Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh

I have been busy with other things, but somehow I managed to finish two books at around the same time. How did I do that, you ask? It's because one was on Kindle and the other was in print from the library. Overture to Death was the print book, and it was a re-read of one of Ngaio Marsh's novels. I've been feeling in the mood for some good classic mysteries and Ngaio Marsh never disappoints. Overture to Death was the eighth Roderick Alleyn book, and it was published in 1939. The plot centers around a small village of Chipping, where two elderly, and by elderly I mean early fifties, women want to make the local rector her own. Eleanor Prentice is the maiden aunt who lives with the local squire and his son, Henry. Henry has his eye on the rector's daughter, Dinah, and Eleanor is apposed to it. Idris Campanula is the other spinster. The local group, with the local doctor and the Mrs Ross, a beautiful newcomer to town, decide to put on a play to pay for a replacement piano. When Idris replaces Eleanor at the piano the night of the play, she is shot in the head by a booby trap in the piano. Alleyn is called in to solve the murder, and there are a tangle of clues to make things even more muddled. This is one of the earlier Alleyn's, so Nigel Bathgate makes an appearance.

Overall, the mystery was not easy to solve, and there were red herrings to wiggle around. My favorite part of any of Marsh's novels is the depiction of the characters. I felt that I could really visualize the characters, and I found myself drawn into the plot. All in all, it was a very enjoyable mystery.

As a note, I loved the cover of the book. Yes, it is rather graphic, but I think that it's eye catching. Don't you just want to read a book with a picture of a dead body sprawled on a piano?

Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh

One of my favorite mystery authors is Ngaio Marsh. I've read all of her books, some more than once, and I've enjoyed all of them immensely. Although Christie's later books weren't as good as the earlier ones, all of Marsh's books were equally good. I decided that I wanted to re-read some of her books, so I went to the local library, and I found Clutch of Constables. This was one of the later books, written in 1968. Agatha Troy was older, with a son who was touring in Europe, and a husband, Roderick Alleyn, who was in America, tracking down the Jampot. The Jampot was a master criminal who dealt in art forgeries. However, it was not Roderick Alleyn who came into contact with the Jampot, it was Troy. She joined a river cruise that traveled through the countryside that John Constable commemorated in paintings. Troy felt that something was not right with the others on the cruise. Troy wrote to her husband expressing her concerns. When a possible Constable was found by a pair of the passengers in a junk yard, Alleyn hurried back, sure that the Jampot was within grasp and on that boat. Unfortunately, he didn't get back in time to prevent one of the other boat passengers from dying.

Marsh did a masterful job in plotting out this mystery. You can feel the tension build. I know that I started to suspect several of the passengers, and I wasn't sure if I was really onto the Jampot until the very end. Fortunately for me, even though I had read the book before, I couldn't remember the murderer. All of Marsh's mysteries have an erudite air about them, and there is always a lesson to be learned about art, literature, or classical theater. I am a fan of Roderick Alleyn and Agatha Troy, and it was very enjoyable to revisit them in Clutch of Constables.

Irrationally Yours by Dan Ariely

I subscribe to Dan Ariely's weekly email of answers to questions people send him via the Wall Street Journal. People ask Ariely a variety of questions on topics that involve life, work, and behavior. Ariely, knowing a good opportunity when he sees one, collected the questions and answers into his newest book, Irrationally Yours: On Missing Socks, Pickup Lines, and Other Existential Puzzles. The book is a short, fast, highly entertaining read, and it will definitely getting you thinking about your decisions and behavior.

As an example of a question, someone mentioned that he and his wife were wondering if they should start a family. Ariel's advice was to stay with a family for a week and observe the interactions. Then the couple should offer to watch the kids for a whole week. As Ariely said, if you thought his suggestions were asking too much, maybe you shouldn't have kids of your own. Ariely provides logical, rational insight into the dilemmas and questions that people have. One that particularly caught my attention was the letter from someone who hated his job of eight years and wondered if he should get a new job. Ariely suggested that the person take a long vacation (three weeks) and volunteer at the place that he thought he might like to work. He could then decide if the grass was greener elsewhere. If the guy wasn't interested in trying out the volunteer job, Ariely suggested that maybe the guy's dissatisfaction with the job wasn't that great, and the guy should just stay where he was and stop complaining.

I love to read Ariely's insights into behavior. Since I subscribe to the newsletter, I read (and remembered) the majority of letters. What made the book new and interesting for me were the cartoons by William Haefeli. They did a great job of illustrating, in a comic way, Ariely's feedback. If you haven't read anything by Ariely, you should definitely read this book. It will give you a taste of rational thinking, and it will make you want to read more of Ariely's writing.

