mystery series

Book Report: Two Favorite Authors–Iona Whishaw and Niall Williams

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March 14, 2024

Reading the next book in a series and another book by a favorite author feels like coming home. The refrigerator is stocked with my favorite foods and beverages, and the light is glowing by my favorite reading chair. This feels especially true if a recent read was less than satisfying, and I need “a sure thing.”

A “Sure Thing” Mystery Series

I can count on Iona Whishaw’s Lane Winslow Mystery series when I need a pleasing, not too heavy, but also not too predictable book. Set in post WWII Canada, former English spy Lane Winslow somehow becomes involved in intrigue and murders in picturesque Kings Cove. And Inspector Darling often needs her help, even when he doesn’t know it.

A Deceptive Devotion, the sixth book in the series, involves a mysterious older Russian woman looking for her missing brother. Lane, who speaks Russian becomes her host and her translator. Is this woman who she says she is? Complications build when a lone hunter is found murdered near by. Is there a connection between these two plot threads?

One of the things that is important to me when I read a series is that the characters continue to develop, and that is true in these books. Lane and Inspector Darling have evolved, grown since their first appearance in book #1. Plus, I love getting to know the other characters in the book, including Constable Ames, who often provides some comic relief, and Lane’s neighbors –the postmistress Eleanor and the Hughes ladies who are master gardeners, and a variety of others, who all care for Lane. And then there is the ongoing relationship between Lane and Darling.

This is not deep reading, but is perfect when I feel the need for distraction. While I wait for the next Louise Penny and the next Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear how grateful I am to have four more in the Lane Winslow series available.

A “Sure Thing” Author

The first novel I read by Irish author Niall Williams was This Is Happiness published in 2019, and that led me to his first novel Four Letters of Love (1997), which I also loved. This past year I read History of Rain (2014). Again, another big love. Finally, I realized this writer never disappoints, and I need to read the rest of his back list.

I just finished As It Is In Heaven (1999). Yes, I loved it. Sorry to be so repetitive. The book grabbed me with its opening lines:

There are only three great puzzles in the world, the puzzle of love, the puzzle of death, and between each of these and part of both of them, the puzzle of God. God is the greatest puzzle of all”

p. 3

Stephen Griffin is a lackluster teacher who falls in love with an Italian violinist, Gabriella, the first time he hears her play. His father, Phillip, who continues to grieve the death of his wife and daughter in a car accident, realizes his son is in love as they play chess.

The magic begins. The miracles begin. And the writing takes my breath away over and over again.

I don’t want to say more, because I want you to discover this on your own.

How happy I am that I still have three more novels left to read: The Fall of Light (2001), Only Say the Word (2005), and John (2008). Plus, he has written several nonfiction books about his beloved Ireland.

Happy reading!

An Invitation

What book has inspired you to read all the books written by that author? What series of books do you love? I would love to know.

Book Report: Things Seen and Unseen by Nora Gallagher and a Mystery Series by Iona Whishaw

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September 21, 2023

One book leads to another. A truism.

Nora Gallagher

In this case, a friend mentioned to me that she found a novel, Changing Light, written by Nora Gallagher in a Little Free Library. She loved it and decided to re-read a memoir by Gallagher called Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic. She recalls reading it when it was first published in 2013, but didn’t care for it much. The second time, however, she liked it more and is now thinking about reading other books by Gallagher.

I have two Nora Gallagher books in my library: Things Seen and Unseen, A Year Lived in Faith (1998) and Practicing Resurrection, A Memoir of Work, Doubt, Discernment, and Moments of Grace (2003). I remember enjoying them both. I also read Moonlight Sonata, but didn’t care for it as much. I wonder if I would appreciate it more now.

Yup, one book leads to another.

I decided to re-read Things Seen and Unseen, and I am so glad I did. The theme of each chapter is one of the liturgical seasons of the church year–Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and moving onward to the last season, Ordinary Time. Ordinary Time follows Pentecost and is the last season before Advent. I am Lutheran, and we don’t call this season “ordinary time,” but instead count the Sundays after Pentecost. Last Sunday, for example, was the 16th Sunday after Pentecost. Who knows why this decision was made, but I love how the name points me to the idea of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Gallagher says, “The road to the sacred is paved with the ordinary.” Another truism.

Gallagher writes evocatively about her involvement in an Episcopalian parish in Santa Barbara, specifically as a volunteer in the soup kitchen run by the church, but also her own spiritual seeking and struggles of faith in the midst of community. It is not an easy year for her. Her brother faces a terminal illness, other friends die of AIDS and cancer, and the vestry must make a decision about whether to call a gay priest as their rector in a time when the larger church struggled with issues of sexuality. Let’s be honest, the church still struggles with sexuality, but reading this book makes me more aware that there has been progress. In this way at times Things Seen and Unseen feels like a historical document.

