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Winter 2022 TBR Recap
280 Plays2 years ago
After a short hiatus, Brook and Sarah are back for Season 3, starting with a recap of what they watched and read over the holiday break. TW: Reference to mass shooting at 23.5 minutes.
Discussed in order
The Wintringham Mystery (1926) Anthony Berkeley
Monster She Wrote: The women who pioneered horror and speculative fiction (2019) Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson
The Perfect Crime (2022) Vaseem Khan and Maxim Jakubowski (editors)
Crossing the Witchline (2022) T.L. Brown
Marple: Twelve New Mysteries (2022)
The Ink Black Heart (2022) Robert Galbraith
The Man Who Died Twice (2021) Richard Osman
The Bullet That Missed (2022) Richard Osman
These Names Make Clues (1937) E.C.R. Lorac
Ballard Down Murder (2022) Rachel McLean
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six (2022) Lisa Unger
The Pale Blue Eye (2023) Netflix
Three Pines (2022) Amazon Prime TV
The Luckiest Girl Alive (2022) Netflix
A World of Curiosities (2022) Louise Penny
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Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Transcript
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Transcript
Introduction and holiday reflections
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Hi Sarah. I'm so happy to be back. Me too. I have to admit I feel a little bit rusty even though it was only a few weeks that we that we took as a break.
00:00:29
Speaker
I know I think the holiday season kind of took its toll and I am feeling rusty this morning as well, but I'm so excited to talk to you and do our recap on our TBR holiday reading list.
Exploring mystery novels and authors
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, so our last episode that we recorded before the holiday break was a list of what we were hoping to read and watch over the holidays. And yeah, we'll just share what our thoughts were. And I will admit, there are a few things that I didn't get to. I think my list was perhaps a little ambitious. Yeah, so I will get started and I will talk about, this is the wintering a mystery.
00:01:10
Speaker
by Anthony Berkeley which was re-released in October of 2021 but originally released in 1926 and just as a refresher so it was originally released as a serial over 30 parts with a contest at the end to see who could guess what the solution was. So
00:01:34
Speaker
This was a classic Golden Age mystery. There were many characters. They had different secrets, different motives. I thought it was really cleverly done. And whenever I read something that has been serialized, I always wonder kind of where it had been broken up.
00:01:53
Speaker
And how the author wrote it and I didn't get a chance to look that up but it would be interesting. I think it would be interesting to see if I could track down the original like newspaper archives to just see what that what that was like.
00:02:08
Speaker
When it was published serially, it was published under the name A.B. Cox. And then after the final of the chapters was released, it was then published as a novel under another pseudonym, A. Monmouth Platts, which I thought was really interesting because now it's published under Anthony Berkeley.
00:02:29
Speaker
I did think that it could have been tied up a little bit quicker because there were a lot of subplots. But I don't know if that's a function of the serialization. So as I mentioned, it was published with a contest to offer the best solution. And in the original description that I read, it said Agatha Christie's guess was wrong. And I looked this up. And according to Wikipedia, her husband Archie's guess was one of the best solutions that was submitted.
00:02:58
Speaker
So I wonder if there was maybe a little bit of, yeah, a little bit of family competition. Um, but this was, this was one of my favorites from, um, from the ones that I, that I read over the, the break. And I, I'll definitely read another one by Berkeley. Cause it really was kind of that classic, um, uh, golden age mystery. Well, that sounds great. I love, I'm really intrigued by the multiple pen names and, um,
00:03:26
Speaker
Find it interesting, because after you've had success with the serialization, then interesting to change up the name for the novel. I'm wondering what the story is behind that, but anyway, interesting. So the first one that I'll review is my nonfiction pick, which is Monster, she wrote, The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction.
00:03:53
Speaker
And much like the way I like to parcel out a collection of short stories, I've kind of decided to read this one bit by bit. They're just really nice, concise essays about a variety of women, who many of them I have had never heard of, and explaining their lives and then their work as women who really began the Gothic fiction style.
