear/read it again. (If you go to the website page for the podcast, you can listen there.)
The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn (audiobook, read by Ann Marie Lee): I'd heard that this was a good, compelling read, and there were moments that caused me to gasp aloud, but for the most part, I saw every major plot twist coming a mile away. There were long stretches that could have been simplified or edited down—they seemed unrelated when they appear in the story, but because so much detail is given, you start to wonder how its relevant, and from there it's not hard to predict the trajectory of the story. It was a worthwhile read, but it didn't shock or wow me in the same way that Gone Girl (by Gillian Flynn) or The Girl on the Train (by Paula Hawkins) did.
Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah: The second of the new Poirot books, which again do the source material incredible justice. This is the story of a famous author and the changing of her will with an outcome that perplexes all, and causes chaos.
Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin (audiobook, read by Jason Isaacs): A tale of future world in which skin is an earned privilege. Eerie and fascinating, and the narration by Jason Isaacs is perfect. Part of Amazon's Forward Collection of sci-fi.
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The second book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Sherlock Holmes, of course. It's good to revisit another classic.
The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay (audiobook, read by Steven Strait): A strange tale of a person called X trying to regain their identity through fragmented therapy sessions. Read by Steven Strait, and also part of Amazon's Forward Collection.
The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (audiobook, read by Zehra Jane Naqvi): Interesting and fun protagonist in Anne Beddingfeld, but it's not really what I'd call her best work as far as murder mysteries go. (Apparently it was an early work of hers.) I feel like a lot of the text could have been hacked down to tighten things up. It was free though, and entertaining to listen to after I'd run out of podcast episodes.
The Mystery of Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah: The third of the new Poirot books and I have to say that I thought this one topped the previous two in terms of an ambitious and clever mystery. If you enjoyed Christie's books, you will, I think, like these, too. All the talk of cake, though, made me a bit peckish.
May (1)
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins: The third book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. I'd read it before, but I'd forgotten the details of the mystery, so it was all new to me again.
June (2)
The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols by Nicholas Meyer: A pastiche with the conceit that it was adapted from a recently discovered journal of Dr. John Watson, this novel feels as genuine as a pastiche can. I am always pleased to find a book that challenges my vocabulary; every page had a word I had to look up, and that word turned out to be the perfect word choice for context. To be honest, I guessed a lot of the turns before they happened, and the book tells you right up front that this case documents one of Holmes' failures (so there's a sense of disappointment at the end, but your expectations should have been appropriately set already), but I still enjoyed reading it very much.
The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie: The fourth book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. I don't think I'd ever read this one before—at least, it did not sound familiar—and it's honestly not one of the better Poirot plots but I still enjoyed listening.
July (2)
The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green: The fifth book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. I had never heard of it before and enjoyed it very much. (This was Green's first novel, published in 1878, and was one of the earliest detective novels and was apparently an inspiration to Agatha Christie.)
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (audiobook, read by the author): And now for something completely different… perhaps not completely, as it is still a murder mystery, but this one involves the murder of 6 crew members on a ship on a deep space mission, leaving the victims' new clones to try to figure out what happened. They have no memories beyond the launch of the ship 24 years earlier, so no memory of how the murders came to be. Original in every way; very interesting and very clever. Enjoyed it a lot. My only nitpick is that I wish a professional voice actor had read the book. Lafferty was not bad but a talented voice actor could have done different intonations to give the story the depth it deserves. (I'd love to see this as a movie or a series, if I'm honest.)
August (4)
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (audiobook, read by Paul Michael): The third book in the Langdon series… yeah, yeah, don't laugh; I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code when it was first out. I enjoyed this too as a total work of fiction. I don't believe half of what he claims to be true is in fact true ("sincere" does not in fact have its etymological source in "without wax," as he claims not only in this book but another of his, Digital Fortress). But I have to say that the reader, Paul Michael, does an outstanding job with it. His voice for the raspy-voiced Japanese woman is distinctly separate from the erudite Black man. I enjoyed the performance of it more than the story (I saw the plot twists coming from a mile away, for the most part).
Dracula by Bram Stoker: The sixth book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. I had read it a long time ago but I really enjoyed hearing it again. I'd forgotten how ahead of her time Mina Harker was as a character.
Murder, She Wrote: A Date with Murder by Jessica Fletcher, Donald Bain & Jon Land (audiobook, read by Regina Reagan): I'm sure I don't have to explain the premise here. For the most part it was ear candy. I was immensely amused by the repeated references to the statistical anomaly of murders in Cabot Cove and the city being referred to as the murder capital of Maine, "Killing Cove" and so forth. It was written relatively well—though a former English teacher would never have said "a myriad of [x]" instead of "myriad [x]"—but the ending was less than satisfactory and the computer / internet stuff was laughably inaccurate (sites with simpler UIs are easier to hack? What?). Still, the reader was pretty good and believable as Jessica Fletcher as well as the other voices.
Murder, She Wrote: Margaritas & Murder by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain (audiobook, read by Cynthia Darlow): A slightly better story and a reader that does a pretty great impression of Angela Lansbury, and good voices for other characters, too.
September (4)
The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz: First in a new series with former detective and private detective Daniel Hawthorne (whom I picture looking/being like an English version of Lenny Briscoe from the OG Law & Order) and the author himself, working in a sort of Holmes/Watson dynamic. Unusual for the author to place himself in the middle of a work of fiction like this, and to involve the likes of Spielberg and Peter Jackson in supporting roles. But Horowitz is a terrific writer and this was a really good read.
