A Blog for Readers and Writers of Mystery, Crime, and Suspense Fiction
I’m as much of a film buff as I’m a reader, and when I find out a favorite book is now a movie… well, life is good!
This year brought an abundance of adaptations, with a couple more to come early next year. Here are some of the ones I saw and enjoyed thoroughly, plus a sneak peak at the future.
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Giving thanks to those who spend their holidays serving society. Police officers, firefighters, nurses, doctors, EMTs, the bartenders and waiters who will serve people who don’t have a family or who need an escape, the gas station attendants who will make sure everyone gets to their destinations, the pilots and flight attendants. Yes, they all chose their jobs, but it doesn’t take the sting out of being away from their loved ones on a holiday.
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Locked room mysteries are awesome because they usually present the environment as an oppositional adversary. It’s easy to imagine oneself trapped with a killer, and how delicious to burrow under a blanket and know you’re safe, while reading about people who most certainly aren’t.
So, here are three locked room mysteries I’ve read lately that are chilling, thrilling, and all around awesome.
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I’m always curious about everybody’s traditions, so I asked the Miss Demeanors about their Thanksgiving ones.
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I admit it, I’ve been obsessed with etiquette from a very tender age. While still in elementary school, I somehow found myself in possession of an ancient copy of Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette, and reader, I read that thing cover to cover. Even more than modern ones, Victorian etiquette books are the BEST.
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Entropy is the opposite of stasis, and therefore, the exact thing that makes stories so interesting. A character wakes up one morning expecting their life to roll along as it always had, and then WHAM. Disorder, a break, destruction. And nothing can ever go back to how it was, because that’s how life works.
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In no particular order, here are some of the books I’ve read this past year that allowed me to walk the streets of Edinburgh, wander the fields of Ireland, live in a cabin in Michigan’s Upper Penninsula, and in one in coastal North Carolina, and in one on the Czech-Polish border. Yeah… I spent a lot of time in cabins in the woods.
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Lately, I’ve been on a musical biography and memoir binge, and the fact that I can listen to these being read by the artists themselves is an absolute treat. Even so, the Beastie Boys Book is an incredible concoction, unlike anything I’ve ever heard or even imagined.
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Procrastination and writing seem to go together (though not for all of us. Read on.), and as a result many writers have very clean closets, fridges, and bathrooms, and their friends/family are often nicely outfitted with hand-knit thingies. Staring at a screen or a notebook can be so intimidating, the critic’s voice so snarky, that I, for one, will invent any project to free me from the angst. And I like writing!
So, I asked the Misses if this was a thing for them.
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–and what better way to celebrate than by taking a peek at three gorgeous historical novels set in days when literacy was not only rare, but, for some, deathly dangerous.
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