00:04:18
Speaker
It's just fascinating. There are so many stories, Sarah, that we have never read. And I'm really looking forward to learning about these authors and then looking into some of their
Diving into fantasy and horror genres
00:04:28
Speaker
work. But it's really written in a very lighthearted, even humorous style. So even though you're learning, sometimes nonfiction books can be rather a drag to get through, but not this one. It's really fun and funny. And yeah, I'm learning a lot. So I'll have more to share in upcoming episodes about these fascinating women.
00:04:46
Speaker
Oh, I'm looking forward to that, Brooke. I think that sounds really great, and I'm super excited to learn more about people that we haven't been learning about yet.
00:04:58
Speaker
So I had two short story collections on my list. So The Perfect Crime, which was edited by Vasim Khan and Maxime Jakubowski, which was released in November of 2022. And this was a collection of 22 short stories set around the world. So I didn't get a chance to read all of 22 of the stories in this anthology, but I did enjoy most of the ones that I read.
00:05:26
Speaker
Um, one, and this is just like a really picky personal opinion. I would have liked for the author biographies to accompany each of the stories. So like to read a little bit about who wrote the story before the story, all the, uh, in the ebook version, at least all the author biographies were at the end. So I had to keep like, you know, jumping around, which is a little bit challenging in a, in a, in an ebook.
00:05:53
Speaker
I think that's just me being very picky. Of the ones that I read, my favorite was Jumping Ship by Oyenekin Braithwaite, who wrote My Sister the Serial Killer, which was quite, I think it was released in 2018, that book, and it was nominated for a bunch of awards, and I haven't read it, but I definitely want to check that out. There were a few that were pretty dark,
00:06:20
Speaker
Um, and there was one that I actually couldn't finish because it was really starting to feel more like horror to me. Um, and I might revisit it, uh, another time, maybe when I'm not reading, you know, in the middle of the night, but you know, reading in the day with the lights on, I might feel a bit more like I can finish it because the, you know, the story was good, but it just was like, Oh, don't do that. I can't read anymore.
00:06:50
Speaker
But I did enjoy the stories that I read from that collection. Yeah, those sound great. And I'm with you. If it's late at night and it gets too scary, I either have to turn the television off or close the book because I can't get too scary in the middle of the night.
00:07:10
Speaker
The next one that I will talk about is Crossing the Witch Line. And this is book two in the Bella Rose Witch Line series by T.L. Brown. And this was my not a mystery per se, because it has mystery elements, but it's not necessarily a murder mystery. And I'll just quick note to remind our listeners that this is an 18 and up series, the Bella Rose Witch Line, because of adult situations and elements of horror.
00:07:37
Speaker
But this did not disappoint. I really am into this series, which is a surprise because I don't read a lot of fantasy. But Brown does a really great job of bringing in a lot of metaphor and symbolism where she's like weaving in deeper meaning. And I really enjoy that. I actually found myself thinking about the book for days and days after.
00:07:59
Speaker
You know and just kind of on a broad spectrum It's like a good and evil heaven and hell and how you know You kind of need both good and bad to balance out not only the world but your life and It she just has a lot of deeper meanings that I I love but there is a dangerous love triangle and
00:08:20
Speaker
And the main character's reputation is on the line. There's a lot at stake. So it's just it's a great story. It's a little steamy. So if you're not someone who wants to do steam, just beware. But I love these characters. And what makes it really fun is that Brown's first series is more of a I would say a paranormal cozy. So it's lighthearted. It's appropriate for all ages.
00:08:45
Speaker
And she has crossover characters. So in this series, some of her characters from her lighthearted cozy show up and vice versa. So I've just really enjoyed that. It makes the whole world seem really real. And I'm looking forward to the next book, which I think is going to be out in 2023.
00:09:05
Speaker
Oh, that sounds really good. And I love it when a book stays with me for a while. I think that is a mark of something that's been done really, really well. Yeah. And I kind of forgot to mention that the mystery comes in in this. It's a prophecy that the main characters are trying to figure out. It's a book. It's a written prophecy. So you kind of have that treasure hunt element. And that's where the mystery really comes in.
