Still can’t break the murder mystery habit!

A Siege of Bitterns, by Steve Burrows

In volunteering for the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, I was fortunate enough to meet Steve when he very kindly agreed to hold a book launch event for his eighth (EIGHTH) book to benefit the observatory. He is a lovely, interesting, and very funny man with bonus points because his wife’s name is Reesa (pronounced the same so close enough). At the launch, I picked up copies of his first 4 books. Why 4 and not, say, 2, or 1? Well, I had been holding a set of the first seven, which Steve had donated to our Holiday Auction fundraiser back in November, all seven signed to the person who won them in the auction. I had also been holding a 6-pack of local beer for another winner. The two items were sitting on our spare bed waiting for the winners to pick them up when one of the beers exploded and soaked the books (and our bed). Fortunately (?) only book 4 was damaged and so I purchased a replacement at the book launch which Steve re-signed for the winner. Meanwhile, I now owned a beer-logged copy of book number 4, signed “to Juanita”, still in readable shape, so I thought, why not just pick up books 1 through 3 to fill out the half-set? Why not indeed!

All of Steve’s books are named for bird groups, and in this first one, he does a very crafty job of weaving in the subject of bitterns into a murder mystery. His main character is a Canadian expat who relocated to the UK to take a job as DCI in a small UK town. He is an avid birder which confuses the heck out of his new team on the murder squad. I look forward to seeing how all of his characters develop in the next book, A Pitying of Doves.

The Shipping News, Annie Proulx

Honestly? Just an absolutely lovely* story about life in Newfoundland. After some bizarre and some tragic life events, newspaper reporter Quoyle, his two daughters, and his Aunt move back to their ancestral home in Newfoundland, where he is ill-prepared for the hardships but lifted up by the friendships he finds there. I love Newfoundland and this book feels like Annie Proulx loves it too.

European Travel for the Monstrous Gentleman, by Theodora Goss

The sequel to The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter which you can read about here. In this fun-filled romp through Paris, Vienna, and Budapest, we meet several new and interesting characters: Lucinda Van Helsing, newly inducted member of the Athena Club, Count Dracula, and Sigmund Freud. Sadly, Sherlock Holmes plays a much smaller, in fact virtually insignificant, role in this book but never fear because Irene Adler steps in to help our band of mystery-solving monsters! My only complaint is that it effectively ends with “to be continued” which means I now have to locate book 3, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl, before I forget everything that happened in book 2.

Anna O, by Blake Matthew

OMG this book. It was “recommended” by one of my local book club members, and I was suspicious from the start since she is also who suggested My Dark Vanessa to me. But I do love reading books that other people suggest – this is not sarcasm! In this story, Anna O is a woman suspected of stabbing to death her two best friends while sleep-walking (dramatic pause … was she sleeping-walking though???) after which she falls into an endless sleep known as “resignation syndrome”.** Enter the charismatic Dr. Prince who may have found a way to wake Anna up so that she can stand trial for her alleged crimes. Meanwhile, in an effort to reveal the mystery of who else might have committed the murders, the author gives us ALL of the necessary details to know exactly who it has to be with over 50 pages still to go. And yet … and YET the book continues as though there is still some kind of mystery to be solved. Hot tip #1: there isn’t!! It just devolves into a annoyingly ultra-repetitive series of dramatic conflicts between Prince and Anna O, except, apart from being painfully ridiculous. we already know at this point who the killer is (spoiler … it’s not her). Hot tip #2: if this accidentally intrigues you enough to want to read it, you should just abandon it when there are 50 pages left. You’ll thank me.

I have a theory that my book club friend doesn’t actually like these books, she just recommends them because, well, misery loves company.

*Also an award-winning one, taking home the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994

**This is a real thing, and I encourage you to google it.