In early September 2015, I received an unexpected call from my neurosurgeon, with a cancellation the following week – and a date for my spinal fusion surgery.

Knowing I would be dozy for a few days with the general anaesthetic and the painkillers, I piled up some of my ‘easy reading’: mysteries from some favourite series. A picture book and a cookbook rounded out my selection.
Let’s cover those first.

 

1. THREE CUPS by Mark St. Germain illustrated by April Willy (Fiction, Children’s Picture book)

The current issue of this book lists Tony Townsley as the author and St. Germain as a “contributor”.

3CupsBook.com explains that the system used by the fictional family in this charming picture book was originally devised by Townsley & his wife for their children. St. Germain wrote the text of the book.

The Townsleys tried to teach their children that it is not how much money you have that is important, it’s how you use it and devised a game of three cups (Spend, Save, Share) ‘to help them develop positive habits early on that would last them the rest of their lives.’

I don’t even want to think about the politics and legalities of that attribution situation, but I do know that this book makes wonderful sense. If you have small (or even older) children or grandchildren, I recommend you check it out.

Stacie at Simply Stacie first brought this book to my attention back in 2010.

5 stars
 

2. MAKE THE BREAD, BUY THE BUTTER by Jennifer Reese (Nonfiction, Cookbook, Home)

It’s seldom that I rate a cookbook five stars, but Make the Bread, Buy the Butter is so much more than a cookbook. Cover blurb says: “When Jennifer Reese lost her job, she was overcome by an impulse common among the recently unemployed: to economize by doing for herself what she had previously paid for. . . . So Reese began a series of kitchen-related experiments, taking into account the competing demands of everyday contemporary American family life . . . . Although you should make your hot dog buns, guacamole, and yogurt, you should probably buy your hamburger buns, potato chips, and rice pudding. Tired? Buy your mayonnaise. Inspired? Make it.”

Reese considers much more than just the cost-saving (or not) of making your own, but also time and effort expenditure, ethics, and quality & taste. Where her opinion is that you should make something, she provides a recipe – over 120 of them.

I always try at least one recipe from a cookbook before I pass judgment. In this case, it was ‘Simplest Buttercream’ frosting. It was that simple – and scrumptious.

But it’s not the recipes that made me love this book – it was the wit and warmth as she regaled me with the stories of cooking, baking and animal husbandry. I read this cover to cover, and every bit of it was a delight.

A huge shout of thanks to Leslie at Under My Apple Tree for prompting me to buy it.

5 stars

NOW FOR THOSE MYSTERIES:

3. THE CRUELEST MONTH by Louise Penny (Fiction, Mystery, Police Procedural, Series, Canadian)
#3 Armand Gamache & Three Pines

Penny writes an excellent mystery set in the fictional village of Three Pines, Quebec but she also writes with wonderful insight into the human experience:
‘I can’t believe she’s gone,’ said Hazel, sitting down as though her legs had given way. Loss was like that, Gamache knew. You didn’t just lose a loved one. You lost your heart, your memories, your laughter, your brain and it even took your bones. Eventually it all came back, but different. Rearranged.

And with humour:

Gamache couldn’t sleep. His bedside clock said 2:22. He’d been lying awake watching the bright red numbers change since the clock had said 1:11. He’d been woken up not by a bad dream, not by anxiety or a full bladder. He’d been woken up by frogs. Peepers. An army of invisible frogs at the pond spent most of the night singing a mating call. He would have thought they’d be exhausted by now, but apparently not. At dusk it was joyful, after dinner it was atmospheric. At 2 a.m. it was simple annoying. Anyone who said the country was peaceful hadn’t spent time there. Especially in the spring.

I’m not sure why I haven’t made time to get back to this series.

4½ stars

4. THE DARK VINEYARD by Martin Walker (Fiction, Mystery, Police Procedural, Series, Francophilic)
#2 Bruno, Chief of Police

Ah – (fictional) St. Denis, in southwest France, the home of Bruno, chief of police and all things southern France-y. In this episode industrial espionage threatens the local wineries, a research station growing genetically modified crops is burned down, and a big US winemaker wants to buy up land in the valley to produce a homogenous commercial product that is anathema to Bruno and most of the people of his community.

Walker captures modern life in rural France: where the locals still take their own containers to the local wineries and fill their own for one Euro a liter or less, but where “Saint-Denis now boasted four bakeries, four salons, four real estate agencies, three banks, three shops selling foie gras and other local delicacies, but there was only one grocery and one butcher’s shop. The fishmonger had long since given way to an insurance agency. Another grocery had been replaced the previous winter by a business that serviced computers and sold cell phones and DSL lines for the Internet. And a butcher had retired in the spring and now rented his premises to a real estate agent. It was no longer the Saint-Denis Bruno had first come to a decade ago [written 2009], when the small towns of rural France still retained the shops and the texture he remembered from his boyhood. Now people shopped at the supermarkets on the outskirts of town, or drove to the complex of shopping malls and hypermarkets outside Périgueux, forty minutes away.”