New Marple mysteries and author insights
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's well done. The next one that I will talk about is the second short story collection that I had on my list. And this was Marple, the 12 New Mysteries. So again, this was released by the Agatha Christie estate, and they had 12 prominent crime writers write new Marple stories. And that was released in September of 2022.
00:10:05
Speaker
So I really admire anyone who's willing to take on the challenge of writing within Agatha Christie's space and writing her characters. It must have been so daunting to work with a character who's so well known and created by an author who is as celebrated as Agatha Christie.
00:10:32
Speaker
And what I liked about this is that I've read works by some of the authors and some of the authors were new to me. So it was a nice introduction to some of those others. I think my favorite two stories were the ones by Karen McManus and by Ruth Ware.
00:10:52
Speaker
So, yeah, I thought I enjoyed this. There were some that I enjoyed more than others, but those two stood out for me. And I am curious to see if the Christie estate will do something similar with Poirot or if they're just going to keep Sophie Hannah doing her thing, which I think she's doing a great job of that.
00:11:15
Speaker
So yeah, we'll see. Or maybe they'll have some additional short story collections with some of the other sleuths that Christy had written originally. We'll see. Right. Yeah, that will be interesting to see. The one thing is for sure, and that's the company is doing
00:11:39
Speaker
lots and lots to keep Agatha Christie's works alive, whether it be in film or in these new collections. It's really great the way, and even in new editions, new covers and things like that, it really keeps her work alive for this upcoming generation. So I think it's great.
00:12:00
Speaker
So the next book that was on my list is one that I did not finish yet. And that is The Ink Black Heart. That's the Cormoran Strike novel. It's book six by Robert Galbraith, which is a pen name for J.K. Rowling. And I love this series, but to be honest with a book that's a thousand pages.
00:12:20
Speaker
It was a little bit daunting to get through over break. I have started, but I also got sidetracked because I had forgotten that a book that should have been on my list was Richard Osman's second book in his series, The Man Who Died Twice. Literally, Sarah, the day after we recorded, I got notification from my Libby app that The Man Who Died Twice was available for me to check out from my
00:12:48
Speaker
library and I thought, oh, dear, I need to do this or I'll end up back in the queue. So that kind of put my schedule off a little. So I'll talk about The Man Who Died Twice. It was fantastic as I expected it to be. I really love this series. I think the characters are so endearing. And I think I said the first time when I talked about the first book that if this is what retirement living is going to be like, I'm going to be a very happy person someday.
00:13:17
Speaker
I believe that I actually liked book two better than book one, but it's hard for me to compare because I read the first book as a paperback. And then my second experience was with the audio book. And Leslie Manville does such an amazing job reading that book, expressing the characters. Her accents are amazing. The way that she really brings the whole story to life
00:13:48
Speaker
So it's a little difficult to compare those two experiences. But of course, anyone, if you have not started this series, you definitely want to. It's great. Something similar happened to me, Brooke. And book three in that series came available for me from the library. So yeah, I thought, OK, well, I've got to listen to this now because I don't want to wait for weeks and weeks again.
00:14:11
Speaker
So I will use that as the excuse for why I didn't finish some of the other things that were on my list. But yeah, I agree. I think Leslie Manhill did such a great job in books one and two. She actually isn't the narrator for the third book. I assume there must have been a conflict because she was filming magpie murders. I'm guessing that that was the reason.
00:14:40
Speaker
But I really enjoyed book three despite the change in narrator. It did take me a little bit to like kind of get used to her because she has a slightly different style than Leslie Manville. But yeah, the series just continues to be excellent.
00:14:58
Speaker
What I didn't get to read as a result of reading or listening to The Bullet That Missed, which is the third book in the Richard Osman series, was These Names Make Clues by ECR Lorax. That was the second of the Golden Age mysteries that I'd chosen. It was originally released in 1937 and then re-released
00:15:22
Speaker
I think last year. So I am going to try again with, I will start over with that because I had just started listening to it and then Richard Osman's book came in and I thought, okay, I have to put this aside. So I'm going to give that another, give that another try later.