The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley

I enjoy reading a good children's book, and when I heard about The Sisters Grimm series, I knew I would have to check it out. I got the first book in the series from the library, The Fairy-Tale Detectives. Sabrina Grimm, an eleven-year-old, and her sister, Daphne, seven-years-old, are abandoned by their parents. Well, at least, the parents leave the house one day to never return. The girls are bounced around from a variety of crappy foster homes, until they learn that their grandmother has come forward to claim them. The problem is that their father had always told them that their grandmother was dead. The grandmother turns out to be a thoroughly weird character, who makes really weird looking and tasting food. Daphne, of course, loves her new grandmother, but Sabrina distrusts the woman. When weird things start to happen, like a giant footprint that seems to encircle a crushed farm house, Granny Relda explains that they are the family Grimm. The stories told by the Brothers Grimm were true, and the Grimms have gone through life dealing with the problems that the fairy tale characters, called Everafters, cause. Sabrina doesn't believe Granny Relda, and tries to run away. However, Granny Relda is captured by a huge giant right in front of Sabrina's and Daphne's eyes, Sabrina finally believes Granny Relda. Sabrina and Daphne think that Prince Charming, who is Mayor of Ferryport Landing, New York, where Granny Relda and the Everafters live. Granny Relda's friend, Mr. Canis, turns out to be the Big Bad Wolf. Puck and Jack, of Jack and the Beanstalk, also make appearances with one being the villain while the other is the hero, and I'm going to leave it to you to read the book to figure out which is which.

The Fairy-Tale Detectives is a entertaining take on the modern fairy tale, and I really enjoyed reading it. There seven other books in the series, and I know that I want to find out what happens to Sabrina and Daphne, and to see if they find their parents, who may have been kidnapped by some Everafters who want the Grimm family dead. If the last Grimm dies, the spell that binds the Everafters to Ferryport Landing will be broken, and the Everafters can be free to roam the world again. Not only will the youngster in your life enjoy the story, but you will too.

Murder at the Smithsonian by Margaret Truman

Who would think that a former president's daughter could write an interesting mystery? Well, I've read that Margaret Truman did just that, although I believe there were rumors that her books had ghost writers. There are so many authors out that that I haven't read, and Truman was one of them. Amazon had some of her books on sale for the Kindle, and I took the opportunity to read Murder at the Smithsonian. It's not the first book that she wrote, but the books aren't series books, so i figured it would be okay to read them out of order. Plus I had a hankering for a mystery set in a museum.

Dr. Lewis Tunney is a friend of the vice president, and it seems he also has some secret information about goings on at the Smithsonian. At a gala at the museum, Tunney winds up getting killed with Jefferson's sword, and at the same time, the Legion of Harsa medal goes missing. The murderer has to be one of the guests at the gala, but who could it be. When Mac Hanrahan investigates, he finds his way blocked by everyone. The Vice President is not being very helpful, and the employees at the museum seem to act pretty suspiciously. When Tunney's fiancee, Heather McBea shows up, the investigation becomes even more cloudy. Heather's uncle was the one who donated the Harsa to the museum. The uncle also supposedly committed suicide, which Heather doesn't believe he would do. Then Heather starts to be the victim of some mysterious doings, such as a mugging, room ransack, and bombing. Can Mac Hanrahan figure out what's going on before Heather turns up dead.

The mystery in the book was a good one. However, I did have a problem with Heather. Every time she has information, that she should have shared with Mac if she really wanted Tunney's murder to be solved, she would keep it to herself. Then she would find herself in a threatening situation, and she would STILL keep her mouth shut. I found myself yelling at the book in frustration because Heather was so stupid and has such a lack of self preservation. I seem to be running into that a lot with mysteries lately, and I had the same complaint about Miss Seeton. I guess it's supposed to add to the suspense, but it doesn't work for me. I will continue to read Truman because I have a few more on my Kindle.

Picture Miss Seeton by Heron Carvic

I have been having problems getting into a book lately, so I made a switch over to something light and frothy. I had heard about the Miss Seeton books, and always meant to try one, so i picked up the first in the series, Picture Miss Seeton by Heron Carvic. In this book, we are introduced to Miss Seeton, elderly art teacher, who happens upon a fight between a woman and her boyfriend in a dark alley. Miss Seeton pokes the man with her umbrella, gets knocked down, and finds that the woman/girlfriend has been stabbed to death. That starts the whole craziness where Miss Seeton becomes the center of violent attacks by the drug ring that the boyfriend is part of. Miss Seeton goes to stay in the small village of Plummergen, where her godmother had left her cottage to Miss Seeton. Miss Seeton gets into various escapades, but manages to pull out of all of them with a poke of the umbrella.

I'm not sure if I like Miss Seeton. She seems like a bit of an idiot. Someone tries to kidnap her, but she thinks that it's really just a lark by a youngster. I found myself shaking my head at her several times. It was really annoying when she would keep important facts from the police because she didn't think that it was really important or criminal activity. I will be reading more because they are light, frothy reads. However, if Miss Seeton continues being such an annoying idiot, I might have to change my mind!

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

It's been a long time since I read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. My only memory of the book is what I saw in the movie. So I thought that I would re-read the book, and refresh my memory. I'm glad that I did. The plot of the book is very similar to the movie. Obviously, the main plot, that John Hammond built a park with dinosaurs in Costa Rica. The dinosaurs came from the DNA of mosquitos caught in amber millions of years ago. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm are the main protagonists, and Dennis Nedry attempts to steal the dinosaur embryos. The book, though, has more detail, and some slight divergences. There are more people on the island. Some of the people who live in the book, die in the movie and vice versa. And the kids: Timmy is the older one, and Lex is young one.

Crichton's story is quite enjoyable, and you can see Crichton's personal quirks showing up in Ian Malcolm. Grant and the kids have a much more tense time getting back from the outage that leaves them stranded in the park, and the whole group are attacked much more frequently than in the movie. I really miss Crichton's writing, and I'll probably be re-reading more in the future. Next up will be The Lost World.