I continue to love this series.

4½ stars
 

5. SCENTS & SENSIBILITY by Spencer Quinn (Fiction, Mystery, Private Investigator, Series, Animal narrator)
#8 Chet & Bernie

Another great entry in this series, this one dealing with the illegal cactus trade (and murder – of people, not of cacti).

I think Quinn is tiring of this series. The writing and the mystery are still first-rate but the end of the book is a cliff-hanger that could most easily (and probably correctly) be construed to mean that Bernie dies.

There was outrage by fans, and Quinn has been promising a sequel now for a couple of years. But I have a feeling this series is no longer his first love. I dread the end of it.

4½ stars
 

6. A FÊTE WORSE THAN DEATH by Dolores Gordon-Smith (Fiction, Mystery, Series, Amateur Sleuth)
#1 Jack Haldean

It’s 1922 and Jack Haldean, young crime writer and former Royal Flying Corps pilot, is enjoying the local fete on a beautiful summer’s day in rural Sussex. When his friend is murdered, Jack steps in to solve the crime. I can’t remember how the police figured in this one, but I do remember being pleasantly surprised at the quality of the mystery, and that I enjoyed it even though I saw the murderer right away.

I find it amusing that the title of this book works because, although the French pronounce the French word fête fet, the English pronounce it fate. Much like the French word valet (va-lay) which the English say is val-et. (Just going to do it our way.)

4 stars
 

7. FOOL’S PUZZLE by Earlene Fowler (Fiction, Mystery, Amateur Sleuth, Series)
#1 Benni Harper

Many years ago, I somehow got hold of and read the fourth in this series featuring Benni Harper who is a folk art museum curator in fictional San Celina, California.

I was attracted initially by the title of Goose in the Pond because it, and the name of all of the books in this series, are quilt patterns. I discovered a likeable protagonist and a good mystery and meant to get back to it before this.

In Fool’s Puzzle, 34-year-old Benni, newly widowed, lands the job just mentioned and then finds herself embroiled in the murder of an artist and small town intrigues.

This series is well worth continuing.

4 stars
 

8. THE HERRING-SELLER’S APPRENTICE by L.C. Tyler (Fiction, Mystery, Amateur Sleuth, Series, British)
#1 Ethelred & Elsie

Ethelred Tressider, mystery write (aka herring seller “it was a facetious reference to the red herrings that she considered my stock in trade”), and his agent, Elsie (the herring seller’s apprentice?) try to solve the mystery of the apparent death by suicide of Ethelred’s ex-wife Geraldine. Geraldine had taken several people, including another of her ex-husbands and her banker, to the cleaners with an investment scam.

Even though I recognized the cleverness of the plot at the end of the book, I doubt I’ll read more of this series since I remember feeling confused—almost disoriented–most of the way through. (Maybe it was those painkillers?) Jane (when she was blogging at Fleur in Her World ) recommended this.

4 stars
 

9. WOOF by Spencer Quinn (Fiction, Young Readers, Mystery, Animal Narrator, Series)
#1 Birdie & Bowser

Woof is the start of a new series by Spencer Quinn, author of the Chet & Bernie mysteries. It’s narrated by Bowser who sounds, perhaps not surprisingly, very much like Chet – that is, dumb but smart, hilarious, & loveable. His new mistress is 11-year-old Birdie who lives on the Louisiana coast with her Grammy. When a prize stuffed marlin is stolen from Grammy’s bait and tackle shop, Birdie and Bowser take on the case.

This is a charming start to what is no doubt an excellent series, but I do prefer the adult version (Chet & Bernie).

4 stars

10. MURDER PAST DUE by Miranda James (Fiction, Mystery, Cozy, Series)
#1 Cat in the Stacks

Small-town Mississippi librarian Charlie Harris walks his rescued Maine Coon cat Diesel on a leash – and takes on the murder of a former classmate who has become a famous author.

Charlie remembers Godfrey Priest as an arrogant jerk – and he continued to be after his school years, leaving no end of suspects for Charlie to investigate.
 

I enjoyed this well enough at the time but don’t remember much about it. Thank you to Bev at My Reader’s Block for pointing me toward it.

3½ stars
 

* * * * *

And that stack got me through the immediate post-op period and well on the way to mending.

Usually my reaction to being able to spot the murderer is boredom – and frustration at the ineptness of the author, but sometimes (as with A Fête Worse than Death this month and Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs) it provides an opportunity to watch the author’s sleight-of-hand and is quite entertaining.

What’s your usual reaction to being able to spot the murderer before the reveal?

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