00:15:41
Speaker
So we'll just say that if we didn't complete our mission, Richard Osman made us do it. Exactly. So my next book that I'll talk about is The Ballard Down Murder by Rachel McLean. And overall, I enjoyed this. This is a prequel story to her series, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's a free download for anybody who would like to go to her website and grab that. And it's a novella length book.
00:16:09
Speaker
Her writing is really good and it has that great British humor that you maybe get from sort of like a Richard Osman. But it also reminded me a bit of the Tana French books because it's a police procedural. But rather than the kind of procedurals where it's just very superficial, you definitely do get into the characters and you get to know who they are and their personal relationships.
00:16:36
Speaker
My only criticism is just kind of a personal thing that I don't like cliffhangers. You can leave issues unresolved for me, but like I want the mystery to be solved and the mystery doesn't get solved in this book. And since it's a reader magnet, I'm sure that the intention that she makes is for that people to go and grab the first book in this series and finish that story. But honestly, I felt like her writing was strong enough that she could have
00:17:06
Speaker
definitely just given us one contained short story. And I think we still would go and get into her to get into her series and learn more about those characters. What about you, Sarah? What do you think about cliffhangers?
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think I agree. I don't mind them if all of the books are out and you can kind of go from one to the next right away. But yeah, it's a little bit, maybe a bit frustrating as a reader to have that build up and then not get that resolution.
00:17:44
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Okay, so next on my list is Secluded Cabin Sleep Six. So this is by Lisa Unger. It was released in the fall of 2022. And this was the first book that I'd read by her.
00:18:04
Speaker
And I actually read this after I read Louise Penny's book, A World of Curiosities, which I'll talk about later.
Reflections on adaptations and future plans
00:18:14
Speaker
But it's because I wanted something lighter after reading A World of Curiosities, just to give you a sense of how I felt about that book. So this is a domestic thriller where just as a reminder, you know, three couples are going to a secluded cabin and, you know, there's
00:18:33
Speaker
all the secrets and lies that come with domestic thrillers. There were some additional characters to the main six. And it wasn't clear until the end how everybody was related, which I think kept me reading. And I'll definitely read another by her. But this was, yeah, it was
00:19:01
Speaker
I really needed something else after reading Louise Penny's book. So this was great for that. I've been looking forward to your review on this one because the concept sounds super good to me. But I also think that it says a lot about what you're probably experienced from the Louise Penny book if this was considered light reading because this has a level of darkness itself, Sarah.
00:19:30
Speaker
Oh, that's cute. Yeah. Um, one thing that I was planning to watch over the hiatus, but failed to look at the calendar apparently is pale blue eye based on the book by Louis Bayard. It literally comes out tonight. We're, we're recording this on January 6th of 2023.
00:19:52
Speaker
And it's not released until tonight. So let's just say that tonight I have a date with Christian Bale. Perfect.
00:20:03
Speaker
Well, so I also had something that I wanted to watch that was on my list and that was the Three Pines TV series. And so it was eight episodes that were released over four Fridays in December. And I only managed to watch six of the eight episodes because there were some other Christmas holiday movies that we were watching and a few other things and I can't.
00:20:28
Speaker
choose all of the things that we watch. My husband gets to choose sometimes too. So I will say that each pair of episodes was a mystery into itself. And then there was an overarching mystery over the course of the eight that I assume gets resolved in the final two episodes. And so I did think that each episode got better. After the first two, I was like, oh, I don't know.
00:20:59
Speaker
how I feel about this. In Spectric of Mash and Beauvoir I thought were very well cast, but some of the members of the Three Pines community I thought were maybe not quite how I have them pictured in my head. So I'm curious about what others who haven't read the books felt about the
00:21:21
Speaker
about the show. And it has been so long since I read the stories that the episodes were based on that I think I'm going to have to go back to the beginning of the series and start it over again. But I did really like the incorporation of police treatment of Indigenous people. I don't remember that being part of the original books, but it's certainly something that, you know, is
00:21:50
Speaker
that needs to be talked about in, in Canada. Cause there has been, um, you know, a history of, of, um, mistreatment. Right. Right. I think that is a risk that's run whenever you, um, create a film or TV adaptation of a long running series is that, you know, we have that feeling of that's not what that person looks like, or that's not how I envision that person.