I was taken by something she wrote about her husband and his views of the church.

When he attacks some part of the Church, he’s often attacking something that doesn’t exist anymore. Part of the reason is that changes in religion are meaningless to him; part is that the Church and the media are equally bad at publicizing religion or religious concerns; and part is that he remains rooted in the past…

p. 54

I underlined much more in this current reading than I did initially, and I especially appreciated the chapter on Pentecost in which she writes about creating a labyrinth. She quotes Lauren Artress, who is known as a proponent of the labyrinth as a spiritual practice.

It’s a container. You can literally walk into it and because it has boundaries and because it has a beginning and an end, you can walk into a whole other world that’s set aside as a spiritual place.

p. 160

This chapter also includes a letter from one of my spiritual heroes, John S. Spong. In this letter he affirms the right to ordain gay people.

How glad I am to have re-read this book and now I think I will re-read Practicing Resurrection. One book leads to another, you know.

Mystery Series by Iona Whishaw

I don’t know where I first heard about this series, which is set in British Columbia soon after WWII, but here is a case where the cover as much as the description of the series grabbed me. The main character is Lane Winslow who was with the British Secret Service during the war. She moves to Canada, looking for some peace and quiet. Plus, she hopes to spend her time writing. Well, no surprise, murders happen practically in her backyard, and she is drawn in to solving them. Oh, and there is a handsome police detective, Inspector Darling.

Critics have compared this series to the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear and the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd. I am a fan of both of those series. One review says the Lane Winslow series is “In the vein of Louise Penny…a compelling series that combines a cozy setting, spy intrigue storylines, and police procedural elements–not an easy task, but one that Whishaw pulls off.”

I have now read the first two books: A Killer in King’s Cove (2015) and Death in a Darkening Mist (2017), and I am sure I will read the other nine at some point. Yes, one book leads to another.

An Invitation

Can you think of any “one book leads to another” experiences you have had in your reading life? I would love to know.

Note #1

An essay I wrote, “My View From Here,” has just been published in a lovely online publication, Sage-ing, The Journal of Creative Aging. You can read my essay –and, in fact, the the entire publication at this link.

http://www.sageing.ca Let me know what you think.

NOTE #2

I will take a bit of a break from posting: Tuesday, September 26 through Tuesday, October 3. I will return with a post on Thursday, October 5.

Book Report: Louise Penny and Susan Hill

/ nagneberg48 / 8 Comments

July 20, 2023

For many years August was marked by the release of a new Louise Penny mystery. More recently, however, her new book was been published in the fall. This year? Does anyone know if a new Inspector Gamache will join the ranks of the previous 18 books? I have not seen or heard anything, and I started to panic that I may need to re-read them all again –for the third time.

Fortunately, I have a new plan. I will read all twelve of Susan Hill’s Simon Serraillier mysteries. Years ago I read The Various Haunts of Men, the first in the series probably about the time it was published in 2005 and before the second one was released. I remember enjoying it very much and am delighted to have rediscovered this series. And now there are twelve of them!

Last week I read #2, The Pure in Heart. I suspect I will want to re-read the first one, but this book does a good job of refreshing my memory about #1.

Simon Serraillier is a police detective in the English village of Lafferton. There is a charming map at the beginning of the book–that’s always a plus for me. Simon is on a vacation in Venice, however, at the beginning of this book. He has gone to relax and recover from the death of a colleague. Along with being a detective he is an artist and is preparing for an exhibition, which apparently happens in a future book.

He returns home when he learns that his younger sister, who has been severely handicapped since birth and resides in a care home, seems to be be dying. Soon after returning home a young boy in the village is kidnapped, and that serves as the main plot line.

The plot is important, of course, but I am intrigued by the characters, many of whom I assume will be continued presences in the next books. Simon has another sister, Cat, who is a physician and is pregnant with her third child, and a brother who lives in Australia. They are triplets. One of the side stories involves what Simon considers to be a casual relationship with an older woman, Diana, who wants the relationship to be more serious. And there is also his “sidekick” Nathan Coates–how important those sidekicks are in police procedurals.

I have been adding so many titles to my TBR lists in recent weeks, but they may each take a back seat to this series. The third one is called The Risk of Darkness. Excuse me while I make a trip to Half-Price Books in hopes of acquiring that one and any others in the series. Oh, and by the way, Susan Hill is more properly known as Dame Susan Elizabeth Hill. Lady Wells.

An Invitation

Do you enjoy reading series? Which ones have you loved? Are you waiting for the “next one” in a series? I would love to know.