The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack (audiobook, read by Robert Petkoff): Prequel to the Star Trek: Picard series, so if you've seen that, you know what's coming. You see the hope and enthusiasm when the Romulan relocation project begins, and that makes the horror that happens that much more poignant. It's written really well and it fills in the history excellently. The turns of phrase are fantastic and the characters feel authentic.
The reader does a fantastic job—his Picard voice is excellent, and the differentiating of voices and accents makes the story very easy to follow.
My one disappointment is related to (of course) the one brief appearance of Beverly Crusher, early on in the story (about 45 minutes into the audiobook), when he accepts the position to lead the charge of the Romulan project (and gives up the Enterprise). He doesn't say goodbye to her in person, he doesn't say what he wants to say to her (namely, to ask her to join him on the mission, and the implications that he wanted to start a romantic relationship. There's much awkwardness, and then… that's it. He thinks of her as his best friend and confidant, and had for the entirety of their service on the Enterprise-D, but after that scene, she's never mentioned again, he never thinks again of her or wonders how she might advise him in his darkest hour. It doesn't feel true to the characters as we grew to know them during the course of TNG. It's not authentic.
The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz: Second in the Hawthorne series. Kept taking turns I didn't expect, which I always enjoy. If this is your genre, then you'll probably like it.
Murder, She Wrote: Madison Avenue Shoot by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain (audiobook, read by Cynthia Darlow): Excellent work by Cynthia Darlow and her voice work. The story and writing is pretty good—your typical MSW murder-mystery fare—but Darlow's performance / voice work really elevates it. I found myself in tears when young Frank went missing… even though I know a MSW book isn't going to kill a kid!
October (3)
The Killings at Kingfisher Hill: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah (audiobook, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt): The fourth and latest of the new Poirot books by Sophie Hannah. Very, very well done, a clever mystery; Rhind-Tutt does such a great job performing it.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: The seventh book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. I don't think I have ever read it before, and knew the big twist at what I thought was the end… so when it kept going, I was very confused. I may re-read again—there's a version read by Thandie Newton.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The eighth book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Holmes has always been a favourite, so it's always a pleasure to reread.
November (2)
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie: The ninth book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. It's the same Tommy and Tuppence book I read in 2018—I suppose it's not a good sign that I don't even remember how it ends. But I enjoyed the reading.
The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes by Ted Riccardi (audiobook, read by Simon Prebble): A collection of nine shorter stories that take place during Holmes' so-called "lost years," spanning across Asia (India, Tibet, Sumatra, and so on). The stories are pretty good and feel authentic to the original canon, and the narrator's performance is phenomenal.
December (8)
Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz (audiobook, read by Lesley Manville and Allan Corduner): The follow-up to Magpie Murders, and it was just as enjoyable to me as that one. Maybe more so, as this was a clue hunt to a murder that had happened 8 years earlier, in a novel that had been out for nearly as long. I really love the conceit of the novel within the novel, and kudos to Horowitz for basically plotting two separate books in one. Hoping there are more in this series. (Tiny bit disappointed in the ending, though. A little too realistic. But a good read all the same. Also, honestly, I would really love to see an Atticus Pund series.)
Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (audiobook, read by Wil Wheaton): For me, half the enjoyment of this book, as with Ready Player One, was listening to Wil Wheaton read it. He imbues a certain sense of enthusiasm, eagerness, and credibility that I can't imagine other narrators could pull off. (I wonder if Wade Watts' name was mere coincidence, or if Cline did it as an homage to Mr. Wheaton.) The other half was the '80s nostalgia factor—not gonna lie. (I had no idea that RDJ might have been Pretty in Pink's Duckie! And I would pay good money to actually see the battle with the seven Princes.) Not sure what to make of the ending though. Not unsatisfying, but it did leave some questions hanging.
Shadow of the Swan by Nicola M. Cameron: I picked this up because a longtime friend wrote it, so I went into it not knowing a whole lot about the plot or premise (rather, what I did know, I forgot between purchasing it in September and reading it in December). I was not expecting it to involve vampires, fae, shifters, and paladins. I don't mean to say that I was disappointed; on the contrary, I really enjoyed reading it. A fun ride with a satisfying ending. It doesn't hurt that I pictured Henry Cavill as the vampire Henry.
A Gentle Fall of Snow by Nicola M Cameron: A Christmas-themed follow-up novella to Shadow of the Swan. Sweet and enjoyable, with a little bit of tying up loose ends from the main story.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: The tenth book featured on Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Gonna be honest, I may have to listen or read again, because I don't remember a thing about it.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (audiobook, read by Hugh Grant): Usually if I listen to this story at Christmas, it's the Patrick Stewart version, but this one was new this year and it was free to Audible Plus members. This recording is an offering very much worth listening to. Damn if it doesn't make me cry every time I listen to it.
The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen (audiobook, read by Robert Fass): Free with Audible Plus, a pretty good mystery set in 1923, but tainted by the racism of the time. The mention of the killer having Black heritage being among the reasons for killing his blackmailer was not even critical to the story in the end. I realize at the time this was an unfortunate prevailing sentiment, but it was still gross to hear.
Also, I got really sick of hearing about the damn snuff box of the inspector's. If it had been a drinking game to take a shot whenever the snuff was mentioned, I would have been plastered by the end of the story.
King of Blades (Two Thrones Book 4) by Nicola M. Cameron: A bit of brain candy (well-written brain candy!) peppered with some sexy-times to round out the year. I really enjoy the Two Thrones universe; it's rich and complex and just… fun.
Total numbers:
- 2020: 40
- 2019: 11.5
- 2018: 10.5
- 2017: 24
- 2016: 43
- 2015: 29