00:22:15
Speaker
I know Sue Grafton always said that she didn't want her Kinsey Milholland series to ever be on the screen. Because of that, she wanted everyone to have their own characters. And she's since passed away. And I have heard that there is work in the future for a film or a TV.
00:22:37
Speaker
adaptation of that series. I have mixed feelings about it. I would think that it would be nice to bring a new generation to the work, but I know that it was her wish to keep Kinsey in our imaginations. Anyway, that was just a little aside.
00:22:58
Speaker
So the last item on my list is one that I actually am going to hold and not talk about yet. Even though I did watch The Luckiest Girl Alive based on the book by Jessica Knoll, I'm going to save my thoughts for a future episode because Sarah and I have decided that this will be our next pick for the next What Would You Do episode. We're both planning on reading The Luckiest Girl Alive and then also watching the Netflix adaptation and then we will
00:23:27
Speaker
do our What Would You Do episode? I'm really looking forward to that. So yeah, that's on my list of things to read and watch in the next little bit.
Conclusion and looking ahead
00:23:39
Speaker
So the final thing that I'm going to talk about is A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny. And this was a really tough book for me to read. Sorry, Brooke. No, it's OK.
00:23:56
Speaker
So I especially found the first few chapters where she talks about the Montreal massacre really difficult. That's because it's based on actual events that
00:24:09
Speaker
So even though it happened in 1989, it's one of those events that continues to sit with me as being really defining. So I was only 11 when it happened. But for people who don't know, it was a shooting of women engineering students in Montreal.
00:24:34
Speaker
And it, I think, as a nation was a very pivotal moment for us. Anyway.
00:24:45
Speaker
I only realized that that was part of the story when I read an article in one of our magazines, local magazines, interviewing Louise Penny. And she talks about one of the characters in the book is based on one of the women who survived that event. Anyway, I
00:25:10
Speaker
understand why this was part of, uh, why this was something that she wanted to talk about. Louise Penny was a reporter at the time. Um, and so, you know, it clearly affected her. It was in Montreal. Of course it would have affected Gamash. Um, you know, he would have been working at the time and I really actually enjoyed, uh, that bit of backstory and as well as the backstory around how he and, uh, Beauvoir
00:25:36
Speaker
originally met. And I did enjoy the rest of the rest of the book. I just found that particular element to be really, really difficult to read and obviously to talk about. So I am curious about how people who aren't Canadian and didn't experience that event, how that
00:26:02
Speaker
resonated with them because I imagine it may not be something that is present in other people's, you know, if you weren't in Canada at the time, it may not have been something that you were aware of. So yeah, we can talk about it another time, Brooke, because I don't think you've read it yet, have you? I haven't. I was wondering, does Penny
00:26:32
Speaker
have any sort of author note or anything to let readers know that she's referencing an actual event? Yeah, the author's note talks about that. Because sadly, you and I spoke when we were not recording at one point, and you told me about this event, and I was unaware of it. So I think as sad as that is, you're right.
00:26:59
Speaker
A lot of readers might not even have that event on their radar. So I'm glad that she did express and explain that this isn't fictional. This is a real tragedy that occurred. But yes, well, we should definitely revisit it later.
00:27:20
Speaker
Well, I will say that I read the first couple of chapters and tears streaming down my eyes. And I actually had to put the book aside for a few days. And I wasn't sure if I was going to finish it. But I am glad that I did. It was certainly part of the story, but it wasn't the whole story. And it was as good a mystery as any of the other mysteries in the series.
00:27:48
Speaker
So I think that's that's my list Brooke Yes, that's what I managed to accomplish over our break and I I enjoyed the time to read and to You know enjoy our family time It was it was a great break and we're ready to hit the ground running with more new episodes of clued in mystery. I Can't wait. Thank you everyone for listening today. I'm Brooke and
00:28:16
Speaker
And I'm Sarah, and we both love mystery. Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at silvermansound.com. Visit us online at cluedinmystery.com or social media at Clued in Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.