Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and audio books. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
Mysteries and scary things that go bump in the night are fun to read and talk about as favorite authors produce books for us to devour after dark.
There are many subgenres in mystery lit. True crime, courtroom dramas, horror tales, detective stories, police procedurals, historical mysteries and cozies are a few.
I am always grateful when a reader introduces me to a new author. I have been enjoying Robin Paige’s mysteries these past few weeks. The books are set in England in 1896 or so and the heroine is a mystery writer as well as being interested in real cases. The motor car is new and is featured in the stories. There are writers used as characters. Beatrix Potter is featured in Death at Gallows Green. Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and Oscar Wilde show up in other stories. What a mix! The books are well researched and I have been fascinated by them.
Death at Bishop’s Keep
Death at Gallows Green
Death at Daisy’s Folly
Death at Devil’s Bridge
Death at Rottingdean
Of course Ellis Peter’s Cadfael is my most beloved detective. Cadfael lived in the world as a soldier before becoming a monk and brought a great deal of wisdom and toughness with him to the monastery where he maintains a garden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadfael
The historically accurate stories are set between about 1135 and about 1145, during "The Anarchy", the destructive contest for the crown of England between King Stephen and Empress Maud.
As a character, Cadfael "combines the curious mind of a scientist/pharmacist with a knight-errant". He entered the cloister in his forties after being both a soldier and a sailor; this worldly experience gives him an array of talents and skills useful in monastic life. He is a skilled observer of human nature, inquisitive by nature, energetic, a talented herbalist (work he learned in the Holy Lands), and has an innate, although modern, sense of justice and fair-play.
Abbots call upon him as a medical examiner, detective, doctor, and diplomat. His worldly knowledge, although useful, gets him in trouble with the more doctrinaire characters of the series, and the seeming contradiction between the secular and the spiritual worlds forms a central and continuing theme of the stories.
A series that reminds me of Cadfael is by Judith Rock. Her hero Maitre Charles du Luc, who was also a soldier previously, teaches in a Jesuit school in Paris in 1686. He has not taken orders, yet. He sympathizes with the persecuted Huguenots and is in love with a woman who is one of them and in danger. Helping produce ballet productions is part of his job.
The Rhetoric of Death
The Eloquence of Blood
A Plague of Lies
The Whispering Bones
It is interesting when books other than mysteries have a mystery as the basic plot. The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn is more than just a space opera. There is a mysterious sealed cargo on the Icarus, an archaeological find that some very powerful people want. I enjoyed reading it very much. The “why” was a real lure.
I have mentioned several times how much I enjoyed the fiction story The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George. It was a mystery for real, but also a psychological matter as the main character explores his own thoughts slowly revealing the truth to himself and to his friends.
Suspense is what keeps us reading mystery stories. Why did the victim die? Who might have done it? What larger crime is involved? Where will the clues lead our detective? Will the trail lead to someone we care about in the story?
Which stories have held mystery for you? Which mystery writers are your favorites?
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! Walking out of a room, falling off a cliff.
By SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/18/1487168/-Write-On-Walking-out-of-a-room-falling-off-a-cliff#view-story
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Self-publishing 101: Your first 1000 copies
By David Akadjian
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/18/1487175/-Self-publishing-101-Your-first-1000-copies#comment_59718346
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You Can't Read That!
By pwoodford
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/20/1487423/-You-Can-t-Read-That#comment_59757192
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One Man, an Airport, A Story That Will Give You Pause...
By xaxnar
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/21/1488689/-One-Man-an-Airport-A-Story-That-Will-Give-You-Pause
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Books! A mystery by a fellow Kossack—'Stilled Lives: The T-Town Murders'
By Susan Grigsby
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/23/1488338/-Books-A-mystery-by-a-fellow-Kossack-Stilled-Lives-The-T-Town-Murders
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Harper Lee has died at age 89.
I thought this quote was similar to my first time reading the novel:
I would come, many years later, to understand why 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is considered 'an important novel', but when I first read it at 11, I was simply absorbed by the way it evoked the mysteries of childhood, of treasures discovered in trees, and games played with an exotic summer friend.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Umberto Eco has died at 84.
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All Times are EDT, EST
Readers & Book Lovers Series
Schedule Day Time EST/EDT Series Editor(s)
Sunday 6:00 PM Young Reader's Pavilion The Book Bear
(last Sun of the month) 7:30 PM LGBT Literature Chrislove
Monday (occasional) 8:00 PM Books! Susan Grigsby
Tuesday 5:00 PM Indigo Kalliope: Poems from the Left Kit RMP, ruleoflaw
8:00 PM Contemporary Fiction Views bookgirl
Wednesday 8:00 PM Bookflurries Bookchat cfk
Thursday 2:00 PM Self-Publishing 101 akadjian
8:00 PM Write On! SensibleShoes
(once a month) 2:00 PM Monthly Bookpost AdmiralNaismith
Friday 8:00 PM Books Go Boom! Brecht
Saturday 9:00 AM You Can't Read That!
Paul's Book Reviews pwoodford
9:00 PM Books So Bad They're Good Ellid
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Note: It started snowing early and we are expecting a lot. If it gets windy we could lose our lights. If I am not here, please just chat with each other as you do so well. The lights have blinked and there are winds of 30 miles per hour at nearly 6:00 so not good. We do have a small generator if they stay off for a long time, but it is hard to set up.
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Lots of customers for the two bird feeders. The lower feeder is a snowman. Fits right in.
Poll answers from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/mysteries.html
or http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/mysteries
5 PM and still coming down...it is pretty, I admit.